True, though an honest appraisal would surely conclude Australia is both more liberal and more democratic than is China. After all, how many journalists does Australia have in prison today? China has, according to Reporters sans frontières, 47.
You take Reporters sans frontières at face value given the evidence that virtually all Western corporate media are corrupted by elite globalist money? Is not Julian Assange in prison? Is not Serena Shim dead along with several non-embedded journalists killed during the Iraq War? Daniel Dumbrill is far more credible than 60 Minutes Australia or Reporters sans frontières.
"You take Reporters sans frontières at face value"
From the RSF website today: "@RSF_inter
06/28/2021
As Julian Assange's 50th birthday approaches, I'm joining the call to #FreeAssange. The case against him should be dropped and he should be immediately released. Let this be the last birthday he spends in prison! #HappyBirthdayAssange"
Is that false as well? I certainly don't agree with everything RSF claims. But there are numerous other organisations with evidence showing that China routinely imprisons journalists and bloggers who reveal what the government wants kept secret. The Committee to Protect Journalists, for example:
"In its annual global survey, the Committee to Protect Journalists found at least 274 journalists in jail in relation to their work on December 1, 2020, exceeding the high of 272 in 2016. China, which arrested several journalists for their coverage of the pandemic, was the world’s worst jailer for the second year in a row. It was followed by Turkey, which continues to try journalists free on parole and arrest new ones; Egypt, which went to great lengths to keep custody of journalists not convicted of any crime; and Saudi Arabia...
... Within the United States, no journalists were jailed at the time of CPJ’s prison census, but an unprecedented 110 journalists were arrested or criminally charged in 2020 and around 300 were assaulted, the majority by law enforcement."
Your cynicism reminds me of something CS Lewis once wrote about people who claim to see through everything eventually see nothing at all. In your rightful desire to support Mr Assange and to expose the egregious state crimes of Australia, USA and the UK, you run the risk of ignoring the often-equal or worse crimes of other governments. It's entirely possible to condemn repression wherever it occurs.
Funny, I don't recall ever writing that *nothing* claimed by RSF (or HRW or AI or CPJ etc) was ever true. What I suggested is that no such Western NGOs should be taken at face value without question. What they claim should always be evaluated based on their inherent biases and incentives, their past record of truthfulness or falsity, alternative on-the-ground sources from within the country in question, whether what they reveal is an "admission against interest," etc. Your default appears to be to believe everything you read in corporate media unless proven otherwise. Perhaps the following link will help: https://roundingtheearth.substack.com/p/gell-mann-amnesia-dissonance-and
You and I believe exactly the same, only that I apply that principle also to state propaganda by the governments of China, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, Turkey et al. Are you still claiming that those governments are not imprisoning journalists, and in conditions likely to be much worse than the vile conditions being endured by Mr Assange right this moment?
There is only so much we as ordinary citizens can do to check if information is true. There is a danger that you will pass into the complete cynicism of anti-vaxxers, climate science deniers and so forth.
Because China is such a repressive state, there is not the same level of information available from relatively objective sources. The Chinese government routinely closes down parts of the internet to avoid socially-divisive or politically-embarrassing news or debates. Are you denying this? For example, perhaps this is completely untrue:
"Former world No 1 tennis star Naomi Osaka has joined the growing calls for answers on the whereabouts of Chinese player Peng Shuai, who has not been heard from publicly since she accused the country’s former vice premier of sexually assaulting her... Peng’s post went viral on Chinese social media, despite it being taken down by censors within minutes. Subsequent posts and reactions, even keywords such as “tennis”, also appeared to be blocked, and numerous references to Peng were scrubbed from China’s internet."
I have little idea what's going on in "China, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, Turkey et al," and don't pretend to know based on reports in Imperial media. This is especially true for designated enemies like China. Our MIC and the bankers that fund the Pentagon need an enemy. Both neo-cons and neo-libs love to play that game for the MIC, and are paid well for their services at think tanks. Corporate media is also on the take through military and Big Pharma ad revenues.
I see you drink the swill of "anti-vaxxers" and "climate science deniers." I had little distrust of vaccines before 2020, but the lies the CDC, WHO, FDA and NIH told, to generate fear and panic, opened my eyes. There's nothing cynical in that or in questioning climate "science," unless of course you believe that even the dissidents are FOS.
