Biden team faced "tirade" at meeting with Chinese over America's poor human rights record in "Diplomatic humiliation"

[Kwak]

I just want to understand in what world people can think that the Green Party of all things is the reason for an important policy result. How do I get to that world? Is there a portal somewhere?

The fucking DSA has more influence. But the Green Party needs to answer for..! What?

I guess, this is the connection...

The anti-nuclear movement is a social movement that opposes various nuclear technologies. Some direct action groups, environmental movements, and professional organisations have identified themselves with the movement at the local, national, or international level.[2][3]

Major anti-nuclear groups include Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Peace Action and the Nuclear Information and Resource Service.

The initial objective of the movement was nuclear disarmament, though since the late 1960s opposition has included the use of nuclear power. Many anti-nuclear groups oppose both nuclear power and nuclear weapons.

The formation of green parties in the 1970s and 1980s was often a direct result of anti-nuclear politics.[4]

Anti-nuclear movement - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Satinavian]

I just want to understand in what world people can think that the Green Party of all things is the reason for an important policy result. How do I get to that world? Is there a portal somewhere?

The German Green party has a good chance to win the election and provide the next chancellor when Merkel retires.

And yes, there has been some friction. The party was founded from an anti-nuclear movement and most of the old members take that very seriously. But the newer environmentalist members are more concerned with global warming and would tolerate nuclear power if it reduces CO2. A similar discussion is hapening around genetic engeneering which the old party really opposes while the newcomers have less hangups and would tolerate it if e.g. used to adapt agriculture to climate change.


As for nuclear power itself, waste is far less of a problem as people pretend. Mostly because all nuclear wate is either active for a really long time or produces a lot of dangerous radiation, but never both. So we really only need storage for around 300 years to be super safe. That is simplified but true at its core.

But it is simply not feasable to provide enough nuclear power to actually satisfy a significant portion of world wide energy demands. We would run out of uranium in 2 decades if everyone starts using it.
Another problem is that nuclear power is not cheap. Regeneratives have had a lot of advancements in the last decades and even the purely economical arguments for nuclear don't look that convincing nowadays. At least if storage, demolition and other expenses are included.

So until someone makes fusion really viable, nuclear has no future.

First of all you're probably monolingual so you don't understand that if I google a thing in Spanish I get results in Spanish, which is my native language, that's actually how the algorithm works, second universities are generally not left wing, they tend to be liberal which is to say rather liberal and very much do tend to favour Capitalism particularly in the economic sector, it's really only arts and social sciences that have a tendency towards the left, c'mon dude I'm a high school dropout and even I know that, third most of Latin America is economically liberal which is to say institutionally in favour of Capitalism even if among the generally populace Socialism is more accepted than in the "Global North", and finally everything is biased, there's no such thing as unbiased data, the biases of the person making the study directly inform the methodology and goal of the study, that's the way it works, the reason why the bias of Latin American studies show a much less charitable depiction of imperialism and economic interference is because Latin Americans living under the heel of those systems tend to not only be more aware of those systems so therefore they are more likely to study them, since you know they directly influence our daily lives, it makes that you don't give a shit, it doesn't affect you.

You should really stop with generalisations about "the West", "the global North" etc. It is neither helping nor true. Especially as Mexico sure tends to be counted as "Western" country most of the time and "Global North" includes most of the modern socialist countries and most ex-communist countries. And both "The West" and "The global North" have a lot of countries in there which never engaged in empire building or colonialism or was under a foreign power themself over most of the age of imperialism.
If you want to say "the US" just say "the US". That is where most of your examples come from anyway.

 

[tstorm823]

Why not nuclear. oh, right the idiots in the Green Party railed against it.

That's a fair question. That's not what I was thinking about with my comment, and while it's unclear whether people in the past would have taken the threat of climate change more seriously than the paranoia about nuclear, that it a possible past change that could have impacted the present.

Except we've known about climate change since the late 19th century, and the oil industry has spread misinformation about it since the mid 20th. Imagine what time and money could have been spent on making solar panels cheaper and more efficient (among other things) if we didn't have to deal with climate denial from the fossil fuels industry, and the political parties who bought into it (or were bought out).

