Countering this in international media by offering more balanced views for a global audience is near impossible as censorship is rife. There almost seems to be a global compact to control the narrative, a propaganda war powered by today’s digital technology.
I read this ‘article’. There are zero references towards the so called ‘China Bashing’. If it is so rampant, how hard can it be to just link to a few mainstream offenders? It alludes towards a deliberate bashing, once again without any links or merit. I am fully aware that news is hardly unbiased but come on, this is ridiculous.
That’s not a defense. Opinion pieces can be fine, but if you’re claiming that something is off the charts you should probably have some charts (or any points of data) to prove the claim.
Do I need to? I haven’t had a visceral reaction to the article.
For what it’s worth, China’s affirmative action policies for minority groups put the US to shame. Significantly easier college admissions (despite using a standardized process), extremely generous business loans, proportional ethnic representation in government, vast infrastructure projects to bridge the salary gap, and celebrations of different cultures across the country. Not very capitalist of them, given that these infrastructure projects (while very beneficial to the endpoints) are not profitable.
Treating minorities better than the USA isn’t exactly a high bar.
My country also treats minorities better than the USA, it’s easy to get into uni, celebrates diversity, has an alright social welfare system and socialised healthcare, does the occasional infrastructure project etc.
Thanks for teaching me that I’m actually living in a socialist paradise rather than a poor, neoliberal capitalist, physically isolated island where private corporations are free to wreck the environment for profit!
Significantly easier college admissions (despite using a standardized process), extremely generous business loans, proportional ethnic representation in government, vast infrastructure projects to bridge the salary gap, and celebrations of different cultures across the country. Not very capitalist of them
Sorry OP but basically none of this has anything to do with not being capitalist. I don’t even doubt that China is doing better in those departments than America, but that has more to do with how utterly shit America is at most things outside of building bombs than how communist China is. They should get some kudos for executing a couple billionaires, though, gotta at least give 'em that.
Nobody else has had a visceral reaction, we’ve just pointed out bad journalism 🙂 Using big negative words might make you feel better, but it doesn’t make them accurate. You’re using them to be dismissive of our points
I have been following media intensively. I am not saying that news about China is unbiased in the western media. I am calling out the lack of any sources in this weak ‘article’
1 I don’t know this outlet, nor am inclined to use perceived pedigree to determine the quality of news. I’d like to see sources, not news dresses as opinions. 2 Opinion pieces that try to be credible need sources or else I will disregard them as petty trolling. The title makes a bold claim, I want sources backing up that claim. 3 that ‘source’ is also an opinion peace without any sources.
Just show me where mainstream media is deliberately bashing China. If it’s that rampant it can’t be that hard right?
that ‘source’ is also an opinion peace without any sources.
?
The source of that article are the authors. One a professor at Oxford, the other a lecturer at MIT. The professor's also written a book about China which is mentioned at the bottom of the article. Pretty weak argument to say that isn't a valid source. A bit like an anti-vaxxer saying an article about vaccination written by a doctor isn't a valid source in an internet argument.
Just show me where mainstream media is deliberately bashing China. If it’s that rampant it can’t be that hard right?
I googled myself, because I was curious. Not necessarily bashing, but plenty of sensationalism. For example, NBC at the time of the balloon incident:
Spy balloon likely sent extensive intelligence to China, experts say. The Pentagon said Thursday it 'acted immediately' to counter a collection of sensitive information
U.S. president Biden ... however stated that it was "not a major breach", and that he also believed that the Chinese leadership wasn't even aware of the balloon. ... On September 17, 2023, in an interview with CBS news, General Mark Milley, the retiring 20th US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated “I would say it was a spy balloon that we know with high degree of certainty got no intelligence, and didn't transmit any intelligence back to China." Technical experts had also found that the balloon's sensors had never been activated while it was travelling over the Continental United States. The general also touched on a leading theory that the reason that it was flying over the United States, was probably because it was blown off-track, where the balloon had been heading towards Hawaii however winds at 60,000 feet simply came into the equation. Miley said, "those winds are very high.. the particular motor on that aircraft can't go against those winds at that altitude."
Media: the Chinese are spying on us. Are you ready for WAR?
Reality: the wind blew a balloon of course and by now most of us have already forgotten what turned out to be a nothing burger of a story.
I think that the concern was not that the articles like the ones you link to do not exist. Instead the complaint is that the posted piece did not itself link to them to back up the claim. These were likely quite easy for you to find and it’s poor journalism that the author did not put in the same effort.
