https://apnews.com/4ab0b341a4ec4e648423f2ec47ea5c47
with this becoming public, i think its clear that china has crossed the murky line that separates authoritarianism from totalitarianism.
the difference is between a soviet-style government control of citizen behavior, and an orwellian dystopia of government control of citizen thought. whats happening now is a repeat of ghe cultural revolution of th he 1960s, with the difference being that back then it was run by mao seeking power through chaos, and now its being run by shi jenping seeking power through organization.
i think this augers poorly for the next hundred years. i think china predicts the world of the next century, and im not liking it much.
China's harsh treatment of the Uighur minority has been noted by international civil rights organizations for several years, but this is the most detailed description I've read. "[T]he powerful fist of the People's Democratic Dictatorship" indeed.
They steal our intellectual property. They spy on us constantly. They oppress their own. They occupy other countries. They are Communists. They try to take over entire areas of the sea. Remind me what there is to like about them?
they are a wonderful people, with perhapz the richest culture on the planet.
yet for thousands of years they have chosen oppressive governments. modern china is no different from imperial china in governance
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on November 25, 2019, 03:11:26 PM
They steal our intellectual property. They spy on us constantly. They oppress their own. They occupy other countries.....
Which nation are you talking about...??!
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on November 25, 2019, 03:11:26 PM
Remind me what there is to like about them?
!
Quote from: Siz on November 25, 2019, 05:28:20 PM
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on November 25, 2019, 03:11:26 PM
They steal our intellectual property. They spy on us constantly. They oppress their own. They occupy other countries.....
Which nation are you talking about...??!
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on November 25, 2019, 03:11:26 PM
Remind me what there is to like about them?
!
Wales.
Quote from: Siz on November 25, 2019, 05:28:20 PM
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on November 25, 2019, 03:11:26 PM
They steal our intellectual property. They spy on us constantly. They oppress their own. They occupy other countries.....
Which nation are you talking about...??!
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on November 25, 2019, 03:11:26 PM
Remind me what there is to like about them?
!
Beat me to it! Heh
Quote from: xSilverPhinx on November 25, 2019, 07:31:10 PM
Quote from: Siz on November 25, 2019, 05:28:20 PM
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on November 25, 2019, 03:11:26 PM
They steal our intellectual property. They spy on us constantly. They oppress their own. They occupy other countries.....
Which nation are you talking about...??!
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on November 25, 2019, 03:11:26 PM
Remind me what there is to like about them?
!
Beat me to it! Heh
I think Bruce does have a fair enough point though. At least as far as addressing country as a whole.
I don't have to like other countries who do a lot of shady shit just because my country also does or did shady shit. I oppose that in my own country.
Do I have to like China in spite of their treatment of Uighurs because America has done pretty close to the same thing in the past? I can understand not being on a high horse and being understanding, but until things change, I can't bring myself to like the country.
Otherwise it sounds like someone saying, "you can't dislike this country because your country's no angel." That doesn't sound reasonable at all. There is utility in judgement.
As for the people, I suppose they're like any other group, mixed with good, bad, and in between.
Quote from: Davin on November 25, 2019, 08:03:59 PM
Quote from: xSilverPhinx on November 25, 2019, 07:31:10 PM
Quote from: Siz on November 25, 2019, 05:28:20 PM
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on November 25, 2019, 03:11:26 PM
They steal our intellectual property. They spy on us constantly. They oppress their own. They occupy other countries.....
Which nation are you talking about...??!
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on November 25, 2019, 03:11:26 PM
Remind me what there is to like about them?
!
Beat me to it! Heh
I think Bruce does have a fair enough point though. At least as far as addressing country as a whole.
I don't have to like other countries who do a lot of shady shit just because my country also does or did shady shit. I oppose that in my own country.
Do I have to like China in spite of their treatment of Uighurs because America has done pretty close to the same thing in the past? I can understand not being on a high horse and being understanding, but until things change, I can't bring myself to like the country.
Otherwise it sounds like someone saying, "you can't dislike this country because your country's no angel." That doesn't sound reasonable at all. There is utility in judgement.
As for the people, I suppose they're like any other group, mixed with good, bad, and in between.
The way I see it, there are two levels here. You as an
individual can dislike the country, and for good reason. I'm not disagreeing with you that China has done and does some really shady stuff, such as practically all if not virtually all countries.
As a
nation it would be hypocritical IMO to point out flaws in another country's foreign policy, for instance. Someone from the US talking about another country's aggressive foreign policy causes my eyebrow to raise, just a little bit, for obvious reasons I won't get into here.
Going back to Bruce's quote:
QuoteThey steal our intellectual property. They spy on us constantly. They oppress their own. They occupy other countries. They are Communists. They try to take over entire areas of the sea. ...
