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

[MajorHoy]

I can't believe [actually I can] that Trump said that the Jan 6 insurrectionists were 'Hugging and kissing' the police.

Some of them probably were.
Wasn't there one officer supposedly taking a selfie with the crowd?

But then again, I wonder if Trump conveniently forgot about what happened to Officer Brian Sicknick, or did he just decide not to mention that part.

[Tendrin]

Yeah, every day you see a new video of innocent Americans being murdered in Moscow and Beijing, truly sickening.

No, just Syrians, Uyghurs, and countless assassinations, amongst a considerable number of others. One doesn't need to carry water for murderous governments -- any government, no matter how much you love their opposition to American imperialism. I assure you that Chinese imperialism and Russian imperialism isn't better.

[The Cool Thatguy]

I can't believe [actually I can] that Trump said that the Jan 6 insurrectionists were 'Hugging and kissing' the police.

They were hugging and kissing with their fists, flag poles and other improvised weapons. What's so hard to understand?

[PwrdOn]

No, just Syrians, Uyghurs, and countless assassinations, amongst a considerable number of others. One doesn't need to carry water for murderous governments -- any government, no matter how much you love their opposition to American imperialism. I assure you that Chinese imperialism and Russian imperialism isn't better.

It's just hard for me to believe that Westerners who love to rail against the crimes of foreign governments genuinely care about human rights when they know so little of what's going on beyond a few sensationalist headlines, while ignoring much more longstanding and well-documented abuses occurring closer to home, things that we have actually have the power to change if we make enough noise about it. Not to mention so many of the accusations seem to fit exactly Goebbels' maxim to "accuse the other side of that which you are guilty," do you really believe that China is using slave labor to pick cotton, sterilizing women without their knowledge, running secret torture camps, and demolishing mosques, all based on conjecture with no solid evidence? Seems a bit too on the dot, doesn't it?

I feel like a lot of it has to do with us needing some kind of coping mechanism so that we can continue to believe that we're the good guys and that while this country might have flaws, we're headed on the right track and maybe given another couple hundred years, might come somewhat close to fulfilling the principles we were supposedly founded on. Because if we can't cast some enemy nation as the evil empire that we're heroically resisting, then we must be the evil empire, and all the shit we've been up to like funding terrorists and assassinating world leaders wasn't in service of some greater noble cause but just self-serving dickery. Getting back to my original post, if we have to go out of our way to ascribe sinister motives to something as evidently benevolent as donating vaccines to poor countries, what are our real motives here? Are we genuinely concerned that the people receiving the vaccines might become future wage slaves for Russian and Chinese owned companies, or are we just bitter that this makes us look incredibly selfish by comparison for hoarding so many doses?

[inisideguy]

It's just hard for me to believe that Westerners who love to rail against the crimes of foreign governments genuinely care about human rights when they know so little of what's going on beyond a few sensationalist headlines, while ignoring much more longstanding and well-documented abuses occurring closer to home, things that we have actually have the power to change if we make enough noise about it. Not to mention so many of the accusations seem to fit exactly Goebbels' maxim to "accuse the other side of that which you are guilty," do you really believe that China is using slave labor to pick cotton, sterilizing women without their knowledge, running secret torture camps, and demolishing mosques, all based on conjecture with no solid evidence? Seems a bit too on the dot, doesn't it?

I feel like a lot of it has to do with us needing some kind of coping mechanism so that we can continue to believe that we're the good guys and that while this country might have flaws, we're headed on the right track and maybe given another couple hundred years, might come somewhat close to fulfilling the principles we were supposedly founded on. Because if we can't cast some enemy nation as the evil empire that we're heroically resisting, then we must be the evil empire, and all the shit we've been up to like funding terrorists and assassinating world leaders wasn't in service of some greater noble cause but just self-serving dickery. Getting back to my original post, if we have to go out of our way to ascribe sinister motives to something as evidently benevolent as donating vaccines to poor countries, what are our real motives here? Are we genuinely concerned that the people receiving the vaccines might become future wage slaves for Russian and Chinese owned companies, or are we just bitter that this makes us look incredibly selfish by comparison for hoarding so many doses?

I don't have any answers but just wanted to say this is a really great post.

[The Cool Thatguy]

It's just hard for me to believe that Westerners who love to rail against the crimes of foreign governments genuinely care about human rights when they know so little of what's going on beyond a few sensationalist headlines, while ignoring much more longstanding and well-documented abuses occurring closer to home, things that we have actually have the power to change if we make enough noise about it. Not to mention so many of the accusations seem to fit exactly Goebbels' maxim to "accuse the other side of that which you are guilty," do you really believe that China is using slave labor to pick cotton, sterilizing women without their knowledge, running secret torture camps, and demolishing mosques, all based on conjecture with no solid evidence? Seems a bit too on the dot, doesn't it?

