LMFAO. This meme makes me second-hand embarrassed for Europeans. For 3 reasons.
First, it is politically illiterate and whoever made it is clearly not a serious person.
Second, pretending you’re in Star Wars? Really?
Third, you have not and will never be the ‘good guys’ in any sort of fight, as long as you are a union of capitalist nations still feasting off of the stolen wealth of the global south.
Ah Europe famous for
colonization, slave trade, racism, the literal nazisbeing the good guys?Y’all I’m an American and fuck my country and fuck the current Russian state but fuck Europe even more tbh.
Also what are you hating on China for? Guess that’s European racism again.
I mean double and triple fuck Europe but fuck them more than the literal scourge plaguing the whole planet? Doubtful
I could see a reasonable take that the USA is worse. Especially if you’re just thinking about current events. As long as you’re saying fuck Europe too I consider us on the same side.
Agree
👈😎
The only thing Europe did wrong was causing the fall of Rome. Everything that came after that was just a consequence.
Rise again, Italy, and claim what is yours. The world.
You gotta use the tone indicators haha
Yeah can’t let go of the past, im still mad about the bacteria that killed my ancestor before we evolved out of the ocean
What a brain dead and privileged take. Exactly how long are people allowed to be upset for? Would you say that shit to a holocaust survivor.
White people smh
Yes. I would, if they were still mad at the present german government.
Well my comment is in the past so just disregard that
The present German government that is presently elbow-deep in another Holocaust?
Ironic I’m not white, I’m Australian Aboriginal, every year on the 25th of January people getting shitty about the invasion of Australia.
I think get over it my grandmother was stolen generation but I’m not beating my chest about it
Lastly saying “White people smh” is still racist.
Imagine someone said black people smh because of their opinions
Solid mate
LMAO
INCREDIBLE
A bunch of African countries just threw off French colonial control like, three years ago, and are still being vilified for it. This shit is extremely current and you’re acting like a smug prick
Idiots. The world should be ONE already for at least 26 years. We are thrown back in time by fascist dictators
Euros love to imagine something they are not
yeah always funny. The main achivement they got was grpd and ubs c on iphone. You dont build an empire base on thoses.
why is china the bad guy?
They try to keep a low profile globally, but they fully support Russia and North Korea. Not to mention, all the drama in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the surrounding seas.
The Russian Federation and DPRK are better than the west, though, as neither is plundering the global south. As for Hong Kong, it’s good that they are no longer colonized by the UK, and the PRC’s stance on Taiwan is that they will rejoin the PRC when they decide, and can wait it out.
The DPRK is a socialist country, that more than any other has been the subject of constant misinformation and mythologizing in the west. It’s the single most misunderstood state on the planet. No, it isn’t some utopia, but it instead is a real country with real people living their lives. It isn’t Mordor.
The Black Panther Party famously supported the DPRK, as do many African countries for the DPRK’s role in African liberation movements in the 20th century. Cuba maintains friendly ties. More than anything, it’s been mythologized about to the point of absurdity.
The problem with reporting on the DPRK is that information is extremely limited on what is actually going on there, at least in the English language (much can be read in Korean, Mandarin, Russian, and even Spanish). Most reports come from defectors, and said defectors are notoriously dubious in their accounts, something the WikiPedia page on Media Coverage of North Korea spells out quite clearly. These defectors are also held in confined cells for around 6 months before being released to the public in the ROK, in… unkind conditions, and pressured into divulging information. Additionally, defectors are paid for giving testemonials, and these testimonials are paid more the more severe they are. From the Wiki page:
Felix Abt, a Swiss businessman who lived in the DPRK, argues that defectors are inherently biased. He says that 70 percent of defectors in South Korea are unemployed, and selling sensationalist stories is a way for them to make a living.
Side note: there is a great documentary on the treatment of DPRK defectors titled Loyal Citizens of Pyongyang in Seoul, which interviews DPRK defectors and laywers legally defending them, if you’re curious. I also recommend My Brothers and Sisters in the North, a documentary made by a journalist from the Republic of Korea that was stripped of her citizenship for making this documentary humanizing the people in the DPRK.
Because of these issues, there is a long history of what we consider legitimate news sources of reporting and then walking back stories. Even the famous “120 dogs” execution ended up to have been a fabrication originating in a Chinese satirical column, reported entirely seriously and later walked back by some news outlets. The famous “unicorn lair” story ended up being a misunderstanding:
In fact, the report is a propaganda piece likely geared at shoring up the rule of Kim Jong Eun, North Korea’s young and relatively new leader, said Sung-Yoon Lee, a professor of Korean studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Most likely, North Koreans don’t take the report literally, Lee told LiveScience.
