Propaganda War

[moment]

 

China is fighting a propaganda war. Beijing's plan is to shift all blame from China for the initial botched response concerning the outbreak. 

The communist government is claiming that it has largely controlled the epidemic, even as it suspiciously now blames “foreign arrivals” for new cases of virus. Videos smuggled out from China shows huge lines at a hospital in Chongqing, raising questions about just what is happening around the country.  

What Beijing cares about is clear from its sustained war on global public opinion. Chinese mouthpieces have launched a broad attack against the facts, attempting to rewrite history. Chinese state media is touting the government’s effective governance. The truth is that Beijing dropped the ball early on because of long-standing CCP policy. Chinese officials knew about the new virus back in early December, and did nothing early on except to persecute their true heroes sounding the alarm! 

 

China also has enablers abroad helping to whitewash Beijing’s culpability. The World Health Organization refused for months to declare a pandemic, and instead thanked China for “making us safer,” a comment straight out of an Orwell novel. 

Most egregiously, some Chinese government officials have gone so far as to state that the Wuhan virus was not indigenous to China at all. 

The reality is that China did not tell its own people about the risk for weeks and refused to let in major foreign epidemiological teams, including from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. Thus, the world could not get accurate information and laboratory samples early on. 

 

Because of China’s initial failures, governments around the world, including democratic ones, now are being forced to take extreme actions that mimic many of Beijing’s authoritarian tendencies,. Not least of the changes proposed will be in more invasive, digital surveillance of citizens, (public safety has always been the main venue to curb freedom and we all need to keep that in mind as the world transforms around us), so as to be able to better track and stop the spread of future epidemics, a step that WILL NOT be necessary, yet it will be an argument parroted by most government because, of Beijing's slipshod incompetence. 

Edited March 18, 2020 by moment

[SirPalomides]

No, this is bullshit. This blame China game is just going to get more people killed.

[moment]

6 minutes ago, SirPalomides said:

No, this is bullshit. This blame China game is just going to get more people killed.

 

I disagree.  Not confronting anything that the rest of world may use as an excuse to curb freedoms through 

6 minutes ago, SirPalomides said:

No, this is bullshit. This blame China game is just going to get more people killed.

TOO extreme measures is far more bullshit

Edited March 18, 2020 by moment

[SirPalomides]

A lot of folks still wish China was a dysfunctional warlord state easily stripped of resources and they get furious when it displays competence, leadership, or independence. World’s smallest violin for them. Propaganda war indeed.

[thelerner]

I think Moment's probably right about this.  The Chinese bureaucracy is not known for there.. transparency.  But they're not alone in that.  The scope of this virus is presenting new unknowns and challenges that are daunting.  

 

At this point the blame game get us nowhere.  All we can hope for from now on is the people and numbers are honest.  That governments and medical systems communicate and can figure out the best in a bad situation.  Cause the new paradigm seems to be to treat this as war.  Stopping the spread, saving as many at high risk as we can.  

 

Though even the concept of stopping the spread is not necessarily the best long run policy.   Our hopes may rest in a powerful effective new treatment thru old or new drugs or a (unlikely) a vaccine that comes out lightning fast.

[Walker]

To believe that the covid pandemic did not explode as a result of the mendacity, cruelty, and incompetence (at anything but propaganda, social control, and state violence) endemic to the CCP's style of governance would be supremely naive.

 

To believe the statistics the CCP offers about the spread of covid within its borders, especially with regards provinces other than Hubei, would be supremely naive. 

 

To believe that the WHO is not being unduly influenced by political pressure being exerted by the CCP would be quite naive. The current head's comments have been laughable for months. The Ethiopian government literally outsourced parts of its administration to the Chinese government several years ago. I don't have the time to try and figure out how that affects the WHO's current chair's proclamations; I decided to start taking them with a grain of salt (or, rather, ignoring them) before Wuhanese doctors started dying.

 

To believe that the explosion of covid within US borders is not a result of the mendacity, cruelty, and incompetence endemic to the Trump administration's style of governance would be supremely naive. 

 

These are not questions of blame. Where you point your fingers will not unseat any leaders or disinfect any surfaces.

 

But exercising as much discernment as possible may decrease your chances of throwing in your lots with liars, fools, and monsters, and help you to make wiser decisions about which surfaces need to be disinfected, so to speak.

 

Finally, one may criticize the monstrosity that is the Chinese Communist Party without having any desire to see China return to the dire straits it was in after the Opium Wars. I would love to see a strong, healthy China. What exists now is not a strong healthy China, although hundreds of millions of RMB are spent each year to maintain that illusion.

