PotatoesFall

hehe Yogthos I was actually thinking of you when I mentioned China stans :P no offense

I really don't like being called a liberal though :( what makes me come across like a liberal? Is it my anarchism? My hatred of capitalism, colonialism and western hegemony?

I'm actually really happy that you mentioned Shock Doctrine because last time I was arguing with a tankie they called Naomi Klein a US state sanctioned liberal :D

I already replied on another comment about the support

90% support makes the whole thing more suspicious to me than anything.

I'm sure a lot of the policy that the CCP has put forward are great, especially if compared to the US counterparts, but that doesn't justify violence and oppression.

No, and that's a good point actually. Although I think the state of political opposition both in Russia and China speaks volumes.

Funny, I was just telling @Cowbee about how the tankies I see on here are insufferable & impossible to converse with.

But I'll bite. First of all, I don't appreciate the strawmen. I'm not saying that there is a lot of tankies, nor that they are here now suddenly. I'm not denying that US/Western propaganda doesn't exist, nor that it's dangerous and pervasive.

I'm just saying that I, myself, in my own experience, have seen people shilling for China or even Russia, acting like it's a fucking utopia. Russia an oligarchy, just with a different structure than most Western countries. China is a government that rules over billions of people. That is, by definition, evil. No amount of America Bad makes China or Russia good.

In terms of propaganda sources, for example just take a look at Russia Today.

Your second and third sentence are true. I have definitely seen plenty of shills though.

In my experience I've only seen the word tankie be used by leftists. Libs and conservatives don't even know what a tankie is.

The people I'm describing as tankies are people I've interacted with myself. I'm sure they don't exist in huge numbers, but they are more concentrated on .ml, they are loud, and they are impossible to converse with. I still like it here because most people here, like yourself, are smart and offering interesting perspectives I haven't explored before.

I agree that the idea of only Eastern propaganda being dangerous and pervasive is wrong. Western propaganda is everywhere too and also dangerous.

One thing that is different is the lack of government-critical sources available from China, also Russia. Freedom of Speech in the West is wobbly, but in China and especially Russia it is even worse (from everything I've read).

This is a lovely segue into our China sidequest, and while I agree on the definition, I have doubts on how public the public sector really is. The way that national election results look and the way vocal dissidents or political opposition are treated does not give me the idea that the people truly have all the power here.

Capitalism concentrates power in the capitalist class. This class can then subvert democracy, resulting in oligarchy. In a similar way, central planning concentrates power in the central government, which actually makes it even easier to abuse that power. Chinese government is not transparent nor federal enough for me to call it democratic or owned by the people.

If China is a socialist state worth supporting then I'm a donkey with a laser dick :P But I'm more anarchistically inclined so different perspective.

I see your point though. What I'm saying is not that communist = tankie, on the contrary. I'm saying that tankies claim to be communists but spend all day parroting their favorite Russian or Chinese state propaganda because they believe everything else is clearly controlled by Obamna™ himself. They rarely actually talk about communism, they just roam Lemmy all day calling everybody who disagrees with them a liberal :D

nowadays tankie just means someone who shills for china/russia with a communist background

thanks. For the record, you are a great donut