What to do about China

[bush_cheney2004]

3 hours ago, Right To Left said:

Are there any Eastern European nations today from the Baltics down to Bulgaria and Macedonia, where the only people left are old pensioners after 30 years of young people fleeing to at least find work in England and the EU countries?

 

Canadians, Mexicans, Chinese, and Indians....all "flee" to the U.S. to find work as well.

[OftenWrong]

16 hours ago, Right To Left said:

Only problem I got with China is that they are building up to become world power status they feel was denied to them 200 years ago by the encroaching British and American empires. 

But, for the moment, China offers an oppositional force to what would otherwise be even worse US hegemony that no one would be able to push back.

The USA does not have forced child labour. There is a semblance of democracy, and much less level of authoritarianism. Those are the problems I have with China, but maybe you don't. I'll go with US hegemony over China any time.

[Right To Left]

4 hours ago, OftenWrong said:

The USA does not have forced child labour. There is a semblance of democracy, and much less level of authoritarianism. Those are the problems I have with China, but maybe you don't. I'll go with US hegemony over China any time.

I do a quick search for your claim and I find every link on the first page of a "China forced child labor" search turns up either "forced labor" or "child labor." I suppose that since children do not have the same freedoms of movement as adults and are easier to control, the term: "Forced Child Labor" is already overreaching for shock value alone!  Not that child labor is a good thing, but right from the titles, I can see where the bullshit is being mixed in to the propaganda narratives!" 

And, it's worth noting that there is another side to this story, which contends that the Hong Kong crisis was little more than a CIA/MI-6 destabilizing campaign being used to try to chip away and weaken another Anglo-American 'enemy.' And likewise....whatever goes on in the vast, underpopulated cold desert conditions where the Uyghurs live in Western China, cannot be separated from encroachment and indoctrination of Islamic fascist teachers coming America's favorite dictatorships - Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Egypt....who started the Wahabbi cultural transformations in Sinkiang that have been carried out all across the Muslim World. 

And since I take NOTHING that gets spewed out as news from MSM propaganda outlets on any given subject, I am not going to just take claims of the past 10 years that China has "concentration camps" filled with "hundreds of thousands" of Uyghurs without clear evidence that goes beyond translated claims of Uyghurs or reports from Falun Gong-associated propaganda sites, like this idiotic "Epoch Times" we are getting polluted with in recent years!

And as for "Child Labour," does such a thing exist in America?? 

How Illegal Migration Fuels Child Labor in American Suburbia

In a November 19 story – co-published with Mother Jones and El País – ProPublica Illinois’ Melissa Sanchez shines a light on illegal alien child labor in the suburbs of Chicago. Although leftist ProPublica is hardly a pro-enforcement media outlet, the article nevertheless demonstrates how mass illegal migration – combined with greedy smugglers and the debts incurred by illegal aliens to the criminal cartels that smuggle them into the country, unscrupulous employers, and passive worksite enforcement– coalesce to facilitate and fuel the exploitation of children at the workplace.

In her piece, Sanchez concentrates on Central American (mainly Guatemalan indigenous) migrant teenagers. Many of these migrants arrived as UACs (unaccompanied alien children), allowed themselves to get caught by the Border Patrol, applied for asylum, and were eventually released to “sponsors.” The author admits that these young asylum applicants are overwhelmingly economic migrants, coming to make money and help their families. She also acknowledges that “as word spread that it was easy for minors — or adults accompanied by a child — to get into the U.S. and seek asylum,” increasing numbers of economic migrants have attempted to use that loophole.

“Some began to work when they were just 13 or 14,” writes Sanchez, “packing the candy you find by the supermarket register, cutting the slabs of raw meat that end up in your freezer and baking, in industrial ovens, the pastries you eat with your coffee.” Other places of employment included automotive parts factories and recycling facilities.

