I used to think people talking about “horseshoe theory” were all bullshitters. Because I had never seen people on the left unironically doing anything close to what the right does.
Then I saw the tankies on Lemmy. I’m still a proud leftist, but geez nothing has made me question that stance more than seeing how fervently the tankies deny genocides and defend aggressive warmongering—as long as the country perpetrating it is one that calls itself “communist”, or is a successor to one that used to call itself communist. Exactly the same way the right and centre-left do regarding Israel’s genocides. Lemmy’s tankies are way more similar to the nazis of other social media than any other group around.
Which scares me a little as someone who basically completely agrees with them on economic issues.
I’m still a proud leftist, but geez nothing has made me question that stance more than seeing how fervently the tankies deny genocides and defend aggressive warmongering—as long as the country perpetrating it is one that calls itself “communist”, or is a successor to one that used to call itself communist.
If that were true then we’d all be falling over ourselves to defend Pol Pot instead of calling him a shit and a CIA puppet and not wanting anything to do with him.
You see that’s kind of where the problem is. You can say there’s a genocide and I can say “where” and that gives me the vibe of a genocide denier.
I’ve looked for evidence, I’ve asked for evidence, but the best I’ve ever gotten is a satellite image of some prison in China, some (AI padded) mugshots with no context, and some thorough browbeating by very serious liberals.
Let me put this another way. I’m of Jewish descent. My great aunt was in a camp. I’m not trying to “deny” any genocides, but what should my standard of evidence be? Particularly when there is a clear incentive for western media to create false narratives about their enemies, and have done so before?
If you have something to present that I haven’t seen, I and the other “tankies” are wide open to engage with it.
You can pretend all you want that you’re “just asking questions”, but that doesn’t change facts. The Uyghur genocide has been very well-established for a long time now.
The Chinese propaganda trying to deny their genocide has the same vibes as that time a Chinese official went on a western political current affairs show and said “you have a voting democracy, we have a working democracy”. The fact that Chinese state censorship is so strong (while western media is not censored) means there is very good reason to distrust the reports from Chinese media when they are in disagreement with the majority of reporting from everywhere else. So yeah, I’m going to trust reports from high quality journalistic organisations like the ABC, rather than anything that’s allowed to be reported on publicly within China.
The irony here, of course, is that even if you take the Chinese party line at its word. That its actions are nothing more than heavily policing an area where there are dangerous terrorists and separatist. That’s pretty much exactly the same as the Israeli line. It boggles my mind that people can call out one but not the other. It’s not surprising for me that the right does it. There’s an element of racism there, and chauvinism for defending their political allies. And I’ll be honest, I’ve always associated the right with a denial of facts. But the fact that people who have the gall to call themselves leftists will pretend there’s nothing wrong is
Pretend all you want that you’re “just asking questions”
That’s pretty much exactly the same as the Israeli line
vibes of a genocide denier
doesn’t change facts.
What facts! I’m still waiting for one. We can go round and round all day but until you show me something to center this on it’ll be a waste of time.
In 30 years even your ABC will quietly walk back their claims of genocide and I hope when that happens you will tell the people around you not to trust the same sources that lied to you.
If you deny something that’s actually not a real thing, you’re not a genocide denialist. So…no.
I do love how tankies have such poor intellectual rigour that if someone calls them out on something they immediately jump to the worst possible straw man. It really undermines your case.
bud im going to sincerely tell you to re-evaluate this take. i don’t have the time to deconstruct it for ya, but the “uyghur genocide” claims are basically an astroturfed campaign by an evangelical christo-fascist named Adrian Zenz.
his offensive bullshit got amplified by the US because they’re ramping up for a second cold war with China. there’s a lot you can be critical about with China if you want, but you should base it in reality.
i believe you’re leftist, you just have a bit more deprogramming to do when it comes to imperialism. that’s the hardest part for a lot of Americans since you’re trapped in the belly of the war beast.
you already got a lot of the way there by supporting Palestinian liberation. You don’t have to take my word for it either, just dig into some other sources about this topic.
In 2017–18, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) changed its domestic security strategy in Xinjiang, escalating the uurlse of mass detention, ideological re-education, and pressure on Uyghur diaspora networks.
The Chinese Government has embarked on a systematic and intentional campaign to rewrite the cultural heritage of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). It’s seeking to erode and redefine the culture of the Uyghurs and other Turkic-speaking communities—stripping away any Islamic, transnational or autonomous elements—in order to render those indigenous cultural traditions subservient to the ‘Chinese nation’.
This report concludes that the People’s Republic of China (China) bears State
responsibility for committing genocide against the Uyghurs in breach of the 1948
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide
Convention) based on an extensive review of the available evidence and application of
international law to the evidence of the facts on the ground.
