by Tony Wikrent
Strategic Political Economy
“Economic Warfare: What Can World War One Tell us about 21st Century Conflicts?”
Jonathan Kirshner is a Professor of Political Science and International Studies at Boston College, and the Stephen and Barbara Friedman Professor of International Political Economy Emeritus in the Department of Government, Cornell University. By the late 1920s France had Europe’s most powerful army, much of the world’s gold, and was an active and aggressive practitioner of economic warfare. Within a decade, however, tragically, and even shamefully, France could barely be roused to rise to its own self-defense. The stark difference between 1930 and 1940 is attributable to a radical polarization of French politics and an embrace of “the age of unreason” that paralyzed the country’s foreign policy practice. Kirshner explains how the shocking six week military collapse in autumn 1939 was prefigured by the destruction of French democracy in the six years before the German invasion. After the 1936 political collapse, the French upper classes openly opposed new Socialist Prime Minister Leon Blum with the slogan, “Better Hitler than Blum.” The United States today appears on a similar course of decline.
Capitalism versus Democracy: Sam Seder interviews Prof. Timothy Kuhner
Georgia State University Law Professor Timothy K. Kuhner author of Capitalism v. Democracy: Money in Politics and the Free Market Constitution explains the history of campaign funding scandals, economic power and political exclusion, the choice between Milton Friedman and John Rawls in Buckley Valeo, why the right wing majority on the Supreme Court treats Thomas Paine the same as the Koch brothers, the function of the Supreme Court has been to protect private capital, restricting the scope of campaign finance regulation, bizarre free market ideology has run amok and campaign finance reform and overturning American oligarchy.
Predatory Finance
Financial Speculation Is About More Than GameStop Day Traders
David Dayen, May 4, 2021 [The American Prospect]
The real speculation is happening at the top of the market, through skyrocketing merger transactions and increases in the power of the biggest companies…. There is currently a frenzy of M&A activity, and while the SPAC craze did make this worse by increasing prices for private companies, deal making has continued even as SPACs tailed off. The first four months of 2021 saw $1.77 trillion in global transactions, higher than any other year in history. “It’s the busiest I’ve ever known it,” said one industry veteran to the Financial Times. Deals have surged among tech startups too, which in recent years has been a prelude to more mergers as those founders pursue an exit strategy. The Biden administration has provided little resistance to merger activity, which gives budding monopolists the signal that they will have no problems building their empire. In particular, private equity is thundering, with $1.6 trillion in spare capital to play with. Mega-deals of over $10 billion are rising, and major sales, like Apollo Global Management’s purchase of AOL and Yahoo from Verizon, have consummated in recent days.
We know the dangers of this rampant speculation: more layoffs as mergers create “synergies,” more companies forced to take on debt and inevitably hemorrhage workers in the process, more communities hollowed out with the loss of key services like hospitals, as private equity firms value their own profit extraction over viable businesses. This is a far more insidious form of financial speculation than someone YOLO-trading a couple hundred bucks for fun.
Wall Street margin debt surges to record high
[World Socialist Web Site, via Mike Norman Economics 5-6-2021]
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens, May 7, 2021 [Wall Street on Parade]
The Biden Transition and the Fight for Real Hope and Change This Time
“The American Rescue Plan as Economic Theory”
[J.W. Mason, via Naked Capitalism Water Cooler 5-5-21]
The size and design of ARPA is a more consequential rejection of this [prevailing macroeconomic] catechism. Without being described as such, it’s a decisive recognition of half a dozen points that those of us on the left side of the macroeconomic debate have been making for years. 1. The official unemployment rate is an unreliable guide to the true degree of labor market slack, all the time and especially in downturns. … n… 2. The balance of macroeconomic risks is not symmetrical. We don’t live in an economy that fluctuates around a long-term growth path, but one that periodically falls into recessions or depressions. These downturns are a distinct category of events, not a random “shock” to production or desired spending….. 3. The existence of hysteresis is one important reason that demand shortfalls are much more costly than overshooting…. 4. A full employment or high pressure economy has benefits that go well beyond the direct benefits of higher incomes and output…. 5. Public debt doesn’t matter. Maybe I missed it, but as far as I can tell, in the push for the Rescue Plan neither the administration nor the Congressional leadership made even a gesture toward deficit reduction, not even a pro forma comment that it might be desirable in principle or in the indefinite long run…. 6. Work incentives don’t matter.”
Predatory Capitalism in the Time of COVID19
GOP governors slash jobless aid to try to force more Americans to return to work
[Washington Post, May 8, 2021]
Arkansas, Montana and South Carolina have acted in recent days to end extra $300 weekly payments to unemployed Americans, even as the Biden administration maintains generous benefits are not deterring people from seeking work
Finding it Hard to Hire? Try Raising Your Wages
Barry Ritholtz, May 6, 2021 [The Big Picture]
If the Demand for workers is there, why hasn’t the supply caught up yet? The short answer is Price. Employers have been reluctant to raise wages. This is classic problem where buyers and sellers get anchored on some past level, failing to keep up with the realities of markets….
After several decades of lagging prices for low wage labor, I believe what we are witnessing is something very similar. THERE IS NO MORE LABOR FOR SALE AT $7/HOUR; so the price moves up. Once it moves up high enough so that supply matches with demand, you get a stabilization at that level.
In this morning’s reads was this Pittsburgh Business Times on a few stores that cracked the code for finding workers: The TL:DR was they doubled their starting wages from $7.25 an hour to $15 an hour. Instead of getting a few applicants per position, half of whom wouldn’t show for the interview, they got 1,000s: “It was instant, overnight. We got thousands of applications that poured in. [And, it led to getting] quality work from people when they know that they are going to make a good paycheck.”
….It has taken a while for this to reach a point where all of these forces have made their way down the economic strata to the minimum wage cohort. That is what is going on right now. $7 an hour is so yesterday; $10 hour seems cheap but its actually expensive once you factor in poor candidates and high turnover rates.
Wages have lagged just about every measure over the past 40 years: CPI Inflation, Health care and education costs, productivity, corporate profits, C Suite compensation, even the number of billionaires seems to be growing faster than wages.
Want to hire qualified candidates who will fill jobs, generate revenue, create profits, and lower your overall cost structure? Perhaps you should consider offering higher starting wages.
Amid labor shortage, these Pittsburgh companies are filling open roles. Here’s how.
[Pittsburgh Business Times, via The Big Picture 5-5-2021]
“It was instant, overnight. We got thousands of applications that poured in,” Maya Johnson, general manager of Klavon’s Ice Cream Parlor in the Strip District, said. Here’s how she and other Pittsburgh-area companies are getting workers in the door and onto payrolls.
