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

Agrajag: Jan 21, 2006; gat dang thats hot

gradenko_2000 posted:

to be clear, when I look at Dolphin posting an article from the Japan Times about a conference of Uyghurs in Japan that talk about their experience with being unable to reach relatives in Xinjiang, and I find a link back to the Japan Uyghur Association, and I that that organization is an affiliate of the World Uyghur Congress, and I point out that the World Uyghur Congress is backed and funded by the National Endowment for Democracy...

... that's not to say that the accounts of those people in Japan are false. I'm sure there are people who are being completely honest and sincere about their stories of being unable to reach relatives in Xinjiang, or their knowledge that their relatives have been detained outright.

The reason we link back to the US government is because giving these people a public forum to air their grievances plays into the US government's agenda. I'm not saying they're liars*, I'm saying that these people are only having their voices amplified by the US government for the US government's purposes. That doesn't make them bad, so much as the people like Mike Pompeo or Tony Blinken who exploit the truth of their accounts in the name of jingoistic propaganda.

I make this reflection explicit, in the spirit of having a nuanced discussion.

___

_{* though as we've also seen from the likes of Zenz (or the Nayirah Testimony from an older era), it's also not beyond-the-pale for other things to be made up whole-cloth anyway.}

well i mean Bush Jr and co. literally made up the whole WMD thing and invaded Iraq which then led to the domino effect of destabilizing the whole freaking region and lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands if not millions

so i think anything that can be linked back to the CIA or State Dept should be reasonably treated as dubious at best

Agrajag has issued a correction as of 15:26 on Mar 26, 2021

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 15:22

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# ¿ May 11, 2024 10:08

Agrajag: Jan 21, 2006; gat dang thats hot

Breakfast All Day posted:

on the topic of the thread, i appreciate the openness of discussion in cspam, because it's thoroughly exposed how nearly all western coverage somehow passes through zenz and co and intermixes known misinformation in a way that makes distilling reliable information impossible. this isn't to say it makes chinese state media more reliable, but that we have such little reliable information that any discussion will inevitably involve a lot of diverging possibilities. i dont doubt han-centric racism and cultural prejudice has created many unethical systems in xinjiang and elsewhere, and even the most in-good-faith interpretation of extending birth quota policies to ethnic minorities demands getting into serious ethics about equality vs equity and integration in governance and nationhood -- but these are areas of debate we can and do have openly about the americas, europe, africa, and middle east, both historically and in current events, all the time without labeling any discussion that deviates from a state department press release as being bannably abhorrent. i do think it's possible what's happening does amount to genocide, and regardless of whether it does there are clearly abuses of rights happening. but accepting the zenz account of salo that's getting continually laundered and propagandized by western media when it's clearly driven more by his personal ideology and us/eu interests rather than any kind of fact-finding or expertise is insane and should not be some sort of forum policy

i dont doubt there is ethnic cleansing going on with china's policies towards uighurs but i do find it weird that many of the same people/instituions seem to ignore what israel has done and continues to do to the palestinians which is ethnic cleansing and also the american gov't continued logistics support/arms sales to saudi arabia that is directly responsible for what can arguably be considered ethnic cleansing in yemen

like theres some serious double standards going on here and makes me wonder what exactly the motivations are for this campaign going on in regards to china bad

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 15:36

Agrajag: Jan 21, 2006; gat dang thats hot

Eugene V. Dubstep posted:

China is a geopolitical rival of the US, that's the motivation lol

But both things can be true: China is committing genocide, and the CIA is cynically exploiting and exaggerating it for propaganda purposes. I really don't understand the point of bringing up Palestine and Yemen here. Of course US media is soft on US allies and hostile to its rivals. As someone who doesn't actually live in Xinjiang, knowing that Western media is subject to bias just creates doubt, it doesn't actually get you any closer to the facts.

