• Dessalines@lemmy.ml
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    10 months ago

    This thread is a testament to the years of china bad slop that white supremacist liberals have been eating.

    Major props to all the patient comrades below trying to educate these stubborn klansmen.

    • Jentu@lemmy.ml
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      10 months ago

      It sure does seem like people who support white supremacist systems and help push supremacist propaganda don’t like being called white supremacists.

    • Isthisreddit@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Why do you use the liberal label? I’ve been hearing this “China bad” shit from the right for years

      • verdigris@lemmy.ml
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        10 months ago

        Because the entire US political spectrum fits nearly inside of “neoliberalism”. Liberalism in general is just capitalism+.

        • Isthisreddit@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          I think the world liberal is used… Liberally. I usually equate it in the US political term for left of center (or rather the opposite of conservatives), but I know the entire US political system is hijacked - both “sides” answer to the same overlords

          • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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            10 months ago

            Yes, the entire spectrum of the DNC and GOP falls under liberalism to fascism, there are pretty much no leftists in US politics.

    • BiteSizedZeitGeist@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Wait, I’m a white supremacist because I don’t want China - or anyone else - to manipulate Tibet or persecute Uygurs? I’m a Klansman because I lean to supporting Taiwan’s independence?

      Do, like, MLs just hate everyone? Honestly, why are MLs so extremely hostile to people they don’t 100% agree with?

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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        10 months ago

        It’s common for chauvanists to side with the US Empire’s claims about Tibet, Xinjiang, and Taiwan, as well as the framing of these issues. For westerners who utterly lack the background knowledge required to even begin untangling these subjects, to side with the world’s largest Empire against a rising socialist country it has every means and desire to lie about, this teeters into chauvanistic territory. I think anyone trying to get a realistic view of these subjects needs to also explore the Chinese perspective, as well as the global south.

        Marxist-Leninists don’t hate everyone, we have a deep love for the working class and a hatred for oppression. The reason MLs can seem hostile is because we have to deal with the same arguments day in, day out, unceasingly. This manifests in frustration, lashing out, etc. It gets increasingly frustrating when Marxist heroes like Marx, Fred Hampton, Che, Frantz Fanon, Walter Rodney, Rosa Luxemburg, etc get passes from liberals due to their martyrdom or dying before being in a position of influence, while liberals follow the US Empire’s line on existing and practicing Marxists, and those who lived long enough to succeed.

      • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
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        10 months ago

        to manipulate Tibet or persecute Uygurs

        The people selling this false narrative are white supremacists, not the Tibetan or Uyghur people.

        I’m a Klansman because I lean to supporting Taiwan’s independence?

        Taiwan is pretty much if the US confederates lost the civil war, then escaped to Cuba, killed all the people there, and set up a state. Read about what mass killings the Kuomintang did to the indigenous peoples of Taiwan when they escaped there.

        • BiteSizedZeitGeist@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          I didn’t make my point clear. I don’t have any strong opinions on these matters I brought up, outside “genocide is bad” and other basic ethics. I’m admitting I don’t know much about them, not due to apathy but due to… just information fucking overload. It’s absurd to equate me with white supremacists just because I can’t keep up with everything going on in the world to exacting detail.

          • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
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            10 months ago

            I apologize for being too combative… it just gets exhausting for us to debunk the same points over and over again, especially since the US has a near total monopoly on anglophone media sources.

            We should oppose actual genocide, like the one Israel is carrying out on the Palestinian people with US help, not fake ones like the “white genocide” or “uyghur genocide” which are employed against perceived enemies of the white/western world.

          • GarbageShootAlt2@lemmy.ml
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            10 months ago

            There is no genocide in Xinjiang nor, as the accusation used to go, in Tibet. Frivolously accusing an enemy of the west that it’s committing genocide, the crime of crimes, when those accusations mainly feed into narratives used to try to balkanize that enemy of the west does present a certain impression. I have no opinion on your character, but I would gently suggest that if you don’t have a strong opinion then it doesn’t make sense to go around making confident assertions, as you clearly did in the case of Xinjiang (because you surely know the argument being suggested by Cowbee and company is not that the PRC is committing genocide and that such a genocide would be good).

