Just like in China with the anti-lockdown protests. The people who are recognisable on social media posts from the protests have all been arrested by now. They waited just long enough to make people forget about it before they picked them up one by one.
> The people who are recognisable on social media posts from the protests have all been arrested by now. They waited just long enough to make people forget about it before they picked them up one by one.
Same deal as with that Bundy/Overpass standoff between militia types and the Feds a few years ago. The Feds showed up, saw the number of men with rifles, turned around and went home. Mission accomplished right? The militia guys all pat each other on the back and congratulate themselves on scaring off the feds. Except they then get quietly arrested one by one over the next few months. Those arrests never become big headline stories like the initial standoff, so you still have fools today who think those standoff tactics are viable.
I'm not into US politics so just a glance at Wikipedia. You compare anti-lock down protests with someone stealing land? Or was is it just comparing the way the police worked in general? I can't follow your argument.
Assuming that these armed people actually broke the law, that’s the better move then. Otherwise there would be a huge outbreak of violence. But that’s not really comparable to lawful protests.
I haven't followed the Bundy affair closely and it does seem Clive Bundy himself ultimately got off, but I'm mostly talking about all the other guys who were on the overpass that day pointing rifles at federal agents. From what I've read and heard, they were all IDed and arrested afterwards. Wikipedia says that besides Clive, 18 others were indicted for federal felonies allegedly perpetrated that day.
Not to defend China, as the scale and the penalties are not comparable, however, some western governments also took a relatively hard stance against some anti-lockdown protests and we're learning government was involved in muting dissenting opinions on social media which in some western countries crosses the line into censorship.
The government had embeds in social media orgs. Just imagine if during the Johnson or Nixon admins the gov/FBI/etc had actual "embeds" in the WashPo/NYT, etc. It's one thing for say Bezos to sympathize with Biden, or Elon sympathize with Rand, but it's another for the gov to had employees embedded and offering their take on things in the guise of "protecting the public from misinformation"
Sadly, many Western governments got “inspired” by the CCP, I agree. Though what happened in China was on a completely different level.
But I hope that in the coming years, western societies will investigate government actions during the Covid craze. That’s the advantage of Democratic societies, there is at least a chance that sh*t gets cleaned up.
My understanding is that in those days the press and gov were on the same "page" but it was more like when airlines hike prices or lower prices in response to a competitor rather than having actual embeds offering their opinion on what was received facts and what was "misinformation". If Johnson or Nixon has had that level of access and influence, I doubt the VN war protests or Watergate complex scandal would have been as large as they were.
I’m inclined to mostly agree with you, but I think when it came to politically charged subjects there might have been some influence or attempts, particularly around left-wing issues, communism, labor unions, and civil rights topics.
Nixon had his famous Enemies List which was filled with journalists, and Nancy Reagan was in frequent communication with Los Angeles Times publisher Otis Chandler about the criticism of her husband (then California governor) in the paper, as only two examples.
Excerpt From Allow Me to Retort - A Black Man’s Guide to the Constitution:
“Our Constitution is not good. It is a document designed to create a society of enduring white male dominance, hastily edited in the margins to allow for what basic political rights white men could be convinced to share. The Constitution is an imperfect work that urgently and consistently needs to be modified and reimagined to make good on its unrealized promises of justice and equality for all.
And yet you rarely see liberals make the point that the Constitution is actually trash. Conservatives are out here acting like the Constitution was etched by divine flame upon stone tablets, when in reality it was scrawled out over a sweaty summer by people making deals with actual monsters who were trying to protect their rights to rape the humans they held in bondage.”
Framing it as designed to ensure the dominance of one sex and one "race" is not doing the argument any favors. If that is what they set out to do, they did a poor job at it (even the Swiss and Kuwaitis suppressed their women "better") in addition, today, there exists slavery to this day in Chad and DRC, despite it being technically illegal. That argument is further eroded by claiming it's imperfect in enabling a promise. The constitution itself is what gave us the the necessary rights (including freedom of speech itself) to right previous wrongs.
Moreover, you can have a perfectly nice constitution guaranteeing all kinds of rights and freedoms like the USSR did (and I suspect the CCP does) and not enjoy the important aspects enshrined in such document)
But that's a misdirection in any case. It's utterly authoritarian to have a government decide what is truth and what isn't. That's one of the first things authoritarians go after. We should be very weary of anyone espousing the view government should have that right.
Look, I'm not trying to get into a whole culture war thing, but you do realize that the constitution literally had to be amended to give non-whites and women the right to vote? It seems like the constitution did a perfectly good job at doing that.
No disagreement there. What I disagree with is the insinuation that the right to free speech is tainted and thus somehow unjust because the constitution had to be amended. It's a devilish argument.
