Politics First Contact

[Guard Dog]

New drinking game.... every time a talking head says "quid pro quo" take a shot

[Malcador]

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/11/victory-pennsylvania-supreme-court-rules-police-cant-force-you-tell-them-your

Well that is good news for US folk, for now. 

[ShadySands]

Doesn't that only apply to actual passwords and not biometrics? They can't force you to give them your passcode but they can take your fingerprint or face to unlock it?

Or did I just make that whole thing up? 

[ktchong]

16 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

Yeah, but... the concentration camps, orwellian re-education, seizure of children and organ harvesting in Xinjiang is several orders of magnitude worse than what's happening in HK. HK is lucky it's a port with a lot of ex pats and foreign businesses or they would have been Tiananmened months ago.

Kind of funny though, Han Mandarin speakers genuinely do seem to believe that everyone hates them, because... Han are the best, and people are envious of their superiority.

 

 

In case you are going to call the guy a "paid China troll", he was not in China and likely had never been to China.  IMO, he has never even been outside the US.

 

Here is a report on China ‘organ harvesting’ -- and how it was a smear engineered by Falun Gong and its extensive media network and political connections in the West.  The report is on The Grayzone, which, if you do not already know, is a very respectable independent news outlet, on par with the Intercept.  The Grayzone actually shares a lot of the same contributors and journalists with the Intercept.

Link: https://thegrayzone.com/2019/09/30/reports-china-organ-harvesting-cult-falun-gong/
 

Quote

 

Reports on China ‘organ harvesting’ derive from front groups of far-right cult Falun Gong

A wave of corporate media reports on Chinese organ harvesting rely without acknowledgement on front groups connected to the far-right Falun Gong cult, whose followers believe “Trump was sent by heaven to destroy the Communist Party.”

By Ryan McCarthy, September 30, 2019

Western corporate media outlets have gone wild with claims that the Chinese state is “harvesting” the organs of ethnic minorities and political opposition figures. But an investigation by The Grayzone has found that these allegations originate from front groups run by the far-right opposition cult Falun Gong.

Falun Gong, whose devotees can often be seen clad in yellow and performing coordinated qi gong routines in crowded city centers, runs an ultra-conservative, staunchly pro-Donald Trump media network that has been compared to Alex Jones’ Infowars.

. . .

In order to understand, then, how heavily politicized rumors from an obscure far-right cult found their way into the headlines, it is essential to trace the roots of the story through an elaborate network of front groups.

. . .

 

 

Link: https://thegrayzone.com/2019/09/30/reports-china-organ-harvesting-cult-falun-gong/

 

As I said, people should not believe everything they see in the Western media.   Here is a good example: Do you still think Saddam had weapons of mass destruction?

Just to be clear: I do not know if organ harvesting is actually going on in China.  I have not seen any solid evidence to prove that it is actually happening, nor am I certain that it is not happening.  (i.e., just because I have not seen any evidence or proof does not mean it does not exist.) 

I have looked at/into sources that claimed China was harvesting organs, and I evaluated  those sources.  All of them were problematic:  either the sources had good reasons to lie, (i.e., the so-called "survivors" or "victims" were Falun Gong followers who wanted asylum,) or they were organizations that were connected to or working with Falun Gong, (like the "China Tribunal" or the Xinjiang separatists)  I do not trust anything coming out of Falun Gong followers because I have seen their newspapers (The Epoch Time, which is freely distributed everywhere in Chinese communities and enclaves all across America)  and YouTube video channels (China Uncensored.)   Those newspapers and channels were aggressively deceitful and misleading. 

I also had logical reasons to doubt their claims:

• Falun Gong has been banned in China for over 20 years.  Practically no one in China practices it now.  How is it possible China still has so many healthy Falun Gong prisoners to harvest?  How is it possible for any Falun Gong followers to survive 20 years in China's prison if they were supposedly tortured and treated so inhumanely?
• If China truly has "organ transplant tourism", which supposedly is a booming industry, then why haven't we seen any actual tourist who had received organ transplants in China?   If China's booming organ tourism has existed for so many years, then there must have been a lot of tourists who have traveled to China and purchased organs for transplants.   Yet I have not been able to find even one such "tourist" in the news.

I had a bunch of questions about China's organ harvesting.  I thought about the claims, and a lot of things just do not add up or make logical sense.  If something you see a news that interests you, do not trust what they report right away -- especially if it is CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, the New York Times, and the Washington Post.   Look into it.  Fact check it.  Then, think about it critically: does it add it?  does it make sense?

