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!
Since a lot of people have answered your questions, I'd like to comment on a related topic. An important thing to understand about ideology is that it is often invisible to the people it influences. If somebody tells you they are nonideological, in all likelihood the extreme opposite is true. Ideology can be best characterized as the biases, presuppositions, and assumptions we take for granted without question. Common examples being American exceptionalism and American innocence. When broad swaths of news media and academia frame every issue as if capitalism were a natural, invisible force - for instance that homelessness is an issue of individual failings and not of massive privatization and enclosure - this is ideology at work.
There are countless publications about the enemies of the US empire which are written with malicious intent, but there are many more which are driven by ideology. Take the Great Firewall for instance. Many assumed the purpose was censorship. Indeed, it is used to censor some things, but because of this ideological framing, nobody was able to perceive it's even more important role as a matter of industrial policy. By prohibiting Western social media and tech firms from operating within China*, they have established their own domestic tech industry, the only one in the world which can hold a candle to Silicon Valley. And now they don't need to worry about these Silicon Valley firms, which are firmly under the thumb of the US intelligence and military aparratus, being weaponized to cause instability in their country.
*
More acurrately, they could have operated there, but those operations would have to be domiciled in China and follow Chinese law. The Western firms wanted to be able to operate from overseas with impunity, and the Chinese government was like lol no.
real talk, thanks. RE great firewall, and censorship in general. What happens if I, a chinese citizen (supposing) stand on a street corner and start calling for the voting out of the leaders? Is that tolerated? Ot for example, in Russia. If I stand on the street corner and call for Putin's removal. What happens to me? The one thing I hate, is being told what to say, what not to say. I'm a real pig-headed jerk that way. I get the rather strong sense that there is little tolerance for dissent in some of these countries. I am not saying the USA is much better, we seem always to stand but a hares breath from the void.
Local politics is very vibrant in China, at one point I translated and covered a protest group in Yunnan that demanded the demolition of botched capitalist housing projects in favor of low income housing in Kunming, and they succeeded in their demands and replaced the people in charge of the decision. Those demolitions were all over Western media as a sign of China failing, but in reality it was a sign of democracy in action and the failures of the capitalist class in China and the support of government action
I'm too lazy to search my own posts tho
Are you calling directly for the death of the leaders or are you calling for them to be replaced by election? The former is considered to be a crime in pretty much every country, with varying degrees of enforcement based mostly on local police tolerance, not federal policy, the latter is not.
For groups of protestors, both the U.S. and Russia have been pretty liberal in their cracking down on group protests and prosecuting those viewed in 'leadership' positions be they community organizers or trained protest medics, while the Chinese have been pretty good about not physically cracking down on protests unless they begin to physically threaten private property concerns (generally if because they are on-site of a business). That being said though, the Chinese do this weird thing where after a protest occurs, they send federal cadre members into the area to figure out what caused the break-down in law and order and then force through policy changes. For example, about a year and a half ago, there was a large on-site protest that was beaten down by police in Donguang because manufacturers had reneged on an advertised promise for double pay for workers, which was used to convince them to join the company. Although the protest was beaten down, there were no prosecutions, and cadre members came in and forced the business to hold to their original advertised contract with the workers on penalty of federal prosecution.
These systems are large and complicated with lots of actors with varying levels of agenda and commitments. Rarely are they as simple as the U.S. media loves to portray or pretend.
Replaced by election, replaced fairly. In the case of Russia, I've heard those elections aren't fair, or transparent . For example, Putin in power for so long with huge voting polls in his favor, his opponents attacked and assassinated even. Another concern I have, given my connections with non-binary family members is little to no tolerance for gay people , for example. I'm more skeptical of Russia than I am of China, because I personally "feel" (through media reports) that the country is serious about making progress overall for its people, even though negative perceptions do make themselves known . Again, no argument from me that there are many in positions of power in the USA who are pushing for similar measures in the USA.