Is Unemployment Insurance Behind the Fast-Food Labor Shortage?
[The American Prospect, May 5, 2021]
In reality, it’s the low pay and abysmal working conditions.
Benjamin Franklin, 1783:
“….To desire to keep down the rate of wages… is to seek to render the citizens of a state miserable… it is, at most, attempting to enrich a few merchants by impoverishing the body of the nation; it is taking the part of the stronger in that contest, already so unequal, between the man who can pay wages, and him who is under the necessity of receiving them; it is, in one word, to forget, that the object of every political society ought to be the happiness of the largest number…. The low rate of wages, then, is not the real cause of the advantages of commerce between one nation and another; but it is one of the greatest evils of political communities. — “Reflections on the Augmentation of Wages, Which Will Be Occasioned in Europe by the American Revolution”
[New Wayland 5-8-2021, via Mike Norman Economics]
Here is that well known pinko commie Henry Ford on the nature of wages from his autobiography:
I have learned through the years a good deal about wages. I believe in the first place that, all other considerations aside, our own sales depend in a measure upon the wages we pay. If we can distribute high wages, then that money is going to be spent and it will serve to make storekeepers and distributors and manufacturers and workers in other lines more prosperous and their prosperity will be reflected in our sales. Country-wide high wages spell country-wide prosperity, provided, however, the higher wages are paid for higher production. Paying high wages and lowering production is starting down the incline toward dull business.
There is nothing to running a business by custom—to saying: “I pay the going rate of wages.” The same man would not so easily say: “I have nothing better or cheaper to sell than any one has.” No manufacturer in his right mind would contend that buying only the cheapest materials is the way to make certain of manufacturing the best article. Then why do we hear so much talk about the “liquidation of labour” and the benefits that will flow to the country from cutting wages—which means only the cutting of buying power and the curtailing of the home market? What good is industry if it be so unskillfully managed as not to return a living to everyone concerned? No question is more important than that of wages—most of the people of the country live on wages. The scale of their living—the rate of their wages—determines the prosperity of the country.
Climate and environmental crises
Is the $1 Trillion Coastal Housing Market a Future Financial Crisis?
[UCLA Anderson Review, via The Big Picture 5-7-2021]
A decade or two from now — perhaps much sooner — we may be parsing the early signs of the Coastal Housing Crisis, brought on by climate change and its rising seas. If present trends continue, that crisis would also involve soaring home prices and mortgage debt in the most flood-vulnerable zones, and regular, if not catastrophic, flooding that makes once-prized areas undesirable, if not unlivable.
The (Anti)Federalist Society Infestation of the Courts
Federal judge vacates CDC’s nationwide eviction moratorium
[Washington Post, May 5, 2021]
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday ruled that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention overstepped its legal authority by issuing a nationwide eviction moratorium, a ruling that could affect millions of struggling Americans. In a 20-page order, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich vacated the CDC order, first put in place during the coronavirus pandemic under the Trump administration and now set to expire June 30.
The underlying problem, being totally ignored, is that judges who have been trained in the conservative “Law and Economics” doctrine are deeply hostile to any notion that the community also has rights, such as preserving public health. See Property, Liberty, and the Rights of the Community: Lessons from Munn v. Illinois, by Paul Kens [Buffalo Public Interest Law Journal, Volume 30 (2011).
Stripping the Courts’ Jurisdiction
[The American Prospect, May 5, 2021]
All of which should lead us to ask why nine unelected judges are given the power to make so many important decisions in the first place. Most Americans perceive the Court as an integral part of our democracy. But in reality, the relationship of judges to democracy is more complicated, and at times, antagonistic.
By enforcing constitutional rules, judicial review helps to smooth out democracy’s rough edges. But when they overturn democratically enacted laws, judges also shrink our capacity to make decisions for ourselves. And if judges overdo it, judicial review can preempt necessary democratic development. At the extreme, instead of making democratic life more decent and predictable, interventionist courts can spark long-lasting and intense conflict….
But the deepest threat that judicial review poses for democracy lies ahead of us. Republicans have built their recent political strategy around stocking the federal bench with right-wing partisans. And they’ve done so for a reason: Demographic change is making it increasingly difficult for the GOP to win elections, but a conservative judiciary can stand in the way of much of what Democrats and a majority of Americans hope to accomplish. The conservative Supreme Court would likely intervene, for example, to limit attempts to address global warming, to expand health care, to enforce rational public-health laws, or to tax the very wealthy. In all these cases, the Supreme Court would not be enforcing any clear text in the Constitution. It would be exercising raw power.
For any committed small-d democrat, this sort of politicized judging is unacceptable. And opposition is starting to build: We’ve seen a slew of recent court reform proposals, including judicial term limits, Supreme Court supermajority voting requirements, and, perhaps most prominently, court-packing.
The Dark Side
“Trump Spawned a New Group of Mega-Donors Who Now Hold Sway Over the GOP’s Future”
[ProPublica, via Naked Capitalism Water Cooler 5-6-21]
“ProPublica identified 29 people and couples who increased their political contributions at least tenfold since 2015, based on an analysis of Federal Election Commission records compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. The donors in the table below gave at least $1 million to Trump and the GOP after previously having spent less than $1 million total. Most of the donations went to super PACs supporting Trump or to the Trump Victory joint fundraising vehicle that spread the money among his campaign and party committees…. several of the biggest new donors — banking scion Timothy Mellon and his wife, Patricia; Marvel Entertainment chairman Ike Perlmutter and his wife, Laura; and Dallas pipeline billionaire Kelcy Warren and his wife, Amy — now rank among such better-known, longer-running donors as Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, professional wrestling founders Linda and Vince McMahon, and casino mogul Steve Wynn. For some new donors, the sudden increase in their political contributions may have as much to do with newly acquired wealth as with the ascent of Trump and his grip on the Republican Party. But others inherited fortunes or made them long ago, yet never made a splash in campaign finance records until now. Several of the donors have not spoken publicly about their support for Trump or have not been extensively covered before. ProPublica requested interviews with everyone named in this article and included comments from those who responded.” • With table of the 29 (sadly, not easy to excerpt or screenshot). These are, I think, the elephants in the room.
Hugh
We are largely governed by the myths we were taught and which we continue to reflexively defend. The US is neither a democracy nor a representative republic. The Constitution is not holy writ. It was written by the haves to divvy up power among themselves and keep it out of the hands of the mob (the rest of us). The Supreme Court has been sanctified as a temple of impartiality while for virtually the whole of its history it has been the most radical and reactionary defender of the haves against the rest of us.
