Minor quibbling for the sake of ~~post engagement~~ clarity: The term "brainwash" is a literal translation of a term coined by Mao, itself a pun on a ritualistic "heartwashing" that was customary to spiritually "clean" yourself (before? after?) entering a temple. Mao was using it as basically a jocular way to refer to political reeducation. The literal translation itself was first produced by some niche orientalist author who was making theories about chicom mind control powers. It was then adopted by the establishment after those soldiers in the Korean War were, in fact, rehabilitated by China* and renounced the war, confessed to using chemical and biological weapons (which never happened according to the notoriously honest US State Department), and in some cases even fully refusing to be brought back to America, instead choosing to live in the PRC or DPRK.

Another "fun" one is "Ostalgie," a German portmanteau of "Ost" (east) and "Nostalgie" (nostalgia), which is the way that German popular culture characterizes the feelings of the former East Germans who preferred East Germany. It's another instance of pathologizing popular sentiments by treating them as some bizarre and peculiar psychological phenomenon rather than accepting that people have reason to think what they think.

*I think it was mostly by China, since China had a pretty dominant role late in the war, but that's not to say there was no Korean involvement or that every case with every supposedly-brainwashed prisoner was the same.

The grim thing is that they are such a powerful organization that they can afford to do the strategic equivalent of human wave tactics and just keep throwing schemes at the wall until one sticks.

It's so disgusting hearing him trot out the discredited "October 7 rape" myth so brazenly when he himself is an unrepentant rapist.

If I was in the area, I would 100% decommission this thing.

This isn't a counterpoint. Contra isn't publishing nothing because she has just so much intellectual integrity and has covered every relevant issue so thoroughly that more publications would surely fall into redundancy. Even ignoring that most of her work centers on fantastical, avante-garde storylines, one would need to ascribe to her an astonishingly narrow range of topics to conclude she's done it all.

She could actually fucking read Marx, for a start.

im not even a conservative but

Yes we know there is unfairness in the world. But any “ism” won’t fix it.

Least of all quietism like you display

imagine i vandalize jewish graveyard, put swastikas all over the place and my defense is "man, swastikas were used all around the word through history, they don't just belong to nazi germany, you know?"

This is a bizarre and perhaps manipulative comparison. What is the Jewish graveyard in this context? Because the vandalizing a Jewish graveyard part does a lot to provide context to the action in your hypothetical where you provide no such context for the hammer and sickle's use.

Furthermore, it's a bizarre comparison because most of us are white or Hispanic rather than Indian (being a mostly American website), which means that we generally have no connection to the swastika in its original use but some connection to the Nazi use, whereas the uses of the hammer and sickle by other parties in Europe, Latin America, tbe US, and elsewhere are ones that we could plausibly have actual connections to.

Mind you, I disagree with the equating of the hammer and sickle to the swastika to start with, I think it's a disgusting "both sides"-ing that Nazi sympathizers love to promote. I just also dislike faulty arguments.

"communists are liberals"

The British morons who coined "tankie" were wrong then and their ideological successors are wrong now

I would like to ask you to employ some critical thinking here. Setting aside that the people responding to you have much better English than even a pretty high-level English speaker coming from Mandarin, most of these accounts have months or years of post histories spent almost entirely talking to each other on their previously un-federated instance, including in some cases very harsh arguing, as well as talking about the US on a personal level with intimate detail (and/or whatever other country they say they are from). Do you really believe the most simple answer is that this is all kabuki theater by the CPC to astroturf an obscure collection of websites by wasting a ridiculous amount of resources and the time of highly English-fluent actors? vs just "some people think differently from you"?

If you concede this point, then I would like to ask you to just consider for a moment the implications of the fact that you took the much more absurd and flimsy explanation as though it was just the common-sense explanation. What does that say about the way that you conceptualize the world and what people believe?

The PRC wants a peaceful reunification, which would not be aided by them continuously flying military jets over the island. I, too, would prefer peaceful reunification, which means some level of cooperation and tolerance is necessary.