silentjohn
@silentjohn@lemmy.ml
oh, hi Marx
he/him
DSA ✊
Ally 🏳️🌈
- Comment on Has anyone else noticed the strong pro CCP and anti-west vibes here? 1 week ago:
I’m very in favor of personal freedom
And what “freedoms” do you enjoy in the USA / The West (yes I realize you said you’re from Africa)? The freedom to choose between two capitalist/fascist warmongers every 2-4 years in your elections? The freedom to have the police state protect private property over humans? The freedom to wage wars on the global south? The freedom to fund and aid in genocide? The freedom to be overworked and underpaid while billionaires extract every ounce of wealth from countries and workforces? The freedom to go into lifelong debt for basic human rights (housing, health, education)?
The majority of Chinese actually believe that China is more free than the United States … this is more important than whatever a Western-funded “Freedom Index” claims.
decreasing wealth inequality
The CPC (not CCP) lifted 800 million people from abject poverty and have effectively eliminated extreme poverty in the country. China also has higher home ownership rates than the US, higher effective literacy rate, lower infant mortality, lower rates of suicide and gun violence, lower obesity, … While billionaires exist in China, they do not (and cannot) control/influence government, and corporations do not extract wealth from key industries.
- Comment on Has anyone else noticed the strong pro CCP and anti-west vibes here? 1 week ago:
That’s why I came to Lemmy. Sure open source and decentralized and all that too. But somebody on reddit described Lemmy as “Leftist Reddit” and I said count me in!
- Comment on Indie Video Game ‘Mina the Hollower’ Sells 300,000 Copies in Three Days 2 weeks ago:
This game slaps!
- Comment on there's a Costco at the other end 3 weeks ago:
This is literally what Grant Park at the north end in Chicago looked like until they built millennium Park
- Comment on .ml has got to be the only place on earth where I'd get downvoted for a comment like this 4 weeks ago:
Look, you’re doing it!
Addressing your points from a perspective of an ML?
That’s the whatabout campism it is refering to!
Interesting. You never mentioned “whataboutism” in your “tankie” description, and you were allowed to insert whatever convenient definition you saw fit. I can see the goalposts are moving now that I’ve addressed your original points directly. Convenient that we’re never allowed to explain our position, lest the term “tankie” be thrown at us and summarily hand wave away anything we say.
Just introducing what a tankie means to regular people
Again, since I’m usually the one the term is being used against, I think I know what most “regular” people think the term means: which is usually just broadly anti-ML and anti-any-established-socialist-state because they’re [ignorantly and incorrectly] viewed as “Authoritarian”.
I think we’ve exhausted this debate here.
- Comment on .ml has got to be the only place on earth where I'd get downvoted for a comment like this 4 weeks ago:
people who are extremely anti US
The US has committed way more atrocities than either of those countries you listed. We literally just kidnapped a democratically elected leader without any due process a few months ago and everybody just plum forgot about it. We’ve started countless wars. We still have Guantanamo Bay operating. We orchestrated the genocide of millions via the Jakarta Method. We sanction and embargo countries with the EXPLICIT purpose (as admitted by the CIA) of inflicting as much human misery on the populace as possible. Our history with genocide of Natives, slavery, jim crowe, prison slavery … I’m sorry but the USA fucking sucks. I say that as a citizen who thinks we deserve better. The world deserves better. If that makes me a “tankie” … so be it. I will continue to fight for what’s right.
to the point that they choose to ignore or excuse all the crimes against humanity caused by other Imperialistic nations. Ex. Russia, China
Russia … ehh, I always argue that most Communists, because we are anti-imperialist, can see the reasons for Russia doing what Russia is doing, which is broadly reacting to NATO expansion. What I mean is, we can acknowledge how problematic Western Imperialism and NATO expansion close to Russia (or anywhere, really…) is. Nobody is really pro-Putin, very few. He’s a capitalist. We don’t like Capitalists.
It’s like the Cuban Missile Crisis. It’s always framed as “big, bad, and evil USSR puts nukes in Cuba because they’re big, bad, and evil!”. Nevermind that the US put nukes in Italy and Turkiye first, and rejected any peace talks with USSR. We can see the nuance and understand why Russia is doing Russia things.
As far as China … so many sinophobic arguments are easily debunked.
term has another meaning. You shouldn’t ignore it
I’ve been called a “tankie” far more than I’d like, I’m well aware of the meaning levied at me by ignorant people.
