It was 100% planned you're absolutely right, from Trump repeatedly lying and inciting the crowd to the lack of response from authorities to intervene to Trump saying he loves them and they're very special and Pence having to be the one who called the National Guard in to assist after Trump resisted doing so. Trump staged a coup trying to instill fear in the senators to get his way after bullshitting didn't cut it and to be frank I wouldn't call anyone who was rioting in their right minds because anyone who supports Trump at this point cannot be sane.
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Headlines “Politics” [read the OP before posting]
- Thread starter vonFiedler
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I'm saying white supremacy is a major factor. I mean I think I'm oversimplifying this, but many people are uncomfortable with the idea of China gaining power in part because that would challenge white supremacy. This makes them willingly susceptible to propaganda positioning the status quo of US hegemony as an ultimately positive thing due to the evils (real or otherwise) of countries like China. They might make excuses like 'oh it's because we're a democracy,' but tell someone whose family member was killed by the police that oh it's ok, we're a fucking democracy. It's ultimately an excuse.
I'm speaking as a white person here, but I think many white people, including white liberals/progressives/leftists have this kind of... intellectual understanding that 'shit is fucked,' but also an unconscious knowledge that they themselves are basically going to be fine as long as some reasonable level of 'stability' is maintained. And so you get 'leftists' who will support like universal health care or higher minimum wage or whatever, but anything that actually represents a serious threat to white supremacy provokes scary feelings in them (feelings that really need to be examined).
I am not entirely sure how true this is. You may be partially right and some people may be afraid for racist reasons. However, I think that people are mostly afraid because China has shown now and in the past that they do not care about the freedoms of many of their citizens to speak their minds. I think that most people would rather live in the US where they can at least speak freely about how they don't like their government rather than China where speaking out against the government leads to you being killed.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/nati...deaths-black-lives-matter-20190317-story.html
I think you may be right in a way. many americans understand implicitly that if they play by the rules (of white supremacy), they'll be safe to criticize the government and have certain freedoms. and they're scared of upending that, especially if they're white, because it would mean upending a system that in some sense offers them protection. (also because serious challenges to the status quo are actually not tolerated at all, as the deaths of many ferguson protesters shows)
I think you may be right in a way. many americans understand implicitly that if they play by the rules (of white supremacy), they'll be safe to criticize the government and have certain freedoms. and they're scared of upending that, especially if they're white, because it would mean upending a system that in some sense offers them protection. (also because serious challenges to the status quo are actually not tolerated at all, as the deaths of many ferguson protesters shows)
I dont really know how bad life is in America for black people, but I am very skeptical that it is better to be an Uyghur in China than a Black person in America. I don't really have very much respect for the American government at all, but, domestically at least, it seems pretty clearly better than the Chinese government. Like, there is probably some selection bias here, but I have never heard of anyone claiming asylum from persecution in America. There are Falun Gong protests outside the Chinese embassy here every single day. No one is doing that outside the American embassy.
Ok, actually we have had BLM protests here in the last year, but I still think we are talking about an entirely different order of magnitude here.
Internationally it is a different story, and American imperialism can just get in the bin. However, I am pretty sure China is not gonna be anyone's saviour. I am far more optimistic about the possibility of America actually turning over some kind of a new leaf than I am that China is going to free anyone from imperialism.
Well technically they will probably just move the imperialism around a bit, so there might end up with some people getting freed. Life might get a lot better for South America under a Chinese hegemony. Definitely gonna be shit for Taiwan though.
Ok, actually we have had BLM protests here in the last year, but I still think we are talking about an entirely different order of magnitude here.
Internationally it is a different story, and American imperialism can just get in the bin. However, I am pretty sure China is not gonna be anyone's saviour. I am far more optimistic about the possibility of America actually turning over some kind of a new leaf than I am that China is going to free anyone from imperialism.
Well technically they will probably just move the imperialism around a bit, so there might end up with some people getting freed. Life might get a lot better for South America under a Chinese hegemony. Definitely gonna be shit for Taiwan though.
Like do we really believe this notion that there isn't a protest outside an american embassy everyday, or what? Like think about say the embassy in Iraq or in other MENA countries, I wouldn't be too sure or put too much stock into this way of thinking even if there isn't a protest at an american embassy everyday, mainly because I would guess that any protest against Chinese imperialism or authoritarianism is better funded than protests against the U.S. Regardless, I think the premise of this discussion is fundamentally flawed and shortsighted.
