• admiralteal
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    1 year ago

    Tankie is all about embracing the tanks. They’re the authoritarian left.

    Primary beliefs (all stupid and wrong): the Soviets and People’s Liberation Army can do/did no wrong. Russia is still Soviet and still the good guys. Ukraine is a conspiracy from the West that is actually Nazi. Any geopolitical problems are the fault of the West who behaves as a complete bloc and is literally only motivated by the capital interest of billionaires. Africa and the subcontinent are the world good guys (just conveniently ignore literally anything bad that happens there). Lots of Islamophobia.

    As with all authoritarians, it’s all about conspiracy theories. If you try to argue with them, they simply don’t believe counterfactuals or will shift goal posts and start talking about something else entirely.

    Most of the angry leftists you encounter, especially in these parts, lean much more towards anarchism. Very different from tankies.

    • MapleEngineer
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      -21 year ago

      I’ve been including the ones who want to murder all the rich people and government officials with the tankies even though they don’t want to use tanks.

      • admiralteal
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        31 year ago

        You’re not using the word right then. Which will hurt any arguments you make while using it.

        Again, it’s a pejorative all about embracing authoritarianism. The tankies love government officials so long as those government officials follow any kind of communist kayfabe. The tankies are totally okay with billionaire oligarchs in Russia. The tankies would oppose and protest any kind of violence directed against the government’s they like. They adore social hierarchies and loathe western democracy.

        And there are plenty of anarchists that embrace violence.

        Stick with alt-left or more direct pejoratives.

        • MapleEngineer
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          11 year ago

          I include them because they are taking about “revolution” and the only way you successfully overthrow a federal government is by force which necessitates the use of tanks even if they haven’t considered the fact that the fetal government is going to fight back with tanks and many, if not all of them, will be killed.

          • admiralteal
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            21 year ago

            That’s not what the word means. At all.

            It’s about being on the side of the tanks – specifically the Tienanmen Square tanks. It is literally the opposite of wanting to use tanks to overthrow the government.

            I understand how you’re using it. I’m just warning you that you are very much going your own way with this word and are going to look foolish if you do so.

            • MapleEngineer
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              11 year ago

              From Wikipedia:

              Tankie has its origins in British political rhetoric. It has since become a popular pejorative in English-language social media.[22] In 2017, left-wing writer Carl Beijer argued that there are two distinct uses of the term tankie. The original, which was “exemplified in the sending of tanks into Hungary to crush resistance to Soviet communism”. More generally, a tankie is someone who tends to support “militant opposition to capitalism”, and a more modern online variation, which means “something like ‘a self-proclaimed communist who indulges in conspiracy theories and whose rhetoric is largely performative.’”

              • admiralteal
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                1 year ago

                Yes, that’s what I said. The tanks are operated by authoritarians AGAINST the rebels. They are not tanks operated by rebels. Tankies will bend any logic to defend and support authoritarian governments so long as they present anti-capitalist.

                It is all about authoritarianism. If you call an anarchist a “tankie”, you’re going to look like you’re being totally disingenuous.

                  • admiralteal
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                    11 year ago

                    Look dude, you seem like you can’t handle any form of criticism or evolution in your understanding of things, so keep doing it exactly how you want and don’t listen to anyone else in this thread or elsewhere trying to help you be a better communicator. Have fun being you.