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Chinese imperialism and future Australian sovereignty

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Pi Gemini



Joined: 13 Feb 2006
Location: SA

PostPosted: Mon May 25, 2020 4:30 pm
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^ yes but most people, generally progressives, are too sh!t scared to say anything negative about the Chinese Communist party or China because they think its racist if you do (a completely byzantine thought process) . So they just ignore it because it doesn't suit the narrative.

Considering the amount threads on the orangutan ride currently taking place it makes a change to point out the obvious; that one party communist states are danger to themselves and everyone else.

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pietillidie 



Joined: 07 Jan 2005


PostPosted: Mon May 25, 2020 5:49 pm
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^Chinese nationalism is a frightening force, to be sure.

On the other hand, tyrannical rule at this stage of development — while you'd obviously rather it not exist at all — is commonplace and existed in our own history, so it's a complicated story. You can't ask people to not want to escape dire poverty. This basic human drive is conveniently overlooked by those who would rather other people suffer than have to deal with them. News flash: those in dire poverty don't always drop dead for our benefit, hence the present predicament.

But what's America's excuse?

From Vietnam to Iraq, all the US has done for half a century is drag Australia into criminal violence against peasants fighting for their lives. And look what it has done to the Aussie economy. The GFC crashed it once, while the disastrous mismanagement of the pandemic has crashed it again, this time arguably in a tag-team effort with China. But for several years before the pandemic, Trump's trade war on China was already suppressing Australia's economic growth, grinding it down as collateral damage.

The most disturbing thing here is that everything levelled at China can be levelled at the US — but only one of the two is a developing country trying to climb out of extreme poverty, and has indeed succeeded in bringing hundreds of millions of people out of extreme poverty. The other is actually going backwards and pushing its citizens into poverty.

Moreover, only one of the two is driven by sick, warmongering religious extremists who deny healthcare to citizens, wave guns around like nutters, deny teenage girls the right to use medical science to control their futures, and now willfully spread disease rather than control it.

Even worse, Trump is a dangerous mental case who is above the law and has created his own fiefdom of toadies every bit as bad as a one party state, but far less competent because he has driven out rather than appropriated the nation's talent. The Communist party educates its toadies; Trump purges the educated and hires clueless conmen.

I do wish we had a moral leg to stand on when engaging China and in fact had a coherent position from which to influence it. Alas, Australia's most notable stances on anything over the past two decades have been its dim-witted criminal membership of the Coalition of the Willing, boat people panic, and the scuppering of climate change efforts as the world centre of whacko denialism.

David, I would worry far more about the political revolving door with mining and fossil fuels than the ALP, and the great facilitator of that has been the Glibs. Australian politics is full of Glib toadies falling over themselves to sell out to the highest bidder, even as they pretend otherwise by stirring up populist nonsense.

But the biggest story here by miles is the pathetic state of Anglosphere politics and culture as it Brexits, Trumps, self-harms, denies and scapegoats its way to a decline rooted in self-entitlement and dim-witted histrionics. China is just another cowardly excuse for failing to get our act together.

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Last edited by pietillidie on Mon May 25, 2020 6:02 pm; edited 1 time in total
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David Libra

I dare you to try


Joined: 27 Jul 2003
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PostPosted: Mon May 25, 2020 6:00 pm
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Pi wrote:
^ yes but most people, generally progressives, are too sh!t scared to say anything negative about the Chinese Communist party or China because they think its racist if you do (a completely byzantine thought process) . So they just ignore it because it doesn't suit the narrative.

Considering the amount threads on the orangutan ride currently taking place it makes a change to point out the obvious; that one party communist states are danger to themselves and everyone else.


Maybe it depends on which circles one moves in, but I know of few people on the left in my networks who are unwilling to criticise the Chinese government when pushed. The trouble is that they really need to be pushed – and I don’t think that’s about fear of being called racist, I think it’s because they don’t really care. It’s just not on their radar most of the time.

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David Libra

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PostPosted: Mon May 25, 2020 6:27 pm
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pietillidie wrote:
^Chinese nationalism is a frightening force, to be sure.

On the other hand, tyrannical rule at this stage of development — while you'd obviously rather it not exist at all — is commonplace and existed in our own history, so it's a complicated story. You can't ask people to not want to escape dire poverty. This basic human drive is conveniently overlooked by those who would rather other people suffer than have to deal with them. News flash: those in dire poverty don't always drop dead for our benefit, hence the present predicament.