If you’re claiming these are false, invented or otherwise untrue, you need damn good evidence.
claims are basically an astroturfed campaign by an evangelical christo-fascist named Adrian Zenz.
Yes, because Zenz is definitely the only reason anyone knows about the genocide. There totally aren’t actual Uyghurs who have told their own stories or anything like that.
that’s the hardest part for a lot of Americans since you’re
Nice try, but nope. I haven’t exactly been subtle either. Actually wait, not even nice try, because the correct answer is literally my instance.
Yeah, US imperialism, and western imperialism more broadly, is bad. That isn’t relevant here though, because we’re talking about a genocide China is committing against a minority population within their own borders.
(You could maybe have made something at least appearing to be a valid argument about imperialism if we were instead talking about Russia’s unprovoked aggression against another country, which I know tankies also like to defend. But that’s not where we’re at right now.)
If you call yourself a leftist, try reflecting a bit on what that actually means to you. Because to me, it means desiring equality and opposing social hierarchy. And restricting people’s ability to express their culture; stealing children away from their parents, preventing people from leaving your country to reconnect with their relatives. These are all very much not in line with leftist ideals. Defending a country that calls itself communist just because that’s in its name, without reflecting on how well they actually live up to those values, is pretty poor leftism in my view.
yeah, we’re not gonna agree on this and i don’t feel like spending time on a debate, especially since you’re downplaying american imperialism. have a good day, peace.
Where is the violent rebellion? If a genocide is happening, the people being genocided always fight back violently. Where is it?
Oh, the narrative relies on Uyhgurs all being sheep who line up to be killed, huh. Strange how overtly racist that part is given how many “leftists” believe the narrative.
Horseshoe theory doesn’t make sense. That’s the thing.
Until suddenly you start seeing people who call themselves leftists denying genocide. Which is something we usually think of as being a quality of the far-right.
(The obvious solution here, of course, is that these people who call themselves leftists…aren’t. Because if leftism is about equality, there’s nothing equal about subjecting a people and preventing the continuance of their culture.)
99% of the time, calling someone a genocide denier is just burden shifting. Genocide is a crime; you have to prove it happened, you can’t simply assert it did and then smear anyone who asks for evidence.
We have spy satellites that can read a license plates and genocides, by their very nature, leave a lot of evidence. If there were a genocide in Xinjiang we’d have what we see in Palestine: tons of documentation in a wide variety of news outlets about crimes against civilians and actions like UN officials resigning in protest.
Where are leftists denying genocide? I’ve never heard a leftist deny a genocide, ever.
The reason horseshoe theory only makes sense if you don’t think about it is because it is entirely and completely surface level. A good recent example is that both the far left and the far right want to end the country of Isreal. So if you hear someone on the far left say “I don’t think Isreal should exist” and someone on the far right say “I don’t think Isreal should exist”, if you don’t think about it, you would conclude “wow they want the same thing! HORSESHOOOOEEE!!!”
When the reality is that the right doesn’t want Isreal to exist because they hate Jews and don’t want Jews to exist, and the left doesn’t want Isreal to exist because Isreal is a genocidal apartheid settler colonial state. The left’s viewpoints have nothing to do with the ethnicity of the people who live in Isreal, and the right’s viewpoints have nothing to do with the actions of the country of Isreal. Therefore any actions taken by the right or the left towards their statement of “I don’t think Isreal should exist” would be entirely and completely different. Although they’re saying the same thing on the surface, literally 1 second of thought is all it takes to realize “oh those are actually entirely different things.”
So if you think a leftist is denying a genocide somewhere and you start crying “MUH HORSESHOE THEORY” it just means you haven’t spent any time thinking about it. I bet if you did think about it you’d learn something.
Where are leftists denying genocide? I’ve never heard a leftist deny a genocide, ever.
In Xinjiang province of China. That’s where.
But of course, if you define “genocide” as “thing that I’m willing to politically accept is a genocide”, it’s very easy to pretend someone isn’t a genocide denialist.
But of course, if you define “genocide” as “thing that I’m willing to politically accept is a genocide”, it’s very easy to pretend someone isn’t a genocide denialist.
Aren’t you just doing the opposite [insert whatever logical fallacy]? The Holocaust is established historical fact with strong consensus among historians. Most of the other relevant alleged genocides that alleged tankies are allegedly denying have a much different degree of geopolitical contention and consensus.
What is the purpose of denying the Holocaust? Outside of the middle-east, it’s almost always a white supremacist or antisemitic agenda.
What is the purpose of denying the Uyghur genocide? There’s no equivalent incentive. Nobody is denying the Uyghur genocide on the basis of race ideology. The narrative of the Uyghur genocide is purely a construct of NATO Imperialist/Colonialist rhetoric to the tankies. They absolutely do not deny the genocide for the purpose of advancing a genocidal agenda.
