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Right, two things that are imperfect are necessarily exactly the same. An unwarranted parking ticket and burning a person at the stake for heresy are both unjust, and therefore we should consider them exactly the same. To consider degree is racist. The depth of willful human stupidity shouldn't surprise me any more, but self-loathing contortionists like the OP still make me facepalm in despair.
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Jul 19, 2015 22:07
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 21:22 |
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It's a truly terrible principle suggested in the OP, in that no imperfect nation (i.e., no nation) would be permitted to criticize the US of AmeriKa under it. Because China commits the relatively minor offense of roughing up journalists and minorities and human-rights activists on a regular basis, it would not be able to criticize the US for its far worse crime of genocide against Mumia Abu Jamal. And issuing unjust parking tickets.
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Jul 20, 2015 17:47
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This really is not difficult. Humans seek advantages for themselves, and a limited in-group with which they identify, being relatively indifferent or even hostile to outsiders. The in-group is most commonly family, and often by by extension tribe or ethnic group. Lacking a blood connection, it seems people need a personal acquaintance. Kibbutzim worked because they were small enough that everyone knew each other. The Soviet Union failed because an ethnic Russian from Moscow usually couldn't be convinced to consider a Tajik from outside of Dushanbe the same way he considered his brother or daughter, and sacrifice for him. The only time the Soviets succeeded as Soviets was in time of great crisis, like WWII, when there was an overwhelmingly compelling common purpose. Human nature is to be selfish, to consider one's own needs and the in-group's needs first. The function of law is to block the basest expressions of this nature, and otherwise channel it to its most productive expression while still acknowledging it.
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Jul 20, 2015 22:39
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Getting a feel for the pulse of DPRK from Norks with foreign-travel privileges is like asking the 0.01% to describe what homelessness is like.
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Jul 21, 2015 15:48
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Fojar38 posted:So are you like, picturing yourself walking around Pyongyang with a notebook asking people what their opinions on their governance are? Foreign visitors to DPRK are not permitted to speak to random North Koreans. Any North Koreans a foreigner converses with are either elites with foreign-travel privileges, or refugees (e.g. hiding in Dandong or resettled in Seoul) who fled.
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Jul 21, 2015 19:46
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HorseLord posted:I don't think people who refer to North Koreans as "norks" in 2015 gets to pretend to be an authority on them. You can't address the point, but aren't smart enough to avoid it. Do you disagree with any of the facts in my post that you quoted? No you don't, because you don't know the first thing about North Korean other than that you are happy to see Norks die in the service of your fanboy slavery to ideology. (I've been to North Korea, briefly, not that a visit yields any great insights.) I call North Koreans Norks, USAnians Yanks, Australians Ockers, South Koreans Hangooks. Lighten the gently caress up, Francis. TheImmigrant fucked around with this message at 20:28 on Jul 21, 2015 |
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Jul 21, 2015 20:26
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I'm assuming that Goons In The Know have good reason to believe HorseLord posts in earnest. I sure hope xe is.
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Jul 21, 2015 23:02
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Tezzor posted:I think a better comparison than Poitras at the border is the two dozen or so countries where the US feels it has the right to murder just about anyone they want at any time The US? Obama feels he has that right, but this is hardly unusual. The US doesn't feel.
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Jul 21, 2015 23:05
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HorseLord posted:Go on, show us the KCNA report of what you're saying. 당신은 한국어, 동무를 말합니까? I'm not sure if you know this, but both Korean governments tend to address their citizens in Korean. It's a language, like English is a language, but a different language. I can make a finger painting of the concept, if it's easier for you to understand. TheImmigrant fucked around with this message at 16:03 on Jul 22, 2015 |
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Jul 22, 2015 15:44
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KCNA is not directed at the general Nork population. It's directed at foreigners with an appreciation for absurdity or incredibly credulous types who would fight global kaputalism down to the last North Korean.
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Jul 22, 2015 19:09
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HorseLord posted:Then if the KCNA isn't for "norks", why does the North Korean government addressing it's own population in the Korean language matter re:Rent-A-Cop's wacky KCNA cancer claim? I hope this revelation doesn't shatter your fragile world, but most North Koreans do not have Internet access to read KCNA. quote:HorseLord hosed around with this message at Jul 22, 2015 around 18:40 Even after editing, you managed to gently caress up the quote and commit apostrophe holocaust.
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Jul 22, 2015 19:47
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HorseLord posted:That's pretty delusional, holy poo poo. The USA is a butcher shop. A Stalinist decrying political violence is like Bukowski urging temperance.
