China bad China bad China bad China bad China bad China bad

Top tier quote: "US international peacekeeping forces" lmao

But at least he talks about how the US permanently needs some enemy.

  • geikei [none/use name]
    ·
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    People should stop the "he is usualy pretty good so im gonna ignore his fed posting and continue on" . The reason he and people like Oliver or other Breadtubers are all the more dangerous is because they gain from western leftists a huge benifit of the doupt by doing good content for pretty uncontroversial among anyone left of socdem domestic issues and so their anti-communist and shitty foreign policy positions and takes get accepted and digested by their audience all the more easily. People trust them and consider them comrades and legit info so their mental and critical defenses are way down when consuming their content. And as such they are the perfect and most efficient "agents" in spreading and reinforcing the western left's shinophobia and toothless foreign policy positions and outlook of the world (and subsequent inability and incoherency on mastering any united position against those things)

    • Z_Poster365 [none/use name]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Yeah for me the litmus test is anti-imperialism. If they can’t get that right, then I don’t really care what they have to say about anything else

    • swampfox [none/use name]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Yes, socdem media is very dangerous in that if leftists are ameliorated by it then they don't accomplish the work of actually building anti-imperialist, uncompromising radical left-wing media.

      Leave this lukewarm drivel for people who haven't yet radicalized - and they can/will find it on their own.

      Breadtube-adjacent media will continue to exist without our support. We need to build communities and tech/media organs for people to move to once they are ready to move beyond it.

          • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
            ·
            2 years ago

            He was good on Community. I think he is a competent comedian/comedic actor, the material he chooses to cover is the problem.

              • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
                ·
                2 years ago

                It's too bad he got a show and it succeeded cause I would have liked to just see him act.

            • axont [she/her, comrade/them]
              ·
              2 years ago

              He's always seemed like he knows what a liberal is and why liberalism is the ideology of his class position, so that's why his material is like that.

  • BatCountryMusicFan [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    This video is your daily reminder, if you needed one, that most US leftists think socialism just means free healthcare, believe the US is flawed but fundamentally good, and are viruently sino-, cuba- and DPRK-phobic

    • S4ck [none/use name]
      ·
      2 years ago

      We should dunk on anyone who plays into fear mongering of China, but they did an entire video on the history of colonization of Haiti. For the most part the takes are good.

      • BatCountryMusicFan [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        It's easy to be critical of the actions of imperial powers if your viewpoint inherently holds these powers to be the dominant forces in the world, beyond any real challenge. Now China is emerging as a viable usurper to 500 years of Euro-American global dominance and lo and behold, all these good-take-havers suddenly wring their hands over all its mistakes and wrongdoings, like all those western imperial powers haven't spent centuries doing worse.

        It's almost as if they prefer a Euro-American-dominated world because it allows them to eternally pose as the cool truth-telling rebels against the system while still benefitting from that system's exploitation. What will they be, if suddenly the big bad global power actually is commitedly socialist?

  • spring_rabbit [she/her]
    ·
    2 years ago

    America is promoting anti-Chinese rhetoric as part of an economic war.

    But also China is as bad as Nazi Germany and someone should do something about it.

    A rare miss, usually he's pretty good.

    • Z_Poster365 [none/use name]
      ·
      2 years ago

      “Usually he’s pretty good” just means he’s done a couple videos on social issues you agree with, when his entire purpose is to co-opt socialism and twist it into imperialist social fascism

      • spring_rabbit [she/her]
        ·
        2 years ago

        He said "war is bad" when most of my friends were saying "maybe this war is actually good". I mistook that for actually being anti-imperialist, my bad.

        • S4ck [none/use name]
          ·
          2 years ago

          He also covers other topics that socdems don't touch, like the exploitation of Haiti

        • fox [comrade/them]
          ·
          2 years ago

          His stance on war is that it's bad due to the human cost, but he doesn't often critically analyze war as imperialism

      • sgtlion [any]
        ·
        2 years ago

        It doesn't really mean that though, it means, usually, he's pretty good. Sad to see his failure here, and it's not his only one, but he's still not bad.