“It’s more symbolic,” Lee said, adding, “My take is North Koreans don’t believe all of that, but they bring certain symbolic value to celebrating your own identify, maybe even notions of cultural exceptionalism and superiority. It boosts morale.”
These aren’t tabloids, these are mainstream news sources. NBC News reported the 120 dogs story. Same with USA Today. The frequently reported concept of “state-mandated haircut styles”, as an example, also ended up being bogus sensationalism. People have made entire videos going over this long-running sensationalist misinformation, why it exists, and debunking some of the more absurd articles. As for Radio Free Asia, it is US-government founded and funded. There is good reason to be skeptical of reports sourced entirely from RFA about geopolitical enemies of the US Empire.
Sadly, some people end up using outlandish media stories as an “acceptable outlet” for racism. By accepting uncritically narratives about “barbaric Koreans” pushing trains, eating rats, etc, it serves as a “get out of jail free” card for racists to freely agree with narratives devoid of real evidence.
It’s important to recognize that a large part of why the DPRK appears to be insular is because of UN-imposed sanctions, helmed by the US Empire. It is difficult to get accurate information on the DPRK, but not impossible; Russia, China, and Cuba all have frequent interactions and student exchanges, trade such as in the Rason special economic zone, etc, and there are videos released onto the broader internet from this.
In fact, many citizens who flee the DPRK actually seek to return, and are denied by the ROK. Even BBC is reporting on a high-profile case where a 95 year old veteran wishes to be buried in his homeland, sparking protests by pro-reunification activists in the ROK to help him go home in his final years.
Finally, it’s more unlikely than ever that the DPRK will collapse. The economy was estimated by the Bank of Korea (an ROK bank) to have grown by 3.7% in 2024, thanks to increased trade with Russia. The harshest period for the DPRK, the Arduous March, was in the 90s, and the government did not collapse then. That was the era of mass statvation thanks to the dissolution of the USSR and horrible weather disaster that made the already difficult agricultural climate of northern Korea even worse. Nowadays food is far more stable and the economy is growing, collapse is highly unlikely.
What I think is more likely is that these trends will continue. As the US Empire’s influence wanes, the DPRK will increase trade and interaction with the world, increasing accurate information and helping grow their economy, perhaps even enabling some form of reunification with the ROK. The US Empire leaving the peninsula is the number 1 most important task for reunification, so this is increasingly likely as the US Empire becomes untenable.
Nodutdol, an anti-imperialist group of Korean expats, released a toolkit on better understanding the situation in Korea. This is more like homework, though. I also recommend Roland Boer’s Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance for learning about the DPRK’s democratic structure.
all the drama in Hong Kong, Taiwan
You 白左 really hate the liberation of your owners colonial holdings and fascist attack dogs.
Unrelated, but I wanted to say you’ve got fantastic english skills
Also, if I was to visit China, do you have any recommendations on where to visit?
If it’s your first time Beijing is a must. You get a perfect mix of the old and new china plus museums galore and old Beijing hotpot is a must try as well as proper Beijing duck.
Authoritarian capitalistic state?
For all the tankies disagreeing simply ask yourself two questions:
Who owns the means of production in a socialist society?
Who owns the means of production in China?
Everything else follows from there
Good luck trying to state the obvious here, lots of tankies on lemmy.ml (as you can see from the other replies)
It’s .ml, not .lib
A tankie is when people point out you don’t understand what you’re talking about and are just regurgitating talking points and it makes you feel bad.
Come to China I can give you a tour I can translate so you can talk to the locals and you can see we’re humans too not just some brainwashed peasant “untermensch”. You chauvinist loser.
When did I say chinese people arent people? Are you replying to the wrong comment? You sound like you are 14 with your reading skills and going straight to calling me a loser lol.
You are a loser. You don’t view us as independent people who have our own views on our country. You ignore the fact that even western outlets report over 80% of us support the government. But none of that matters to you because we’re just peasants brainwashed by the evil “authoritarians”.
Not exactly related to the main discussion, but none other than Jeffrey Epstein described the Chinese government, and Xi in particular, as peasants. Said you guys spoke in “fortune cookie language.” It goes without saying that is the highest compliment to be an enemy of such people, so China is clearly doing something right.
China itself just like Chairman Mao is imperfect but I strongly believe the merits out way the wrongs and the real question isn’t is China good or bad but by how much the good out ways the bad e.g. is it 60/40, 70/30, 80/20 etc.
QinShiHuangsShlong was clearly explaining how you are utterly mistaken about China. When Chinese tell you that public ownership is principle (ie controls the commanding heights), that the working classes run the state, and an overwhelming number support the CPC, your response is that it’s “stating the obvious” to say otherwise. This stems from a sheer distrust of the words of Chinese people, and is why your comment is chauvanist.
