It's ok to be angry about capitalism

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Silvanus

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So it didn't become clear. OK.
Well, it became clear to rational observers. The standard of evidence contained in the UN and Amnesty reports is credible, and there's heaps upon heaps of detailed survivor testimony. But there is no possible evidence that could emerge that you would accept.

Ah, there's that guy again.
And if you read a little further, you'll see he didn't originate the information.

Well, no.


The right of self-determination includes choosing to be or remain part of a larger country. As long as Tibetan nationalism is tied to the restoration of aristocratic/theocratic privilege, it is not likely that the people there will want to "rule themselves" in the way that you are suggesting.
Hmm. Yes, indeed self-determination does include that choice. But they didn't self-determine to be part of a larger country, did they? They were annexed.
 

Seanchaidh

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Well, it became clear to rational observers.
It became "clear" to people with an axe to grind.

And if you read a little further, you'll see he didn't originate the information.
You cited a self-described "project of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation". Count yourself lucky I bothered to read any part of that garbage at all.

Hmm. Yes, indeed self-determination does include that choice. But they didn't self-determine to be part of a larger country, did they? They were annexed.
Is there an instance of the CIA arming and funding local elites to fight against communists in which you don't take the side of the CIA?

I think it is instructive that the inciting event for the PRC taking over Tibet was that an administrative body created by the Qing Dynasty (the Kashag) that had kept going after the fall of the Qing Dynasty decided to expel Chinese people involved in the governance of China from Tibet with the reasoning that it looked like the communists were going to win the civil war (which turned out to be true). Not only the People's Republic, but the Kuomintang also objected to this action by the Kashag. It underscores how close Tibet and China were even during the period of de facto independence.

Tibet, of course, had previously been less contentiously a part of China-- for example, Tibet was part of China before, during, and after the Opium Wars. It was a part of China before, during, and after the Paris Commune, the Napoleonic Wars, the Haitian revolution, the French revolution, the American war of independence, the colonization of Australia, the sack of Delhi by the Persian Empire, and the East India Company's consolidation of control over... er, East India. And, depending on who you ask, Tibet was a de jure part of China in the few decades of de facto independence between the fall of the Qing Dynasty and the rise of the People's Republic. De facto independence was an apt description of large tracts of China in that period: China was fractured into rule by various cliques after the fall of the Qing Dynasty; it is not particularly clear that Tibet should be considered fundamentally different from the rest of that (indeed, Tibet was recognized as a part of China in various foreign sources of the time) even though Chinese officials ended up treating it as exceptional.

The people of Tibet also didn't self-determine to have a society based on slavery and serfdom, but the ruling class of Tibet in the few decades between being ruled by the Qing Dynasty and being liberated by the communists, decided to maintain such a social order. And then elements of the ruling class of Tibet were funded and armed by the CIA to attempt to take Tibet back for themselves and protect their practice of slavery and serfdom (as it quite understandably seemed under threat from the time the communists made their first agreements with Lhasa until they finally abolished those practices entirely). The Tibetan elites acting with the help of the CIA were counting on the people to rise up and fight with them. They didn't. Turns out that a population comprised mainly of slaves and serfs is unreliable support to those who would keep that population in servitude and bondage. And that is what Tibetan 'nationalism' was basically about; it was not about independence from China so much as the fact that communists first threatened and then took away monastic and noble class privileges built on the suffering of the poor. Indeed, the Dalai Lama in the 2000s said that he doesn't want independence from China but more autonomy for Tibet; you can thank the CIA for China being cold to that request.
 

Satinavian

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Tibet, of course, had previously been less contentiously a part of China-- for example, Tibet was part of China before, during, and after the Opium Wars. It was a part of China before, during, and after the Paris Commune, the Napoleonic Wars, the Haitian revolution, the French revolution, the American war of independence, the colonization of Australia, the sack of Delhi by the Persian Empire, and the East India Company's consolidation of control over... er, East India. And, depending on who you ask, Tibet was a de jure part of China in the few decades of de facto independence between the fall of the Qing Dynasty and the rise of the People's Republic
That is not true.

Tibet was generally characterized either as vassal or as tributary of the Qing. But never as actual de jure part of China.
 

Thaluikhain

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That is not true.

Tibet was generally characterized either as vassal or as tributary of the Qing. But never as actual de jure part of China.
And, if we are going down the route of being able to take over places that were once part of your country, well...
 

Silvanus

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It became "clear" to people with an axe to grind.
Do you actually have anything to dispute the Amnesty and United Nations reports, or the survivor testimony? Or is this another kneejerk dismissal because they implicate an imperialist world power you've chosen to align with?

