this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2025
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[–] RiverRock@lemmy.ml 12 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Mind you this thread STARTED with a callout of slavery in China, was whataboutismed to include modern American slavery.

This thread started with you lazily repeating a jingoist cliche with no evidence, and me pointing out that our government are both world-historical liars and provably guilty of that exact crime at an unprecedented scale. It's like saying "this thread started with a callout of Miss Rachel's cannibalism, and was whataboutismed to include Richard Chase." Or "This thread started with a callout of Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons, and was whataboutismed to include the United States." This is not a matter of two equally guilty parties, this is a matter of what the world's biggest propaganda machine says about other countries to justify horrifying acts against them.

I am actually opposed. I vote, organize, boycott, strike, etc against it.

That's good, but makes it all the more important that you understand the dynamic at play here. Would you casually accuse Venezuela of being a narco state in league with jihadists, as the news here has insanely suggested? Of course not, because you would recognize that that's a story cooked up to justify American hostility towards Venezuela. "Chinese slavery" is no different. If you're on the side of the overwhelming masses of humanity, you have to be able to recognize this bullshit when you see it, or else you may find yourself repeating tall tales invented to justify people's repression by the world capitalist empire.

Its defeatist to just accept evil. Call it out. Its not normal. Its not ok.

Correct, it's not normal or tolerated in most of the world, including China. The only countries saying it is normal there are the countries who are themselves guilty of it and seeking to muddy the waters by projecting their crimes, like how Israel accuses Hamas of harboring genocidal intent. You need to be more discerning about believing what the countries where slavery is legal and normal say about the countries where it isn't. Of course the slave states are going to try to tell you that everyone is doing it, that it's "whataboutism" to focus on their well-documented crimes and not on the crimes they want you to believe, with no evidence, that their rivals are committing. It's on you to be smarter than that.