https://twitter.com/IlhanMN/status/1362136748621463552
"Wait, social democracy is still just capitalist imperialism?"
"Always has been." 👨🚀 🔫 :yuri:
I normally defend AOC, Ilhan, et al. I still think overall they are a net "good" by a long shot. But there's no defending this take, nope.
Both moves are shitty and she deserves every criticism. But she's still better than 95% of members of Congress on everything else and these statements are symbolic. The US will be anti-China regardless of what Ilhan Omar says and the US will be pro-Turkey no matter the minor snubbing they get.
Twitter user "YoungLibertarian" (with dont step on snek PFP) said: "You have been actually based today"
Twitter user “YoungLibertarian”
Who I'm sure really cares about the plight of Muslims.
If you want the site to grow, maybe it's time to not throw a fit every time someone famous talks about this.
She's right about mass detention. No one was saying genocide here except you.
c'mon, shes the best person in congress, I think we can give her the benefit of the doubt. She was obviously talking about the concentration camps on the US border and accidently mistyped 'China' instead of 'the US'
c’mon,
if you have to start a sentence with this, you should just backspace the whole thing
'tankies' don't exist in any serious sense. The real 'tankies' are the libs and neocons who are currently cheering on their imperialist leaders rolling tanks through Syria.
Imagine thinking you're smart for pretending you don't know what a word means.
imagine being such an american nerd to unironically use the term in the first place on a leftist sub.
bIg lEtTeR sMaLl LeTtEr.
Literally not a single person here called it a genocide. I checked.
She abstained on the Armenian genocide vote ffs. She’s a joke. There’s more to this than just her having one bad take on a heavily propagandized matter
Indeed she did, but that makes this statement even more silly based on its timing and context
If this place wanted to “grow” (by your obviously misaligned metric), should the transphobes and other bigots have been tolerated and hand-held here? Any growth that requires us to parrot & tolerate reactionary lies and other awfulness is not “growth”, it’s throwing this place in the dumpster with the rest of the trash.
Education is the right approach on this and most foreign policy issues, not censure. We have so little real influence on what China does (or even on what the U.S. does to China), so a bad take on a foreign issue doesn't hurt anyone.
Most new users see it and are immediately turned off. I know I am.
how do you know what most new users think?
why are you turned off by debunking the equivalent of the incubator lies or WMD lies about Iraq?
yeah she's on the pay-no-mind list now. Rashida Tlaib has been repeating this garbage as well
yeah she’s on the pay-no-mind list now.
Hahahahaha what the fuck is this
She's like one of the 5 people in the congress that can accomplish the precursor steps for what you want to achieve and after 3 bad takes you are erasing her
congress that can accomplish the precursors steps for what you want to achieve
what are those steps, exactly? the dem primary demonstrated that nobody will be allowed to "accomplish" shit electorally. the entire system is rigged from top to bottom, and always has been
If that's your pov then you shouldn't have been paying any attention to her from the beginning
after the way she shredded Eliot Adams I had hoped she would know better than to signal boost this without looking into it, especially when no majority muslim country is backing the US narrative on this, but she's just another social imperialist willing to exploit jingoism for political points at home.
seeing the rigging up close and personal last year was a learning experience for me. what was it for you?
when no majority muslim country is backing the US narrative on this
Oh enough with this, Turkey extradited a lot of uyghur activists(the country that openly takes in islamic radicals that get kicked out from eu countries) to China 2 days after getting a deal passed for coronavac
Hahaha i checked the articles and one of them is full on chud
chapo.chat go a full day without posting conservative sources challenge fails once again
I mean, yeah. Turkey invests a lot in Somalia, which in turn makes her lenient about what Turkey does.
Just like how those "muslim majority countries" are silent about China's stuff.
Thanks for helping prove my point.
thank you, it has to do with not getting mad every time you see something you don't like
thank you, try not linking jacobin articles to a middle-eastern person to prove a point white dude
The only power that house reps have is to agitate and inform the working class. Literally screaming into a megaphone is all they can do besides supporting and organizing things in their home district. If the shit they're talking stinks then there is no value to them
Any American socialist movement is required to be anti-imperialist, or its worthless.
