A group of veterans from the US armed forces burnt their uniforms in a show of solidarity with the airman Aaron Bushnell, who died after setting himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington in a protest over the war in Gaza.Footage by Alissa Azar shows veterans lining up and taking turns to burn their military jackets at a vigil in Portland on February 28.A banner can be seen behind them, reading: “Veterans say: Free Palestine! Remember Aaron Bushnell.”The event was organized by the group About Face: Veterans Against the War, which told attendees to gather in front of the Wyatt Federal Building in Portland at 5 pm.Before setting himself on fire, Bushnell filmed himself saying he would “no longer be complicit in genocide". He then yelled “Free Palestine” several times as flames engulfed him. Credit: Alissa Azar via Storyful
Does he believe in the state using force to kill and brutally suppress its citizens to enforce their rule and limit democratic freedoms?
Because you can be a leftist and not support that shit by holding positive views of the Soviet Union or China. We don’t call those people tankies, we call tankies tankies.
PSL is ML, so yeah, unfortunately.
Edit: let’s talk for a minute about some really important history here. Leninists have ridden anarchists to victory then turned around and murdered them, starting with Lenin himself. Makhnovists saved the Red Army from being destroyed by the white. The Soviet Revolution was originally an anarchist one until it was betrayed by the Bolsheviks, who murdered anarchists from the beginning.
Even Trotskyists need to be held accountable for this, since Trotsky himself was responsible for crushing dissent at Kronostat.
Aaron Bushnell was an anarchist. He was an anarchist service member. MLs honoring his sacrifice need to face the fact that their ideological ancestors did murder people like him for their own resistence.
MLs try to take over anarchist actions even today. PSL has tried to co-opt actions that my anarchist comrades have organized. They are overwhelmingly ineffective, which is why the feed so much on anarchist energy and appropriate anarchist actions all the time. Tankies use anarchists to get attention for themselves and dispose of us when we become inconvenient.
And if you can’t honestly acknowledge the dissonance between the history of appropriation and oppression of people who you openly acknowledge are on the same side as you, then you don’t really want a more free and equitable world, you just want your cult to wear the boots that are on everyone else’s neck.
So yeah, fuck tankies. This is a great action. Don’t let them appropriate it.
Hell yeah. What an awesome comment. I appreciate you!
The Murray Rothbard Aficionado has logged on.
Observe the natural tendency of the tankie to label the left anarchist as a reactionary whenever confronted with facts. Notice the complete refusal to engage with those facts and instead distract from them by attempting to discredit the anarchist.
Oh yeah, we’ve got a Rothbardian in our midst.
Literally anything to avoid reality, especially stabbing other communists in the back. Lol, ok tankie.
Real Fascist Rhetoric Hours
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
To paraphrase Muhammad Ali: “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong. No Viet Cong ever called me the N-word”.
Hitler never tried to kill me based on my ethnicity but I’ve still got a problem with him.
You can and should oppose fascism and authoritarianism without being the targeted victim.
Ali was making a statement about his refusal to be sent to fight in Vietnam. That soldiers are individuals, and that they have more in common with each other than they do with their own leadership.
I mean, yeah fascism and its leadership must be opposed in all its forms, but the average German soldier in WW2 wasn’t any more brainwashed than the average American soldier is now.
The armies of the enemy are not our enemy. They are distant parts of ourselves, ruled over by wicked masters just as we are.
And that relates to being critical of and not supporting authoritarian regimes how?
It’s a warning, that in fighting fascism we must always remember that the enemy is not the people to avoid becoming the oppressor.
Me: Because you can be a leftist and not support that shit by holding positive views of the Soviet Union or China.
Them: To paraphrase Muhammad Ali: “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong. No Viet Cong ever called me the N-word”.
You: It’s a warning, that in fighting fascism we must always remember that the enemy is not the people to avoid becoming the oppressor.
That seems like a very unrelated tangent you’ve gone on here?
Unless you’re trying to argue that the people who push for and actively want those oppressive regimes are not the enemy? Which is so utterly ridiculous that I don’t think that’s your point.
Don’t worry about it, my ADHD-ass brain always has trouble explaining these intuitive leaps.
Actually, that’s precisely it.
