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The meme is well designed, love the chaos star especially and love to see more balaclava girlies. And I can sympathize as I've certainly encountered very bizarre takes by terminally online internet leftists in favor of weird shit like being in favor of the Ukraine invasion or thinking the DPRK is some secret paradise.

However, by and large I've gotten to the point where anytime I hear the term 'tankie' thrown around it feels thought terminating. I've been called a tankie for being opposed to the US invading North Korea, or for supporting indigenous land return. But here's a bigger problem I've encountered: I volunteer every week at a local free store run by anarchists and I also have done organizing work with local ML parties. Anytime the local MLs want to get involved in the free store, or collaborating on any mutual aid projects the Anarchists have going on its cold shoulders all around "Oh no, those people are Tankies. We can't trust them." It's gotten to the point where everything is separate and there's no talking to each other. One time a Communist party member mentioned they knew someone who could do free glasses repair and thought it would be good for them to come to the free store, and when I brought it up folks just didn't wanna hear it or criticized "the company I keep" as if that would taint them. It's just disheartening because all these MLs locally are almost all LGBTQ, poor/working class, disabled, etc. Just like the Anarchists and want a lot of the same things. I really think anti-communist propaganda has created such an unnecessary divide in our organizing. I'm not asking folks to all just get along and agree, I want different orgs to have their autonomy and own ways of thought. I would just want people to focus their ire on people who ACTUALLY make life shit for us, especially here in the west, which is our own capitalist state and the capitalist class.

Thank you for indulging me by reading my long silly comment.

Authoritarians of all kinds fuck off!

Yep just keep punching left 😮‍💨

"First they came for the **socialists**, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."

—Martin Niemöller

Source

I'm tired of this red scare bs. It belongs in history books, not on the internet.

Ugh this type of bullshit infighting within leftist spaces is about as serious as debating your tabletop RPG actions, and sends regular people packing. None of this shit matters. Real people don't care about it and they have no idea what a tankie is. Feds love this bullshit. We're losing, we lost, the world is becoming a fascist hellscape but apparently somebody has time to make memes about fighting each other. It's amazing how that always seems to happen, especially now when you'd think most people could feel unified?

i deffo hate some tankies, in the same way that i deffo hate some vegetarian/vegans when they actively chase people away for seemingly no reason. sometimes though i do feel like i see more blind hate for entire communities than actual worthwhile discussion.

i guess the problem could really just come down to your definition of “tankie”. to some folks it’s a very specific kind of obvious troll, and to others it’s just anyone on an .ml instance.

and not to turn it into a “lesser evil” discussion, but between .world and .ml, i definitely know which which meme community i’m hanging out in. i’ve yet to have a single bad interaction with anyone in .ml communities, but i also don’t talk politics in fucken marxist/leninist spaces either. YMMV hahahah

Most communists/socialists arent tankies (even if .ml tries really hard to convince everyone otherwise) but identify with hammer and sickle too :(

But fk tankies, I'm with you on that

I love my anarchist comrades and I love my communist comrades. I hate seeing memes like this. May we all be lucky enough to argue in the midst of a real revolution. Until then, focus on the fucking fascists.

Should I work with Marxist-Leninists?

If you're organising at work or around housing issues, the people you work with are not going to all have the same politics at you, and your opinions on the July 1918 uprising of Left Socialist Revolutionaries after their expulsion from the Bolshevik government are not relevant to that situation. Yes, really, no-one gives a shit. You're relating to each other as workers in that situation, not as representatives of a political niche, at least we hope not.

[...]

If there are real political and organisational disagreements, it's better to be open about them than gloss over them, and retain some independence.

I don’t agree with the vision of an authoritarian state, even as a step towards something else, but my tankie friends, for example those in PSL, are doing a ton of good on the ground by organizing and funding busses to prison for the families of prisoners, helping support tenant unions, providing support for immigrants in the form of legal representation, continuously organizing against police injustices (especially in cases involving disabled, black, or queer people), and other issues that might arise in their locale. I respect the people continuously putting themselves and their resources on the line for others. I would be much quicker to lend disrespect to those that only talk and do nothing.

No gods no masters.