Paraphrasing, but:
- “Truth does not exist, only opinions, and they’re all equally valid.”
- “Morality is fundamentally relative.” (It follows from the former, I guess.)
- “Every tribe/culture has always been/remains equally brutal, bloodthirsty, hedonistic, nihilistic, imperialistic and selfishly amoral.”
- “There are no differences between the sexes besides the physical ones.” (And even that one is denied at times, for instance when it comes to transexual athletes)
- “Love, making a lifetime commitment to your partner and raising kids are not (nor should they be) of major relevance in people’s lives.” (And if you even mention it you’re a control freak, limiting women’s freedom and whatnot)
- “You gotta take care of yourself first and foremost!” (the Divine and the collective come second and third, if they’re thought of at all, to the self, and only the self is truly worthy of attention)
Crocs
A close friend (bless his heart) asked me if I “really think China is more free than, say, France?” when talking about things like freedom of the press and journalistic integrity. I’ve seen a lot of that recently, that because we live in a country which had been once considered to be “socialistic” that the stories we are told and things we have been taught wouldn’t align as much with what global and local capitalists want us to believe is true. At one point I remember him critizising me for using the term “wage slave” (which I used jokingly but w/e) because “none of us here are actual wage slaves”. Because you apparently have to be an Asian child in a Nike sweatshop to actually be opressed by capitalism. My brother, no-one is free until all are free.
“none of us here are actual wage slaves”
Bro is just cosplaying as one
It might have been a misunderstanding between how being unemployed doesn’t rule out being a wage slave, even if you live in a country with a relatively high standard of living because the means of production are still capitalistic, you just don’t have any income and the government tries its best to not give you any also. Or I used the term in a too abstract of a manner elsewise. Or a combination of all and some others.
I mean, france is more free when it comes to the freedom of the press
citation needed
That article no longer exists, for one, secondly, aljezeera is quite biased when it comes to certain topics, notably palestine, thirdly, I see plaestine flags in every goddamn french protest, and multiple political parties and news sites are pro-palestine.
It’s odd I don’t see a chinese political party or news site denouncing the treatment of the uyghurs or defending the hong kong activists.
Like come on.
These are the facts that are known to everyone born and living under Western Imperialism, because communism doesn’t work because communism can’t work because the Western Imperialists told us so! How can you be so naive and stupid to believe anything else? Do you not know?
That’s what you sound like, bootlicker.
What do you mean by “the article no longer exists”? What is an unbiased news outlet? What is an unbiased view of Palestine? What is the response of the Fr*nch state to “every goddamn french protest”? Which political parties and news sites in Fr*nce are Pro Palestine and why might that be deemed a problem? What is the “treatment of Uyghurs” that is denouncable and what are the Hong Kong activists doing that need to be defended? And defending against who?
And why are you lib?
What do you mean by “the article no longer exists”?
I get a 404 on that link, might be a me issue though.
What is an unbiased news outlet? What is an unbiased view of Palestine?
What I meant to say was that site gives qatar’s views on everything, and have a vested interest in making it look like the west is completely unable to recognize gaza and such
What is the response of the Frnch state to “every goddamn french protest”?
It is permitted, and the right to strike is strongly protected, unlike in china. Under the current administration the gendarmerie often, to put it bluntly, sends tear gas to scatter certain protestors, which is bad, but nobody is arrested unless they commit an actual crime, such as setting a car on fire.
Which political parties and news sites in Frnce are Pro Palestine and why might that be deemed a problem?
I don’t see why you think i think it’s a problem, but off the top of my head la france insoumise is a party that loudly supports palestine in the assemblee nationale, and liberation.fr and lemonde are news sites that are pro-palestine.
What is the “treatment of Uyghurs” that is denouncable
Forced labour, concentration camps and mass sterilization maybe?
Hong Kong activists doing that need to be defended?
They were protesting the erosion of Hong Kongs relative sovereignty within china, and were violently beaten down by police with batons, water guns and tear gas, journalists were forced to include more anti-protester viewpoints and press freedom was further limited following the incident. This is in Hong Kong btw, which ranks higher on free press indexes than china proper. Something that made the news in the west was china pressuring blizzard to ban a player who spoke out in support of the protestors from their tournaments.
And defending against who?
The government.
And why are you lib?
Someone can be both anti-china and not a liberal. I am notably not a fan of dictatorships and imperialism, even if it’s branded as socialist.
oh, somehow it’s georestricted? dafuq… Anyways better links/sources are available in the other reply.
What I meant to say was that site gives qatar’s views on everything, and have a vested interest in making it look like the west is completely unable to recognize gaza and such
But the Western nations, who engineered the settler-colony currently occupying Palestine, is incapable of recognizing Palestine. All the recent news about the West recognizing Palestine aren’t actually in any way meaningful when A) they’ve propped up and maintained the settler-colony for decades and continue to do so, while also recognizing the Euroanglo-Zionazi settler-colony that they themselves manufactured and B) the recognition itself is under the condition that Hamas is dissolved or anything to that effect.