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Jul 23, 2015 14:56
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China under the CCP is more capitalist today than the US.
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Jul 24, 2015 04:57
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HorseLord posted:"hey guys! China is capitalist now! They're full free market and everything!" Mainland China is as communist as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is democratic or a republic. Also, I am a powerful Transformer dumptruck with pyrokinetic ability. I do, however, believe that you are a horse.
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Jul 24, 2015 17:53
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"It'll be different this time. I promise."
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Jul 24, 2015 18:56
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Crowsbeak posted:DPRK is better because it has never bombed anyone unlike AMERIKKKA. Also, Best Korea does not have Black political prisoners like Mumia Abdul Jabbar.
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Jul 24, 2015 19:39
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Rent-A-Cop posted:I never carpetbombed D.C. either but TBH that's more due to a lack of funds than a lack of desire. I live in DC, but work in the private sector. If you go after DC, please hit the post offices during working hours first. And the DMV.
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Jul 24, 2015 20:37
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If mainland China isn't capitalist, I wonder how over 8,000 PRC citizens are able to come up with $1 million in investment capital for EB-5 visas to the US ... every year. That doesn't count the number of visas wealthy Chinese capitalists have been able to buy for Canada or Australia. Go to cities like Vancouver, Toronto, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Sydney, and look at the local real-estate markets. Prices are going through the roof as Chinese capitalists park their money in property there. But yeah, they have cool symbols and a 'C' in their official party name, so, like, communism and poo poo.
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Jul 24, 2015 20:46
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HorseLord posted:Pointing out that China is a different country with a different economic base and political system to western countries isn't orientalist. Norks.
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Jul 25, 2015 00:33
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Fojar38 posted:I sincerely never thought I would see the day when someone was earnestly defending North Korea. It's amazing and I want to see how deep the rabbit hole goes. I have, but it's a rare and precious specimen. Authenticity (non-troll credentials) is always suspect. True Western groupies of the Kim Dynasty are like unicorns.
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Jul 25, 2015 00:44
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HorseLord posted:I'm actually quite moderate, like most people I see that the truth is often in the middle, and the extremes are more alike than they are different. Fetching come-hither look from Koba, yeah?
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Jul 25, 2015 00:45
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 21:22 |
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A thoughtful excerpt from Peter Navarro's "Death By China". I disagree that there are any substantial communist principles remaining in China's economy, but otherwise it's a solid analysis. One of the most lethal consequences of China’s emergence as the world’s undisputed “factory floor” has been its increasingly voracious appetites for the Earth’s energy and raw materials. To feed its manufacturing machine,1 China must consume half of the world’s cement, nearly half of its steel, one-third of its copper, and a third of its aluminum. Moreover, by the year 2035,2 China’s oil demand alone will exceed that of total oil production today for the entire world. These are indeed lethal appetites. That’s because, to support these appetites, Chinese government officials have climbed into a blood-drenched colonial bed with murderous dictators and rogue regimes around the world. In doing so, Chinese government officials and diplomats are engaging in the most scurrilous abuse of United Nations diplomacy the world has ever seen. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, China can veto any UN sanctions it chooses to. For almost a decade now, top Chinese diplomats have been using China’s UN veto power to broker a wide range of “blood for oil” and “rape for raw materials” deals. Consider these facts: • In exchange for Sudanese oil,3 China’s veto merchants stopped the UN from intervening in the Darfur genocide—even as a relentlessly brutal Janjaweed militia used Chinese weapons to forcibly rape thousands of women and kill 300,000 innocent Sudanese. • China’s veto merchants also blocked UN sanctions against Iran and its anti-Semitic, sham-election president to gain access to the world’s largest natural gas fields. This act has blown open the door to nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. It has also dramatically raised the probability of a nuclear strike on Israel and significantly increased the risk of an atomic weapon falling into the hands of anti-American jihadists. China’s abuses of the peacekeeping mission of the United Nations are hardly isolated incidents. Instead, they are part of a broader “going abroad” strategy that has transformed China from a once isolationist nation into arguably the world’s biggest budding colonial empire. This is no small irony for a country originally founded on anti-colonial, Marxist principles and once heavily victimized by the British Empire and