Yeah, and growing up I heard the exact same talking points about the Confederacy. How states should have the right to decide whether they want to be in a union or not, how ending slavery was the real slavery, how it was authoritarian for a central body to tell us who we couldn’t enslave, how Southern culture was lost by the North imposing it’s ways on us. Just another nation-state trying to control the little guy. I’ve heard it all before.
If there is some rationale that can actually justify bemoaning the lost cause of the Tibetan slaver theocrats, it’s probably for the best that I’m not clever enough to see it, because I’d have used it to justify the beliefs I was raised with and might not have ever become a leftist in the first place.
It’s completely absurd to speak of “self-determination,” especially “socioeconomic self-determination” regarding a literal slave theocracy. What, you mean the “self determination” of the theocrats? Because the serfs didn’t have self-determination to lose in the first place. Again, there’s no shortage of people in the South who would bemoan the “carpetbaggers” and the loss of Southern “socioeconomic self-determination” (though they might use different terms), completely glossing over the fact that slaves had zero socioeconomic self-determination under their system.
You are the one who’s adopting a statist perspective by treating the serfs and their lords as one entity with unified interests, when if you look at if from a class perspective, they had diametrically opposed interests, with the interests of the serfs being in line with the interests of the Chinese people and the revolutionaries. Which is why so many of them supported them (in spite of the slaver theocrats’ attempts at religious indoctrination).
Of course, another reason is their shared history. Tibet had been part of China for hundreds of years, which is why it’s still claimed as part of China by the ROC. During the brief period of chaos following the collapse of the Qing, it emerged alongside countless other warlord states that were opposed by both the nationalists and communists, as well as anyone with half a brain who could see that the division is exactly what allowed them to be invaded by the Japanese despite them being a much smaller foe. In fact, during WWII, the US military produced a film that states that point explicitly.
China would have been wrong to have not freed the Tibetan serfs. Perhaps that liberation was imperfect or incomplete, just as the liberation of slaves in the US was, but it was still a step in the right direction that massively improved the quality of life for the vast majority of Tibetans.
Well there are so many points of historical and political-economy analysis that fundamentally differentiate the medieval feudalism of the himalayan plateau societies from the colonial chattel slaver system of the early USA that it is too much to address here.
But let’s not pretend that Tibet was liberated from a cruel economy and then given a path to self determination and control over immigration. It was annexed and is being settled like other settler-states. If the remnants of all former empires laid claim to their former conquests the world would burn.
Most nation-states have slavery-by-another-name running inside their prison systems, including China. Fuck that weak excuse. Geopolitics and centralized power did this, not that heroic myth that is just a variant of manifest destiny. Slavers liberating slaves, pfft.
But let’s not pretend that Tibet was liberated from a cruel economy and then given a path to self determination and control over immigration. If the remnants of all former empires laid claim to their former conquests the world would burn.
Do the former Confederate states have control over immigration, or is that handled at the federal level? Do those states have “a path to self-determination,” including a path towards secession, or towards reinstituting slavery? No, they are, quite correctly, bound by federal laws and follow the same rules as everyone else. Should we treat the Union reestablishing control over the Confederacy as, “an empire laying claim to its former conquests?” They had been a part of the Union for a much shorter time than Tibet had been part of China.
Most nation-states have slavery-by-another-name running inside their prison systems, including China… Slavers liberating slaves, pfft.
Yes, and the Union had prisons too. This doesn’t change the fact that ending the formal institution of slavery was a major, important step that materially improved the lives of the freed slaves. You’re dismissing all progress unless it instantly creates a perfect utopia overnight. This was a big one I heard, “The Northerners were hypocrites because their factories had harsh conditions.”
So far, I have yet to hear an argument that passes the, “Can this be used to justify the CSA” test, and as the CSA was unjustified those arguments must be wrong. You say that the systems were different, and yes, that’s true. The question is whether they were different in any relevant way. They were both cruel systems of involuntary servitude.