Yeah I wanted to see something like this. Every supposed genocide committed by communists, outside of maybe Cambodia, is very contentious among historians at best. The supposed Xinjiang genocide is not regarded as a factual occurrence by half of the world, and the fiercest proponents of an existing genocide are what …the CIA? NATO leadership? The same countries that endorsed the Iraq War? That right there should be enough to raise eyebrows. The lack of meaningful eyewitness testimony or you know, photographs or records should be something else. In 30 seconds I can watch footage of Israeli soldiers commiting war crimes and the only Chinese equivalent videos 've seen look like fairly routine prisoner transfers. Which is not great, don’t get me wrong, but having prisoners or treating prisoners unfairly or with cruelty is not genocide, nor is it some unique quality for a socialist country to have, or countries in general.
The same people and organizations that talk about that genocide claim that communism and wokeness are causing a white genocide worldwide. Do you believe that too? It’s fine if you do, I’m just curious if you pick and choose what you believe based on literally nothing, or if you’re at least consistent with the propaganda you consume.
Oh, I see. I saw someone else make that same comparison just a minute ago.
I guess this is the new tanky line? Try and discredit the Uyghur genocide by pretending it’s equivalent to bullshit claims about a white genocide? Nice. Clever rhetoric. Shame you seem to have exposed the astroturfy nature of your movement so blatantly with your timing there.
I’m just trying to understand your level of acceptable evidence for what genocide is. If it’s “literally anytime anyone says the word genocide, it is a genocide no questions asked” then that’s fine. If that’s the case then lots of people call lots of things genocide all the time for nonsensical reasons, and by your measure almost everyone is a genocide denier. If it’s “I listen to right wing propaganda when it makes me feel good and confirms my racial biases and ignore it when it doesn’t” that’s fine too and would be a good thing to know about yourself.
the only thing ‘astroturfy’ is how liberals will roll up acting like they’re ‘the most leftist’ and then try to draw a line where America’s state enemies are categorically evil, rather than just fucking organizing against the real evils happening where we all live.
Ok, the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia committed genocide when they were nominally communist at the time. Is that good enough for you? It’s the most noteworthy example I can think of. Actually maybe the Shining Path too, in Peru. I never liked them or their methods.
The supposed genocide in Xinjiang is not at all the same thing. There’s no open warfare, rebellion, nothing to suggest what western nations are claiming is happening. The only evidence I’ve seen is that prisons exist in Xinjiang, and their prisons are much like prisons anywhere else on the world. All other evidence I’ve seen comes from one specific person, the deluded mind of Adrian Zenz. A man who cannot speak Chinese, has never lived in China, and he’s one guy.
There’s a big difference between being upset at some difference in ideology and looking at people sincerely defending or denying a genocide in the name of that ideological difference.
There was a 2020 statement to the UN, read by a Cuban representative, speaking on the behalf of 45 other countries who were endorsing China’s policy on Xinjiang. Among those countries are Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Belarus, Syria, Venezuela, Yemen, Sri Lanka, Palestine (this one is important), and Myanmar.
These places are completely disparate in terms of geography and state ideology, yet they all came together to very solidly proclaim China’s policy in the region does not constitute genocide. Palestine and Yemen in particular seems very egregious to me, because if anything those should be aware of what an ethnic genocide looks like, and yet they endorsed Cuba’s statements on China. Furthermore, China’s Xinjiang program ended in 2019 as far as I know. This is part of the statement those nations endorsed:
“China has undertaken a series of measures in response to threats of terrorism and extremism in accordance with the law to safeguard the human rights of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang. There was no single terrorist attack in Xinjiang in the last three years. People of all ethnic groups enjoy their happy life in a peaceful and stable environment. China maintains openness and transparency by, among other things, inviting more than 1,000 diplomats, officials of international organizations, journalists, and religious persons to visit Xinjiang who witnessed Xinjiang’s remarkable achievement.”
At a certain point maybe you need to look in the mirror and ask if it’s yourself who’s clouded by ideology in this matter
Since you brought up Yemen, it’s interesting to compare Google image results for the Yemen genocide and the alleged Uyghur genocide. Search the former and you get pictures of destroyed towns, columns of refugees, mass graves, and starving people. But Google “Uyghur genocide” and it’s nothing but pictures of protests in Western countries. You would think that the Uyghur people, being much wealthier than the Yemenese and receiving much more attention from Western journalists, would have an easier time getting those pictures out there.
Hm, so you’re saying that every political faction “denies genocide and defends aggressive warmongering”? Could it perhaps be that every faction gets accused at one point or another of genocide and aggressive warmongering, and it’s your responsibility as a political person to use your brain to figure out who is lying?