You cited a self-described "project of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation". Count yourself lucky I bothered to read any part of that garbage at all.
Once again, they are not the originators of the information. They merely created a search tool. The information itself was not from them, and was evaluated independently by (among others) the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. So if you put any stock into (for example) the Panama Papers, you have just as much reason to put stock in this.

If you cannot get past the creator of the search tool, then feel free to look up the ICIJ database instead.

Is there an instance of the CIA arming and funding local elites to fight against communists in which you don't take the side of the CIA?
😂 That's pathetic, even for you.

The invaders were also elites-- monied interests of a foreign government with expansionist projects. Those they slaughtered were primarily peasants.

The rest is the usual mess of quasi-historical justifications for annexation, as we've already seen elsewhere. Mixed with more of the thinly-veiled "lesser races"-style rhetoric characteristic of 19th century colonialists.

Tibet was generally characterized either as vassal or as tributary of the Qing. But never as actual de jure part of China.
Indeed-- a vassal. That's the actual historical status, and the status to which the Chinese government wanted it returned.
 
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Agema

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There are no atrocities by the enemies of Western capitalism so large that they cannot be ignored, excused or denied by tankies.
 
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thebobmaster

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Look, until Russian media, the most unbiased media there is, says something happened, it didn't.
 
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Silvanus

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Look, until Russian media, the most unbiased media there is, says something happened, it didn't.
And sometimes not even then! The Secret Protocol of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact-- laying out how Europe would be carved up between Nazi Germany and the USSR, with each assisting the other-- was publicly acknowledged and declared null and illegal by the Soviet government in 1989, but that memo didn't seem to make the rounds.
 

Agema

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And sometimes not even then! The Secret Protocol of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact-- laying out how Europe would be carved up between Nazi Germany and the USSR, with each assisting the other-- was publicly acknowledged and declared null and illegal by the Soviet government in 1989, but that memo didn't seem to make the rounds.
The CIA forced the USSR to make a bogus confession about a fake pact in return for Western economic support: the military-industrial complex then bribed the US government not to hand over the promised support so they could keep Russia as an enemy to justify high defence spending.

You know it makes sense.
 

Gergar12

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1756861741519.png

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed without evidence that antidepressants could have contributed to the mass shooting in Minnesota on Wednesday after an attacker opened fire on a church. The unsubstantiated antidepressant medication claim is another example of Kennedy floating ideas that contradict established science. It comes as Kennedy faces a mounting revolt at the CDC for his anti-vaccine views.
https://www.axios.com/2025/08/28/school-shooting-kennedy-antidepressants-claim

-Anything to avoid gun regulation.
 

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Agema

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Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed without evidence that antidepressants could have contributed to the mass shooting in Minnesota on Wednesday after an attacker opened fire on a church. The unsubstantiated antidepressant medication claim is another example of Kennedy floating ideas that contradict established science. It comes as Kennedy faces a mounting revolt at the CDC for his anti-vaccine views.
https://www.axios.com/2025/08/28/school-shooting-kennedy-antidepressants-claim

-Anything to avoid gun regulation.
Yeah, this is all well and good, but it's pointless theatre. Legislators can rebuke RFK all they like, but the executive branch couldn't care less, and will just carry on doing whatever it pleases whilst the legislature chuck around coloured balls in their playpen as if it matters a damn.

Trump is handing the USA a lesson on the exercise of raw power. I'm not sure many the people who need to learn from those lessons are doing so.
 

XsjadoBlaydette

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Some important stuff this guy talks of, way beyond what the title may imply. Communication to those who aren't aware - or are aware but haven't the language to share/educate others more effectively - is key - but a difficult skill to get right, made even more difficult by the decades of institionalised self-perpetuating propaganda bred to confuse and destabilise through neverending scapegoats and think tanks. Anyway, this guy is like pretty good at it, all that word stuff that makes people run away when I try the same. Perhaps the sloshing bottles of booze and sporadic swearing at pigeons don't help, but hey work in progress, it's a process innit
 
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Seanchaidh

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Do you actually have anything to dispute the Amnesty and United Nations reports, or the survivor testimony? Or is this another kneejerk dismissal because they implicate an imperialist world power you've chosen to align with?
There is no 'another' about it and the United Nations report itself does not come to any firm conclusions.

Anyway, I don't need to dispute it; it is contested. You have chosen to believe some people, like psychotic and discredited evangelical Christian Adrian Zenz, or people associated with what the US designated as a terrorist group until 2020 (ETIM), and not others. I don't think it's clear that you should do that (to put it lightly). I think when news stories about the topic repeatedly use the same picture of a bunch of people in drug rehab as their emblematic "concentration camp", and when testimony is inconsistent and by people who have become dependent for their material wellbeing on governments that want to hear such testimony, that you should be more skeptical rather than declaring that 'reasonable people' have all made up their minds after reviewing only a set of claims curated for their effectiveness as propaganda against a target of US (and the rest of that blob) efforts at destabilization.