U.S. president Biden ... however stated that it was "not a major breach", and that he also believed that the Chinese leadership wasn't even aware of the balloon. ... On September 17, 2023, in an interview with CBS news, General Mark Milley, the retiring 20th US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated “I would say it was a spy balloon that we know with high degree of certainty got no intelligence, and didn't transmit any intelligence back to China." Technical experts had also found that the balloon's sensors had never been activated while it was travelling over the Continental United States. The general also touched on a leading theory that the reason that it was flying over the United States, was probably because it was blown off-track, where the balloon had been heading towards Hawaii however winds at 60,000 feet simply came into the equation. Miley said, "those winds are very high.. the particular motor on that aircraft can't go against those winds at that altitude." c
TLDR: Unbeknownst to China's leadership, one of their balloons blew off-track (hardly a rare occurence). It didn't collect or transmit any intelligence.
But if you watched the media coverage of that incident, you'd likely come to a different conclusion. For example:
Chinese spy balloon gathered intelligence from sensitive U.S. military sites, despite U.S. efforts to block it
So funny how that all got memory holed and now you have people who genuinely still think it was a spy balloon of some kind (even in these very replies!) because they just never read anything past the headlines and never followed up on it after. Just completely lacking any curiosity or news literacy but will still scoff at the thought of them being victims of very obvious propaganda haha
A Chinese corporation openly tested those spy balloons over my country a decade ago (allegedly just for monitoring livestock), why is it so unbelievable that they’d use a more polished version on their biggest geopolitical rival?
The article doesn’t mention air supply issue. But it says the women had no health problem.
The truck was just 6 degrees Celsius (43 degrees Fahrenheit) inside, said Francart, Villefranche-sur-Saône’s prosecutor. The women were all wearing thick coats and had no health problems, she said.
It sounds like they called for help because they realized the truck was going in the wrong direction, not so much because of health concerns.
As soon as I heard about the source of ignition I thought about a similar catastrophe that happened in the USA about twenty years ago. This is terrible, but it is probably good to share it widely and in as many languages as possible. I am not sure of the best words, but it would be good to help this tragedy save others.
This has been happening since the invention of fire. People will cut corners and use cheaper flammable material where they shouldn’t (e.g. Grenfell 2017) or some stupid with a flare gun will set it off inside (e.g. Montreux 1971).
Fire codes and building standards improve with time, but human stupidity is forever.
Zionism is one of those political terms that is assumed to have a universal definition agreed upon by all when in reality people are using the same word to argue completely different concepts in many cases. It’s a sensitive and inflammatory topic because of ongoing prejudice and atrocities committed in living memory so there are obstacles to overcome to have a good faith discussion.
Israel’s constituition establishes a secular state which does not privelege one ethnitcity or religion over another. Benjamin Netenyahu represents a far-right contingent of Israeli politics and has enacted policy which does real world harm to Palestinian people. Criticism of his administration can be motivated by anti-semitism, but if we’re seriously talking about geopolitics and apartheid on the left I think we’re more focused on making sure the human rights of Palestinians are respected. Netanyahu’s political opponents in Israel who do not wish to continue expanding settlements into demarked Palestinian territories are most likely not motivated by anti-semitism. Critics abroad making the same arguments against the actions of Israel’s secular government similarly are probably less motivated by anti-semitism and more motivated by some sense of universal human rights. Although there are some imperial-minded people that oppose Israel’s actions because they have some sense of not wanting their most hated group of people to grow more powerful, I honestly don’t think anyone in this comment section or from the linked article has that motivation. Anti-semitism is a very real problem which needs to be taken very seriously, but framing a left-wing political argument in favor of human rights as only possibly motivated by anti-semitism is completely bad faith which does no favors to anyone except the far-right.
Freedom has two components: Positive Freedom and Negative Freedom. Negative Freedom is a lack of restriction from doing something, while Positive Freedom is the ability to do something. For example, I am free to go to Mars through the lens of Negative Freedom but not through the lens of Positive Freedom.
Restricting Negative Freedom can enhance Positive Freedom. If a terrorist hate group is not allowed to exist, then those who would have been their victims can be free to live their lives without having them cut short by this disallowed association. This is a pro-freedom move in the direction of greater fairness and safety in Germany.
With what happened in Hong Kong recently I imagine it can’t be too effective in the short term, but at the same time the slow trickle of disinformation and whataboutism and bots online preaching their BS can have a way of radicalizing and turning people.
