You mean, John Menard?

Doesn’t work, places have tried that. The collection of conditions are not conducive to it, for most people. That’s why it is getting very “handmaid’s tale” in rhetoric from a lot of the rich and powerful.

Yeah, I was never a blue line guy, they are the government, so I can’t just assume they are my buddy, or working for my personal benefit. However, after years of working in a career where I had to interact with police, from all over the place, I now hate police. They see the general public as the enemy, and you should see them the way they see you.

They would, then, but that is not now. Right now they are concerned with us not having enough children, because capitalism requires population growth, and, as places become richer, they have fewer children. The most industrialized places are in decline, outside of immigration. So this is where you see the consternation of the rich and powerful.

You think it’s that they don’t notice, and not that that notice, but don’t care?

In person was all back tracking, and regret. Gets online, and is now a big, strong, keyboard warrior.

Yes, plus, he owns contracts with the government that likely contain classified information. It is just much easier to have him under a contract that allows them to just spy on him, in this situation.

Oh shit, a bridge

I experienced all this except the mom crying thing. I didn’t have adhd though

The first point - Your previous comments made it seem as though you were saying only people in such position held that opinion. Whether you meant to or not.

I moved here about 7 years ago. There are not many great places to get a good variety of foods here, without driving to one of two close, bigger, cities. There is, however, a healthy community from the middle east, a lot of which happen to be Palestinian, due to a history of taking refugees, and other political outreach actions over the past 50 years, or so. Though that tide has changed in the past ~20 years. So, having a hobby of cooking, I found myself at their stores, a lot. They got to know me, we discussed food, they invited me to classes that teach cultural practices, and history, cooking being the most popular. I started attending their cooking classes.

This lead to a conversation where I mentioned that, in one of the close, larger cities, I have a cousin who is a civil rights lawyer, who is in a firm that specializes in immigration. This community, naturally, has a lot of connections to people living in this city. So I got a stack of business cards, and gave them to a number of people, who largely own local businesses, to hand out, in case they know people, in that city, that needs, or may need, legal help with immigration matters. This lead to me being more, and more, in discussion, with that community, about political issues. I also have volunteered help to a couple organizations that work with marginalized demographics, which lead to me handing out business cards of representatives of these organizations. This ingratiated me with a bunch of people. So I started attending their out reach program. I also began to attend their community meeting they hold at a local mosques, and theater one family owns. I offer a number of voluntary services. to these groups, on occasion. Mostly IT work.

Then the genocide started. I have worked with people to design billboards for the issue. I have canvassed for them. I have been generally active, and helpful, as I can. There is an organization here called CAIR, it is national, I assume you know who they are. Through this exposure I have been around a number of this community large enough, to be the vast majority, locally, at one time or another. I have sat in meetings and listened to them talking. I have seen where they decide to apply their donated funds to take political action. I have a friend who translates discussions to english for me. There isn’t a huge group that are hard line on the idea of staying out of voting, in the presidential election, totally. A lot of those that are, discuss how white Americans have to participate, and while they will stand out, they urge that, if you are going to vote, vote for Harris. The reasons I have been given for this, is simple, while no party is good for them, and the US immigration practices are most often hostile, unlike the people you know, they saw a very noticeable increase of activity from the government, against their community, when Trump put forth his anti-muslim sentiment. My cousin’s law firm says they experienced a large spike in cases during that time, as well, particularly ones that the government “lost” (as in it was deemed illegal/unconstitutional, but too late now, and no one was punished). One of the big, specific, things they discuss is that long term, established, people, in their community, started to be targeted, where as, previously, their was no question about their immigration status, or position as Americans. They saw a lot more prying into who they were related to, arbitrary contact with individuals, etc. They saw a lot more of these people being taken by ICE, and deported. As the situation has gotten more desperate they have been using their local businesses to reach out to non-middle eastern customers, and some have literally been putting pamphlets, explaining the situation, in their bag, as they check them out. Don’t get me wrong, they don’t like Harris. They see one that is not backing off selling weapons to Israel, and the other is vowing to take an active role in accelerating the genocide, so they are either voting the former, or suggesting that other Americans do so, because they are in the extreme of the rock and a hard place analogy. There is no good choice, there is only the possibility of, some level of, harm reduction.

There is more, but I have explained enough of my personal life, for you to get the picture.

I wonder if people were dismissed during the holocaust for getting emotional about the slaughter of innocent people.

They were, people were twisting themselves in knots to deny the absolute horrors being conducted in the Holocaust and by Imperial Japan. People from the allied nations. There are people doing it to this day.

Palestinians are not a monolith, of course. They will have diverse opinions.

