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[-] LoreleiSankTheShip@lemmy.ml 29 points 4 months ago

From what I've seen, there's a big divide amongst the tankies. There are those who are basically Stalin MAGA, base their political opinions on Soviet aesthetics and don't consider much the practical implications of their actions. Some simply lash out against mainstream liberal ideology and others are just trolls.

Ane the other camp is made of people who read a lot of communist philosophy and are absolutely convinced the only way to achieve an equal society is by forcing everyone into it. This has its own problems, but they at least have an internally coherent ideology.

That's not to say I agree with either camp. Their ideology promotes a vanguard party which can quickly spiral into "some are more equal than others". Absolute power corrupts absolutely and all that. But I do understand where the second camp is coming from. I think the path to a better world lies in trade unions and people coming together to defend common interests.

[-] SpaceCadet@feddit.nl 30 points 4 months ago

When they are actively censoring and banning people who make critical comments about the PRC, the USSR, or even present day Russia, I don't care where they come from.

I was banned from lemmy.ml myself for saying something about the Tiananmen Square massacre.

[-] bloodfart@lemmy.ml 15 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

You got banned for a month because you posted an off topic anti-China meme in the thread looking for moderators of the memes sub with the text “Why, so you can censor some more posts critical of China? The modlog of this sub is absolutely ridiculous:”

The ban expired a month ago so I guess feel free to go back.

E: after more carefully scrutinizing the images in the modlog, you posted a screenshot of people being banned or having posts removed for posting gore and debunked sinophobic stuff.

[-] ieatpillowtags@lemm.ee 12 points 4 months ago

Debunked sinophobic stuff like what? In my experience, that category includes anything critical of China, including Tiananmen Square.

[-] bloodfart@lemmy.ml 4 points 4 months ago

I think there were two links to the gore page people post and a couple of responses saying you couldn’t even talk about tiannamen square.

The first is clear what it is, I’d call the second one sinophobic because it’s patently untrue and is basically an anti-china buzzword now. Idk why mods did what they did.

[-] Whattrees 4 points 4 months ago

Genuine question, is criticism of the Israeli government, even based on falsehoods or misunderstandings, antisemitism?

To say that reference to a historical event that the CCP doesn't believe happened the way the west does is sinophobic is on the same level. At best you'd have people with unjustified animus towards the government of China but not its people. After all, is the claim that the people of China collectively slaughtered those student protesters demanding reasonable changes to a corrupt system or that the government did so?

[-] Objection@lemmy.ml 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Genuine question, is criticism of the Israeli government, even based on falsehoods or misunderstandings, antisemitism?

It isn't inherently but it definitely can be. It's absolutely possible to criticize Israel's government in an antisemitic way. In the same way, you can look at anti-Japanese posters from WWII that have racist charicatures and recognize and criticize the racist element, while acknowledging that Imperial Japan was absolutely vile.

[-] bloodfart@lemmy.ml 3 points 4 months ago

I don’t understand or care about your question.

No subject of this conversation is saying “gosh, I get my information from sources which disagree with the Chinese governments official statements”.

The thing referenced in the modlog was a couple of people saying you can’t even talk about tiannamen square in China, which is false.

The reason why I would call it sinophobic is that that statement reifies the lie that Chinese people don’t understand their own history, wouldn’t defend themselves against an unjust government and would simply accept not being allowed to discuss events that happened in their living memory or else suffer punishment.

It would be like suggesting that my American government won’t let me talk about January 6 or I’ll be thrown in prison, except that there’s not the context of centuries of imperialist racist propaganda painting Americans as fundamentally lazy and subservient owing to our skull shape.

Which is what would make claiming Americans can’t talk about January sixth false, but not racist.

And it’s what makes claiming Chinese people can’t talk about tiannamen square false and racist. Since we’re talking about Chinese people, sinophobic.

The thing that makes those stereotypes racist is that during the British empires rule over parts of China and the period of time when the west as a whole received a big Chinese diaspora (using the broadest language possible here to include literal slavery), those stereotypes were used to justify mistreatment of Chinese and other people based on their race.

I don’t think it makes someone necessarily a Nazi when they say racist stuff, but it’s important to recognize.

[-] YeetPics@mander.xyz 4 points 4 months ago

I don’t understand or care about your question.

Way to turn OPs meme into a slam-fucking-dunk.

Turn around and find a new thread if you're not gonna honestly communicate with others 👌

[-] bloodfart@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 months ago

No thank you.