It's not socialism if you're just more equitably distributing the spoils of imperialism. I'm not going to tolerate throwing the nations we terrorize with the US military empire under the bus just so that some imperial core "leftists" can get free healthcare.
Right? Like maybe focus on that before seeking accountability based on what an evangelical Christians alleged using Google translate.
I’m not gonna say China can’t do better, as can pretty much everyone, but damn.
I've pretty much given up on this stuff because it's just so goddamn tiring. I've yet to find anything that I would consider a true genocide, but like fuck if I don't feel like some Holocaust denier because honestly some of the talking points aren't that far removed: "several foreign agencies visited the camps and found no issue" is not far off from "The Red Cross visited a concentration camp and found no sign of genocide", even if the reality might be different. "No Muslim country has condemned the camps"
feels like a no true Scotsman thing.(I misspoke here, see a couple follow up comments to see what I mean)I know it's all manufactured consent but f u c k if it isn't tiring to try and counter. Plus it makes me look like some raving conspiracy theorist, which gets in the way of doing actual work to get libs to shut the fuck up.
Also I don't wanna have the unfortunate possibility that we're wrong on this, and then I'm left with my pants down, y'know?I know that. You know that. The average left-of-centre person who's not already into the whole critical support for China thing doesn't know that. And unfortunately, it's not the hill I want to die on, because I'm not really a fan of incarceration in any case (yes, I'm aware these are re-education camps for extremists, no, I don't have a better idea, that doesn't mean I like it). There's so much propaganda to cut through to get the average left-of-centre person to the truth on the matter, enough that one missed step in the discussion and you lose them. I'm not good enough to do that, and it's an exhausting conversation to have. I leave it to other comrades.
A lot of the arguments against it have shades of real life holocaust denial arguments. Yes, there's a difference in the reality behind the arguments, but it's just that close enough to make the average person uncomfortable and I'm not nearly good enough with rhetoric or good enough at dealing with conflict to wanna get involved, y'know?
I feel you. I can pick up your slack in the posting wars comrade.
Yeah I mis-spoke, I'm not sure what the words I'm looking for are but like... every time I've brought it up I've got someone in my mentions (not here, natch) screaming about China pumping money into Muslim majority countries so they won't speak ill of them or some other silly shit, and it's absolutely silly shit, but then I've gotten wrapped up in a debate on hegemony and shit. I absolutely, personally, think that the fact no Muslim country has spoken against China on this to be extremely telling (that is, that the camps are not genocidal), but as I've mentioned in a few other comments, I come at this from the position of living and dealing with left-of-centre people who I don't want to alienate for a couple bits of political point scoring.
I come at this from the position of living and dealing with left-of-centre people who I don’t want to alienate for a couple bits of political point scoring.
You do you of course but this sort of compromise is always won by right wing views. The further left you are the i more rational and "reasonable" we believe to be so maybe just maybe it is ok to concede in one random point here and there and be pragmatic about, left unity and all that garbage nonsense.
The problem is life is dynamic and issues arise both old and new and if at every point you start to concede to right wing points eventually you are not a socialist or even a left winger but just an American
right wingercentrist/liberal.My point is for now you may believe conceding this is a compromise for the best except there is 100% there will be a new issue in the future that you'll either have to draw a line over or concede yet again. I'm not going to sit here and judge you since I don't know you personally, but honestly IMO this sort of attitude will not be sustainable long term.
It is ok to say hey I don't want to be at forefront of ideological battles with people that I care about in my life, but it is kind of shitty to pretend it is just about "political point scoring".
get ready for next year when everyone wants to boycott the olympics in china :)
Not even a bad thing. They think it will harm China but it is for the best these international sporting events have been a disaster for countries around the world. Greece went into serious debt in order to fund their event. Brazil fucked itself even at the hands of a left wing government hosting the World Cup which is now going to fucking Qatar.