            Your statement on Taiwan is perfectly consistent with how you characterize yourself, however we might disagree, because it was expressed as supporting a side in an issue where there is some consensus on what the sides represent, though obviously I and other communists will say that if you want an independent Taiwan, you I guess want a global revolution because in the current world there is no possibility for an independent Taiwan, like there is no possibility for an independent Tibet, because it will either be part of China or it will be controlled by the US.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      10 months ago

      I can’t think of any strawman arguments I’ve seen recently from leftists, but as for “whataboutism,” comparison is the basic method by which we can observe what works and what doesn’t. Not all “whataboutism” is invalid, for example comparing the level of infrastructure development in China and the US reveals clear strengths of socialism over capitalism.

      • GrammarPolice@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        for example comparing the level of infrastructure development in China and the US reveals clear strengths of socialism over capitalism.

        That’s not whataboutism. That’s just a comparison as you pointed out. Whataboutism is when you address a critique of your position by saying, “we’re not the only ones though”

        I can’t think of any strawman arguments I’ve seen recently from leftists

        This post is a strawman. It assumes criticisms of China are centred around infrastructure as opposed to other things. Unless OP specifically made this post in response to someone they had (or are having) a discussion with, I see no reason to generalize this as a position all “liberals” take.

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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          10 months ago

          This post is definitely comparison, though, and not whataboutism. Further, it is valid if the point of critiquing something is to imply something else is better when it can be pointed out that they are similar, the same, or the other is worse.

          As for this post, it’s pretty clear that it’s comparing infrastructure in both countries. Claims of “China bad” are ever-shifting, goal posts moving and entire arguments spring up and fall back down, there’s no meme that could genuinely address all of them. Use Occam’s razor a bit here.

          • GrammarPolice@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            Claims of “China bad” are ever-shifting, goal posts moving and entire arguments spring up and fall back down,

            Right, but infrastructure is not what makes up the bulk of “China bad” talking points. Why not address the Uyghurs or censorship? That is what makes up the bulk of “China bad” discourse.

            Pointing to infrastructure only to refute the “China bad” comments is a strawman because that’s not what makes up the bulk of the discourse.

            I’m willing to let it slide on the Occam’s razor though, especially since this is just a meme, but it still feels disingenuous.

            Further, it is valid if the point of critiquing something is to imply something else is better when it can be pointed out that they are similar, the same, or the other is worse.

            Sorry, if you’re meaning this as a defense of the use of whataboutism, I don’t agree.

    • Amnesigenic@lemmy.ml
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      10 months ago

      “Whataboutism” is a thought-terminating buzzword employed by brain-rotted westerners whenever a relevant comparison is made in which they come out looking bad

        • Amnesigenic@lemmy.ml
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          10 months ago

          Tu quoque is a real fallacy, whataboutism is a word used by people who are too fucking stupid to google the real name and are 100% always also too stupid to correctly identify a fallacy

          • GrammarPolice@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            So what exactly is wrong if someone wants to use a colloquial? You’re acting like this has any actual bearing on the validity of my point

            • Amnesigenic@lemmy.ml
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              10 months ago

              Your point has no validity as several other users have already explained at length, my point is that you’re also rhetorically/logically/literally illiterate and should be embarassed

              • GrammarPolice@lemmy.world
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                10 months ago

                several other users have already explained at length

                You mean communists like you? We’re so deep in this thread that no one else other than you guys care enough to be still here downvoting my comments.

                Similarly you’ve been insulting me this whole time, but I’ve stayed passive, only wanting to engage with your talking points. Maybe you could try being less aggressive for a change.

                • Amnesigenic@lemmy.ml
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                  10 months ago

                  Yes, several communists have already explained to you in great detail exactly how and why your assertions are incorrect. Your point?

                  Your passivity is worthless.

  • PotatoesFall@discuss.tchncs.de
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    10 months ago

    Okay I would just upvote and move on, but you’re clearly baiting with that title so if it’s alright with you let’s have some banter :P

    If I say that

    • the meme is on point
    • material conditions in China are to some extent better than the US
    • the US is definitely worse to its own people and the world
    • I’m staunchly anti-capitalist

    but I also say that I still don’t like the Chinese state because I don’t consider that (and ML in general) a form of worker-owned means of production (whether or not you agree)

    Am I a “lib”?

