Their secret police.
Our civilian police.
Their “authoritarianism”.
Our law and order.
Their concentration camps.
Our massive prison industrial complex enforcing slave labour on minorities.
Also there’s no proof of a genocide going on in China. The main proponent of the accusations is the Falun Gong and Adrian Zenz - a man on a divine mission to crush communism, who has made frequent and egregious “errors” in his translation and methodology.
On the other hand countries in the EU are funding refugee “camps” like that on Moria, with conditions so horrible people are fleeing daily, and the EU is funding border patrols in Turkey that make use of excessive force. These actions would by any fair definition be genocide.
Likewise the United States is far from innocent, both at the border with Mexico where there’s many reports of militias hunting refugees, and in the large prison-industrial complex which houses the largest prisoner population in the world - a population that has an outsized number of minorities. These are worked to death. By any fair definition the US is carrying out a genocide.
However it is these countries’ accusations we should somehow take seriously? Why? Why should we take What France claims China is doing at face value, when France itself is embroiled in colonial wars in Africa? What reason have these countries given us? The United States especially has a proven track record of lying in order to foment ill will against a geopolitical enemy.
Not to mention communist prisons on average are far more humane and actually about rehabilitation than U.S. prisons, Xinjiang vocational re-education of potential fascists lauded by the entire Arab world being a prime example.
No one disagrees that america had committed atrocities and generally sucks with its foreign policy. Most educated people in the US are happy to admit and fight for change within the government on that. It is not denied.
Has china allowed for international investigators to investigate the situation in Xinjiang?
You’d be surprised how many Yankee “leftists” aren’t aware of basic stuff like the Radio Frees, the current indigenous genocide, school to prison pipeline, or the sanctions against the “authoritarian” AES countries (causing a lot of their real issues), among many others, and are very willing to side with their own meddling against countries that are actually trying something because they might be “not true socialism.” Even if all accusations against Cuba or China (I don’t know that much about Vietnam or DPRK) were correct, they’d still be the lesser evil by a long shot.
There were other visits too, but NATO countries are mostly intentionally boycotting the investigation. I’m pretty sure any person who can do tourism in China can go there so long as they don’t break laws. But I remember a recent article where NATO countries were advising against travelling there, for mysterious reasons.
Oh definitely. Education is important, and it is important to acknowledge the faults of your community. I make a point of being aware of the ugly parts of the past and present.
Regarding Xinjiang - Arab League nations have a huge financial interest in staying on China’s good side. I worry that the billions of dollars of investment creates a conflict of interest. It makes it difficult to see them as trustworthy in this particular matter.
It also conflicts with the findings of the UN human rights office.
I recognize that this isn’t the most solid evidence, but my local kabob shop owner is Uyghur from that area. They say they left before it became bad, but they have friends and family who are experiencing what the UN office is saying firsthand.
In regards to your local shop owner, you realize that Xinjiang was genuinely a dangerous place back in the day? And people leaving for their own safety doesn’t automatically mean its the government’s fault. There were terrorist attacks and radical extremists festering in the region until the government finally started taking steps to combat it, and its now safer than it has ever been.
Regarding Xinjiang - Arab League nations have a huge financial interest in staying on China’s good side. I worry that the billions of dollars of investment creates a conflict of interest. It makes it difficult to see them as trustworthy in this particular matter.
Its interesting to me that you asked about international investigations, but when they were provided, you found a way to reject it (saying that global south countries are inherently untrustworthy because of financial incentives.)
Like, what you asked for was provided. It was just not from countries that count as “international community” to you.
If you want the end of capitalism you’ll support whatever it realistically takes to dismantle it. And that won’t exactly be an “open” or “transparent” process while it happens. Simply put, the collective force that replaces capitalism will have to coerce certain people into accepting the change, if nothing else but for the safety of that new administration (IE avoiding rightwing takeovers, legit sabotage, hatecrimes etc).
Just remember that about anticapitalism - whatever form it takes, it’s no dinner party. Even after a revolution, certain people try to resist things they have no material reason to oppose. Those people are reactionary - directionless, even dangerous unless they’re re-educated or have privileges restricted.
