MeanwhileOnGrad
"Oh, this is calamity! Calamity! Oh no, he's on the floor!"
Welcome to MoG!
Meanwhile On Grad
Documenting hate speech, conspiracy theories, apologia/revisionism, and general tankie behaviour across the fediverse. Memes are welcome!
What is a Tankie?
Alternatively, a detailed blog post about Tankies.
(caution of biased source)
Basic Rules:
Sh.itjust.works Instance rules apply! If you are from other instances, please be mindful of the rules. — Basically, don't be a dick.
Hate-Speech — You should be familiar with this one already; practically all instances have the same rules on hate speech.
Apologia — (Using the Modern terminology for Apologia) No Defending, Denying, Justifying, Bolstering, or Differentiating authoritarian acts or endeavours, whether it be a Pro-CCP viewpoint, Stalinism, Islamic Terrorism or any variation of Tankie Ideology.
Revisionism — No downplaying or denying atrocities past and present. Calling Tankies shills, foreign/federal agents, or bots also falls under this rule. Extremists exist. They are real. Do not call them shills or fake users, as it handwaves their extremism.
Off-topic Discussion — Do not discuss unrelated topics to the point of derailing the thread. Stay focused on the direct content of the post, rather than engaging in arguments that lack mutual agreement.
Brigading/Trolling — If you're here because this community was linked in another thread, please refrain from maliciously voting, commenting, or manipulating the post in any way. This includes alt accounts. All votes are public, and if you are found to be brigading, you will be banned. Good-faith and honest communication is an exception.
Tankies can explain their views, but may be criticised or challenged for them. Any minor infraction of the rules may result in a warning and possibly a temporary ban.
You'll be warned if you're violating the instance and community rules. Continuing poor behaviour after being warned will result in a ban or removal of your comments. Bans typically last only 24 hours, but each subsequent infraction doubles the duration. Depending on the content, the ban time may be increased. You may request an unban at any time.
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Db0 sometimes attacks Tankies, although self-admittedly, he is soft on them. Other times, he even camps with them.
They've both told me that they prefer spending time with tankies instead of liberals, and consider liberals the bigger threat than tankies are. Which is curious considering the history of MLs and anarchists with how the MLs often betray anarchists. I believe their accusations of calling this community a nazi-bar stems from insecurity of their own spaces, where they regularly defend prominent tankies.
I've never seen unruffled attack them though.
Honestly, I'd prefer to hang out with social liberals than with tankies. Tankies are on a level with fash/nazis, monarchists and religious extremists for me.
thats what i tried to convince them, that they're better off with social liberals instead of tankies. Instantly got silenced.
They are probably just tankies disguised as anarchists then.
Some of them are. I noted before, but any anarchist who leaps to defend authoritarian states like China or Russia are not anarchists.
At least some of them are tankies disguised as anarchists. Just look at a specific someone from the lefty memes community. Constantly bringing tankie talking points, but claims to be an anarchist.
they also infiltrated the political memes sub, tankies are in there.
Any anarchist who leaps to defend authoritarian states is a tankie in disguise.
Depending on how liberal is being used, i wouldn't disagree. Objectively for many they are the more active threat. But fuck camping with ML who fantasize similar things. The ML our fascistic Epstein class are eagerly cribbing notes from.
In the west and US specifically we've had our language actively manipulated and poisoned. By ghouls like but not limited to Frank Luntz. In the US most that would call themselves liberal would actually be socially liberal. Not acolytes of economic liberalism, which is what liberal historically and still currently to a large geographic area still means. Socially liberal people aren't an a problem, but also aren't liberals. Economic Liberals like Musk, Trump etc are an active threat to everyone. Themselves included.
Why do you lump the entirety of the West with the US when it comes to liberalism? The US is hardly a liberal country. For example, in my country, what's considered Liberal is considered conservative.
Liberalism outside the US is largely dominated by social liberalism, in which basic policies such as universal healthcare, a livable minimum wage, and a welfare state are taken as the baseline for governance. It's not left or right, it's standard. When people outside the US mention liberalism, they typically mean social liberalism, which the US severely lacks.
I believe most of the drama regarding liberalism v (insert here) stems from a US-defaultism perspective, which is wrong, since fuck the US. When I mention liberalism, I don't mean whatever backwards shit the US has going on.
I've only seen this confusion around liberalism come up in lemmy. I think it's due to tankie rhetoric poisoning the idea.
It's the other way around as explained extensively.
General definitions & the historical development of liberalism are academic & largely accepted worldwide.
Some of the earliest liberal practices are found in the US Declaration of Independence, which predates the French revolution spreading the practice of liberal ideals throughout Europe. The US declaration pretty much rehashes core tenets of liberal philosophy
Note how capitalism isn't mentioned anywhere: it's nonessential. Capitalism predates & isn't liberalism. Liberalism is moral & political philosophy, not an economic one.
The philosophy is a natural progression of humanist philosophies from the Renaissance through the Protestant Reformation & the Enlightenment that stress the importance of individuality, secular reasoning, & tolerance over dogma & subservience to unaccountable authority. To address unaccountable authority based on dogma & traditions, English & French philosophers defined legitimate authority based on humanist morality pretty much as expressed in the US declaration. They argued that political systems thrive better with limits & duties on authority & an adversarial system of institutional competition whether in separation of powers, adversarial law system with habeas corpus & right to jury trial, competitive elections, dialogue, or economic competition.
In time, goals shifted from addressing obstacles to individual freedom due to government to addressing obstacles due to the rest of society. Thus emerged the distinction between classical & modern liberalism:
As explained before, in the US, modern liberalism (which includes social liberalism & progressivism) is simply called liberalism whereas classical liberalism more closely corresponds to libertarianism.
I think US liberals & the rest of the world agree that modern liberalism ought to be standard.
Your link doesn't work
I mentioned the US specifically. As a subsection of the west. Not lumping the west with it. That wasn't the intention.
You mean social democracy? Liberalism/capitalisms natural tendencies all trend towards consolidation and oligarchy. And has only been held at bay via social democracy. It's why they (the US specifically) have overthrown other democracies that wouldn't side with them. And eventually turned to cannibalizing and erasing their own democracy. As it gets in their way.
But yes, the US defaultism as you put it was getting at. It causes a lot of misunderstanding and needless drama.
glad we could sort that one out then. I fucking hate the US and their defaultism on everything.
We all have to keep mindful of our own unique experiences and bias. Not just assume everyone should know blank. It's part of why traveling and meeting other people helps reduce bigotry. Reminds us of just how little we know.
yeah absolutely. it's why i go out of my way to interact with many who I disagree with, neo-nazis, tankies, islamic extremists
Yeah after looking at the history of Ukrainian anarchists I just don't understand how anyone could be a bigger threat than tankies.
It's because they're both communist, so Anarchists keep trying to believe in "Left Unity"
Anarchists who don't want to align with tankies are attacked for not believing in left unity, both by a few other anarchists and by many other tankies.
I get called a left anti-communist by tankies all the time, because I simply am a EuroSoc/EuroCom (I am simply a DemSoc, but people constantly label me as a EuroCom) and hate MLs/tankies. But honestly, I don't think I am anti-communist because MLs/tankies aren't communists even though they like to call themselves that.
Somehow "left unity" always means everyone else adjusting to MLs and not the other way
Because MLs are sociopaths and I can't imagine a non-sociopath being a convinced Marxist-Leninist who wishes death on people who follow left and humanist ideologies.
fortunately that's why tankies and their dreams of a long-dead communism will never happen. they don't have allies or any influence