• fxomt@lemm.ee
    131·
    2 days ago

    A better term is “Red Fascist”. They’re not fascists by definition, but supporting totalitarianism and state capitalism (which isn’t even that left lol) and supporting genocide, and purges of people who follow different ideologies than them such as anarchists sounds pretty familiar…

    Can’t forget the cult of personality.

    • OpenStars@piefed.socialEnglish
      53·
      2 days ago

      But aren’t our particular brand of them here on Lemmy straight-up “tankies” as well? As in they literally, not even merely figuratively, deny that anyone died in the Tiananmen Square massacre?

      Or rather than say that tankie is not accurate, do you mean that it is more inclusive?

      • fxomt@lemm.ee
        31·
        2 days ago

        I meant both, they’re tankies and red fascists. Not all leftism is of course but there’s something deeply ironic supporting a violent and authoritarian ideology while claiming to care about the workers.

        • OpenStars@piefed.socialEnglish
          2·
          2 days ago

          I find this quite interesting.

          Are all tankies red fascists? If so, then isn’t it implied just by saying that? Or perhaps not bc maybe not everyone knows the former term while the latter spells it out explicitly…

          I have taken to calling them Alt-Left, bc of how they spew disinfo & misinfo and use identical argumentative forms as the Alt-Right - wanting to “win” at any cost, ignoring facts and logic and such in their pursuit of that goal.

          At a very naive guess, the word “fascism” may have a greater emotional impact upon Europeans, while Alt-Right might affect Americans more?

          • fxomt@lemm.ee
            3·
            2 days ago

            Are all tankies red fascists? If so, then isn’t it implied just by saying that? Or perhaps not bc maybe not everyone knows the former term while the latter spells it out explicitly…

            I’d say the term tankie is practically synonymous with red fascist. It’s easy for people to understand.

            I have taken to calling them Alt-Left, bc of how they spew disinfo & misinfo and use identical argumentative forms as the Alt-Right - wanting to “win” at any cost, ignoring facts and logic and such in their pursuit of that goal.

            The terms red fascist and tankie are actually real terms, the former first appearing in 1922 and the latter 1956. Fun fact: all those terms were coined by socialists, that were anti stalinist.

            At a very naive guess, the word “fascism” may have a greater emotional impact upon Europeans, while Alt-Right might affect Americans more?

            I wouldn’t know, i’m not either :)

            But a depressing fact of life is that while your regions are close to fascism now, many of us in the developing world already are living in fascism. I had the misfortune of being born in an absolute monarchy that still has slavery (hint: it’s in the arabian peninsula lol) i’d say it’s 100% fascism. Yes, technically it’s not since fascism is a dictatorship, not a monarchy. Fascism is totalitarianism, not autocracy. Fascism is anti-religion, not islamic. But…

            … I’d argue that makes things worse. I’d rather live under a totalitarian dictatorship than an autocratic monarchy. And at least under italian fascism you can’t be executed for apostasy, adultery or be crucified (yes, this is real) for crimes.

            I’d say this gives me a much more emotional reaction to people thinking authoritarianism is a good idea. I guarantee you every single idiot saying that is living under a democracy, never having experienced what authoritarianism really is.

              • fxomt@lemm.ee
                2·
                1 day ago

                True. Only a moron would wish for their own oppression 🙄 If they think authoritarianism’s so great then i’ll be glad to switch lives with them lol.

                I think that they only think that it’s good because they imagine themselves as the high ranking official, and not as the peasant breaking their backs to feed their slavers.

                I like these quotes from john steinbeck, i feel that it describes them a lot:

                Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.

                "Except for the field organizers of strikes, who were pretty tough monkeys and devoted, most of the so-called Communists I met were middle-class, middle-aged people playing a game of dreams. I remember a woman in easy circumstances saying to another even more affluent: ‘After the revolution even we will have more, won’t we, dear?’ Then there was another lover of proletarians who used to raise hell with Sunday picknickers on her property

                “I guess the trouble was that we didn’t have any self-admitted proletarians. Everyone was a temporarily embarrassed capitalist. Maybe the Communists so closely questioned by the investigation committees were a danger to America, but the ones I knew — at least they claimed to be Communists — couldn’t have disrupted a Sunday-school picnic. Besides they were too busy fighting among themselves.”

                • OpenStars@piefed.socialEnglish
                  3·
                  21 hours ago

                  You may be interested in watching The Alt Right Playbook, by Innuendo Studios. I think the one that I am thinking of in particular is There’s Always A Bigger Fish.

                  Some people, even poor ones, don’t vote because they think that they will be rich someday - but rather bc they believe that they should be poor, and that the rich should be rich. Possibly they were told this from a religious leader behind a pulpit somewhere, thereby bypassing the normal skeptical thought process (despite the teachings of their own religious texts such as “test EVERYTHING against what you KNOW to be true”, and “the worker deserves their wages”, etc.).

                  As a side effect, The Alt Right Playbook will show you the identical tactics used by those on e.g. Hexbear and Lemmy.ml, despite how they are not “Right” but rather (ostensibly) “Left”.

                  • fxomt@lemm.ee
                    2·
                    16 hours ago

                    but rather bc they believe that they should be poor, and that the rich should be rich

                    Hits close to him tbh, many people around me think that. We are a religious country too as you described lmao.

                    Though i don’t think hexbear users are one of them/ml users are one of them, i think they speak too highly of themselves and are too snobby to think that low of themselves lol.

                    I did not know of the alt-right playbook, i’ll take a look at it, thank you.