I said literally nothing about their intent in my comment whatsoever.

If it's fake news (and it is) then I have every right to say, "Get this fucking bullshit off my feed" (my actual response was quite a bit more measured than that). I shouldn't have to be like, "Haha! Oh that's so funny, you're really smart and clever! Oh, but, fyi, that's kinda misinformation, just so you know!"

Would you rather listen to the blunt truth or to a friendly lie? If it's the latter, then that ought to be called out as well as the original point - falling for a fake news story is entirely excusable, but being unwilling to listen to criticism unless it's phrased nicely and defanged is not.

Shit like this is part of why I use term "Blue MAGA," because you'll find the exact same mentality over there. The facts don't matter, if you don't demonstrate you're one of us, we'll write you off anything you say. Critical thought means listening to criticism, even if it's, "antagonistic."

There's sweetened and unsweetened ones so that might be it but who knows.

Tfw you say something and everyone hates it and then someone else comes by and says the same thing in a slightly different way and everyone likes it 😑

OK, but a news article describing what "RFK says" should not say that he says he wants concentration camps when that's not at all what he said. You're free to speculate about what his real intentions might be, but the news has a responsibility to report what he actually said, not their personal opinion of what it might eventually turn into.

Saying that he said he wants "labor camps" is already taking some wild creative liberties. Like, if I rent a cabin in a campsite and bring my laptop to do some work while I'm out there, is that a "labor camp?" I'm at a camp and I'm doing labor, I guess. But to say that he explicitly called for "concentration camps" is just an outright lie. And it's absolutely wild to me that anyone would want the news to lie to them! You're asking for the press to be more sensationalist, and judging by the downvotes, that's just majority opinion here.

Some of us actually take the risks seriously and need to have accurate threat modelling. I have no patience for this game of making stuff up to get mad about.

You should give oat milk a try (or soy/almond, but oat tastes the best imo)

So what you're saying is that the reality isn't bad enough so we need to make shit up and exaggerate everything? Because I disagree with that. I think things are bad enough that you can just be truthful about it, and lying is actually counterproductive because it discredits legitimate criticism.

Like if you want to talk about concentration camps, we've already got them for undocumented migrants.

The term "concentration camps" usually doesn't refer to places people volunteer to go to. The headline's clickbait enough as it is.

In the US, things have improved a lot and there are informed consent clinics where you can go to a clinic and sign a document saying you know what you're doing and get a prescription for estradiol (not sure about T). Obviously things are very dicey politically, and some doctors are still shitty, but generally the medical/scientific consensus is on our side, and recognizes that it's better for people to get meds through a legitimate doctor/pharmacy as opposed to more sketchy online stuff.

I only say this because I hesitated to look into it because I'd heard horror storirs about medical gatekeeping, but when I actually looked into it it was much easier than expected.

I'm not an anarchist but I'd like to elaborate on your question.

In a competitive economy (big disclaimer), especially in the case of plumbing which has a low barrier to entry, you and the plumber don't have a significant power differential. You need a plumber, but you don't need that specific plumber, and the plumber needs customers but they don't need you specifically. If a bunch of plumbers got together and said they won't work for you, it wouldn't be too hard for someone to learn the trade and break the monopoly, in the same way, you could try to boycott the plumber, but they could just find other customers.

But that's in the theoretical case of like, the free market actually working. There are lots of ways in which it can go wrong. If the barriers to entry are higher, then it's easier to form a monopoly, and in some industries that barrier is naturally higher (say, microchip production), and it's also possible to raise the barrier of entry if an entity gets powerful enough to influence policy - for example, if you had to obtain an expensive license to be allowed to practice plumbing. So it's really two questions: is trade inherently explotative, and is trade potentially exploitative?

Boycotts are sometimes idolized as a way to prevent bad behavior without the involvement of the state. But this is problematic for two reasons. The first being that boycotts are difficult to organize and only sometimes effective. The second is that to the extent that they are effective, they're not always used to do good things. To use an example, we can look at the Jim Crow South. If I own a business in a town full of racists, and I try to run my business in a non-racist way, then I'm alienating a bunch of my racist customers and racist businesses may refuse to serve or do business with me, until I go bankrupt or am forced out of town. This problem was only solved through federal intervention through the Civil Rights Act.

Under those circumstances, it's difficult for me to imagine how anarchism could work. As a trans person from the southern US, decentralization and giving power back to local communities sounds nice on paper, but like, have you seen these communities? Have you looked at what they've done historically when federal authority was looser? Who is poised to take power in those regions in the event of the abolition of the federal government?

