On stuff outside of lemmygrad, we are receiving a lot of hate, especially by those who just moved from Reddit. Guess they lost their hidden privilege at Reddit as their rhetoric used to be almost universal over there, while genzedong and our other subs get censored and banned. And now, on lemmy, their stuff isn’t universal, as we are more prevalent here. Seems like they really want that hidden privilege back
The really good news is that all the communities on lemmy.ml have been created long before radlibs showed up, and are administered by sane people.
That post on !196@lemmy.blahaj.zone got me fked up because one of the comments there was like “authoritarian communism” is an oxymoron actually 🤓 and another was like “Marxism is not materialism” and it had double digit upvotes.
Like jesus WHAT THE FUXK are you on about. Read Marx and Engels. Read Lenin.
It’s like arguing with toddlers.
You lost them at asking them to read. They do not read.
I came across this comment today, and it really makes me wonder how people just dismiss intellectual curiosity outright.
yes!!! they’re everywhere and anytime I see someone bring it up someone comments some shit about having an open mind… uhhh no???
Unlike the side many of them seem to blindly and militantly defend, the side they rage against is not asking for blind adherence to beliefs. You have to open yourself up to questioning your beliefs; there is no value in a closed mind.
I wonder if it’s struck them yet that, as their neoliberal platform fails, other platforms built on fundamentally better ideas and infrastructure are rising up. I wonder if this challenges their preconceived notions at all? Nah, it’s just a bunch of tankies.
It is definitely inducing cognitive dissonance. The developers are simply are communists trying to collectivize social media, and that will live in their heads rent free as long as they stick around.
dear comrades living and dead, please help give me the self control not to try arguing with all the “Lemmy is anti human rights” takes polluting the fediverse rn 🙏
Wait until the liberals find out that free and open source decentralized networks like Lemmy align with the general direction of communism.
( At least, I assume it does. I may be very wrong. In which case, I apologize. )
I don’t think you are wrong. I mean, we’ve somewhat siezed the mean of communication? I guess?
Ah yes. The big communist governments are known for * checks notes * their staunch, unmoving ideals of free speech.
“free speech” without consequence from the state has never existed, and certainly not in capitalist states
You should talk to Edward Snowden and Julian Assange about free speech.
I don’t really consider myself a liberal or a communist. Maybe some mixture of both? I have my own ideals that probably align mostly with eastern philosophy, and maybe some more “esoteric” practices. Id like to think im well read, for being a mostly uneducated person, and I’m very accepting of just about everyone outside of violence or blind hatred, but I have never heard the term “tankie” until reddit. Is it a reference to Tiannemen Sq or something? Just curious as I like to know as much as I can. Thanks.
Also, as someone who’s coming from reddit as of yesterday, it’s kinda cool seeing more than one political ideal, as I really don’t think there is a “perfect” system. Humans are flawed in their very nature, and tbh, we’re a little late to “get it right”.
Tankie is a meaningless term now, the deprogram just did an episode on it:
It’s also on other platforms like spotify etc.
I really loved Hakim’s take on it being a very privileged position within the imperial core to scold those who see the state as crucial to sustained revolution.
yes! Same thing for how I came to understand the hatred for American soldiers. A lot of the cheering for the bad shit that happens to them comes from people who actually suffer from their actions, and made me examine how I viewed the military
That discussion was halfway identical to my own commentary on the term four years ago. It’s a vague buzzword about 90% of the time and I’m ashamed to say that I said it unjokingly in my Fedbook days. After I understood why the people’s republics were appealing to so many (rather than dismissing the defenders as mindlessly desperate), I let go of my grudge and quit using the term for anything other than comedic purposes.
Hearing that podcast made me wish that I could have a live conversation with Hakim. Although at this point I’d be interested in having a live conversation with any communist. In that format they’d be likelier to offer active feedback on the history that I share.
It’s funny, I remember reading a takedown of this same article from criticalresist, https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/400717
Guess great minds think alike lol.
I agree, talking to other communists is awesome!
There’s the etymology of tankie and there’s the actual ways it’s used. The etymology is rolling tanks into Hungary in 1956, which caused a solit (among many) among UK communists (who came up with the term). The usage varies wildly because liberals don’t understand politics very well and slap it on anything to the left of Obama.
Communista understand politics through a series of criticisms of capitalism and a framework by which to understand those within it, namely economic classes whose interests align/do not align depending on the material context. You might find that some of this appeals to you, as a material grounding is more common in Eastern traditions than Western. Also we are super duper correct, so we’ve got that going for us.
Re: flawed humans, there are of course a variety of people out there and we all make mistakes. However, it’s also important to recognize tgatva lot that is attributed to “human nature” is actually fairly recent and is either a consequence of living under the capitalist system (which came into being over a period of about 1000 years) or is just a myth spread to justify the violences done by that system to the common person.
