The right-wing does want to organize: in favor of white supremacy. If being white puts them higher on the hierarchy, then them can reap material gains while feeling superior. That superiority complex prevents them from anticipating the danger they are in; the division of the working class will be their own downfall when the fascism they enable comes back to extract wealth from the white supremacists.
It truly is crazy to see the South Korean government go through these spasms of corporate consolidation, fascist media turns, and repeated threats of military dictatorship, while liberals scream “Whataboutism!” whenever it makes news.
Did you know the last six South Korean presidents have been prosecuted either during or immediately following their terms in office? And that we’re supposed to believe this is a sign of a healthy and functioning democracy?
I genuinely hate how often I have to have this conversation with people. I’m like ok, yes, that thing from China is bad. How do you feel about the kent state massacre? How do you feel about the battle of blair mountain? How do you feel about ruby ridge/waco?
You know these things, you see them as bad things, and you… Just assume the government is still telling the truth? Maybe they’re ALL aligned with the concept of currency for self above all else??
I swear to Christ I mean the concept of the FDA is pretty dope I guess. Hey, why do you think we need to tell people that they can’t sell you straight up poison as “food” because it’s cheaper?
No one thinks they do, and everyone knows that “two things can be wrong/true at the same time,” but for some reason liberals can’t stop “educating” us on the matter.
Weird. No offense to you personally but every time I see someone say anything negative about China or Russia (not socialism or communism, mind you), I see someone from .ml attack them, calling them Nazis and liberals, even when there has been no mention of the west at all. Usually with a bunch of cherry picked “education” links. Then there’s always a bunch of defense of Russia or China by pointing out the West’s faults. Which doesn’t mean anything when it comes to pointing out what China and Russia have done. It’s like clockwork. I don’t really understand it, either. If you want people to see your side, you generally want to woo them, make them feel good or confident in your argument. But that doesn’t seem to happen, just attack attack and whataboutism.
Again, nobody thinks Russia is socialist or communist, so again I don’t understand why the obvious keeps being pointed out to us. Everyone knows it’s a capitalist oligarchy, which every capitalist state is.
Which doesn’t mean anything when it comes to pointing out what China and Russia have done.
And there’s the rub. While China—and especially Russia—are not utopias, there are large discrepancies between what you think they’ve done and what they’ve actually done, between what you think they are and what they actually are. Relatedly there are discrepancies between what you think we are, meaning the imperial core states, and what we actually are. If you understood what we are, then you’d understand why China & Russia act in the ways that they do when dealing with us (to the extent that you do understand what they do, because don’t forget the first discrepancy).
But I’m not going to rehash that territory. Instead I’d suggest starting by developing real media literacy[1][2][3] and then investigating them yourself, if you have the time & motivation to.
But that doesn’t seem to happen, just attack attack and whataboutism.
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.
See right here. You are jumping directly to saying whataboutism is defending the American empire’s moral narratives. Every single time. Accusations and assumptions with no basis. Whataboutism just means someone is changing the focus of conversation to something else to distract from what the actual topic is. Which happens every. Single. Time. You can call it whatever you want, but no one wants to have a conversation if every time it goes to “yea well the west blah blah blah.” No one was defending the “west” to begin with. Wherever your last paragraph from is just some random opinion. Whataboutism has become colloquial, if you want to find a different term for it, by all means, do so.
My guy, I didn’t bring up “whataboutism,” you did. It’s not a topic I “jumped directly to,” you did. What I did was point you to an intervention on liberals‘ abuse of the term as a thought-terminating cliché, which you obviously didn’t engage with at all. Instead you repeated the same tired BS that the Citations Needed episode dissects.
Can’t say much about Russia since it’s not what I’m most informed about, but when I see people criticize China it’s normally debunked stuff which is very annoying. It’s not that the US “also” does the same, but rather that they’re projecting based on state department propaganda something that China isn’t even doing. So yeah we’ll share sources that already deal with the claims and hope people learn more about it. Some of us are way less patient or more rude, but that’s my perspective why.
Dog I get it I really do shit sandwich shit ice cream question goes here. One of those sandwiches you know for a fucking fact literally has super rabies and is incapable of being entirely truthful in ANY capacity. It is time to admit the shit sandwich is delusional and that we cannot speak on the cognitive state of the shit ice cream, because we don’t really know anything we aren’t fed by the shit sandwich in some capacity about that shit ice cream.
