Normally they're pretty good, but man, that is a bad fucking take. Yeah, I'm sure China is going to fall apart annnnny day now because it's exactly the same as the US.
I cannot say that whenever someone says something negative about China, having a dozen people shout them down about imperialism and CIA without engaging with the actual text of their comment contributes toward an environment that breeds good discussion and complex critique.
That does happen a lot, more than it should, even. However, quality content from a critical perspective still gets exposure sometimes in the comments. Then again, many of the non-fed posters who contributed this sort of content I haven't seen sticking around here all that much.
It's kinda funny how much we like to shit on the hosts for being libs but the Chapo guys consistently have some of the best general takes on AES states of any of the left-pod-sphere.
Felix's rant about people freaking out about China every day was top tier.
:matt: had a cushvlog where he essentially free-associated his way to Dengism, and then recognized that he'd done so.
It was from some time between August and September this year I think, but I have no idea specifically which one it was.
https://cushbomb.fandom.com/wiki/And_I_Looked_as_He_Ordered_the_FourthMeal..._9.02.21_transcript
It might be that one.
Felix : "I see all these debates over whether China is communist or not, whether they’re the fucking Third Reich or something ridiculous, or they’re the saviors of humanity. They all miss this very basic fact: China overcoming mass poverty on a scale we’ve never seen, China modernizing on the timeline and scale that it has, is the only generational human accomplishment of the last 30 years. That’s it. That’s the only thing anyone actually remembers in one thousand years if we’re still here.
They’re the only nation that has done anything at all. The United States, European Union, India, no one has any equivalent accomplishments. Oh, uninterrupted peace in Europe? Shut up! No one gives a fuck! You’d have to dig deep for something one one-hundredth as impressive.
In America, though, you never hear about it."
:admiral-biederman:
Just a few years ago they were screaming about the CIA being torturers and China being a model for the world.
Here's the New York Times advocating for an authoritarian China-style government.
I'm not Chinese, I have no fucking way to read Mandarin. What investment should I have in these critiques of the Chinese system? Are their flaws a lesson for future socialist projects; but couldn't the argument be made that whatever flaws the Chinese system has are a product of Chinese characteristics. Should we learn about the good things we could learn from them? Again, probably a good thing to keep in mind, but these are also the byproducts of socialism with Chinese characteristics.
Maybe, on the grander scheme, we can peer into the capital flows, the systems theories that shape the world. Help us realize that we are not adrift at sea, but careful navigators of the tides and waves that carry us one way or another. Graeber talks about this in bullshit jobs. One day we could wake up and say "I quit" or "I'm done" with our bullshit jobs, then what stops us, and why, is worth studying, naming it gives us the power to counteract it.
But if I looked to China, in some sense, as an adrift sailor looks to shore far away. And I said, "Oh it must be heaven there, it must be nice to be on solid land" what as a comrade can you gain by telling me the land is poisoned, crooked, salted, or sinking? You end whatever brief amount of hope I had and perhaps I sink, or perhaps I rather taste salted earth than die.
These anonymous collectives sending critiques, these "socialists" who are in no way invested in the Chinese project, are not comrades. I don't know them, they haven't done anything for me. Neither has Xi Jinping, to be honest. There's no communist party in contact with the CPC, taken directives or in direct material benefit to and from.
There are only the local groups that try and fail (mostly fail) to make nominal improvements in this country as the world comes to an end. What the fuck do I care about China when our progressive groups can't even get the weak-spined democrats to pass a "Build Back Better".
This whole attitude can eat shit.
Yeah that's where I am. There is no point to any principled stand in the imperial core other than anti-imperialism. Watching the context of how far China has really come in benefiting their people in 70 years from where they started from, it's incredible. No one really thinks that China is a magical utopia. But like you said, many of us need to have some sort of hope in a better world just to go about our days.
just the declarations of going carbon neutral, building high-speed rail, anti-climate change initiatives are the things that keep me from being a full-blown :doomer:. When people say "nothing can be done" and the Chinese are planning, designing, investing and building robust infrastructure. I can at least yell "eat shit you dumb fuckin genocidal maniacs". Everything else is meaningless to me.
