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26th December 2020, 12:14 AM | #41 |
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Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay - and claims a halo for his dishonesty. Robert Heinlein. |
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26th December 2020, 01:55 AM | #42 |
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The point of equilibrium has passed; satire and current events are now indistinguishable. |
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26th December 2020, 01:56 AM | #43 |
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The point of equilibrium has passed; satire and current events are now indistinguishable. |
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26th December 2020, 02:09 AM | #44 |
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This is exactly what I'm getting at. Thank you.
I'd thought the "there be dragons" mentality had died out. The media reporting sensationalism, and governments giving their travel warnings & advice make other countries sound much higher-risk than actual one-in-a-million chance of, say, terrorism. |
26th December 2020, 02:12 AM | #45 |
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26th December 2020, 02:28 AM | #46 |
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Suit yourself. I understand this thread as a place to share facts. Both the oppressiveness of the Chinese government and the unprecedented economical progress during the last several decades are facts.
I think a considerable portion of the Chinse population would like a more democratic system (even if many don't really know that that entails), but I don't think they would like to do without the vastly improved economy. Ideally, China would gradually move towards democracy, but that won't happen overnight. In fact it can't. Democracy is a slow process. Hans |
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26th December 2020, 05:18 AM | #47 |
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The was an interesting broadcast from the BBC.
Two points key they made were that having seen what happened to communist states of Yugoslavia and USSR the Chinese communist party is opposed to autonomy and following a policy of developing a single linguistic and cultural identity. That the main policy is not China first but the Chinese communist party first, most policy is directed to maintaining control and the future of the communist party. There is no ethical element other than the dominance of the party. BBC world service broadcasts are interesting because they utilise e.g. Chinese journalists and academics, who express Chinese views. The views are not comfortable, whilst I do not see China being a hot war military threat to the west, I think they are a cold war threat, the best long term position is a weak and dependant west, a successful west is always an ideological threat. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w172x19fnvk5p46 |
26th December 2020, 06:45 AM | #48 |
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They have, actually: Tibet flag case (Wikipedia)
I don't know about other European countries. |
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/dann "Stupidity renders itself invisible by assuming very large proportions. Completely unreasonable claims are irrefutable. Ni-en-leh pointed out that a philosopher might get into trouble by claiming that two times two makes five, but he does not risk much by claiming that two times two makes shoe polish." B. Brecht "The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions." K. Marx |
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26th December 2020, 06:56 AM | #49 |
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Have they given an update on how the withering of the state is going?
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26th December 2020, 12:09 PM | #50 |
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Disliking China is hardly something that's exceptional for the USA compared with other western countries:
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2...any-countries/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/w...China_0-05.png Note that Sweden is up there with countries like South Korea and Japan for a very good reason: https://www.economist.com/europe/202...inese-bullying |
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We would be a lot safer if the Government would take its money out of science and put it into astrology and the reading of palms. Only in superstition is there hope. - Kurt Vonnegut Jr And no, Cuba is not a brutal and corrupt dictatorship, and it's definitely less so than Sweden. - dann |
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26th December 2020, 12:41 PM | #51 |
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The point of equilibrium has passed; satire and current events are now indistinguishable. |
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26th December 2020, 02:27 PM | #52 |
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Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay - and claims a halo for his dishonesty. Robert Heinlein. |
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26th December 2020, 02:28 PM | #53 |
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I see XI is finding "Useful Idiots" in the west.
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Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay - and claims a halo for his dishonesty. Robert Heinlein. |
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26th December 2020, 02:39 PM | #54 |
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26th December 2020, 03:03 PM | #55 |
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You added nothing to that conversation, Barbara. |
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26th December 2020, 03:53 PM | #56 |
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26th December 2020, 04:06 PM | #57 |
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26th December 2020, 05:01 PM | #58 |
a flimsy character...perfidious and despised
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I'm not afraid of China unless I happen to drop a piece and it shatters while I'm walking around barefoot.
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Being the victim of genocidal atrocities does not give you free reign to commit your own genocidal atrocities. When Republican politicians were young, they were the kids who watched James Bond movies and said "I want to grow up to be just like [insert name of villain here]." |
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26th December 2020, 06:38 PM | #59 |
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Did you know that China is using forced labor from an ethnic minority to pick cotton?
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/sho...urs-into-labor |
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26th December 2020, 06:39 PM | #60 |
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Ideally in whose minds?