The teenagers knew they were legally not supposed to be working, and that it could jeopardize their asylum cases in immigration court. Many, however, feel that they have little choice but to toil away. One 15-year-old “had debts to pay, starting with the roughly $3,000 he owed for the ‘coyote’ who guided him across Mexico from Guatemala. To finance the trip, his parents had taken out a bank loan, using their house as collateral. If he didn’t repay it, the family could lose its home.”

The migrant children usually find work through temporary staffing agencies (“oficinas” in Spanish), which gives business owners a degree of cover and plausible deniability. Many work during the night, which often makes them too exhausted and sleep-deprived to pay attention in school, causing more than a few to simply drop out and continue working illegally. Some are also hurt on the job, but prefer not to seek medical attention to avoid trouble.

Sanchez bemoans the reactive passivity of “government agencies charged with enforcing child labor laws [that]don’t look for violations, though some officials say they aren’t surprised to hear it’s happening. Instead, those agencies wait for complaints to come to them, and they almost never do.” Thus, “the companies benefit from the silence. It’s an open secret no one wants exposed, least of all the teenagers doing the work.”

And, finally, the article contains a telling tidbit about the impact of the above-described child labor on the labor market. Sanchez mentions “an indigenous Guatemalan labor leader” who “has heard complaints from adult workers in the fish-packing industry who say they’re losing their jobs to 14-year-olds.” Since these adult workers are almost certainly illegal aliens, this snippet demonstrates that high levels of unchecked illegal migration can have a negative impact even on other unlawfully present foreign nationals, let alone legal immigrants or U.S. citizens.

And all this goes on among the nice split-level bungalows, well-manicured lawns and white picket fences of the typical suburbia in America....according to Pro Publica! So, when you throw shit at someone else halfway around the world, you never know what's coming back to hit you right in the face!

*I have to note that neither the rightwing, anti-immigrant, anti-dark people site republishing the report, nor liberal Pro Publica which did the research and wrote the report, are able to delve down and consider the root cause of ALL forced labor and child labor goes back to capitalist economics....which favors those who can produce goods and services at the highest profit margins. Charging higher prices for finished products would be one way to maximize profits, but competition, demand for product and ability of the customer to pay, often constrains that end of the process.

So, the other option is to produce the products as cheaply as possible. The lower the labor costs, the lower the price of the finished product. And as the Pro Publica report tells it, if a 13 or 14 year old Guatemalan can do the same job as the adult Guatemalan refugee, the employer will want the young teenager instead of the adult! Plain and simple!

As a result, both liberals who want to end child labor and the refugee crisis, and their conservative, rightwing brethren on the other side of the political aisle, are unable to address the root cause of the crisis directly because of their shared acceptance (veneration in the case of most rightwingers) of capitalism. So, all they can do is attack the problem from the outside edges.... more intrusive policing, more punitive laws, finding scapegoats to blame for the crisis, or demanding new laws and new government institutions in a ramped up authoritarian assault on "illegal" immigration, that usually casts a much wider net and infringes on the rights of those with legal documents and even spills over onto average white citizens, who find that they are also under surveillance, whether they realize it or not. But, never do liberals nor conservatives ask whether the economic system they've built up and relied upon is the ultimate source of this and so many other problems.

 

[SpankyMcFarland]

The one issue I have in the whole Meng thing is why the US singled her out in the first place and why we complied with their request. The bank she was working with when this alleged fraud occurred was the notorious HSBC which had done tons of illegal business with Iran already and had knowingly laundered hundreds of millions for the Mexican drug cartels. Of course, as usual, they claimed ignorance on what Meng was up to and, as usual, the British government is helping them keep their secrets:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-huawei-tech-britain-idUSKBN2AJ19Q

https://www.lightreading.com/security/either-huawei-or-hsbc-is-lying-as-meng-case-moves-to-hong-kong/d/d-id/768031

Why did the US not demand the extradition of HSBC’s top people from London for offences that continued for many years or, at the very least, send a few of the local guys to prison for their egregious conduct? Instead they got a fine which is the cost of breaking the law for bankers these days. 