That doesn't mean that anarchism is fundamentally unworkable everywhere, though. It just means that you have to evaluate the actually existing material and social conditions and figure out what can be done where based on that.

There's no confusion, I addressed that. The Greens and Libertarians both represent broader, legitimate ideological currents, held by people who mostly either fall in line behind the lesser evil or don't vote because they see it as futile. Tulsi's just a grifter.

Partially true. I didn't vote for Stein (I voted PSL), but the Green party is ideologically closer to leftists than the major parties. It's kind of the same on the other side for the Libertarian party, there are more Republicans and non-voters with Libertarian beliefs than there are people who vote Libertarian. Stein herself does seem like something of an opportunist, but she doesn't rely on the same kind of niche cult of personality that Tulsi has built for herself. Most people just know of Stein through the Green party, which does represent various legitimate beliefs.

The policies that we on the left advocate for have the potential to reach a wider audience than just people who are already ideologically committed. By running on a platform that would materially benefit people, it's easier to make the case that people should support the left, regardless of who they are or how they view themselves politically. You're free to write off people like me, but it's not as if we're the only ones who like having healthcare, for instance.

Tulsi is one of countless odious personalities that carve out one specific sliver of the population and speak to them exclusively, and fixate on tiny bits of information that support a narrative that's completely out of line with the broader truth. "If you're anti-war, you should vote Republican. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, calling for ever more exorbitant military spending, saber-rattling with everyone, conducting assassinations and bombing campaigns. And pay no attention to the fact that I myself was on Fox News attacking Obama from the right for not being aggressive enough in the War on Terror, and literally described myself as a hawk regarding it."

She is part of a pipeline that takes people with valid, left-leaning criticisms of the Democratic party and convinces them to accept the Republicans as an alternative, despite them being worse in every respect. She's absolute scum, and she discredits people like me, who actually are anti-war, not just when it means criticizing the Democrats. I will always call out her and her ridiculous little fanclub, who have clearly never read an actual goddamn book in their lives. And the same goes for people like Jimmy Dore and Jackson Hinkle too.

ok, you’re baslly saying china is a perfect utopia and everything bad about them is made up by the us, got it

Why do libs think that pushing back on the most egregious claims about a country means that a person considers it, "A perfect utopia?" There are plenty of bad things about China that aren't made up, just as there are for any country. The world is in fact, quite complex when you practice basic critical thinking and treat claims with skepticism and take the good with the bad. It's much simpler when you just accept any negative claim anybody says about whichever country the news tells you to hate.

The sources you cite rely on Adrian Zenz, an evangelical Christian fundamentalist who works for an organization called, "The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation," an organization with ties to the Heritage Foundation and which counted everyone who died of COVID as a, "Victim of Communism." Somehow. That's not a reliable source.

I'm not sure what your intention is there. You asked for information about something and I provided it.

I cited Wikipedia as a quick reference for something uncontroversial, which, as per your request, is independent of Chinese censorship. That doesn't mean I treat it like the Word of God. That's not really how sources work. For instance, a lot of the information in the article you linked traces back to Adrian Zenz. Adrian Zenz was also the primary source cited in two of your three previous links - the other of which made no mention of genocide.

Lots of countries have internment camps. Would you find it objectionable if I said that Biden was directly committing genocide by detaining undocumented migrants in interment camps?

If you sub out communism for “social hierarchies” then you have the right-wing wet dream.

If you replace "the abolition of social hierarchies" with "the reinforcement of social hierarchies," it makes left wing people sound just like right wing people 🤔

Good question.

I sometimes think about the fact that JFK fired Alan Dulles, the guy in charge of assassinating world leaders, months before he was assassinated, and that Dulles was then on the investigative committee into his death. Now, does that prove Dulles was behind the assassination? No. But it does make me go "Hmm." But it is worth noting that if that was what happened, I certainly wouldn't have the means at my disposal to prove it. I wasn't on the investigative committee, after all.

Now, I might choose to believe that's what happened, or that there was a possibility that that's what happened. You might not. That's fine. But what would be less fine would be if I declared anyone who doubted my conjecture and wanted concrete proof to be a redfash who blindly believes anything the US government says and should be banned and excluded from conversation.

