I think the best evidence that “tankie” is a meaningless snarl word is the way the people who use it just make up what ever positions they like to ascribe to the mythical “tankie”. Like, none of the people you call “tankies” support modern Russia, but you’re going to insist that tankies support modern Russia anyway, because it’s not meant to an actual descriptive word, just a way to punch left.
Yes, I’ve noticed that the “criteria” are extremely malleable and impossible to pin down. That’s why I concluded that it’s just a snarl word that ultimately means “anyone to the left of me”
This recent thread is pretty insightful on lemmygrad.ml’s position. Their own users repeatedly emphasize that they are critical of the RF, which shouldn’t be a surprise given that it’s a capitalist country with plenty of reactionary domestic policies. (OP didn’t get banned)
Literally the very first comment in that thread I see is the instance admin speaking in support of russia for no other reason than it being opposed to the US.
Just like I said, “critical support”. They’re clear that it’s a capitalist “dictatorship of the owning class” (like other liberal-democracies) and that they’re critical of their domestic policies. If NATO were no longer as powerful as it is now, then they’d move on to calling for the Russian Federation’s fall, but it’s clear which of the two is a more imminent threat to countries around the globe. It’s like voting for Democrats over Republicans in the US election – they’ve both proven themselves to be terrible but voting for the lesser evil might be pragmatically effective, and voting third party or boycotting is debatably an idealistic waste of effort.
As someone else mentioned, this is a campist approach to geopolitics.
the US
I wouldn’t limit “the imperial core” to the US, but basically, yes.
Scrolling through the thread, the keyword in “critical support” seems to be more “support” and less “critical”.
Also, right now US is not the country that’s launching drones to blow up the civilian houses in the city I live in, which, somehow, seems to be presented as a “humanitarian” move in that thread. So you might want to rethink how much evil you can allow your “lesser evil” to be.
What people tend not to realize is they don’t support Russia because they think it’s still communist, but because of a combination of campism, accelerationism, and revolutionary defeatism. If you want to argue with someone in good faith you should try to understand their position first, otherwise they will just see you as a reactionary and dismiss what you say. I still occasionally get my comments removed from .ml but I’ve been able to get through to people somewhat by leading with an actual understanding of where they’re coming from.
Somehow they even support modern russia which is as far from communism as it’s possible to be without being US
I think the best evidence that “tankie” is a meaningless snarl word is the way the people who use it just make up what ever positions they like to ascribe to the mythical “tankie”. Like, none of the people you call “tankies” support modern Russia, but you’re going to insist that tankies support modern Russia anyway, because it’s not meant to an actual descriptive word, just a way to punch left.
People who support russia and communism are tankies.
Communists aren’t necessarily tankies.
Ok, good news then: there aren’t any tankies on hexbear
I lurk on hexbear from time to time, and there is definetely people there who believe some of those.
Yeah, out of “supports Russia” and “are communist” there are indeed people who support some of those two things
If you support russia in this day and age, you are a tankie.
Ok. And none of them do
???
Can I reference you here when I get called a tankie despite not supporting Russia?
Thats not what I meant, there is other “criteria”.
Yes, I’ve noticed that the “criteria” are extremely malleable and impossible to pin down. That’s why I concluded that it’s just a snarl word that ultimately means “anyone to the left of me”
I really haven’t seen that? A while ago I looked into HexBear’s opinion on it and it wasn’t good.
Check out this thread, there really isn’t any Putin worship in these spaces.
https://hexbear.net/post/148426?scrollToComments=false
In this one some of the top comments are hoping Putin gets shot in the face. https://hexbear.net/post/3270551
shhhh! They haven’t finished building their strawman
Plenty of examples from .ml. Not sure how one 3 year old thread disproves it?
I gave you two links, one which is much newer.
I’m looking at this community you linked I’m not sure I can see how you’re proving that “tankies” admire the modern Russian government.
The part where they ban people for being critical of it?
Just because we don’t suck off Azov toes doesn’t mean we do suck the FSB’s. Go back to reddit, liberal.
Ah, and the other hexbear users had been doing such a good job convincing me you aren’t tankies. Way to shit all over their diligent work.
Way to give away that “tankie” just means “person who’s mean to you”
This recent thread is pretty insightful on lemmygrad.ml’s position. Their own users repeatedly emphasize that they are critical of the RF, which shouldn’t be a surprise given that it’s a capitalist country with plenty of reactionary domestic policies. (OP didn’t get banned)
https://lemmygrad.ml/post/7374513?sort=Top
Literally the very first comment in that thread I see is the instance admin speaking in support of russia for no other reason than it being opposed to the US.
Just like I said, “critical support”. They’re clear that it’s a capitalist “dictatorship of the owning class” (like other liberal-democracies) and that they’re critical of their domestic policies. If NATO were no longer as powerful as it is now, then they’d move on to calling for the Russian Federation’s fall, but it’s clear which of the two is a more imminent threat to countries around the globe. It’s like voting for Democrats over Republicans in the US election – they’ve both proven themselves to be terrible but voting for the lesser evil might be pragmatically effective, and voting third party or boycotting is debatably an idealistic waste of effort.
As someone else mentioned, this is a campist approach to geopolitics.
I wouldn’t limit “the imperial core” to the US, but basically, yes.
Scrolling through the thread, the keyword in “critical support” seems to be more “support” and less “critical”.
Also, right now US is not the country that’s launching drones to blow up the civilian houses in the city I live in, which, somehow, seems to be presented as a “humanitarian” move in that thread. So you might want to rethink how much evil you can allow your “lesser evil” to be.
What people tend not to realize is they don’t support Russia because they think it’s still communist, but because of a combination of campism, accelerationism, and revolutionary defeatism. If you want to argue with someone in good faith you should try to understand their position first, otherwise they will just see you as a reactionary and dismiss what you say. I still occasionally get my comments removed from .ml but I’ve been able to get through to people somewhat by leading with an actual understanding of where they’re coming from.
A non .ml user arguing in good faith? That’s as rare as it is welcome!
Also, I think you forgot anti-Americanism and anti imperialism in your list.
Their reasoning is that its anti-us imperialism, despite russia being pretty imperialistic itself.
That’s such an oversimplifcation that it can just be dismissed as wrong. Here is someone who actually asked and didn’t just assume
https://hexbear.net/post/4477584
Ah, the classic “only western countries can be imperialist”
It’s not a classic because no one says that. Japan did it for sixty years, until it was made a vassal of the US, which it still is today[1][2].