No research, no right to speak.
Tell us exactly where Al Jazeera is wrong, tell us exactly what an unbiased news outlet is like and what an unbiased view of Palestine is supposed to be. No research, no right to speak.
nobody is arrested unless they commit an actual crime [in Fr*\nce]
Is using the word “intifida” a criminal act and therefore should be followed up with an arrest?
I don’t know how you claim to see Pro Palestine protests and activism but don’t even know half the shit that the Fr*\nch state carries out under the banner of “protecting democracy”, and also somehow have the guts to claim China doesn’t have the conception of Right to Protest. No research, no right to speak.
liberation.fr and lemonde are news sites that are pro-palestine
These “news sites” use the terms “war on Gaza” and “Israel-Hamas War/Conflict” to pretend as if it’s a playing-level field of two equally matching opposing militaries and to downplay genocide. They are also owned by bougies whose shared material interest is keeping the settler-colony alive. No research, no right to speak.
Citations needed on the Hong Kong stuff. Championing universalizing ideals of “both the West and China are equally imperialistic and bad” is a reaction so meek, so infantile, that it doesn’t actually ideologically and materially go against Western hegemony or imperialism. Therefore, by also considering the other things you’ve opined, it makes you a lib.
No research, no right to speak.
Any of them indexes would certainly have France higher than China
If indicators or labels are used to rank Certified Bad Countries at the bottom (read: US State Department stamped list of countries tha the US is threatened by) and white countries at the top, then surely something somewhere has gone amiss, no?
Literally all of these rankings are created by Western imperial countries, whose economies are held up by robbing the freedoms of the Global South, that continue to uphold one of their many sacred democratic rituals of suppressing Pro-Palestinian liberation protests, and then some.
- Pro-Palestine activists are under attack in Europe
- Censorship in Europe: Major Palestinian news channels banned on Telegram
- Police send file on British independent journalist Richard Medhurst to Crown Prosecution Service
- Switzerland releases, deports Palestinian American journalist Ali Abunimah
- Louisiana immigration judge orders Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil deported to Syria or Algeria
“freedom” is such a vague concept though, mostly used for bullshit rhetoric
Yeah that’s true
Acting that everyone on Reddit/Lemmy is American.
The Netherlands is just as much a part of the West.
Totally buying the touristy theme park version of whatever other culture. No, the people at the resort don’t actually think you’re great. No, tripping with a self-proclaimed shaman who charges a month’s local wage to resolve your mommy issues is not how the locals do mysticism.
Does the self-proclaimed shaman actually resolve mommy issues though? Asking for a friend.
MM/dd/yyyy date format by default on software
Goodness gracious, it gives me an aneurysm every time I set up a new computer with the en_US locale or have to fill out forms with that date format.
Worst format ever. It should either be dd/mm/yyyy or yyyy/mm/dd
The worst?? Try mm/yy/dd, and you’ll regret everything in your life.
oh god my eyes
Omg who uses that?
No one who survived the attempt to require others to use it.
Me, for the April Fools release for one of my projects.
Okay now that IS the worst, good point
What fresh evil is this?
ISO-8601. Accept no compromise.
yyyy/mm/dd
YYYY-MM-DD
Standard is for dashes in ISO8601.
date +%sthis is just the USA, not the whole west
This is just the madlads in the US
Someone once tole me only Western hippies believe in alternative medicine
I have some friends in Asia who are obsessed with it as well though.
Because you don’t live in Western bubble
I’m living in the west of Europe though.
In the west - yeah? Obviously third worlders also believe in various miracle healers and televangelist preachers and such, but those countries too have scientific minds and communities and bodies that practice evidence-based, aka “western” modern medicine.
When alternative medicine works, we call it medicine.
Example?
Failing to have a coherent understanding of how imperialism works. A lot of westerners seem to think they live in developed countries developed purely by their own industry, while not realizing how financial capital continues to plunder the global south.
sometimes not acknowledging it even exists.
Definitely true as well.
Any resource you could recommend for someone who wants a better understanding of this?
Yes, actually! I wrote an introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list, you can skip straight to the “imperialism” section. It’ll be a bit difficult to jump straight there without the other sections, but it won’t be impossible. If you only read one, it should be Lenin’s Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism | Audiobook, which is by far the most clear and important work on the subject. The only problem is that imperialism has developed quite a lot since Lenin wrote it, and the US Empire is now unquestionably the top dog. For more on that, I recommend Michael Hudson’s Super-Imperialism: The Origin and Fundamentals of U.S. World Dominance.
If you only want a quick overview, though, Prolewiki’s article on imperialism is really good by itself.
Thank you for the quality resource! I realized I already had this saved but haven’t gotten to that section yet o7.
