What liberals enabled Xi??

Do Arabs get to vote in the US?

Or if you mean Arabs that chose to go live in the US, I don’t think they care too much about a country that, well, murdered all the natives

China’s around 695, guessing the threshold is 700. That’s when the tankies will turn on it for sure.

Uh oh, you’ve activated the libs. Now they’ll make wild assumptions and other fabrications instead of actually addressing anything you’ve said.

You seem to be under the impression that liberals have a logically and ethically consistent belief structure.

The realization that liberals are unscratched fascists is a tough one, but you are one of the few intelligent folks able to recognize it… it’s a curse.

Oops. Posted on tankie news again. Always forget to check.

Edit: actually, i retract that. I got mixed up with another thread.

Poland and most of eastern Europe would like a word

I’ve answered already to someone else making the example of Estonia, but I’ll answer you too so that you can see my take.

After 30+ years of anti-communist propaganda, of course many countries in Eastern Europe may “disagree”. As a currently ongoing example, the other day there was an article ( paywalled, but you can read it pasting the link in 12ft.io ) in the Spanish newspaper “El País” about a new museum in Moldova dedicated to the forcibly relocated to other parts of the USSR during the late 30s. The article talks about the horrors of Stalinism and how 90k people from the region were forcibly relocated in 1937-1941, although the majority were allowed to return in the 50s. All that’s good, having a memory of our history is a good thing. But then, the article goes on with some conversation with the “Director of the National Agency of Archives in Moldova”, Igor Casu. I’ll translate to Spanish:

Casu considers that the war in neighboring Ukraine started by Russia has made the [Moldovan] citizens begin to perceive the Soviet regime as one of occupation and colonisation

So, basically, conflating the current imperialist capitalist Russia with communist USSR. But the funny part comes now, when they actually quote Casu:

“We hope that if the deportations keep being exposed ni the following five years, we’ll achieve that a solid part of the population will be really informed, and, at the same time, that they’ll consolidate a national identity”

So, they’re going FULL mask-off, and basically saying “we want to show this particular side of history not with the objective of remembrance of victims, but actually to create a new national identity based on the independence from supposedly oppressive Russia”. Fostering nationalism and anti-Russian sentiment as part of the new national identity. This is the recipe that’s been successfully applied to most of Eastern Europe for the past 30+ years, and you can see the results by asking any Polish person what they think of Russians. If this isn’t clear enough, the article reminds us:

During the last years, under the rule of the pro-European government, this ex-Soviet republic has been making efforts to propagate knowledge of the suffering created by the phenomenon of “Russification” that took place […]

Mind you, not a single reference in the article or the monument, to the 140.000 Jews deported by the Nazis during the 1940s invasion in Moldova, of whom 90.000+ were murdered in concentration camps. Let’s remember the victims of horrors of our history, but only those politically convenient to us now. Since we want to get closer to western Europe, including Germany, let’s put those killed by Nazis (many more than by Soviets) aside for now.

If you look at historical evidence, you can’t possibly make the argument that Estonia was subjugated and exploited by the USSR. The local language was preserved and there was an abundance of written publications in Estonian, people were allowed to study in the local language, the salaries were similar to those in the rest of the USSR (or higher actually), industrialization rates were equal or higher to those of the rest of the USSR, number of doctors/teachers and hospital beds per capita were equal… really, none of the telltales of imperialism are there. If you want to see a discussion with actual data regarding this, I suggest you have a look at “Human Rights in the Soviet Union” by Albert Szymanski, a wonderful book filled to the brim with data and a rather nuanced discussion.

So let’s not pretend that there hasn’t been a strong effort from pro-western authorities in all of Eastern Europe into pushing the narrative that this made-up historically continuous “Russia” has been exploiting and colonising Eastern Europe, and let’s not pretend that the opinion of most people in Eastern Europe who’ve been exposed to this campaign for the past 3 decades is unbiased and historically accurate (because public opinion never is).

