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.
Tangentically related, but I just hate that we live in a world right now where the people in power can make something up, like a genocide, and then direct social media websites to ban anyone who asks questions about it. There is no Uygur or Ukrainian genocide, point blank, period. All evidence of either “event” is either based on lies or out of context photos.
First of all, I hate the word. It’s just one of the types of ad hominem (which, itself, is a type of ignoratio elenchi). STOP COMING UP WITH UNNECESSARY WORDS, PEOPLE!
Libs shouting “WHATABOUTISM” about war in Ukraine is pretty funny, because it’s usually their response to questions like “where are sanctions on the US at though?”. So, they automatically admit their hypocrisy when demonizing nations for the same things they defend the imperialist core for. Also, since I know SMO is justified, I never used it as a defence of Russia - only as an attempt to make them see that hypocrisy. Silly me, they found ways to cope. EU libs, for example, just go like “hey, USA is our ally, it’s not our job to sanction them”…admitting that Putin is right about the world order not being built on any law, but on rules that only work for those who’re part of the club.
Uighur “genocide” is a very simple one, as far as I’m concerned. Can you provide any evidence? No? Only that UN tissue paper written after their representative went to China, found nothing of the sort and got fired for saying so? That’s too bad. Come back when you have any better basis for accusing a nation of genocide than sinophobia.
I actually like it when someone says “whataboutism”. It lets me know they are a lib and no amount of debate will change that so I don’t waste my time.
I think, and I could be wrong, the term whataboutism originated when USSR would point out racism in the US, especially things like lynchings, and instead of stopping lynchings and racial discrimination, they just came up with that thought terminating cliche. Again, debates solve nothing. Reality is what it is and libs will just come up with some bullshit.
Perfect example of enlightened liberal thinking is Voltaire. All the talk about equality and brotherhood, and the piece of shit owned slaves and thought of indigenous people as subhuman.
Yeah I think the argument is not to excuse on evil for another; its instead to discredit the accusing voice. With the Uighur thing, along with anything and all things China, the argument is that it’s not happening or that its happening much differently than its being presented.
Before we can get anything across to people we must first convince them that they have no reliable sources of information; that, their established sources are feeding them total fabrications or distortions so extreme as to leave them less informed than if they knew nothing at all. The only way to do this is to point out the long history of lies.
We can’t be left constantly fighting in the moment, according to what’s currently trending, without any historical memory. We will lose.
Neither can we allow the topic of conversation to be completed by our adversary. The major error of the cold war was the constant apologia. Read Chomsky or anyone of his kind and you will find any criticism of the Capitalist Order post-scripted with an invasive and unwarranted criticism of the USSR. We must avoid the position of apologia. We do ourselves no favors and will gain nothing but a weakened stance.
Our position in these things should be clear. If we know they are lying we should call them liars and point out all the other times they’ve lied. Every time they point to a foreign nation we should strongly remind them that its nothing to do with you, that you have no interest in being obsessed with foreign affairs while your own house is out of order. If should be remembered that nobody involved in the conversation is Chinese and that what China does does not immediately concern us. Its pathological to be obsessed with our neighbors while our own house is out of order. Our own affairs need our attention, and our own affairs are the immediate concern of our people.
Side note, one thing I fucking hate is how these people claim we have a hate boner for the U.S. and that our ideology is entirely that, or sometimes smugly tell us “two things can be bad at once.”
Liberals and fake socialists don’t actually understand the scale of American/Atlanticist imperialism— ever since the fall of Nazi Germany, the U.S. has basically occupied its place as the number one shit-stirrer in the world and as the most “evil” (so to say) entity in the world today.
These people will often claim to acknowledge that the U.S. is bad— reducing hundreds of years of slavery which is still ongoing, possibly history’s greatest genocide, a record of almost continuous warmongering since its founding, and doing things beyond the Axis’ wildest dreams, to “yes, America bad, but…”— but then trivialize how bad it is by saying [insert U.S. geopolitical enemy] is worse because [insert U.S. propaganda about said enemy].
“Whataboutism” is a thought-stopping cliché for liberals so they don’t ever see themselves and their organizations, their countries, and their ideology for what they are, so that they don’t realize that they are not the good guys, and haven’t been so for a long time.
It’s just more self-righteous colonialist thinking. “Our hands may be dirty, but those uncivilized barbarians/savages are worse! They sacrifice humans, so of course that means that we should also commit atrocities against them to stop them from committing atrocities!”
They think the USA is bad because “ACAB” and small movements like that. Not because they’ve been the ones behind or found funding everything bad in the past 100 years.
Another way to frame it is that it’s not whataboutism to point out hypocrisy.
If I yell “meat is murder!” at you and insist you commit to a vegetarian diet while I’m holding a half-eaten bacon double cheeseburger and my breath smells like an abbatoir, it’s not whataboutism to call me out on my double standards.
If I yell “meat is murder!” at you and insist you commit to a vegetarian diet while I’m holding a spinach smoothie and my breath smells like a herb garden, it is whataboutism to declare that my decision to wear yoga pants and crocs is an even bigger crime.
“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.
“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.
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.”
This is a Dengist community in favor of Bashar al-Assad with no information that can lead to the arrest of Hillary Clinton, our fellow liberal and queen. This community is not ironic. We are Marxists-Leninists.
If you haven’t already found it, this GitHub page is an excellent collection of sources about socialism, imperialism, and other relevant topics, made by @dessalines and others.