Do not believe everything you see in the Western media, (actually, any media.)  As I said, China's biggest fault in terms of media control is censorship: it censored dissenting and unfavorable news and opinions.  On the other hand, Western media actually make up and report fake news; even China does not sink to that level.    And Western mainstream establishment media not only lie about China.  The media has also lied about Iraq, about Syria, about Russia, about Israel, about Palestinians, about Saudi Arabia, about Yemen, about Bernie Sanders, about Harvey Weinstein, about Jeffrey Epstein, about Yellow Vest protests, about Bolivia, and the examples just go on and on -- just straight-out lies and lies, just making up fake stuff and pull ****s out of thin air. 

CNN, the New York Times and the Washington Post have become the absolute worst,  even worse than Fox News, and I do not even watch Fox News, (have only seen clips of it on YouTube.)  BTW, I was not always distrustful and hostile against the media.  I used to trust those "big names", CNN, the NYT, the WaPo.  However, in the past few years, I kept catching them lying, more and more often, and on bigger and bigger lies.  Seriously their dishonesty have been getting worse. Now they have become brazen.

Finally, one last thing: a lot of Americans already do not trust the media on Iraq, on Syria, on Russia, on Israel, on Palestinians, on Saudi Arabia, on Yemen, on Bernie, on Weinstein, on Epstein, on Bolvia.  Yet, whenever the media smears China or reports something negative about China, then everyone unquestionably believes whatever the media says.  Frankly IMO the problem is those people's own anti-China bias or anti-Chinese racism: they want to believe the media when it lies about China because the media's narrative fits into their own preconceived notions about China.

 

 

Edited November 21, 2019 by ktchong

[ComradeYellow]

Almost everything you read in Western Media about the CCCP is bull****.  If you do believe it you are probably a sociopath or a fascist, or both.

[Zoraptor]

Nah, I'm no friend of 'western media' and they'll happily parrot anything they're given, but I also have very little doubt that their reporting of China is slanted, but more or less 'factual'. Chinese reflexively blame Falun Gong for stuff the same way Erdoganist Turks reflexively blame Gulenists or PKK for everything, or Democrats blame the Russians, or Syria says the white helmets are all MI6 recruited Al Qaeda agents. There's elements of truth, but they get blamed for way more than they actually did. And in China's case there's always Xinjiang and the muslim non FG Uighurs being harvested/ re-educated/ concentration camped.

OTOH, while HK is being repressed much as the media say and you can literally see it, the slant is more that after x months only 2 people have actually died (one more or less accidentally, one pro Chinese killed by the protesters) while far worse direct repression using far worse tactics in other countries is largely ignored because it's done by geopolitical friends rather than rivals, or is painted differently because, say, the Gilets Jaunes are obviously dangerous violent anarcho fascists (! lol) Russian puppets living in the past and being mean to that nice photogenic Macron who is only trying to save France from itself...

Edited November 21, 2019 by Zoraptor

[Gorth]

I like The Guardian for some reason. Not sure why. I occasionally find myself following links to their articles.

 

Otherwise, BBC is one of my two go-to sites for news. Horribly "russo-phobic" though. It's like reading a James Bond novel at times. My second "western" media news source is Al Jazeera. Their reporting style is very similar to BBC, but covering the parts of the world (and perspectives) that often gets ignored by other media.

 

If I don't care about any truth or objectivity at all, but just for laughs, I'll see how low Fox can go, trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator in human intelligence. Rarely disappoint, especially the human troglodytes that seems to flock to the comments sections. Same morbid fascination as watching air disaster documentaries I guess?

[Bartimaeus]

Pretty powerful speech from House Majority Leader Adam Schiff on the closing of the impeachment hearings yesterday.

[Guard Dog]

Hey Ivanka Trump. Before you quote a book it's probably a good idea to actually READ it first! https://www.newsweek.com/ivanka-trump-accused-hypocrisy-after-tweeting-fake-quote-impeachment-1473476

 

BTW "Democracy in America" is a great book that should be read by every American. It's the perspective of a foreigner on the US after it's founding. There is a dog eared copy of it on the bookshelf behind me right now. 

Edited November 22, 2019 by Guard Dog

[pmp10]

16 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

OTOH, while HK is being repressed much as the media say and you can literally see it, the slant is more that after x months only 2 people have actually died (one more or less accidentally, one pro Chinese killed by the protesters) while far worse direct repression using far worse tactics in other countries is largely ignored because it's done by geopolitical friends rather than rivals, or is painted differently because, say, the Gilets Jaunes are obviously dangerous violent anarcho fascists (! lol) Russian puppets living in the past and being mean to that nice photogenic Macron who is only trying to save France from itself...