I appreciate that. It’s not lost on me that a lot of communist regimes got really fucked up by trade embargos, sanctions, counter-intelligence campaigns, etc. Power is rarely ceded willingly, of course. However, my primary concern lies with improving the quality of life for everyone, or at least maximizing the well being of the population. Part of that equation, for my point of view, includes the ability for people to think and speak freely without fear of reprisal by the government. Say what you will, but I’ve hosted eight different exchange students, including one from Russia; none were concerned about answering questions about their home country except for the kid from Hong Kong. I asked them whether they identified as a citizen of Hong Kong or of China first, because I was hoping to get an irl sample for how Hong Kongers actually felt, but let them out of the question when I confirmed with them that that was a sensitive question.
If you’re living with a boot on your throat, does the distinction really matter if it’s a capitalist’s boot or a communist’s boot?
If you’re living with a boot on your throat, does the distinction really matter if it’s a capitalist’s boot or a communist’s boot?
Try looking at it from the point of view of the oppressed class who is benefiting from communist rule, and being harmed by capitalist rule, rather than from the point of view of the super rich people.
Unless I happen to be mistaken, poor people get the bullet, too. We just don’t hear about it because they’re not famous. I’m taking a wild guess here, but I suspect that the muslims in Xinjiang aren’t exactly what you would typically think of as the capital owning class. You can’t even (practically, I’m sure there’s some loophole or asterisk here) be critical of the bad ideas of your government, just shut up and kill more sparrows. As far as I can tell, it’s trading oppression for sparkling oppression.
Nobody has been killed in Xinjiang. There is a reason its original liars had to specify it was a “cultural genocide,” which it isn’t, either. Like the full break down?
If your concern is quality of life, then you should be glad to know that all socialist countries, including of course the USSR and China, have radically improved the living standards for their massive citizenries in every metric that matters.
What use is being supposedly free to criticize the U.S. gov’t when 1) every living standard is worse, 2) our education and media feed us so much lies we blame our woes on everybody BUT the gov’t, or for the wrong reasons, 3) you secretly can’t because if you effectively do so you will be blackbagged and disappeared or assassinated?
Your singular Hong Kong kid is not a representative of an entire country or even Hong Kong. Why was it sensitive? Because he feared CPC would come and turn him into meatloaf…or because he feared his parents would? In MY personal, anecdotal experience, fascist parents/grandparents are the greatest source of anticommunist fear.
These are all pretty good points. I’m trying to do better about regulating my social media time, so I’ll use that opportunity to consider them. Thanks for the discussion.
Part of that equation, for my point of view, includes the ability for people to think and speak freely without fear of reprisal by the government
This is like the people who say “We’re freer than the Chinese because I can call Trump a peepee poopoo pants on Twitter without being arrested!” when that doesn’t actually do anything at all
IMO, this entire point is just a liberal ideological bludgeon, a condition that can be applied at-will to any government they want to criticize because no government will be good enough all of the time. it’s one thing if you’re an anarchist and oppose every government equally for not fulfilling that condition, that I can understand and respect, it’s quite another when you’re like “Oh, no, I hate authoritarianism! That’s why we need to constantly criticize a country on the literal other side of the planet 99.7% of the time, and then only criticize our own country when somebody calls us out on it by saying ‘Oh, yeah, America also does bad things too!’” Especially when America’s role in the world for the last century at least, and more accurately really since its conception, has been a source of capitalist reaction across its whole hemisphere and later the whole planet, with hundreds upon hundreds of military bases and tens of millions directly and indirectly killed in wars. Criticizing, say, Cuba or DPRK for these sorts of things is effectively zooming in on a single corpse in righteous indignation while ignoring the seas of blood spilled by America behind you.
I mean, yeah, I am anti-authoritarian before anything else. That’s basically where my problem with China, among many others, begins and ends. The US has a lot of big problems that need fixing immediately on that front, and that’s without getting into the bodies under the front porch. We could go into that, if you like, I just didn’t think it was particularly relevant at the moment.
It’s cute you think you would actually win the argument with the “bodies under the front porch” (in your words), considering how this whole thread has been going for you so far.
In this post: what you get when your brain attempts to synthesize the concept of socialism on top of its liberalism instead of trying to discard everything you know first (liberalism) and learning again from zero to grasp Marxism.
Another commenter shared an article by the AP where the reporter got to ask people in Xinjiang how things are. One lady at a shop casually mentioned that business was slowing and got talked to by a party minder. You can’t even have idle chat without getting invited to camp. That’s not quite the same thing as being able to talk shit on social media.
also AP when their high-rise office literally got bombed in Gaza like 2 years ago and they seemingly “forgot” about it, immediately going on the Zenz-express
He did. Like this is empirically an answer to your question. It’s not his revolution if you have to engage in measures he consider distasteful or unethical.