No problem! It’s a fair bit into the list because imperialism is both the number 1 most important contradiction in the world today, and quite an advanced topic when first delving into Marxism. If you already have the list saved, and have the time and willingness, I suggest following it the standard way - it’s much easier to understand when you have the background info!
I knew I had you tagged as Marxist - Leninist Bro for a reason ;P, properly appreciate the effort you’ve put into it. Yes, following the list as outlined is my intent - excited to delve into the imperialist section now, it’s something I’ve not put much intention towards learning beforehand, as such it’s awesome you’ve put together something so comprehensive.
measuring food in cups
Their attitudes towards elderly parents. I’ve been told I shouldn’t worry about helping them in their old age because they had their chance to work and save for retirement and so it’s their responsibility of it’s not enough. Except… They didn’t. They migrated here with nothing, provided for THEIR parents their whole lives, and did the best they could for me, which left them with next to nothing. Westerners assume everyone boomer aged or so had the same opportunities that their parents had. The nuclear family is also very hands-off about caring for the elderly. That’s not how most of the world operates. Plus, it’s so sad!
Jaysus
Yep, same in the UK. We’ve abandoned our elderly and seemingly can’t wait for our kids to leave so that we enjoy maybe 10 years of watching TV and not working before we die.
In other, less ‘developed’ countries the family is a unit. The elderly help with the infants (which has been proven to be mutually beneficial), while the rest of the family works or helps maintain the household. There’s way less likelyhood of abandonment or lonliness in old age, which in my country is endemic.
Literally anything MAGA says
“We need to help African kids!”
These often don’t know a single African country besides “South Africa”
“If your poor its because you didn’t try hard enough”
Even in the west that one doesn’t stand. We have systemic unemployment and tons of hard working family owned business lost everything when Amazon took their market share
Yeah that one is less a ‘westernism’ and more a ‘1%er-ism’
“Nambia”
Thinking China is the same as it was 10-30 years ago and that Chinese products can’t have superior quality.
We’ve reached a point where the US doesn’t even know how to manufacture some of the stuff China can.
I’ve recently been getting some stupidly high-quality stuff from China for insanely good prices.
Essentially, I’ve been buying stuff from Walmart that has been marked down over $100. What I think is happening is no-name Chinese companies try to make a high quality product and sell it for a premium, but then nobody buys it because of the reputation no-name Chinese companies have. Then, they still need to sell their inventory so we can get great products at great prices.
These bluetooth headphones from a company I’ve never heard on straight up shit on the Sennheisers I used to have that cost significantly more.
It’s more that China already produces so much of what, say, Statesians consume. US-based companies offshore production and sell domestically at higher prices, but if you go straight to the manufacturers, you can get closer to the prices the US-based companies are already buying them for. These products are often made at the same factories, even, but don’t have the US branding, that’s about it.
I got my glasses from a Chinese company that owns the entire chain of production. Excellent quality, and even lower priced than “cheap” American stores like Walmart that just resell.
I see that clearly when i buy products from Aliexpress or Temu and shops in Poland are full of literally the same items but 3-5 times the price. Hell some of the internet shops openly does the thing that you buys something and only then they order it in China for you but you still pay 3-5 times the price.
Glass shops are the same way.
They order their inventory on DHgate then mark it up at least 100%.
I think some Chinese brands need to own their premium prices. It might be difficult with electronics however.
There are steels that premium Chinese brands can make that are objectively better that nobody else has produced yet and they are VERY expensive.
It’s not just, but very much an american thing to say. It’s almost every video on youtube.“i bought this power tool for $4 from china and man it’s bad.” All the comments are: hahaha china only makes shit, who could’ve guessed.
You can buy the best literally everything from china. But it’s not gonna be cheap. But then it’s like:“that’s too expensive for something from china.” I’m worried when something is “American made” because it’s an absolute gamble and the chances are really high that they use their weirdo measurements where you need magically sized tools to taje it apart.
I mean paying top dollar for slave labour made products is wild.
Slave labor is illegal in China, and working conditions have continuously been improving year over year for decades. The upper-level comment applies directly to that type of thinking you’re doing here.
Refering mostly to cases like the Ughers treatment in which many of them are sent into forced larbor around the country. The excessive use of state violence against workers organizing for better conditions is still something that is regurlary boasted about to encourage forign investment as well.
No, this is closer to fantasy than reality, you need to turn off Fox News. Regarding the treatment of Uyghurs, read Xinjiang: A Resource and Report Compilation, and there isn’t excessice state violence against workers organizing for better conditions. In fact, the state most often sides with the workers against capitalists.
Is unionzation legal in the majority of China now?
Yes, just not in a way that goes against the socialist system.
They literally own the means of production
“They” just doesnt seem to be the average Chinese citizen.
The large firms and key industries in China are overwhelmingly publicly owned:
State owned to mean public owned depends on the robustness of the democratic pratices of the state to me
China is comprehensively democratic as well, and has high approval rates for it:
They literally own the workers
