Category Archives: China

UPDATED (8/30): Book ‘In Defense Of Looting’ ‘Argues’ Looting Is ‘Joyous’, Produces ‘Community Cohesion’

China, Crime, Cultural Marxism, Ethics, Free Speech, Intellectualism, Morality, Race, Racism

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We inhabit a culture in which high-brow polemics are banned and banished from the public square by grubby, low-brow, social engineers like Facebook functionaries.

In the same culture, a new kind of Kafka confronts any author whose thoughts veer from those of the mono-cultural mainstream.

Books that enlighten never see the light of day; badly written pamphlets that dim debate find publishers and “respectable” reviewers (for now).

One such immoral enterprise is Vicky Osterweil’s In Defence of Looting: A Riotous History of Uncivil Action.

To its disgrace, the Economist has gone along and dignified the author’s hedonistic “argument” from criminality:

Some civil-rights activists fret that the latest events in Chicago will weaken national support for police reform that has grown in the months since Floyd was killed. The Rev Jesse Jackson called the events in Chicago “humiliating, embarrassing” and “morally wrong” on August 10th. Not everyone agreed.

A few radical activists, including some associated with Black Lives Matter in Chicago, argued that looting can be legitimate. One woman, protesting at a police station that held arrested looters, called it a form of “reparations” for white oppression.

This really is a live debate. Vicky Osterweil, author of “In Defence of Looting: A Riotous History of Uncivil Action”, published this month, sets out the same argument at book length. Looting by the poor, black or otherwise repressed is a radical tactic that brings welcome change, in her view. Peaceful civil-rights demonstrations are too easily ignored, whereas “riots and looting are more effective at attracting attention to a cause”. The shared experience of looting can also be “joyous”, produce “community cohesion”, count as a small act of “direct redistribution of wealth” and, she reckons, does little harm to those who have insurance. She thinks it also leads people to question high levels of inequality.

Her claims are unconvincing. Those who snatched swag from Gucci or Louis Vuitton in order to sell them on hardly share her anti-capitalist views. Nor is it clear that looting spreads solidarity in poor neighbourhoods. The grandmother of the man shot by police condemned the looting. Ms Osterweil might be right, however, that residents of poor areas, who rarely even set foot in the wealthy central parts of their city, are fed up. Looting is not a helpful way to respond, but the resentment at this disparity is real enough …

Osterweil’s political porn has two rotten reader reviews on Amazon:

1. “Poorly written, poorly reasoned.” One star.
2. “Garbage: terrible ideas and a terrible book.” One star.

Yet, is has a rather good Amazon rank. How you ask? The rank is not market-generated, but is due to the corrupt enterprise of university book-buying. State subsidized university libraries have enormous budgets to purchase  drek with which to indoctrinate your kids. They will pay hundreds of dollars a copy.

Down to its libraries, the American universities are corrupt.

China might control thinking in its universities, but do their apparatchiks promote material  meant to make the people thieving, dumb and decadent? Unlikely, considering that the Chinese have a wicked work ethic, low-crime rates and that criminality is severely punished.

UPDATE (8/30):

Here’s the disgrace of In Defense Of Looting, a “book”: someone read the book, endorsed its publication, someone edited it, someone else set it in type, designed a cover, compiled an index, read the proofs. Now people are reviewing it.

NEW COLUMN/YouTube: From Soweto-In-Seattle To Other Sh-thole Places:

China, COVID-19, Economy, Globalism, Ilana Mercer, Ilana On Radio & TV, Nationhood

On July 2, 2020, I joined my favorite broadcaster, “Col. Mike” of the John Fredericks Show, syndicated out of Virginia, for a wide-ranging discussion about the issues of the day—from the Soweto-style shantytowns that had sprung-up in Seattle, to China and the Covid quagmire, to America’s immigration-visa labyrinth, and more.

In his interview style, the Colonel, so dubbed in deference to his military rank, will remind older listeners of the legendary George Putnam (by whom I was honored to be interviewed years back).

To wit, when this columnist ventured that the Seattle police had no business deserting their headquarters and posts; that their first duty was to uphold the negative rights of the citizens of Seattle, not to obey the politicized commands of Police Chief Carmen Best and Mayor Jenny Durkan—Col. Mike, who knows a thing or two about a chain-of-command, roared:

“They should all be fired.”

Businesses looted and boarded-up are currently suing the City of Seattle. This farce was explored during the interview—for who do think will pay for their legal remedy? You, the taxpayer! Taxpayers are subsidizing the degeneracy of politicians like Mayor Jenny, who should be collared and cuffed for abnegating her constitutional duty to uphold the property rights of her constituents.