And re: perfection, you might like us there, too. We view the political economic system as an evolving thing that changes relative to material conditions. There is no perfext system, but there are valid struggles to replace the current one with systems that prioritize people over profit. For example, no communist would say that socialism is the solution to hunter-gatherers in Crete because hunter-gathering Crete isn’t capitalist - the idea would have no meaning. We also know and expect that the fight doesn’t stop even after a revolution, that there will still be struggles for a long time - but at least we could fight them together and with greater agency.
Hey thanks for writing that… OK so you’ve confirmed my general understanding of the idealogy.
After I wrote that I knew you were gona come back with something about capitalist perspective and long term goal. So that was a good refresher for me I appreciate it.
I feel like there is too many people still tbh lol.
Capitalism doesn’t work. I’ve been through it and it’s underbelly enough to know that. I do think the wealthy west has distorted our view of ourselves. I’m aware of that. I try to come at things as objectively as possible, though sometimes I fail.
I sort of agree with the main tenants of communism absolutely. I do consider myself somewhat of a socialist, tho I’m more a broad strokes type person, hence I sort of default to self betterment and mindfulness, while trying to bring a base understanding of our nature through my interactions to others as a way to better the world. My perfect system would be living close to the land, hunter gather style. Im kind of a hermit tbh (: there too many people for me lol.
I bookmarked your comment. I’m gonna revisit it later. Appreciate the talk.
Edit: fwiw, I do believe at a fundamental level, people are good, and we are in agreement about things more than we disagree. We just have a track record of complicating the simple ime. Im guilty as well.
Thanks for being open-minded!
I might say that capitalism does work, but only for the ruling class (business owners) and those they can rope into doing their anti-worker dirty work. The system isn’t broken and need fixing, it’s working exactly how they want it to and it must be destroyed.
Being vaguely socialist is 100% cool btw. No need to get too deep into labels. The most helpful thing is to be class conscious and be active in your community in a way that’s cognizant of that. Helping people get better wages, win unions, support politicians antithetical to capital (they’re very rare and nobody in the squad would count), support strikes, support social housing, oppose war that your country supports, and so on. Never supporting cops in capitalist countries. Diving deep into left theory is handy for doing those things better and having clear eyes about what is coming next, but it’s less important than doing some of these clearly good anti-capitalist things. It can also help you choose a group to organize with, as some groups are do-nothing orgs.
Also nothing wrong with wanting to live in a smaller community or even a reclusive life. Alienated city life is an imposition that violates the connection and community most people want to have. Folks can’t plant roots long enough to know their neighbors, let alone create a community. That’s a consequence of real estate, rent, and unemployment, a whole other can of worms.
There’s a recent book you might enjoy called The Dawn of Everything. It’s co-written by David Graeber, who had anarchist leanings but respected Marxist thought. It has many examples of societies defining and redefining themselves relative to material conditions snd relative to one another.
Sounds like a good book, i definitely have anarchist leanings, though i do acknowledge that prob wouldnt work atm lol. ive bookmarked your comments. It’s hard not to be class conscious when your a victim of class warfare, tho some have definitely had it worse than me. It’s becoming less about racial lines, and more about rich poor.
I’d like to think I do my part day to day in what little way I can, even if it’s just making one person a little bit more conscious of their own situation yknow.
Enjoyed the discussion so far thanks.
There’s plenty of value in reading anarchists, of course. Reading widely is the best bet, as one can become limited and engage in bad practice if they become too embedded in factionalism. Not that it’s always wrong to have fights, just that it tends to end up being pointless and based on the people picking fights having their ignorance exploited by ruling class propaganda.
The ruling class under capitalism had and rediscovers many weapons for combatting class consciousness, unfortunately. Living as a worker under capitalism tends to breed a nascent class consciousness through (Marxist term) exploitation, but it needs shaping through education. Unfortunately the ruling class can redirect that nascent class consciousness into a false consciousness of division, condescension, and hate. As an example, whiteness and blackness, and particularly anti-black racism, were literally invented as a form of social control to divide European bonded laborers from African slave bonded laborers and then later exploited to phase out bonded labor of Europeans entirely while still maintaining control over black slaves. An often-ignored fact is that Bacon’s Rebellion was an integrated, class solidarity action of a variety of people in bonded labor, European and African and more, and that the ruling class’s response to this was to invent racial economic rules and guarantee societal race privileges as a substitute for economic ones.
We can see the same thing play out today, where bosses and management point the finger at “illegal” immigrant labor (a proxy for the predominantly brown labor underclass) for (usually white) workers’ ills, when it’s of course the bosses picking all workers’ pockets.
