Comment by parthdesai

Comment by parthdesai 5 days ago

40 replies

Does China go around the world invading countries in the name of freedom?

> Content about the United States government rolling through protesters in armored vehicles, killing people in Venezuela with bombs, and threatening Greenland, straight to top of feed.

None of this is propaganda, it's just facts.

thomasmg 5 days ago

China: for Taiwan, they are in the planning phase. (Vietnam, Hong Kong, Tibet, Aksai Chin, Korea, Scarborough Shoal do not count in your view of course). Not saying they are worse than the US.

  • rluna828 5 days ago

    What China did to the Han Chinese makes them worse than ANY other modern country. The great leap forward and the cultural revolution have not comparison. Add in the chinese invasion of Tibet in 1959 and 1979 invasion of Vietnam and they are butchers and imperialists.

    • kdfjgbdfkjgb 5 days ago

      the Han? are you sure you didn't mean a different group?

    • tw1984 5 days ago

      > The great leap forward

      You need far better propaganda materials for your "great leap forward" blames in 2026. There were bad policies, but the intention good, it was all about moving the country forward. It failed horribly with huge consequences, that is just the reminder that a full scale industrialisation for over 1 billion people is not something that can be earned easily.

      Like it or not, the "Exceeding the UK, catching the USA" (超英赶美) goal of the great leap forward has been overfulfilled under the leadership of the CCP with the help of brutal state capitalism. Everything else is just cheap talk.

      Having a full scale industrialization larger than the G7 combined is not something handed to China on a silver platter - those very sad deaths caused by the failed attempts during the great leap forward was a part of the costs.

      > and the cultural revolution have not comparison.

      The cultural revolution is brutal, nothing should be used to defend it. It is just so wrong. That being said, the west is going through the exact same cultural revolution -

      * extremely polarised society with everything is politicalised * populism taking control * suicidal policies destroying the civilizational foundations

      the difference is 99% Han Chinese consider the cultural revolution as extremely bad, while the west is enjoying having its own ongoing cultural revolution.

      if you add the recent woke cancer, the western version of the ongoing cultural revolution is far more brutal.

      • rluna828 3 days ago

        So you agree that 50mm Han Chinese dead makes the CCP brutal, correct? Every brutal regime thinks they are justified. Ask the US if they think they are justified. Woke is dead. China is much smaller than the west. The G7 is maybe 1/4 of the west. The west includes EU, US, first island chain (japan, s. korea, Philippines, etc), all of the western hemisphere.) China has no allies, it probably doesn't need them. However, China doesn't control its vital sea-lanes. It has less water per person than Saudi Arabia. China has more old people than the west and Confucianism prohibit to "great leap forward" them. China is not escaping the middle income trap.

        • tw1984 2 days ago

          I don't know what you are smoking but that thing must be strong. Have fun.

sneak 5 days ago

Propaganda can be entirely factual. In fact, the best propaganda is.

  • brabel 5 days ago

    In Portuguese we use the same word for ad and propaganda! In fact that word is just propaganda!

    • tintor 5 days ago

      In Serbian too: EPP - Ekonomske Propagandne Poruke | Economic Propaganda Messages

    • direwolf20 5 days ago

      PR departments used to be called propaganda departments

  • parthdesai 5 days ago

    I think you're being sarcastic, but just in case you're not

    > Propaganda is the deliberate, systematic manipulation of information—including facts, half-truths, or lies—to influence public opinion, attitudes, and behaviors toward a specific cause, ideology, or agenda.

    • muwtyhg 5 days ago

      Sometimes what you choose to show, even if true, can impact how people see a situation or fact. That is what the OP is referring to. Your quote even mentions that propaganda can be made of "facts" and "half-truths" (a half-truth is usually a fact with a portion omitted to change the interpretation of the fact).

    • WarmWash 5 days ago

      A large percentage of Americans are convinced that police will just shoot them if they happen to feel like it.

      Even including ICE in this statistic, you will never even meet someone who knows someone who was murdered by a cop. Police encounters that turn deadly, not even blatant murder, are on the order of 1 in 50,000.