the point is the national conversation is all about China bad but then all the same people going china bad have let Israel do their thing for decades. so what makes what China is doing genocide but what Israel is doing not genocide and what Saudi Arabia is doing not genocide in your eyes? What is the fine line that makes what China is doing so extraordinarily out of the norms of what we have accepted for decades from our allies?

also having watched the slow roll of the Iraq war WMD campaign play out makes me extremely skeptical of whats being pushed out in regards to China bad

Agrajag has issued a correction as of 16:08 on Mar 26, 2021

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 16:06

Agrajag: Jan 21, 2006; gat dang thats hot

Eugene V. Dubstep posted:

yeah you just posted the same thing using the same words four posts up, I can read

yeah so is it not reasonable to question why the gently caress this is happening at all or what?

Why is China exceptionally bad but Israel and Saudi Arabia not to you?

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 16:09

Agrajag: Jan 21, 2006; gat dang thats hot

Eugene V. Dubstep posted:

I'm not defending Israel and Saudi Arabia. You're the only genocide apologist here buddy

if me bringing up how weird it is that people like you have a problem with China committing genocide but have not been bothered enough to be upset by the decades long policies of other countries doing the exact same poo poo then sure call me an apologist.

yeah watching the country manufacture consent to invade another country and questioning the motivations sure is very genocide apologist of me

definitely not weird that we have all the major new institutions pushing china committing genocide and we must have american leadership. all while we are at the same time responsible for destabilizing an entire loving region over "WMD's" along with supporting Israel and Saudi Arabia doing the same exact poo poo as what China is accused of doing.

Agrajag has issued a correction as of 16:22 on Mar 26, 2021

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 16:16

Agrajag: Jan 21, 2006; gat dang thats hot

Eugene V. Dubstep posted:

I've never seen whole threads devoted to defending Israel and Saudi Arabia against charges of genocide. If I had, I would have posted about them, too.

Okay. We agree that the US manufactured a reason to invade Iraq. At that time, Iraq had 26 million people, no nukes, and no strong economic ties to the US. In what world is the exact same playbook used to invade a nuclear-armed nation with 1.4 billion people that manufactures most of your consumer goods and has trillions of dollars of Western companies' assets inside its borders? This is exactly why I'm calling you an apologist, because you dream up this bullshit scenario ('the US is going to invade on the pretext of stopping genocide!') to argue that reports of a real, existing genocide are just like reports of nonexistent WMDs.

the only thing the US ever does for foreign policy is war, violent regime change, and funding and training death squads so keep saying its all made up poo poo

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 16:36

Agrajag: Jan 21, 2006; gat dang thats hot

our entire foreign policy history is literally manufacturing various excuses for invading other countries, violent regime change, proxy wars, funding death squads, and supporting/creating dictators that commit crimes against humanity/genocide

so why this campaign of china bad and committing genocide if it isnt literally to do one of these things?

Agrajag has issued a correction as of 16:50 on Mar 26, 2021

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 16:48

Agrajag: Jan 21, 2006; gat dang thats hot

Gringostar posted:

on thing that's been bothering me is that while everyone here 100% acknowledges that most (all) western reporting are at minimum tainted by adrian zenz and the us state department and should be looked at with a poo poo load of skepticism no one has talked about how chinese media isn't also tainted as hell when it comes to reporting on issues inside their own boarder as well

that's my main issue ive had with this entire discussion is that there (at least to me) seems to be a double standard of dismissing 100% of western sources (which ill grant we should be dismissing 95% at least with how tainted it's been shown to be) we're at the same time also suppose to believe everything chinese state media is releasing as well?

in short, only trust your fists, the media will never help you

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

but hey america world police and is the good guy that doesnt have a way more heinous history of loving poo poo up all over the world am i rite? while our media pushes tons of bogus stories about foreign boogey men

Agrajag has issued a correction as of 22:53 on Mar 26, 2021

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 22:48

Agrajag: Jan 21, 2006; gat dang thats hot

Thorn Wishes Talon posted:

I only post in the Doomsday econ thread so I hope it's okay if I share my two cents here.

