It's not about endorsing imperialist states. Criticism is of course fine, as long as it is making some useful point. But it rarely is.
Let's take an example of the Uyghur camps. When the imperialist states criticize them, there are clear goals: creating an international casus belli against china to advance western imperialist goals, creating a common foreign enemy for the population to 'unite' against, making reasons to keep feeding the war machine, etc.
When a western leftist criticizes the camps, what goal are they achieving? Is it stregnthening the ideology, helping it realize that... there should not be camps? Is it showing who our real allies are? Is it proving a tendency wrong? No, I don't think it is doing any of these. Then, all it is doing is helping the messages useful to imperialist states spread.
The need to 'criticize' is rooted in a 'sports fan' mentality to leftism. It literally should not matter to a westwen leftist (at least in this stage of developement of radical orgs) whether China is good or bad.
If you think Trump's gonna send the nukes to China because of the China struggle sessions on the hexbear site and all the others, or that online/irl leftists opinion will ever be considered in any of these situations.
The people they want to send the messages across to about Uyghur camps don't give a fuck about leftist spaces. Belarus was never ever mentioned neither here nor on any other leftist space before and they still went there to stir shit.
Of course I don't think it will directly cause war. That is why criticism is good when it has some actually important points, even if it at the same time agrees with imperialist propaganda. But if no point beyond the useless "China bad" is made, then all the criticism does is contribute to online anti-China rhetoric and make the ideology of the (hopefully) growing leftist organizations a bit more imperialist. I think the effect is non-zero, people will change their ways of thinking based on what they read online.
But if no point beyond the useless “China bad” is made, then all the criticism does is contribute to online anti-China rhetoric and make the ideology of the (hopefully) growing leftist organizations a bit more imperialist. I think the effect is non-zero, people will change their ways of thinking based on what they read online.
There are usually points behind China bad takes, a lot more than MLs here play it out to be, and also leftists can't be imperialist, that's just another ploy to get the discourse towards "well if you say that Lukashenko is bad, you're supporting fascists/you're an imperialist" (happening right in this thread btw), which literally no one does here, it's just dishonest to assume that.
And again, the stuff in Belarus, the intervention in Venezuela, the coup in Bolivia, they all happened independently from whatever the online leftist discourse was, Venezuela was criticised a lot, but the coup still failed, The one in Belarus will too, not because of our solidarity or antiimperialism or whatever.
When a western leftist criticizes the camps, what goal are they achieving? Is it stregnthening the ideology, helping it realize that… there should not be camps? Is it showing who our real allies are? Is it proving a tendency wrong? No, I don’t think it is doing any of these. Then, all it is doing is helping the messages useful to imperialist states spread.
If you completely avoid any criticism whatsoever no matter how reasonable, and no matter how bad something said states may have done, you invalidate your opinion to a public that for the most part doesn't really understand the concept you are explaining and doesn't really care that much, plus you end up with lots of leftists ending up with a completely ass backwards judgement, the extreme example of this being the very weird antisocial online leftist who goes around shouting at people they deserve to be nuked and awaits for Xi to liberate them.
I understand the point you are making but there has to be a balance.
I absolutely agree that there should be a balance and that people uncritically (and unironically) supporting China are just trying to have their activism done abroad. I think the correct opinion is to be ambivalent towards China, but extremely critical of anti-Chinese propagnada.
It's not about endorsing imperialist states. Criticism is of course fine, as long as it is making some useful point. But it rarely is.
Let's take an example of the Uyghur camps. When the imperialist states criticize them, there are clear goals: creating an international casus belli against china to advance western imperialist goals, creating a common foreign enemy for the population to 'unite' against, making reasons to keep feeding the war machine, etc.
When a western leftist criticizes the camps, what goal are they achieving? Is it stregnthening the ideology, helping it realize that... there should not be camps? Is it showing who our real allies are? Is it proving a tendency wrong? No, I don't think it is doing any of these. Then, all it is doing is helping the messages useful to imperialist states spread.
The need to 'criticize' is rooted in a 'sports fan' mentality to leftism. It literally should not matter to a westwen leftist (at least in this stage of developement of radical orgs) whether China is good or bad.
If you think Trump's gonna send the nukes to China because of the China struggle sessions on the hexbear site and all the others, or that online/irl leftists opinion will ever be considered in any of these situations.
The people they want to send the messages across to about Uyghur camps don't give a fuck about leftist spaces. Belarus was never ever mentioned neither here nor on any other leftist space before and they still went there to stir shit.
Of course I don't think it will directly cause war. That is why criticism is good when it has some actually important points, even if it at the same time agrees with imperialist propaganda. But if no point beyond the useless "China bad" is made, then all the criticism does is contribute to online anti-China rhetoric and make the ideology of the (hopefully) growing leftist organizations a bit more imperialist. I think the effect is non-zero, people will change their ways of thinking based on what they read online.
There are usually points behind China bad takes, a lot more than MLs here play it out to be, and also leftists can't be imperialist, that's just another ploy to get the discourse towards "well if you say that Lukashenko is bad, you're supporting fascists/you're an imperialist" (happening right in this thread btw), which literally no one does here, it's just dishonest to assume that.
And again, the stuff in Belarus, the intervention in Venezuela, the coup in Bolivia, they all happened independently from whatever the online leftist discourse was, Venezuela was criticised a lot, but the coup still failed, The one in Belarus will too, not because of our solidarity or antiimperialism or whatever.
If you completely avoid any criticism whatsoever no matter how reasonable, and no matter how bad something said states may have done, you invalidate your opinion to a public that for the most part doesn't really understand the concept you are explaining and doesn't really care that much, plus you end up with lots of leftists ending up with a completely ass backwards judgement, the extreme example of this being the very weird antisocial online leftist who goes around shouting at people they deserve to be nuked and awaits for Xi to liberate them.
I understand the point you are making but there has to be a balance.
I absolutely agree that there should be a balance and that people uncritically (and unironically) supporting China are just trying to have their activism done abroad. I think the correct opinion is to be ambivalent towards China, but extremely critical of anti-Chinese propagnada.
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I can agree with that.