Chinese authorities wrongfully detained more than 20 Tibetans and severely tortured a Tibetan village head named Gonpo Namgyal to death with the repeated use of electric equipment in detention for several months in Ponkor township, Darlag County in Golog in the traditional Tibetan province of Amdo now incorporated into Qinghai, Sichuan and Gansu provinces.

  • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 days ago

    Holy whataboutism, Batman! 🤦

    Indigenous people in North America being displaced and oppressed does NOT in fact make it acceptable for the Chinese government to oppress and ethnically cleanse Tibetan people.

    If anything, NOT committing crimes against humanity all the time would be THE most effective way for China to distinguish themselves from their geopolitical adversaries in a positive manner.

    TL;DR: Nice try, but just as two wrongs doesn’t make a right, the similar but separate atrocities of Western countries don’t excuse those of China in any way.

    • davel [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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      1 day ago

      Holy whataboutism, Batman! 🤦

      Citations Needed podcast: Whataboutism - The Media’s Favorite Rhetorical Shield Against Criticism of US Policy

      Since the beginning of what’s generally called ‘RussiaGate’ three years ago, pundits, media outlets, even comedians have all become insta-experts on supposed Russian propaganda techniques. The most cunning of these tricks, we are told, is that of “whataboutism” – a devious Soviet tactic of deflecting criticism by pointing out the accusers’ hypocrisy and inconsistencies. The tu quoque - or, “you, also” - fallacy, but with a unique Slavic flavor of nihilism, used by Trump and leftists alike in an effort to change the subject and focus on the faults of the United States rather than the crimes of Official State Enemies.

      But what if “whataboutism” isn’t describing a propaganda technique, but in fact is one itself: a zombie phrase that’s seeped into everyday liberal discourse that – while perhaps useful in the abstract - has manifestly turned any appeal to moral consistency into a cunning Russian psyop. From its origins in the Cold War as a means of deflecting and apologizing for Jim Crow to its braindead contemporary usage as a way of not engaging any criticism of the United States as the supposed arbiter of human rights, the term “whataboutism” has become a term that - 100 percent of the time - is simply used to defend and legitimizing American empire’s moral narratives.

      We are joined by Jeremy Scahill, co-founder of The Intercept.


      Nice try, but just as two wrongs don’t make a right, the similar but separate atrocities of Western countries don’t excuse those of China in any way.

      Still waiting on the evidence for those similar atrocities.

    • AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.ml
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      1 day ago

      Indigenous people in North America being displaced and oppressed […] Chinese government to oppress and ethnically cleanse

      hey look another western chauvinist (read: white supremacist) doing genocide denial

      UwU smol widdle bean amewica only did a lil scoot scoot to the indians

      • Grapho@lemmy.ml
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        Building schools and maintaining extensive affirmative action (even excluding minorities from the one child policy) is literally ethnic cleansing.

        Killing, jailing, using biological weapons, enacting a century of land grabs and torturing/killing everyone who couldn’t escape, that’s just displacement. The good guys did it, after all.

    • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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      If anything, NOT committing crimes against humanity all the time would be THE most effective way for China to distinguish themselves from their geopolitical adversaries in a positive manner.

      How fucking ironic that you say this.

      • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 day ago

        Only if you miss the fact that I’m implicitly conceding that Western nations are ALSO committing crimes against humanity.

        The world isn’t a binary where you have to deny some atrocities in able to be capable of condemning others.

        • AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.ml
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          Excuse me, I’m just going to go murder someone to gain the superpower of being able to accuse anyone I want of being a murderer

        • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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          Oh, how magnanimous of you, lol.

          Still deeply ironic that you said that though, while perfectly demonstrating exactly why it isn’t true.

          • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            Oh, how magnanimous of you, lol.

            Never said that there’s anything magnanimous or otherwise special about acknowledging objective reality rather than ignoring anything that contradicts tribalist dogma. Just because you’re incapable of it doesn’t make it a flex.