Certainly not China's. Xi is making sure they stay as far from it as possible, and when you have people buying into the idea of social credit, alongside face-recognition technology taken to insane extremes, I don't see how it's going to be possible. They're a great study in how to control a population. It's also quite sad that instead of building on progressive policies they choose to do the opposite. It seems to me they could have the best of both worlds, but have decided instead to embody Lord Acton's axioms. |
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26th December 2020, 07:25 PM | #61 |
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26th December 2020, 08:40 PM | #62 |
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Building concentration camps to imprison millions of ethnic minorities, where they are indoctrinated in political propaganda and forced to work for free, is perfectly acceptable because they are getting poor developing countries to pay for railways in the middle of nowhere and infrastructure they can't afford.
The Chinese are so benevolent and self-less I just don't know how one can find them objectionable. |
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We would be a lot safer if the Government would take its money out of science and put it into astrology and the reading of palms. Only in superstition is there hope. - Kurt Vonnegut Jr And no, Cuba is not a brutal and corrupt dictatorship, and it's definitely less so than Sweden. - dann |
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26th December 2020, 09:31 PM | #63 |
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26th December 2020, 09:36 PM | #64 |
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I have seen reports of that and find it concerning.
It's like Australia and its current policy of directing refugees and also backpackers detained by COVID-19 restrictions into fruitpicking. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-...demic/12821900 |
26th December 2020, 09:37 PM | #65 |
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26th December 2020, 09:42 PM | #66 |
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26th December 2020, 09:44 PM | #67 |
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27th December 2020, 02:04 AM | #68 |
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Experience is an excellent teacher, but she sends large bills. |
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27th December 2020, 02:07 AM | #69 |
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Experience is an excellent teacher, but she sends large bills. |
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27th December 2020, 02:19 AM | #70 |
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just because China threatens the status quo doesn't mean it is an aggressor - even if it feels like that for those countries who are comparatively diminished.
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27th December 2020, 02:56 AM | #71 |
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27th December 2020, 03:03 AM | #72 |
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agreed.
ever since the world was colonized, powerful country have seen their neighbors as potential agents of other powerful countries, and justified aggression against a smaller opponent as defense against the bigger one hiding behind the proxy. I think China is so aggressive against Taiwan, Tibet and Japan because it sees them as tools of the US; it would be more relaxed if it considered them their own agent. But there is nothing that can be done to convince them that they. |
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27th December 2020, 07:22 AM | #73 |
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Not everything is about the US. China sees Tibet and Taiwan as parts of itself because for centuries they were. As for Japan, China hasn't forgiven them for their own imperialist war of conquest they actually did, there's no need to chalk up the animosity to a hypothetical future war of US imperialism there.
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You added nothing to that conversation, Barbara. |
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27th December 2020, 07:46 AM | #74 |
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Experience is an excellent teacher, but she sends large bills. |
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27th December 2020, 10:27 AM | #75 |
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Something else about China that really pisses me off - people calling them "left wing" or even worse, "Communist".
The latter is demonstrable simply by the existence of the Shanghai Bourse, while the idea that they're left of Genghis Khan is simply fantasy. China is a totalitarian capitalist regime, which is possibly what angers some Americans so much about them. They're occupying the same ground that those Americans think they own, and they don't like it. A good example is the Chinese moves in the SC Sea. USA sails warships through it constantly to assert their right to do what the hell they like and threaten China, yet I recall that when a certain Caribbean nation tried to put some missiles on USA's doorstep, America threatened nuclear war if they didn't get taken away. How would USA react if China or Russia regularly sailed around the Gulf of Mexico? We don't even need to ask that question, because it's been answered by the furore some years back that even the possibility of Russian subs caused: 1 2 We need to attack China for its human rights abuses - and the animal abuses - not their political leaning. |
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27th December 2020, 12:39 PM | #76 |
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But it's just to cure them of laziness...I actually heard a Chinese government official make this statement in a BBC story.
China no dobut has it's own version of the GULAG in operation. But you can't make an omellter with breaking a few eggs..one of the statements made by Uncle Joe's fanboys when his brutal regime was criticised. |
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Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay - and claims a halo for his dishonesty. Robert Heinlein. |
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27th December 2020, 12:41 PM | #77 |
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Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay - and claims a halo for his dishonesty. Robert Heinlein. |
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27th December 2020, 12:41 PM | #78 |
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Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay - and claims a halo for his dishonesty. Robert Heinlein. |
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27th December 2020, 01:25 PM | #79 |
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27th December 2020, 02:43 PM | #80 |
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