this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2024
613 points (88.8% liked)
Political Memes
5484 readers
2237 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
See that makes it sound like you're getting called out on much more anti-voting sounding commentary than the above stated point of view
An image that isn't helped by the fact that the post makes it seem that you are completely oblivious to how often tankies try to start fights defending the choice to abandon the most vulnerable for the sake of some bougie kid socialism accelerationist shit.
I never advocate anti-voting rhetoric, but think any and all means should be used to defend a socialist revolution once it has occurred. The only thing i want ro accelerate is class conciousness, which must be achieved before a revolution can begin to occur, most humans are too brainwashed by Capitalist propaganda for that revolution to be successful.
You would kill and imprison those that would vote differently or disagree with your revolution? That's exactly why all those revolutions in Russia, China, N Korea etc failed. As someone who Trends anarcho communist I am down for some communism. But you Marxist leninists never learn.
Lmao the Revolution in China didnt fail.
They aren't socialist anymore. And they aren't communist now either. They're state capitalist. That seems to be a solid failure. Even the party isn't holding regular elections for many of the posts. Xi jinping has moved back into the Forbidden City and is basically their de facto new emperor. Enriching his bourgeoisie friends. While throwing miniscule amounts of scrap towards the proletariat. Sounds pretty failed to me. And likely to lead to heavy class strife soon since they failed the class war. But please do go ahead and continue to flail and cope uselessly.
It's extremely telling that that was what and how you chose to respond. Not addressing the fact that you would kill and slaughter everyone who disagrees with you.
Bruh i literally identify as a tankie im not naive enough to think we can vote away the oppression of the ruling class lmao
At least you admit it.
You know that's not a good thing, right?
They're probably a teenager, it's a harmless phase and it'll pass. No western tankie has effected anything of consequence since... probably Kim Philby?
Wish that were so, but, Putin bootlickers like Jackson Hinkle (married his FSB honey trap), Jimmy Dore, twice convicted pedophile Scott Ritter, et cetera, are all doing real damage by spreading disinformation and hatred, perverting democracy, against helping victims of aggression in Ukraine and Syria.
I don't care about the ruling class. What I do care about is how cultish delusional people like yourself threaten our brothers and sisters.
How do i threaten your brothers and sisters? Are they landlords or Billionaires?
No, but tankies literally killed most that didn't agree with their new bourgeoisie. They weren't landlords, billionaires or any other ownership class. They were fellow proletariat.
If you think you must fight to displace the bourgeoisie. Why would you rush to replace them with a new bourgeoisie. Whom you would kill all who opposed. I'd say the things you haven't been saying are pretty damning. But so is much of what you've said. I'll give you some credit for at least not being superficially accelerationist. Feint praise, but best I can offer.
That's in stark contrast to the statement of the meme lmao
What, in your view, makes you a tankie? And what do you think people mean when they use the term critically?
Because i believe a socialist revolution must be defended by any means necessary once it occurs, knowing full well the ruling class will do whatever they can in their power to prevent it from succeeding. And it is used critically to criticize socialist countries of using force to put down western backed uprisings.
Well alright.
Up front, I want to put out that I try not to overuse "tankie" when there are more specific criticisms to make, so I'm more likely to call out campists, or accelerationists, or terminally online do-nothing poseur-revolutionaries. I don't think not voting makes someone a tankie, but it's a position that seems, subjectively, to be popular in these overlapping circles.
With that out of the way, my problem with tankies is that they tend to dismiss any criticism over the use of force. They'll quote Engels, but rather than view violence as a necessary evil in certain circumstances, it's something to be simply dismissed without a second thought, or even celebrated so long as they support the cause—and if that person is a campist, they aren't necessarily supporting a good cause.
The US has absolutely, indisputably backed uprisings across the globe, especially in the global south, but it's also just an easy accusation to throw behind any movement to justify cracking down.
On top of that, you mention that it's a fight against the ruling class, which is true... but vanguard parties are also, by definition, a ruling class. The idea is that it's a necessary evil to eventually achieve a communist future, but nonetheless, they're a ruling class, and ruling classes have vested interests in maintaining their own power. I can see the argument for it, and can't deny the success of MLM organizing tactics as used by groups like the Black Panthers. However, great revolutionaries may or may not be great leaders, or maintain the ideals of the revolution.
Speaking of US-backed uprisings, and financial oppression via the IMF and World Bank, the economic ideology underpinning a lot of this comes from the Chicago School, especially chief ghoul of the capitalist death cult, Milton Friedman. You know who invited Friedman to consult on their economy? China. They liberalized their economy, and created a class of billionaires. Are they not the ruling class, and deserve our opposition for betraying a socialist revolution? You might have an argument to make against this, but as someone who opposes "tankies," you must understand, that the way it looks is that authoritarians are simply celebrating authoritarianism, and giving up entirely on the communism side.
If you don't support violent oppression from the state without reservation, you might not be who people are talking about when they talk about tankies, it may not actually describe your position, and you may not want to throw in with the kinds of people who aren't bothered by any brutal regime so long as they have the right aesthetic.
Usually “I want to help spread class consciousness” means just saying “hurr durr both sides same,” which encourages people not to vote, which historically favors the conservative candidate.