- Comment on .ml has got to be the only place on earth where I'd get downvoted for a comment like this 4 weeks ago:
Not sure if you’re referring to me, but I’m a card-carrying Communist and I’d hardly consider getting fed Western propaganda from a Lemmy Lib as “getting owned”. I’ve already blocked him and moved on with my life…
- Comment on .ml has got to be the only place on earth where I'd get downvoted for a comment like this 4 weeks ago:
I ain’t reading all that. Free Palestine.
- Comment on .ml has got to be the only place on earth where I'd get downvoted for a comment like this 4 weeks ago:
especially those who support or defend acts of repression by such regimes, their allies, or deny the occurrence of the events thereof.
Who defines “acts of repression”? Capitalists? Western Imperialists who commit acts of repression daily? It’s not a good faith argument. Many of the “acts of repression” usually listed [by western media, western/capitalist countries] can almost always be debunked or explained with nuance. For example the comment by the other user that “Xi is literal dictator” … I can’t even take this comment seriously.
It’s only ‘ignorant and combative’ in the same way that people call right-wing authoritarianism fascism
It’s ignorant and combative because it hand waves away all successful socialist states (China, Cuba, etc) without any nuance.
Not to mention socialism isn’t apart of the meaning at all as you’ve described it.
Socialism and Communism are one in the in the same according to Marx. As we use the terms today, from actual Socialists, is that Socialism is a beginning, transitory state before full Communism. This is the general agreed upon consensus at a high level. Among non-Socialists or Liberals, Socialism is usually interpreted as a “safer, more desirable, version of Communism”, whatever that means. As such, using the the term “tankie” insults Socialists and Communists alike, as we’re all working towards the same goal.
I also find it funny that your source for the meaning of tankie is from lemmy.ml
Where was I supposed to find a succinct rebuttal to this other than the people against whom the term is used? Wikipedia? Fox News? Where? Talk about bias…
It would be like if I corrected someone on the meaning of the term “Jew” by sourcing Mein Kampf.
False equivalence and you know it.
- Comment on .ml has got to be the only place on earth where I'd get downvoted for a comment like this 4 weeks ago:
ad hominem.
- Comment on .ml has got to be the only place on earth where I'd get downvoted for a comment like this 4 weeks ago:
That is not at all how it’s used.
- Comment on .ml has got to be the only place on earth where I'd get downvoted for a comment like this 4 weeks ago:
Myth: Communism and Fascism are the Same
Fascism upholds capitalist hierarchies (race, class, gender); communism seeks to abolish them
Fascism arises from capitalist decay to protect ruling-class interests, while communism opposes capitalism.
Historical examples (Franco, Hitler) show fascists collaborating with capitalists, not communists, who were among the first to be jailed/killed.
- Comment on .ml has got to be the only place on earth where I'd get downvoted for a comment like this 4 weeks ago:
“tankie leftist” is a meaningless term and “tankie” is only used as a pejorative against socialists/communists.. It’s ignorant and combative language. I’m completely unsurprised that you are downvoted for that.
- Comment on ‘I was tortured in a Chinese detention camp for Uyghurs. Starmer’s approval of a new embassy is a betrayal’ 1 month ago:
woman who was tortured
says she witnessed serious abuses
I love how her story keeps changing. This women has been debunked six ways til sunday
- Comment on Why are people so rude on Reddit compared to the Fediverse? 2 months ago:
Why would I change instances because people are misinformed about MLs?
- Comment on Why are people so rude on Reddit compared to the Fediverse? 2 months ago:
There’s plenty of rude people here are you kidding? People are rude to me just because I’m on lemmy.ml lmfao…
- Comment on Nearly a thousand Google workers sign letter urging company to divest from ICE, CBP 4 months ago:
“Due to budget cuts and the outlook on bond markets, we have decided to downsize resources by 900.” - google, probably
- Comment on Obama's got jokes 6 months ago:
Ol double tap civvies Obama getting peace price…
All presidents are war criminals 😒
- Comment on Why are American cops allowed to be morbidly obese? 1 year ago:
Many departments don’t require physical tests once hired.
Most of the work cops do is domestic disturbance calls and traffic stops. There’s no reason to be physically fit for either of those jobs. Also, most people see the day shift and in nicer neighborhoods; again there’s really no need for physicality. Getting on day shift and good area means you’ve been on the police a while and “earned it” (or you have some clout), so usually olderish cops.
The young jacked mfers usually are on the night shift and in rougher neighborhoods.
Additionally, a bullet resistant vest and all the gear will make you look bigger/fatter than you really are.
So it’s kind of a combo of all that.
Also, ACAB