this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2025
272 points (91.7% liked)
MeanwhileOnGrad
1467 readers
815 users here now
"Oh, this is calamity! Calamity! Oh no, he's on the floor!"
Welcome to MoG!
Meanwhile On Grad
Documenting hate speech, conspiracy theories, apologia/revisionism, and general tankie behaviour across the fediverse. Memes are welcome!
What is a Tankie?
Alternatively, a detailed blog post about Tankies.
(caution of biased source)
Basic Rules:
Sh.itjust.works Instance rules apply! If you are from other instances, please be mindful of the rules. — Basically, don't be a dick.
Hate-Speech — You should be familiar with this one already; practically all instances have the same rules on hate speech.
Apologia — (Using the Modern terminology for Apologia) No Defending, Denying, Justifying, Bolstering, or Differentiating authoritarian acts or endeavours, whether be a Pro-CCP viewpoint, Stalinism, Islamic Terrorism or any variation of Tankie Ideology.
Revisionism — No downplaying or denying atrocities past and present. Calling Tankies shills, foreign/federal agents, or bots also falls under this rule. Extremists exist. They are real. Do not call them shills or fake users as it handwaves their extremism.
Tankies can explain their views but may be criticised or attacked for them. Any slight infraction on the rules above will immediately earn a warning and possibly a ban.
Off-topic Discussion — Do not discuss unrelated topics to the point of derailing the thread. Stay focused on the direct content of the post as opposed to arguing.
You'll be warned if you're violating the instance and community rules. Continuing poor behaviour after being warned will result in a ban or removal of your comments. Bans typically only last 24 hours, but each subsequent infraction will double the amount. Depending on the content, the ban time may be increased. You may request an unban at any time.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I dont get how tankies can support a "communist" nation like China that has an investor class and whose system requires the mistreatment of the proletariat.
The "Party" sits above the "Money" in their power structure, unlike most of the Capitalist countries nowadays were (after 4 decades of Neoliberalism) Money is a power above that of the State (and remember, the State is what the voters supposedly control in Democracy, so that means that Money is a higher power than Democracy, which is why many have pointed out that countries like the US are Oligarchies not Democracies).
And, for reference, in Fascism too (or, in fact, all other Autocratic systems) the State sits above Money, so I'm hardly saying that by itself that is enough to make that system good
The real hypocrisy of tankies, IMHO, is that the "Communist" nations they support in a tribalist way still have elites, they're just not chosen via Money but instead via ability of climbing up the Party ranks (so Cronyism and Sociopathy) whilst genuine Leftwing thinking is about Equality, the very opposite of there being people who get privileged treatment for any reason other than need (that reason being money as in Capitalist system or something else is quite irrelevant in Leftwing thinking)
If you just see them as tribalists wedded to an ideology shaped by a specific kind of elites who use a specific kind of slogans around Equality to support the continuation of the structure that maintains their elite privileges, (which is parallel to what's done in Capitalism which similarly has the whole bullshit about how wealth is the product of merit to justify discrimination based on wealth) you can understand why tankies would think what they do about China.
They're still mindless simpleton tribalists, but it's interesting to understand how using as foundation for ones own judgement an ideology controlled by somebody else without doing at the very least some analysing of it just as easily yields a tankie, a Fascist or a (Neo)liberal depending on which ideological bundle of slogans they've unquestioningly adopted.
"Because they'll eventually take away their wealth or kill them" is an argument I've actually seen on .ml. I'm not against the sentiment of getting rid of the capitalists but cmon, when someone says China isn't socialist and points at a clearly capitalist behavior you can't be "it's still socialist because the capitalist thing will be fixed in the future". Then every country might as well be socialist, we'll just fix capitalism at some later date.
At least China goes through the motions of being Communist. They also somehow support 21st century Russia which is just openly an authoritarian oligarchy.
My 'favorite' is when they defend clerical fascism in Iran as some kind of fantastic anti-capitalist development,
The leftists allied with the religious nutjobs in the revolution, then got murdered immediately afterwards because the religious nutjobs didn't want a leftist government that tolerated religion, they wanted an authoritarian theocracy. Some people somehow think that any leftist-backed revolution always goes brilliantly and ends up with utopian socialism or communism and no one ever exploits the post-revolutionary power vacuum for their own ends. That isn't compatible with what happened, so instead, they must believe that the leftists survived being murdered and now run Iran.
Communists also literally do not care about democracy and seem to strongly believe that if anyone in the country wants something pretty socialist then than justifies overruling the reat of the country with all the military power it can muster if neecessary.
Islamic theocracy is fundamentally incompatible with fascism as the ideal state posed by Islam is a caliphate aka a theocratic monarchal state.
As a side note Islamic theocracy is immune to fascism given the fact that the ideal state in Islam is a theocracy. Theocracies and fascism are incompatible due to the supremacy of the faith in one vs the other.
Iran is just another theocratic totalitarian state. They are not fascists.
That's overly simplistic. Fascists and theocrats work together to gain power for all the time. See the current marriage of Trump and Christian Nationalists in the United States, for example.
That has nothing to do with my claim which is specific to Islam. As Islam posits a caliphate as the ideal state it is incompatible with fascism which requires faith to be subservient to the state. Iran cannot be as Muslim fascist theocracy
There is often a very large gap between what is seen as ideal and what pans out in reality. Fascism is absolutely a possible result of an attempt to establish a caliphate, just as an authoritarian dictatorship or oligarchy - sooner or later - is a possible result of an attempt to establish communism.
If you end up fascist you cannot be a Muslim theocratic state which is what Islam posits as the ideal this you cannot have a state that is both fascist and an Islamic theocracy. This combination is entirely possible for other faiths that do not posit an ideal state.
You cannot be both.
You're making a pure semantics argument, saying that an "Islamic theocracy" means something so specific that even if a fascist regime could be considered both Islamic and a theocracy, you can't call it that because only caliphates qualify for that label. It's a bit silly.
No I am not making a semantic argument. The role if faith in a theocracy and the role of the state religion in a fascist state are entirely different.
The only theocratic state that can exist in Islam is a caliphate. That’s literally what is in the Quran. There’s no nuance or room for debate here.
Do you hate Islam? Is that why this is so hard for you to grasp?
Don't worry, someone will be along shortly to recommend 2000 pages of communist literature that wouldn't even prove their point even if you read it all.
Because they don't support communism. They just like one version of ogliarchy better than the other.
They're authoritarians not communists ie. the ole schtick.