Diva

If you're claiming a strong ideological stance, ie being a communist, to be simultaneously claiming ignorance of having a tattoo from one of the largest killers of communists, and having served in the military of the runner-up, makes it hard to trust him or his political understanding.

it's like a year before the election, surely someone else is able to run.

it was here, the ragebait was too obvious so I disengaged lol

misleadingly doubted the existence of russian bot networks

don't get me wrong, I know these exist. I am just expressing skepticism because people on the English speaking Internet will act like every reply they don't like is a bot puppeteered by foreign intelligence.

It's just more likely to be a normal person and any state actors are probably going to be focusing on the corporate-run social media spaces

'tankie' is used a pejorative for any leftist, just like 'red' or 'commie' or 'pinko' was. You apply it to them because they say one thing, and automatically ascribe to them all of the other things that you dislike. It's a caricature.

I linked two different threads of people unanimously shitting on purported communists who are reactionary or offer full support to the war in ukraine and you read it as them being 'aligned on the war in ukraine'. I don't really know what else to say if you're just going to read the opposite.

I find it’s more often the people complaining loudly about ‘tankies’ who are starting off with slogans and an uncritical reading of their own sides history.

Once again, most leftist anti-tankies already criticize the US.

The 'vaguely left' poster that's one of the main 'anti-tankies' is constantly posting NAFO shit and anticommunism. I don't think that we are in agreement on what 'leftist' is, beyond a self-identification.

This is what makes up the bulk of controversy on tankies on the fediverse and outside it.

The biggest shit-stirrers on this front don't tend to express issues with authoritarianism under capitalism. In fact they tend to be the first to browbeat people to fall in line with western narratives and express contempt at challenging the existing systems. I have no obligation to take them seriously.

The problem is that you're using tankie now interchangeably with what was originally 'leninist' and the goalposts shifted for what they believe.

I can point to a recent thread where these 'tankies' are complaining about the fascists larping as communists on reddit 'tankies' are not a monolith and the site cultures are clearly different. Here's a thread where 'the tankies' on hexbear are saying that the CPRF should all be shot for supporting the SMO, and that if Putin is praising you then you're not a communist party.

Most marxists/leninists I've known in real life are pretty quick to concede the failures of previous socialist states, because having a critical understanding of history is integral to having a materialist worldview.

If people are just shouting slogans it's a problem, obviously. However that door swings both ways: I find it's more often the people complaining loudly about 'tankies' who are starting off with slogans and an uncritical reading of their own sides history.

Anarchism is anti-authoritarian, but that's not really where it ends (to say it's 'all about that' is a bit reductive). The point isn't just to oppose authority, but to oppose hierarchy and domination. IE systems where authority becomes permanent, coercive, and self-justifying.

Anarchists aren't going to oppose a doctor giving orders in the middle of surgery, or say that teachers have to get a vote from their class before being allowed to assign homework.

The problem is the structural authority where participation isn't voluntary and the power can't be revoked. This is why opposing the state, class society and capitalism is such a common refrain.

That's why I said there's common ground between marxists and anarchists. Both traditions start from the same diagnosis: the capitalist state is a machine of class domination. We both want to abolish exploitation and create a classless, stateless society. We can disagree about if some heirarchies can still be used temporarily for the purpose of liberation, however that's a strategic debate with a shared revolutionary objective, not some huge moral divide.

At the end of the day, anarchists and marxists want the same thing: a society without without rulers, landlords, or bosses.

The disagreement is about how to get there, not about if people should be free at all.

'defending' 🙄

it's that I find there's more common ground with them than with the centrist extremists who get so worked up about their existence.

Just yesterday I had one such person who started off calling me a tankie immediately pivot to 'yeah well anarchism is bullshit too'

glad you've stopped posting to .world, at least we can agree on JL

I didn't take offense! in fact I was making a joke of sorts, I understood your initial meaning.

I view my time spent talking politics on social media with people I don't like as self-harm, I try to minimize it generally.

the distinction I'd make for hexbear is that by user base it's also one of the major LGBT instances

not sure what "ultra-tankie" means in this context, because ultras tend to be less into lenin

gotta agree that the instance feuding is pretty toxic though

for me the annoyance was that it was reposts from .ml to .world, not even uplifting smaller instances. just part of the personal crusade from people who are also drama farmers

Also remember you are the anarchist on .ml

hell yeah

it's funny because I know them because for a while they were systematically reposting everything from lemmy.ml communities to drive traffic away from "the tankies". the first impression was of a total asshole