this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
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~~People don't have a problem with tankies because they want to use violence against fascists. Violence against fascists is fine.~~
~~People dislike tankies because they're reactionary assholes. They dislike them for cheer-leading unjustifiable abuses and failures because they believe we're in some zero-sum game that excuses it. Because they're extremists, oppressive authoritarians, and want to use violence against all of their ideological enemies, including the "wrong kinds" of communist.~~
~~The good things they believe in and do aren't what people have an issue with: it's the inexcusably bad parts of their ideology people don't like, and the fact they're obnoxious about it.~~
Edit: I stand by what I said, but apparently its easier to recognize flags when you expand the image ... and my rant had nothing to do with the post.
Are you saying Antifa are tankies?
Not at all.
Who is the tanky in the picture?
My bad eyes totally didn't see that was the antifa flag.
So nothing I said applies to this post ... whoops.
To be fair everything you said still holds true if you replace tankie with antifa
Except not, because tankies love oppression as long as its their specific flavor of oppression.
Kay I need to ask, how does Lemmy use tankie? I've always thought it meant people who are willing to use violence against capitalist. I have a feeling I'm wrong.
Tankie is someone who thinks that Mao (and modern CCP) and Stalin were super alright people who did nothing wrong.
AFAIK a tankie is someone who is a fan of authoritarian communism or socialism… I forget which but the key part is the authoritarianism part, I think.
Yeah, they're fans of the so-called "communism" of authoritarian countries like China and the USSR, which are about as communist as the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea is democratic or a republic.
Okay, gotcha. Tankie == historical communist. Tankie =/= neosocialist.
Not necessarily, Leninists and OG Marxists usually don't get lumped in with Tankies - while Trotskists definitely should be. Tankies accept blatant authoritarianism as an acceptable cost to achieve socialism, non-Tankies reject authoritarian regimes.
... and super-Tankies are Pol Pot apologists.
Thank you! It's all about that authoritarianism.
Its not even their ideology, its the fact they defend murderous tyranical regimes and try to be apologetic, defensive or straight up deny that shit.
Yeah like most of the time you ever see them recorded in public they're just breaking shit and hitting random people accusing them of being a Nazi.
Do you have a link? Are any of these people westerners? I don't think I've actually seen this. I am starting to think I'm not really sure what a tankie is.
It's been a while since I have seen the video but i do remember the context behind it. It was during the 2020 BLM protests in the United States and many were identifying themselves as antifa (take it with a grain of salt, antifa is merely an ideology with no real leader or representative).
Some of those identifying as antifa were starting fights with others and making accusations. This was in addition to general arson ranging from property theft, destruction of property and starting fires. There are some even lighting up fireworks in the streets but it's hard to tell if they are "apart" of antifa.
A Tankie is a hardcore communist usually with an affinity for authoritarianism. They are named "tankies" because during the cold war communists in western countries were defending the USSR's use of tanks to crush anti government/communist protest, thus the name Tankie.
While one doesn't mean the other they often have a prominent overlap with many of antifa being Tankies and vice versa.
Edit: the confusion was the original comment mistook the antifa logo as a communist symbol and referred to them as such and my comment was referring to antifa specifically .
Understood. Yea I know tons of people that consider themselves anti fascist and never met anyone like this, so I'd say definitely not the same lol. Generally antifa is against any authoritarianism from my experience.