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Just just one more protest guys! That'll show em! VoTEeee! (lemmy.ml)

submitted 3 days ago by Smackyroon@lemmy.ml to c/memes@lemmy.ml

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[–] SwifferWetjet@thelemmy.club 24 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I genuinely hate how often I have to have this conversation with people. I'm like ok, yes, that thing from China is bad. How do you feel about the kent state massacre? How do you feel about the battle of blair mountain? How do you feel about ruby ridge/waco?

You know these things, you see them as bad things, and you... Just assume the government is still telling the truth? Maybe they're ALL aligned with the concept of currency for self above all else??

I swear to Christ I mean the concept of the FDA is pretty dope I guess. Hey, why do you think we need to tell people that they can't sell you straight up poison as "food" because it's cheaper?

[+] phar@lemmy.world -12 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Most people I see on Lemmy think both are bad. One wrong doesn't make a right.

[–] RiverRock@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 day ago

That's true, it's all the rights that makes a right

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 19 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

No one thinks they do, and everyone knows that “two things can be wrong/true at the same time,” but for some reason liberals can’t stop “educating” us on the matter.

[+] phar@lemmy.world -13 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Weird. No offense to you personally but every time I see someone say anything negative about China or Russia (not socialism or communism, mind you), I see someone from .ml attack them, calling them Nazis and liberals, even when there has been no mention of the west at all. Usually with a bunch of cherry picked "education" links. Then there's always a bunch of defense of Russia or China by pointing out the West's faults. Which doesn't mean anything when it comes to pointing out what China and Russia have done. It's like clockwork. I don't really understand it, either. If you want people to see your side, you generally want to woo them, make them feel good or confident in your argument. But that doesn't seem to happen, just attack attack and whataboutism.

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 17 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

Again, nobody thinks Russia is socialist or communist, so again I don’t understand why the obvious keeps being pointed out to us. Everyone knows it’s a capitalist oligarchy, which every capitalist state is.

Which doesn’t mean anything when it comes to pointing out what China and Russia have done.

And there’s the rub. While China—and especially Russia—are not utopias, there are large discrepancies between what you think they’ve done and what they’ve actually done, between what you think they are and what they actually are. Relatedly there are discrepancies between what you think we are, meaning the imperial core states, and what we actually are. If you understood what we are, then you’d understand why China & Russia act in the ways that they do when dealing with us (to the extent that you do understand what they do, because don’t forget the first discrepancy).

But I’m not going to rehash that territory. Instead I’d suggest starting by developing real media literacy[1][2][3] and then investigating them yourself, if you have the time & motivation to.

But that doesn’t seem to happen, just attack attack and whataboutism.

Citations Needed podcast:
Whataboutism - The Media's Favorite Rhetorical Shield Against Criticism of US Policy

Since the beginning of what’s generally called ‘RussiaGate’ three years ago, pundits, media outlets, even comedians have all become insta-experts on supposed Russian propaganda techniques. The most cunning of these tricks, we are told, is that of “whataboutism” – a devious Soviet tactic of deflecting criticism by pointing out the accusers’ hypocrisy and inconsistencies. The tu quoque - or, “you, also” - fallacy, but with a unique Slavic flavor of nihilism, used by Trump and leftists alike in an effort to change the subject and focus on the faults of the United States rather than the crimes of Official State Enemies.

But what if "whataboutism" isn’t describing a propaganda technique, but in fact is one itself: a zombie phrase that’s seeped into everyday liberal discourse that – while perhaps useful in the abstract - has manifestly turned any appeal to moral consistency into a cunning Russian psyop. From its origins in the Cold War as a means of deflecting and apologizing for Jim Crow to its braindead contemporary usage as a way of not engaging any criticism of the United States as the supposed arbiter of human rights, the term "whataboutism" has become a term that - 100 percent of the time - is simply used to defend and legitimizing American empire’s moral narratives.

[+] phar@lemmy.world -9 points 2 days ago (2 children)

See right here. You are jumping directly to saying whataboutism is defending the American empire's moral narratives. Every single time. Accusations and assumptions with no basis. Whataboutism just means someone is changing the focus of conversation to something else to distract from what the actual topic is. Which happens every. Single. Time. You can call it whatever you want, but no one wants to have a conversation if every time it goes to "yea well the west blah blah blah." No one was defending the "west" to begin with. Wherever your last paragraph from is just some random opinion. Whataboutism has become colloquial, if you want to find a different term for it, by all means, do so.

[–] BrainInABox@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 days ago

You are jumping directly to saying whataboutism is defending the American empire’s moral narratives. Every single time.

Whataboutism is unforgivable, but blatant strawmanning is ok, apparently.

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

My guy, I didn’t bring up “whataboutism,” you did. It’s not a topic I “jumped directly to,” you did. What I did was point you to an intervention on liberals‘ abuse of the term as a thought-terminating cliché, which you obviously didn’t engage with at all. Instead you repeated the same tired BS that the Citations Needed episode dissects.

[–] orc_princess@lemmy.ml 17 points 3 days ago

Can't say much about Russia since it's not what I'm most informed about, but when I see people criticize China it's normally debunked stuff which is very annoying. It's not that the US "also" does the same, but rather that they're projecting based on state department propaganda something that China isn't even doing. So yeah we'll share sources that already deal with the claims and hope people learn more about it. Some of us are way less patient or more rude, but that's my perspective why.

[–] SwifferWetjet@thelemmy.club 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Dog I get it I really do shit sandwich shit ice cream question goes here. One of those sandwiches you know for a fucking fact literally has super rabies and is incapable of being entirely truthful in ANY capacity. It is time to admit the shit sandwich is delusional and that we cannot speak on the cognitive state of the shit ice cream, because we don't really know anything we aren't fed by the shit sandwich in some capacity about that shit ice cream.