A lot of the reason we can make renewables more efficiently and effectively now is because of all the other matured technologies. I don't think focusing on climate change would have advanced computer and general manufacturing technologies any faster than they have, and I'm skeptical that developing renewables in the absence of those things would have progressed much more quickly than we have in the real scenario.

 

[tstorm823]

I just want to understand in what world people can think that the Green Party of all things is the reason for an important policy result. How do I get to that world? Is there a portal somewhere?

The fucking DSA has more influence. But the Green Party needs to answer for..! What?

I'd put more blame on Greenpeace than the Green Party, though I imagine those two have some overlap.

 

[Silvanus]

No, it's been asserted in various replies which didn't engage the point.

Scale engages the point. The all-encompassing nature for an entire ethnic group, representing an attempt to wipe them out in entirety, engages the point. The complete lack of legal process or transparency engages the point (in the US, the legal process is deeply compromised, and incarceration is highly secretive and opaque... but a legal charge and a trial is at least involved, and the case may be viewed by a jury, or appealed; journalists may at least report on it. Not so in Xinjiang).

These points have been brought up several times. You handwaved away evidence including direct leaked cables, and testimony from escapees & survivors, because one organisation I cited (out of about 6) mentioned the US State Dept, even though that wasn't the basis for the point I was making.

You're doing the work of corporatists for them.

Why not nuclear. oh, right the idiots in the Green Party railed against it.

A better question might be, "why nuclear".

Sure, it's a damn sight better than fossil fuels, and we shouldn't be closing existing plants while energy requirements are expanding. But y'know there are options that don't involve storing radioactive waste for a hundred thousand years. There are much better options for investment and expansion.

 

[tstorm823]

But y'know there are options that don't involve storing radioactive waste for a hundred thousand years. There are much better options for investment and expansion.

Ok, but those options, on a scale to replace fossil fuels, requires problematic amounts of space to operate.

And in truth, to be sustainable, we don't need to just replace fossil fuels, we need to massively expand energy production, or things like recycling are never going to actually work.

 

[Hawki]

Is it? In the short term nuclear power doesn't push out as much green house emissions as fossil fuels do, sure. But in the long term we are making highly dangerous radioactive waste that needs to be stored safely for up to 100,000 years. Considering that the Nordic solution with copper/iron capsules seems to have dangerous degradation and rust on the iron parts of the capsule after only 50 years and there's absolutely no construction solution we know off that can reliably last 100,000 years, this is something of a predicament. Add to that that whoever stumbles upon a nuclear waste final disposal site some 4,000 years from now most likely won't speak any current language and that our iconography will be utterly alien to them, there's some serious risks with future people not understanding that we are trying to hide away dangerous stuff. Not to mention that human civilization has existed for only slightly longer at this point then the amount of time we need to store radioactive waste.

If there's one lesson to be learned from the current climate change crisis it is that we should never (bolded, italicized and underscored for srs bsns) employ solutions that serves us well right now and in the short term forward if we know that it will cause problems for people in the future. Had we not decided to just not give a shit about carbon emissions in the 70's-80's (and we knew back then that the greenhouse effect was a thing) we would not be seeing potentially irreversible changes to Earth's climate and eco systems due to massive carbon emissions. Nuclear power has massive risks for the future. Risks that we can neither fully surmise nor mitigate. To adopt a happy-go-lucky attitude and assume that dumping millions of tons of radioactive waste won't cause problems in the future is the kind of thinking that brought us to where we are today with fossil fuels.

Everything you wrote are indeed valid concerns. However, if the question is whether nuclear is worse than fossil fuels, I'd argue that the answer is no, for the following reasons:

-Fossil fuel emissions kill millions of people each year. Nuclear, however, is one of the safest forms of energy there is. Yes, we have to deal with Chernobyl and Fukashima, but by death count, nuclear is much, MUCH safer than fossil fuels.

-Nuclear waste could become an issue in the future, fossil fuels are an issue RIGHT NOW. Immediate concerns necessitate action over hypothetical, more distant concerns.

If this was a question of nuclear vs. renewables, that's another matter (to borrow a phrase, I'm for both - silver buckshot rather than a silver bullet), but at this point, getting off fossil fuels has to be the no. 1 priority. And on that front, nuclear has a solid record - look at France and your own country of Sweden for example, when it comes to decarbonization.

