If you thought western mass media have been brazenly pushy with their anti-China propaganda, wait til you see The Hill's appalling new opinion piece titled "America must prepare for war with China over Taiwan".
Hanna Arendt used the phrase "banality of evil" to describe Eichmann -- a man accused with war crimes which staggered the world -- saying the man was not stupid, but possessed a completely authentic inability to think.
Such men are commonplace, apparently, and they seem to crave positions of influence and control.
The Hill article like many other saber-rattles are propaganda - now analysis. Arguments generally go: "Why, well look at the size of their military. Why, well look at the size of their military. And look at Hong Kong, and what Xi says about Taiwan. Of course, ignore that China is bordered by 3rd-world countries that require a huge military just to keep rebels, terrorists, smugglers and thieves out (Russia, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Laos, Vietnam, Nepal, Pakistan, Kursicstan, Kasakhstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and North Korea). Russia too has 9 countries on its border - including China! Both Russia and China have a huge coastlines and lots of international water-borne trade, so both countries need a big Navy to protect their trade interests. They also have large international coasts - China especially, which also has major cities on its coast that dwarf LA and San Francisco. There, feel better? 🤓
You missed that the US has numerous ships in the area, and China is ringed with US military bases. Could it be that China is increasing its army as a result of our provocation?
It would be if the US was being povocative, but it really isn't. First, the bases you refer to have been there, many, since before WWII. Second, the US is not massing troops at anybody's border. Provocative is like Russia massing on Ukraine's border on the heals of their invasion of Crimea next door. Third, the US is China's biggest foreign customer, and many US firms have invested in China. The early retake of Hong Kong was just Xi's way of telling the west that there is a new kid on the block.
US Navy ships are hardly provocative - just annoying. The US has had fewer ships patrolling the waters off China almost every year for the past several decades. That is in part due to having fewer ships to deploy (read the draft NDAA).
How "annoying" would it be if China had military ships patrolling a few miles from the US west coast?
I am French, a country that our own mass media talk us to be "allied" with the US. Except that it fills more and more like vassal than allied. I observe that many americans would really benefit from meditating on the concept of reciprocity in foreign policy.
They aren't right off the coast. They are in international waters. And, the Russians, Chinese, and all navies do that to be annoying. Sometimes, they will drive into a US or other ally's convoy requiring course changes to avoid collisions. It is like that kid on the playground who threw a stone at you once.
You sound like you could apply for a position in the Biden Administration, and no doubt get it.
I'd be interested in whether the Chinese themselves consider our military presence at their doorstep provocative, or simply annoying as you so casually assure us.
Personally, I would be wary of any country that repeatedly lied to launch an unjustified invasion thousands of miles from their borders which resulted in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, continues to occupy that country after being asked to leave, and arms terrorists in the region in the pursuit of its never-ending geopolitical aims. Yes, I would be very wary indeed.
it's propaganda for the public consumption, not that the propagandists themselves sincerely believe their own "points" and "conclusions". weapons of mass destruction including nukes are for both: to threaten and to deter. unless you convince your enemy that your threat or ability (to defend) is real, your weapons are worthless.
I'm glad you said "the Biden *administration* " because, for a minute there, I thought you said that Biden would have to articulate, and he can't even find his dick, let alone hold it.
There clearly is a ramping up of anti-China rhetoric. Numerous progressive journalists and commentators speak of the fomenting of a new cold war with China. And can we really trust that the brandishing of weapons and aggressive posturing won't blow up? Manufacturing consent extends into the realm of art as well. I was just at an exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery in DC of the painter Hung Liu, "the acclaimed Chinese-born American artist." Her work is indeed stunning, beautiful, sensitive, and poignant, but it can hardly help but fuel emotional repugnance toward China. In this context, the prominent featuring of her anti-Communist China work--the first exhibit of an Asian American woman in the museum--does not seem to me to be coincidental.
I'm with Caitlin except where she uses the jerk's picture to slander both nerds and and people with sexual hangups. You're better than judging people on the basis of their appearance, Caitlin!
the "us" being groomed will change at a moment's notice. It's AUKUS doing the sabre rattling, but in the end I think it will be Singapore Malaysia Thailand Indonesia Korea India who will carry the weight and bear the fight. I have a feeling........ It should be called "Tim Cook's War". After all, Apple has reaped its trillion dollar market capitalization on China/Taiwan. No company so much so. (Funny thing: when Trump was openly racializing American politics for the coming two decades, imposing Tariffs on "foreigners" products, Apple got a deal! Zero tariffs on their "imports". As late as 2019. Wonders of Mar a Lago.)
War is always profitable for someone, either politically or financially, or both. Then they get saps like us in a lather to do their killing and dying on their behalf. It's a game I refuse to play, but I'm old and there's plenty of fresh meat to replace me.