All of your arguments are just justifying cruel, inhumane, oppressive, authoritarian systems, and twisting words around to present it as “anti-authoritarian.” My upbringing has innoculated me against that sort of thing.
Yeah, and growing up I heard the exact same talking points about the Confederacy. How states should have the right to decide whether they want to be in a union or not, how ending slavery was the real slavery, how it was authoritarian for a central body to tell us who we couldn’t enslave, how Southern culture was lost by the North imposing it’s ways on us. Just another nation-state trying to control the little guy. I’ve heard it all before.
If there is some rationale that can actually justify bemoaning the lost cause of the Tibetan slaver theocrats, it’s probably for the best that I’m not clever enough to see it, because I’d have used it to justify the beliefs I was raised with and might not have ever become a leftist in the first place.
It’s completely absurd to speak of “self-determination,” especially “socioeconomic self-determination” regarding a literal slave theocracy. What, you mean the “self determination” of the theocrats? Because the serfs didn’t have self-determination to lose in the first place. Again, there’s no shortage of people in the South who would bemoan the “carpetbaggers” and the loss of Southern “socioeconomic self-determination” (though they might use different terms), completely glossing over the fact that slaves had zero socioeconomic self-determination under their system.
You are the one who’s adopting a statist perspective by treating the serfs and their lords as one entity with unified interests, when if you look at if from a class perspective, they had diametrically opposed interests, with the interests of the serfs being in line with the interests of the Chinese people and the revolutionaries. Which is why so many of them supported them (in spite of the slaver theocrats’ attempts at religious indoctrination).
Of course, another reason is their shared history. Tibet had been part of China for hundreds of years, which is why it’s still claimed as part of China by the ROC. During the brief period of chaos following the collapse of the Qing, it emerged alongside countless other warlord states that were opposed by both the nationalists and communists, as well as anyone with half a brain who could see that the division is exactly what allowed them to be invaded by the Japanese despite them being a much smaller foe. In fact, during WWII, the US military produced a film that states that point explicitly.
China would have been wrong to have not freed the Tibetan serfs. Perhaps that liberation was imperfect or incomplete, just as the liberation of slaves in the US was, but it was still a step in the right direction that massively improved the quality of life for the vast majority of Tibetans.
Well there are so many points of historical and political-economy analysis that fundamentally differentiate the medieval feudalism of the himalayan plateau societies from the colonial chattel slaver system of the early USA that it is too much to address here.
But let’s not pretend that Tibet was liberated from a cruel economy and then given a path to self determination and control over immigration. It was annexed and is being settled like other settler-states. If the remnants of all former empires laid claim to their former conquests the world would burn.
Most nation-states have slavery-by-another-name running inside their prison systems, including China. Fuck that weak excuse. Geopolitics and centralized power did this, not that heroic myth that is just a variant of manifest destiny. Slavers liberating slaves, pfft.
Truly Tibetan slaves and American slaves are apples and oranges, I say it all the time, lol.
Do the former Confederate states have control over immigration, or is that handled at the federal level? Do those states have “a path to self-determination,” including a path towards secession, or towards reinstituting slavery? No, they are, quite correctly, bound by federal laws and follow the same rules as everyone else. Should we treat the Union reestablishing control over the Confederacy as, “an empire laying claim to its former conquests?” They had been a part of the Union for a much shorter time than Tibet had been part of China.
Yes, and the Union had prisons too. This doesn’t change the fact that ending the formal institution of slavery was a major, important step that materially improved the lives of the freed slaves. You’re dismissing all progress unless it instantly creates a perfect utopia overnight. This was a big one I heard, “The Northerners were hypocrites because their factories had harsh conditions.”
So far, I have yet to hear an argument that passes the, “Can this be used to justify the CSA” test, and as the CSA was unjustified those arguments must be wrong. You say that the systems were different, and yes, that’s true. The question is whether they were different in any relevant way. They were both cruel systems of involuntary servitude.
All of your arguments are just justifying cruel, inhumane, oppressive, authoritarian systems, and twisting words around to present it as “anti-authoritarian.” My upbringing has innoculated me against that sort of thing.