• UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    10 months ago

    The average “propaganda has no effect on me” believer can’t identify the propaganda in what they consume, so they believe it’s not there. galaxy-brain

  • Black AOC
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    10 months ago

    Petition to call the ‘pasty political commentator staring directly down the thumbnail camera’ trend the ‘sour milk stare’; cause just looking at them gives me fuckin indigestion

  • lckdscl [they/them]@whiskers.bim.boats
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    10 months ago

    Genuine question, what is with serpentza and laowhy? I used to watch them before I got deprogrammed and even then, something seemed off. They were expats living in China, who speak the language and have Chinese spouses and children. To this extent, I find it strange they reverted to/still view China through an orientalist sense, since culturally, they’ve been there long enough to understand the structure and way of things. Yet, here they are, hiding in Amerika, exercising what seems to be limited knowledge on Chinese economics, history, and politics. Pumping out constant fear-mongering takes while cherry-picking stuff on social media. Every video begins with “So I have friends back there who told me how it REALLY is with XYZ”, and calling out anyone sympathetic to China a paid shill. They say they take no “sponsors”, yet, here they are, incentivized to pump out takes after takes, with millions of views, more relevant than they were when they did their China vlog stuff. YT is platforming them hard, it’s just pure fishy.

    • Blinky_katt
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      10 months ago

      There was a period when foreigners, especially English-speaking white foreigners, were treated effusively in China, elevated above all Chinese people and often far above the natural social place these folks had back in their own countries. They got better jobs, better job situations and benefits, and Chinese people in general gave them respect and admiration based on their whiteness and exotic Westerness alone.

      Then China opened up to the world at ever increasing pace, Chinese people became more sophisticated, and an entire generation of previously-fêted foreigners lost their elevated place in society. They crashed back to earth and drifted back to the social positions they always would have had based on their personal abilities and talents.

      Laowhy and Serpentza lived through the tail part of that shift. The good and easy time they’d had in China soon ended, they were barely making ends meet, and soon had to leave. They became deeply bitter, and attributed that natural change in society to the CPC ruining the good times for everyone, not just themselves. Thereafter they fell in with various anti-China crowds within and without China, and also found just how lucrative anti-China videos are on yt.

      So it’s a combination of both a personal sense of being wronged, plus the good grift, that resulted in their channels and stance today. They were always grifters at heart, the change in money merely changed the nature of their content.

      • lckdscl [they/them]@whiskers.bim.boats
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        10 months ago

        Thanks for your response; they lusted after Western dominance that is no longer present within social norms, felt betrayed when stripped off their status quo, and fell into some radical Sinophobic circles. However, I wonder if there is think tank-funding going on in addition to that, since he’s South African but now living on America soil and seems to ignore everything wrong with it.

        • REEEEvolution
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          10 months ago

          since he’s South African but now living on America soil and seems to ignore everything wrong with it.

          The dude is a gigantic racist. To him the systemic racism of the USA is a feature he loves, not a bug.

    • Tankiedesantski [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      10 months ago

      There’s a category of bitter white immigrant in Asia who, despite speaking the local language or marrying a local, refuse to actually integrate into local society because they think its “weird” or “beneath them”. It’s not an issue of the CEE CEE PEE being evil and oppressive because you see the same dynamic play out in Japan, Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, etc, etc.

      A lot of them are white dudes from white countries who have never had to deal with being “the other” at any previous point in their life so they’re hyper vigilant and perceive normal interactions as microaggressions. Offered a fork instead of chopsticks? Racism! People looking at them on the street? Racism! Being told they speak the language well? You guess it, Racism!

  • RGB3x3@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    “My little brother died - How does a person deal with this?”

    Hmm, by maybe not making it a clickbait video on YouTube? That thumbnail is basically, “My little brother died, where’s MY attention?”

  • tissek@ttrpg.network
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    10 months ago

    Doesn’t everyone, including the “side” one agrees with, have multi layered propaganda efforts? From state broadcasters to paid “grassroots” shills. Best to assume everyone is trying to sell you their story and critically evaluate everything you are being fed.

