Bottom text.

Edit: The user who posted the imsge on LSC deleted their account lol

  • toledosequel [none/use name]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I saw some pretty convincing shit about the all liberal subs being astroturfed so that wouldn't surprise me but it's really not that hard to imagine a western leftist being a China hawk.

  • Edelgard [she/her]
    ·
    3 years ago

    :reddit-logo:s content team is literally run by an ex-CIA agent, so yeah, it is.

  • barrbaric [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Nah, most "left" people on reddit are still new to leftism (or just think they're left for being a "progressive liberal") and haven't broken through the propaganda yet.

    • FunkyStuff [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      The op part is stunting the development of said "left" people by making leftism a matter of consumption choices and what manner of hot takes you're allowed to post.

        • Des [she/her, they/them]
          ·
          3 years ago

          shove them into a narrow pipeline that hits a brick wall at mild socdem. then they are trapped in useless electoral politics making zero progress against the machine until they burn out, give up, and slump back into apolitical nilhism.

  • Owl [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    We've been having on and off waves of chinabad floating through every online community I'm in for a few years now, but I do think this latest wave feels a little different. More stiff and perfunctory? Maybe it's a shift from people parroting the latest op-ed from their favorite news mag, to some sort of more direct application of suits writing comments. Or maybe it's just the same people parroting the opinions the news tells them to have so that teacher will give them a treat, but now it's more desperate because the treats aren't flowing.

      • Phillipkdink [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Honestly there's times where I don't want to bother. My city's subreddit now does a dogpile against any politician who does any sort of diplomatic event with China. It's like, fuck man, you know all they're doing to do it search my comments and they'll easily see I'm a communist and then disregard everything I say.

    • Sandinband [any, comrade/them]
      ·
      3 years ago

      I think the wave we're in now is in relation to there being less "china is commuting genocide" propaganda and some people feel like if they keep bringing it up that will get it in the news again which will...do something? I guess

    • SerLava [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      people were cheering for the coup in Bolivia against Evo and even on Chapo’s old reddit,

      What?? Who the fuck, I'm about to throw fucking hands

    • apparitionist [none/use name]
      ·
      3 years ago

      people were cheering for the coup in Bolivia against Evo and even on Chapo’s old reddit,

      "Even DemSocs are doing imperialism" Bro, the Green New Deal is literally greenwashed capitalism. There's no person more likely to support action against rare earth mineral horders

      • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
        ·
        edit-2
        3 years ago

        Bro, the Green New Deal is literally greenwashed capitalism.

        No, it isn't. The GND is about implementing a publicly owned and operated green energy grid. It got shot down precisely because capitalist interests preferred an extra point or two of global warming to a national Tennessee Valley Authority eating away at their profits straight into the 22nd century.

        The current capital mode is spinning up large amounts of privatized green energy, battery technology, potable water, and arable land in order to entrench the status quo for another hundred years. The deadlock in Congress facilitates this transition, as the public sector is further de-legitimized and the private sector is further valorized. Eventually, we'll get to the point at which "democracy is bad" is an idea that can be explicitly sold to large portions of the public. Keeping programs like the GND off the table is a big part of that transition.

    • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
      ·
      3 years ago

      So much of the critique of Latin America came entirely from ignorance. There's a great book called "Building the Commune", by George Ciccariello-Maher, that talks about how Venezuelans have begun to transition out of the capitalist economic system, to diversify and localize their economic system, and to genuinely focus on improved quality of life over simple ever-increasing productivity and consumption.

      The Chinese had the advantage of a massive population and a huge reserve of domestic natural resources to draw from. But this kind of systematic change is happening everywhere - from Cuba to Best Korea to Vietnam - not only because people have begun to embrace a socialist model but because they need to in order to survive. The American way of life is no longer the envy of the world. I think that, as much as anything, is driving a shift in rhetoric. It was very easy to say "Venezuelans fucked up" in 2016, when the oil shock wounded the nation. It is much harder to say "Venezuela fucked up" in 2021, when COVID shock has wounded ours.

  • ComradeBongwater [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    "The anti-China shit on all the left subreddits is starting to feel like an op."

    :astronaut-2: :astronaut-1:

  • cokedupchavez [none/use name]
    ·
    3 years ago

    i think the whole anti-tankie thing is an op. it came so fucking quickly. in the bernie days nobody cared about the deep left like it just suddely took over the entire left space

        • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
          ·
          3 years ago

          And subsequently banned for being too Chapo-adjacent, yeah.