[GSmaster]

25 minutes ago, Walker said:

I don't have the time to try and figure out how that affects the WHO's current chair's proclamations

 

I have read that China recently donated some millions $$$ to WHO, so it is simple corruption as is in politics.

 

25 minutes ago, Walker said:

I would love to see a strong, healthy China.

 

Global Economic Collapse might be even bigger issue soon than pandemic itself and deal more harm. It is like 2008 but worse.

 

There are three factors

1. Trade wars of everyone vs everyone

2. Oil Wars Russia / Saudi Opec / USA Shale

3. Quarantine lockdowns / stopping economy / massive unemployment

Edited March 19, 2020 by GSmaster

[SirPalomides]

10 hours ago, Walker said:

 

Finally, one may criticize the monstrosity that is the Chinese Communist Party without having any desire to see China return to the dire straits it was in after the Opium Wars. I would love to see a strong, healthy China. What exists now is not a strong healthy China, although hundreds of millions of RMB are spent each year to maintain that illusion.

 

I can't agree there, judging by the hundreds of millions lifted out of poverty and the drastic improvement in life expectancy and standard of living, over the past few decades, readily observable by both PRC citizens and visitors, including staunch PRC critics. And while Mao is rightly condemned for his policies leading to the great famine, what anti-PRC critics consistently fail to note is that it was also the last famine in a country that was having a famine roughly every decade, whether under imperial, republican, or warlord rule. The KMT government ran the country into the ground; only the PRC was capable of lifting it up. Those calling for the overthrow of the CCP are effectively clamoring for China to have the same fate as the former Soviet Union- a balkanized neoliberal hellzone where oligarchs and foreign interests chop up and sell off the infrastructure and strip the resources, life expectancy plummets, and life generally sucks until, if you're lucky, some gangster like Putin stabilizes things. That's what would happen if the idiots in Hong Kong had their way. There is plenty the CCP has gotten wrong but there is no realistic alternative and calling it a monstrosity, ignoring the many things it has gotten right, plays into the hands of the powerful interests in the West who are eager to make China their playground once again.

[moment]

57 minutes ago, SirPalomides said:

 

I can't agree there, judging by the hundreds of millions lifted out of poverty and the drastic improvement in life expectancy and standard of living, over the past few decades, readily observable by both PRC citizens and visitors, including staunch PRC critics. And while Mao is rightly condemned for his policies leading to the great famine, what anti-PRC critics consistently fail to note is that it was also the last famine in a country that was having a famine roughly every decade, whether under imperial, republican, or warlord rule. The KMT government ran the country into the ground; only the PRC was capable of lifting it up. Those calling for the overthrow of the CCP are effectively clamoring for China to have the same fate as the former Soviet Union- a balkanized neoliberal hellzone where oligarchs and foreign interests chop up and sell off the infrastructure and strip the resources, life expectancy plummets, and life generally sucks until, if you're lucky, some gangster like Putin stabilizes things. That's what would happen if the idiots in Hong Kong had their way. There is plenty the CCP has gotten wrong but there is no realistic alternative and calling it a monstrosity, ignoring the many things it has gotten right, plays into the hands of the powerful interests in the West who are eager to make China their playground once again.

 

More surveilance than anywhere else on the planet, social credit score, the Uyghurs' situation. These are all symptoms of an anti-freedom cancer that drains the human spirit. 

There are always realistic alternatives. It is often just very damn hard! Working toward freedom is always messy and can take centuries.  I personally believe it is worth the sacrifice and I believe the CCP's goal is the opposite of freedom. 

The fact that, all through history, miilions of people willingly gave up their lives for freedom, often against overwhelming odds, tell me that the resistance against tyranny, is an intrinsic need of humanity's very essence.  Communism as it has been applied so far in history is evil Bullshit!

A hybrid, of some sort of communism or socialism, that is not a topdown elitism, might be superior to anything else here today. But, the CCP is not that.

Edited March 19, 2020 by moment

[SirPalomides]

21 minutes ago, moment said:

 

More surveilance than anywhere else on the planet, social credit score, the Uyghurs' situation. These are all symptoms of an anti-freedom cancer that drains the human spirit. 

There are always realistic alternatives. It is often just very damn hard! Working toward freedom is always messy and can take centuries.  I personally believe it is worth the sacrifice and I believe the CCP's goal is the opposite of freedom. 

The fact that, all through history, miilions of people willingly gave up their lives for freedom, often against overwhelming odds, tell me that the resistance against tyranny, is an intrinsic need of humanity's very essence.  Communism as it has been applied so far in history is evil Bullshit!