    Or just go wave your side’s flag and drink the coolaide. It is what the powers that are want you to do.

    • LarkinDePark
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      10 months ago

      No. They don’t.

      Perhaps you can offer a single example of the other side’s multi layered propaganda?

      • gmtom@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        How about the influences they take to muslims houses so they can film them dancing in a very natural and not forced way to show everyone that’s they treat ugihurs fine and there’s definitely no genocide.

        • Justice
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          10 months ago

          You know someone’s mind is gone when the mainstream western media even has to heavily backtrack and drop a narrative but people online keep parroting it forever. If there was any actual hard evidence of serious, ongoing mistreatment much less genocide of anyone in China and the US could prove it literally CNN, MSNBC, and Fox would be running pictures of Xi with Holocaust victims in the background 24/7. They ran with a story based on a few accounts which turned out to be… dubious… did a couple follows up that amounted to “what is genocide, anyway?” And we haven’t heard shit since. Again, this is in China. Do not doubt for half a fucking second that the CIA, DoD, and every private organization isn’t foaming with erect cocks at the idea of proving wrongdoing there. The fact that it was apparently dropped by all mainstream media either says they’re in collusion with the US state dept/media (which would require some sort of Illuminati level conspiracy thinking) or… the initial reports were largely discredited as overblown and exaggerated. But it doesn’t matter because once you scream GENOCIDE you can publish 1000 retractions and still get your comment posted everyday, living in pure ignorance.

          There’s also a bunch of other additional multipliers of suspicious and/or ironic shit: whenever you read Uyghurs in China just replace it with black people in the US. I know liberals like to yell about “whataboutism” to distract from the fact that a country that arbitrarily imprisons and legally murders black people daily, still, in 2023 is criticizing any other country for accusations of, essentially, modern day slavery. A lot of it boils down to people getting arrested or forcefully detained and then forced to work… kinda like the US does to its prison population. Remember when California sent in prisoner-firefighters? “Hey want 30 days off your life sentence? Go fly in this helicopter over a wildfire and toss water on it! Good luck, buddy!” Maybe you can spend your outrage energy where you can make a difference… if you’re in the US anyway.

          The US has lied about every single one of its “enemies” except, pretty much, the axis in WWII. Well, they did lie for the Nazi and imperial Japanese but it was more of a helpful lie… a lie of omission because those right wingers benefited the US post-war against the new frenemy the USSR.

          From the legacy of the DPRK(North Korea), the Chinese civil war, the Russian revolution, Cuba, Vietnam, Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt… literally the list includes basically the entire world minus the “western” ones. They’ve just been lying and lying and lying so why the fuuuuuuck would you or anyone believe US state dept now? Did they suddenly renounce their warhawk rhetoric of even just a couple presidents ago that led to two illegal invasions of countries the US supported right wing terrorists in and then later used as an excuse for war? Did they imprison a bunch of warmongering “journalists” and basically the entire Clinton/Bush cabinets? No? So they haven’t changed. And they shouldn’t be trusted. This shit is all Saddam and aluminum tubes and yellow cake all over again. As someone who was an older teen at the time, I find it hard to believe anyone is falling for the same exact bullshit again but turned on China this time. I’ve come to accept that my countrymen are mostly morons and racists all too happy to jump on the hate train at the first suggestion that it’s ok to do openly. I’m sure all these Americans that wanted to “glass” Iraq and Afghanistan only 15-20 years ago absolutely totally give a single shit about Muslim populations in China. Please just fuck off with this bullshit. It’s tired and boring.

          • Black AOC
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            10 months ago

            I know liberals like to yell about “whataboutism” to distract from the fact that a country that arbitrarily imprisons and legally murders black people daily, still, in 2023 is criticizing any other country for accusations of, essentially, modern day slavery.

            Man, I wish crackers cared about us as much as they pretend to about these fake genocides they like to cry wolf about to maintain global hegemon. At this point, if a foreign nation actually WAS committing a genocide and Amerika was the first ones to start complaining about it, I wouldn’t fucking believe them anymore. All the crackers know is how to lie on the folk that’s outperforming them, and that’s facts

            • gmtom@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              Why do you guys even go to bat for China so hard? They’re not even communist? They are state capitalists and more right wing and authoritarian than the US republican party (other than on green energy)?