From a capital perspective, from a political perspective even, it is worth noting that the backers of the (old pre-trump) republican establishment in America thinks China is great, obviously their fronts talk a big game about hating china and big CCP evil, but it's a massive ruse tbh, they're all totally in bed with each other financially and in terms of benefiting from the pretense of conflict in order to stir up domestic support on both sides of the pacific. In addition, American corporations continue to happily fulfill any number of Chinese contracts to assist with the development of surveillance technology.
As for who benefits from chinese vs American imperialism, it is not really something I enjoy discussing, but it's fairly established that American imperial economics intends to keep south america as poor and instable as possible to ensure a cheap food supply. And while that doesn't have anything to do with China, a country I hardly like at all, I am not really impressed by this idea that 'oh china is an order of magnitude worse' for a variety of reasons. First of all, I think outside of imperial dominance, the interests of the US and China are broadly aligned at this point from a geopolitical perspective, so aligned that hot conflict is foreclosed for the next century or two at the minimum. The other reason I am unimpressed is because if I'm thinking of which authoritarian country I'm most scarred of in the next 50 years it's def russia. So while I can understand that China is definitely very repressive, likely even more so than the US domestically, I also think these discussions tend to lack a critical skepticism or context which I find irksome. We aren't voting for president after all, the lesser of 2 evils pretext doesn't really play for me and I think there are solid grounds to locate China and the US within an overall repressive continuum/spectrum and it is not even obvious to me that one can usefully separate their activities given their entanglement.
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Pretty sure you just agreed with everything I said.
I tried to be pretty explicit about when I was talking about domestic vs international. You just ignored that completely. Maybe there's a case to be made that the distinction is a pointless one, but you haven't bothered to argue that...
But whatever, we're getting off topic here. Let's just agree that China is not gonna save anyone from imperialism. And I'll note that my view is that China's internal human rights are far worse than America's but you only think it is probably somewhat worse. Also I agree that the Russian government is worse than either China's or America's.
But on this point:
I tried to be pretty explicit about when I was talking about domestic vs international. You just ignored that completely. Maybe there's a case to be made that the distinction is a pointless one, but you haven't bothered to argue that...
But whatever, we're getting off topic here. Let's just agree that China is not gonna save anyone from imperialism. And I'll note that my view is that China's internal human rights are far worse than America's but you only think it is probably somewhat worse. Also I agree that the Russian government is worse than either China's or America's.
But on this point:
I think the value in being clear about when one government is worse than another is when you have to vote for your own government, you can look at overseas governments and decide whether that is what you want or not. If you are an American, I very strongly recommend not following a "lets be more like China" model.
I have contributed to this 'who is the best authoritarian state' discourse, and I wish I hadn't, because that's not the point I wanted to make and it's way out of scope for this thread. I'd rather not be 'ruled' by any superpower, all superpowers are evil and oppressive to me and I don't live under any of them. But it's unproductive to discuss what you'd like to see happen. Most economic and political literature points to the fact that soon enough China will overtake America. No, you're not going to get colonised or have the internet taken away from you or something. It just means the influence of America in world politics is diluted, and I think that's for the better, because the world desperately needs to focus on climate change et al. And while I'm hopeful Biden will do something about this, it can all be undone in any given 2-4 year cycle of elections, which is one area I believe totalitarianism has succeeded, unfortunately.
The greatest political analyst of our generation, Chen Weihua, had this to say:
The greatest political analyst of our generation, Chen Weihua, had this to say:
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i want to clarify my earlier post as well, but first let me be clear that this isn't directed towards any particular poster in this thread.
liberals have had an absolute blast pointing out how trump has undermined america's international standing because liberals approach politics with a colonizing lens. our standing has been hurt with other western nations... i would argue that things have not changed much with how we are perceived by the nations we exploit.
obviously, losing influence is going to be viewed positively by nations looking to grow more powerful like russia and china, as they can now step in and gain more influence, thus gaining more power. let me be clear: none of these states are good states. there is no such thing as a good form of imperialism.
