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Which version of "the left" was ever not against China? There aren't that many actual Tankies outside of twitter/reddit.

AnimalMuppet 6y ago
Um, would you care to define "Tankies", for those of us not in the know? And the left, such as we have in the US, may not have been pro-China, but who on the left was against China?
- freshhawk 6y ago
  Oh, tankie is a pejorative term for authoritarian "communists". The vast majority of leftists, at this point in time, are very anti-authoritarian. Everyone on the left hates China except the tiny percentage of tankies. And I'm using "left" in the political science meaning, so your Democrats are centrists in that model. How on earth did you get the idea that any leftists weren't against a very authoritarian state-capitalist form of government?
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    Is Bernie still a centrist in your model? I would regard him as rather left, at least in the US context. Is Antifa centrist? And yet I don't hear either Bernie or Antifa railing against China. (Maybe Bernie does - I didn't follow him that closely - but he was getting a fair amount of press, and I didn't notice much on China one way or the other. He was more focused on domestic policy than international. And Antifa also is primarily focused on domestic issues. So maybe it's not surprising. Still, they seem to be ignoring China rather than opposing it.)
    - GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
      Just a clarification, antifa is just anti-fascist, and aren't organized at a national or regional level.
    - freshhawk 6y ago
      This isn't "my model", it's the standard, and rather flawed, political compass. Bernie was as social democrat basically, so that's left of center, you can look up exactly where people would put him pretty easily. Antifa is anti-fascist, so they are (from the name) at the bottom and (in practice) mostly fairly far left, although there are antifa centrists (bottom middle) too. If you didn't hear anti-authoritarian leftists who are socialists/communists/anarchists and anti-capitalists critiquing China, the state capitalist country claiming to be communist ... you have either been under a rock or in a filter bubble.
quotz 6y ago
It was the republicans that first that made the CCP problem popular. The left wasn't really focusing on China at all.

AnimalMuppet 6y ago

Um, would you care to define "Tankies", for those of us not in the know? And the left, such as we have in the US, may not have been pro-China, but who on the left was against China?

freshhawk 6y ago
Oh, tankie is a pejorative term for authoritarian "communists". The vast majority of leftists, at this point in time, are very anti-authoritarian. Everyone on the left hates China except the tiny percentage of tankies. And I'm using "left" in the political science meaning, so your Democrats are centrists in that model. How on earth did you get the idea that any leftists weren't against a very authoritarian state-capitalist form of government?
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  Is Bernie still a centrist in your model? I would regard him as rather left, at least in the US context. Is Antifa centrist? And yet I don't hear either Bernie or Antifa railing against China. (Maybe Bernie does - I didn't follow him that closely - but he was getting a fair amount of press, and I didn't notice much on China one way or the other. He was more focused on domestic policy than international. And Antifa also is primarily focused on domestic issues. So maybe it's not surprising. Still, they seem to be ignoring China rather than opposing it.)
  - GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
    Just a clarification, antifa is just anti-fascist, and aren't organized at a national or regional level.
  - freshhawk 6y ago
    This isn't "my model", it's the standard, and rather flawed, political compass. Bernie was as social democrat basically, so that's left of center, you can look up exactly where people would put him pretty easily. Antifa is anti-fascist, so they are (from the name) at the bottom and (in practice) mostly fairly far left, although there are antifa centrists (bottom middle) too. If you didn't hear anti-authoritarian leftists who are socialists/communists/anarchists and anti-capitalists critiquing China, the state capitalist country claiming to be communist ... you have either been under a rock or in a filter bubble.

quotz 6y ago

It was the republicans that first that made the CCP problem popular. The left wasn't really focusing on China at all.