We don't know what is really happening in Xinjiang because the Chinese government is refusing to allow independent international journalists and NGOs to go in to investigate and document the practices. That is literally the only reason, and it makes no sense to use it as the basis for hesitating to call it genocide because absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, particularly when the only entity preventing the gathering of said evidence is the Chinese government.

Why are they adopting such a stance of aggressive stonewalling? After all, there has to be nobody in the world who wants to permanently refute these allegations of genocide more than China. Such allegations are terrible for a country's reputation and can hang like a black cloud over any other endeavor they might wish to pursue in the international arena.

People here constantly (and correctly) bash the Biden administration for refusing to allow lawyers into the camps at the US border and generally failing to be much more transparent when it comes to how refugees are treated. But it seems those same people are willing to resort to all sorts of mental gymnastics to avoid holding China to the same standards. Sure, there might be some reluctant admissions that China may be "too heavy handed" or they might be committing a few human rights abuses here and there, but there's a substantial and very noticeable amount of sympathizing with China. Why? What makes China deserve this type of benefit of the doubt? I mean yes, this is the leftist subforum, but when did leftists become fascist sympathizers?

I don't know why there needs to be a consensus on the definition of genocide among posters for there to be moderation, because these forums don't exist in a vacuum. The term has a well-recognized and widely accepted meaning in international circles:

And you know what? We know for a fact that the bolded one is happening. We know because Chinese officials have themselves confirmed half of it � that birth rates amongst Uyghur women in Xinjiang have plummeted. They of course denied that this was due to forced sterilizations, but one must ask if there's a meaningful difference between forced sterilizations, and imposing conditions on these women such that they must avoid getting pregnant at all costs, to the point where many are willing to undergo "voluntary" sterilization if they want to have any hope of meeting the conditions of their release (if they are even given a chance to try getting pregnant in the first place � we don't know if they are allowed to fraternize with men). Now, intent is a requisite of the "genocide" label, so you might ask, is the prevention of births the intent of the Chinese government? Who knows � the Chinese government won't let us independently interview the women ourselves. I'm sure the CPP is loving the fact that these women are learning Chinese and producing widgets instead of pumping out little Uyghur babies, though.

Putting all that aside, those refusing to call the treatment of Uyghurs "genocide" on the basis that "they are just re-education camps" should ask themselves what their reaction would be if the United States repurposed its camps at the border into indoctrination facilities where every incoming refugee must forget their Guatamalan-ness/Costa Rican-ness/Nicaraguan-ness/etc. and instead learn English and the American Way of Life and a set of skills determined by the US government so that they can be a "productive" member of society, before they are allowed into the country. I suspect that people here would be falling over themselves to label it genocide, then, and all these distinctions between real genocide and cultural genocide would be thrown out the window in a heart beat.

At the end of the day what China does is much more than a series of human rights abuses. It is a crime against humanity. Considering this, whether it fits the definition of genocide perfectly or only partially is almost besides the point.

yeah lets just ignore china's pretty recent history of western powers forcing their way into their country, splitting the country up into mini fiefdoms of foreign powers, and ignoring their sovereignty. perhaps that history can shed some light on their actions on not appeasing to the demands of the west and allowing operatives with a very rich history of funding loving death squads and forcing regime changes regardless of the human cost of said country

also

at the end of the day we have very real evidence of the united states doing much more than human rights abuses in south america, iraq, and afghanistan. it is a crime against humanity. considering this, whether it fits the definition of genocide perfectly or only partially is almost besides the point.

