Jana ☭🇵🇸جانا on Twitter - "I just punched my brother because he called me his "brother" and now he's crying. Trans rights... This moment also happened after i had a panic attack over not being able to go out and my father insulting & misgendering me heavily. Anyways, donate to my paypal so i can escape out of this hellhole, every dollar helps "
"Congrats on being a horrible man."
"Resorting to violence because someone said something that offended you a bit is not something to be proud of"
"And now whenever any person says "trans rights" some people will think of YOU and YOUR idea of trans rights. Because you obviously think it's a special right of trans people to punch those who misgender them.Bravo, you're proving the conservatives correct."
""My Dad made me cry so I took out my frustrations on my brother."Pretty masculine story, Brother."
"There's no way this is legit with that Paypal link. But hey fair play to you. I respect a man that knows how to hussle."
"So instead of being a rational adult you decided to be violent. Congrats, your brother will hate you for that. You coulda told him in a civil manner but- oh, hammer and sickle. That explains everything"
"I feel like this is a 'and everyone clapped' like they know they couldnt make up a convincing public lie, so instead they said they assaulted family and thats 100 percrnt believable"
UK Gender Identity Service at Crunch Point as Pressure Mounts - "More adolescents than ever are being referred for treatment at gender identity centres in the UK, leaving under-resourced services that facilitate transition to the opposite sex struggling to cope with demand.One consequence of this is complaints surfacing from some staff and patients that the decision to start the process of gender transition is, at times, hasty and misguided... A previous article by Medscape referred to concerns about bone health as a result of puberty blocking, with experts noting that data demonstrate a fall in bone mineral density (BMD) Z scores during treatment with puberty blockers. One 2015 study that followed BMD development during puberty blocking - which involves use of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) analogue therapy - in patients with gender dysphoria, through to the age of 22, found a decrease in BMD Z scores in both natal sexes, but it was more marked in natal girls... "Another area of uncertainty relating to blocking puberty - which I am aware of through the media - suggests that blocking puberty might reinforce or amplify a patient's own uncertainty about their gender by preventing the natural process of puberty," he observes, adding that - for this reason, among others - it is recommended that these puberty blockers are only used after specialist assessment at one of the UK's gender identity clinics... When Evans joined the GIDS team in 2004, all children under 18 years were treated, but only those aged 16 years or older received hormones. "I expected that young people would be assessed in depth and given support and psychological treatment over several years, but the alarm bells began ringing for me when, at a team meeting, I heard that a child who was 16-years-old had only been seen four times and was then referred to the endocrinology department for hormone therapy"... Given the often complex histories and co-morbid factors that patients present with, Evans believes that the three to six assessment sessions that are standard at GIDS is completely inadequate."... "Patients presenting with gender dysphoria will definitely experience distress, but in the same way an anorexic persists in being thinner, you would not say to an anorexic 'you're so stressed that I'll let you starve yourself'." Like Evans, around 30 other psychologists have also resigned from GIDS over the past 3 years. Staff are under enormous pressure there, Evans says. Most psychotherapists not at GIDS generally have a maximum of 35-40 patients at one time, but those at GIDS often have caseloads of up to 130 children.She explained that those who feel uncomfortable leave the service and therefore the expertise in the team reduces: "Now they have to employ psychotherapists straight out of college, and overall, the team has insufficient experience to manage the young people presenting there." Evans also says that to the best of her knowledge, GIDS does not have an autism expert on the team, despite up to one-third of patients presenting with gender dysphoria also having some form of autism spectrum disorder.She adds that the whistleblowing staff, and also some parents, claim that a child's autism is often treated as separate or irrelevant to the gender dysphoria... In 2012, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) drew up guidelines for the treatment of gender dysphoria."They removed the requirement for counselling prior to treatment from the guidelines … due to transgender activists believing that they were being discriminated against by medical professionals," explains Caspian.Effectively, WPATH decided that by requiring clinicians to look broadly across a range of possible mental health issues, it would stigmatise patients asking for treatment... Caspian sat on the Board of the UK Council for Psychotherapy and advised a committee that drew up a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to formulate policy aimed at preventing so-called 'conversion therapy' in transgender people. "I warned them that the wording was dangerous because it appeared to promote affirmation, implying that a therapist was required to affirm a patient's self-diagnosis of varying gender identity"... "This MoU became national policy in 2018.""
Nurse launches legal test case with claim children cannot consent to transgender treatment - "Children cannot consent to transgender treatment, a nurse bringing a landmark legal case has said, claiming that many are autistic, homosexual or just confused.Susan Evans, 62, a former psychiatric nurse at the Tavistock and Portman NHS foundation trust, said that “experimental” and “invasive medical treatment” should be prevented in order to protect children... Their legal team will argue that the provision of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones at the Tavistock for those under 18 is illegal because children cannot give valid consent to the treatment. However transgender children’s charities have criticised the case, saying that children should not be denied the right to make decisions about their own bodies, simply because they are trans... children as young as nine or ten are being asked to give informed consent “to a completely experimental treatment for which the long term consequences are not known”."
Strange how children are denied the right to have sex or drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes
WATCH: Jessica Yaniv assaults journalist outside of court - The Post Millennial - "Jessica Yaniv is no stranger to violating other people’s rights, but the scene outside of the Surrey Law Courts was shocking as Yaniv was caught on camera violently assaulting Rebel Media reporter Keean Bexte... Bexte had been banned from reporting from inside the courtroom today where Yaniv had been appearing, with courthouse police capitulating to Yaniv’s demands to have him barred. Previously, Yaniv had also successfully demanded citizen journalist Donald Smith be prevented from entering the courthouse. Earlier this evening, Yaniv confronted The Post Millennial’s Amy Eileen Hamm, falsely accusing her of taking photographs of Yaniv in the women’s washroom. The police searched Hamm’s phone at Yaniv’s request, finding none of the claimed photos."
Jessica Yaniv sues more women salon owners for wax job refusal - The Post Millennial - "The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms has announced it is representing another esthetic salon against Jessica Yaniv at the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal.The She Point Beauty Salon, owned and operated by women of the Sikh religion, has become the newest target for Yaniv’s litigation after declining Yaniv a Brazilian wax. Yaniv then demanded a leg wax, but was also refused on the same grounds. In their Tuesday morning Press Release, the Justice Centre notes that leg waxes are performed in private with the client undressed or nude from the waist down. Citing religious and safety reasons, the salon refused Yaniv service... The Tribunals found that Yaniv’s gaggle of discrimination claims against the esthetic salons were “vexatious, calculated” and, in part, motivated by racial animus against persons from South Asia and the Sikh, Hindu, and Muslim faiths. The complaints, which varied in cost-demands of up to $500,000, were dropped to fanfare and global praise of the BCHRT. Yaniv was subsequently ordered to pay $2,000 each to three of four clients represented by the JCCF for improper conduct... “Women have a constitutional right not to be compelled to touch biological males in an intimate or highly personal manner if they are not comfortable doing so,” says Jay Cameron in the JCCF Press Release, the lawyer who represented five other aestheticians in Yaniv’s 2019 claims. “Like male genital waxing, our client does not offer male leg waxing services to the public, and we intend to vigorously defend against this targeted harassment on behalf of our client.”"
Sex offender who identifies as young girl reveals just how dangerous self-ID is - The Post Millennial - "An eight-year-old girl trapped in a grown man’s body claims her collection of child pornography is a first amendment right. This is the logical result of self-identification. If people are what they say they are they can get away with anything. Joseph Gobrick is a 45-year-old male sex offender in Grand Rapids, Michigan, who claims that he has “always been an 8-year-old girl.”... Gender self-ID has made a mockery of a criminal justice system, as police report crimes by self-ID’d gender as opposed to reality. Such was the case of Tanner Young, who was referred to as a “Lowell woman” when she was arrested and charged with masturbating in front of a 15-year-old girl. Young’s mugshot clearly shows a man, and the crime of exposing one’s self to young girls then masturbating is typically not a female crime. In Toronto, law enforcement will no longer list biological sex in the descriptors for suspects. This trend will likely show an increase in crimes committed by women, when in fact, these are male crimes performed by men who have self-ID’d out of their sex."
sofie halili 🛒 on Twitter - "cis people getting mad at trans girls for showing up late or cancelling plans last minute is like peak micro aggression that they'll probably never understand"
If you are trans you can do no wrong and anyone who criticises you is transphobic
Meme - "Isn't Trans Sex Inherently Queer? If I Were Having Sex With a Transwoman That Had a Penis and I Stimulated That Penis With My Mouth and Anus It Would Fall Under Q"
"Nope. if You're a Cishet Man Having Sex With a Woman You Are Having Straight Sex"
"Something About Sucking a Dick Just Feels Queer to Me Though"
"Well It's Not. It's a Woman's Penis. It Would Only Define as Gay if You Were a Woman as Well"
All gender restroom in Taiwan : lgbt
From 2018. Meanwhile some people claim Asia won't follow in the Anglo world's footsteps
Hongkie: "I used to make that claim too"
ZeroHavens Deux - Posts - "Angelina Jolie: 'My blonde-haired natural daughter Shiloh is the outcast in our family'"
"Shiloh, transgender child of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, will soon begin hormone treatment"
"If you want to know how to give your children mental illnesses."
Selina Todd and the rise of academic mobs - "A female professor is invited to a university to speak about social class. This is bound to go down well with left-leaning academics who measure gender equality down to the nearest penny, right? Apparently not. Next month, Selina Todd is due to speak at the University of Kent as part of a series of public lectures organised by the School of English. In response, an open letter is now circulating, signed by academics and students from Kent and around the world, demanding Todd’s invitation be withdrawn. Todd is a historian who specialises in the lives of women and the working class. She has dared to suggest that ‘women who posed as men in the past were often lesbians seeking to protect themselves, or because they wanted to do jobs that were only available to men’. Unless we are to assume that every woman who donned a pair of trousers back in the Victorian era was actually a transgender man, over a century before the notion of being transgender had even been invented, this is hardly a controversial view... Todd, having received death threats, now has bodyguards accompany her to lectures... ‘The English Keynote Lecture series is designed to represent and reflect the attitude, politics and image of the School of English and, by extension, the university.’ But universities, as institutions, are not supposed to have a political position on any issue. Doing so would be antithetical to education; it would suggest that research and teaching must lead to certain pre-determined and incontestable conclusions... To substantiate the melodrama of people being forced to defend their existence, they turn to the High Priestess of Academic Wokeness, Sara Ahmed, and her claim that ‘there cannot be a dialogue when some at the table are, in effect or intent, arguing for the elimination of others at the table’. This is truly bonkers. Do the signatories really think that Todd is arguing for the ‘elimination’ of people who describe themselves as transgender? Do they assume that those listening to a lecture on social class will rise up, grab pitchforks and go on a violent rampage against transgender people?"
Academic rigour (considering possible explanations) and freedom of thought are "transphobic"
Transgender man loses court battle to be registered as father - "A transgender man from Kent who gave birth with the help of fertility treatment cannot be registered as his child’s father, the most senior family judge in England and Wales has ruled.In the first legal definition of a mother in English common law, Sir Andrew McFarlane, the president of the high court’s family division, ruled on Wednesday that motherhood was about being pregnant and giving birth regardless of whether the person who does so was considered a man or a woman in law.Freddy McConnell, 32, who has lived as a man for several years but retained his female reproductive system and gave birth in 2018, went to court after a registrar insisted he was recorded as the baby’s mother on the birth certificate despite holding a gender recognition certificate that made it clear the law considered him male... McConnell, a Guardian multimedia journalist who had experienced gender dysphoria since childhood and realised he was trans in 2010, aged 23, said he was “saddened” by the decision in favour of the government and the registrar, which resisted McConnell’s claim to be recognised as his child’s father. He is considering an appeal. “If it is upholding the status quo then I am really worried about what that this means not just for me but other trans people who are parents or who want to become parents,” he said.“It has serious implications for non-traditional family structures. It upholds the view that only the most traditional forms of family are properly recognised or treated equally. It’s just not fair.”... Stonewall, the LGBT charity, said the ruling was “deeply disappointing” and failed to recognise trans parents for who they were. “It’s another example of how current legislation contradicts the fragile equality trans people currently have”"
It seems trans activists think trans people are super fragile and even if they're legally male and referred to as male, if they're deemed a "mother" their lives will be ruined
Is it transphobic to think so lowly of trans people?
L'origine de Bert
Thursday, May 07, 2020
Cunning spam
A new way I've seen spammers use to get a response.
Email 1:
From: Barbara Podair
To: "fgddddddddjhfgh@usfreeads.club"
Subject: remove from all emails and mailings
Body: *blank*
Email 2 (5 minutes later):
From: Jennifer Freeman [Ed: There is even a profile picture displayed]
To: "fgddddddddjhfgh@usfreeads.club", Barbara Podair
Subject: Re: remove from all emails and mailings
Body: Unsubscribe
Sent from Outlook Mobile [Ed: Suspicious-looking link for 'Outlook Mobile' that is either phishing, to get you to confirm your email address is active, or both]
So by inducing you to 'unsubscribe' from spam, this is actually going to get you spammed even more.
Email 1:
From: Barbara Podair
To: "fgddddddddjhfgh@usfreeads.club"
Subject: remove from all emails and mailings
Body: *blank*
Email 2 (5 minutes later):
From: Jennifer Freeman
To: "fgddddddddjhfgh@usfreeads.club"
Subject: Re: remove from all emails and mailings
Body: Unsubscribe
Sent from Outlook Mobile [Ed: Suspicious-looking link for 'Outlook Mobile' that is either phishing, to get you to confirm your email address is active, or both]
So by inducing you to 'unsubscribe' from spam, this is actually going to get you spammed even more.
Post ID: 5550954696719851516
Links - 7th May 2020 (1) (Trans Mania)
X-rated drag queen called 'Flowjob' visits primary school sparking backlash - "A drag queen called 'Flowjob' who shares sexually explicit images of herself on Twitter has sparked a furious backlash after she visited a primary school to educate children as part of LGBT history month.The drag queen’s social media feeds show pictures of her simulating a sex act with a dildo, laying spread eagle in a bath tub with a ball in her mouth and simulating oral sex. In another post she shared 'Flowjob', who refers to themself as 'she/her', tweeted a picture of EastEnders star Ian Beale being throttled by Max Branning with the caption 'I need a Daddy like this'.During the visit 'Flowjob' read a story to Primary 1 children aged between four to five.Glencoates Primary School in Paisley has come under fire for allowing 'Flowjob' to visit the kids with many saying it was ''inappropriate'', ''outrageous'' and ''disgusting''... One parent with a seven-year-old child at the school blasted the headteacher and claimed parents had not been told about Flowjob's visit... "I’m not opposed to learning about lgbt, but my 7 year old doesn’t need to know what a drag queen is and certainly not the one they had in. The headteacher is more concerned about furthering her career than tackling issuing that our school has.'''Flowjob' visited the school alongside SNP MP and LGBTQ+ campaigner Mhairi Black and was introduced to the children as 'Flow'... Women and children's rights group forwomen.scot were among dozens who launched criticism at the choice of LGBTQ+ role model and questioned why checks were not made beforehand.They wrote: “Sending abusive messages to a school is not OK, but questions about this are legitimate. A male who dresses as a sexualised parody of a women, goes by the name "flowjob" is hardly a role model for primary aged children. Did no one check this?”... ''Adult entertainment is for adults. ''And actually, a number of us would probably enjoy Flow's act but schools and groups for young people have a responsibility to safeguard those people and consider what is and isn't age appropriate. They are the ones who failed the children and, frankly, exposed Flow.''We understand why children might think Drag Queens are sparkly and exotic, but they are hardly the norm. Surely it would be more representative of the LGBT community to hear from same-sex parents?"Boring, ordinary parents..."Taking to Twitter another outraged woman added: “Thanks Flow” full name @flowjobqueen. Why would anyone think this is suitable for pre teens.""
Addendum: The left keep insisting it's a myth that drag queens are sexual
Barry Humphries slammed for transphobic comments - "Barry Humphries is facing heavy criticism after making hostile comments about the transgender community... The comments drew an immediate rebuke online, with activists calling Humphries an "ignorant bigot" and urging him to "shut up and retire". In a viral tweet, comedian Hannah Gadsby called Humphries an "irrelevant, inhumane dick biscuit of the highest order.""