 

[Hawki]

You should really stop with generalisations about "the West", "the global North" etc. It is neither helping nor true. Especially as Mexico sure tends to be counted as "Western" country most of the time and "Global North" includes most of the modern socialist countries and most ex-communist countries. And both "The West" and "The global North" have a lot of countries in there which never engaged in empire building or colonialism or was under a foreign power themself over most of the age of imperialism.
If you want to say "the US" just say "the US". That is where most of your examples come from anyway.

I know this wasn't directed towards me, but I'll chime in (in part because Kae and I discussed it, in part because I have an asshole, and therefore, an opinion).

-I don't think Mexico and Latin America are really counted among "the West." The very idea of "the West" is fairly nebulous, but I'd argue that it encompasses Western Europe, the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, in that they have similar levels of development and similar cultural strands. The culture of Mexico, as opposed to the US for instance is a mix of Spanish culture (at the time, Catholicism, fuedalism) whereas the US was more Protestant. It's been argued that this is why capitalism took off in the US rather than Latin America due to the cultural differences between England and Spain at the time.

-"Global North" and "Global South" are terms I try not to use, in part due to what you describe. Partly because any map of the Global North or South involve some insane lines on a map. In part because it hemogenizes entire swathes of the globe - after the end of European empires, the fortunes of Asia differed wildly from Africa for example. There are places that were dirt poor at the end of the colonial period that have since become some of the richest countries on Earth, including Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and Singapore. Furthermore, the idea has been linked to the idea of "history is destiny," that because a place was under a foreign power, it's destined to remain poor, or that if a foreign power engaged in empire building, it's destined to remain rich. Any reading of affairs will show that isn't the case - for instance, Botswana was one of the poorest countries on Earth when it gained independence, now, it's one of the most prosperous countries in Africa. Ghana was richer than Singapore when it became independent, but now, it's the other way round. On the other side, in the "Global North," countries like Switzerland and Ireland are among the richest countries in the world per capita, yet neither ever engaged in empire building.

This isn't to say that colonialism didn't have an adverse effect, but there's a reason why I use "LEDCs" and "MEDCs," and prefer Hans Rosling's idea of a four-tiered development model. "Global North" and "Global South" are far too broad IMO. I'd rather see them retired in the same way we no longer use First/Second/Third World.

 

[Hawki]

A lot of the reason we can make renewables more efficiently and effectively now is because of all the other matured technologies. I don't think focusing on climate change would have advanced computer and general manufacturing technologies any faster than they have, and I'm skeptical that developing renewables in the absence of those things would have progressed much more quickly than we have in the real scenario.

Well, I'd have to disagree. If the world accepted that climate change was real, and a threat, then there'd have been far more investment in these technologies, along with other mitigation.

I mean, Australia's emissions actually went up after Kyoto. That wouldn't have happened in the LNP had wings of climate deniers.

A better question might be, "why nuclear".

Sure, it's a damn sight better than fossil fuels, and we shouldn't be closing existing plants while energy requirements are expanding. But y'know there are options that don't involve storing radioactive waste for a hundred thousand years. There are much better options for investment and expansion.

There's definite pros and cons for nuclear. But I don't think it needs to be a question of either/or. Nuclear still has some advantages over renewables (and vice versa). So I wouldn't write nuclear off yet.

As I said earlier, silver buckshot over silver bullet.

 

[Satinavian]

-I don't think Mexico and Latin America are really counted among "the West." The very idea of "the West" is fairly nebulous, but I'd argue that it encompasses Western Europe, the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, in that they have similar levels of development and similar cultural strands. The culture of Mexico, as opposed to the US for instance is a mix of Spanish culture (at the time, Catholicism, fuedalism) whereas the US was more Protestant. It's been argued that this is why capitalism took off in the US rather than Latin America due to the cultural differences between England and Spain at the time.

Well, see, if you exclude Mexico for being too influenced by catholic Spain intead of protestant England that would obvioulsy lead to similar arguments about Spain itself and you can't get much more Western European than Spain. Not that France, Ireland, half of Germany etc were not catholic as well. And then you have all the interaction, influence and cultural bleeding between Mexico and the US which makes them easy to group together if you are for example looking at it from Poland.