Let the liberals boycott these events and then watch the spectacle of them trying to justify these institutions aren't just corrupt money laundering criminal organizations. Fuck sports.
unfortunate reality is that it could be some sort of cultural genocide, I.e. changing their way of life by coercion. At the same time, their independence will result in cute military bases and short range missiles on chinese border, and changing their way of life just the same. Shitshow all around, in conclusion, us empire delenda est
it could be some sort of cultural genocide, I.e. changing their way of life by coercion.
This is a massive allegation that needs clear evidence to support it.
People who live under American-imperialist soft power are too fucking comfortable throwing around accusations of genocide. They also have a horrible track record actually opposing genocide.
Which is why I specified cultural part? I don’t think they murder them or anything like that, I think they are trying to integrate them in their economy, which, depending on your view of china, can be construed as capitalist integration for exploitation or elevation to modern living standards
And I quoted the "cultural" part. Cultural genocide is the intentional destruction of cultural artifacts and the eradication of a cultural identity.
depending on your view of china, can be construed as capitalist integration for exploitation or elevation to modern living standards
Neither of these are cultural genocide.
If you read a report of residential (sorry was wrong word) schools in usa or australia or canada for native Americans from liberal source, what would be the markers of difference with re-education camps in china? The only thing I see is the age of students
If there was evidence of China separating families, forbidding native languages, erasing all references to Uighur cultural identity, and sterilizing women - I would reconsider my position.
The only thing I see is the age of students
You are either whitewashing American crimes against indigenous people, or pushing unverified genocide allegations against China. Which is it?
Like, I actually cannot believe you wrote that. What the fuck.
I’m strictly referring to the practice of carrying of young Native American children to schools circa start of 20th century I think, not wider american genocide. The alleged goal was to integrate native americans by force into “civilized” society.
If my post reads like I’m dismissing other crimes, I apologize, maybe I should be more precise in wording.
Separation of families is precisely the allegation against china, no? main difference is that kids are not ripped from family at non-speaking age, and their language forgotten, so that’s a plus.
Separation of families is precisely the allegation against china, no?
What is your evidence of this? Even the BBC's coverage of the camp covered the fact that students are only at the schools during the day.
CGTN made a couple videos providing more context for the boarding schools: https://youtu.be/fQuBCf_vWZY https://youtu.be/x99g4kua5s0
Basically education is mandatory and boarding schools make logistical sense due to how spread out people are in rural areas like those in Xinjiang.
I'll watch, this seems different than the schools that the BBC & CGTN were covering back in 2018.
Yeah boarding schools aren't re-education camps. How they relate is that supposedly children with both parents detained get put into orphanages or boarding schools (according to research from Zenz). In this case I'm inclined to believe the claim as it makes sense that children in these circumstances can't just be left alone. It also doesn't seem to be that big of deal since at least from the sources I've seen, people in the re-education camps maintain regular contact with family members remotely.
China is literally separating families though. They don't get to keep their children in the internment camps.
China is literally separating families though.
What is the evidence for this? Even the BBC's coverage of the vocational school highlighted the fact that attendants at the schools went home at night. Are you saying Uighurs can't bring their children to class?
Many of those reeducation camps have dorms where inmates live. Meanwhile, their children are put in boarding schools. Uighurs who move abroad have their children placed in orphaniches.
If you're not familiar with these practices, you clearly have not been paying attention. I'm not discussing this with you further. Educate yourself first.
I mean, Zenz being the author in and of itself doesn't prove this isn't happening to be fair.
The guardian article I found on the matter does indeed cite this Zenz article though lol: https://adrianzenz.medium.com/story-45d07b25bcad
Zenz cites spreadsheets from a "cache of over 25000 files from different government departments" which contain numbers on children in "difficult circumstances".
