All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[The Cool Thatguy]

Enough for what? The only honest thing you've said this entire conversation is admitting that you had no idea who the Uyghurs were before you became such a spirited advocate for them.

And maybe you're a bit confused, but I was giving a list of things that I would personally criticize China for. I'm not quite sure what it is with the media and the foreign policy blob and their fetish for "holding China accountable" because I see that phrase in pretty much every article I read and it's just tiresome beyond belief. Who exactly is going to hold China accountable, and how? If you're expecting some Nuremberg type scenario, that kind of requires winning a war first and then subjecting them to victor's justice, something which I have been assured will never happen under Joe Biden's watch.

Let's be very clear about something here - the #1 threat that China poses to this country is that, by acting as a bogeyman on which we can blame pretty much everything, they prevent us from engaging in any kind of self-reflection or self-improvement, so that over time we will grow ignorant, stupid, and weak, while the Chinese continue to move forward. We all laughed when Trump claimed that climate change was a Chinese hoax, but the Biden administration's China policy isn't any more intellectually rigorous. So when people go around claiming that the coronavirus was a Chinese bioweapon, or that 5G towers are Chinese spy stations, or that "stop Asian hate" was a Chinese propaganda op, then ultimately that hurts us far more than it hurts the Chinese. When we hype up this Uyghur genocide narrative while brushing aside Australian war crimes as merely the product of rogue soldiers caught in the fog of war, we shouldn't be surprised when our efforts to form an alliance of Muslim nations to combat the Chinese falls flat on its face. When we start lecturing African nations about how China building ports and railroads is "neocolonialism" when they are very well aware of what colonialism is and who did it to them, that just makes it even harder for our investment projects there to get off the ground. When we go around telling poor countries that Chinese vaccines don't work and that they should wait for Pfizer shipments that will never come, that kills people and makes these countries question our commitment to public health. Yes, the Chinese make plenty of diplomatic blunders as well, but if there's one thing that country understands better than just about anyone else, it's how dangerous it can be to have an overblown sense of self-importance and invincibility, and there's nothing they'd like more than to see us make the same mistake.

"And maybe you're a bit confused, but I was giving a list of things that I would personally criticize China for."

Yeah, a handful of minor things while ignoring the human rights abuses with a nonchalant "It's China(town), Jake." mixed with Colonialism absolves everything!

[Gray Lensman]

"And maybe you're a bit confused, but I was giving a list of things that I would personally criticize China for."

Yeah, a handful of minor things while ignoring the human rights abuses with a nonchalant "It's China(town), Jake." mixed with Colonialism absolves everything!

One that just popped into my feed from Anime news - https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/new...anning/.177331

[Tami]

When someone insists that teh sky is green, without any supporting evidence, and you tell them that the sky is blue and they still insist it's green, then its' time to stop and move on.

[Tami]

Jan 6 defendant seeks court permission to go to Pittsburgh Steelers-Denver Broncos game on Oct 10

Defendant has pleaded not guilty in case. Per defense court filing, prosecutors do not oppose the travel

Twitter Link

[PwrdOn]

"And maybe you're a bit confused, but I was giving a list of things that I would personally criticize China for."

Yeah, a handful of minor things while ignoring the human rights abuses with a nonchalant "It's China(town), Jake." mixed with Colonialism absolves everything!

Yeah, the Cultural Revolution was a totally minor thing, but banning kids from playing online games, that's the real human rights abuse right there.

You don't have to believe anything I say, but you are only hurting yourself by being so aggressively uninformed. Doing a little research about the culture and history of others can be a lot of fun actually.

[Gray Lensman]

Twitter Link

We keep falling way too short of Equal Protection Under the Law.

[babyblob]

Twitter Link

Man. I wish I can say I was surprised at something like this at this point. But sadly I am not.

[Totoro Man]

to repeat: part of the reason so many people are taking China as a serious threat is because they've got a really long history of being a significant global player. China had imperial dynasties in place long before the Greek, Macedonian, or Roman Empires even started. Chinese empires, in various forms, also endured long after those empires fell. it's simply too big, and too enduring as a global power, to ignore.

Chinese governments also have a VERY consistent track record of trampling over people they consider insignificant or troublesome... like pretty much EVERY powerful central government in the history of the world. it's not just a bogeyman for people in the United States to be afraid of.

