I’m gonna need some real sources for this… And maybe even a definition.

You would need an example to talk about that.

You smooth brains really stretch far for a meme eh?

Dam, I feel bad for people like you.

You just gave away you have no idea what communism is.

Yikes, I was specifically referring to Muslims, but yeah looks like America isn’t even better than that.

Ah yes, insults, the highest form of conversation. Always indicates you are correct. Good job.

Ah yes, because we aren’t allowed to compare things right? It would be terrible if your country looked worse than the ones you demonize so hard.

Okay for me but not for thee

We put a lot of stock in personal stories, but we also pay a lot for incriminating evidence against China.

Do you know about the 1 child policy (That was recently ended?) And how that affects this? Because I actually looked into it. But I bet an online personality won’t change your mind. So I won’t even bother.

Remember America didn’t forcefully sterilize anyone. We just straight up bombed them, raped them, and shot them.

Your biases are showing.

It was a neutral way to summarize a long article.

And the argument from ignorance continues.

All I have to say is read more and be online less.

So… No, it’s not like Russia at all. But that nuance is too long for me to explain right now. Short answer is that Russia is capitalist, and China is 50/50 capitalist/socialist, depending on definitions, and yeah a lot of nuance.

But China is run by the people, their authoritarian politics keeps their billionaires and induatry in check. Their local politics is a negotiation with the national politics.

And… How exactly is China antagonizing nations abroad? Because a lot of countries are choosing to work with China because they AREN’T antagonizing them as much as America and Europe. So… The reality is the opposite.

I found this to be a decent enough primer: https://medium.com/@bobbyarlan/a-case-study-in-racist-anti-chinese-sentiment-fuelled-by-american-bots-and-western-propaganda-f0a69978d568

A decent TLDR: The article argues that anti-Chinese propaganda spread by the U.S. and Western media is fueling racist sentiment. Claims of mass detention of Uyghurs are based on flawed studies and sources like Adrian Zenz, a far-right Christian fundamentalist. Atrocity propaganda is a common tactic used by the U.S. to justify wars. The U.S. is threatened by China’s economic rise and technological progress, so it is trying to portray China negatively and prepare public opinion for a potential conflict. However, most of the world sees China positively and as an economic opportunity, making a new Cold War against China unlikely to succeed

In short, a lot of information about China that has come out of Western news media has been proven to be based on known biased sources, known anit-China rhetoric, and/or outright lies. It’s difficult to prove/disprove of any information specifically, that takes time and reporting, but a lot of people see the anti-China pattern in BBC reporting, and tend to dismiss it because of known history.

Wow, what? Communists talk openly about propaganda… You have no idea what you’re talking about.

We are well aware what our biases are. We are trying to get westerners to see their own biases. Being called out as hypocrites feels like an attack, but when we say everyone have biases, we know it’s true about us too.

Absorb news from a wide variety of sources, including sources from other countries, and you’ll see that the BBC is in fact biased against China.

It takes time, and reading a lot, and you won’t get it from Lemmy/Reddit/twitter(or X or whatever now)/FB. Even ground news only has so many sources. And you know what, the BBC does great coverage for a lot of things, they are a pretty high quality source for a lot of news. But yeah, everyone has biases, and the BBC is biased against China.

This is so key to propaganda. When researchers do a study on 58 people, you can barely claim you have a good representation of the population. And even in that case, if they are good, high quality researchers, they aren’t pushing any opinion, just stating facts. It’s just that 58 people can’t represent the population well, It’s just a starting point.

Now if we’re talking about an opinion and not just stated facts, 58 people is hardly representative, easy to manipulate, especially when you don’t have to cite specifics, just conclusion.

Okay, let’s assume these are facts. 58 people were threatened, etc. This is still propaganda. Opinion, and interpretation can push the conversation in one direction or the other very heavily.

For example, let’s draw a comparison to a system that people find more familiar (For westerners, at least), such as the united states police system or the FBI. How many US citizens are threatened to stop talking when pushing the limits of conversation publicly (Say, about calling out the inhumane treatment of others by the US military)? How many people have talked publicly about being approached by the FBI, or said they can’t comment on their interactions with the FBI, or of some private corporation that paid them off to keep their mouths shut about some insider deal, money laundering, or underage sex scandal? Governments and even private citizens coming after people who are talking shit publicly happens in capitalist states all the time.

And that’s just taking into account regular people who live in western countries. How about an even more direct comparison? The Uyghurs are Muslims that participated in terrorism in China, but the United States had Muslim terrorists of their own, what did they do? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_post-invasion_Iraq You can find all kinds of resources about the human rights violations that the united states participated in against the muslin people, even in western sources such as wikipidia, and others https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/03/iraq-20-years-since-the-us-led-coalition-invaded-iraq-impunity-reigns-supreme/ have lots and lots of facts surrounding this.

“rules for thee, but not for me” comes to mind.

Sorry didn’t mean to unload on you. I’m vehemently agreeing!

