All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[Malvolio]

Who has fought for a cause as odious as the confederacy in Taiwan?



Sure, but someone would call you out if you're ranting about recycling.

But I wouldn't be ranting about recycling in general. I would be ranting about what a pain in the ass it is to separate paper from glass and plastic every other week. Similarly, I wouldn't rant about Joe Manchin identifying as a Democrat. I would rant about how it would be nice if he would vote in line with other Democrats a bit more often.

[worstblogever]

I will be very happy to cowrite a joint statement with you about how Manchin should just switch to the Republican party.

A question... Do you only ask others their opinion because you're constipated and need something to s*** on?

Joking aside, again, you've mistaken others here for someone stupid enough to think handing the Senate Majority back to Mitch McConnell is a good idea, right after I said my problem with Manchin is he's too often a catspaw for that same spiteful partisan ***hole.

I guess I answered my own question, nevermind.

[The Cool Thatguy]

Well, since we're applying consistent standards, do you also condemn the bloody Union conquest of Confederate territory?

...really?

Super glad I don't have a kid in your class.

And in this scenario? China is closer to the Confederates than the Union, what with their implementation of institutional abuse and all.

[PwrdOn]

But Puerto Rico was still a Spanish colony at the time of the American Civil War. It didn't become an American protectorate until the Spanish American War of 1898. Your hypothetical makes no sense.

History doesn't make for perfect analogies, so just pick some other island that was under American control at the time, that's not the important part.

Who has fought for a cause as odious as the confederacy in Taiwan?

I mean the ROC stood for the old order, where the vast majority of Chinese people were essentially serfs working the land for a small elite of wealthy landowners, and many vital business interests were in the hands of foreign occupiers, and on top of that was probably one of the most incompetent wartime governments of all time. Even after retreating to Taiwan they remained a fairly authoritarian regime and didn't begin to democratize until the 1990s. Quite frankly, Chinese people then and now have no great love for Marxist philosophy, it just so happened to be the ideology that promised to free them from perpetual serfdom. If the ROC had been fighting for a value system that was halfway decent or appealing then there's no way that they would have lost China to begin with, especially with the significant military advantage they held over the communists.

...really?

Super glad I don't have a kid in your class.

And in this scenario? China is closer to the Confederates than the Union, what with their implementation of institutional abuse and all.

Make of this what you will - you know that infamous iPhone factory with the suicide nets? Yeah that's owned by Foxconn, a Taiwanese company.

[The Cool Thatguy]

Make of this what you will - you know that infamous iPhone factory with the suicide nets? Yeah that's owned by Foxconn, a Taiwanese company.

With factories in...wait for it...you'll never guess...in China!

[SUPERECWFAN1]

The issue with hating Manchin too hard is people seem to forget where he comes from - a solid deep red state. Manchin is the best Democrats can get out of West Virginia. He is the reddest of Democrats, and comes across as the now extinct (at least on the national level) moderate Republican. But he also caucuses with the Democrats, and will be replaced by a Trumper if the Dems manage to successfully primary him with someone more to the left.

You'll have much better luck replacing Sinema, although she also seems more likely to change parties out of spite if censured or primaried.

Trump himself tried to lure Manchin to a cabinet post to get a Republican in that seat. A fact Manchin knew exactly what Donald was trying to do and declined the offer. This pissed off Trump who blasted Manchin and had idiot Trumpsters in our state not realizing that ....Manchin has done a hell of a lot for WV. He has helped the state at times more than a damn Trumpster would in office. But these fools wanted him gone because their golden idol deemed it.

Manchin isn't perfect and I have long had problems with how he's done things. But he's tried to do the best for the state and replacing him eventually , those morons will see how bad that goes.

[Gray Lensman]

With factories in...wait for it...you'll never guess...in China!

Which, in the world of Capt. False Equivalency, means that the blame is divided 50/50 with Taiwan and Western countries that buy the products, with absolutely none left for the people running the factory.

[Tami]

Trump himself tried to lure Manchin to a cabinet post to get a Republican in that seat. A fact Manchin knew exactly what Donald was trying to do and declined the offer. This pissed off Trump who blasted Manchin and had idiot Trumpsters in our state not realizing that ....Manchin has done a hell of a lot for WV. He has helped the state at times more than a damn Trumpster would in office. But these fools wanted him gone because their golden idol deemed it.

Manchin isn't perfect and I have long had problems with how he's done things. But he's tried to do the best for the state and replacing him eventually , those morons will see how bad that goes.

I'm not in favor of the replace Manchin train of thought, but I do think he needs to consider what he is doing more carefully.