Add into this the modern Republican party which is both a fascist party and a permanent minority one as well, and you begin to understand its fixation with an unelected judiciary with lifetime appointments in general and nine Supreme Court justices in particular.
Jason
Good god Hugh. A wonderful opening then marred by the usual. What’s left to say.
Hugh
Thanks, Jason, for making my point. Across the board, we see the embrace of myths. It’s just a question of which myths by which groups. I’m assuming that one of the myths that Jason buys into is that, must be something in our water, the US is immune from fascism. For those of us who have not drunk that koolaid, a Trump and Trumpism in any other country would be a no-brainer to class as fascist. But in the myth-bound, not so much. Similarly, that the Republicans won the popular vote only once in the last 30 years (Bush’s post 9/11 second term), McConnell’s stacking of the federal judiciary, gerrymandering and ongoing voter suppression aren’t the actions of a minority party trying to retain power in spite of elections because (insert myth here).
NR
I’ve noticed that Jason fits the profile of a certain type of online poster who posts a ton of criticism of Democrats from the left, but then gets really upset whenever anyone criticizes Republicans. I wonder why that could be.
bruce wilder
I listened to Professor Kirshner draw parallels with the paralysis and collapse of the Third Republic in the 1930s, but was disappointed that so much of his rhetoric flew high into abstraction — a good strategy if you do not want to stir acute controversy or fisticuffs, but also not a great way to make yourself understood. Still some good points, especially in the Q&A.
One point he drew attention to is the ongoing transformation of the Republican Party by the Trump phenomenon. That a reality teevee star blew thru a slate of Republican grandees in the 2016 primary remains an underdiscussed event and it continues to have reprecussions, as polling shows Republican voters strongly favor Trump over more establishment Republican figures and now we are learning that previously inactive Republican billionaire donors have entered the fray on Trump’s coattails.
A point Prof Kirshner shied away from is the corrupt use of American power and the hard-coded link it establishes between globalization and the hijacking of American foreign policy. Those parts of the American elites (this can be at several levels) that see themselves as invested in and tied into various political and economic interests abroad are always a factor, have always been a factor. Not anything new, but the gargatuan Military footprint globally and the global business enterprises have scaled up. I think the Ukraine connection for Biden and Trump campaign advisors, and the Trump impeachment it occasioned, are underdiscussed.
That the U.S. cannot win or end a war is telling, and Kirschner only mentioned that in passing, did not analyze it.
bruce wilder
I would dearly love to read criticism of the Republican Party that was not simply a mirror of some manipulative tribal tale put out by the Democratic Party establishment to make themselves look good.
I am not holding my breath waiting for Hugh to go beyond calling all kinds of improbable people and entities, “fascist”.
NR
What would qualify as this type of criticism, in your opinion?
bruce wilder
I would like to understand better the enthusiasm so many have for Trump. To me Trump seems a hypomaniac and con-man, “weak” in the twin senses of lacking deep convictions and also lacking the kind of political insight needed to master the so-called deep state. His politics, such as it is, tends to be transactionalist and corrupting and about as deep as a rant on Fox & Friends (which I have never seen more than about 10 minutes, so who knows). For me, Trump speaking informally is cringeworthy in the extreme.
I know people personally who really like Trump, politically. When I listen to them, I pick up on certain themes (including revulsion toward Democrats) but mine is a very small sample.
I have never in my life identified as a Republican. It is hard for me to imagine walking in their shoes.
I wonder what the policy implications of the evident conflict between the policy preferences of the old Republican establishment and the Republican electorate is likely to be.
I really liked Kevin Phillips on the turn of the Republican Party to Theocrats and Bad Money — that was good stuff, great insightful critique, but clearly outdated post-Trump.
different clue
@Bruce Wilder,
Here is a Michael Moore video where he is explaining to an audience why Trump will ( would) win the 2016 election and where the enthusiasm comes from. If you would like to begin understanding it, you can watch this.
Of course if you would actually prefer to NOT understand it, you can always NOT watch the video.
Here is the link.
https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video;_ylt=A0geK.AIY5hgA3YAFDpXNyoA;_ylu=Y29sbwNiZjEEcG9zAzEEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Nj?p=youtube+michael+moore+trump+election&fr=sfp#id=29&vid=49487b2e5273336671763b4ce0254c6d&action=view
NR
bruce wilder,
So then, would criticizing the corruption at the heart of the Republican party (and it is not just Trump, Mitch McConnell and many others are at least as corrupt as Trump is) qualify as legitimate criticism in your opinion?
Are there any other avenues of legitimate criticism?
bruce wilder
“Corruption” is a perennial criticism of politicians and poltical parties. The meaning of the term can be made almost infinitely elastic, but is rarely defined. The “legitimacy” of the critique would depend, imo, on the factual truth of the charge and a showing that official acts have been taken in flagrant disregard of a clear public interest and/or in defiance of clear legal procedures and norms.
Hugh
Still not sure why Americans think they are immune to fascism. Either there are no fascists in the US, or if there are, there are only five or six hiding out in Idaho. This denial is itself very much a part of the mythical thinking I’m talking about. If there is a problem, the first thing to do is deny that there is a problem . . .
If we want to solve problems in this country, we need to understand why 25%-40% of US adults are either fascist or support fascists. Burying our heads in the sand because that’s easier than dealing with fascism, of course, doesn’t work as well as being pretty suicidal.
Jason
Hugh, I may actually think less of the republican party than you do. The label “fascist” probably isn’t helpful, but I understand your anger. They are certainly repugnant to my own basic sense of conscience and goodness, and given my foibles that’s not saying much.
But here’s the thing: so is the democratic party. And you entirely neglect the one and focus all your attention on the other, and it just serves to detract from the entire argument. Most importantly, it’s a singularly-focused narrative that doesn’t tell the whole story. This can be worse than not knowing anything. It serves as a form of misdirection, whether intended or not.
This well explains why over half the population doesn’t vote: They hear a story from one side and it doesn’t ring true in their lives, then they turn to the other side and hear a different story and run with that for a while, but eventually come to realize it doesn’t gel with their own lives either. I’m reminded of the video of the black men at an inner city barber shop who were asked if they were going to vote for Hillary the democrat in 2016. They said no. When the interviewer asked why, they answered that they voted for the black democrat twice and their lives got worse. I imagine Hugh would try to convince them otherwise.
The democrats consistently act as de facto republicans by feigning weakness and refusing to exercise power, or by letting their own massive egos get in the way. This has been true recently vis a vis the court, as Hugh is well aware.
I mean, how many more times does the obvious need to be stated?
“The republicans are evil and full of shit.”
“Err, yes, Hugh, we’re already aware of that. We were before you started blasting our craniums with it every day and we’ll know it long after you’re gone. You see Hugh, it is simply the way things are.”
