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a drawing of a person wearing a balaclava and holding a gun with the text "all my homies hate tankies" :3
Most communists/socialists arent tankies (even if .ml tries really hard to convince everyone otherwise) but identify with hammer and sickle too :(
But fk tankies, I'm with you on that
i agree. i hope anti-authoritarians dont feel targeted. i personally would not call myself a communist or use hammer and sickle, because they are too charged but they can definitely represent things i can stand behind.
I kinda do, that's why I wrote, but no hard feelings :)
Should I work with Marxist-Leninists?
If you're organising at work or around housing issues, the people you work with are not going to all have the same politics at you, and your opinions on the July 1918 uprising of Left Socialist Revolutionaries after their expulsion from the Bolshevik government are not relevant to that situation. Yes, really, no-one gives a shit. You're relating to each other as workers in that situation, not as representatives of a political niche, at least we hope not.
[...]
If there are real political and organisational disagreements, it's better to be open about them than gloss over them, and retain some independence.
tankie colloquially refers to communists who deluded themselves into thinking authoritarianism can breed anything other than opression and that to give power to the people, you first got to take it away from the people.
its not impossible to work with tankies on low stake joined causes but with their usually hierarchical and authoritarian organising structures (that they even try to spread) they still make for shitty partners.
their idelology is misguided and harmful. i hope they all eventually learn and become anarchists. power to the people
tankie colloquially refers to communists who deluded themselves into thinking authoritarianism can breed anything other than opression and that to give power to the people, you first got to take it away from the people.
That is probably the most on point description.
A former roommate of mine had a hysterical emotional breakdown, and spent the following 2 months convincing everyone we both knew that I was mentally unstable to the point of needing to be institutionalized...
... because I laughed in his face when he described Hu Jintao being very publically arrested at a mass televised CCP conference... as 'being put into witness protection due to a threat on his life'.
...
You see, the problem with Tankies is that they're astoundingly insecure, extremely manipulative, and fully believe in any means justifying their ends.
Tankie roommates: Not even once.
While I do genuinely feel sorry that this roommate of yours behaved in such awful and shitty way, my point was about the larger communities as a whole. Especially now that there are openly fascist people in power in the US and in a lot of other countries, I believe it's even more important to be united. Or at least, as I quoted before, know where the differences lie.
That doesn't mean being supportive of wrong behaviors and/or people of course. Being critical of wrongdoing is an essential skill. But in my opinion one can't be as critical when generalizing about such large groups
I'll continue to trust Tankies as much as the historical record indicates Anarchists should.
Which is 0, less than 0, some negative amount.
If you know of any historical revolutionary movements involving a distinct and significant amount of Anarchists that did not include Tankies betraying and/or murdering all their Anarchist 'allies', please let me know.
EDIT: Here, I can 'read more theory, noob' too
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ziq-tankies-and-the-left-unity-scam
I may not be an Anarchist, but i’m sure saving that link. Thanks.
Tankies are fascists. You can argue all you want for pro-lgbt and anti-racist action. Community actions. This is individuals.
What rises through the ranks is fascists. And they want those fascists. Because fascists promise an utopia at the end.
And this is who fascists elect.
No gods no masters.
No managers.
kein Gott, kein Staat, kein Patriarchat
Ugh this type of bullshit infighting within leftist spaces is about as serious as debating your tabletop RPG actions, and sends regular people packing. None of this shit matters. Real people don't care about it and they have no idea what a tankie is. Feds love this bullshit. We're losing, we lost, the world is becoming a fascist hellscape but apparently somebody has time to make memes about fighting each other. It's amazing how that always seems to happen, especially now when you'd think most people could feel unified?
disagree i think it’s
a) fun
b) helpful to be aware of the stakes at play. authoritarianism has hurt many people and it does no justice to be quiet about that.
c) something that doesn’t even happen that often anyway so like idc
yknow what feds love? hierarchical organisations, where they just gotta assassinate or compromise the leader to make it fall appart or coopt the entire organisation.
but real talk discussions like this are valuable for voicing real criticism against harmful "leftist" ideologies and through that developing our own views more wholistically. and this is important. you cant only criticise fascists, neo-liberals, and fudalists, or you might miss out on the underlying criticisms and will reproduce their flaws because of that. and while tankies might be able to do similar work as anarchists in the here and now, they are still flawed and this will only get worse, the more power they get. this discussion is important to any real person, who because of it wont fall for the lie of authoritarianism or might even escape it.
and this world is turning fascist but tankies are cheering on half of them. you know what sends regular people packing? support for china, the soviet union, and north korea. authoritarianism takes the credibility away from libratory struggles.
also its just good to vent frustrations sonetimes...