the issue is, most americans don't see it this way: they see it as china getting stronger -> us getting weaker -> our lives getting worse. this is not true. people are very quick to criticize china while ignoring america doing worse things. again, this isn't so much about which superpower is the good guy (answer: none). rather, i wanted to point out the foolishness of arguments that focus so much on the villainous china and russia and how trump is helping them to undermine america and america's influence abroad. again, i am not saying every criticism of these countries is invalid or racist... my concern lies more with the approach. people should take a step back and assess why they think america losing influence is such a bad thing.
liberals have had an absolute blast pointing out how trump has undermined america's international standing because liberals approach politics with a colonizing lens. our standing has been hurt with other western nations... i would argue that things have not changed much with how we are perceived by the nations we exploit.
obviously, losing influence is going to be viewed positively by nations looking to grow more powerful like russia and china, as they can now step in and gain more influence, thus gaining more power. let me be clear: none of these states are good states. there is no such thing as a good form of imperialism.
the issue is, most americans don't see it this way: they see it as china getting stronger -> us getting weaker -> our lives getting worse. this is not true. people are very quick to criticize china while ignoring america doing worse things. again, this isn't so much about which superpower is the good guy (answer: none). rather, i wanted to point out the foolishness of arguments that focus so much on the villainous china and russia and how trump is helping them to undermine america and america's influence abroad. again, i am not saying every criticism of these countries is invalid or racist... my concern lies more with the approach. people should take a step back and assess why they think america losing influence is such a bad thing.
Confirmed, Parler will lose its web hosted privileges from Amazon.
Parler is hosted through AWS, and this comes shortly after Apple and Google Play removed their apps from the store. This comes in response to the Capitol storming and many Parler users calling for violence and plotting through the platform.
Parler is hosted through AWS, and this comes shortly after Apple and Google Play removed their apps from the store. This comes in response to the Capitol storming and many Parler users calling for violence and plotting through the platform.
I'm glad that Trump and all of the facist groups associated with him are being completely de-platformed universally, but i'll be honest I'm sad that a large population will never be able to go back and search how absolutely visionary some of his shitposting was pre-presidency and it's a shame there's no Trump archive twitter account that can post some of the most ridiculous shit he's posted throughout the years so we can laugh at him.
I can't believe this guy won the presidency tweeting like dril
I can't believe this guy won the presidency tweeting like dril
Confirmed, Parler will lose its web hosted privileges from Amazon.
Parler is hosted through AWS, and this comes shortly after Apple and Google Play removed their apps from the store. This comes in response to the Capitol storming and many Parler users calling for violence and plotting through the platform.
As per usual with the Trump cult they pull the victim card and spew whatever bs first comes to mind to plead innocent.
They not only pointed how Trump has undermined America's international standing, but also how Trump has undermined America's democracy, making it "fragile" or in "danger". According to such logic, America's democracy has been undermined because some protesters vandalized Capitol Hill and not because a small group of oligarchs, behind society's back, decide to interfere in other countries on a daily basis. Kind of ironic I'd say.
Rubio, aka Mr. Bible Boy, recently said that what happened on Capitol Hill was a third world style anti-American anarchy, which is something I've heard from a few democrats and republicans analysts and representatives. Don't they remember what has happened in the past and is still happening in South America mainly because of their interference? We've had Brazil's 1964 coup, Argentine's 1976 coup, Bolivia's 1971 coup, Chile's 1973 coup, Uruguay's 1973 coup, and most recently, Brazil's 2016 coup, Bolivia's 2019 coup and Venezuela's 2002 coup, which is still going on. They even supported a member of the parliament, which is the equivalent of the U.S. Congress here in Venezuela, who proclaimed himself to be the president of the country because he simply wanted to, but anyway, many other coups have occurred, and it seems like they've also tried some of their own anti-American anarchy medicine this time.
Also, not only has Trump's account been suspended, all of his tweets have been deleted, as if he never existed. Imagine thinking that social networks are only private companies and that they should not be subject to the constitution, the laws relating to the internet or the justice system of the country in which they operate. The liberal fantasy is certainly mind-blowing, but yeah, screw the chinese censorship and the soviets with their desire to eliminate and rewrite history!
Simply laughable.