A hybrid, of some sort of communism or socialism, that is not a topdown elitism, might be superior to anything else here today. But, the CCP is not that.

 

"Freedom" in this context is a cynical ideological abstraction and propaganda weapon. When the US invaded Iraq, armed jihadist thugs in Syria, installed paramilitary coup governments in Latin America, what, precisely, did that have to do with "freedom"? Thanks to US "freedom" there are slave markets in Libya for the first time in 50+ years and women in most of Afghanistan can't go to college. In "free" Ukraine the fascists and holocaust deniers are openly in government and naming streets after their Nazi collaborationist heroes. The Darwinian "freedom" found in the USA is not worth fighting or dying for, though unfortunately many have indeed been killed for it. Neoliberalism is freedom only for the ruling class. It is clear that the superficial civil liberties provisionally enjoyed in the US are afforded because the nation is powerful and comfortable enough, and the population is indoctrinated enough, that dissent is effectively marginalized and poses no threat to the ruling class. When it does, this civil liberties have a funny way of evaporating. So instead of this nonsensical ideological abstraction of "freedom" it is better to ask about quality of life and culture, community and mutual aid.

 

It is US imperialism, not socialism, that is fomenting chaos and bloodshed globally and trying again and again to drag the world into barbarism in the service of capital. The weakening and curbing of this imperialism is the top priority for humanity today, and the PRC is the strongest bulwark in that struggle.

 

Regarding Uyghurs, so much of the Western reporting has been revealed to be shameless propaganda that it's hard to know where to start. These two articles do a fine job dissecting it in detail:

 

 https://thegrayzone.com/2019/12/21/china-detaining-millions-uyghurs-problems-claims-us-ngo-researcher/

https://thegrayzone.com/2020/03/05/world-uyghur-congress-us-far-right-regime-change-network-fall-china/

 

While I would be tempted to get into a protracted argument about all this, I don't have the time or energy for it so this will be my last post on this thread.

[moment]

21 minutes ago, SirPalomides said:

 

"Freedom" in this context is a cynical ideological abstraction and propaganda weapon. When the US invaded Iraq, armed jihadist thugs in Syria, installed paramilitary coup governments in Latin America, what, precisely, did that have to do with "freedom"? Thanks to US "freedom" there are slave markets in Libya for the first time in 50+ years and women in most of Afghanistan can't go to college. In "free" Ukraine the fascists and holocaust deniers are openly in government and naming streets after their Nazi collaborationist heroes. The Darwinian "freedom" found in the USA is not worth fighting or dying for, though unfortunately many have indeed been killed for it. Neoliberalism is freedom only for the ruling class. It is clear that the superficial civil liberties provisionally enjoyed in the US are afforded because the nation is powerful and comfortable enough, and the population is indoctrinated enough, that dissent is effectively marginalized and poses no threat to the ruling class. When it does, this civil liberties have a funny way of evaporating. So instead of this nonsensical ideological abstraction of "freedom" it is better to ask about quality of life and culture, community and mutual aid.

 

It is US imperialism, not socialism, that is fomenting chaos and bloodshed globally and trying again and again to drag the world into barbarism in the service of capital. The weakening and curbing of this imperialism is the top priority for humanity today, and the PRC is the strongest bulwark in that struggle.

 

Regarding Uyghurs, so much of the Western reporting has been revealed to be shameless propaganda that it's hard to know where to start. These two articles do a fine job dissecting it in detail:

 

 https://thegrayzone.com/2019/12/21/china-detaining-millions-uyghurs-problems-claims-us-ngo-researcher/

https://thegrayzone.com/2020/03/05/world-uyghur-congress-us-far-right-regime-change-network-fall-china/

 

While I would be tempted to get into a protracted argument about all this, I don't have the time or energy for it so this will be my last post on this thread.

 

I reject your defining MY definition of freedom under any context.  Citing all of those conflicts is a strawman argument so, for the sake of reason, I will not bother further with that.

I agree that imperialism is bad, I will go even further and say that capitalism needs to be a more tempered capitalism/socialism.

 

As for you defending the treatment of the Uyghurs: https://www.yenisafak.com/en/news/muslim-uyghur-survivors-recount-unspeakable-horror-in-chinese-internment-camps-3473216

 

https://www.theepochtimes.com/uyghurs-tortured-and-raped-in-chinas-re-education-camps-former-detainee-reveals_3126427.html

 

https://www.uyghurcongress.org/en/muslim-uyghur-survivors-recount-unspeakable-horror-in-chinese-internment-camps/

 

https://luckboxmagazine.com/topics/sino-muslim-horror/

 

https://campaignforuyghurs.org/a-million-people-are-jailed-at-chinas-gulags-i-managed-to-escape-heres-what-really-goes-on-inside/

 

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2018/05/28/china-uyghur-oppression-new-gulag/

 

I believe that making this your last post is probably in your best interests.