But who are these opponents and would they stand a chance in a 'free and fair election'? If you really look into why and who these people are, the reason Putin goes hard on them is because they are likely mostly shells propped up by American and British intelligence services. I'm not going to argue that it's the correct way to deal with them, but generally speaking it serves as a warning. Don't deal with Western intelligence services and we will leave you alone. The former communist party operates electorally unscathed, if unpopular, as do several further right-wing parties who have been incredibly critical of Putin's Ukriane invasion (in that they want even further commitment of troops), even other members of the liberal opposition operate unimpeded, as long as they aren't directly involved with the West. However, more problematic than that is that the oligarchs control the media, even the opposition media, so creating any kind of real change in status quo between worker and bourgeoisie is going to be an uphill slog.
I agree that Russia has huge problems with the arbitrary prosecution of gay and lgbt activists. However, members of the protest group Pussy Riot were given light sentences that, if they had done the same actions (namely having public sex in a church) in the U.S. they would not only face up to 20 years of prison, but also mandatory sex offender registration, and likely a lengthy probation. Both Russia and the U.S. are incredibly arbitrary in their prosecutions and laws around these social things.
Russia is not a country that I would personally want to live in. However, portraying it as some sort of backwards nation of despots and savages is incredibly inaccurate. They are an oligarchic capitalist nation with huge interests in promoting their local bourgeoisie at the expense of foreign capital interests.
I don't want to be too overbearing on this, but the most standard radlib position is "I disavow the USA while believing 99% of what it says about its enemies through its media mouthpieces". When people point to the US being bad, it's not because they think you wouldn't "disavow" it but that your perception of enemies of the US are necessarily mediated by the US and its allies, who control the vast majority of media you have ever been exposed to if you've lived your life in their borders.
Fair enough. That's why when I'm getting into a discussion, I always like to ask what constitutes acceptable sources. It's a bit of a negotiation I guess, but better that than shouting over one another. I'm totally willing to be shown new realities, for example with Russia. I would love to be shown that the country is a pillar of human and worker rights, and that the stories I've heard are all media lies. So far though, even as I search, I haven't found that. I actually find the topic of sources to be altogether vexing, fascinating, frustrating and interesting. It really is the rub of it, in my opinion.
You've gotten pretty consistent feedback on Russia and it's not what you propose as a counterfactual there. The Putin and the party that backs him are rhetorically rightwing on a range of issues and in practice seem impressively unideological in favor of cold pragmatism, but because of their position in the world order, with the US continuing to menace Russia with NATO even after the dissolution of the USSR and the gutting of every member state's economy and welfare infrastructure, Putin has found himself in a place where what benefits him the most is to oppose western hegemony, and the best strategy for that is pursuing multipolarity. At the core, that's all it is, but the US can never say that, so it just lazily paints him as another Hitler to rally the west against him.
I think he's a mafioso and, if one of us was in a room with him and he thought it beneficial to kill us (unlikely but whatever), he would not even blink as he signals to his secret service that we are to be stabbed with a ricin pin or whatever. But that is not so, and he is just as ready to help other states that the US has also made an enemy out of, including socialist states.
Sorry I don't understand.
No worries. You said:
So I was simply saying that no one here claims Russia is a pillar of any kind of rights (beyond, arguably, local self-determination). The government doesn't intrinsically give a shit about any of that, so it maintains basic protections for members of the majority population as long as you don't go out of your way to get on its bad side. It is at best unremarkable in this regard afaik.
Got it. Thanks for that
What gives you the sense there is little tolerance? Were you seeing people arrested for the zero covid protests that ultimately led to the change in policy? Compared with huge uprisings in the US that led to no change and actually in some cases the opposite of what the protests were about (more funding for the police). Paired with the incredibly violent reaction by American police and legal retribution against protesters
I'll respond, but what sources are you ok with? I don't want to waste your time. For example, some people might not be ok with main stream sources such as the LA Times, NYT, etc. I totally get that and I don't want to source something if you're not ok with the source. Other sources are sometimes welcomed, for example, in the USA with regards to civil liberties, the ACLU, Human Rights Watch etc. If you can give me an idea of which sources you're ok with, I'll do my best to support my speculation. thanks
Whatever you like, obviously if it has shaky providence I'll call it out, but I'm not going to dismiss an entire outlet outright. I'm not going to claim there aren't cases of people being arrested for actions, but I struggle to think of a country where that doesn't happen and I'm China primarily I would argue they are done for the betterment of the population as a whole who supports the government by a very very large majority.
Russia today is a different story and not a country I'd stick up for like China
I think we're basically on the same page.
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