I would never deny any claim of genocide, regardless of evidence, because that's against .world's rules. If someone tells me that France is genociding Belgians, I won't question or dispute it because that's against the rules. But the thing is that when a genocide has clear, documented evidence, I just find that a lot more emotionally compelling. I connect more with what's happening when I can see a shitton of photo and video evidence of dead children in the streets than when all I have to go on is random hearsay. I guess you could say I'm a very visual person.

also please give me some independent stuff about that terrorism problem, with independent I mean something, that didn’t run through chinese censorship (which I belive you can’t deny exists)

Ask and ye shall receive. The series of terrorist attacks are undisputed by basically anyone with any knowledge of the region's history

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_China

• 5 February 1992: Two buses exploded in Urumqi, resulting in at least 3 deaths, and 23 injured.

• 27 February 1997: Bombs detonated on three buses in Urumqi, leaving nine dead and 68 seriously wounded. The Uyghur Liberation Party claims responsibility for the bombings.

• 19 August 1997: Two gunmen shot into a crowd after attempting to rob shopkeepers in Urumqi, killing 7 people and hospitalizing 11.

• 1 October 1997: Uyghur separatists detonate a bomb in Kutyun, killing 22 people.

• February – April 1998: A series of six explosions occurred in February and March aimed at economic and industrial targets. The following month, authorities reported that bombs exploded at homes and offices of local communist party and public security agents.

• 19 April 1998: A police officer and two separatist militants were killed in a shootout during a police siege of a separatist hideout. Another police officer was wounded and four separatists captured during the operation.

• 25 June 1999: A bus is bombed by Uighur separatists, killing one and injuring 50

• 4 August 2008: ETIM militants reportedly drove a truck into a group of approximately 70 jogging policemen. According to official Chinese media accounts, they then got out of the truck wielding machetes, and lobbed grenades at the officers, killing 16 people. Police investigators recovered explosives as well as a homemade firearm.

• 10 August 2008: Xinhua reported that seven men armed with homemade explosives reportedly drove taxis into government buildings, in Kuqa, Xinjiang, injuring at least two police officers and a security guard. Five of the assailants were shot and killed. The attacks began at 2:30 am when five assailants drove taxis into the local public security and industry and commerce buildings. The Communist Party chief in Xinjiang condemned the attack as an act of terrorism, and suspected the ETIM was responsible.

• 12 August 2008: Chinese media reported that three security officers were killed in a stabbing incident in Yamanya, near Kashgar in Xinjiang. The report did not specify what the attacker's affiliations were.

• 5 July 2009: A series of violent riots over several days broke out on 5 July 2009 in Ürümqi, the capital city of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, in northwestern China. The first day's rioting, which involved at least 1,000 Uyghurs, began as a protest, but escalated into violent attacks that mainly targeted Han people. According to Chinese state media, a total of 197 people died, most of whom were Han people or non-Muslim minorities, with 1,721 others injured and many vehicles and buildings destroyed.

• 19 August 2010: According to Chinese media reports, six ethnic Uyghur men were allegedly involved in loading a vehicle with explosives and driving into a group of security officers at a highway intersection near Aksu, Xinjiang. Seven people, including two attackers, were killed, according to police

• 18 July 2011: Chinese media reported that 18 people died when 18 young Uyghur men stormed a police station in the city of Hotan. The men stabbed a security guard and two female hostages, and killed another security guard with a bomb.

• 30–31 July 2011: At least 18 people died in a series of alleged terrorist attacks in the city of Kashgar. According to state-run media accounts, the violence began when two Uyghur men hijacked a truck, ran it into a crowded street, and started stabbing people, killing six. On the second day, state media reported that a "group of armed terrorists" stormed a restaurant, killed the owner and a waiter, and set it ablaze. They then proceeded to indiscriminately kill four more civilians. The Turkistan Islamic Party later claimed responsibility for the attack.

• 29 June 2012 Chinese official media reported that six men attempted to hijack Tianjin Airlines flight GS7554 from Hotan to Urumqi, Xinjiang. The men reportedly sought to gain access to cockpit ten minutes after takeoff, but were stopped by passengers and crew. A spokesperson for the Xinjiang government said the men were ethnic Uyghurs. Xinhua reported at least 10 passengers and crew were injured when six hijackers tried to take control of the aircraft.

• 24 April 2013: It was an incident of ethnic clash that took place between Muslim Uyghur and Han Chinese community. As reported by BBC nearly 21 people were killed in the incident including 15 police officers and local government officials.

• 30 April 2014: A knife attack and bombing occurred in the Chinese city of Ürümqi, the capital of China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The attack left three people dead and seventy-nine others injured.