'They', 'our' and 'us'... sounds like nation and not individual talk, which is why I jumped in. Bruce is, in a way, representing the US in the way he said it (our' and 'us').
I hope I've made my point of view clear. Maybe I'm just being overly pedantic. :shrug:
I'll own my post - I have no problem asserting that the United States, with all its sins and faults, represents a better hope for humanity than China or Russia. We will get past Trump, just like we got past slavery and a host of other problems. But the issue is whether you want the superpower of the world to be democratic or totalitarian. That is the geopolitical reality with which we are faced. The UK has issues and Brazil has issues. But they are democratic. That is a giant difference. Both of them, like the US, are having a bit of crisis in their democracies now. But they will come through it. China is not showing much of a tendency to move toward actual democracy, where they would allow the Communist Party to be challenged. We will see what happens in Hong Kong.
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on November 25, 2019, 09:58:50 PM
I'll own my post - I have no problem asserting that the United States, with all its sins and faults, represents a better hope for humanity than China or Russia. We will get past Trump, just like we got past slavery and a host of other problems. But the issue is whether you want the superpower of the world to be democratic or totalitarian. That is the geopolitical reality with which we are faced. The UK has issues and Brazil has issues. But they are democratic. That is a giant difference. Both of them, like the US, are having a bit of crisis in their democracies now. But they will come through it. China is not showing much of a tendency to move toward actual democracy, where they would allow the Communist Party to be challenged. We will see what happens in Hong Kong.
Fair enough.
thatz a fair criticism.
china is an eastern culture, a face culture.
in the west, we gauge right and wrong based on guilt, frankly, or at least by an internally applied standard.
china, japan, and some other eastern countries base right and wrong on face-- what you are caught at , essentially. external, not internal.
plausible deniBility iz taken to absurd lengths in face cultures. we are seeing the conflict between east and west versionz of face in many different issues.
It seems that at least part of the culture of the US has skipped over "plausible" deniability to bald faced counter-factual denial. I see the concept of "face" as institutionalized egoism; in the US, part of the population has bought into a cult-like glorification of one man's campaign to stroke and protect his ego, going so far as to profess to believe blatant falsehoods. Rather than any internally applied standard, right and wrong are subservient to the interests of this figurehead.
It's far from the first time that we've seen this phenomenon in prototypically "western" cultures. It seems reasonable to question whether this is an aberration or a manifestation of an integral component of such cultures. I don't think we can place such a clear delineation between "east" and "west" in regard to morality when this sort of behavior happens with regularity.
Quote from: Recusant on November 26, 2019, 02:25:54 PM
I see the concept of "face" as institutionalized egoism; in the US, part of the population has bought into a cult-like glorification of one man's campaign to stroke and protect his ego, going so far as to profess to believe blatant falsehoods. Rather than any internally applied standard, right and wrong are subservient to the interests of this figurehead.
This is the most disturbing part of the phenomenon occurring in the USA, and it is one I did not see coming. Perhaps it comes in part from the natural tendency of some to seek a savior, an Anointed One, a knight on a white horse. I hope it passes. It's frightening.
^ Yup. I just don't understand that mentality. In the presidential race, our family was watching the chump stump at a rally, and when he said something bizarre, and the crowd went wild, we all just looked at each other like this- :query:
i live and work in blue collar appalachia, where allegiance to trump is taken for granted. but the doublethink is strange. i listened to a military veteran explain how he supported trump because he (the veteran) believed in the US constitution, which is something that trump openly disdains.
and i listen to people complain about immigrants taking away their jobs, when my county is 93 percent white, and hispanics make up 1.0 percent of the population. there are zero hispanics in my occupation.
hitler was a fan of the big lie, and i'm sorry to see that it still works.
Trump appealed to a lot of hard working, non intellectual, ordinary people who had lost trust in the political establishment. First of all, the Republican party had been very effective in demonizing Obama. That was quite easy, because People like Clinton and Obama were the epitomes of the college type of political elite that seemed to have a disdain for these "deplorables". After the "Clinton era", the democratic party moved more to the left; added stuff like gender politics, white men bashing and political correctness to the mix; so it is no wonder that these people now feel even more lost and continue to support Trump. Hence, the more Trump is politically incorrect, the more his followers love it. The way I see it, Trump is the monster created by the right, the left and the media.
Quote from: Recusant on November 26, 2019, 02:25:54 PM
It seems that at least part of the culture of the US has skipped over "plausible" deniability to bald faced counter-factual denial. I see the concept of "face" as institutionalized egoism; in the US, part of the population has bought into a cult-like glorification of one man's campaign to stroke and protect his ego, going so far as to profess to believe blatant falsehoods. Rather than any internally applied standard, right and wrong are subservient to the interests of this figurehead.