I’d say he didn’t. He gave an “it depends” with a scenario that hasn’t happened resulting in full death of humanity. It’s a way to handwave away the question, to sidestep it, we’re standing where we stood before.
To rephrase it: Had the question been “do you want to put out a house on fire?” And the answer is “well that depends, if the house was hit with a meteor that kills all life, then that would put out the fire” isn’t really an answer to the question. It makes it so big and vague that you’re answering a completely different question
Libs will cry “whataboutism” or bring up 10 fallacies they remembered from high school for hours to avoid addressing the substance of a conversation, then come back with shit like “well what if a meteor killed everyone, huh?” and tell themselves they’re the ones operating in good faith
It actually is. It’s the same as saying “No, not under those circumstances”. If you are comparing something to the destruction of the earth, you are not in favor of that thing.
But the question wasn’t “under these circumstances, would you put out the house on fire?” They invented the circumstances and have yet to answer under what circumstances they would put the fire out. If they had done that, then it would have been an answer
Killing landlords and fascists is not Genocide, and putting “secret” in front of “police” to make them scarier to you is childish. Of course I imagine you probably aren’t afraid of the regular police wherever you are, I wonder why.
Do you know the actual truth of the Holodomor or Xinjiang? Are you willing to know?
Comrades who are jumping straight to retorting are unwittingly making it seem like, “well yes, there was a genocide, but it was worth it.” Please do not allow any gap in our response that allows this interpretation. There has never been a genocide committed by a socialist country and we should make it clear we will not cede that atrociously false accusation.
In the United States, for over a hundred years, the ruling interests tirelessly propagated anticommunism among the populace, until it became more like a religious orthodoxy than a political analysis. During the Cold War, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime’s atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them. If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.
– Michael Parenti, Blackshirts And Reds
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Do you call the Dust Bowl and Great Depression a genocide? Words have meaning.
You love to present overdramatic accusations when a famine occurs in a socialist country, and there’s usually only one big one.
Edit: If you’re talking about something else, please elaborate as to your specific allegation. I asked you for a source earlier and you didn’t respond.
Edit 2: I stand corrected; I conflated you with a different user, but I’d still appreciate your source. Unfortunately, due to the lateness of this edit, the instance admins have already banned you, so I probably won’t find this out.
You didn’t ask me for shit earlier. This is my first comment here.
The Dust Bowl and Great Depression is a thing that happened. What occurred in Stalin’s reign is a pattern, that included famines. Were the famines specifically engineered to kill off specific groups? I don’t know. But when you take a holistic view, and look at executions, gulag assignments, forced resettlement, deportations, and, yes, famines, there was very clearly a genocide under Stalin.
Millions of people died as a direct result of Stalin’s policies and actions. I don’t know if they were all with intent, but many definitely were.
I don’t understand how anyone can defend Stalin. I guess people deny the Holocaust too, so there’s that.
Millions of people died as a direct result of Stalin’s policies and actions.
And the dust bowl was the direct result of the US governments policies and actions, so why is only one of them “a thing that happened,” you raging hypocrite?
Are you capable of reading and processing information? Nevermind that the Great Depression was a worldwide catastrophe. Nevermind that it’s thousands vs millions of people. Did you notice where I talked about the larger pattern in the USSR? There wasn’t just one famine, but a shitload of things causing the deaths of millions of people, many of which were fucking executions.
Are you capable of reading and processing information?
Are you?
Nevermind that the Great Depression was a worldwide catastrophe.
Point to where I mentioned the Great Depression.
Nevermind that it’s thousands vs millions of people.
What methodology did you use to determine your numbers? And why would it matter anyway? Is it not a genocide if it’s bellow a certain amount?
There wasn’t just one famine
Yes there was, unless you’re counting the one caused by the Nazis flattening half of it, in which case I’m just going to write you off as a Nazi apologist.
but a shitload of things causing the deaths of millions of people, many of which were fucking executions.
Yes, that is indeed true of the USA, so why is the Dust Bowl “Just a thing that happened”, but the famine that happened in the same time period in the USSR not?
Apologies for the confusing wording above. That’s because I was comparing two similar events to see if you would call it a genocide when the U.S. did it. If you did, I’d question your definition of genocide, but at least accept you’re applying it consistently.
I absolutely agree with you on that basic fact — the US has engaged in countless successful genocides against indigenous peoples.
Stalin, through his policies and leadership, killed millions of Soviet citizens.
False.