[Tami]

I've never seen this written in federal criminal case before

In new motion, Jan 6 defendant Derek Jancart, who's pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, asks court to spare him prison

*Among many other things, he argues..... "he did not contemplate defacating on anyone's desk"*

Twitter Link

[PwrdOn]

Which, in the world of Capt. False Equivalency, means that the blame is divided 50/50 with Taiwan and Western countries that buy the products, with absolutely none left for the people running the factory.

I mean it is well known that one of the main policies of the reform and opening up process was loosening China's previously strict worker protections so as to better attract foreign capital, including from Taiwanese investors. And from the Taiwanese perspective, it's no issue to mistreat workers from the mainland, or any other country, because THEY can't participate in Taiwan's glorious democratic system. And China isn't the only country to have faced the difficult choice of allowing its workers to be exploited, or being frozen out of global capital markets forever, it's just the only one that's big enough to be able to force some conditions on foreign companies in return, to which all of them have cried bloody murder.

No one is disputing that Chinese capitalists are just as brutal and profit-driven as capitalists anywhere else, this is exactly why capitalism sucks. In China, it's widely agreed that the Jiang and Hu regimes went way too far in embracing free market reforms, and one of Xi's major policy directives has been to rebuild the economy from the bottom up and emphasizing rural poverty alleviation over corporate profits, which has naturally been widely condemned in the Western press as being authoritarian and unfair to all of those poor billionaires.

[The Cool Thatguy]

I mean it is well known that one of the main policies of the reform and opening up process was loosening China's previously strict worker protections so as to better attract foreign capital, including from Taiwanese investors. And from the Taiwanese perspective, it's no issue to mistreat workers from the mainland, or any other country, because THEY can't participate in Taiwan's glorious democratic system. And China isn't the only country to have faced the difficult choice of allowing its workers to be exploited, or being frozen out of global capital markets forever, it's just the only one that's big enough to be able to force some conditions on foreign companies in return, to which all of them have cried bloody murder.

Which, in the world of Capt. False Equivalency, means that the blame is divided 50/50 with Taiwan and Western countries that buy the products, with absolutely none left for the people running the factory.

Perfect future prediction! Get yourself some lotto tickets!

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Trump himself tried to lure Manchin to a cabinet post to get a Republican in that seat. A fact Manchin knew exactly what Donald was trying to do and declined the offer. This pissed off Trump who blasted Manchin and had idiot Trumpsters in our state not realizing that ....Manchin has done a hell of a lot for WV. He has helped the state at times more than a damn Trumpster would in office. But these fools wanted him gone because their golden idol deemed it.

Manchin isn't perfect and I have long had problems with how he's done things. But he's tried to do the best for the state and replacing him eventually , those morons will see how bad that goes.

While I have my issues with Manchin, I can appreciate the stance he took in that situation. Now, if Trump had gone to Krysten Sinema with that same offer, she would've jumped on it with both feet, damn the consequences and the likelihood of a Qpublican taking her seat. From what I've heard and read about Sinema, she's all about herself and would switch parties if it benefited her.

[PwrdOn]

Perfect future prediction! Get yourself some lotto tickets!

Is this really the hill you want to die on? White people get blamed for everything and nobody ever points out the individual responsibility of the people being exploited!

And just as a reminder, Americans have zero problems blaming those evil Chinese capitalists coming over and opening factory to exploit our workers, they even made a whole Netflix movie about it.

[The Cool Thatguy]

Is this really the hill you want to die on? White people get blamed for everything and nobody ever points out the individual responsibility of the people being exploited!

That's not the hill I'm standing on, let alone dying on.

The hill I'm fighting on is 'China doesn't get absolved of it's bad acts because of Western actions'.

Ya know, your hill.

[PwrdOn]

That's not the hill I'm standing on, let alone dying on.

The hill I'm fighting on is 'China doesn't get absolved of it's bad acts because of Western actions'.

Ya know, your hill.

Yeah but instead of focusing on any of the actual bad things that China has done, you are fixated on made up bullshit that is mostly projection from the history of Western imperialism. It's not that America being a genocidal slave empire makes it okay for China to be one too, it's that China is NOT that, and that the fact that you think it is one says a lot more about skewed your world view is than anything else.

If you want, we can talk all day about China's awful foreign policy record which largely consists of backstabbing other socialist nations, or the admittedly terrible state of worker rights since the opening up period, or the government's hamfisted attempts at ramrodding these bizarre socially conservative policies that nobody asked for, or its general silence on racial bigotry around the globe unless it happens to be against Chinese people, but I'm guessing that these either escape your concern, or wouldn't be considered problems in your eyes.