NR, whatever your insinuations are meant to infer, I do hope your wondering doesn’t keep you awake at night.
Hugh
So if we call the new Jim Crow voter suppression something “clear public interest”-sounding like voter integrity, voilà it ceases to be corrupt. And if our rich and elites simply rewrite the law or like Donald Trump appoint an Attorney General who will defend his crookery, again no corruption. I do not see what is gained by we the many when corruption is defined out of existence by those who profit from it.
Hugh
Understand, Jason, is what you don’t do. You come across to me as just another Democrat-hating former Democrat. You and yours can’t explain how it is that the US is the one country in the world that has no fascists. Rather than look at fascism in the US, you find your absurd denial of it easier. And it lets you get back to your Democrat-hating which is what you really want to do. I’ve been an independent all my life so I don’t have your obsessions about Democrats. Unlike you, I don’t need to put in a couple of dismissive, throwaway lines about Republicans, then spend paragraphs going off on Democrats, and call it all fair and balanced.
The Republican party has been reactionary for years. Now it’s gone fascist. Apparently, that is still a false equivalence too far or too inconvenient for you. So rather than deal with it, you just deny it. That’s the difference between us. You let fascists off the hook. I don’t. And in your absurd binary world, you think because I am not as kneejerk anti-Democrat as you, I must be pro-Democrat. I’m not.
Jason
A potential candidate could woo voters by going on about creeping republican fascism. I’d certainly talk about the true purpose of the supreme court, as Hugh pointed out, and the republican stacking with federalist society hooligans. I’d talk about the federalist society in general.
I’d also discuss the destruction of black wealth during the Obama presidency (I’d amend it to lower class wealth, but the larger point remains). What were the structures in place that led to it, how was it allowed it to happen, and what could and should have been done instead.
https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Foreclosed.pdf
And then I’d talk about how both parties are unconscionable on foreign policy.
We’re just getting started here…
Jason
And in your absurd binary world, you think because I am not as kneejerk anti-Democrat as you, I must be pro-Democrat. I’m not.
Hugh, if it’s been miscommunication the whole time, I’m happy to put the entire thing to rest. It is interesting that you see me as stuck in a binary, as that’s how I see you. There is something to learn here.
Kneejerk anti-democrat? Come on. I’m not kneejerk anything except maybe kneejerk anti-bullshit.
I’ve always been an independent. To a fault, in fact. It’s a lonely existence.
Tony Wikrent
Here is the video of Michael Moore explaining why Trump will win in 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMm5HfxNXY4
Astrid
I’ll say it again. In terms of bad boyfriend material. Republicans are the gross assholes are that I know well to steer away from and never date. Democrats be the “feminist” gaslighting manipulators who just can’t understand why they would ever be rejected, even after they cheated on you, got handsy with your friends, handed you off to police unions and corporations while you’re in compromised conditions and then slut shames you to your parents, and lie so often and so comfortably that you start to doubt yourself and think maybe you’re the crazy one.
Even after you finally break up, your friends (still with Democrats) ask why you broke up with “such a nice guy”. They might even admit that he has some issues but look you’re not getting any younger and that Republican over there is terrible, you know. But I don’t want to date either, you may protest. If someone better doesn’t come along, I’ll be like half the country and be single and get a dog. But look at how gross the Republicans are, come the reply.
Hugh is basically Democrats’ wingman. Sure, he claims he understand that Democrats have problems but look at the GOP there and how gross they are acting. Oh, and don’t think about seeing if there are better non-USian options, they’re all Fascists Authoritarians, for beating people who express actual Fascist or neo-Nazi racialist opinions. He also won’t mention that Democrats and Republicans both sleep with same donor base, so you’ll definitely get the same social diseases from both.
Astrid
Jason,
You’re arguing with someone whose response to every complaint of Democrat malfeasance is “but Trump” and who continues to defend Navalny, Ukrainian Benderites, “moderate rebel” head choppers in Syria, Saudi supported Uighur terrorists, and NED supported fabulists, even after many many people have tried to direct him to better information. (And gets called a troll or fascist for their troubles). Who is pretty darn okay with sanctions and worse that are causing suffering and deaths to millions of people (who, even if everything stated against their regime were true, are not particularly responsible for the actions of those regimes. )
You’re not arguing with someone that you can having an honest disagreement with. Sure, enjoy punching Hugh because he deserves it and it’s cathartic, like I do, but don’t expect him to change his spots.
Astrid
Bruce,
My sampling of Trump supporters is rather small too, but I think Trump is more about rejection of the GOP than of the Democrats. The Democrats already alienated these people through their theatrical idpol posturing (basically negging, the current trans turn makes 99.5% of the population into oppressors) and lack of delivering any substance for decades. But they do sense that that Republican party is extremely corrupt and Trump is see as an outsider spoiler who might shake things up.
A decent proportion of Trump supporters I come into contact with are not MAGAites. They’re decent traditional conservative (not antiwomen) people who really believe Trump is a centrist choice and a decent counter to the leftists and the religious crazies. They seem like open minded people who are willing to entertain other ways of governance, but MSM pretty much ensure that they are fed a narrative that make them reject left ideas before they give it a proper hearing.
I think these people are saveable. They have been conditioned to think in a certain way to reject ideas from the left. But with the right framing, it’s possible to get them to reject the current framework and understand the sensibleness of left (or just 1950s) positions. Most of them are already open to the more reasonable framework of racial and gender equality, just not bizarre carveouts where 99.5% of the populace is now supposed to now self identify as cisgender blah blah blah every five minutes. If we can return to broader class solidarity, we can win this. I think the idpol obsessed liberals are further beyond the pale and may be unsaveable, but hopefully they don’t represent a bigger segment of the populace than QANON cultists.
I think Trump is a dispicable piece of human garbage and lies as naturally as he breaths. But I found GWBush and Obama far harder to stomach, since they shielded their lies in a cloak of decency and likeability. That just makes them better snake oil salesmen.
Plague Species
Just as surely as you are what you eat, you are what you support and enable and promote. Say no to the wealthy elite in ALL their insidious incarnations.
https://furry.substack.com/p/greenwald-is-no-leftist
Plague Species
Dead giveaway here. A flaw in the translation software.
Plague Species
Creeping Republican fascism? Bwahaha. More like sprinting Republican fascism. In fact, Republican fascism is redundant. Republicans are inherently and overtly and explicitly fascist for all to see in plain sight whereas Democrats are fascists in disguise and a poor disguise at that.
