What portion of the tankie userbase do we think are Chinese intelligence assets? Or at best, shills?

The down vote shaping on this thread I think supports this notion. It’s something that I have seen and personally experienced on Reddit. And, it seems that liberal left wingers are invariably the target.

My experience has always been that tankies, regardless of community, are exceedingly rare in the wild of a western nation. With leftist views usually comes compassion, and that prevents the development of authoritarian views.

There is something wrong with the proportions on Lemmy. There’s more going on than fringe local western tankies. Perhaps Dessalines insistence that Signal was a honeypot, is a projection about Lemmy.ml?

I dont mind the presence of these articles. I like to be in the know. I like the opportunity to engage in a constructive nuanced discussion that you can no longer find on Reddit, and can be found in abundance on Lemmy.

What effects me most is that, whether honest (human), not (bots) or covert (intelligence agencies), the defeatism, acceptance and obeyance in advance is the fundamental barrier to meaningful change. It catches, it spreads and it demoralises. It is the boot on our collective necks.

We need to be more mindful of spreading our nihilism to each other, unless we’re happy being part of the problem. More solutions, more raising each other up, less wallowing.

When pressed, he refused to declare Zionism racist in that interview. That’s quite different from saying zionism isn’t racist; he just wouldn’t say that it was. Also, he’s kind of right isn’t he? From a nuanced perspective, it’s Netanyahu and his party that have largely created the fascism at the heart of Israel, so I appreciate his point. But, I suppose theoretically, the fact he went to reflect before changing his position, could indicate a needed to gain permission from the person he is owned by before changing his stance.

This week he has said specifically, that zionism is racism under pressure from his party. I don’t see that as the act of a committed zionist, but then again is it just verbal buttering? He’s seemingly willing to go so much further than Starmer, Badenoch or Farage in his anti-Israel speech. If he was owned by Netanyahu like so many politicians are, he wouldn’t be able to say this freely surely? It also shows he’s willing to go with consensus of his party which is also a good sign.

That said I’ve been fooled before by music to my ears; so it comes down to a matter of trust doesn’t it? Do we trust him? There’s no telling before reaching power. He’s been transparent about his finances at least; and doesn’t appear to have been bought like many other politicians. But whether or not he’s a Trojan horse for the left, who has a hidden master, is impossible to see at this stage.

Here’s a paraphrased quote from Zack Polanski: “Zionism is Racism”

What are you even talking about? Israel owns all the other major parties, except the greens! That quote is 100% more than any leader of any UK party has ever said regarding Israel or Gaza.

Three very different sources on this:

• https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/polanski-indicates-support-for-greens-zionism-is-racism-motion/

• https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-green-zack-polanski-zionism-is-racism-motion/

• https://news.sky.com/story/israel-not-committing-genocide-in-gaza-but-casualties-and-destruction-are-utterly-appalling-says-uk-government-13427380

It does seem to be a downward trajectory at least though. Let me cling to a little hope please :P. Perhaps the debates will swing it in Polanski’s favour; he is the only one who lays out a reasonable plan for working folks.

I hope the wider British public wakes up before the election. But, pretty much all of the mainstream media encourages their base instincts to blame immigrants at some level, rather than the wealthy. They are caught in a propaganda loop. Some of that influence is obvious (The Mail), some of it is very subtle (BBC, TheGuardian - editorship).

But I’m not overly optimistic. It took them way too long to realise the Tory leopards were eating their faces.

Americans coming over here is quite laughable. Good luck guys, you’d be better off somewhere that has a relatively young democracy and/or dictatorship in living memory (Germany and Spain look pretty good from where I’m sitting - but even Germany is a little bit O.o).

Ah yes, the great purge was so wonderfully kind.

In case you can’t tell, that is sarcasm.

How can any system of government be defined as democratic when that system concentrated power into a single party system? All the while suppressing dissent and suppressing civil liberties.

Democracy is defined as power ultimately residing with the people, either directly or through freely elected representatives. None of which the USSR had. It was a totalitarian dictatorship with power concentrated centrally through the politburo and a dictator sitting at the top of it all.

Did I also spot an apologist for the acts of the great purge elsewhere in this thread?

Also, your “meme” is based on the logical fallacy of false equivalency. Comparing a single aspect of two different systems of government, doesn’t equate that either of them are better than the other. You’ve selectively chosen a single frame of reference that doesn’t prove your argument in your “meme”. It is a misleading and fallacious method of debate.