Why are there so many tankies on Lemmy?
You’re on Lemmygrad, a community for communists.
In the meantime, define “tankies”, because you don’t seem to know what that word means.
What does “tankie” mean to you?
it was made by communists
why are there so many liberals here?
This is Lemmygrad.
usians are the most propagandized people on earth
I would argue a certain segment of Europeans are even more propagandized than the average USian. At least in the US, for one reason or another (usually political tribalism), a lot of people mistrust their government, and to a lesser extent, their media. People in Europe still have way too much faith in their bourgeois institutions.
It is a weird thing in the US, cause you have people who sorta act like:
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If the democrats are in power (the government is terrible, omg, it’s so so terrible, we have to get them out of office)
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If the republicans are in power (omg I love government now, look at how they’re sticking it to the libs)
And to some extent, the reverse of that as well. These days I think more are getting frustrated with the gov in general, but you still have some of those loyalists who act like it’s the “wrong side” that is the problem with governance, not the system as a whole.
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The genocide in Gaza has really demolished the narrative about one going on in China. Because we all know what a real genocide looks like now, if the Chinese were doing somethuing similiar they wouldn’t be able to hide it.
I wish this was the case. I just had a coworker bring up the Uyghur “genocide” as evidence about how bad China is last Friday.
I’m travelling and it constantly comes up. The fact that I’ve been there, spoken to Uyghurs, and they’ve either laughed or been straight up horrified at the western narrative is apparently not evidence enough to convince most westerners. There have been exceptions, like this sweet but naive couple from Canada who’s world view my girlfriend and I were able to completely change over the course of a couple of weeks.
I think for most they’ve convinced themselves, with the aid of a huge amount of propaganda in the form of news and TV/movies, that the west are the good guys. The thought that anything else could be the case is simply impossible to contemplate, as it would utterly shatter their world view and morals
Although, there is ample evidence of genocide on both sides. Why does it need to be one team vs the other, vs I don’t know, a general support of rights?
Is your name Adrian Zenz lol
Where is the physical evidence of this genocide? Because I can see dead Palestinian children by the truckloads if I want to.
What is a reputable source for you? Visiting one of the compounds, which wouldn’t be possible? Izrale is livestreaming their atrocities, china has media control.
Where are the bombs in Xinjiang? Where is the famine? Where are the gofundmes for people BEGGING to be released from this hell? Where are the livestreams? The updated Google maps showing the destruction?
All of this is happening on the daily in Gaza. Not so in China.
media control.
China has 1.4 billion citizens. Xinjiang is a major tourist destination with 300 million tourists anually. Most of these people have smart phones. Do you seriously think the PRC has the magical powers to keep that many information channels under wraps? Plain impossible. Hell look at chinas borders, do you seriously think the PRC could close them down to prevent refugees from fleeing?
Furthermore, a genocide requires infrastructure and leaves evidence. In Gaza there’s plenty of mass graves, video evidence and the israeli butchers even filming themselves doing it! The infrastructure used to siege gaza can easily found, the fortified border wall, the army bases around it.
Meanwhile Xinjiang: Nothing, no graves, no facilites to keep the supposed 1 million people, no witnesses.
I’ve been to Xinjiang and spoken to Uyghurs. They either laugh at the idea of a genocide or are horrified that such a narrative exists. The huge amount of Uyghur culture being practiced and celebrated and used as a source of internal tourism for China again suggests that no genocide is taking place.
What did happen is a deradicalisation campaign almost 10 years ago. That was to prevent the spread of fundamentalist Islam in the wake if the Arab spring, which was backed by the west, resulted in the fall of Libya and it’s current woes and the rise of Isis in Syria.
The west wanted this wave of madness to spread into Xinjiang and do to it what they have done repeatedly in the Islamic world, which is use radical Islam to topple governments opposed to US hegemony. Is it any wonder that when China fights back against this the west starts up the propaganda machine to invoke accusations of genocide.
This is the exact same playbook they used against communist Afghanistan and the Soviet Union, which resulted in the Taliban.
You can go to Xinjiang today and meet Uyghur people. The fact that they live freely, and that Uyghur culture is still alive and well, is pretty ample evidence that there’s not been a genocide.
I think you can have reasonable criticisms of the reeducation program but to call it a genocide just seems factually incorrect.
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china has media control.