You are defending and agreeing with someone calling China evil and authoritarian capitalist. He is wrong and so are you. No amount of dodging or hiding behind semantics will change the position you chose to defend and that you clearly chose to defend it for chauvinist reasons.
Okay Russia is understandable cuz they’re in a war, USA understandable cuz they’re saber rattling, but genuinely what is China doing besides minding their own business?
Buying ports and selling cars, generally speaking an economy war.
Nationalize your ports to prevent private foreign companies from buying them.then dont sell the ports and buy the cars?
China is the evil economy.
Boost their own, flood foreign.🤡
What are you talking about. What country doesn’t want to boost their economy???
Between an exchange of goods and services and flooding it by subventiontioning to suppress the competition is teensy tiny difference, no?
This is called a “skill issue” on the hand of western imperialists that can’t compete. Stop framing doing better as being evil.
Are they even trying to compete considering how many places were happy/eager to send manufacturing overseas in the name of lowering labor costs?
They are realizing they fell into a trap by doing so, so trying but failing.
Evil is in the eye of the beholder.
Explain how it’s evil to allow the US companies to move their production out of the US? The US corporations could have kept industry here, but they decided to fuck themselves over so that a few shareholders’ margins went up by a few percentage points. That wasn’t China being malicious, that’s the US lacking any sense of foresight while being blinded by greed.
Evil is the invisible hand of the market fisting the ass of your country, who send their production to a foreign country, and then start crying because they get better after decades of doing what guys should have being doing all along.
Yeah but you’re not just looking. You’re running your mouth. People tend to ask for clarifications.
Being better at producing goods is evil?
Oh no the Chinese are sending us good quality, cheap goods and letting us pay them with our dogshit overinflated currency. If only we were forced to buy plasticky shit at extortionate prices made by the USA (USA!! USA!!).
What do you mean “evil economy?” Is producing goods a bad thing?
Flooding foreign economies with cheap subventioned goods so the domestic can’t compete and go out of business and thus increasing dependency in you.
Yes, I’d say this is bad.China isn’t forcing anybody to buy their goods at gunpoint last I checked. The fact that western markets are unable to produce comparable goods at the same prices is entirely the problem with the way western economies are structured. The whole premise for loosely regulated markets was that they were supposed to be more efficient than state planning, turns out that was a big fat lie. So now the dumb fucks in the west are crying that their failed economic model can’t compete with China. Tough!
They are literally genociding part of their population to enforce a unique race
Can you provide a source for that claim?
“Since 2014, the government of the People’s Republic of China has committed a series of ongoing human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim minorities in Xinjiang which has often been characterized as persecution or as genocide. There have been reports of mass arbitrary arrests and detention, torture, mass surveillance, cultural and religious persecution, family separation, forced labor, sexual violence, and violations of reproductive rights.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Uyghurs_in_China
Their source for the genocide claim is this article that immediately cites Adrian Zenz. Do you have a source that can corroborate the genocide claim that doesn’t rely on Adrian Zenz? I don’t think he’s a good faith scholar.
Since Epstein was very clearly Mossad and the United States politicians are being blackmailed and bribed by Israeli intelligence I kinda feel like this should be included in the enemy lineup. Although Is china really an enemy of Europe?
That’s just the flag of a US territory
I’m pretty sure it’s the capital
No, it’s a major military operations base which gives it a lot of political power but the master letting go of the leash doesn’t mean they have lost control of their attack dog. They’re just letting them loose, one whistle and they’re brought to heel.
Do good dogs usually blackmail their masters with trafficked children? It seems to me that Israel who has universal healthcare, free college, a $400 monthly payment per child until they are 18, unlimited money for weapons and 53 million a year to bribe US politicians is perhaps rogue AF. We have major military bases all over and NOBODY gets the red carpet that the country that just happens to be blackmailing our politicians with trafficked children gets….must be a coincidence https://www.trackaipac.com/congress
AIPAC is one of many lobby groups, to say that pissrael controls the US through AIPAC is like saying that the coal industrialists control the US, or the MIC contractors run the US, or the myriad other monied interests influencing politicians through bribery, blackmail whatever.
None of them “control” the US, all of them together are the US. If, or rather when, the zionist project is no longer profitable the other interests will no longer have room for it and the US will drop it.
Some have more influence than the others, sure, but I wouldn’t put AIPAC on the same level as Wall Street or Lockheed Martin and Boeing and co. In many regards AIPAC is actually a lobby for those groups since Pissrael is such a profitable project for them.
And yet, what can Israel do without the material support of the country that makes its domestic weapons production capabilities possible? What can Israel do without the country that supplies its Iron Dome system? What can Israel do without CENTCOM? Without the power of the US dollar being maintained? Without Europe being greased up to act as one imperialist unit together with the US? Without US control of oil trade? Without US rigging of international institutions?