But what's America's excuse?

From Vietnam to Iraq, all the US has done for half a century is drag Australia into criminal violence against peasants fighting for their lives. And look what it has done to the Aussie economy. The GFC crashed it once, while the disastrous mismanagement of the pandemic has crashed it again, this time arguably in a tag-team effort with China. But for several years before the pandemic, Trump's trade war on China was already suppressing Australia's economic growth, grinding it down as collateral damage.

The most disturbing thing here is that everything levelled at China can be levelled at the US — but only one of the two is a developing country trying to climb out of extreme poverty, and has indeed succeeded in bringing hundreds of millions of people out of extreme poverty. The other is actually going backwards and pushing its citizens into poverty.

Moreover, only one of the two is driven by sick, warmongering religious extremists who deny healthcare to citizens, wave guns around like nutters, deny teenage girls the right to use medical science to control their futures, and now willfully spread disease rather than control it.

Even worse, Trump is a dangerous mental case who is above the law and has created his own fiefdom of toadies every bit as bad as a one party state, but far less competent because he has driven out rather than appropriated the nation's talent. The Communist party educates its toadies; Trump purges the educated and hires clueless conmen.

I do wish we had a moral leg to stand on when engaging China and in fact had a coherent position from which to influence it. Alas, Australia's most notable stances on anything over the past two decades have been its dim-witted criminal membership of the Coalition of the Willing, boat people panic, and the scuppering of climate change efforts as the world centre of whacko denialism.

David, I would worry far more about the political revolving door with mining and fossil fuels than the ALP, and the great facilitator of that has been the Glibs. Australian politics is full of Glib toadies falling over themselves to sell out to the highest bidder, even as they pretend otherwise by stirring up populist nonsense.

But the biggest story here by miles is the pathetic state of Anglosphere politics and culture as it Brexits, Trumps, self-harms, denies and scapegoats its way to a decline rooted in self-entitlement and dim-witted histrionics. China is just another cowardly excuse for failing to get our act together.


I think you indicated something telling about your approach here (and I don’t mean this in an accusatory way, as I think your posts on China are fairer and closer to the truth than most): you say the US has no excuses, which implies that China does – and, indeed, you lay out what that is, which is that China is a developing country and the US already sits on piles of wealth. Whether or not you intend it, it reads as: the US are responsible for their actions and China isn’t responsible for theirs (or is certainly less responsible, at any rate).

But why are we talking about excuses or responsibility to begin with? It seems like a distraction. I know – and everyone here should be able to acknowledge – that our nation’s wealth is a holdover of the brutally gained riches of the British Empire, and that we wouldn’t be in the position we’re in today without it. But if, say, a new empire rose up from Africa, or Eastern Europe, or wherever in fifty years, and began to colonise the world in even half as violent a manner as the British did, I don’t really think we would be inclined to be equivocal about the matter – to sadly observe, "oh well, I guess it’s their turn" and lie down and wait for the country to be pillaged 1788-style. And no, I wouldn’t support the West-is-best chauvinism that would seek to keep the people of those countries in poverty so as to jealously protect our own position of power, either. Basically, the best one could hope for is realpolitik, with a mixture of international leverage to keep any expansionism in check. Forgive me for the convoluted analogy, but questions of moral responsibility in such a scenario just strike me as irrelevant at best and a kind of benign racism at worst. Xi and his circle are every bit as responsible for their political choices as Trump, Putin or Morrison are, of course (or Stalin, for that matter, another moderniser who lifted a lot of people out of poverty with an inconvenient cost to lives and liberties). Tyranny is and never has been an essential aspect of economic development, no matter how many countries have employed it.

Now, as you know, I don’t go in much for the whole personal responsibility discourse and see it as not particularly relevant here. But you can’t have it both ways.

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think positive Libra

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PostPosted: Mon May 25, 2020 6:35 pm
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it is all chinas fault! and they will never admit personal responsibility! if they didnt have such $$%^%%$ backward awful disgusting scumbags dealing in wild animal trades, eating the heads of live bats, etc, none of this happens. none.

the US might not have done a good job containing it, but it was $$%^%%$ china that gave them and the rest of us something to contain.

hes being fair? bullshit, thats your bias.