Wow, talk about conspiracy theories…

“Every person who doesn’t participate in Sinophobi is paid off by the Chinese government”

Like, really? You actually believe that? Was 911 an inside job? How hot DOES jet fuel get??? Is Q-anon real? Is the earth flat?

If you’ve ever debunked a conspiracy theory, you should reconsider the idea that maybe, just maybe, not everyone hates China. It’s probably more likely than you think…

Edit: And then they edited their comment to be more defensive instead. Perfect.

And I’m sure you’re an independent reporter from a neutral country that doesn’t benefit culturally from propaganda making communism look like fascism…

The more you bring it up the more people will respond…

Eh, it’s kinda both. Yes, it’s nice to stay on one topic like how we can make communism the best it can be and learn lessons of the past. But when people look at some of those decisions/theories and say “that sounds terrible, I’d rather keep what I have” then you really gotta cross-compare. America is only as well off as it is because of slavery, corruption, death and destruction. It’s just not death and destruction of their own people and land, so most American citizens don’t “see” that. Or if they do, it’s a “well, that sucks, we should do better” kind of thing, but lack real recognition that the system benefits them so much. As well, the capitalist autocracies have been way more deadly and authoritarian and corrupt than anything communist, and it’s important for people to learn about the differences.

A: “Communism is authoritarian” B: “Wehll, sometimes, but capitalism is too, and it is MUCH worse” A: “Don’t commit whataboutism” B: “Uhhhh, but we have to compare systems to know which is better and which is worse…”

Just IMHO.

You can’t just imagine some utopia where nobody has to work, and everything is free, and call that communism.

Those are the anarchists (usually, definitions get fuzzy)

Most communists recognize the need for a transition state, we call that Socialism.

This isn’t a utopia we’re pitching, it’s hard work, and there will always be controversy, and people will have to work, we will just work less, and we will strive toward working even less over time.

And that power will sooner or later be abused

There’s LOTS of evidence that, right now, under capitalism, that abuse is veeeeery bad. We can learn the lessons of previous socialist attempts, but capitalism? That’s shown to be corrupt and beyond repair.

As well, right now, under capitalism, your politicians are bought and paid for by capitalists. Power is already being abused beyond control. Under a socialist system, it would be illegal to donate to politicians. Political campaigns would run within a short, standardized window of time, with equal funding, and commercials would be illegal, it would just be a platform of ideas and opinions. The people would vote for the person who best represents them, normal people.

This exist in Cuba, right now. It’s SO much harder to take power from a system that actually represents regular citizens, instead of a system that is bought and paid for by the highest bidder.

Capitalist citizens tend to do better because their private organizations & government are willing to oppress the people in other parts of the world in order to extract their wealth. Communists respect the lives of poor people and refuse to take advantage of that, or oppress them further.

If a capitalist nation is completely cut off from the rest of the world they become fascist very quickly (Germany, middle east, etc. etc.), when a communist nation is cut off from the rest of the world they become poor (Cuba, USSR, East Germany, etc. etc.).

I don’t think the argument of “I’m rich therefore I’m better than you” is really a strong one.

When all else is equal, life is better under communism for the vast majority of people, just not the wealthy people of capitalist nations. But even for the capitalist “middle class”, when it comes to the essentials (Food, water, housing, healthcare, equality among women, minorities, etc.), communists still beat capitalists.

Okay so I was going to type out a whole long thing debating each point individually. But now I feel like not only do we see more eye to eye than not, the point is getting really nuanced for a written discussion like this.

I don’t see it going that way, therefore, revolution is what it will take.

Suppose I agree to that. But a revolution requires a design of the force to make it reality, and a design of the system which it will install. Both very specific, as systems intended to work very reliably.

This is the only quote I want to respond to specifically. I actually think that based on this comment you understand my perspective. I want to make things better, and if I saw things getting better slowly, I would be convinced. But I’m not convinced, I see things going in the wrong direction.

In the end, every time we make progress as a society, we take five steps back somewhere else. Between my career, my partners career, the statistics I read about online, what people say in countries other than the united states, all I see are steps being taken in the wrong direction, by the people who are currently in charge (In America and other capitalist nations), who do not care about the needs of the regular person, and will not change their mind without being forced too.

In the end we can look at theory, and talk about the previous attempts at communism. The USSR and how they ran their government, China and how they run their government, Cuba, Vietnam, etc. We can learn from these countries experiments and we can try to improve on them if we want to make similar changes ourselves but without the disadvantages.

I will end this comment with this thought: Capitalism took a long time to become successful, there were many false starts and a significant amount of controversy during the transition. Life was not easy after capitalism started, and many people wanted to go back to Feudalism. Capitalism eventually became quite successful for the majority of people for a very long time, but as time grew on, we’ve started to see the limits of capitalist growths and we’re starting to see how this leads to monopolies and a preservation of power. Communism has a beginning, but I don’t believe we’re at the end.