First of all, to attribute deaths solely to one individual (even to Hitler) denies anyone else responsible of their free will in doing so.
@ksynwa@lemmygrad.ml, would you mind holding this lib up to scrutiny since the one on Hexbear didn’t respond?
First of all, to attribute deaths solely to one individual (even to Hitler) denies anyone else responsible of their free will in doing so.
Fair, but this is just kind of a thing we do with language.
If we can’t agree that millions of people in the USSR were killed, sent to gulags, and died of famine during Stalin’s leadership, then I’m not sure there’s anything worth discussing.
Similarly, the article you linked about 7 million US deaths in the great depression doesn’t even take itself seriously. It’s just trying to discredit counts for deaths in the Holodomor. I suspect you don’t think that many people died as a result of the great depression, and, if you’re not going to argue in good faith, then again I believe we are at an impasse.
Finally, there is no need for name-calling. While I do not consider “lib” nearly as much an insult as you likely intend it, I would still not categorize myself as such.
It’s crazy - we all actually tend to agree on most things. We all sort of agree that the US government has committed atrocities, that wealth redistribution is what we should be striving for, that billionaires suck, that universal healthcare is good, all that good shit.
But they are stuck on the idea that their favorite governments can do no wrong.
“I agree that the U.S. is evil and has been the objective bad guy in every war it’s ever been in (and the US has almost never not been at war) but I believe the U.S. wholeheartedly in matters of foreign policy”
Of course they can do wrong. We acknowledge legitimate criticisms, but we’re going to refute slander against socialist governments.
I apologize for the bad terminology, but I’ll stick with it to answer your question. Even in WW2, the Soviets were the “good guys” and the US only intervened when it was obvious the Soviets would win to stop a communist Europe.
Got it. In any war, communists are “good”, everyone else is “meh” or “bad”. It’s real telling that you’ll call the Soviets the “good guys” but not any other European nations.
If the U.S. really cared about stopping Nazis, shouldn’t they have joined the war back in 1939? You also can’t possibly defend the two nuclear bombs on Japan (who was already ready to surrender) was anything other than to intimidate the USSR.
Not really; we have no problem with actual, reasonable, criticism of AES nations, we just have no time for “100 MILLION DEAD! AUTHORITARIANISM! GENOCIDE! REDFASCISM!” nonsense.
shit I regret affording you a first warning ban and should have gone for the perma ban. You sound super privileged, it would do you some good for someone to tell you no once in your life.
Yes, I would like one, uhhh, high speed rail network with a side of, uhhh, universal healthcare, hold the genocide and secret police, please.
Secret police is what you call an intelligence agency of a country you don’t like
Their secret police.
Our civilian police.
Their “authoritarianism”.
Our law and order.
Their concentration camps.
Our massive prison industrial complex enforcing slave labour on minorities.
Also there’s no proof of a genocide going on in China. The main proponent of the accusations is the Falun Gong and Adrian Zenz - a man on a divine mission to crush communism, who has made frequent and egregious “errors” in his translation and methodology.
On the other hand countries in the EU are funding refugee “camps” like that on Moria, with conditions so horrible people are fleeing daily, and the EU is funding border patrols in Turkey that make use of excessive force. These actions would by any fair definition be genocide.
Likewise the United States is far from innocent, both at the border with Mexico where there’s many reports of militias hunting refugees, and in the large prison-industrial complex which houses the largest prisoner population in the world - a population that has an outsized number of minorities. These are worked to death. By any fair definition the US is carrying out a genocide.
However it is these countries’ accusations we should somehow take seriously? Why? Why should we take What France claims China is doing at face value, when France itself is embroiled in colonial wars in Africa? What reason have these countries given us? The United States especially has a proven track record of lying in order to foment ill will against a geopolitical enemy.
Not to mention communist prisons on average are far more humane and actually about rehabilitation than U.S. prisons, Xinjiang vocational re-education of potential fascists lauded by the entire Arab world being a prime example.
No one disagrees that america had committed atrocities and generally sucks with its foreign policy. Most educated people in the US are happy to admit and fight for change within the government on that. It is not denied.
Has china allowed for international investigators to investigate the situation in Xinjiang?