Edited March 19, 2020 by moment

[Walker]

2 hours ago, SirPalomides said:

I can't agree there, judging by the hundreds of millions lifted out of poverty and the drastic improvement in life expectancy and standard of living, over the past few decades, readily observable by both PRC citizens and visitors, including staunch PRC critics.

 

Real health is sustainable. The PRC's way is not. It is rooted in the destruction of the environment, a gigantic real estate bubble, continuing exploitation of China's hundreds of millions of poor despite their improved lots, and pervasive corruption. 

 

It is great that people's life expectancies and standards of material living have improved.

 

But if you think that that is enough to cancel out the word "monstrosity" while 1,000,000+ Uighurs languish in gulags and 0 Uighurs enjoy civil rights... And while 0 Han can get away with criticizing Xi Jinping in even the most scholarly of terms...

 

... Then I suggest you fly a plane to Beijing and experiment directly with the situation there by walking in front of Zhongnanhai with a sign on a picket calling for unfettered religious freedom for Daoists as an experiment.

 

Hell, just go there and register a public Weibo account and start talking about the rights you enjoy in America and asking why Chinese people can't have them.

 

Quote

And while Mao is rightly condemned for his policies leading to the great famine, what anti-PRC critics consistently fail to note is that it was also the last famine in a country that was having a famine roughly every decade, whether under imperial, republican, or warlord rule.

 

Good for them for ending famines, seriously.

 

But...

 

Trains ran on time under Hitler. I have heard that there was a great genteel culture in the antebellum South. 

 

This shit gets mass killers and destroyers of civilizations a pass?

 

Quote

The KMT government ran the country into the ground; only the PRC was capable of lifting it up.

 

The PRC has some real accomplishments under its belt.

 

The country is far from lifted. 

 

All those nice restaurants a tourist can banquet in while marveling at how rich China is now? The opulent massage spa palaces one can go to afterwards? The hotel one can retire to at last, feted and relaxed?

 

The rank and file workers in all of them--from Beijing, Beijing to Buttfuck, Yunbei--mostly live packed in dorms, often literally underground. I have been invited into such grim spaces, which are often enough a short walk from China's empty skyscrapers, which could house 3+ billion. Let the hundreds of millions of menial laborers who fill the dorms try to unionize or collectivize in any way so as to demand, simply, high enough wages to be able to afford to rent their own bedrooms. Jail or worse awaits them.

 

The CCP indeed holds itself responsible for lifting them up, and reserves the right to crush them back down.

 

Quote

Those calling for the overthrow of the CCP are effectively clamoring for China to have the same fate as the former Soviet Union- a balkanized neoliberal hellzone where oligarchs and foreign interests chop up and sell off the infrastructure and strip the resources, life expectancy plummets, and life generally sucks until, if you're lucky, some gangster like Putin stabilizes things.

 

That sounds like CCP talking points. Wait, those are CCP talking points--"it's either the CCP or armageddon, and the evil US/Japan/whoever want us to have armageddon. Dear citizen: choose one." 

 

I agree with Moment that you are erecting too many strawmen in this thread. 

 

Deep reform is possible without collapse. If the CCP merely followed its own constitution, its citizenry would be infinitely better off. 

 

Also, you do not possess a crystal ball.

 

Quote

That's what would happen if the idiots in Hong Kong had their way.

 

I know several front line HK protesters quite well. Most simply want basic civil liberties, human rights, and suffrage. 

 

If anything, I find them overly uninterested in the fate of the CCP and PRC at large.

 

Those in HK who would like the CCP to disappear also happen to reflect the feelings of millions of Chinese, in addition to the hostile  as well as friendly foreign forces which may or may not have other goals.

 

Not all who would like to see the people who brought us the Cultural Revolution, the Tiananmen Square massacre, the destruction of Tibet and Xinjiang, the oppression of Falun Gong, the Let A Hundred Flowers Bloom campaign, and the criminalizing of the Wuhan doctors who attempted to warn the world about covid leave power are attempting to orchestrate some racist, anti-Chinese master plan.

 

Quote

There is plenty the CCP has gotten wrong but there is no realistic alternative

 

You simply aren't qualified to say that.

