Tankies aren't Comrades

For context: I recently migrated to Tumblr and Im used to the State of Reddit where of course there where Tankie subs but it wasnt to hard too acually avoid them.

But Holy Fucking Fuck! The State of leftists Tags on this site is so fucking bad. Like you cant browse the Anticapitalist, communist or socialist Tags without seeing people praising the Soviets or China or just blatantly denying Genocides. Of course I am of the opinion that the left would be stronger If it wouldnt constantly start Infights over nothing. BUT defending Authoritarian regimes, denying Genocide, defending Imperialism(as long as it isnt USA), Warcrimes and the Overall supression of the working Class are under no circumstances part of leftist Values and we dont need these people to stand strong against the System.

If you still consider fighting side by side with these people I recommand you take a look at what happend to teh CNT-FAI during the Spanish civil war. Or the Anrchist/libertarian socialists that fought in the Russian Revolution. These people will stab you in the back or put you in to a Camp first chance they get.

If you are part of the LGBTQ community or Religious minority I recommand looking what is currently happenig to the Uyghurs in China or Russias war on the LGBTQ community.

Luckily most of these people are Keyboard warriors and dont engage with the real world.

But under any circumstances, TANKIES ARE NOT YOUR COMRADES!

Hey, other queer people! Especially ones around my age/younger than me. If you are leftist then you can't bother policing other queer people's pronouns, labels, or bodies. It makes pointless infighting that leads to you focusing on the wrong fucking thing. This whole no fly list thing shows that! Idc about your feelings about she/it pronouns or bisexual lesbians. Fuck your insignificant opinions about another humans labels, the NO FLY LIST WAS LEAKED!

Crazy to me how some people can’t agree that Palestinian liberation is more important than leftist infighting. Is calling some random anarchist that supports Palestinian liberation more important than talking about Palestinian liberation?

No leftist has all three:

• has actually read theory

• believes in the Tiananmen Square Massacre

• normal about Jews

I’m about to say some shit that a lot of you are really not gonna want to hear.

If you call yourself a trans ally but constantly put men down, you are not a trans ally.

If you call yourself body positive but call men ugly or make fun of them for having small dicks, you are not body positive.

If you call yourself a mental health advocate but that advocacy doesn’t include people with personality disorders or psychotics, you are not a mental health advocate.

If you call yourself pro-choice but object to a woman partaking in sex work or surrogacy, you are not pro-choice.

If you call yourself kink positive but shame others for having non-harmful unorthodox fantasies you personally don’t like, you are not kink positive.

If you claim to accept bisexuals but feel disgust at their “opposite gender” attraction, you are partaking in biphobia.

If you claim to be against xenophobia but make fun of other people’s accents or dialects, you are partaking in xenophobia.

If you claim to be for class solidarity but make fun of working class people’s dialects, food, clothes or culture, you are partaking in classism.

If you claim to be against Islamophobia but find yourself associating Islam with terrorism, you are partaking in Islamophobia.

If you claim to be against antisemitism but find yourself regularly calling Jews Zionists, you are partaking in antisemitism.

I’m not saying any of this makes you A Xenophobe™️ or inherently bigoted. But these are just a few things many leftists still need to unlearn when it comes to seeking true acceptance and equality, and I see far too much of this behaviour on this website from people who claim to be ardently against it. Everyone has subconscious prejudices that need to be addressed and what matters is making the effort to improve on that behaviour once it’s been recognised. These are just examples that have stood out to me the most lately and there will be more because none of us are perfect and I have been guilty of these before as well. I just hope to see change and growth rather than indignation.

I find it really funny that people subscribed to right-leaning ideologies see zero nuance in the general takes of left-leaning ones. A liberal is an anarchist is a communist as far as they're concerned.

And the thing about that, to me, is that leftists fucking hate each other. There is no ideology left-of-center that can tolerate another left-leaning ideology. We just can't do it. We need to yell at each other. We feel a wriggling presence just beneath our skin that forces our limbs to attack other leftists. We have to.

Meanwhile, liberals try to "reach across the aisle" to conservatives who are getting increasingly harder to distinguish from (fake-)libertarians which, in the USA at the very least, is shorthand for "fascists."

But somehow we on the left are a "Woke Hivemind" because we mostly agree on social/cultural issues. But if you even just stop for a second to look at the people who are "mostly agreeing," you'll find that at least one of them has said some shit that we think is offensive for a week or two before we all just forget about them entirely and move on to the next bushy-bearded white guy to be mad at.

I’m fairly against “Left Unity” as a concept. The conversations overlap very heavily with discussions of infighting. I *do* have comrades of various affiliations that I am not a part of. I *can* work with people whose ideologies I’m not very compatible with. Hell, part of being an anarchist is taking issue with the ideologies of other anarchists. Working together short term on common goals with likeminded enough people is crucial, but the framing of “Left Unity” is so flawed.

