this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2022
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Why do I feel like so many people here support the USSR and the CCP?

Because most people here actually study the subject instead of relying on false narratives of the Western media.

Again, don’t get me wrong I don’t think the west is immune from any of this (and in fact I think there is a lack of criticism of the west), but anyone who claims the west is evil while simultaneously glorifying countries that implement concentration camps comes off as fascistic and ignorant.

You say that the West is not immune from any of the stuff you've mentioned, but your narrative relies on the falsehoods created by Western media. By doing this, you are uncritically glorifying the Western narrative and ignoring how these countries understand the issues you've mentioned. For instance, this is a list of countries which approve or disapprove of China's Xinjiang policies:

Notice how the countries which disapprove is basically countries traditionally associated with Western hegemony. It's the basically the Always the Same Map meme incarnated. The countries which approve of China's Xinjiang policies includes countries with a Muslim majority. Do a research on why China adopted the re-education programs in the first place.

Xinjiang was filled with terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists, and they were hurting the Uyghur population in the process. China's policies of re-education actually reduced the terrorist attacks and protected the Uyghur people. The Western narrative calls them "concentration camps", but they are places with schools, art and dancing classes, where the Uyghur culture is actually promoted. They also learn about the country's laws and ethical conduct. The people who are admitted to these centres are associated with extremism, and therefore they are restricted of movement, but once they go through the process of education, they are free and even receive incentive from the government to create their own shops and businesses.

This is a quote from the document created by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation:

Having considered the Report of the Secretary-General on the Situation of Muslim Communities and Minorities (Document No. OIC/CFM-46/2018/MM/SG.REP): (...)

Welcomes the outcomes of the visit conducted by the General Secretariat's delegation upon invitation from the People's Republic of China; commends the efforts of the People's Republic of China in providing care to its Muslim citizens; and looks forward to further cooperation between the OIC and the People's Republic of China.

This is only an example of how your narrative is filled with Western narratives, falsehoods and outright propaganda. You call yourself an anarchist, but you parrot very obediently your government's narrative on China and the USSR. To go against the Western narrative is to research and inquiry objectively what these countries are doing, instead of relying on what you see on Western media (which includes Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, etc.).

People here on Lemmy and Lemmygrad reject these views because most people here actually STUDY and RESEARCH on those topics. What about you? What sources do you use for your claims? Let's check:

  • Wikipedia

From 2001 to 2010, 80% of edits on Wikipedia were made by 1% of editors/writers. It's far from the "decentralized peer-produce" ideal that it markets itself as. Various analysis on the source of these edits have found that their IPs are linked to several US state organizations, such as the CIA, New York Police Department, along with government and corporate interests. There is even a company which offers Wikipedia edits, and they are hired by several corporate industries, including Facebook and billionaire groups which hire PR firms to whitewash certain articles. They have arbitrarily removed a community-elected member of Wikimedia and at the same time raised to the position of CEO and executive director (2019–2021) of Wikimedia Foundation a person called Katherine Maher, which had links to the US State Department and several corporate interests, such as HSBC bank, and has shady background in the Middle East. More info on her here. You can see why a country would ban the Wikimedia Foundation.

  • ASIA MEDIA

According to its own website:

ASIA MEDIA (and later ASIA PACIFIC ARTS) arose in 1998 from the nonprofit Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN) at the University of California, Los Angeles. It was created by founder Tom Plate, then a fulltime Adjunct Professor in Communication Studies and in Policy Studies, and by his UCLA students.

Interesting how Asia media is located in Los Angeles, California, United States of America.

  • The Independent

According to the Independent itself, it is associated with liberalism:

In fact, The Independent always shared some of Mr Blair’s political blend of social and economic liberalism, but, true to our approach, we could never unconditionally endorse him or his party.

There will be an obvious bias towards countries which do not follow liberal (bourgeois) democracy, and therefore, you should never expect it to have an objective portrayal of China.