**** China!

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stui magpie Gemini

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Joined: 03 May 2005
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PostPosted: Mon May 25, 2020 6:54 pm
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China hides behind the term "developing country" while it spends shitpiles tying other countries to it with it's Belt and Road strategy. I'd trust them as far as I could spit Xi, while the USA for all it's faults has been an ally of ours for decades.

As far as David's assertion of our wealth being a result of brutal English occupation, I'm pretty sure that given history no one would prefer to have been colonised by Spain instead of England.

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Morrigu Capricorn



Joined: 11 Aug 2001


PostPosted: Mon May 25, 2020 7:31 pm
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think positive wrote:
it is all chinas fault! and they will never admit personal responsibility! if they didnt have such $�$%^%%$ backward awful disgusting scumbags dealing in wild animal trades, eating the heads of live bats, etc, none of this happens. none.

the US might not have done a good job containing it, but it was $�$%^%%$ china that gave them and the rest of us something to contain.

hes being fair? bullshit, thats your bias.

**** China!


Yep - it’s pointless I posted about the WHO endorsing TCM and the pathetic laws China are introducing that makes it look like they are doing something positive enabled by the WHO endorsement and the animal cruelty and extinction of species that results from this disgraceful non evidence based decision from the organisation who are supposed to be the World leaders and got a lecture about it being the bad orange man’s fault Rolling Eyes

I’ve no love for the septics but every single post is Trump blah blah blah blah - obviously totally his fault that the virus that started in China and spread around the world because of China’s lies and cover ups with the assistance of the “no evidence of human to human transmission” and “no need for travel restrictions” WHO ........ pffttt!

#FuckChina

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pietillidie 



Joined: 07 Jan 2005


PostPosted: Mon May 25, 2020 9:32 pm
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David wrote:
Basically, the best one could hope for is realpolitik, with a mixture of international leverage to keep any expansionism in check. Forgive me for the convoluted analogy, but questions of moral responsibility in such a scenario just strike me as irrelevant at best and a kind of benign racism at worst. Xi and his circle are every bit as responsible for their political choices as Trump, Putin or Morrison are, of course (or Stalin, for that matter, another moderniser who lifted a lot of people out of poverty with an inconvenient cost to lives and liberties). Tyranny is and never has been an essential aspect of economic development, no matter how many countries have employed it.

Now, as you know, I don’t go in much for the whole personal responsibility discourse and see it as not particularly relevant here. But you can’t have it both ways.

First, I don't like it either, but I didn't create our species. We already know there are two perspectives on 'responsibility': a subjective, embodied version which imagines all kinds of things, and a detached scientific version trying to engage whatever is 'out there' with varying degrees of success.

The problem we face is that we can't draw a line between the two because imaginary nonsense has such an effect on the brain that we live in stories to get by on an everyday basis. One of the great subjective stories is the tale of our own magnificence, and how we beat the odds to become wondrous beings. We know this sort of guff is the reflexive position of our species, and it accounts for much of our conscious thought.

This is why I'm not opposed to religion; the brain forces us to dwell in nonsense to make us feel in control, and that feeling of control helps motivate and propel our actions.

Associated with this pervasive subjectivity is our penchant for types and categories. Rather than enumerate the world, which would be physically impossible, we categorise it. So, we talk of 'the Chinese' and 'the English' as if these are meaningful entities. Of course, they're nonsense entities, but much like the tales we tell of our own brilliance they help us feel in control of the world, and by doing so motivate our actions such that we go on and enact such things as nations, laws and racism.

By the same token, in the light of day we also have the capacity to recognise that our shit stinks. We can sense it and catch more-or-less clear glimpses of it, and perhaps even research and write about it. With enough practice, we can reconfigure our categories should the old ones prove problematic, or add riders such as 'I don't mean all Chinese'.

But this is still a struggle, not just because it's difficult, but because our counterparts can keep dragging us back into categories by insisting on them. E.g., we might deny the sentence, 'The Chinese....', only to have a Chinese nationalist or a racist tool insist or assume it to be true the next moment. The result is people resorting to nonsense, even if begrudgingly or contingently. That is, we usually decide to talk nonsense because it's too hard otherwise; however, we also balance that nonsense with riders or co-existing contradictory claims.

