Sandbox (4)

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Sometimes very active discussions about peripheral issues overwhelm a thread, so this is a permanent home for those conversations.

I’ve opened a new “Sandbox” thread as a post as the new “ignore commenter” plug-in only works on threads started as posts.

4,217 thoughts on “Sandbox (4)”

  3. That you know their names at all shows the value of a free press.

    https://rsf.org/en/china

    By relying on the extensive use of new technology, President Xi Jinping has succeeded in imposing a social model in China based on control of news and information and online surveillance of its citizens. At the same time, he has been trying to export this oppressive model by promoting a “new world media order” under China’s influence.

    Perhaps it’s something to do with the 49+ journalists currently in prison:
    https://cpj.org/data/imprisoned/2019/?status=Imprisoned&cc_fips%5B%5D=CH&start_year=2019&end_year=2019&group_by=location

    Get them out and perhaps you’ll start to hear some real news that the party has not approved.

    I guess all those journalists are in prison legitimately, probably ‘terrorism’ offences? Presumably as you are happy to have hundreds of thousands in camps what difference does 49 more make. And you are happy about those camps, after all we don’t want ‘terrorists’ on the streets!

    But do tell me about the journalists imprisoned in the USA for going against the state. Your whataboutism fails there doesn’t it?

  4. https://cpj.org/data/people/ilham-weli/

    Urumqi police arrested journalist Ilham Weli in July 2018. He is detained at an undisclosed location on the accusation of being “two-faced,” although no formal charges have been disclosed.

    Police in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region arrested Weli, deputy editor-in-chief of the state-owned newspaper Xinjiang Daily, in late July 2018 for being a “two-faced” official who secretly opposes government policies in the region, according to the U.S. Congress-funded Radio Free Asia (RFA). Three of Weli’s colleagues were also arrested as accomplices in August 2018, RFA reported.

    Xinjiang Daily‘s human resources director Liu Jianrong confirmed the arrest and referred RFA to the newspaper’s Party Discipline Committee for details of Weli’s case, according to RFA. The Party Discipline Committee told RFA that a working group dispatched by the Party committee investigated the newspaper in early July 2018 and concluded that Weli was “two-faced,” meaning openly supporting but secretly opposing government policy. RFA said it could not determine what evidence was being used against Weli. The “two-faced” accusation does not have a legal basis, `but is often used when the Chinese government considers a person rebellious.

    Better not rebel eh phoodoo? You might get both kidneys taken….

  5. OMagain,

    No journalists in the United States were killed and none were imprisoned at the beginning of the month. But 110 journalists in the U.S. were arrested and criminally charged in 2020, and around 300 were assaulted, many while covering protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death, according to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.

    I am pretty sure none of them were assaulted for putting their feet in their mouth, but who knows? You might.

    Louie Gohmert. Hollywood!

  6. “A spike in censorship: Israel censored on average one news piece a day in 2018”
    OMagain,

    The spike in censorship compared to 2017 is significant: in the last year, the IDF Censor prevented the publication of 92 more articles than it did in the year prior, while it partially or fully redacted an additional 625 stories. Over the past eight years, the censor has prohibited a total of 2,661 news stories from seeing the light of day.

    All media outlets in Israel are required to submit articles relating to security and foreign relations to the IDF Censor for review prior to publication. The censor draws its authority from “emergency regulations,” enacted following Israel’s founding, and which remain in place until today. These regulations allow the censor to fully or partially redact an article, while barring media outlets from indicating in any way whether a story has been altered. Over recent years, however, more and more journalists in Israel have been using the term “censor approved” in their reporting.

    In recent years, the censor has tried to expand the scope of its power to review information prior to publication into the online world, including by notifying independent blogs and digital publications, like +972 Magazine, that they must submit certain articles for review. (Read more about censorship and +972.)

    While legal criteria defining the IDF Censor’s mandate are both strict and quite broad, the decision of which stories to submit for review remains in the hands of editors at Israeli media outlets. In 2018, journalists submitted 10,938 stories for review, fewer than in the previous year (11,035). The decline in the number of stories filed, coupled with the rise in the censor’s intervention, could indicate that editors are learning what is or is not of actual importance to the censor, leading them to be more selective in what they file. Alternatively, the decline may be a result of media outlets publishing fewer articles on security-related issues.

