• XIIIesq@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      most authoritarian countries

      In the US, 0.7% of the population is in prison. That’s nearly one out of every hundred citizens and the highest per capita of incarcerated citizens in the world. Higher than Russia, higher than China, higher than North Korea.

      Land of the free indeed. Propaganda works.

        • XIIIesq@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I’m not saying China is great. I’m saying I’m sceptical of a country that throws it’s military power around the world whilst they simultaneously tell us who the enemy is.

          Last time I checked the Chinese didn’t kill 400K+ civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan or sponsor the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.

          • dynamojoe@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Does your comment count as “moving the goalposts” (changing the subject from CCP to USA) or an “Appeal to Emotion” (dead civilians) or a strawman argument (USA ‘sponsors’ collective punishment)? I got a bingo card to fill out.

        • Arelin@lemmy.zip
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          1 year ago

          Their vocational facilities and re-education centers are a far better way of managing and de-radicalizing extremist groups like the ETIM than fucking bombing them, invading them, and lying about WMDs.

          50+ mostly muslim UN states have approved of how China handled this after sending delegates and diplomats to Xinjiang:

          …separatism and religious extremism has caused enormous damage to people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang, which has seriously infringed upon human rights, including right to life, health and development. Faced with the grave challenge of terrorism and extremism, China has undertaken a series of counter-terrorism and deradicalization measures in Xinjiang, including setting up vocational education and training centers. Now safety and security has returned to Xinjiang and the fundamental human rights of people of all ethnic groups there are safeguarded. The past three consecutive years has seen not a single terrorist attack in Xinjiang and people there enjoy a stronger sense of happiness, fulfillment and security. We note with appreciation that human rights are respected and protected in China in the process of counter-terrorism and deradicalization.

          We appreciate China’s commitment to openness and transparency. China has invited a number of diplomats, international organizations officials and journalist to Xinjiang to witness the progress of the human rights cause and the outcomes of counter-terrorism and deradicalization there. What they saw and heard in Xinjiang completely contradicted what was reported in the media. We call on relevant countries to refrain from employing unfounded charges against China based on unconfirmed information before they visit Xinjiang.

          The only countries accusing China of mishandling this are its geopolitical rivals in the west. Muslim countries and the global south side with China on this.

          QiaoCollective has a detailed timeline and report of Xinjiang related events.

          BadEmpanada has an in-depth video essay on the topic with sources in description.

          • dynamojoe@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Last things first, pardon me for holding one of your sources at arms’ length and my nose with the other. They don’t sound impartial or unbiased, especially with their explicitly-stated anti-Western bias. BadEmpanada just looks like a Che wannabe and I’m not sure how much I time I should waste considering what a leftist Aussie living in BA has to say but it’s probably already too much. Buenos Aires is a beautiful city though and if you’ve never been, you should give it a go.

            Going back to the top of your comment, which countries support or condemn China for their internment camps means very little to me. Many of the countries in your graphic have abysmally shitty records themselves and/or are belt-and-road clients and/or have other reasons to disagree with the US. Pardon me while I laugh heartily at anyone who takes Russia’s or Venezuela’s or Saudi Arabia’s opinions on human rights seriously. That, and your graphic is from 2019 and outdated. The list changed remarkably in 2020 and the countries of Algeria, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Kuwait, Nigeria, Oman, Philippines, Serbia, Somalia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Zambia revoked their defense of the CCP’s treatment of Uighurs. It’s left as an exercise to the reader which of those are majority-Muslim.

            Aside from all that, the fact that you refer to those camps with the CCP-friendly term “vocational facilities and re-education centers” means we’re just not going to agree on this because that’s certainly not what they sound like.

            Don’t spend all fifty cents in one place.

          • SCB@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            The only countries accusing China of mishandling this are its geopolitical rivals in the west. Muslim countries and the global south side with China on this.

            “All the other totalitarian countries agree with our totalitarian county” lol

          • Alsephina@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            You can also literally just visit Xinjiang and see it for yourself lol, since there’s not much travel restrictions on the region anymore now that covid’s mostly over.

            There are tons of Youtube videos doing just that.

      • SCB@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        In the US, people vote on laws, and the laws that put so many people in prison were massively popular until we realized “oh fuck there sure are a lot of people in prison and this problem isn’t solved at all.”

        I’ll take people democratically getting things wrong 100% of the time over “authoritarian regime that hasn’t come for you yet”

        So yes, land of the free, and free people sometimes do dumb shit.

        • Jerkface (any/all)@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          This is such a precious yet tortured interpretation. We can all see that you are just stitching together little bits of rhetoric until it goes where you wanted to end up. You might be right, you might be wrong, but whatever you are, it’s a total fucking coincidence.