              So I really don’t understand why you people are so desperate to defend them, not just on this, but on everything. It makes no sense to me.

              • RedCat
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                10 months ago

                Why do you guys even go to bat for China so hard? They’re not even communist? They are state capitalists and more right wing and authoritarian than the US republican party (other than on green energy)?

                Because they aren’t. You are being lied to. If you want to understand us I recommend reading “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: A Guide for Foreigners” by Robert Boer.

                • gmtom@lemmy.world
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                  10 months ago

                  Okay I’ve just wasted about 30 minutes of my life reading someone unironically defend “Democratic dictatorships” with nothing substantial, just empty rhetoric and blind praise. And happily pushes the most abhorrent and blatant totalitarian propaganda such as

                  Those who are the people are the heart and soul of China, the recently voiceless majority, and their enemies are not people. Reactionaries and their perpetual dinner guests do not even count as people. Democracy is not for them. This is a rather breathtaking dialectical reinvention of the term “people” itself. “People” is partisan, focused on the majority who simultaneously comprise the whole.

                  Like yes, we’re a democracy for the people (the people are the partisans that agree with me, democracy is not for anyone else )

                  Only for the author to barely even touch on the issue of China not actually being communist.

                  Economically, most enterprises are operated by the state with socialist structures, yet capitalist production plays a significant role. The balancing act is to maintain control over those developments so that they do not dominate. Some would argue that the government and people have been swamped by capitalism since the opening up by Deng Xiaoping, but others observe that the situation is far from full-blooded capitalism.43

                  Is pretty much all he says in regards to the economics of China, so he doesn’t even say he agrees with one side or another and even if he did the other side is “well China isn’t 100% capitalist” not “China is socialist”

                  Like I’m sure you’ll claim I just didn’t understand what was really being said or how a totalitarian leader that openly arrests anyone that challenges him politically is actually Democratic, just a different kind of special Chinese democracy. Or whatever. But all you’ve done by getting me to read this is to hats China more.

              • REEEEvolution
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                10 months ago

                They’re not even communist? They are state capitalists and more right wing and authoritarian than the US republican party (other than on green energy)?

                Wrong and you do not even know what these terms mean.

          • KiG V2
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            10 months ago

            I bet this was part of the plan…“we can’t technically post this on our official news sources, but let the narrative run wild and grow more deranged every passing day and it will naturally become part of the cultural zeitgeist.” It’s genius, America is helping their citizens program themselves. It’s crazy how quickly it went from an alleged cultural genocide to liberals telling me “tell that to the pile of dead Uighurs.” Why expose yourself to retaliation for lying on news media when you can just plant a seed and let the average batshit insane racist Westerner make up whatever their wicked hearts desire?

            • Justice
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              10 months ago

              Indeed.

              Unfortunately this general line of thinking has been co-opted by right wingers (Trump types, to be super clear) and thus liberals, as always, have cornered themselves harder into NEVER DOUBT THE MEDIA NEVER DOUBT THE STATE DEPT STOP DEFENDING TRUMP type no-thinking logical black pits.

              And just to explain further if it isn’t clear, I’m referring to how Trump, et al. basically say the media will state something “Trump did X!” then they retract the story or edit it with a small disclaimer noting the original but the retraction is rarely (never) read. It’s a way of basically defaming without having real legal liability since, technically, you can say you made a mistake and you did your due diligence by retracting later with a correction. This shit absolutely happens, it’s one of those things Trump was really good at needling in on because it harms (“harms”) people like himself but normal people, who won’t experience personal effects of this usually, can still see it happening and they know it happens but if you question it a little liberals get flustered and if you say it’s fucked up that the media clearly does this then the liberals denounce you very quickly as anti rainbows and pro hellfire or whatever. And clearly, if it isn’t somehow clear, Trump is a demon. But it doesn’t mean all of his criticisms of liberals are wrong. Many are objectively true and that’s very much so a reason why people love him and say he “tells it like it is” because on a select few issues, he does.