It's far from the first time that we've seen this phenomenon in prototypically "western" cultures. It seems reasonable to question whether this is an aberration or a manifestation of an integral component of such cultures. I don't think we can place such a clear delineation between "east" and "west" in regard to morality when this sort of behavior happens with regularity.
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on November 26, 2019, 03:09:34 PM
This is the most disturbing part of the phenomenon occurring in the USA, and it is one I did not see coming. Perhaps it comes in part from the natural tendency of some to seek a savior, an Anointed One, a knight on a white horse. I hope it passes. It's frightening.
Quote from: Dark Lightning on November 26, 2019, 03:10:56 PM
^ Yup. I just don't understand that mentality. In the presidential race, our family was watching the chump stump at a rally, and when he said something bizarre, and the crowd went wild, we all just looked at each other like this- :query:
You guys might as well be talking about the Presidential race in Brazil, another "western" "democratic" country. It's uncanny just how many similarities there are between Trump and his bitch, Jair "Bozo" Bolsonaro.
He used many of the same strategies Trump did.
Quote from: Tom62 on November 26, 2019, 05:33:57 PM
Trump appealed to a lot of hard working, non intellectual, ordinary people who had lost trust in the political establishment. First of all, the Republican party had been very effective in demonizing Obama. That was quite easy, because People like Clinton and Obama were the epitomes of the college type of political elite that seemed to have a disdain for these "deplorables". After the "Clinton era", the democratic party moved more to the left; added stuff like gender politics, white men bashing and political correctness to the mix; so it is no wonder that these people now feel even more lost and continue to support Trump. Hence, the more Trump is politically incorrect, the more his followers love it. The way I see it, Trump is the monster created by the right, the left and the media.
Trump played the game very well. He isn't wholly competent for the office but that doesn't seem to matter because he's charismatic and has more than enough confidence in himself to make up for his shortcomings. People prefer a confident but incompetent man to a less confident but more competent one. He carries himself like a saviour and so a saviour he is to many.
The chump is wholly incompetent to the office he holds! He's putting people in positions with the express intent of dismantling the US Government infrastructure. Just take Betsy De Vos, who has absolutely no experience in education, as Sec Ed, or Scott Pruitt, who got put in charge of the EPA, and who was in coal mining, as examples. Never mind that his spawn and their spouses are a bunch of know-nothings who are further ruining the country and enriching themselves with their positions. I would look forward to lengthy prison terms for all, but I expect that their wealth will shield them from that. >:(
Quote from: xSilverPhinx on November 27, 2019, 12:32:47 AM
Quote from: Tom62 on November 26, 2019, 05:33:57 PM
Trump appealed to a lot of hard working, non intellectual, ordinary people who had lost trust in the political establishment. First of all, the Republican party had been very effective in demonizing Obama. That was quite easy, because People like Clinton and Obama were the epitomes of the college type of political elite that seemed to have a disdain for these "deplorables". After the "Clinton era", the democratic party moved more to the left; added stuff like gender politics, white men bashing and political correctness to the mix; so it is no wonder that these people now feel even more lost and continue to support Trump. Hence, the more Trump is politically incorrect, the more his followers love it. The way I see it, Trump is the monster created by the right, the left and the media.
Trump played the game very well. He isn't wholly competent for the office but that doesn't seem to matter because he's charismatic and has more than enough confidence in himself to make up for his shortcomings. People prefer a confident but incompetent man to a less confident but more competent one. He carries himself like a saviour and so a saviour he is to many.
Substitute Hitler for Trump and read that again. :(
Quote from: Tank on November 27, 2019, 08:33:02 AM
Quote from: xSilverPhinx on November 27, 2019, 12:32:47 AM
Quote from: Tom62 on November 26, 2019, 05:33:57 PM
Trump appealed to a lot of hard working, non intellectual, ordinary people who had lost trust in the political establishment. First of all, the Republican party had been very effective in demonizing Obama. That was quite easy, because People like Clinton and Obama were the epitomes of the college type of political elite that seemed to have a disdain for these "deplorables". After the "Clinton era", the democratic party moved more to the left; added stuff like gender politics, white men bashing and political correctness to the mix; so it is no wonder that these people now feel even more lost and continue to support Trump. Hence, the more Trump is politically incorrect, the more his followers love it. The way I see it, Trump is the monster created by the right, the left and the media.
Trump played the game very well. He isn't wholly competent for the office but that doesn't seem to matter because he's charismatic and has more than enough confidence in himself to make up for his shortcomings. People prefer a confident but incompetent man to a less confident but more competent one. He carries himself like a saviour and so a saviour he is to many.
Substitute Hitler for Trump and read that again. :(
The whole rise of Neo-Nazism is troubling. We can always spot Nazism when it's "over there", but it sneaks up on us when it's "over here."