There is a pervasive idea that if you have a similar want you should “put aside your differences” and just like your favorite movie, the enemy of my enemy is my bestie and we work together and defeat evil. This simplistic idea allowed Boog Boys to be considered comrades. Allows cults to take center stage in organizing spaces. Allows people to protect abusers. And folks who take issues with aligning with fash, protecting abusers, taking things in dangerous directions are cop jacketed. Oh, you are being divisive? Clearly you are an op.

There is wholeheartedly fighting over hypothetical post-revolution societies that have no bearing on the now, but to a point, what groups want for the future DOES impact now. No, I don’t want to work with groups of communists who want to “purge” anarchists, because they dox people when they get annoyed over petty shit. No, I don’t want to work with groups who will eagerly throw the most disenfranchised among us under the bus to secure crumbs from the establishment. No, I don’t want to work with groups who want to work with the cops. No, I don’t want to work with groups who are comfortable working with fash because ‘we can sort it out later.’

I want the abolition of the state. So I can work on short term goals with people who want to reform the state, but eventually, (and not too far into the future) it becomes a problem. Of course people who are anti-hierarchy will take issue with people who want to organize as a power-grab. Of course people who want to reimagine the police will be looked at with suspicion by those seeking abolition.

So much that is labeled “infighting” is fundamental differences that will get people killed. Some red fash set up a table at an anarchist bookfair and someone flipped over their table. Their response? Call the cops. At a protest someone chopped up some bricks on the sidewalk to throw at cops and liberals in the crowd performed a citizens arrest and dragged him to the cop line to turn him in. Someone who got sexually harassed by a ‘leader’ in organizing spaces spoke out about it, so the leader told people she was a cop, and at a protest where shit went south, everyone boxed her out and tried to isolate her, putting her in danger. Boogs invited into organizing spaces have helped to dox leftists. Authcoms jerking off to the Russian invasion have tried to sell out folks in organizing spaces. RevCom is a literal cult. PSL protects abusers and smears people who come forward. Black Hammer is wildly and violently antisemitic.

Differences in fundamental values and risks to safety that people prioritize is not petty infighting or childish divisiveness. It’s not as simple as “we hate the cops so anyone who hates the cops is my friend”, it’s not as simple as “I want systemic change so anyone who wants systemic change we can set aside our differences”. If the “differences” includes setting aside your core tenets of your beliefs that is not unity, that is not an alliance.

I do not ally with people who want to sell out the “undesirables” among us. I do not ally with people who will put people at risk the moment they are challenged. I do not ally with people who want to be the oppressor instead of the oppressed.

I have comrades of so many backgrounds and with so many different ideologies and so many different goals, but we have similar core values. The idea that the left is aligned by similar values is a dangerous blanket assumption.

Fuck “left unity”, more small collectives working together towards liberation.

I am sick of the lgbtq in-fightings, liberals vs conservatives. I wish I could just be a lesbian. And not feel like I am walking on eggshells in my own community. Reblog if you agree.

can a t4t she/him worm gf anarkiddie ever love a she/it catgirl tankie... maybe they can bond over a children's show about guinea pig cars? maybe they will end leftist infighting... or make it even sexier?

I know that it’s human nature to be defensive or indignant when told you may be wrong about something but like. When I tell someone “actually that’s a little antisemitic” or “please don’t say that it’s horribly ableist” why can’t they just you know. Listen to me. And also maybe stop doing that thing. Especially when they claim to be leftists who care about oppression. Why

As much as I think Leftist infighting is ultimately self-defeating, it does strike me that it is very hard to create an effective alliance with people whose greatest fear is things changing in ways they can't fully predict or control when your greatest fear is things staying exactly the same.

And there are a surprising amount of people who call themselves Liberals, Progressives, and Leftists that are in that former category.

the thing about ctechno is like. He is a violent anarchist when anarchism is born from hating violence and the idea that goverments are violent in the ways they can enforce their will so that one ahould be against goverment.

Then he forges an alliance with the most powerful guy.

We could have had such a fucking cool thing if he instead stayed the third side of the war, opposing both lmanberg and dream

c!Techno makes me sad to think about because he was so close to becoming one of my favorite characters, if not my actual favorite.

The concept of a character who begins their story with a shallow understanding of their chosen ideology, who makes flawed alliances due to ignorance of history, who tears down systems they (understandably) believe to be flawed while offering no effective support system for those caught in the fallout, and who eventually either drowns in their stubbornness and spite or is forced to confront the personal and wide-scale consequences of their actions, which leads to growth and transformation...

Well, it's been a brilliant arc in theory. Unfortunately, there were just too many little things that irked me about the execution.