That person asked the question I replied to and a much longer series in what seems like an attempt to debate me about if it’s sinophobic to disagree with the Chinese government, an idea I never expressed or even hinted at.

I don’t understand why they would try to do that and I don’t care about it.

How, in any way, is that turning the ops meme, which relies on holding western neoliberal governments and communist or socialist governments to a different set of standards regarding violence, into a slam dunk?

[-] Whattrees 3 points 4 months ago

it’s sinophobic to disagree with the Chinese government, an idea I never expressed or even hinted at.

You said the claim that "people can't talk about TS" is sinophobic. But even a five year could follow that the reason proposed for that inability to talk is the actions of the government. So, saying it's sinophobic to claim you can't talk about TS is saying it's sinophobic to disagree with the actions of the Chinese government.

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[-] Whattrees 2 points 4 months ago

I have a hard time imagining you didn't understand the question but I do understand why you wouldn't care to answer it. Just in case there is a language barrier or some other reason why you didn't understand a basic English sentence, I'll try putting it in simpler words:

Is it antisemitic to disagree with the Israeli government or their position on historical events?

The analogy here is that animus against a government says nothing at all about animus towards a people. Even if you are correct about the West having animus towards the government of China, that doesn't equate to animus towards Chinese people. You can certainly argue that their is racist animus, but the example of that couldn't be disagreement with the government's position in the same way that disagreement with the Israeli government's position is not evidence of antisemitism even though antisemitism is a real thing that exists.

people saying you can’t even talk about tiannamen square in China, which is false.

I'd be curious to read any sources you have for this claim. Why would the government ban information about the event in addition to arrests and intimidation towards people who want to memorialize the anniversary of the event? Would it be ok for the US to ban information about J6 and arrest people who wanted to organize a protest in remembrance? (Setting aside the morality of the changes sought by the J6 protesters vs TS protesters, they both have a basic human right to protest and hold memorial events)

The reason why I would call it sinophobic is that that statement reifies the lie that Chinese people don’t understand their own history

So, again the claim you are responding to is about the Chinese government's position on TS. As you just said a moment ago, the claim is that you can't talk about TS because the government doesn't allow it. Why does the government want its citizens to not know about TS? As you say, their own history?

As an analogy, racists in America say that black people are inherently more violent than white people. Is it racist to acknowledge the objective fact that black people are arrested for violent crimes in disproportionate numbers? Does that statement say anything at all about the inherent nature of black people? Can we not even talk about poverty being the root cause of crime and the systemic racism in the criminal justice system without it being racist?

In the same way, if the government of China is trying to hide information about their history, is calling out that government action racist? If so, then you have just given a blank-check to the CCP.

wouldn’t defend themselves against an unjust government

Maybe you kind of missed the whole point of what the West says happened at TS, but the student protesters were doing exactly that when the PLA got sent in. That's kind of the whole point. The protesters were there to defend themselves and their fellow citizens against an unjust government when they were violently quelled by that very government.

would simply accept not being allowed to discuss events that happened in their living memory or else suffer punishment.

Maybe you don't know much about how authoritarian governments operate. If the punishments exist and are sufficiently terrifying you can keep most citizens from believing the things you don't want them to, or at least from speaking those thoughts in public. And again, the whole point of the anniversary protests in HK that China went in to shut down was that they were there to reject not being able to discuss those things when China took control of the government. Is it just a coincidence that those protests don't happen anymore or could it be that the fear created by the government's actions against protesters have succeeded in their goal for the most part?

Again, this entire conversation is about the actions of a government. Whether or not they overlap with racist tropes isn't relevant to the truth of the claims. Acknowledging that the treatment of Palestinians is unjust and genocidal is not antisemitic even though there is a stereotype that Jews lie. Acknowledging that the treatment of TS protesters was unjust and murderous is not sinophobic even though there is a stereotype that Chinese people don't fight for their freedoms.

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[-] uis@lemm.ee 7 points 4 months ago

or even present day Russia,

How did this even happened? How can anyone not right-wing ban for opposing Putin's oligarchs like Usmanov, Roldugin, Rotenberg, Yakunin and Putin himself?

[-] SpaceCadet@feddit.nl 17 points 4 months ago
[-] PythagreousTitties@lemm.ee 5 points 4 months ago

That's literally all they care about.
If you push them they yell "just joking bro" or ban you immediately.

this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2024
1195 points (100.0% liked)

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