a drawing of a person wearing a balaclava and holding a gun with the text "all my homies hate tankies" :3
i deffo hate some tankies, in the same way that i deffo hate some vegetarian/vegans when they actively chase people away for seemingly no reason. sometimes though i do feel like i see more blind hate for entire communities than actual worthwhile discussion.
i guess the problem could really just come down to your definition of “tankie”. to some folks it’s a very specific kind of obvious troll, and to others it’s just anyone on an .ml instance.
and not to turn it into a “lesser evil” discussion, but between .world and .ml, i definitely know which which meme community i’m hanging out in. i’ve yet to have a single bad interaction with anyone in .ml communities, but i also don’t talk politics in fucken marxist/leninist spaces either. YMMV hahahah
Not all ml-ers are tankies, but most of them are, and all it takes is most of them.
fair! but i do worry the term is at risk of being overused to the point of no longer having a cohesive meaning.
I remember a time when tankies were just the militant leftists that would literally and physically punch nazis. That was pretty much the only qualification required, anarchist or communist: if you were willing to do violence on a nazi you were the tankie and it didn't require some stance on NATO geopolitics.
It never meant this. It was a slur against authoritarian "socialists" to start with
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.
Digging the anti-corporate vibes of a Games Workshop Chaos Star.
All my homies agree, I really look good in black, fool.
While not an anarchist, i approve this message.
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