I meant in America. Like the 20s-60s (maybe longer) we had the American Communist Party receiving missives from the Politburo and I don’t think that’s the case nowadays
The CPUSA was invited to a summit back in July
That's really the only one that still has pretty serious links to socialist governments. The rest just don't have the historical clout or size.
Wang Hui is a Chinese Marxist professor who writes about the government from a critical perspective. Most of his work has been translated and is easily accessible. You can also read the October 2020 edition of the Monthly Review which had articles in English by Chinese Marxists for a Western audience. Be aware that all of these writings are academic in nature.
Also I want to emphasize that merely being less lib than Sam Seder doesn't mean you have good takes on socialism.
Western "leftist" stop parroting state department propaganda challenge (impossible!)
I love how all these people do is talk about things and create podcasts for people to throw money at while doing nothing materialistic. Meanwhile China(despite the constant shit flinging from some of these people) has improved the material conditions of their own citizens and branched out to helping other countries build up their infrastructure. Who do I prefer to listen to and support? The one that's helping people. Not the one creating content based on a literal western imperialist propaganda.
As for their tendencies and how this content is related to it, it literally doesn't matter what tendency you call yourself especially if you live in the imperialist core. They cannot even protest their local government yet they are so keen to bash AES countries and join hands in condemning them alongside chuds and radlibs.
They cannot even protest their local government yet they are so keen to bash AES countries and join hands in condemning them
That's part of why they're so keen to bash AES. If they can bash every other country, then it validates why them doing nothing is actually okay because change is impossible.
https://mobile.twitter.com/RodericDay/status/1375569419926126597
https://nitter.ca/RodericDay/search?f=tweets&q=Chuang&since=&until=&near=
People are DMing me about this extremely tedious thread of
"sources on Uyghurs oppression and concentration camps that cannot, by any sane person at least, be called western propaganda"
by @thecoleslaws
so I will really explain how they're western propaganda
"if it's propaganda the feds legally have to tell you when you ask" imagine being fucking stupid enough to take anything with that title seriously
What? Explain? I read your comment like three times and I cannot make head or tail of it,what exactly are you trying to say???
I like Roderic, though I agree he can be quite abrasive sometimes
and Sean didn’t contest it or anything
:fry: not sure if self-crit or a propagandist dropping a line of attack
Theres critique and then there is "China is just an authoritarian Marxist facade", like what the fuck is anyone going to respond to that with?
If everything is just secretly a charade and bullshit, nothing anyone says is going to change that idea, if you show any evidence then thats just actually part of the coverup.
They're anarchists, from their perspective any state is going to be a facade. I like the podcast but they explicitly state that they are ultras.
tbf thats an ultra position, but not inherently a position of anarchism as a whole, theres a lot more analysis you could do from an anarchist perspective than just "These socialists think a state is necessary, this proves they are actually just power hungry authoritarians acting in bad faith".
We try very hard not to be sectarian here, so we ignore actual irreconcilable differences within the left.
Honestly, if you actually talk out the differences, there's a few points of difference with the more practical types of anarchists (AnSyns for example) but not much.
It basically boils down to
- Disagreements on what a revolutionary class monopoly of force actually is, and if it constitutes a "State"
- How formal a hierarchy needs to be, how directly recallable it must be.
- How strictly disciplined the Vanguard must be, and what does the vanguard consist of. (a disagreement hard-MLs have with Leftcoms, Luxemburgists, and CCs)
- Interaction with current political systems (Electorialism in the Leninist sense of parliamentary shitposting. This is as far as I can tell the ONLY difference between an AnSyn and a Council Communist)
These are strong disagreements, but honestly I think they're really productive ones to have in the left.
I'm a very ML sympathetic "Stop trying to define my tendency-ist." (I guess if pressed I'm an "Old-Luxemburgist" as in I agree with Rosa's critiques of Leninism but not the 1920s Leftcoms.)
