I don’t believe that you can speak about propaganda without context, and I didn’t claim that either. The “efficient phrases” thing is part of a puzzle, not the whole puzzle. What I do believe is that terms like “tankie” fill the same role “Jew” or “Gay” fill for the right. It’s a term used to change the perception of the speaker from “person/human being” to “undesirable with a bad opinion”
Since there is no realistic way to accurately and objectively determine what is or is not propaganda
Can you realistically accurately and objectively determine that the source of the claim was a tankie?
So it makes more sense to make wild claims about the person behind the message than it does to classify a piece of information based off of its linguistic characteristics?
Choose the most efficient phrase from these options:
Notice how the message still gets across with that third one? It still tells you “these are lies or exaggerations that have misled you” without needlessly classing the source with a catch-all term that obfuscates their position as human beings with the right to live?
“Tankie” is a generalist term, the same as “leftist” and whatnot. The goal of terms like these is to put people into camps that are divided and label them as anything other than “human” because it’s a lot easier to say “100 dead tankies” than it is to say “100 dead humans”
My point is that terms like this detract from communication because they obfuscate the meaning behind what is being said. Using these terms, even if it is to fight against propaganda, makes it easier to continue using other terms that are similar in nature. This encourages people to use less people-centric language, which dehumanizes those around them and makes them easier targets. Best to just avoid using them at all IMO
I remember googling “which countries are still communist” back around 2018ish and Russia being at the top of many lists. It’s just another ripple effect from propaganda that hasn’t died out yet.
That being said, fighting propaganda is much easier with gentler words instead of name-calling in my experience
Oh man I made the mistake of saying the word Russia and now I must be evil. You’re right, they’re not technically communist and after double checking yeah they don’t claim it anymore either. Last time I really cared about Russia’s internals was quite a while ago, and despite few changes to their economic system they definitely used to at least claim to be communist. Or that was my understanding at the time.
The point still stands, a handful of countries claim to be communist. A handful of countries are communist. Whether that’s a good or bad thing is up to you to decide
I think there’s like 12 countries that still claim to be communist. Cuba, China and Russia off the top of my head and there’s a handful of island nations that are doing quite well with it
Was driving my old beat up car earlier and saw a Tesla. My old beat up car with no legal ties to my name. My old beat up car that isn’t worth the repair it needs. My old beat up car that could have destroyed that Tesla.
I made it home safe and sound