I think it is more likely that the media are hyping the fear of war than promoting actual war. The former will result in trillions of dollars wasted on armaments, while the latter will result in the U.S. getting its ass kicked by China, a defeat that the US’s own war games indicate is virtually certain to occur in very short order.
You probably weren't around for the Pentagon Papers, were you? The geniuses at the Pentagon knew the war was unwinnable, yet kept at it year after bloody year, telling the president and the public a completely fabricated rosy account.
Where does the line between hyping the fear of war and promoting actual war fall? It's a hell of a thing to be playing footsie with, wouldn't you say? And history shows that just because a war is unwinnable, that doesn't mean a gang of uniformed idiots won't want sods like you and me to go off and die for it.
Indeed, I was already into adulthood when the Pentagon Papers were revealed, and I have spent considerable time studying that era. (Fortunately, I did not get shipped off to fight in the Vietnam War.) You are correct that there are warmongers in high places who actually love war, as long as they are not involved in the messy business of fighting and dying. At the same time, I think that the US military has been chastened by its string of defeats, extending from Vietnam to Afghanistan (the Korean War was not exactly a victory either), and they are loathe to go through another such humiliation. The same can be said of political leaders, who don’t want their own reputations dragged through the mud. Nevertheless, one should never dismiss the possibility of the US stumbling into war either by accident or through pure stupidity. There is no shortage of the latter amongst our foreign policy team.
We were recently treated to the unjustifiable droning of a family in Afghanistan, followed by being bald-faced lied to repeatedly about it, followed by the truth coming out followed by absolutely no one being held accountable for it.
And this is just one small incident among a decades-long farce of a war. I bring this up to refute your allegation that either our politicians or military are chastened by their past failures. From what I've seen since 9/11 the exact opposite appears to be the case.
So, what you're saying is that these people are sociopaths. I already know that. But so-called "collateral damage" has gone almost completely unreported by our wonderful corporate media. The incident that you mentioned slipped through the filter, because it occurred in connection with the US pullout from Afghanistan. I think that the military was embarrassed by, even if not ashamed of, what happened. Losing a major war is a different matter altogether. That is a military disgrace and a political catastrophe.
Still ignoring the scamdemic... lockdowns...forced vaccinations...all orchestrated by the people who are pushing the anti China bullshit? I used to respect you... no longer
We are layers and layers into the madness…a human even thinking seriously about creating a nuclear weapon is sheer madness…so is accepting them as a given our entire lives, while we argue about lesser things.
Our egoic conditioning makes us all mentally ill.
The most important subtext to every conversation you or I have ever had—and it should pervade the discourse like a fragrant bouquet or the stench of a fish market—is that 1) we are mentally ill due to compulsive thinking with which we identify 2) this dysfunction sends danger signals to the body so we retreat to the survival brain where hierarchy, domination, violence, deception and extreme othering suppress our collaborative empathetic programming 3) the human organism in order to survive requires clean air, water, food, shelter and resources to prevent and repair injury to the organism…and education and creative expression and space in order to fully develop.
If these are not the subtext—and we can include nuclear weapons and ecocide in the subtext when someone speaks about “ the urgency of x! “then the debate is largely pointless… literally that person is missing the point, the greater and deeper context.
The first 2 in the list above are more challenging to explain but number 3, at least, should be the ground upon which we formulate all discussions on any topic of concern.
Playing on any other field of discussion is giving away home field advantage and likely losing control of the narrative.
So we set the premise, and status quo defenders will use jargon to pretend they prioritize survival of the human organism but if we keep that as our baseline at every point in a conversation then the forces of domination and resistance will quickly reveal a ‘survival of the fittest or most worthy’ ideology and the narratives they have built will collapse more easily.
The most important thing however is to cultivate deep present moment awareness to quiet the mind and begin to help us heal our insanity which makes us do brutal things and makes us easy to dominate and manipulate.
Well, OK. But only if we'll finish up in time for dinner? Weren't Biden, Obama, Clinton suck ups those sneering white-flight suburbanite "hippy" kids, who'd gentrified Black & Latino business districts, bulldozed by daddy's firm, as they smoked dope, miscegenated away working class movements, incorporated "our" party & wrote laws, legalizing feeding upon us (while incarcerating 23 million, for whathefuck EVER we did, trying to survive?)
Hanna Arendt used the phrase "banality of evil" to describe Eichmann -- a man accused with war crimes which staggered the world -- saying the man was not stupid, but possessed a completely authentic inability to think.
Such men are commonplace, apparently, and they seem to crave positions of influence and control.
Their faults are not worth one more human life.
such men not only crave for power and control, they tend to float to the top, proving the system they succeed in is the enemy of humanity.
