Russia's economy has entered a recession as gross domestic output fell by four percent in the third quarter, according to first estimates published Wednesday by the national statistics agency, Rosstat. The drop in GDP follows a similar four percent contraction in the second quarter, as Western sanctions pummel Russia's economy following Moscow's offensive in Ukraine. The four percent drop in economic output between July and September was less than the 4.5 percent contraction analysts had expected.
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I’ve explained my position repeatedly and in detail in many threads.
First, I don’t have a bias towards Russia. I think Russia is generally as bad as the west, and suffers from many of the same problems being a capitalist shithole. What I take issue with is painting Russia as some kind of a unique evil. The west has done and is currently doing exact same things all around the world. For example, US is currently occupying large parts of Syria and NATO is helping facilitate a genocide in Yemen.
Meanwhile, the framing that the war in Ukraine is solely the fault of Russia is also fallacious and ignores the history that led up to the war. It doesn’t mean Russia are the good guys here or that I support the war, but it’s obscene to ignore the role the west played in creating the conditions for it.
It’s also clear to me that the narrative that western propaganda paints about the state of the war is at odds with reality. This propaganda is used to continue driving western support for continuation of the war. Many thousands of people have died or had their lives ruined as a result of that.
This whole war could’ve been avoided if the west stated that Ukraine wouldn’t join NATO. Peace could’ve been negotiated in April if the west didn’t step in to stop it. The west continues to pour fuel on the fire with the obsession of trying to weaken Russia. All that’s accomplishing is ruining the lives of people all across the world.
On the other hand, I genuinely support China because it’s a successful socialist country that’s been consistently improving the lives of its people and provides an alternative to the capitalist hell that the west promotes.
I have lived in the Soviet Union, I’ve also lived through the collapse of USSR and all the US interference that resulted in horrors I had to live through under Yeltsin.
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Western people never looking in the mirror is my favorite trope. Please do show a quote from me where I’m supporting what Russia is doing and promoting a Russia in a positive light. I’ll wait.
edit: kind of hilarious how your whole account seems to exist for the sole purpose of harassing me. Your entire post history is just you trying to smear me. 😂
I just love to play with sock puppets since I was a child.
The entire history of this account is following me around like a lost puppy. It’s adorable.
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The millions of Uyghurs being supposedly imprisoned story is based on two highly dubious “studies.”. CHRD states that it interviewed dozens of ethnic Uyghurs in the course of its study, but their enormous estimate was ultimately based on interviews with exactly eight Uyghur individuals. Based on this absurdly small sample of research subjects in an area whose total population is 20 million, CHRD “extrapolated estimates” that “at least 10% of villagers […] are being detained in re-education detention camps, and 20% are being forced to attend day/evening re-education camps in the villages or townships, totaling 30% in both types of camps.” Furthermore, it doesn’t even make sense from logistics perspective. You’d need a detention city the size of San Francisco to detain one million Uighurs.
Practically all the stories we see about China trace back to Adrian Zenz is a far right fundamentalist nutcase and not a reliable source for any sort of information. The fact that he’s the primary source for practically every article in western media demonstrates precisely what I’m talking about when I say that coverage is divorced from reality.
Zenz is a born-again Christian who lectures at the European School of Culture and Theology. This anodyne-sounding campus is actually the German base of Columbia International University, a US-based evangelical Christian seminary which considers the “Bible to be the ultimate foundation and the final truth in every aspect of our lives,” and whose mission is to “educate people from a biblical worldview to impact the nations with the message of Christ.”
Zenz’s work on China is inspired by this biblical worldview, as he recently explained in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. “I feel very clearly led by God to do this,” he said. “I can put it that way. I’m not afraid to say that. With Xinjiang, things really changed. It became like a mission, or a ministry.”.
Along with his “mission” against China, heavenly guidance has apparently prompted Zenz to denounce homosexuality, gender equality, and the banning of physical punishment against children as threats to Christianity.
Zenz outlined these views in a book he co-authored in 2012, titled Worthy to Escape: Why All Believers Will Not Be Raptured Before the Tribulation. In the tome, Zenz discussed the return of Jesus Christ, the coming wrath of God, and the rise of the Antichrist.
The fact that this nutcase is being paraded as a credible researcher on the subject is absolutely surreal, and it’s clear that the methodology of his “research” doesn’t pass any kind of muster when examined closely.