I’m a leftist who isn’t a tankie. I don’t much care about China and I think the struggle for liberation can only be fought where we are at. I don’t uncritically accept the propaganda and the worldview of the state I seek to destroy at face value. Thus I do not accept claims about “genocide” committed by the US’ main rival without good evidence. Having principles and critical faculties are important to my politics. What about you? What makes you, someone who identifies liberals as “center-left,” significantly different from them? Your conditional support for Palestinian liberation?
like, “such and such country is committing genocide and covering it up!” is a very serious claim! fortunately, it is also very incredible. it’s improbable that mass murder of a population can go almost totally unnoticed except for reports and evidence from sources that are demonstrably untrustworthy. Just knowing who Adrian Zenz is should be making you suspicious unless you’ve completely disabled your bullshit detectors.
To be clear. If you call yourself a leftist, and you pretend China isn’t committing genocide, that makes you a tanky. That’s what tankies are: people who claim to be leftists who support violent authoritarian regimes.
iirc the person you’re replying to is an anarchist not an ML, so they’re not a tankie, unless your definition of tankie is just “anybody who isn’t extremely anti-china and believes literally whatever the same press that told us that North Korea had claimed to find a unicorn, that the cuban government was committing a genocide within its own borders and is currently doing apologia for a real genocide of innocent muslims”
Thus I do not accept claims about “genocide” committed by the US’ main rival without good evidence
It’s very easy to say this, because it means you can just reject any evidence to the contrary as “not good” or “biased”.
Separating children from their parents. Raising them to be assimilated with the majority culture. Clamping down on their expression of their culture. These are all acts of genocide.
The most untrustworthy source here is the Chinese government themselves. Any report from a country should be treated with scepticism, but none more so than when that country clamps down on the free press.
We have so many reports out of Xinjiang. Leaks from people in the province itself. Reports from the family of people there. Evidence inferred from satellite imagery and what information is publicly available from the Chinese government. There’s just no denying it. You can choose to pretend China’s doing nothing wrong if you like. I hope you sleep well, knowing you’re defending genocide.
It’s very easy to say this, because it means you can just reject any evidence to the contrary as “not good” or “biased”.
Accusations of genocide aren’t a fucking game. It’s either happening or it isn’t. Either the evidence is good or the evidence is bad (and all evidence is biased) So give us some good evidence.
What evidence would you accept? Because you act as though you’ve already convinced yourself it’s not real and wouldn’t accept any evidence to the contrary. What, precisely, would convince you that you’re wrong, if firsthand accounts aren’t good enough?
How about firsthand testimony that can be corroborated. If you’ve ever been in court for anything, it’s standard to not simply take whatever story you hear at face value.
So point to a story you’re saying is true, then show how it can be corroborated (by video? by documentation?). Show how there is no realiatic alternate explanation. Explain how your corroborated story amounts to genocide, and isn’t just a story about someone being arrested, for instance.
“Freedom of the press” is a joke. I can see what our “free press” is doing with the butchery of Gaza. At a certain point you have to accept that your understanding of the facts is not, and has never been unmediated.
“All over the world, wherever there are capitalists, freedom of the press means freedom to buy up newspapers, to buy writers, to bribe, buy and fake ‘public opinion’ for the benefit of the bourgeoisie.”
Part of developing mental maturity is coming to understand that other people might genuinely believe in a differing set of facts from you. And my facts are based on evidence.
getting your sources from a “very left wing NGO” how about actual socialists if you’re a ‘socialist.’ I get that you’re Swedish Swiss, we have more people in prison doing forced labor in America than in these ‘genocide camps’ so it’s really hard to take people seriously when they act like ‘genocide’ in China should somehow be at the forefront of what leftists in the west concern themselves with.
I can never get my head around why Tankies want to deny people the right to criticize two of the most end stage capitalist countries in the world, P.R. of China and The Russian Federation.
The U.S.A. is the same.
They should all fall.
It’s spreading US disinfo, which might as well be the 4th Reich soooo yeah pretty much
I used to think people talking about “horseshoe theory” were all bullshitters. Because I had never seen people on the left unironically doing anything close to what the right does.
Then I saw the tankies on Lemmy. I’m still a proud leftist, but geez nothing has made me question that stance more than seeing how fervently the tankies deny genocides and defend aggressive warmongering—as long as the country perpetrating it is one that calls itself “communist”, or is a successor to one that used to call itself communist. Exactly the same way the right and centre-left do regarding Israel’s genocides. Lemmy’s tankies are way more similar to the nazis of other social media than any other group around.
Which scares me a little as someone who basically completely agrees with them on economic issues.
If that were true then we’d all be falling over ourselves to defend Pol Pot instead of calling him a shit and a CIA puppet and not wanting anything to do with him.