Hugh
Yes, Astrid, tell us how wonderful the Chinese dictatorship is. The left and so-called progressives have as many fantasies as the QAnoners. Both sides are wedded more to their kooky myths than actually solving anything. It’s like listening to two groups arguing over whether 2 + 2 equals 27 or 45. We’re supposed to be left with the choice between your pointless lies or their pointless lies. Either way nothing gets better. For me, it is moral and intellectual bankruptcy and cowardice. But you and they ceased caring about that a long time ago.
Astrid
Hugh,
Try actually debunking the stories reported at https://thegrayzone.com. Not just smear them as trolls and guilt by association, but actually give facts that support something other than a vast conspiracy of uniparty evil and lies.
I freely admit that the Chinese, Russian, Iranian, and other governments are flawed and perhaps oppressive to portions of their poplace. But I am certain that they are exponentially better than what your freedumb loving ass supports in their place. Rather than admit that the Zionist aparteid state infested US has a longer track record of utter failure and state destruction, you want to double down and make sure it happens to even more people.
High, you are scum. On par with Adrien Zenz and the plutocrat dominated World Uighur Congress. You would like to destroy the lives of billions of people, including most Uighurs who are certainly living better lives under the Chinese than the sort of horror that exists amongst the various -stans. All because that’s what it takes to give yourself a proper humanitarian stiffy in the morning.
Astrid
Plague Species,
I don’t care if it offends current sensibilities for me to say this, but I prefer not to kick the kid at the very back of the short bus.
Astrid
And as for what the Chinese state has done for its people. It lifted most of its population out of poverty. No need to fake statistics, anyone who has been to a European travel destination or an American college town, or lived in high priced RE market can tell you that with their very eyes. Anyone traveling in China can access modern subway systems, high speed rail, giant airports, well built highways, and mind bending numbers of skyscrapers everywhere.
Even its poorer citizenry can access jobs that lets them buy consumer goods and eat meat regularly. Its wealthier citizenry are literally buying out significant portions of SF, Vancouver, and Sydney and paying full tuitions that are keeping many US universities afloat. It now has the industrial base to pretty much build most everything from scratch and they’re working very hard on the rest. High speed rail and highways are available in pretty much every corner. I suspect that the median or mode Chinese person is worth more than their USian counterparts. They also don’t have to worry about catching COVID everytime they go to work or school in the past 12 months.
Now, lots of these things come with great costs, in term of harm to environment and wealth disparity. China had lots of problems with its finance and state control system, and a demographic bomb that can only be kicked down the road so many times. Culturally, the one child policy and return to Confucian norms cause a pressure cooker lifestyle that is utter misery for the young and not much better for everyone else. Housing is ridiculously expensive and the social culture lags far behind Singapore or Taiwan.
But compare that to Central Asia, Near East, Latin America, Eastern/Southern Europe, what the PRC government accomplished is miraculous. They have nearly accomplishing what the Japanese/ROC/ROK governments accomplished in a similar span of time, with 10x the population and without US’s explicit support.
Meanwhile the US minimum wage is now 1/3 of what it should be based on inflation from 40 years ago. The former communist block in Europe is dominated by right wing authoritarian governments and a free falling demographic as the young escape westward. UK destroyed its once legendary civil service so much that they pretty much gave away the farm on Brexit negotiations.
While the Chinese government doesn’t have open elections, it is actually pretty responsive to its people because 19th and 20th century history taught it to fear an unhappy populace, and because there is a social monitoring system that, while expressed purely in negative terms in the west, also does things that keep track of the elderly and low income households and are basically a super powered neighborhood association, with its attendant pluses and minuses. Even”princelings” like Xi still lived a relatively modest life style And interacted people who got where they did on actual merit, as a young man.
Compare that to a US “free election” where you can’t vote for anyone who isn’t fully bought by billionaires, where the election process is intentional opaque, and where the elite never interacts or bother to understand those below them.
This isn’t too say what the Chinese have isn’t deeply corrupt, authoritarian and unsustainable. But for the moment, it looks hell of a lot better and more”lawful” than than USA, never mind the USA victim role that Hugh had in mind for it.
Trinity
Not exactly sure why the vociferous discussions about China. How exactly does one judge or define the “goodness” of any government? I would think it begins with the well being of its people (and other living things). Or at least it should start there.
Which leads me to the need for proof, and Bruce’s sometime word salads. Maybe Tony can chime in as he is on the frontline, but it seems to me it is becoming more and more difficult to gather the “right” or “best” data for any truly worthwhile analysis, and positive proof is even more difficult.
Not only are the meanings of words morphing on a now annual basis, with new terms introduced to hide or disguise the real processes occurring behind firmly closed and storm shuttered doors, but the data that describes the outcomes, what results from these processes (that are themselves described with arcane words) are also suspect. It’s hard to keep up, really. Is it worth it? Will keeping up change things for the better of all? I suspect not, as it seems that most of it is designed to misdirect attention away from what’s really happening.
I could be wrong. My point is that it is becoming harder and harder to prove a lot of things. What would even constitute proof that would satisfy the majority? I suspect this isn’t an accident, given Hugh’s myths, but still have no proof. All I do have is the wisdom to know that people rarely change.
John
I love you Astrid and everything you wrote above. As Lambert frequently writes at Naked Capitalism, “we are ruled by Harkonnens”.
Hugh
The typical anti-reality, China might not be perfect phrase and then the paragraphs extolling the wonders of China. Blah, blah, blah. Chinese racism, good. American racism, bad. Chinese imperialism, good. American imperialism, bad. It’s like you’re on drugs.
Joseph E. Kelleam
“the Zionist aparteid state infested US”
Gurl, u cray cray.
Plague Species
And what is really happening, the most important thing, is humans are destroying the living planet at breakneck speed unabated and China has taken the lead from America in ensuring complete and total destruction. Astrid tells us to look at what the CPC has done for the people. It’s created 1.4 billion capitalist consumers to devour and defile the planet, that’s what it’s done for and to the people. China is the perfect merger of capitalism and communism — the worst of both those worlds. The totalitarian command and control of communism coupled with the rapacious greed and growth of capitalism. Anyone who cheers for that and applauds it is sick in the head and no friend and ally of mine.
Astrid
Hasbarist troll,
Still trying to rack up enough brownie points to get re-naming rights to Sheikh Jarrah? Or aiming higher and wanting a plaque in the rebranded as Aqsa mosque?
Maybe you should ask Israel’s best buddies MbS to put in a good word for you.
https://m.youtube.com › watch
Explained: Why did Israeli forces storm Al-Aqsa Mosque? – YouTube
Or maybe this is homework assignment from your Yeshiva teacher while others do the dirty work of physically terrorizing Palestinians.
