PotatoesFall @ PotatoesFall @discuss.tchncs.de

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18

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993

Joined

2 yr. ago

Hm why does this narrative of violent protesters terrorizing cities feel so familiar? I wonder where I've heard that before

So the Taiwanese all desperately want to join the DPRC? Last I checked Taiwan was a sovereign nation. Capitalism has a foothold there but the British no longer rule there. Justifying imperialism with imperialism also doesn't magically make it okay

I'm genuinely apologizing because I'm only skimming this as I'm getting sleepy. and it's a lot to go through. I can tell you took effort so apologies.

Re: West also bad, at times worse

I know and I agree!

btw central planning is not unique to countries run by socialists. Highly concentrated capitalism also has central planning aspects, as do their governments in times of emergency. But it is, in that case, central planning for bourgeois interests.

And in the case of China, it is for CCP interests. Holding elections every now and then doesn't translate to the dictatorship of the proletariat as envisioned. By that logic, US democracy would be a dictatorship of the proletariat as well, since they hold elections every now and then.

This sounds like America-centrism

I do not consider america really federal, since there is massive power concentrated at the top. Same for other "federal" states like Germany

IMO, building support networks and communities is better than meeting in dark rooms and planning revolutions. Or what is your plan of action? (Genuinely asking)

It's not just one guy, the article cites several sources.

Those are some valid arguments actually. I guess some people do throw the term around too liberally (heh).

You mean the island where the fascist fled after they lost the Chinese civil war and now acts as a base of US military hegemony?

So what? Imperialism is suddenly okay if you don't like the ruling ideology there? That is the same logic underlying US imperialism, and coincidentally, fits the old definition of the word tankie.

What about Hong Kong?

You may recall protests being violently repressed.

Could you give us examples?

Many uighurs have been imprisoned for example.

Also your screenshot once again, just tries to prove China is awesome, because the US is bad. I'm not trying to compare the two.

What are you trying to prove to me? That China is perfect? I know you don't believe that.

I think I haven't made myself clear, I don't think the number is made up.

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

No? When did I say that? You seem to think I'm calling everybody here a tankie (or my definition thereof). I'm not.

as if anybody asked.

I was literally asked

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

Jesus Christ I cannot make this any more clear, I am not saying that China or Russia are the top threats and that we need to save liberal democracy lmao. I criticize China, you immediately assume that I'm a liberal and your enemy. You argue in bad faith, pellet me with strawmen and make 100 assumptions about what you think my opinions are. Which is exactly the kind of behavior I'm talking about.

At least most of the other people replying to my comment were interesting to speak to and argued in good faith. I might learn something from them. I won't learn anything from you and you aren't interested in learning anything from me.

You have proven my point :)

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

unironically funny lmao.

Yes I do agree with you.

it’s understandable why they have a high approval rate.

It is. I'm not saying the number is fake. I'm saying that the CCP does not make an effort to make its government transparent and emancipate its citizens so they can form cirtical opinions. Those in power hold all the tools to keep themselves in power.

You're implying that I'm the one setting up a strawman by claiming that people are acting a certain way. This is from my personal experience. I'm not accusing you or everyone here of being a tankie but it seems like everybody here identifies as one. Maybe we have a different definition of the word. I was trying to clarify my definition.

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

No, and I don't think any smart anarchist is advocating for some crazy revolution involving a coup or whatever. I advocate for building strong local communities, that are heavily interconnected. "Communes" as such are kind of impossible since most people live in cities anyway. We need to build resilient networks that can slowly replace oppressive centralized power. Personally I also don't subscribe to only 100% anarchism, my ideology is also influenced by socialism, syndicalism and marxism.

That is the dumbest argument ever. Hitler liked dogs, liking dogs doesn't make you a nazi. That's not to say I agree with the US stance on China, but why would this even matter

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

That's not quite what I mean, I think we got sidetracked. I'll give you an example:

https://lemmy.ml/post/21941058

This guy posts the worst propaganda article I've ever read, and gets downvoted to oblivion. Take a look and tell me that reading it doesn't feel like wormtongue himself is whispering into your ear. The issue being lamented in the article is real, and I made clear in my first comment that I agree, but the OP goes off, assumes that I don't like the article because a Russian wrote it, calls me a liberal, puts up 100 strawmen without engaging any of my arguments, and then accuses me of not engaging their (nonexistent) arguments. I wasn't even disagreeing with the article just the way it's written lmao

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.

Hong Kong is a Chinese city that was colonized by the British and is being reintegrated, as yiu would expect from a sovereign country. You claimed elsewhere that you are against Western hegemony, but this is a crystal clear example of anticolonial action and you’re siding with the colonists that write breathless propaganda about how unfair it is that China is governing a Chinese city.

Okay so violently beating down protesters is okay because it's in the name of anticolonialism? This line of reasoning goes exactly the same as US imperialism. It's always some harmful ideology that is enslaving the poor people of some place and they must be freed by being forced to join the empire.

I don't get where you're trying to take this conversation. You don't have to prove to me that some things about China are great. In this comment alone you admitted three times that China isn't perfect. Which means, China should be criticized. Like any other nation state. And I am saying, there are shills who run around and won't let anybody criticize China because for some reason they got emotionally attached to a nation state. Everybody who says they don't want to deepthroat Mao's shlong for breakfast gets called a liberal. Any and all words uttered by a human that has even looked at the US on a map is liberal slop, and everything coming from the Russian state department is gospel. And I call those people tankies. That's all I'm saying.

Taiwan and Hong Kong ARE China

Imperialism much?

China is improving along those lines, while the US is rapidly regressing

That's fair, but it's once again an argument based entirely on comparing China to the US. The US being bad doesn't make China good. To get back to my original argument, I'm just saying that the word 'tankie' refers to China or Russia simps. There is no nation in this world worth simping for.

Liberalism is fundamentally an ideology of private property ownership and that’s why it always inevitably devolved into fascism in times of crisis.

What does this have to with anarchism, which rejects private property?

Anarchists place their individual freedom above collective good, and thus align with liberal capitalists in action.

Anarchists believe that it is neither a supreme ruler nor the majority that decide what collective good is. I reject your idea that the collective good is something we have to decide on collectively and then force upon those who disagree. Anarchists have been brutally repressed in Western countries, they in no way align with liberal capitalists in action.

Would Al Jazeera suffice? https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/8/10/one-million-muslim-uighurs-held-in-secret-china-camps-un-panel

Define liberal please because I don't like being called one.

In the same way that some people will shill for billionaires or for some billionaire-owned company, aka a corporate shill. People who fail to see that (capitalist) companies are just a way to extract profit. In the same vein, some people fail to see that nation states are just instruments of power. Some are better than others in different ways of course, but I get real itchy when people jump to defend a nation at the first smidgeon of criticism. I hate nationalism.