By the widely recognized origin of the word (the Soviet Union rolling in tanks to suppress revolution in Hungary) and what it means (people in support of that use of force and tanks to suppress civilian revolution), supporters of Israel and the US are both “tankies.” Glad we agree, good talk!
The US uses Israel for regional destabilization. A unified Arab world (proposed by Nasser, Gaddafi, among others) would be a threat to US hegemony and the petrodollar. Most importantly, this would harm the US’ ability to print obscene amounts of money in a crisis with minimal effect on domestic prices.
The term “tankie” was originally used by dissident Marxist–Leninists to describe members of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) who followed the party line of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Specifically, it was used to distinguish party members who spoke out in defense of the Soviet use of tanks to crush the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the 1968 Prague Spring uprising.
Tankie refers to those people who supported the Soviet use of tanks to quell the Hungarian revolution. Literally, it’s the exact same thing Israel is doing in Gaza.
Have you seen the blood streaks that tank tracks create? You can look at some of the videos in Gaza if you want to.
Try again, maybe this time with actual evidence instead of unfounded conjecture.
Edit: To clarify, I don’t think anybody is denying that people were hurt and killed on 6/4. Let’s make that clear. If anything, the Tank Man video shows that tank drivers were under orders to avoid civilian casualties.
Doesn’t change the fact that ethnic Tibet and the TAR are not necessarily the same territorial entity. Tibetans make up a significant proportion of the population of Qinghai, for example.
The same 6 million Tibetans living in Tibet, Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan, and Yunnan? Those Tibetans? The same Tibetans who are the ethnic majority in TAR and make up a significant proportion of the population of Qinghai?
Oh, you meant the Central Tibetan Administration, which nets about 100 people a year leaving China. The same one that’s seeing people return to China because the economic prospects elsewhere are worse.
Edit: the TAR, which is governed by Losang Jamcan as Congress Chairman, Yan Jinhai as Government Chairman, and Pagbalha Geleg Namgyai as CPPCC Chairman… All Tibetan. The Tibetan deputies to the National People’s Congress… Also Tibetan. Life expectancy increased from 36yo to 72yo. GDP/capita and disposable income/capita growing rapidly YoY. Billions of dollars in infrastructure investment, including the Lhasa HSR. Interesting strategy for a genocide, that’s for sure.
Dude brought up a completely unrelated topic and used the “tankie” perjorative, a term that literally describes IDF supporters based on the actions of the IDF in Gaza.
For what it’s worth, there’s still no evidence that Chinese tanks actually killed anyone on 6/4. No journalists on the ground found any indication of a mass casualty event on Tiananmen Square, which directly contradicts the claims made by protestors that there was. The same cannot be said for Soviet tanks in Hungary or Israeli tanks in Gaza, where civilian causalities are rather well-documented.