            Still deeply ironic that you said that though, while perfectly demonstrating exactly why it isn’t true.

            That makes no sense whatsoever.

            • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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              You acted like anyone should give a single nutty shit that you were so nobley willing to concede that the US is bad (but only as bad, never worse), despite it being completely irrelevant.

              That makes no sense whatsoever.

              Lol, Westerners really are the most brainwashed people on earth: they can’t even parse ideas contrary to their programming, let alone accept them.

              • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                You acted like anyone should give a single nutty shit

                Nope. Just clarifying what you missed and how it negated your claim about mine being ironic.

                you were so nobley willing to concede that the US is bad (but only as bad, never worse)

                Yet another strawman. Sometimes the US does worse things than China, sometimes China does worse things than the US. Neither ever cancel each other out as committing atrocities is NOT a zero sum competition.

                despite it being completely irrelevant.

                Again, me being able to acknowledge atrocities without resorting to whataboutism is relevant. As is your inability to do so.

                Me reaching the absolute baseline of intellectual honesty doesn’t make me special. You not accomplishing even that makes YOU special.

                Lol, Westerners really are the most brainwashed people on earth: they can’t even parse ideas contrary to their programming, let alone accept them.

                Wow. That’s Donald Trump levels of lacking self-awareness 😆🤦

                • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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                  Nope. Just clarifying what you missed and how it negated your claim about mine being ironic.

                  It literally doesn’t though, lol.

                  Yet another strawman. Sometimes the US does worse things than China, sometimes China does worse things than the US. Neither ever cancel each other out as committing atrocities is NOT a zero sum competition.

                  Lol, like I said, you’ll acknowledge that the west is bad, but you’ll never admit it’s worse.

                  Again, me being able to acknowledge atrocities without resorting to whataboutism is relevant.

                  Nope, completely irrelevant.

                  Wow. That’s Donald Trump levels of lacking self-awareness 😆🤦

                  “No I” was literally the best you could come up with? Actually, a flat “no u” would have been better because it wouldn’t have shown that you’re the kind of liquid brained shitlib who can’t stop themselves from mentioning Trump even in unrelated conversations.

    • m532@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 day ago

      But china doesnt do that

      Projection is when the usa propaganda takes one of its own crimes and changes all mentions of “usa” to “china”

      • interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml
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        I’m pretty sure china does because that’s what all authoritarian empires have done and are doing throughout history.

        If there’s no evidence it just means they covered it up well enougg

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          https://www.greanvillepost.com/2018/10/06/left-anticommunism-the-unkindest-cut/

          In the United States, for over a hundred years, the ruling interests tirelessly propagated anticommunism among the populace, until it became more like a religious orthodoxy than a political analysis. During the Cold War, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime’s atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them. If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.

        • freagle@lemmygrad.ml
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          1 day ago

          You’re sure China is doing it is because (checks notes), Europeans did it?

          Listen to yourself. You are not engaged in reasoning, you are engaged in projection.

          Consider that China has watched European empire so this sort of thing, determined it to be ineffective at producing a stable society, and is choosing to not do that thing.

        • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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          Damn, you’re just straight up doing the thing from the Parenti quote without even pretending otherwise.

    • wurzelgummidge@lemmy.ml
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      2 days ago

      NOT committing crimes against humanity all the time

      I’m sure you can provide reliable evidence of all these crimes against humanity. Evidence that is not merely made up assertions from western news media, politicians, and other dubious sources. But I won’t wait up.

      • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        I’m sure you can provide reliable evidence of all these crimes against humanity

        Nope, not all of them. Not because they didn’t happen. Because there’s too many to list in a week of non stop writing, which is about a week more than your bad faith requests deserve.

        Evidence that is not merely made up assertions from western news media, politicians, and other dubious sources.

