C-SPAM moderation and Xinjiang: read rules in op

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > C-SPAM moderation and Xinjiang: read rules in op

Good Soldier Svejk: Jul 5, 2010

It still seems to me like the defenses boil down to "Well the US is doing/has done worse", "it's not actual genocide, just cultural genocide", and "You're only paying attention to this because the state department wants you to".

But none of those things seem to serve to actually diminish the fact that was is happening is an atrocity.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 00:51

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# ¿ May 11, 2024 22:28

Good Soldier Svejk: Jul 5, 2010

Varinn posted:

conflating criticisms of the reporting with defenses of the thing being reported on isn't really helpful

the reason those things keep getting brought up is

1 and 3) lots of the posters are american, and have a vested interest in the hypocrisy of their elected officials, especially if that hypocrisy serves to build a case for a second cold war

2) because actually trying to dig out what is real and what is propaganda is pretty important to people!! this thread isn't prescriptive at all, and I think lots of people are learning more about the situation in china than you could learn anywhere else on the forum

Eh, those are fair points. I don't know whether it's fundamentally because I am american or just a ~~rugged~~ individualist but I find debating the gradations of claims less important than granting that even if we are talking about something as "minimal" as cultural assimilation that I still think forcible assimilation is... sufficiently terrible to condemn outright, in all forms.

I get that that is a point of contention among leftists of various disciplines and maybe that's not the point here but I feel like maybe underneath everything else this is an undercurrent to the argument that the assimilation is in some way absolutely necessary and unavoidable or else something... communism will not be able to flourish?

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 01:13

Good Soldier Svejk: Jul 5, 2010

Varinn posted:

Sure, but the point you're making here is one you see everywhere this comes up: that somehow, talking about the specifics is the same as denying it exists at all.

its always presented like "well how can we have this discussion if we can agree it's happening" except you don't actually want to have the discussion, the 'base point' people are asked to agree to is the start and end of the conversation, and any attempts to ask for more information is suspect. if I told you that the US border camps were just shooting every person they detain in the head, you'd rightfully say "no, theyre bad, but they arent doing that, come on", right?

THS posted:

the contention is how the gradations are exploited to gear the population for the mindset of China = Nazi Germany when the population having their brains massaged over this are a population actually living under the empire most directly comparable to the nazis

people are concerned about an atmosphere that makes the US more conducive to cold war. not that the US needs absolute support, they didn�t with iraq. but they do need a certain level of buy-in and bloodlust from the public. inflating the reality of xinjiang among the less media savvy is how to do it. i see the effects on other platforms where the level of discourse is worse and more closer to the average person who doesn�t pay as much attention to this stuff as we do. think about studies of how many people read past the headlines of a news story and imagine how well talking about china goes now

These are fair points I had not personally considered in that... the imperialist mindset of the US is a very small factor into my assessment of morality. The military is gonna get its blood, justified or not. I do understand the concern in being specific for the greater discourse to not provide free cover for state actions though.

I just think about it the same way I would think about the US border situation though. Use whatever terminology you want to play it up or talk it down but fundamentally the situation is a horrific violation of human rights. Say "they're not cages, they're actually nice hotel rooms and they get free meals they just can't leave" or "border patrol agents are executing people on the spot" and I think.. the distance between those two things in the scope of history and what it means to violate human autonomy cannot begin to diminish the rightful condemnation a future society should be looking back on these events with. Unless the fascists win.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 01:28

Good Soldier Svejk: Jul 5, 2010

Varinn posted:

Because the foreign policy think tanks publishing and funding most of the 'studies' and 'reports' that then get reported on by american sources do that with intent/.

do you think the Victims of Communism Foundation just publishes stuff for kicks or do you think they want people to believe something specific?

So is the argument that any allegations of mistreatment are State Department fabrications or that there is no forcible re-education or what
I am at a loss now because I thought the consensus, regardless of state propaganda, was that China was at the very least forcibly assimilating a group of people

Because if the argument is anything other than "the state department is making everything up" then I would argue the ball is still in China's court to stop whatever it is that is being done in the same way the rest of the world should rightfully poo poo on the US until we unfuck our border and our childhood poverty and homelessness and police violence

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 01:52

Good Soldier Svejk: Jul 5, 2010

Look I want China to be a socialist utopia haven country as much as the next person
I want desperately for the world to be able to see there is an alternative to the horrors that are inflicted by capitalism

I just don't see the value in getting there by covering for new fresh horrors that are being performed in the name of communism
that seems to defeat the purpose

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 01:56

Good Soldier Svejk: Jul 5, 2010

The Oldest Man posted:

Does "rightfully making GBS threads on" include economic sanctions against China? What about military action? Same for the US on both counts?

