If I had a dollar for every liberal who has accused me or some other ML of “whataboutism” concerning the Uighur “genocide” or Russia’s “aggression” in Ukraine, I’d be a rich woman. I suspect many of you have had similar experiences.
Libs love this quick jab of a response because it’s technically a sound argument. Saying something to the effect of “America is worse” doesn’t automatically imply the opposition, be they the CPC or whoever else, is completely innocent of whatever crime they’re accused of committing.
But liberals completely miss the point of this argument, deliberately or not. Put simply, “America bad” arguments are about casting doubt on the legitimacy of the organizations peddling these lies. Knowing that the Western media conditionally reports and condemns war and genocide proves they have ulterior motives in doing so. This is how we can be certain consent is being manufactured for a new cold war. It forces people to wonder if they’ve swallowed malicious propaganda.
Liberals get angry when you take their sources from them, and crying “whataboutism” is a weak parry we can just charge through. Don’t get psyched out by it. When every “credible” source spews malignant falsehoods about AES states, we need to challenge those sources. It’s faster and easier than debunking these lies piecemeal, and has the advantage of operating beyond the scope of liberal thought.
You’re not arguing fallaciously when you draw attention to the blinding hypocrisy of the American empire. Create distrust of the Western propaganda machine at all costs. This is important work, and we’re the only ones doing it.
Liberals are the ones who usually start with the whataboutism. It always comes as a response to our critiques of US imperialism.
Typical conversation:
ML - “The US and NATO have consistently broke their promise not to expand Eastward and that is why we are currently in the global situation we’re in today.”
Lib - “That’s Russian propaganda. You literally love dictators and watch too much Fox News.”
ML - “Actually, lib, here’s a Western liberal source saying the same thing.”
Lib - “it’s obviously more complex than that. Have you considered Putin is evil? Not everything is ‘America bad’ tankie.”
ML - “Lockheed Martin and Raytheon are quite literally reaping insane profits because of this war. And pretty much every congress person continues to reward them with lucrative contracts. You don’t think that is cause to be skeptical given the US’s entire history of unjustified military interventions? By the way, here’s another mainstream Western “centrist” source from before the pandemic that verifies the existence of Ukrainian Nazis.”
Lib - “Whataboutism.”
I got another way to deal with libs.
“If you were serious about anything you say, you would be talking to a recruiter about enlisting so the Russians can kill you instead of trying to make me feel bad about supporting China or Russia. Hail Satan.”
I will never convince them otherwise. Maybe the horrors of a Russian volley will change their mind.
Good point, since libs preach personal responsibility too.
“Whataboutism” is translated from liberal to normal as “i am hypocrite”, which is true only in case of liberals. We know things have class characteristics. When bourgeoisie oppress proletariat it is bad, when proletariat oppress bourgeoisie it is good.
But lib fuckers are conditioned to their nonsensical liberal objectivity, so when all their bullshit is inevitably revealed as projection they only have two ways of dealing with that: lie or deflect.
Liberalism is hypocrisy, and funnily enough, that hypocrisy only should matter to liberals, because it violates their so alleged principles, not ours.