its opium wars on China. Throughout Africa, Asia, and America’s backyard of Latin America, China’s own twenty-first century brand of colonialism always begins with this Mephistophelean bargain: lavish, low-interest loans to build up the country’s infrastructure in exchange for raw materials and access to local markets. Of course, once a country takes this colonial bait, rather than use local labor, China brings in its huge army of engineers and workers to build new highways and railroads and ports and telecommunications systems. This infrastructure then both literally and digitally paves the way for the extraction and transport of raw materials. So it’s back to China’s factory floors in cities like Chongqing, Dongguan, and Shenzhen for Cameroon’s timber, the Congo’s magnesium, Djibouti’s gypsum, Gabon’s manganese, Malawi’s uranium, Mozambique’s titanium, Niger’s molybdenum, Rwanda’s tin, and Zambia’s silver. As the final colonial coup de grâce, China then dumps its finished goods back onto local markets—thereby driving out local industries, driving up the unemployment rate, and driving its new colonies deeper into poverty. Arming Itself to the Teeth Even as China has boomed at the expense of much of the rest of the world, it has used its rapid economic growth to fund one of the most rapid and comprehensive military buildups the world has ever witnessed. In this way, and in the spirit of Vladimir Lenin’s dictum that a capitalist will sell the rope that will be used to hang him, every “Walmart dollar” we Americans now spend on artificially cheap Chinese imports represents both a down payment on our own unemployment as well as additional financing for a rapidly arming China. Here’s what just some of that vaunted war machine is shaping up to look like: • China’s newly modernized Navy and Air Force feature everything from virtually undetectable nuclear submarines and the latest Russian-designed fighter jets to ballistic missiles that can precisely target America’s aircraft carriers on the high seas. • China’s own “Pentagon” is confidently developing advanced weapons systems—many of which have been stolen from us by Chinese hackers and spies!—to shoot down our satellite and GPS systems and send nuclear warheads deep into the American heartland. • Unlike a fatigued U.S. army now thinly stretched by the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, the People’s Liberation Army—the largest in the world—has both the overwhelming force and troop readiness to roll over the forces of India, South Korea, Taiwan, or Vietnam and still have more than enough foot soldiers to crush the Taliban and keep the peace in Baghdad if it cared to. • The “war hawk” wing of China’s military is even readying the ability to drop virtually untrackable nuclear bombs from space. These cosmic nukes simply arrive on target in a few short minutes and far too quickly and quietly for countermeasures. Of course, America isn’t the only country that should fear the emergence of a new and powerful Asian aggressor. China’s increasingly nervous neighbors now face a rapidly increasing risk from a rising Asian hegemon amidst China’s brinkmanship and bullying over everything from access to shipping lanes to long-simmering territorial disputes. It’s Big Brother Meets Silent Spring Also in danger are the hundreds of millions of innocent Chinese citizens, who face extreme “Death by China on China” risks from China’s pollution-rife economic growth model, its rigid, class-based Communist Party theocracy, and an “Orwell on steroids” totalitarianism. On the pollution front, an overreliance on an export-driven, heavy manufacturing economy has turned the atmosphere over China’s industrial heartland into the world’s biggest toxic cloud and shroud. More than 70% of China’s major lakes, rivers, and streams are severely polluted. Even a popular tourist cruise down the Yangtze River, above the Three Gorges Dam, reveals that this once-pristine Chinese national treasure where Mao once swam is now virtually devoid of birds and visible signs of aquatic life. Meanwhile, “What happens in China doesn’t stay in China.” As Chinese factories churn out a flood of products destined for the shelves of Target and Walmart, China’s particularly virulent brand of air pollution rides more than 6,000 miles along the jet stream to California, dropping toxic waste all along the way. Today, most of the acid rain in Japan and South Korea is “Made in China,” while an increasing share of the fine particulate found in the air in West Coast cities like Los Angeles likewise started out in a Chinese factory. As for the risks posed by China’s rigid, class-based society, the bitter, ironic truth here is that the ruling Communist Party oversees not a true “People’s Republic” but rather its own secular theocracy. While Marx turns over in his grave and a pickled Mao stares glassy-eyed from his crystal coffin in Tiananmen Square, a relatively small fraction of the Chinese population grows fabulously rich even as one billion Chinese citizens continue to live in a Hobbesian world of grinding poverty without access to adequate health care and where even a minor sickness can become a death sentence. China’s totalitarian politics are equally appalling. To quell dissent, the Communist Party relies on a police and paramilitary force numbering more than one million. Its Orwellian web also features some 50,000 cyber cops. Together, these real and virtual jackboots are unrelenting in their repression and suppression. • Try to organize your workplace, and you are beaten and then fired. • Stand up for human rights or women’s rights, and you are mercilessly hounded, placed under house arrest, or simply “disappeared.” • Be revealed as a Falun Gong practitioner or “closet Catholic,” and get ready to have your “deviant thoughts” washed right out of your brain. The linchpin of such Chinese repression is a grim archipelago