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The fact they feel the phrase fuck tankies is acting as a barrier to their participation in 196 should be a wake up call for them to examine their political views.
Unlike their use of the word liberal, which they use to refer to everyone to the right of them on the political spectrum, we are using the word tankie for a single specific group. Tankie means authoritarian communist. Please keep the sign.
I have been called a tankie for supporting Cuba, I have been called a tankie for saying the fall of Rhodesia was a good thing, I have been called a tankie for saying landlord isn't a legitimate profession, I have been called a tankie for saying Elon Musk doesn't deserve his wealth. "Tankie" is just "woke", but for centre left soc-dems
I agree with all of these takes. You're still a tankie though.
Maybe do some introspection?
woke = (-∞, center]
tankie = (-∞, progressive liberal)
Tankie means anyone to the left of me that I don't like, while liberal is a well defined political ideology that is based in a belief in bourgeois Democracy as putting ballots into a box rather than any ability to affect political outcomes, political struggle as idealistic and individual, and interactions and interpersonal relations always existing in a vacuum, without context or historical precursors. Liberalism is completely hegemonic and can be validly called out in a large swath of mainstream political tendencies.
Unlike their use of the word liberal, which they use to refer to everyone to the right of them on the political spectrum, we are using the word tankie for a single specific group
Yes, for everybody to the left of you.
What's your path to socialism that's non-authoritarian? How will you dispossess the capitalist class without the imposition of state authority? Or defend from outside capitalist incursion?
I am a social democrat. I think we should elect socialist politicians through our existing democracy. The socialist politicians will then vote on legislation to regulate the economy and ensure that corporations do not gain an outsized influence in the free market.
Looks at Allende, the Indonesian Genocide, ÖSDAP, and the US Civil War... I am sure, this time the ruling class will just say "aww shucks", and peacefully give up power, rather than fight to retain power like every previous time.
Why would the US government, which is entirely captured by the capitalist class, ever allow that to happen? They would simply invalidate such elections. They stole an election to keep Al Gore from becoming president. The democrats colluded to crush Bernie. If you're in Europe, your can probably achieve some of that, but ever since the USSR was illegally dissolved, the old socdem states of Europe have all been rolling back. The only successful efforts towards social democracy have been in Latin America, and those still get called tankies, like in Venezuela.
Here in the US, the people rule. Since socialist policies are in the interest of the people, they will want to vote for politicians who support socialist policies.
Here in the US, the people rule.
This is literally objectively not true:
https://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/princeton-experts-say-us-no-longer-democracy
The US is not, and has never been, a democracy, because the people do not direct the actions of the government except on the margins. There is no democratic input on imperialism or capitalism. Those are invariate, and the system is designed to protect those from public influence.
It's crazy to see a far left news source be used to try to convince people that the US has never been a democracy.
We have always been a democracy and we thankfully still are a democracy. We are in danger of losing our democracy to fascism however. If we don't fix the flaws in our democratic institutions we will end up in a fascist dictatorship.
I am well aware we are circling the fascist drain. I also know that the modern neoliberalism movement started by Regan and Thatcher is how we got here.
- 70% of Americans want singlepayer healthcare
- 90% want universal background checks for firearm purchases
- 75% want Citizen's United repealed
and yet these and other popular policies remain politically impossible
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Ok, you know things. Cool. So why are you being so dodgy about hyperspecific political tendencies? Why is such a precarious, controlled, center-left (by ur standard) system like the US worth balancing?
come on this has to be satire. you can't be serious about this shit.
Study: Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens:
From the abstract:
Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.
further down:
In the United States, our findings indicate, the majority does not rule — at least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes. When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the U.S. political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it.
What is it, like, 70% of Americans want single payer healthcare?
Department of Naval IntelligenceThe people rule so effectively in the USA that the candidate with less votes has won 1/3 of presidential elections in the 21st century.
How can you be a "democracy" if the candidate with the most votes loses the election? I thought that was the number one rule of democracy, the person with the most votes wins.
Since socialist policies are in the interest of the people, they will want to vote for politicians who support socialist policies.
Yes, you are right. People voted for Obama in 2008 because he promised nationalized healthcare. Obama also promised to shut down Guantanamo Bay prison. And people voted for Biden in 2020 because he promised student loan debt relief. Both presidents failed to deliver on their promises. Why? Because democracy in America is and always has been "bread and circuses." Voting every two/four years is a distraction. Capital controls America, because it controls the American economy. How many elections do you need to see before you realize that it's always going to be the same shit?
And any actual socialist will be destroyed by the press. Jeremy Corbin -> anti-Semitic (he's not). Bernie Sanders -> misogynistic racist (he's not, and Biden and Trump both have dozens of sexual assault claims against them). Same shit, different year. Capital, the media, and special interest groups stop all progress from happening in American "democracy." No one has ever voted their way to a revolution.
This has been tried many times and history shows that it's a really effective way of getting yourself couped and get a brutal reactionary regime put in your place. The bourgeoisie is not burdened by any high-minded liberal ideals when it comes to preserving their wealth and power, they are going to do whatever it takes.
Have you ever heard of anarchism and mutual aid
Ok so when the US invades to overthrow your anarchist society you'll repel them with mutual aid? Or is that what you use to stop fascists?
I'm personally more afraid of being drafted in a war started by russia but whatevs
Oh, so you'll just say whatever whack shit about the genuine struggle for socialism, but when confronted you drop a "whatevs". Let me know when you scheme up an anti-authoritarian scheme to build socialism when surrounded by hostile imperialists. We would all prefer that.
What's your point? Are russia not currently being an imperialist nation? They are invading a country for the sake of territory
My point is you're changing the subject to Russia (fuck Putin, the invasion is unjustified and horrific, fuck NATO, they are using Ukraine as a puppet to weaken their geopolitical rival and imposing a brutal privatization regime) when we were talking about "authoritarian socialism". Revolutions are authoritarian. Maintaining the victory of the working class over the capitalist class is authoritarian. The entire point of socialism is to seize authority and wield it for the good of the people, at the people's direction. There's no way to do it without authority because you will be crushed by reactionary forces inside and out.
Now, just out of the blue, for no discernable reason, the Russian government decided it would just go ahead and conquer a large population in a land where it would have to fight an insurgency for approximately forever. Yes, this is definitely what's happening. A tankie might call this pure MSNBC brain, but there is literally nothing else you need to know in order to understand this conflict. Stay strong, and continue to be the smartest person in the room.
Ah yes, I'm fully aware that this only began in February 2022 and not a single moment before. There isn't a history of russia fucking around for the last decade.
Maknova's territory, disregarding their anti-Jewish pogroms that were only stopped later, still worked under the authority of one man. The CNT-FAI even found a need for stopping strikes and purging anticommunists during their struggle against fascism. Expecting a socialist movement to be perfect is ahistorical and throws aside the will of those who are the most annihilated by imperialism. There's a reason this discussion largely occurs in the global north.
You think bringing that up is a point for me to keep tankies here?
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There is no one to the right of authoritarians who want to silence dissent and use violence to right the inequalities in society.
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If we were at war and they were soldiers, sure. Otherwise it's murder.
I like this logic. Killing should be a last resort.
Further, if I had a billion dollars to spend, I'd sooner spend it on organizations like Life After Hate and get them the resources necessary to deconvert and deprogram Nazis than I would on any iteration of our current system of playing whack-a-mole with their censor-evading code words. Or on some Nazi-killing executioner.
I hate how quick people are to advocate giving up on their fellow humans.
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