Mind you, this is a Democratic Index. While Cuba does have more rights for its citizens, it still lacks democracy.
MeanwhileOnGrad
"Oh, this is calamity! Calamity! Oh no, he's on the floor!"
Welcome to MoG!
Meanwhile On Grad
Documenting hate speech, conspiracy theories, apologia/revisionism, and general tankie behaviour across the fediverse. Memes are welcome!
What is a Tankie?
Alternatively, a detailed blog post about Tankies.
(caution of biased source)
Basic Rules:
Sh.itjust.works Instance rules apply! If you are from other instances, please be mindful of the rules. — Basically, don't be a dick.
Hate-Speech — You should be familiar with this one already; practically all instances have the same rules on hate speech.
Apologia — (Using the Modern terminology for Apologia) No Defending, Denying, Justifying, Bolstering, or Differentiating authoritarian acts or endeavours, whether be a Pro-CCP viewpoint, Stalinism, Islamic Terrorism or any variation of Tankie Ideology.
Revisionism — No downplaying or denying atrocities past and present. Calling Tankies shills, foreign/federal agents, or bots also falls under this rule. Extremists exist. They are real. Do not call them shills or fake users as it handwaves their extremism.
Tankies can explain their views but may be criticised or attacked for them. Any slight infraction on the rules above will immediately earn a warning and possibly a ban.
Off-topic Discussion — Do not discuss unrelated topics to the point of derailing the thread. Stay focused on the direct content of the post as opposed to arguing.
You'll be warned if you're violating the instance and community rules. Continuing poor behaviour after being warned will result in a ban or removal of your comments. Bans typically only last 24 hours, but each subsequent infraction will double the amount. Depending on the content, the ban time may be increased. You may request an unban at any time.
tfw the US is no longer closely aligned with liberal capitalist imperialist powers
I love it when Hexbear can't keep their own talking points straight.
The bottom one is my fave.
"You said this!" "No, I didn't!" "YOU'RE A TROLL!"
You know it's a healthy environment for discussion when the community has specific language to shut down users that are merely defending themselves from baseless accusations.
I always like t remind readers. Any ranking of scoring system will be flawed and you may have wanted a different method. There is no way to please all edge cases and all opinions. It’s why we needs multiple independent agencies with different opinions.
That's what the indices are. They're a collection of different organisations, some for-profit, some state, some non-profit, all pooled together.
All models are wrong, some models are useful.
Portugal is one of the better functioning countries
I wish 🥲
If he's an immigrant with golden visa, I can see why he would think that
Yeah, I don't understand how anyone can think that Portugal is one of the better functioning countries in Western Europe.
Either they don't know what democracy is, or they only know what it best suits their interests about democracy.
They believe democracy is "bourgeoise fascism"
I swear, some of them are trolling hard. Not sure if it was satire, but I saw one comment a while ago saying that a guy would love to live in North Korea because the previous leader was some sort of hero that took good care of the people. Wtf?
what's the point of trolling yourselves?
idk. ask thedonald.
This needs to be documented though. Whatever this phenomenon is, the internet has put it in steroids.
It's just extremism but you can peer inside of how it works.
Based on conversations I've had, tankies have a concept of the truth that prioritizes epistemic loyalty. If a claim advances the cause, that makes it more true, if a claim is made by the enemy, that makes it false, or at least there is a moral imperative to regard it that way so it might as well be. Even smart people end up thinking this way and it's pretty sad.
Of course they hate democracy. Since every time communism has been implemented it’s has been done by force not trough a democratic process.
You would do well to learn about Chile under salvadore allende as well as what happened after the US both funded and encouraged a military coup that killed salvadore allende and replaced him with America's favorite Augusto Pinochet who's favorite method of dealing with people he didn't like was pushing them out of helicopters
Make of it what you will, I'm not asking you to be a commie just that you inform yourself about the actual history of us imperialism. Nicaragua is also a great care study in US meddling
You would do well to learn about Chile under salvadore allende as well as what happened after the both funded and encouraged a military coup that killed salvadore allende and replaced him with America’s chosen Augusto Pinochet
Funny enough, that coup wasn't us, for once. We had previously tried to coup Chile and failed - Pinochet's successful coup was a happy coincidence for the US government (or unhappy for everyone with a sense of morality) after we'd moved our resources to other projects.
That being said, after Pinochet was in power, the US was more than happy to support him, despite the fact that the forms of torture inflicted by Pinochet on political dissidents were... vile beyond belief.
Sure the CIA didn't directly shoot him but I don't think that exactly absolves them of all responsibility
I mean, it's a lot more than just "Didn't directly shoot him". We'd essentially written off Chile before Pinochet played Allende. The most you can say is that we were involved in previously attempting (mostly unsuccessfully) to destabilize the country in 1970.
I'm not saying the CIA didn't do it because the CIA are really nice guys at heart instead of complete sociopaths. Obviously they're complete sociopaths and US foreign policy in Latin America is horrendous, especially during the Cold War.
I'm saying the CIA didn't do it because the CIA tried, failed, and then moved on to other countries to commit atrocities in.
"Allende, who has been described as the first Marxist to be democratically elected president in a Latin American liberal democracy, faced significant social unrest, political tension with the opposition-controlled National Congress of Chile, and economic warfare ordered by United States president Richard Nixon"
"In 2000, the CIA admitted its role in the 1970 kidnapping of René Schneider (then Commander-in-chief of the Chilean Army), who had refused to use the army to stop Allende's inauguration."
"The Nixon administration, which had played a role in creating favorable conditions for the coup, promptly recognized the junta government and supported its efforts to consolidate power."
Maybe read the source I linked? Yes the CIA didn't kill allende, he ended his own life, but they did cause the conditions that led to the coup, put Pinochet in charge of the military responsible for the coup by kidnapping the previous military leader who refused, and then promptly recognized and supported the insuing military dictatorship.
Sure they didn't kill him and they didn't overthrow him themselves but if Pinochet was a gun they pointed him at allende and gave him every reason to shoot.
“In 2000, the CIA admitted its role in the 1970 kidnapping of René Schneider (then Commander-in-chief of the Chilean Army), who had refused to use the army to stop Allende’s inauguration.”
The kidnapping was a major contributing factor to Allende's transition to the presidency, because Chile saw it as fucked up. Which it was.
It was a failure. A pathetic failure. Trying to draw a line from "Oops actually this backfired completely" and "Man playing the long game for over a decade finally coups other man who trusted him" is a fool's errand.
Partly true. Plenty communist regimes started by an election where the socialists won. Then reshaped the legal system to stay in power. For example 1948 Czechislovakia.
It’s why it works so well for modern fascists. Orban in Hungary never needed a coup. Just a slow erosion of all democratic institution, some cooperative police force to denigrate and intimidate political opposition. And voila - bulletproof permanent “majority”.
This process in under way in so many “democratic” countries right not it makes one’s head spin. USA, Israel, Poland. Of course Russia and Venezuela are lost causes
In short. Plenty totalitarian regimes. And plenty community regimes were elected. It’s the same story over and over again heck one could say they all just follow in the footsteps of Ceasar and Napoleon.
Do today's tankies have a habit of moving on to right-wing totalitarian movements like their 1930s predecessors? I ask because talking them out of Leninism could be an own goal if they move to a movement that's more dangerous.