I have seen my fair share of tankies here, so there definitely is a presence of them here. But I also do think a lot of the complaints come from people who assume any leftist user or post is also a "tankie."
Like I do see a lot of leftist memes posted to memes@lemmy.ml, which might be where a lot of the complaints are coming from. Likewise there has been a lot of drama with hexbear federating with a lot of communities that were previously shielded from them.
If following the Marxist definition, I don't think the end goal of communism is inherently a bad thing. The issue comes from the means of achieving it, and the issue with Marxist-Leninism and Maoism is its tendency towards purity, conformity, compulsory adherence and authoritarianism.
I think you are right in the sense that because China calls itself communist, people are quick to defend it despite the fact that it's current political economic system seems to resemble authoritarian capitalism moreso than even Maoism. Then again, North Korea seperated itself from its communist label decades ago, and Russia isn't even the same political regime it was during the Soviet era, and a lot of self proclaimed communists still jump to their defense.
I can understand being critical of or even hostile to the United States and other first world capitalist nations, but the enemy of your enemy isn't always your friend. Otherwise Imperial Japan would've been based as fuck even though it raped and enslaved people under the guise of "antiimperialism" and "east Asian co-prosperity."
It's almost as if many countries within Eastern Europe and Asia have generational trauma associated with acts of violence, oppression, and genocide connected to those symbols.
I've never understood the obsession with Soviet iconography within communist spaces, especially when there are plenty of communists that acknowledge that the Soviet Union never actually lived up to the ideals of communism, and acknowledge the acts of imperialism and genocide committed by their regime.
The swastika and other ancient symbols are banned for similar reasons in many countries for their association with fascists, and most people seem to be on board with it. But when countries that were directly harmed by communist regimes start to ban soviet iconography, there is suddenly a double standard and a lack of understanding.
I think modern communists who sincerely believe in social justice need to divorce themselves from these symbols of oppression. There are plenty of symbols of solidarity, unity, and workers empowerment that could be used that don't have the same level of taint. I'm a fan of the big dipper myself.
Or I never see communists here talk about fascists and the far right the same way they talk about liberals or anyone else on or near the left who doesn't quite meet their purity test. Almost as if they prefer the company of nazis.
Considering what is known about lemmy, its creators, and the original instances, it seems to hold up. But regardless of the true meaning of ml, the political leanings of lemmy.ml were very far left before the reddit migration, and I feel that's the reason why you see such an aggressive presence of communist memes on ml's meme page.
Never met a pleasant person who used liberal as an insult.
This site is in the process of fighting its own culture war. You have the hardcore communists, anarchists and tankies who were here the longest, and the meme page is on one of their original domains (the ml in lemmy.ml is supposed to stand for marxist-leninist ). And then you have the twitter and reddit refugees who in general lean more center left, liberal, or libertarian. ml was the domain that was advertise the most to people on reddit, and world was where people were directed to once ml's sign ups were limited.
memes@lemmy.ml is kinda going throught the gaybar effect with the influx of redditors. Like sometimes when a gaybar gets popular, it attracts non-queer customers, who tell their friends, who invite their friends, to the point the original queer customer base gets crowded out. I imagine that's what the marxist-leninist community base is feeling now that a lot of former redditors call their instance home, and their meme page is the defacto meme community of lemmy.
As long as the mods here allow it, and as long as people keep upvoting, this problem isn't going away, no matter how many complaint memes get posted. The best solution I can think of is boost other meme pages on different instances, maybe with mod teams that are more willing to keep the page apolitical (which is hard to do in general cause everyone's definition of political is different.) kbin has a fairly large meme community that could use some more love, same with memes@sopuli.xyz. Hell, considering most users are from world or shitjustworks, I'm surprise I don't see their local meme pages get more use.
Well then they wouldn't be here would they.
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What I don't get is what is stopping people from joining a smaller instance more adjusted to their tastes? Like if you join large instance made for the general user, don't be surprised if you see a political opinion or meme you disagree with. world and ml tend to block only the most egregious of instances.
There are plenty of instances that cater to the political and social leanings of people if you really can't stand being outside a bubble, but fediverse isn't simply one site, and you can't bully or complain your way into shaping the culture of lemmy or fediverse in general. That is part of the beauty of this site, and for how many here complained about the homogeneity of reddit, its funny how now the big complaint is people are seeing opinions they don't like.
There are simple solutions to all of that, but it involves being proactive in the users and communities you block, and being selective of the instance(s) you join.
Not missing much. They all still taste like child slavery.
I mean the SCOTUS basically signaled last year that they don't give a fuck either, or at the very least are willing to twist any interpretation of it to fit whatever the Republican's agenda is. Hell, Clarence basically said after the Roe repeal that gay marriage and reinstatement of sodomy laws was next.
The point of this push is to get a case in front of the supreme that more or less outlaws any expression of queerness.