Oh, "The Chinese government routinely closes down parts of the internet to avoid socially-divisive or politically-embarrassing news or debates?" Maybe it does, and maybe it doesn't, because we surely can not trust reports in our own corporate press. But why are we throwing stones? Our own government uses the monopolies it has encouraged like Facebook, Twitter and Google (which owns YouTube) to do exactly the same thing to suppress dissent from its own narratives. Say, whatever happened to UK Channel and Del Bigtree on YouTube? Why was the NY Post crippled on Twitter just before the 2020 election? You want to talk about conditions? A few years back, a Florida inmate was scalded to death by prison guards, and the UK can't trust the US prison system not to kill Assange, just like they did Epstein, or do you believe they drove him to suicide? We have political prisoners languishing in a DC jail for misdemeanors.
You do read Caitlin's essays, don't you? The Guardian is one of the worst. So bad that some dissidents felt compelled to start the Off-Guardian to expose its lies and distortions.
Off-Guardian is a notoriously right-wing propaganda sheet closer to Sp!ked than to anything socialist. It seems that, as I suspected, you are so cynical that you see nothing at all. You are so unwilling to believe anything in the Western media that you have become blind to the reality of the world. It's entirely possible to oppose the lack of democracy and repression in China as well as that in the West. It's also a little odd that you think that scandal-sheet the NY Post would be targeted by the US state, when it's a newspaper that uncritically supports that state.
As for prison conditions, I spent six years in English & Scottish prisons between 2000 and 2017. All reports from nations such as China, Iran, Egypt, Bahrain etc are of conditions considerably worse.
Your views seem rather inconsistently held. You question the science of climate change yet consider yourself a free thinker. You're on the side of Donald Trump and his cronies.
I don't want to see any reporter locked up, but how many corrupt politicians, military war criminals, and CEOs does America have in prison today? What does this say about us?
My entire problem with China is that what I'm being told largely comes from those who have an unbroken track record of lying in service of a murderous global empire -- and, gee whiz, it just so happens that China supposedly wants the exact same thing.
We were told Islamic terrorists were our mortal enemies; now we're arming them in Syria. When shameless liars do what we're told to fear from our "enemies", it's time to take a step back and think, particularly when those liars have access to well-stocked bunkers.
Call me shallow, but I'm unwilling to burn to death for such people.
There is a difference, I believe, in recognizing a government's repressive nature and going to war with it, which is what the current call to arms amounts to.
We managed to navigate a detente with the Soviet Union without sugarcoating their leadership, because we recognized areas where we shared common interests. I'm not seeing much of that now. Detente may not have been a perfect arrangement, but at least we're all still around to argue its merits.
You mentioned cynicism. What is more cynical than being handed a hammer by those who conveniently only see nails, but never their own? We hear regularly from the warmongers; just where the hell are the diplomats?
Very true. We have a standoff between much of the Left which refuses to admit anything bad being done by the Chinese government because it fears being associated with the Right which is, as you rightly point out, wanting what could become a global thermonuclear war. It's possible to recognise the repression and lack of democracy in China whilst also recognising the West's hypocrisy and its own crimes.
Nice to know all the reports of totalitarian measures in Australia are just made up. With the exception of a week or two "flattening the curve," at the very start in Wuhan, I see no reports that China has resorted to such totalitarian measures.
LOL, Australia just calls them spies. Odd, isn't it that the CIA can now put it's own staff directly in the employ of US and Australian News corporations, and that's democratic shape. The penetration is nearly 100%, yet the reporters sent to China would never be CIA assets, would they. Nah, never happen.
Shakes head wondering what school graduated the dolt, so he can warn parents not to send their kids there.
Well then Mr I Know Better than everyone else, perhaps you could point me to a Chinese political comment site which is free and independent of government interference. I'm waiting...
True, though an honest appraisal would surely conclude Australia is both more liberal and more democratic than is China. After all, how many journalists does Australia have in prison today? China has, according to Reporters sans frontières, 47.
You take Reporters sans frontières at face value given the evidence that virtually all Western corporate media are corrupted by elite globalist money? Is not Julian Assange in prison? Is not Serena Shim dead along with several non-embedded journalists killed during the Iraq War? Daniel Dumbrill is far more credible than 60 Minutes Australia or Reporters sans frontières.