Agrajag has issued a correction as of 23:00 on Mar 26, 2021

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 22:58

Agrajag: Jan 21, 2006; gat dang thats hot

Good Soldier Svejk posted:

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

lmao you think genghis khan is chinese

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 23:01

Agrajag: Jan 21, 2006; gat dang thats hot

John Charity Spring posted:

Genghis Khan, famous Chinese person

the great wall of china famously built by genghis khan

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 23:03

Agrajag: Jan 21, 2006; gat dang thats hot

Good Soldier Svejk posted:

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 given that one then I think the US gets a pass up to 1776 at least

bro i was talking about the history of the poo poo the cia has done in south america and all the cold war poo poo etc etc

you do know the cia is responsible for all the brutal dictators and death squads in south america right? also the us is directly responsible for the dire conditions of many south american countries to this day

Agrajag has issued a correction as of 23:09 on Mar 26, 2021

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 23:06

Agrajag: Jan 21, 2006; gat dang thats hot

oxsnard posted:

but again this is all based on "what about the US?" There are zero cspam regulars who think america is good, or there shouldn't be and they would deserve mockery and/or bans for posting "actually america is good" memes. You can think that the US is worse than China without turning it into "china is good"

never posited china is good just that if were looking at who is worst bad guy on the world stage with a proven track record of exporting violence and misery it is america and that this whole campaign of china bad feels a lot like the slow roll of what went on before the invasion of iraq hence im super loving skeptical about it all

like yeah china is doing some bad poo poo yet america literally turns a blind eye to a poo poo load of atrocities from so called "allies". so why this massive campaign of china doing genocide all of a sudden thats permeating everything when weve stood by and not given a poo poo when others do the same exact same poo poo and hell you can even get blackballed from academia for even positing that said allies are committing genocide

Agrajag has issued a correction as of 23:55 on Mar 26, 2021

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 23:48

Agrajag: Jan 21, 2006; gat dang thats hot

THS posted:

i regret to inform everyone that i did give cspam too much credit. a lot of people here have not internalized a pure hatred for amerikkka and that�s why they continue to do a both sides thing. please continue with the whataboutism, it�s good and necessary

also trying to bring up ancient history or whatever is not just dumb but actually abhorrent. there is currently one state in the world which enforces its imperial hegemony at the point of a gun, and has recently murdered many millions, while displacing tens of millions more - all while upholding itself as a bastion of democracy, freedom, and liberty. it is truly sick and above and beyond worse than all second power competitors. there is no comparison, no one else is playing the same game, no one else is in the same ballpark

death to america

literally this america is thousands of miles ahead in the crimes against humanity race than any other country in the world

people arguing from some moral high ground about china bad rings hollow as gently caress

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 23:57

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# ¿ May 11, 2024 10:08

Agrajag: Jan 21, 2006; gat dang thats hot

Admiral Ray posted:

No, not really. If someone said that Saddam was about to gas the Kurds again, well, he's did that before. When the US claimed that Iraq had mobile enrichment centers for plutonium, lol, that's insane. Iraq had chemical weapons, but to claim they somehow developed nuclear ones like that was just stupid. Iran is belligerent with Israel, but they aren't stupid. They may want to eliminate Israel, but they'd like to exist afterwards too. States do things in their interest, even if we think that interest doesn't make sense or it offends us.

I didn't flesh it out in my previous comment, but if a country has a clear history of human rights abuses, well, why couldn't they commit another? And believe is too strong a term, entertain is probably more accurate. I'm willing to believe these kinds of things about nations just like I'm willing to believe a lot of the accusations thrown at cops, even if I don't have hard evidence for every single one, but that doesn't mean I'm willing to believe literally any accusation.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/26/exclusive-cia-files-prove-america-helped-saddam-as-he-gassed-iran/

quote:

The U.S. government may be considering military action in response to chemical strikes near Damascus. But a generation ago, America�s military and intelligence communities knew about and did nothing to stop a series of nerve gas attacks far more devastating than anything Syria has seen, Foreign Policy has learned.

In 1988, during the waning days of Iraq�s war with Iran, the United States learned through satellite imagery that Iran was about to gain a major strategic advantage by exploiting a hole in Iraqi defenses. U.S. intelligence officials conveyed the location of the Iranian troops to Iraq, fully aware that Hussein�s military would attack with chemical weapons, including sarin, a lethal nerve agent.

# ¿ Mar 27, 2021 00:00

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