They might not be innocent, being complicit or even active participants in the oppression, but they are also victims of the regime as well. Those people are not the enemy, but the enemy’s base of support.
Fascism builds its base with false promises of prosperity and blames its own ills on outsiders. Fighting them directly risks validating the regime’s propaganda and making martyrs to their cause, but subverting that base erodes the regime’s support and builds your own at the same time. It’s easy because fascists love to broadcast their crimes and any prospefity that can be found never falls far from the top of the hierarchy.
Most tankies live in cushy western countries going on about how great Russia/China are, the only thing they’re victims of is their own stupidity.
We didn’t enter the war with Germany until after Pearl Harbor. So, it was less Hitler than Tojo that ultimately provoked our entry into the war.
It should be noted that FDR opposed fascism in Europe by sending enormous amounts of military aid to a certain Russian Communist by the name of Joseph Stalin. Quite a few of his peers argued the opposite. It was Stalin who was the true menace and Hitler who should have been our natural ally.
So, who should we have opposed? The Fascist or the Authoritarian?
Americans thinking the world is America.
The first great communist revolution of the 20th century began as an anti-war movement during WW1.
And look how shit that turned after Stalin got involved.
Are you saying you have no issue with China because you aren’t a Uigher?
Leftism should be accompanied by the belief that no matter where someone is born or with what traits, they should be able to live a happy and comfy life. No government should be exempt from persecuting people. A Tankie says “well, hold on” if it’s a government they like.
You’re not describing “Leftism”. You’re describing “Consumerism”. The leftist struggle for a free and equitable society does not guarantee happiness or comfort. It guarantees a worker’s right to the fruits of one’s labor.
And sending troops abroad to butcher civilians and burn down their homes does nothing to accomplish either.
Again, it is absolutely crazy to see to “tankie” conflated with “please stop bombing people”.
How the hell did you get “a Tankie says to stop bombing people” from “a Tankie excuses genocides if they like the country”?
My whole point is that there’s certain countries where they don’t say “please stop bombing people” and make excuses defending the country instead.
It’s very telling however that your thought of people being able to live happily and freely no matter where they’re born or with what traits is “consumerism”.
Fascists constantly telling me that we need to bomb the village in order to save it, and if you don’t support napalming My Lai, you’re with the Terrorists.
Name. That. Country.
Its Utopian to believe people simply stop having problems under a particular ideological system. Capitalists and Communists alike need to deal with droughts and pandemics and supply chain failures and climate change.
Neither system guarantees people happiness and freedom.
But recognizing ecological limits means you’re a “tankie”? While devouring seed corn because it makes you happy is… what? Real Leftism?
I get the feeling we are terribly misunderstanding each other and talking past the other. I think I see your point about there being problems in any system, but I think it behooves us to strive for the ideal, even if it’s unattainable.
In general, Russia tends to be the country that tankies make excuses for. Instead of condemning the actual country invading Ukraine and bombing civilians, they’ll say it’s Ukraine’s fault for wanting to join NATO, for instance.
If you disagree with that thinking, then good. You aren’t a Tankie. There were a number of “leftist” thinkers at the outset of the war who blamed the West and NATO for Russia invading, instead of Russia. And some still insist the bloodshed has to stop by Ukraine suing for peace, instead of Russia leaving.
In Ukraine war, Tankies suggest Russia is just defending itself and its “spheres of influence”. It’s not dissimilar from your example. If you don’t understand Russia’s “very reasonable” response of bombing Ukraine to prevent it from joining NATO, you’re called a Western imperialist, unironically.
The other main example is with China and the Uighurs. Detaining a cultural group in concentration camps and forcibly reeducating them and erasing their culture is typically seen as genocide, but with China you’ll hear Tankies make excuses that it’s to stop terrorism and that is all Western propaganda and there’s nothing suspicious going on at all.
Once again, if that isn’t you, you aren’t a Tankie. I’d argue tankies actually have a concerning natural alliance with fascists.
Moderates are eager to paint leftists as Tankies when that isn’t the case, I agree with you there. That doesn’t mean the term has no meaning nor utility however.
I doubt one in ten leftists (much less westerners) could tell you about the 1956 Hungarian Revolution in any kind of detail. So I’m skeptical of the claim that you’ve got a bunch of rock-ribbed old school Stalin-Shouldn’t-Have-Stopped-At-Berlin Soviets running around.
