Hi all, thank you for reading my post. modlod link
Clocks got banned first after suggesting that the OP try to be a genuine friend and try to find some common cause in real life rather than alienating people over abstract geopolitical factionalism:
I raised the issue that censoring earnest advice as ‘tankie apologia’ and preemtively writing off any common cause/ isolating people is no way to win people over either as friends or comrades.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if ‘genuinely be their friend’ is ‘tankie apologia’ to be censored, I’m not sure you’re going to be very successful convincing anyone of anything in the real world.
yeah that’s the context, I was just laughing because:
- only Lemmy users with an axe to grind call them that
- it sounds really silly, like they’re a nemesis to dr venture.
- I’m supposed to be the melodramatic one yet every day I get one-upped 😔
screeshot:
I’m not here to tell them how to run their comm, my position is that this is way more draconian than anything I’ve run into in any of ‘the tankie triad’. The same groups of people loudly complaining about censorship on ‘tankie’ run instances don’t seem to have a problem enforcing vague/arbitrary vibes based censorship in their spaces.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/tankie
I support the positive changes for society that happen regardless of the government, however ultimately all of them are still going to be representing a hierarchy to be dismantled at the end of the day.
I have a long litany of criticism for all of the countries listed, but this is is not an appropriate place to get into that. Generally any nuance gets lost from the conversation as soon as some online demagogue declares that it’s either total ideological conformity or you’re a tankie.
Not to get condescending, I try to avoid being dogmatic myself, but it’s a comfortable impulse. Actual human interaction requires curiosity, tolerance and not treating broad groups of people like a monolith. Like you can discard legitimate advice because you don’t like the messengers, but in the end it’s you who is worse off for it.
I do not think I have seen you once criticize China or Russia, because if you had you would be more in line with me than you think.
Every government has done things worthy of praise and condemnation. To me an anarchist, at the very least, would be shitting on all the governments from the US to the CCP to the DPRK and everywhere in between
But I don’t see that from you or any other known tankie who also claims to be an anarchist. You have a pretty clear pattern of criticizing the West and then covering for what should be criticized of the CCP/Russia/NK etc.
Maybe this comes because I prefer local political organizing, but I live in the US right now, my current government is the one I have the biggest issues with, and thus I voice them online because it’s relevant to me. The current government in Russia sucks ass, what do you want me to say? if I was living there I’d probably be getting persecuted for being trans. It actually sucks because even apart from this war it makes it almost impossible for me to visit family.
I actually have some optimism for china it’s true, but like many places there’s issues, I’m not in favor of territorial land grabs in general, no matter the US provocation. They can also be very conservative but it’s also hard for me to judge honestly from the other side of the planet and not speaking the language. I have seen enough trans people in china talking about their experience to say that it’s possible to live a life there as a trans person- it just takes having a supportive family. Unless you want to end up homeless that’s also generally the case in the US. I don’t like seeing forced labor, but the american alternative next door was two decades of occupying afghanistan. I disapprove of prisons that turn prisoners into slave labor, but if the alternative is decades of widespread counter-insurgency and indiscriminate bombings I think I’m also capable of pointing to the lesser evil.
You’ve said more than every tankie I’ve ever seen, I don’t even think you’re that much of a tankie. You’ve always been the “odd one out” tankie whenever I’ve seen you around.
Do you honestly not see what the folks you defend say? Just saying “Russia sucks” earnestly like that, is probably the first time I’ve seen that. The closest I’ve ever seen out of a tankie was similar to “even if they are that bad, it’s totally worth it because the West is sooo much worse…”
This has got to be the first politically related comment from you I’ve ever upvoted. Ya know Diva I’ve never tagged you as a tankie or defender like the others, I could never find a proper tag for your profile, your comments are always…odd with what I’ve come to expect from tankies and their defenders.
I’ll take the compliment, I do try to be level-headed.
I’ve actually lurked on hexbear for some time, specifically because I was getting a feel for the culture. I haven’t seen anything I would classify as ‘patriotic’ socialism. Those types get roundly mocked when they show up. There are a lot of positive opinions of the USSR, but I haven’t seen anyone seriously saying Russia in the current day is anything but a reactionary hellhole to live in. They generally will point to the dissolution of the USSR and the liberalization of the economy as part of the reason for that, and frankly I would agree with that assessment.
But I have seen those kinds of comments, ok take [email protected] out of the equation and the “out of context” screenshots as you call them.
I have personally read and even gotten into “debates” with the infamous .ml tankies like davel, dessalines and yogthos that did say things like Russia is great and Putin is a great leader fully justified to invade Ukraine, that there is no censorship in China and that NK isn’t a brutal dictatorship
What’s the rationale there?
I’m not trying to play dumb but I really haven’t come across anyone seriously saying Russia is great, but people have dumb takes and do heavy handed shit in the heat of the moment all the time so who knows. Either way my point is this isn’t like ‘the thing’ where anyone left alone in the room with a tankie for 5 minutes is going get converted into an alien bent on world domination, they’re just other humans with a different set of life experiences and trying to conflate them (or anyone ‘defending’ them) with hardened bigots/fascists is just needlessly divisive: doing their work for them, in my opinion.
Especially when it’s other trans people. We have enough issues right now with our government, how can we be putting up resistance if we’re too busy spending time cutting off segments of our own community because they’re failing geopolitics purity tests.
Yeah I don’t quite get this at all. There are some pretty openly vile tankies on the tankie instances. There’s one in the other post right now lambasting libertarian socialism and proudly supporting dictatorship. I don’t understand why anyone would defend these people.