    Wait, is this why you are being so quiet on this? If you need, you can just nod your yarmulke twice. די אייבערשטער זאל דיך בענטשען.

  7. phoodoo: And Palestine?

    Yeah, Israel’s treatment of the inhabitants of the occupied Palestinian territories is pretty disgraceful as well.
    I do not deny that many places on earth have a pretty bad record with regard to human rights. The fact that this list is long does negate the fact that China is firmly in that list.

  8. If someone was here defending the treatment of Gaza by Israel I’d be arguing with them over that as well. It’s apartheid over again.

    But they are not. Likewise nobody defending the existence of Guantanamo bay. What happened there was awful.

    But apparently nothing bad happens in China at all. If people are in camps it’s because phoodoo believes they deserve it

    All those people, all terrorists, just think!

  9. Corneel,

    So Israel disgraceful. The US disgraceful. I am just wondering why I brought up how disgraceful they are, and not you.

    But anyway, glad you are not being accused of whataboutism by Alan, like Omagain. You and I agree the US is one of the worst human rights abusers on the planet ever. And Israel. So there is some common ground.

    WhataboutOmagain knows it too.

  11. phoodoo: So Israel disgraceful. The US disgraceful. I am just wondering why I brought up how disgraceful they are, and not you.

    You already know the answer to that, don’t you? Alan keeps telling you:

    phoodoo: But anyway, glad you are not being accused of whataboutism by Alan, like Omagain. You and I agree the US is one of the worst human rights abusers on the planet ever. And Israel. So there is some common ground.

    You’re welcome. Repressive regimes and its adherents usually get really testy when their human rights violations are being pointed out to them. Making those violations visible is always a first step.

  12. phoodoo:…US is one of the worst human rights abusers on the planet ever. And Israel.

    Synecdoche! Many US citizens opposed the Viet Nam war. Many opposed the US invasion of Iraq. I suspect many Israelis dream of an equitable and long-lasting solution to the Palestinian problem.

  13. Alan Fox:
    phoodoo,

    I suggested you, phoodoo, were the primary “whataboutist”in this discussion.

    Oh that’s right. I was thinking about an alternative universe, the one where you are honest. How silly of me.

  14. phoodoo: Oh that’s right.I was thinking about an alternative universe, the one where you are honest.How silly of me.

    So I remarked here on your whataboutism. What, pray, is dishonest about the remark?

  15. Alan Fox: I suspect many Israelis dream of an equitable and long-lasting solution to the Palestinian problem.

    From what I understand many in the younger generations are not keen on what is being done in their name.

    However, as usual, I suspect it’s the people like phoodoo that are doing what they believe god has told them to do keeping the oppression going. As oppression in the name of ‘righteousness’ is not oppression at all. Or at least that’s what I’ve learnt from phoodoo. Call someone a terrorist and put them in a camp and steal their organs? They deserved everything that was coming to them.

    RIght phoodoo?

  16. Alan Fox: So I remarked here on your whataboutism. What, pray, is dishonest about the remark?

    phoodoo only has conversations, a back and forth on a particular point, when he has nothing to lose. Being called out like that is not something he’ll engage with. He’s made the point that you are dishonest, actually engaging further with that will benefit him not at all. He’ll then be in the world of “evidence” and as we know he’s happy to have tens or hundreds of thousands of people in “re-education camps” on the flimsiest say-so of people who have everything to gain by lying. They were “terrorists”. All of them. So someone said to phoodoo, so phoodoo believes. And when asked he’ll repeat what he’s paid to say like a good little doggy.

    Unless, of course, you pay him. Then he’ll spout the party line, however absurd, whatever it may be. Or have a conversation. Or do whatever it is he does that he’s the best in the world at…..

    Remind me phoodoo, what is your job that you claim to be the best at the world at?

  17. US is one of the worst human rights abusers on the planet ever. And Israel.

    You know what, you are right. And if that’s a bad thing it’s logical that countries that are even worse then the US and Israel are considered by you to be even worse then them.

