TRexBear [they/them]

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Joined 3 months ago
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Cake day: April 1st, 2024

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  • I just think it’s funny that capitalist states like the US or Israel fit your definition equally as well if not more so than socialist states like the USSR or the PRC. Can you not appreciate how that waters down your definition to the point of uselessness?

    If you want a more accurate definition, just say “tankies” are Marxist-Leninists or supporters of AES countries. At least that makes sense and is specific. Less critical and derogatory though, which I suppose goes against the intention of the term.



  • Tankie: Someone who is authoritarian to a degree he sees using the army (tanks) against the own civilian population as a valid and legitimate action.

    Serious question; does this include for example supporters of Israel today? Would someone who supported US action in Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan be a tankie?

    edit: I just noticed “own civilian population” in your comment? Is the implication that you’re not a tankie if you’re only murdering innocent foreigners? Ironically the term ‘tankie’ was coined when Khrushchev sent soviet tanks to Hungary so were the original tankies not actually tankies?






  • It’s significant as a potential turning point, in that it was an existential crisis for the Party and had it succeeded we’d be looking at a very different China today.

    In Chinese politics I think you could argue that it was such a threatening and frankly embarrassing incident for the Party that they’ve been far more responsive to public attitudes since, to head-off the growth of oppositional-to-government movements again. I mean there’s a reason we haven’t seen anything remotely similar happen in China since.

    In terms of how Westerners see it though, it’s not really significant beyond being a stick to beat China with. It was definitely a tragedy that should’ve been avoided, but the attention given to it over 30 years later is only there because it’s geopolitically convenient.