The one thing we can't do is live without these stories. That way lies mental illness; again, not because I want it to, but because that's just what happens when people over-dwell in that space. Thus, most of us dip in and out of harsh reality, but quickly resort to macro categories and imagination.

So, the issue here is not whether one is 'having it both ways' — there's no choice and you do it everyday as a matter of course. The issue is whether one is challenging oneself to find better solutions by either deconstructing (dipping out of the story) or reconstructing (creating a new story).

Second, I am here dipping into reality strategically where China is concerned to deconstruct our scapegoating. The claim that we have more options than those under greater survival duress is barely controversial. It is also, I think, represents a far more constructive psychiatry; one that balances our own delusions of grandeur with a dose of humility and understanding where others are concerned.

The psychiatric analogy for our present state-of-mind is this: unlike, say, someone suffering from depression whose harm is self-directed, the newfound sense of our own power and vulnerability is making us manic, here self-loathing, there encouraging violence. The risk is that without a better story, this will result in a lashing out that gets everyone killed.

Third, even the most detached 'facts' we can muster about the world show that brute force will no longer do. We can't attack China to bend it to our control, and trade wars are only foot shots to ourselves. This is the bit driving everyone mad underneath, in my view, and exactly why a new story is required quick smart. How long can we sustain the knowledge that we now don't control everything alongside denialist rhetoric and policy that assumes we still control everything? Something must give.

The worst delusion of all is thinking some faux 'tough man' like Trump will do anything but strengthen China. China already sees itself as being able to withstand greater suffering than ourselves (who could argue?), and can pick Trump a mile off as a blustering clueless nutter. The trap is this: the harder Trump and his protectionist Khmer Rouge go, the more nationalist fodder China has to outlast any moves they come up with. Our crazies go harder, their crazies go harder and the resultant nationalism allows China to carry on, if under duress. Meanwhile, our duress grows as global economic growth shrinks, and our crazies self-destruct.

To my mind, this story is as old as conflict itself. It's why mature people with some control of their emotions and some ability to check themselves against reality learn to compromise and find mutually-beneficial solutions. It's why mature people construct better stories more in tune with the opportunities of the moment and don't trap themselves in self-harming depression or erratic other-harming mania.

Trump and his Khmer Rouge, and the angry dunces of Brexit, simply told the vilest, most self-congratulatory and deluded story getting around, shooting themselves in the foot as they refused to refashion their views to deal with the realities of the big bad world. These stories were juvenile, self-entitled, self-destructive and mutually-destructive, worsening the underlying condition, much like a depressive taking a shot of heroin. Now, they're smashing and grabbing to pay for their habit, and will only be menaces until they're somehow weaned off their addiction to exceptionalism, including the imperialist, nationalist, religious and 'heartland' varietals of the toxin.

This menace extends to gleefully accepting tax cuts for the extremely wealthy at their own expense; voting against their own healthcare and social services; supporting the suppression of the economies with which they trade; allowing their own shared assets to be degraded through the wind back of environmental laws; dismissing the opportunity to further their careers through education formal and informal; mocking efforts to move the economy to new phases that will bring higher-paid opportunities; and electing incompetent and corrupt halfwits who excite and titillate but couldn't manage a church picnic let alone a pandemic, and whose only goals are self-enrichment and self-aggrandisement.

Never before have we seen so many immature, idiotic decisions made over the course of two decades that only serve to bury the same fist wavers deeper in a mire of their own making, even as they blame others and add new layers of delusion to an exceptionalism that is required to mask greater decline by the day.

The notion of 'being tough on China' would be hilarious if it wasn't so idiotically dangerous. The only way China will change is the only way any nation has changed: when younger generations see something better elsewhere and finally reach the end of their tether. That something better includes things like better treatment, fairer laws, more opportunities, greater stability, and more trustworthy institutions.

But if we keep degrading those things, if we keep digger ourselves onto lower ground, that change is never ever going to happen, and you can thank the fist-waving, self-righteous effwits all around you for being too cowardly and immature to look in the mirror and construct better stories for a new time. The denial started with the Coalition of the Willing and Children Overboard, and two decades of stupidity have seen countless opportunities for improvement slide by. We'd best get a move on and create new stories quick smart, is my assessment. I'm willing to meet the angry mob half way, if that's what it takes, creating a new story that moves beyond binary politics and tribalism. But a new story it needs to be.