Former diplomat, Colin Robertson, just mentioned on CBC that other countries were approached to extradite Meng on these charges and politely refused which looks prudent in retrospect. The extradition had a political element from the start and Trump’s comments about exchanging Meng for Chinese concessions on trade only served to confirm this reality. Asking country A to extradite a regular Joe from country B to country C for doing business with country D sounds a bit of a stretch under any circumstances, but going after the daughter of China’s most strategically significant oligarch was always going to mean trouble for everyone involved. 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 19, 2021 by SpankyMcFarland

[Argus]

4 minutes ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

The one issue I have in the whole Meng thing is why the US singled her out in the first place and why we complied with their request. 

She broke the law, and we simply arrested her for extradition as we're supposed to do. Of course, if we had a judicial system that didn't rival India for bureaucratic efficiency she'd already be in the  US, but sadly, we have what we have. 

4 minutes ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

Why did the US not demand the extradition of HSBC’s top people from London

The US fined HSBC, which it can do because HSBC has a banking license in the US and needs to process money through there. They can't fine a Chinese government enterprise like Huawei.

 

[Argus]

21 hours ago, Right To Left said:

"Forced Child Labor" is already overreaching for shock value alone!  Not that child labor is a good thing, but right from the titles, I can see where the bullshit is being mixed in to the propaganda narratives!" 

And, it's worth noting that there is another side to this story, which contends that the Hong Kong crisis was little more than a CIA/MI-6 destabilizing campaign

You can find 'other sides' on all kinds of conspiracy sites or sites run by the Chinese government. That doesn't make them worth listening to. Your determination to defend one of the most brutal regimes in the world, one which is steadily increasing its control over people's lives and pushing that control out through the world against weaker states says a lot about your shitty judgement. It seems that to some people, if Satan himself showed up (presuming such an entity were real) they'd rush to defend him as long as he was in a state of antagonism with the US. What's next? You going to tell us Hitler was actually an okay guy and if it weren't for the brutal US and its spies there never would have been a war?

 

 

 

[SpankyMcFarland]

1 hour ago, Argus said:

She broke the law, and we simply arrested her for extradition as we're supposed to do. Of course, if we had a judicial system that didn't rival India for bureaucratic efficiency she'd already be in the  US, but sadly, we have what we have. 

The US fined HSBC, which it can do because HSBC has a banking license in the US and needs to process money through there. They can't fine a Chinese government enterprise like Huawei.

 

Unfortunately, extradition has a political dimension, a huge one with Meng. Here’s an example of a recent case in the UK where the Americans invoked diplomatic immunity under highly dubious circumstances to avoid extraditing a person who clearly committed a serious offence. The woman was driving on the wrong side of the road and killed a young man. While still under investigation, she was whisked out of the country by her own government! It is highly offensive that the US pulled this trick on one of its closest allies - not what it is supposed to do at all. But that’s how the world is. 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/04/harry-dunn-anne-sacoolass-diplomatic-immunity-in-question-us-court-is-told

One reason the Meng case has taken so long is that the extradition case is not the strongest. Unlike that traffic death in the UK, this is not a simple case of criminality that all countries would recognize as such. Given what Huawei gets up to on a regular basis, it is weak beer, and Trump’s comments about exchanging her for trade concessions made a mockery of the whole process. 

The US should have pursued criminal charges against individual HSBC employees for the business they’ve done in Iran and Mexico. The assistance they gave to the cartels was highly significant. If necessary, new legislation is needed to make such prosecutions much easier. Until jail time is a distinct possibility in every country, banks are going to continue laundering money - sorry, assisting their clients with creative solutions - with gay abandon. 

