I don't oppose China's right to exist as a power. I do disagree with the US doing things like banning China from the ISS. I also am not blind to the IMF scheme and what it has done to the non-western world and I oppose that. I am quite opposed to the way that Israel has been handled and there clearly needs to be some kind of compromise with Palestine. I'm not even going to try to touch that issue in terms of the way right way for it to be handled, but clearly the solution isn't what they currently have. I am pro-NATO in how they've handled the war in Ukraine. I am pro-NATO in the sense that it prevents attacks on its member nations, which Ukraine in my eyes has been very clear evidence of the need for.

Like I said before, I think checking all the boxes in one political ideology more often than not leads to some shitty, lazy stances, so maybe labeling myself as pro-NATO was a mistake. It's fair to say that the world doesn't need one superpower. In terms of China, more than anything I just wish they allowed for more debate and opposition within their political structure. Again, democracy and censorship are my pet issues. I worry for any world where the mechanisms that allow us to express ourselves and correct our flaws are stifled. The US hasn't been some gold standard for the right way to do it, but I don't see anyone better stepping up to the plate yet.

In terms of my original comment that triggered this conversation, at the end of the day I think it is wrong to ban anyone for posting opinions that a moderator disagrees with. That's political censorship and it's shitty. If lemmy.ml had clear rules about their political stances and what's allowed, then that would be different. But as it is, I think they're misrepresenting what their community is if they're going to censor such content. "Orientalism" in their context implies that any conversations about another country not from within that country should be taken down. Should non-US articles about the US also be removed? Is anyone not from China allowed to talk about China?

As for my original comment about "anti-NATO bullshit", I confess that was a personal opinion that probably didn't belong next to my more objective opposition to politcal censorship. I personally wouldn't join lemmy.ml for their political stances. I objectively would recommend people not join that instance because of their political censorship.

[–] GarbageShootAlt2@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

I am pro-NATO in how they’ve handled the war in Ukraine. I am pro-NATO in the sense that it prevents attacks on its member nations, which Ukraine in my eyes has been very clear evidence of the need for.

This is a bizarre position. If NATO didn't exist (e.g. if it was disbanded in '93), there would not be a war in Ukraine. If NATO allowed Russia to join back in the '90s, there would not be a war in Ukraine, but of course it didn't because the purpose of NATO is to make western aggression easier to accomplish. If NATO was transparent about Ukraine not joining, there would not be a war in Ukraine. If Ukraine had the leeway with its western masters to even attempt to follow one of the Minsk accords in good faith, the war might have been averted. If the west didn't sponsor a Nazi-spearheaded coup in Ukraine that flipped Ukraine's foreign policy, there would not be a war in Ukraine. If western powers attempted to stop the civil war in Ukraine by means other than extermination, rather than sponsoring Azov, there likely would not be a war in Ukraine.

At every interval, western powers and Azov did not seek to avert the war but simply to cause Russia the most damage, because that is America's interest in the war. If the west gave a shit about Ukrainians, they would be seeking to negotiate a peaceful end to both the invasion and the civil war that allowed the people of Donbas to self-determine their position. They have strongly opposed any such measure.

As I said before, NATO is an extension of US foreign policy with only minor complications from the "independent will" of its other members, such as that will exists. The foreign policy of the US is one of the most savage violence and precisely-leveraged deprivation. It is beyond the violence of organizations like ISIS, let alone Russia, let alone China (the answer to my earlier question was 30 years of war for the US and zero for China).

You want to talk about fucking censorship? And let's assume here that you mean censorship of people in general and not you in particular. Unless you are really interested in the proliferation of fascism or of for-profit cults and prosperity gospel asshats, there is substantially less censorship instigated by China than by the US. Even if your image of China -- in which neoliberals are put in prison -- was true, that would be substantially more lenient in its approach than efforts the US has lead around the world. Here's an easy example of them organizing and sponsoring the slaughter of dissidents, in case things like the Vietnam War ("domino theory!") don't count to you for some inscrutable reason.

“Orientalism” in their context implies that any conversations about another country not from within that country should be taken down.

Source: dude, just trust me

Should non-US articles about the US also be removed? Is anyone not from China allowed to talk about China?

I'll explain this by analogy. Sometimes here you see galaxy-brained liberals (no, I haven't seen you say this) saying in the context of China's domestic situation "Well, you say that the media gives me a false perception of China, but what about the Chinese media giving Chinese people a false perception of their country?"

This is all well and good when one doesn't think about it for even a second, but if one does that it becomes apparent that one group lives in China and the other does not. It is much easier to lie to Americans about a place that they will never, ever go to, probably will never really talk to a person from there, and which communicates only in languages that are completely inscrutable to them, compared to lying to people who live there and amongst each other and only speak those languages. Americans are the most propagandized fucking people on the planet, and they still in huge proportion have contempt for their government and much of the country, because no amount of propaganda can simply "overwrite" your own experiences (brainwashing is fictional).

This is a board that is overwhelmingly in a US -- and more generally a "western" -- context. Spreading misinformation about the country they live in, or whose language they speak, is much less effective than for a distant country they have no connection to except in these media representations so even if an article is slanted, it frankly just doesn't matter (though spreading clear misinformation is bad in any case and should always be treated harshly).

So in brief, your line of interrogation here is based on a crass equivocation rather than a justified analysis.