Honestly I'm inclined to believe him in this case considering how relatively common boarding schools seem to be in China and CGTN even made a video about them. That being said, I was under the impression they could still keep in touch with each over remotely based on the CGTN video and also on some supposedly leaked documents I saw a while ago: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6558510-China-Cables-Telegram-English.html
- Family education. Through letter writing, phone calls, video chats, visits, meetings, meals, etc., establish a mechanism for students and relatives to interact with each other, to ensure that the students will have a phone conversation with their relatives at least once a week, and meet via video at least once a month, to make their family feel at ease and the students feel safe.
Honestly I’m inclined to believe him in this case considering how relatively common boarding schools seem to be in China
That's a really effective way to make propaganda.
Boarding schools become forced and as evil as residential schools. Programs to bring in temporary labourers for seasonal work become slaves picking cotton.
It's not my job to dig through the internet for years old articles on your behalf.
As I said, if you haven't at least seen these allegations before, you're not paying attention and you're not worth talking to.
With the Xinjiang camps, I haven't seen evidence of and/or have seen evidence suggesting the lack of:
- sexual/physical assault
- terrible living conditions and deaths linked to said living conditions
- forced labour
- suppression of their native language/culture (I don't really consider mandatory Mandarin lessons in and of itself to be language suppression)
- extended durations without family contact
You can never show evidence that proves something isn't happening.
Show me evidence that you don't beat your wife.
Okay.
Where's the evidence 'suggesting' that you don't beat your wife?
Here's a really good video that talks about the problem you bring up.
Tl;dw the erasure and othering of a culture was an integral part of the original definition of genocide, but when counties were voting on language (I think in the UN) to determine what could be punished as a genocide, many member countries refused to sign a law that included cultural erasure, forced assimilation, and the like because they were afraid that they could be prosecuted under such a law.
So our narrow definition of genocide comes from a process where the criminals got to write the rulebook.
Good thing there are no liberals amongus :dun-dun-dun: :ancom-heart:
Edit: emphasis on real bugs me, maybe change it to physical?
Oh shit cultural genocide isn't real? Thank god that means the the irish weren't kept from speaking you know irish or that occitan is still a thriving and alive language, hey all those kids that got ripped from their families because they were roma and had to be 'civilized' it's ok it's a relatively peaceful integration program.
I'm Roma, tbh I wouldn't call what people did/do to us "cultural genocide" it is just straight up genocide. I don't know if there is a specific difference (ESL speaker)? But I don't see why it should be separated from a regular genocide and can feel like a downplay of the absolute horrendous extremes countries have gone to in trying to get rid of us completely. But again if there is a specific difference between genocide and cultural genocide, let me know. Maybe I am misinterpreting.
The original author who coined the term genocide would agree with your definition. The UN definition is narrower in scope, primarily because if it kept the original scope then many UN countries would refuse to sign the law out of fear they could be prosecuted for their own treatment of ethnic groups.
https://youtu.be/m316DcYhb8w
I'm sorry should we stop using the word cultural genocide because it could be used against leftist countries? Seriously fuck off if a government has systemically kept a people from speaking their language or passing on their culture or stop the teaching of said language and culture or tries to "educate" children in order to get rid of the 'unwanted' cultural elements I'm going to call it cultural genocide. If your honest line of thinking is "We shouldn't use words like cultural genocide because it could be used against countries like China" let me both put your mind at ease and tell you what I think. People already use that language and will continue to use that language whether all leftists stop using it or not, and second I don't fucking care about China, I'm not talking about China, I'm talking about cultural genocide being a real thing that has been used successfully and unsuccessfully to exterminate certain cultures, and I use exterminate quite deliberately here, I could give you other examples of cultural genocide where you can then go "Ok mass graves in Catalonia, enforced Castilian in schools as well as myriad of other things done under Franco were bad, but can we please not call it cultural genocide let's just call it Castillianization." like can we only call something a cultural genocide when it's accompanied by smokestacks burning people, like it needs more violence because you imagine the whole thing as a completly non-violent affair.
Can you suggest a name for it then? It’s ethnoculturecide? I agree the word is hyper charged tbh with images of death camps, which are not related to this.