In conclusion

but anyone who claims the west is evil while simultaneously glorifying countries that implement concentration camps comes off as fascistic and ignorant.

By glorifying the narratives of Western imperialist countries, your "anarchism" comes off as fascistic and ignorant. The fact that you repudiate China's sovereignty over Taiwan is an example of this. The only reason Taiwan suddenly became an issue after 2010's is because the US has interests over the island and manipulate the people through their propaganda machine to make them believe they are fighting for a just cause, over "democracy" and "human rights". The United States of America has killed millions of people under the banner of "democracy" and "human rights". Don't be fooled by that.

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[–] felipeforte@lemmy.ml 22 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

I posted a response to user @goosefetisch@lemmy.ml here because they deleted their post after a deserved backlash from the Lemmy community. I didn't want to discard the effort in compiling this information, so I thought I'd post it here.

[–] nachtigall@feddit.de 10 points 2 years ago (1 children)

after a deserved backlash from the Lemmy community

You misspelled lemmygrad.

[–] Catradora_Stalinism@lemmy.ml 16 points 2 years ago (1 children)

lemmy nationalism is a thing now, huh

[–] HiddenLayer5@lemmy.ml 14 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Also, not even. I saw a large proportion of Lemmy.ml usernames in that thread.

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[–] AgreeableLandscape@lemmy.ml 18 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

Admin reminder to everyone: insulting other users, even so much saying "fuck you", "fuck [this group of people]" or anything like that while debating IS against the rules of Lemmy.ml. This goes for every political view, you DO NOT get free passes because you're leftist, rightist, communist, etc. If you're confident of your position you should be able to debate politely without cursing someone else out.

Check the modlog, we HAVE removed replies of this nature from both sides, and even if we don't say it every time, we DO keep track of both removals per user and general behaviour even if it doesn't get removed, and too many infractions WILL result in a ban.

That said, it is NOT against the rules to present countering facts or opinions, or to have political opinions in general. Don't report comments for "being pro communist" or "being pro China" unless they have broken an actual rule, namely the ones about being civil. Things people disagree with getting down voted is also acceptable, it's not considered an attack on you if your comment has a negative score, and it doesn't even significantly affect the ranking because of the relatively low comment volumes currently on Lemmy. It's just imaginary internet points, relax.

[–] w_ortiz@beehaw.org 8 points 2 years ago (3 children)

We don't have a common definition of what "being civil" is, it seems. I'm afraid of showing lemmy.ml to people now, every post about Ukraine or vaguely naming China or Taïwan turns into a nightmare.

[–] Fissionami@lemmygrad.ml 16 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Yeah being "civil" means being "liberal" with imperialist characteristics right?

[–] AgreeableLandscape@lemmy.ml 9 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

No, it pretty much only means no insults or personal attacks, you can express communist views here and in fact that's encouraged. Half the admins here are ML.

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[–] Catradora_Stalinism@lemmy.ml 10 points 2 years ago

every post about Ukraine or vaguely naming China or Taïwan turns into a nightmare.

on that we agree

[–] AgreeableLandscape@lemmy.ml 9 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

You can show them other instances that better match your or their political view. Lemmy.ml is no longer marketed as the flagship instance, and in fact is not intended for everyone.

Again, simply expressing opinions for or against Ukraine or Taiwan is not against the rules.

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[–] w_ortiz@beehaw.org 17 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Why don't you keep this "re-education" propaganda in lemmygrad. You have a whole instance for that !

Of course Western capitalism is bad, but the kind of non-sense you are spitting is plain propaganda also, and it is the reason some leftists won't come to Lemmy.

[–] Oatsteak@lemmygrad.ml 23 points 2 years ago
[–] Bobbycostner@lemmygrad.ml 14 points 2 years ago

it is the reason some leftists won’t come to Lemmy.

Noted. We need more of this stuff.

[–] NormieGirl@lemmy.perthchat.org 17 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Anarkiddie here, it's good that you put effort into this post and it's at least mostly good faith

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[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 17 points 2 years ago

A good rebuttal, and here are a few more points that are worth keeping in mind.

[–] Catradora_Stalinism@lemmy.ml 16 points 2 years ago

I think these people honestly think they are "fighting authoritarianism" by dunking on us. They done nothing but give us more attention.

[–] lisko@sopuli.xyz 16 points 2 years ago (8 children)

OK so I have lived in the former USSR for a while. The USSR is not really understood by people who haven't lived in it. The truth is in between; yes it's not like how people in the USA had been led to believe. Not entirely. We were told most of the bad things and hardly any of the good things. However, most of what was bad about the USSR is true, but people just have a hard time understanding that it was a real place and some things about it were nice, especially if you are into that sort of thing.

That being said, the idealization and white washing of the USSR online is just absurd. All of this revisionism and fantasy by kids online thinking the USSR was wonderful and amazing, is far from reality.

It's the same story the PRC. Lemmy is just full of whitewashing, propaganda, irrational idealizations, and so on. This post is really a case in point. "Oh Uyghurs are just going to art school and dancing. They love it!" Like I don't even know how you can write this and not realize that you don't live in reality. I don't think you're lying in purpose, but I can tell you are gullible and naive.

Chinese and Soviet propagandists have an answer for everything. If you take their word for it they'll have you believe it is all rainbows and unicorns. The problem is, it just isn't how they say it is. Too much spin, too many lies, and lots of people desperately wishing it was all true.

[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 24 points 2 years ago (24 children)

Everyone who supports PRC and USSR that I've ever talked to acknowledges that they're imperfect like any human society. The argument is that despite the faults, these are still better alternatives to capitalism.

I've also lived in USSR, I completely agree with you that there were plenty of negatives. However, USSR did manage to meet the needs of its population, it was far more equal than any western society, and it continued moving in a positive direction with every decade.

Things have gotten much worse for the vast majority of people after its collapse, and the standard of living still hasn't recovered today. Of course, former republics that are in Eastern Europe got a huge amount of support from the west in order to create a bulwark against Russia. These places ended up doing ok for themselves. However, when you look at what happened in places like Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and many others then it's a very different picture.

What people are desperately wishing is that people stop dismissing the achievements of USSR and recognize the potential of its ideals. Surely, we can learn from its mistakes without throwing the baby out with the bath water.

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[–] w_ortiz@beehaw.org 15 points 2 years ago

... and naming one user like you do is really not a good practice. But you don't seem to understand anything about online harrasment. Especially when the pack of lemmygrad users come to insult and downvote.
Heck it's scary.

[–] graphito@lemmy.ml 14 points 2 years ago (6 children)

I'm kinda surprised how much lemmygrad antagonizes themselves with their brothers on the left.

C'mon, people, if there are your potential supporters, they are here. You don't gain followers with harassment. This toxicity is totally counter productive here even for your own cause.

I understand the temptation to upvote funny hot take, but trolls in your own family are destroying reputation of your movement, be wary of joining them in their black parade.

[–] felipeforte@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I’m kinda surprised how much lemmygrad antagonizes themselves with their brothers on the left.

If you read the post which this one responds to, you can see the user has a lot of "baggage" behind their post. At this point, no leftist can consider them a "brother", and it's meaningless to call itself a leftist while parroting the talking points of the US State Department. What does it even mean to be a leftist?

C’mon, people, if there are your potential supporters, they are here. You don’t gain followers with harassment. This toxicity is totally counter productive here even for your own cause.

What toxicity? My post actually considered what the user wrote in good faith, and I responded in good faith. I didn't insult them, I carefully explained why their assumptions were wrong in the specific example of China. But I could go on into the original verborrhage of the user, which equated the USSR with Nazi Germany, denied NATO expansion, claimed Taiwan as an independent country (which the majority of countries of the world do not recognize), claimed it had "concentration camps" and so on.

In their post, they called people who are sympathetic to China and the USSR "fascistic and ignorant", and you are complaining about toxicity when I respond to them not even insulting them once?

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[–] Tatar_Nobility@lemmy.ml 13 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Let's just cut straight through the BS, whatever State or narrative you support it won't lead us to the cherished revolutionary dream or any sort of imagined utopia.

[–] felipeforte@lemmy.ml 22 points 2 years ago (1 children)

This isn't about any utopia, it's about objective truth. There are many criticisms to be made of the USSR and China, but if your criticism is based on falsehoods and propaganda, you are far from understanding anything.

[–] Tatar_Nobility@lemmy.ml 9 points 2 years ago (2 children)

But it's easy to say so when you in turn are also indulged in a contrary narrative regardless if it's good or ill willed. It's just as easy for someone from the opposite side to criticize your narrative as being false and fraudulent. You can't stop them, and neither can they stop you. Objective Truth... How do you go on to determine it? With biased, man-made methods? That's a genuine question that I'd like you to elaborate on more.

It would be better to contrast the diverse narratives that exist and deduce some synthesis out of them (which still wouldn't be close to your proclaimed objective truth).

[–] Catradora_Stalinism@lemmy.ml 12 points 2 years ago (4 children)

It would be better to contrast the diverse narratives that exist and deduce some synthesis out of them (which still wouldn’t be close to your proclaimed objective truth).

the problem is that you think western media is diverse. They are either right wing spewing nonsense posts, or Controlled by the CIA, or both. Do you know what operation mockingbird was?

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[–] frippa@lemmy.ml 11 points 2 years ago

Glows brighter than the sun

[–] lisko@sopuli.xyz 13 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Also why is this in "Ask Lemmy"?

[–] felipeforte@lemmy.ml 17 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Because the user posted their question here. If you read their post, you can clearly see they didn't have an intent in asking a question either, they just blurted out common talking points about the USSR and PRC we see from Western countries, so I made this one in response, in the same place.

[–] lisko@sopuli.xyz 9 points 2 years ago

Because the user posted their question here.

OK that makes sense

[–] iortega@lemmy.eus 12 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It's always fun to see how most of Asia is red. And then Japan.

[–] Fissionami@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 2 years ago (1 children)

They've got that 2 little bombs to never disobey their masters again. (Tbh it's pretty shit to be in the position of Japan today)

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[–] linuxtube@lemmy.ml 11 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Could any of you genocide deniers make an argument about why the people of Xinjiang should stay in their concentration camps without bringing up America's past sins?

Isn't it totally possible America is evil and so is China?

[–] Catradora_Stalinism@lemmy.ml 22 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Could any of you genocide deniers make an argument about why the people of Xinjiang should stay in their concentration camps without bringing up America’s past sins?

Genocided so hard their population rapidly increases lol

[–] HiddenLayer5@lemmy.ml 21 points 2 years ago (1 children)

They want to cleanse Xinjiang/Tibet/whatever so much that they swung all the way back integer overflow style around and ended up exempting them from the one-child policy lol.

[–] Catradora_Stalinism@lemmy.ml 10 points 2 years ago

Smh that Juche necromancy...

[–] HiddenLayer5@lemmy.ml 20 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

why the people of Xinjiang should stay in their concentration camps

Literally no one said this. Seriously, with such a pattern you have of putting words in people's mouths, you should really think about whether people you disagree with really are as evil as you assume.

[–] Bobbycostner@lemmygrad.ml 12 points 2 years ago

The UN must be genocide deniers aswell I suppose. Lol

[–] AmerikaLosesWW3@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 2 years ago

Glory to China and North Korea!!!!!

[–] Ottar@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 2 years ago (2 children)
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[–] Amicchan@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Uh, this isn't a question. It's an answer.

[–] AgreeableLandscape@lemmy.ml 15 points 2 years ago

Technically correct, but since it's directly answering an asklemmy thread (which was deleted), IMO it still fits here.

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