And here is the problem with your argument. This is what I wanted you to say. Almost none of the Palestinians around here, or anyone they know, is in the camp that they won’t vote, because they know that Trump being in office means things, like a lot of the Palestinians in the US, will be sent back to Palestine, to be part of the genocide, they are trying to save people from. Maybe, like the bias within those who signed this letter, where you go, creates an oppositional bubble. Maybe the ones here are in a less privileged position, one that makes them significantly more vulnerable to the GOP’s bigotry? Simply living in a state that will harbor immigrants against the Feds, type of privilege.

There are ~47,000 christian Palestinians, ~15 million Palestinians. So this isn’t the caveat you are trying to create, in this informal space. The Palestinians, and the greater muslim population here, remember when Trump was in office. When many of them were arrested, caged, and deported, on the flimsiest of bullshit, and had their property, businesses, and families stripped from them, in the anti-muslim fervor. Things like getting deported because you divorced your wife, of over 10 years, with whom you have kids, after being remarried, with more kids, for almost 20 years, for “abusing” IR-1 marriage visas. There is also the cases of blew 0.00% BAC, got arrested, blood sent out, and the person was gone before the results of the test was reviewed by the courts. The ones where records errors ended up in a lot of people getting deported, or, at least, held in ICE camps, for months. Records errors that suddenly spiked several hundred percent after Trump’s muslim targeting policies went into affect. Oopsie, sorry we destroyed your life for literally no reason, but don’t worry, we take accountability, and admit that was our bad. Good thing we have immunity, otherwise we might be in trouble.

There is a Palestinian owned grocery store here, with attached restaurant, that acts as a hub for their community here. Some are not going to vote, but the great majority are Kamala is not good for Palestine, but Trump is completely unacceptable to Palestine, every Muslim outside of the richest oil producers, and every Muslim in the US. So they are begrudgingly voting for Kamala. These people are not politically well connected, most are laborers, a handful are business owners, and white collar workers. Why do they do this if they aren’t politically connected, not in NGOs, etc.?

Ultimately locks are just suggestions. If someone is determined to get in, they will.

there is a reason the industry term is “human resources”

I mean, i thought that was pretty obvious, about the US that is

Never said that scientists weren’t leaving the US. And I did say that China created massive economic growth, I am aware that they were able to pull 800mm people out of poverty, with capitalism. Also never said I thought China was going to collapse. It is also easy to look up the people on Chinese parliament and see who they happen to be, btw. You can do it yourself, but I know you hate engaging with data, and actual research. What you have formed as your reality is all of reality. Also, outside of the chinese scientists that cold war fear-mongering are driving out, the US is, over all, gaining scientists, and in many fields, in STEM in general, the US actually has a glut of PHDs. Also, a lot of the lack of educated professionals, claimed by places like tech corps, is questionable, at best. Much of that is capitalists creating a false scarcity, for numerous reasons. I could post data about that, but, since the CCP didn’t publish it, I guess it isn’t real.

So, not only do you have to fall back on a fallacy, but you have to create a whole narrative of things I never said, nor implied. You did the reactionary thing, where you hear something you don’t like, and automatically create a whole dialogue, that never happened, in your head, to secure your position.

Removed by mod

Most of China, and for the matter, the USSRs economic, and supply woes were due to incompetence. People who did not understand how things, like farming, worked, forced farmers to do things that the farm laborers, you know, the proletariat knew wouldn’t work. They absolutely destroyed a huge portion of their agricultural base with inept initiatives, informed by a lot of pseudoscience, primarily Lysenkoism. No, I am not saying the USSR intentionally starved Ukraine, or that Mao weaponized starvation. They implemented Lysenkoism, by force (an authoritarian action), it was pseudoscience, it, and a litany other stupid moves, they implemented by, again, force (you know, authoritarianism), ended up causing multiple great famines, killing tens of millions. The reason such pseudoscience was able to take control, in the way that it did, was because of the practices of party favoritism/elitism. Lysenko was an ardent communist, not some reactionary scientist telling us things we don’t want to hear. Their centrally planned economy was also fed full of bullshit, in a similar manner. This lead to extreme inefficiency, stagnation, and widespread poverty. It was not until the implementation of the open door policy, created in cooperation with foreign interests, primarily the US, in 1978 that this began to change. Once they opened regional centers, to operate industry under a capitalist market system, they saw almost immediate improvement in many facets of their economy. Though it was rocky at first, the long term picture was one of growth. After just over a decade of development, China’s economy really began to boom.

