I’m not sure I’ve seen any evidence of it existing though, is it just a Boogeyman, or so something that happened a while back? An in joke of some sort?
Just check out any news article outside Lemmy.world on the Ukrainian war or China.
It always gets flooded by accounts fro lemmygrad or hexbear doing mental gymnastics and whataboutism to justify whatever Russia or China are doing.
You’ll also find them around and about in any sort of historical sub
Most of the tankies I’ve encountered have been in the comments of historymemes communities on posts about the fall of the Berlin Wall. Go in expecting Regan jokes, come out after having a 30 comment argument with someone trying to claim that the Holodomor didn’t happen (like, at all, not that it wasn’t intentional), that Stalin never condoned the Purges, and the Stasi weren’t that bad
I’ve had a tankie acuse me of being libelous against North Korea by mentioning their human rights abuses.
When I presented links to the UN’s reports on the subject, they just got stuck in a loop asking for sources for my claims.
Oh yeah they do that - I once brought up the cultural aspect of genocide in a discussion about Russification and was instantly told that I only cared about that definition of genocide so that I could accuse China of genociding Uygurs and any attempt to point out that no that has been the definition of genocide for a long time (see - the UN’s various declarations) was met with them demanding me I show them the proof that China was really doing that.
…in an argument about the Baltics in the cold war.
I was told yesterday that North Korea was in the shape it is because of UN sanctions against workers there. LOL.
And while I can absolutely admit that the West has been problematic especially the United States in these contexts. That North Korea has done plenty to make their situation and what it is all on their own.
They defend Stalin and Mao to death. Deny all negative historical events. Tianamen square didn’t happen etc. It’s pretty wild.
The hexbear users are especially annoying as it seems to be a requirement for them that they embed the most annoying jpegs/gifs into their propaganda comments.
I’ve always leaned left, and not in the “American Democrat” way. I’ve read Marx, Engels, Kropotkin, Luxemburg, etc. Not that I agree with them on everything, but they make good points.
But every day I see tankies defend Russia just because it’s not the US, I feel like I’m moving more center just out of spite.
Political movement out of spite is perfect thanks for that.
I generally agree with the goals of a more communist society, but the inability of hexbear or lemmygrad users to consider any kind of incremental progress, and the inability to recognize any single solitary good thing to happen in a capitalist country is so annoying.
How can I be interested in an ideology when every member is driving at the mouth angry at anything that isn’t classical party-speak?
Russia is not even pretending to be communist anymore. It’s a full blown corrupt capitalist oligarchy. But just because it’s not an US ally, they will defend it.
Yeah it’s amazing how tone deaf some of them can be, and they don’t even realise when they’re doing the opposite of promoting their views
Russia didn’t invade but if it did, Ukraine deserved it.
America been doing this for decades!
I guess tankies are now making accounts in other instances so that they don’t get blocked.
I’m pretty sure they’re being sarcastic, “(terrible thing) but happen but if it did (whatever group) deserved it” is a joke I see a lot about genocide deniers and their (lack of) logic
Normally I’d agree with you, but I’ve read enough posts from Lemmy tankies that I cannot be sure anymore.
Sarcasm right
@OP There. Now you have evidence.
I feel like the Narcissist’s prayer ends too quickly. What if someone, perhaps Ukraine, didn’t deserve it? Isn’t there an excuse for that? Like “It’s not my fault you looked like you had a Nazi problem” but more generic? Hey, perhaps one could add “It’s not my fault” at the end to allow for recursion.
..No. That’s a good place to end it. “You deserved it” is the only line that’s honest about what they believe. They just go through the rest first because it’s an easier sell.
What kind of dialectical brainrot is this? America doing something terrible doesn’t mean Ukraine deserves to suffer the same from russia. Weirdo
How many os for the lemmy version of woooosh?
I honestly can’t tell if that post is meant to be sarcasm.
Because I’ve seen similar posts and that the poster really believed in it. And that’s part of what’s plaguing lemmy. Unironic whataboutism.
BTW dude your username is annoying. You comment a lot and every time I see it I get hungry
Well that makes two of us, I crave black gulaman but I can’t have it everyday.
Lemmy.world has most of the instances that would fall into that category blocked.
Thankfully.
deleted by creator
I mean anti corporatism is normal in FOSS communities.
deleted by creator
Lemmy.world defederated from those instances. When I switched to a different instance I started to notice it. There are a lot of them, you just don’t see them.
Lemmy.world defederated from those instances.
From which ones? Because they are still federated with lemmygrad.ml, which is by far the biggest tankie instance.
They’re blocked in your instance, just like piracy related communities.
That’s why i left LW, I want to decide which communities I block
Believe me, it’s tiring to block things over and over, because lemmy has the tendency to have duplicate communities every instance.
I too tried instances with zero unfederated lists. Now I just live in an instance with minimal unfederated list.
Me too. I found unilem who’s policy is explicitly not to defederate from any instance. I prefer to be treated like an adult and allowed to decide for myself who I block.
