my co-worker, a british woman who moved here (USA) with her husband, is a perfectly nice person. i have no problems with her, but talking to her opened my eyes to how insanely ignorant and brainwashed your average person is
she’s the definition of just a normal ass regular ass type of person. progressive but not overtly political and just kinda floating through existence. which is fine.
we were talking and she was saying all of this negative stuff about china. i of course told her my point of view which is that im very very pro china and don’t think anything she was saying was actually proven. she then went on to say maybe im right and that she doesnt get why china is bad but japan is our ally “because its the same country isnt it?” so this tells me many normal people are walking around with negative opinions about china meanwhile they literally dont even know china isnt a part of japan.
she then went on to clarify, “wait maybe im thinking of korea. which is the bad one again?” IF YOU THINK SOMETHING IS SUPPOSEDLY BAD, SHOULDNT YOU KNOW WHAT THE BAD THING IS? how is that not a light that goes off for her and makes her consider “how tf do i think a place is bad when i literally don’t even know what place im talking about?”
i just said “well it depends on your perspective” and then changed the conversation to be about the tv show Tulsa King lmao
When having political conversations with burgers, you have to ask for details, and really pry for them. I have so many friends who will look at any american-opposed leader past or present and be like “he is/was a monster, right?” But then I ask what they did and you just get vague statements about freedom and human rights violations. Then you really peel back, and get something straight from a work of fiction (especially true with Stalin and anything depicted in Enemy At The Gates)
Forgive me for posting about streamers but I literally saw this happen in real time when Northernlion was confidently saying Gaddafi was in hell, then when asked why he believed that he couldn’t really elaborate, then his friend HCJustin came in and said that Gaddafi was only ever demonized by the Clintons.
My friend group did literally the same thing. I mentioned something about Clinton’s role in creating slave markets and a friend pipes in with “yeah, but wasn’t Gaddafi a monster?”
I ask what he did to deserve that and nobody actually knew anything about him. But even that wasn’t enough, because he “probably” did some awful things.
Genocide and slavery are probably the worst two things a leader/government can do. Even if he was a total piece of shit who embezzled tax dollars and murdered his political rivals, that’s still infinitely less bad than open air slave markets.
It’s just willful ignorance at that point. They’re comfortable in the Imperial Core and don’t give a shit about anyone else. Anything that justifies the empire will be touted out, then they will change the topic to something else when contradicted.