[Politics] Nazi China

[Trunkage]

Oh silly, we had a whole thread telling us that the border camps were definitely not Concentration Camps because there wasn't a lot of gas chambers or Nazis. Thus these cant be Concentration Camps.

Yeah and I was in the camp(hurr) that they were still not concentration camps.

Now me personally, I don't define Concentration Camps by gas chambers. I define it by how you go around locking people up. I also recognise there is a difference between Nazi controlled camps and not. I DO classify these China "reeduection camps" as concentration camps but I also think the ones on the border of the US are concentration camps. There is very little difference.

Forgive me for ignoring absolutely everything else you're saying. You're going to tell me, just on a base level, that organ harvesting is "very little difference"? Please, explain.

Forgive me for ignoring absolutely everything else you're saying. You're going to tell me, just on a base level, that rape, including of little children is "very little difference"? Please, explain.

Also, just letting them die in their own filth. Because, you know, they should pay for their own sanitation. Or be bothered to keep them alive. Certainly not Border Patrol or ICE

 

[Pseudonym]

What exactly was the point of the comparison? China has been more aggressive recently about which piece of water is theirs, their social credit system is frightening and what is being done to the Uygur people seems genocidal to me. China does not have an ideology that glorifies conquest for its own sake or the extermination of specific groups. Whether they are comparable to the nazi's seems less interesting than the fact that they are very bad, the US also being very bad notwithstanding.

 

[Hawki]

Its not 'semantics', its ideology. You cant claim to be part of an ideology if you don't believe in it, yet tons of people do it all the time.

Places like China claim to be communist, but they do not actually follow the rules of communism, and therefor are NOT communist, but then you have people who hate the very idea of communism, and point to China as an excuse to hate it,

If you look at the history of the 20th century, there's PLENTY of reasons to dislike communism.

When you say something or someone is communist, socialist, democratic, republican, etc, you are describing specific things. If they dont fit those things though, then its just not the right word.

Um, no. There's multiple forms of socialism in the world. I say "Republican," what you're going to think of varies from person to person. Whether China is "truly communist" or "truly socialist" is academic - we can judge China based on what it does, not what it claims to be.

Its lies and bullshit, and we need to stop allowing it.

Which is why the term "Nazi" gets thrown around willy nilly by a certain someone...

 

[Saelune]

Its not 'semantics', its ideology. You cant claim to be part of an ideology if you don't believe in it, yet tons of people do it all the time.

Places like China claim to be communist, but they do not actually follow the rules of communism, and therefor are NOT communist, but then you have people who hate the very idea of communism, and point to China as an excuse to hate it,

If you look at the history of the 20th century, there's PLENTY of reasons to dislike communism.

When you say something or someone is communist, socialist, democratic, republican, etc, you are describing specific things. If they dont fit those things though, then its just not the right word.

Um, no. There's multiple forms of socialism in the world. I say "Republican," what you're going to think of varies from person to person. Whether China is "truly communist" or "truly socialist" is academic - we can judge China based on what it does, not what it claims to be.

Its lies and bullshit, and we need to stop allowing it.

Which is why the term "Nazi" gets thrown around willy nilly by a certain someone...

The biggest problem with communism is how many right-wing despots use it as a way to trick common people into supporting fascism. Stalin, Mao, Putin, Xi, all are right-wing despots.

Um yes. The US Republican Party is also a mislabeled party. They are right-wing fascist the same way communism is these days. Lincoln might have been an actual Republican, but 2019 Republican Party is as far from 1860's Republicans as possible. They literally support Lincoln's enemies the confederates.

'we can judge China based on what it does, not what it claims to be'
THATS MY POINT though, people are using China to condemn communism, not to condemn what China actually is, which is a right-wing fascist country. China is a terrible country, cause it is fascist.

Nazi: Someome who follows similiar white supremacist views of Adolf Hitler. I assure you, I have never used it under any other definition. Trump is a Nazi. You dont need an arm-band and German accent to be a Nazi.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

The problem with communism is that it makes people become despots through its concentration of power to the hands of a clique of god-like bureaucrats. They invented terrible concepts like political correctness in Stalin's Russia, the idea that you may be factually correct but not politically correct and that is worse. Any such system where it puts the feelings of the governing class above reality is too authoritarian to salvage.

I'm all for socialism and I think the government is a force for good but you have to decentralize their power to prevent this natural tendency humans have to abuse power from taking root.

Also calling everything you disagree with right-wing is a waste of time and only functions as a messy insult that's irrelevant to the conversation and reveals you don't really care about this bad thing that's happening but rather are merely taking advantage of it to show why the right-wing is bad. It cheapens the discourse when that happens.