He was banned from social media for good reason, he has never once used the platforms for good causes. He uses them to spread lies and hate and the build up over the past few months coupled with his rallies was the primary reason for the riot as he incited his followers. It was standard tyrant if you're not with me you can die or live in perpetual fear procedure, what good does it do to allow someone like him to have a platform? You shouldn't be allowed free speech when you're inciting riots and trying to get your cult to commit murder.They not only pointed how Trump has undermined America's international standing, but also how Trump has undermined America's democracy, making it "fragile" or in "danger". According to such logic, America's democracy has been undermined because some protesters vandalized Capitol Hill and not because a small group of oligarchs, behind society's back, decide to interfere in other countries on a daily basis. Kind of ironic I'd say.
Rubio, aka Mr. Bible Boy, recently said that what happened on Capitol Hill was a third world style anti-American anarchy, which is something I've heard from a few democrats and republicans analysts and representatives. Don't they remember what has happened in the past and is still happening in South America mainly because of their interference? We've had Brazil's 1964 coup, Argentine's 1976 coup, Bolivia's 1971 coup, Chile's 1973 coup, Uruguay's 1973 coup, and most recently, Brazil's 2016 coup, Bolivia's 2019 coup and Venezuela's 2002 coup, which is still going on. They even supported a member of the parliament, which is the equivalent of the U.S. Congress here in Venezuela, who proclaimed himself to be the president of the country because he simply wanted to, but anyway, many other coups have occurred, and it seems like they've also tried some of their own anti-American anarchy medicine this time.
Also, not only has Trump's account been suspended, all of his tweets have been deleted, as if he never existed. Imagine thinking that social networks are only private companies and that they should not be subject to the constitution, the laws relating to the internet or the justice system of the country in which they operate. The liberal fantasy is certainly mind-blowing, but yeah, screw the chinese censorship and the soviets with their desire to eliminate and rewrite history!
Simply laughable.
When did I say that I was against his Twitter's suspension? Of course I'm not. I'm glad that they've finally decided, after such a long time, to get his Twitter account suspended, as he's been clearly instigating and promoting non-peaceful protests. Now, you just said that someone shouldn't be allowed free speech when inciting riots and trying to get one's cult to commit murder, which is right, but those who claim to be in favor of freedom of speech are the ones who usually protest when China or Russia or almost any other country in general decides to suspend accounts of certain individuals from their platforms for the same exact thing, or do I have to remember some of the things that happened in Hong Kong last year or Russia? It has even happened here in my country. That's what I was trying to point out with my last message, but yeah, screw the chinese censorship and the soviets with their desire to eliminate and rewrite history!, which is what most of the u.s media usually talk about.
Also, try to be nice next time, as I haven't disrespected you.
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I apologize if I came off that way as that wasn't my intention, I do agree with you many do have that double standard and under normal circumstances I'm against censorship but when your goal is the intent to harm it's 100% warranted no matter where it's happening. Freedom of speech wasn't intended to be used that way when it became an ideal.When did I say that I was against his Twitter's suspension? Of course I'm not. I'm glad that they've finally decided, after such a long time, to get his Twitter account suspended, as he's been clearly instigating and promoting non-peaceful protests. Now, you just said that someone shouldn't be allowed free speech when inciting riots and trying to get one's cult to commit murder, which is right, but those who claim to be in favor of freedom of speech are the ones who usually protest when China or Russia or almost any other country in general decides to suspend accounts of certain individuals from their platforms for the same exact thing, or do I have to remember some of the things that happened in Hong Kong last year or Russia? It has even happened here in my country. That's what I was trying to point out with my last message, screw the chinese censorship and the soviets with their desire to eliminate and rewrite history, which is what most of the u.s media usually say.
Also, try to be nice next time, as I haven't disrespected you.
I do agree that no one shoud be allowed freedom of speech when inciting violence and spreading lies and such, and I think that we all agree on this, it's common sense. The fact that some people might think that someone would be fine inciting these things just to have followers consume such material it's just completely idiotic. What's also wrong here is how platforms such as Twitter have been allowed to suspend accounts that have not incurred in breaking its terms of service, because there's been many other individuals and organizations that have been suspended from the platform, and I'm talking about those who had nothing to do on what happened in Capitol Hill and have been suspended long before Trump's suspension. Double standards shouldn't be allowed on any platform when it comes to suspend a certain individual or group of people and pretend that it's fine, as something like this is probably going to be used against others, just to justify these kind of things. Also, here's when freedom of speech is at risk, because Twitter claims to defend such freedom, but at the same time is silencing other's opinion in order to satisfy interests of a certain group and have control over digital speech, which is what's been going on for quite some time. They are clearly not going to face any responsibility on this, it's Silicon Valley, but I guess it's complicated, because like it or not, both democrats and republicans use it for their own benefit.