Can one meaningfully ever “control” someone that has that much leverage over them?
You’re flattering yourself if you think the politicians of the US need to be blackmailed to carry out the material interest of the capitalist ruling class. They won’t pay attention to you even if they stop cheating on you with Israel, their main girl is capital.
American politicians are treasonous traitors but Jokes on you because Europe is Israel’s bitch too.,
China isn’t a threat to the EU lol. Russia is more complicated. but Putin is mostly playing the cards he is dealt. If you got rid of NATO and ended severe sanctions , maybe didn’t blow up their NG pipelines, Russia would grow beyond Putin.
You could put any country on the left and the US flag on the right and it would be accurate. You could even put the US flag on both sides and it would be accurate
Russia is the fucking dealer of their own cards. The sanctions and blowing up of pipelines are both direct responses to their fucking invasion of Ukraine.
They don’t get to play the victim.
Except the EU can’t compete industrially or millitarily with any of those 3. The EU needs to correctly identify who to partner with for its own survival, and it’s clear that the PRC is the best option, Russia being a second choice. The US Empire is dying, and the EU imperialists are either going to fall down with it or be forced into cooperation with those it has convinced itself are existential enemies.
Russia has literally nothing of value to offer us.
Vast industrial capacity and tons of oil and natural gas, both of which the EU needs but does not have.
Only major industries Russia has are weapons (we sell those, they are a competitor) and fossil fules (we are in the process of not using them)
Russia has quite a bit more than just those areas, but importantly, the EU still needs fossil fuels. It could sidestep this by purchasing large amounts of solar from China, or making or buying nuclear reactors, but it can’t do so overnight. Moreover, the EU is heavily financialized, and industry is hurting. Much of what the EU consumes is made overseas, or comes from overseas resource extraction, especially from European neocolonies in Africa. Imperialism is decaying, so this puts the EU in an even tighter spot, hence political instability and a strong rightward shift.
making or buying nuclear reactors
The country that export most of nuclear build capacity, is by far Russia, with over 20 reactors in construction abroad. So while EU countries does have know-how to build them too, i bet it’s nowhere near the required scale (also China builds like 30 reactors, but in China)
Definitely, that’s what I was implying with that but I probably should have spelled it out, rather than expecting them to realize nuclear depends likely on Russia.
I’m not sure what you are trying to say. Russia has way less industrial output than the EU. Russia is more imperialist than the EU. EU is shifting right, but is still wayyy to the left of Russia. Saying we should align with Russia is like saying we should align with turkey. Or Saudi Arabia.
Russia is the 4th largest economy by GDP, adjusted to PPP, and isn’t as heavily reliant on finance capital as the EU is. Moreover, Russia has no colonies nor neocolonies, and doesn’t run their economy based on export of capital and plundering the surplus value of the global south, like the US and EU do.
Imperialism is characterized by the following:
-The presence of monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life.
-The merging of bank capital with industrial capital into finance capital controlled by a financial oligarchy.
-The export of capital as distinguished from the simple export of commodities.
-The formation of international monopolist capitalist associations (cartels) and multinational corporations.
-The domination and exploitation of other countries by militaristic imperialist powers, now through neocolonialism.
-The territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers.
The global north, Europe included, uses this export of capital to super-exploit foreign labor for super-profits. It also engages in unequal exchange, where the global south is prevented from moving up the value chain in production, allowing the global north to charge monopoly prices for commodities produced in the same labor hours. Russia does not do this, it has a paltry sum of the world’s finance capital, and this is proven by just how low their nominal GDP is compared to it’s GDP adjusted to PPP.
The Russian Federation and the EU are both right-wing, but the EU is actively imperialist. The fact that progressive nationalist movements like the Alliance of Sahel States are kicking out European plunderers, and the PRC is presenting as an alternative to western domination, is exactly why conditions within the imperialist west are declining and causing a shift to the far-right. Austerity politics are enforced due to capitalist decay.
Russia is part of the global north. Most of Russia’s territory is made up of colonies. You can not be pro Russia and anti imperialist at the same time.
I think long term a post-Putin Russia should really just join the EU (along with Ukraine). Russia has always been European. The cold war fuelled by the US is over. There’s no reason to divide Europe ethnographically when with open borders, free trade and unified economic policies everyone can do what they want.
The only thing the EU should realize faster is unified wages across regions and some sort of control over private property/housing, else western capitalists will keep buying land and homes creating serfdom.
we are in the process of not using them
not anywhere close to fast nor soon enough to help the situation.
