You all know I don't exactly have in depth knowledge of foreign affairs. I haven't understood the defence of China but now I have come to understand, I think, that the point isn't to defend China but rather to say we are in no position to condemn them nor to assume they don't have the support of their people.
I do think I have been gullible in reading the stories of students being used for propaganda and swallowing them whole, without any question. I know the media is full of propaganda and lies by omission.
This is also a really good post. Most people can't admit a) they don't have an extensive knowledge about geopolitics b) what they do know about most other countries is almost completely from the perspective of the agenda that is propagated by their own state and corporate media. That openness can really make one's analysis much more interesting.
I also agree that the important principle is that we are not in a position to be exerting our moral authority over the rest of the world especially when it is so obviously used as a cover for war, sanctions, and arms dealing.
The human rights 'champions' on here will say they oppose equally regimes that are pro-US like Saudi Arabia, Israel and Colombia as much as they do US enemies like Iran, Venezuela, China, Belarus, ect. But that 'balance' is ridiculous if you look at what their opposition can actually accomplish. They are citizens of a country (or of the client-state of that country) which sends vast quanities of cash and arms to the first group of countries. Changing that would be extremely powerful leverage to get these countries to stop committing atrocities. What leverage do we have with the second group of countries? The leverage that cco outlined in post #50-sanctions, bombs, arming groups and destabilizing whole regions. We've seen this play out again and again and no one's humans rights are improved but average life expectancy rates plummet. So why would anyone thnk these should be equally opposed when what can be accomplished is as different as night and day? It's only equal if being called a 'tankie' is as important a consideration as people in another country getting starved and bombed.