• freagle@lemmy.ml
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        18 days ago

        This usually because liberals cannot tell the difference between establishing the hypocrisy of a massively skewed double standard (e.g. China is harassing people in the SCS being met with, China hasn’t fired upon a single vessel in 37 years meanwhile the US has killed scores of people in illegal attacks on unarmed boats and double tap strikes which are a war crime) and whataboutism like what’s going on here, where the meme states the there are people who are against the Western empire but only consume Western media and believe the lies Western media tells about US adversaries being met “but China does bad things too and they also do propaganda” which is not calling out the hypocrisy of a skewed double standard but rather saying that the reason it’s not appropriate to criticize people for believing US propaganda is because China does “bad things” and also engaged in propaganda. There’s not even specifics in there, it’s just a straight up pointing at China and saying “but but those things are true!”

        Which is hilarious because it’s essentially confirming the critique of the meme. Even using the name “ccp” is imperial propaganda, as nearly every single communist party in history has adopted the naming convention “Communist Party of”, in this case Communist Party of China, or CPC, just like the CPUSA or the CPI (India), or the CPV (India).

        So not only is the commenter doing a whataboutism, they are demonstrating that they are propagandized and have either no awareness of it or no problem with it, which is exactly what the meme is purporting to be true.

          • freagle@lemmy.ml
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            18 days ago

            The meme states that not only is the US doing bad things but that the US is also spreading lies about it’s adversaries and you said that China does bad things too. No one brought up China, you did. No one said China doesn’t do bad things. The meme is not talking about China nor about the bad things China does. What you did is classic whataboutism, attempting to absolve the believers of US propaganda by saying “look at this other country that also does bad things”.

            • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
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              18 days ago

              No one brought up China

              What “geopolitical adversaries” did you think the meme was referring to?

              “China does bad things” isn’t a whataboutist diversion from the US doing bad things, it’s a condemnation of the notion that every criticism of China is baseless propaganda. Many of them are, for sure. But not all.

            • Assassassin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              18 days ago

              Sure, if you’re living in a bubble. If you’re at all active on lemmy though, you’re well aware that this exact meme is used frequently by .ml users (which OP is) to excuse criticism of China and North Korea.

              If a MAGAT starts talking about Democrats being too easy on pedophiles, it’s not whataboutism to bring up Trump and the GOPs constant defence of pedophiles to question their true beliefs. This is no different.