See also the most common opinion on Gonzalo (yes I know there are Gonzalites, haven’t seen them around here though).
You see that’s kind of where the problem is. You can say there’s a genocide and I can say “where” and that gives me the vibe of a genocide denier. I’ve looked for evidence, I’ve asked for evidence, but the best I’ve ever gotten is a satellite image of some prison in China, some (AI padded) mugshots with no context, and some thorough browbeating by very serious liberals.
Let me put this another way. I’m of Jewish descent. My great aunt was in a camp. I’m not trying to “deny” any genocides, but what should my standard of evidence be? Particularly when there is a clear incentive for western media to create false narratives about their enemies, and have done so before?
If you have something to present that I haven’t seen, I and the other “tankies” are wide open to engage with it.
You can pretend all you want that you’re “just asking questions”, but that doesn’t change facts. The Uyghur genocide has been very well-established for a long time now.
The Chinese propaganda trying to deny their genocide has the same vibes as that time a Chinese official went on a western political current affairs show and said “you have a voting democracy, we have a working democracy”. The fact that Chinese state censorship is so strong (while western media is not censored) means there is very good reason to distrust the reports from Chinese media when they are in disagreement with the majority of reporting from everywhere else. So yeah, I’m going to trust reports from high quality journalistic organisations like the ABC, rather than anything that’s allowed to be reported on publicly within China.
The irony here, of course, is that even if you take the Chinese party line at its word. That its actions are nothing more than heavily policing an area where there are dangerous terrorists and separatist. That’s pretty much exactly the same as the Israeli line. It boggles my mind that people can call out one but not the other. It’s not surprising for me that the right does it. There’s an element of racism there, and chauvinism for defending their political allies. And I’ll be honest, I’ve always associated the right with a denial of facts. But the fact that people who have the gall to call themselves leftists will pretend there’s nothing wrong is
vibes of a genocide denier
What facts! I’m still waiting for one. We can go round and round all day but until you show me something to center this on it’ll be a waste of time. In 30 years even your ABC will quietly walk back their claims of genocide and I hope when that happens you will tell the people around you not to trust the same sources that lied to you.
Sleep well, genocidist.
We deny the supposed “white genocide” too, you gonna be a pissy baby about that too?
If you deny something that’s actually not a real thing, you’re not a genocide denialist. So…no.
I do love how tankies have such poor intellectual rigour that if someone calls them out on something they immediately jump to the worst possible straw man. It really undermines your case.
Yeah, and if there was an actual genocide happening in China we’d be pissed about it.
You’re just completely ignoring the epistemological problem here.
Are you familiar with the case of the Nayira Testimony?
So it’s just the browbeating for me today then?
You’ve already proven not to be interested in accepting evidence. So what more value is there in trying to provide any?
Lmao you projecting harder than Colin Powell saying there’s wmds in iraq
We’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of
ideasevidence 😔Where is the evidence? I don’t see any hyperlinks or citations. You didn’t even name a person you’re sourcing.
wait did they deny the real ones or the made up ones?
Tankies on Lemmy like to pretend China isn’t committing genocide against Uyghurs.
bud im going to sincerely tell you to re-evaluate this take. i don’t have the time to deconstruct it for ya, but the “uyghur genocide” claims are basically an astroturfed campaign by an evangelical christo-fascist named Adrian Zenz.
his offensive bullshit got amplified by the US because they’re ramping up for a second cold war with China. there’s a lot you can be critical about with China if you want, but you should base it in reality.
i believe you’re leftist, you just have a bit more deprogramming to do when it comes to imperialism. that’s the hardest part for a lot of Americans since you’re trapped in the belly of the war beast.
you already got a lot of the way there by supporting Palestinian liberation. You don’t have to take my word for it either, just dig into some other sources about this topic.
@Awoo@hexbear.net is there any megathread resource on hexbear that debunks Zenz & his awful false genocide conspiracy theories?
On hexbear? I don’t think so, lemmygrad has one though: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/216267?scrollToComments=true
I also strongly recommend https://www.qiaocollective.com/education/xinjiang as another option.
There were also a number of extremely large google docs projects but I don’t have links to them, others might.
Then you should take that time. Because
needs damn citation. Especially in the face of these:
Counterterrorism and Preventive Repression: China’s Changing Strategy in Xinjiang
Cultural erasure: Tracing the destruction of Uyghur and Islamic spaces in Xinjiang
The Uyghur Genocide: An Examination of China’s Breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention
If you’re claiming these are false, invented or otherwise untrue, you need damn good evidence.
Really? A No True Scotsman is really bad style.
Zenz posting
ASPI
NTS is close to the opposite of what you are talking about. Asserting that words have definitions is not, in fact, a fallscy.
