No, believing capitalism must fall, even by revolutionary means, does not make you a tankie.
No, believing that the left is hamstrung and baited by the powers that be does not make you a tankie.
No, opposing US imperialism does not make you a tankie.
No, believing in a planned economy does not make you a tankie.
What makes you a tankie is supporting authoritarian regimes crushing everything a leftist is supposed to stand for, because 'West bad' or 'Critical support for Comrade Xi's concentration camps!'
Indeed. It just very strongly implies being a tankie though.
If I asked them to describe implementing such a thing, Im pretty sure they would describe just about the way every murderous communist regime began.
Every economy is planned. There is a framework in which entities function. That is called capitalism. A sandbox where rules are made to make it geared towards growth.
Even if someone went through with the grandiose plan of setting up a communist regime, they would eventually start simulating capitalism.
The kmer Rouge thing is crazy, and I just had my first encounter with it in the wild.
Lately I've been feeling alienated from both liberals and the extreme "left".
The liberals boot lick two party politics and shill for corporations. "Don't let perfect be the enemy of good" while letting good enough be the enemy of better.
The tankies boot lick shitty individuals and put mere men on pedestals, murdering in the name of "progress".
Lately I’ve been feeling alienated from both liberals and the extreme “left".
Political ideology isn't a straight line spectrum though. At the extreme far left, you have people that oppose any form of authoritarian control, people that are in favor of absolute authoritarian control, and people that think that some authoritarian control is necessary for society to function. None of these views are inherently wrong per se, but people that are in favor of one flavor or another are going to see champions of there version as being above criticism. Tankies are generally in favor of state-control, and so they take criticisms of Lenin and Stalin as personal attacks on them.
Tell me you don't know the definition of political terms. There's no such thing as free markets anywhere on Earth. Government regulation exists even in wartorn developing nations.