I disagree. Renewables have been growing exponentially for years. Its already making an impact in some countries, sadly way less in others.
Mostly due to the PRC and its incredible increase in solar and other renewables.
Surprise 😂
?
At least China has good food.
Europe has a lot of good food, but the tendency is that it’s concentrated towards the south - Italy, France, Greece, etc. The food generally gets worse the further north you get, but every national cuisine usually has at least one good thing. Even Sweden probably has a good dish.
I didn’t think Europe having good food was in contention, it’s kinda the basis for fine dining.
Aside from britain europe has pretty good food too.
braSSiKKKa sucks ass
I love the memes about how China is threatening Europe so much. The last time China did anything threatening to Europe it was when they had a war to kick the British out of China, and Europe will never forgive them for it
This is a democracy vs authoritarian logic. Not a matter of territorial disputes.
Hopefully Chinese democracy will prevail against western authoritarianism.
🫡
Change nothing lemmy.ml
How much time have you spent studying the Chinese system?
How many Chinese people have you discussed politics with? How much time have you spent there?
I’ve interacted with 5 - 7 Chinese users over Lemmy recently ish. Haven’t been, but one of my close friends went to Hong Kong pretty recently and enjoyed their time.
LOL. Worked with Chinese, discussed politics with Chinese (outside of China, for obvious reason to anyone who met any Chinese citizen). Try to get first hand accounts before praising one of the strictest censorship in the world. And learn a bit about the specifics of Hong-Kong, or better, meet activists there if this is your sample of China
I met people from China who unlike you understand their government is a proletarian democracy (which is different from a liberal democracy in many ways), you can even meet Chinese people here who’ll tell you that their government is democratic, but it’s not THAT hard to learn about a system you don’t understand by at least watching YouTube if you don’t have the patience or habit of sitting down to read.
I haven’t been to China because I’m poor and on the other side of the globe, have you been there yourself? There are nice videos by tourists that show that China is just… a country. Very advanced, great infrastructure, but not what you seem to believe it is.
I have been there, to several places. I have friends there. I know Chinese outside of China. They are not hard to find.
If you live in a big city, there are Chinese places. Go there and try to talk Chinese politics with anyone there, see what’s the general feeling. Sample that with a random European place and see how more easily you can talk politics with a French or an Italian. Thing is, China sends policemen to check the Chinese abroad behave correctly. Even outside China, they are on their toes.
That’s your homework before you try to explain to people online things about a country you never experienced.
There are nice videos by tourists that show that China is just… a country. Very advanced, great infrastructure, but not what you seem to believe it is.
China is far more advanced than most westerners believe, even though they start updating their views a bit. I also heard Dubai and Tel Aviv are very nice city to live in. Which tells you nothing about the ills of their governments.
Can you enlighten us as to how China is authoritarian in a way that Europe isn’t? Because as far as I can tell, even if literally every single thing China is accused of by anyone is true, this is what their major crimes amount to:
- Killing 10,000 protesters in Tiananmen Square
- Imprisoning 1M Uighurs in Xinjiang
- Sterilizing, abusing, and killing some number of Uighurs in Xinjiang, I’ve never seen numbers accompanying this claim
- Suppressing Tibetan religious identity
- Lack of queer rights
- Not respecting Taiwan’s sovereignty
- Suppressing political speech that goes against the government
- General religious persecution of several religious minorities other than those mentioned above; Falun Gong, Christians, other Muslims, etc
- Aggression toward their neighbors like India and the Philippines
- Support of Russia during their invasion of Ukraine
- Support of Myanmar during the Rohingya genocide
Let me know if I missed any.
Meanwhile, (mainly Western) Europe definitely has done the following in the past 50 years:
- Funded and supported Israel’s genocide in Gaza, killing anywhere from 50,000 people per the Health Ministry to 500,000 per Donald Trump
- Mostly refused to recognize a Palestinian state until quite recently
- Exploited peripheral European states economically
- Continued to hold assets belonging to former colonies in the Global South
- Collaborated with the US to destroy the USSR and strip it for parts, causing one of the largest peace-time drop in life expectancy in history, and unleashing rampant economic and sexual exploitation
- Allow thousands of immigrants to die in the Mediterranean to prevent them from reaching the continent.
- Joined the US invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan
- Joined NATO actions to destroy the Libyan government, leaving the country in a state of utter chaos and making it one of the only places on earth with open air slave markets
- NATO actions against Yugoslavia and Serbia (granted, to intervene in a genocide, but in a way that was not done to intervene in the Rwandan genocide; this suggests the intervention was primarily motivated by an extractive, imperialist interest)
- Islamophobia; Hijab bans, rampant hate speech, racially stratified economies.
- Backsliding queer rights in some countries, total lack in others.