Yes, because Zenz is definitely the only reason anyone knows about the genocide. There totally aren’t actual Uyghurs who have told their own stories or anything like that.
Nice try, but nope. I haven’t exactly been subtle either. Actually wait, not even nice try, because the correct answer is literally my instance.
Yeah, US imperialism, and western imperialism more broadly, is bad. That isn’t relevant here though, because we’re talking about a genocide China is committing against a minority population within their own borders.
(You could maybe have made something at least appearing to be a valid argument about imperialism if we were instead talking about Russia’s unprovoked aggression against another country, which I know tankies also like to defend. But that’s not where we’re at right now.)
If you call yourself a leftist, try reflecting a bit on what that actually means to you. Because to me, it means desiring equality and opposing social hierarchy. And restricting people’s ability to express their culture; stealing children away from their parents, preventing people from leaving your country to reconnect with their relatives. These are all very much not in line with leftist ideals. Defending a country that calls itself communist just because that’s in its name, without reflecting on how well they actually live up to those values, is pretty poor leftism in my view.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/13/why-do-north-korean-defector-testimonies-so-often-fall-apart
Just because someone says something doesn’t mean it’s true. Do you think cops ever lie when they testify?
yeah, we’re not gonna agree on this and i don’t feel like spending time on a debate, especially since you’re downplaying american imperialism. have a good day, peace.
Where is the violent rebellion? If a genocide is happening, the people being genocided always fight back violently. Where is it?
Oh, the narrative relies on Uyhgurs all being sheep who line up to be killed, huh. Strange how overtly racist that part is given how many “leftists” believe the narrative.
Horseshoe theory only makes sense if you don’t think about it for even one second.
So, not surprised it makes total sense to you
Horseshoe theory doesn’t make sense. That’s the thing.
Until suddenly you start seeing people who call themselves leftists denying genocide. Which is something we usually think of as being a quality of the far-right.
(The obvious solution here, of course, is that these people who call themselves leftists…aren’t. Because if leftism is about equality, there’s nothing equal about subjecting a people and preventing the continuance of their culture.)
99% of the time, calling someone a genocide denier is just burden shifting. Genocide is a crime; you have to prove it happened, you can’t simply assert it did and then smear anyone who asks for evidence.
We have spy satellites that can read a license plates and genocides, by their very nature, leave a lot of evidence. If there were a genocide in Xinjiang we’d have what we see in Palestine: tons of documentation in a wide variety of news outlets about crimes against civilians and actions like UN officials resigning in protest.
Where are leftists denying genocide? I’ve never heard a leftist deny a genocide, ever.
The reason horseshoe theory only makes sense if you don’t think about it is because it is entirely and completely surface level. A good recent example is that both the far left and the far right want to end the country of Isreal. So if you hear someone on the far left say “I don’t think Isreal should exist” and someone on the far right say “I don’t think Isreal should exist”, if you don’t think about it, you would conclude “wow they want the same thing! HORSESHOOOOEEE!!!”
When the reality is that the right doesn’t want Isreal to exist because they hate Jews and don’t want Jews to exist, and the left doesn’t want Isreal to exist because Isreal is a genocidal apartheid settler colonial state. The left’s viewpoints have nothing to do with the ethnicity of the people who live in Isreal, and the right’s viewpoints have nothing to do with the actions of the country of Isreal. Therefore any actions taken by the right or the left towards their statement of “I don’t think Isreal should exist” would be entirely and completely different. Although they’re saying the same thing on the surface, literally 1 second of thought is all it takes to realize “oh those are actually entirely different things.”
So if you think a leftist is denying a genocide somewhere and you start crying “MUH HORSESHOE THEORY” it just means you haven’t spent any time thinking about it. I bet if you did think about it you’d learn something.
In Xinjiang province of China. That’s where.
But of course, if you define “genocide” as “thing that I’m willing to politically accept is a genocide”, it’s very easy to pretend someone isn’t a genocide denialist.
Aren’t you just doing the opposite [insert whatever logical fallacy]? The Holocaust is established historical fact with strong consensus among historians. Most of the other relevant alleged genocides that alleged tankies are allegedly denying have a much different degree of geopolitical contention and consensus.
What is the purpose of denying the Holocaust? Outside of the middle-east, it’s almost always a white supremacist or antisemitic agenda.
What is the purpose of denying the Uyghur genocide? There’s no equivalent incentive. Nobody is denying the Uyghur genocide on the basis of race ideology. The narrative of the Uyghur genocide is purely a construct of NATO Imperialist/Colonialist rhetoric to the tankies. They absolutely do not deny the genocide for the purpose of advancing a genocidal agenda.
Horseshoe theory does not apply.