    Yet this chart disagrees: https://ourworldindata.org/human-rights

    No doubt they are part of the Epoch Times or whatever excuse you’ll have to why that particular dataset is invalid. But seems to show if we compare the USA to China then if the US is one of the worst human rights abusers in the world then China is far, far worse then that.

    And yet do I hear you condemning China or making “excuses” for them?

    No. Rather you spout this:

    phoodoo: The people who are jailed are suspected of conspiring to do terrorist harm. They don’t jail people because they are Uighurs or Muslims. But again, when you try to make excuses for the US violations when they outweigh EVERY other countries on the planet, how can you turn that around to claim it is I who is trying to spin the truth?

    According to that chart and set of data that’s simply untrue. US violations are a rounding error compared to China.

    I know that dealing with facts and evidence is not your thing. After all, you’ve been fooled by a man who bends spoons and literally said he’s a stage magician and has no PSI powers.

    So when you say that the US violations outweigh EVERY other country is that part of the “big lie” technique your propagandist handlers have taught you?

    Sure, not *all* Uighurs or Muslims are in Jail. According to your best understanding how many are?

    That’d be one of those “facts” you have trouble with.

  18. OMagain: Remind me phoodoo, what is your job that you claim to be the best at the world at?

    He’s told me more than once he’s involved in rice cultivation. I assumed he was joking but perhaps not.

  19. I suspect it’s part of his cover story.

    phoodoo: I have said it here before, I interact with a lot of Chinese people on a daily basis; people who know things about America and the rest of the world. I can tell you with utmost certainty, the Chinese right now view America as an absolute joke. They are almost dumbfounded by what a mess the place has become. I know of virtually no one who wants to live there right now. It is no exaggeration to say I hear this hundreds and hundreds of times every week.

    That was his first comment in the sequence.

    Rumraket: Bullshit.

    Rum quoted the bolded sentence in that response also, so it’s clear that that claim in bold was being called out.

    phoodoo: You once again talking with zero knowledge is no surprise at all.
    I would venture to say that there is almost no one on the planet who has more knowledge of this subject than I. Do you know my job?

    But go ahead, keep sticking your chin out and pretending you know things.

    So it seems clear to me his “job” involves knowing the opinions of hundreds and hundreds of people on that specific subject.

    I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that if he’s having that conversation hundreds and hundreds of times a week it’s a ploy to find a westerner who will talk to native Chinese as someone who you’d expect to be sympathetic to any pro USA views, whereas phoodoo is actually acting on behalf of the surveillance state acting to find those with views that differ.

    Unless you like to explain how, phoodoo, you have that same conversation with ever person you talk to about rice farming……

  20. Alan Fox: So I remarked here on your whataboutism. What, pray, is dishonest about the remark?

    I want to ask you a serious question. Are you on the autistic spectrum? I am not joking. One of the classical characteristics of autism is the inability to understand jokes, sarcasm, or teasing.

    Why do you think I said you were accusing Omagain of whataboutsim? You don’t know why? Because it was sarcasm, based on the absurdity of you accusing ME of using whataboutsim, and being totally and completely unaware that this is exactly what Omagain and Corneel were doing. Its like there is a void in your brain. In fact the void is so large, that YOU also were one of the primary people who repeatedly tried to pull the so called “whatabout” nonsense.

    If you may recall, as you bury your head in the sand and pretend you see nothing, these discussions began because of the ridiculous situation in the US regarding the spectacle of a retarded president, and the mess that they call democracy. THUS, anything that strayed from THAT topic and anyone who tried to steer the conversation away from THAT conversation were the ones doing “whatabout” you dillweed!

    But I guess I shouldn’t expect you to understand any of this Alan. Maybe its genetic. Maybe autistic people don’t even know they are autistic. Its not your fault.

    But it is Omagains.

  21. phoodoo,
    As to autism, you are the first to suggest I might be on the spectrum in seventy years of my existence. But you might be right, I have heard of folks getting well into middle age undiagnosed. Julian Assange was recently claimed to have Asperger’s syndrome.

  22. phoodoo,

    Anyway, whataboutism isn’t confined to your comments here, it’s a widespread way of clouding discussion on a specific topic. But you seem to be defending your whataboutism by indulging in more whataboutism.

  23. phoodoo,

    And whatabout Trump? Nobody is more pleased than me at his imminent and ignominious departure from the US presidency.

