Ahhh yes. This reminds me SO much of my edgy high school years. It was our little grassroots movement vs the world! And we had EVERYTHING figured out. No one could tell us that we’re wrong in any way and we had Pat Benetar to back that up!
We knew it all!
Then we grew up and realized we didn’t know shit. We found out that the world doesn’t work the way we want it to and it never will, because we aren’t the only ones that live here. Looking back, it was incredibly stupid and naive to think that life in politics were that simple.
“Just do this thing we want! It’s that easy!”
and…
“We reject your reality and replaced it with our own!”
The problem is: the rest of the world didn’t work with the reality we created for ourselves.
Man… I miss those days, but living in reality has its merits as well. One of them is being taken seriously by people regardless of whether or not I share a core political values.
I hope you get the same chances I did. But times are VERY different. You may not be afforded the luxury to have the freedoms I had come January.
Now, go on- say something edgy so everyone knows you didn’t just get wrecked.
I think very few do. China is an antagonist to MANY countries. You think America is bad, china is doing exactly what you accuse America of, they just are FAR more subtle about it.
What makes me laugh about tankies, is that you support an ideology that stands in defiance of the freedoms you have. Including the freedom you have to chose who to support.
What makes me laugh about tankies, is that you support an ideology that stands in defiance of the freedoms you have. Including the freedom you have to chose who to support.
Well said.
I understand and respect looking up to the achievements of smaller communist states that actually care about their own citizens wellbeing and lack the desire to exploit foreign nations, but China, Russia, and North Korea aren’t in that list. Being a powerless citizen of the United States or other (non-EU) Western countries sucks, but it usually doesn’t suck as badly as being a powerless citizen of those three.
I think the US is worse. Even if you think China is a subtle imperial power (how is that supposed to work, exactly?) then you have to acknowledge they’re the lesser of two evils. Unless you think you’re going to dream up an idealist third option to replace them both?
The US might be a capitalist, colonialist country sprinkled with panderings of faux-socialism and heading towards fascism, but I would hardly call that an improvement over another capitalist-in-all-but-name, fascist, colonialist country with eroded communist foundations.
Whatever atrocities you believe the US is committing in terms of subjugating and exploiting poorer countries and its own working class, China is doing the same thing but only with a bit more subtlety.
When was the last time China invaded an oil-rich country, overthrew their government, and killed a million people?
If you want to dream up Chinese imperialism whenever China builds roads in another country, you still have to grapple with the fact that they don’t build those roads on the graves of martyrs that died trying to defend their homeland.
Considering China is allied with Russia and buys nearly half of their crude oil exports, they haven’t needed to invade other countries for oil. I’ll give you that, but at the same time, they’re also indirectly assisting and allied with a country that is happily trying to extinguish the entirety of Ukraine.
Roads and ports. With abusive conditions that all but make it impossible for the poorer countries to satisfy their terms, ultimately leading to China being free to claim the infrastructure they built on foreign soil as their own. They might not be as obvious about it as the United States, but they are still a captialist, colonialist country antithetical to communist goals.
Every global superpower does their fair share of this shit. The countries we should actually be looking up to are the socialist/communist ones that rapidly accelerated their growth and citizens’ quality of life before being destabilized by an existing global superpower (usually, the United States).
they’re also indirectly assisting and allied with a country that is happily trying to extinguish the entirety of Ukraine.
Hyperbole does not help your case.
A war to extinguish a nation looks more like what Israel is doing in Gaza. Compare the number of children, medical staff, UN aid workers, and other noncombatants that have been murdered. Compare the total eradication of all homes, businesses, universities, hospitals, religious institutions, historic sites. Russia, by contrast, is waging a war of conquest and assimilation.
All China is doing is trading with them, and not even trading weapons or munitions! It’s just normal commerce. Let’s compare again with Israel and how the US is providing it unlimited bombs and heavy equipment and fucking jets it needs to do its genocide.
When you compare the two the stark contrast makes your hyperbolic claims into a joke.
With abusive conditions that all but make it impossible for the poorer countries to satisfy their terms,
They forgive the loans they give to those poorer countries when they can’t repay and are always willing to refinance.
Compare that to the IMF which sells off public assets to private interests and imposes austerity measures onto the people, letting the US infiltrate the government and set up counter-terror operations and win exclusive trade deals to superexploit the people.
Again, compare and contrast. The US isn’t merely worse, it has different objectives. One is imperialist, one is internationalist.
Every global superpower does their fair share of this shit. The countries we should actually be looking up to are the socialist/communist ones that rapidly accelerated their growth and citizens’ quality of life before being destabilized by an existing global superpower (namely, the United States).
This is why China is the way it is. China has to ally itself with Russia and it has to wield state capitalism, or else it would end up the same as every other socialist experiment the US destroyed. If China cut off every country that US says is evil then it will lose all its allies, and then the US will just turn around and declare that the world needs to stop doing business with China.
Instead, China saw right through that, and with BRICs the dedollerization of the global economy is inevitable. The Communist Party of China has done more to destroy US imperialism than any communist party in every other country combined.