Edited March 19, 2021 by SpankyMcFarland

[Right To Left]

For some mysterious reasons of cognitive dissonance,

WHAT TO DO ABOUT CHINA???? 

doesn't seem to connect with,

Why Has There Been a Spike of Anti-Asian Hate? 

* I'll point out here, I'm not talking about or not really interested in talking to conservative rightwing louts who wear their white supremacy and racism on their sleeves!  I want to hear from the liberals....who otherwise claim to be the most non-racist white people on the planet, but who are now hedging and fudging their rhetoric about how the shift in US foreign policy called (Pivot To Asia) under Obama, meant a shift from a shadowy, never defined War On Terror to a return to Cold War fight for imperial supremacy against America's "enemies." 

And these enemies are once again, Russia...mostly because of their large stockpiles of nukes, and recalcitrance at playing by the rules of Big Power US dominated global capitalism, AND China...for succeeding too well at turning their economy from state-managed communism into state-managed capitalism, and threatening US dominance of global capitalism!

If the liberal imperialists who stocked Obama's administration would refuse to admit or acknowledge any feelings of racism in their anti-China rhetoric...just as the Obama reboot - Joe Biden Crew refuse to admit today, the not so subtle subliminal messages are: sinister, devious looking Russians (like Putin) and equally devious looking Chinese leaders (which every good liberal will insist has nothing to do with race or visual appearance, but communicates the same message to the average viewer). 

And regarding that New York Times breast-beating lamentation about "Why Has There Been a Spike of Anti-Asian Hate? "  linked above from the NY Times editorial:  

 

There’s a good viral thread being shared around Twitter right now by China Daily‘s Ian Goodrum compiling a small selection of anti-China mainstream media headlines in answer to the New York Times question “Why has there been a spike in anti-Asian hate”?

Goodrum confronts one with the possibility that the rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans cannot be comfortably filed away as merely the result of Donald Trump’s racist rhetoric while in office, but arises at least partially from a virulent propaganda campaign against the US empire’s leading opponent of which the liberal media have been enthusiastic participants.

“We are being bombarded with anti-China hate for a reason and it has nothing to do with human rights,” journalist Rania Khalek commented while sharing Goodrum’s thread. “This is just a tiny fraction of it. At the same time anyone who questions the state department narrative is being accused of loving tyrants and defending genocide. Sound familiar?”

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/03/19/what-were-really-seeing-with-all-these-anti-china-narratives/

 

[SpankyMcFarland]

The new reality for America’s close allies, e.g. Canada, Australia, Britain, is that their citizens are potential hostage targets for Beijing. At the moment, the PRC is prepared to go after the ‘running dogs’ and not their imperial masters. I doubt if I’m going to visit China any time soon. 
 

Lord knows what to do about the PRC. I’d like to see more products in Wal-Mart from countries not yet under Mainland Chinese control, e.g. India, Vietnam. Bangladesh is coming under pressure but it’s putting up more of a fight than Pakistan did:

http://www.businessworld.in/article/Protests-in-Bangladesh-s-cities-against-China-Pakistan-for-persecution-of-minorities/10-12-2020-352298/
 

https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/editorial/reset-with-bangladesh/article34110972.ece
 

India really has to up its game. The proposal to send millions of people ‘back’ to a country half the size of Labrador already bursting at the seams with 163 million of them should be binned. 

Obvious things - we’ve got to stop any more Mainland Chinese ownership of our companies and start looking more carefully at people buying houses here. Political donations must come under greater scrutiny. The CCP leadership loves sending its kids to Western schools - not ours so much - but I think all countries in Europe and North America should look at that to hurt them a little bit. More to the point, we have to assist the US any way we can on the military and high tech fronts. Which means increasing expenditure there and reducing it elsewhere. Which I don’t see happening any time soon. One matter where further progress might be made - Huawei. IMO it should have no place here. 