OK - I'll bite - what's a "legitimate" criticism of China? All I ever see is cheerleading and memes of golden Xi 100 feet tall.
For example, that they should put more effort into promoting social progress like for LGBTQ people, thats one that I see a lot that I have no fundamental problem with people putting forward, its pretty easy to see that while there have been improvements, they have come relatively slowly and late compared to many other countries.
Avoid making these huge narrative statements about "Authoritarianism" or "betrayals" and point to real shit that is observable and can be changed without just having a regime change. Also avoid reliance on citing pure personal experiences or shit filtered through obvious propaganda channels.
Existence of billionaires, long working hours, kinda spotty healthcare, safety in work, also coal. But I’m chuang double agent :rat-salute:
Sure, but there's a difference between that and calling it an authoritarian regime that's ready to crack.
Who would be stopping them? The people with power love this and will be throwing The Antifada into the mass grave with you and me later anyways.
This is not some kind of socialist debate that exists outside of the New Cold War, it assists the US State Department and the new measures against China by the United States. In addition, it's not a useful or productive "critique", but very typical Western anticommunism: naive, shallow, and dismissive.
Yes, obviously, but there's a difference between principled criticism, and repeating state department propaganda about their country.
Haven’t listened to the ep so idk. But cmon people, we’re allowed to criticise China from a leftist pov.
I personally don't think its very useful criticism to go around painting whole parties and movements as entirely cynical "authoritarian" facades who are just out to betray the working class.
I doubt anyone thinks that people slandering all western anarchism as either actively or unknowingly being tools of the bourgeoise state against leftist movements is a useful or even valid criticism, or shit like "Oh Anarchists are all just petit-bourgeoise individualists", but either could still be argued as a "criticism from a leftist pov".
See: anticommunist Western leftists that were a gift to the CIA.
We don't exist in a bubble and we don't have the power. Criticism of AES must be contextualized by the impact it has, whereas liberal hegemony teaches us that personal growth or accuracy or debate is all that matters.
"Leftists" publishing on bumbling their way in support of a propagandized narrative doesn't help anyone but the US State Department.
No they're not, maybe they lean that way but if you listen regularly they're all over the place.
They oppose all AES, they literally don't support the Intifada (which is fucking disgusting). They did "neither Palestine nor Israel"
They're scum-sucking LeftComs.
Chuang: https://mobile.twitter.com/RodericDay/status/1375569419926126597
https://nitter.ca/RodericDay/search?f=tweets&q=Chuang&since=&until=&near=
Roderic Day is okay. He provides a very biased view of things that can be good if you agree with him on the topic. But it just gets annoying if you don’t. See his views on anarchism for eg. I’d take his arguments with a grain of salt.
I like Roderic Day, and I also agree with his views on anarchism.
Some seriously weird takes from Sean about China recently.
As China keeps growing as a threat to American imperialism, we're going to see a lot more "leftists" shift over to cold warriors.
Like you can tell who is a fed or hasn’t finish deprogramming themselves from state dept. propaganda. I normally give Sean a pass cause his deal is looking at systems and what passes for global forces, and they ultimately affect China. But this shit is reckless and wanton.
The only principled stand is cheering for the defeat and collapse of the United States in so far as it helps communist forces in the periphery and inside this shithole of a country.
you can tell who is a fed or hasn’t finish deprogramming themselves from state dept. propaganda
Normally yes. I don't differentiate once someone has a platform / influence however since the outcome winds up the same.
They've always been critical of China. At least for as long as I've listened.
I didn't really like this episode, but it was more because they said very little beyond generalities by the end of it than because it was hard anti-China.
For instance I think they talked about the need for international proletarian cooperation and struggle a bit, which I agree is essential, but I don't think it went much more in depth than that.
I don't honestly remember the whole thing very well, mostly because none of it seemed that important or interesting.
Oh, and The Antifada are pretty consistently non-hostile interviewers, and especially with this format there's no room for discussion. So I'm not sure how closely this resembles any of their views.
That's why I noped out of that Chuang episode halfway through. This week they did an episode regarding China which was at least listenable.