Even drag queens aren't safe
When a Drag Queen Has to Lecture Woke Parents on Morality - "You know that American culture has hit an all-time low when it takes a drag queen to tell “woke” parents to keep their kids out of drag bars. Who would have thought?... “A popular drag queen known as ‘Kitty Demure’ has issued a stark warning to parents who are seeking to involve their children in the crossdressing scene.” In the video, which is going viral, “Kitty” asks pointedly, “What in the h*** has a drag queen ever done to make you have so much respect for them, and admire them so much, other than put on makeup and jump on the floor and writhe around and do sexual things on stage?”... What on earth happened to our society that the American Library Association could actually support Drag Queen Story Hours for our toddlers?... In the words of “Kitty,” “I have absolutely no idea why you would want that to influence your child. Would you want a stripper or a porn star to influence your child?”... “I understand that you might want to look like you’re with it, that you’re cool and woke … but you can raise your child to be just a normal everyday child without including them in gay sexual things.”... “There is a lot of filth that goes on, a lot of sexual stuff that goes on, and backstage there’s a lot of nudity, sex, and drugs. To actually get them involved in drag is extremely, extremely irresponsible.”This was seconded by a commenter who tweeted, “The drag scene is a dirty, rough & tumble lifestyle, rife with promiscuity, prostitution, drugs & crime. Exposing kids to people who live their lives wallowing in such an environment, as if it’s just peachy keen, is child abuse.”... gay men have had to combat the pedophile accusation for years. Why, then, implicate them again by bringing little children to their performances? On the flip side, why would other drag queens accept invitations to read to little children if they were so concerned with pedophile accusations?"
So many drag queens who are "transphobic"
Paul Joseph Watson on Twitter - "Why does the western media/dominant culture always celebrate pregnancy when the parents are transgender while simultaneously telling women that having kids is bad for the planet & makes them worthless and unhappy? "
Satiria - Posts - "#Alok #NewGoths #Pronouns Nar / cis / sist."
The Ranks of Gender Detransitioners Are Growing. We Need to Understand Why - "“in a 2015 survey of nearly 28,000 people conducted by the U.S.-based National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE), only 8 percent of respondents reported detransitioning, and 62 percent of those people said they only detransitioned temporarily.” Even if this 8 percent figure were accurate, that would certainly merit attention and concern, given the rising numbers of minors who now present as transgender. But the actual figure is likely much higher than 8 percent, because the referenced study is based exclusively on survey respondents who identify as transgender. Many of the detransitioners I have spoken with, by contrast, have cut ties completely with the transgender community, and certainly don’t identify as trans... The population transitioning in recent years is also qualitatively different from predecessor cohorts. For one thing, many of those now transitioning are much younger... protocols aimed at fast-tracking treatment for trans individuals would increase the rate of false positives... The detransitioners I see in my practice are all female, and they are all in their early twenties. At the time they became trans-identified, many were suffering from complex social and mental health issues. Transition often not only failed to address these issues, but at times exacerbated them or added new issues. These young women often became derailed from educational or vocational goals during their period of trans identification.Since detransitioning, they have lost the support of the trans community, often both online and in person. Some report that they are vilified if they speak about their experience as a detransitioner. And so, in addition to suffering from their pre-existing conditions, they also now suffer social isolation and a lack of peer support... Sexual assault and sexual harassment were common precursors. A majority had an eating disorder at the time they became trans identified. Since detransitioning, most now understand themselves to be butch lesbians. In our work together, they traced complex histories of coming to terms with their homosexuality. Some faced vicious homophobic bullying before they announced their trans identification. All of these young women report that their experience of gender dysphoria had been sincerely felt. According to their recollections, they were as “truly trans” as anyone. In some cases, they received a formal diagnosis of gender dysphoria from mental-health clinicians. Others attended informed-consent clinics, through which they were able to access testosterone after only a brief discussion with a health provider. For most of these young women, identifying as trans worsened their mental health. Although some report that starting on hormones initially brought an increase in confidence and well-being, these drugs eventually seemed to make some of them more emotionally labile, and intensified depression and suicidality. Some of the women who underwent surgeries such as mastectomies or hysterectomies found that these procedures brought no relief from their suffering and instead resulted in nerve damage, regret and, in some cases, life-long dependence on synthetic hormones... most of them are still likely counted by their transition doctors as examples of “successful” transition stories, since they have simply stopped reporting for treatment."
Thread by @LaraAdamsMille1 - "Homosexuals won recognition of their rights because, ultimately, the rest of society changes very little in allowing gays to marry, hold jobs, & be free from harassment/violence... The gender movement is an inverted movement. Rather than basic protections common to all people, members of the mvmt are demanding that all of society make radical changes to policy, personal habits, language, parenting, professional (inc. medical & scientific) practice, & more.Homosexuals asked that we be allowed what everyone is allowed — That we can marry the (adult, consenting, unrelated) person of our choosing, that we can raise our children, keep our jobs. We asked for inaction in the form of not seeking to punish us for our personal lives.The gender movement is demanding that we convert to their ideology and practice their beliefs. You can employ a gay person without voicing moral agreement with them. But current non-discrimination practices for trans employees demand you live as though you share their beliefs. This is an unstable movement because it will never not require brute social and political force to maintain. There’s nothing organic about using pronouns that conflict with natural speech. There’s nothing sustainable about asking every person you meet how they “identify.”& the gender movement is demanding far more than any true human rights movement in history has. We’re meant to enact scientific & medical practices that aren’t evidence-based. We’re being told to compromise our privacy, our sexual practices, our religious beliefs. It’s distressing in the short term and unsustainable in the long term. People won’t accept this indefinitely. It will be torn down, along with every movement that’s being falsely associated with it. This will hurt gay rights, and disability rights, and women’s rights.The modern era of social justice thrives on upheaval... history shows us that not all societal shift is positive.Never in history has forcing a population to practice a belief system against their will been a positive change.Violating freedom of thought, speech, association, assembly — that has never indicated progress toward justice. I never believed in gender — this idea that “man” and “woman” are internal feelings separate from chromosomal and reproductive sex. But I supported trans people anyway, because I didn’t feel required to agree with them. I didn’t feel required to submit to their doctrine.I used the pronouns to be polite, and because those pronouns weren’t the loaded prospects they’ve become... I feel betrayed by this movement. As a lesbian, I advocated for trans rights along with my own. Now trans “lesbians” march in opposition to me and my sisters. They demand our resources, our spaces, our platforms, our emotional energy. They demand access to our bodies.But I said “she,” & that’s supposed to make the rest of it okay.So I don’t do the pronouns anymore.For me, individually, the demands of the movement were unsustainable, and I had to withdraw my support. And other people will do. Every day, more people are... The gender mvmt isn’t limiting itself to protection of human rights. It’s demanding society assist the transgender person in feeling secure about themselves by transitioning our own speech, beliefs, & personal practices.Freedom from emotional insecurity isn’t a human right... No one, aside from the most fervent believers in gender, is impressed by the turn this situation has taken. We look like proof that allowing us our rights was a bad idea.We’re endangering basic liberties like medical decision-making & parental rights for the sake of pronouns. The protections we ask for must allow for belief systems other than our own. They must consider the rights of groups we don’t belong to.We do not have the right to punish people for disagreeing with us, or for saying so.We do not have the right to compel or stop speech"
BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Gender identity and free speech - "‘We're living in an age of mass hysteria. The claim made in a new book called the madness of crowds: gender, race and identity. Its author, the journalist Douglas Murray, argues that the new culture wars being fought in the modern world are threatening freedom of speech through what he describes as a weaponization of identity’...
‘Increasingly we're doubling down. Just at the point at which things like race, sex, sexual orientation, should have been I suppose we hoped to have sort of become relatively irrelevant or as irrelevant as possible, there's been a doubling down on them, a re-emphasizing of them. A problematisizing of them, to use one voguish term. To the extent that they seem to be driving us apart'...
‘And you call it St George in retirement?’
‘Yes, that's one of the things from the late Australian political philosophy Kenneth Minogue. There is an attitude among other things of St George in retirement, that the battles having mainly been won, the dragon having been slain, you know, women's rights, having broadly speaking, not absolutely there, but pretty much there. Gay rights, pretty much there. And so on that you get this thing of the person who's slain the dragon staggering around the land, looking for ever smaller beasts to slay until finally he can be found swishing his sword at thin air. And I worry that that attitude, the sort of revolutionary, the barricades attitude, the fighting attitude has become the normal attitude of our time. And as a result, we're in this very strange phase where we are all pretending to be very certain about a lot of things we don't know very much about. And we're pretending we don't know things that everyone knew till yesterday... Gay, women, race and trans and in a way that last one has become the most revealing because it's the one that demonstrates how bad we are at discussing, thinking or even talking without weaponizing things against each other. We just had a really interesting one this past weekend, the pop singer Sam Smith, came out as non binary. He’d previously come out as gay, came out a bit later as gender queer, now says he's non binary, which means among other things he wants to use, have plural pronouns used of him. Now the BBC, not to want to make a criticism, the BBC immediately on its website said, they said in their statement, and so on. Now, this isn't the biggest thing in the world. But how about this? Why can't we think about what this claim actually is? I don't think there is any such thing as non binary. I don't think there's any such thing. And I think a lot of people know that too. But, because we are so bad at discussing it, everybody, including the BBC immediately starts to say, okay, we will massively distort and maul our language, if somebody's got a claim’...
‘At every point that there has been change, I would characterize it as positive social change, there have been voices like Douglas’s who said, this is madness. Why are we having to use these silly terms and be so politically correct? The same thing was said, about feminism in the 70s. The same thing has been said about not using derogatory words towards people from ethnic minority backgrounds… [your column on Smith] almost verged on bullying. This is somebody who is making an expression of his identity and how he wants to be described. And I don't know why you feel so threatened’
‘Well, I could play this several ways. If I wanted to do the other way that we do it at the moment, I'd say that he's disappearing gay people, but I would just say it this way. He's pretending there's no such thing as sex or gender. There is and I'm not willing to lie about science in order to fit around his feelings.’"
"But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."
St George in retirement is basically the "myth" of the slippery slope
Addendum: The left keep insisting it's a myth that drag queens are sexual
Barry Humphries slammed for transphobic comments - "Barry Humphries is facing heavy criticism after making hostile comments about the transgender community... The comments drew an immediate rebuke online, with activists calling Humphries an "ignorant bigot" and urging him to "shut up and retire". In a viral tweet, comedian Hannah Gadsby called Humphries an "irrelevant, inhumane dick biscuit of the highest order.""
Even drag queens aren't safe
When a Drag Queen Has to Lecture Woke Parents on Morality - "You know that American culture has hit an all-time low when it takes a drag queen to tell “woke” parents to keep their kids out of drag bars. Who would have thought?... “A popular drag queen known as ‘Kitty Demure’ has issued a stark warning to parents who are seeking to involve their children in the crossdressing scene.” In the video, which is going viral, “Kitty” asks pointedly, “What in the h*** has a drag queen ever done to make you have so much respect for them, and admire them so much, other than put on makeup and jump on the floor and writhe around and do sexual things on stage?”... What on earth happened to our society that the American Library Association could actually support Drag Queen Story Hours for our toddlers?... In the words of “Kitty,” “I have absolutely no idea why you would want that to influence your child. Would you want a stripper or a porn star to influence your child?”... “I understand that you might want to look like you’re with it, that you’re cool and woke … but you can raise your child to be just a normal everyday child without including them in gay sexual things.”... “There is a lot of filth that goes on, a lot of sexual stuff that goes on, and backstage there’s a lot of nudity, sex, and drugs. To actually get them involved in drag is extremely, extremely irresponsible.”This was seconded by a commenter who tweeted, “The drag scene is a dirty, rough & tumble lifestyle, rife with promiscuity, prostitution, drugs & crime. Exposing kids to people who live their lives wallowing in such an environment, as if it’s just peachy keen, is child abuse.”... gay men have had to combat the pedophile accusation for years. Why, then, implicate them again by bringing little children to their performances? On the flip side, why would other drag queens accept invitations to read to little children if they were so concerned with pedophile accusations?"
So many drag queens who are "transphobic"
Paul Joseph Watson on Twitter - "Why does the western media/dominant culture always celebrate pregnancy when the parents are transgender while simultaneously telling women that having kids is bad for the planet & makes them worthless and unhappy? "
Satiria - Posts - "#Alok #NewGoths #Pronouns Nar / cis / sist."
The Ranks of Gender Detransitioners Are Growing. We Need to Understand Why - "“in a 2015 survey of nearly 28,000 people conducted by the U.S.-based National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE), only 8 percent of respondents reported detransitioning, and 62 percent of those people said they only detransitioned temporarily.” Even if this 8 percent figure were accurate, that would certainly merit attention and concern, given the rising numbers of minors who now present as transgender. But the actual figure is likely much higher than 8 percent, because the referenced study is based exclusively on survey respondents who identify as transgender. Many of the detransitioners I have spoken with, by contrast, have cut ties completely with the transgender community, and certainly don’t identify as trans... The population transitioning in recent years is also qualitatively different from predecessor cohorts. For one thing, many of those now transitioning are much younger... protocols aimed at fast-tracking treatment for trans individuals would increase the rate of false positives... The detransitioners I see in my practice are all female, and they are all in their early twenties. At the time they became trans-identified, many were suffering from complex social and mental health issues. Transition often not only failed to address these issues, but at times exacerbated them or added new issues. These young women often became derailed from educational or vocational goals during their period of trans identification.Since detransitioning, they have lost the support of the trans community, often both online and in person. Some report that they are vilified if they speak about their experience as a detransitioner. And so, in addition to suffering from their pre-existing conditions, they also now suffer social isolation and a lack of peer support... Sexual assault and sexual harassment were common precursors. A majority had an eating disorder at the time they became trans identified. Since detransitioning, most now understand themselves to be butch lesbians. In our work together, they traced complex histories of coming to terms with their homosexuality. Some faced vicious homophobic bullying before they announced their trans identification. All of these young women report that their experience of gender dysphoria had been sincerely felt. According to their recollections, they were as “truly trans” as anyone. In some cases, they received a formal diagnosis of gender dysphoria from mental-health clinicians. Others attended informed-consent clinics, through which they were able to access testosterone after only a brief discussion with a health provider. For most of these young women, identifying as trans worsened their mental health. Although some report that starting on hormones initially brought an increase in confidence and well-being, these drugs eventually seemed to make some of them more emotionally labile, and intensified depression and suicidality. Some of the women who underwent surgeries such as mastectomies or hysterectomies found that these procedures brought no relief from their suffering and instead resulted in nerve damage, regret and, in some cases, life-long dependence on synthetic hormones... most of them are still likely counted by their transition doctors as examples of “successful” transition stories, since they have simply stopped reporting for treatment."
Thread by @LaraAdamsMille1 - "Homosexuals won recognition of their rights because, ultimately, the rest of society changes very little in allowing gays to marry, hold jobs, & be free from harassment/violence... The gender movement is an inverted movement. Rather than basic protections common to all people, members of the mvmt are demanding that all of society make radical changes to policy, personal habits, language, parenting, professional (inc. medical & scientific) practice, & more.Homosexuals asked that we be allowed what everyone is allowed — That we can marry the (adult, consenting, unrelated) person of our choosing, that we can raise our children, keep our jobs. We asked for inaction in the form of not seeking to punish us for our personal lives.The gender movement is demanding that we convert to their ideology and practice their beliefs. You can employ a gay person without voicing moral agreement with them. But current non-discrimination practices for trans employees demand you live as though you share their beliefs. This is an unstable movement because it will never not require brute social and political force to maintain. There’s nothing organic about using pronouns that conflict with natural speech. There’s nothing sustainable about asking every person you meet how they “identify.”& the gender movement is demanding far more than any true human rights movement in history has. We’re meant to enact scientific & medical practices that aren’t evidence-based. We’re being told to compromise our privacy, our sexual practices, our religious beliefs. It’s distressing in the short term and unsustainable in the long term. People won’t accept this indefinitely. It will be torn down, along with every movement that’s being falsely associated with it. This will hurt gay rights, and disability rights, and women’s rights.The modern era of social justice thrives on upheaval... history shows us that not all societal shift is positive.Never in history has forcing a population to practice a belief system against their will been a positive change.Violating freedom of thought, speech, association, assembly — that has never indicated progress toward justice. I never believed in gender — this idea that “man” and “woman” are internal feelings separate from chromosomal and reproductive sex. But I supported trans people anyway, because I didn’t feel required to agree with them. I didn’t feel required to submit to their doctrine.I used the pronouns to be polite, and because those pronouns weren’t the loaded prospects they’ve become... I feel betrayed by this movement. As a lesbian, I advocated for trans rights along with my own. Now trans “lesbians” march in opposition to me and my sisters. They demand our resources, our spaces, our platforms, our emotional energy. They demand access to our bodies.But I said “she,” & that’s supposed to make the rest of it okay.So I don’t do the pronouns anymore.For me, individually, the demands of the movement were unsustainable, and I had to withdraw my support. And other people will do. Every day, more people are... The gender mvmt isn’t limiting itself to protection of human rights. It’s demanding society assist the transgender person in feeling secure about themselves by transitioning our own speech, beliefs, & personal practices.Freedom from emotional insecurity isn’t a human right... No one, aside from the most fervent believers in gender, is impressed by the turn this situation has taken. We look like proof that allowing us our rights was a bad idea.We’re endangering basic liberties like medical decision-making & parental rights for the sake of pronouns. The protections we ask for must allow for belief systems other than our own. They must consider the rights of groups we don’t belong to.We do not have the right to punish people for disagreeing with us, or for saying so.We do not have the right to compel or stop speech"
BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Gender identity and free speech - "‘We're living in an age of mass hysteria. The claim made in a new book called the madness of crowds: gender, race and identity. Its author, the journalist Douglas Murray, argues that the new culture wars being fought in the modern world are threatening freedom of speech through what he describes as a weaponization of identity’...
