• UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    I gotta ask, what exactly is the difference between the Obama “Dronestrikes On Arabs Is Never Wrong” Dickrider Liberal and the Stalinist “driving over Hungarian fascists with your tank is cool af, aktuly” Leftist?

    Because I hear a lot about these Far-Left Tankies. But then I see Western so-called Progressives flood their shorts every time we sodomize leadership in Libya with a rusty knife or carpet bomb hospitals in Gaza or unleash another wave of hack mercenaries on Venezuela. Hell, even MacArthur’s saturation bombing of the Korean Peninsula gets love. Does anyone actually oppose foreign military interventionism? Or is it just taboo when a leftist military leader does it?

    • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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      7 days ago

      Does anyone actually oppose foreign military interventionism?

      …Why would you? That’s the right thing to do sometimes. We could have totally stayed on the sidelines in WWII in Europe, and only gone to war in the Pacific, because that shit was absolutely not our problem, right?

      We should, for instance, be intervening in Myanmar, and in Rojava. We should be protecting the Kurds–esp. since we said we would–from Syria and Turkiye. We should be helping the rebels in Myanmar, since they’re just trying to get basic human rights from a dictatorial military regime.

      Does that mean that the US is perfect? Absofuckinglutely no. Not even close. Is capitalism great? Nope. Is authoritarian communism better? LOL, no.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        Does that mean that the US is perfect?

        This appears to be the root of it. America gets some sort of ideological benefit-of-the-doubt, such that My Lai Massacres and engineered famines in Cuba and Korea and blacksite prisons that use genital mutilation to extract confessions are degrees shy of perfection rather than war crimes, atrocities, and holocausts.

        Is authoritarian communism better? LOL, no.

        Is your problem with the authoritarianism or the communism?

        “The very concept of “revolutionary violence” is somewhat falsely cast, since most of the violence comes from those who attempt to prevent reform, not from those struggling for reform. By focusing on the violent rebellions of the downtrodden, we overlook the much greater repressive force and violence utilized by the ruling oligarchs to maintain the status quo, including armed attacks against peaceful demonstrations, mass arrests, torture, destruction of opposition organizations, suppression of dissident publications, death squad assassinations, the extermination of whole villages, and the like.”

        ― Michael Parenti, Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism

    • prettybunnys@sh.itjust.works
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      7 days ago

      The first group actually doesn’t really exist AND the group that gets assigned to that category tends to agree that extrajudicial air strikes are bad.

      If the first group actually existed in the way they get categorized and imagined they’d be equally as bad, if not worse for being that dumb in a society where they are “allowed” to know better and think differently, vocally.

      • tane@lemm.ee
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        7 days ago

        The first group absolutely fucking exists, gets power, and gets defended by most liberals. The fuck are you talking about?

        • prettybunnys@sh.itjust.works
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          7 days ago

          I’m 90% sure it first said “Obama ~~ leftist” before being edited to liberal, which was what I’m commenting on.

          The “liberal” in the USA is not a leftist in the same way a Tankie isn’t.

          • tane@lemm.ee
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            7 days ago

            Okay well in that case yeah of course. Sorry for being harsh but I’ve seen so much war apologia from liberals lately I’m on edge

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            7 days ago

            The “liberal” in the USA is not a leftist in the same way a Tankie isn’t.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie

            The term “tankie” was originally used by dissident Marxist–Leninists to describe members of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) who followed the party line of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Specifically, it was used to distinguish party members who spoke out in defence of the Soviet use of tanks to suppress the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the 1968 Prague Spring, or who more broadly adhered to pro-Soviet positions.

            Now, the modern day use of the term has shifted much farther to the right. Any form of resistance or dissent - particularly when it comes into conflict with the NATO military apparatus - qualifies, whether you’re a FARC guerilla or a Wikileaks editor of BDS advocate.

            Palestinian rights organizers getting dragged of a university campus earn the label. Food Not Bombs charity workers earn the label. Internet slacktivists excited about the latest Deepseek patch earn the label. So, in that sense, sure. You don’t have to be a leftist to get called a Tankie.