Oh, and Tibet, Taiwan

Funny that you mention those two as well. Taiwan’s national identity, again, has been manufactured from the ground up over the past 30+ years. The data that western countries celebrate of Taiwanese people mostly declaring themselves to be “only Taiwanese”, is a fairly recent trend. From the link above:

According to the latest survey by National Chengchi University in Taipei (June 2023), 62.8 percent of the inhabitants of the Republic of China perceive themselves as “Taiwanese only,” 30.5 percent “both Taiwanese and Chinese,” and 2.5 percent “Chinese only.” In 1992, when surveys began, 25.5 percent described themselves as “Chinese only” and 17.6 percent “Taiwanese only,” with the remaining 46.4 percent “both Taiwanese and Chinese.”

So the country has gone from a 17.6% of “Taiwanese only” and a 25.5% of “both Taiwanese and Chinese” in 1992, to 63% of “Taiwanese only” and 2.5% of “Chinese only”. Funny how it’s the exact same process that I was describing above for Estonia and Moldova, in which 30+ years of propaganda can generate a new national identity and generate negative feelings towards previously friendly neighboring countries!

Regarding Tibet, I don’t think I’ll find such polls about national identity. However, until the Sino-Tibetan war, Tibet was literally a feudal country in which an aristocracy owned the lands and serfs were legally bound to the land as workers. When you criticise the lack of Tibet’s autonomy after the Sino-Tibetan war, remember that you’re arguing in favor of a literal feudal regime with aristocrats and serfs.

Communism is neither left nor right. It is just a construct of governance. While it was originally promoted by leftists, it can be either left or right. Some communists are conservative and/or fascist (ex. China).

After 30+ years of anti-communist propaganda, of course many countries in Eastern Europe may “disagree”. As a currently ongoing example, the other day there was an article ( paywalled, but you can read it pasting the link in 12ft.io ) in the Spanish newspaper “El País” about a new museum in Moldova dedicated to the forcibly relocated to other parts of the USSR during the late 30s. The article talks about the horrors of Stalinism and how 90k people from the region were forcibly relocated in 1937-1941, although the majority were allowed to return in the 50s. All that’s good, having a memory of our history is a good thing. But then, the article goes on with some conversation with the “Director of the National Agency of Archives in Moldova”, Igor Casu. I’ll translate to Spanish:

Casu considers that the war in neighboring Ukraine started by Russia has made the [Moldovan] citizens begin to perceive the Soviet regime as one of occupation and colonisation

So, basically, conflating the current imperialist capitalist Russia with communist USSR. But the funny part comes now, when they actually quote Casu:

“We hope that if the deportations keep being exposed ni the following five years, we’ll achieve that a solid part of the population will be really informed, and, at the same time, that they’ll consolidate a national identity”

So, they’re going FULL mask-off, and basically saying “we want to show this particular side of history not with the objective of remembrance of victims, but actually to create a new national identity based on the independence from supposedly oppressive Russia”. Fostering nationalism and anti-Russian sentiment as part of the new national identity. This is the recipe that’s been successfully applied to most of Eastern Europe for the past 30+ years, and you can see the results by asking any Polish person what they think of Russians. If this isn’t clear enough, the article reminds us:

During the last years, under the rule of the pro-European government, this ex-Soviet republic has been making efforts to propagate knowledge of the suffering created by the phenomenon of “Russification” that took place […]

Mind you, not a single reference in the article or the monument, to the 140.000 Jews deported by the Nazis during the 1940s invasion in Moldova, of whom 90.000+ were murdered in concentration camps. Let’s remember the victims of horrors of our history, but only those politically convenient to us now. Since we want to get closer to western Europe, including Germany, let’s put those killed by Nazis (many more than by Soviets) aside for now.