          • SCB@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            This is a description of actual events that actually happened. Nothing in my comment is an interpretation of anything whatsoever.

            If you don’t believe War on Drugs laws like the Crime Bill were popular, that’s simply because you’ve done no research. The 1994 bill now seen as “racist” had 58% support in the minority community, a trend that continued for some time.

            The cool thing about democracy is people can look around and say “oh shit we fucked up.” All you have to do is change enough minds.

        • Rooskie91@discuss.online
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          1 year ago

          Do you believe that NPR and PBS are the extent of government media funding in America? Because that’s outrageously wrong. Both the CIA and DOD have MASSIVE budgets for media, and it’s all obfuscated so people like you think the only propaganda you consume come from NPR and PBS.

          Start with the more obvious stuff, and look into how Top Gun got funded. Radio free Asia was firist secretly and now openly funded by the CIA with the explicit purpose of growing distrust among Americans against the Asian socialist and communist experiments.

          America does not lack propaganda, we are just way better at hiding it.

          https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_influence_on_public_opinion

          • BilliamBoberts@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            You make fair and valid points, but the propaganda the US government creates does not stand alone in the american media sphere. We have the freedom to explore other ideas on the internet or purchase movies, tv shows, music, and articles from all around the world with little to no censorship. Thus, american propaganda influence faces more competition than its chinese counterpart.

            • TheSanSabaSongbird@lemdro.id
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              1 year ago

              No, they’re full of shit and are conflating several unrelated things in ways that may seem plausible to the casual observer, but that are actually being dishonestly spun in furtherance of a very specific narrative. It’s a very old trick. Don’t fall for it.

        • cecinestpasunbot@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          It definitely can be called propaganda but for different reasons usually related to market pressures.

          Private news organizations don’t like going against the status quo. That invites controversy which their advertisers or investors may not be comfortable with. Even non profits outlets like NPR don’t want to upset their large donors.

          Additionally, finding reliable sources is a difficult and expensive process. As such, private news outlets are more likely to use government officials as primary sources especially when it comes to foreign affairs. They may also rely on privately funded think tanks and NGOs which may have often been created to push a particular narrative.

          Taken together, that means private news outlets are heavily biased in favor of the interests of their local business elite and existing foreign policy.

          With regards to China, their economy has technically outgrown the US economy if you look at purchasing power parity. That’s deeply concerning for US business elite who have enjoyed an almost hegemonic control over the global economy since WWII. In my view, that’s why you see far more negative stories about China today than there were a few decades ago, despite the fact that China’s political system has not meaningfully changed.

          • TheSanSabaSongbird@lemdro.id
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            1 year ago

            I love how you talk about the news business as if you know anything at all about what really goes on in newsrooms and editorial meetings. You obviously don’t. What you say is pure amateur hour. It’s so uninformed that it isn’t even wrong; it’s just in a completely different part of the universe that has almost nothing whatsoever to do with actual reality on the ground.

          • BilliamBoberts@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I disagree with your point that private organizations dont go against the status quo in the US. I can’t turn on any news agency in the States without seeing headlines about where the US government is failing. and which political party is blamed for said failure depends on the bias of the news agency.

            I 100% agree that news agencies are biased to their business elites in the US, but the foreign policy bias you mention is more related to that news agencies’ particular politcal leanings.

            I find it hard to believe that the business elites that own news agencies are trying to sway the american peoples view of china because they feel they are losing some petty competition to make more money. We’ve seen the global opinion of china fall greatly since 2008, mostly due to how china is treating its people through strict surveilance, its attempt to control its neighbors, its use of wolfe warrior diplomacy, and increase aggression on the global stage.

            • cecinestpasunbot@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              It’s true that you will hear limited critique for Republicans and Democrats from private media outlets. However, there is usually very little criticism directed at things that both parties can agree on, like their hawkish stance towards China.

              That said, I think we have vastly different perspectives on how the economy functions. What you view as a petty competition for more money I think is an existential threat to the privileges American business elite currently enjoy. If the industries they are invested in are no longer competitive in a global market, they will not be able to extract the wealth that currently funds their extravagant lifestyles. They will happily try to influence US policy if they think it can prevent that from happening.

              Lastly, I agree China’s favorable in western aligned countries have been negative since around 2008. However up until around 2018 they were still hovering close to where they were in the 2000s. It was around 2018 when Trump started implementing tariffs against China that negative opinions on China spiked. It’s not like Trump cares about human rights so why did his administration take such a protectionist measure when Republicans have been pro free trade for decades? Well that also happens to be around the same time China’s economy likely surpassed the US in purchasing power parity. That gap has only widened so it’s not surprising to me that Biden has chosen to keep those tariffs in place while also implementing new trade restrictions with China.