 

Edited March 19, 2021 by SpankyMcFarland

[Argus]

1 hour ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

Unfortunately, extradition has a political dimension, a huge one with Meng. Here’s an example of a recent case in the UK where the Americans invoked diplomatic immunity under highly dubious circumstances to avoid extraditing a person who clearly committed a serious offence. The woman was driving on the wrong side of the road in Britain and killed a young man. While still under investigation, she was whisked out of the country by her own government! It is highly offensive that the US pulled this trick on one of its closest allies - not what it is supposed to do at all. But that’s how the world is. 

The woman was the wife of a diplomat (and some say worked for the CIA). She was covered by diplomatic immunity. Further, tourists DO drive on the wrong side of the road in the UK all the time out of force of habit. Thousands and thousands of them every year. Here's a nearly identical case to show you how seriously this is treated.

German tourist who killed Dundee motorcyclist in wrong way camper van crash avoids jail (thecourier.co.uk)

1 hour ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

One reason the Meng case has taken so long is that the extradition case is not the strongest.

All our court cases take years. Even a simple criminal court case takes at least a year and a half to start. It's not unusual for two or even three years to pass between the charge and an actual trial in Canada. Refugee claims go through multiple appeals and can easily take more than five years to resolve. It once took us seven years to deport a serial killer who crossed into Canada illegally.

1 hour ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

The US should have pursued criminal charges against individual HSBC employees for the business they’ve done in Iran and Mexico.

I agree, but just because they didn't doesn't mean this woman who lied in papers she submitted to the bank shouldn't be punished.

[Argus]

55 minutes ago, Right To Left said:

If the liberal imperialists who stocked Obama's administration would refuse to admit or acknowledge any feelings of racism in their anti-China rhetoric...just as the Obama reboot - Joe Biden Crew refuse to admit today, the not so subtle subliminal messages are: sinister, devious looking Russians (like Putin) and equally devious looking Chinese leaders (which every good liberal will insist has nothing to do with race or visual appearance, but communicates the same message to the average viewer). 

You're seriously trying to pretend that the actions of Russia and China do not deserve retribution and did not provoke the US and the West? Quite the apologist, aren't you?

I guess it's the new tactic of the far Left to pretend every action taken against any ethnic or racial group or country is inspired by 'racism' but no sane person believes that.

 

 

[Right To Left]

1 minute ago, Argus said:

You're seriously trying to pretend that the actions of Russia and China do not deserve retribution and did not provoke the US and the West? Quite the apologist, aren't you?

I guess it's the new tactic of the far Left to pretend every action taken against any ethnic or racial group or country is inspired by 'racism' but no sane person believes that.

 

 

You haven't even addressed my questions ..... which is why I didn't invite conservative participation on a post that asks liberals specifically to account for how they intend to fight China / without exacerbating racism in America and other western satellite nations. 

I know how close to non-existent any rightwing concerns for minorities of all different colours and ethnicities are already!  Now bring me the libs!

[SpankyMcFarland]

5 hours ago, Argus said:

The woman was the wife of a diplomat (and some say worked for the CIA). She was covered by diplomatic immunity. Further, tourists DO drive on the wrong side of the road in the UK all the time out of force of habit. Thousands and thousands of them every year. Here's a nearly identical case to show you how seriously this is treated.

German tourist who killed Dundee motorcyclist in wrong way camper van crash avoids jail (thecourier.co.uk)

Thousand are not killed every year, though. I have briefly driven on the wrong side of the road in the UK myself but I haven’t killed anybody and if I did I would fully expect to be charged. (I was also once in a collision with a German driving on the wrong side of the road over there but nobody was seriously hurt.) Obviously, there’s no intent to injure but it’s still negligence causing death. The case you cite was treated properly. The accused faced a court, pleaded guilty, apologized to the family and the court, and avoided a jail term which he could have faced. The German government didn’t surreptitiously sneak him out of the country and refuse to hand him over for trial afterwards. Britain is not Saudi Arabia and there is no reason why any American could not expect a fair trial there on such a charge. The exact status of this woman has yet to be clarified - some say worked for the CIA is not good enough - and is very much in dispute in Britain no matter what the Americans and the British government (which is playing a double game) now allege.
 

