• oce 🐆@jlai.lu
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    15
    ·
    1 year ago

    It seems they also have a tendency to consider NATO as cartoons villains. Also, tankies are not the average lefties, they are at the extreme of the left.

    • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      48
      ·
      1 year ago

      “Cartoon villain” here means “a villain who is just intrinsically evil and does evil things as a result.” Contrast this with real people, who generally have material or ideological motivational for the actions they take.

      The left views NATO as evil not because it’s full of cartoon villains, but because it is an organization that consciously, due to material and ideological motivations, chooses to immiserate the global south for the benefit of its constituent countries’ ruling classes.

        • JamesConeZone [they/them]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          39
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          The last paragraph quotes fucking Ross Douthat, come on now

          Lots of terms need defining. “Illiberal” just means not capitalistic, which yeah that’s all leftists. What is authoritarian? Usually a definition that gets thrown around applies more to capitalist countries vs those listed.

          So it’s just a western communist that supports non Western communist projects? 🤔

        • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          30
          ·
          1 year ago

          It’s essentially cope for them not just supporting “nominally” socialist countries because their stance is one of anti-imperialism. Iran should have nukes.

          • oce 🐆@jlai.lu
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            7
            ·
            1 year ago

            Isn’t Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and the Russo-Georgian war imperialism? I still don’t get them, except being blinded by their hate of USA’s war crimes, which I can understand, but it still seems like an irrational conclusion to become a tankie. They end up supporting or refusing to criticize regimes that generate similar war crimes.

            • Kieselguhr [none/use name]@hexbear.net
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              30
              ·
              1 year ago

              the Russo-Georgian war imperialism

              Wait, are you saying Saakashvili has done an imperialism? Because even western/EU reports have confirmed that Georgia started that war, not Russia.

              They end up supporting or refusing to criticize regimes that generate similar war crimes.

              “From 24 February 2022, which marked the start of the large-scale armed attack by the Russian Federation, to 30 July 2023, OHCHR recorded 26,015 civilian casualties in the country: 9,369 killed and 16,646 injured”

              Almost 10 thousand civilians killed is horrible. But compare this to Iraq: it’s less than the first month of the war in Iraq, and no US politicians was tried for war crimes. Maybe you should ponder this factoid.

              If you live in a NATO country maybe you should demand Blair and Bush to be tried for their war crimes. If you live in the west you should spend more energy of criticizing the ruling class above you.

              “supporting or refusing to criticize” This is a made up leftist. Per definition there is no leftist that uncritically supports a right wing capitalist country.

            • captcha [any]@hexbear.net
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              27
              ·
              1 year ago

              There’s a concept called “critical support”, which most “tankies” are practicing. You have criticism of a side but its the lesser evil so you support it despite your criticism. You won’t hear much of that criticism publicly though because that’s counterproductive.

              Like if I want the US to recognize the DPRK as a sovereign state so we can at least begin discussing Korean reunification, why would I bother mentioning my criticism of Juche?

              • commiewithoutorgans [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                3
                ·
                edit-2
                1 year ago

                I would avoid saying “lesser evil” for critical support cases, because revolutionary defeatism exists for lesser evil situations where nothing is progressing against the primary contradiction. It’s more a recognition that a shitty thing can be progressive/forward moving relative to its opposition. Russia winning/getting a peace deal with Donbas and Crimea out of Ukraine gets us much closer to ending global imperialism than Ukraine getting it’s land back or worse.

                • captcha [any]@hexbear.net
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  We want the larger capitalist empire to loose to the smaller capitalist empire because that leads to better outcomes. Saying otherwise is telling half truths at best.

            • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              22
              ·
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              The general “tankie” position is that the people of Donbas, who mostly do not want to remain part of Ukraine, will not stop suffering attacks without Russia fighting Ukraine off. Russia does not seem interested in siphoning resources from or subjugating the people of Donbas, as they did not the people of Crimea, who merely became Russian citizens. This is very different from US carpetbombing for oil.

            • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.net
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              20
              ·
              1 year ago

              You’re in a thread with half a dozen comments like “wow libs and tankies are celebrating this?”, followed by a bunch of “tankies” explaining (again) that they do not actually like modern Russia.