Some of the fiercest leftist criticism I’ve seen has been aimed squarely at Gorbachev and Yeltsin, for selling the Soviet States down the river during Perestroika. I’ve gotten an earful of criticism over the Russian occupation of Afghanistan, I’ve seen all sorts of complaints about their poor environmental record, and plenty of leftists bemoaning the vestigial state of the modern Russian Communist Party in the face of United Russia.
If there’s a bunch of DSA folks or Brooklyn comedians or LA Nurses Union members or Corbynite / Trudeauite Labor Organizers insisting “Russia Good Aktuly!”, I’m not seeing it.
But I do see a lot of folks going to the old Parenti quote:
I see leftists dismissing the cynical attacks on civil rights leaders, anti-colonial organizers, and opponents of western financialization/privatization as “useful idiots” of some evil foreign hand. And I see them labeled as “tankies” because they refuse to correlate BLM or climate activism or anti-war protests or anti-surveillance libertarians as “pawns Russia”.
The term is bullshit. If you look at the folks who advocate driving tanks across Europe, you’ll find them in Anthony Blinken’s State Department and Olaf Scholz’s Defense Ministry as quickly as Rupert Murdoch’s news department. The only question is which direction those tanks should be driving.
I don’t see any kind of shortage of pro-war advocates. I don’t see any shortage of military spending. I don’t see any shortage of tanks.
What I see a vast deficit in is anti-war advocates at any level of power. And anyone who voices an objection to Ukrainian forced conscription or the next $50B spent on new tank shells or another year trading artillery fire over a mile of mud in the Donbas… these people are called Tankies. The folks paying for the tanks and cheering the tanks and egging on another year of tanks firing on one another, these… aren’t.
Are you referencing anyone in particular, or are you just describing Cable News Republicans as “Tankies”? I’m hard pressed to name anyone outside Elon Musk or Tucker Carlson who was “Pro-Russia”
All I see are a bunch of people with heads in their hands, who see the decade of civil war in Ukraine and the next three years of war with Russia as a phenomenal and catastrophic lose for the region. I see people watching the death figures roll in - 10,000 new dead Russians + 8,000 new dead Ukrainians + another 100,000 new refugees fleeing their respective borders - and wailing “STOP! Sue for peace! End this madness!”
And these people get called “Tankies”, too. They’re pro-Russia because they don’t see an inevitable Ukrainian victory. They’re pro-Russian because they don’t see thousands of dead infantrymen as some kind of Win For The West. They’re pro-Russian because they don’t want to chime in and cheer when some comedian says “Putin Is A Big Gay Who Is Definitely Going To Die Soon of Stupid Person Disease”.
There’s only one tankie I recognize, and its
You are going off on massive tangents I don’t have have the time to address. Let’s just step back a second. You’re getting too hung up on semantics.
Do we agree war is bad? Do we agree that there’s no excuse for invading and oppressing people? Do we believe that genocide is fucked up no matter who’s doing it?
If yes to all of the above, we’re in agreement. We dislike people who believe genocide and invasions are justified because they like the aggressive country.
That’s the simplest I can distill this down to, and I do think we’re aligned on it. We just disagree on the term Tankie.
Everyone here who isn’t a center right Biden supporter is essentially a tankie according to the majority of users here.
Anarchists who show a modicum of respect for MLs and don’t go along with the center right party line? TANKIES!
Communists of all sorts who might find themselves somewhere in the middle of Y axis? TANKIES!
Left unity in face of the center right? TANKIES!
You don’t vote Biden? China or Russian psyop and a tankie!
The majority of users on Lemmy are leftists, so I doubt that immensely.
Liberals aren’t leftists. You don’t have much excuse for not knowing the difference by now.
I said leftists, because they are.
The majority here are not liberals.
The majority of people here are liberals - not leftists.
Strongly disagree.
The majority of people here aren’t tankie fucks, but they’re certainly leftists.
You talk like someone who only learnt what the term tankie means a week ago.
Do you even know what it is that makes liberals right-wing?
You talk like someone who’s cool with ML’s.
Do you even know what it is that makes ML’s authoritarian?
ftfy. At least on lemmy.world. And no being a liberal doesn’t make you a leftist, nor even necessarily left of center, depending on what brand of liberalism you subscribe to.