        Yeah, you haven’t made up your mind already, nuh-uh! You’re DEFINITELY completely objective and the keeper of the Real Truth! 🙄

        But I won’t wait up.

        Wow, what a vicious and original barb! You must be feared throughout the lying West! Such eloquence! 🤦

        • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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          Nope, not all of them. Not because they didn’t happen. Because there’s too many to list in a week of non stop writing, which is about a week more than your bad faith requests deserve.

          Awfully convenient how everyone always draws this arbitrary, bizarre moral line in the sand about how they can’t provide any evidence for any of their claims about China.

              • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                1 day ago

                points to the majority of history

                Take your pick. I’m not being paid to reach you what you should already know and would if not for your ideological blinders.

                • freagle@lemmygrad.ml
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                  You need to read the majority of history. In the last 600 years, the majority of history is European empire expanding to dominate 80% of the world’s population. Nearly everything you can point to that you would be aware will simply reinforce that the European project is the source of all the things you think “everyone” does.

                  The reality is that China is fighting against the European empire and through that process in the last 75 years they committed some atrocities. But they did so in the context of being a military, not being an empire. The empire was occupying critical parts of China, like the 5 treaty ports and Hong Kong. The empire was training Tibetan terrorists and airifting them into Tibet to cause havoc. The empire was fabricating stories about China.

                  For example, take the second most famous picture of Tiananmen Square. You know the one - a bunch of bodies lying on the ground. Go find that picture and zoom in. They’re actually bicycles. But for decades I believed that they were bodies, because that’s how we’re raised in the West.

                  You are the one with ideological blinders on. You and I and everyone in the West were raised on red scare propaganda. We were raised on European worship. We were raised on American exceptionalism. Our education downplayed our atrocities and magnified the atrocities of others. Our education told false narratives of why things were done and what the effects were.

                  Those of us in the West who support China have removed those ideological blinders through years of research and arguing with each other and others. It is hard to give up the lies of our parents, the lies of the mass media, the lies of our bosses, our friends, our family. It is isolating, it is risky, it can cost us our grades, our jobs, our relationships.

                  You, on the other hand, have beliefs that are in lockstep with the propaganda, with the goals of the US State Dept, with the US military, with what you were educated in since you were a baby. Your beliefs are congruent with our cartoons, with our racist jokes, with our war propaganda.

                  When you don’t have blinders on, you come into conflict with reality. Instead, you are receding into fantasy. You have been asked to back up your claims and you retreat by waving at history and saying “it’s all there for you too look at” not realizing that we already have and continuously do and that’s why we’re asking you for sources. If you start actually digging for truth, you might start to remove your blinders.

                  Instead, you prefer to assume anyone that disagrees with you is ideologically blind, not realizing that in any country it is the people with the mainstream view that are blinded and that the truth takes work to uncover.

                • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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                  1 day ago

                  How does “the majority of history” prove that this specific story is correct?

                  Or do you just mean, the majority of history proves your ideology correct, which means you now get to make all kinds of unsubstantiated claims without evidence and everyone’s just supposed to believe it?

            • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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              Westerners like you truly are the most brainwashed people on earth.

              Also it’s fucking hilarious that you’re calling other people tankies when you were calling for people to be lined up against a wall and shot less than an hour ago.

              • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                Westerners like you truly are the most brainwashed people on earth.

                Again with the famous tankie self-awareness

                Also it’s fucking hilarious that you’re calling other people tankies when you were calling for people to be lined up against a wall and shot less than an hour ago.

                Yeah, because using a figure of speech means that I want that thing to literally happen 🙄

                Doesn’t it hurt to be more dense than a neutron star?

                • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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                  Again with the famous tankie self-awareness

                  Again, literally all you have is “no I”. Which doesn’t even make sense because we’re both submerged in the same all pervasive soup of western propaganda.

                  Yeah, because using a figure of speech means that I want that thing to literally happen 🙄

                  Loooooool. This might be the weakest backtrack I’ve ever seen in my life.