Open Thread

The more powerful China becomes , the more China will come up as a subject.

NaCap has run an article about the Chinese Communist Party’s Centennial celebrations and observances.

Here is a relevant first two paragraphs from Yves Smith’s foreward.

“Yves here. On the one hand, the Chinese Communist Party does deserve a lot of credit for the simply remarkable rise in living standards in China. I don’t know if this factoid is still true, but as of about ten years ago, Jospeh Stiglitz pointed out that all of the reduction in poverty in developing economies was due to the rise of China. Other low income countries, on average, had stood still as China marched ahead.

On the other, the Chinese Communist Party’s apparent success was due in large measure to China being allowed to enter the WTO despite not meeting its entry conditions. The US was particularly keen to see China join, since the belief was that a more prosperous China would become more democratic and therefore aligned with the West. That movie didn’t work out according to script.”

Yves Smith ascribes good faith to the sellers of letting China into WTO. I don’t. I think “it will democratize China” was just part of the sales pitch. I think the real intention was in line with the International Free Trade Conspiracy’s broader real intention, which was to exterminate the American thing-making economy in order to exterminate America’s thing-making industrial unions. The plan was and remains to make America into One Big Haiti.

Anyway, here is the link.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/07/on-the-centennial-of-the-chinese-communist-party.html

It isn’t about money buying love. It is about money buying obedience. Pakistan is too committed to its vision of itself as being an important regional player in One Ball One Chain to risk giving it all up.

You may have heard or maybe not that Zorro Ranch, Jeffrey Epstein’s 8,000 acre playground south of Santa Fe is now on the market for $27.5 million. No one will buy it for that price.

We would pass by it every time we went to Santa Fe, and for years had no idea what it was. The we called the mansion on the brow of the ridge “The Monastery” because that’s kind of what it looked like in the distance from the road. The Western village below looked like a movie set, of which there are a number in the area. The microwave antennas and airstrip suggested something not necessarily of a religious order, though.

When we learned who’s place it was, every time we went by we kept our eyes open for activity, and there was some now and then. People would arrive and leave, planes would land and take off. Exotic cattle would graze the scrub. One time a news crew was seen arriving at the gate and was turned away by a big burly guy in a black pick up. But usually, nothing.

After Epstein was suicided, there was a surprising amount of activity at the ranch, and one night as we headed home we saw the mansion lit up like it was full of partying revelers. Maybe it was.

Haven’t been by it since the pandemic began. But a number of us in the area believe the best fate is for the state to seize the property (don’t ask me the law, but there is apparently a legal way to do that), demolish the mansion and plow the ground so there’s no trace of it left and burn the village. There are also some “private” outlying houses, get-aways in a manner of speaking, that should also be demolished or left to rot.

Then questions need to be asked. A lot of them. Starting with how this situation was allowed to develop in the first place. Epstein purchased the land from the late Bruce King, a former governor, but the King family still owns lots of land around and about in the area. How much did they know and when did they know it? Apparently Epstein got perks from the state and Santa Fe County to build. There are parcels of state land within the boundary of the ranch. Why? And on and on.

The listing:

https://www.estately.com/listings/info/0-zorro-ranch

Oh, and . . . removing any and every trace of any DNA traces, too.

Why was Epstein stupid enough to come back to America? Did he think his “power” was innate or personal, as against purely derivative and usefulness-based?

With people like Epstein and Trump, it comes down to the same thing; understand the pathology, you understand the person. They have been getting away with things, including crimes, all their lives. Why would they think that would ever change?

The question is, will McDonald Trump be suicided like Epstein, or does he get a pass for life?

China was happy to sacrifice its people to slavery for Western multinationals in return for stealing technology. Afterall, slavery has long been a feature of Chinese culture dating back to thousands of years before christ and apparently it still is a feature, effectively. China played the part of scabs in America’s labor struggle. It was happy to do so in return for all that technology it never could have developed on its own. Operation Warp Industrialization. The transition to China for manufacturing began in earnest with the Reagan administration. The horse was let out of the barn never to be put back in. Reagan’s remains should be desecrated. All the remains of those who were responsible for transitioning to China should be desecrated ceremonially. An example should be made of all of them whether they’re living or dead.

I applaud China’s peaceful rise to prosperity. Let all Chinese enjoy the benefits for which they have worked. Now that China is a wealthy and powerful nation, it has no need whatever to send migrants to the USA, not directly and not indirectly through Canada or Belize or any other country. Let China enjoy its success and stop gaming the immigration laws of other countries.

