Comment on Tankie

• bbboi@feddit.uk ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  You don’t even know the origin of the word “tankie”.

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  • Objection@lemmy.ml ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Actually, I do. That’s completely consistent with my point.

    The people who coined the term wanted to take a more aggressive approach to dealing with the USSR. They were particularly concerned that tensions might deescalate due to the change of leadership from Stalin to Khrushchev and the explicit foreign policy approach of “peaceful coexistence” with the West. Those in the West who supported deescalation and refused to take a hard line in support of the Cold War were labelled as “tankies” for their insufficient hawkishness.

    The Western leftists and peace advocates the term was created to condemn obviously had no control over the policies over the USSR. To the extent that they could influence the policies of their home countries, they pushed for deescalation, for building fewer tanks. It was the “anti-tankies” who wanted more tanks, as they always do.

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    • bbboi@feddit.uk ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      had no control over the policies over the USSR.

      But supported them

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      • Objection@lemmy.ml ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Not everyone the term was or has been applied to supported them. But regardless, they still used whatever influence they had to push for fewer tanks.

        If I’m an American and I’m out protesting the Vietnam War, and I say that we should end the war and stop building tanks, and that the Vietnamese communists were justified in rising up against the colonizers, does that make me pro-war? Does it make me pro-tank? Is the “peaceful” stance the one that says the Vietnamese were not justified so the US should stay in the war? That’s nonsense.

        But that’s the exact same logic you’re applying here and everywhere else. If someone supported peace and deescalation with the USSR during the Cold War, then they’d be accused of supporting or not sufficiently condemning how they handled the Hungarian uprising. If someone opposes the war in Ukraine, they’re accused of supporting or not sufficiently condemning Russia. If someone opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, they were accused of supporting or not sufficiently condemning 9/11 and Al Qaida. And so the peace advocates are always depicted as being violent, and it works the exact same way every single time. War is Peace.

        At this point, I accept that it’s always going to happen that way and that I’ll always be “the bad guy” for opposing war. I used to be a “terrorist sympathizer,” now I’m a “tankie” in another ten or twenty years, I’m sure I’ll be some other horrible thing. Who cares.

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