Oh wait. Are you this guy?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KNqozQ8uaV8
Astrid
Plague Species,
Good luck convincing a billion people that they need to continue to live in unheated mud huts and walk barefoot over dirty paths and live as poor dirt farmers, or face opprobrium from an American (who almost certainly have a bigger carbon footprint than they do unless you never use HVAC, don’t drive, don’t eat meat/fish/dairy, and adopted your 2 kids from North America). Let me know how that works out for you. You also didn’t note that I already acknowledged and discussed the serious downsides (not just ecological) of China’s miracle economy.
If you are serious about climate change and consumption reduction. I recommend campaigning to disarm the US military, which has a carbon footprint equal to 140 countries, and encouraging other countries to do the same, and using the peace dividend to build a more sustainable world. Maybe also do some lessons learned from China and Japan about how to degrowth the population and economy. Yeah, that’s also hard and maybe impossible work, but at least slightly more likely to succeed than just spewing paranoid projections about the terribleness of the Chinese/Russians while whitewashing (literally) away China and Russia’s roles in defeating the Axis in WWII.
Unless your degrowth plan is just to nuke the Chinese to get rid of their excessive, consumerist population. In which case, they might do the world a favor and wipe out a quarter of the world’s carbon footprint in return.
Plague Species
Astrid, I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything, merely stating facts. I’m sure the CPC will find something to do with their billion humans overhang when they can no longer be fed and clothed adequately due to severe resource restrictions. The fact of the matter is, hundreds of millions if not a billion Chinese are going to die of malnutrition/starvation in the next 30 to 40 years, maybe sooner. That’s what the CPC communist capitalists did for the Chinese people. Or, the CPC will start euthanizing China’s budding and soon to be bloated elderly class. A Soylent Green type scenario.
Astrid
PS
Okay. And what does the prospective die off have to do with Chinese consumption now? You do realize that the CPC government intentionally restructured population growth for 50 years (1970 to present), so there would be fewer to die off in that eventuality, right?
Or are you worried that they won’t have enough people to make their Soylent Green. In which case that’s very kind but it’s probably healthier to stick to soy and gluten products for protein, less chance of prion borne diseases and all that. Hopefully they can secure some non-human supplies by buying from Africa, South America, Australia, Russia, or Eastern Europe.
Well, I’m confused alright. I guess it serves me right for going to the back of my bus.
Anyways, good luck with your offsprings. I hope they have a good life and never have to depend on Soylent. Really, prion disease is a terrible way to go and cooking doesn’t necessarily kill off the contagion.
DMC
CPC? What’s that? I think you mean CCP for Chinese Communist Party. And really, is “the Republicans are worse” any better an argument than “the Russians/Chinese are worse”? It’s Hell all over, with minor local variations. India is supposed to be an utter crisis, with 4x the US population and 25% Covid mortality rate The exceptions are Vietnam and New Zealand. Try and figure out what the significant common factors are there.
Soredemos
Hugh habitually demonstrates that he in fact doesn’t actually understand what ‘fascism’ even is. It’s more than just ‘right-wing politics that I find repulsive’; it actually describes specific characteristics.
Characteristics that largely have yet to be demonstrated in the US. As of right now there really are precious few actual Nazis in the US. That could change with time, and it probably will, given that the Democrats are refusing to substantively address the many underlying problems our society faces. You can’t fight something with nothing, and if the left won’t rise to fill the vacuum (or rather, liberals crush any attempt by the left to rise), then the right will.
Trump was a whole lot of stupid nothing, but he was instinctively feeding off of real underlying discontent. If nothing meaningful is done to address that discontent, eventually a much smarter successor to Trump is going to appear. One who a. isn’t a blithering moron, and b. actually has a firm ideology, doubtless a very nasty one.
Astrid
The official term is Communist Party of China. CCP align better with the Chinese name, which is China Communist Party. I guess CPC is to emphasize that it is THE Communist Party of the country, rather than a communist party of the Chinese.
I agree that it’s not particularly communist. I think like the nationalists in Taiwan and the Vietnamese communist party, it is nationalist and Confucian. I don’t agree with Ian that is neoliberal but I can understand making that mistake from the outside. I think Ian should at least try to view it from 19th and 20th century nationalism, rather than Anglo-American imperialism. This doesn’t make the Chinese good guys, but it makes their motives more scrutable. The CPC leadership are not secret geniuses and they made many mistakes. But they are technocrats motivated to strengthen their motherland. They also can draw on a lot of pay history of what happens when plutocrats get too powerful and undermines the emperor.
Taiwan, Singapore, HK, Singapore, and Australia also did well. The most important thing is to limit flying and require strict quarantines, then crack down early and hard when transmission is discovered. But the Chinese authorities (and the Vietnamese) are extremely nervous about the variants and secondary outbreaks. Their legitimacy now rest on having a good COVID and they seem the destruction wrought by late inning carelessness. The Chinese government is working very hard to vaccinate it’s populace even though there isn’t much immediate threat from COVID.
Astrid
Soredemos,
I don’t know. The MiC state is arguably Fascist. Other sectors such as pharma, banking, IT, take on features of Fascism. It’s not well organized right now, but there are a lot of authoritarian followers on the”left” and the right. I think a charismatic authoritarian who is smart, ruthless, and careful can succeed very quickly. I honestly could see Tulsi Gabbard in this role. Not because she’s particularly authoritarian but because she’s charismatic, smart, and tough, and one day she might just decide to go for the brass ring. Or one of the opportunists of the right might just be smart and charismatic enough to carry it out. Ivanka might be able to go the distance, though I think Israel and Jared will taint her career. Can you imagine the nightmare matchup of Chelsea & a Bush Twin versus Ivanka + Jared?
Fascism, as ugly as it is, may soon be seen as a better alternative than the current ever devolving kakistocracy. At least a Fascist leadership is longing term greedy, rather than the current smash and grab artists. This is what the Romans agreed on when Julius Caesar and Octavian came in after decades of chaotic civil wars. As awful as the reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, and Commodus were, they never went back to the”liberty” of the republican government. Other countries can make deals with a competent Fascist leader and trust them to carry it out. That beats an agreement incapable nuclear hegemon.
Trinity
“Good luck convincing a billion people that they need to continue to live in unheated mud huts and walk barefoot over dirty paths and live as poor dirt farmers, or face opprobrium from an American”
I’m not exactly sure what you mean by this. To me, they were better off with some land and the ability to feed themselves. Isn’t that what you are striving to do?
As the industrialization of China started to really heat up and more able bodies were needed, about ten years ago I read that the peasants under forced relocation did not necessarily want to relocate to the cities. They were happier on the old homestead, weren’t starving. As a country lass myself, I can relate. Are they happy now, a half generation later? Their kid will grow up without any knowledge of the countryside, and already indoctrinated to the lash of their machine/digital overlords.