 

Who knows what could bloom if that country allowed opposition to "the Party." Progress, after all, often starts with constructive criticism.

 

Quote

and calling it a monstrosity, ignoring the many things it has gotten right, plays into the hands of the powerful interests in the West who are eager to make China their playground once again.

 

I call bullshit. There are many in the west and the east who would love to see a China where humans are treated like humans.

 

Saying I can't call the CCP a monstrosity is like saying I can't call the US's carceral state a monstrosity because some prisoners reform, some criminals are kept off the street, some inmates find Jesus, prisons provide tens of thousands of jobs, and there is no alternative.

 

Fuck that.

Edited March 19, 2020 by Walker

[moment]

28 minutes ago, Walker said:

 

Real health is sustainable. The PRC's way is not. It is rooted in the destruction of the environment, a gigantic real estate bubble, continuing exploitation of China's hundreds of millions of poor despite their improved lots, pervasive corruption, and

. 

 

It is great that people's life expectancies and standards of material living have improved.

 

But if you think that that is enough to cancel out the word "monstrosity" while 1,000,000+ Uighurs languish in gulags and 0 Uighurs enjoy civil rights... And while 0 Han can get away with criticizing Xi Jinping in even the most scholarly of terms...

 

... Then I suggest you fly a plane to Beijing and experiment directly with the situation there by walking in front of Zhongnanhai with a sign on a picket calling for unfettered religious freedom for Daoists as an experiment.

 

Hell, just go there and register a public Weibo account and start talking about the rights you enjoy in America and asking why Chinese people can't have them.

 

 

Good for them for ending famines, seriously.

 

But...

 

Trains ran on time under Hitler. I have heard that there was a great genteel culture in the antebellum South. 

 

This shit gets mass killers and destroyers of civilizations a pass?

 

 

The PRC has some real accomplishments under its belt.

 

The country is far from lifted. 

 

All those nice restaurants a tourist can banquet in while marveling at how rich China is now? The opulent massage spa palaces one can go to afterwards? The hotel one can retire to at last, feted and relaxed?

 

The rank and file workers in all of them--from Beijing, Beijing to Buttfuck, Yunbei--mostly live packed in dorms, often literally underground. I have been invited into such grim spaces, which are often enough a short walk from China's empty skyscrapers, which could house 3+ billion. Let the hundreds of millions of menial laborers who fill the dorms try to unionize or collective in any way so as to demand, simply, high enough wages to be able to afford to rent their own bedrooms. Jail or worse awaits them.

 

The CCP indeed holds itself responsible for lifting them up, and reserves the right to crush them back down.

 

 

That sounds like CCP talking points. Wait, those are CCP talking points--"it's either the CCP or armageddon, and the evil US/Japan/whoever want us to have armageddon. Dear citizen: choose one." 

 

I agree with Moment that you are erecting too many strawmen in this thread. 

 

Deep reform is possible without collapse. If the CCP merely followed its own constitution, its citizenry would be infinitely better off. 

 

Also, you do not possess a crystal ball.

 

 

I know several front line HK protesters quite well. Most simply want basic civil liberties, human rights, and suffrage. 

 

If anything, I find them overly uninterested in the fate of the CCP and PRC at large.

 

Those in HK who would like the CCP to disappear also happen to reflect the feelings of millions of Chinese, in addition to the hostile  as well as friendly foreign forces which may or may not have other goals.

 

Not all who would like to see the people who brought us the Cultural Revolution, the Tiananmen Square massacre, the destruction of Tibet and Xinjiang, the oppression of Falun Gong, the Let A Hundred Flowers Bloom campaign, and the criminalizing of the Wuhan doctors who attempted to warn the world about covid leave power are attempting to orchestrate some racist, anti-Chinese master plan.

 

 

You simply aren't qualified to say that.

 

Who knows what could bloom if that country allowed opposition to "the Party." Progress, after all, often starts with constructive criticism.

 

 

I call bullshit. There are many in the west and the east who would love to see a China where humans are treated like humans.

 

Saying I can't call the CCP a monstrosity is like saying I can't call the US's carceral state a monstrosity because some prisoners reform, some criminals are kept off the street, some inmates find Jesus, prisons provide tens of thousands of jobs, and there is no alternative.

 

Fuck that.

 

Sir Palomides is a CCP apologist.  A row that I would never want to hoe!

Edited March 19, 2020 by moment

[GSmaster]

Talking about life standards of living in China the most polluted country in the world?

 

They also have the biggest smoker population on planet and the government does not give a sh*t, quite the opposite it makes billions of $$$ by selling tobacco to its citizens directly.

