No. Most of what Russia does on the world stage is good, it is one of the biggest supporters of many global south countries and one of the few remaining bulwarks preventing US imperialism from running completely roughshod over the global south. For example right now, see Cuba and how Russia is providing support and oil as the US tries to starve them of energy and starve them to death. You may have been taught Putler=Voldemort, but no, Russia at this point is acting largely as a force for good in the world.

Lol, this just gets better and better. The person you're responding to and accusing of not understanding economics is someone who literally hosts the reading groups for books on economics, arguably the most definitive books on economics ever written, as well as scientific socialism and socioeconomic theory, who has read Kapital ~~multiple times~~, maintains the active reading list for multiple lemmy communities, and has doubtless read more about economics this year than you have read on any topic (from See Spot Run to Harry Potter), in your entire life. But you're telling him he doesn't understand basic economics.

Seriously, if you actually have any interest in pulling your head out of your ignorant ass and maybe growing the fuck up a little bit, go look at his reading course suggestions on economics, it's section 3, and get to reading. Twerp.

Wait, is this a bit and someone is actually playing the role of dipshit liberal know-it-all? This must be a bit and I fell for it.

And now an "I know you are what am I!" comeback attempt? Are you actually in grade school?

Also I'm a She not a he, "buddy."

A BigBrain with a 5th grader's (at best) understanding of economics who has never even been exposed to the labor theory of value and who literally doesn't even know what Socialism is (confusing it with some form of Social Democracy) bursts into a room full of people who have been studying economics for years and starts explaining to them his ever so smart 5th grader's version of economics. It's so on the nose it's like a badly put together meme.

Death to America is a saying that goes back much further than Bin Laden, and there have been many good reasons for many people to say it. I'm sure many of the people indigenous to the land (that wasn't "America" to them) had a probably rather similar phrase and said it probably rather often as that entity commenced with their genocide. And since that time, it's not as if there hasn't been a lack of good reasons to call for the destruction of the settler-colonial project responsible for the worst imperialist cruelties since the British Empire (the immediate ancestor). But you might consider questioning why you seem to only associate the phrase with that one particular person.

It's such an irony to me that people who call us "tankies" and say that we are somehow caricatures of communists, always make such caricatures out of themselves. Like, instead of engaging with any of FunkyStuff's very reasonable, calmly stated questions, you go off about how we ("tankies") just decided to be evil, and calling us ridiculous while behaving in such a ridiculous, blatantly and needlessly antagonistic way yourself. It's over the top.

Paraphrasing:
FunkyStuff: asks a calm, concise series of questions that are meant to help clarify the issue.
lunnrais: "See?! Look how frothing these evil, ridiculous lunatic tankies are!!"

And this after correctly recognizing that the red scare was a terrible witch hunt? But it was people like us, people who believe what we believe, that were the "witches" of that particular persecution. We are simply what most communists in the world look like, we believe what most communists in the world believe, people who have very clear and consistent views. But instead of honestly trying to engage or actually understand why "tankies" believe the things they do, you just smear us with lies and pretend that the position of Marxist-Leninist communists is just some bananas, made-up-on-the-fly, contrarian position, rather than one with deep foundations that have been developed over decades of intense thought and practice including by people fighting in the trenches for their own and others liberation. To you, were the Black Panthers "tankies"? Do you know about their mutual support of and with North Korea, or did they just decide to be "evil" to pwn the libs? Was Che Guevara a "tankie"? Is Michael Parenti? Were they all just ridiculous contrarians who liked the picture that reactionaries ("republicans") painted of them?

And just to add, if you somehow missed it like I did (until just a minute ago), @davel@lemmy.ml provided a ton of information debunking the Uyghur "genocide" myth right here in this very thread. He just did a great favor for any well-meaning liberals who actually want to find out more about what the situation really is in Xinjiang, he basically did yall's homework for you.

Well, the most serious lie fortunately has the most material that thoroughly proves its falsehood. The following link contains more links to many such resources: https://xinjiangahr.carrd.co/ It's a place to start, both if you want just immediate proof that there is no genocide as well as if you want to learn more about what really has been going on in Xinjiang.