I’ve seen one or two posts that had communist Nazi vibes. I just blocked the users posting them and haven’t had a problem since.
The big name instances that generate these boogyman claims are blocked on Lemmy World. They’re not blocked on my instance, but they also aren’t really any different than any other posts from any other instances. The most cited reason isn’t the content they post, but the fact the creator of the instance (in this case I am referring to Lemmygrad) is a tankie. Well they don’t seem to post a helluva lot for it to matter, and the average users there aren’t crazy assholes in my experience.
The Hexbear stuff, on the other hand… Every single user I’ve seen from that instance behaved like a 4chan troll or T_D user.
Yes, mostly hexbear users and instances. I’ve blocked all of them.
You’re welcome to join lemm.ee and have a look. Its not a pretty sight though
Lemmy.ml, too.
Huh? What tankies are in lemm.ee? It’s based in Estonia…
lemm.ee hasn’t defederated from hexbear.net or lemmygrad.lm
They don’t need to have an lemm.ee account to post there
I’ve just been blocking instances. I realized after the fact that I signed up with lemmy.ml, which contributes to it, but was the only instance that was quickly approving people when I signed up. It may be time to switch instances, or finally get off my ass and make my own.
I don’t mind some of the ideas, but seeing people constantly sucking off Russia and China gets old in a hurry.
Saw a comment from a dude calling everyone on .ml Nazis earlier today and was like wtf??? Looked at his comment history, pro Russia tanky calling any NATO/pro NATO country Nazis/Nazi lovers. Some people are just crazy deluded. Ukraine is full of Nazis cuz it was taken by Germany in WW2 AND EVERYONE KNOWS ITS STILL ALL NAZIS.
.ml is literally run by Marxist-Leninists??? (Same people as Lemmygrad, but .ml is a general instance rather than one dedicated to leftism)
Looking at your account, you’re on a instance that is defederated with the worst offenders
Make a lemmy.ml account and pop into any thread that talks about Ukraine and you won’t be confused anymore lol
Personally, I don’t mind one bit that they’re communist, but their trollish behavior and their tendency to act like China and Russia (and I’ve even seen a few for North Korea) are bastions of individual liberty, prosperity, and justice with no faults makes them exactly as annoying as the super nationalist western folks who act the same about the US or Europe (depending usually purely on where they’re from).
Basically it’s not a communist problem, it’s a troll problem where the trolls all happen to be communist
Check out lemmy.grad
It’s mostly Hexbear, and they know they are annoying. The politics on Lemmy is… wildly different from what a regular social media looks like.
wildly different from what a regular social media looks like.
It’s wildly different from what social media moderated by corporations looks like, but I’m not so sure which is “regular.”
What posts about the tankie problem? I’ve seen none of these posts?
Diehard democrats finding out they’re not as leftist as they thought they were. Anything that runs counter to their narrative is “tankie”. They’re afraid of what is different and it’s their version of calling everything they don’t understand/like “woke”.
Exactly, “tankie” is just the lefts version of “woke”
Isn’t that the whole point of federation and seperate community spaces? Don’t like what you see? Fuck off someplace else. I haven’t seen a single instance of brigading or amything like that. Is this just pearl clutching by reddit refuges?
Some instances such as Hexbear federate for the sole purpose of brigading to harass and argue in bad faith. Have you not been paying attention to the countless threads they have been spamming?
I literally only see threads/posts complaining about them, no actual trolling/brigading etc. But I’m not on Lemmy all the time. If it was such a problem you would think it would be clearly visible.
Take a look on any post outside of lemmy.world that remotely mentions China, Russia, Ukraine or North Korea, and you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about. Unless their mass flooding of pig poop emojis, bad faith arguments and authoritarian apologetics don’t count as trolling or brigading to shut down discussion.
Lol Those threads are a colossal shit fest, how would I even tell the difference between brigading and just business as usual?
I just think that defed should only be used as a last resort in fringe cases not the norm or lemmy instances all end up isolating and becoming echo chambers.
Tankie now means the same as Nazi — “a person with a political view I don’t like”.
I’ve seen people called tankies for not toeing the Trotskyist line on Stalin (this btw is the original meaning) but also for being socialists and not really vibing with the newest gender updates.
Also if you’re defederating with other instances over crap like this, why not just host a BBS?
Tankie now means the same as Nazi — “a person with a political view I don’t like”.
There are actual neo-Nazis — yes, I mean people who venerate Hitler, use Nazi Party symbols, advocate antisemitism and genocide — actively involved in politics in many countries, including the US, Germany, and Russia. Do you deny this?
Which part of the parent comment implied that there aren’t actual Nazis?
There are also people who do not fall into that category yet still get called Nazis by political opponents.
Why would you bring up this “test” statement?
I’ve noticed this interrogative style more and more in my runs in with the woke, both offline and online.
So my question to you is — what the fuck do you think you’re doing?
This doesn’t make you look strong or confident. It makes you sound like a soyboy.