People arrive at class consciousness in different ways. I value people that I might not agree with 100% but know I can count on to show up or offer up resources when it matters because they actually care. Sometimes the person positioned and motivated to do the work is going to be the one showing up in an ushanka with a USSR flag. I’m not trying to sound condescending, but I’ve been around for a while and you don’t really get to be picky about who you organize with in real life. It may be uncomfortable to think about, but if there’s work to get done you’re probably going to find you value an extra set of hands more than policing abstract ideological purity for each and every person.
People who you form long term working relationships with will find common ground with you. It’s one thing for a meme comm to be doing the ‘authoritarian anti-authoritarianism’ bit, I think I can see the humor in that, but the person asking for advice on how to deal with a friend with a differing opinion is going to end up with one fewer friend if they take some of that advice seriously.
Tankies have no class consciousness. If you wanna work with these people then great for you. I’ve seen a lot of evil opinions from .ml users (the ones that are tankies, not all of them obv.) and I really doubt you somehow have not. We don’t have to tolerate them on 196 however.
It’s not about purity. Go look at what OBJECTIONS is saying in the other post. They’re not a leftist, and they admit their propensity for dictatorship quite eagerly over and over. They’re not alone in their opinions on .ml.
Nothing abstract about not tolerating auths.
Edit: It’s like that saying about eating dinner with nazis. If you are so adamantly protecting tankies then why should I believe you aren’t one.
can you clarify what “evil opinions” mean besides something you disagree with
I read the exchange, I don’t see what really was so objectionable (pun intended), Marxists bringing up on authority is practically a meme, but say you’re actually trying to be a ‘libertarian socialist’, are you going to be identifying any attempts at socialist revolution as authoritarian until there’s one with 100% consensus ahead of time? what about the factory owners who would rather die than give up their class?
If you’re advocating ending real life friendships over geopolitical disagreements that neither person are in a position to affect instead of building solidarity, you’re doing the work for capitalists and fascists for them. Whatever ideology you claim to have will remain relegated to online as a result.
I truly do hope you are an anarchist. However most anarchists tend to be in favor of shooting the people trying to kill you and annex you into their dictatorship. Perhaps there is something about your stance I don’t understand.
In either case, I stand by that Clocks was making light of the oppression of dictatorships, and that suggesting that tankies and leftists only minorly disagree is tankie apologia. Defending that and then telling someone that the tankie problem on the tankie instances is overblown does make you look like a tankie to me. Also remember that you were banned for your last comments after you were warned, not for your first comment making fun of the term tankie triad.
If this is wrong I apologize, but I don’t really see any other way to read you based on your behavior so far.
Edit: I do sympathize with your anti profiteering stance and that you want to reduce the death count, but I can’t really see russia not killing people after annexing ukraine.
You’ll forgive me if I don’t get into specifics, I would rather not have to deal with IRL harassment. I’ve been at antiwar organizing since Iraq. It comes from an anarchist position, any war be it colonization or inter-capitalist conflict more broadly is always going to benefit capitalists first while killing countless workers in the process with nothing to show in the end but heightened exploitation and division. War should be opposed regardless of the narrative because it’s a tremendous waste of human life and resources, not to mention a distraction from addressing global issues like climate change and pandemics. War is always the hallmark of a political-diplomatic failure. I’ve worked with a lot of different people over the years, you’re never going to agree with everyone 100% because that’s just being human but you can still be friends and share common cause as long as there’s mutual respect and understanding.
I don’t have any issue with that, if people want to fight they should fight. However that’s not all that’s been happening, they have been drafting/kidnapping people to the front for some time. Ukrainians are not a monolith and there’s plenty who would rather not die defending lines on a map. I don’t think any anarchist should approve of a state under martial law pressing people into service. I understand that it’s a necessary evil in many situations, after all many anarchist revolutions have also used conscription. Don’t kid yourself that it’s ‘anti-authoritarian’ to be drafting people to your cause though.
That’s a pretty wild take, since there are TONS of Ukranian anarchists on the front lines, and they’re there quite willingly. They recognize that Russia is, by far, the greater evil.
Um. That’s a… Statement. It’s an objectively false statement, but it’s a statement.
Let’s take the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Pray tell, what political or diplomatic failure happened, and how could it have been prevented while also allowing Ukraine to determine their own future and move towards the EU in the way that the people of Ukraine wanted? Or, to put it more succinctly, where is the political or diplomatic failure in standing up to a bully?
Russia started the war. That’s an undeniable fact. The only way to avoid the war would have been for Ukraine to simply roll over and accept a Russian dictatorship. If you think that not capitulating to a dictatorship is a failure, well, that’s a bad-faith claim.
They may be, but there’s plenty more people who don’t share that conviction drafted into service under martial law. Why are they obligated to sacrifice themselves? It’s been years, the mobilization is incredibly unpopular at this point.
Technically correct but more so because warfare has existed long before diplomacy/state politics. In the modern context I think it holds up though.
When it comes to Russia invading ukraine, the root cause political-diplomatic failure stems from the dissolution of the USSR without ever incorporating Russia into the security agreements. To destabilize a government to the point of collapse like that, then swoop in with the shock doctrine looting only created the conditions for someone like Putin to consolidate control. If they had continued to let Russia join NATO after the fall of the USSR and took a less adversarial approach overall there would almost certainly be considerably fewer dead people right now. It would probably be an austerity-crippled reactionary hellhole. The thing is our weapons industry needs to have constant geopolitical tension to justify its own existence. A politics centering global collaboration and reconciliation is incompatible with endless war profits.
I don’t think you understood my statement, not really sure what this line means either.
Rest assured that I do not