To fix everything people gotta stop being tribalist idiots. Lol!! Maybe try to get murdoch and Koch the memo
I don’t agree with the vision of an authoritarian state, even as a step towards something else, but my tankie friends, for example those in PSL, are doing a ton of good on the ground by organizing and funding busses to prison for the families of prisoners, helping support tenant unions, providing support for immigrants in the form of legal representation, continuously organizing against police injustices (especially in cases involving disabled, black, or queer people), and other issues that might arise in their locale. I respect the people continuously putting themselves and their resources on the line for others. I would be much quicker to lend disrespect to those that only talk and do nothing.
Those people dont sound like tankies.
Tankies are authoritarian, and unions are the opposite of that.
PSL is marxist-leninist in ideology and doing all the activities I described. Perhaps way in the future I will have to fight with them, but for now we align on many issues and work side by side. Don’t allow propaganda to paint too broad of strokes.
Oh no, someone fell for tankie memes rather than talking to a tankie and learning what their deal is.
If someone calls themselves a tankie and they dont understand where the term tankie comes from, theyre either not telling the truth or are not worth talking to hecause they dont understand their own ideology.
Are they doing this to support the organization of a politburo and a direct line of authority from a single charismatic leader at the top? Do they make apoligistic statements for human injustices and advocate for the expansion of borders through war?
Otherwise they're just communists doing rad communist shit and you should labor to help them organize and shoulder their burdens.
I think there is a general misconception of communists especially here in the US and it's been a problem in leftist circles for a while.
Authoritarians of all kinds fuck off!
if they'll help hold a barricade idgaf
And how did that turn out in Spain?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Days
But I agree to an extent, tankies are not our biggest problem rn. Utilitarian alliances are fine. But never forget that they are not fighting for freedom
ive been in action with tankies and they were a pain in the butt, making decisions that affect all of us hierarchically and not sharing info, just expecting us to do whatevever their leaders decide
better than nothing maybe but i wish they were cooler
Peace, Justice, and Anarchy >:3
I'm deep left libertarian, borderline anarchist, but if I have to make a choice between auths- tankies or Nazis- I'll take tankies every time.
What if I told you that's a false dichotomy and not a choice you will ever have to make?
Then you will have told me that.
But real talk, it's looking more and more like some kind of auth future may be inevitable. I hope not.
No reason to settle when talking about revolution
The meme is well designed, love the chaos star especially and love to see more balaclava girlies. And I can sympathize as I've certainly encountered very bizarre takes by terminally online internet leftists in favor of weird shit like being in favor of the Ukraine invasion or thinking the DPRK is some secret paradise.
However, by and large I've gotten to the point where anytime I hear the term 'tankie' thrown around it feels thought terminating. I've been called a tankie for being opposed to the US invading North Korea, or for supporting indigenous land return. But here's a bigger problem I've encountered: I volunteer every week at a local free store run by anarchists and I also have done organizing work with local ML parties. Anytime the local MLs want to get involved in the free store, or collaborating on any mutual aid projects the Anarchists have going on its cold shoulders all around "Oh no, those people are Tankies. We can't trust them." It's gotten to the point where everything is separate and there's no talking to each other. One time a Communist party member mentioned they knew someone who could do free glasses repair and thought it would be good for them to come to the free store, and when I brought it up folks just didn't wanna hear it or criticized "the company I keep" as if that would taint them. It's just disheartening because all these MLs locally are almost all LGBTQ, poor/working class, disabled, etc. Just like the Anarchists and want a lot of the same things. I really think anti-communist propaganda has created such an unnecessary divide in our organizing. I'm not asking folks to all just get along and agree, I want different orgs to have their autonomy and own ways of thought. I would just want people to focus their ire on people who ACTUALLY make life shit for us, especially here in the west, which is our own capitalist state and the capitalist class.
Thank you for indulging me by reading my long silly comment.
All my homies agree, I really look good in black, fool.
While not an anarchist, i approve this message.
What is the symbol in the back, behind the person?
It looks like an stylized star of chaos
Edit: Not the warhammer thing, never played it. Its from the writings of Michael Moorock who is an anarchist.