You’d be surprised how many Yankee “leftists” aren’t aware of basic stuff like the Radio Frees, the current indigenous genocide, school to prison pipeline, or the sanctions against the “authoritarian” AES countries (causing a lot of their real issues), among many others, and are very willing to side with their own meddling against countries that are actually trying something because they might be “not true socialism.” Even if all accusations against Cuba or China (I don’t know that much about Vietnam or DPRK) were correct, they’d still be the lesser evil by a long shot.
https://www.voanews.com/a/arab-league-visits-china-s-xinjiang-region-rejects-uyghur-genocide/7131285.html
There were other visits too, but NATO countries are mostly intentionally boycotting the investigation. I’m pretty sure any person who can do tourism in China can go there so long as they don’t break laws. But I remember a recent article where NATO countries were advising against travelling there, for mysterious reasons.
Oh definitely. Education is important, and it is important to acknowledge the faults of your community. I make a point of being aware of the ugly parts of the past and present.
Regarding Xinjiang - Arab League nations have a huge financial interest in staying on China’s good side. I worry that the billions of dollars of investment creates a conflict of interest. It makes it difficult to see them as trustworthy in this particular matter.
It also conflicts with the findings of the UN human rights office.
I recognize that this isn’t the most solid evidence, but my local kabob shop owner is Uyghur from that area. They say they left before it became bad, but they have friends and family who are experiencing what the UN office is saying firsthand.
In regards to your local shop owner, you realize that Xinjiang was genuinely a dangerous place back in the day? And people leaving for their own safety doesn’t automatically mean its the government’s fault. There were terrorist attacks and radical extremists festering in the region until the government finally started taking steps to combat it, and its now safer than it has ever been.
So do claims of genocide, but you’ll make those anyway.
Its interesting to me that you asked about international investigations, but when they were provided, you found a way to reject it (saying that global south countries are inherently untrustworthy because of financial incentives.)
Like, what you asked for was provided. It was just not from countries that count as “international community” to you.
Really? When was the last time “most educated people” fought against the US government?
Literally yes.
Do you want the end of capitalism yes or no
Careful, I’m expecting the Western leftist “yes but I don’t support any socialist attempt that ever actually worked”
Well that depends. A giant meteor will technically end capitalism. What’s the point if we’re not striving to improve everyone’s quality of life?
If you want the end of capitalism you’ll support whatever it realistically takes to dismantle it. And that won’t exactly be an “open” or “transparent” process while it happens. Simply put, the collective force that replaces capitalism will have to coerce certain people into accepting the change, if nothing else but for the safety of that new administration (IE avoiding rightwing takeovers, legit sabotage, hatecrimes etc).
Just remember that about anticapitalism - whatever form it takes, it’s no dinner party. Even after a revolution, certain people try to resist things they have no material reason to oppose. Those people are reactionary - directionless, even dangerous unless they’re re-educated or have privileges restricted.
I appreciate that. It’s not lost on me that a lot of communist regimes got really fucked up by trade embargos, sanctions, counter-intelligence campaigns, etc. Power is rarely ceded willingly, of course. However, my primary concern lies with improving the quality of life for everyone, or at least maximizing the well being of the population. Part of that equation, for my point of view, includes the ability for people to think and speak freely without fear of reprisal by the government. Say what you will, but I’ve hosted eight different exchange students, including one from Russia; none were concerned about answering questions about their home country except for the kid from Hong Kong. I asked them whether they identified as a citizen of Hong Kong or of China first, because I was hoping to get an irl sample for how Hong Kongers actually felt, but let them out of the question when I confirmed with them that that was a sensitive question.
If you’re living with a boot on your throat, does the distinction really matter if it’s a capitalist’s boot or a communist’s boot?
Try looking at it from the point of view of the oppressed class who is benefiting from communist rule, and being harmed by capitalist rule, rather than from the point of view of the super rich people.
Unless I happen to be mistaken, poor people get the bullet, too. We just don’t hear about it because they’re not famous. I’m taking a wild guess here, but I suspect that the muslims in Xinjiang aren’t exactly what you would typically think of as the capital owning class. You can’t even (practically, I’m sure there’s some loophole or asterisk here) be critical of the bad ideas of your government, just shut up and kill more sparrows. As far as I can tell, it’s trading oppression for sparkling oppression.
Nobody has been killed in Xinjiang. There is a reason its original liars had to specify it was a “cultural genocide,” which it isn’t, either. Like the full break down?
Sure. I’d also appreciate some sources that would be considered reliable in the mainstream, but I won’t ignore you if you don’t have them.
If your concern is quality of life, then you should be glad to know that all socialist countries, including of course the USSR and China, have radically improved the living standards for their massive citizenries in every metric that matters.