Give me a fucking break, no self respecting leftist would give Biden their vote. The vast majority here is liberals cosplaying as leftists to undermine actual left unity.
“Everyone to the south of a ML is a liberal”. Ironic.
America has no choice, they don’t live in a democracy. They get to pick Trump or Biden, you can whinge that they should all grab their guns and revolt, but they can’t even get enough people together to peacefully change things so that isn’t happening any time soon.
You can be an accelerationist and hope that Trump winning will create class consciousness, but you’re paying for that with the lives of christo-fash victims.
What’s your solution mate?
It’s too fucking easy with you guys.
What’s your solution?
They have no solution. They are just here to divide and stoke anger and hatred.
Stop supporting war hawks and capitalists. Do grass root activism, vote third party and do work to get the people around you to do the same. It’s not fucking rocket science.
Guess what, one of the only politicians who could have beat Trump back in 2016 usually runs as an independent. He took a chance with Dems and look where that got us.
You’re literally posting on an article about someone who does just that. Honoring someone who gave his life to do just that.
Get lost with your our way or the high way bullshit. You’re disrespectful to the memory of Aaron Bushnell.
Right, but those are long term things.
What will not voting Biden in a few months time achieve?
Do you think the minority of leftists in America voting 3rd party will see the 3rd party option win?
I’ve said no such thing about my way or the highway, so I’m not sure why you’re bringing that up.
You should consider writing fairytale books. You’ve got nice imagination.
Tell me more how you don’t understand the US political situation and elections please.
Bam, I fucking knew it! Thanks for proving my point.
I don’t feel like rewording this to better fit the conversation so:
https://lemmy.world/comment/7927657
TL;DR Third party is not viable in the current US voting system no matter how hard you fantasize about it. And not voting for the non wannabe dictator so you can stroke off over how you “showed it to the system” is even dumber or you actually like dictators.
You’re right. As the saying goes, “Vote for who you love in the primaries and against who you can’t stand in the general election.” After all, the enemy of my enemy is-
…the bitter irony.
Let’s face it, the facts are that every 4 years, we have 3-ish years to push for grassroots efforts and electing local officials for things like 3rd party candidates and ranked choice voting, a chance to make a statement by voting for who you love (or a vote against who you hate if you live in a state that let’s independents vote in either primary) that no politician is going to take notice of in the primaries, and then we have to vote against the guy we don’t want in office come the general election.
The Republicans won’t allow us to do otherwise, and for one simple reason: they toe the party line, regardless. They don’t care who is on the ballot. It could be Trump, Bush, Putin, or Stalin himself, risen from the dead to destroy capitalism once and for all. So long as they have that R next to their name, that’s who they’ll vote for. As an old boss of mine once said, and my grandfather before him, both with the same incredulous look as if they couldn’t understand why somebody would possibly ask them who they were voting for: “I’m a Republican. I vote for the nominee.”
Leftists get all riled up once every 4 years, like a swarm of cicadas screaming about 3rd party candidates when it comes time to vote for the President, and then go back to sleep. And the Dems love it. Because Republicans vote down the party line all year long, meaning that when those 4 years come up again, there’s no other choice against the continuing slide further and further right than voting for their corporate sponsored candidate of choice. We need to claw seats from both Dems and Republicans for any meaningful change (preferably from Republicans). Otherwise, weakening the Dems only furthers the goals of the Republicans.
You wanna make a difference? Vote local, vote often, and help other people get to the polls. There’s a reason that election days aren’t holidays, and any real change isn’t going to start with those lifetime appointees whose best interests are in opposing any meaningful change in the system. It’s going to start in your town and state elections.
Fuck yeah. This is an awesome comment. I appreciate you! Keep fighting the good fight.
Appreciate it. My dad was involved in town politics when I was a kid, so I got to see plenty of how policy is shaped by the crusty old Republicans who can show up at every town meeting to spew nonsense and incorrect information and vote on every decision in town because they’re retired and don’t have to worry about work. And then I spent many years training kids at a job and got to see firsthand how those policies drove those kids to get out of town as soon as they’re able. And I understood how they felt because I felt the exact same way.
Remembering how the old ladies used to call the people who wanted to get a new school built “the enemy” still gets my blood boiling.