Yeah I wanted to see something like this. Every supposed genocide committed by communists, outside of maybe Cambodia, is very contentious among historians at best. The supposed Xinjiang genocide is not regarded as a factual occurrence by half of the world, and the fiercest proponents of an existing genocide are what …the CIA? NATO leadership? The same countries that endorsed the Iraq War? That right there should be enough to raise eyebrows. The lack of meaningful eyewitness testimony or you know, photographs or records should be something else. In 30 seconds I can watch footage of Israeli soldiers commiting war crimes and the only Chinese equivalent videos 've seen look like fairly routine prisoner transfers. Which is not great, don’t get me wrong, but having prisoners or treating prisoners unfairly or with cruelty is not genocide, nor is it some unique quality for a socialist country to have, or countries in general.
The same people and organizations that talk about that genocide claim that communism and wokeness are causing a white genocide worldwide. Do you believe that too? It’s fine if you do, I’m just curious if you pick and choose what you believe based on literally nothing, or if you’re at least consistent with the propaganda you consume.
Oh, I see. I saw someone else make that same comparison just a minute ago.
I guess this is the new tanky line? Try and discredit the Uyghur genocide by pretending it’s equivalent to bullshit claims about a white genocide? Nice. Clever rhetoric. Shame you seem to have exposed the astroturfy nature of your movement so blatantly with your timing there.
I’m just trying to understand your level of acceptable evidence for what genocide is. If it’s “literally anytime anyone says the word genocide, it is a genocide no questions asked” then that’s fine. If that’s the case then lots of people call lots of things genocide all the time for nonsensical reasons, and by your measure almost everyone is a genocide denier. If it’s “I listen to right wing propaganda when it makes me feel good and confirms my racial biases and ignore it when it doesn’t” that’s fine too and would be a good thing to know about yourself.
the only thing ‘astroturfy’ is how liberals will roll up acting like they’re ‘the most leftist’ and then try to draw a line where America’s state enemies are categorically evil, rather than just fucking organizing against the real evils happening where we all live.
Ok, the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia committed genocide when they were nominally communist at the time. Is that good enough for you? It’s the most noteworthy example I can think of. Actually maybe the Shining Path too, in Peru. I never liked them or their methods.
The supposed genocide in Xinjiang is not at all the same thing. There’s no open warfare, rebellion, nothing to suggest what western nations are claiming is happening. The only evidence I’ve seen is that prisons exist in Xinjiang, and their prisons are much like prisons anywhere else on the world. All other evidence I’ve seen comes from one specific person, the deluded mind of Adrian Zenz. A man who cannot speak Chinese, has never lived in China, and he’s one guy.
boohoo wittle baby got mad people are on their left.
There’s a big difference between being upset at some difference in ideology and looking at people sincerely defending or denying a genocide in the name of that ideological difference.
There was a 2020 statement to the UN, read by a Cuban representative, speaking on the behalf of 45 other countries who were endorsing China’s policy on Xinjiang. Among those countries are Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Belarus, Syria, Venezuela, Yemen, Sri Lanka, Palestine (this one is important), and Myanmar.
These places are completely disparate in terms of geography and state ideology, yet they all came together to very solidly proclaim China’s policy in the region does not constitute genocide. Palestine and Yemen in particular seems very egregious to me, because if anything those should be aware of what an ethnic genocide looks like, and yet they endorsed Cuba’s statements on China. Furthermore, China’s Xinjiang program ended in 2019 as far as I know. This is part of the statement those nations endorsed:
At a certain point maybe you need to look in the mirror and ask if it’s yourself who’s clouded by ideology in this matter
Since you brought up Yemen, it’s interesting to compare Google image results for the Yemen genocide and the alleged Uyghur genocide. Search the former and you get pictures of destroyed towns, columns of refugees, mass graves, and starving people. But Google “Uyghur genocide” and it’s nothing but pictures of protests in Western countries. You would think that the Uyghur people, being much wealthier than the Yemenese and receiving much more attention from Western journalists, would have an easier time getting those pictures out there.
Hm, so you’re saying that every political faction “denies genocide and defends aggressive warmongering”? Could it perhaps be that every faction gets accused at one point or another of genocide and aggressive warmongering, and it’s your responsibility as a political person to use your brain to figure out who is lying?
No. Leftists who aren’t tankies don’t.
I’m a leftist who isn’t a tankie. I don’t much care about China and I think the struggle for liberation can only be fought where we are at. I don’t uncritically accept the propaganda and the worldview of the state I seek to destroy at face value. Thus I do not accept claims about “genocide” committed by the US’ main rival without good evidence. Having principles and critical faculties are important to my politics. What about you? What makes you, someone who identifies liberals as “center-left,” significantly different from them? Your conditional support for Palestinian liberation?
like, “such and such country is committing genocide and covering it up!” is a very serious claim! fortunately, it is also very incredible. it’s improbable that mass murder of a population can go almost totally unnoticed except for reports and evidence from sources that are demonstrably untrustworthy. Just knowing who Adrian Zenz is should be making you suspicious unless you’ve completely disabled your bullshit detectors.
