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Scholz says Carlson interview with Putin tells 'absurd story'
(news.yahoo.com)
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this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2024
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The US didn't stomp out socialism, they stomped out people that kept them away from natural resources (which happened to be people who said they were socialist). You think if the US hadn't overthrown Allende in Chile they would have become this bastion of human equity and prosperity? Maybe, but I could argue just as much that if the US had done absolutely nothing in that country he could have been overthrown by his own greedy political rival. With what we see in the world all around us that's by far the more plausible outcome there because nearly all humans are greedy no matter what nation they were born in. This is in no way a defense of US actions in South America or anywhere in the world, but assuming the outcome without US involvement in all these places would have been rainbows and roses is ridiculous. Yes, imperialism is wrong, but the outcomes still could have been just another wrong. In fact, to imply that the United States government had the power to literally change human nature - because according to you "we could’ve been living in a very different world today" - is so ridiculous and giving the stupid US government wayyyy too much power. Yeah, we could've been living in a very different world, one way worse. Who are you to say how anything that didn't happen would be?!?!
The idea we'll have Marxist communism without capital and the bourgeois is just misguided, it directly conflicts with human nature. But it's a nice thought experiment. If you watch nature shows and connect the dots, capitalism is simply survival of the fittest in economic form. That is not a defense, it's simply and explanation for why it is. We are "right on schedule." Sure there are altruistic species on the planet but show me an apex predator that exhibits altruism.
The idea that the US has a monopoly on racism is comical. Nearly everyone in the past was racist. So because Hitler was infatuated with some of the beliefs of American politicians when he was doing his own thing is the fault of the US? Please. The problem with that article and this narrative is it tries to paint a "man behind the curtain" narrative. There is no man behind the curtain. There is no secret society running everything. It's a nice bedtime story and yeah it makes us feel better but it's not how people operate. This is 100% about money and always has been. And as soon as one human with too much money thinks another human is keeping them from that money, they will turn on each other even if both of them think black people should be sterilized.
And sure, all of human history isn't "shit" but the fact is homo sapiens, the apex monkeys who won the "caveman days" and killed or bred out the other human-like species on the planet, that's our evolution. That's how we got HERE and it wasn't love, peace, and happiness. And yes the idea of living in the garden like all the natives we trampled over sounds fantastic, but history more or less had to look this way, right? Technology essentially dictated that the natives living in the garden were going to get wiped out at some point. If it wasn't the western white world that did it it would have been someone else. If the "Chinese tribes" hadn't been spending all that time warring within their own land (which is exactly why it wasn't them, they had plenty of land and resources to fight over.) they could have been the ones to kill the "new world" natives and everyone would be speaking Mandarin. They could have used slaves to earn massive capital to build a massive military to use that military to ensure it's economic success around the world. You think they are NOT doing that now?!
So fussing over "what could have been" is just pointless. Blaming "the entity on top" is lazy. The question is how do we move forward. And if you ask me it's not tearing it all down. That's what's insane to me about everyone here in this thread trying to say "Scholz can't say anything bad about Putin/Tucker because he supports Israel invading Palestine." and trying to draw a correlation that they're the same thing (they're absolutely similar but they're not the same thing), or that we can just ignore the actual modern day Nazi's in America that are actively trying to bring back the actual ideals of Nazi Germany, which is who Tucker is rooting for and absolutely what Putin wants to happen here.
It's incredulous to me that the majority of the people here are indirectly (or directly) saying "but look over here" with regards to Putin and Tucker as if that's a non-issue and Israel and Palestine is the only global issue. And then being all flippant and childish about it. If DT gets elected there will literally be US troops killing Palestinians (except it'll probably be over by then). DT moved the embassy to Jerusalem but people want to rail on Biden for toeing the line of US foreign policy wrt a very complex issue (no, it shouldn't be, but it is. Which ironically the "answer" is in the middle east YT video that is posted here). So who gives a flying fuck about nearly 80 year old history when we have a real and obvious problem here and now.
And if the people here aren't American and can't vote and don't have an influence in that - then I think it's completely fine to share history and maybe educate people about how we got here. But the angst, hyperbole, and flippancy towards "who they think they're responding to" just sours their message and makes them sound like children.
Yeah, US absolutely stomped out socialism. Entire books have been written on the subject. Killing Hope is one book you might want to read.
Oh man imagine using HuMan NatuRe as a serious argument, opinion dismissed. 😂
Then where is it working? Why in our greatest examples of communism is there still an elite class in control?