Spotlighted was the manner in which high-tech was changing the city, draining it of its character and of the many quirky characters that made Seattle what it was.

Discussed, too, was the outsourcing of American lives to China (and India), a matter this column has been covering since the early 2000s. By “lives” we mean the very stuff of life. Not mere jobs; but careers, not just some products, but entire production lines; not one or two manufacturing plants, but the means of production.

More crucially, China didn’t force the traitors of the American economy to shift crucial production lines to its country and strand Americans without surgical and N-95 masks and medication; homegrown turncoats did. Giants of industry and technology, aided by the philosophical pygmies in government: They made these decisions, all by their lonesome.

COVID saw many a Chinese multinational galvanize to ship supplies to the Mother Ship: back home. Ostensibly international, Chinese companies operating in Australia, for example, began vacuuming up tons of medical materials in the host country and beyond, between January 24 and February 29, in order to send back to China.

Indeed, home is where you ship your masks to.

And much more.

The spouse alleges that I blurted out that the sight of policemen and guardsmen across the U.S. kneeling before their black tormentors conjured scenes from the film “Deliverance.” Denied!

If nothing else, you’ll enjoy the debonair Colonel:

https://youtu.be/7Jys1zFJmrU

UPDATED (12/11/020): Home Is Where You Ship Your Masks To: Chinese Multinationals Ship Supplies To The Mother Ship

Business, China, Economy, Globalism, Nationalism, Nationhood, Trade

Liberals think you can easily compel a production line into existence (by using the Defense Production Act, for example). However, to get a production line going is difficult: it’s expensive and time consuming. You might have the design on paper, but you lack the hardware, the tools, the components, and material.

The Economist (4/11/2020):

… the manufacture of masks .. might look simple, but producers need sterile factories and sophisticated machinery to churn out melt-blown fabric. Upfront costs would be hard to justify if the virus were quickly snuffed out. So in January, the early phase of the outbreak, Chinese firms began by scouring the world for masks rather than by making more of their own. It took government action to change that. Officials offered subsidies to firms producing safety gear: promising not outsized gains but an avoidance of losses. China went from making 20m masks per day before the crisis—half the world’s output—to nearly 120m by the end of February.

The Chinese, unlike the American government, took care of business. True: WuFlu originated in China, in the city of Wuhan, in particular. So the Chinese knew in advance they had a bad one on their hands, well before our buffoons awoke to the reality of corona virus.

But it’s not like the US government ever puts its own first, urgently. The Chinese, however, look after their own. Ostensibly international, Chinese companies operating in Australia—Risland and the Greenland Group, in particular—began vacuuming up tons of medical materials, in the host country and beyond, between January 24 and February 29, in order to send back to the Mother Ship, China.

Via the Daily Mail:

China imported more than two billion masks and 25 million pieces of protective clothing from overseas before the coronavirus outbreak reached pandemic levels, it has been revealed.

On Thursday a Chinese government report emerged detailing its foreign trade for the first two months of the year, when the country was at the peak of its virus crisis.

As COVID-19 infections began to spread across the globe in January and February, China saw a ‘rapid growth in imports of commodities and key consumer goods’.

More than 2.46billion pieces of medical materials, including masks and protective equipment, were inspected by National Customs in China between January 24 and February 29, according to the report. …

It comes days after Chinese organisations operating in Australia were reported to have sent bulk medical supplies to China at the height of the crisis.

Chinese-owned property developer Risland Australia was reported to have flown 80 tonnes of medical supplies on a corporate jet to Wuhan in late February.

Video footage emerged showing boxes of surgical masks stacked up at Perth airport before being sent to Wuhan on February 8 – when there were 15 cases of coronavirus in Australia.

Another Chinese property company, Greenland Group, retasked its employees to purchase face masks, hand sanitisers, antibacterial wipes, thermometers, Panadol and other medical items in bulk for shipment to China.

Greenland bought up three million surgical masks, 500,000 pairs of gloves and bulk supplies of sanitiser and antibacterial wipes in Australia and other countries where the company operates.

The goods were hoarded at Greenland’s Sydney headquarters and were sent to China in January and February.

The upshot? The host country, Australia, suffered severe shortages:

… Video footage emerged showing boxes of surgical masks stacked up at Perth airport before being sent to Wuhan on February 8 – when there were 15 cases of coronavirus in Australia.

Another Chinese property company, Greenland Group, retasked its employees to purchase face masks, hand sanitisers, antibacterial wipes, thermometers, Panadol and other medical items in bulk for shipment to China.

Greenland bought up three million surgical masks, 500,000 pairs of gloves and bulk supplies of sanitiser and antibacterial wipes in Australia and other countries where the company operates.

