this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2025
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Ok another try:
If I get offered 2 options, and both options are bad for me, I wouldn't choose either. By this, I dont rank their "badness", I just tell that those options are not suitable for me. Not more not less.
Like arsenic and trash. They are both not suitable for me. But I dont rank them. I just say " no".
I my bubble the term tankie means somethin like a neo-sowjet, who thinks that the SU was heaven on earth. Not a communist. To be honest, I havent invested any real effort in researching this. But I just quotet the word, theyre not my words.
And once again Please try not to mention the shoah thoughtlessly in such discussions. Because this would definitly mean a trivialization.
Okay another try.
“Tankie” is a caricature. The idea of a tankie is the ideal vision of a McCarthyian Communist. In reality, the overwhelming majority of people labeled as such don’t actually fit that label, it’s more of a way to cast an image of someone’s positions based on, say, support for AES countries, and twist that into the evil Commie Pinko that haunts the dreams of 1960s children in the US.
No Communist wants to be seen as this caricature, they'd rather be seen as the Marxists they are, but those who use the term "Tankie" as though it has any meaning contribute to the demonization of Communists.
Additionally, nobody thinks the USSR was heaven on Earth, but real Socialism with real victories and real struggles. There are no "tankies" in any actual number worth considering if that's your definition.
I explained 1. Why painting the Communists and fascists in a similar light serves fascists wishing to trivialize genocide and 2. Why "tankie" doesn't mean anything except to serve as a pejorative for Marxist.
The "goalposts" never shifted.
Honestly the only difference between the quibbling you do with language and those blue maga weirdos on world is that you rep a different politics.
Again you're twisting yourself up in a knot to try to fit reality into the neat little prejudice you decided is correct. If it turns out to be wrong, rather than change your view, you try another prejudice to see if that one fits.
Rather than trying to insult me, can you meaningfully explain why you disagree with me? Their comment suggested that Communists are in any way comparible in evil to the fascists that invented industrial mass murder, to the point that they wouldn't side with them against the fascists. I then went on to explain how I feel that the word "tankie" is just a pejorative used to dismiss Marxists, rather than getting a genuine response I just got further description of the caricature of a tankie.