This is just “communists are necromancers / mind controllers / Cthulhu delegates” kind of monster under the bed nonsense coming from Cold War propaganda era narrative and continuing on to this day. No state has 100% control over media and the reality is that after the initial push of the narrative (which primarily came from a “dude trust me” singular individual), the credibility of the claim slowly unraveled. This is in contrast to a history like, for example, US in Korea, where it started out as the US portraying it as for good and info on the US occupation’s atrocities came out over time, as people whistleblew and people investigated. Or how many people were duped into viewing the israeli colony as “it’s complicated” rather than colonialism doing what colonialism does (extermination of the natives) and only got through the bubble when raw first person information on atrocities committed by israel started coming through. In israel’s case, it’s not just that they are so brazen about it at this stage, it’s also the painstaking documentation that Palestinians have done, some of them getting targeted and martyred for daring to report on the crimes of the settlers.
There is no such equivalent evidence going on with China and claiming ultimate powers of censorship as the reason is, well… there’s a Parenti quote that comes to mind about an unfalsifiable orthodoxy. The absurdity of this kind of argument that happens in anti-communist propaganda goes something like:
- The communists are evil. 2) If the evidence is clear and available, then you are evil if you don’t condemn them. 3) If the evidence is not clear and available, then it must be because the communists are totalitarian masterminds and are hiding the evidence from us. And obviously one who would support totalitarian masterminds is evil themself.
It’s one of those things like that saying, “You can’t reason someone out of a belief they haven’t reasoned themself into.” Much of anti-communist propaganda begins with an implied truism that communism must be evil and then reasons about how it is evil after the fact. By comparison, no such nonsense is necessary to criticize colonialism, for example; its crimes are well documented over hundreds of years and it depends on such narratives as saying that one people are civil and another savage, and so the savages “deserve what they get” (aka: dehumanization).
You will not find such narratives in the practice of communism because it goes out of its way to humanize and work to eliminate class and caste barriers. So its opponents simply make up atrocities committed in its name and claim that it’s a faked humanitarian goal.
The quote
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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They have smartphones there. They MAKE smartphones there.
Soo… there isn’t any but we’re supposed to just believe it anyway? Lol incredible
Replying to myself, but I guess the responses prove the polarisation point at least.
Are you done shitting the bed yet?
Commenting on lemmygrab is practically that
Not too familiar with lemmygrab. But yeah, everything you don’t like is propaganda and anything that goes against neoliberal regime-think that suggests we should actually cut more social services, give more bombs to Israel/Ukraine/proxy(s)-of-the-year and assuage the concerns and desires of the growing right with ineffective, spineless leaders is propaganda.
Of course, China is leading the world in academic articles, EV technology, nuclear. Average citizen eats more protein and has a better diet than Americans while PPP goes every up and ours stagnates for more and more lower-class people. Developments are built to supply the growing population, not to service a F.I.R.E economy.
The neoliberal party says do not trust your eyes or ears, though. Plenty of people here been to China, an actual socialist country and have thoroughly debunked most of the talking points in person or with stuff like a certain U.N article not finding any evidence…we give evidence and proof all the time. Either it be Ukraine, or China if you actually took the time to look and read through what we have here it’s not just simply “propaganda”.
or, on the other hand, everything truly is propaganda. You just found ones you don’t like.
I have to remark that your instance is literally called reddit but with another article qualifier
I have to remark that this instance is known to be a propaganda instance thats full of trolls.
we’re called lemmygrab 'cos we’re coming for your toothbrush
Lol
The poles:
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The ignorant and propagandized, yet somehow confident. Please note that you have not done further investigation or acknowledged the experiences of people who have been to or live in Xinjiang.
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Those who do investigation and recognize the pattern of poor sourcing, US or AU gov funding of outlets, fake governments in exile, fake universities.
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There is no polarization, everyone who looked into it agrees that there never was a genocide in the first place.
polarization is cool and good, actually
Polarisation?
Google “atrocity propaganda” and revise your position of there being “ample evidence of genocide on both sides.” Palestinian genocide is livestreamed every day. Meanwhile, I have not ever, ever heard of “Uighur genocide” from anyone who is more than three steps removed from the CIA.
Turkey is in support? Aren’t they the ones that started the Uyghur myth in the first place, along with finding the ETIM?
While ETIM was founded in turkey, the my of the genocide was started by The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and the BBC.
It should be well known at this point that Turkey has one of the most two faced governments in the world. They perpetually try and play both sides.
