Title, I'm a leftist but after reading some things on lemmygrad and here it seems I might have been lied to all my life. I have talked with some people from Cuba and Venezuela (expats) that support the west narrative about poverty and mismanagement. I "believe" that Russia is attacking Ukraine for selfish reasons and that China censors access to foreign information using the Great Firewall, please prove me wrong. Furthermore, it ultimately depends who do you want to believe or there are hard facts from reputable sources that are simply a hidden by the mass media?
EDIT: Thanks everyone for your very civil responses. I'll answer as many as I can!
The only real metric that should matter is the well-being of the people and democratic support for their governments. All the evidence I’ve seen is that people actually living in the countries you mention, not the expats, overwhelmingly support their governments (maybe with the exception of Russia, which is a separate case from the other three countries you mentioned). Going back to the Bay of Pigs, the US has been expecting Cubans to revolt against the current government. The opposite has happened in every instance the US tried to make that happen. Same thing happened in Venezuela when Guaidó tried to seize power. The people living in those countries know that their livelihood is better off with their current governments. Cubans have a longer life expectancy than the average US citizen. China has almost single-handedly reduced poverty worldwide in the past few decades.
Once you establish that, any discussion about China’s internet policy or whatever should be that of good-faith inquiry and not “I think they’re bad, prove me wrong.”
says who? couldn't it be that they are afraid of consequences? or brainwashed to think that other states are bad?
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The suggestion that billions of people are brainwashed is childish.
I have been to Cuba and China and people are absolutely not afraid to criticize their leaders. However, the Cuban people repeatedly defend their country against those trying to overthrow or sow discord. Venezuelans and Chinese, too.
But it looks like you think the west media has brainwashed many other billions?
Brainwashing is a concept invented by the CIA to explain why some American soldiers joined the Chinese during the Korean War. (They joined because they were draftees who had much more in common with Chinese workers than with amerikkka’s bloodthirsty ruling class.) Brainwashing and propaganda only work if you are materially invested in the propaganda. This is presumably why you have no interest in supporting someone like trump, while your more fascist relatives (assuming you have any) love these kinds of people. Fascists speak to one section of the petite bourgeoisie and labor aristocracy in the imperial core; liberals speak to another. No big-name politician in the USA speaks to the proletariat, because that would also require talking about anti-imperialism and decolonization, concepts unacceptable to much of the white working class (since they benefit materially from white supremacy) and immigrants who came to the USA specifically to take advantage of the settler-colonial project.
You’re putting words in my mouth. All I’ve said is that the governments of China, Cuba, and Venezuela have improved the lives of their people and have earned broad popular support from the people actually living there. These are facts. And then I said to engage with questions like China’s internet policy with that in mind.
My brother in christ, you are here creating a thread about how you've been brainwashed to think that other states are bad. You must confront the propaganda you've been fed before you can have any understanding of foreign propaganda.
That’s what I’m asking info about
There is a Harvard study that shows continuous improvement in the public's views towards the government. What would be the reasoning for this if it's not because they truly are satisfied? Harvard isn't going to tell the CPC that these people said they were dissatisfied for a number of reasons. Is your thought that they're just so brainwashed they just believe it's good even while it isn't like some kind of Republican in Florida?
https://ash.harvard.edu/news/ash-center-researchers-release-landmark-chinese-public-opinion-study
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/07/long-term-survey-reveals-chinese-government-satisfaction/
The paper itself will have more info than the article. But the thing is we cannot assume people in the global south are stupid. I have had several friends from socialist and formerly communist countries. They are shrewd and critical and have an eye for good deals. They know when people are being fake with them. And many people in the global south are willing to die for the opportunity of a better life. If China were doing wrong by its people, you can bet there would be a separatist movement somewhere that the US could leverage. But they aren't, so there isn't.
Let's use Colombia as an easy example of narrative manipulation. In 2021, Trade Unions started protesting their dissatisfaction with the govt's covid response, asking for universal basic income and some other demands that targeted big US businesses. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/1/23/colombian-activist-killings-hit-record-high-in-2022-ombudsman
These union leaders and the less organized mass movement around them supported Petro as their key to an anti-US-hegemonic movement. His reform programs are shaky and incomplete (it's only been a year since he took office), and people are still dying at the hands of cartels in a US-centered drug supplychain. Despite a ceasefire agreement with Petro, they're killing farmers who want to switch to growing food instead of drugs. And this issue is being used as a wedge to push him out of office. Despite this, his people still support him.
https://orinocotribune.com/colombia-people-mass-mobilize-in-support-of-president-petro/
https://theintercept.com/2023/06/07/colombia-gustavo-petro-letter/
Now, how is this being reported in official US channels?
https://apnews.com/article/colombia-president-petro-corruption-scandal-a3d4c4cc99c698158386bd5ff1b27335
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New lefties should be able to recognize the sheer magnitude of the US's propaganda apparatus. It's unreal. New lefties should also be able to recognize the huge swaths of the people who hold beliefs counter to the neoliberal propaganda state, whether it's from the left or from the right. What might not be so obvious for new lefties is synthesizing those two pieces of information with the fact that people from the global south are the same exact people we are, just with a different language, culture, and amount of poverty. They're just as able to be critical of their government as we are, except relative to the US, they probably have even less propaganda.
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Brainwashing is quite literally a myth popularized to explain Americans defecting to China during the Korean War as well as admitting to using biological weapons when the government denies it.
Brainwashing isn't real. The DPRK and China don't brainwash and neither does America (though it tried to learn how with MKUltra)