I wouldn't say that China is more evil than the United States. that's not how I think about global politics. but, the thing is, we can't pretend that China is LESS evil than the United States either. my argument, the whole time, is that if people in Australia are afraid of China then that's their right. if they want to build submarines to help enhance that feeling of security, while potentially creating more risks, they get to do that too.

they have a right to be afraid of a global superpower that has sharp ideological and political differences of opinion with them.

it's not any different, for me, than if somebody in Colombia or El Salvador feels threatened by United States economic policy or military interventionism. they have a right to be anxious and uncertain about American intentions too.

[Mister Mets]

Enough for what? The only honest thing you've said this entire conversation is admitting that you had no idea who the Uyghurs were before you became such a spirited advocate for them.

And maybe you're a bit confused, but I was giving a list of things that I would personally criticize China for. I'm not quite sure what it is with the media and the foreign policy blob and their fetish for "holding China accountable" because I see that phrase in pretty much every article I read and it's just tiresome beyond belief. Who exactly is going to hold China accountable, and how? If you're expecting some Nuremberg type scenario, that kind of requires winning a war first and then subjecting them to victor's justice, something which I have been assured will never happen under Joe Biden's watch.

Let's be very clear about something here - the #1 threat that China poses to this country is that, by acting as a bogeyman on which we can blame pretty much everything, they prevent us from engaging in any kind of self-reflection or self-improvement, so that over time we will grow ignorant, stupid, and weak, while the Chinese continue to move forward. We all laughed when Trump claimed that climate change was a Chinese hoax, but the Biden administration's China policy isn't any more intellectually rigorous. So when people go around claiming that the coronavirus was a Chinese bioweapon, or that 5G towers are Chinese spy stations, or that "stop Asian hate" was a Chinese propaganda op, then ultimately that hurts us far more than it hurts the Chinese. When we hype up this Uyghur genocide narrative while brushing aside Australian war crimes as merely the product of rogue soldiers caught in the fog of war, we shouldn't be surprised when our efforts to form an alliance of Muslim nations to combat the Chinese falls flat on its face. When we start lecturing African nations about how China building ports and railroads is "neocolonialism" when they are very well aware of what colonialism is and who did it to them, that just makes it even harder for our investment projects there to get off the ground. When we go around telling poor countries that Chinese vaccines don't work and that they should wait for Pfizer shipments that will never come, that kills people and makes these countries question our commitment to public health. Yes, the Chinese make plenty of diplomatic blunders as well, but if there's one thing that country understands better than just about anyone else, it's how dangerous it can be to have an overblown sense of self-importance and invincibility, and there's nothing they'd like more than to see us make the same mistake.



I think it's unfair to characterize my posts as a tirade. Yeah I typed a lot, but I wasn't really expecting to change anyone's mind and just wanted to have a discussion about some topics I happen to know a bit about. But evidently, nobody is really all that interested in delving deep into the details of the Ili Rebellion or the Sino-Vietnamese War, or the history of the South China Sea dispute. You guys just seemed to want to declare that China was self-evidently bad, and that I was a propaganda spewing bot for saying otherwise, and that was the extent to which you would engage with any of these topics. And yeah, I suppose if you think that I'm just a paid propagandist, then there's not really much I can do to convince you otherwise. Really, I am just a guy who is sick of getting PERSONALLY blamed, as a American citizen no less, for every last cartoonishly evil thing people assume China to be doing, and I assure you I WISH I was making that line up. If anything, that actually compelled me to do a lot more research into these topics than I otherwise would, so I think I am a lot more informed about the situation now than I would be if I could just ignore it like all of you have, so some good has come out of it at least.

An important distinction here is that no one's blaming you for bad things China did, or bad things they assume China did. They believe you're making the wrong argument. It's got nothing to do with your background.

[Kirby101]

A thought occurred to me, then vanished, like tears in the rain.

[PwrdOn]

An important distinction here is that no one's blaming you for bad things China did, or bad things they assume China did. They believe you're making the wrong argument. It's got nothing to do with your background.

I'd like to believe that, but I've been around long enough to know better, unfortunately. And believe me, the last thing I want to do is make this conversation all about me, but again that wasn't my doing. My posts are long winded and probably not of much interest to people who don't want to delve into the details of these topics, but I think I tried to make some nuanced critiques that put everything in the proper context. Believe you me, I know exactly what unabashed communist propaganda looks and sounds like, and if people think that I sound like a Chinese government mouthpiece they clearly have no idea what that is actually like.

But what really troubles me is the fact that all of these supposedly left-leaning posters are so quick to start regurgitating far right talking points the minute China is involved. Talking about population dilution and replacement, dismissing concerns about European colonialism because other countries are doing it too, and brushing off war crimes as just being the "fog of war," and repeated invocations of that Umberto Eco principle that the "enemy is both strong and weak" which is a foundational principle of fascism.