 

They made alot of money stealing / reverse engineering american and korean tech innovations. It is hardly a merit.

[Walker]

6 hours ago, GSmaster said:

Talking about life standards of living in China the most polluted country in the world?

 

Exactly... Cancer and respiratory illness rates there are through the roof. 

 

There have been famous stories in China in recent years of poor fools "lifting themselves from poverty" and buying iPads by selling kidneys. It's like a metaphor for what the country has done. 

 

6 hours ago, GSmaster said:

They also have the biggest smoker population on planet and the government does not give a sh*t, quite the opposite it makes billions of $$$ by selling tobacco to its citizens directly.

 

Not just selling... There has even been forced smoking!

 

In 2009, the authorities of Gongan County attempted to increase consumption of locally produced cigarettes, by demanding that local officials smoke up to 23,000 packs of Hubei-branded cigarettes per year. This measure was intended to bring much-needed revenue to local enterprise; quotas were issued by county authorities to offices under its jurisdiction, which in turn were fined if they failed to consume the demanded quota of cigarettes, or if they were found purchasing other brands of tobacco products. This decision was reversed after public outcry and coverage by international press.

 

I remember that story, because I was in China when it unfolded, and it was during the brief period of sunlight when the Chinese press started to be able to act like a fourth estate. It was local media that first reported it, and international media that made an uproar that forced the ending of this ridiculous abuse of power. Before it ended, they were inspecting ashtrays placed on all government employees' desks, and disciplining those who did not smoke or smoked cigarettes from other provinces.

 

Xi's suborning of the PRC press in 2017 and the recent expulsion of foreign reporters bode ill for the Chinese people, who in fact have often benefited from the presence of watchful eyes from around the world.

 

Note what province that was in, by the way. A mere 11 years ago. Many of the same fools are still in power there.

 

6 hours ago, GSmaster said:

They made alot of money stealing / reverse engineering american and korean tech innovations. It is hardly a merit.

 

Their Faustian bargain. The CCP wants the fruits of the creativity that can only flourish when there is a relatively free society and an education system whose main purposes are not brainwashing and control.

 

They also want total control over how the fruits of creativity are used.

 

Now they want to promote this "way" around the world.

[Walker]

China is Avoiding Blame by Trolling the World

 

@SirPalomides:

Quote

Of course, Americans will have to be vigilant against scapegoating Asians in general or the Chinese people in particular. With one of the highest infection rates and death tolls, Chinese citizens have suffered enough. The Chinese leadership, however, is another matter. A government is not a race. It’s a regime—and easily one of the worst and most brutal in our lifetime. Criticizing authoritarian regimes for what they do outside their own borders and to their own people is simply calling things as they are. To do otherwise is to forgo analysis and accuracy in the name of assuaging a regime that deserves no such consideration.

 

China Spins Tale that the US Army Started the Coronavirus Epidemic

Edited March 20, 2020 by Walker

[SirPalomides]

33 minutes ago, Walker said:

China is Avoiding Blame by Trolling the World

 

@SirPalomides:

 

China Spins Tale that the US Army Started the Coronavirus Epidemic

 

Some dude from the Brookings Institution, seems legit! 

Hua Chunying had a perfect Li Bai quote for this sort of nonsense:

 

两岸猿声啼不住，轻舟已过万重山 

 

[Walker]

7 minutes ago, SirPalomides said:

两岸猿声啼不住，轻舟已过万重山 

 

Lol, sure, a good quote if you admit that you're one of the monkeys, too.

 

I've got a better quote for you, from the great poet Chino XL:

 

Battling Chino is like Africa

N****z talk about it

But they don't really wanna go there

 

Holler at me after you've lived under the CCP's rule for four or five years. I look forward to hearing you tell me how green that grass still is. 

[Spotless]

It is weird here in the USA

 

I watch the news and when heads of this administration get on the air and talk about what is being done i have no trust what so ever if they are in any way telling the truth. Certainly the Orange Virus - Shithole Trump is completely unreliable as both a pathological liar and consummate con artist.

 

Our secretary of Defense has his nose up the president's ass - complete two face - but does anyone have a choice?

 

Not one Governor can really say the President has been horrible - they know if they do he will take it personally and fuck whatever state he wants - and his base is completely supportive of doing anything against the east and west coasts - what they openly teach students are the Sodom and Gomorrah's of our country.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 20, 2020 by Spotless

[Walker]

1 hour ago, Spotless said:

I watch the news and when heads of this administration get on the air and talk about what is being done i have no trust what so ever if they are in any way telling the truth. Certainly the Orange Virus - Shithole Trump is completely unreliable as both a pathological liar and consummate con artist.