Same game plan had worked for about 400 years and it requires resistance and organization, the bedrock of communists’ work. It’s also not restricted to race - the ruling class applies this tactic and tries to split based on:
- Gender
- Age
- Nation of origin
- Language
- Religion
- Job class
Basically… we’ve got work to do in order to avoid increasingly fascistic outcomes, as fascism is just a particular form of false consciousness imposed by the ruling class to deal with crises of capitalism, and it is increasing in visibility with every crisis.
PS not trying to get you to go do commie things, just wanted to add some context on how class consciousness is not inevitable from our working conditions. We are all in our own states of mind and at different points of how we can and want to do extra work.
I’ve also enjoyed the discussion.
Is it a reference to Tiannemen Sq or something? Just curious as I like to know as much as I can. Thanks.
No, it’s a reference to Khrushchev sending tanks into Hungary during the 1956 revolt. Leftist supporters of this policy within Western nations were referred to as “Tankies” since then the term came to generally just refer to Marxist-Leninists. That is until more recently when Tankie has come to mean just any leftist a person disagrees with.
If you’re interested in leftist theory then go to Marxists.org, it has plenty of free literature. I suggest starting with the communist manifesto just to get a general idea of the principles of communism before delving deeper into Marx and Engel’s work. (And maybe sprinkle in some Lenin too cause he’s sassy and a great read.)
That is until more recently when Tankie has come to mean just any leftist a person disagrees with.
While there are undoubtedly people that use the term like that, I think there is a general understanding that it refers to people that can excuse or support authoritarian or oppressive actions
But the terminology ‘authoritarian and oppressive’ doesn’t really make sense in leftist circles where all states are understood to be just that by definition. I mean, that’s why people are socialists. Tankie is lib terminology referencing anything that undermines liberal democracy. It only makes sense when coming from anarchists.
You’ve never had the pleasure of interacting with someone that can produce endless excuses for the USSR or PRC?
Hey, I am one of them. The usa is always 100x worse, arguing does not change this reality.
Nobody was arguing that, two things can both do bad.
Only that it is almost never the case. And never when people start giving your talking point.
There is a world war going on and I have picked the side that fights against the usa.
Yes, but that doesn’t make them more authoritarian or oppressive because no matter what every state is using what it deems the most effective path to enforcing its will and if that means violence it will always resort to violence. It makes them bad communists.
It’s not a matter of oppression or no oppression but a matter of oppressing the right people. If the USSR and PRC were perfect they would be a contradiction to their own purpose, no?
Look amigo, I get there is a lot of depth to be had in a discussion like this, but I’m just explaining what people generally mean when they say tankie.
I would agree they are bad Communists, but unfortunately they are extremely visible and influence how non-Leftists see Communists, which is why many Leftists are quick and eager to disavow any connection with them.
They are bad because they oppress the privileged, I assume. The privileged do not need communism. Leave communism to the unprivileged people.
Found the lib
Sure 🙄
Usually it means someone that actually reads history and will specifically debunk common anticommunist myths about it, i.e. historical revisionism.
The term “authoritarian” is also used selectively by anticommunists and this pervades capitalist societies, who continue to teach cold war nonsense. It is implicitly reserved for actions of the state, for example, but this is a false distinction made solely because after any kind of a left takeover, the state is the most powerful tool the people have. Universal government healthcare is authoritarian by this selective definition. On the other hand, the assertion of massive control over people’s lives is not described as authoritarian when it comes from the private sector. Workers spend 8-16 hours per day working in petty dictatorships, working around the personalities and whims of business owners and managers, just to ensure some kind of steady income lest they lose basic human security. They are forced to migrate by poverty forced by capitalism, this system creates marginalised groups and then (sometimes slowly) treats them genocidally. Much of it was built on colonialism and neocolonialism, with the richness of the West built on uneven exchange with everyone else, a system set up at gunpoint. None of this is described as authoritarian.
Please read more widely.
Much of it was built on colonialism and neocolonialism, with the richness of the West built on uneven exchange with everyone else, a system set up at gunpoint. None of this is described as authoritarian
I would agree those are authoritarian
After being prompted, sure
I would gladly recognize the American empire’s atrocities, I just didn’t think it was necessary since most left-leaning spaces are up to date on them, and it would largely be preaching to the choir.
My point is about the unconscious selective use of language, in this case to vilify communists. It’s not a coincidence that the term pops up so often in the imperial core to crap on (usually BIPOC-led) successful revolutions and their theory, usually anti-imperialist struggles. Double standards and uneven emphasis are the primary tools of propaganda and they’ll have you doing their work for them for free.