I mean... yeah. In an ideal world the UN would be sanctioning the US for our human rights abuses.
They never will because... all the reasons but that's kinda the charter we signed on to and the prescribed remedy for violating it.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 01:59

Good Soldier Svejk: Jul 5, 2010

The Oldest Man posted:

I'm not asking about an ideal world. I am asking do you, right now, support intervention by the US government against China to include economic sanctions and/or military action and do you support intervention by other world governments including China against the US to include economic sanctions and/or military action?

No, I don't think I could support military intervention but I think sanctions would be justifiable, especially if they were aimed to specifically harm the political class.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 02:03

Good Soldier Svejk: Jul 5, 2010

Dolphin posted:

can you think of another time a superpower sabotaged its own supply chain over anxiety?

The 2016 election

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 02:06

Good Soldier Svejk: Jul 5, 2010

The Oldest Man posted:

Presuming you mean individually targeted rather than broad-based economic sanctions - so you would support, for example, China colluding with European powers to prohibit travel and freeze or seize overseas assets of Joe Biden or Alejandro Mayorkas to exert pressure on the US government for the concentration camps the US is operating? Because that's the direct equivalent to sanctioning CCP officials with financial restrictions.

Obviously it would against the US national interest for that to happen, but like I said, the US signed on to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights so any country invoking that to sanction officials would be well within their rights to do so even though it would likely end badly for all parties involved.
From a purely philosophical perspective yeah, that'd absolutely be just and warranted and fair.
In reality, because the US has so much sway over the UN, I feel like it'd end very poorly for any country trying to make that sort of move unless they somehow got a gently caress ton of global support for the actions. I think a world where China was such a country that they had the standing to call out our offenses would be better for us and the world in the long run though.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 02:12

Good Soldier Svejk: Jul 5, 2010

THS posted:

ignoring some of the sillier smaller entities, this is the strategic objective of the US:

the united states will not accept secondary status to china.

the united states has the strategic interest of maintaining imperial hegemony, not just across most of the globe, but even in east asia. the possible loss is no longer being the global reserve currency, and no longer calling the shots and treating the world like its backyard. this possibility cannot be abided by US establishment thinkers who genuinely do believe in american exceptionalism and will do whatever they can to destabalize china, because left to develop on its own terms, a nation of 1.3 billion people led by a strong centralized stable bureaucracy will likely not just overtake the US in economic and technological power, but eventually military power. add on that it�s not a �liberal democracy� but what establishment american exceptionalists deem as an evil authoritarian state

it is really short term thinking to believe that US elites do not have a strategic interest in confronting china and a new cold war

losing superpower status is the anxiety which will drive conflict. maintaining superpower status even though that�s impossible with 350 million americans vs. 1.3 chinese is the strategic interest

I don't necessarily disagree with any of this but I continue to fail to see the relevance to the direct question/discussion of the treatment of the Uyghurs

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 02:40

Good Soldier Svejk: Jul 5, 2010

MY INEVITABLE DEBT posted:

yea that's not really the point here bud. the point is that your outrage is directed solely toward china because the state wants it to be.

I thought the point was that china wasn't doing bad things
This is an endless circle of "they're not doing it there's no proof" -> "well they may be doing it but america is doing worse" -> "you only care because propaganda" -> "they're not doing it there's no proof"

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 17:51

Good Soldier Svejk: Jul 5, 2010

MY INEVITABLE DEBT posted:

is there a thread titled c-spam moderation and american prisons? about how america is doing genocide? or nah

Are there cspam posters defending american prisons or the border concentration camps as necessary or not as bad as they seem?

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 17:53

Good Soldier Svejk: Jul 5, 2010

MY INEVITABLE DEBT posted:

this has been covered over and over in this thread. nobody thinks this. you are conflating "muslims are not being exterminated" with "actually everything they do is totally fine and i like it"

No I think a lot of people are conflating "I think China is committing crimes against humanity" as "the Chinese government is rounding up muslims and executing them with firing squads" when it's been made pretty clear that no one believes that

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 17:55

Good Soldier Svejk: Jul 5, 2010

MY INEVITABLE DEBT posted:

and again your knee jerk reaction is based on nothing, because you boil down "china is probably not exterminating their muslim population" to "actually the genocide is not as bad as it seems"

I'll admit I didn't sleep well and my brain is a bit broken today but I am absolutely confounded as to how you draw that conclusion from my response to your prompt.
You asked why there is no mod thread discussing American prisons/concentration camps
-> I respond because they are roundly condemned, no one is defending them in this discussion space
-> therefore I boil down the premise "china is probably not exterminating their muslim population" to "actually the genocide is not as bad as it seems"

I am failing to follow the flow here.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 18:02

Good Soldier Svejk: Jul 5, 2010

Source4Leko posted:

So now that it's OK so question the state department/NTY narrative on China can we unban zeno-25?

