this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2023
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GenZedong

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This is a Dengist community in favor of Bashar al-Assad with no information that can lead to the arrest of Hillary Clinton, our fellow liberal and queen. This community is not ironic. We are Marxists-Leninists.

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[–] Blursty@lemmygrad.ml 48 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Also, the officialdom gives license to hate. It's a rubber stamp on bigotry, you can be a bigot all you like, but for Good™. Now you can dehumanise Russians, Chinese and any other targets of imperialism for free and remain a progressive liberal, shielded from any negative judgement.

And if on the rare occasion you are called out on it, you can just say that you hate the governments, not the people, ignoring all polling figures and support for these governments. After all, those support stats are fake anyway, you stupid tankie.

[–] WaterBowlSlime@lemmygrad.ml 27 points 1 year ago

This is spot on. It's wild how easily prejudice gets normalized here, seems like all it takes is a few news cycles for large swathes of the population to advocate for genocide.

[–] rjs001@lemmygrad.ml 18 points 1 year ago

Same thing with the approval to hate migrants who came to the US via the southern boarder from central American countries. Americans see news reports constantly about how they are “causing a crisis in the south” and are essentially given a license to hate them

It gets to reinforce their sense of racial/moral superiority and gives them the license to hate/blame an entire group for their own misgivings.

[–] Magos_Galactose@lemmygrad.ml 31 points 1 year ago (2 children)

There is a statue of a mighty woman located within the harbor of one of the cities of the West. At the time of its construction, it was described as “The New Colossus”, and a sonnet of the same name was inscribed at its base.

Its message was long forgotten as the ruling nobilities of the New World reforge its message to placate the populace, where indentured servitudes were substitute for liberty.

The statue is a figure of a mighty woman holding a torch, whose flame was imprisoned lightning, and her name, 'Mother of Exiles'.

From her beacon hand once glowed a worldwide welcome, whose silent lips once cried 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free!'

Yet, an ocean away from where the statue stood, flames of imprisoned lightning burned not in a single torch, but across an entire nation.

A nation that for decades has provided hope and solution for the poor, the tired, the huddled masses of the world, looking for a way to break from the tyranny of the New World.

To all those yearning to breathe free, the People’s Republic of China is seen as a Mother of Exiles.

The West sees something different.

They see, and fear, a New Colossus.

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I actually had the username Emma_Lazarus on the old hellsite! Back when I was a lib, I thought reminding Americans of their ideals would make them stop being bourgeoisified settler-colonial pieces of shit. The sonnet:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she.
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

[–] ezmack@lemmy.ml 30 points 1 year ago (3 children)

You ever read that red sails 'brainwashing isn't real' article? Similar premise, similar conclusion.

Basically guy was spending a lot of time debunking anti China stuff and getting frustrated. Realized really the propaganda isn't very sophisticated, wasn't hard to debunk in most cases. So saying people are fooled is kind of a cop out, underselling their intelligence maybe flattering your own. They're buying in consciously or otherwise because they see the benefit from siding with the propagandist.

Idk was an interesting read for me at least. If you can't get past the writing style these points are more or less where he ends up:

Stop accusing the masses of being “brainwashed.” Stop treating them as cattle, stop attempting to rouse them into action by scolding them with exposure to “unpleasant truths.”

Accept instead that they have been avoiding those truths for a reason. You were able to break through the propaganda barrier, and so could they if they really wanted to. Many of these people see you as the fool, and in many cases not without reason.

Understanding people as intelligent beings, craft a political strategy that convincingly makes the case for why they and their lot are very likely to benefit from joining your political project. Not in some utopian infinite timescale, but soon.

If you cannot make this case, then forget about convincing the person in question. Focus instead on finding other people to whom such a case can be made. This will lead you directly to class analysis.

[–] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml 25 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Oh yeah that's a great article, and very much agree with his take there.

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[–] AmarkuntheGatherer@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I actually don't agree with this approach. I'm not in favour of calling people stupid for buying into propoganda, but is saying that they choose to buy it/take it at face value respecting their intelligence?

Saying they could break out if they wanted to is, and this is just my opinion, not intending to be insulting, an idealist approach. It's like saying fat people could lose weight if they just wanted to, or procrastinators could work if they simply cared to. I would go so far as to say that it's similar (though obviously not equivalent) to saying neurodivergent people can act like "normal" people if they really tried.

On the other hand I'm definitely not saying barraging people with analyses or factoids will bring them to our side. I take the scumbag centrist opinion here and say it's both: For people unreceptive to our message, what we can hope is that a small part of what we said might stick, so that every time they're faced with a contradiction inherent in capitalism, there's a change that seed of an idea we planted might take root.