I’m thread-drifting here but my point is that this American action in brazenly removing Sacoolas shows how things work in the real world when a more powerful country wants to get round the law. The right thing for the suspect to have done would have been to stay in the country, respect British law, and let the process play out. So-called diplomatic immunity, no matter how dodgy, could still have been asserted at the appropriate time. It is true she almost certainly wouldn’t have received a jail term but the mere prospect of facing foreign justice, even of the British variety, proved intolerable to her and her government. 
 

Just to clarify, on balance I may disagree with the wisdom of the Meng extradition but I would certainly defend its legality. Something the regime in Beijing refuses to understand is that we are a nation of laws. 

Edited March 20, 2021 by SpankyMcFarland

[Aristides]

More tourists are killed looking the wrong way before they step off curbs in the UK.

[SpankyMcFarland]

45 minutes ago, Aristides said:

More tourists are killed looking the wrong way before they step off curbs in the UK.

When in Blighty make this your morning mantra: look right, look left, look right again. 

[Guest]

40 minutes ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

When in Blighty make this your morning mantra: look right, look left, look right again. 

Reminds me of these two top tips from VIZ.

Save time when crossing a one-way street by only looking in the direction of oncoming traffic. – D. Rogers, Hemel Hempstead

When crossing a one-way street always look in BOTH directions in case a large blue furniture removal lorry is reversing the wrong way up the road. – D. Rogers, Hemel Hempstead General Infirmary

[OftenWrong]

 

7 hours ago, Right To Left said:

For some mysterious reasons of cognitive dissonance,

WHAT TO DO ABOUT CHINA???? 

doesn't seem to connect with,

Why Has There Been a Spike of Anti-Asian Hate? 

* I'll point out here, I'm not talking about or not really interested in talking to conservative rightwing louts who wear their white supremacy and racism on their sleeves!  I want to hear from the liberals....who otherwise claim to be the most non-racist white people on the planet, but who are now hedging and fudging their rhetoric about how the shift in US foreign policy called (Pivot To Asia) under Obama, meant a shift from a shadowy, never defined War On Terror to a return to Cold War fight for imperial supremacy against America's "enemies." 

And these enemies are once again, Russia...mostly because of their large stockpiles of nukes, and recalcitrance at playing by the rules of Big Power US dominated global capitalism, AND China...for succeeding too well at turning their economy from state-managed communism into state-managed capitalism, and threatening US dominance of global capitalism!

If the liberal imperialists who stocked Obama's administration would refuse to admit or acknowledge any feelings of racism in their anti-China rhetoric...just as the Obama reboot - Joe Biden Crew refuse to admit today, the not so subtle subliminal messages are: sinister, devious looking Russians (like Putin) and equally devious looking Chinese leaders (which every good liberal will insist has nothing to do with race or visual appearance, but communicates the same message to the average viewer). 

And regarding that New York Times breast-beating lamentation about "Why Has There Been a Spike of Anti-Asian Hate? "  linked above from the NY Times editorial:  

 

There’s a good viral thread being shared around Twitter right now by China Daily‘s Ian Goodrum compiling a small selection of anti-China mainstream media headlines in answer to the New York Times question “Why has there been a spike in anti-Asian hate”?

Goodrum confronts one with the possibility that the rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans cannot be comfortably filed away as merely the result of Donald Trump’s racist rhetoric while in office, but arises at least partially from a virulent propaganda campaign against the US empire’s leading opponent of which the liberal media have been enthusiastic participants.

“We are being bombarded with anti-China hate for a reason and it has nothing to do with human rights,” journalist Rania Khalek commented while sharing Goodrum’s thread. “This is just a tiny fraction of it. At the same time anyone who questions the state department narrative is being accused of loving tyrants and defending genocide. Sound familiar?”

