CMV (But At What Cost?): I should disregard criticisms of China and Russia whenever it comes from western sources.

I find it increasingly hard to look past the weirdly disingenuous comparisons between China or Russia and the capitalist west. Whenever corruption in the west comes up, or its imperialist mafia policies, there are always a lot of comments repeating wild lies about how China or Russia or the DPRK or Iran or (whoever the west currently wants to war with) is doing cartoon villainy because they feel like it.

In general, I am not a big fan of a country just because it opposes the western empire and I have been outspoken about flaws in systems that are developing the best they can while under siege. But the kinds of assertions made are so obviously false (like a given country executing someone for listening to the wrong kind of music or something) that it makes me generally more suspicious about even the less suspicious criticisms (that they still have crime sometimes).

I do not want to disregard criticisms of anti-imperialist countries because I think it’s important to be open and honest about our issues, but I also don’t want to be influenced by people who are just trying to bring down opposition to the global capitalist western colonial empire by vilifying anyone who opposes it even slightly.

I will never see evidence from empire sources that these kinds of comments are at least sincere and worth taking seriously because the empire is known to pathologically lie about anything and everything.

What will not convince me is arguments that China is as bad as the US because all evidence points to the contrary and you have to take every western bald-faced lie at face value with no understanding of historical or present day context to believe it.