of forced labor camps to which millions of Chinese citizens have been exiled—often without trial. For those imprisoned in China’s Laogai gulag, it could be worse; according to Amnesty International, the People’s Republic annually executes4 several times more of its own people than the rest of the world combined. At least lethal injection is now preferred to the traditional bullet to the brain. It is not compassion, however, driving this capital punishment “reform.” It is simply that injections are cheaper to clean up, provide less risk of HIV infection to the executioners, and make it much easier to harvest the victim’s organs for sale on the black market. The Big Sellout, the Bigger Copout Even as these countless Deaths by China play out both within the People’s Republic and on killing floors around the globe, America’s business executives, journalists, and politicians have had far too little to say about the single greatest threat facing the United States and the world. In the executive arena, some of America’s biggest companies—from Caterpillar and Cisco to General Motors and Microsoft—have been fully complicit in the Chinese politics of “first divide America and then conquer it.” The tragedy here is that when China’s mercantilist onslaught against American industry began in the late 1990s—and industries like furniture, textiles, and apparel began falling one by one—the business community and organizations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce were staunchly united. Over the past decade, however, as each additional American job and each new American factory has been offshored to China, the narrow profit-maximizing interests of many of America’s corporate executives have been realigned with their Chinese partners. Indeed, with their bread now being buttered offshore, so-called “American” organizations like the Business Roundtable and National Association of Manufacturers have been transformed from staunch critics of Chinese mercantilism into open, and often very aggressive, soldiers in the pro-China Lobby. While many American corporate executives have become lobbying warriors for China, American journalists are mostly missing in action. The downsizing of newspapers and network television news in an age of the Internet has led to the closing or shrinking of many foreign news bureaus. As a result, the American media has had to increasingly rely on the flow of news from the government-owned Chinese press—one of the most effective and relentless propaganda machines the world has ever witnessed. Meanwhile, the cream of America’s financial press—most notably the Wall Street Journal—clings zealously to a free market and free trade ideology, seemingly oblivious to the fact that China’s “one-way free trade” is simply America’s unilateral surrender in an age of Chinese state capitalism. The absurdity here is that instead of seeing trade reform as a legitimate form of self-defense against a relentless Chinese onslaught of “beggar thy neighbor” practices, publications like the Wall Street Journal continually rail against the threat of American “protectionism.” It’s all so much nonsense, but the ideological drum beat goes on. As for America’s politicians, no single group of individuals deserves more blame for standing meekly, passively, and ignorantly by as China has had its way with the U.S. manufacturing base and engaged in its massive military buildup. It’s not that the American Congress hasn’t been fully warned about the dangers of a rising China. Each year, the Congressionally funded U.S.–China Commission publishes both an annual report and ample testimony about this emerging threat. For example, the U.S.–China Commission has warned that “Chinese espionage activities in the United States5 are so extensive that they comprise the single greatest risk to the security of American technologies.” In fact, to date, China’s far-reaching spy network has stolen critical secrets related to the Aegis guided missile destroyer, B1-B bomber, Delta IV rocket, ICBM-capable guidance systems, Stealth Bomber, and Space Shuttle. Chinese hackers and spies6 have been equally effective at delivering details on aircraft carrier launch systems, drones, naval reactor designs, submarine propulsion systems, the inner workings of neutron bombs, and even highly specific U.S. Navy warship operations procedures. Similarly, on the economic threat, the Commission has pleaded with Congress to recognize that small and medium-sized American businesses “face the full brunt of China’s unfair trade practices, currency manipulation, and illegal subsidies for Chinese exports.” Despite these warnings, Congress continues to ignore the advice of its own independent commission and wake up to the rising economic and military threat from China. Of course, the White House must share equal blame. Both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama have talked softly and carried very little sticks when it has come to China. President Bush’s excuse was a preoccupation with the war in Iraq and homeland security coupled with a blind faith in what has been anything but free trade. On Bush’s watch alone, the United States surrendered millions of jobs to China. For his part, Candidate Barack Obama on the 2008 campaign trail repeatedly promised to crack down on unfair Chinese trade practices, particularly in key industrial swing states like Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. However, since taking office, President Obama has repeatedly bowed to China on key trade issues, primarily because he wants China to keep financing America’s massive budget deficits. While Obama mortgages our future to his Chinese banker, he fails to understand that the best jobs program for America is comprehensive trade reform with China.
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Jul 26, 2015 21:00
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