  24. Alan Fox: But you seem to be defending your whataboutism by indulging in more whataboutism.

    It’s his only option really, given defending the indefensible needs more of a rhetorical flair then poor phoodoo can muster.

    It’s logically really, they are in the terrorist camps because they are terrorists. And not all of them are in camps, therefore only the ones that need to be are, therefore the policy is fair as if it was not fair they’d all be in the camps! That’s only logical right? Oh, and I’m going to see a man bend spoons with his mind tonight, fancy coming?

  25. Alan Fox:
    phoodoo,
    As to autism, you are the first to suggest I might be on the spectrum in seventy years of my existence. But you might be right, I have heard of folks getting well into middle age undiagnosed. Julian Assange was recently claimed to have Asperger’s syndrome.

    If they did, I don’t think you would have noticed.

  27. Alan Fox: I noticed you suggesting it.

    Pure projection. phoodoo, out of the two of you who believes that a dog can predict when their owner is returning via PIS powers? Out of the two of you who thinks that a man can bend a spoon with the power of his mind, despite having to hold the spoon in his hands?

    Somebody is on some spectrum, and it’s you phoodoo. And it’s probably a handy talent in your line of work, paid belief.

  31. walto,

    Thanks. That looks interesting.

    I should mention that I saw the link to your 3:16am interview in Brian Leiter’s blog.

    My personal view of elections, is that I try to vote for someone whose judgment I can mostly trust. I’m assuming that’s about what you mean by the “trustee” idea.

  33. I rarely look at the New York Times online newspaper but an article was linked elsewhere and I followed it.

    In a Topsy-Turvy Pandemic World, China Offers Its Version of Freedom

    Any thoughts, phoodoo.

    Citizens of China don’t have freedom of speech, freedom of worship or freedom from fear — three of the four freedoms articulated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt — but they have the freedom to move around and lead a normal day-to-day life. In a pandemic year, many of the world’s people would envy this most basic form of freedom.

    I wonder if you have bumped into Duncan Clark. He seems to share some of your experiences.

    “The ability to just live a normal life is pretty amazing,” he said.

  34. Alan Fox,

    There is freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom from fear. Anyone who thinks otherwise has never lived here. You just can’t start a riot.

    Of the one and a half billion people here about four people total care about this. It’s freer here than virtually any condominium association rules living anywhere in America. It’s not even close.

  36. https://www.wired.com/story/inside-chinas-massive-surveillance-operation/

    Atawula is one of around 34,000 Uyghurs in Turkey. She is unable to contact any of her relatives—via phone, WeChat, or any other app. “I feel very sad when I see other people video chatting with their families,” she says. “I think, why can’t we even hear the voice of our children?”

    For Uyghurs in Xinjiang, any kind of contact from a non-Chinese phone number, though not officially illegal, can result in instant arrest. Most Uyghurs in Turkey have been deleted by their families on social media. And many wouldn’t dare try to make contact, for fear Chinese authorities would punish their relatives. It’s just one of the ways President Xi Jinping’s government maintains a tightly controlled net of surveillance over the Uyghurs in China, and it has a ripple effect on Uyghurs living all over the world.

    Freedom indeed!

  37. There is demonstrably not ‘freedom from fear’ for certain groups in China. That phoodoo thinks there is indicates that the people who are in fear don’t count as people, at least to phoodoo.

    Sounds a bit like how the Nazi’s justified what they did.

  38. Hey, Is anyone with a NYT online subscription willing to do me a favor?
    I have fallen afoul of their AI-assisted moderation, and I would at minimum like to let people know why I am not responding in a thread I started.
    I’m aware of the irony.

  40. DNA_Jock,

    Don’t have a subscription but had a look out of curiosity. Gave up after several “page not found” returns. I recommend the Guardian. It’s free and should remain so for the foreseeable future.

  42. For an insight into how fucked up American capitalism is, read about what is happening with Robinhood and some of the other apps that are restricting buying of some stocks in order to help the large hedge funds which were shorting stocks, and then got ripped because individual investors decided to play against the hedge funds. This is just insane. What possible legal framework can make this possible?