Fair enough. I didn't read the poster as to mean that so much as to say that flatly stating "support the constitution" is kinda painfully vague in its meaning and not without the problems the poster pointed out in the quote. For sure the constitution is widely misinterpreted, even apparently by members of the supreme court that are now under the belief that it and the bill of rights are an enumerated list of rights, to which otherwise none remain, when it is in fact the opposite. An enumerated list of limited powers granted to the gov't, to which the bill of rights are merely examples of such limitations as applied to individuals, but were never intended to be exhaustive or imply that no other rights existed.
So, imo, and apologies for the controversial political example, but when people ask "where is the right to abortion in the constitution?" they completely miss the point that the actual question must be "where is the right for the government to regulate abortions in the constitution?"
Yup. I’m (trying) to do the same.
Every little mindless purchase I used to make to fix some minor inconvenience slowly adds up to real harm for someone else at the hands of the CCP.
Please stop buying from China.
In fact, in recent times Lithuania has been a force for good against China, I’d suggest seeking out their goods if applicable to your needs.
Genuinely curious, what has Lithuania done to stand up against China? And any suggestions on potential things one would buy from them over China? I would like to buy more from countries and people who aren't whipped by the CCP.
Well, there are many things in your life that you buy from China that don't have a semiconductor in it.
For instance, I was shocked to find out that a lot of "Brazilian" honey was actually rebranded corn syrup imported from China and cut with low-grade Chinese honey, this all to get around U.S. import restrictions due to the lack of quality/safety regulation in China.
It's expensive, it's tiring, it's hard. But, in the end I feel it's worth it for the safety of my family and others. Whether it's honey, a sketchily-soldered power supply, or some completely fake lithium ion battery for your vacuum that only has 25% of rated capacity and might burn your house down, it's best to stay away from the Chinese option if you can.
Totally agree. After spending tons of time trying to find a reputable supplier the answer ended up being either:
1) I need to befriend a local beekeeper
2) I need to pick up beekeeping
You may think, that's too much work but really the honey you're buying at the store stands a really good chance of simply being sugar with only a trace of honey. Not good for you.
I'd be very interested in this, but it seems hard to determine the extent to which a product was manufactured in China. Do you have any resources that help with this?
I cannot think of any product that I have purchased in the past 50 years that was made in Turkey or India. I once bought a replacement carburetor for a woodchipper, and it was made in Russia, but that's all I've seen from there. These are not exactly manufacturing and exporting powerhouses, it's pretty trivial to avoid them if you want to, compared to China.
If you bought anything pharmaceutical in the last ten years, chances are quite high it was manufactured in India using raw materials from China, and then either the formulation was done in the USA or the packaging was done in the USA to avoid having to label the source:
> (2021) "Here we use previously non-publicly available data to describe levels and trends in the manufacturing locations of the most commonly used prescription pharmaceuticals, off-patent generic drugs, intended to be consumed by Americans. We find that the base ingredients required for the manufacturing of these prescription drugs are overwhelmingly and increasingly manufactured in non-domestic locations, specifically India and China."
In turn, the raw materials going into the India pharmaceutical pipeline tend to come from China more than anywhere else:
> "Even as the nation clamoured for banning products and cancelling contracts emanating from China, it’s apparent that, at least in pharma, it may not quite work out as imports from China account for 80% of total raw materials for making medicines, also called APIs (active pharmaceutical ingredients)."
Turkey has a substantial textile industry. Something like the 5th or 6th largest textile exporter globally, and 3rd largest in the European market. My last set of bath towels were manufactured in Turkey, although my present set are from Pakistan.
The list is probably too long to keep up, realistically speaking. But I think any positive change in our spending habits (e.g. cutting off China and Russia) are good
> there's an argument to be made that de-globalisation is a sure fire way to global conflict..
You could make that argument, but that is dependent strongly on everybody being rational actors and there is plenty of evidence that dictatorships are not rational actors.
Is the US orchestrating coup after coup all over the globe a desirable rational actor ?
The reality is that it will take multiple generations for us to get rid politicians who when zoomed out act like teenage boys, and we can argue all we want.
Maybe, but globalization is how China got industrialized so fast in the first place. Help your enemy get rich, and then watch as they push you off your place. Not a smart strategy either.
Yes the difference could be that I am against US hegemony, and all for finally somehow growing up and attempting to avoid a catastrophic, planet annihilating conflict.
That would probably require a different point of view than labelling China as the enemy, or keeping them pre-industrial and poor in order to control them, as the US has done repeatedly in many south American countries.
WW1 already demonstrated that "trade keeps peace" can't be counted on, but some people never learn. The argument was made and soundly debunked many years before anybody here was even born.
While individual consumers do such choices to feel better about themselves/feel like they’re doing something, big capital is pumping money nonstop to China.
It’s the same with Russia. It has been overflowed with money from EU before and during the war, and stop buying Russian goods will only affect individuals not buying it (and perhaps local sellers, too).
>"This is why I stopped buying anything that comes form China"
This is plain lie. At the very best you could stop buying end consumer products made and shipped from China. Assuming that things mad in the West are free from Chinese components / materials is a delusion