It is nebulous what belongs to it and i don't like it. It also assumes some kind of similarity or common outlook that just isn't there. Something I often use is Anglosphere which refers to a smaller group of nations that share more and where there are less arguments about who is part.

 

[Silvanus]

Ok, but those options, on a scale to replace fossil fuels, requires problematic amounts of space to operate.

Space isn't really an issue. Less than 4% of the US is built-on. 15-20% is grassland, pasture, or open-space (not including agricultural land); of course, a fair proportion of that will be used for grazing cattle, which can be reduced by eating less meat, which we should be doing for ecological reasons anyway.

That still leaves many hundreds of thousands of square miles for (say) solar or wind farms. And they don't require destroying the surrounding environment to build. Hydroelectric dams don't take up any additional space than would otherwise be occupied by the river.

What's lacking is investment and political will, not literal space.

 

[Gergar12]

Scale engages the point. The all-encompassing nature for an entire ethnic group, representing an attempt to wipe them out in entirety, engages the point. The complete lack of legal process or transparency engages the point (in the US, the legal process is deeply compromised, and incarceration is highly secretive and opaque... but a legal charge and a trial is at least involved, and the case may be viewed by a jury, or appealed; journalists may at least report on it. Not so in Xinjiang).

These points have been brought up several times. You handwaved away evidence including direct leaked cables, and testimony from escapees & survivors, because one organisation I cited (out of about 6) mentioned the US State Dept, even though that wasn't the basis for the point I was making.

You're doing the work of the corporatists for them.



A better question might be, "why nuclear".

Sure, it's a damn sight better than fossil fuels, and we shouldn't be closing existing plants while energy requirements are expanding. But y'know there are options that don't involve storing radioactive waste for a hundred thousand years. There are much better options for investment and expansion.

The reason nuclear should be used is due to the fact that it's better for the environment than both coal, and natural gas, we mostly ran out of hydroelectric dams to build, and geothermal requires volcanos and geysers like in Iceland. Also unless we get smart grid technology up, and running as well as better batteries solar, and the wind isn't viable all the time, and aren't energy-dense enough.

Also, Gen 4 nuclear fission is very safe, and I would rather we store nuclear waste than emit C02 into the air.

There's a reason multiple countries love nuclear power more than renewables, for example when the oil runs out in the Middle East they will likely be majority nuclear.

Edit: To those that corrected me I guess I used Green Party as a proxy for those annoying 1970s/1980s environmental groups my bad.

Edit 2: I remember on the Green Party website that nuclear fission and fusion are bad for the environment, and at that point, I considered them morons.

Edit 3: The German Green Party got rid of all of Germany's nuclear power plants, admittedly despite how much I don't like Merkel for cutting defense spending, that was not her fault. Why get rid of Nuclear when coal-fired power plants still exist still boggles my mind. And yes I despise the German Greens.

Edit 4: if we run out of uranium we can always use thorium.

 

[Hawki]

Well, see, if you exclude Mexico for being too influenced by catholic Spain intead of protestant England that would obvioulsy lead to similar arguments about Spain itself and you can't get much more Western European than Spain. Not that France, Ireland, half of Germany etc were not catholic as well. And then you have all the interaction, influence and cultural bleeding between Mexico and the US which makes them easy to group together if you are for example looking at it from Poland.

It is nebulous what belongs to it and i don't like it. It also assumes some kind of similarity or common outlook that just isn't there. Something I often use is Anglosphere which refers to a smaller group of nations that share more and where there are less arguments about who is part.

Think I left something out - Latin American countries have more of a mixing of European and indigenous culture that the US and Canda don't have. Also, these countries haven't really been involved in "the West" as it was defined during the Cold War. Across the Atlantic, Western Europe and the US/Canada were definitively allies against the communist "East." Latin America was more a battleground rather than a bloc aligned with NATO or the Warsaw Pact.

So, yes, Spain itself is in "the West," both culturally, economically, and geographically - whatever lingering influence it might have had from Moorish occupation is barely worth mentioning at this point. The countries that were once part of its empire? Not so much.

 

[Silvanus]

The reason nuclear should be used is due to the fact that it's better for the environment than both coal, and natural gas, we mostly ran out of hydroelectric dams to build, and geothermal requires volcanos and geysers like in Iceland. Also unless we get smart grid technology up, and running as well as better batteries solar, and the wind isn't viable all the time, and aren't energy-dense enough.