‘Increasingly we're doubling down. Just at the point at which things like race, sex, sexual orientation, should have been I suppose we hoped to have sort of become relatively irrelevant or as irrelevant as possible, there's been a doubling down on them, a re-emphasizing of them. A problematisizing of them, to use one voguish term. To the extent that they seem to be driving us apart'...
‘And you call it St George in retirement?’
‘Yes, that's one of the things from the late Australian political philosophy Kenneth Minogue. There is an attitude among other things of St George in retirement, that the battles having mainly been won, the dragon having been slain, you know, women's rights, having broadly speaking, not absolutely there, but pretty much there. Gay rights, pretty much there. And so on that you get this thing of the person who's slain the dragon staggering around the land, looking for ever smaller beasts to slay until finally he can be found swishing his sword at thin air. And I worry that that attitude, the sort of revolutionary, the barricades attitude, the fighting attitude has become the normal attitude of our time. And as a result, we're in this very strange phase where we are all pretending to be very certain about a lot of things we don't know very much about. And we're pretending we don't know things that everyone knew till yesterday... Gay, women, race and trans and in a way that last one has become the most revealing because it's the one that demonstrates how bad we are at discussing, thinking or even talking without weaponizing things against each other. We just had a really interesting one this past weekend, the pop singer Sam Smith, came out as non binary. He’d previously come out as gay, came out a bit later as gender queer, now says he's non binary, which means among other things he wants to use, have plural pronouns used of him. Now the BBC, not to want to make a criticism, the BBC immediately on its website said, they said in their statement, and so on. Now, this isn't the biggest thing in the world. But how about this? Why can't we think about what this claim actually is? I don't think there is any such thing as non binary. I don't think there's any such thing. And I think a lot of people know that too. But, because we are so bad at discussing it, everybody, including the BBC immediately starts to say, okay, we will massively distort and maul our language, if somebody's got a claim’...
‘At every point that there has been change, I would characterize it as positive social change, there have been voices like Douglas’s who said, this is madness. Why are we having to use these silly terms and be so politically correct? The same thing was said, about feminism in the 70s. The same thing has been said about not using derogatory words towards people from ethnic minority backgrounds… [your column on Smith] almost verged on bullying. This is somebody who is making an expression of his identity and how he wants to be described. And I don't know why you feel so threatened’
‘Well, I could play this several ways. If I wanted to do the other way that we do it at the moment, I'd say that he's disappearing gay people, but I would just say it this way. He's pretending there's no such thing as sex or gender. There is and I'm not willing to lie about science in order to fit around his feelings.’"
"But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."
St George in retirement is basically the "myth" of the slippery slope
Post ID: 4708037381313875081
Wednesday, May 06, 2020
Links - 6th May 2020 (Trans Mania)
Transition as Treatment: The Best Studies Show the Worst Outcomes - "More and more children and adolescents are being diagnosed and are undergoing medical treatment prior even to completing puberty.For those who express caution or concern there is a familiar retort— “trust the experts”.This argument, however, makes mockery of the fact that three of the most influential sex researchers of the last couple decades—Ray Blanchard, Michael Bailey, and the recently vindicated Ken Zucker, all have problems with the affirmation-only transition narrative currently being promoted. You could add to this list names like James Cantor, Eric Vilain, Stephen Levine, Debra Soh and Lisa Littman... the literature is fraught with study design problems including convenience sampling, lack of controls, cross-sectional design, low sample sizes, short study lengths, and enormously high drop-out rates. Very few studies on transition evade these issues. For example, in Nobili’s 2018 systematic review of quality of life studies of transitioned adults, she rates only 2 of 29 studies as high quality. Two of the largest issues are study length (or time since treatment) and loss-to-follow-up rates. It is well recognized in the literature that the year after medical transition is a “honeymoon period” which “does not represent a realistic picture of long-term sexual and psychological status.”... Most recently Simonsen 2016 (Denmark) studied a group of 104 post-SRS transsexuals where the follow-up time was 16.4 years for MtFs and 10.2 years for FtMs. For the first time in a long-term study with little loss to follow-up (2%) there were comparisons prior and post treatment of objective measures. Concerning psychiatric morbidity, “No significant differences were found between the number of MtF and FtM individuals suffering from psychiatric morbidity pre- and post-SRS”. While psyschological problems improved for some in the group, for others it worsened and there was no statistically significant net benefit to the group... Out of the six long-term outcome studies (>10yrs) which have useful data for mental or psychological functioning, five report mixed or poor outcomes... Results for mental health and employment were highly mixed, leading the author to conclude “it seems reasonable to expect only marginal improvement psychosocially after surgery. Rauchfleisch (Switzerland) found significant deterioration in his post-SRS clinical sample and states that the negative outcomes, including a high percentage of regret and inability to work, were likely a function of time... A pattern begins to emerge as we survey some of the best and longest outcome studies on transition—the longer the studies and the better the methods, the more negative the results... Jellestad 2018 (Switzerland) found not only a lower mental quality of life for the surgically-transitioned group than the general population, but that neither hormone treatment nor surgery predicted positive quality of life... Given that treatment of gender dysphoria includes such drastic measures as the removal of healthy, functioning body parts, the protracted and experimental use of cross-sex hormones, and the permanent circumvention of the normal pubertal process, this is nothing short of scandalous."
If transsexual pre- and post-transition suicide rates are the same, and overall there was no change in psychological problems, that suggests that transitioning does not help. So it's wasted money, if nothing else (note too the data on hormone treatment not helping)
Democratic Presidential Candidates Are Out of Touch on Gender - "So far, not a single Democratic presidential candidate has demonstrated an understanding of two basic facts. First: that each letter of “LGBT,” etc., and the interest group it claims to represent, is distinct. Second: that today’s tirade of alphabet activism is far removed from the historic gay-rights movement which fought for sexual minorities to have access to basic health care, the right to privacy, and equality under the law. Indeed, only sheer ignorance or reckless disregard can explain why every Democratic presidential candidate has backed the Equality Act. This law, a misnomer, would force women’s spaces (such as battered-women’s shelters) and sports teams (such as the high school girls in Connecticut) to include men. It would also set a dangerous precedent for the medicalization of gender-confused youth through an Orwellian hijacking of the term “conversion therapy.”It’s worth noting here that, in some states, girls as young as 13 have lost their healthy breasts to this ideology, while children as young as eight have been injected with (sterilizing) cross-sex hormones. And that this new definition of “conversion therapy,” when enshrined in law, renders non-intrusive alternatives to such interventions illegal (with or without parental consent.) It is also worth noting (as the mainstream U.K. press has done repeatedly) that a significant portion of these effeminate little boys and these boyish little girls undergoing grueling “transitions” would — if treated with watchful waiting — grow up to be gay. To anyone paying attention, then, the real conversion therapy involves not talk therapy for gender-dysphoric youth, but castrating — chemically or surgically — young people who haven’t yet had the opportunity to come to terms with their sexual development and desires... Regrettably, what is often lost in the coverage of Trump’s so-called transgender military ban is that it extends only to those with gender dysphoria. The administration has clarified that a self-identified transgender person, who does not require special accommodations, “should be permitted to serve.” As for why gender dysphoria constitutes “special accommodations” (and is therefore disqualifying), Department of Defense data gives an idea. Between October 1, 2015, and October 3, 2017, the 994 active-duty service members diagnosed with gender dysphoria account for 30,000 mental health visits. Service members with gender dysphoria are eight times more likely to attempt suicide than service members as a whole...
'Thanks to trans ideology, conversion therapy bans intended to prohibit protocols attempting to change one’s sexual orientation, have been coopted to mandate the ultimate conversion from one sex to the other (which is never truly possible, only the outward presentation thereof).'"
U.S. Doctors Are Performing Mastectomies On Healthy 13-Year-Old Girls - "Some physicians in the United States are performing double mastectomies on healthy 13-year-old girls. The justification is gender dysphoria... In a study funded by a $5.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), researchers including Dr. Johanna Olson of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles are supposedly evaluating use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones on dysphoric children... Olson dismisses the possibility that gender dysphoria could be caused by psychological disturbance, claiming the only “mental health issue” related to gender dysphoria “comes from the way that the outside world responds” to the confused youth. She states, as though from a medical basis, that gender-dysphoric youth will go through the “wrong puberty” unless she and her cohorts can medicate them early enough in their lives to “put them through the right puberty.”... Olson had 68 surgically diminished girls fill out her “novel” scale (which she acknowledged could be bogus) between one and five years after their surgery. Thirty-three of these girls were under 18 at the time of surgery. Two were only 13 years old, and five were only 14. Assuming these mastectomies weren’t all performed by the same very busy surgeon, that means there are multiple doctors out there willing to mutilate underage girls... Since the mean age for postsurgical participants was 19, with none older than 25, a cautious researcher would hesitate to draw any long-term conclusions about satisfaction. But the data limitations don’t deter Olson from trumpeting the “positive outcome of chest surgery.”... Parents report such outbreaks usually followed “binge-watching” of YouTube transition videos and excessive use of other social media that affirm and advocate transgenderism. In one case a girl who had been teased about her breast size declared that she hated her body and suddenly began identifying as a boy. In another, four girls who were taking instruction from a popular coach “came out” as transgender after the coach did. Although well over 60 percent of these adolescents had previously been diagnosed with a mental-health disorder or neurodevelopment problem, many parents reported that “the [gender specialist] clinician did not explore issues of mental health, previous trauma, or any alternative causes of gender dysphoria before proceeding [with medical transition].” These clinicians seemed to rely primarily on self-reports of the patients who wanted the treatment — patients who came prepared with talking points they had received from their online sources (for example, advice to threaten suicide if treatment demands aren’t met)... “ROGD is a maladaptive coping mechanism” for these adolescents... A similar maladaptive coping mechanism, Littman says, is anorexia—the patient deals with underlying emotional issues by extreme weight control. The parallels between anorexia and gender dysphoria, especially ROGD, are striking... From her own limited “research,” Olson thus concludes that children should be allowed to access body- and life-altering mutilation. She doesn’t mention parental consent, though standard medical guidelines require consent for treatment of minors. Rejecting the guidelines of the (highly politicized) World Professional Association for Transgender Health, which recommends that minors not be considered for surgery until completing at least one year of hormone therapy, Olson advocates for surgery based on “individual need” rather than age or time spent on hormone therapy. She doesn’t mention the need to address warning signs for ROGD... In a breathtaking dismissal of possible regret, Olson also said, “And here’s the other thing about chest surgery: If you want breasts at a later point in your life, you can go and get them.” Well, then. One wonders if Olson takes the same attitude toward regret over the permanent sterilization effected by cross-sex hormones and a gonadectomy. After all, if one later comes to desire children, one can “go and get them” from other sources."
Strange, activists tell us that teens and pre-pubescents only get puberty blockers and social transition. Yet there're 13 year olds getting sex reassignment/sex affirmation/sex change surgery
Drag kids are the product of a dangerous American delusion - "“How sexy is that kid?”If anyone thinks that such a sentence is unimaginable, unutterable in our concerned, paedophile-aware times, then let me introduce you to the gateway-phrase: “Drag kid.”This week, the world has become a little more aware of this horrid little phrase because the internet has become a little more aware of it. And that is because of the promotion of a 12-year old ‘drag kid’ known by the name Desmond is Amazing... It’s about the fantastically shallow and ignorant modern American adult delusion that the ‘self’ is a preternatural thing and exists in some orbit of its own. That everybody has a ‘self’ and that this can be ‘known’. That rather than ‘becoming’, a person ‘discovers’ their ‘self’ – a process which is believed to be truer the faster it is arrived at. “Be yourself!” “Don’t let anyone tell you!” and a thousand other sayings from the Hallmarks Cards philosophy of our time all embed this illiterate idea. The delusion takes no account of the influences affecting us all — influences which profoundly affect every human from birth. American popular culture takes little or no notice of this non-preternatural fact, because if it did, then it would have to do some accounting for its own behaviour, or at least for the diet of entertainment it is willing to pump into the homes and heads of the very young... When he says at the outset of the Mashable video, “Can you come up here, you look gorgeous”, in an affected, nasally voice, there may be people who say (like Mashable) “Here is the true 10-year old child”. But most others will say: “Here is a child who you can see is doing an impression of a highly sexualised type of American adult celebrity.” A clear indication of this is that after saying “gorgeous”, Desmond looks to the adults in the room for laughter, approval and affirmation. The adults in the room (presumably including Desmond’s mother) oblige, and thus does he receive what he seeks. Likewise, when he talks about “haters” and the importance of ignoring them in this and other videos, this is not the innate wisdom of a child being imparted to a bigoted, post-lapsarian world. It is merely another person – this time a child – chanting one of the taught mantras of the American pop-cultural age: “Haters gonna hate” etc. There is no insight here. It is merely a copy, as drag is. A copy of a copy of a copy... many cultures around the world allow for some form of sexualisation of children. But here it is surprising. The modern West has long exercised such a degree of opprobrium towards the taboo that the slightest hint it might be breaking down affects a great pushback. While people feel distinctly unable to make many moral judgements, about the idea of paedophilia — and that an adult might find a child “sexy” — we are very judgemental indeed. It’s a feeling the tabloid press has harnessed to great effect. Even if there is nothing else we know to be wrong, we know this to be wrong. By insisting that a child like Desmond should not just be allowed to be something, but should perform as a sexualised adult, and that this should in fact be ‘the future’, it would seem that something further is at work. What is it? It’s unlikely that it is an organised push for tolerance or acceptance of paedophilia. But it does feel like an expression of the ‘Fuck you’ politics of our time. If people are persuaded – and many Americans are – that they live in a cis-hetero-normative, bigoted, patriarchal, homophobic, transphobic society, in which all difference is squeezed out and forbidden, then that belief may do many things to you. One thing it may do, is cause you to push back with every maddening, extreme tool that you have at your disposal. So people must not simply tolerate things. They must be ‘confronted’ with them. Those who have imbibed this idea have already stretched themselves very far. But in pushing ‘Desmond is Amazing’ on the world, they may have reached one of their limits. It is an interesting lesson in its way. People pushing tolerance and acceptance of normal differences end up over-compensating, in the vengeful and extreme tone of the time, and in the process risk not ‘liberalising’ the culture, but toxifying the movements they presume to speak on behalf of. ‘Drag children’ are not the way to break down the instinctive conservatism of the American public. They are the best imaginable way to make any such conservatism rear up again, in the knowledge that this time there is something serious not just to oppose, but to defend."
Sexualized performances not for kids - "children have been pictured rolling around on the performer as he lay on the floor, and in another, a performer put on a strip act that revealed his racy bodysuit.Many male drag performers have social media accounts that are even more explicit than their performances. If their younger audiences look them up, they may well get an eyeful of age-inappropriate content, much of which portrays women and girls as sexualized objects.Our organization, the Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF), representing many lesbian and bisexual women, takes the position that it’s wrong for public libraries to sponsor sexualized adult entertainment as children’s entertainment. We think of Drag Queen Story Hour as no different from proposing a Playboy Bunny Story Hour, and we think they’re treated differently because of a prejudice toward gay men that’s more likely to be found on the left. Somewhere along the good way of promoting acceptance and fighting negative stereotypes, gay men got typecast as harmless mascots of cultural tolerance.This has been bad for gay men, since they’ve gotten stereotyped as not quite “real men.”... It’s bad to have a class of adults whose behavior is beyond criticism. No one should get a blanket exemption from reasonable boundaries on exposing children to adult sexual themes.Female exotic dancers, for example, are expected to take every step to prevent even their own children from exposure to their work. Gay male adult entertainers instead now perform their acts for other people’s children, at publicly sponsored events... many of the same people who support Drag Queen Story Hour and say that libraries presenting adult entertainment to children is protected speech have objected to a library renting space to plainly dressed women to discuss the impact of allowing self-identification of sex on women’s civil rights... it becomes clear that even clinging to a supposedly nice sex stereotype, about a persecuted minority, has so corrupted public ethics that I think our event would have drawn fewer complaints if we’d planned an afternoon pole dancing show for kids. Maybe some “woke” library would have sponsored such an event themselves."
The board chair of the Women’s Liberation Front turns out to be a "bigot". Quelle surprise !