Incidentally the death tool in Iraq protests is now at well over 300.
Yet I'm constantly bombarded by news from HK while this hardly ever gets reported.

[Malcador]

32 minutes ago, pmp10 said:

Incidentally the death tool in Iraq protests is now at well over 300.
Yet I'm constantly bombarded by news from HK while this hardly ever gets reported.

In terms of people caring - Iraq, Chile, Bolivia, etc. is just usual third worlder brown people dying.  HK is a developed nation, has good marketing. 

[Volourn]

Oh. Malcador is one of those... lumping Asians in with the whites. Yeha, yeah, Asians have 'white privledge'. LMAO

[Malcador]

42 minutes ago, Volourn said:

Oh. Malcador is one of those... lumping Asians in with the whites. Yeha, yeah, Asians have 'white privledge'. LMAO

Sure Volo.  Was more along the lines of green privilege (well, if you're in the US, seems multi-colour currency is popular around the world)

[Volourn]

Then why mention skin colour? Hmm...

[Malcador]

41 minutes ago, Volourn said:

Then why mention skin colour? Hmm...

Have to paint a fuller picture of why people are generally dismissive of them suffering far worse than HK.  Then again, these days I am not sure many people know where Chile or Bolivia even are. 

Edited November 22, 2019 by Malcador

[HoonDing]

Is the Amazon forest still burning?

[ktchong]

On 11/21/2019 at 2:51 PM, Zoraptor said:

Nah, I'm no friend of 'western media' and they'll happily parrot anything they're given, but I also have very little doubt that their reporting of China is slanted, but more or less 'factual'. Chinese reflexively blame Falun Gong ...

And in China's case there's always Xinjiang and the muslim non FG Uighurs being harvested/ re-educated/ concentration camped.

 

I did NOT use any Chinese source to debunk the Western and Falun Gong's propaganda of organ harvest in China.  All of the sources I used originated from the US:  a white American civilian who previously worked for Falun Gong inside America (and he has never even been to China or outside the US) and an independent news outlet, the Grayzone.

I have posted about the XInjiang situation, with links and references, quite a few times in the past.  I will just simply sum it up here:  the current situation is result of what happened in China from 2008 to 2016.  During those years, Xinjiang Uyghur separatist Muslims committed more and more terrorist attack -- including bombing and mass shooting -- inside China.   Sometime between 2014 to 2016, the Chinese government, through the interrogations of terrorists who were capture alive, discovered that Turkey and the US -- i.e., the CIA -- had been behind the Uyghur terrorism in China. 

(I might have posted here the horror story of how China extracted the information from the Uyghur terrorists who were captured alive... or maybe not so much alive.  As the story went on the Chinese social media: China was able to resuscitate and kept alive a Ugyhur terrorist who had blown off half of his own body.  The Ugyhur terrorist resisted interrogation , but he finally broke when a Chinese interrogator used a mirror to show him that the entire bottom half of his body was missing; but I am sure China must have found out about CIA and Turkey's involvement from multiple sources.  China had to do what it got to do to fight domestic terrorism.)

Basically, the CIA working with Turkey had been recruiting Uyghur Muslims from Xinjiang, armed and trained them to fight in Iraq against Iran and then in Syria against the Assad regime, and then send them back into China to create jihadist and separatist cells.  CIA's plan was to use Uyghur Islamic terrorism to destabilize China.  After China piece together who had been behind the attack, the Chinese communist government finally decided to bring out the sledgehammer in 2016 to put an end to America's scheme.  There was when the mass crackdown and internment of Xinjiang Muslims began.

The way I see it: if America could invade Afghanistan and Iraq to fight terrorism in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, killing millions of innocent Afghan and Iraqi civilians and villagers who had nothing to do with 9/11, then China can very damned well round up everyone in Xinjiang and send them to re-education camp to fight the Uyghur terrorist attacks that had been escalating in China between 2009 and 2016.

FYI: Uyghur terrorist attacks have completely stopped since 2016, the year when China started the  mass crackdown and internment of Uyghur.  There has not been a single case of Uyghur terrorist attack in China after 2016.  So, whatever China is doing in Xinjiang, it is working.