Genocide is the word for this. The author who coined the term genocide considered the cultural erasure and othering of an ethnic group to be an integral part of the definition of genocide, and that these things by themselves were sufficient to label something as a genocide without needing mass murder in addition to these things.
The UN definition narrowed the scope of genocide because many member nations would refuse to sign a law that included cultural erasure, forced assimilation, and the like out of fear that they could be prosecuted under such a law. The idea that these things aren't as serious and don't count as "real" genocide is the result of the criminals getting to write the rulebook.
Here's a great video on the topic:
https://youtu.be/m316DcYhb8w
That’s what I’ve said though about end state though. I agree motivation of organizers is likely nefarious, but the fact that they find sympathetic ears indicates some deep problem on the ground, be it oil developments and immigration of Chinese engineers, or kneejerk reactions from changing world around them in general, or maybe something else.
I don’t have any issues with any of that, I find coercive vocational training problematic, but it’s hard to penetrate the degree of coercion through propaganda
In most cases participation in these vocational schools is voluntary. They encourage lots of people to sign up.
It's only mandatory in limited circumstances, such as if you have documented ties to extremist groups, or you have been convicted for a crime and have been assigned to a vocational school as part of your sentence.
And of course these kind of laws and programs can be abused, but I've seen absolutely nothing to suggest a pattern of abuse in any of the other policies, development, rhetoric, and practices in the region.
Regarding the genocide claims, my approach is to sweep aside the anecdotal reports from witnesses and say that I will only focus on the data cited in support of the claim.
The data is pretty sketchy and needs to rely on percentages to make the claims - 250 sterilisations per 100,000 people is not a genocide, and the idea that 80 percent of IUD installations are performed in Xinjiang is similarly ridiculous given the underlying source suggests it's a tenth of that.
Vocational and re-education centres are concerning but we're not proposing to invade France, and the sites identified as camps are clearly rubbish when you look at them on Google maps.
Oh yeah, I try to do that when I can, but on a smaller scale. I've brought some people personally around to it by pointing out how every claim loops back to Adrian Zenz, one whacked out guy, and how the majority of the numbers come from the most dubious of claims (1 guy in 8 random rural villages guessed at how many people are in camps, therefore it's millions being genocided, for instance). I try to sus that out one on one when I can.
It's a gamble I'm outwardly not willing to take. I'll be incredibly smug about it if we're all right and, I dunno, tomorrow the camps close because the last extremist has been re-educated and a search for graves turns up like... one guy who died of natural causes during the whole thing. But if I'm wrong? That's a lot of social capital to spend on that gamble.
As far as I'm aware, all the schools have closed over a year ago. There hasn't been any new terrorist attacks, and the deradicalization programs have been considered to be a success.
I get the hesitation, but the idea of mass tyrannical detainments in concentration camps just doesn't make sense. Primarily because that kind of extreme government repression would only create more radicalization which would result in more terrorist attacks and increasing sympathy for a separatist movement, but instead we see the opposite happen.
Psst, America is bad because it does Imperialism.
Its not that Imperialism is bad because America does it.
What? This is a nonsense comment. read Lenin. Imperialism is a feature of America, even if they stopped invading othwer countries America would still be imperialist because imperialism is a feature of Capitalism
re-read my comment. I'm saying that if your political philosophy begins with "There is a country USA, and a priori it is inherently bad due to its being America", its obviously utter shit. It should be something like "[...] is bad" Imperialism causes [...]", "America is doing Imperialism", "Thus America is bad" Personally, I've been trying to restrict making value-judgements to actions rather than people/things, so I'd say it as "America doing imperialism is bad".
America has also done anti-imperialist actions as well, (Suez Canal crisis for the rare example). If your ideology casts one group as purely evil villains that can do no good, its probably about as mature as a Superhero movie.
nooo you don't understand every solution has to fit rigid boundaries of ideology! you can't just take a careful, measured, and scientific approach to uniquely complex problems!
Any congressperson mentioning "accountability" seems hilaaaaaaaarious. :agony:
