Memes

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.