As for the accusation of China has been harvesting Uyghur, it is the same position I have with the allegation of harvesting of Falon Gong practioner: " I do not know if organ harvesting is actually going on in China.  I have not seen any solid evidence to prove that it is actually happening, nor am I certain that it is not happening. "  Both Falun Gong and Xinjiang separatist Uyghur had been working together -- and with the NED, an offshoot of the CIA; which explains why both use the same smear tactics against China.

 

 

 

Edited November 23, 2019 by ktchong

[ktchong]

 

Here, another of how the the US -- through its Western establishment media -- had been straight out LYING and making up FAKE NEWS.  Remember all the news images and videos that you had seen about how Venezuelans did not have food, that they were starving and dying due to "socialism"?  Blatant LIES and FAKE NEWS, created by the US and media, to prepare for an invasion for the "humanitarian" pretense.  The lies were so different from the on-the-ground reality that you would be shocked, that you simply would not believe the brazen extent of the lies and fake news in the establishment media.

 

 

Don't miss the grocery shopping in Venezuela at the end:

 

 

 

 

Edited November 23, 2019 by ktchong

[Skarpen]

Nice try...

https://medium.com/@j.collins/max-blumenthal-goes-to-the-richest-parts-of-caracas-and-shows-stores-full-of-food-64eaaa1afae

[smjjames]

That's false equivalency all over the place ktchong, for one, China isn't invading another country to do it and the US didn't round people up into re-education camps in Iraq and Afghanistan. A much more direct equivalent of what China is doing would be like the US rounding up Native Americans into re-education camps.

Also, I coulda sworn Falun Gong was more centrist or left, but then, when you're communist, everything else may as well be far right because everything else is to the right of you.

[ComradeYellow]

1 hour ago, smjjames said:

Also, I coulda sworn Falun Gong was more centrist or left, but then, when you're communist, everything else may as well be far right because everything else is to the right of you.

Anarchism is left of Communism.

[smjjames]

17 minutes ago, ComradeMaster said:

Anarchism is left of Communism.

Anarchism is more like 'none of the above' though, right? Because they want to flip the metaphorical table of government, whatever the ideology. There are rightwing and leftwing anarchists, so, it's not so easily defined on a spectrum. In any case, ktchong linked an article claiming that Falun Gong is far-right, which is what I was responding to.

Unless it's a Horseshoe theory sort of thing where they go so far left that they flip polarity.

[Zoraptor]

Classically Anarchism is neither left nor right, but right wing Anarchists are usually (self) described as 'Libertarians' nowadays which leaves a few left wing groups like syndicalists or Apoism plus the antifa types and they are all leftists.

China is only communist in name though, it's probably the model example of 'state capitalism'. Many of its policies are not recognisably 'left' or 'communist' at all, and some are almost the complete reverse.

1 hour ago, smjjames said:

That's false equivalency all over the place ktchong, for one, China isn't invading another country to do it and the US didn't round people up into re-education camps in Iraq and Afghanistan. A much more direct equivalent of what China is doing would be like the US rounding up Native Americans into re-education camps.

Also, I coulda sworn Falun Gong was more centrist or left, but then, when you're communist, everything else may as well be far right because everything else is to the right of you.

Not just false equivalency. There's plenty of working back from a conclusion to the evidence that supports said conclusion as well; and the conclusion is that any problems China has have to be fomented by 'External Forces' and not be due to anything China herself has done. So the systematic sinofication of all areas with local non Han/ Mandarin majorities (not just the well known Xinjiang and Tibet, even a lot of the resentment in HK is due to Cantonese v Mandarin) doesn't cause any problems, any resentment has to be manufactured by FG/ CIA/ Turkey/ Britain. So for example the Uighurs in Syria (TIP; Turkistan Islamic Party) had the choice of fleeing China or being Room 101ed, and chose to go to Syria to establish a new 'free' homeland. TIP is not deserving of sympathy as they're borderline ISIS in terms of theology and happy to steal other people's homes to establish said new homeland, but they have a 100% legit beef with China and 100% have lost their actual homeland; they even have a decentish reason for being radicalised in the oppression they have suffered- unlike the average westerner who becomes radicalised because they're bored and unimportant. They have also never been sponsored by either the CIA or Turkey in Syria and I say that as someone who has no sympathy at all for either Turkish or CIA conduct there. The CIA and Turkey happily armed and supported an array of ethnic cleansing loony wahhabist takfiri head choppers cannibals and child executors, but neither supported TIP*.