To be clear. If you call yourself a leftist, and you pretend China isn’t committing genocide, that makes you a tanky. That’s what tankies are: people who claim to be leftists who support violent authoritarian regimes.
As a 5 eyes resident you seem like you’re pretty supportive of the violent authoritarian USian regime.
Where, precisely, did I suggest that at all?
You’re repeating their media narrative μαλακά
Pretending western media isn’t censored, for one
iirc the person you’re replying to is an anarchist not an ML, so they’re not a tankie, unless your definition of tankie is just “anybody who isn’t extremely anti-china and believes literally whatever the same press that told us that North Korea had claimed to find a unicorn, that the cuban government was committing a genocide within its own borders and is currently doing apologia for a real genocide of innocent muslims”
It’s very easy to say this, because it means you can just reject any evidence to the contrary as “not good” or “biased”.
Separating children from their parents. Raising them to be assimilated with the majority culture. Clamping down on their expression of their culture. These are all acts of genocide.
The most untrustworthy source here is the Chinese government themselves. Any report from a country should be treated with scepticism, but none more so than when that country clamps down on the free press.
We have so many reports out of Xinjiang. Leaks from people in the province itself. Reports from the family of people there. Evidence inferred from satellite imagery and what information is publicly available from the Chinese government. There’s just no denying it. You can choose to pretend China’s doing nothing wrong if you like. I hope you sleep well, knowing you’re defending genocide.
Accusations of genocide aren’t a fucking game. It’s either happening or it isn’t. Either the evidence is good or the evidence is bad (and all evidence is biased) So give us some good evidence.
What evidence would you accept? Because you act as though you’ve already convinced yourself it’s not real and wouldn’t accept any evidence to the contrary. What, precisely, would convince you that you’re wrong, if firsthand accounts aren’t good enough?
How about firsthand testimony that can be corroborated. If you’ve ever been in court for anything, it’s standard to not simply take whatever story you hear at face value.
So point to a story you’re saying is true, then show how it can be corroborated (by video? by documentation?). Show how there is no realiatic alternate explanation. Explain how your corroborated story amounts to genocide, and isn’t just a story about someone being arrested, for instance.
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/10/1005263835/new-report-details-firsthand-accounts-of-torture-from-uyghur-muslims-in-china This is the first result when I typed in “uyghur firsthand account”
I’ll read it when I get home in a few hours unless you have another source(s) you’d prefer.
“Freedom of the press” is a joke. I can see what our “free press” is doing with the butchery of Gaza. At a certain point you have to accept that your understanding of the facts is not, and has never been unmediated.
Here is a good starting point if you want to understand the ways this has happened and more critically evaluate it.
Yes, I know that’s what China believes. That’s why it’s so important.
I’ve invited you to learn literally anything about this subject before commenting further. Not much else I can do you help you.
Our prudent and judicious public broadcasting institutions
VS
Their tyrannical censored state propaganda centers
“All over the world, wherever there are capitalists, freedom of the press means freedom to buy up newspapers, to buy writers, to bribe, buy and fake ‘public opinion’ for the benefit of the bourgeoisie.”
Read theory
Can you make a coherent argument from their position, or do you not understand your own boogeyman?
I sleep fine. Sometimes I jerk off first.
Part of developing mental maturity is coming to understand that other people might genuinely believe in a differing set of facts from you. And my facts are based on evidence.
Are you or are you not genociding the people of mars right now?
I have a satellite photo of Zagorath genociding Tupac and unless he accepts this evidence he is a genocide denier.
Tupac was
and Zagorath was a patsy.
Except that I’m a Swiss socialist and that I’m taking my sources from very left wing ONG that I work with ?
getting your sources from a “very left wing NGO” how about actual socialists if you’re a ‘socialist.’ I get that you’re
SwedishSwiss, we have more people in prison doing forced labor in America than in these ‘genocide camps’ so it’s really hard to take people seriously when they act like ‘genocide’ in China should somehow be at the forefront of what leftists in the west concern themselves with.@sharedburdens Hahaha… Thankfully this campaign just started: https://youtu.be/0oNX_BHgi3c?si=xojukxKnUyZ–jFS
I can never get my head around why Tankies want to deny people the right to criticize two of the most end stage capitalist countries in the world, P.R. of China and The Russian Federation.
The U.S.A. is the same.
They should all fall.
@Starshader @WhyEssEff
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