a lot of the state department propaganda topics around china are extremely cringe, it also emboldens a whole forgetton of xenophobia around asia as a whole
Examples showing it's xenophobia, but also, federal propaganda always is stuff tbh.
the chinese government has done a lot of bad things but some of the bad things they do are directly comparable to what western countries already do, which is why listening to washington post say that china is the new Riddler for befriending the taliban (in their mutual best interest) is just dumb and has no nuance. theres this extreme circlejerk online of mistranslated articles and "china bad" and it just heavily reminds me of cold war propaganda and the iraq war propaganda.
Yes, they're not the new Riddler for befriending the taliban. They're the new Riddler for having racially and religiously defined discrimination, as well as
literal concentration camps. Not to mention the deliberate manipulation of their currency to keep their wage slaves in place.
Certainly the west is guilty of enabling this bs, and even mirroring it. But it's controlled and caused by the same corporate interests that have allowed this to go
as far as it has in china. In fact, because of our insistence on deregulating our trade policies and degrading everything down to the dollar, we are enabling this bullstuff.
I've tried time and time again to convince people not to buy things made in china, but they always tell me one of three things:
1. If everyone else isn't going to do it, why should I?
2. The government should be fixing this.
3. I can't afford to do that.
1 is the mind trap we convince use to convince ourselves not to give up comfort. 2 is bullstuff, the government is causing this, they won't "fix it".
3. I'm sorry to hear that, but it's because of this system you can't afford anything but cheap made in china trash.
that being said, simping for xi going "i promise guys i promise ill make a communist utopia once we make a totalitarian enough state guys i promise" is also extremely cringe. you are very right to say that china is a hyper capitalist oligarchy
Those who push hard on Capitalism and those who push hard on Communism don't really hate eachother. They need eachother.
America once held a balance of values that would now be considered "hypocritical", and would seem to be somone trying to be both
Communist and Capitalist. When in reality, Untethered Capitalism and Full Swing Communism are basically the same outcome, with different steps.
Despite what any Capitalist/Communist says. America is NOT a capitalist country at it's core. It's a Democratic Republic. We're in a dangerous
Position because we keep begging for a silver bullet from the government to kill the evil bad things. But that's so childish, stupid and ignorant it
hurts. But people are desperate. They want things fixed, and they want it fixed yesterday. But that's just not realistic.
Nevertheless, someone comes along offering such a silver bullet, but it's almost certainly a scam. "Just remove all the Regulations"/"Just give
us the ability to redistribute the wealth" because it will "fix" everything.
Things are too broken for one simple idea to solve the problem. However, the first step on the road to healing is to excise all the establishment
and spineless politicians in every election. Incumbents must go. Then we will eventually start seeing negotiable politicians.
Then, the best option is probably to redesign the electoral process, as first past the post is primitive and broken. Thankfully that can be done
on a state by state basis. The electoral college is going to need some reworking, like a ton. We have a floor limit for electoral votes per state, but
we almost certainly need a ceiling limit as well. The electoral vote is for the presidency, the president is supposed to represent the culmination of all
cultures in the US, not the 51 vs 49% majority. We see ourselves as a single nation, which technically we are. But we're more like a union of nations.
Hence the "united states". Congress is supposed to represent the raw majority, and the senate is supposed to be a mix of the two.
But if we were to have ranked choice electoral college voting for the presidency, we'd have to account for all votes nationwide, and it would certainly get messy.
Very messy.
its always good to do your own research and to directly talk to people in other countries when it comes to researching anything foreign policy-related. do not blindly trust anything the government says because thats how we got the post-911 hysteria about muslims and the war on terror. and im not talking about like right-wing billionaire-backed defectors or propagandists (like how steve bannon loves to pay random chinese people to "speak out" against the CCP by just making stuff up), just talk to real life people you trust.
Drugs, 9/11, Covid-19.
These all started from a reasonable perspective. And then they talked us out of more and more of our rights.
We can't carry large sums of cash legally anymore. We can't travel through airports without having our person
completely violated. And we can not even live our lives like we used to because of a reasonable issue.
"it's only temporary" is the biggest lie a government tells people.
Post 9/11 security measures weren't supposed to last. But here they are.
It was only supposed to be 15 days to slow the spread. And then it was only until we had a vaccine.
It's only more of your rights. And by the time it's popular to talk about how they stole your rights away, the next
right grabbing situation will be labelled "conspiratorial" and insane through association.
People who were talking about the issues regarding people's rights after 9/11 were commonly associated with 9/11 truthers.
Discredited for being crazy. But the Patriot act is still here. The goverment was spying on us, and likely still is.
It's why after the election, when I saw Qanon bs pop up clear out of nowhere, I knew something was up.
Genuine concerns get doused with the gasoline of Unrealistic Conspiracy theories, and they become discredited by association.
This happens to any position that is considered dangerous by the powers that be. It's an easy and basic tactic using modern strategies.
Divide and Conquer.
Mask and Vaccine mandates are commonly associated now with Anti-Vaxxers and Covid Deniers. When the concern is not in the Mask or the Vaccine, but the slippery slope of decreed mandates. But normal people will nolonger dare to publicly state their opinion, because they're afraid of being labelled a nut.
Being anti-war and against invading the middle east was associated with 9/11 truthers and terrorist sympathizers. The concern was wasting money in another hopeless war, all the while people's rights became slowly removed.
Remember when you could get on a plane without insane privacy invasion? Remember when you could go to public events without needing transparent bags, backpacks, purses, etc.
Soon it will be "Remember when you could go outside without 2 masks, a vaxx app and a constant fear of someone arbitrarily denying you entry, or worse?"
As it has become in Australia.