I think there’s probably more I could go into, but I think that’s at least enough to make my case. If you want to believe China is authoritarian because you believe every point in the upper half is true, then I won’t stop you. But you’re on some craaaazy wypipo logic if you think the points in the bottom don’t mean that the same label ought to be applied to Europe.
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In other words, you’ve got no argument, but you’re too stubborn to admit it.
Okay, I spent like 10 minutes searching my mind trying to fully understand where you’re coming from and meeting you halfway by listing things I don’t even believe to be true about China. If you can’t engage with people who disagree with you under those circumstances, then what level of engagement did you expect?
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Europe is a capitalistic hell hole, but in comparison to the world powers it really does look like the white knight Jedi…
Europe provided something like 30% of the foreign weapons used to commit the genocide in Gaza. How many did China provide?
Not Europe, germany did. This cant be accepted and is one of the worst things they have done in recent years alongside with the judicial suppor and political backing up they give israel. This must be condemned and fought against.
But since we are on the topic of war: who is supplying russia with the drones and fiber optics they use to invade Ukraine? Isnt that China? And isn’t xi giving Putin the same political backing?
As I said: both capitalistic hell holes, but one has slightly less surveillance and slightly less political oppression.
But since we are on the topic of war: who is supplying russia with the drones and fiber optics they use to invade Ukraine? Isnt that China? And isn’t xi giving Putin the same political backing?
This isn’t comparable to genocide for several reasons. I mean, for starters, who’s accusing Russia of genocide? I know that they’ve committed various war crimes and have killed thousands of civilians in their invasion, but neither of those suffice for the war to be considered a genocide. There has to be intent from the Russian side to exterminate the Ukrainian population in a generalized manner.
I’d also just say that with the various contradictions in place in the global stage, it is apparent to me that the only way for capitalism and fascism to be done away with is for every organ of USAmerican imperial hegemony to be dismantled. If the hegemony of the US imperialist ruling class is not dismantled, if the organs of that hegemony remain in place, then the earth is done for because of climate change; if that’s not enough, there will also continue to be genocides like the one in Gaza wherever the white supremacist states can concentrate populations of climate refugees. There will be unprecedented famines and natural disasters. To be honest, a lot of these things are already all but guaranteed to happen with the amounts of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.
With that in mind, knowing what’s at stake, and knowing that NATO is one of the organs of US imperialist hegemony, I can’t in good faith consider that there’s a moral equivalence between the US utilizing Israel as a forward operating base, a tip of the spear, into the heart of the oppressed nations and a testing ground for the extermination technologies of the near future versus China giving Russia military aid to prevent their massive northern neighbor from collapsing. Furthermore, since I am of a mind that thinks that NATO cannot continue to exist for anything resembling a viable future to be possible, Russia is doing my work for me by exhausting NATO military supplies. Every drone, missile, bullet, and tank burned up by Ukraine is a NATO resource that will not be used against someone in the Global South in the near future. Every one of them that Russia destroys is one that anti-imperialist forces would have to destroy in another circumstance, and as valiant as groups like Ansarallah have been in their resistance, they don’t have the strength Russia has. I’m not going to condemn that.
I will condemn their war crimes, what has happened to the residential areas, hospitals, and even schools bombed by Russia is horrifying; but I won’t condemn the war in general, it would be hypocritical.
To your final point, you don’t understand what capitalism is if you think that Europe and the United States are a pole that is “just as capitalistic” as Russia and China. Like, dude, China is a massive net exporter country with a state run, centrally planned economy. Their government is fully democratic[1] and the portion of their economy that is still in the hands of private owners is set to shrink in every successive 5 year plan. That’s not capitalism. Russia is a different story, they are capitalist and have a very reactionary government, but to say they’re “just as capitalistic” as the West is a criticism that reveals a lot of ignorance. The West has such a large concentration of capital that they were the vanguard of the first, second, and third waves of capitalist imperialism. First in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, privately led by the finance capitalists seeking to extract more resources abroad as rates of profit fell at home.[2] [3] This is what led to and was epitomized by the world anti-fascist struggle, or WW2. That led to a period of US domination of world markets. Then in the 1970s came the state-led form of imperialism, carried out primarily by the United States’ unbalanced deficit spending.[4] Lastly, now we are in a kind of third wave that is still definitely dominated by the US as the center of world finance capital. Russia has always been a secondary character in each of these phases, even the SSR.
I agree with you that the war on Gaza is worse than the war on Ukraine, as one of them is “only” imperialistic and the other is a genocide. We are on the same page here.
The EU as a whole is not as supportive of Israel as Germany though, Germany is quite an outlier here. This can be explained (but not excused) by the special relationship between the ex Nazi country and the majority of Israels citizens being Jews. Still, supporting the israelian genocide is fucking disgusting, no question. Ireland, Slovenia and Spain are much more supportive of Gaza is also part of the truth though.
