You can have a discussion on whether this is a good thing or not, but being smug about how "we knew better all along" is very low value. The best comments I feel shouldn't be about the type of response you should have to the article, it should be about the contents of the article. Yet comments like these trigger something in people to upvote it anyway.
Because when you criticize one side, you are side-taking. And everything you say or write is used to justify global politics (and is primed to do just that). There's no "impartiality" when you single out one side to criticize.
Either put it in context, or make a statement criticizing all parties doing the same. It's not really difficult to study and learn about things, and put them in perspective, instead of singling out a party as some unique "evil".
And it is doubly insulting to countries and peoples who have suffered your version of doing the same thing to see you point out others and demand their heads for it. It's adding hypocrisy to injury.
>To me, it's all terribly demoralizing.
To me people making accusations only for others, and neglecting their side's serious complicity in the same thing, is not only terribly demoralizing, not only hypocritical, but also strategic.
The 60s anti-culture movement could simultaneously criticize USSR, the Prague invasion, etc AND Uncle Sam and Vietnam. Not just in their media, even in a single song oftentimes.
Now it's 1000 articles criticizing one side as uniquely evil with not even a whisper of own actions, and 10 giving the internal perspective. Not exactly balanced (talking about foreign politics here. In internal politics, I guess it's more like "Hurray for the democrats/republicans establishment ideas, down with Trump" what passes for criticism of both democrat/republicans and Trump).
(And anybody attempting to correct that is hit with the thought-stopping accusation of "whataboutism")
This "singling out" is a fabrication though, and that's the problem here.
> people making accusations only for others
Again, who's doing that? You use the people who do that as fig leaf to ignore the people who don't. You dodge the strongest interpretation in favor of a weaker position that is conjured before anyone even shows up who is actually holding it.
> neglecting their side's serious complicity in the same thing
Same here, just because some people are doing that, doesn't mean all do.
Either way, even the hypocrisy of that hypothetical person doing that would be utterly dwarved by the monstrosity of the atrocities the reaction to which is diluted by games such as this.
You can read a forum or a media outlet for days, and you'll see single one-sided mentions 90% of the time, with no context, and with hypocritical framing as if it's only one side doing it.
And I remember times when they weren't doing so, where coverage was not so one sided, and where people (e.g. 60s and 70s media, influenced by people looking for wider truths, and looking into alternative media and counter-culture) would be critical of all sides, and offer more perspective.
>Same here, just because some people are doing that, doesn't mean all do.
I don't care for all, I care for what most do. Especially most media.
It's of little comfort if most of the people do X and some conscientious minority doesn't. The noise of what most do still prevails and informs public opinion and policy.
In other words, nobody is doing it here, in this context.
> And I remember times when they weren't doing so, where coverage was not so one sided, and where people (e.g. 60s and 70s media, influenced by people looking for wider truths, and looking into alternative media and counter-culture) would be critical of all sides, and offer more perspective.
You call it "more perspective", I call it dilution and spam. It could be attached to any discussion, and it doesn't tell us anything new. All the hallmarks of comments that end up flagged and admonished by people piling on, if the context is different. That's the only interesting data here.
> I don't care for all, I care for what most do.
As I said, "You use the people who do that as fig leaf to ignore the people who don't."
> It's of little comfort if most of the people do X and some conscientious minority doesn't.
That doesn't change what you and the comment you found so spot on are doing, which is not responding to the actual article, or any actual comment.
Does "but the US is doing it too" provide comfort to anyone? Nope. So the argument that X doesn't provide comfort falls flat in light of nothing else providing said "comfort" either, whatever that would even mean in concrete terms.
It wouldn't tell someone "anything new" presumed they already knew their side was doing the same shit. Most don't. And being predominantly told about the evil others doing it (in accordance with whatever the current enemy/ally du jour is, and which agenda is to be pushed at any time), doesn't make them any favors. That's the actual noise.
>As I said, "You use the people who do that as fig leaf to ignore the people who don't."
No, I'm interested in actual outcomes, and those have to do with frequency of something being done. You can find some people doing the right thing at every point in history and on every matter. Their existence doesn't make it less of a problem -- as long as the majority (or a big enough segment, or those with more power) are not doing the right thing.
I'm not sure what the "fig leaf" accusation is supposed to settle. If someone speaks about e.g. tourist's polluting a national park, would you go and tell them "there are some people who don't throw garbage when they visit there", as if that somehow makes the problem go away? And you'd be mad at them when insisting the problem exists, because they "use those that do as a fig leaf to hide those that don't"?
>That doesn't change what you and the comment you found so spot on are doing, which is not responding to the actual article
That's called "agency". As an individual, I don't have to respond to the way something is phrased and stick to that like an automaton.
Nor is it always to the detriment of the discussion not sticking to the narrow scope something was presented in. Especially in politics (this is not a technical matter).
Speaking of that, I think I already have wasted more time on this tripe than I can justify.
I am absolutely not saying that China (or anyone else) can't be accused of propaganda (I mean, I'm pretty sure it's literally in their government playbook after all), just that it's funny (can I say 'funny' instead of 'amused' or am I not allowed to derive entertainment in any form?) when people from a country with a strong history of international propaganda get all upset and act like it's unfair when another country does it.
It'd be much more appropriate to just say "hey, looks like the Chinese propaganda machine is producing X at the moment, think twice if you read this kind of article / see this kind of endorsement / etc."