What use is being supposedly free to criticize the U.S. gov’t when 1) every living standard is worse, 2) our education and media feed us so much lies we blame our woes on everybody BUT the gov’t, or for the wrong reasons, 3) you secretly can’t because if you effectively do so you will be blackbagged and disappeared or assassinated?
Your singular Hong Kong kid is not a representative of an entire country or even Hong Kong. Why was it sensitive? Because he feared CPC would come and turn him into meatloaf…or because he feared his parents would? In MY personal, anecdotal experience, fascist parents/grandparents are the greatest source of anticommunist fear.
These are all pretty good points. I’m trying to do better about regulating my social media time, so I’ll use that opportunity to consider them. Thanks for the discussion.
This lib seems pretty cool
This is like the people who say “We’re freer than the Chinese because I can call Trump a peepee poopoo pants on Twitter without being arrested!” when that doesn’t actually do anything at all
but if you try and protest and change conditions materially and meaningfully, you can absolutely bet your ass you will be disappeared like the horror stories you find on reddit about “totalitarian regimes”. The only reason why Americans don’t think it doesn’t happen in the West is either because it’s so completely internalized that it becomes memeified (“Haha, I hope the FBI agent watching me through my camera is having a nice day!”) or none of the media that they engage with reports on it.
IMO, this entire point is just a liberal ideological bludgeon, a condition that can be applied at-will to any government they want to criticize because no government will be good enough all of the time. it’s one thing if you’re an anarchist and oppose every government equally for not fulfilling that condition, that I can understand and respect, it’s quite another when you’re like “Oh, no, I hate authoritarianism! That’s why we need to constantly criticize a country on the literal other side of the planet 99.7% of the time, and then only criticize our own country when somebody calls us out on it by saying ‘Oh, yeah, America also does bad things too!’” Especially when America’s role in the world for the last century at least, and more accurately really since its conception, has been a source of capitalist reaction across its whole hemisphere and later the whole planet, with hundreds upon hundreds of military bases and tens of millions directly and indirectly killed in wars. Criticizing, say, Cuba or DPRK for these sorts of things is effectively zooming in on a single corpse in righteous indignation while ignoring the seas of blood spilled by America behind you.
I mean, yeah, I am anti-authoritarian before anything else. That’s basically where my problem with China, among many others, begins and ends. The US has a lot of big problems that need fixing immediately on that front, and that’s without getting into the bodies under the front porch. We could go into that, if you like, I just didn’t think it was particularly relevant at the moment.
What country isn’t authoritarian?
Pick an AES state of your choosing. What is the minimum you think they would have to do to resist U.S./capitalist efforts to destroy it?
It’s cute you think you would actually win the argument with the “bodies under the front porch” (in your words), considering how this whole thread has been going for you so far.
In this post: what you get when your brain attempts to synthesize the concept of socialism on top of its liberalism instead of trying to discard everything you know first (liberalism) and learning again from zero to grasp Marxism.
we must all kill the liberal part of our brain, every single day
That’s exactly what it is! I really like the way you put that comrade. That connected some synapses for me lol
First you must empty your cup before it can be refilled. Otherwise you just make a mess.
“Does it really matter if I can expect to live to 75 instead of 30, if I can’t call the president a doodoo head on social media?”
Yes, it matters a lot.
Another commenter shared an article by the AP where the reporter got to ask people in Xinjiang how things are. One lady at a shop casually mentioned that business was slowing and got talked to by a party minder. You can’t even have idle chat without getting invited to camp. That’s not quite the same thing as being able to talk shit on social media.
Source?
Also I give AP News zero credit when it comes to reporting on China.
https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-lifestyle-china-health-travel-7a6967f335f97ca868cc618ea84b98b9
Somebody used this source to help explain how there is no genocide in Xinjiang in this very thread.
Remember when Mao cast Firagaga on China and incinerated the entire population?
Answer the question weasel
He did. Like this is empirically an answer to your question. It’s not his revolution if you have to engage in measures he consider distasteful or unethical.
I’d say he didn’t. He gave an “it depends” with a scenario that hasn’t happened resulting in full death of humanity. It’s a way to handwave away the question, to sidestep it, we’re standing where we stood before.
To rephrase it: Had the question been “do you want to put out a house on fire?” And the answer is “well that depends, if the house was hit with a meteor that kills all life, then that would put out the fire” isn’t really an answer to the question. It makes it so big and vague that you’re answering a completely different question
Libs will cry “whataboutism” or bring up 10 fallacies they remembered from high school for hours to avoid addressing the substance of a conversation, then come back with shit like “well what if a meteor killed everyone, huh?” and tell themselves they’re the ones operating in good faith
It actually is. It’s the same as saying “No, not under those circumstances”. If you are comparing something to the destruction of the earth, you are not in favor of that thing.
