There is certainly a Cultural Revolution going on in this country, especially in the Universities.
I agree.....getting fired by a private company for an opinion verses being killed for not liking “Mao” are not even close.
Ai Weiwei (Chinese: 艾未未; pinyin: Ài Wèiwèi, English pronunciation: (help·info); born 28 August 1957) is a Chinese contemporary artist, documentarian, and activist. Ai grew up in the far northwest of China, where he lived under harsh conditions due to his father’s exile.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ai_Weiwei
Mao died in 76 when Weiwei was 19.
He’s conflating the censorship by private actors with the censorship by the government.
Although the US has some of the latter too, when the government worked with the major social media corporations to sensor individuals.
He was born in 1957. He himself was there and lived through it. Moreover, his father, who was a pre-1949 communist party member, was declared a dissident and "counter-revolutionary," and was exiled during Mao's years, when he spoke out against Mao's excesses.
So he's hardly "ignorant" of what went on. You may not like him, but he's speaking from experience people on FR will never have.
It isn’t ignorance, FRiend.
This is deliberate.
Weiwei is overseen by the CCP. This comment does not show up anywhere unless it has been vetted by the CCP, and it is not only vetted, it is deliberately contrived to make people outside of China think there is freedom of expression there.
There isn’t. This comment was made for a specific CCP approved propaganda reason.
It could be true.
I got warned and put on restrictions on FB during the covid days because I dared present alternative theories that the virus might have been lab leaked or even GE. The great James Watson, of DNA fame, got fired at Cold harbor U because he dared speculate that race and IQ might he connected. Many other examples.
Actually why I’m here now. I started thinking if of other more conservative sites and remembered FR that I used to frequent back around 99-2000.
No, it isn’t. The West, especially the US is really censorious. It is just carried out in different ways and by different people.
There is hardly an issue where the PRC or Russia are not more righteous and more free than the US.
Though he exaggerates, he makes a good point. Ai Is a good man.
Yes. The cancel culture here is execrable.
But if this artist did not protest the regular and repeated cancellation of mainstream American opinions by the radical left for the past decade, he has no credibility.
So he can stew in the cesspool he helped create by his silence. I hope he loses his gallery and goes bankrupt.
Ai Ku Ku can be his new name.
There is a Cultural Marxism going on in many of our universities and in lthe eft-wing media narrative. And in that effort there are quite some censorship going on. It’s unfortunate.
However, Mao’s rule of terror evidently was FAR worse. You would be killed or tortured to death if you didn’t repeat the official narrative.
There is censorship in every country today, to a certain degree.
In Russia, people are not allowed to protest.
Political opponents are all either assassinated or thrown into political prison camps in Siberia.
Only Kremlin-approved “news-outlets” and TV stations are allowed to operate. Zero competition.
A russian citizen pushing for peace between Ukraine and Russia will be sent to prison. He will be considered as a “Foreign Agent”!
Not only Freedom of speech has been abolished in Russia, but freedom of assembly as well.
Thus we have certain level of censorship in the West, yes. But compared to what’s happening right now in Russia, we are very lucky.
This map says it all:
https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Screen-Shot-2020-02-09-at-9.52.05-PM.png