  • bananon [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    As a :LIB: who’s watched the whole video, most of it is about how the US uses China as a permanent enemy while also having their economies linked. The overarching point is that China is neither absolutely good or absolutely bad, which I think is a fair thing to say about any state. The later part of the video that acts as a big caveat naming off every supposed “human rights atrocity” feels incredibly shoehorned and was probably written by one of the other writers.

      • Juiceyb [any]
        ·
        2 years ago

        I remember three years ago Katie was full on the “big structural” bus. It made for some cringy shows for a bit.

    • Hardcorex [she/her]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Yeah it feels like they should have just cut the video off halfway through, if so I'd say it was a pretty good video. Seems like they felt the need to "balance out" any praise for China. Maybe this was a test of their audience to gauge their reaction...if I'm being optimistic.

    • geikei [none/use name]
      ·
      2 years ago

      The presentation of China is deliberately such that the viewer can come away with "damn they really suck and is possible/capable of doing every shit i hear about them on mainstream or social media and what US saying can be true"

    • iwasloggedout [none/use name]
      hexagon
      ·
      2 years ago

      Yeah it's a bad take festival in which China is exclusively evil and the US gets to be a more-or-less positive mixed bag.

      • reddit [any,they/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Well, he does actually end by saying that the US should be learning from the good things China is doing. Granted it's more about rail than income inequality but eh

        I feel a little ridiculous having posted three comments lukewarmly defending a video I didn't even think was all that great, I think I need to log off for a bit

        • CliffordBigRedDog [he/him]
          ·
          2 years ago

          Theres no olive branch there

          You cant say China is doing nazi level shit and then end it off with a "well, they're doing high speed rail tho, thats neat"

        • Crucible [he/him]
          ·
          2 years ago

          The ones written mostly by Cody tend to stand out as better, but Katy and the other writers they have regularly are absolute libs. Also just generally gotten worse since they started producing things weekly for Kast. Dropped them back at the Olympics when they just uncritically spouted US media talking points for a whole episode of their podcast

          • Wildgrapes [she/her]
            ·
            2 years ago

            On the podcast they do with Robert Evans I used to think Robert was probably the most leftwing. But it's become clear that if any of Robert, Cody, and Katy are not simply libs or feds it's Cody.

  • NomadicWarMachine [any]
    ·
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    Yeah I saw this got posted while at work and was like “hmmmm, this is going to be bad isn’t it”. I was hoping he’d at least pull a “well China bad but the US is guilty of most of the shit they criticize China for”, but I’m now guessing that doesn’t happen. May skip this one.

    Edit: okay so cuz I'm a pain piggy I decided to try and give it a watch, I'm only like five minutes in but I will say that...

    Top tier quote: “US international peacekeeping forces” lmao

    This quote is taken out of context FYI, I says it before showing a video clip of John Cena speaking in Chinese, the joke being that the WWE are the US's best ambassadors. Call him out for his Lib takes but let's not be dishonest here people.

    Edit Edit: Okay I'm like a 2/3of the way through, and this video is a weird ass mix of :LIB: :brainworms: and some genuinely good takes. Like he spends a solid 10 minutes calling out the US's hypocrisy, even saying that it's bullshit to call the belt road "colonialism" while referring to all the shit the US does as "economic development" and calling out how the US hacked Huawia to spy on Cuba and Iran, and the way we talk about Chinese military bases abroad vs US bases, and how the media didn't talk about the US backed coup in Bolivia. But then there's the obvious bad fucking takes.

    Edit Edit Edit: okay he has some pretty fucking awful takes at the tail end. IDK, there's maybe some good arguments here that are framed in a way that could be convincing to liberals to soften their view on how "EVIL!" China is, but he undoes most of it with brainworm takes about human rights abuses. I feel like if I could edit out about ten minutes of this video I would have had a more positive reception of it.

      • NomadicWarMachine [any]
        ·
        2 years ago

        He explicitly compares China’s actions in Xinjiang to Nazi racial policies

        Okay to be more specific, he said that the Chinese anti-terrorism program in Xinjiang was partially based off the US's war on terror, which I believe is actually somewhat true, China did hire some US advisors in crafting their anti-terror programs, and then compared this to how the Nazis took inspiration from the US's genocide of ingenious people. Which I guess... is kinda comparing China too the Nazis by comparing them to the US and then comparing the US to the Nazis, but there's a few steps in that process.

