I've given up on engaging with NPCs / libs, as long as their material conditions afford them the option to ignore foreign policy, you will get nothing but horrible takes from them.
Had a discussion with a co-worker about Afghanistan, pointed out all the failures, we've been there for 20 years, Taliban is completely dominating, now produces 92% of all heroin, more money spent on Afghanistan than on the marshal plan after ww2 etc. etc.
Only response was: "but have you seen how they treat women"
100% propaganda lib brained, It wasn't even an original response, just a received opinion from the human rights industry, no critical thought.
It's impossible to discuss foreign policy with these individuals, they simply don't care, they just want an out so they can go back to brunch, discuss sports or celebrity gossip and so on.
What benefit does the US get from the war in Afghanistan? Seems so pointless, even from an imperial perspective.
It's right next to Pakistan's nukes and China's Belt and Road plans. Look at where Xinjiang is and all of this starts to make a lot more sense.
Putting hard military power in Afghanistan is the closest they can get to the Belt and Road Initiative, that runs across Central Asia. If we had to impact that with military power, we are in a position to do so in Afghanistan.
We are cheek and jowl with the potentially most unstable nuclear stockpile on the face of the earth in Pakistan. We wanna be able to leap on that stockpile, and stabilize it if necessary.
And the third reason we are there is because there are 20 million Uighurs, and they don't like Han Chinese in Xinjiang Province of Western China. And if the CIA has to mount an operation using those Uighurs, as Erdogan did in Turkey against Assad… there are 20,000 of them in Id Lib in Syria right now, for example. That’s why the Chinese might be deploying military forces to Syria in the very near future, to take care of those Uighurs, that Erdogan invited in. Well the CIA would want to destabilize China, and that would be the best way to do it.
The human rights industry now plays an integral role in manufacturing consent for Western imperialism. Ever wonder why the positions of Western human rights organizations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International seem to suspiciously align with US foreign policy?
- https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/06/human-rights-watchs-revolving-door/
- https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/dec/31/human-rights-imperialism-james-hoge
- https://thegrayzone.com/2020/04/08/billionaire-human-rights-watch-sanctions-nicaragua-venezuela/
- https://thegrayzone.com/2019/11/20/human-rights-watch-bolivia-coup-massacre/
- https://thegrayzone.com/2019/08/25/deaths-for-dollars-nicaraguas-human-rights-organizations/
- https://thegrayzone.com/2019/06/14/syrian-network-for-human-rights-opposition-snhr/
- https://thegrayzone.com/2020/02/28/us-oas-nicaragua-political-prisoners-murder/
- https://thegrayzone.com/2018/08/31/human-rights-watch-hrw-praises-extreme-war-hawk-john-mccain/
- https://thegrayzone.com/2017/12/11/human-rights-watch-honduras-venezuela-kenneth-roth/
- https://thegrayzone.com/2019/06/12/venezuela-opposition-human-rights-regime-change/
- https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/11/27/the-ideology-of-humanitarian-imperialism/
- https://monthlyreview.org/2008/09/01/humanitarian-imperialism-the-new-doctrine-of-imperial-right/
- https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/05/18/wels-m18.html
- https://monthlyreview.org/1998/03/01/human-rights-imperialism/
- http://www.kropfpolisci.com/humanitarian.imperialism.bricmont
"Propaganda in liberal democracies like America and Britain is much more thorough than in dictatorships and totalitarian states." —John Pilger
There is no way you can change people's believes with on talk and a few good arguments. As soon as they hear China, or even worse North Korea (best Korea) they switch to propaganda mode. Since there are many great sources about the Uhigur situation, that's usually my starting point. The libs also like the world Bank. So it's a libcredible source, which said poverty rates in China went from over 80% in the 80s, to 60% in the 90s to below 0.5% right now. But even then social democracts, who often say I support socialism through reforms, will start arguing that half of a percent poverty is not socialism until nobody is poor. Which just shows the lack of political understand on their parts.
What are some good sources on Uighur camps and the situation? If you don't mind sharing it would help me a lot.
Just bookmark this: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1d0lynghlCnR6Hs57pypEEhlhHczFVgaYX-TIZD61s_w
Like how do you even counter State propaganda as effective as it is currently
I can't stop thinking about this reply I got shortly before being permabanned from Raddle.
These people genuinely trust the US. It's utterly baffling.
Honestly, I have seen a lot of people come around on DPRK recently. Just hit them with facts about the US anti communist murder rampage.
One of my earliest engagements with thoughts about DPRK was the horror show that goes on behind the scenes of the KPOP industry. I imagined those DPRK defectors who regret doing so (which I was aware was a phenomenon). I imagined how they must have witnessed the oppulence and excess of such an industry. They must have had a sour taste from advertisements and deep sexual pathology. And I thought to myself how I could sympathize with someone who regretted leaving a group that opposed a capitalist vision of excess and poverty.