 

[Saelune]

The problem with communism is that it makes people become despots through its concentration of power to the hands of a clique of god-like bureaucrats.

That's not communism, that's like, the complete opposite of communism.

They invented terrible concepts like political correctness in Stalin's Russia, the idea that you may be factually correct but not politically correct and that is worse. Any such system where it puts the feelings of the governing class above reality is too authoritarian to salvage.

I'm all for socialism and I think the government is a force for good but you have to decentralize their power to prevent this natural tendency humans have to abuse power from taking root.

Also calling everything you disagree with right-wing is a waste of time and only functions as a messy insult that's irrelevant to the conversation and reveals you don't really care about this bad thing that's happening but rather are merely taking advantage of it to show why the right-wing is bad. It cheapens the discourse when that happens.

Its not that I call everything I disagree with right-wing, it is that right-wing is everything I disagree with, but this is a consistent bad faith argument thrown at me that just needs to stop. Its a big red flag that the person doesn't want to listen to what I am actually saying.

 

[Palindromemordnilap_v1legacy]

How many people do you think that is? Is it as many as 450,000? Or to put it another way, is it literally more than a quarter of the entire Chinese prison population?

Could be, sort of hard to find records on people who have been vanished off the records now isn't it? Assuming they haven't just been killed.

Actually that's a point; if I had a hypothetical brutal dictatorial regime that was so hardcore it just killed everyone it arrested, it would have a prison population of 0. According to your metric here thats means its actually not authoritarian at all. Kind of feel like maybe we need more than just counting prisoners to be a judge here

But China is the authoritarian hellhole. Right.

No no no, you've misunderstood. Its not the authoritarian hellhole, its an authoritarian hellhole. There can be more than one and I am right there with saying the US is another one

 

[Silvanus]

China

China: World Prison Brief rate of 118 per 100,000 at mid-2015 is for 1,649,804 sentenced prisoners in Ministry of Justice prisons only. World Prison Brief states that in addition to the sentenced prisoners, there may be more than 650,000 held in detention centers. "A total prison population of 2,300,000 would raise the prison population rate to 164 per 100,000."[10]

After 2015 there was a great increase in the number of people in the Xinjiang re-education camps.[citation needed] Hundreds of thousands to millions may have been detained.[citation needed] See also: Re-education through labor, and Laogai.

OK. 164 vs. 655

Uhrm, no-- 164 is based on that 2015 figure, which doesn't take into account 4 of the 5 years of their operation. Wiki gives the current estimates at between 1.5 million and 3 million. The vast majority of whom, remember, are not even charged with a crime; they're being held on the basis of their demographics alone.

So, yes, authoritarianism in the extreme, characterised by ethnic cleansing and the suspension of the rule of law for entire demographic groups.

And no, this doesn't excuse the United States, before we venture (back) into whataboutism. The US is operating a grotesque, profit-driven prison complex.

 

[Seanchaidh]

China

China: World Prison Brief rate of 118 per 100,000 at mid-2015 is for 1,649,804 sentenced prisoners in Ministry of Justice prisons only. World Prison Brief states that in addition to the sentenced prisoners, there may be more than 650,000 held in detention centers. "A total prison population of 2,300,000 would raise the prison population rate to 164 per 100,000."[10]

After 2015 there was a great increase in the number of people in the Xinjiang re-education camps.[citation needed] Hundreds of thousands to millions may have been detained.[citation needed] See also: Re-education through labor, and Laogai.

OK. 164 vs. 655

Uhrm, no-- 164 is based on that 2015 figure, which doesn't take into account 4 of the 5 years of their operation. Wiki gives the current estimates at between 1.5 million and 3 million. The vast majority of whom, remember, are not even charged with a crime; they're being held on the basis of their demographics alone.

I mean, OK, that's still not as many as 655 per 100,000.

 

[Satinavian]

The biggest problem with communism is how many right-wing despots use it as a way to trick common people into supporting fascism. Stalin, Mao, Putin, Xi, all are right-wing despots.

Oh, no.

Stalin and Mao were certainly not right wing, they were left wing. Both actually believed in communism and tried to make it happen, both had no qualms at all with ending traditions and changing society in perceived progressive ways ultrafast. Pretending otherwise is as stupid as those arguments that pretend that Nazis were actually socialist.

Modern day Russia is not the SU. And modern day China is a far cry from the China of Maos days, even if they did not have as hard a break as Russia with the end of the cold war.


If you had restricted yourself to Putin and Xi, we could consider that, but the way you did it, it is pure nonsense.

 

[Terminal Blue]

So, let's talk about camps..