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think positive Libra

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PostPosted: Mon May 25, 2020 10:04 pm
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<snip – offensive language moderated. Thanks, David for BBMods.>

i only read a few snippets of the above garbage, (4 trumps and a couple of other names for him) and the last line as i knew it would be a tirade of name calling, somethings never change!

#fuckchina!

CHINA DID THIS! all. on. their. own!

and yes WHO are a $$%^%%$ disgrace in all this, you want cowards and liars, thats where to look!

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David Libra

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Joined: 27 Jul 2003
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PostPosted: Mon May 25, 2020 10:35 pm
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stui magpie wrote:
As far as David's assertion of our wealth being a result of brutal English occupation, I'm pretty sure that given history no one would prefer to have been colonised by Spain instead of England.


That’s just pointless whataboutery, though. Not even remotely the point of what I was writing.

(Also, changing the thread title, as I think some posters may be treating it as an invitation... )

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stui magpie Gemini

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PostPosted: Mon May 25, 2020 10:42 pm
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^

Oh Bullshit x 2

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Morrigu Capricorn



Joined: 11 Aug 2001


PostPosted: Mon May 25, 2020 10:51 pm
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stui magpie wrote:
^

Oh Bullshit x 2


Nah bull elephant dung x 15 would be more accurate Rolling Eyes

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think positive Libra

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PostPosted: Mon May 25, 2020 11:03 pm
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think positive wrote:
<snip – offensive language moderated. Thanks, David for BBMods.>

i only read a few snippets of the above garbage, (4 trumps and a couple of other names for him) and the last line as i knew it would be a tirade of name calling, somethings never change!

#fuckchina!

CHINA DID THIS! all. on. their. own!

and yes WHO are a $�$%^%%$ disgrace in all this, you want cowards and liars, thats where to look!


are you $$%^%%$ kidding me?? look at the post above, most of that line was directly taken from your godfather! dont see you moderating him! you could have taken out that one word.

he is the most offensive person here, look at what he calls americans. but thats ok?

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David Libra

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PostPosted: Mon May 25, 2020 11:05 pm
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pietillidie wrote:
David wrote:
Basically, the best one could hope for is realpolitik, with a mixture of international leverage to keep any expansionism in check. Forgive me for the convoluted analogy, but questions of moral responsibility in such a scenario just strike me as irrelevant at best and a kind of benign racism at worst. Xi and his circle are every bit as responsible for their political choices as Trump, Putin or Morrison are, of course (or Stalin, for that matter, another moderniser who lifted a lot of people out of poverty with an inconvenient cost to lives and liberties). Tyranny is and never has been an essential aspect of economic development, no matter how many countries have employed it.

Now, as you know, I don’t go in much for the whole personal responsibility discourse and see it as not particularly relevant here. But you can’t have it both ways.

First, I don't like it either, but I didn't create our species. We already know there are two perspectives on 'responsibility': a subjective, embodied version which imagines all kinds of things, and a detached scientific version trying to engage whatever is 'out there' with varying degrees of success.

The problem we face is that we can't draw a line between the two because imaginary nonsense has such an effect on the brain that we live in stories to get by on an everyday basis. One of the great subjective stories is the tale of our own magnificence, and how we beat the odds to become wondrous beings. We know this sort of guff is the reflexive position of our species, and it accounts for much of our conscious thought.

This is why I'm not opposed to religion; the brain forces us to dwell in nonsense to make us feel in control, and that feeling of control helps motivate and propel our actions.

Associated with this pervasive subjectivity is our penchant for types and categories. Rather than enumerate the world, which would be physically impossible, we categorise it. So, we talk of 'the Chinese' and 'the English' as if these are meaningful entities. Of course, they're nonsense entities, but much like the tales we tell of our own brilliance they help us feel in control of the world, and by doing so motivate our actions such that we go on and enact such things as nations, laws and racism.

By the same token, in the light of day we also have the capacity to recognise that our shit stinks. We can sense it and catch more-or-less clear glimpses of it, and perhaps even research and write about it. With enough practice, we can reconfigure our categories should the old ones prove problematic, or add riders such as 'I don't mean all Chinese'.