The discussions back then (not that long ago) were all about the BRICs. Now look at them, all of them. Accident? I think not. I often read research out of China (published in English in peer-reviewed journals) and they describe entire cities built and populated in a matter of years, whatever was needed was done, and then the entire city abandoned due to extreme pollution of the air, water, or ground. And wasn’t that dam set to burst?
Not exactly sure what you meant, but by my reckoning the ones forced to relocate are not better off. And now like so many of us, the former peasants are fully dependent on an insane system designed by insane people for an insane purpose which in no way resembles life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They left that behind on the farm.
Astrid
Of course displaced peasants are not happy to leave. They typically are transferred to marginal land, far from the grave of their ancestors, amongst strangers. But this is very much the minority scenario. Most of the migrant population leave willingly. They may be sentimental about home, but they leave again and again because the opportunities in the cities and factories, especially in southern coastal China, are so much better than what they can get at home.
Eeking out a living on something like an acre of land per family is extremely hard, unrelenting work. Each rice plant is traditionally planted by hand, with days spent in the muck for a harvest of maybe half a ton. Winters in the south are spent on digging out irrigation ditches and rebuilding paddies, often in very cold temperatures. Two or even three rice crops a year are needed for sustenance. Vegetable crops, poultry, farm animals must be tended to. Wood or straw gathered for cooking. Maybe silkworm raising or spinning/weaving, childcare, gathering night soil, crafts and local produce to be traded for consumer goods and pay school fees, or for medical care or marriage/funerals. No TV or books to break the tedium(this has changed, many villages now have electricity and paved road connections). Demanding in-laws. For all that, getting a chicken or a few pounds of pork for the family are a few times a year treat. Going to market and maybe going to a temple half a days walk away is the height of excitement.
My impression is that as hard as peasant life may be in Europe and Latin America, East Asian peasant are by far the hardest working and live very much on the demographic edge. And they work incredibly hard year round South of the Yangtze River. North of it is somewhat more leisurely wheat cropping and winter spent indoors, but a dreadfully dull diet.
For younger people and women, they are also oppressed by a highly patriarchal society where young women are at the very bottom and often have minimal say in choice of spouses. The factory work may be hard and scary (though they typically leave villages in groups) but it’s earning them enough to build a comfortable home, open a shop, learn a skill, and maybe even become a success and stay in the city. They also get to choose from a wider range of potential spouses. I know many Shanghai families who pay their cleaning ladies very respectable salaries, higher than entry level college graduates on an hourly basis, enough that hard working ones can buy flats in cities near their home and establish urban hukou (extremely important for education) for their kids(though this was years ago, RE prices these days are surreal). Some are able to launch their children into the middle class through education and connections acquired through their work.
The Chinese migrant workers didn’t leave the country side because of displacement, they did it because factory conditions and pay are vastly superior to subsistence farming in their home village.
Ian Welsh
There was a ton of displacement in China by force. At one point, there were hundreds of riots a day, with confrontations between police and even military and peasants being forced off their land.
Peasant agriculture really varies in how good or bad it is, and China is a huge country. Lots had good lives; lots didn’t.
The data also shows (studies) that those who go to the cities were less happy on average than those who stayed, though there’s obvious selection bias there. Still, there’s reason to believe it. (One factor, a friend pointed out, is that moving to cities would change the bacteria ingested. Some people wound up with basically permanent intestinal problems as a result. That will make you very grouchy.)
As is often the case, the picture is not simple. Chinese factory jobs are not pretty as a rule and some are really bad. I don’t know if they still do, but as late as 10 years ago, China had factories where they made batteries by hand.
You’d rather be a peasant.
Astrid
Trinity,
I have a longish post above responding to you on moderation. But the short answer is, Chinese emigrants overwhelmingly do so because of better opportunities and pay. Dirt farming is not competitive and a very hard scrabbled life.
Besides, they can have their cake and eat it too. They can go back to their villages and rent land from the local village again, but with money to buy a house or send their kids to school or get married. Increasingly, many of them are urbanized and no longer fully attached to their ancestral villages.
To tell people who tasted freedom and material rewards of industry to go back to dirt farming is not gonna happen.
Astrid
Ian,
I disagree. I am well aware of the forced displacements, many through very corrupt land deals with factory or mine owners. This is constantly reported in Chinese news. But this is not the majority at all. Most people leave because of better opportunities. Most have the chance to return home after a couple years and many do. But many more habituate into urban living and prefer it. Yes, many are not as happy as their old selves, since they’re second class citizens in the cities and far from family, but few would choose not to work in the cities if they can.
Honestly, I know people who grew up in villages and people who were sent down during the cultural revolution. You have no idea how hard these people work. It’s not like the more leisurely schedule of European peasants. We’re talking about 4-5 planting/harvesting cycles plus farm chores and irrigation maintenance. Just to be able to eat a little bit of meat every weak with their rice and veggies. Factory work or even construction work is nothing, in comparison.
Joseph E. Kelleam
“Hasbarist troll,”
Feel better now? Be sure to wipe.
Astrid
Helps when the entire MSM is in your pocket
https://mobile.twitter.com/nyt_diff/status/1391786657536483330
I’m sure you’re working on Jack Dorsey now.
https://mobile.twitter.com/ajplus/status/1391665493036212225
Burn in hell.
Astrid
I admit that a lot of my knowledge about migrant workers comes from books by “Western” authors such as Leslie Chang’s Factory Girls. But I have spoken to migrant workers myself (food vendors, domestic workers) and these people want to stay in cities. Even though it’s hard work and they face discrimination due to lack of hukou and local connections, they are making their way and integrating well into urban life.
I really don’t think migrant workers are for the most part forced to leave. They did so willingly because financially it makes so much sense and now there are established migration patterns. It’s not different from young eastern Europeans moving westwards for work or workers heading to the Bakken oil fields. This is not like the forced migration from European land enclosures, Latin America due to NAFTA or civil wars, or India/Middleeast due to climate change and civil wars. They can and do return home every year, typically for a month or two around the lunar new year. (This was why the timing of Covid was such a disaster, as it was happening while hundreds of millions of people were on the move.). Many do go home again after saving for a few years, but others continue the migration patterns because the money is too good and the urban life is better than life back in their villages.
