German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has sharply criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin's interview with a right-wing US talk show host. During a visit to the US capital on Friday, Scholz said that it was an interview "that honestly only mocks what real actions have been done by Russia in Ukraine and ...
First of all Russia is now capitalist, the whole point I was making was the difference between what it was like under communism and what it's like under capitalism today. It's not a question of whether inequality exists, the question is whether the system works in the interest of the majority and whether conditions are improving for regular people. You're just making a false equivalence while missing the forest for the trees. It sounds to me like you're just regurgitating nonsense on a subject you have a very tenuous grasp on.
Actual tangible freedoms are far better in a country like China where people have freedom from homelessness, freedom from starving on the street, and freedom from being excluded from education because they can't afford it. These are real freedoms that empower people to self actualize and give them opportunities as opposed to ephemeral freedoms people in the west claim to enjoy. An economy that works in the interest of the working class is what gives people actual tangible freedoms.
I don't disagree that the world should be far more left as a whole and people should not have to suffer at the whims of systems that don't care about them. But yeah "freedom from homelessness" while the Chinese government dictates what you can say and what knowledge you can access is just an absurd argument to me. How about freedom from concentration camps? I guess in your opinion that's a home. It doesn't matter what color the boot is on your neck, they both suck.
And yeah I really dgaf about Russia, I just assumed they were still "communist" in some way shape or form. Anyways, I was never saying capitalism is the savior, just that "it makes sense" from a human standpoint. Humans will still take advantage of other humans in some way, shape, or form whether it be with money or rights, religion or speech, some form of control until I dunno, people figure out how not to give other people their power. That's a human thing that humans need to achieve, I just don't see a government or economic system doing that. Except of course when humans do that they will still have to form some government and economy so I guess it's just a question of the chicken and the egg.
This framing of yours is absolutely nonsensical. What the Chinese government says is that certain ideas are harmful to society. And every government, including western ones, does that.
Meanwhile, the concentration camps you keep yammering about have zero basis in reality. On the other hand, US has the highest incarceration rate per capita in the world. So, if we want to look at a society that actually has forced labor camps that's the US.
All you're doing here is just regurgitating fallacies and nonsense born out out ignorance. I implore you to spend a bit of time actually educating yourself.
I brought up the Chinese concentration camps once, so not sure how I "keep yammering" about that. And I just searched, there is a considerable level of discussion here by large news outlets so I'm hardly spewing conspiracy theories. But sure, it could be all fake.
I really have no interest in arguing and the irony is we likely agree far more than has been indicated through this 4/10 effort to have a conversation on the internet. I do my best to educate myself so I will continue to do that as you have implored. I wish you the best...
Sigh, alright I guess I'll address the "concentration camps" nonsense in detail for you. The whole conspiracy theory started with a claim of millions of Uyghurs being supposedly imprisoned story is based on two highly dubious “studies.”.
However, this claim is completely absurd when you stop and think about it even for a minute. That figure 1 million is repeated again and again. Let's just look at how much space would you actually need to intern one million people.
This is a photo of Rikers Island, New York City's biggest prison. The actual size of a facility interning ten thousand people.
According to Wikipedia, "The average daily inmate population on the island is about 10,000, although it can hold a maximum of 15,000." Let's assume this is a Xinjiang detention camp, holding ten to fifteen thousand people. How many of these would it take to hold one million people?
Let's do some math:
Rikers Size
Rikers Prisoners
One Million Uyghurs Size
413.2 acres (0.645 square miles)
10,000 to 15,000
43 to 64 square miles
In reality, one million people would probably take more space; all the supposed detention camps we see are much less dense than Rikers.
For comparison, San Francisco is 47 square miles. Amsterdam is 64 square miles. You'd literally need detention camps that total the size of San Francisco or Amsterdam to intern one million Uyghurs. It'd be like looking at a map of California. There's Los Angeles. There's San Diego. And look, there's San Francisco Concentration City with its one million Uyghurs.
Practically all the stories we see about China trace back to Adrian Zenz is a far right fundamentalist nutcase and not a reliable source for any sort of information. The fact that he's the primary source for practically every article in western media demonstrates precisely what I'm talking about when I say that coverage is divorced from reality.
Along with his “mission” against China, heavenly guidance has apparently prompted Zenz to denounce homosexuality, gender equality, and the banning of physical punishment against children as threats to Christianity.
The fact that this nutcase is being paraded as a credible researcher on the subject is absolutely surreal, and it's clear that the methodology of his "research" doesn't pass any kind of muster when examined closely.
It's also worth noting that there is a political angle around the narrative around Xinjiang. For example, here's George Bush's chief of staff openly saying that US wants to destabilize the region, and NED recently admitting to funding Uyghur separatism for the past 16 years on their own official Twitter page. An ex-CIA operative details US operations radicalizing and training terrorists in the region in this book. Here's an excerpt:
It's also worth noting that the accusations originate entirely from the west while Muslim majority countries support China, and their leaders have visited Xinjiang many times.