😂 That's pathetic, even for you.

The invaders were also elites-- monied interests of a foreign government with expansionist projects. Those they slaughtered were primarily peasants.
The Tibetan elites supported by the CIA were indeed housed and trained in India and even Colorado and presumably other parts of the United States before invading Tibet and slaughtering peasants, that is correct. And it is also correct that they acted on behalf of monied interests of a foreign government with expansionist projects, that of course being the United States. Not sure what you mean by "also" as they are the same people I was describing. Notably, you didn't answer the question: are there any such instances in which you do not take the side of the CIA? Other than the ones you don't know about, of course. Or that neither of us knows about.

It's weird to be very exercised about the People's Liberation Army marching into a place the world recognized as China near the end of a civil war in China and then coming to an agreement with the local government to remain a part of China. That's the sort of thing that happens during a civil war in a society which has undergone some fragmentation. It is true that the 17-point agreement did not really hold up; they abolished serfdom and slavery, after all, which did not leave the revenues of the lamaseries intact, and the association of the Dalai Lama with CIA proxies infiltrating Tibet and doing violence put a lot of strain on the idea that the established status, functions, and powers of the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama must remain unchanged. On the other side, CIA attempts to use Tibetans in self-imposed exile to invade and attempt to separate from China directly undermined "the Tibetan people shall unite and drive out imperialist aggressive forces", another rather important part of that agreement. So the violations of the agreement were hardly one-sided.

Indeed-- a vassal. That's the actual historical status, and the status to which the Chinese government wanted it returned.
The "actual historical status" of many places that are incorporated into countries today were "as vassals". Like Wales to England. Or indeed Kent, Wessex, York, and so on. What do you think vassalage was? Such a weird premise to put forward. Hast thou even glanced at an overview of the political structures of medieval Europe? Or just played a Crusader Kings game? Good lord (a blasphemy because it is a contradiction).

Ancient and Imperial China arguably had a feudal system, though it was not identical with European feudalism-- a closer comparison may be the bureaucracy of the Byzantine Empire (I'm not familiar with Marxist historiography on the Byzantine Empire enough to say whether they would also call that a feudal structure; they might, as they focus more on the economy and class relations than the formal political structure). In any case, the functions of the lamas in Tibet were incorporated into the Chinese imperial bureaucracy much like vassals in Europe were elements of the governments of countries like France or England or Spain and so on. And that historical rundown I gave earlier is hardly the extent of Tibet's association with China; I didn't bother listing anything before the Qing Dynasty because it makes the point well enough (being older than the United States and Australia), but Tibet has been a part of China much earlier than that, for example during the Yuan dynasty (the Mongols) and even earlier. Before the Qing, the Ming Dynasty was responsible for issuing the titles of Tibetan leaders (including the Dalai and Panchen Lamas). It is not some momentary association; the less than forty years of de facto independence for Tibet were a period of instability and upheaval for the rest of China as well; in such conditions power tends to be decentralized, which in the most extreme cases is another way of saying "de facto independence". Bringing China back together naturally meant ending various instances of de facto independence. The period starting shortly after the fall of the Qing Dynasty and the first attempt at a Republic was called the "Warlord Era" for a reason. The existence and relative independence of the various warlords or warlord cliques, at least one of which tried to restore the Qing Dynasty, is not a strong argument that China should have remained fragmented or that the People's Liberation Army had a duty to respect the de facto authority exercised by these various warlords. And that same observation also applies to the remnant of the Qing Dynasty in Tibet, the Kashag.

And, if we are going down the route of being able to take over places that were once part of your country, well...
... it would be significantly more justified than the colonization of Australia, the United States, or Canada and their continued rule by settlers? For a variety of reasons? Oh, what horrors might we witness if standards of international behavior were (checks notes) higher?

But that's not even the argument. The argument is that Tibet has a long association with China and that it is perfectly reasonable for Chinese revolutionaries to consider the people of Tibet their brothers and sisters and liberate them just like the rest of China. And because of foreign attempts by hostile, undemocratic forces (western capital) to undermine that project, it is reasonable for them to be a little more heavy-handed in their approach than would otherwise be permissible; they have a responsibility to be fair and responsive to public opinion, but they also have a responsibility not to let Western imperialists take advantage of tensions within their society in order to reverse the gains they've made and return all of China to subordinate status. And importantly, the de facto independence of Tibet was not the independence of its people; it was the independence of a local aristocracy built on serfdom and slavery that inherited its privileges from its position within Imperial China.

Anyway, from what I've gathered I'm sure everyone will agree: NORMANS, ANGLES, AND SAXONS OUT OF BRITANNIA