If transsexual pre- and post-transition suicide rates are the same, and overall there was no change in psychological problems, that suggests that transitioning does not help. So it's wasted money, if nothing else (note too the data on hormone treatment not helping)
Democratic Presidential Candidates Are Out of Touch on Gender - "So far, not a single Democratic presidential candidate has demonstrated an understanding of two basic facts. First: that each letter of “LGBT,” etc., and the interest group it claims to represent, is distinct. Second: that today’s tirade of alphabet activism is far removed from the historic gay-rights movement which fought for sexual minorities to have access to basic health care, the right to privacy, and equality under the law. Indeed, only sheer ignorance or reckless disregard can explain why every Democratic presidential candidate has backed the Equality Act. This law, a misnomer, would force women’s spaces (such as battered-women’s shelters) and sports teams (such as the high school girls in Connecticut) to include men. It would also set a dangerous precedent for the medicalization of gender-confused youth through an Orwellian hijacking of the term “conversion therapy.”It’s worth noting here that, in some states, girls as young as 13 have lost their healthy breasts to this ideology, while children as young as eight have been injected with (sterilizing) cross-sex hormones. And that this new definition of “conversion therapy,” when enshrined in law, renders non-intrusive alternatives to such interventions illegal (with or without parental consent.) It is also worth noting (as the mainstream U.K. press has done repeatedly) that a significant portion of these effeminate little boys and these boyish little girls undergoing grueling “transitions” would — if treated with watchful waiting — grow up to be gay. To anyone paying attention, then, the real conversion therapy involves not talk therapy for gender-dysphoric youth, but castrating — chemically or surgically — young people who haven’t yet had the opportunity to come to terms with their sexual development and desires... Regrettably, what is often lost in the coverage of Trump’s so-called transgender military ban is that it extends only to those with gender dysphoria. The administration has clarified that a self-identified transgender person, who does not require special accommodations, “should be permitted to serve.” As for why gender dysphoria constitutes “special accommodations” (and is therefore disqualifying), Department of Defense data gives an idea. Between October 1, 2015, and October 3, 2017, the 994 active-duty service members diagnosed with gender dysphoria account for 30,000 mental health visits. Service members with gender dysphoria are eight times more likely to attempt suicide than service members as a whole...
'Thanks to trans ideology, conversion therapy bans intended to prohibit protocols attempting to change one’s sexual orientation, have been coopted to mandate the ultimate conversion from one sex to the other (which is never truly possible, only the outward presentation thereof).'"
U.S. Doctors Are Performing Mastectomies On Healthy 13-Year-Old Girls - "Some physicians in the United States are performing double mastectomies on healthy 13-year-old girls. The justification is gender dysphoria... In a study funded by a $5.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), researchers including Dr. Johanna Olson of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles are supposedly evaluating use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones on dysphoric children... Olson dismisses the possibility that gender dysphoria could be caused by psychological disturbance, claiming the only “mental health issue” related to gender dysphoria “comes from the way that the outside world responds” to the confused youth. She states, as though from a medical basis, that gender-dysphoric youth will go through the “wrong puberty” unless she and her cohorts can medicate them early enough in their lives to “put them through the right puberty.”... Olson had 68 surgically diminished girls fill out her “novel” scale (which she acknowledged could be bogus) between one and five years after their surgery. Thirty-three of these girls were under 18 at the time of surgery. Two were only 13 years old, and five were only 14. Assuming these mastectomies weren’t all performed by the same very busy surgeon, that means there are multiple doctors out there willing to mutilate underage girls... Since the mean age for postsurgical participants was 19, with none older than 25, a cautious researcher would hesitate to draw any long-term conclusions about satisfaction. But the data limitations don’t deter Olson from trumpeting the “positive outcome of chest surgery.”... Parents report such outbreaks usually followed “binge-watching” of YouTube transition videos and excessive use of other social media that affirm and advocate transgenderism. In one case a girl who had been teased about her breast size declared that she hated her body and suddenly began identifying as a boy. In another, four girls who were taking instruction from a popular coach “came out” as transgender after the coach did. Although well over 60 percent of these adolescents had previously been diagnosed with a mental-health disorder or neurodevelopment problem, many parents reported that “the [gender specialist] clinician did not explore issues of mental health, previous trauma, or any alternative causes of gender dysphoria before proceeding [with medical transition].” These clinicians seemed to rely primarily on self-reports of the patients who wanted the treatment — patients who came prepared with talking points they had received from their online sources (for example, advice to threaten suicide if treatment demands aren’t met)... “ROGD is a maladaptive coping mechanism” for these adolescents... A similar maladaptive coping mechanism, Littman says, is anorexia—the patient deals with underlying emotional issues by extreme weight control. The parallels between anorexia and gender dysphoria, especially ROGD, are striking... From her own limited “research,” Olson thus concludes that children should be allowed to access body- and life-altering mutilation. She doesn’t mention parental consent, though standard medical guidelines require consent for treatment of minors. Rejecting the guidelines of the (highly politicized) World Professional Association for Transgender Health, which recommends that minors not be considered for surgery until completing at least one year of hormone therapy, Olson advocates for surgery based on “individual need” rather than age or time spent on hormone therapy. She doesn’t mention the need to address warning signs for ROGD... In a breathtaking dismissal of possible regret, Olson also said, “And here’s the other thing about chest surgery: If you want breasts at a later point in your life, you can go and get them.” Well, then. One wonders if Olson takes the same attitude toward regret over the permanent sterilization effected by cross-sex hormones and a gonadectomy. After all, if one later comes to desire children, one can “go and get them” from other sources."
Strange, activists tell us that teens and pre-pubescents only get puberty blockers and social transition. Yet there're 13 year olds getting sex reassignment/sex affirmation/sex change surgery
Drag kids are the product of a dangerous American delusion - "“How sexy is that kid?”If anyone thinks that such a sentence is unimaginable, unutterable in our concerned, paedophile-aware times, then let me introduce you to the gateway-phrase: “Drag kid.”This week, the world has become a little more aware of this horrid little phrase because the internet has become a little more aware of it. And that is because of the promotion of a 12-year old ‘drag kid’ known by the name Desmond is Amazing... It’s about the fantastically shallow and ignorant modern American adult delusion that the ‘self’ is a preternatural thing and exists in some orbit of its own. That everybody has a ‘self’ and that this can be ‘known’. That rather than ‘becoming’, a person ‘discovers’ their ‘self’ – a process which is believed to be truer the faster it is arrived at. “Be yourself!” “Don’t let anyone tell you!” and a thousand other sayings from the Hallmarks Cards philosophy of our time all embed this illiterate idea. The delusion takes no account of the influences affecting us all — influences which profoundly affect every human from birth. American popular culture takes little or no notice of this non-preternatural fact, because if it did, then it would have to do some accounting for its own behaviour, or at least for the diet of entertainment it is willing to pump into the homes and heads of the very young... When he says at the outset of the Mashable video, “Can you come up here, you look gorgeous”, in an affected, nasally voice, there may be people who say (like Mashable) “Here is the true 10-year old child”. But most others will say: “Here is a child who you can see is doing an impression of a highly sexualised type of American adult celebrity.” A clear indication of this is that after saying “gorgeous”, Desmond looks to the adults in the room for laughter, approval and affirmation. The adults in the room (presumably including Desmond’s mother) oblige, and thus does he receive what he seeks. Likewise, when he talks about “haters” and the importance of ignoring them in this and other videos, this is not the innate wisdom of a child being imparted to a bigoted, post-lapsarian world. It is merely another person – this time a child – chanting one of the taught mantras of the American pop-cultural age: “Haters gonna hate” etc. There is no insight here. It is merely a copy, as drag is. A copy of a copy of a copy... many cultures around the world allow for some form of sexualisation of children. But here it is surprising. The modern West has long exercised such a degree of opprobrium towards the taboo that the slightest hint it might be breaking down affects a great pushback. While people feel distinctly unable to make many moral judgements, about the idea of paedophilia — and that an adult might find a child “sexy” — we are very judgemental indeed. It’s a feeling the tabloid press has harnessed to great effect. Even if there is nothing else we know to be wrong, we know this to be wrong. By insisting that a child like Desmond should not just be allowed to be something, but should perform as a sexualised adult, and that this should in fact be ‘the future’, it would seem that something further is at work. What is it? It’s unlikely that it is an organised push for tolerance or acceptance of paedophilia. But it does feel like an expression of the ‘Fuck you’ politics of our time. If people are persuaded – and many Americans are – that they live in a cis-hetero-normative, bigoted, patriarchal, homophobic, transphobic society, in which all difference is squeezed out and forbidden, then that belief may do many things to you. One thing it may do, is cause you to push back with every maddening, extreme tool that you have at your disposal. So people must not simply tolerate things. They must be ‘confronted’ with them. Those who have imbibed this idea have already stretched themselves very far. But in pushing ‘Desmond is Amazing’ on the world, they may have reached one of their limits. It is an interesting lesson in its way. People pushing tolerance and acceptance of normal differences end up over-compensating, in the vengeful and extreme tone of the time, and in the process risk not ‘liberalising’ the culture, but toxifying the movements they presume to speak on behalf of. ‘Drag children’ are not the way to break down the instinctive conservatism of the American public. They are the best imaginable way to make any such conservatism rear up again, in the knowledge that this time there is something serious not just to oppose, but to defend."
Sexualized performances not for kids - "children have been pictured rolling around on the performer as he lay on the floor, and in another, a performer put on a strip act that revealed his racy bodysuit.Many male drag performers have social media accounts that are even more explicit than their performances. If their younger audiences look them up, they may well get an eyeful of age-inappropriate content, much of which portrays women and girls as sexualized objects.Our organization, the Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF), representing many lesbian and bisexual women, takes the position that it’s wrong for public libraries to sponsor sexualized adult entertainment as children’s entertainment. We think of Drag Queen Story Hour as no different from proposing a Playboy Bunny Story Hour, and we think they’re treated differently because of a prejudice toward gay men that’s more likely to be found on the left. Somewhere along the good way of promoting acceptance and fighting negative stereotypes, gay men got typecast as harmless mascots of cultural tolerance.This has been bad for gay men, since they’ve gotten stereotyped as not quite “real men.”... It’s bad to have a class of adults whose behavior is beyond criticism. No one should get a blanket exemption from reasonable boundaries on exposing children to adult sexual themes.Female exotic dancers, for example, are expected to take every step to prevent even their own children from exposure to their work. Gay male adult entertainers instead now perform their acts for other people’s children, at publicly sponsored events... many of the same people who support Drag Queen Story Hour and say that libraries presenting adult entertainment to children is protected speech have objected to a library renting space to plainly dressed women to discuss the impact of allowing self-identification of sex on women’s civil rights... it becomes clear that even clinging to a supposedly nice sex stereotype, about a persecuted minority, has so corrupted public ethics that I think our event would have drawn fewer complaints if we’d planned an afternoon pole dancing show for kids. Maybe some “woke” library would have sponsored such an event themselves."
The board chair of the Women’s Liberation Front turns out to be a "bigot". Quelle surprise !
Post ID: 6377208581386187460
Monday, May 04, 2020
Links - 4th May 2020 (3) (China's 'Peaceful' Rise)
Tuvalu: Pacific nation turns down Chinese islands and backs Taiwan - "Mr Kofe said Chinese companies had approached local communities offering to help with a $400m (£310m) government plan to build artificial islands. He believes the companies were backed by the Chinese government."We are hearing a lot of information about debt," he said. "China buying our islands and looking at setting up military bases in our part of the world. Those are things that are concerning to us."
China tried to plant its candidate in Federal Parliament, authorities believe - "Sources with knowledge of the alleged plot believe the suspected Chinese intelligence group offered a million dollars to pay for the political campaign of Liberal Party member and Melbourne luxury car dealer Bo “Nick” Zhao, 32, to run for an eastern suburbs seat. The plot appears to be part of an operation to place a Chinese agent in Parliament... The revelations also raise fresh questions about the decades-long failure of authorities under old and new security laws to prosecute a single Chinese spy in Australia... Mr Zhao told two associates that he’d revealed to ASIO how Mr Chen, whose company is also based in Melbourne, had offered to set him up in a new business with a million-dollar capital injection. In return, Mr Zhao said Mr Chen wanted him to run for a seat in Australia’s Parliament in the electorate of Chisholm. Mr Zhao was found dead by a cleaner in a motel room in suburban Mount Waverley in March. Local police who prepared a brief for the coroner have been unable to conclude how he died"
China's spy Wang Liqiang defects to Australia, offers ASIO trove of information on CCP espionage tactics - "Wang “William” Liqiang is the first Chinese operative to ever blow his cover. He has revealed the identities of China’s senior military intelligence officers in Hong Kong, as well as providing details of how they fund and conduct political interference operations in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Australia... he has revealed in granular detail how Beijing covertly controls listed companies to fund intelligence operations, including the surveillance and profiling of dissidents and the co-opting of media organisations. He has given previously unheard details about the kidnapping of five booksellers from Hong Kong and their rendition to the Chinese mainland. His testimony shows how Beijing’s spies are infiltrating Hong Kong’s democracy movement, manipulating Taiwan’s elections and operating with impunity in Australia. ASIO has repeatedly warned that the current threat of foreign interference is “unprecedented” and that the number of foreign intelligence officers currently operating in Australia is higher than it was during the Cold War... former ASIO boss Duncan Lewis said the Chinese government was seeking to "take over" Australia's political system through its "insidious" foreign interference operations... Mr Wang said the Chinese Communist Party under Xi Jinping “infiltrates all countries in areas such as military, business and culture, in order to achieve its goal.”... A key area of operations, he said, were Hong Kong universities. Mr Wang claimed his organisation had “infiltrated into all universities, including student associations and other student groups and bodies.”... His organisation directed cyber and physical attacks on independence movement leaders... Mr Wang said he was responsible for coordinating a “cyber army” to shift political opinion, similar to Russia’s cyber interference operations in the US elections... Mr Wang said his operation successfully meddled in the “nine-in-one” elections in Taiwan in 2018, leading to victories for pro-Beijing candidates"
China could 'turn off power' in the Philippines, senate hears - "China could switch off the Philippines' national grid, congress has heard in Manila.The head of the National Transmission Corporation confirmed the possibility during a senate session.China has part-owned the Philippines' national grid since 2009 - leading one senator to question whether China's "hegemonic ambitions" posed a security threat to the Philippines.The countries have a territory dispute in the South China Sea."
Video of Handcuffed HK Protesters Boarding Train Sparks Fears of Being Sent to China - "The destination of the detained people in the video remains unknown, but some users have claimed that the last two stations of the line are Lo Wu and Lok Ma Chau; both stops are border checkpoints to China. Another user said there were no Hong Kong police stations located in any of the stops along the train’s route."
No wonder they withdrew the extradition law - they didn't need it anyway under one country, one system
The Grim Logic of Trump’s Trade War With China - "the trade war appears to be hurting China’s economy. It’s hard to isolate the affect of the dispute from other factors, like Chinese government attempts to crack down on the shadow-banking system. But the International Monetary Fund forecasts that the immediate blow from the trade war is hitting China much harder... If Trump wants to slow China’s ascent as a superpower, a trade war might be an effective way to do it. If the harm to the U.S. is modest and the costs for China are severe and lasting, Trump might conclude that the former are acceptable losses. Geopolitical primacy, not maximum prosperity for Americans, might be the president’s true objective."
Holders of Old Chinese Debt Hope Trade War Means Huge Payday - "President Donald Trump’s next move in an increasingly fraught trade war with China could be one for the history books, literally. The Trump administration has been studying the unlikely prospect of reviving century-old claims on Chinese bonds sold before the founding of the communist People’s Republic... most agree that as a legal principle, political regimes inherit their predecessors’ debt; most governments choose to honor old bonds, in part because they don’t want to alienate investors who might buy new ones."