I feel like a lot of it has to do with us needing some kind of coping mechanism so that we can continue to believe that we're the good guys and that while this country might have flaws, we're headed on the right track and maybe given another couple hundred years, might come somewhat close to fulfilling the principles we were supposedly founded on. Because if we can't cast some enemy nation as the evil empire that we're heroically resisting, then we must be the evil empire, and all the shit we've been up to like funding terrorists and assassinating world leaders wasn't in service of some greater noble cause but just self-serving dickery. Getting back to my original post, if we have to go out of our way to ascribe sinister motives to something as evidently benevolent as donating vaccines to poor countries, what are our real motives here? Are we genuinely concerned that the people receiving the vaccines might become future wage slaves for Russian and Chinese owned companies, or are we just bitter that this makes us look incredibly selfish by comparison for hoarding so many doses?

Umm, I don't know about picking cotton, but China has been documented as doing sterilizing women, running secret torture camps, and demolishing mosques.

Simply standing in opposition to the United States does not a saint make. Hell, ask the Uighurs. China is trying erase their culture today as a deliberate undertaking. Should the West stay silent on that because of our past mistakes?

Think the Uighurs will last that long?

[AnakinFlair]

I can't believe [actually I can] that Trump said that the Jan 6 insurrectionists were 'Hugging and kissing' the police.

Well, as someone who sees no problem with forcing himself on women, it's perfectly understandable how Trump would equate viscously attacking police to hugging and kissing them.

[PwrdOn]

Umm, I don't know about picking cotton, but China has been documented as doing sterilizing women, running secret torture camps, and demolishing mosques.

Simply standing in opposition to the United States does not a saint make. Hell, ask the Uighurs. China is trying erase their culture today as a deliberate undertaking. Should the West stay silent on that because of our past mistakes?

Think the Uighurs will last that long?

The Uyghurs will be fine, if there was any evidence that China was actually killing them then you would surely know about it, given how much ink the press has spilled on this topic based on loose conjecture. Now, of course China will never let them break off their own independent country, and for some Uyghurs that is in and of itself an intolerable oppression that must be fought by any means necessary, but carving the world up into racially homogenous ethnostates has never worked before I don't know why we would want to start doing it again.

And yes of course the West should stay silent on this issue because we should have learned from the Iraq War that when you start throwing around outlandish accusations without evidence, that tends to have some pretty dangerous consequences, and when we inevitably realize that the accusations have been bogus all along, we won't be able to take a do over for all the damage that they caused. Case in point, all of the anti-China rhetoric these days has already led to a spike in hate crimes and led to the murder of several American citizens, and ratcheting up the tensions with baseless accusations of genocide will only make that worse.

[Tendrin]

The Uyghurs will be fine, if there was any evidence that China was actually killing them then you would surely know about it, given how much ink the press has spilled on this topic based on loose conjecture. Now, of course China will never let them break off their own independent country, and for some Uyghurs that is in and of itself an intolerable oppression that must be fought by any means necessary, but carving the world up into racially homogenous ethnostates has never worked before I don't know why we would want to start doing it again.

And yes of course the West should stay silent on this issue because we should have learned from the Iraq War that when you start throwing around outlandish accusations without evidence, that tends to have some pretty dangerous consequences, and when we inevitably realize that the accusations have been bogus all along, we won't be able to take a do over for all the damage that they caused. Case in point, all of the anti-China rhetoric these days has already led to a spike in hate crimes and led to the murder of several American citizens, and ratcheting up the tensions with baseless accusations of genocide will only make that worse.

No big. We just have evidence of mass sterilization and interment. They'll be just fine and everything is okay.

I realize you can rightfully point the finger at America for a lot of those same crimes but that doesn't make what's happening to the Uyghurs right now okay, and continually accusing people of not actually caring is just disgusting.

[Tendrin]

Evidence of the Uygur genocide:

TOPLINE The first independent probe into the allegations of genocide in the Xinjiang region of China claims there is “clear and convincing” evidence the Chinese government is violating every single provision in the United Nations’ Genocide Convention with an “intent to destroy” the mostly Muslim Uighur population.

https://******.com/article/269b3de1a...41a514f78d764c

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachels...h=7b87569b6bf5

Topline: In one of the most significant leaks from the notoriously secret Chinese government in decades, more than 400 pages of documents show how China’s President Xi Jinping fixated on stemming ethnic violence in China by taking a hardline stance against Uighur muslims during a series of secret speeches in 2014, revealing in detail the ideology that has culminated in the mass detention of Uighurs decried by human rights groups and some international leaders as a smokescreen for China’s efforts to suppress Islamic identity in the country.

In this case, 'stemming ethnic violence' has resulted in mass sterilization and imprisonment. You'd be righteously enraged if this was happening in a western country and you know it, but since it's happening in China, you shrug it off and assure us its all fine while we can all see the camps, but then, you haven't met a repressive, non-western and authoritarian power you wouldn't apologize for.