But the question wasn’t “under these circumstances, would you put out the house on fire?” They invented the circumstances and have yet to answer under what circumstances they would put the fire out. If they had done that, then it would have been an answer
Are you actually defending him It was a nonsenseical answer
It’s only a defense if you think that answer is defensible.
Expect he didnt anwser the question he gave a smug gotcha
Couldn’t even manage a yes or no question.
Great idea! Hey USA, one HSR and Universal Healthcare? Instead of all that police and genocide plz thanks.
You are forgetting all the racism, xenophobia, homophobia and transphobia, white supremacy and Christian supremacy
I am.
Yes.
Killing landlords and fascists is not Genocide, and putting “secret” in front of “police” to make them scarier to you is childish. Of course I imagine you probably aren’t afraid of the regular police wherever you are, I wonder why.
If you’re accusing us of supporting “genocide and secret police,” you should provide sources to back up your claim.
What genocide?
Do you know the actual truth of the Holodomor or Xinjiang? Are you willing to know?
Comrades who are jumping straight to retorting are unwittingly making it seem like, “well yes, there was a genocide, but it was worth it.” Please do not allow any gap in our response that allows this interpretation. There has never been a genocide committed by a socialist country and we should make it clear we will not cede that atrociously false accusation.
Agreed. Unfortunately, they didn’t respond to me, so they probably won’t respond to you.
I’ll hijack this comment to try to summon Parenti quote bot
The quote
– Michael Parenti, Blackshirts And Reds
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the admins of this instance if you have any questions or concerns.
Your contention is that Stalin committed no genocide? What do you call it, sparkling ethnic cleansing?
Do you call the Dust Bowl and Great Depression a genocide? Words have meaning.
You love to present overdramatic accusations when a famine occurs in a socialist country, and there’s usually only one big one.
Edit: If you’re talking about something else, please elaborate as to your specific allegation.
I asked you for a source earlier and you didn’t respond.Edit 2: I stand corrected; I conflated you with a different user, but I’d still appreciate your source. Unfortunately, due to the lateness of this edit, the instance admins have already banned you, so I probably won’t find this out.
You didn’t ask me for shit earlier. This is my first comment here.
The Dust Bowl and Great Depression is a thing that happened. What occurred in Stalin’s reign is a pattern, that included famines. Were the famines specifically engineered to kill off specific groups? I don’t know. But when you take a holistic view, and look at executions, gulag assignments, forced resettlement, deportations, and, yes, famines, there was very clearly a genocide under Stalin.
Millions of people died as a direct result of Stalin’s policies and actions. I don’t know if they were all with intent, but many definitely were.
I don’t understand how anyone can defend Stalin. I guess people deny the Holocaust too, so there’s that.
By trying to paint the Soviet Union as genocidal, you are denying the Holocaust. Simple as.
Woof, that’s some leap.
A ‘leap’ made by literal jewish Holocaust scholars.
https://jewishcurrents.org/the-double-genocide-theory
That’s right bark again you fucking lapdog for the establishment.
And the dust bowl was the direct result of the US governments policies and actions, so why is only one of them “a thing that happened,” you raging hypocrite?
Are you capable of reading and processing information? Nevermind that the Great Depression was a worldwide catastrophe. Nevermind that it’s thousands vs millions of people. Did you notice where I talked about the larger pattern in the USSR? There wasn’t just one famine, but a shitload of things causing the deaths of millions of people, many of which were fucking executions.
Are you?
Point to where I mentioned the Great Depression.
What methodology did you use to determine your numbers? And why would it matter anyway? Is it not a genocide if it’s bellow a certain amount?
Yes there was, unless you’re counting the one caused by the Nazis flattening half of it, in which case I’m just going to write you off as a Nazi apologist.
Yes, that is indeed true of the USA, so why is the Dust Bowl “Just a thing that happened”, but the famine that happened in the same time period in the USSR not?
I’m all ears, buddy. Paint me the picture of this dust bowl genocide. My mind is open. Convince me.
Prisoners in the United States jumped from 120,284 in 1923 to 210,418 in 1933. (Source (p. 210))
Executions increased to 197, the highest number in US history, in 1935. (Source)
The U.S. forcibly deported one million of its own citizens to Mexico in the 1930s. Source
Since you’re probably using an intentionally ridiculous US estimate, I’ll use an intentionally ridiculous Russian estimate and say that seven million people died from the Great Depression. This Russian estimate uses the same intentionally ridiculous methodology of the U.S. one.