 

That's been clear since the 1980s. It's a matter of common sense not to trust anything that man says. Nothing much has changed since he was inaugurated, except that now he is challenged by a real disaster, and he's surrounded mostly by sycophants, having slowly weeded out the spineful. 

 

1 hour ago, Spotless said:

Our secretary of Defense has his nose up the president's ass - complete two face - but does anyone have a choice?

 

Yes, always.

 

1 hour ago, Spotless said:

Not one Governor can really say the President has been horrible - they know if they do he will take it personally and fuck whatever state he wants - and his base is completely supportive of doing anything against the east and west coasts - what they openly teach students are the Sodom and Gomorrah's of our country.

 

There are many problems. But as the Atlantic article I just linked to reminds--and in the spirit of this post--let us count our blessings and recall what hasn't happened in the US:

• No doctors or journalists have been jailed, disappeared, threatened, or otherwise punished for trying to talk about coronavirus
• No citizen-run online avenues for discussing the virus and problems of society & government at large have been shut down (TDB would have been shut down or gutted long ago in the CCP if it was hosted there and in Chinese; with the coronavirus, all threads like this would have been shut down, and Sean would have been threatened and punished if he did not prevent new ones from opening)
• We have access to information from all manner of formal and informal channels. We are not forced to accept a single official narrative and source of statistics about the virus's progression. We can gather information from a number of academic, journalistic, and public health outlets, and attempt to make our own judgments.

There is no equivalence between a dysfunctional democracy and a totalitarian state. May we all make the best of the advantages we enjoy in order to protect our own health and that of those around us, without succumbing to the craven notion that liberties need be sacrificed for safety. 

[Spotless]

We are not so far away from becoming a Putin state with a slice of burka - the Orange Virus and the Christian inquisitors are at the ready to make ovens - they live in a fox shithole illusion and have gone completely mad - Ralf Reed is just waiting for the signal to press their automation. They are a fully stockpiled powder keg.

 

Its fine to speak of China - it has a whole host of problems - is it better or worse than Saudi Arabia - ?

 

Certainly we here in the USA enjoy many things at this time - so did the Germans before they started gassing fellow humans - the ones they started calling names - because they mimicked their name calling shithole hitler and those industrialists that supported the pea brained sewer mind.

 

You can look elsewhere and say it is worse but don’t divert your eyes - that yellow that is darkening your boots is not rain.

Edited March 20, 2020 by Spotless

[Walker]

Vigilance is good, but your recent posts strike me as bordering on panicky, Spotless. This is a scary time and the US is far from living up to anybody's ideals, but I do not think that talk of legions of Americans champing at the bit to start "making ovens" (if you are referring to the Holocaust) reflects reality.

 

Where I live the nightly news broadcasts about covid have started to play horror movie music in the background, and the people who watch such channels are predictably on-edge. 

 

It might be a good idea to reduce media intake and reconnect with community and nature more, if possible, if the sky seems to be falling.

 

Two other things...

 

Honestly, the question of whether Saudia Arabia or Red State America are better or worse than China is really quite immaterial to the questions of what is wrong with the CCP and its international propaganda initiatives. Arsons and burglaries are both "bad." One does not react to an act of arson by asking, "well, is it really worse than burglary?" 

 

Secondly, the militias you fear are 85% morbidly obese and have bad enough atherosclerosis to make it look like there's Skippy extra chunky lining the walls of their arteries. They can't live without their Netflix and cell phone service, which happen to be brought to them by nerdy coastal "elites." Just put nails on the roads. After their tires burst,  they're not gonna get out of their minivans to chase you. They'll stay in their cars bitching into their cameras for YouTube, chugging energy drinks, and polishing the phallic symbols that stand in for the flaccid little penii that dangle somewhere behind their fupas... 

[moment]

1 hour ago, Walker said:

Vigilance is good, but your recent posts strike me as bordering on panicky, Spotless. This is a scary time and the US is far from living up to anybody's ideals, but I do not think that talk of legions of Americans champing at the bit to start "making ovens" (if you are referring to the Holocaust) reflects reality.

 

Where I live the nightly news broadcasts about covid have started to play horror movie music in the background, and the people who watch such channels are predictably on-edge. 

 

It might be a good idea to reduce media intake and reconnect with community and nature more, if possible, if the sky seems to be falling.

 

Two other things...