The goods were hoarded at Greenland’s Sydney headquarters and were sent to China in January and February.

MORE.

*Image courtesy Daily Mail.

UPDATE (12/11/020):

“Wall Street can’t fix Trump”: So says a Chinese analyst, DIDONSHENG, speaking to a crowd of super-patriotic Chinese, laughing at Americans and their traitor representatives. The fix is in, BUT, China’s penetration ran into a wall with Trump.

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China Vs. Uncles Sam And Gates

America, China, Critique, Globalism, Nationalism, Paleolibertarianism, Political Economy, Republicans, Science, The State, The West

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I understand the honest, plaintive anger expressed below by American Greatness reader Major Rage, directed at my argument in “Who Invited The World To Infect America?” (“Hate the Chinese government if you wish, but hold your own government responsible for hollowing America out like a husk.”)

The reader had done everything right. He’s a good, obedient American who has served Uncle Sam. And now I’m suggesting he reconsider; that he consider turning on Uncle Sam and its corporate-industrial-complex.

Major Rage • 14 hours ago

I’m disturbed by this article because at the end of it – I felt as though I was supposed to hate myself……as if I had betrayed my family and community. But, I don’t recall ever doing such evil things.

I’ve served my country, started and run a legitimate and profitable business, paid taxes out the ying-yang, put my children through good schools and universities, been faithful to my wife, and generally stayed out of trouble.

Now, a foreign sourced plague has been introduced into our lives – threatening our existence and livelihoods and I’M SUPPOSED TO FEEL GUILTY! Guilty……for what? For not stopping the rich from becoming richer? For not exposing the corrupt for conniving and cheating society? For not preventing mad scientists from monkeying with Mother Nature? For not standing at the jetway with a gun to prevent immigrants coming into my country?

Please tell me, Ilana Mercer, WTF am I guilty of?

The answer is that NO ONE OUTSIDE OF WUHAN OR BEIJING is guilty in this affair. Feelings of guilt are nearly identical to feelings of shame for being a helpless victim. On reflection – this writer strikes the absolute wrong chord by suggesting that we, ourselves, are to blame for this disaster. How can the victims be to blame? She suggests we did this horrible thing to ourselves. But, did we? NO. I’m outraged at the mere suggestion. No one is going to put the crown of thorns on my brow.

Ms. Mercer……take your guilt trip and shove it!

Not a word did the article say about ordinary Americans betraying their own. To that end, “Who Invited The World To Infect America?” was even divided into clear thematic headings that made that clear:

Trade Goods, Not Places (allusion to top-down population replacement)
Economic Elephantiasis (the endless expansionism of the American multinational)
No Multiculturalists in China (self-evident: Chinese are a homogeneous, chauvinistic people) 
Where Accountability Goes to Die (Uncle Sam’s “investigation” of COVID)

But I fully understand “Major Rage’s” rage. He wanted the warm smell of the herd—he wanted to hear amplified (as from most other pundits) that it was China v. America: “USA, USA, USA!”

Instead he was challenged thus:

If the United States must rely on the Chinese government to keep its citizens safe, then what kind of a Micky Mouse country is it?
If the American people can be convinced by their government to saddle a foreign power with the responsibility for their existential welfare—what kind of people are we?
China didn’t force the traitors of the American economy to shift crucial production lines to its country and strand Americans without surgical and N-95 masks and medication; homegrown turncoats made that decision, all by their lonesome.

Less do I understand Dan @ Twitter @deltajulietx
Apr 30
Replying to @IlanaMercer

Ilana, are you losing your way? What price liberty? 61,349? 250,000? 1 million? Etc? What was it that Benjamin Franklin said about exchanging liberty for (imagined) safety? I would reflect long and hard before sacrificing liberty to any government for any reason. Full stop!

Dan was reacting to this:

On March 31, the number of Americans dead from the Chinese coronavirus stood at 3,900! A mere month on, at the time of writing, and 63,801 Americans have perished.

American deaths by COVID-19 account for a quarter of the world’s, including those in the undeveloped world. To ignore this Third-World-like specter is to dismiss the dead and the dying. It’s tantamount to cancel culture.

Dan, like many, conflates the honoring of the dead, the seriousness of the disease and the magnitude of COVID devastation with betraying liberty. In Dan’s cohort, unless you put on a tinfoil hat about COVID science–you are considered a liberty hater. Crap. Unless you dismiss the dead, you are betraying the Great Leader.

Since I wrote the lede to my essay, the number of Americans dead by COVID has reached 68,602. 4801 souls dead in three days. Rest in peace.

* Photo via iStock. Thanks for fair use.