Everyone click on the All button and start participating in federation.
Worst thing that can happen is the liberals complain.
But if you’re going to be participating on lemmy.ml please don’t make the admins’ job harder, respect the instance rules. They’re already working overtime to handle the influx of new users across the software.
I’ve been browsing lemmygrad near daily for over a year now and had never clicked the All button lol there is a whole lot going on out there, fediverse is pretty cool
If you’re going to throw around “liberals” as some sort of derogatory “us vs them” term then you should probably think twice before clicking all.
There are two sides to any coin. Check yourself before you shit on other people, to make sure you’re not just proving yourself to be at least as bad as them.
liberals is a derogatory term lol
You have the same pfp as @ParentiBot@lemmygrad.ml
Just you wait until US newscorps start advocating to ban the entirety of lemmy and its source code from the USA.
obviously the Chinese are making us all think for ourselves and talk amongst ourselves… there could be no other answer
“China is a censorship dictatorship and we should ban all things that come from there to protect our free speech.” liberals probably
I don’t think I’m a liberal. If you have any kind of empathy at all for a fellow human and look outside (in the US, at least), I really don’t see how you can come to a conclusion that isn’t “Holy shit capitalism causes so much harm and suffering we need to find to do something else.”.
I don’t know what flavor of leftist I am. I looked at anarchism for a bit and I ultimately found it really idealistic. No one seems to agree on what a “just hierarchy” is, and anarchists as a whole seems to argue for the complete annihilation of any hierarchy. I really wonder how they’re going to run a hospital in an anarchist fashion.
But at the same time, I don’t want to create something worse. I don’t want to help build an authoritarian regime that paves over people’s individuality and rights. I’ve seen the outcomes of that and I just can’t agree with that.
I probably look dumb saying this but my preferred ideal society is pretty much Star Trek.
Hey, just want to say that I think you’re on the right track! A lot of us felt this way before (at least I know I did for the most part), I would highly reccomend reading marxist theory, imo it really does answer a lot of these misgivings. If you don’t want to read, there are a lot of audiobooks out there, or even just starting with beginner socialist videos is ok
I’ve read the communist manifesto in high school. Since those years, I’ve struggled with reading any kind of long-form text. It’s something I’m trying to work on as it causes a lot of strife in day-to-day life.
I will gladly take audiobook recommendations.
I don’t know much about audiobooks, but I recommend reading/listening to Principles of Commumism. It’s, in my opinion, a better introductory text than the manifesto and also quite short. It’s essentially a communism FAQ written by Engels.
I didnt get a notification for this for some reason, damn lemmy bugs… anyways I’m not super into audio books, but I like socialism for all’s voice, here’s a playlist starting with “On Authority” by Engels and going through a lot of other ones on socialism vs anarchism.
If you want something more modern, there’s also this audiobook of Black Shirts and Reds by Michael Parenti, which is less theory and more a history book in a way. I would probably recommend at least listening to On Authority first, it’s only 9 minutes compared to like 6 hours for Black Shirts and Reds
If you like his voice, there’s a ton of playlists labeled by author or topic on his channel
Dessalines also has a lot, like non-degetic said
Unfortunately the more invested and “hardcore” Redditors still tend to be libertarians, although a lot of run-of-the-mill liberals are now included in that group.
So what happens when you get tons of them leaving a platform en masse? They’ll bring their reactionary toxicity with them, claiming “no hatred” or “bigotry-free”, while enabling pro-rulling class rhetoric and blanket-banning/defederating with communists. At least this split on Mastodon isn’t as heavy as it was already filled with a lot of “leftists”, and as there aren’t really any explicitly ML instances available, a lot of communists are intermingled in left-leaning spaces.
Here though? They can push all their ire onto lemmygrad.ml, alienating a pretty big chunk users if they defederate, even worse if they eventually do so with lemmy.ml given the admin crossover.
they eventually do so with lemmy.ml given the admin crossover.
There’s an admin crossover?
Yes, both are run by the devs who are of course communists. These were the two original lemmy instances: lemmy.ml was the “standard” flagship to show what lemmy was capable of, while lemmygrad was the communist space
Which of our admins are on the dev team?
Lemmy.ml banned my account there lol. Why are they so concerned with a little bullying of liberals?
Lemmy is tone policed… apparently except when someone is calling us “red fash”, that’s not bannable.
You gotta get the normies on the network for the network effect to take off!
i hate to say it, but i don’t want the network effect taking off. in fact, that’s a sign it’s time to leave. is it possible to ever just have a smallish community where real discussion and ideas can flourish without the rest of the US dragging everything down to the lowest common denominator?
You can always just only stay here, the admins are great about banning the wandering reddit libs pretty quickly