If you look at historical evidence, you can’t possibly make the argument that Estonia was subjugated and exploited by the USSR. The local language was preserved and there was an abundance of written publications in Estonian, people were allowed to study in the local language, the salaries were similar to those in the rest of the USSR (or higher actually), industrialization rates were equal or higher to those of the rest of the USSR, number of doctors/teachers and hospital beds per capita were equal… really, none of the telltales of imperialism are there. If you want to see a discussion with actual data regarding this, I suggest you have a look at “Human Rights in the Soviet Union” by Albert Szymanski, a wonderful book filled to the brim with data and a rather nuanced discussion.

So let’s not pretend that there hasn’t been a strong effort from pro-western authorities in all of Eastern Europe into pushing the narrative that this made-up historically continuous “Russia” has been exploiting and colonising Eastern Europe, and let’s not pretend that the opinion of most people in Eastern Europe who’ve been exposed to this campaign for the past 3 decades is unbiased and historically accurate (because public opinion never is).

How authoritarian of them

Of course it’s OUR SOFTWARE

(cue soviet anthem)

/s

the murdery shit show dictatorship that was Russia/China

You have been heavily propagandized about these countries. They were not as bad as you think they were and in fact had many elements where they were plainly superior to their contemporaries. On balance, these countries were far better to their citizens than equivalent capitalist countries, and far less damaging to the world at large than the American Empire has been, even when you take into account their mistakes.

And that’s okay. Most of them stay to their own instance and don’t come over and bother us normal people. Just ignore the crazies and move on

Communism and conservatism are not mutually exclusive. Conservative communism involves dictators and oppression. That’s how that weird nonsense happened.

It’s a pretty standard take on the commie side that stuff like colonialism and American slavery are pretty much the capitalist equivalent of the communist mass deaths, so I think their position is that everyone’s a hypocrite who has to support a government committing some kind of mass murder (in the modern day, America’s mass murder in this lens is its alliance with Israel). Since Americans won’t admit their government’s atrocities (even though a lot of them do call out the US, but that’s not how they see it), why should they admit the atrocities of the USSR?

and most of the time I got hammered with downvotes

Downvotes are federated.

To be clear, the left edge of liberalism is bernie sanders. Is that what youre saying?

CTH didn’t build Lemmy, they forked it and then merged it back a few years later.

Beehaw has explicitly stated that they do not want more people to join, they want to maintain it as a micro-server, by the way.

In general, I do think joining smaller servers is a good idea.

my alt is on blahaj and I really enjoy the local stuff there but its so slow for me sometimes :/

Chiang had to work with various warlords and bore most of the fight against the Japanese, while Mao gathered strength and let ROC to bleed itself. Even if ROC won and the CCP got destroyed, we don’t know if factionalism and warlord-ism will emerge since ROC had been weakened severely. Or, in another alternative time, Chiang and KMT had somehow pulled a miracle, and somehow made the entirety of China industrialised as quickly as post-war Japan and never had to resort to dictatorship and hence had always been democratic after World War 2.

It isn’t as much of a stretch as that created by Israel sticking their hands far up U.S. govt’s ass.

It is a stretch, but it’s also a proxy war funded by the US that escalated several fold under Biden

What do you mean “Source?” Are you asking for a source that Israel invaded Gaza? A source that the US funded it? A source that it escalated during Biden’s presidency?

Well Wikipedia considers it a war, I bet the poor mother fuckers that died think so too, but that list has 7 other conflicts that Obama started, weirdly there isn’t a single one by the ultimate mega hitler everyone is talking about.

Oh yeah. That’d be stupid. Besides billionaires, sadly arms manufacturers are the one group you don’t mess with.

I wish we had let them succeed. Russia can help out America and themselves at the same time

In context it doesn’t sound as stupid. Like if someone dropping bunker-penertating bomb and killing Putin will help both Russia and Ukraine. Despite my wishing for Putin rather being sent to Hauge or Russian prison, any option is better than Putin continuing war.

And there are other things that better not exist for entire world like all those spying and censorship agencies like FSB, RKN, FBI, NSA.

I used to have an account on lemmy.ml. I didn’t know they were delusional. Now I won’t even subscribe to anything on lemmy.ml.