Edit: And if nature is not our greatest example of "how the world works" what do you suggest? Again, not at all a defense of capitalism, just an example for why it is. There are countless examples in nature of mimicry and deception to eat the fucking prey. Like capitalists. So tell me obtuse fuck, where is the example of what you're preaching?
Maybe spend some time to learn about how socialist countries actually work instead of just spewing nonsense constantly. Here's a concrete example for you. When USSR fell and former countries transitioned to capitalism, life got worse for majority of people. Homelessness appeared, crime shot through the roof, wealth inequality went up. People lost access to basic needs such as healthcare and education. These are all tangible differences between the two systems. The fact that you can't understand this is frankly depressing.
Wealth inequality absolutely exists in both China and Russia, which is my whole point. No place on earth has a true socialist/communist economy. Because people are going to take money when they have the opportunity, no economic system is going to solve that today. Whether it's "theft" or "legal theft" it happens. Furthermore both China and Russia have dictatorship governments, where there is less freedom. So I'm not sure how you can say anything is [edit: substantially ] better than anything else. Maybe you want to live (or do) in a dictatorship which, fine, I won't fault you for that. And free healthcare exists in capitalist economies. So that's not mutually exclusive to communism.
It sounds to me more like you just care more about the words or definitions than the actual reality. If you believe life is better in Russia or China because they are communist so be it, but the freedom in those countries is measurably and proven worse. Which, has nothing to do with their economies, because this is far more complex than two stupid words.... So bottom line from my perspective, there is no example whatsoever of a quality functioning communist economy and lifestyle on the planet and the best thing we can achieve at this point in human evolution is a social democracy with strong regulations to keep capitalism in check.
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:
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.
Literally visible to the naked eye from space.
CHRD states that it interviewed dozens of ethnic Uyghurs in the course of its study, but their enormous estimate was ultimately based on interviews with exactly eight Uyghur individuals. Based on this absurdly small sample of research subjects in an area whose total population is 20 million, CHRD “extrapolated estimates” that “at least 10% of villagers […] are being detained in re-education detention camps, and 20% are being forced to attend day/evening re-education camps in the villages or townships, totaling 30% in both types of camps.” Furthermore, it doesn't even make sense from logistics perspective.
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.
Zenz is a born-again Christian who lectures at the European School of Culture and Theology. This anodyne-sounding campus is actually the German base of Columbia International University, a US-based evangelical Christian seminary which considers the “Bible to be the ultimate foundation and the final truth in every aspect of our lives,” and whose mission is to “educate people from a biblical worldview to impact the nations with the message of Christ.”
Zenz’s work on China is inspired by this biblical worldview, as he recently explained in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. “I feel very clearly led by God to do this,” he said. “I can put it that way. I’m not afraid to say that. With Xinjiang, things really changed. It became like a mission, or a ministry.”.
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.
Zenz outlined these views in a book he co-authored in 2012, titled Worthy to Escape: Why All Believers Will Not Be Raptured Before the Tribulation. In the tome, Zenz discussed the return of Jesus Christ, the coming wrath of God, and the rise of the Antichrist.
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:
US has been stoking terrorism in the region while they've been running a propaganda campaign against China in the west. In fact, US even classified Uyghur separatists as a terrorist group at one point https://www.mintpressnews.com/us-was-at-war-uyghur-terrorists-now-claims-etim-doesnt-exist/276916/
Here's an interview with a son of imam killed in Xinjiang https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-06-19/Son-of-imam-assassinated-in-Kashgar-s-2014-mosque-attack-speaks-out-RqNiyrcRuo/index.html
Here's an account from a Pakistani journalist who has been all over Xinjiang (which borders Pakistan) claims that western media reports on "atrocities" are lies. https://dailytimes.com.pk/723317/exposing-the-occidents-baseless-lies-about-xinjiang/
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.
Also notable that whenever western media actually deigns to visit Xinjiang, which is not often, they're unable to produce support for any of their claims of mass imprisonment and oppression, so they opt for insinuations instead https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-lifestyle-china-health-travel-7a6967f335f97ca868cc618ea84b98b9
There's a further list of debunking here if you're interested https://redsails.org/the-xinjiang-atrocity-propaganda-blitz/
The whole thing is very clearly a propaganda blitz that US is cynically using to manipulate impressionable people in the west.
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I just assumed Russia was still communist in some way. But yes I've done a good amount of reading from this conversation as a whole.
Regarding "my work," there are countless government independent organizations that index freedom across the world, which I assume you are aware of. Nearly all (or all) of them rank Russia and China lower than "the western world." The US of course is nowhere near the top, but it's above China and Russia...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_freedom_indices