I would support your idea of dismantling the us system, we are in the same page here as well, I am not that optimistic that this will get rid of fascism and capitalism though, Russia China and India and the EU will fill the void.
I also agree with your take on climate change, while by pure numbers China is one of the largest emitter, given they produce most of the worlds goods, I think their climate efforts are honest and my hope is that they will stick to their plans of co2 reduction and be a valuable force for climate. China’s efforts here are very important and I respect them for that.
I also agree with NATO needing to be dismantled, I dont agree with you that Russia is doing that. Look at trump and Putin, the invasion of Ukraine is not fighting against america or the NATO, its imperial landgrabing a non NATO state. And even if Putin would fight the NATO directly, I dont think this will benefit our class, we are the ones dying in the wars, hunger in the famines and getting arrested for fighting for solidarity amongst the international working class, a true change cannot come from a tyrann winning over another tyrann, it need to be a struggle by the people against the oppressors
If you dont condemn an imperialistic country invading its small neighbour, you fight for the oppressor. War is never good for the working class, if you justify people dying in imperialistic wars, you are a class enemie in my eyes.
For your las paragraph is where I find it to get interesting as we have the same opinion, that a democratical controlled public economy is better then privately owned means of production. From what I’ve read China is moving towards private ownerships of means if production then away from it and the actual public decision-making gets progressively less in favor of concentration of power for the political elites (https://www.statista.com/chart/25194/private-sector-contribution-to-economy-in-china/) (https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/china-in-xis-new-era-the-return-to-personalistic-rule/)
Here it would help to get the data straight, I’m open to critically over think my position here
Your argument that USA is worse at nearly everything than nearly everyone else I would fully support.
Apart from that there is an argument to be made, that Democratic votes dont mean shit if the discourse is not free, the regime decides what information you can get, what is allowed to be discussed publicly and what is not. Not only are there information like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_China also My fellow exchange students from China tell me you can’t talk critically about the regime, even in private conversations because you will face direct or indirect repercussions. Things like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blitzchung_controversy also play into this picture.
A state where the working class is truely ruling needs a free working class who can freely from their opinion. This can’t be done in a surveillance state.
I’m not saying there is no surveillance in the EU, just less then in China.
Also also: being able to vote doesn’t make a country socialist or “not capitalistic”, if it would america would fall into this category as well.
I think gramcis works are quite enlightening in that regard.
I also agree with NATO needing to be dismantled, I dont agree with you that Russia is doing that. Look at trump and Putin, the invasion of Ukraine is not fighting against america or the NATO, its imperial landgrabing a non NATO state.
Objectively, NATO is the only reason Ukraine is still standing. No NATO = no war, Ukraine wouldn’t even have had the 2014 coup if it wasn’t for NATO.
And even if Putin would fight the NATO directly, I dont think this will benefit our class, we are the ones dying in the wars, hunger in the famines and getting arrested for fighting for solidarity amongst the international working class, a true change cannot come from a tyrann winning over another tyrann, it need to be a struggle by the people against the oppressors
Struggle against oppressors often does take the form of great tyranny and violence. That’s just how struggle works. If NATO is destroyed NATO is destroyed, the moral character of the people who do it don’t impact the material reality. Is any part of what you’re saying here actually a true thing that can be verified through study of history, or are they just moral platitudes that sound nice?
If you dont condemn an imperialistic country invading its small neighbour, you fight for the oppressor. War is never good for the working class, if you justify people dying in imperialistic wars, you are a class enemie in my eyes.
I gave my thoughts on the matter of civilian deaths in the war in Ukraine. My contention is that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine weakens NATO; I could just as easily say that your refusal to fight NATO makes you a class enemy, and the critical difference is that my position can be justified by observing the ways that NATO is involved in really oppressing the world; meanwhile your disagreement with me is based in moral categories.
About China:
What your friends told you, plainly speaking, is just incorrect. You definitely can criticize the Chinese government publicly and privately. You can protest, the protests against the pandemic restrictions are the reason they don’t do zero COVID in China anymore. There’s active Hexbear users from China who do criticize the country’s policies and are sometimes a lot more critical than the rest of us. Seriously, check out @xiaohongshu@hexbear.net’s posting history. You can hop on Chinese social media like RedNote to see what people are saying; there will be a lot of positive things but negative things too.
On the issue of surveillance, I think surveillance and privacy is basically just dead in the water except for enthusiasts at this point. It’s all screwed, worldwide, it’s just a situation that’s completely beyond repair. Every country that has wide internet access has mass surveillance and the whole world is a police state. Bad situation all around. I’m not gonna try to tell you that it’s better in China than in some other countries because that’s just not good consolation, lol. But if you think that China is a country that has more mass surveillance than the rest of the world, that is mistaken.