 

Honestly, the question of whether Saudia Arabia or Red State America are better or worse than China is really quite immaterial to the questions of what is wrong with the CCP and its international propaganda initiatives. Arsons and burglaries are both "bad." One does not react to an act of arson by asking, "well, is it really worse than burglary?" 

 

Secondly, the militias you fear are 85% morbidly obese and have bad enough atherosclerosis to make it look like there's Skippy extra chunky lining the walls of their arteries. They can't live without their Netflix and cell phone service, which happen to be brought to them by nerdy coastal "elites." Just put nails on the roads. After their tires burst,  they're not gonna get out of their minivans to chase you. They'll stay in their cars bitching into their cameras for YouTube, chugging energy drinks, and polishing the phallic symbols that stand in for the flaccid little penii that dangle somewhere behind their fupas... 

 

Horror music in the background of health anouncements, Holy Crap!  That is beyond wrong! But, weird manipulations of all kinds, do seem to be more plentiful lately.

Edited March 20, 2020 by moment

[Walker]

15 hours ago, moment said:

 

Horror music in the background of health anouncements, Holy Crap!  That is beyond wrong! But, weird manipulations of all kinds, do seem to be more plentiful lately.

 

I hate to say it, but the channel I saw doing this is called 中天. It is well-known to be under the influence of the CCP, and it serves to spread a pro-Beijing message in Taiwan. It actively seeks to undermine faith in the Taiwanese government and economy while either gushing about how wonderful the PRC is, or simply ignoring important stories about what is going on in China (unless that story happens to be "Compassionate Uncle Xi did something glorious"). 

 

The evening broadcast I was referring to was blaring in a restaurant three nights ago (中天 pays owners of small eateries to install their TVs on the walls, and cuts off payment if the channel is changed), cycling through panic-inducing "Europe and North America are collapsing" stories with horror movie music in the background. 

 

Luckily, although the CCP throws unimaginable amounts of money into projects like this, they are not very effective in Taiwan, where a solid majority of the population can see that 中天 and other compromised media outlets are crap. The image I uploaded comes from a 2019 anti-CCP-propaganda rally in downtown Taipei last summer. It was very well attended  (And I doubt everybody was there because the CIA or the Brookings Inst gave them five bucks and a sandwich, or because they wish for a return to the Opium Wars... )

 

Edited March 21, 2020 by Walker

[moment]

The current seriousness of the Covid-19 pandemic is largely the fault of the CCP. And its eruption into global pandemic is inseparable from the nature of that regime. Had the authorities in that country intervened early to contain the fresh strain of COVID-19, there would likely have been 90%+ fewer cases.. Instead, China’s one-party state created the conditions for the spread of the virus. Early on, it suppressed information and punished those who shared it.

In December, Li Wenliang, a 33-year-old medical worker in Wuhan, the site of the outbreak, told his friends on a private online chat group that patients exhibiting symptoms much like SARS—severe acute respiratory syndrome—were in quarantine at the city’s central hospital where Li worked. The upshot of that concealment was 774 fatalities at home and abroad. Li warned his friends—all of them doctors—to be careful. China's internet police intercepted the exchange. And three days later, Li was berated by his bosses, accused by the police of “making false comments” and coerced into signing a statement expressing contrition for disturbing “social order”.

After forcing Li to return to work, where the young doctor immediately contracted the virus, the local apparatchiks of the Communist Party of China ordered labs to stop testing and destroy the existing samples and proceeded with a potluck banquet for 40,000 families in a precinct of Wuhan. As patients proliferated, Taiwan notified the World Health Organisation before the end of December that the virus spread from human-to-human. But rather than ring the alarm bells, as late as 14 January, WHO was parroting Beijing’s line that there was “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission”. The genome of the virus, mapped as early as 2 January, was withheld from the world for a week. Information that might have averted a global catastrophe was studiously suppressed. And by the time President Xi Jinping properly acknowledged the crisis, on 20 January, three people had died. That number rose to above 200 by the end of the month. Li died in early February.

In its' inevitable outward march, the virus claimed lives beyond China’s borders, the CPC mounted a major public relations exercise that exploited common human decencies to evade accountability. Criticism of the Chinese government was equated with racist prejudice against ordinary Chinese people. Rather than confront China, social irresponsibilities was catered to by China. In February, the Mayor of Florence encouraged Italians to “hug a Chinese”, describing it as a “fight of solidarity and unity against the virus”. The People’s Daily, a mouthpiece of the CPC, applauded young Italians advertising their virtuousness on the Internet with photos of themselves hugging Chinese tourists without mentioning a word about the mortal perils of human contact.

 

Edited March 25, 2020 by moment