It's become common parlance to use the term "concentration camp" to describe all Nazi camps, but this is not actually true. Nazi Germany had two kinds of camps, concentration camps and extermination camps. The former can be found all over German occupied Europe and housed all kinds of people the Nazi regime did not like. While these people were treated badly and often subject to deliberate starvation and extermination through labour, the goal of the camps was simply as a place to dump people who were seen as political or racial enemies of the state.

Extermination camps were not concentration camps, although the issue is confused by the fact that some extermination camps were either attached to concentration camps or were actually many smaller camps with different roles (like Auschwitz), and that many extermination camps were disguised as concentration camps to reduce resistance. Extermination camps had gas chambers, they were specific facilities designed to kill people and dispose of the bodies as quickly as possible, usually thousands at a time. They would often house a few prisoners as slave labour, but only enough to keep the camp running, and thus you didn't have housing.

The extermination camp is a particularly Nazi innovation. There are things like the Killing Fields in Cambodia or Japanese medical research camps which served a similar function, but only the Nazis seem to have really embraced this idea of an industrial process of killing people as quickly as possible. If your definition of a concentration camp requires gas chambers, then there has never been any other instances of a concentration camp.

But then, that's a stupid definition of a concentration camp.

Concentration camps are a British invention. They were used during the Boer war as part of the British "scorched earth" policy of denying resources to the enemy and quelling guerrilla activity in occupied areas. Thousands of Afrikaners (and indigenous Africans) died in those camps due to appalling conditions, but killing them wasn't the purpose. Containing them was the purpose.

That's what a concentration camp is. It's a camp where people are detained for political reasons. People don't have to be being deliberately killed for it to be a concentration camp (in fact, if almost everyone in the camp is being deliberately killed, it's specifically not a concentration camp).

Maybe instead of quibbling over words, sit and consider the ethics of large scale political detention at all. Because people always get hurt. People always die. You cannot imprison thousands of people in a camp and expect them to thrive. If that causes you guilt or discomfort, lean into it.

 

[Saelune]

The biggest problem with communism is how many right-wing despots use it as a way to trick common people into supporting fascism. Stalin, Mao, Putin, Xi, all are right-wing despots.

Oh, no.

Stalin and Mao were certainly not right wing, they were left wing. Both actually believed in communism and tried to make it happen, both had no qualms at all with ending traditions and changing society in perceived progressive ways ultrafast. Pretending otherwise is as stupid as those arguments that pretend that Nazis were actually socialist.

Modern day Russia is not the SU. And modern day China is a far cry from the China of Maos days, even if they did not have as hard a break as Russia with the end of the cold war.


If you had restricted yourself to Putin and Xi, we could consider that, but the way you did it, it is pure nonsense.

Secret Police, mass murder and fascism is not left-wing.

Stalin and Mao are even more right-wing than Putin and Xi. They WISH they were on their horrible level. Stalin and Mao Jrs.

 

[Saelune]

So, let's talk about camps..

It's become common parlance to use the term "concentration camp" to describe all Nazi camps, but this is not actually true. Nazi Germany had two kinds of camps, concentration camps and extermination camps. The former can be found all over German occupied Europe and housed all kinds of people the Nazi regime did not like. While these people were treated badly and often subject to deliberate starvation and extermination through labour, the goal of the camps was simply as a place to dump people who were seen as political or racial enemies of the state.

Extermination camps were not concentration camps, although the issue is confused by the fact that some extermination camps were either attached to concentration camps or were actually many smaller camps with different roles (like Auschwitz), and that many extermination camps were disguised as concentration camps to reduce resistance. Extermination camps had gas chambers, they were specific facilities designed to kill people and dispose of the bodies as quickly as possible, usually thousands at a time. They would often house a few prisoners as slave labour, but only enough to keep the camp running, and thus you didn't have housing.

The extermination camp is a particularly Nazi innovation. There are things like the Killing Fields in Cambodia or Japanese medical research camps which served a similar function, but only the Nazis seem to have really embraced this idea of an industrial process of killing people as quickly as possible. If your definition of a concentration camp requires gas chambers, then there has never been any other instances of a concentration camp.

But then, that's a stupid definition of a concentration camp.

Concentration camps are a British invention. They were used during the Boer war as part of the British "scorched earth" policy of denying resources to the enemy and quelling guerrilla activity in occupied areas. Thousands of Afrikaners (and indigenous Africans) died in those camps due to appalling conditions, but killing them wasn't the purpose. Containing them was the purpose.

That's what a concentration camp is. It's a camp where people are detained for political reasons. People don't have to be being deliberately killed for it to be a concentration camp (in fact, if almost everyone in the camp is being deliberately killed, it's specifically not a concentration camp).