Also, this is very liberating for young peasant women particularly. In villages, their lower physical strength and social status puts them at the bottom of the pecking order. But as migrant workers, they are more desirable workers for many factories, domestic service, restaurants and shops. Men drift into construction and heavier sorts of factory work, but those are more dangerous and less desirable work. While there are definitely employer abuses, they’re tolerated because of held back wages, not because they are physically controlled. Unpaid workers have been known to take owners and managers hostage.
different clue
“But compare that to Central Asia, Near East, Latin America, Eastern/Southern Europe, what the PRC government accomplished is miraculous. They have nearly accomplishing what the Japanese/ROC/ROK governments accomplished in a similar span of time, with 10x the population and without US’s explicit support.”
They did it with the American Ruling Class’s IMplicit support. Implicit how? First the American ruling class worked with other ruling classes to create the International Free Trade Conspiracy and force International Free Trade Conspiracy rules ( GATT Round One and beyond, WTO, NAFTA, MFN for China, etc. on American society and political economy.
After the IFTC ( International Free Trade Conspiracy) forced America into WTO and engineerrerd MFN for China, mass amounts of industry were carefully dismantled and destroyed from America and rebuilt in China. The Chinese economy-force ( workforce, business-force, etc.) made its money selling into the American market and underpricing and exterminating vast amounts of American industry in the process.
Wages, conditions, etc. are now lower in America because the International Free Trade Conspirators used the anti-wage/ anti-safety/ anti-environment/ pollution-havens of the world as economic-aggression platforms from which to dump underpriced product into America in order to exterminate as much of the American economy as possible.
The only way to make wages, conditions, etc. in America higher again would be for America to renounce the Free Trade System, by rounding up and mass-exterminating all Free Trade Supporters within the borders of America if that is the only way to exterminate the Free Trade concept, and then restore militant and belligerent Protectionism against production-aggression from our Trading Enemies beyond our borders.
Then Americans can pay eachother an American wage and an American price for what Americans do and produce for Americans within America. We can have a United States of Autarkamerica. And have as little trade as possible with the Foreign Enemy Foreigner.
And let the Chinese CommuNazi Party pursue its goal of Great Han Lebensraum all over the REST of the Earth as long as America is rigidly self-protected from CommuNazi China’s long term goal of Tibetanizing and Sinjiangifying America. If the rest of the world wants to be part of the One Ball One Chain Great Han Co-Prosperity Sphere, that is the rest of the world’s perfect right. If the other countries want to become a stable of Sinjiangs and Tibets, let them go ahead and become such. And Great Han CommuNazi China can have all the colonial imperial success it wants.
But not at Protectionist Autarkamerica’s expense.
Astrid
Different clue,
Respectfully, you have no idea of what you’re talking about. There is plenty that is troubling about the Chinese government, but it’s not expansionist in anyway that can be described as Lebensraum.
They need resources, but they are obtaining it peacefully through trade. This isn’t too say they are nice or above dealing with current regimes. But pretty much no government has clean hands on this issue. They certainly aren’t running the global rent extraction regime of IP law and banking, which is oppressing pretty much everyone outside of too 0.01 percent of the West.
If they were expansionist, they would have much more hostile relationships with Russia, Mongolia, Vietnam, Laos, etc, than they do. The only extraterritorials they are in dispute about is Taiwan (and ROC government didn’t dispute Taiwan as part of China until quite recently), security land in the Tibetan plateau and South China Sea islands. The first is for historical political reasons and because they don’t want a nuclear US backed Neoliberal state in their front yard. Tibetan plateau is similarly for security and control of water resources for it’s heartland. South China Sea is for resources and security, since there’s no population or land there.
Yes, the Chinese certainly too advantage of the option to quickly industrialized with Western investments and know-how. But it was never lobbied the way Israel did to get there, and the Chinese courts do not bend over backwards to protect dodgy USian businesses. If the Western elite decided to sell out their people for a couple extra trillion, that’s not on the Chinese.
Astrid
As much as I don’t like the Chinese government’s authoritarian behavior (I pray I never have to do something so stomach turning as seek refugee status in PRC) and as problematic and selfish as I sometimes think Chinese individual behind to be, calling them CommuNazis is absurd. Even at the height of Maoist madness during the cultural revolution, it wasn’t racist in nature. It was class or ideological clique based. Name calling about things you don’t understand is below you.
different clue
@Astrid,
Flooding Sinjiang with Han immigrants to outnumber the Kazakhs, Uighurs, etc. and turn them into minorities in their own land is Great Han Lebensraumism. It is treating Sinjiang as China’s very own “West Bank”. Stripping all the resources out of Tibet to send those resources to Great Han Non-Tibet is a clever inversion of Lebensraumism, mass-moving Tibetan resources to Great Hanistan instead of mass-moving millions of Great Hanistanis into Tibet in order to change the demographic balance of Tibet.
The CommuNazi China-gov Regime’s recent program of cultural genocide against East Turkestan is culture-racist at the very least and earns the name that more and more people will apply to it.
When the CommuNazi ChinaGov reGIME has strip-mined the very last fish from the Southeast Asian Nations’s own territorial waters in the China Sea, and when it has disrupted all the rivers flowing from China into India, Bangladesh, Southeast Asia, then the Hansbara will wear thin among those water-deprived and fishless peoples and countries.
Many jewish liberals and liberal jews are becoming embarrassed by their support for Israel and are beginning to rethink it. Foreign friends of China might well end up being embarrassed over what they will discover themselves to have been supporting after a few more decades of CommuNazi ChinaGov reGIME resource strip-plunder and cultural genocide against Tibet, East Turkestan,etc. have played themselves all the way out.
Oh well, at least you didn’t argue with my noting that China was made wealthy by the IFTC ( International Free Trade Conspiracy) transferring the production plant of America into China ( and into Mexico/Bangladesh/etc. etc. as well, to be sure). But especially, and most massively, into China.
Also, you might want to read my comment more carefully. I did not refer to the individual Chinese, especially the over-a-billion NON-party members, as CommuNazi. I referred to the ruling Party there as CommunNazi, and quite rightly, too. Twenty years from now, your continuing disagreement with that assessment will leave you very lonely outside of China. Certainly it will leave you out of step with the CommuNazi China-Gov reGIME’S two-billion-future-victims of resource and water depletion all over non-Chinese mainland Asia and the China Sea countries.
But the strong do what they like and the weak suffer what they must. Let those who choose to be the CommuNazi ChinaGov reGIME’s future Sinjiangs and Tibets join the One Ball One Chain Co-Prosperity Sphere as much as they like. Let American economic patriotic survivalists rise up and crush the IFTC supporters in their midst, through mass extermination if nothing else will work, and create an Autarkamerica beyond the reach of the One Ball One Chain system before it is too late and America is reduced to being one more Overseas Tibet.
Free Trade is the New Slavery.
Protectionism is the New Abolition.