In debate with a fervently liberal friend, the concept of sources will inevitably come up. I haven’t had the displeasure of having to argue about China being socialist or the USSR not being literal Hell on earth with my friends yet, but I can tell that things are getting to a boiling point where their takes will inevitably come into conflict with mine. He is already made claims about ‘China colonizing Africa’ and that ‘Mongolia should be in NATO because it is afraid of China’ and of course Xinjiang and Tiananmen Square propaganda.
Of course, when the liberal says ‘sources,’ they don’t mean theory or logic or any of that nonsense. The liberal doesn’t need those things on account of their politics being based on vibes. No, the liberal wants trustworthy, unbiased sources. If I link China Daily News, it’s of course gonna be a propaganda outlet with no actual evidence behind it. If I link AP, Reuters, or ABC, it’s of course unbiased reporting that may have fell through once or twice, but is generally trustworthy. Their journalists are bought, paid for, natural liars, whereas our journalists are upstanding pillars of truth. The CIA may buy a few here and there, and even admit to it (Operation Mockingbird) but of course not all of them are lying, that’d be ridiculous!
Essentially, I’m asking for sources that support the Marxist-Leninist outlook of the world that would look good for a liberal, someone who normally looks for Amnesty International, or the UN, or NATO for citations. They don’t have to be explicitly ML, and honestly it’s better if they aren’t, but I’d just need some trustworthy sources on something like disproving the Uyghur Genocide myth or something showing that Stalin wasn’t Hitler².
To give you an idea of how bad he is, I mentioned to him that the CIA released a document claiming they found no evidence of voter fraud in Maduro’s election and he:
- Laughed and said: “Yeah there was no election fraud, like there’s no election fraud in North Korea.” Implying that the people were somehow too scared to vote against Maduro but weren’t otherwise coerced or frauded, and no evidence of that was found.
- Immediately started huffing the largest cloud of copium he could find by blaming it on the token American liberal scapegoat: “Wait, who made that claim? Was it Trump? I thought the US has hated Maduro for a long time.”
Of course I understand that predominant Western propaganda outlets will not have pro-China or pro-USSR information on them. I’m not expecting Reuters to have published an article on why China is socialist and there is no Uyghur genocide, I just need something that would pass the smell test to a liberal. It can be number data on Africa-China economic relations, global poverty data, climate data, or reported information about certain events that appear to counter the Western narrative. A good example of this is Fitzpatrick’s The Shortest History of the Soviet Union, as she is a liberal historian but delivers a predominantly unbiased history of the USSR in the perspective of the time. Thank you all in advance!
If your liberal friend is a well-natured debater who engages with things in good-faith, then what everyone has laid out for you in this thread is gold. If they’re the kind of person who doesn’t take what they learn, investigates further, hears accounts from people from China (while treating them as people, and not as drones devoid of any agency), and comes to a reasonable conclusion by their own efforts, whether it upends their entire worldview or not, then I dunno how else you’ll convince them. Well, unless you’ve got a really sharp mind, memory, and tongue, then absorb as much knowledge as you can as you should have no problems.
I would focus on pointing out the illegitimacy and blatant fabrication of the accountings coming from fascists and religious zealots and how all Western media sources this “information” uncritically. Have them follow the leads on their own. They have to be the one to investigate and experience for themselves. Most individualists will only learn if it’s something they learn on their own, not if someone else is trying to “one up them” and “force” upon them, as folks tend to let their egos drive when they’re in debates.
It takes a lot of self-less effort and struggle against one’s own selfish tendencies if one wants to learn. One has to be okay with being wrong. And in your case, is it really that difficult for your friend to respect you and to trust in your guidance instead of outright dismissing your claims? I no longer have any close, personal friends in life, but when I did, when we would have some pretty heavy discussions and debates or such, we’d generally give each other some leeway, as we’d come to respect and care for one another and found that if one of us made a pretty impassioned case for one thing or another, we’d dedicate some effort to at least try to understand things a bit more–to “hear them out”, so to speak.