[Zauriel]

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/...oting-76701807

So the shooter legally bought a gun after passing a background check? Most of the guns used in homicides were purchased legally after passing background checks. Forget background checks. Ban all the guns instead. It worked for Japan.

[PwrdOn]

Evidence of the Uygur genocide:



https://******.com/article/269b3de1a...41a514f78d764c

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachels...h=7b87569b6bf5



In this case, 'stemming ethnic violence' has resulted in mass sterilization and imprisonment. You'd be righteously enraged if this was happening in a western country and you know it, but since it's happening in China, you shrug it off and assure us its all fine while we can all see the camps, but then, you haven't met a repressive, non-western and authoritarian power you wouldn't apologize for.

A Western country using mass sterilization and imprisonment to control a restive minority population is hardly something to even get worked up over these days, there is such a long and sordid, and well-documented I might add, history of that practice that you almost take it for granted. I don't know if it's some lingering guilt over what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan that has led a certain contingent of people to anoint themselves the saviors of Muslims, but no matter how genuine or well-intentioned their concern might be, this constant peddling of atrocity porn actually is getting people killed, not in Xinjiang, but in Atlanta. And trust me, as someone who has actually lived in China, I can tell you with certainty that life there can be quite unpleasant and that there's plenty about the country, society, and political system that needs to change, but the odds are pretty much nil that the answers lie with a bunch of uninformed white people whose minds constantly wander between horrific atrocities in far off corners of the world without ever focusing on anything long enough to actually make a positive contribution.

No big. We just have evidence of mass sterilization and interment. They'll be just fine and everything is okay.

I realize you can rightfully point the finger at America for a lot of those same crimes but that doesn't make what's happening to the Uyghurs right now okay, and continually accusing people of not actually caring is just disgusting.

It's just my experience that the more indignant that Westerners get about an issue, the less that it actually matters to them. I grew up hearing horror stories about the Cultural Revolution and Tiananmen Square and I have no love for dictators or murderers. Those events had real impacts on our actual families and have left wounds that will never be forgotten. But when Westerners talk about those events, it's like a meme to them, just a way to revel in the failures of barbaric orientals and feed their own superiority complex, all while knowing shockingly little about what happened. And you can just about make a similar analogue for any other country in the world that finds itself on America's shitlist. So please forgive me if I don't give any credence to what you have to say about China, or Muslims, or anything outside the immediate window of your experience.

[Tendrin]

A Western country using mass sterilization and imprisonment to control a restive minority population is hardly somethin
g to even get worked up over these days, there is such a long and sordid, and well-documented I might add, history of that practice that you almost take it for granted. I don't know if it's some lingering guilt over what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan that has led a certain contingent of people to anoint themselves the saviors of Muslims, but no matter how genuine or well-intentioned their concern might be, this constant peddling of atrocity porn actually is getting people killed, not in Xinjiang, but in Atlanta. And trust me, as someone who has actually lived in China, I can tell you with certainty that life there can be quite unpleasant and that there's plenty about the country, society, and political system that needs to change, but the odds are pretty much nil that the answers lie with a bunch of uninformed white people whose minds constantly wander between horrific atrocities in far off corners of the world without ever focusing on anything long enough to actually make a positive contribution.

The answer *definitely* doesn't lie with someone who declares that the 'Uyghurs will be fine' while around three million of them are in detention while facing ongoing brutality and mass sterilization. Frankly, if you can go from 'they're fine' to gliding right past obvious proof that they are not, to attacking someone for saying they're not fine while trying to blame people who are pointing this out for anti-asian violence in the states, you're really no better than the apologists for western imperialism or racism you routinely decry. You can be better than that.

Moreover, the idea that criticism over China's Uyghur's concentration camps is in any way related to the shootings in Atlanta, which were motivated by fetishization of Asian women and evangelical hang ups over sex, is just vile and should be retracted.

[PwrdOn]

The answer *definitely* doesn't lie with someone who declares that the 'Uyghurs will be fine' while around three million of them are in detention while facing ongoing brutality and mass sterilization. Frankly, if you can go from 'they're fine' to gliding right past obvious proof that they are not, to attacking someone for saying they're not fine while trying to blame people who are pointing this out for anti-asian violence in the states, you're really no better than the apologists for western imperialism or racism you routinely decry. You can be better than that.

Moreover, the idea that criticism over China's Uyghur's concentration camps is in any way related to the shootings in Atlanta, which were motivated by fetishization of Asian women and evangelical hang ups over sex, is just vile and should be retracted.

Have you ever thought about WHY Asian women are fetishized in our culture?

[Zauriel]

President Biden prepares to issue executive orders on gun reform. Yay we have a president who finally does something about gun violence. He might as well try to repeal the second amendment.