• PotatoesFall
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    3 hours ago

    Funny, I was just telling @Cowbee about how the tankies I see on here are insufferable & impossible to converse with.

    But I’ll bite. First of all, I don’t appreciate the strawmen. I’m not saying that there is a lot of tankies, nor that they are here now suddenly. I’m not denying that US/Western propaganda doesn’t exist, nor that it’s dangerous and pervasive.

    I’m just saying that I, myself, in my own experience, have seen people shilling for China or even Russia, acting like it’s a fucking utopia. Russia an oligarchy, just with a different structure than most Western countries. China is a government that rules over billions of people. That is, by definition, evil. No amount of America Bad makes China or Russia good.

    In terms of propaganda sources, for example just take a look at Russia Today.

    • TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      8 minutes ago

      Funny, I was just telling @Cowbee about how the tankies I see on here are insufferable & impossible to converse with.

      I would say the people here are being very patient with you, as you are spreading xenophobic views out of ignorance and recycled imperialist think tank talking points while also being condescending. You don’t get pushback on that by liberals because they agree with you but anyone on the left would be embarrassed to be associated with it.

      The appropriate response for someone not generously giving you their time would be to call you, among other things, a liberal and then go on with their day.

      But I’ll bite. First of all, I don’t appreciate the strawmen. I’m not saying that there is a lot of tankies, nor that they are here now suddenly

      Liberals suddenly learned the word tankie. Why do you think that is? Rather than a straw man, I understood this as a fact we could all accept.

      I’m just saying that I, myself, in my own experience, have seen people shilling for China or even Russia, acting like it’s a fucking utopia.

      What tankies have you seen that treat Russia like a utopia? What tankies have you seen that treat China like a utopia? I think you are just revealing your owm straw men, and all you have seen is people appreciating asoects of either country. And by the magic of chauvinism, any praise for any aspect of “the enemy” is an uncritical endorsement. Liberals going down this path will often throw in some homophobic ibsults about Putin or Xi.

      Russia an oligarchy, just with a different structure than most Western countries.

      Russia is capitalist. It is only called an oligarchy because Westerners are racist towards them and need different words for the same thing when the Slavic brainpan does it. This is you uncritically absorbing that racism. They control our thoughts through language, framings, and what is discussed vs. not discussed.

      China is a government that rules over billions of people. That is, by definition, evil.

      It obviously is not.

      No amount of America Bad makes China or Russia good.

      America Bad both describes the position of the US as the globsl seat of capital and imperislist power and is intended to get people like yourself to have sone persoective, as you are deeply propagandized towards America-centrism.

      In terms of propaganda sources, for example just take a look at Russia Today.

      RT is, generally speaking, more reliable that the NYT. So what of it?

    • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      edit-2
      2 hours ago

      In terms of propaganda sources, for example just take a look at Russia Today.

      You think Russia Today accounts for the massive worldwide upswell in communist and anti-imperialist sentiment over the last few yearsi-cant

      My guy, you clearly just listed the first Russian news outlet you could think of. In the very last sentence too, after like a paragraph of tangential whining, as if anybody asked. It’s such a transparent attempt to bait my attention away from your inability to defend your dumbass theory, and then you top it off with “uhh anyway, millions of people around the world suddenly got hooked on Russia Today.” Deeply unserious. I assume you can pull up google trends and verify this massive spike in readership, right?

      Yeah man, it’s not the warmongering, the lies, the genocide, the complete capitalist destruction of any social fabric, hope for the future, international peace or survivable environment. It’s just the sinister Chinese and die Russich swine working to sow dissent among us freedom loving people.

      You are a dipshit, a liberal, and a useful idiot for fascism, but I repeat myself. One thing you are currently not is any kind of leftist.

    • MaeBorowski [she/her]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      2 hours ago

      China is a government that rules over billions of people. That is, by definition, evil.

      Funny how 95% of the Chinese population approves of and rates favorably this terrible “ruling over” they are being subjected to.

      New theory just dropped, everyone: The more people a government represents, the more evil that government is.

      • PotatoesFall
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        2 hours ago

        New theory just dropped, everyone: The more people a government represents, the more evil that government is.

        lmao. I unironically believe this though. The more you concentrate power, the harder it is to keep bad actors from abusing said power.

        Funny how 95% of the Chinese population approves of and rates favorably this terrible “ruling over” they are being subjected to.

        Most Americans approve of capitalism. Does that make it good too?

        • MaeBorowski [she/her]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          1 hour ago

          lmao. I unironically believe this though.

          picard

          The more you concentrate power, the harder it is to keep bad actors from abusing said power.

