Are tankies really that big of a problem? No one worth their weight (or not chronically online) actually uncritically worships former socialist projects, the whole point is to study and preserve the nuance of what occured in former socialist projects for future socialism. Tankie is such a chronically online term that kills any discussion of former socialism whenever I see it in service of avoiding it altogether. 196 having it in its community banner screams of insecurity.

Terfs on the other hand have serious intitutional power and have actually shaped international politics in their rhetoric. A few weirdos on an online discussion webpage does not compare to an international counter revolutionary bloc of fascists who have already enacted harm. It's telling when there has already been an incident of terf-adjacent transphobia in this community than a "tankie infestation."

[–] moss@lemmy.blahaj.zone 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

they're not that big of a problem irl, but in the world of lemmy they're a huge annoyance.

[–] Fried_out_Kombi@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

Yeah, the lemmy devs/admins of lemmy.ml are tankies. Someone further down in this thread posted a link to an essay of dessaline's (a lemmy dev and admin of lemmy.ml) full-on denying the Uyghur genocide.

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[–] Someboynumber5reborn@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

What always confuses me is when I see a queer tankie or conservative, it's like why are you shooting yourself in the foot

[–] Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Serious question: Why are far-left idealogists being labeled anti-queer? I've simply never heard of this before.

Conservatives (U.S. politics) are 100% in that bucket... But most of them are far-right at this point (and patently nuts.)

[–] b3nsn0w@pricefield.org 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

tankies actively prop up anything anti-west, and since the west is leading the charge in embracing the queer community, they tend to attack that too. doesn't help that the two regimes they like to prop up the most, russia and china, also have extremely anti-queer policies

[–] Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ahhh, I understand then. We're thinking of entities like the CCP when we think of "tankies", or the far-left. This makes perfect sense to me.

It's a really strange dichotomy to witness far-left countries like China, and then the "far-left" political spectrum here in the United States. Socialism within each of these contexts seems very different. Like, yes, there are some similarities, but LGBTQ+ folks are treated completely opposite based on my exposure thus far to both of these geopolitical belief structures.

[–] b3nsn0w@pricefield.org 4 points 1 year ago

yeah, that's why left/right is super reductive imo. whenever dealing with tankies i tend to refer to the two-axis political compass because tankies are authleft, while the US far-left is libleft, which is a huge distinction. but political opinion is not a scalar, and neither is it a two-element vector, it's a very complex thing, the left/right distinction only works as long as you're discussing a singular country and sometimes not even then. (for example, a lot of european countries have a lot more than two parties in their political spectrum, it's not as simple as a democrat/republican alignment here)

[–] Lenins2ndCat@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

the west is leading the charge in embracing the queer community

Cuba has the world's most progressive and inclusive legislation affecting lgbt people as of reforming their Family legislation actually.

[–] Someboynumber5reborn@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

A lot of tankies have killed queer people

[–] HardlightCereal@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm a queer conservative. I believe in conserving indigenous sovereignty, the environment, pagan religions, labour regulations and the strength of unions, and our knowledge of history. I question these newfangled ideas like capitalism and binary gender because I think they're no good. Things were just fine when we had 10,000 genders and I don't see a need to change that!

[–] Aesthesiaphilia@kbin.social 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's not how that works

That's not how any of that works

[–] HardlightCereal@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yeah, I know, it's not what's normally meant by the word conservative. But I don't see why we should have to give the idea of conserving things over to the right. There are lots of great things to conserve. And colonialism isn't one of them. Here in australia, we have a 60,000 year history that predates the right wing idea of conservativism.

[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You're thinking of conservationism. Very different thing.

[–] HardlightCereal@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism

Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values.[1][2] The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in which it appears.

The culture I belong to is the queer community. Thus, the tenets of conservativism, to me, center on the traditional institutions, practices, and values of other people in the queer community. We promote the traditional institutions that rightfully govern colonised land. We promote the traditional institutions of pagan religions. We promote the traditional institutions of labour guilds and unions. We promote the traditional practices of indigenous land management. We promote the traditional practices of nonbinary gender. We promote the traditional practices of the old gods.

The things I am interested in preserving are not the same things a white coloniser binarist capitalist is interested in preserving. And given that whiteness, binary gender, and capitalism have no ancient history and no recent history worth keeping alive, I consider their conservativism far less legitimate. There is a whole lot more to conserve on the left.

[–] oddsbodkins@midwest.social 2 points 1 year ago

No it isn't. Naturel conservationism is about conserving nature political social conservationism often generally just shortened to conservatism is about conserving and preserving political and social power. Nothing more nothing less they are identical just about different topics.

[–] lugal@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 year ago

There are people who call themselves "conservative anarchists". Conservative as in "we know it worked before and this is how it worked"

[–] gullible@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

While historically, and contemporaneously, communist countries have been harsh on homosexuality, surely next time the gays will be safe!

[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (12 children)

Show me where it says that anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment or indeed any intolerance is inherent in communism rather than just the backwards thinking of bad leaders. Correlation does not equal causation.

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[–] Jonna@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

After the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, homosexuality (as well as abortion) was decriminalized.

It was only after Stalin's counter-revolution that gay sex (and abortion) were made illegal. People spoke out against it, including queers and feminists in the Comintern. Again, wtf are queer (or feminist) tankies thinking?

[–] HardlightCereal@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's been a pattern ever since Adolf "national socialist" Hitler

[–] WhyIsItReal@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

what does hitler have to do with tankies?

[–] HardlightCereal@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

They are both authoritarians who claim to be socialists. And they both spew reactionary rhetoric under the guise of progressivism

[–] yeather@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago

Fuck both groups tbh

[–] RubberDucky@programming.dev 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Either I've aged really fast, or you guys are speaking a new language, can someone explain what any of this means?

[–] Aesthesiaphilia@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

TERF = Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminism

Feminists who also don't like Trans people, especially trans women.

Tankies = people who support rivals to Western power, usually saying they support communism but they actually just support whatever Russia and China do. Some are state propagandists, some are just edgy teenagers.

[–] Astrealix@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Look up "horseshoe theory", might explain a few things

[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

It's in the encyclopedia of political fallacies somewhere between "it isn't corruption if it's legal" and trickle down economics.

[–] WhyIsItReal@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

do you unironically believe in horseshoe theory?

[–] b3nsn0w@pricefield.org 2 points 1 year ago

The horseshoe theory is bullshit not because tankies and nazis don't behave similarly, but because they're not the two logical extremes of the same spectrum. You can be far left without being a tankie by just not being a bootlicker, and you can be far right without being a nazi by (you guessed it) also not being a bootlicker. Even with how many boots you lick the left/right division of the political spectrum is still horribly reductive, but it's super important to split the axis of authoritarianism vs liberalism out of it when addressing tankies, because they have a lot of colloquially left beliefs with the authoritarianism and anti-progressivism commonly associated with the right wing.

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[–] JackRiddle@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

*look up "lying about being a socialist/feminist", might explain a few things

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