And it’s not like the US’ trackrecord doesnt make it easy to show examples of us doing wrong around the world.
He compares democracy in Hong Kong and the USA by looking at who nominates who eventually rules.
The people in China are terrible, and the people in USA are terrible. The vast majority of them are greedy, omnicidal, mass-extinction causing monsters. One is worse than the other, but both are so amazingly terrible that we should be boycotting both, and all the other dictatorships and oligarchies.
Yes, because that organization published a definition of antisemitism that effectively makes it almost off limits to criticize the actions of the Israeli state. And that definition is being codified into policy or even law in many cases. Even the author of this definition has objected to the way it’s being used.
Yeah, I thought that was it. The definition is clear that criticism of the Israeli government that’s comparable to criticisms aimed at other governments isn’t antisemitism. You should be able to criticise Israel in the same terms you criticise (e.g.) Russia and China, or for that matter America and the UK. But if you exclusively criticise Israel in virulent terms, or say that Israel is some sort of uniquely evil entity comparable to the Nazis, or imply that all Jews worldwide are agents of the Israeli state, or say Israel as a nation state should be wiped off the map—that’s antisemitic.
It’s “clear” in the sense that it pays lip service to the concept. In practice, as this article discusses, it is used as a cudgel to over-apply the accusation of antisemitism and shield Israel from discussion of its apartheid policies. Some allegedly antisemitic organizations, under this definition, have included Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
The letter said the first example can be used to suppress claims that Israel is breaching international laws against apartheid and is violating conventions to end racial discrimination. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have both been accused of antisemitism under the IHRA definition over detailed reports saying that Israel practises a form of apartheid, an accusation also levelled by Israeli human rights groups.
“The example on ‘applying double standards’ opens the door to labeling as antisemitic anyone who focuses on Israeli abuses as long as worse abuses are deemed to be occurring elsewhere,” the letter said.
“By that logic, a person dedicated to defending the rights of Tibetans could be accused of anti-Chinese racism, or a group dedicated to promoting democracy and minority rights in Saudi Arabia could be accused of Islamophobia.”
Anyone who actually cares about antisemitism rather than just cheerleading for the Israeli state should oppose this because it cheapens the accusation in its overapplication, and casts doubt on the legitimacy of real incidences of antisemitism.
So your position (besides implying that I’m a cheerleader for Netanyahu) is that a good working definition of antisemitism is bad because people misuse it? What’s your take on how to counter the very real antisemitism that exists in parts of the anti-Israel movement? Also, I’m sorry, but your quotation is obviously bullshit:
applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation
China is a democratic nation now? Saudi Arabia is a democratic nation? Come on. It’s obvious what that means, and it should be obvious why holding Israel to a uniquely high standard among democratic nations, as the definition says, is antisemitic.
My position is that it is not a good definition, and that it has been selected because it provides cover for this "mis-"use. I make no claim to know anything about you nor did I mention Netanyahu.
While I genuinely feel bad for economically disadvantaged workers with long commutes in used vehicles, I can’t help but notice most of the complaints about fuel prices come from people who: A. Shout down anyone trying to improve public transportation infrastructure by saying it can’t work in rural areas (it can, and has), and B. Own outrageously large personal vehicles that guzzle gas and houses with 2+ stall garages.
I’ll listen to complaining from anyone who doesn’t fall into one or both of these two groups.
Gas should be prohibitively expensive. It’s price should reflect its impact.
Unfortunately this would crumble the entire US and possibly western economy. It works in most of the rest of the world because the commutes are smaller and the alternative transit is plentiful.
The only times I see people like me, who prefer owning a car “shouting down” people adcovating for better public transport, is when people suggest I should get rid of my car and ride a bus instead. A good public transportation system is a net-good for everyone, and in no way inconveniences me especially if I never even use it. It’s not busses and trains I have an issue with - it’s the naive city dwellers who thinks that because they get around just fine without a car then anyone would.
Higher oil prices are motivating people to move away from oil, hopefully toward electrification & renewables. Or at the very least, motivating people to lower their fuel consumption.
Electric vehicles are better than sticking with internal combustion, but there's still so much energy wasted in designing infrastructure around everyone getting around by cars in the first place. Everything gets spread further apart to accommodate them on roads and in parking lots, which means you have to travel farther to get where you're going. Our city designs need to shift toward density way faster than they currently are.
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