davel [he/him]
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  • 35 Posts
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Joined 1 year ago
Cake day: July 8th, 2023
  • davel [he/him]@lemmy.mltoWorld News@lemmy.ml•China Wrongfully Detains over 20 Tibetans and Beats Village Head Gonpo Namgyal to DeathEnglish
    122·
    16 hours ago

    Holy whataboutism, Batman! 🤦

    Citations Needed podcast: Whataboutism - The Media’s Favorite Rhetorical Shield Against Criticism of US Policy

    Since the beginning of what’s generally called ‘RussiaGate’ three years ago, pundits, media outlets, even comedians have all become insta-experts on supposed Russian propaganda techniques. The most cunning of these tricks, we are told, is that of “whataboutism” – a devious Soviet tactic of deflecting criticism by pointing out the accusers’ hypocrisy and inconsistencies. The tu quoque - or, “you, also” - fallacy, but with a unique Slavic flavor of nihilism, used by Trump and leftists alike in an effort to change the subject and focus on the faults of the United States rather than the crimes of Official State Enemies.

    But what if “whataboutism” isn’t describing a propaganda technique, but in fact is one itself: a zombie phrase that’s seeped into everyday liberal discourse that – while perhaps useful in the abstract - has manifestly turned any appeal to moral consistency into a cunning Russian psyop. From its origins in the Cold War as a means of deflecting and apologizing for Jim Crow to its braindead contemporary usage as a way of not engaging any criticism of the United States as the supposed arbiter of human rights, the term “whataboutism” has become a term that - 100 percent of the time - is simply used to defend and legitimizing American empire’s moral narratives.

    We are joined by Jeremy Scahill, co-founder of The Intercept.

    Nice try, but just as two wrongs don’t make a right, the similar but separate atrocities of Western countries don’t excuse those of China in any way.

    Still waiting on the evidence for those similar atrocities.

  • davel [he/him]@lemmy.mltoWorld News@lemmy.ml•China Wrongfully Detains over 20 Tibetans and Beats Village Head Gonpo Namgyal to DeathEnglish
    131·
    17 hours ago

    https://www.greanvillepost.com/2018/10/06/left-anticommunism-the-unkindest-cut/

    In the United States, for over a hundred years, the ruling interests tirelessly propagated anticommunism among the populace, until it became more like a religious orthodoxy than a political analysis. During the Cold War, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime’s atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them. If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.