              Once again I find myself infinitely frustrated at how much liberals will cling to the institutions which betray them. The selfish fuckers.

            • gmtom@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              It’s not a matter of mass killings, but it’s an intentional effort to reduce the ugihur population, which does make it a genocide.

              And this isn’t even “WeStErN pRoPaGaNdA” its stated in China’s own policy on “population optimisation”

              https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02634937.2021.1946483

              I know this will fall on deaf ears, but I’m curious what kind of “logic” you’ll use to claim it isn’t real or is just propaganda or America is worse so China does nothing wrong.

              • KiG V2
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                10 months ago

                I will have you know I actually clicked this link prepared to read it in good faith, although I admitted I assumed I would have some tangential knowledge that would paint a clearer picture in favor of China.

                And then I discovered IMMEDIATELY that was the case!

                This is written by Adrian Zenz.

                Adrian Zenz is an American fascist with ties to the CIA who claims he was sent by God to destroy homosexuals and communist China. I would hope that fact alone would assassinate his character a bit and make you question if he is telling the truth. He is indeed the very focal point of where the entire Xinjiang myth began.

                As you can see, he thanks his four ANONYMOUS contributers and the Victims of Communism memorial organization. It is a very common CIA tactic to make up a few conveniently untraceable “anonymous sources” to say quite literally anything they like with an air of authority and expertise. That, and the “Victims of Communism” is an organization with many capitalist and fascist ties that has collaborated with Neo-Nazi groups in order to spread lies about any socialist country they can run their mouth about.

                Should we really trust what a bunch of CIA spooks and fascists have to say about a socialist country?

                , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

                By contrast, here is just a taste of the counter narrative:

                spoiler

                China essentially said, after the Western slander, to the entire world: if you feel there is anything amiss about what we are doing in Xinjiang, please, send diplomats unannounced to Xinjiang and inspect for yourself; we have nothing to hide. (More on this at the end)

                So, what ARE they doing in Xinjiang?

                In short: fascist deradicalization and economic development, which ultimately just aids the fascist deradicalization goal.

                You see, America has spent decades trying to destroy China. One small example of this, is they sent Islamist extremists associated with the Taliban up northeast into Xinjiang to spread their fascist ideology. It worked, and Xinjiang was quickly overcome with fascist terrorism.

                The usual gameplan the West has adhered to when dealing with unwanted Islamofascist terrorists is simple: bomb them into oblivion, damned be any civilians in the crossfire.

                Instead, China has detained them, and put them in re-education and vocational training facilities. They teach men they don’t have to commit jihad to please Allah, they teach women they aren’t merely child-bearers. Islam itself retains its strength; there are hundreds more mosques in the Xinjiang province than before this American-borne fiasco started. Uighur culture is celebrated, not suppressed; only Taliban-borne “culture” that has been in Xinjiang a mere decade or less is a target of suppression.

                They are given vocational training as part of an effort to economically uplift them. The most susceptible to fascism are those who are desperate. China took some responsibility, and admitted that Xinjiang was very undeveloped and isolated from the rest of China. They have sought only to fix this divide and to give future Uighurs a chance to prosper, so that such extremism is of no interest to them.

                So…

                What about the open invitation to check out the Xinjiang re-education facilities?

                Well, absolutely zero Western countries took them up on the offer. None! Nobody, no brave journalists from the West dared to inspect the stories they were peddling.

                You know who DID send emissaries? Almost every single Muslim-majority country on the Earth (many of whom have been victimized by the West and the West alone this last century, but I digress). And do you know what they said? They unanimously congratulated China on their compassionate handling of the situation.

                I’m sorry my friend, but you’ve been lied to.

                • gmtom@lemmy.world
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                  10 months ago

                  Adrian is German actually. But yeah, good point, anyone associated with the victims of communism institute can’t be trusted.