U.S.-China Trade War: Smart Geopolitics - "Donohue is right that tariffs are a tax on American businesses, consumers, and investment. But we should be happy to pay taxes toward a worthwhile end. Indeed, if the end is important enough, and a tax helps us achieve it, paying could be a patriotic duty. The Chinese call this “eating bitterness.”Few ends are more important than economic growth, but the free traders err in assuming that a China trade policy that fails to immediately deliver more of it is bad, because one more-important end is geopolitical survival. The true value of the trade war lies in preventing American businesses from aiding the rise of an adversary... Perhaps Trump’s most serious misstep has been the failure of his administration to explain the trade war in geopolitical terms, instead preferring to talk about closing trade deficits and thereby ceding the terms of the fight to the free traders... Americans have been taught to see free trade as core to our identity, and the Republican policy firmament remains filled with thinkers who can’t acknowledge that a neutral policy of “let the market decide” means, in this case, “let the Chinese Communist Party decide.” As Marco Rubio put it in a recent report on China’s rise: “In a world of state competition for valuable industries, a domestic policy of neutrality is itself a selection of priority.” If we refuse to allow even short-term harm to come to consumers while China resolves to “eat bitterness,” we will lose the long-term geopolitical competition for productivity, innovation, and power. And if we continue to believe that the world is better off with a liberal democracy at the helm rather than an authoritarian surveillance state, that cannot be allowed to happen"
Trump has the right strategy on Beijing. As a Chinese dissident, I’d know. - The Washington Post - "Tariffs and economic threats may be blunt tools, but they are the kind of aggressive tactics necessary to get the attention of the CCP regime, which respects only power and money. It’s not just about “winning,” as the president sometimes puts it, and it’s not simply about trade: It’s about justice, and doing what’s right for ordinary Chinese and American people.Presidents before Trump naively believed that China would abide by international standards of behavior if it were granted access to institutions like the World Trade Organization and generally treated as a “normal” country. But that path proved mistaken, and Beijing ignored Western pressure on matters from human rights to the widespread theft of intellectual property. Trump, whatever his flaws, grasps this reality.Unlike many of his predecessors in the White House, Trump appears to understand innately the hooliganism and brutality at the heart of the CCP. He comprehends that — whether in the realm of trade, diplomacy or international order — dictatorships do not commonly play by the rules of democratic nations. While past administrations have curried favor with the CCP (“appeasement” is not too strong a word), Trump has made excising the party’s growing corrosion of U.S. society — from business and the media to education and politics — a focus. For decades, U.S. presidents have allowed themselves to be taken in by China... As China’s entrance into the World Trade Organization moved toward reality, in 2000, Clinton described it as “the most significant opportunity that we have had to create positive change in China since the 1970s.” He said there would be no downsides to freer trade: It was “the equivalent of a one-way street.”Following the attacks of 9/11, George W. Bush turned a blind eye when Beijing used the U.S. war on terror as cover for persecuting ethnic minorities; Barack Obama repeatedly shied away from mentioning human rights to CCP officials, notably during a visit in 2009... where China is concerned, dissidents, both within China and in the diaspora, note and appreciate what he is doing. Most activists agree that civilized talks behind closed doors have never elicited concessions from the CCP. The only way to make progress is by landing pointed blows, particularly against the party elites and their bank accounts (which are reliant on party-owned, nepotistic, monopolist companies)."
China scrambles to stem manufacturing exodus as 50 companies leave - Nikkei Asian Review - "China is racing to keep foreign enterprises in-country, dangling special benefits so that the advantages of staying outweigh the heavy tariffs imposed by the U.S.A year into the trade war with Washington, more than 50 global companies, including Apple and Nintendo, have announced or are considering plans to move production out of China, Nikkei research has found.And not just foreign companies. Chinese manufacturers, as well as those from the U.S., Japan and Taiwan, are part of the drain, including makers of personal computers, smartphones and other electronics."
Kenya: Port of Kenya Takeover Sparks Neo-Colonialism Outcry - "REPORTED plans by China to take over Kenya's main port are giving some credence to concerns of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) being a form of neo-colonialism by the Asian nation that is a global economic powerhouse.Such plans also send a harsh warning to other countries as to the hardline stance by China on countries that default on loan repayments.It has emerged Kenya risks losing the lucrative Mombasa port to China should the East African country fail to repay significant loans advanced by Chinese lenders... Kenya is set to join the likes of Sri Lanka and Zambia in the unenviable list of borrowers to lose key assets to China after defaulting.In 2017, Sri Lanka lost its Hambantota port after a lack of commitment to repay.Last year (2018), Zambia lost the Kenneth Kaunda International Airport to China over debt repayment."
Book burning by Chinese county library sparks fury - "According to Chinese media, an article on the county’s website detailed a “removal and destruction” cleanup at the end of October, focusing on illegal, religious, and biased books... officials have also called for an overhaul of “patriotic education” in schools. The ministry of education directive orders the removal of books and other reading material that endanger national security, harm social stability or national honour. Books that promote superstition, illegal religious activities, or “incorrect global outlook and values” should also be culled... The news of the book burning, now deleted from Zhenyuan county’s website, has prompted a wave of criticism from commentators and internet users who were reminded of the Qin dynasty, when books were burned and scholars burned alive as a way to control the populace and prevent criticism of the regime.The prominent magazine Beijing News wrote in an editorial that was later censored: “How a society deals with books is a test of its attitude toward knowledge and civilisation and should never be arbitrary and barbaric. How did this happen? The relevant parties must investigate and respond to society’s concerns.”... “Horrifying. First you demonise public intellectuals, then you burn books. Is this a new Cultural Revolution?” one said, referring to China’s chaotic years of the 1960s and 70s, when intellectuals and others were attacked for holding on to old ways.Some compared the news to Nazi Germany’s book burnings of the 1930s. “This is what Germany did last century,” one said. Another wrote sarcastically: “Ignorance is power.”"
China wants a three-minute live-streaming delay to ensure 'healthy content' - Regulators recommend the delay as one way of managing online content, saying special attention should be paid to electronic music and rap shows - "No performance should include any content that is against the constitution, laws or regulations. Performances that concern history, ethnicity and religion need to be of “correct guidance and healthy content.”... Footage of problematic live-streamed shows must be retained for at least 60 days for checks."
China tried to plant its candidate in Federal Parliament, authorities believe - "Sources with knowledge of the alleged plot believe the suspected Chinese intelligence group offered a million dollars to pay for the political campaign of Liberal Party member and Melbourne luxury car dealer Bo “Nick” Zhao, 32, to run for an eastern suburbs seat. The plot appears to be part of an operation to place a Chinese agent in Parliament... The revelations also raise fresh questions about the decades-long failure of authorities under old and new security laws to prosecute a single Chinese spy in Australia... Mr Zhao told two associates that he’d revealed to ASIO how Mr Chen, whose company is also based in Melbourne, had offered to set him up in a new business with a million-dollar capital injection. In return, Mr Zhao said Mr Chen wanted him to run for a seat in Australia’s Parliament in the electorate of Chisholm. Mr Zhao was found dead by a cleaner in a motel room in suburban Mount Waverley in March. Local police who prepared a brief for the coroner have been unable to conclude how he died"
China's spy Wang Liqiang defects to Australia, offers ASIO trove of information on CCP espionage tactics - "Wang “William” Liqiang is the first Chinese operative to ever blow his cover. He has revealed the identities of China’s senior military intelligence officers in Hong Kong, as well as providing details of how they fund and conduct political interference operations in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Australia... he has revealed in granular detail how Beijing covertly controls listed companies to fund intelligence operations, including the surveillance and profiling of dissidents and the co-opting of media organisations. He has given previously unheard details about the kidnapping of five booksellers from Hong Kong and their rendition to the Chinese mainland. His testimony shows how Beijing’s spies are infiltrating Hong Kong’s democracy movement, manipulating Taiwan’s elections and operating with impunity in Australia. ASIO has repeatedly warned that the current threat of foreign interference is “unprecedented” and that the number of foreign intelligence officers currently operating in Australia is higher than it was during the Cold War... former ASIO boss Duncan Lewis said the Chinese government was seeking to "take over" Australia's political system through its "insidious" foreign interference operations... Mr Wang said the Chinese Communist Party under Xi Jinping “infiltrates all countries in areas such as military, business and culture, in order to achieve its goal.”... A key area of operations, he said, were Hong Kong universities. Mr Wang claimed his organisation had “infiltrated into all universities, including student associations and other student groups and bodies.”... His organisation directed cyber and physical attacks on independence movement leaders... Mr Wang said he was responsible for coordinating a “cyber army” to shift political opinion, similar to Russia’s cyber interference operations in the US elections... Mr Wang said his operation successfully meddled in the “nine-in-one” elections in Taiwan in 2018, leading to victories for pro-Beijing candidates"
China could 'turn off power' in the Philippines, senate hears - "China could switch off the Philippines' national grid, congress has heard in Manila.The head of the National Transmission Corporation confirmed the possibility during a senate session.China has part-owned the Philippines' national grid since 2009 - leading one senator to question whether China's "hegemonic ambitions" posed a security threat to the Philippines.The countries have a territory dispute in the South China Sea."
Video of Handcuffed HK Protesters Boarding Train Sparks Fears of Being Sent to China - "The destination of the detained people in the video remains unknown, but some users have claimed that the last two stations of the line are Lo Wu and Lok Ma Chau; both stops are border checkpoints to China. Another user said there were no Hong Kong police stations located in any of the stops along the train’s route."
No wonder they withdrew the extradition law - they didn't need it anyway under one country, one system
The Grim Logic of Trump’s Trade War With China - "the trade war appears to be hurting China’s economy. It’s hard to isolate the affect of the dispute from other factors, like Chinese government attempts to crack down on the shadow-banking system. But the International Monetary Fund forecasts that the immediate blow from the trade war is hitting China much harder... If Trump wants to slow China’s ascent as a superpower, a trade war might be an effective way to do it. If the harm to the U.S. is modest and the costs for China are severe and lasting, Trump might conclude that the former are acceptable losses. Geopolitical primacy, not maximum prosperity for Americans, might be the president’s true objective."
Holders of Old Chinese Debt Hope Trade War Means Huge Payday - "President Donald Trump’s next move in an increasingly fraught trade war with China could be one for the history books, literally. The Trump administration has been studying the unlikely prospect of reviving century-old claims on Chinese bonds sold before the founding of the communist People’s Republic... most agree that as a legal principle, political regimes inherit their predecessors’ debt; most governments choose to honor old bonds, in part because they don’t want to alienate investors who might buy new ones."
U.S.-China Trade War: Smart Geopolitics - "Donohue is right that tariffs are a tax on American businesses, consumers, and investment. But we should be happy to pay taxes toward a worthwhile end. Indeed, if the end is important enough, and a tax helps us achieve it, paying could be a patriotic duty. The Chinese call this “eating bitterness.”Few ends are more important than economic growth, but the free traders err in assuming that a China trade policy that fails to immediately deliver more of it is bad, because one more-important end is geopolitical survival. The true value of the trade war lies in preventing American businesses from aiding the rise of an adversary... Perhaps Trump’s most serious misstep has been the failure of his administration to explain the trade war in geopolitical terms, instead preferring to talk about closing trade deficits and thereby ceding the terms of the fight to the free traders... Americans have been taught to see free trade as core to our identity, and the Republican policy firmament remains filled with thinkers who can’t acknowledge that a neutral policy of “let the market decide” means, in this case, “let the Chinese Communist Party decide.” As Marco Rubio put it in a recent report on China’s rise: “In a world of state competition for valuable industries, a domestic policy of neutrality is itself a selection of priority.” If we refuse to allow even short-term harm to come to consumers while China resolves to “eat bitterness,” we will lose the long-term geopolitical competition for productivity, innovation, and power. And if we continue to believe that the world is better off with a liberal democracy at the helm rather than an authoritarian surveillance state, that cannot be allowed to happen"
Trump has the right strategy on Beijing. As a Chinese dissident, I’d know. - The Washington Post - "Tariffs and economic threats may be blunt tools, but they are the kind of aggressive tactics necessary to get the attention of the CCP regime, which respects only power and money. It’s not just about “winning,” as the president sometimes puts it, and it’s not simply about trade: It’s about justice, and doing what’s right for ordinary Chinese and American people.Presidents before Trump naively believed that China would abide by international standards of behavior if it were granted access to institutions like the World Trade Organization and generally treated as a “normal” country. But that path proved mistaken, and Beijing ignored Western pressure on matters from human rights to the widespread theft of intellectual property. Trump, whatever his flaws, grasps this reality.Unlike many of his predecessors in the White House, Trump appears to understand innately the hooliganism and brutality at the heart of the CCP. He comprehends that — whether in the realm of trade, diplomacy or international order — dictatorships do not commonly play by the rules of democratic nations. While past administrations have curried favor with the CCP (“appeasement” is not too strong a word), Trump has made excising the party’s growing corrosion of U.S. society — from business and the media to education and politics — a focus. For decades, U.S. presidents have allowed themselves to be taken in by China... As China’s entrance into the World Trade Organization moved toward reality, in 2000, Clinton described it as “the most significant opportunity that we have had to create positive change in China since the 1970s.” He said there would be no downsides to freer trade: It was “the equivalent of a one-way street.”Following the attacks of 9/11, George W. Bush turned a blind eye when Beijing used the U.S. war on terror as cover for persecuting ethnic minorities; Barack Obama repeatedly shied away from mentioning human rights to CCP officials, notably during a visit in 2009... where China is concerned, dissidents, both within China and in the diaspora, note and appreciate what he is doing. Most activists agree that civilized talks behind closed doors have never elicited concessions from the CCP. The only way to make progress is by landing pointed blows, particularly against the party elites and their bank accounts (which are reliant on party-owned, nepotistic, monopolist companies)."
China scrambles to stem manufacturing exodus as 50 companies leave - Nikkei Asian Review - "China is racing to keep foreign enterprises in-country, dangling special benefits so that the advantages of staying outweigh the heavy tariffs imposed by the U.S.A year into the trade war with Washington, more than 50 global companies, including Apple and Nintendo, have announced or are considering plans to move production out of China, Nikkei research has found.And not just foreign companies. Chinese manufacturers, as well as those from the U.S., Japan and Taiwan, are part of the drain, including makers of personal computers, smartphones and other electronics."
Kenya: Port of Kenya Takeover Sparks Neo-Colonialism Outcry - "REPORTED plans by China to take over Kenya's main port are giving some credence to concerns of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) being a form of neo-colonialism by the Asian nation that is a global economic powerhouse.Such plans also send a harsh warning to other countries as to the hardline stance by China on countries that default on loan repayments.It has emerged Kenya risks losing the lucrative Mombasa port to China should the East African country fail to repay significant loans advanced by Chinese lenders... Kenya is set to join the likes of Sri Lanka and Zambia in the unenviable list of borrowers to lose key assets to China after defaulting.In 2017, Sri Lanka lost its Hambantota port after a lack of commitment to repay.Last year (2018), Zambia lost the Kenneth Kaunda International Airport to China over debt repayment."
Book burning by Chinese county library sparks fury - "According to Chinese media, an article on the county’s website detailed a “removal and destruction” cleanup at the end of October, focusing on illegal, religious, and biased books... officials have also called for an overhaul of “patriotic education” in schools. The ministry of education directive orders the removal of books and other reading material that endanger national security, harm social stability or national honour. Books that promote superstition, illegal religious activities, or “incorrect global outlook and values” should also be culled... The news of the book burning, now deleted from Zhenyuan county’s website, has prompted a wave of criticism from commentators and internet users who were reminded of the Qin dynasty, when books were burned and scholars burned alive as a way to control the populace and prevent criticism of the regime.The prominent magazine Beijing News wrote in an editorial that was later censored: “How a society deals with books is a test of its attitude toward knowledge and civilisation and should never be arbitrary and barbaric. How did this happen? The relevant parties must investigate and respond to society’s concerns.”... “Horrifying. First you demonise public intellectuals, then you burn books. Is this a new Cultural Revolution?” one said, referring to China’s chaotic years of the 1960s and 70s, when intellectuals and others were attacked for holding on to old ways.Some compared the news to Nazi Germany’s book burnings of the 1930s. “This is what Germany did last century,” one said. Another wrote sarcastically: “Ignorance is power.”"
China wants a three-minute live-streaming delay to ensure 'healthy content' - Regulators recommend the delay as one way of managing online content, saying special attention should be paid to electronic music and rap shows - "No performance should include any content that is against the constitution, laws or regulations. Performances that concern history, ethnicity and religion need to be of “correct guidance and healthy content.”... Footage of problematic live-streamed shows must be retained for at least 60 days for checks."
Post ID: 5511857623637588775
The Great Gatsby and Catch-22 among classic books banned from Alaska classrooms
The Great Gatsby and Catch-22 among classic books banned from Alaska classrooms
Works from Maya Angelou, Joseph Heller, Tim O'Brien, Ralph Ellison and F Scott Fitzgerald erased from curriculum
A school board in Alaska has removed a collection of classic novels from classrooms over "controversial" themes like language and sexual references.
The Mat-Su Borough School District, north of Anchorage, took some of the world's best known authors and novels off the approved list of works teachers could use for instructing students. According to members of the school board, which voted 5-2 to remove the books, if they were read in a corporate office environment today, they would be dragged into an equal opportunity complaint.
The list of works, authors and the reasons for removal include:
The Great Gatsby, by F Scott Fitzgerald for "language and sexual references".
Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison for "language, rape and incest".
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou for "sexually explicit material, such as the sexual abuse the author suffered as a child, and its 'antiwhite messaging'".
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller for "a handful of racial slurs, the characters speak with typical 'military men' misogyny and racist attitudes of the time. There are scenes of violence both hand to hand and with guns, and violence against women."
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien for "profanity and sexual references".
School board vice president Jim Hart told NBC News on Tuesday the content could potentially harm students.
"If I were to read these in a corporate environment, in an office environment, I would be dragged into EO," an equal opportunity complaint proceeding, Mr Hart said. "The question is why this is acceptable in one environment and not another."