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/03/19/what-were-really-seeing-with-all-these-anti-china-narratives/

 

Sheer nonsense. I worked with some Chinamen, and they were all good fellows. They too disapproved the Chinese Communist Party, and the way they ran the country. But I wont tell you who they are, in case you're a CPC spy.

And after that diatribe, wouldn't be surprised. Recalcitrant my arse, fella.

 

Edited March 20, 2021 by OftenWrong

[SpankyMcFarland]

26 minutes ago, OftenWrong said:

 

Sheer nonsense. I worked with some Chinamen, and they were all good fellows.

 

Lard Tunderin Jaysus B’y, you’re only trying to start a row now. 

[Moonlight Graham]

You can hate the CCP without hating regular Chinese people, especially those living in North America.  If you resent all asians because the CCP sucks well you're obviously a complete moron.

[Michael Hardner]

Has anyone posted this ?

Bill Mahr got fired for giving a compliment to the 911 terrorists (brave) and here he goes all in on putting China above America.  I get it, but at a certain point you start to realize that he's thinking the way Trudeau did... "Look at all they can do..." by ordering people to do it.

It's just a long complaint but there is something to it also.

 

[Argus]

18 hours ago, Right To Left said:

You haven't even addressed my questions ..... which is why I didn't invite conservative participation on a post

 

That wasn't a question. It was a plea to not have your silly presumptions about the world contradicted by those who know better.

 

[Argus]

1 hour ago, Michael Hardner said:

Has anyone posted this ?

Bill Mahr got fired for giving a compliment to the 911 terrorists (brave) and here he goes all in on putting China above America.  I get it, but at a certain point you start to realize that he's thinking the way Trudeau did... "Look at all they can do..." by ordering people to do it.

It's just a long complaint but there is something to it also.

 

His argument was more about not having a country obsessed with minutia like transgenderism and cultural appropriation and gender equity complaints when there are real problems to be addressed. 

[Right To Left]

5 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

Has anyone posted this ?

Bill Mahr got fired for giving a compliment to the 911 terrorists (brave) and here he goes all in on putting China above America.  I get it, but at a certain point you start to realize that he's thinking the way Trudeau did... "Look at all they can do..." by ordering people to do it.

It's just a long complaint but there is something to it also.

 

I used to watch Maher's ABC show "Politically Incorrect" 20 to 25 years ago, and I can honestly say, I think he is still the same self-aggrandizing, uninformed, money-grubbing asshole he was back then! The only difference is he used to have hair back in the old days!

Maher got cancelled back then, because he was just shooting off his mouth without thinking as usual, and when his usual rant against automatic calling soldiers "heroes" included 'they fight out in the open, while we drop bombs from 10,000 feet....how is that brave....or words to that effect. That is how it was heard by everyone to the left of "All We Are Saying, Is Give Peace A Chance" regardless. So, it was no shock that after a few days of attempted clarifications and backpedaling by Maher, he was out of a job...along with his idiot-know nothing regular panelists...like the regular fixture he was boinking at the time - Arianna Huffington...who had to take some of the money she scored from her gay ex-husband and start her own news aggregator site...that was successful for a few years, and now soon to go under the waves.

All that aside, what is different about Maher's bullshit 'tough love' approach back then, compared to the drivel he is spouting now? 

Since I considered myself to be a libertarian back then...and was actually doing some reading about libertarian political and economic philosophy, I called out Bill Maher as a poser whenever a friend or someone I worked with was talking about him and his stupid show. Maher was a "libertarian" who only liked and agreed with Democrats....and pro-war centrist Democrats at that. It was pretty obvious that his notion of libertarianism meant being a Hollywood liberal with libertine attitudes about sex and who liked to smoke pot, but did not like women having opinions and refusing sex....just sayin there's a gathering scandal waiting to drop on him some day in the future. Like Marilyn Manson, you never know when, but as soon as one case goes to court, then the dam breaks and there's a flood!  