They don’t control the flow of information, though. That part is wrong. Talk with Chinese people, I encourage you. They aren’t living in some kind of secluded little bubble, they know what’s going on around the world. My honest opinion is that sometimes they have overly naive takes about what it’s like to live in the West, like they don’t know how bad it is over here in a lot of cases. But they are broadly pretty well informed.
A state where the working class is truely ruling needs a free working class who can freely from their opinion. This can’t be done in a surveillance state.
I take specific issue with this argument. I mean, if you put some stress on the word “truly” then I don’t disagree. It’s a bit of a purity obsessed argument, but not strictly false. But if you really think that the condition of being surveilled is itself reason to forget about the tremendous historical progress China has achieved for their people, even though that surveillance and all other forms of state repression are things that Chinese communists have been aware of as necessary parts of state-building, then I think you are more concerned with creating a utopia than real emancipation.
Also also: being able to vote doesn’t make a country socialist or “not capitalistic”, if it would america would fall into this category as well.
I agree, what I meant is that China has a democratic state and that democratic state’s partial ownership of the means of production makes China a socialist country. Both parts are necessary. State ownership without any form of democracy can look like Saudi Arabia. Liberal democracy with a capitalist economy is, at best, social democracy like the Nordic countries.
Idk, being responsible for past colonialism and imperialism, including the transatlantic slave trade, nowadays benefiting from neocolonialism, and taking the side of the US whenever it bullies or bombs random ass countries is a whole lot of evil. The only thing that the EU has going for it is excellent PR.
What no materialist or historical analysis does to a mf.
Liberal brainworms slop.
What a deep and specific argument you have here
It’s not an argument it’s an observation.
Le evil Asian hordes are teaming up with orange man to hurt the poor innocent EU.
It’s peak slop. Harry Potterism. Star Wars Derangement Syndrome.
Don’t bother with the propaganda, Europe is the best place to live in, we are happiest and healthiest population. US is nothing but a European colony in Native American land with hybris. We had fascism here 100 years ago, US is just now starting to explore it. Democracy can be simple populism if the population is uneducated, thats what Europeans concluded 2000 years ago in Greece.
Are you saying that we aren’t completely vassalized and beholden to the yankee empire?? Who rebuilt west europe after WW2? Do you think they just did that and handed the reigns back to the europeans? Do you really think that Europe is equal to and independent from the US? Because this is how they talk about us:
https://x.com/acyn/status/1860153637382815921
and we just take it. Any project of ours trying to distance ourselves from yankee dependence like e.g. Nord Stream 2, they bomb it. And we just take it. Hate the yankee, but remember they’re our master and hate them more.
Europe is only a decent place to live because it’s reliant on imperialism, and until now has been able to rely on the US Empire propping up NATO to lower Europe’s millitary spending. Now that imperialism is drying up and the US Empire no longer wants to be the only one paying for NATO, European countries are enforcing austerity and sliding to the far-right.
To be fair, far-right ideologies have been ramping up worldwide since a decade or two.
The current political context just embolden the far right actors to go mask off.
But why? What is the material cause of this? I’d say it’s the gradual decline in imperialism breeding right-wing populism as the smaller capitalists are pressed downward toward the working classes, and the necessity of austerity to cover for losses in gains from imperialism.
There is certainly a big part that can be attributed to imperialism, but my (uneducated) pet theory is that technocrats were able to harness the accessibility of big data after the great recession to siphon wealth from working class a lot more efficiently, by radicalizing people.
There had been a big leap from 2005 to 2015-2016 on computing power that enabled the widespread of big data and the corpos with the means to get in on it used it to further enrich their corporation and themselves and created this extremely toxic environment where everything is polarized and monetized.
And with big data, populists can change in real time their message so that they get more money and influence. And tribalism seems to work pretty fucking well. So they finetuned their message to radicalize people and achieve that goal.
People can isolate themselves into online communities that will echo and amplify their views of the world. And now they are pouring on the streets because they’ve became enough of a big group to do so.
Technocrats created this big machine to get rich, and the machine feed itself, giving more power to the ultra rich, which grab more power and influence by radicalizing people.
I think one thing that would help, is looking into cultural hegemony. The tools have changed, so too has how hegemony functions.
We had fascism here 100 years ago,
So you are just going to ignore the European far right who are still have a good % of support from the population and in some cases they are the ruling goverment like in italy
Don’t bother with the propaganda
Posts a bunch of euro cope
Lol thanks for the laugh
I wish you’d add the Canadian flag on the European side.
