Is this sarcasm? The venn diagram that represents overlap of what nazis believe & value vs what the CIA believes & values may not be a perfect circle, but it's fairly close.

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.

If .worlders could see hexbear and lemmygrad, they'd have an aneurysm. But then some of them would recover and look further into it and realize the commies are right. But that is of course why they're not allowed to see it, as you said.

Just because it is (and always was) a complete lie that capitalism would lead to prosperity for working people, that doesn't mean that capitalists aren't doing capitalism. Capitalism hasn't been corrupted from some ideal system into something else, this is what capitalism is and it's been known as such for over a century and a half.

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).

Surely, if Russia is indeed so benevolent,

Who is calling Russia "benevolent"? In fact I specifically said that Russia is probably only making the offer because they know it won't be accepted.

Ukraine wouldn’t need them going forward in this hypothetical peace?

Why wouldn't they? I'm genuinely not sure why anyone would think such a thing. Like do you think that just because they tentatively accept this peace offer they will suddenly be fully propped up economically by Russia after having completely handed over their public assets to NATO countries, largely in exchange for the weapons that have allowed them to put up the resistance that they did against Russia? Do you think that countries exist in their own vacuum and there wouldn't be massive repercussions (read: severe consequences) for breaking with the western countries they have relied on since 2014 and outright depended on since 2022? And that's Ukraine as a whole irrespective of who is currently running it...

Most of that becomes secondary when you consider that the current government Ukraine (the 'regime,' if you will), the people who make it up, have an interest in maintaining their own positions, as is true for literally anyone holding a position of power. Above reasons aside, that current leadership of Ukraine would not remain the leadership long without NATO regardless of whether or not they accepted this offer if they didn't have NATO backing. Said government and NATO are inextricably tied, said government only exists because of NATO. So I doubt that government wants to accept the peace offer either and isn't necessarily in their best interests even if it absolutely is in the best interests of the Ukrainian people, especially the ones being forcibly conscripted to go die on the front in a war they don't want to even be involved in.

Apparently at least 134 lemmy users who claim to support Ukraine seem to think that yes, Ukraine should be flattened rather than have peace. With friends like these, who needs enemies? But then it's pretty clear that most of them don't actually care about Ukrainian people, since it's fine with them that Ukrainians who want nothing to do with it are being conscripted and forced to fight against their will and die so long as that mean old Putler doesn't get his way!

So is this what someone told you and you believed it, or are you just straight making shit up?

Merkel (and others, but most famously Merkel) openly boasted about how the Minsk Agreements were designed to buy more time to arm Ukraine for the conflict they were intentionally and actively trying to provoke, and weren't ever serious attempts at peace. What Russia did wrong in that case was to be apparently stupid enough to believe Ukraine and the western backers would honor the Minsk Agreements. Russia rolling into Ukraine was a result of the breaking of Minsk.

Ukraine has no hope of winning at this point. It is stupid not to accept the peace offer because they will never get a better deal. But NATO wouldn't let them accept it even if the Ukrainian regime wanted to. That's probably why Russia is even making the offer.