cecinestpasunbot @ cecinestpasunbot @lemmy.ml

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2 yr. ago

Oof I’ve been there. It’s rough having your worldview turned upside down. The lucky thing for you is that you’re not the first one to go through this.

I’d say before you go anywhere, try to understand why you believed in the Democratic Party in the first place. Books like Manufacturing Consent, podcasts like Citations Needed, or outlets like Fair.org can help. I think developing a critical lens for political media is a key step towards building a new understanding of the world.

Beyond that it’s important to understand that politics can’t be limited to how you vote. Change in the US has largely been a direct consequence of mass movements composed of well coordinated organizations. So, if you’re willing to put in real effort to participate and learn, join a member run political organization like DSA. That is if you’re open to democratic socialist political perspectives :P

Thankfully I never equated them.

I’m not convinced the CCP has to be bad news for the latter. The CCP has a very economistic mindset when it comes to dealing with internal strife within China. As such, I think they would potentially settle for an economic union with certain security guarantees which would allow Taiwan to remain politically independent.

While I would agree that many in the US have strong feelings about their party affiliation, I don’t think it’s quite the same.

For one thing, by joining the CCP you are actually required to participate. I don’t know the numbers off hand, but I imagine far fewer people in the US actually participate in their local Democratic or Republican party clubs. Additionally, the approval ratings of democrats or republicans is lower than the CCP’s even if you only poll their respective party members.

The CCP is a democratic centralist party. As such, factionalism has always been heavily discouraged. None of that is new.

Additionally the role of president, for which term limits were abolished, is not a particularly powerful one in China. The president serves at the behest of the national people’s congress standing committee and only has leeway to engage in foreign diplomacy. Xi likely has more influence over Chinese state affairs as general secretary of the CCP which never had term limits.

That said, it’s weird to see western media trying to read the tea leaves so they can write salacious stories about China’s palace intrigue when policy debates are happening out in the open. I’m willing to bet most western experts on China just don’t actually read any of the primary sources.

I mean just go read the CPC constitution. There are translations of it in English readily available.

As far as I can tell, the party constitution gets updated at every party congress and doesn’t afford Xi any special powers. He is included as an ideological leader in the party’s general program but that’s not unique to him. The same can be said for every CCP leader since the constitution was first adopted. Additionally, the constitution still clearly states that all party leadership is subject to oversight. It also lays out rights every party member has that no member of leadership is allowed to curtail. I don’t know how you could read this document and come away thinking it gives Xi total control over the party unless you’re already biased to interpret it that way.

What evidence is there that Xi consolidated all the power? Is it that he led an anti corruption campaign and has been in power for ten years? Is it that he isn’t directly elected by the people? Because by those standards Angela Merkel would also be a dictator.

What evidence is there for this beyond mere speculation? Most articles on Xi from the western press read more like gossip magazines than investigative journalism. They’re full of things like “body language experts” and other fluff but not much else.

The same is true for the “spy balloon” or “wolf warrior diplomacy”. While we don’t know what the balloon’s purpose was, the US has basically admitted that it wasn’t collecting any data. As for “wolf warrior diplomacy” it amounts to minor Chinese state officials being sassy on twitter. There’s no evidence that such behavior was state policy.

Concluding that China is bound to collapse based on this kind of flimsy evidence is so silly.

The thing is, you can’t really separate the Chinese people from the CCP. Something like 7% of the population are members and the party has very high approval ratings. That’s not just because the CCP are good propagandists either. Rather the living conditions for the average Chinese person have improved dramatically over the course of only a few decades thanks to policy decisions made by the CCP. As such, opposing the CCP and wanting the Chinese people to thrive may be seen as a highly contradictory perspective to people living in mainland China.

It’s not that corporate news in the western world has to be well organized to put out the same perspective. Rather, they operate under the same kinds of selective pressures and as such they develop similar biases.

A good example is all the reporting on WMDs in Iraq that went unquestioned by much of the western press until well after it mattered. Unfortunately nothing has really changed since the invasion of Iraq.

Their first statement was factually incorrect and their follow up explanation was just unfounded conjecture that made no logical sense. When I pointed that out they just refused to engage.

Whether or not you want to call it a defense, you are providing justifications for Biden’s lack of action. Going on to suggest that your opinion is just “how reality works” even though you’ve made factually incorrect statements is just too rich.

Exactly how was my question “uninformed”?

That’s not really true. Much of China’s economic growth in recent years has been driven by internal demand and not foreign investment.

Not just scientific papers in total but high impact papers too.

They would if they were actually given the choice.

This has to be a bit right? The irony of being high while also trying to justify why Biden doesn’t push for legalization is just too funny.

I mean even the definition they gave is problematic. Palestine is a place full of ethnic and religious diversity. Privileging one part of the population necessitates the disenfranchisement of others. That’s what all expressions of Zionism entail.

That’s not true. You’re confusing punditry for polling. The former is biased against progressive reforms while the latter shows that large majorities of Americans are generally in favor of them.

Biden used the weakest legal argument available to him increasing the likelihood it would get struck down. Debtor advocates were not pleased with his decision and that was before the lawsuit. He does bear some responsibility for its failure in court.