"You take Reporters sans frontières at face value"
From the RSF website today: "@RSF_inter
06/28/2021
As Julian Assange's 50th birthday approaches, I'm joining the call to #FreeAssange. The case against him should be dropped and he should be immediately released. Let this be the last birthday he spends in prison! #HappyBirthdayAssange"
Is that false as well? I certainly don't agree with everything RSF claims. But there are numerous other organisations with evidence showing that China routinely imprisons journalists and bloggers who reveal what the government wants kept secret. The Committee to Protect Journalists, for example:
"In its annual global survey, the Committee to Protect Journalists found at least 274 journalists in jail in relation to their work on December 1, 2020, exceeding the high of 272 in 2016. China, which arrested several journalists for their coverage of the pandemic, was the world’s worst jailer for the second year in a row. It was followed by Turkey, which continues to try journalists free on parole and arrest new ones; Egypt, which went to great lengths to keep custody of journalists not convicted of any crime; and Saudi Arabia...
... Within the United States, no journalists were jailed at the time of CPJ’s prison census, but an unprecedented 110 journalists were arrested or criminally charged in 2020 and around 300 were assaulted, the majority by law enforcement."
https://cpj.org/reports/2020/12/record-number-journalists-jailed-imprisoned/
Your cynicism reminds me of something CS Lewis once wrote about people who claim to see through everything eventually see nothing at all. In your rightful desire to support Mr Assange and to expose the egregious state crimes of Australia, USA and the UK, you run the risk of ignoring the often-equal or worse crimes of other governments. It's entirely possible to condemn repression wherever it occurs.
Funny, I don't recall ever writing that *nothing* claimed by RSF (or HRW or AI or CPJ etc) was ever true. What I suggested is that no such Western NGOs should be taken at face value without question. What they claim should always be evaluated based on their inherent biases and incentives, their past record of truthfulness or falsity, alternative on-the-ground sources from within the country in question, whether what they reveal is an "admission against interest," etc. Your default appears to be to believe everything you read in corporate media unless proven otherwise. Perhaps the following link will help: https://roundingtheearth.substack.com/p/gell-mann-amnesia-dissonance-and
You and I believe exactly the same, only that I apply that principle also to state propaganda by the governments of China, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, Turkey et al. Are you still claiming that those governments are not imprisoning journalists, and in conditions likely to be much worse than the vile conditions being endured by Mr Assange right this moment?
There is only so much we as ordinary citizens can do to check if information is true. There is a danger that you will pass into the complete cynicism of anti-vaxxers, climate science deniers and so forth.
Because China is such a repressive state, there is not the same level of information available from relatively objective sources. The Chinese government routinely closes down parts of the internet to avoid socially-divisive or politically-embarrassing news or debates. Are you denying this? For example, perhaps this is completely untrue:
"Former world No 1 tennis star Naomi Osaka has joined the growing calls for answers on the whereabouts of Chinese player Peng Shuai, who has not been heard from publicly since she accused the country’s former vice premier of sexually assaulting her... Peng’s post went viral on Chinese social media, despite it being taken down by censors within minutes. Subsequent posts and reactions, even keywords such as “tennis”, also appeared to be blocked, and numerous references to Peng were scrubbed from China’s internet."
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/nov/17/naomi-osaka-expresses-shock-over-missing-chinese-tennis-star-peng-shuai
That level of censorship is simply not the case in the West. It is possible and indeed desirable to expose and oppose repression wherever it occurs.
No, we do NOT believe in the same thing.
I have little idea what's going on in "China, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, Turkey et al," and don't pretend to know based on reports in Imperial media. This is especially true for designated enemies like China. Our MIC and the bankers that fund the Pentagon need an enemy. Both neo-cons and neo-libs love to play that game for the MIC, and are paid well for their services at think tanks. Corporate media is also on the take through military and Big Pharma ad revenues.
I see you drink the swill of "anti-vaxxers" and "climate science deniers." I had little distrust of vaccines before 2020, but the lies the CDC, WHO, FDA and NIH told, to generate fear and panic, opened my eyes. There's nothing cynical in that or in questioning climate "science," unless of course you believe that even the dissidents are FOS.