You'd have to be pretty naive to think that the CIA isn't fomenting unrest in China, but you'd have to be equally naive to think that the CIA are the major cause

*TIP will have got some CIA vetted/ Turkish supplies via Al Nusra/ Al Qaeda's control of the border crossings and them taking a share of every supply run made to the 'moderate' rebels, but as with Al Qaeda the vast majority of their funding comes from wealthy individuals' patronage rather than country contributions.

[Gorth]

...and here I thought prescription drugs were outrageously expensive in Denmark. Live and learn I guess

 

https://www.aljazeera.com/ajimpact/ranks-1-world-sky-high-cost-vital-medicines-191121224954634.html

 

[ktchong]

17 hours ago, smjjames said:

That's false equivalency all over the place ktchong, for one, China isn't invading another country to do it and the US didn't round people up into re-education camps in Iraq and Afghanistan. A much more direct equivalent of what China is doing would be like the US rounding up Native Americans into re-education camps.

 

Did Native Americans started bombing, shooting and driving into people in train stations, museums, public squads and other public places? 

Those attacks are called terrorism -- and those terrorists attack were what Xinjiang Uyghur Muslims had been doing in China with increasing frequency and intensity in China, which finally led to the mass crackdown of Uyghur to put an end to the terrorist attacks in 2016.   Between 2013 and 2016, there were over 50 major terrorist attacks in China -- all of them, every single one of those terrorist attacks, were committed by Uyghur Muslims.

And what do you propose China should have done to stop the non-stop terrorist attacks from Uyghur?

This current on-going rounding up, internment. concentration, re-education, or whatever you want to call it, of Uyghur did not happen out of vacuum.   China did not just suddenly decided to target Uyghur for no reason.  The current situation is the result of the series of escalating terrorist attacks  carried out by Uyghur in China between 2008 and 2016, the important context that is being obfuscated by the Western media.   Before 2010, Uyghur actually had given special privileges that even Han Chinese did not have: any Uyghur men could brandish their traditional sword in the public, (the majority Hans have never been allowed to own or carry a weapon in public without special permission.)  Uyghur got special subsidies and treatments when applying to universities.  Uyghur got special government subsidies if they wanted to start businesses.  Uyghur were given preferential treatments  in the entertainment and media business, (China actually had a lot of Uyghur media celebrities from before 2010.)  Those privileges had been revoked and taken away in bits and pieces in recent years in retaliation for the escalating Uyghur terrorist attacks, which finally led to the current Chinese crackdown and sentiment of "show no mercy" to Uyghur.  Well, when your country was hit by over 50 terrorist attacks in three years that killed hundreds of people, can't blame the people to have finally run out of patience and want some revenge and justice. 

Whatever China is doing in Xinjiang, it is working.   Terrorist attacks have dropped drastically after 2016 when China started rounding up Uyghur and putting them in re-education camp, to re-educate and de-program them so that they would not go around blowing themselves up, shooting innocent people, and driving trucks into people.  In 2018 and 2019. there has not been a single terrorist attack from Uyghur.  So the internment and concentration camp or whatever you want to call it -- it is working.  It has stopped Uyghur terrorism in China.

And that is the fundamental and most important duty of a government: to protect the public safety and security of its people.

The US had invaded Afghanistan and Iraq in the name of "fighting terrorism", which has resulted in the death of millions of Afghan and Iraqi civilians.  It is hypocrisy for the US to criticize China that is also fighting terrorism.  And whatever China is doing, it is doing in its own territories.  (Xinjiang is internationally recognized territories of China, regardless of how you want to spin it.)  At least China has not gone out to invade and occupy other countries for two decades to "fight terrorism".  Telling China to stop cracking down Uyghur (to stop terrorism) is actually the same as telling the US to stop invading and occupying countries in the Middle East (to stop terrorism;)  China has not made such a demand of America, so America should stay the out of how China fights terrorism inside its borders.  By the way, China's methods have been very effective in stopping terrorism, while America's efforts have only created ISIS, set the entire Middle East on fire, brought misery and suffering to the civilians in the Middle East,  created the current migrant crisis in Europe, and brought itself closer to bankruptcy.  You can complain about and criticize that China is harvesting Uyghurs, (an allegation that has never been proven,) but is it worse that what America is doing in the Middle East: endless wars and occupations, killing millions of civilians, for oil and war profiteering?   For America do make demands of China to stop cracking down on Uyghur is the same as Americans telling Chinese to let the Uyghur terrorist attacks to kill Chinese and create havoc in China -- but then again, that is likely exactly America's intention.

Edited November 24, 2019 by ktchong