China owes nothing to U.S. citizens, including U.S. labor. The ones responsible for crushing U.S. labor are the U.S. politicians and their sponsors that financially incentivize it: the “donor class”.

The U.S. politicians and the “donor class” like to point their fingers at China for our problems, like somehow we are victims of China, when they’re the ones who enriched themselves by empowering China and disempowering U.S. labor.

If China’s business practices are damaging the U.S., then it is the job of U.S. politicians to take measures to prevent it, but instead they do little because so many are minting money directly and indirectly from the current arrangement.

Z

Here’s a well-reasoned article about China’s whataboutism related to their treatment of the Uyghurs.

https://thediplomat.com/2021/02/responding-to-chinese-whataboutism-on-uyghur-and-native-genocides/

First, U.S. officials need to get their history right. Chinese officials have sought to use purported American hypocrisy to undermine any criticism of their own policies for decades. But the charge that the United States committed genocide against Native Americans is valid. American violence, neglect, disease, and ecological disruption contributed to a process that from 1492 onward has led to the deaths of millions and myriad lingering effects. U.S. officials ought not to hide that behind a whitewashed version of history, such as that presented by the Trump administration’s 1776 Commission report. Early U.S. policymakers, including George Washington and his secretary of war, Henry Knox, evinced at least an occasional understanding that if the new government behaved maliciously toward Native nations, it would be a stain on the country’s reputation well into the future. They and subsequent policymakers nonetheless pursued policies that brought about the dispossession of Native Americans, and it should not be surprising that other states would use this history against the United States. Such openness in acknowledging historical realities – and in noting similarities in Chinese history – would allow U.S. officials to note the insecure opacity behind which China is violating the human rights of Uyghurs.

Beyond transparency, U.S. officials also have more positive aspects of recent history that they can juxtapose with Chinese policies. Over the past century, the United States has taken steps to better honor its commitments to Indigenous communities, efforts that have remained imperfect and intermittent but that include the Indian Claims Act of 1946, the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990. While such correctives have not fully addressed the desires of many individuals and tribal governments, these reforms give U.S. officials some room for a rejoinder to their Chinese counterparts. Past genocides do not justify current ones, especially given subsequent commitments to human rights, and if anything, the Chinese government could learn from U.S. efforts at redress, incomplete though they may be.

Does any one really know how Jeff Epstein got hold of that much money?

And where is there a return on blackmailing Prince Andrew?

The CCP is as much to blame as the Western multinationals and politicians and economists and lawyers and accountants and other academics who enabled the transfer of America’s manufacturing base to China.

Might want to toss Wall Street in there as well. I tend to suspect they might have had some slight influence on passing PNTR since it happened during the Robert Rubin Administration.

Again, the CCP has no responsibility to U.S. labor. And, as far as I know, the U.S. has no elected officials in the CCP.

Now we are on to the China! China! China! diversion along with the Russia! Russia! Russia! hysteria when the country that has done the most damage to the U.S. is in fact Israel. And many of the people involved in that are dual citizens of the U.S. and Israel.

No country has had as much to do with corrupting U.S. politicians and the U.S. government as Israel (see Epstein, Jeffrey) so of course the Hasbarists point everywhere else … racism, Russia, republicans, Trump, China … except at all-blessed Israel.

Z

Firstly, whataboutism is just a cold war era ploy to prevent leftist criticism of US coups and abuses against other countries. It’s raised as an argument about why only the US is allowed to intervene in the internal politics of other countries while nobody else is even about to raise the hypocrisy of US actions.

Seconds. There is no whatabout between the Uighur story. There’s no smoking gun, no actual abuse. Just a bunch of fake numbers blown up by Adrian Zenz, UWC, and MIC tied NGOs/press. But PS and Hugh never bother to respond or properly rebut. They just keep repeating American slander because it feels so good.

https://thegrayzone.com/2021/03/17/report-uyghur-genocide-sham-university-neocon-punish-china/

The UIghurs never had it so good. China never stole any technology. Tiananmen never happened. China has the right to do whatever it wants in Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the South China Sea because because. Better Chinese propaganda and propagandists, please.

Nice bit of misdirection, PS. Grab the first sentence and don’t respond the the actual point, which is newly rich and powerful China can and should provide for ALL of its citizens, not send them to other countries. I am afraid your multicultural fantasy is a luxury we, who are not wealthy China, can no longer afford.

Climate Denial Crock of the Week is reporting how unusual Elsa the tropical storm/wannabe hurricane is, according to experienced meteorologists. They report the last time a storm formed in the eastern Atlantic so early in the season was 2005 (Dennis), and before that was in 1933. It’s interesting to note for our friends north of the border that Dennis made landfall in Pensacola Florida, but didn’t completely dissipate until it reached Ontario, Canada.