Trump is very much a pathological liar.
freedom of speech in the sense that I think you're understanding it is fundamentally flawed and incorrect, flooding the field with disinformation is a censorship strategy. Platforms including social media and youtube that allow disinformation to spread faster than the truth are a perfect tool for repressive regimes to accomplish their goals. And there is little incentive for these platforms to stop censorship through disinformation because it is profitable for them.
Facebook will ban you for complaining about m*n but just put a tag on your post if you spread conspiracy theories, grappling with these facts should help you to see that a free and open discourse necessitates silencing distractors and bad actors. Unfortunately most regulators lack any real understanding of the problems inherent to their naive and dangerous notion of 'free speech'.
on the US vs. China:
i think it's important to understand that when people say one country is better than the other, they're strictly referring to governments and not much else. i think it is very easy for Amerocentric places to blatantly label china as bad because it's one of the few things BOTH of our political parties shove down our throats. when that article came out that China will surpass the US economy by 2030 or whatever you would think they were talking about nuclear missile testing. the same stuff happens with russia, too. if you are a citizen of an adversary country, most americans are brainwashed into believing you're part of some kind of psy-op to destroy our democracy. recent events have shown we are certainly capable of doing that without outside help. anyway, without going too far into the "both sides" bs, I will say anti-China/Russia rhetoric is right on point with neo-lib values, so if you needed any more reason to hate them, there you go. neo-libs will tell you how bad the chinese government is for killing their own ppl but then go off about how great capitalism is and how poggers elon musk is. shits wild.
i think it's important to understand that when people say one country is better than the other, they're strictly referring to governments and not much else. i think it is very easy for Amerocentric places to blatantly label china as bad because it's one of the few things BOTH of our political parties shove down our throats. when that article came out that China will surpass the US economy by 2030 or whatever you would think they were talking about nuclear missile testing. the same stuff happens with russia, too. if you are a citizen of an adversary country, most americans are brainwashed into believing you're part of some kind of psy-op to destroy our democracy. recent events have shown we are certainly capable of doing that without outside help. anyway, without going too far into the "both sides" bs, I will say anti-China/Russia rhetoric is right on point with neo-lib values, so if you needed any more reason to hate them, there you go. neo-libs will tell you how bad the chinese government is for killing their own ppl but then go off about how great capitalism is and how poggers elon musk is. shits wild.
we were discussing the white supremacist mob that stormed the capitol and then that turned into how that's bad because china would gain influence out of it. and it wasn't even surprising, because that happens like all the time.
so yeah, without understanding that context, it may be confusing that people would come in here and defend china. maybe consider the possibility that it's a little weird how often people shit themselves about china in response to terrible things happening in america.
edit: the post this was kind of a response to has been deleted so it doesn't make much sense but that's ok
so yeah, without understanding that context, it may be confusing that people would come in here and defend china. maybe consider the possibility that it's a little weird how often people shit themselves about china in response to terrible things happening in america.
edit: the post this was kind of a response to has been deleted so it doesn't make much sense but that's ok
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Last year Twitter and Facebook censored an article (from ny post) in which they exposed a corruption case involving Joe Biden, his son, Hunter Biden and a Ukrainian gas company, apparently because it was based on untrue facts, but on the other hand, they allow all lies on Russia's so called "influence" in US institutions. I even remember both democrats and republicans representatives saying how bad was (and still is, according to them) the Chinese censorship when they banned platforms such as Facebook and Twitter for not having collaborated with authorities after protests and attacks to its institutions, which were full of violence. So yes, as you just said, unfortunately most regulators lack any real understanding of the problems inherent to their naive and dangerous notion of 'free speech'.
Twitter has censored and suspended accounts from countries, organizations and individuals when the US government and its think tanks ask to, but it didn't suspend representatives for having instigated conflicts in other countries or Trump himself for having threatened nuclear war, they simply waited for his followers to consume a bunch of lies and desinformation to take the congress and consume an alleged coup. Anyway, I guess this is what they needed.
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