                  But there is still plenty of evidence to. Like even the stuff China openly admits, that’s they have giant Internet camps where people of a specific religion are detained without trial to be “re-educated” is already pretty horrific. And China doesn’t even deny that part.

                  And do you really think China would let foreign diplomats just waltz into the country unannounced to do a surprise inspection of one of those facilities, without being guided to see what they want to be seen? Like if America did something similar would you take it face value? No right, so all I ask is you apply the same skepticism you would rightly apply to the US to China as well. And to nations like Iran that are more than corrupt enough to give China their stamp of approval in exchange for some financing. Like they are perfectly fine murdering their own citizens for simple protestest, but you expect them to be bleeding hearts when China treats its Muslims poorly?

                  We are all lied to every day, I try to see through it as best I can, but clearly not always, but I don’t assume because one “side” is lying to me that the other is telling the truth.

          • gmtom@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            Sorry I didn’t realise what instance this was. But as a side note, holy Jesus fuck people weren’t exaggerating when they talked about this place. Like I’m a card carrying communist and regularly have to correct people when they parrot obvious capitalist propaganda about communist nations (“communism has killed eleventh billion people” kinda stuff) but you guys are fucking nuts and really just come off as brainwashed zealots. Like even if you’re 100% right (which I really don’t think you are based on all available evidence) you’re not convincing anyone with this smug bullshit other than yourselves. Especially when all you can manage to say is “no China not bad, because US bad” like yes, we all know the US is bad, but trying to use that to mean China is actually okay (as if everything wrong with China is just Anerican propaganda and we don’t have obvious facts, testimony from Chinese citizens and photos/video that show China is an awful place that does awful things to its citizens) is really fucking stupid.

            This isn’t fake WMDs as an excuse to invade we have so many people from across China’s conquered territories that give actual evidence of this shit, from Tibet to Hong Kong, no reasonable person can possibly write all that off as “lol America lies”. But this isn’t an instance for reasonable people. So I expect you’ll want to reply with some other wall of text telling me how bad America is and because America is bad(I agree) that means China isn’t doing anything wrong. But please just don’t, spend your time doing something productive instead.

            • 新星 [they/them/🏳️‍⚧️]
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              10 months ago

              Not even the UN report called it genocide.

              Could things be better? Probably, but shouldn’t Muslim-majority countries be speaking out if there was actual genocide? The fact that they’re defending China instead speaks volumes.

              • gmtom@lemmy.world
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                10 months ago

                What do you mean “not even the un report”? Like you understand that China is a permanent member of the security Council and one of the most influential (and whiny) members of the organisation. Like would you assume Israel is innocent because the UN havnt called their actions in Palestine a genocide? And there was an independent investigation that did conclude China was commiting genocide by way of forced sterilisation and population control.

                but shouldn’t Muslim-majority countries be speaking out if there was actual genocide?

                Yes they should be if we assume them caring about fellow Muslims is there top, sincere priority, instead of idk securing a better trading relationship with the superpower that funds them instead of bombing them, but if that was a case they would speak out against Iran for what its doing to its citizens after the protests, or any other totalitarian leader of a Muslim country, yet they don’t.

                Like even if you do deny it being a genocide, there is undeniable evidence that hundreds of thousands of uyghurs have been detained in the “re-education” camps and Iran doesn’t care about that either. Do you think they would be equally silent if a western country started to detain all its Muslims?

                There is a good article about it here if you care to read western news articles that is

                https://thediplomat.com/2018/09/irans-careful-approach-to-chinas-uyghur-crackdown/

                • 新星 [they/them/🏳️‍⚧️]
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                  10 months ago

                  Like would you assume Israel is innocent because the UN havnt [sic] called their actions in Palestine a genocide?

                  When did I say “innocent”? Your allegation is “genocide,” which has a very high standard of proof, because of what that entails.

                  There’s also a world of difference between remaining silent to keep everyone happy and actively defending China’s policies

                  Your article straight up says it’s the U.S. making that conclusion…

        • LarkinDePark
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          10 months ago

          No people dancing - proof of evil.

          People dancing - more proof of evil.