Like I wouldn't want to live in the DPRK because I'll probably be disappeared for being bisexual, but there's no way I'll ever support an invasion of the DPRK or spread propaganda about the country. In fact I'll will even go as far to say that it was cool and good that they got nuclear weapons, as it's the only thing that has prevented the US from spreading "democracy and freedom" there. Very, very Critical support for the DPRK against western imperialism.
Like I wouldn’t want to live in the DPRK because I’ll probably be disappeared for being bisexual
ive never seen any evidence of anything like this
It's not against the law, but being openly gay goes against the social conservatism present in the nation. The only people "allowed" to be LGBT are foreigners and tourists. https://www.youngpioneertours.com/lgbt-north-korea/
Contrary to popular belief, homosexuality is not against the law in North Korea, and people from the LGBT community are more than welcome to travel here – in fact, openly gay tour guides have frequently led tours here without issue.
Whilst homosexuality is not illegal in the country, there is no ‘gay scene’ to speak of, and you certainly will not meet openly gay Koreans in the DPRK. It is also important to be respectful on their extreme conservativeness on this matter
So ... people there are generally socially conservative and might be either curious about or displeased by homosexuality. How in the world does that translate to "I'd be disappeared for being bisexual?"
As there is very little to no information about LGBT issues available to the citizens of the DPRK, if you were to be openly LGBT it could be seen as a sign of being in contact with the west and a foreign agent, as very few people in the DPRK have a conception of what it is. Also being gay is seen as part of Western decadent culture in certain films in the DPRK. That is pretty much the only exposure to LGBT issues your average citizen will get. I know this website and author of the article sucks, but this is the best I was able to find: https://www.nknews.org/2013/11/being-gay-in-the-dprk/
While being "disappeared" will probably only happen if a person is openly queer in what is seen as a "western" way, even if you are an LGBT person that does not do that, you'll be seen as a child if you don't marry someone of the opposite sex and will probably be forced to marry someone you don't love in order to become an "adult"
While being “disappeared” will probably only happen if a person is openly queer in what is seen as a “western” way
[citation needed]
Oviously, because of all the western propaganda and attempts to overthrow the DPRK have caused such secrecy no be necessary in order to allow the DPRK to exist, no one actually knows what is going on there. It's speculation from me. I also want to say that I'm not the person downvoting your comments, this is actually an interesting discussion and I'm learning new things about the DPRK. For example I thought it was against the law to be gay in the DPRK but after researching I found that not to be the case.
I get you. It just strikes me as unnecessary, in a thread specifically about how distorted people's opinions are of the DPRK due to western propaganda, to spread speculation about how in the DPRK the government will take you away in the night for not being straight with absolutely no reason for saying something like that. It just sounds like your standard liberal "well I know the DPRK is bad evil tyrranical monarchy dictatorship commie hell, therefore this bad thing I just thought up in my head must happen there"
I'm not trying to do that, living in the DRPK is not some dictorial hell that it's made out to be in western propoganda. At the same time I'm trying not to lie and be like DRPK 100% good, it's a perfect country with no problems because that's just not true. It's also very hard to actually find information about what's happening there that isn't western propaganda. It's just living in one of the very few countries where I have constitutional protection of my rights, I would be very uncomfortable living in the DPRK where no such protections exist.
At the same time I’m trying not to lie and be like DRPK 100% good, it’s a perfect country with no problems because that’s just not true.
Of course, no one said that. That still doesn't mean every problem you can imagine that they could possibly have is a problem they have. Disappearing the gays is simply not a problem that there is any evidence for.
Imagine if this logic were applied to any other widely homophobic country, like its neighbors South Korea and Japan. "Well, people there are socially conservative, so I bet if I lived there I'd be literally murdered." Doesn't that sound absurd to you?
No, I wouldn't want to live in Japan or South Korea at all because there is a much higher chance of being literally murdered than other countries around the world due to their rampant homophobia. So I do apply this logic to other homophobic counties. Even my own country with constitutional protection of LGBT rights has incidents of people being killed simply because they are queer, why would I want to live somewhere else?
I feel like I had some success talking to a couple friends about it recently. I started by talking about China's foreign policy and how it's so much better than that of the US. When we got into China's domestic issues, I emphasized the fact that there's very little I can do (as an American) about them even if I agree there's problems. I didn't get anybody to agree with China good, but I got agreement that the US should pressure its allies like the Saudis and Israelis before trying to do anything about China, which is largely out of our control (and ofc deal with our own domestic issues). I'd say, challenge blatant falsehoods while otherwise being flexible on what people come away with.
I haven't breached the subject of DPRK, but I went off talking about the history of Iran and Operation Ajax, which certainly made me look at things from a different perspective. I even told the story to my chud parents and they didn't shut me down, at least. I think providing historical context is essential, and fortunately you can ground everything in historical facts and its distant enough that people don't feel directly challenged by it.
Works better with people you know IRL, IME. In any case, don't feel like you have to get them all the way to "China good" or it's a failure, just take what you can get.