This has led to all the problems capitalism has wrought upon other countries. Their wealth disparity is enormous, and growing. The billionaire class is having more, and more influence over CCP decision making (billionaires currently occupy just over 100 seats on the CCP parliament, seeing rather consistent growth) despite purging the occasional “upity” CEO. (see Bao Fan, Jack Ma, Rhen, etc). This had led to flight of wealth, and a growing resurgence of brain drain. This assertion of control, through violence, is actually proving to be one of the, suspected (by Chinese economy experts) to be a major factor in recent slowing in GDP. Though it was impossible to maintain that growth, so how much of it is natural, and how much is not, is debated, though widely agreed it is has had a major impact. This has lead to strife within the CCP. There is no unified consensus on how exactly how this will play out, or whether or not Xi’s policy will be moved away from, as it affects the wealth of the CCP members, its self. Also, the extreme wealth disparity, culture of their market, and numerous other factors, with great consternation, of the public, over the slowing of growth, is leading to less, and less, coherence within the citizens. There is whole a lot going on, like literally 100s of thousands of pages of data and studies on the subject out there. Too much for me to concern myself with here, though I will leave some links below.

The borders thing. Yeah, the “west” established its self first, so it is, of course, reacting to the growing strength of China, and its influence over the region. China is also reacting to these established boarders, trade routes, etc. with their own expansion in mind. I do not see this as China simply bullying everyone around them, nor do I see it simply as China being a victim of being surrounded to previously established nations, and their operations. Both parties are pushing their strength where they can. If NATOs military infrastructure recedes from its SEA, and east asian allies’ areas, China will continue to push its borders on those places. Looking at the history of literally every major power in history, I do not believe, for one second, China will voluntarily hold back from imperial expansionism, if it comes to a situation where it can. The USSR took everything around it the moment it could, in the aftermath of WW2, and I expect nothing less from any other nation who is given the opportunity. Their expansionism can very well be seen with the BRI. It is wrought with corruption, graft, extortionate lending practices, etc. While some nations, primarily in Africa, still prefer working with the BRI, to similar economic cooperatives with the EU, and NAFTA countries, there is a growing disdain for it too. A lot of places are really starting to see that it is just China’s version of western economic control, as China gets control over more, and more, of their wealth.

https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/study-links-35-percent-of-chinese-belt-and-road-initiative-projects-to-scandals-involving-corruption-environmental-problems-labour-violations/

https://www.hudson.org/global-economy/china-insider-millionaires-flee-china-ccp-money-floods-us-universities-doping

https://asiasociety.org/sites/default/files/inline-files/ASPI_CCA_EconSlowdown_EcoRdtable_paper rev.pdf

https://rhg.com/research/no-quick-fixes-chinas-long-term-consumption-growth/

https://www.jri.co.jp/english/periodical/rim/1999/RIMe199904threereforms/

https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/RL33534.html

https://www.jri.co.jp/english/periodical/rim/1999/RIMe199904threereforms/

https://www.state.gov/briefings-foreign-press-centers/global-implications-of-china-economic-expansion

https://ceias.eu/understanding-the-implications-of-chinas-economic-slowdown/

https://publications.armywarcollege.edu/News/Display/Article/3789926/what-american-policymakers-misunderstand-about-the-belt-and-road-initiative/

https://www.ncuscr.org/podcast/chinas-slowing-economy/

https://now.tufts.edu/2023/11/20/why-chinas-economy-slowing-down

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/xis-power-grab-gives-a-short-term-boost-with-long-term-ramifications/

https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/epdf/10.1142/S1013251123400052

https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/chinas-21st-century-aspirational-empire

https://macmillan.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Victor Louzon.pdf

https://carnegieendowment.org/posts/2020/05/china-has-two-paths-to-global-domination?lang=en

No I have read it. I agree that China was in a bad state because they didn’t do things at a tolerable pace, and instead used a more shock doctrine. The economy sucked, people were starving, being more authoritarian wasn’t doing the trick, so they caved to pressure from the US to open capitalist markets, and allow for a capitalist class. Now China has grown its capitalist market, and its billionaire class, and its surveillance, authoritarian state, and the capitalist markets are every bit as important as the government. This is more reminiscent of fascism, in red uniform.

“Do you call the US is socialist because of the post office” is kinda the opposite of the argument i am making isn’t it? I am saying that the structure is so integrated, and dependent on, its capitalists, that it looks more like the integrated corporatism of a fascist regime. So I am kinda inferring the opposite of this, am I not? That something as small as the US owning the post office would never qualify as socialism? Wouldn’t that be a, lame, yet more apt attack on your argument?

They are even pushing their borders. The big blockade keeping them from going for it is the NATO superstructure that gives the US/NATO physical military reach anywhere in the world. And yes, I heard their “the enemy is on our boarders, we are just defending ourselves”, but that is what NATO and the US say about their growing moves to take the sea of Japan, and the island nations of SEA, or, at least, the waters surrounding them. That is literally one of the first things from every empire that started taking foreign territory. Hell the belt and road initiative is just economic imperialism in its first steps.