Too many focus on personalities and individuals when systems which select them and promote them are the enemy we must face.
The Hill article like many other saber-rattles are propaganda - now analysis. Arguments generally go: "Why, well look at the size of their military. Why, well look at the size of their military. And look at Hong Kong, and what Xi says about Taiwan. Of course, ignore that China is bordered by 3rd-world countries that require a huge military just to keep rebels, terrorists, smugglers and thieves out (Russia, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Laos, Vietnam, Nepal, Pakistan, Kursicstan, Kasakhstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and North Korea). Russia too has 9 countries on its border - including China! Both Russia and China have a huge coastlines and lots of international water-borne trade, so both countries need a big Navy to protect their trade interests. They also have large international coasts - China especially, which also has major cities on its coast that dwarf LA and San Francisco. There, feel better? 🤓
You missed that the US has numerous ships in the area, and China is ringed with US military bases. Could it be that China is increasing its army as a result of our provocation?
It would be if the US was being povocative, but it really isn't. First, the bases you refer to have been there, many, since before WWII. Second, the US is not massing troops at anybody's border. Provocative is like Russia massing on Ukraine's border on the heals of their invasion of Crimea next door. Third, the US is China's biggest foreign customer, and many US firms have invested in China. The early retake of Hong Kong was just Xi's way of telling the west that there is a new kid on the block.
US Navy ships are hardly provocative - just annoying. The US has had fewer ships patrolling the waters off China almost every year for the past several decades. That is in part due to having fewer ships to deploy (read the draft NDAA).
How "annoying" would it be if China had military ships patrolling a few miles from the US west coast?
I am French, a country that our own mass media talk us to be "allied" with the US. Except that it fills more and more like vassal than allied. I observe that many americans would really benefit from meditating on the concept of reciprocity in foreign policy.
They aren't right off the coast. They are in international waters. And, the Russians, Chinese, and all navies do that to be annoying. Sometimes, they will drive into a US or other ally's convoy requiring course changes to avoid collisions. It is like that kid on the playground who threw a stone at you once.
You sound like you could apply for a position in the Biden Administration, and no doubt get it.
I'd be interested in whether the Chinese themselves consider our military presence at their doorstep provocative, or simply annoying as you so casually assure us.
Personally, I would be wary of any country that repeatedly lied to launch an unjustified invasion thousands of miles from their borders which resulted in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, continues to occupy that country after being asked to leave, and arms terrorists in the region in the pursuit of its never-ending geopolitical aims. Yes, I would be very wary indeed.
it's propaganda for the public consumption, not that the propagandists themselves sincerely believe their own "points" and "conclusions". weapons of mass destruction including nukes are for both: to threaten and to deter. unless you convince your enemy that your threat or ability (to defend) is real, your weapons are worthless.
I'm glad you said "the Biden *administration* " because, for a minute there, I thought you said that Biden would have to articulate, and he can't even find his dick, let alone hold it.
There clearly is a ramping up of anti-China rhetoric. Numerous progressive journalists and commentators speak of the fomenting of a new cold war with China. And can we really trust that the brandishing of weapons and aggressive posturing won't blow up? Manufacturing consent extends into the realm of art as well. I was just at an exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery in DC of the painter Hung Liu, "the acclaimed Chinese-born American artist." Her work is indeed stunning, beautiful, sensitive, and poignant, but it can hardly help but fuel emotional repugnance toward China. In this context, the prominent featuring of her anti-Communist China work--the first exhibit of an Asian American woman in the museum--does not seem to me to be coincidental.
I'm with Caitlin except where she uses the jerk's picture to slander both nerds and and people with sexual hangups. You're better than judging people on the basis of their appearance, Caitlin!
the "us" being groomed will change at a moment's notice. It's AUKUS doing the sabre rattling, but in the end I think it will be Singapore Malaysia Thailand Indonesia Korea India who will carry the weight and bear the fight. I have a feeling........ It should be called "Tim Cook's War". After all, Apple has reaped its trillion dollar market capitalization on China/Taiwan. No company so much so. (Funny thing: when Trump was openly racializing American politics for the coming two decades, imposing Tariffs on "foreigners" products, Apple got a deal! Zero tariffs on their "imports". As late as 2019. Wonders of Mar a Lago.)
Who pays? who fights? Rich get richer.
War is always profitable for someone, either politically or financially, or both. Then they get saps like us in a lather to do their killing and dying on their behalf. It's a game I refuse to play, but I'm old and there's plenty of fresh meat to replace me.
I think it is more likely that the media are hyping the fear of war than promoting actual war. The former will result in trillions of dollars wasted on armaments, while the latter will result in the U.S. getting its ass kicked by China, a defeat that the US’s own war games indicate is virtually certain to occur in very short order.