Or just be honest and have a normal discussion. Instead of (and I will change the wording here) changing the subject or deflecting, maybe talk about the topic at hand. But it always seems to devolve into The same garbage bad faith arguments. Most of the time they’re being much more offensive than you were being right now as well. Which again doesn’t really lead anyone to wanting to care about someone’s opinion. When people act like dicks no one really wants to listen to them.
Me when I am definitely not falling for propaganda because I have diligently and critically read the relevant material with respect to the biases imbedded in them.
Nobody uses the word tankie there. Tankie means something specific, a sympathizer for communist or aesthetically communist states which lack either free and fair elections, a freedom to criticize the government, or just general human rights.
Nobody calls people a tankie when talking about domestic politics. People either know what it means and use it correctly, don’t know what it means but identify themselves as a tankie, or they don’t know what it means and basically have nothing to do with the word.
Tankie means something specific, a sympathizer for communist or aesthetically communist states which lack either free and fair elections, a freedom to criticize the government, or just general human rights.
I’d like to offer a correction:
Tankie means something specific, a sympathizer for socialist states which are alleged by liberals to lack either free and fair elections, a freedom to criticize the government, or just general human rights.
I fully agree that the definition you gave is the one that wielders of the pejorative believe to be true, but I’d argue my definition is more accurate as it accounts for the fact that “tankies” do not believe the allegations against socialist states to be true or to be highly exaggerated and removed from historical context in liberal narratives.
Whenever a socialist is accused of being a “tankie,” they generally have 1 of 3 choices:
Attack the validity of the pejorative as a real ideology
Accept the pejorative, and use this to move onto discussing specifics, forcing the accuser’s hand
Accept that “tankies” can and do exist, but try to convince your interlocutor that you aren’t one of them.
The third is the most common among western leftists, and also happens to be the most self-defeating. Only options 1 and 2 actually present a path forward for socialists. You can replace “tankie” above with “woke” and the argument still applies, you can either own the label or attack the validity of the label to move forward.
“What if we organized as members of the general public and directly opposed the corrupt actions of state officials?”
“Shut up, Tankie.”
The right-wing does want to organize: in favor of white supremacy. If being white puts them higher on the hierarchy, then them can reap material gains while feeling superior. That superiority complex prevents them from anticipating the danger they are in; the division of the working class will be their own downfall when the fascism they enable comes back to extract wealth from the white supremacists.
haha! Also:
“Hey I think the US might have been lying to us about China and the DPRK”
“OmG TAnKiE SIMPING FOR DiCtAtOrShipS!! rabble rabble rabble”
It truly is crazy to see the South Korean government go through these spasms of corporate consolidation, fascist media turns, and repeated threats of military dictatorship, while liberals scream “Whataboutism!” whenever it makes news.
Did you know the last six South Korean presidents have been prosecuted either during or immediately following their terms in office? And that we’re supposed to believe this is a sign of a healthy and functioning democracy?
Yeah but the Republic of Samsung produces phones while the dictatorship in the north eats mud. Checkmate tankie
If they would just see SK for what it really is, a US vassal state, the things they do would make PERFECT sense, but most will never get there
You forgot to wedge “authoritarian” in before “dictatorship.”
I genuinely hate how often I have to have this conversation with people. I’m like ok, yes, that thing from China is bad. How do you feel about the kent state massacre? How do you feel about the battle of blair mountain? How do you feel about ruby ridge/waco?
You know these things, you see them as bad things, and you… Just assume the government is still telling the truth? Maybe they’re ALL aligned with the concept of currency for self above all else??
I swear to Christ I mean the concept of the FDA is pretty dope I guess. Hey, why do you think we need to tell people that they can’t sell you straight up poison as “food” because it’s cheaper?
Most people I see on Lemmy think both are bad. One wrong doesn’t make a right.
No one thinks they do, and everyone knows that “two things can be wrong/true at the same time,” but for some reason liberals can’t stop “educating” us on the matter.
Weird. No offense to you personally but every time I see someone say anything negative about China or Russia (not socialism or communism, mind you), I see someone from .ml attack them, calling them Nazis and liberals, even when there has been no mention of the west at all. Usually with a bunch of cherry picked “education” links. Then there’s always a bunch of defense of Russia or China by pointing out the West’s faults. Which doesn’t mean anything when it comes to pointing out what China and Russia have done. It’s like clockwork. I don’t really understand it, either. If you want people to see your side, you generally want to woo them, make them feel good or confident in your argument. But that doesn’t seem to happen, just attack attack and whataboutism.
Again, nobody thinks Russia is socialist or communist, so again I don’t understand why the obvious keeps being pointed out to us. Everyone knows it’s a capitalist oligarchy, which every capitalist state is.