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[–] Buchenstr@lemmygrad.ml 30 points 1 year ago (2 children)

America always needed a bogyman, the Soviet Union did a perfect job for it, military menacing, but an economy which couldn't challenge the US economical power globally, Perfect! But China? they're scared shitless. Americans are witnessing the slow collapse of their economy and are puzzled, why is manufacturing gone? why is my government incompetent? Why is corruption more accepted now than ever before? Answer: China China China... Did I mention CHINA? Not to mention Jake Sullivan's speech on how neo-liberalism has fundamentally destroyed America, no not the average American, that happened in the 1980s, but actually AMERICA. The US cannot compete with china, evidence is the shrinking manufacturing sector, the stagnation of innovative research and designs. Hell even the biggest banks aren't american anymore, the top 4 are located in china.

I would like to add another thing, the west since 1991 has been experiencing its best prosperity in ages, with people fully buying into the capitalist dream, now its completely different. Even liberals recognize that the good times are over, and people are desperate for those good times to come back. The rise of china completely shatters the average westerner delusions, a country cannot preform better than their own, Afterall haven't I been told that the west has the greatest, most wealthiest, and prosperous nations in the world? People need this lie to be sold to them, otherwise they'll have to re-wind a life-time of propaganda.

[–] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml 38 points 1 year ago

Yeah, US empire is definitely entering uncharted waters now. It seems the realization of this is starting to set in now, as you point out with Sullivan's speech, but they have no idea what to do. Honestly, it's not really clear that there is anything that could be done even if US had a competent government in charge. China is simply bigger and has a more stable political political system that's capable of long term planning. The fundamentals in China are much better than in US.

And very much agree that collapsing standard of living in the west makes it harder for people to swallow the propaganda that's being pushed by the ruling class. People can see that what they're being told doesn't match their lived experience, and that translates into faith in the system collapsing. I think that's actually one of the big driving factors behind stuff like qanon. Once people lose faith in central authority then they can just find a comfortable narrative that fits their preconceptions, and if they meet enough people who shares their beliefs that becomes their tribe.

They've been riding the high of their supposed moral/national superiority that it infuriates them to see people (that they used to pity as inferior species) rising up to their level or even surpassing them. It shatters their image as the chosen ones, the "good and civilised" side.

This behaviour can also be seen in liberals from the mainland, HK and TW where they still regurgitate 30-40 year old talking points while their beloved western idols no longer maintain the utopia like image they've been promoting.

[–] ButtigiegMineralMap@lemmygrad.ml 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

tbh rn the mainsteam coverage on China in the US is WAAAAYY less about what goes in in Mainland China, a lot more about their potential as a global threat and sabre-rattling to drum up anti-China sentiment. Think about the balloon, they didn’t give 2 shits as to whether it was actually a Chinese balloon, one of them was an Illinois Amateur Weather Balloon troupe’s device. They shot it down to drum up China hate, same with whenever they mentioned the war in Ukraine, they don’t talk about the internal debates within the CPC as to how they wanna deal with this diplomatically, they paint China as 100% pro Russia to scare Americans. They’re getting lazier and less creative. They barely even mention Xinjiang anymore because they’re quickly fucking off with the “Human Rights” narrative. Possibly because the US and allies are becoming less democratic and more brutal or possibly because human rights talk doesn’t whip up hatred like an active global threat does. Regardless of why, we can see a slight but significant change in US foreign policy (the way they sell it, the foreign policy itself isn’t changing)

[–] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml 38 points 1 year ago

Yeah, I think they're realizing that countries are starting to increasingly align towards China, and the whole HuMaN RigHTs rhetoric falls flat outside the west. So now it's all about China debt trap narrative.

[–] someuser123@lemmy.sdf.org 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's often just white people being racist. They already had a negative opinion of them, so propaganda works well.

[–] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml 33 points 1 year ago

That's a big part of it for sure, this is also what drives the whole Chinese people can't innovate and steal everything from the west narrative.

[–] comradebanan@lemmygrad.ml 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

ignorance is a great foundation for a fictional enemy

[–] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml 23 points 1 year ago
[–] redtea@lemmygrad.ml 20 points 1 year ago
[–] Dan@lemmygrad.ml 14 points 1 year ago
[–] quality_fun@lemmygrad.ml 13 points 1 year ago

because racism.

[–] AmerikaLosesWW3@lemmygrad.ml 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As an Asian diaspora I'm pretty worried, better get out fast before the concentration camps rise up.

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