Tangentically related, but I just hate that we live in a world right now where the people in power can make something up, like a genocide, and then direct social media websites to ban anyone who asks questions about it. There is no Uygur or Ukrainian genocide, point blank, period. All evidence of either “event” is either based on lies or out of context photos.
First of all, I hate the word. It’s just one of the types of ad hominem (which, itself, is a type of ignoratio elenchi). STOP COMING UP WITH UNNECESSARY WORDS, PEOPLE!
Libs shouting “WHATABOUTISM” about war in Ukraine is pretty funny, because it’s usually their response to questions like “where are sanctions on the US at though?”. So, they automatically admit their hypocrisy when demonizing nations for the same things they defend the imperialist core for. Also, since I know SMO is justified, I never used it as a defence of Russia - only as an attempt to make them see that hypocrisy. Silly me, they found ways to cope. EU libs, for example, just go like “hey, USA is our ally, it’s not our job to sanction them”…admitting that Putin is right about the world order not being built on any law, but on rules that only work for those who’re part of the club.
Uighur “genocide” is a very simple one, as far as I’m concerned. Can you provide any evidence? No? Only that UN tissue paper written after their representative went to China, found nothing of the sort and got fired for saying so? That’s too bad. Come back when you have any better basis for accusing a nation of genocide than sinophobia.
I actually like it when someone says “whataboutism”. It lets me know they are a lib and no amount of debate will change that so I don’t waste my time.
I think, and I could be wrong, the term whataboutism originated when USSR would point out racism in the US, especially things like lynchings, and instead of stopping lynchings and racial discrimination, they just came up with that thought terminating cliche. Again, debates solve nothing. Reality is what it is and libs will just come up with some bullshit.
Perfect example of enlightened liberal thinking is Voltaire. All the talk about equality and brotherhood, and the piece of shit owned slaves and thought of indigenous people as subhuman.
this is a good post
Yeah I think the argument is not to excuse on evil for another; its instead to discredit the accusing voice. With the Uighur thing, along with anything and all things China, the argument is that it’s not happening or that its happening much differently than its being presented.
Before we can get anything across to people we must first convince them that they have no reliable sources of information; that, their established sources are feeding them total fabrications or distortions so extreme as to leave them less informed than if they knew nothing at all. The only way to do this is to point out the long history of lies.
We can’t be left constantly fighting in the moment, according to what’s currently trending, without any historical memory. We will lose.
Neither can we allow the topic of conversation to be completed by our adversary. The major error of the cold war was the constant apologia. Read Chomsky or anyone of his kind and you will find any criticism of the Capitalist Order post-scripted with an invasive and unwarranted criticism of the USSR. We must avoid the position of apologia. We do ourselves no favors and will gain nothing but a weakened stance.
Our position in these things should be clear. If we know they are lying we should call them liars and point out all the other times they’ve lied. Every time they point to a foreign nation we should strongly remind them that its nothing to do with you, that you have no interest in being obsessed with foreign affairs while your own house is out of order. If should be remembered that nobody involved in the conversation is Chinese and that what China does does not immediately concern us. Its pathological to be obsessed with our neighbors while our own house is out of order. Our own affairs need our attention, and our own affairs are the immediate concern of our people.
Side note, one thing I fucking hate is how these people claim we have a hate boner for the U.S. and that our ideology is entirely that, or sometimes smugly tell us “two things can be bad at once.”
Liberals and fake socialists don’t actually understand the scale of American/Atlanticist imperialism— ever since the fall of Nazi Germany, the U.S. has basically occupied its place as the number one shit-stirrer in the world and as the most “evil” (so to say) entity in the world today.
These people will often claim to acknowledge that the U.S. is bad— reducing hundreds of years of slavery which is still ongoing, possibly history’s greatest genocide, a record of almost continuous warmongering since its founding, and doing things beyond the Axis’ wildest dreams, to “yes, America bad, but…”— but then trivialize how bad it is by saying [insert U.S. geopolitical enemy] is worse because [insert U.S. propaganda about said enemy].
“Whataboutism” is a thought-stopping cliché for liberals so they don’t ever see themselves and their organizations, their countries, and their ideology for what they are, so that they don’t realize that they are not the good guys, and haven’t been so for a long time.
It’s just more self-righteous colonialist thinking. “Our hands may be dirty, but those uncivilized barbarians/savages are worse! They sacrifice humans, so of course that means that we should also commit atrocities against them to stop them from committing atrocities!”
They think the USA is bad because “ACAB” and small movements like that. Not because they’ve been the ones behind or found funding everything bad in the past 100 years.
Also, (I think) whataboutism is when a counter-point is brought up that doesn’t relate directly to the point being argued.
Not whataboutism: “China has relative poverty.” - “So does the US.”
Whataboutism: “China has relative poverty.” - “What about the genocide of Indians in the US?”
Please correct me, if I’m wrong.
Another way to frame it is that it’s not whataboutism to point out hypocrisy.
If I yell “meat is murder!” at you and insist you commit to a vegetarian diet while I’m holding a half-eaten bacon double cheeseburger and my breath smells like an abbatoir, it’s not whataboutism to call me out on my double standards.
If I yell “meat is murder!” at you and insist you commit to a vegetarian diet while I’m holding a spinach smoothie and my breath smells like a herb garden, it is whataboutism to declare that my decision to wear yoga pants and crocs is an even bigger crime.
it is tho /s
You are correct. It’s only whataboutism when the point is unrelated.
YESSS
“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.
They can either understand why the west is hated or be confused. Either way, they’re getting dealt with.
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.
Yep.
Im past the character of individuals. If a lib is serious; they’re fighting Russians.
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.”