YouTube, of course, if the ‘truth’ be told, means absolutely nothing as a title in the UK. In fact to us Brits, it sounds like an individual is somehow associated with a ‘tube’ or ‘cylinder’, made of metal, cardboard, polystyrene, etc, or even those old barrels those of us over 40 used to be rolled in, during playtime at school. The point is, a British version of YouTube would probably be called something like ‘Personal-TV’, or ‘Your-Video’, or something similar. As a platform for uploading and sharing videos, YouTube is useful, and this explains why the Brits put-up with its meaningless title. What YouTube also does, is allow anyone – right, left and centre – to make videos expressing personal (and often bias opinions) as objective ‘facts’. This lack of common-sense and ‘quality control’ stems from the US lunacy of ‘freedom of speech’, whereby any racist, sexist, rightwing, poorly educated, mistakenly educated and misinformed ‘moron’ can express an opinion as if all opinions are of equal worth. Freedom of speech is a dangerous fallacy that dumbs-down entire societies by reducing the common level of understanding to the outpourings of those uninformed individuals that shout the loudest. This is why the UK does not possess ‘freedom of speech’ (except in Parliament, where such expression is very carefully regulated through a highly polite and controlled convention of speech), but does possesses ‘freedom of expression’, which is legally entwined with ‘responsibility of speech’. The British method is better because it requires education and discipline throughout society for it to operate. The US system only favours the rich and powerful who want to say and do whatever they which, to whomever they which, whenever they which to do it, with no legal impediment. As matters stand, YouTube allows racist rhetoric, both subtle and overt, within many of its videos, only taking down those that attract enough negative press, but generally taking no action. As YouTube is now owned by Google, it is busy re-asserting the opaque and semi-legal notion of ‘copyright’, and generally oppressing some of its most creative users (such as BasedShaman). However, the anti-Socialist and anti-Communist presence on YouTube is obvious with its videos of ‘pseudo-history’ and Cold War disinformation, as is its Eurocentric racist mythology that depicts Chinese and Korean people as dog-eating devil-worshippers that ‘pretend’ to be Communists (this criticism is only aimed at North Korea – where dogs are not eaten – but never at ‘capitalist’ South Korea, where dogs are routinely consumed) . Two of these Eurocentric racist myths involve ‘Yulin Dog Festival’ in China (which was outlawed long ago), and the equally racist myth of ‘organ harvesting’ from poor Asian countries (but generally levelled at China). Both of these racist myths appeared recently in a ‘fact’ video uploaded by ‘List25‘, but can be found elsewhere amongst many other ‘false facts’ presented as ‘true’. Ironically, so distorted and powerful is this Eurocentric (racist) myth-making, that ‘List25’ actually believes these ‘lies’ to be ‘true’ and presents them as such – thus introducing a whole new generation to the Eurocentric (racist) mythology toward China. Under Marxist-Leninist-Maoism, the Chinese people have thrown-off the highly exploitative Western imperialism that made them starve, and in recognition of the fact that China has ‘boomed’ under Communism, the government of China ‘outlawed’ mistreating or eating cats and dogs decades ago, simply because there is no need to eat them. China is now affluent, and in a relatively short space of time, has moved way beyond the ‘capitalist’ United States. This explains in-part, the ignorance encouraged in the US about Communism in general, and genuine Chinese culture inparticular. My advise is to ‘fact check’, but also be careful where you ‘fact check’. Just because racist myths about China have a certain currency within the Eurocentric (racist) narrative about China, does not make these ideas ‘true’ in and of themselves. This equally true of those who repeatedly ‘trumpet’ ignorance as fact on YouTube. In China, life goes on as usual, and when people can be bothered to look at this Eurocentric stupidity, it just confirms their already low-opinion about life within a capitalist system.
THE SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 