      However, that stream of police murder videos are definitely real.

      Propaganda is often stoking tiny sparks into large raging forest fires.

      • southerntofu 5 days ago

        > police will just shoot them if they happen to feel like it.

        Well that's exactly the problem. There's nothing stopping them: no accountability, no justice. Many cops just don't feel like randomly shooting people, and that's good. The problem is if they do, and even if they brag about it, little will be done.

        Take for example the latest Sainte-Soline repression scandal revealed a few months back by Mediapart [1] where videos show dozens of riot cops making a contest about maiming the most people, encouraging one another to break engagement rules, and advocating for outright murder. Everybody knew before the bodycam videos, but now that we have official proof, we're still waiting for any kind of accountability.

        If i go around and shoot people, there is no way i will avoid prison. If a cop goes around and shoots people, or strangles people to death, prison is a very unlikely outcome.

        > you will never even meet someone who knows someone who was murdered by a cop

        That's not how statistics work. Police abuse tends to happen in the same low-income social groups (and ethnic minorities). As an example, living in France, i've met several people who had a family member killed by police. Statistically unlikely if i only hung around in "startup nation" or "intellectual bourgeoisie" circles, which is not my case.

        [1] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifestation_du_25_mars_2023_...

      • pcthrowaway 4 days ago

        > Even including ICE in this statistic, you will never even meet someone who knows someone who was murdered by a cop.

        Uh.. I know someone who was murdered by cops while having a bad LSD trip (not violent, just incoherent). He was restrained too tightly despite protests of his family, loaded into a vehicle, and suffocated to death.

        > Police encounters that turn deadly, not even blatant murder, are on the order of 1 in 50,000.

        Oh I see, you don't consider this murder.

      • johnnyanmac 5 days ago

        >Even including ICE in this statistic, you will never even meet someone who knows someone who was murdered by a cop. Police encounters that turn deadly, not even blatant murder, are on the order of 1 in 50,000.

        That just shows that people's social circles aren't that wide. 1 in 50,000 is rare in your personal bubble. For a town of 1 million people, thats 20 people.

        Sounds tiny, but if we were to line up 20 people and have them murdered by law enforcement, it'd pretty much end the careers of anyone in that chain of command. Because that's not a behavior you want to let spread and expand.

    • sneak 5 days ago

      I am not being sarcastic at all. It is a common misconception that propaganda means lies. Propaganda is information designed to get you to believe a certain thing or feel a certain way. The best propaganda uses entirely truthful statements to manipulate your beliefs and emotions.

      • somenameforme 5 days ago

        One of the best examples of this were the endless photos and information about stocked store shelves, filled with fresh goods at dirt cheap prices, during the Cold War. In general truth is the best propaganda, because when you lie there's always a rubber-band effect when somebody realizes, sooner or later, that they've been had.

    • carlosjobim 5 days ago

      Propaganda is information which supports a specific cause, whether true or false.

      If you think "propaganda" is defined as something being lies, then you have misunderstood the word.

      Product advertising is the most widespread form of propaganda. And in some non-english countries it is called "propaganda" and not "marketing".

    • cheeseomlit 5 days ago

      >including facts

      • parthdesai 5 days ago

        > deliberate, systematic manipulation of information

        And, what are we doing with those facts? We're manipulating them lol

    • mvdtnz 5 days ago

      So literally what he just said. Propaganda can be factual.

Cthulhu_ 5 days ago

That might be, but if it's amplified through social media it becomes propaganda.

Example, 99% of people are normal, but if all you see is the 1% that isn't you'll start to believe more than 1% aren't normal. Especially if that 1% is of a recognisable ethnicity / religion / background. This is why there's a shift to the right.

ikrenji 5 days ago

I mean China is not exactly a poster child for a benevolent hegemon - tibet / taiwan / uyghurs to name a few

  • hungryhobo 5 days ago

    all 3 places you mentioned have been integrated into china longer than the us has been a country

    • Cthulhu_ 5 days ago

      Are you trying to say that excuses the human rights violations happening there?

      Besides, you're comparing it with the US which is also known for its human rights violations ever since the continent was discovered.