    They want to rig the game any way possible so large institutions have no risk, and then can just play with the market anyway they want, buy and sell stocks others can’t, use microtrades, and every other boondoggle you can think of and never thought of before, and the public investors get totally screwed. Its 100% like a casino, where the casino can decide if you gamble too well, or start winning too much they can just kick you out. How can a casino get a license and then have the right to only open to those who lose money?

    Isn’t capitalism sweet?

  43. Robinhood is going to get their asses sued but they are probably banking on the fact that the US supreme court is also so rigged that they will probably get away with this.

  44. Bodycam Video Shows 9-Year-Old Girl Handcuffed, Pepper-Sprayed By Police
    Police in Rochester, New York, were responding to a family disturbance call when officers forced the child into the back of a police car.

    The head of the Rochester police union was concerned about the affect this arrest might have on the poor police officers.

    Mike Mazzeo, president of the Locust Club, which is the Rochester police union, also spoke to reporters on Sunday, dismissing concerns about the child’s psychological experience of being handcuffed and pepper-sprayed by officers.

    Mazzeo further expressed concern for the officers’ psychological well-being after the incident. “Some of those officers probably didn’t even get a chance to discuss it until when, hours later?” he said.

    This is NOT from the onion. What a country.

  45. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGHyFW8WfnY

    “These prisoners {in Guantanamo} have been out of touch for the past 20 years {without charges, without a trial, without lawyers, without press able to see them,without habeas corpus}, they don’t have any new information for us, they are really no use to us anymore, we should just kill them. All of them.”

    Brain Kilmeade on Fox News.

    The US has some moral superiority? Fuck you Omagain.

  46. phoodoo: The US has some moral superiority? Fuck you Omagain.

    Did I say it did? Did I say that Guantanamo should be kept open? No, rather that’s what you have convinced yourself I have said, that that’s the argument I’m making and the one you choose to respond to. You are mistaken. While such places exist the USA cannot tell other countries not to behave in such a way. They have no such moral superiority. It’s just that what China is doing is even worse! The sheer numbers!

    No, rather it’s you that is advocating for camps like Guantanamo. You don’t have a problem with such camps if the correct ethnic group is being imprisoned. You have already said that all the people in such camps in China deserve to be there. That they are terrorists and are there for a reason. You are happy they are there.

    So for the record:

    I don’t support Guantanamo.
    I don’t support re-education camps in China

    phoodoo does not support Guantanamo
    phoodoo does support re-education camps in China, as long as the ‘right’ people are there.

    I don’t have to say fuck you phoodoo, as literally everything I write says that from beginning to end, just in a longer way.

    phoodoo: This is NOT from the onion. What a country.

    Your concern for the children is admirable. Yet worse is happening closer to home you don’t seem to care about: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/16/thousands-of-uighur-children-orphaned-by-chinese-detention-papers-show

    Thousands of Uighur children appear to have been left without parents as their mothers or fathers were forced into Chinese internment camps, prison and other detention facilities, according to evidence from government documents in Xinjiang.

    Records compiled by officials in southern Xinjiang and analysed by the researcher Adrian Zenz indicate that in 2018 more than 9,500 mostly Uighur children in Yarkand county were classified either as experiencing “single hardship” or “double hardship” depending on if one or both parents were detained.

    China has some moral superiority? Hardly.

  47. phoodoo: Its 100% like a casino, where the casino can decide if you gamble too well, or start winning too much they can just kick you out. How can a casino get a license and then have the right to only open to those who lose money?

    Sounds awful. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System

    The social credit initiative calls for the establishments of unified record system for individuals, businesses and the government to be tracked and evaluated for trustworthiness.

  48. OMagain,

    I don’t even buy your premise, but I am glad you agree that the acts of the US government are despicable, and preclude the US from making any authoritative judgement about anyone else, based on their horrible human rights record.

  49. phoodoo: I don’t even buy your premise, but I am glad you agree that the acts of the US government are despicable, and preclude the US from making any authoritative judgement about anyone else, based on their horrible human rights record.

    I don’t give a fuck what or if you are glad about anything, collaborator.

  50. Does China have a horrible human rights record phoodoo? That’s what’s in question. That’s all that’s ever been in question. That’s what you refuse to acknowledge.

    And we already know your answer, those in camps deserve to be there. Disgusting

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