The DM was a DM asking us to change our no tankies policy and remove the fuck tankies banner as it was apparently upsetting hexbear users. Apparently tankies view the word tankie as a form of slur. The admin wants us to ally as a form of “left solidarity”

  • ToastedPlanet@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    96·
    1 year ago

    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.

    • AcidSmiley [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
      31·
      1 year ago

      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.

      • ToastedPlanet@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        8·
        1 year ago

        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.

        • build_a_bear_group [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
          49·
          1 year ago

          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.

          • ToastedPlanet@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
            2·
            1 year ago

            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.

            • jack [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
              57·
              1 year ago

              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.

              • ToastedPlanet@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
                2·
                1 year ago

                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.

            • iie [they/them, he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
              12·
              1 year ago

              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?

            • aaaaaaadjsf [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
              11·
              1 year ago

              The 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.

        • SoyViking [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
          19·
          1 year ago

          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.

            • jack [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
              22·
              1 year ago

              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.

              • Concetta@lemmy.blahaj.zone
                1·
                1 year ago

                What’s your point? Are russia not currently being an imperialist nation? They are invading a country for the sake of territory

                • jack [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
                  23·
                  1 year ago

                  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.

                • Rod_Blagojevic [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
                  12·
                  1 year ago

                  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.

                  • Concetta@lemmy.blahaj.zone
                    2·
                    1 year ago

                    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.

        • LesbianLiberty [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
          21·
          1 year ago

          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.

    • Franzia@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      4·
      1 year ago

      There is no one to the right of authoritarians who want to silence dissent and use violence to right the inequalities in society.

          • OwenEverbinde@lemmy.myserv.oneEnglish
            4·
            1 year ago

            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.