      • reddit [any,they/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        I mean, he does also explicitly point out other examples of how the US does all the shit it claims China is evil for. But yeah that was a huge :yikes:

    • NomadicWarMachine [any]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Yeah I was gonna say, kinda dumb to take that quote out of it's obvious satirical context.

  • nat_turner_overdrive [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    damnit i work from home doing computer and listening to podcasts kills time but all these fucking liberals keep making me thin out my podcast list

  • wifom [they/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Haven't watched this guy since he started shilling obvious scams for like half the runtime of the videos. I get most youtubers do but it feels insanely predatory when laced between genuine social commentary/critiques of American politics

    • sgtlion [any]
      ·
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      This is probably my least favourite aspect of it. "Capitalism bad and such. Also buy this lie product for lie things!"

      • TankieTanuki [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        BoyBoy did a thing on this like yesterday, where they said they’re gonna do ads soon but to never, never, never buy the products they shill

      • mimeschoolprof [he/him,comrade/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        BoyBoy did a thing on this like yesterday, where they said they're gonna do ads soon but to never, never, never buy the products they shill

        • NomadicWarMachine [any]
          ·
          2 years ago

          BoyBoy did a thing on this like yesterday, where they said they’re gonna do ads soon but to never, never, never buy the products they shill

          • viva_la_juche [they/them, any]
            ·
            2 years ago

            BoyBoy did a thing on this like yesterday, where they said they’re gonna do ads soon but to never, never, never buy the products they shill

              • NPa [he/him]
                ·
                2 years ago

                BoyBoy did a thing on this like yesterday, where they said they’re gonna do ads soon but to never, never, never buy the products they shill

      • FirstToServe [they/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        At least they do the responsible thing and have an obvious border that makes it trivial to scrub through the video and skip

      • mimeschoolprof [he/him,comrade/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        BoyBoy did a thing on this like yesterday, where they said they're gonna do ads soon but to never, never, never buy the products they shill

      • mimeschoolprof [he/him,comrade/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        BoyBoy did a thing on this like yesterday, where they said they're gonna do ads soon but to never, never, never buy the products they shill

    • NomadicWarMachine [any]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Eh, okay so their show has a bigger staff than most YT shows so I get why they maybe need to hustle for advertiser cabbage more than say, one guy doing video game reviews, and while they're obviously scams, they telegraph when they're going to start one so you can scrub through it pretty easy. It's annoying but I really don't care cuz I assume most people are smart enough not to buy this shit. Sure I'd love it if they pulled a BoyBoy and just straight up said "never buy any of this crap" but IDK how blatant you can get away with that.

            • NomadicWarMachine [any]
              ·
              2 years ago

              Real leftists post from a laptop with weed nugs caught in the keyboard and a sticky beer stain on their faded Marvel Avengers promotional mouse pad! Get your ass out of that bourgeois couch and sit it down in a worn computer chair you got from your best friend’s stoner roommate six year ago in exchange for a six pack!!!

    • S4ck [none/use name]
      ·
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      It feels like they're at least aware of the irony from their ad cuts. I still don't like it, but I appreciate the channel because it feels like Cody's journey to the left has been similar to mine.

  • TheModerateTankie [any]
    ·
    2 years ago

    I wish it was normal to mention every human rights violation committed by the US whenever the US is mentioned in the news.

    • Tankiedesantski [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      They can't do that because they only allocate 60 minutes to the nighly news and you can't even get through the list once in that time.

  • Frogmanfromlake [none/use name]
    ·
    2 years ago

    There are definitely issues that the Chinese government has that are worth talking about. The problem is that doing that is a lot like talking about Russia in the current political climate. You get people who are rabidly anti-China and obsessively rant about its evils, and then you get some who defend every aspect of it. I can see the Uighur donation link and already know he's going to go over that and say how it's like Nazi Germany. Because Nazi Germany is the only country to ever have systemic genocide before and after ww2.