But this is still a struggle, not just because it's difficult, but because our counterparts can keep dragging us back into categories by insisting on them. E.g., we might deny the sentence, 'The Chinese....', only to have a Chinese nationalist or a racist tool insist or assume it to be true the next moment. The result is people resorting to nonsense, even if begrudgingly or contingently. That is, we usually decide to talk nonsense because it's too hard otherwise; however, we also balance that nonsense with riders or co-existing contradictory claims.

The one thing we can't do is live without these stories. That way lies mental illness; again, not because I want it to, but because that's just what happens when people over-dwell in that space. Thus, most of us dip in and out of harsh reality, but quickly resort to macro categories and imagination.

So, the issue here is not whether one is 'having it both ways' — there's no choice and you do it everyday as a matter of course. The issue is whether one is challenging oneself to find better solutions by either deconstructing (dipping out of the story) or reconstructing (creating a new story).

Second, I am here dipping into reality strategically where China is concerned to deconstruct our scapegoating. The claim that we have more options than those under greater survival duress is barely controversial. It is also, I think, represents a far more constructive psychiatry; one that balances our own delusions of grandeur with a dose of humility and understanding where others are concerned.

The psychiatric analogy for our present state-of-mind is this: unlike, say, someone suffering from depression whose harm is self-directed, the newfound sense of our own power and vulnerability is making us manic, here self-loathing, there encouraging violence. The risk is that without a better story, this will result in a lashing out that gets everyone killed.

Third, even the most detached 'facts' we can muster about the world show that brute force will no longer do. We can't attack China to bend it to our control, and trade wars are only foot shots to ourselves. This is the bit driving everyone mad underneath, in my view, and exactly why a new story is required quick smart. How long can we sustain the knowledge that we now don't control everything alongside denialist rhetoric and policy that assumes we still control everything? Something must give.

The worst delusion of all is thinking some faux 'tough man' like Trump will do anything but strengthen China. China already sees itself as being able to withstand greater suffering than ourselves (who could argue?), and can pick Trump a mile off as a blustering clueless nutter. The trap is this: the harder Trump and his protectionist Khmer Rouge go, the more nationalist fodder China has to outlast any moves they come up with. Our crazies go harder, their crazies go harder and the resultant nationalism allows China to carry on, if under duress. Meanwhile, our duress grows as global economic growth shrinks, and our crazies self-destruct.

To my mind, this story is as old as conflict itself. It's why mature people with some control of their emotions and some ability to check themselves against reality learn to compromise and find mutually-beneficial solutions. It's why mature people construct better stories more in tune with the opportunities of the moment and don't trap themselves in self-harming depression or erratic other-harming mania.

Trump and his Khmer Rouge, and the angry dunces of Brexit, simply told the vilest, most self-congratulatory and deluded story getting around, shooting themselves in the foot as they refused to refashion their views to deal with the realities of the big bad world. These stories were juvenile, self-entitled, self-destructive and mutually-destructive, worsening the underlying condition, much like a depressive taking a shot of heroin. Now, they're smashing and grabbing to pay for their habit, and will only be menaces until they're somehow weaned off their addiction to exceptionalism, including the imperialist, nationalist, religious and 'heartland' varietals of the toxin.

This menace extends to gleefully accepting tax cuts for the extremely wealthy at their own expense; voting against their own healthcare and social services; supporting the suppression of the economies with which they trade; allowing their own shared assets to be degraded through the wind back of environmental laws; dismissing the opportunity to further their careers through education formal and informal; mocking efforts to move the economy to new phases that will bring higher-paid opportunities; and electing incompetent and corrupt halfwits who excite and titillate but couldn't manage a church picnic let alone a pandemic, and whose only goals are self-enrichment and self-aggrandisement.

Never before have we seen so many immature, idiotic decisions made over the course of two decades that only serve to bury the same fist wavers deeper in a mire of their own making, even as they blame others and add new layers of delusion to an exceptionalism that is required to mask greater decline by the day.

The notion of 'being tough on China' would be hilarious if it wasn't so idiotically dangerous. The only way China will change is the only way any nation has changed: when younger generations see something better elsewhere and finally reach the end of their tether. That something better includes things like better treatment, fairer laws, more opportunities, greater stability, and more trustworthy institutions.