When was the last time the US tried to erase a people’s culture? And when was the last time China tried that? When was the second to last time China tried that? What about the third to last time?
Both countries are imperialistic in different ways. One does most of its atrocities to the citizens of other countries and one does most of its atrocities to its own citizens. Neither should be looked up to.
When was the last time the US committed cultural genocide?
When it caused one million deaths in Iraq through direct and indirect warfare for no reason. It currently has a direct hand in the genocide happening in Gaza right now.
Or how about when ICE was caught sterilizing migrant women in detention centers? They were doing that as recently as 2020, and there’s a long history of forced sterilization in the US.
Compare and contrast. Look at Gaza, look at Xinjiang province, try to spot the difference! Can you do it?
Neither should be looked up to.
There’s no other choice. You can’t just think up an idealistic imaginary third option. The US or China. Choose
There’s no other choice. You can’t just think up an idealistic imaginary third option. The US or China. Choose
There are other choices. There is no forced binary. There are around 200 countries currently in existence that you can look up to and many more past countries that no longer exist that you can look up to too. Or, like me, you can not look up to any country. The perfect system doesn’t have to be already invented and in practice. Karl Marx did not look up to any countries when creating his system.
I believe that every country currently in existence has flaws and do not look up to any of them.
Killing civilians in Iraq is evil. Killing civilians in Gaza is evil. Sterilizing people is evil. The USSR and US proxy wars were evil. Installing dictators in South America is evil. None of these, however, are an attempt to erase a culture. There is a thriving hispanic culture in the US and the US government isn’t erasing it. There are thriving sub cultures for every out-group in the US.
Not that erasing a culture is more or less evil than these things. I do not engage in the ranking of atrocities. Atrocities are atrocities and I hate them all.
Erasing the culture of the Uyghurs is also evil. Sterilizing Uyghurs is evil. Invading and erasing the culture of Tibet is evil. Erasing the culture of all of China with the cultural revolution is evil. One child policy is evil.
Removing citizens’ rights to talk freely about the government and society and protest what they dislike about them is evil. Censorship is evil. I’m in the US and I said all that about the US being evil and am not going to face any consequences and my comment will not be taken down.
Not recognizing same sex marriage is evil. Someone who claims to be queer ought to recognize that and not look up to countries which don’t recognize it.
There are other choices. There is no forced binary. There are around 200 countries currently in existence that you can look up to and many more past countries that no longer exist that you can look up to too.
Thank you! Exactly! It’s not just the US or China/Russia/NK. There are a couple hundred options, many of which are happy to coexist and aren’t vying to become the one true empire of the planet.
No, we left this lib behind a long time ago.
We’re all China-stans now.
Aaaaaand that’s why no one takes your seriously.
Oh no, libs don’t take me seriously! 😭
Ahhh yes. This reminds me SO much of my edgy high school years. It was our little grassroots movement vs the world! And we had EVERYTHING figured out. No one could tell us that we’re wrong in any way and we had Pat Benetar to back that up!
We knew it all!
Then we grew up and realized we didn’t know shit. We found out that the world doesn’t work the way we want it to and it never will, because we aren’t the only ones that live here. Looking back, it was incredibly stupid and naive to think that life in politics were that simple.
“Just do this thing we want! It’s that easy!”
and…
“We reject your reality and replaced it with our own!”
The problem is: the rest of the world didn’t work with the reality we created for ourselves.
Man… I miss those days, but living in reality has its merits as well. One of them is being taken seriously by people regardless of whether or not I share a core political values.
I hope you get the same chances I did. But times are VERY different. You may not be afforded the luxury to have the freedoms I had come January.
Now, go on- say something edgy so everyone knows you didn’t just get wrecked.
What the fuck are you talking about? I’m siding with China. You know, the worlds second largest economy? A billion people?
Hardly a little grassroots movement. I live in the reality where China is the only serious challenge to the US. What about you?
So… you’re a non-Chinese citizen- … siding with China. That’s about as grass roots as it gets.
Do you think zero people outside of China look up to their accomplishments?
I think very few do. China is an antagonist to MANY countries. You think America is bad, china is doing exactly what you accuse America of, they just are FAR more subtle about it.
What makes me laugh about tankies, is that you support an ideology that stands in defiance of the freedoms you have. Including the freedom you have to chose who to support.
Fucking hilarious.
Well said.
I understand and respect looking up to the achievements of smaller communist states that actually care about their own citizens wellbeing and lack the desire to exploit foreign nations, but China, Russia, and North Korea aren’t in that list. Being a powerless citizen of the United States or other (non-EU) Western countries sucks, but it usually doesn’t suck as badly as being a powerless citizen of those three.
I think the US is worse. Even if you think China is a subtle imperial power (how is that supposed to work, exactly?) then you have to acknowledge they’re the lesser of two evils. Unless you think you’re going to dream up an idealist third option to replace them both?