They are fairly certain Elsa will make landfall somewhere in Florida early this coming week, so we will see if they are right.

You probably recall that 2005 was also the season for a storm named Katrina. Four Cat-5 storms formed in 2005, three of which hit the US, including Katrina, Rita, and Wilma (Emily affected Haiti, Jamaica, and Mexico).

From Wikipedia on the 1933 storm season:

The 1933 Atlantic hurricane season set the pre-weather satellite record for most tropical storms formed within a single season, and currently ranks as the third-most active Atlantic hurricane season, only behind 2005 and 2020. It also produced the highest Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) on record in the Atlantic basin, with a total of 259.[1]

In 1992 the U.S. worker voted to end Reagan-ism. What they got instead was something much worse: Reagan’s industrial policy and anti-union zealotry plus a criminally unaccountable Wall Street-dominated financial system.

What they got was Rubin-ism.

Z

You know, “Handjob Across the Aisle” Joe Biden is a great guy if you look at him in the right light.

For one thing, you got to give the man this: he keeps his word. Yes he does, dutifully to the republicans and his Wall Street sponsors.

For another, he loves his son Hunter … and who could fault him for that? Who wouldn’t love spunky little Hunter? In fact, he loves his boy so much that instead of going out as a legendary hero to tens of millions of U.S. citizens by entirely freeing them from the financial and psychological burdens of student debt … which would only require a stroke of a pen from him … he’s much more concerned about securing his son’s future prospects to grift from Joe’s elite pals. Say what you will, but that’s love!

Z

The old joke was that politics was hollywood for ugly people. Reagan changed all that: when General Electric discovered his talent as a model-spokesperson politician, displacing the power-hungry dweebs who might actually want to do something for, instead of to, their voters.

@Z,

Yes, what we got was Rubinism. And since it was Clinton who brought it to us, I will go all the way and call it Clintonism, since Clinton was a Rhodes Scholar and smart enough to know exactly what Clintonism was designed to do.

Plus, Clinton was Jeffrey Epstein’s friend. And Hillary was Jeffrey Epstein’s friend’s wife. Let’s don’t forget that.

Actually, I read somewhere that there was quite a bit of stealthy support for Trump in some wealthy communities in Connecticut when they saw how much money his tax cuts were going to bring in for them. They just knew enough to be quiet about it.

Also, as to Reagan being a front for unattractive villains – yeah. I remember being depressed by that when he was in office. It dawned on me that the only things folks in the USA minded about Hitler were the dorky mustache, the uncouth ranting, and being too obvious about the genocide. However, they were fine with his overall policies as long as somebody with a pretty face and pleasant manners fronted for them.

Ran Prieur’s blog, which I have mentioned here from time to time, just now offers a look at a completely different aspect of the unfolding China experience, and its possible worldwide deeper meaning.

” July 8. By now you’ve all heard about the lying flat movement in China. I’m trying to think of something to say about it that’s not totally obvious, and what I’ve come up with is, this is the end of “communism”.

I put the word in quotes because for a long time now, the word has been more important than the thing. In America, “communist” is a word used to denigrate any attempt to use the state to redistribute wealth or help the poor. In China, “communist” is a word used to give the impression that a capitalist economy with an authoritarian government is for the people.

So in both places, the word is being used to protect a domination system from any attempt to make it more bottom-up — the opposite of the original intention of the word.

Communism, the thing, came out of the industrial cities of the 1800’s, with deeper roots in the 1700’s — the Age of Reason, when domination shifted its metaphysical foundation away from an imaginary sky father, and toward an imaginary clockwork universe.

If the fundamental reality is the Machine, then the fundamental values are efficiency, productivity, usefulness, and central planning by an elite trained in reductionist thinking. That’s why all communist states turned out that way. It’s also why, in communist literature, human beings are called “workers” — as if human existence has no meaning other than utilitarian toil.

When Oscar Wilde said “Work is the curse of the drinking classes,” his point was that the meaning of existence is to have a good time, and we’re blocked from that by the often unnecessary imperative to get things done. ”

Here is a link to the ” lying flat” article Prieur has referrenced.
https://apnews.com/article/business-d2b9f71d73219b32d78709b0afb443ca

Here is a link to the Ran Prieur blog in general.
http://www.ranprieur.com/

Does anyone remember the Hippie Era slogan: Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out. . . . . ?

Here’s a possible new meaner tougher leaner Hippie Slogan for today’s leaner tougher
meaner times of today.

Tune Out, Turn Down, Slack Off.