• Phegan@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    I don’t understand how normal people don’t see this and instantly become radicalized

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I’m sure they do. But radicalized to do what? Wave a sign? Write an angry letter? Vote?

      Besides, excessively strident opposition to the police MRAP will get you labeled a tankie.

      • HessiaNerd@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        No, shilling for Russia will get you labeled as a tankie. Not wanting police to have what is essentially a light tank, will not get you labeled as a tankie. Don’t try to dilute the term.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          shilling for Russia will get you labeled as a tankie

          I’ve heard it aimed at anyone who is anti-cop. I’ve heard it aimed at folks advocating a general strike. I’ve heard it hurled at Palestine protesters. I’ve heard it aimed at people who won’t vote for Joe Biden.

          Don’t try to dilute the term.

          Way too late for that.

            • StupidBrotherInLaw@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              As an intelligent, mature adult, I resort to insults when I don’t like what someone is saying. Thinking is hard!

              Aesthelete@lemmy.world

              • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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                6 months ago

                Someone that thinks “tankies” are a thing that most people talk about or have even heard of outside of “online” needs to go listen to the bees buzz.

          • RaoulDook@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            That’s just some stuff that you claim that you’ve heard. For the rest of us those are not the definitions. Tankie does not mean anti-cop at all, it’s a pro-authoritarian label for authoritarian communists.

            • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              Tankie does not mean anti-cop at all, it’s a pro-authoritarian label

              It’s a “pro-Russia/China” label. You can be as authoritarian as you like without being a tankie. You just need to couch it as pro-NATO or pro-American.

              But any suggestion that Western censorship, trade sanctions, or militant policing is bad can get you tagged as a Russian Bot or Chinese Wumao.

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          I would love to believe you. But I’ve been called a tankie too many times in the last few months for the brave position of… “We shouldn’t be funding a genocide”.

            • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              I don’t particularly care. But it does show how diluted it is already when Biden stans are using it to “other” anyone who won’t fall in line.

        • Lianodel@ttrpg.network
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          6 months ago

          Seriously.

          It’s like when you see a post about punching Nazis, and concern trolls show up to complain about people misusing and overusing the term. They don’t offer a correction, and they’re not defending anyone because no specific person or group of people was called out. They just saw a negative post about Nazis and fascists, got defensive, and tried to muddy the waters. A hit dog will holler.

          Also, obviously any term will be misused and overused, and I don’t know every context people are talking about. But, for my part, I see complaints about people being called “tankies” way more often than people being called tankies, and in situations like the above. And it’s usually accompanied by complaints that right-wingers are calling people tankies, something I don’t actually see all that often. What I see more often than that is the terminally online, gatekeeping left. So, is the problem coming more from actual conservatives, or from leftists that other ostensible leftists want to dismiss out of hand?

          I don’t know what’s in anyone’s heart, the specific people they’re talking about, or the contexts and personal experiences they’re talking about. I’m not going to assume bad faith. But, when I see people jump in to say “tankie” is a meaningless phrase, it just sounds like the same rhetorical game when people try to say “Nazi” and “fascist” have become meaningless.

      • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        You won’t get labeled a tankie if you think the people’s police shouldn’t have one either. Then you get labeled an anarkiddie

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          You won’t get labeled a tankie if you think the people’s police shouldn’t have one either.

          If you’re going all in on the “Fuck the CCP! Fuck Castro! Fuck Vuvuzela!” memes, maybe. But you need to lean in hard. Never let them think your hate is less than pure.

          Then you get labeled an anarkiddie

          Sure. Everyone knows why we need the Good Kind of Cops.

          Proceeds to scroll through Nextdoor Ring camera porch pirate posts in earnest

          • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            I’m actually mixed on Castro. Venezuela isn’t communist. Neither is the CCP (I stand with the Chinese leftward opposition). And while we’re at it, the USSR shot the Soviets and killed the Revolution at Kronstadt.

            Vietnam though? I can respect Vietnam. I don’t always agree with what they do, but they’re really doing their best.

            It wasn’t the anarchists who keep doing dengist bullshit

            • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              Venezuela isn’t communist. Neither is the CCP

              They are very real and literal instances of Communist economic theory put into practice.

              And while we’re at it, the USSR shot the Soviets and killed the Revolution at Kronstadt

              That’s ahistorical, if for no other reason than the full cohort of Communist policymakers in Russia weren’t hiding on a single naval base in four years after the October revolution.

              Might as well claim the CIA killed all Latin American Communists in Bolivia during 1967.

              It wasn’t the anarchists who keep doing dengist bullshit

              Anarchists repeatedly tried and failed to build working power bases, all during the 1920s. From Communes in Paris to Shanghai, from Sioux Reservations to Spanish Republicans, the fascist militaries absolutely demolished anarchist movements.

              Dengism, by contrast, secured the Chinese state from reconquest and expanded the Chinese economy to its modern apex.

              No anarchist government can claim to have ended domestic poverty, excised foreign landlords, harnessed nuclear power, or put a flag on the moon.

              Fifteen five year plans later, no other country is doing better.

              Vietnam though? I can respect Vietnam.

              Sure. They’ve been phenomenal. But they are following that same Chinese playbook. Harnessing foreign investment for domestic capital improvements and cancelling the dividends into a rising quality of life is a recipe for success.

              This is textbook Marxism.