Image Transcription:
An 8-panel Phoebe Teaching Joey meme.
The first panel is Phoebe from Friends saying “Russia”.
The second panel is Joey from the same show replying with “Russia”.
The third panel is Phoebe saying “has invaded”.
The fourth panel is Joey repeating back “has invaded”.
The fifth panel is Phoebe saying “Ukraine”.
The sixth panel is Joey repeating back “Ukraine”.
The seventh panel is Phoebe saying the completed phrase “Russia has invaded Ukraine”.
The final panel shows Joey proudly proclaiming “NATO just started a proxy war”.
The political spectrum isn’t really a line. Please don’t imply leftists and tankies are on the same team
You can ignore everything I’m about to write. I’m just thinking through this in written form.
Here goes: it’s a bit confusing for me. Tankies call themselves leftists. In fact, they call us “pro-capitalists” because we don’t believe in authoritarianism.
And it feels weird to me to be in one of two groups both saying, “you’re not REAL anti-capitalists” at each other.
So here goes:
So yes, I must acknowledge that a group of pro-authoritarians can call themselves leftists without being leftists.
… it still feels weird though. Because if you view it from their perspective, they are leftists. And we are capitalists’ enablers.
Wait! I think I see it. Their embrace of violent regimes and violent tactics destroys working class unity and alienates non-violent, compassionate anti-capitalists. They actively choose Stalin over Trotsky and Trotsky over Kerensky, and (like they did with Marguerit Duras) drive anyone out of the movement who won’t support that choice.
They are anti-solidarity. And you cannot be a leftist and be anti-solidarity.
Im a radical leftist. Specifically an anarchist.
I was arguing with tankies the other day, because I defined Tankie as an authoritarian Communists. In an effort to differentiate between communists I would work with as an anarchist.
Many people (mostly hailing from hexbear )really didn’t like it. Cue endless whataboutism and people calling me a lib. Btw according to some hexbear folx. Its not imperialism when the USSR invaded Afghanistan, but it is when the US did it later. Lol.
I too want to exclude tankies from leftism. For many reasons. But the truth is that communism even authoritarian communism is leftist.
We dont need to “no true scotmen” leftism. There are problematic elements that we need to recognize and deal with in a way that is not simply saying “we are not them.” Its much healthier and factually correct simply to say that state communism Trends towards a police state aka towards authoritarianism. And I dont support that.
Just my 2 cents.
Fair enough.
🤣
Like I said, I don’t think the political spectrum is just 1 line. I think there’s an X and a Y axis at the very least
Yeah, I think tankies and anarcho socialist types want wildly different things only that there’s a not insignificant amount of overlap in how they’re both looking to achieve it.
For the record, I think capitalism is a failed system (well, for anyone other than the billionaire class) but while I and a tankie might agree on certain things it is for different reasons. Cue the Gustavo Fring meme
Capitalism is, at it’s core, any system where d(Power) / dt = k (Power) - a + b (random(t)) where power is your ability to impact or influence the world or not be influenced by it unduely.
Any one who has a/k or less power has it systematically taken from them and assigned to those with the most.
Power can be money or political favour with the party. Window dressing and semantic games don’t reallly matter. Fascism is the exercise of trying to set b to 0.
Tankies are capitalists.
The left is the exercise of trying to make k negative.
Buddy I enjoyed differential equations as much as the next guy, but differential formulae are not a great way to communicate any concepts in a text forum, not even concepts that are modeled by differential equations.
Wtf is this equation
Fucking lol man I love this site sometimes.
The only good thing about leftists is that they’re this ridiculous about everything.
In what way are the states they worship remotely socialist, communist, or anarchist? The means of production are controlled by a small elite who increase their share of control over the means of prodiction by leveraging this control. The only thing that distinguishes the economic stratification of the CCP or the late soviet union from capitalist states is semantic word games.
It’s the same thing as a market based oligopoly.
There have been left wing states, and left wing projects within right wing states, but worshipping putin or winnie the pooh ain’t it.
I’m here to laugh at ridiculous leftists dunking on ridiculous leftists, not to debate the finer points of tankie theory.
I don’t take anyone who self-identifies as a leftist seriously.
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You might consider me a neoliberal “frother”, though I don’t understand the term.
I believe in evidence-based best practice, in both policy and in life.
If you’d like to get into the weeds on this, I’d be happy to, as you seem quite pleasant. Note that I specifically used the term “ridiculous leftists” because I do in fact have friends I think are just wrong, but not ridiculous.
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You’re really just making right wing reactionaries look even stupider. So I guess you fit in.
I do also enjoy making right wing reactionaries look dumb