Dianne K Shibe, president of the Mat-Su Education Association teachers union, said parents and her members were stunned.
"Most of the community didn't respond because these books had been used forever," Ms Shibe told NBC News. "Now in retrospect, it's like 'duh,' I could have seen this coming."
Ah, for the good old days when it was conservatism leading to censorship and not liberalism!
Works from Maya Angelou, Joseph Heller, Tim O'Brien, Ralph Ellison and F Scott Fitzgerald erased from curriculum
A school board in Alaska has removed a collection of classic novels from classrooms over "controversial" themes like language and sexual references.
The Mat-Su Borough School District, north of Anchorage, took some of the world's best known authors and novels off the approved list of works teachers could use for instructing students. According to members of the school board, which voted 5-2 to remove the books, if they were read in a corporate office environment today, they would be dragged into an equal opportunity complaint.
The list of works, authors and the reasons for removal include:
The Great Gatsby, by F Scott Fitzgerald for "language and sexual references".
Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison for "language, rape and incest".
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou for "sexually explicit material, such as the sexual abuse the author suffered as a child, and its 'antiwhite messaging'".
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller for "a handful of racial slurs, the characters speak with typical 'military men' misogyny and racist attitudes of the time. There are scenes of violence both hand to hand and with guns, and violence against women."
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien for "profanity and sexual references".
School board vice president Jim Hart told NBC News on Tuesday the content could potentially harm students.
"If I were to read these in a corporate environment, in an office environment, I would be dragged into EO," an equal opportunity complaint proceeding, Mr Hart said. "The question is why this is acceptable in one environment and not another."
Dianne K Shibe, president of the Mat-Su Education Association teachers union, said parents and her members were stunned.
"Most of the community didn't respond because these books had been used forever," Ms Shibe told NBC News. "Now in retrospect, it's like 'duh,' I could have seen this coming."
Ah, for the good old days when it was conservatism leading to censorship and not liberalism!
Post ID: 5022913612626325456
Links - 4th May 2020 (2) (China's 'Peaceful' Rise)
China Is Winning the Silent War to Dominate the South China Sea - "Under President Xi Jinping, China has more forcefully asserted its claims to more than 80% of the South China Sea, building runways and military facilities on territory claimed by other nations. It has also raised a navy of more than over 300 ships, eclipsing the U.S. to become the largest in the Asia Pacific.In addition, China has utilized less conventional means to clear the sea of its maritime adversaries—a so-called maritime militia of well-equipped vessels numbering in the hundreds—disguised as fishing vessels that patrol, surveil, resupply, and sometimes, provoke. At least one Chinese maritime law enforcement vessel was involved in 73% of all reported incidents in the South China Sea since 2010, according to data compiled by the Center for Strategic and International Studies... In Vietnam, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang last month demanded compensation for its fishermen after Chinese vessels chased and stole property from them near the Paracel Islands.China has dismissed such requests for compensation in the past, instead accusing other nations of breaching the law. A draft code of conduct with Southeast Asian nations has made little progress over the past decade despite regular discussions... “The water belongs to Vietnam, the Paracel Islands belong to us,” he said. “We have been fishing in this water since our grandparents’ generation.”"
China’s Hidden Navy – Foreign Policy - "Chinese fishing boats in the islands average more than 500 tons, well over the size legally required for boats undertaking international voyages to use Automatic Identification System (AIS) transceivers, which broadcast identifying information, headings, and other data about oceangoing vessels. But fewer than 5 percent of them actually broadcast AIS signals at any given time. This suggests a fleet intent on hiding its numbers and actions.These large, modern vessels represent a stunning level of sunk capital costs but do not engage in much commercial activity. Frequent satellite imagery shows that the vessels spend nearly all of their time anchored, often in large clusters. This is true whether they are inside the lagoons at Subi and Mischief Reefs or loitering elsewhere in the Spratlys. Operating in such close quarters is highly unusual and certainly not the way commercial fishing vessels usually operate."
Inside China's audacious global propaganda campaign - "Of course, influence campaigns are nothing new; the US and the UK, among others, have aggressively courted journalists, offering enticements such as freebie trips and privileged access to senior officials. But unlike those countries, China’s Communist party does not accept a plurality of views. Instead, for China’s leaders, who regard the press as the “eyes, ears, tongue and throat” of the Communist party, the idea of journalism depends upon a narrative discipline that precludes all but the party-approved version of events. For China, the media has become both the battlefield on which this “global information war” is being waged, and the weapon of attack... Analysing CCTV’s coverage of the 2014 Ebola outbreak in west Africa, Marsh found that 17% of stories on Ebola mentioned China, generally emphasising its role in providing doctors and medical aid. “They were trying to do positive reporting,” says Marsh. “But they lost journalistic credibility to me in the portrayal of China as a benevolent parent.” Far from telling Africa’s story, the overriding aim appeared to be emphasising Chinese power, generosity and centrality to global affairs... Xinhua was set up in 1931, well before the Communists took power in China, and as the party mouthpiece, its jargon-laden articles are used to propagate new directives and explain shifts in party policy. Many column inches are also spent on the ponderous speeches and daily movements of Xi Jinping, whether he is meeting the Togolese president, examining oversized vegetables or casually chatting to workers at a toy-mouse factory.Describing his work at Xinhua, the former employee said: “You’ve got to think it’s like creative writing. You’re combining journalism with a kind of creative writing.”... “There’s no clear goal other than to identify cracks in a system and exploit them.” One example would be highlighting the chaotic and unpredictable nature of Australian politics – which has seen six prime ministers in eight years – as a way of undermining faith in liberal democracy. “Part of my brief was to find ways to exert that influence. It was never written down, I was never given orders”... Edwards, like other former employees of China’s state-media companies, felt that the vast majority of his work was about domestic signalling, or telegraphing messages that demonstrated loyalty to the party line in order to curry favour with senior officials. Any thoughts of how his work was furthering China’s international soft power goals came a distant second. But since Edwards left in 2014, Xinhua has begun looking outwards; one sign of this is the existence of its Twitter account – followed by 11.7 million people – even though Twitter is banned in China... When the Dalai Lama did come to visit Canada in 2012, one journalist in Xinhua’s Ottawa bureau, Mark Bourrie, was placed in a compromising position. On the day of the visit, Bourrie was told to use his parliamentary press credentials to attend the Tibetan spiritual leader’s press conference, and to find out what had happened in a closed-door meeting with the then prime minister, Stephen Harper. When Bourrie asked whether the information would be used in a piece, his boss replied that it would not. “That day I felt that we were spies,” he later wrote. “It was time to draw the line.” He returned to his office and resigned... His experience is not unusual... Even under new ownership, the SCMP treads a delicate line on China, continuing to run granular political analysis and original reporting on sensitive issues such as human rights lawyers and religious crackdowns. Though pages are free from Xinhua copy, cynics joke the paper itself is transmogrifying into a kind of China Daily-lite, with increasing prominence given to stories about Xi Jinping, pro-Beijing editorials and politically on-message opinion pieces. All this is combined with constant, fawning coverage of owner Jack Ma, memorably described by the paper as a “modern-day Confucius”... a journal once seen as a paper of record was effectively running a forced confession on behalf of the Chinese state."
Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman China economic 'miracle' hurt US economy - "Stephen Schwarzman, the billionaire co-founder of investment powerhouse Blackstone, told CNBC on Tuesday that China knows it must change its trade and business practices but it’s reluctant to do so because of the spoils it’s reaped by protecting its economy.“China in the last 40 years had more growth, I think, than any country in history. It’s an astonishing miracle what they did. But they did it behind tariff walls. They did it behind markets that are not accessible. They did it with other approaches to intellectual property than are shared in the developed world,” said Schwarzman. “So their desire to give all that up and their growth rate is obviously low.”"
Coming Soon in China: ‘Social Credit’ for Companies, Too - WSJ - "Privacy has always been a narrower concept in China than the West. Chinese-speaking foreigners can expect taxi drivers to grill them about their income, marital status and other matters that strangers in the West usually avoid. And private electronic communications aren’t really private from the government.The flip side is that information doesn’t actually flow well through society. Censorship and a Party-centric court system make whistleblowing difficult and dangerous, creating plenty of opportunities for corporate and official malfeasance. Losers are often small or foreign companies without good official contacts to bend the rules for them. Corporate social credit is meant, at least in part, to address this problem—without fundamental social changes, like freeing the press, that could endanger Communist Party rule... Compliance costs will rise—and that ripple effect means even minor infractions could cause severe damage. And the evolving requirements will be harder for small businesses to keep track of.Also, some of the rating factors are political or highly discretionary. For example, under draft regulations released for comment in July, companies could be blacklisted for endangering national or public interest or for “infringing the legitimate rights and interests of customers.” U.S. companies are doubtless contemplating such stipulations with deep disquiet."
China to place government officials in 100 companies including Alibaba - "The directive, which media said was part of the Hangzhou government’s “New Manufacturing Plan,” is reportedly an attempt to boost manufacturing and bolster the local economy in the eastern province of Zhejiang... Despite claiming that the move in Hangzhou is no more than an “innovative” economic strategy, inserting government officials inside private firms further raises concerns about state influence at Chinese companies.Under Chinese law, organizations can be forced to hand over data to the state if requested to do so."
Editor of nationalist Global Times questions Beijing’s online censorship – then deletes the post - "The editor of mainland nationalist newspaper Global Times pushed back against Beijing’s tightened internet controls in the lead-up to China’s 70th anniversary celebrations in a now-deleted social media post... China’s state media has had to jump the Great Firewall in recent years after central government gave it the job of telling the country’s story to the outside world."
China to test journalists on loyalty to Xi Jinping to get credentials renewed - "Chinese journalists will now be required to pass a test that evaluates their understanding of Xi Jinping Thought, the socialist text created by the Chinese leader, to keep their press credentials... As it stands, China is already one of the worst countries for journalists to operate. Reporters Without Borders ranked the country 177th out of 180 countries earlier this year. The only countries below China in the rankings were Eritrea and North Korea. Although the test is not expected to be difficult, journalists who fail will only be able to retake the exam once."
Why China is Hiding the Horrors of Its Past - "For the CCP, the purpose of historical study is not to understand past mistakes to ensure they are not repeated, an extremely important goal for a nation with the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward in the living memory of much of its population. The purpose of history is to serve the political and ideological goals of the government... While the CCP has, for decades, treated historical knowledge both as a potential threat, as well as a tool for generating an extreme breed of nationalism, it has grown more hostile towards a wide range of historical facts under President Xi Jinping. In 2018, the People’s Daily reported that Xi declared, “We must clearly stand against the wrong view of history, establish a correct view of history with rational discernment, and ensure that Socialism with Chinese Characteristics in the New Era always follows the correct course.”... Until 2019, national middle-school history textbooks had an entire chapter on the Cultural Revolution, showing the movement in a distinctly negative light... In 2019, the Ministry of Education released a new version of the textbook in which the Cultural Revolution material was significantly shortened and combined with other periods... [it] also downplays the erroneous and tragic nature of the Cultural Revolution by saying “Nothing happens smoothly in the world, and history is always advancing in ups and downs.”... a document was leaked online from the National Radio and Television Administration that required TV and internet series to not only avoid discussing history, but avoid drawing any parallels with real historical events or time periods... The Chinese Communist Party under Xi Jinping has good reason to reduce awareness of the excesses of the Mao period, including the Cultural Revolution: many of President Xi Jinping’s policies and campaigns bear significant resemblance to this period. In 2018, Xi Jinping’s government launched a massive, nationwide campaign called “Eliminate the Dark and Evil Forces.” Both this campaign and the Cultural Revolution were attempts to consolidate personal power over the political system and society. Though billed in China’s English-language media as merely a campaign against organized crime, it is in fact much more far-reaching and ideological in its aims. Similar to the Cultural Revolution, it aims to purge society of “impure” elements. The targets of this campaign vary by jurisdiction. In multiple locations it has targeted and demonized doctors, as did the Cultural Revolution. In Hunan province, it targeted HIV patients, the mentally ill, and parents who have lost their child as “Dark and Evil Forces.” It has also gone after corrupt party officials with connections to local mafia, making the campaign a convenient excuse to take out political enemies within the party, a liberty that Mao made extensive use of in the 1960s. Similar to the Mao-era, the campaign ramps up propaganda dissemination, with local governments encouraged to install public propaganda about the “Dark and Evil Forces.” Frequent visitors to China will notice that, since around 2015, ideological propaganda banners have become omnipresent. Earlier this year, Chinese netizens reacted with fury to pictures of a massive red banner above the entrance to a Kindergarten saying, “Insist on starting early to nip the evil forces in the bud.” Another similarity between Xi and Mao’s rule is that citizens are encouraged to inform on one another to the authorities, creating a culture of fear and self-censorship"
China's Study the Great Nation app 'enables spying via back door' - "The Chinese Communist Party has gained the ability to spy on more than 100 million citizens via a heavily promoted official app, a report suggests.Analysis of the Study the Great Nation app found hidden elements that could help monitor use and copy data, said phone security experts Cure 53.The app gives the government "super-user" access, the security firm said... The app pushes out official news and images and encourages people to earn points by reading articles, commenting on them and playing quizzes about China and its leader, Xi Jinping.Use of the app is mandatory among party officials and civil servants and it is tied to wages in some workplaces.Starting this month, native journalists must pass a test on the life of President Xi, delivered via the app, in order to obtain a press card which enables them to do their jobs."
China’s Hidden Navy – Foreign Policy - "Chinese fishing boats in the islands average more than 500 tons, well over the size legally required for boats undertaking international voyages to use Automatic Identification System (AIS) transceivers, which broadcast identifying information, headings, and other data about oceangoing vessels. But fewer than 5 percent of them actually broadcast AIS signals at any given time. This suggests a fleet intent on hiding its numbers and actions.These large, modern vessels represent a stunning level of sunk capital costs but do not engage in much commercial activity. Frequent satellite imagery shows that the vessels spend nearly all of their time anchored, often in large clusters. This is true whether they are inside the lagoons at Subi and Mischief Reefs or loitering elsewhere in the Spratlys. Operating in such close quarters is highly unusual and certainly not the way commercial fishing vessels usually operate."
Inside China's audacious global propaganda campaign - "Of course, influence campaigns are nothing new; the US and the UK, among others, have aggressively courted journalists, offering enticements such as freebie trips and privileged access to senior officials. But unlike those countries, China’s Communist party does not accept a plurality of views. Instead, for China’s leaders, who regard the press as the “eyes, ears, tongue and throat” of the Communist party, the idea of journalism depends upon a narrative discipline that precludes all but the party-approved version of events. For China, the media has become both the battlefield on which this “global information war” is being waged, and the weapon of attack... Analysing CCTV’s coverage of the 2014 Ebola outbreak in west Africa, Marsh found that 17% of stories on Ebola mentioned China, generally emphasising its role in providing doctors and medical aid. “They were trying to do positive reporting,” says Marsh. “But they lost journalistic credibility to me in the portrayal of China as a benevolent parent.” Far from telling Africa’s story, the overriding aim appeared to be emphasising Chinese power, generosity and centrality to global affairs... Xinhua was set up in 1931, well before the Communists took power in China, and as the party mouthpiece, its jargon-laden articles are used to propagate new directives and explain shifts in party policy. Many column inches are also spent on the ponderous speeches and daily movements of Xi Jinping, whether he is meeting the Togolese president, examining oversized vegetables or casually chatting to workers at a toy-mouse factory.Describing his work at Xinhua, the former employee said: “You’ve got to think it’s like creative writing. You’re combining journalism with a kind of creative writing.”... “There’s no clear goal other than to identify cracks in a system and exploit them.” One example would be highlighting the chaotic and unpredictable nature of Australian politics – which has seen six prime ministers in eight years – as a way of undermining faith in liberal democracy. “Part of my brief was to find ways to exert that influence. It was never written down, I was never given orders”... Edwards, like other former employees of China’s state-media companies, felt that the vast majority of his work was about domestic signalling, or telegraphing messages that demonstrated loyalty to the party line in order to curry favour with senior officials. Any thoughts of how his work was furthering China’s international soft power goals came a distant second. But since Edwards left in 2014, Xinhua has begun looking outwards; one sign of this is the existence of its Twitter account – followed by 11.7 million people – even though Twitter is banned in China... When the Dalai Lama did come to visit Canada in 2012, one journalist in Xinhua’s Ottawa bureau, Mark Bourrie, was placed in a compromising position. On the day of the visit, Bourrie was told to use his parliamentary press credentials to attend the Tibetan spiritual leader’s press conference, and to find out what had happened in a closed-door meeting with the then prime minister, Stephen Harper. When Bourrie asked whether the information would be used in a piece, his boss replied that it would not. “That day I felt that we were spies,” he later wrote. “It was time to draw the line.” He returned to his office and resigned... His experience is not unusual... Even under new ownership, the SCMP treads a delicate line on China, continuing to run granular political analysis and original reporting on sensitive issues such as human rights lawyers and religious crackdowns. Though pages are free from Xinhua copy, cynics joke the paper itself is transmogrifying into a kind of China Daily-lite, with increasing prominence given to stories about Xi Jinping, pro-Beijing editorials and politically on-message opinion pieces. All this is combined with constant, fawning coverage of owner Jack Ma, memorably described by the paper as a “modern-day Confucius”... a journal once seen as a paper of record was effectively running a forced confession on behalf of the Chinese state."
Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman China economic 'miracle' hurt US economy - "Stephen Schwarzman, the billionaire co-founder of investment powerhouse Blackstone, told CNBC on Tuesday that China knows it must change its trade and business practices but it’s reluctant to do so because of the spoils it’s reaped by protecting its economy.“China in the last 40 years had more growth, I think, than any country in history. It’s an astonishing miracle what they did. But they did it behind tariff walls. They did it behind markets that are not accessible. They did it with other approaches to intellectual property than are shared in the developed world,” said Schwarzman. “So their desire to give all that up and their growth rate is obviously low.”"
Coming Soon in China: ‘Social Credit’ for Companies, Too - WSJ - "Privacy has always been a narrower concept in China than the West. Chinese-speaking foreigners can expect taxi drivers to grill them about their income, marital status and other matters that strangers in the West usually avoid. And private electronic communications aren’t really private from the government.The flip side is that information doesn’t actually flow well through society. Censorship and a Party-centric court system make whistleblowing difficult and dangerous, creating plenty of opportunities for corporate and official malfeasance. Losers are often small or foreign companies without good official contacts to bend the rules for them. Corporate social credit is meant, at least in part, to address this problem—without fundamental social changes, like freeing the press, that could endanger Communist Party rule... Compliance costs will rise—and that ripple effect means even minor infractions could cause severe damage. And the evolving requirements will be harder for small businesses to keep track of.Also, some of the rating factors are political or highly discretionary. For example, under draft regulations released for comment in July, companies could be blacklisted for endangering national or public interest or for “infringing the legitimate rights and interests of customers.” U.S. companies are doubtless contemplating such stipulations with deep disquiet."
China to place government officials in 100 companies including Alibaba - "The directive, which media said was part of the Hangzhou government’s “New Manufacturing Plan,” is reportedly an attempt to boost manufacturing and bolster the local economy in the eastern province of Zhejiang... Despite claiming that the move in Hangzhou is no more than an “innovative” economic strategy, inserting government officials inside private firms further raises concerns about state influence at Chinese companies.Under Chinese law, organizations can be forced to hand over data to the state if requested to do so."
Editor of nationalist Global Times questions Beijing’s online censorship – then deletes the post - "The editor of mainland nationalist newspaper Global Times pushed back against Beijing’s tightened internet controls in the lead-up to China’s 70th anniversary celebrations in a now-deleted social media post... China’s state media has had to jump the Great Firewall in recent years after central government gave it the job of telling the country’s story to the outside world."
China to test journalists on loyalty to Xi Jinping to get credentials renewed - "Chinese journalists will now be required to pass a test that evaluates their understanding of Xi Jinping Thought, the socialist text created by the Chinese leader, to keep their press credentials... As it stands, China is already one of the worst countries for journalists to operate. Reporters Without Borders ranked the country 177th out of 180 countries earlier this year. The only countries below China in the rankings were Eritrea and North Korea. Although the test is not expected to be difficult, journalists who fail will only be able to retake the exam once."
Why China is Hiding the Horrors of Its Past - "For the CCP, the purpose of historical study is not to understand past mistakes to ensure they are not repeated, an extremely important goal for a nation with the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward in the living memory of much of its population. The purpose of history is to serve the political and ideological goals of the government... While the CCP has, for decades, treated historical knowledge both as a potential threat, as well as a tool for generating an extreme breed of nationalism, it has grown more hostile towards a wide range of historical facts under President Xi Jinping. In 2018, the People’s Daily reported that Xi declared, “We must clearly stand against the wrong view of history, establish a correct view of history with rational discernment, and ensure that Socialism with Chinese Characteristics in the New Era always follows the correct course.”... Until 2019, national middle-school history textbooks had an entire chapter on the Cultural Revolution, showing the movement in a distinctly negative light... In 2019, the Ministry of Education released a new version of the textbook in which the Cultural Revolution material was significantly shortened and combined with other periods... [it] also downplays the erroneous and tragic nature of the Cultural Revolution by saying “Nothing happens smoothly in the world, and history is always advancing in ups and downs.”... a document was leaked online from the National Radio and Television Administration that required TV and internet series to not only avoid discussing history, but avoid drawing any parallels with real historical events or time periods... The Chinese Communist Party under Xi Jinping has good reason to reduce awareness of the excesses of the Mao period, including the Cultural Revolution: many of President Xi Jinping’s policies and campaigns bear significant resemblance to this period. In 2018, Xi Jinping’s government launched a massive, nationwide campaign called “Eliminate the Dark and Evil Forces.” Both this campaign and the Cultural Revolution were attempts to consolidate personal power over the political system and society. Though billed in China’s English-language media as merely a campaign against organized crime, it is in fact much more far-reaching and ideological in its aims. Similar to the Cultural Revolution, it aims to purge society of “impure” elements. The targets of this campaign vary by jurisdiction. In multiple locations it has targeted and demonized doctors, as did the Cultural Revolution. In Hunan province, it targeted HIV patients, the mentally ill, and parents who have lost their child as “Dark and Evil Forces.” It has also gone after corrupt party officials with connections to local mafia, making the campaign a convenient excuse to take out political enemies within the party, a liberty that Mao made extensive use of in the 1960s. Similar to the Mao-era, the campaign ramps up propaganda dissemination, with local governments encouraged to install public propaganda about the “Dark and Evil Forces.” Frequent visitors to China will notice that, since around 2015, ideological propaganda banners have become omnipresent. Earlier this year, Chinese netizens reacted with fury to pictures of a massive red banner above the entrance to a Kindergarten saying, “Insist on starting early to nip the evil forces in the bud.” Another similarity between Xi and Mao’s rule is that citizens are encouraged to inform on one another to the authorities, creating a culture of fear and self-censorship"
China's Study the Great Nation app 'enables spying via back door' - "The Chinese Communist Party has gained the ability to spy on more than 100 million citizens via a heavily promoted official app, a report suggests.Analysis of the Study the Great Nation app found hidden elements that could help monitor use and copy data, said phone security experts Cure 53.The app gives the government "super-user" access, the security firm said... The app pushes out official news and images and encourages people to earn points by reading articles, commenting on them and playing quizzes about China and its leader, Xi Jinping.Use of the app is mandatory among party officials and civil servants and it is tied to wages in some workplaces.Starting this month, native journalists must pass a test on the life of President Xi, delivered via the app, in order to obtain a press card which enables them to do their jobs."
Post ID: 325375405020544135
Why you need to stop baking bread
A satirical (?) article
Why you need to stop baking bread (since deleted)
Caren White
I was walking down the baking aisle to see if the organic flour was on sale. Organic flour is expensive and I am poor so I always try to buy it when it goes on sale. There was no sale and no flour. The shelves were bare. My eyes travelled up to the top shelf. The shelf with the leavening ingredients. Also bare.
How could this be?
When I got home, I logged on to my laptop and started reading articles on the pandemic. I had stopped reading most pandemic related articles weeks ago because they were upsetting me too much. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t concentrate. I needed to distance myself. But I knew that the pandemic had something to do with the bare shelves in the baking aisle so I exposed myself to the turmoil once more.
It seems that there has been a run on flour and yeast because people are bored so they are baking bread to pass the time.
Seriously?
Baking bread is a way of life for me, not a hobby. Not something to do just to pass the time. I don’t eat store-bought bread. I rarely eat prepared foods of any kind. If you visited my kitchen, you would find food but nothing to eat because I only stock ingredients. I do all of my own cooking and baking. On Saturday nights, I don’t order pizza, I make it. From scratch. Including the crust. I also grow my own popcorn, but that’s a topic for another day.
You see, I am one of THOSE people. You know the ones. You offer them a plate of food and they look at it suspiciously asking “Is that organic?” I want to know what is in my food so I make it myself. By the way, croutons? Made from my homemade bread. Breading for fried chicken? Made from my homemade bread. Stuffing for the Thanksgiving turkey? Made from my homemade bread. So when you buy up all of the flour and leavening ingredients for the sake of pretty photos on your Instagram feed you are literally taking food from my mouth. And the mouths of other families who also do their own their baking so that they can provide healthy food for their families.
Here’s the problem. It’s Economics 101. Supply and Demand. Before the pandemic, very few people did scratch baking so the grocery stores carried only limited supplies of flour and leavening. Both go bad, so they don’t want it hanging around the shelves for too long. Hence the limited quantities. That was okay. There was always enough for those of us who needed it. But there is not enough now that we are competing with a bunch of dilettante bakers who care nothing for anyone but themselves.
Yes, I know that sounds harsh, but I’m willing to bet that not a single one of them stopped to think as they grabbed the last of the flour and the yeast that they were robbing other people’s children of their daily bread. Nope. I’m certain all they cared about was how impressed everyone was going to be with their picture perfect loaves of bread.
Here’s an idea. If you are bored and want to learn new skills, why don’t you learn how to garden and impress everyone with your tomatoes? Or how about learning how to sew to make masks for hospitals and first responders? I know, learn to crochet so you can make those cute market bags for when you go to the farmer’s market.
But, please, please, I’m begging you, stop baking bread.
Why you need to stop baking bread (since deleted)
Caren White
I was walking down the baking aisle to see if the organic flour was on sale. Organic flour is expensive and I am poor so I always try to buy it when it goes on sale. There was no sale and no flour. The shelves were bare. My eyes travelled up to the top shelf. The shelf with the leavening ingredients. Also bare.
How could this be?
When I got home, I logged on to my laptop and started reading articles on the pandemic. I had stopped reading most pandemic related articles weeks ago because they were upsetting me too much. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t concentrate. I needed to distance myself. But I knew that the pandemic had something to do with the bare shelves in the baking aisle so I exposed myself to the turmoil once more.
It seems that there has been a run on flour and yeast because people are bored so they are baking bread to pass the time.
Seriously?
Baking bread is a way of life for me, not a hobby. Not something to do just to pass the time. I don’t eat store-bought bread. I rarely eat prepared foods of any kind. If you visited my kitchen, you would find food but nothing to eat because I only stock ingredients. I do all of my own cooking and baking. On Saturday nights, I don’t order pizza, I make it. From scratch. Including the crust. I also grow my own popcorn, but that’s a topic for another day.
You see, I am one of THOSE people. You know the ones. You offer them a plate of food and they look at it suspiciously asking “Is that organic?” I want to know what is in my food so I make it myself. By the way, croutons? Made from my homemade bread. Breading for fried chicken? Made from my homemade bread. Stuffing for the Thanksgiving turkey? Made from my homemade bread. So when you buy up all of the flour and leavening ingredients for the sake of pretty photos on your Instagram feed you are literally taking food from my mouth. And the mouths of other families who also do their own their baking so that they can provide healthy food for their families.
Here’s the problem. It’s Economics 101. Supply and Demand. Before the pandemic, very few people did scratch baking so the grocery stores carried only limited supplies of flour and leavening. Both go bad, so they don’t want it hanging around the shelves for too long. Hence the limited quantities. That was okay. There was always enough for those of us who needed it. But there is not enough now that we are competing with a bunch of dilettante bakers who care nothing for anyone but themselves.
Yes, I know that sounds harsh, but I’m willing to bet that not a single one of them stopped to think as they grabbed the last of the flour and the yeast that they were robbing other people’s children of their daily bread. Nope. I’m certain all they cared about was how impressed everyone was going to be with their picture perfect loaves of bread.
Here’s an idea. If you are bored and want to learn new skills, why don’t you learn how to garden and impress everyone with your tomatoes? Or how about learning how to sew to make masks for hospitals and first responders? I know, learn to crochet so you can make those cute market bags for when you go to the farmer’s market.
But, please, please, I’m begging you, stop baking bread.
Post ID: 1442672140005471246
Links - 4th May 2020 (1) (China's 'peaceful' rise)
US China trade war: China was already in trouble. Trump just made it worse - "As Beijing considers how to cushion the blow from trade, it'll also have to weigh the country's other major challenge: debt. China’s total debt surged to 271% of gross domestic product last year, from 164% before the global financial crisis"
China's Food Is Only Going to Get Pricier - "The first step in addressing this challenge would be to recognize the seriousness of African swine fever and armyworm. There’s little evidence Beijing has done that. Instead, Chinese officials have been snuffing out critical media coverage, underreporting data and putting an all-too-rosy sheen on their response to the crisis, not unlike what we saw with SARS in the early 2000s"
Worries grow in Singapore over China’s calls to help ‘motherland’ - "Some scholars have highlighted what they call a worrying trend that has seen China increasingly blurring the distinction between huaqiao (Chinese citizens overseas) and huaren (ethnic Chinese of all nationalities).At an overseas Chinese work conference last year, President Xi Jinping stressed the need to bring together people of Chinese descent around the world — up to 60 million ethnic Chinese in more than 180 countries — to enjoy the “Chinese dream”.“The realisation of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation requires the joint efforts of Chinese sons and daughters at home and abroad,” said Mr Xi, according to Xinhua, China’s state-run news agency.Scholars say the focus on strengthening ties with overseas Chinese signals a major shift away from Beijing’s previous, more hands-off approach to diaspora relations. “There is a sense that the emphasis now is on how all ethnic Chinese share a similar origin and therefore should be more sympathetic to a P.R.C. perspective”"
BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Monday's business with Rob Young - "The options China has, they've already pursued, which is to say they can allow their currency to fall in value against the dollar. And they already have done that. And then the fall in the value of the yuan or the renminbi against the dollar is exactly enough to offset the effective increase in the tariff rate that's been imposed thus far by Donald Trump's administration since he took office"
Strange how China doesn't manipulate its currency, yet the currency devalued by such a neat amount
Australian university staff refuse China’s request for passport information to teach joint class in Sydney - "Academics at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) have refused a demand from the Chinese Ministry of Education for their passport numbers and dates of birth, to be able to continue to teach a joint Chinese-Australian course in Sydney.Twenty-one UTS academic staff were told they were required to disclose their passport numbers and dates of birth as part of a Chinese government review... The Australian National University was hacked by a foreign agent in June, compromising the personal details of thousands of students and staff. Australian intelligence officials publicly said China was the likely origin of the attack, saying it was one of only a handful of countries capable of successfully pulling off the massive breach of 19 years of data."
US China trade war: China was already in trouble. Trump just made it worse - "As Beijing considers how to cushion the blow from trade, it'll also have to weigh the country's other major challenge: debt. China’s total debt surged to 271% of gross domestic product last year, from 164% before the global financial crisis, according to estimates by Bloomberg Economics. That’s left officials wary of rolling out any broad-based stimulus."
Chinese-authored spyware found on more than 700 million Android phones - "The researchers discovered that Adups’ firmware transmitted data packets to a Chinese server every 72 hours. These packets contained user’s call logs, text messages, contact lists, GPS location and other data... Though flaws in software are commonly exploited to exfiltrate private information, that isn’t what happened between Adups and BLU. Instead, it appears that a backdoor was purposefully installed without the knowledge of retailers or the customers eventually relying on those devices."
The backlash is growing against Xi Jinping in China and around the world - "As a leader, Xi is unique in post-revolutionary party politics in not having any identifiable domestic rival or successor, largely because he has ensured that none have been allowed to emerge. But Xi has earned himself an array of what we might called "bad enemies" and "good enemies" since taking office in late 2012.They range from the once-rich and powerful families he destroyed in his anti-corruption campaign, all the way to the small-r reformers angered by his illiberal rollback of the incremental institutional advances of the reform period.Forced to lay low initially because of the dangers of challenging him outright, Xi's critics at home have begun to find their voice. They have been outspoken mainly on economic policy, but the deeper undercurrents of their criticisms are unmistakeable. The sons of former top leaders, revered scholars who guided China's economic miracle, frustrated private entrepreneurs and academics furious about Xi's unrelenting hardline -- all have complained in multiple public forums, in speeches, in online postings and in widely circulated essays at home and offshore, about Xi's policies and style. "Something strange is happening in Xi Jinping's China," wrote Ian Johnson in the New York Review of Books. In what was supposed to be the "perfect dictatorship", the country was witnessing "the most serious critique of the system in more than a decade, led by people inside China who are choosing to speak out now, during the most sensitive season of the most sensitive year in decades.""
