• brain_in_a_box [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    11 months ago

    If you’re living with a boot on your throat, does the distinction really matter if it’s a capitalist’s boot or a communist’s boot?

    “Does it really matter if I can expect to live to 75 instead of 30, if I can’t call the president a doodoo head on social media?”

    Yes, it matters a lot.

    • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      Another commenter shared an article by the AP where the reporter got to ask people in Xinjiang how things are. One lady at a shop casually mentioned that business was slowing and got talked to by a party minder. You can’t even have idle chat without getting invited to camp. That’s not quite the same thing as being able to talk shit on social media.

          • brain_in_a_box [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            11 months ago

            No, they used it to explain that there’s no killing. It also doesn’t contain your claim that “You can’t even have idle chat without getting invited to camp.”

            • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
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              11 months ago

              Okay, cards on the table, from my western perspective, being talked to by a party minder for mentioning that sales are slow is an experience I can’t even fathom. For me, it seems so backwards, heavy handed, and draconian that framing it in terms of “being invited to camp” didn’t seem like a big stretch.

              • brain_in_a_box [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                11 months ago

                Imagine if a Chinese of Russian documentary showed up in an area of the US that had recently suffered from instability or disruption - like after the George Floyd rights for example - do you really think that there would be nobody would keep an eye on them; no local government employees, no PR people, no local community groups?

                If that Russian/Chinese team interviewed a local cashier, and then someone said something privatly to that cashier, and the the cashier then said ‘no further comment’, would you immediately frame that in your mind as “A party minder threatening to send them to Guantanamo Bay?” Because that’s the same scenario that was described in the AP piece.

                • CriticalResist8@lemmygrad.mlM
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                  11 months ago

                  Speaking of the George Floyd protests, there were videos of “workers” “innocently” leaving a pickup truck full of bricks in an area that the protestors were going to be passing through the next day. Like just parking a pickup truck and removing the tarp to reveal the neatly stacked bricks below it.

                  OP (the one from lemm ee) is just showing his privilege every time he comments.