And back then, just as now, Republicans were always enemies, unless they agreed with all of his stupid opinions and takes, and then he would say "you're one of the good ones." His favorite Republicans were the soon to be MSNBC host - Joe Scarborough....who was just the kind of ConservaDem that Bill Maher always approved of!

[Moonlight Graham]

7 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

Has anyone posted this ?

Bill Mahr got fired for giving a compliment to the 911 terrorists (brave) and here he goes all in on putting China above America.  I get it, but at a certain point you start to realize that he's thinking the way Trudeau did... "Look at all they can do..." by ordering people to do it.

It's just a long complaint but there is something to it also.

Maher got cancel cultured before it was cool.

Everything he says in that video is correct.  I don't respect China's ethics, but I respect its resolve and effectiveness.  It has mobilized 1.4 billion people and some of its diaspora towards the greatest nation-building project in human history in a quest to dominate the world, which it will.

Maybe the West needs China to give us some hardship in order to avoid this spiral into decay we've been flowing into due to our decadence.  I can't imagine the Chinese are giving their kids participation trophies.  The only thing that makes anyone better at anything is overcoming hardship.  A callus doesn't grow on your hands unless you work them.

“Hard times create strong people, strong people create good times, good times create weak people, and weak people create hard times".

[Argus]

21 hours ago, Moonlight Graham said:

Maher got cancel cultured before it was cool.

Everything he says in that video is correct.  I don't respect China's ethics, but I respect its resolve and effectiveness.  It has mobilized 1.4 billion people and some of its diaspora towards the greatest nation-building project in human history in a quest to dominate the world, which it will.

Maybe the West needs China to give us some hardship in order to avoid this spiral into decay we've been flowing into due to our decadence.  I can't imagine the Chinese are giving their kids participation trophies.  The only thing that makes anyone better at anything is overcoming hardship.  A callus doesn't grow on your hands unless you work them.

“Hard times create strong people, strong people create good times, good times create weak people, and weak people create hard times".

Far from giving participation trophies or watering down the curriculum at top rate universities so more minorities can pass China has ordered its schools to 'toughen up' it's young men. It doesn't want desperately sensitive men who cry every time something doesn't go their way. Incidentally, China still has the draft. And it's military is far from gentle to recruits and soldiers. China is letting nothing get in its way. Oh, bad publicity? Tough shit. Oh, the world is complaining? Like they care. A virus breaking out in a major city? They cordon off the city by force, then the whole province. There's no pleas for people to observe quarantines. They're dragged off by police if they don't. Meanwhile Canada keeps its borders open because banning flights from China would be 'racist'. Nearly every flight from India, even now, has people aboard who test positive for covid, but don't expect the government to ban flights from India. That might offend Indo-Canadian voters. And we still don't have an enforced quarantine. You get an $800 fine if you refuse to go to a hotel but no arrest. And the fine is cheaper than the price of the hotel stay!

Canada's most profitable exports are its natural resources. And we desperately need the money, especially now. But Canada can't built pipelines to export our oil. And activist groups and a myriad of bureaucracies throw ten years worth of red tape in front of the development of any new project. Meanwhile our government is determined to increase carbon taxes on industry while China continues to build coal-fired power plants by the dozen. China has gone from 57 frigates and destroyers in 1996 to 357 frigates, destroyers, helicopter carriers, submarines and aircraft carriers today. During the same period of time Canada has struggled to even decide what kind of a warship to build and how and where to do so. And they still haven't awarded a contract. By the time the first of a dozen new frigates gets built at enormous cost China will have built scores more frigates, destroyers and aircraft carriers at a fraction of the price per ship. We can't even built a SUPPLY SHIP for under a billion dollars.

Edited March 21, 2021 by Argus