You probably weren't around for the Pentagon Papers, were you? The geniuses at the Pentagon knew the war was unwinnable, yet kept at it year after bloody year, telling the president and the public a completely fabricated rosy account.
Where does the line between hyping the fear of war and promoting actual war fall? It's a hell of a thing to be playing footsie with, wouldn't you say? And history shows that just because a war is unwinnable, that doesn't mean a gang of uniformed idiots won't want sods like you and me to go off and die for it.
Indeed, I was already into adulthood when the Pentagon Papers were revealed, and I have spent considerable time studying that era. (Fortunately, I did not get shipped off to fight in the Vietnam War.) You are correct that there are warmongers in high places who actually love war, as long as they are not involved in the messy business of fighting and dying. At the same time, I think that the US military has been chastened by its string of defeats, extending from Vietnam to Afghanistan (the Korean War was not exactly a victory either), and they are loathe to go through another such humiliation. The same can be said of political leaders, who don’t want their own reputations dragged through the mud. Nevertheless, one should never dismiss the possibility of the US stumbling into war either by accident or through pure stupidity. There is no shortage of the latter amongst our foreign policy team.
We were recently treated to the unjustifiable droning of a family in Afghanistan, followed by being bald-faced lied to repeatedly about it, followed by the truth coming out followed by absolutely no one being held accountable for it.
And this is just one small incident among a decades-long farce of a war. I bring this up to refute your allegation that either our politicians or military are chastened by their past failures. From what I've seen since 9/11 the exact opposite appears to be the case.
So, what you're saying is that these people are sociopaths. I already know that. But so-called "collateral damage" has gone almost completely unreported by our wonderful corporate media. The incident that you mentioned slipped through the filter, because it occurred in connection with the US pullout from Afghanistan. I think that the military was embarrassed by, even if not ashamed of, what happened. Losing a major war is a different matter altogether. That is a military disgrace and a political catastrophe.
Still ignoring the scamdemic... lockdowns...forced vaccinations...all orchestrated by the people who are pushing the anti China bullshit? I used to respect you... no longer
We are layers and layers into the madness…a human even thinking seriously about creating a nuclear weapon is sheer madness…so is accepting them as a given our entire lives, while we argue about lesser things.
Our egoic conditioning makes us all mentally ill.
The most important subtext to every conversation you or I have ever had—and it should pervade the discourse like a fragrant bouquet or the stench of a fish market—is that 1) we are mentally ill due to compulsive thinking with which we identify 2) this dysfunction sends danger signals to the body so we retreat to the survival brain where hierarchy, domination, violence, deception and extreme othering suppress our collaborative empathetic programming 3) the human organism in order to survive requires clean air, water, food, shelter and resources to prevent and repair injury to the organism…and education and creative expression and space in order to fully develop.
If these are not the subtext—and we can include nuclear weapons and ecocide in the subtext when someone speaks about “ the urgency of x! “then the debate is largely pointless… literally that person is missing the point, the greater and deeper context.
The first 2 in the list above are more challenging to explain but number 3, at least, should be the ground upon which we formulate all discussions on any topic of concern.
Playing on any other field of discussion is giving away home field advantage and likely losing control of the narrative.
So we set the premise, and status quo defenders will use jargon to pretend they prioritize survival of the human organism but if we keep that as our baseline at every point in a conversation then the forces of domination and resistance will quickly reveal a ‘survival of the fittest or most worthy’ ideology and the narratives they have built will collapse more easily.
The most important thing however is to cultivate deep present moment awareness to quiet the mind and begin to help us heal our insanity which makes us do brutal things and makes us easy to dominate and manipulate.
Well, OK. But only if we'll finish up in time for dinner? Weren't Biden, Obama, Clinton suck ups those sneering white-flight suburbanite "hippy" kids, who'd gentrified Black & Latino business districts, bulldozed by daddy's firm, as they smoked dope, miscegenated away working class movements, incorporated "our" party & wrote laws, legalizing feeding upon us (while incarcerating 23 million, for whathefuck EVER we did, trying to survive?)
Don't let your kids infect VULNERABLE folks.
B.1.1.529 should be here for Christmas?
https://www.jbc.org/article/S0021-9258(17)50676-6/fulltext
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/11/antidepressants-tied-lower-covid-19-death-rates
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354294929_The_Combination_of_Quercetin_and_Bromelain_with_Zinc_EGCG_Retinoic_Acid_Vitamin_C_and_Vitamin_D_for_the_potential_Symptom_Reducer_Prevention_and_Treatment_for_Coronavirus_Disease_2019_COVID-19
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=nicotinamide+riboside+covid&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart#d=gs_qabs&u=%23p%3Du99h7pjTMvMJ
https://www.jbc.org/article/S0021-9258(17)50676-6/fulltext