          What makes you think the power over those billion+ people is all “concentrated”? Could it be (gasp!) that the power is largely distributed among those people who overwhelmingly support that government? This is just capitalist-realism-brained misunderstanding of how communist parties work.

          Most Americans approve of capitalism. Does that make it good too?

          No, but that’s certainly not what makes it bad.

          • PotatoesFall
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            8 minutes ago

            Could it be (gasp!) that the power is largely distributed among those people who overwhelmingly support that government?

            Democracy doesn’t work when it’s top-down. In the West, the capitalist and ruling class is capable of exerting control on public opinion and therefore on elections. The same is true of the CCP, which can influence public opinion as well. The best way to combat this is by emancipating individuals so they are able to resist state propaganda. China has a dogshit score on the press freedom index, so good luck educating the people on the shortcomings of the government. The government is intransparent and oppressive by design.

        • Kieselguhr [none/use name]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          2 hours ago

          Most Americans approve of capitalism. Does that make it good too?

          because “capitalism” and “communism” are loaded words

          consider this though:

          A year before the presidential election, three-quarters of Americans (76%) believe the country is headed in the wrong direction and the leading Democratic and Republican candidates are viewed broadly unfavorably, according to a new ABC News/Ipsos poll. Only 23% of Americans think the country is headed in the right direction.

          When asked whether things in their country are heading in the right direction, or are they off on the wrong track, 90 percent of the respondents from China taking part in this Ipsos survey said they were heading in the right direction.

          • PotatoesFall
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            2 hours ago

            I don’t see what the approval rates of these two countries have to do with anything here. In terms of the economy and infrastructure, China is indeed moving in the right direction. That doesn’t mean I think China is a force of good in the world. It’s a nation state and should be subject to criticism. And all I’m saying is that there are people who will religiously dogpile you if you try to do that, and I call those people tankies.

            • MaeBorowski [she/her]@hexbear.net
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              5
              ·
              1 hour ago

              China is indeed moving in the right direction. That doesn’t mean I think China is a force of good in the world.

              Then what would? If the fact that China is doing good in the world is not enough for you to think “it a force for good in the world” then what does it need to do? Oh, I forgot, you think “all nation states are bad by definition” and unironically believe that the more people a government represents, the more evil it is. So in order for China to be “a force for good in the world” China simply has to cease to exist. Got it. Nope, that doesn’t align with US interests at all. picard-troll

              It’s a nation state and should be subject to criticism. And all I’m saying is that there are people who will religiously dogpile you if you try to do that, and I call those people tankies.

              Literally no one on lemmy has ever said China is above criticism. I dare you to find a single instance of that ever happening.

    • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      3 hours ago
      1. Nobody believes Russia is a Utopia.

      2. Nobody believes the PRC is perfect, but on the right track, and especially nice in Tier 1 and 2 cities.

      3. The CPC has over 90% support, the fact that China has a government does not mean that is “evil.”

      • PotatoesFall
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        3 hours ago

        90% support makes the whole thing more suspicious to me than anything.

        I’m sure a lot of the policy that the CCP has put forward are great, especially if compared to the US counterparts, but that doesn’t justify violence and oppression.

        • Kieselguhr [none/use name]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          8
          ·
          2 hours ago

          90% support makes the whole thing more suspicious to me than anything.

          True democracy is when a president has a 37% approval rating.

          Alright I’m just joshing with you, but since you’re an anarchist you do agree with me on the following, right?

          • The Western hegemony is dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. It suppresses voices that dissent from neoliberal dogmas and the military brinkmanship of NATO. It often violently clamps down grassroots movements like BLM or the Free Palestine protests. The Western parliaments consist of different flavours of neoliberalism, neoconservatism and fascism, and not a real representation of an actual “marketplace of ideas”, just a theatre of so-called politics.
        • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          8
          ·
          3 hours ago

          Why does it make you suspicious? Do you have legitimate grounds for this? Under the CPC, extreme poverty has been eliminated, and China went from being one of the poorest countries on the planet to a rising superpower in less than a century. When you look at the real, material change in people’s lives in as short a timespan as this, it’s understandable why they have a high approval rate.

          Secondly, I don’t know what you’re referring to as “justification for violence and oppression.”

    • Kieselguhr [none/use name]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      edit-2
      3 hours ago

      acting like it’s a fucking utopia.

      I don’t appreciate the strawmen.

      brow

      China is a government that rules over billions of people. That is, by definition, evil.

      Wait what? You’d prefer to Balkanize China into a several million anarchist direct democracy communes? Or what? How would that work in 2024?