To be perfectly clear, I have never tried to argue that European atrocities justify China doing the same to its minorities. My argument has always been that that Westerners have committed genocide across the globe, while China has NOT, and that the accusations of "cultural genocide" are an attempt by the West to invent an evil greater than itself so that it can continue to view itself as noble and good, despite mounting evidence to the contrary. And we have more than enough evidence that this kind of insincere and opportunistic "human rights advocacy" usually ends up backfiring, with dire consequences for the people it is supposedly meant to help.

This I think is kind of a uniquely Western foible, as if it is unacceptable to admit to acting in naked self interest, and that some cause must be invented to recast the same action as serving the greater good. But at the end of the day, this sort of performative gesture isn't even really meant to be convincing, it's just something that needs to be done to satisfy expectations. But once the reality on the ground has changed to the point that going back is untenable, then people all of a sudden are more than happy to tell the truth and admit the lie was bullshit all along.

[Starter Set]

I'd like to believe that, but I've been around long enough to know better, unfortunately. And believe me, the last thing I want to do is make this conversation all about me, but again that wasn't my doing. My posts are long winded and probably not of much interest to people who don't want to delve into the details of these topics, but I think I tried to make some nuanced critiques that put everything in the proper context. Believe you me, I know exactly what unabashed communist propaganda looks and sounds like, and if people think that I sound like a Chinese government mouthpiece they clearly have no idea what that is actually like.

But what really troubles me is the fact that all of these supposedly left-leaning posters are so quick to start regurgitating far right talking points the minute China is involved. Talking about population dilution and replacement, dismissing concerns about European colonialism because other countries are doing it too, and brushing off war crimes as just being the "fog of war," and repeated invocations of that Umberto Eco principle that the "enemy is both strong and weak" which is a foundational principle of fascism.

To be perfectly clear, I have never tried to argue that European atrocities justify China doing the same to its minorities. My argument has always been that that Westerners have committed genocide across the globe, while China has NOT, and that the accusations of "cultural genocide" are an attempt by the West to invent an evil greater than itself so that it can continue to view itself as noble and good, despite mounting evidence to the contrary. And we have more than enough evidence that this kind of insincere and opportunistic "human rights advocacy" usually ends up backfiring, with dire consequences for the people it is supposedly meant to help.

This I think is kind of a uniquely Western foible, as if it is unacceptable to admit to acting in naked self interest, and that some cause must be invented to recast the same action as serving the greater good. But at the end of the day, this sort of performative gesture isn't even really meant to be convincing, it's just something that needs to be done to satisfy expectations. But once the reality on the ground has changed to the point that going back is untenable, then people all of a sudden are more than happy to tell the truth and admit the lie was bullshit all along.

Very good post.

Funny that Americans talk so much about human rights when it's their country who has committed the most crimes against them this century.

Joe Alzheimer Biden needs an enemy i suppose. It's so handy.

[JackDaw]

No one is threatening them, simply forming pre-emptive alliances to make sure the one party, communist regime has someone to counter them.

In addition, there's a difference between rogue soldiers or bad drone strikes, and building entire institutions dedicated to erasing a people's culture and history.

Both are bad.

But one is clearly much worse. And doesn't have the excuse of a fog of war.

I’m really not sure why you’re so certain one is much worse. And let’s be honest a lot of mainstream Western education is about trying to influence a persons way of thinking…to give them the belief Western culture is superior to others.

The aim may not be to directly eradicate a persons culture and history…but it often leads to other cultures being under-valued and maybe withering on the vine.

Surprised anyone is using “the fog of war” as an excuse for atrocities….though I would prefer to see the decision makers who lead us into pointless wars held accountable for things like drones killing civilians, rather than the poor sods that press the buttons.

[Tendrin]

You know what, nevermind. I'm not gonna do it.

[The Cool Thatguy]

I’m really not sure why you’re so certain one is much worse. And let’s be honest a lot of mainstream Western education is about trying to influence a persons way of thinking…to give them the belief Western culture is superior to others.

The aim may not be to directly eradicate a persons culture and history…but it often leads to other cultures being under-valued and maybe withering on the vine.

Surprised anyone is using “the fog of war” as an excuse for atrocities….though I would prefer to see the decision makers who lead us into pointless wars held accountable for things like drones killing civilians, rather than the poor sods that press the buttons.

Because killing 39 people isn't the same as gradually erasing the entire culture of thousands of people? We've seen where that leads, after all. With the 39 people, at least the bleeding (figuratively) stops after a while.

Cultural destruction, destruction of the family unit? That drags on and on and on.