Current Events > Britain once went to war with China coz they banned their Opium trade.

(+) Yeah! (+)

There's still some people out there who do British Empire apologism and make arguments like "But it was for benevolent reasons to bring civilization! They built railroads!" but then ignore stuff like this. Britain literally made almost the entire country of China addicted to Opium because it was profitable.

How people can still support the monarchy in my country just boggles my mind.

Can we blame them for the US growing so much tobacco as well back when it was still colonies? They made Americans smoke and Chinese addicted to opium.

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daddychomsky posted...

There's still some people out there who do British Empire apologism and make arguments like "But it was for benevolent reasons to bring civilization! They built railroads!" but then ignore stuff like this. Britain literally made almost the entire country of China addicted to Opium because it was profitable.

How people can still support the monarchy in my country just boggles my mind.

and now China makes us addicted to cheap shit they produce at sweatshops that violate human rights while they accumulate capital to overtake us and become the next global empire


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WrkHrdPlayHrdr posted...

Can we blame them for the US growing so much tobacco as well back when it was still colonies? They made Americans smoke and Chinese addicted to opium.

honestly the brits are to blame for everything.

Can you imagine a world without Britain? https://i.pinimg.com/564x/ba/0e/30/ba0e3004cba0414bb423a3c02d535fa0.jpg

SPE posted...

and now China makes us addicted to cheap shit they produce at sweatshops that violate human rights while they accumulate capital to overtake us and become the next global empire

There's a new documentary series by Adam Curtis that actually frames this interestingly! It talks about China's vast undercutting of industry through their cheap products as a kind of vengeful Opium War

daddychomsky posted...

Can you imagine a world without Britain?

Yeah and it's a lot worse.

Two things can be true at the same time.

Broseph_Stalin posted...

Yeah and it's a lot worse.

Two things can be true at the same time.

I was mostly joking. Britain wasnt the only colonialist superpower who fucked up the world even if they were the biggest.

The effects of the Berlin Conference and the artificial drawing of borders in the Congo are still felt to this day

daddychomsky posted...

There's a new documentary series by Adam Curtis that actually frames this interestingly! It talks about China's vast undercutting of industry through their cheap products as a kind of vengeful Opium War

Id love to see it. Please let me know if you remember its name :)


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SPE posted...

Id love to see it. Please let me know if you remember its name :)

It's called Can't Get You Out Of My Head.

It has amazing editing and is quite intense. Its on BBC iPlayer but im sure its available elsewhere :)

daddychomsky posted...

I was mostly joking. Britain wasnt the only colonialist superpower who fucked up the world even if they were the biggest.

The effects of the Berlin Conference and the artificial drawing of borders in the Congo are still felt to this day

isnt the entire Middle East such a clusterfuck because the U.K. drew the borders too?


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SPE posted...

isnt the entire Middle East such a clusterfuck because the U.K. drew the borders too?

I'm not sure about the borders thing but there's a LOT of meddling the UK has done.

In the early 20th century after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, in Iraq Britain essentially got rid of the former governments because they saw them as corrupt and replaced them with tribal leaders that they saw as being more legit rulers or something based on a sort of romanticist view of the world that wasnt rooted in the actual complex history of that area.