• 22 May 2014: Two sport utility vehicles (SUVs) carrying five assailants were driven into a busy street market in Ürümqi. Up to a dozen explosives were thrown at shoppers from the windows of the SUVs. The SUVs crashed into shoppers then collided with each other and exploded. 43 people were killed, including 4 of the assailants, and more than 90 wounded.

• 28 November 2014: Militants with knives and explosives attacked civilians, 15 dead and 14 injured. 14 of the 15 deaths were attackers.

• 6 March 2015: Three ethnic Uyghur assailants with long knives attacked civilians at Guangzhou train station, 13 injured.

• 24 June 2015: Group killed several police with knives and bombs at traffic checkpoint before 15 suspects died in armed response

• 18 September 2015: An unidentified group of knife-wielding men attacked off-duty workers at a coalmine, killing 50, among them 5 police officers

• 29 December 2016: Islamic militants drove a vehicle into a yard at the county Communist party offices and set off a bomb but were all shot dead. Three people were wounded and one other died.

Libs be like:

Al Qaida 😡

Al Qaida, China 😍

I don't know which of those two statements is more ridiculous. Liberals can absolutely not be trusted with stuff like protecting your grandma's medication. For example, look at what Starmer did as soon as Labour got in power for the first time in ages, he ended winter home fuel subsidies and Labour's popularity has plummeted.

In general, liberals are privileged elites who believe in the system because it works for them. If you ever find that the system has failed you, if you ever find yourself in need of a couch to sleep on, you'll find out exactly how "reliable" people like that really are. Liberal politicians are even worse, being completely bought out by corporate interests, while liberal voters merely fail to hold them accountable.

Communists, meanwhile, are responsible for the vast majority of global poverty alleviation in the world - 700 million lifted out of poverty in China, according to the World Bank. Cuba has the highest number of doctors per capita in the world, and regularly sends them abroad for humanitarian aid. At one point, early in Covid, Vietnam offered to provide masks and supplies to the United States. Before, each of these countries had incredibly backwards, reactionary regimes with incredibly low standards of living, but once the communists took over, rather than "burning everything down," they built schools and hospitals and infrastructure, and improved the quality of life for the vast majority.

In the US, the Black Panthers, who were constantly demonized as being these evil radicals who just wanted to burn everything down, are the reason why kids have food to eat at schools. Because they identified a need in their community, they recognized that kids were going hungry and were unable to learn and wound up stuck in a cycle of poverty, so they started a free breakfast program. The cops broke in and literally pissed on their food, they went door to door claiming it was poisoned, that they were just trying to teach kids to hate white people, and so on. When that didn't work, finally the liberals caught wind of it and figured if the government provided those meals, it would stop the Panthers from using it to promote themselves, and that's how it became a national program. They never would've done it without a bunch of scary black Marxists with guns doing it first, and using the opportunity to promote their ideas.

If you remove all the capitalists maintaining the system, communism will naturally win because it’s how humans naturally think.

So why then did that system not last forever? Why did capitalists emerge in the first place? Drag is treating them like some kind of external force, as if they were aliens dropped into societies across the globe.

The material conditions of what Marx called primitive communism naturally caused society to develop into the hierarchical structures of early civilization. The development of agriculture created incentives for the division of labor, for states with static borders and organized defenses, and for class structure and involuntary servitude. In a hunter-gatherer society, it's far more efficient to treat everyone (mostly) equally, because either they're going off on their own to hunt or forage or they're coordinating with a group and need to be armed and trusted - but this is no longer the case with agriculture. The people who responded to these (unfortunate) incentives were able to become dominant.

It doesn't actually matter that much how humans "naturally think." If you put a bunch of robots or aliens or whatever into a situation where there's an incentive to do something, then provided they have the ability to innovate, experiment, and try new things, someone will eventually discover the incentive and reap the benefits of it and others will follow, either because they see the benefits or because the benefits strengthen the beneficiaries to the point that they can force everyone else to go along with it.

This whole idea of, "Well Marx said indigenous people were communists so it's trivial to just get rid of the capitalists and go back to that," makes it very clear that Drag hasn't actually read Marx and is just proof-texting, picking out random bits and pieces to support Drag's pre-existing beliefs without actually understanding anything he said. A communist society in the modern day, with technology and capital, would look drastically different from hunter-gatherer societies. There are aspects of hunter-gatherer societies which we can point to as worthy of emulation, but we can't return to a hunter-gatherer economic system (or lack thereof) without the mass starvation of the vast majority of humanity.