It’s also worth noting that there is a political angle around the narrative around Xinjiang. For example, here’s George Bush’s chief of staff openly saying that US wants to destabilize the region, and NED recently admitting to funding Uyghur separatism for the past 16 years on their own official Twitter page. An ex-CIA operative details US operations radicalizing and training terrorists in the region in this book. Here’s an excerpt:
US has been stoking terrorism in the region while they’ve been running a propaganda campaign against China in the west.
Finally, if you were really worried about human rights then you should probably be more worried about the fact that the US holds 20% of world’s prison population as slave labour.
The war is a result of tensions that were largely escalated by NATO, and plenty of experts in the west have been warning about this for many years now. Here’s what Chomsky has to say on the issue recently:
https://truthout.org/articles/us-approach-to-ukraine-and-russia-has-left-the-domain-of-rational-discourse/
https://truthout.org/articles/noam-chomsky-us-military-escalation-against-russia-would-have-no-victors/
50 prominent foreign policy experts (former senators, military officers, diplomats, etc.) sent an open letter to Clinton outlining their opposition to NATO expansion back in 1997:
George Kennan, arguably America's greatest ever foreign policy strategist, the architect of the U.S. cold war strategy warned that NATO expansion was a "tragic mistake" that ought to ultimately provoke a "bad reaction from Russia" back in 1998.
Jack F. Matlock Jr., US Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987-1991, warning in 1997 that NATO expansion was "the most profound strategic blunder, [encouraging] a chain of events that could produce the most serious security threat [...] since the Soviet Union collapsed"
Academics, such as John Mearsheimer, gave talks explaining why NATO actions would ultimately lead to conflict this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4
These and many other voices were marginalized, silenced, and ignored. Yet, now people are trying to rewrite history and pretend that Russia attacked Ukraine out of the blue and completely unprovoked.
I see some flaws in your understanding of the subject you’re opining on.
What is your opinion of this NYT article that uses a source inside the CCP? It doesn’t seem to be related to Zenz.
I think it’s absolute horseshit designed for gullible dimwits, as many NYT articles have been shown to be over the years. If you believe that NYT has some secret source inside the CPC, I have bridge to sell you.
Why don’t we have a look at what leaders of Muslim countries who actually visited Xinjiang have to say https://www.mfa.gov.cn/eng/wjbxw/202208/t20220809_10737758.html
If China was an actual threat to Muslims then all the Muslim majority countries wouldn’t be supporting China. I love how Americans, who’ve made massacring Muslims into a sport, see themselves as a champion of Muslim rights in China while ignoring what actual Muslims say. You really can’t make this shit up.
Ah yes, a Chinese government website. They couldn’t possibly have a biased angle. And you never actually addressed anything about the NYT article, just dismissed it outright as essentially a hoax.
Address the content of the article instead of using ad hominem. The article discusses the fact that Muslim majority nation leaders came to China, toured Xinjiang, and support China. These are verifiable facts. Meanwhile, your NYT article has no verifiable facts. That’s the difference. I find it depressing that I have to spell this out for you.
It’s not an ad hominem attack. It’s completely justified to question how objective an account is when it’s literally propaganda. In this particular case, the envoys come from countries that need to play nice with China. They were likely given a highly limited tour. And even if they had expressed discomfort, would a CPC press release ever mention it?
They have been transparent about the general outline of who their source is, and why they do not want their identity revealed. Given that a source of that nature could be killed for that sort of leak, do you blame them?
I never see you condemn Russia or China for anything. You spend all your time on here defending/denying the existence of any faults in Russia and China.
Most people on LemmyNet (excluding LemmyGrad) will condemn Western countries as well as Russia/China.
I honestly believe you either have mental problems or are part of a state-run astroturfing operation.
I think there’s quite enough condemning of Russia and China of everything under the sun in western media. I think providing a counter perspective is valuable. I don’t know why you think that’s such a gotcha.
I also love the whole enlightened centrism notion of people having some sort of a duty to condemn both sides. I choose the topics I want to focus on, and if you have topic you want to focus on that’s up to you. Stop trying to police other people’s speech.
Absolutely hilarious how liberals bloviate about freedom of speech but then rabidly attack anybody who exercises it in the way they don’t like. Having such a reaction to seeing views you disagree with may be a sign of having serious mental problems.
I see people doing the opposite a lot of the time actually. Lots of people here whitewash what the west is doing and make excuses.
I honestly believe that you should get help in that case.