I guess I'm too online, because these threads take something out of me. Cassa posted this one because she saw a user on 196 claim there can be no true democracy under capitalism.
The comments are what you expect. All agree that we're psychopaths who support genocide and just want authority as a goal in itself. All agree we do no leftist praxis, I guess just based on vibes. One user wrote:
let’s be honest, they should be removed from society
which is cool. One-on-one, online or in person, I'm pretty patient with people like this, but when I see a whole thread like this with hundreds of upvotes and no pushback it makes me feel tired.
they do this a lot. its disappointing to see trans users be ok with shit like this. especially considering how many chasers are in that comm. fam, you can do better, and you should demand better
it always reminds of this one time i helped a trans lady out, bought her transit to her appointment to hrt, bought the hrt, she came back to the center to hug me and said i changed her life and that what i did made things so much easier for her. some time later she realized i was a communist (i think someone made a joke about it or something), asked me if it was true (i said yes, i help people), then she yelled at me about being a tankie and ghosted the whole center. i didnt even say anything or get in an argument, she just overheard it. i cant help but mourn the idea that she could have had a good and safe space and made a lot of friends, but she ended up hurting herself due to propaganda.
I read through most of that thread and christ it is tiring, I agree. Historically illiterate bastards equating China to Nazi Germany left and right with only a couple voices of reason.
Their idea of MLs is completely incoherent. What, do I want to be a dictator? I am actively averse to personally having authority, that shit is too much of a hassle, I get a headache just imagining it for the sake of counterargument.
So what do I actually want? Since these people seem to think being ML is just pure "authoritarianism" with no true beliefs of any kind.
I want people to be fed, clothed, housed, educated, and so on [in short: their needs provided for] and I want the entity doing that to defend itself from the capitalists seeking to undermine that process. It's a very simple desire and something that, for all the valid criticism you can make of the CPC, something it does, as does the DPRK.
You really described it the best, it's just tiring.
Edit: I wonder how many overt neoliberals are there chanting hand-in-hand with those so-called "anarchists"
Communism is the only political ideology where for some reason it's acceptable to claim its proponents don't believe in the things they say and actually secretely believe the opposite. No one is ever "just pretending" to be a liberal, a conservative, a monarchist, a fascist, a social democrat or a libertarian, it's just communists. They never explain what one gets out of this "pretending" either.
And the worst part is these people are themselves leftists, so they have surely heard the same "you're just bitter and jealous of rich people " bullshit from conservatives, but they turn around and repeat it at us.
Hey what do you know, some of them can think for themselves:
@BigBlackCockroach@lemmy.world
I’m an anarchist, we don’t call anybody tankies. Tankies is a term coming from the UK i think the 80s some eastern european nation was taken over by the USSR and some Brittish came out in support of it. So they were called tankies.
These political fighting words need to be layed to rest. Communists hate me as much as anybody else but I’d rather engage on the idea level instead of ad hominem attacks and name calling.
I suspect this whole tankie thing might be a coordinated propaganda campaign geared at discrediting communists and at the same time creating tension between them and other leftits. I suspect this as this whole infighting over small differences doesn’t lead to a victory for the left but effectively disables and neutralizes it.
I used to lurk on r/196 a lot. Doing that actually helped push me further left than I was before and it felt like a safe space by being so pro-LGBT. But after becoming a communist, seeing how "anti-tankie" and liberal they often are, it's just sad really. I feel like there's a sizable portion of people there that just want to feel they belong and end up buying into the whole "anti-tankie" narrative without knowing better.
Also, this image in particular is fucking insulting. Equating us to nazis is not only revolting, it shows how little they understand of what they are talking about.
I have a soft spot for 196. I used to frequent it pretty heavily and a lot of the people there are so fucking sweet but unfortunately so misguided. Their anti-tankie rhetoric often comes from a place genuine concern, they truly believe in democracy under capitalism and radically changing the system from capitalism means removing democracy in their heads. Some of them can be depropagandized, I am living proof of that and I hope one day they'll come to understand.
they never get tired of this meme. you'd think they'd have got all the tankies by now, but somehow they keep popping up to call them libs!
i know HornyOnMain was calling out the most obvious nazis there. Props to her but I wouldn't make a second account for an instance I liked, let alone one that sucks bad.
My solution is to have nothing to do with these fucking creeps. They cannot and will not contribute anything of value to a socialist cause, they can only get real leftists murdered by fascists. These twats seem to even revel in that fantasy.
When the day comes that a working class movement seriously challenges the neoliberal government, and the feds come knocking, these will be the people who turn us in.