Fine, I'll admit, I have a problem. I hear obvious bullshit and I sort of automatically filter it out because it's clearly bullshit and nobody will buy into it, and then sometimes it turns out it was actually a Really Big Deal that I probably should have paid some attention to. Made that mistake with Bitcoin, could have been rich but noooo, I ignored it because it was obviously dumb as hell. Another example: I distinctly remember going "What is this Gamergate shit? It'll probably blow over but let me try to see if there's a point to it" and then I got a booty-call from my then-girlfriend that her roommate was heading out to class so I went up to her dorm room, and that was the last I really paid attention to gamergate until years later when it turned out to have become a whole thing. My eyes would just glaze over anytime I saw the word because I basically went "oh yeah its that bullshit that dumbasses were losing their minds over and nobody cares about, I ain't got time to pay attention to that shit" and then it turns out it was actually this major flashpoint for the rise of the particularly bizarre new far right dweebs we get nowadays.
I did the same thing with "tankies". Never heard the term until maybe 2017? and largely ignored it. It just seemed to be a nothingburger, some new term for a few terminally online weirdos who hated Communists, and I assumed they were just fascists because you know who hated the Communists the most? Nazis. But then it spread and more people started using it, and then applying it more broadly (even Bernard Brethren are tankies, apparently?) which meant that it was such a varied term as to have no meaning. And I basically wrote off anyone hating on tankies as some dumbass who wasn't worth listening to because they were too ill informed to have anything of value to say.
It's probably not all of a sudden but it's really dawning on me that this is not some flash in the pan that'll just go away. I've been expecting it to just burn itself out because it's so obviously on its face bullshit. But, fast forward and the term seems to have taken on a whole life of its own. So many people hate on "tankies". Even anarchists I know irl hate on "tankies". Supposedly radical leftists hate on "tankies". I went on a date with an anarchist who started ragging on "tankies" and I just left because what even is that shit? It's become so prevalent I feel I can't ignore it anymore.
Don't support the NATO proxy war that's grinding up Ukrainian lives? Ebil tankie. Don't support genocide in Palestine? Ebil tankie. Wouldn't vote for Genocide Joe or Holocaust Harris? Ebil tankie. Not racist against Chinese people? Ebil tankie. Think Cuba and Venezuela are cool actually? Ebil tankie. Don't like NATO? Ebil tankie. Post on Hexbear? Ebil tankie.
I didn't grow up during the Cold War so idk how AmeriKKKan society was about Communists, but I don't remember any of this level of prevalent rabid anti-Communism from liberals and even people who fancy themselves as so-called radical leftists in like, 2000 - 2015. This is getting absurd and frankly baffling. Not too long ago a bunch of these same people were saying socialism is cool, war is bad, black and brown lives matter. But now all of a sudden it seems like you actually apply those slogans and you're an "ebil tankie".
What makes it seem extra insidious is that basically all of this seems to feed back into supporting USAdian warmongering and imperialism. Like, what is a "tankie"? When you ask people they'll say "Authoritarian Communists" but it really just seems that they call anyone who isn't deepthroating the boot of the AmeriKKKan Empire a "tankie".
How did this happen? What is going on?
I didn't know Victoria Nuland and other higher-ups of the USian empire were 'Ukrainian people' who were merely protesting. I suppose, you will also consider members of the Ukrainian government who participated in that and organised that as merely 'Ukrainian people' 'protesting', as well.
By the way, why were they 'protesting' purely after the the government opted to not accept a bad deal with the EU, and why were they so fond of Bandera, and why were they picking who will be in what position in the government weeks before the finalisation of the coup?
Ah, so you are just going to try to invent a bullshit reason to demonise the PRC.
The PRC has also not engaged in coups like the ones in Ukraine, Brazil, etc. or invasions like those of Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Palestine, etc., nor has the PRC engaged in the IMF-style debt-entrapment, contrary to the popular myths that your empire likes spreading.
So, no, this 'so does China' is unwarranted there.
You are extremely uninformed about these topics.
Because Australia is a settler colony in the imperial core.
Also, it's incredible to present white European Australians as victims in this regard when they are literally colonisers.
Because the PRC simply hasn't been doing what you claim it has been doing. Whenever somebody tries to claim that the PRC are these malicious demons, if one looks at actual investigations of such topics, one finds things like 'The UN finds no evidence of such-and-such' and 'We have examined if the PRC engages in debt-trapping and have found that that does not happen', etc.
HAHAHAHA.
Gods forbid the PRC has agency in its waters.
Oh, not any specific ones, just vague 'general' ones that you can't point to? Meanwhile, when Australia invades everywhere with its NATO buddies, it's all fine and dandy to inflict the worst abuse on people there, including kidnapping and torturing people, I take it?
The PRC has been one of the few places on this planet to improve people's standards of living in the past couple of decades or so.
Ah yes, a white European coloniser is going to complain about their (former) colonies being forced to have worse living conditions than what labour aristocracy at home enjoys.
Meanwhile, your empire literally has child labour.
Not to mention that this 'sweatshop' thing is likely yet another myth meant to demonise the PRC, but I haven't looked into it myself, as your empire seems to have stopped making those accusations a while ago. Probably because nobody with a brain is buying those anymore.
Oh no, not the vague 'excessive control of the people'. This is totally so much worse than white European Australians invading everywhere and torturing people. /s
You mean the thing that was being made there illegally? And which the government cracked down on?