In terms of the “tankie problem”, it’s mostly supporting Russian aggression in Ukraine pretty much solely to “own the libs” and “get back at the evil NATO”. Most “tankies”, a term that has become effectively meaningless from overuse, are more accurately political contrarians who care less about things getting better for more people and more about Owning The Libs.
There’s honestly a good chunk of them on most fediverse instances just due to the general community vibe, with Hexbear having more than, say, lemmy.world, but less than lemmygrad. Hexbear stands out moreso to being the successor to Chapo Trap House, a community notorious for being so utterly vile to interact with that nobody wants anything to do with them.
I appreciate you actually explaining your position behind the use of the word. I have a lot of issues with NATO and some with Ukraine but I agree that Russia is the aggressor in this situation. I have noticed that some of their users are pro-Russia but most of what I’ve seen is more anti-NATO which I can understand. As I said in another comment I definitely see some of the users troll more than I agree with and I personally prefer to deal with things in a different manner but overall I’m fine with being federated with them.
No, but they’re absolutely the lesser of two evils here. I’m generally not sure how people justify a war of territorial expansion to stroke the ego of a geriatric dictator in Ukraine, then turn around and get angry about a war of territorial expansion to stroke the ego of a geriatric dictator in, say, Afghanistan.
It’s hypocrisy. You dronestrike a children’s hospital in Kabul and everyone acknowledges the evil of it, but Russia dronestrikes a children’s hospital in Ukraine and suddenly it’s justified as “retaliating against western imperialism”. Sure, and Iran had nukes Uncle Sam needed to find, too.
For me, I don’t support what Russia is doing. I just don’t want to further empower the US military industrial complex. Every couple of years there needs to be a new evil enemy for us to be scared of so that the money can keep flowing into weapons and so that we have excuses to extract value out of other countries in conflict. It’s obvious we don’t do this for humanitarian reasons or we wouldn’t be allies with countries like Saudi Arabia (or see the entire history of US intervention since WWII). Whether Russia wins or loses the war, people in Ukraine aren’t winning, they’re just seeing which imperialists are going to be exploiting them for the near future.
In the abstract I don’t oppose assisting countries against imperialist aggression with military force. But playing into US warmongering doesn’t really do that and in the process is further making the world a worse place.
Lesser of two evils? Please. How old do you think I am, ten? I’m not at all sure they’re the lesser of two evils, but then I’m pretty critical of things like imf, World Bank, allying with Saudi Arabia “ccp bad” garbage. Humans are animals and I’m here to learn and the western narrative is rather sanitized so no thanks.
Well apparently Kbin has some political contrarians too, who’d have thought.
Contrarian? Hardly. I’m just aware that Western Europe and the USA have their own agendas, engage in propagandizing their own citizens, to greater or lesser extent. Pretending otherwise is disingenuous. Notice how lacked the behavior, not the person, without knowing more? Try out sometime.