But if we keep degrading those things, if we keep digger ourselves onto lower ground, that change is never ever going to happen, and you can thank the fist-waving, self-righteous effwits all around you for being too cowardly and immature to look in the mirror and construct better stories for a new time. The denial started with the Coalition of the Willing and Children Overboard, and two decades of stupidity have seen countless opportunities for improvement slide by. We'd best get a move on and create new stories quick smart, is my assessment. I'm willing to meet the angry mob half way, if that's what it takes, creating a new story that moves beyond binary politics and tribalism. But a new story it needs to be.


I must confess I'm not entirely sure what you have in mind by a "new story", or where such discourse would begin. If you have any specific thoughts on that, I'd love to hear it. But in the meantime, I do wonder sometimes if your reaction to racists and nationalists is pushing you too far in the other direction; i.e. essentially playing devil's advocate where China is concerned. It's pretty understandable when the dominant discourse is pure hostility (certainly seems to be where this thread is at right now), and anything that resembles nuance and humility – i.e. the acknowledgement of not knowing and of being able to admit to vast information gaps, something that I've learned to accept over the years – becomes highly appealing. But the reason I started this thread is that I feared that that response, which has, to various extents, been present in progressive and certain establishment approaches to China for a long time now (in which anyone vaguely to the left of centre has a laundry list of the various failings and malevolences of any given Republican US administration but can offer nothing more than a shrug of the shoulders at Xi's record), is part of a bigger process of sleepwalking into a situation we can't get out of, in which we're wholly subject and vulnerable to the hegemony of an authoritarian, "unreformed" China.

At times, I've told myself what you say in your penultimate paragraph, that the arrow of national development points towards liberalism and that, whatever the future of our economic reliances, our most cherished freedoms and cultural values will still be preserved. But watching liberalism crumble throughout the West in recent years has been a bit of a reality check, to say the least. I don't think any of us can say for sure that China won't liberalise; but it's certainly looking increasingly possible that their model of authoritarian capitalism will not only survive indefinitely there but also become the new template for the societies around it. And given that spending my last years as a character in a George Orwell novel wasn't exactly high on the list of my life ambitions, I must confess that does scare me a little.

So yeah, I think we're in agreement on the basic stuff: China's economic development should be fostered and supported, and stupid trade wars (or, worse, actual sabre-rattling) are counterproductive and only embolden the nationalist authoritarians on both sides. As much as I loathe our major parties' often mealy-mouthed approach to the relationship, I concede that something like what we've been doing so far is probably the only way forward: treating China as not an ally but as a legitimate world player that we need to have some kind of relationship with, while perhaps keeping one eye open when we go to sleep at night. And of course keep fighting our own cultures' own self-destructive urges, which will be a battle in its own right.

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David Libra

I dare you to try


Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda

PostPosted: Mon May 25, 2020 11:08 pm
Post subject: Reply with quote

stui magpie wrote:
^

Oh Bullshit x 2


Morrigu wrote:
stui magpie wrote:
^

Oh Bullshit x 2


Nah bull elephant dung x 15 would be more accurate Rolling Eyes


think positive wrote:
think positive wrote:
<snip – offensive language moderated. Thanks, David for BBMods.>

i only read a few snippets of the above garbage, (4 trumps and a couple of other names for him) and the last line as i knew it would be a tirade of name calling, somethings never change!

#fuckchina!

CHINA DID THIS! all. on. their. own!

and yes WHO are a $�$%^%%$ disgrace in all this, you want cowards and liars, thats where to look!


are you $�$%^%%$ kidding me?? look at the post above, most of that line was directly taken from your godfather! dont see you moderating him! you could have taken out that one word.

he is the most offensive person here, look at what he calls americans. but thats ok?


Offering life advice might be beyond my remit as a moderator, but I think the three of you need to have a proverbial Bex and a lie-down. It sounds like you're letting emotion get the better of you. I understand that things are tense right now, but I don't see any reason why we can't discuss these issues civilly.

If you can be bothered reading my posts here, you'll see that I and PTID actually disagree on quite a lot on this topic; I just don't feel the need to sling names at him (and I don't see him calling anyone here names either).

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Last edited by David on Mon May 25, 2020 11:10 pm; edited 1 time in total
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