• Absurdly Stupid @lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    12
    arrow-down
    10
    ·
    edit-2
    13 hours ago

    Those in control of the USA are internationalists, too.

    They don’t care who “wins”, they profit off of the war itself (and the rebuild for that matter).

    They love tankies

    • Aljernon@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      2 hours ago

      They don’t care who “wins”, they profit off of the war itself

      People kept telling me that the Taliban won the war in Afghanistan but I kept telling them the US Military Industrial complex won.

    • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      4
      ·
      12 hours ago

      They 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?

          • Aljernon@lemmy.today
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            2 hours 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.

            • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              4
              arrow-down
              2
              ·
              6 hours 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.

                • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  arrow-down
                  2
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  3 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 (contrary to some strains of communist thought that had called for expanding the revolution to other countries). 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.

        • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          9 hours ago

          Exactly.

          There’s only one war worth fighting and that’s the class war. Everything else is just throwing lives away for nothing.

      • Absurdly Stupid @lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        12
        arrow-down
        10
        ·
        12 hours 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)

        • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          5
          arrow-down
          6
          ·
          edit-2
          10 hours 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, freedom is slavery, etc.

          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,” and if I don’t think the US has the right to kidnap heads of state I’m “supporting dictators.” Consistently advocating against the use of tanks is essentially the defining characteristic of a “tankie.”

            • Aljernon@lemmy.today
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              2
              ·
              2 hours 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.

              • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                1 hour ago

                Case in point: Anyone who wants to stay out of conflicts automatically supports Russia. My actual reasons and motivations are totally irrelevant. Thank you for proving my point.

            • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              4
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              edit-2
              8 hours 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 been 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.