I'm from Eastern Europe and if anyone here said Stalin was good actually they would get their ass kicked pretty fast. A lot of people have lost family to the soviet occupation here and people defending that monster aren't really welcome. So yea, if I see posts praising Stalin in All I downvote them.
The problem with them is, they act like a cult. You might have heard that term in relation to Trump supporters and yes, they act and speak very similar. You have the same amouth of whataboutism, the same amouth of hypocracy, the same amouth of hate and the same amouth of dishonesty. I fucking hate the bOtH sIdEs argument and the enlightened center, but here we are.
A couple of weeks ago, a two year old post was brought up on Hot, because...idk Lemmy I guess. This happened all the time in the first weeks after the exodus. In this post OP called the "special operation" in Ukraine a powermove for marxism1) and a all in all good thing. You might think "It has been two years by now, maybe they changed?". No, I looked into the account and OP immediately made another post, linking his original post and creating a circle jerk for his fellow ghouls. Here you had people celebrating, that now they are the ones with the banhammer while in the same time crying about not having a conversation.
Afaik, they do this all the time. This post might be up there too. So I blocked every single community and every user I came across in the wild. There aren't that many, so they are a very small but vocal minority. Nothing of value was lost. Nothing of valule will be lost in the future. Mom told me not to talk to crazy people. Fuck them.
1) Oh, and if you think that an invasion of a sovereign nation by the worlds most corrupt Kleptocracy is a powermove for marxism, you can eat my socialist ass.
I'm just so done with the topic. I don’t want to engage in lengthy internet debates that benefit no one and only serve to reinforce each person's initial stance. I have no interest either in debating against or in favor of tankies.
Although as far as my experience here on lemmy/kbin has been, the people who seem far more interested in making posts (not talking about this one) and constantly bring up the topic are anti-tankies. There seems to be a group of the community here that is fervently anti-tankie, and has to let everyone know at every chance how much they despise tankies and how evil tankies are and so on. These people are the most tiresome by far, at least in my experience, I have yet to come across any of the much dreaded tankie content. Maybe it's because for some of the people in this group the mere fact (I don't know how much of a fact is it and I honestly do not care) of the admins of lemmy.ml being tankies is enough to trigger their outrage and anger.
I will say this, why are any of us placing so much focus (and for some, outrage) on some very niche groups of terminally online leftists, when there's been a very scary rise of fascism worldwide, especially in Europe and US, that is currently getting worse? I can guarantee you this new wave of fascism enjoys far more popular support than Marxist-Leninists have, or ever have in western countries. Seems like worrying over the mosquito that’s biting your arm while there's a polar bear mauling the other side of your body. (Before anyone tries the “but tankies support fascism” gotcha, you should know actual Marxist-Leninists outside of these terminally online spaces do not support the current Russian imperial oligarchy, maybe people should also get informed about the concept of critical support, which is still very debatable)
I wish we had keyword filters on Kbin so I could be done with any and all content regarding the word “tankie”
Edit: To the very nice people who felt the need, Reddit-style, of just downvoting me without even taking part in the conversation. This goes out to you all: https://youtu.be/8mpeixSXYVU
Some drama is just down to their politics (authoritarian Marxist Leninist in the main), and some relating to their moderation based on politics (bans for users posting articles critical of China, allegedly). You should be able to search and find recent treads, here is one I still had a tab open from yesterday:
lemmygrad is geared towards radical marxists supportive of china and/or russia
this means their users (and moderators) come from a far side of the political spectrum and are going to tend towards radicalism and extremism, and that their views tend to align with two hostile dictatorships notorious for their repeated disinterest in citizens rights or basic decency
all of which makes for a hotbed of toxicity with a modteam that doesnt particularly mind as long as its directed towards non-marxists
Same kind of humorless dolts who inhabit left spaces on reddit and are a uniquely a product of reddit’s culture of total conformity. Leftblr used to make fun of them all the time. Speaking from my own experience, I am a tankie, or at least most would accuse me of being such. But I didn’t pass the Lemmygrad purity test, and they blocked my registration because I said gender is fake and gay on my application (gay used as a pejorative). Not saying I didn't or deserve a warning but yeesh context matters. Which is my personal experience, but if they are that way toward other communists, they are going to be way harder on perceived liberals so most people don't like seeing their posts day to day.