          Either way, the term "tankie" is just an upgraded term for "Antifa" or "Stupid Leftist" or "Naderite" or "Card Carrying Member of the ACLU". There was always a word for "people who are so left that they are crazy" and this is just the latest iteration.

          The only appropriate response is :tankie: . Really fucks with the Neoliberals, because you know that gang would have loved Dukakis 40 years ago.

      • cokedupchavez [none/use name]
        ·
        3 years ago

        oh was that word commonly used back then? i thought that totally resurfaced last year except for in fringe trot circles

        • PorkrollPosadist [he/him, they/them]
          ·
          edit-2
          3 years ago

          r/ChapoTrapHouse was at the bleeding edge of Reddit culture (in both positive and negative aspects). A lot of discussions, arguments, terminology, snowclones, and memes originated there and flowed downstream to the defaults and r/all.

          For instance, someone did a data visualization on the use and spread of "OK Boomer" and r/CTH was the vanguard. The same could very well be true of the "tankie" discourse, considering the fact that it only gets worse as it rolls downhill like a giant Katamari ball of dog shit.

    • blairbnb [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      i think more and more people (me included) looked at the failure of the bernie+corbyn projects and only went further left, i would openly describe myself as a marxist leninist communist now but it took me about 5 years to get here. i imagine there are many others who have followed a similar path.

      • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
        ·
        3 years ago

        i would openly describe myself as a marxist leninist communist now but it took me about 5 years to get here

        Honestly, I still stick with "Independent". Anything else is too much of a mouthful, and its the sort of non-answer that leaves people receptive to what you say next because its too difficult to pigeon-hole. Just shamelessly co-opting the Third Way rhetoric, because its a great way to get people to engage you further rather than doing the click-whirr mental shutdown they're programmed to do when they hear the C-word.

  • FidelCashflow [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    I think a big part of it is bots automatically upvoting and downvoting based on state department talking points. I one time on a small sub about mall swords posted with thr ironic title of something like, "china bad" and I got the record for upvotes on that sub. So some bot noticed the post, then just dumped more upvotes on my post than there were peopel that used thr sub. It's eazy to see that if I was liberal how that could cook my noodle into posting more anti china stuff

  • Cummunism [they/them, he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    dipshit leftists exists too. I know one in real life, will take all leftists positions but will then align with the State Dept on who the "evil" countries are.

          • s0ykaf [he/him]
            ·
            3 years ago

            Have you asked them to explain China - Palestine friendliness

            i've seen commies from my party saying china is actually incredibly imperialistic towards palestine for buying arms from israel and supposedly killing some traditional textile industry from palestine through market competition

            not even western communists btw, hoxhaists can be a bit cuckoo

              • s0ykaf [he/him]
                ·
                edit-2
                3 years ago

                supposedly giving israel money means feeding imperialism, which makes china imperialist by association

                  • s0ykaf [he/him]
                    ·
                    3 years ago

                    that's pretty much my take on it

                    i get the feeling that people tend to use "imperialism" to describe every single instance of "reprehensible foreign policy" which is just stupid

  • LeninsRage [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    mate it's been at least three years since this became particularly noticeable

  • Zodiark [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Americans have no future, most people can see the vague shape of the cliff we are barreling toward but most have no real understanding of what to do about it. Combine that with the way our most popular media is largely built on nostalgia and a generation who had most of their childhood robbed by our ridiculous draconian school systems, poverty, etc. you have a whole shitload of people who just want to live out an escapist fantasy in a more hedonistic version of their childhood, a time before capitalist society had drained us all of joy.

    Also younger generations are having less kids so there are more people celebrating the nostalgic aspects in the absence of kids of their own to shape how they view the holiday. People with kids on the other hand have the Nostalgic aspects to bond over since the most prevalent popular media is recycled and rebooted from their own childhoods.

    -Nakoichi

    What better way to fill the void and absentee narrative to your own life and the course your nation is taking than by filling it with an oppoisition to defy? "China's responsible for your material decline. It's not just liberals , Middle Easterners, etc. As soon as we harvest and feed off China, then you can have your Eden."

    If you can't have meaning, then you can have stuff, you can have your bread and circuses back. And we get new and more stuff by ruining other nations and other people, and our own people.

    • Tapirs10 [undecided,she/her]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Starting to feel more organized vs genuine opinions people have to the extent that any western person can have genuine opinions on China uninfluenced by propaganda