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      10 months ago

      Kinda? What do you think socialism looks like, if not the PRC? What about the PRC makes it not “genuine worker control,” or more broadly, Marxism-Leninism not “genuine worker control?”

    • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
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      10 months ago

      but I also say that I still don’t like the Chinese state because I don’t consider that (and ML in general) a form of worker-owned means of production (whether or not you agree)

      We’ve shown many times how the PRC is a worker-owned-and-controlled econoxy, and how the worker’s congresses function in action.

      If you don’t consider any actually existing country that’s trying to build socialism “up to your standard”, then you should re-evaluate the basis of your opposition. If you kow-tow to every western-supremacist talking point about how Vietnam, the PRC, the DPRK, and Cuba "aren’t doing socialism correctly because they aren’t as smart as [insert western-supremacist marxist here], then yes, you are a liberal.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      10 months ago

      Yes, the richest country by GDP, and the world’s largest empire, can be crumbling while the world’s largest socialist country can be dramatically improving and rapidly developing.

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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              10 months ago

              Already has been. Two excerpts from Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth:

              Drepung monastery was one of the biggest landowners in the world, with its 185 manors, 25,000 serfs, 300 great pastures, and 16,000 herdsmen. The wealth of the monasteries rested in the hands of small numbers of high-ranking lamas. Most ordinary monks lived modestly and had no direct access to great wealth. The Dalai Lama himself “lived richly in the 1000-room, 14-story Potala Palace.” [12]

              Secular leaders also did well. A notable example was the commander-in-chief of the Tibetan army, a member of the Dalai Lama’s lay Cabinet, who owned 4,000 square kilometers of land and 3,500 serfs. [13] Old Tibet has been misrepresented by some Western admirers as “a nation that required no police force because its people voluntarily observed the laws of karma.” [14] In fact it had a professional army, albeit a small one, that served mainly as a gendarmerie for the landlords to keep order, protect their property, and hunt down runaway serfs.

              Young Tibetan boys were regularly taken from their peasant families and brought into the monasteries to be trained as monks. Once there, they were bonded for life. Tashì-Tsering, a monk, reports that it was common for peasant children to be sexually mistreated in the monasteries. He himself was a victim of repeatedremoved, beginning at age nine. [15] The monastic estates also conscripted children for lifelong servitude as domestics, dance performers, and soldiers.

              In old Tibet there were small numbers of farmers who subsisted as a kind of free peasantry, and perhaps an additional 10,000 people who composed the “middle-class” families of merchants, shopkeepers, and small traders. Thousands of others were beggars. There also were slaves, usually domestic servants, who owned nothing. Their offspring were born into slavery. [16] The majority of the rural population were serfs. Treated little better than slaves, the serfs went without schooling or medical care. They were under a lifetime bond to work the lord’s land — or the monastery’s land — without pay, to repair the lord’s houses, transport his crops, and collect his firewood. They were also expected to provide carrying animals and transportation on demand. [17] Their masters told them what crops to grow and what animals to raise. They could not get married without the consent of their lord or lama. And they might easily be separated from their families should their owners lease them out to work in a distant location. [18]

              As in a free labor system and unlike slavery, the overlords had no responsibility for the serf’s maintenance and no direct interest in his or her survival as an expensive piece of property. The serfs had to support themselves. Yet as in a slave system, they were bound to their masters, guaranteeing a fixed and permanent workforce that could neither organize nor strike nor freely depart as might laborers in a market context. The overlords had the best of both worlds.