Even though they still are obligated to call it a spy balloon because The Narrative is still officially that it was, even western media have quietly admitted that despite flying across the continent, the balloon did absolutely no spying and actually appeared to be utterly incapable of doing any spying. Weird, how inefficient! And seriously, anyone who has even a passing knowledge of weather balloons or spycraft would have told you this from the beginning, as many did. https://xcancel.com/Reuters/status/1674507379306557462

No, Winnie the Pooh is not banned in China and simply looking around a bit for things that exist in China confirms this. Telling people who live in China that people in the US believe Pooh is banned will result in laughter. This is in China, does it look banned? https://www.shanghaidisneyresort.com/en/attractions/adventures-winnie-pooh/ There was a racist caricature image/meme that along with portraying Xi as Pooh also portrayed Obama as the Tigger character. (I would hope no one here would need explaining why both of those are extremely racist). That specific racist image was officially censored online, but censoring racism is a good thing, and again, Pooh the character, the franchise, or anything else like that, none of it banned. That it was is just another silly lie. Though the whole of reddit (for example) believes the lie because it aligns with the rest of the bullshit they think they know about China which is just straight up false.

China's infamous "Social Credit Score" also isn't real: https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/11/16/chinas-orwellian-social-credit-score-isnt-real/ There is a kind of rating system of businesses that allows people to score them based on how well they are a service to the community they're in, but seeing as most people would recognize that as a good thing, the sinophobic propagandists won't tell you that, but instead fabricate yet another bogus story to paint China as a boogeyman. This one is especially galling because all the scary things they made up with this one actually has a much worse version that is reality in the west. It's such a blatant case of projection it's jokerifying.

Communes have almost nothing to do with communism. When you are living in a capitalist world and beholden to a capitalist economy, you are not suddenly experiencing communism just because you live on a collective farm. A commune is not "doing communism," not because they are doing something wrong or anything, but because it simply doesn't work like that. In a simple definition of communism, the workers own the means of production. The people living on a commune within capitalism still do not own the means of production, they still exist almost entirely at the whims of the broader capitalist economic structure.

Also, it's just ridiculous to expect a tiny microcosm of any system to represent how sound that system is if it were to be scaled up. Especially when that microcosm is inside of another structure that will actively stamp it out of existence if it threatens to grow. Trying to build a commune within a capitalist country is like trying to build a town at the bottom of the ocean. Everything beyond the limits of your project is hostile to its existence simply as a matter of the surrounding natural forces. But just because it's extremely hard to build a town at the bottom of the ocean, and when it was tried it ended in failure, doesn't mean that towns in general are destined to fail. In an appropriate environment they can and do thrive.

Just take a look at any mainstream western media that mentions China and it shouldn't take too long to spot a lie, it will probably even be in the headline. Even just the fact that it's practically a joke-meme that anything China does that is unambiguously positive will get a headline in the west that includes "But At wHaT cOsT?!?"

But for a few obvious, overt examples: Uighur "genocide." Spy balloons. Winnie the Pooh ban. Social credit scores.

The US and China are rapidly approaching a new kind of media-driven Cold War

I'd say we're already there even though it is largely one-sided.

with the unaligned nations being the battlefronts for dueling propaganda efforts

How do you figure? I'm not saying you're wrong, just rather I don't see too much propaganda aimed at other nations, rather it's imperial core countries aiming their propaganda at their own populations for usual consent-manufacturing reasons, and perhaps China aiming a little bit at their own population but to a far lesser extent as to be almost insignificant in comparison. China doesn't really need to manufacture any consent domestically because it's not the one saber-rattling for a conflict. When it comes to peripheral nations, the west mostly just says to them "do what we tell you to or else" and China mostly just says "hey, whatever, let's just do some trading."

The problem that the western propagandists have is that they’ve generally gotten really bad at it.

Well, in a way. You're right that all they seem to know to do is ratchet up the sanctions, but their method of propaganda is sheer saturation. Make sure that every mainstream media outlet is on board with the anti-China propaganda and steer all major social media such that "China Bad!" appears to be a unanimous consensus, and job done. And it works extremely well. The state propaganda doesn't need to be very sophisticated itself at this point because the consent-manufacturing machine has been built, maintained, and well-oiled for a long time already.

To quote Dr Lubinda Haabazoka

That is a great quote and really does sum up the comparison of how the west and China each approach international relations with would-be economic partners. It's a good demonstration for why any propaganda battle between the west and China for the approval of the rest of the world would necessarily be so one-sided. One of them has to lie and endlessly make up excuses for their actions and behavior (bullying and swindling) while the other can just calmly gesture towards their actions and behavior (equal exchange and genuine support).