Idk if this is even accurate, it seems more like they pay lip service to the global south, while materially always siding with the global north.
I thought this was a good video. I’m not sure if it’s a genocide, and I’m sure it’s not on the same scale as Palestine, but I think what’s going on with Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities deserves serious criticism: https://youtu.be/cz9ICFDk8Js
Take this with a grain of salt as I have not done in depth research.
No it is a horrible video. He takes every single western accusation for the truth.
Stop worshipping BE.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
It seems at the very least to be an attempt at erasing an ethnic culture, comparable in some ways to Native American boarding schools in the history of the U.S. and Canada
It is completely uncomparable to those atrocities
No there is no such attempt, lol.
Uyghur language is widely teached, is on the currency notes of the PRC, all public signs in Xinjiang are at least in Uyghur and Mandarin, Uyghurs are well represented in the arts, economy, and public life, hell Xinjiang is major tourist destination within China. Before Covid 300 million people visited each year.
The Uyghurs are one of the 56 recognized ands thus constitutionally protected minorities within the PRC. The PRC guarantees them everything the north american natives can only hope for.
I didn’t realize that the Uyghur language was an official language, and I didn’t know that ethnic groups have constitutional protections in China. I think a lot of the conclusions drawn from the video ignore the context that China has legal protections for languages and ethnic groups that places like the U.S. don’t.
what a disgusting thing to say
I think “at the very least” was a poor choice of words on my part, and it was probably not 100% fair to compare it to things that have happened to native Americans. There were legal documents from the Chinese government that the author of the video cited that would lead me to believe that there is an attempt at the assimilation of Uyghur people into a larger Chinese culture and language
The PRC has always worked to create a pan-Chinese identity, including all their minority ethnic groups along side the Han majority, but this doesn’t mean there’s an effort to eliminate local cultures. People are fully capable of leaning Mandarin and enjoying Han-centric media while continuing to speak their local languages (which are legally protected) and maintain their old ways of life.
I didn’t realize China had so many official state languages.
I would like to understand what is disgusting about what I said.
only about 8% of indigenous people still speak their native languages which are rapidly going extinct and for example Pine Ridge reservation still has the lowest average life expectancy and highest infant mortality rates, along with extremely high rates of cancer due to being surrounded by bombing ranges and contaminated with uranium mine runoff in most of the reservation water supply. As someone that has worked with indigenous activists for decades I can confirm it was pretty gross, ignorant, and just plain wrong.
Are you saying it was gross because the situation of Uyghurs in China is not as bad as the situation of indigenous people in the U.S.? The reason I chose to make the comparison I did is that the author of the video makes the same comparison, and it seemed like an example that people might have prior knowledge of or be able to relate to.
I apologize that I used things that have happened to indigenous Americans in the past to further a point when I did not fully understand their situation.
I would like to know what you felt was wrong about the comparison
8% of murrican natives speak their languages, 100% of Uyghurs do.
You: China treats them like the US!11111111
I know right? The anti semitism is on the rise, it’s concerning
User instance is too on the nose. Anyways, unlimited death on IDF soldiers. Every dead IDF troop is a fresh beer!
Zionism is the Typhoid Mary of anti-Semitism.
Yes, and it’s coming from you, because Zionism is antisemitic.
Western coverage of antisemitism is completely unrelated to actual antisemitic incidents.
@SovietReporter @missandry351 In the sense that arabs are also a semitic people yes
Zionism is deeply antisemitic against jewish peoples too; for Zionists the only valid Jew is the fascist one and thereby carries out one of the axioms of western imperialism - the only truly valid “minority” is the fascist one (see for example, the erasure of communist ukrainians for fascist ones, communist Indonesians for fascist ones, and same for other East Europeans, South Americans etc)
the only truly valid “minority” is the fascist one (see for example, the erasure of communist ukrainians for fascist ones, communist Indonesians for fascist ones, and same for other East Europeans, South Americans etc)
I have also seen that there is an erasure and persecution of communist parties(Ukraine for example) for less effective ones(Trotskyst, Maoist and other pro imperialist ultra left deviations). It is an interesting trend to mention beside the state openly favoring fascist ones.
There was one in Ukraine who went with the liberal “both sides bad” of the conflict -> http://www.solidnet.org/article/23rd-IMCWP-Contribution-by-Union-of-Communists-of-Ukraine/
I care not for the uniform but the content; it is why I do not consider “Western Marxists” of various stripes, locations and ethnicities as communists.