Put together, why isn’t this enough to declare that a genocide happened in the U.S.?
Nice whataboutism. But fuck it, I’ll bite. A genocide has absolutely happened in the US, funny that you didn’t hit on it.
Let’s play a game. I’m going to call it, “can we agree on some basic facts?”
Stalin, through his policies and leadership, killed millions of Soviet citizens. True or false?
Apologies for the confusing wording above. That’s because I was comparing two similar events to see if you would call it a genocide when the U.S. did it. If you did, I’d question your definition of genocide, but at least accept you’re applying it consistently.
I absolutely agree with you on that basic fact — the US has engaged in countless successful genocides against indigenous peoples.
False.
First of all, to attribute deaths solely to one individual (even to Hitler) denies anyone else responsible of their free will in doing so.
@ksynwa@lemmygrad.ml, would you mind holding this lib up to scrutiny since the one on Hexbear didn’t respond?
I’m okay. Sorry.
Fair, but this is just kind of a thing we do with language.
If we can’t agree that millions of people in the USSR were killed, sent to gulags, and died of famine during Stalin’s leadership, then I’m not sure there’s anything worth discussing.
Similarly, the article you linked about 7 million US deaths in the great depression doesn’t even take itself seriously. It’s just trying to discredit counts for deaths in the Holodomor. I suspect you don’t think that many people died as a result of the great depression, and, if you’re not going to argue in good faith, then again I believe we are at an impasse.
Finally, there is no need for name-calling. While I do not consider “lib” nearly as much an insult as you likely intend it, I would still not categorize myself as such.
So you’re denying genocide now.
Sorry what?
It’s crazy - we all actually tend to agree on most things. We all sort of agree that the US government has committed atrocities, that wealth redistribution is what we should be striving for, that billionaires suck, that universal healthcare is good, all that good shit.
But they are stuck on the idea that their favorite governments can do no wrong.
“I agree that the U.S. is evil and has been the objective bad guy in every war it’s ever been in (and the US has almost never not been at war) but I believe the U.S. wholeheartedly in matters of foreign policy”
Of course they can do wrong. We acknowledge legitimate criticisms, but we’re going to refute slander against socialist governments.
I trust international investigation and evidence uncovered by reputable journalists.
If a country refuses to allow international investigators to do their job, that is a significant red flag.
Are you talking about when the I.C.C. was sanctioned by the U.S. for investigation of Afghanistan war crimes?
If you compartmentalize counties in war to “good guys” and “bad guys”, you’re really going to claim that the US was the bad guy in WW2?
I apologize for the bad terminology, but I’ll stick with it to answer your question. Even in WW2, the Soviets were the “good guys” and the US only intervened when it was obvious the Soviets would win to stop a communist Europe.
Got it. In any war, communists are “good”, everyone else is “meh” or “bad”. It’s real telling that you’ll call the Soviets the “good guys” but not any other European nations.
If the U.S. really cared about stopping Nazis, shouldn’t they have joined the war back in 1939? You also can’t possibly defend the two nuclear bombs on Japan (who was already ready to surrender) was anything other than to intimidate the USSR.
Yes
In general, communists are good and everyone else is meh or bad, not just war.
Not really; we have no problem with actual, reasonable, criticism of AES nations, we just have no time for “100 MILLION DEAD! AUTHORITARIANISM! GENOCIDE! REDFASCISM!” nonsense.
Our secret police like the FBI? And our genocide like in North Korea?
Yes. The point of view here is anti-authoritarian.
There has been no genocide committed by a socialist country, no need to point out any of the dozens committed by the U.S. alone.
There is no war in Ba Sing Se
You only had to provide one example to disprove a claim of this sort, and you couldn’t do it?
I’m sure whatever I say you’ll have some precooked answer, so I’d rather make a fun comparison
yes, totally owned us by quoting a children’s cartoon when prompted to give evidence for genocide, good job redditor.
“I have no argument that you can’t refute, so I’m just going to behave in bad faith”
shit I regret affording you a first warning ban and should have gone for the perma ban. You sound super privileged, it would do you some good for someone to tell you no once in your life.
Liberals really do get all their politics from childrens media. You going to quote Harry Potter next?
you support Land Back and abolishing the FBI then I assume?