I've seen countless posts about the tankie problem here in the lemmyverse
I've seen countless posts about the tankie problem here in the lemmyverse
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?
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Just check out any news article outside Lemmy.world on the Ukrainian war or China.
It always gets flooded by accounts from lemmygrad and 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 frothing 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