China Lost the United States First – Foreign Policy - "the shift has been driven by the Chinese government long before U.S. President Donald Trump began his trade war. Since Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, China has been a far less welcoming place for foreigners, especially foreign businesses, than it claims to be. Meanwhile, amid countless examples of unacceptable behavior by Chinese authorities inside the country’s borders, the Chinese government’s propaganda apparatus is operating at full steam in claiming that Chinese citizens and companies are being treated unfairly abroad. The new milieu in bilateral relations also stems, in part, from the United States’ long overdue reaction to the inequitable ways in which China treats U.S. persons and companies at home and overseas... Much has been reported on scrutiny of the foreign business community and unjust detention of foreign citizens such as Michael Kovrig, the former Canadian diplomat held as a hostage by China after the United States requested the extradition of a Huawei executive from Canada. Many are also aware of the almost inevitable surveillance foreigners encounter from the moment they cross the border. Foreigners risk a complete abrogation of their individual rights and any form of legal recourse or due process upon entering the country—putting them, of course, in the same position as the vast majority of Chinese citizens.But this reality is treated as a given by U.S. diplomats and private citizens living in China. Intimidation, lack of privacy, and worse are par for the course. The muted response to U.S. diplomats in China being subjected to unexplained possible sonic attacks in 2017 and 2018 underscores how such activity has become accepted as normal. The interrogation of a Koch Industries executive, reported in July, is representative of the typical scrutiny that high-profile foreign businesspeople endure but fail to publicize for fear of retribution or the impact on their bottom line. Even in official high-level meetings, senior U.S. diplomats and business executives are waltzed into Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, subjected to long-winded, talking point-ridden conversations with Chinese counterparts, and then shooed out—usually without any meaningful outcome... More broadly, foreigners regularly tolerate other less-than-reciprocal arrangements in China. Outside of a few dozen special cases, there is effectively no route to permanent immigration or even established residence in China; even long-term foreign residents often deal with visa issuance on a year-by-year basis. Foreign employees are forced to pay into a pensions and social security system that no one, so far, has been able to tap into.Foreign journalists, who are private citizens permitted to work in China, are treated as covert operatives of their country of origin and routinely have their visas revoked for doing their job... Chinese state media, meanwhile, is free to spew government-backed narratives and disinformation throughout the Western world. And it’s an open secret that some journalists from Xinhua, China’s main state media agency, operate as spies overseas in the same way as Soviet correspondents once did. Much of this trend can be attributed to initiatives launched under the reign of Xi Jinping... it is unsurprising that the foreign business community, which has traditionally promoted engagement in times of strategic distrust, began souring on China’s prospects for reform even before the trade war... If China wants to be treated as an equal, it can start by giving U.S. citizens in China—and all foreigners, for that matter—the respect it asks for its own citizens in the United States... China ought to start behaving like the benevolent global actor it claims to be. If it doesn’t, it will become a global pariah, risking the instability that it so often professes to avoid."
China's Belt and Road Plan Is Destroying the World - "Most Chinese-financed, coal-fired power plants built overseas use low-efficiency, subcritical coal technology, which produces some of the highest emissions of any form of power generation. Thus, China is destroying the environment."
New study uncovers China's massive hidden lending to poor countries - "More than half of China's lending to developing countries is what they term "hidden" money — loans that haven't been reported to any of the international funds, such as the World Bank.Indeed, economist and author of the report, Tresbesch, recently told Germany's Spiegel in an interview following the release of the study's findings, that compiling all of the information was like "a kind of economic archeology." Their information came from numerous financial world databases, along with some documents provided courtesy of the CIA...
"It's more or less safe to say that Chinese companies employ less local labor than other companies because they bring over many Chinese workers, and when they develop local infrastructure, they provide countries with loans which are being used to pay for it, which is then constructed by Chinese companies and Chinese labor."... China has started talking about being more transparent and sustainable on their loans in the future. But no clear evidence of this taking place has yet to materialize."
China, Not Russia, the Greater Threat - "China steals our intellectual property via cybertheft, forces U.S. companies in China to transfer technology, hacks our computers, dumps into our markets to put U.S. companies out of business, subsidizes state-owned enterprises to compete with U.S. firms, manipulates its currency, and, despite our protests, ships to the USA the fentanyl drug that has become a major killer of Americans... For three years, the U.S. establishment has not ceased to howl about Russia’s theft of emails of the DNC and Hillary Clinton campaign.Yet the greatest cybercrime of the century was Beijing’s theft in 2014 of the personnel files of 22 million applicants and employees of the U.S. government, many of them holding top-secret clearances... Undeniably, Russia is a rival. But Putin’s economy is the size of Italy’s while China’s economy challenges our own. And China’s population is 10 times that of Russia, and four times that of the USA."
China’s Second Century of Humiliation - "China’s first century of humiliation was forced upon it by colonial powers. Now, China is at the beginning of a second century of humiliation, albeit of a much different kind. This time, Xi Jinping and the CCP will bear responsibility. Xi’s China is a norms-busting, human rights-violating bully and thief among the community of nations... In 2015, Xi stood beside U.S. President Barack Obama in the White House’s Rose Garden and pledged that “China does not intend to pursue militarization” of the South China Sea. By this time China’s construction of artificial islands throughout the disputed territory was already well underway. Though the military implications of these facilities were always obvious, it has become increasingly clear that Xi’s Rose Garden promise was a bald-faced lie... Xi has also lied to the world about China’s economic engagement and trade policies. At the World Economic Forum in January 2017, Xi delivered a speech that made headlines across the globe, portraying China as the world’s new champion of globalization and open markets. Casting the United States as a protectionist and isolationist force in global trade, Xi alleged that “China must have the courage to swim in the vast ocean of the global market… China took a brave step to embrace the global market.”Our national debate over trade notwithstanding, the argument that China will become the world’s leading force for economic globalization is preposterous on its face. Xi presides over closed and protected markets, has instead injected greater Party control into even private business, and shamelessly promotes plans for tech dominance through protectionism, forced technology transfer, and outright theft. The CCP uses China’s massive consumer market to intimidate private industry in furtherance of its political goals, such as when individual companies are targeted for simply recognizing the reality that Taiwan exists as a distinct political entity. Xi intends not to lead the global economic order, but to leech its benefits while avoiding its obligations. Xi has sought to portray China as a positive influence and democratizing force on the world stage, when in reality his signature foreign policy initiatives rely on the predation and abuse of less powerful countries, and seek to undermine global democracy. At the 19th CCP Congress in November 2017, Xi said that “China stands for democracy in international relations and the equality of all countries, big or small.”"
China's Food Is Only Going to Get Pricier - "The first step in addressing this challenge would be to recognize the seriousness of African swine fever and armyworm. There’s little evidence Beijing has done that. Instead, Chinese officials have been snuffing out critical media coverage, underreporting data and putting an all-too-rosy sheen on their response to the crisis, not unlike what we saw with SARS in the early 2000s"
Worries grow in Singapore over China’s calls to help ‘motherland’ - "Some scholars have highlighted what they call a worrying trend that has seen China increasingly blurring the distinction between huaqiao (Chinese citizens overseas) and huaren (ethnic Chinese of all nationalities).At an overseas Chinese work conference last year, President Xi Jinping stressed the need to bring together people of Chinese descent around the world — up to 60 million ethnic Chinese in more than 180 countries — to enjoy the “Chinese dream”.“The realisation of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation requires the joint efforts of Chinese sons and daughters at home and abroad,” said Mr Xi, according to Xinhua, China’s state-run news agency.Scholars say the focus on strengthening ties with overseas Chinese signals a major shift away from Beijing’s previous, more hands-off approach to diaspora relations. “There is a sense that the emphasis now is on how all ethnic Chinese share a similar origin and therefore should be more sympathetic to a P.R.C. perspective”"
BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Monday's business with Rob Young - "The options China has, they've already pursued, which is to say they can allow their currency to fall in value against the dollar. And they already have done that. And then the fall in the value of the yuan or the renminbi against the dollar is exactly enough to offset the effective increase in the tariff rate that's been imposed thus far by Donald Trump's administration since he took office"
Strange how China doesn't manipulate its currency, yet the currency devalued by such a neat amount
Australian university staff refuse China’s request for passport information to teach joint class in Sydney - "Academics at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) have refused a demand from the Chinese Ministry of Education for their passport numbers and dates of birth, to be able to continue to teach a joint Chinese-Australian course in Sydney.Twenty-one UTS academic staff were told they were required to disclose their passport numbers and dates of birth as part of a Chinese government review... The Australian National University was hacked by a foreign agent in June, compromising the personal details of thousands of students and staff. Australian intelligence officials publicly said China was the likely origin of the attack, saying it was one of only a handful of countries capable of successfully pulling off the massive breach of 19 years of data."
US China trade war: China was already in trouble. Trump just made it worse - "As Beijing considers how to cushion the blow from trade, it'll also have to weigh the country's other major challenge: debt. China’s total debt surged to 271% of gross domestic product last year, from 164% before the global financial crisis, according to estimates by Bloomberg Economics. That’s left officials wary of rolling out any broad-based stimulus."
Chinese-authored spyware found on more than 700 million Android phones - "The researchers discovered that Adups’ firmware transmitted data packets to a Chinese server every 72 hours. These packets contained user’s call logs, text messages, contact lists, GPS location and other data... Though flaws in software are commonly exploited to exfiltrate private information, that isn’t what happened between Adups and BLU. Instead, it appears that a backdoor was purposefully installed without the knowledge of retailers or the customers eventually relying on those devices."
The backlash is growing against Xi Jinping in China and around the world - "As a leader, Xi is unique in post-revolutionary party politics in not having any identifiable domestic rival or successor, largely because he has ensured that none have been allowed to emerge. But Xi has earned himself an array of what we might called "bad enemies" and "good enemies" since taking office in late 2012.They range from the once-rich and powerful families he destroyed in his anti-corruption campaign, all the way to the small-r reformers angered by his illiberal rollback of the incremental institutional advances of the reform period.Forced to lay low initially because of the dangers of challenging him outright, Xi's critics at home have begun to find their voice. They have been outspoken mainly on economic policy, but the deeper undercurrents of their criticisms are unmistakeable. The sons of former top leaders, revered scholars who guided China's economic miracle, frustrated private entrepreneurs and academics furious about Xi's unrelenting hardline -- all have complained in multiple public forums, in speeches, in online postings and in widely circulated essays at home and offshore, about Xi's policies and style. "Something strange is happening in Xi Jinping's China," wrote Ian Johnson in the New York Review of Books. In what was supposed to be the "perfect dictatorship", the country was witnessing "the most serious critique of the system in more than a decade, led by people inside China who are choosing to speak out now, during the most sensitive season of the most sensitive year in decades.""
China Lost the United States First – Foreign Policy - "the shift has been driven by the Chinese government long before U.S. President Donald Trump began his trade war. Since Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, China has been a far less welcoming place for foreigners, especially foreign businesses, than it claims to be. Meanwhile, amid countless examples of unacceptable behavior by Chinese authorities inside the country’s borders, the Chinese government’s propaganda apparatus is operating at full steam in claiming that Chinese citizens and companies are being treated unfairly abroad. The new milieu in bilateral relations also stems, in part, from the United States’ long overdue reaction to the inequitable ways in which China treats U.S. persons and companies at home and overseas... Much has been reported on scrutiny of the foreign business community and unjust detention of foreign citizens such as Michael Kovrig, the former Canadian diplomat held as a hostage by China after the United States requested the extradition of a Huawei executive from Canada. Many are also aware of the almost inevitable surveillance foreigners encounter from the moment they cross the border. Foreigners risk a complete abrogation of their individual rights and any form of legal recourse or due process upon entering the country—putting them, of course, in the same position as the vast majority of Chinese citizens.But this reality is treated as a given by U.S. diplomats and private citizens living in China. Intimidation, lack of privacy, and worse are par for the course. The muted response to U.S. diplomats in China being subjected to unexplained possible sonic attacks in 2017 and 2018 underscores how such activity has become accepted as normal. The interrogation of a Koch Industries executive, reported in July, is representative of the typical scrutiny that high-profile foreign businesspeople endure but fail to publicize for fear of retribution or the impact on their bottom line. Even in official high-level meetings, senior U.S. diplomats and business executives are waltzed into Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, subjected to long-winded, talking point-ridden conversations with Chinese counterparts, and then shooed out—usually without any meaningful outcome... More broadly, foreigners regularly tolerate other less-than-reciprocal arrangements in China. Outside of a few dozen special cases, there is effectively no route to permanent immigration or even established residence in China; even long-term foreign residents often deal with visa issuance on a year-by-year basis. Foreign employees are forced to pay into a pensions and social security system that no one, so far, has been able to tap into.Foreign journalists, who are private citizens permitted to work in China, are treated as covert operatives of their country of origin and routinely have their visas revoked for doing their job... Chinese state media, meanwhile, is free to spew government-backed narratives and disinformation throughout the Western world. And it’s an open secret that some journalists from Xinhua, China’s main state media agency, operate as spies overseas in the same way as Soviet correspondents once did. Much of this trend can be attributed to initiatives launched under the reign of Xi Jinping... it is unsurprising that the foreign business community, which has traditionally promoted engagement in times of strategic distrust, began souring on China’s prospects for reform even before the trade war... If China wants to be treated as an equal, it can start by giving U.S. citizens in China—and all foreigners, for that matter—the respect it asks for its own citizens in the United States... China ought to start behaving like the benevolent global actor it claims to be. If it doesn’t, it will become a global pariah, risking the instability that it so often professes to avoid."
China's Belt and Road Plan Is Destroying the World - "Most Chinese-financed, coal-fired power plants built overseas use low-efficiency, subcritical coal technology, which produces some of the highest emissions of any form of power generation. Thus, China is destroying the environment."
New study uncovers China's massive hidden lending to poor countries - "More than half of China's lending to developing countries is what they term "hidden" money — loans that haven't been reported to any of the international funds, such as the World Bank.Indeed, economist and author of the report, Tresbesch, recently told Germany's Spiegel in an interview following the release of the study's findings, that compiling all of the information was like "a kind of economic archeology." Their information came from numerous financial world databases, along with some documents provided courtesy of the CIA...
"It's more or less safe to say that Chinese companies employ less local labor than other companies because they bring over many Chinese workers, and when they develop local infrastructure, they provide countries with loans which are being used to pay for it, which is then constructed by Chinese companies and Chinese labor."... China has started talking about being more transparent and sustainable on their loans in the future. But no clear evidence of this taking place has yet to materialize."
China, Not Russia, the Greater Threat - "China steals our intellectual property via cybertheft, forces U.S. companies in China to transfer technology, hacks our computers, dumps into our markets to put U.S. companies out of business, subsidizes state-owned enterprises to compete with U.S. firms, manipulates its currency, and, despite our protests, ships to the USA the fentanyl drug that has become a major killer of Americans... For three years, the U.S. establishment has not ceased to howl about Russia’s theft of emails of the DNC and Hillary Clinton campaign.Yet the greatest cybercrime of the century was Beijing’s theft in 2014 of the personnel files of 22 million applicants and employees of the U.S. government, many of them holding top-secret clearances... Undeniably, Russia is a rival. But Putin’s economy is the size of Italy’s while China’s economy challenges our own. And China’s population is 10 times that of Russia, and four times that of the USA."
China’s Second Century of Humiliation - "China’s first century of humiliation was forced upon it by colonial powers. Now, China is at the beginning of a second century of humiliation, albeit of a much different kind. This time, Xi Jinping and the CCP will bear responsibility. Xi’s China is a norms-busting, human rights-violating bully and thief among the community of nations... In 2015, Xi stood beside U.S. President Barack Obama in the White House’s Rose Garden and pledged that “China does not intend to pursue militarization” of the South China Sea. By this time China’s construction of artificial islands throughout the disputed territory was already well underway. Though the military implications of these facilities were always obvious, it has become increasingly clear that Xi’s Rose Garden promise was a bald-faced lie... Xi has also lied to the world about China’s economic engagement and trade policies. At the World Economic Forum in January 2017, Xi delivered a speech that made headlines across the globe, portraying China as the world’s new champion of globalization and open markets. Casting the United States as a protectionist and isolationist force in global trade, Xi alleged that “China must have the courage to swim in the vast ocean of the global market… China took a brave step to embrace the global market.”Our national debate over trade notwithstanding, the argument that China will become the world’s leading force for economic globalization is preposterous on its face. Xi presides over closed and protected markets, has instead injected greater Party control into even private business, and shamelessly promotes plans for tech dominance through protectionism, forced technology transfer, and outright theft. The CCP uses China’s massive consumer market to intimidate private industry in furtherance of its political goals, such as when individual companies are targeted for simply recognizing the reality that Taiwan exists as a distinct political entity. Xi intends not to lead the global economic order, but to leech its benefits while avoiding its obligations. Xi has sought to portray China as a positive influence and democratizing force on the world stage, when in reality his signature foreign policy initiatives rely on the predation and abuse of less powerful countries, and seek to undermine global democracy. At the 19th CCP Congress in November 2017, Xi said that “China stands for democracy in international relations and the equality of all countries, big or small.”"
Post ID: 7775915615284212712
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