War makes money
Comment on Tankie
Objection@lemmy.ml 3 weeks agoThey don’t care who “wins”, they profit off of the war itself (and the rebuild for that matter).
Then why would they love tankies, some of the only people who consistently oppose them building and using tanks?
bbboi@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
Objection@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
But tankies oppose nearly all wars.
Aljernon@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
Tankies seek to use state violence to coerce and terrorize the working class into unquestioning obedience to the state. Sometimes that violence is directed at the working class in other states so it’s hard to argue they oppose war.
bbboi@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
Do you know what tanks are for?
Objection@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Yes, that’s why “tankies” are generally opposed to building and deploying tanks, moreso than just about any ideology short of pacifism. Certainly moreso than liberals are.
humanspiral@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
can’t have war if everyone surrenders too soon.
Objection@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Exactly.
There’s only one war worth fighting and that’s the class war. Everything else is just throwing lives away for nothing.
Mulligrubs@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Tankies are “authoritarian communists”, they are not pro peace in any way, they love tanks.
(standard definition, not familiar with the tankies that you describe)
Amnesigenic@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Bedtimes are authoritarian, your parents are dictators
Mulligrubs@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
My parents are dead! (runs out of room crying)
SeptugenarianSenate@leminal.space 3 weeks ago
did they head out on a guilt trip and never come back
bbboi@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
One day you’ll be an adult
Objection@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Really? Because I’m always calling for staying out of conflicts and dramatically reducing the military budget and people are constantly calling me a tankie because of those stances.
See, if you don’t want war, it means you support the other side, and however bad “our” side is, the other side is always worse and more aggressive (the media says so, after all) and that means that anyone who’s pro-peace is actually pro-war.
So it was when I said we shouldn’t invade Iraq and Afghanistan, it meant that I was “a terrorist sympathizer” and “pro-Al Qaida,” and when I say we should stay out of Palestine, people say I’m “pro-Hamas” and when I say we should stay out of Ukraine people say I’m “pro-Russia” and a “tankie.” Consistently advocating against the use of tanks is essentially the defining characteristic of a “tankie.”
bbboi@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
You sound much more of an isolationist than a tankie. Lol.
Objection@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
The word “isolationist” doesn’t exist in the vocabularies of most people around here. It doesn’t really matter why I disagree with US military interventions, the fact that I do means that I will inevitably be labelled tankie or a Russian bot. So you might as well ignore it, or love the word instead, cause you ain’t done nothing if you ain’t be called a Red.
Besides, I’m not wholly an isolationist. I have no problem with trade or foreign aid, so long as it isn’t military aid. More accurately, I’m a dove. But “dove” doesn’t exactly work as an insult. Some liberals even like to imagine that they’re doves, unbelievably.
But again, liberals don’t recognize that perspectives like “doves” or “isolationists” exist. You either follow the narrative of the media and politicians, or you get thrown into this big lump of Bad People™ with zero distinctions regarding why you disagree with them.
Aljernon@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
Isolationists would want to stay out of Ukraine to mind our own business, this guy wants to stay out of Ukraine because .ml is notorious for giving modern day Russia a free pass with their Imperial nonsense.
Mulligrubs@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yes, really! I’ve been called a tankie and a Nazi and worse. Don’t judge what a tankie or Nazi is by insults on the internet, hyperbole and bullshit rule.
Again, your definition is not the standard definition. Tankies love tanks. And Communism. And Stalin. Which is funny, because Stalin wasn’t much of a communist.
I use the standard definition, that’s it. I am not familiar with the tankies you describe, I haven’t met them… Tankies hating tanks seems wrong to me. Back in the day they loved the T-34 tank and Russia in WW2 and so on.
Where can I find YOUR definition of “tankie”, the peace loving gentle communist? Seriously
Objection@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Words are defined by common use. If the common use of the word “tankie” is to throw it at people who oppose war, then that’s what it means now. You can say it’s defined as being pro- war, but I’ve never seen it used that way.
Well sure, WWII is basically the go-to example of a necessary and justified war. There was a time in my life when I labelled myself as a pacifist and the counter-example that everyone always brought up was WWII.
At that time, my position was that that was one exception from like 70 years ago and we shouldn’t make a rule from the exception considering how many unjustified wars have been fought since then. Now, my position is a little bit more flexible to account for that and a handful of other cases: now I say, “no war but class war,” and WWII was a class war.
However, my position hasn’t actually changed much in practice since those days. The vast majority of wars and violence are systemic and fought for bourgeois interests, so I still oppose them. Only very rarely does violence happen in the opposite direction, for example if we compare the death tolls of Luigi Mangione to Brian Thompson.
It comes from accusing people who oppose war of supporting the other side’s tanks, as I just explained to you in my previous comment.