The US might be a capitalist, colonialist country sprinkled with panderings of faux-socialism and heading towards fascism, but I would hardly call that an improvement over another capitalist-in-all-but-name, fascist, colonialist country with eroded communist foundations.
Whatever atrocities you believe the US is committing in terms of subjugating and exploiting poorer countries and its own working class, China is doing the same thing but only with a bit more subtlety.
When was the last time China invaded an oil-rich country, overthrew their government, and killed a million people?
If you want to dream up Chinese imperialism whenever China builds roads in another country, you still have to grapple with the fact that they don’t build those roads on the graves of martyrs that died trying to defend their homeland.
Considering China is allied with Russia and buys nearly half of their crude oil exports, they haven’t needed to invade other countries for oil. I’ll give you that, but at the same time, they’re also indirectly assisting and allied with a country that is happily trying to extinguish the entirety of Ukraine.
Roads and ports. With abusive conditions that all but make it impossible for the poorer countries to satisfy their terms, ultimately leading to China being free to claim the infrastructure they built on foreign soil as their own. They might not be as obvious about it as the United States, but they are still a captialist, colonialist country antithetical to communist goals.
Every global superpower does their fair share of this shit. The countries we should actually be looking up to are the socialist/communist ones that rapidly accelerated their growth and citizens’ quality of life before being destabilized by an existing global superpower (usually, the United States).
Hyperbole does not help your case.
A war to extinguish a nation looks more like what Israel is doing in Gaza. Compare the number of children, medical staff, UN aid workers, and other noncombatants that have been murdered. Compare the total eradication of all homes, businesses, universities, hospitals, religious institutions, historic sites. Russia, by contrast, is waging a war of conquest and assimilation.
All China is doing is trading with them, and not even trading weapons or munitions! It’s just normal commerce. Let’s compare again with Israel and how the US is providing it unlimited bombs and heavy equipment and fucking jets it needs to do its genocide.
When you compare the two the stark contrast makes your hyperbolic claims into a joke.
They forgive the loans they give to those poorer countries when they can’t repay and are always willing to refinance.
Compare that to the IMF which sells off public assets to private interests and imposes austerity measures onto the people, letting the US infiltrate the government and set up counter-terror operations and win exclusive trade deals to superexploit the people.
Again, compare and contrast. The US isn’t merely worse, it has different objectives. One is imperialist, one is internationalist.
This is why China is the way it is. China has to ally itself with Russia and it has to wield state capitalism, or else it would end up the same as every other socialist experiment the US destroyed. If China cut off every country that US says is evil then it will lose all its allies, and then the US will just turn around and declare that the world needs to stop doing business with China.
Instead, China saw right through that, and with BRICs the dedollerization of the global economy is inevitable. The Communist Party of China has done more to destroy US imperialism than any communist party in every other country combined.
Grow up.
When was the last time the US tried to erase a people’s culture? And when was the last time China tried that? When was the second to last time China tried that? What about the third to last time?
Both countries are imperialistic in different ways. One does most of its atrocities to the citizens of other countries and one does most of its atrocities to its own citizens. Neither should be looked up to.
When it caused one million deaths in Iraq through direct and indirect warfare for no reason. It currently has a direct hand in the genocide happening in Gaza right now.
Or how about when ICE was caught sterilizing migrant women in detention centers? They were doing that as recently as 2020, and there’s a long history of forced sterilization in the US.
Compare and contrast. Look at Gaza, look at Xinjiang province, try to spot the difference! Can you do it?
There’s no other choice. You can’t just think up an idealistic imaginary third option. The US or China. Choose
There are other choices. There is no forced binary. There are around 200 countries currently in existence that you can look up to and many more past countries that no longer exist that you can look up to too. Or, like me, you can not look up to any country. The perfect system doesn’t have to be already invented and in practice. Karl Marx did not look up to any countries when creating his system.
I believe that every country currently in existence has flaws and do not look up to any of them.
Killing civilians in Iraq is evil. Killing civilians in Gaza is evil. Sterilizing people is evil. The USSR and US proxy wars were evil. Installing dictators in South America is evil. None of these, however, are an attempt to erase a culture. There is a thriving hispanic culture in the US and the US government isn’t erasing it. There are thriving sub cultures for every out-group in the US.
Not that erasing a culture is more or less evil than these things. I do not engage in the ranking of atrocities. Atrocities are atrocities and I hate them all.
Erasing the culture of the Uyghurs is also evil. Sterilizing Uyghurs is evil. Invading and erasing the culture of Tibet is evil. Erasing the culture of all of China with the cultural revolution is evil. One child policy is evil.
Removing citizens’ rights to talk freely about the government and society and protest what they dislike about them is evil. Censorship is evil. I’m in the US and I said all that about the US being evil and am not going to face any consequences and my comment will not be taken down.
Not recognizing same sex marriage is evil. Someone who claims to be queer ought to recognize that and not look up to countries which don’t recognize it.
Thank you! Exactly! It’s not just the US or China/Russia/NK. There are a couple hundred options, many of which are happy to coexist and aren’t vying to become the one true empire of the planet.