Oh, "The Chinese government routinely closes down parts of the internet to avoid socially-divisive or politically-embarrassing news or debates?" Maybe it does, and maybe it doesn't, because we surely can not trust reports in our own corporate press. But why are we throwing stones? Our own government uses the monopolies it has encouraged like Facebook, Twitter and Google (which owns YouTube) to do exactly the same thing to suppress dissent from its own narratives. Say, whatever happened to UK Channel and Del Bigtree on YouTube? Why was the NY Post crippled on Twitter just before the 2020 election? You want to talk about conditions? A few years back, a Florida inmate was scalded to death by prison guards, and the UK can't trust the US prison system not to kill Assange, just like they did Epstein, or do you believe they drove him to suicide? We have political prisoners languishing in a DC jail for misdemeanors.
You do read Caitlin's essays, don't you? The Guardian is one of the worst. So bad that some dissidents felt compelled to start the Off-Guardian to expose its lies and distortions.
Off-Guardian is a notoriously right-wing propaganda sheet closer to Sp!ked than to anything socialist. It seems that, as I suspected, you are so cynical that you see nothing at all. You are so unwilling to believe anything in the Western media that you have become blind to the reality of the world. It's entirely possible to oppose the lack of democracy and repression in China as well as that in the West. It's also a little odd that you think that scandal-sheet the NY Post would be targeted by the US state, when it's a newspaper that uncritically supports that state.
As for prison conditions, I spent six years in English & Scottish prisons between 2000 and 2017. All reports from nations such as China, Iran, Egypt, Bahrain etc are of conditions considerably worse.
Your views seem rather inconsistently held. You question the science of climate change yet consider yourself a free thinker. You're on the side of Donald Trump and his cronies.
I don't want to see any reporter locked up, but how many corrupt politicians, military war criminals, and CEOs does America have in prison today? What does this say about us?
My entire problem with China is that what I'm being told largely comes from those who have an unbroken track record of lying in service of a murderous global empire -- and, gee whiz, it just so happens that China supposedly wants the exact same thing.
We were told Islamic terrorists were our mortal enemies; now we're arming them in Syria. When shameless liars do what we're told to fear from our "enemies", it's time to take a step back and think, particularly when those liars have access to well-stocked bunkers.
Call me shallow, but I'm unwilling to burn to death for such people.
See my reply to anti-republocrat below. Don't let your rightful scepticism about the media and NGOs become cynicism.
There is a difference, I believe, in recognizing a government's repressive nature and going to war with it, which is what the current call to arms amounts to.
We managed to navigate a detente with the Soviet Union without sugarcoating their leadership, because we recognized areas where we shared common interests. I'm not seeing much of that now. Detente may not have been a perfect arrangement, but at least we're all still around to argue its merits.
You mentioned cynicism. What is more cynical than being handed a hammer by those who conveniently only see nails, but never their own? We hear regularly from the warmongers; just where the hell are the diplomats?
Very true. We have a standoff between much of the Left which refuses to admit anything bad being done by the Chinese government because it fears being associated with the Right which is, as you rightly point out, wanting what could become a global thermonuclear war. It's possible to recognise the repression and lack of democracy in China whilst also recognising the West's hypocrisy and its own crimes.
What repression and lack of democracy?
Are you seriously claiming that China is a democracy and its government is open, transparent and liberal? You must have some very rose-tinted glasses.
"We hear regularly from the warmongers; just where the hell are the diplomats?" in China.
Nice to know all the reports of totalitarian measures in Australia are just made up. With the exception of a week or two "flattening the curve," at the very start in Wuhan, I see no reports that China has resorted to such totalitarian measures.
LOL, Australia just calls them spies. Odd, isn't it that the CIA can now put it's own staff directly in the employ of US and Australian News corporations, and that's democratic shape. The penetration is nearly 100%, yet the reporters sent to China would never be CIA assets, would they. Nah, never happen.
Shakes head wondering what school graduated the dolt, so he can warn parents not to send their kids there.
Well then Mr I Know Better than everyone else, perhaps you could point me to a Chinese political comment site which is free and independent of government interference. I'm waiting...
Hi Mr. ASPI What absolutism. Nothing more to say, it's an echo chamber in there.
Can you read mandarin?