And there’s the rub. While China—and especially Russia—are not utopias, there are large discrepancies between what you think they’ve done and what they’ve actually done, between what you think they are and what they actually are. Relatedly there are discrepancies between what you think we are, meaning the imperial core states, and what we actually are. If you understood what we are, then you’d understand why China & Russia act in the ways that they do when dealing with us (to the extent that you do understand what they do, because don’t forget the first discrepancy).
But I’m not going to rehash that territory. Instead I’d suggest starting by developing real media literacy[1][2][3] and then investigating them yourself, if you have the time & motivation to.
Citations Needed podcast:
Whataboutism - The Media’s Favorite Rhetorical Shield Against Criticism of US Policy
See right here. You are jumping directly to saying whataboutism is defending the American empire’s moral narratives. Every single time. Accusations and assumptions with no basis. Whataboutism just means someone is changing the focus of conversation to something else to distract from what the actual topic is. Which happens every. Single. Time. You can call it whatever you want, but no one wants to have a conversation if every time it goes to “yea well the west blah blah blah.” No one was defending the “west” to begin with. Wherever your last paragraph from is just some random opinion. Whataboutism has become colloquial, if you want to find a different term for it, by all means, do so.
My guy, I didn’t bring up “whataboutism,” you did. It’s not a topic I “jumped directly to,” you did. What I did was point you to an intervention on liberals‘ abuse of the term as a thought-terminating cliché, which you obviously didn’t engage with at all. Instead you repeated the same tired BS that the Citations Needed episode dissects.
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Can’t say much about Russia since it’s not what I’m most informed about, but when I see people criticize China it’s normally debunked stuff which is very annoying. It’s not that the US “also” does the same, but rather that they’re projecting based on state department propaganda something that China isn’t even doing. So yeah we’ll share sources that already deal with the claims and hope people learn more about it. Some of us are way less patient or more rude, but that’s my perspective why.
Dog I get it I really do shit sandwich shit ice cream question goes here. One of those sandwiches you know for a fucking fact literally has super rabies and is incapable of being entirely truthful in ANY capacity. It is time to admit the shit sandwich is delusional and that we cannot speak on the cognitive state of the shit ice cream, because we don’t really know anything we aren’t fed by the shit sandwich in some capacity about that shit ice cream.
Or just be honest and have a normal discussion. Instead of (and I will change the wording here) changing the subject or deflecting, maybe talk about the topic at hand. But it always seems to devolve into The same garbage bad faith arguments. Most of the time they’re being much more offensive than you were being right now as well. Which again doesn’t really lead anyone to wanting to care about someone’s opinion. When people act like dicks no one really wants to listen to them.
No one believes US is lying about China and DPRK. China and DPRK are doing a great job of trying really hard to make it all true.
Me when I am definitely not falling for propaganda because I have diligently and critically read the relevant material with respect to the biases imbedded in them.
Then everyone is a sucker.
Here’s another for the list https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/insane-pre-crime-strategy-unveiled
Uh oh .world lib incoming
Yes. Be very afraid. I can do absolutely nothing. So scary.
Typical lib
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All I feel from your comments here is secondhand embarrassment, I’m sure that’s the case for others
I look forward to the day where you experience it firsthand. That might actually be worth something to brag about.
Nobody uses the word tankie there. Tankie means something specific, a sympathizer for communist or aesthetically communist states which lack either free and fair elections, a freedom to criticize the government, or just general human rights.
Nobody calls people a tankie when talking about domestic politics. People either know what it means and use it correctly, don’t know what it means but identify themselves as a tankie, or they don’t know what it means and basically have nothing to do with the word.
I’d like to offer a correction:
I fully agree that the definition you gave is the one that wielders of the pejorative believe to be true, but I’d argue my definition is more accurate as it accounts for the fact that “tankies” do not believe the allegations against socialist states to be true or to be highly exaggerated and removed from historical context in liberal narratives.
Whenever a socialist is accused of being a “tankie,” they generally have 1 of 3 choices:
Attack the validity of the pejorative as a real ideology
Accept the pejorative, and use this to move onto discussing specifics, forcing the accuser’s hand
Accept that “tankies” can and do exist, but try to convince your interlocutor that you aren’t one of them.
The third is the most common among western leftists, and also happens to be the most self-defeating. Only options 1 and 2 actually present a path forward for socialists. You can replace “tankie” above with “woke” and the argument still applies, you can either own the label or attack the validity of the label to move forward.