Using “woke” as a negative and using the term “soyboy” at all are both huge red flags.
Gives off “alpha male” incel vibes.
we’re soyboying 'round the internet to have fun and get intellectually challenged
“Gender updates” is the best term i’ve heard for transitioning in a while. I’m stealing it now, the bigots can’t have it.
(also note for anyone reading: the term “tankie” refers to people who embrace authoritarianism and usually specific self-declared “socialist” states repressing civilians, often modern day states that don’t even pretend to be socialist like Russia, or the CCP, or North Korea/DPRK, or even just any nation considered “anti-West” regardless of their behaviour or internal political structure x.x
It started when parts of the Communist Party of Great Britain split off from the main party because the main party supported the USSR crushing (with tanks) Hungarian socialists trying to break off from the USSR, for a number of reasons - others were involved too, but the worker councils themselves were major parts of the uprising - see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Revolution_of_1956 - there were attempts at worker council parlimentary democracy and such, as well as attempts for direct-democracy ^.^
The most recent Tankie Thing is supporting Russia for invading Ukraine, or doing weird enlightened-centrism on it because the USA gives support to Ukraine. More broadly, tankies generally seem to act as if any act by another country is always less bad than the USA, and that only the USA can be imperialist, or various variations on this concept >.<.
It should be noted that the right wing have started to some degree calling all leftists tankies and IMO anyone should reject this attempted co-option of the word because it allows people to falsely conflate leftism with tankie ideologies, even though they are often a small minority in IRL leftist activism, with more common groups being anarchists, democratic socialists, some Marxists (even some Marxist-Leninists, which itself is a controversial term tbh), various libertarian socialisms and communisms, and the odd further-left social democrat ^.^)
even some Marxist-Leninists, which itself is a controversial term tbh
Could you elaborate on this? I have not heard of a controversy about this term
Marxist-Leninists tend to have accidentally read russian / USSR propoganda and will have some sussy takes because of it. Marxist-Leninist youtubers are all tankies or cult-like and it’s a bit of a nightmare.
Oh I was reading that as there being some kind of linguistic controversy about the term marxism-leninism xD
It’s so interesting how for all your radical posturing you’re still stooges for American imperialism.
Parroting the State Department is so revolutionary.
lol you really think I just parrot the US state department. Honestly this is another thing with tankies, they seem to be incapable of conceiving of geopolitics more complex than “arm of the USA” or “not arm of the USA”.
The idea of only partial-alignment even among nominal allies, and complex conflicting geopolitical interests, and the idea of spectrums and complexity beyond “US=bad” “not US=good” is foreign to them, or even criticizing actions of organizations rather than just deciding XYZ organization is evil or good and retroactively justifying or opposing every action they take (let alone consider that an action could have mixed consequences or ethics, both positive or negative ;p).
For example, I am still capable of criticising Ukraine’s actions (for example like using cluster bombs, even if last I saw Russia used them first I still am not in favour of them) and the propaganda they produce, or worrying about the effects of the significant debt on Ukrainians and their public services in the form of disaster capitalism, or also generally expressing my issue with States as a whole while still opposing brazen imperialism by Russia ^.^, or criticising the dehumanisation of Russian people in some of the conversations I’ve seen (especially the people who left Russia, when those are the people least likely to support the Russian Government’s actions and are often fleeing persecution themselves e.g. queer Russians).
I just don’t usually specifically say these things because in practise the conversations in which it comes up are already horrifically derailed by apologia for Russia’s actions and enlightened-centrism, so expressing the nuance is completely useless because the people I’m responding to just hate anything they associate with “the West” (which itself is not necessarily a fully coherent concept) and usually massively whitewash the shit going on in Russia, both about Ukraine and also other things <.<
Unless this is in the context of an actual active political party none of what you wrote matters.
Individuals can be weird and regarded. But you know what? I’d rather organise with someone who incorrectly believes that Stalin did no wrong but is otherwise committed to socialism than you censorious purity testing lot.
I’m a random idiot from Serbia and you’re interrogating me as if I’m not posting on a niche Reddit clone but applying to be in the central committee of your party.
I’m a random idiot from Serbia
You got one part right, finally.
No one’s interrogating you bud; you have a persecution complex to rival the christofash’s
you have a persecution complex to rival the christofash’s.
He already said he’s Serbian
Bazinga
You sound like a boris and natalia impression.
…you’re still stooges for American imperialism.
Says the stooge for authoritarian genocide?
Classic tankie whataboutism.
“Uh you didn’t explicitly denounce the west in your comment so you are an imperial parrot!”
Holy shit man
Learn a little dialectics so you can understand the concept of critical support, redfash
Oh you sussed me out inspector. I’m a total “redfash”.
I don’t have to justify myself to you.
And this whole thread, this swarm of bullshit over just saying the word “tankie” is tired and overused.
Just makes you look totally off your rocker collectively.
Tankies aren’t just politically sussy but are often intentionally inflammatory trolls.