Maybe instead of quibbling over words, sit and consider the ethics of large scale political detention at all. Because people always get hurt. People always die. You cannot imprison thousands of people in a camp and expect them to thrive. If that causes you guilt or discomfort, lean into it.

It doesn't matter, they just want to support murdering brown babies.

 

[Silvanus]

I mean, OK, that's still not as many as 655 per 100,000.

Indeed it's not.

Another confounding variable would be that the US prison population is at least partly verified by independent organisations, whereas the Chinese government doesn't allow that kind of thing (and is notorious for "disappearing" people without trial or record). I would assume their actual prison population is substantially higher than the figure they provide.

Though, yes, I imagine the US prison population is still higher, given that they are motivated by profit to drive incarceration rates.

 

[Satinavian]

Secret Police, mass murder and fascism is not left-wing.

Stalin and Mao are even more right-wing than Putin and Xi. They WISH they were on their horrible level. Stalin and Mao Jrs.

Stalin and Mao and their countries were never fascist. Mao even broke with the Soviet Union because he still believed in the World revolution.

Secret police and mass murder are neither left nor right. They are the tools of extremists and/or dictators of every kind.

 

[Saelune]

Secret Police, mass murder and fascism is not left-wing.

Stalin and Mao are even more right-wing than Putin and Xi. They WISH they were on their horrible level. Stalin and Mao Jrs.

Stalin and Mao and their countries were never fascist. Mao even broke with the Soviet Union because he still believed in the World revolution.

Secret police and mass murder are neither left nor right. They are the tools of extremists and/or dictators of every kind.

No such thing as a left-wing dictator.

 

[vallorn]

The biggest problem with communism is how many right-wing despots use it as a way to trick common people into supporting fascism. Stalin, Mao, Putin, Xi, all are right-wing despots.

Oh, no.

Stalin and Mao were certainly not right wing, they were left wing. Both actually believed in communism and tried to make it happen, both had no qualms at all with ending traditions and changing society in perceived progressive ways ultrafast. Pretending otherwise is as stupid as those arguments that pretend that Nazis were actually socialist.

Modern day Russia is not the SU. And modern day China is a far cry from the China of Maos days, even if they did not have as hard a break as Russia with the end of the cold war.


If you had restricted yourself to Putin and Xi, we could consider that, but the way you did it, it is pure nonsense.

Secret Police, mass murder and fascism is not left-wing.

Stalin and Mao are even more right-wing than Putin and Xi. They WISH they were on their horrible level. Stalin and Mao Jrs.

They aren't inherently Left Wing, but they are Authoritarian, and that's not analogous to Right Wing. You can have Libertarian Left or Right, and you can have Authoritarian Left or Right.

Stalin, Trotsky, etc all truly believed in their Socialist utopia, their methods were in order to remove elements that they believed were undermining that, and then, over time, as power does, it became more about sustaining their own position than anything else, but you can't say that they weren't attempting to implement their interpretation of Marx and Engels (Why do all horrible ideologies originate in Germany?) without revealing yourself as someone who has never actually read a history book.

EDIT: Your attempts at redefinition remind me of this:

 

[vallorn]

Secret Police, mass murder and fascism is not left-wing.

Stalin and Mao are even more right-wing than Putin and Xi. They WISH they were on their horrible level. Stalin and Mao Jrs.

Stalin and Mao and their countries were never fascist. Mao even broke with the Soviet Union because he still believed in the World revolution.

Secret police and mass murder are neither left nor right. They are the tools of extremists and/or dictators of every kind.

No such thing as a left-wing dictator.

Ok now you're just wrong. Saelune, please read history books before trying to cram everything through your narrow "left good right bad" lens, Just because you don't like something doesn't mean it's not based on the same ideology as yours, and it's important to understand the potential pitfalls in left wing thought that can lead to things like Venezuela, The USSR, The CCP, Cambodia, etc so that they are not repeated. Your dogmatic views only ensure that those mistakes are repeated by left wing ideologues who believe they can do no wrong because "there is no such thing as a left-wing dictator", therefore however much power they amass in service of their goals, they can never be a dictator.

Also:

 

[Silent Protagonist]

I'm beginning to suspect Saelune's political compass is just a DnD alignment chart with good and evil swapped out for left and right rather than any sort of spectrum of underlying socio-economic philosophies.

 

[vallorn]

I'm beginning to suspect Saelune's political compass is just a DnD alignment chart with good and evil swapped out for left and right rather than any sort of spectrum of underlying socio-economic philosophies.

That's a pretty good way of viewing it at this point. Best thing any of us can do is protect others from being sucked into that black hole of pure ideology (sniff [http://freeotegi.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Slavoj-Zizek.jpg]) whence no fact can escape.