              One 22-year old woman, herself a runaway serf, reports: “Pretty serf girls were usually taken by the owner as house servants and used as he wished”; they “were just slaves without rights.” [19] Serfs needed permission to go anywhere. Landowners had legal authority to capture those who tried to flee. One 24-year old runaway welcomed the Chinese intervention as a “liberation.” He testified that under serfdom he was subjected to incessant toil, hunger, and cold. After his third failed escape, he was merciless beaten by the landlord’s men until blood poured from his nose and mouth. They then poured alcohol and caustic soda on his wounds to increase the pain, he claimed. [20]

              The serfs were taxed upon getting married, taxed for the birth of each child and for every death in the family. They were taxed for planting a tree in their yard and for keeping animals. They were taxed for religious festivals and for public dancing and drumming, for being sent to prison and upon being released. Those who could not find work were taxed for being unemployed, and if they traveled to another village in search of work, they paid a passage tax. When people could not pay, the monasteries lent them money at 20 to 50 percent interest. Some debts were handed down from father to son to grandson. Debtors who could not meet their obligations risked being cast into slavery. [21]

              The theocracy’s religious teachings buttressed its class order. The poor and afflicted were taught that they had brought their troubles upon themselves because of their wicked ways in previous lives. Hence they had to accept the misery of their present existence as a karmic atonement and in anticipation that their lot would improve in their next lifetime. The rich and powerful treated their good fortune as a reward for, and tangible evidence of, virtue in past and present lives.

              Selection two, shorter: (CW sexual violence and mutilation)

              The Tibetan serfs were something more than superstitious victims, blind to their own oppression. As we have seen, some ran away; others openly resisted, sometimes suffering dire consequences. In feudal Tibet, torture and mutilation — including eye gouging, the pulling out of tongues, hamstringing, and amputation — were favored punishments inflicted upon thieves, and runaway or resistant serfs. [22]

              Journeying through Tibet in the 1960s, Stuart and Roma Gelder interviewed a former serf, Tsereh Wang Tuei, who had stolen two sheep belonging to a monastery. For this he had both his eyes gouged out and his hand mutilated beyond use. He explains that he no longer is a Buddhist: “When a holy lama told them to blind me I thought there was no good in religion.” [23] Since it was against Buddhist teachings to take human life, some offenders were severely lashed and then “left to God” in the freezing night to die. “The parallels between Tibet and medieval Europe are striking,” concludes Tom Grunfeld in his book on Tibet. [24]

              In 1959, Anna Louise Strong visited an exhibition of torture equipment that had been used by the Tibetan overlords. There were handcuffs of all sizes, including small ones for children, and instruments for cutting off noses and ears, gouging out eyes, breaking off hands, and hamstringing legs. There were hot brands, whips, and special implements for disemboweling. The exhibition presented photographs and testimonies of victims who had been blinded or crippled or suffered amputations for thievery. There was the shepherd whose master owed him a reimbursement in yuan and wheat but refused to pay. So he took one of the master’s cows; for this he had his hands severed. Another herdsman, who opposed having his wife taken from him by his lord, had his hands broken off. There were pictures of Communist activists with noses and upper lips cut off, and a woman who wasremovedd and then had her nose sliced away. [25]

              Earlier visitors to Tibet commented on the theocratic despotism. In 1895, an Englishman, Dr. A. L. Waddell, wrote that the populace was under the “intolerable tyranny of monks” and the devil superstitions they had fashioned to terrorize the people. In 1904 Perceval Landon described the Dalai Lama’s rule as “an engine of oppression.” At about that time, another English traveler, Captain W. F. T. O’Connor, observed that “the great landowners and the priests… exercise each in their own dominion a despotic power from which there is no appeal,” while the people are “oppressed by the most monstrous growth of monasticism and priest-craft.” Tibetan rulers “invented degrading legends and stimulated a spirit of superstition” among the common people. In 1937, another visitor, Spencer Chapman, wrote, “The Lamaist monk does not spend his time in ministering to the people or educating them. […] The beggar beside the road is nothing to the monk. Knowledge is the jealously guarded prerogative of the monasteries and is used to increase their influence and wealth.” [26] As much as we might wish otherwise, feudal theocratic Tibet was a far cry from the romanticized Shangri-La so enthusiastically nurtured by Buddhism’s western proselytes.

              -Dr. Michael Parenti

        • 🇵🇸antifa_ceo@lemmy.ml
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          10 months ago

          I’d love to hear one thing you think China is doing that is bad that the US is not also doing to a larger degree. Please enlighten me.