Zeno-25 posted:

Eugenics and genocide are preferable to a collapse of the planetary biosphere and industrial civilization.

Zeno-25 posted:

They are a useful model for the rehab process necessary for tens of millions of Americans if we ever want a cultural revolution and functional society, so yes

I would prefer this poster not come back if we are vying for amnesty.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 18:36

Good Soldier Svejk: Jul 5, 2010

Someone already used that quote but chompsky is a hopeless liberal who should stick to linguistic research

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 21:17

Good Soldier Svejk: Jul 5, 2010

THS posted:

i guess you could focus on what isn’t the main thrust of his point. chomsky himself i don’t think ever wrote much or anything about atrocities committed by the soviets or anyone else, though, so his own work is consistent with said main thrust of his point

He was emphatically not a fan and wrote this whole article on the failures of the soviets https://chomsky.info/1986____/

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 21:26

Good Soldier Svejk: Jul 5, 2010

Not surprisingly that quote/answer has a second paragraph that appears to be frequently truncated so I will produce it here

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 21:36

Good Soldier Svejk: Jul 5, 2010

Serf posted:

its a good thing that everyone here agrees that what is happening in xinjiang is a human rights abuse then

If anything I'm just teasing the academic laziness of purposely omitting a key part of a statement (admittedly, it seems to have been transcribed from him speaking so maybe a complete source is just not easily available) in defense of a point that the full context of the quote simply does not support.
That's the sort of poo poo a good professor will stomp out in a freshman seminar, or at least a very strong lesson that if you're going to blindly parrot a popular quote that it usually pays to make sure the surrounding material doesn't then basically contradict the purported point made in the quote.

I'm not saying it's intentional misrepresentation but it's willful misrepresentation in that the folks posting it want very much to believe it's sufficient and true in and of itself.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 21:47

Good Soldier Svejk: Jul 5, 2010

Serf posted:

academia continually proves how much it sucks lol

Well at least now that you're properly informed I hope you'll no longer invoke that quote at the risk of intentionally deceiving people rather than accidentally doing so.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 21:59

Good Soldier Svejk: Jul 5, 2010

THS posted:

from now on i�ll attribute the quote to glenn greenwald to make more people mad or annoyed

It'd be fun to try Marx or Lenin and see how long it takes people to catch on

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 22:07

Good Soldier Svejk: Jul 5, 2010

Agrajag posted:

let me know when china has as rich a history of international atrocities as america has beyond their own borders then ill give a poo poo about what their media says

the moment china starts funding death squads and installing brutal dictators all over the world then ill give a single gently caress about their loving stupid media

I know what you mean contemporary stuff but like... Genghis Khan just to start with.

America is a baby and has done plenty to instill itself as a warcrime champion in its short time but... like... let's not get silly here with the history

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 22:54

Good Soldier Svejk: Jul 5, 2010

Agrajag posted:

lmao you think genghis khan is chinese

I didn't call him Chinese but he was in a literal sense a Chinese emperor and posthumously recognized as one

Look it's loving nebulous but if you're giving that one then I think the US gets a pass up to 1776 at least

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 23:05

Good Soldier Svejk: Jul 5, 2010

Alright alright alright my bad
Action done while conquered is unfair turnabout

and given that I have now been conquered for my ignorance I expect unprecedented mercy

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 23:12

Good Soldier Svejk: Jul 5, 2010

oxsnard posted:

who? Because gently caress them and they should be mocked and or banned

I know we're not a name and shame others sub but any cspam regulars who do that should be ostracized in the classical sense

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 23:24

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# ¿ May 11, 2024 22:28

Good Soldier Svejk: Jul 5, 2010

I feel like I've kinda juiced my lemon on this especially after making an rear end of myself so short of folks emerging from the shadowy depths and explicitly condoning forced reeducation I feel at peace with all this and free of animosity to my posting cohorts. I don't know that we resolved anything in a fully satisfactory way but I do think the views expressed to this point are not "there is a genocide and that is a good thing" and that's enough of a starting point to find some sort of comraderie.

# ¿ Mar 27, 2021 04:10

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > C-SPAM moderation and Xinjiang: read rules in op