All of the issues with solar and wind (grid tech, energy storage to compensate for variable performance) are simple matters of investment and research. They can be overcome with a fraction of the money and attention that's been paid to getting nuclear to work.

And energy density isn't a realistic problem, given the availability of space, alongside the fact that these projects don't necessitate the destruction of the surrounding environment.

There's a reason multiple countries love nuclear power more than renewables, for example when the oil runs out in the Middle East they will likely be majority nuclear.

That reason is financial, not ecological. The same reason countries en masse currently opt for fossil fuels.

 

[Satinavian]

As i said, nuclear power does not have a future even if one disregards the waste aspect. It just is not that cheap in comparison anymore and we really don't have enough nuclear fuel for widespread adoption..

 

[Revnak]

As i said, nuclear power does not have a future even if one disregards the waste aspect. It just is not that cheap in comparison anymore and we really don't have enough nuclear fuel for widespread adoption..

It also is highly reliant on mineral extraction from Africa, which historically is not a good foundation for an industry unless you’re a fan of mercenaries massacring slave laborers.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Scale engages the point. The all-encompassing nature for an entire ethnic group, representing an attempt to wipe them out in entirety, engages the point. The complete lack of legal process or transparency engages the point (in the US, the legal process is deeply compromised, and incarceration is highly secretive and opaque... but a legal charge and a trial is at least involved, and the case may be viewed by a jury, or appealed; journalists may at least report on it. Not so in Xinjiang).

You really want to talk about scale?

In Israel we have much the same but with more murder. And we endorse this. Millions of people in ghettos under blockade and periodic culling. That's already around the same scale just in tiny Gaza alone.

Millions more people are afraid of days that aren't cloudy because of the potential for being murdered from the air by the United States. And when leaks exposed the slaying of Reuters journalists by drone, the United States chose to respond by declaring that no wrongdoing had occurred, denying FOIA requests for the video, and charging Julian Assange with crimes for doing a journalism. The only people who have seen consequences from the exposure of the crimes of the US military are the whistleblowers who revealed them and people involved with their publication. When you gesture at the so-called freedom of the press that in theory exists in the United States, I have to wonder what the fuck you're talking about.

I haven't even mentioned Yemen. Or Haiti. Or Puerto Rico. Or the effects of imperialism in Central and South America that have been mentioned by Kae.

Domestically, the United States imprisons far more per capita than the Chinese could even dream of, and the reason for this is because the United States does not provide necessary social support to its people, instead subjecting them to both violent crime and arbitrary detention for non-violent "crime" and, once imprisoned, slavery. Slavery which, I'll note, is not (aside from that conducted by the GEO group) counted in Hawki's "Global Slavery Index".

You're doing the work of the corporatists for them.

Given that the corporate news is uncritically promoting your narrative about the superior moral position of the United States compared to China, I very much doubt that. Have you heard of the Church Committee? There is no apparent reason to think anything has changed since then, aside perhaps from the admonition on the CIA not to directly attempt to assassinate foreign leaders with its own agents. The findings about CIA recruitment of journalists and planting of stories gives anyone good reason to be skeptical of the corporate news as well as the very credible human rights NGOs which are not some metaphysically distinct category that prevents them being manipulated in the same way.

Everything you're saying about China could be true, even the most wild imaginings of the "Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation", and it still wouldn't approach the scale of crimes that the United States perpetrates right now.

 

[Hawki]

All of the issues with solar and wind (grid tech, energy storage to compensate for variable performance) are simple matters of investment and research. They can be overcome with a fraction of the money and attention that's been paid to getting nuclear to work.

That's debatable. There's actually limits to the energy of wind and solar. Not in terms of tech, but in terms of the laws of physics (I forget what the limit is, I think it's thirty-something percent).

Also, renewables get far more investment than nuclear.

And energy density isn't a realistic problem, given the availability of space, alongside the fact that these projects don't necessitate the destruction of the surrounding environment.

Again, that's kind of debatable. When deployed at scale, wind and solar has caused environmental damage.

Again, to be clear, this isn't me being a cheerleader for fossil fuels. My overall position is that all existing nuclear plants should be maintained for as long as possible. Displacing existing fossil fuels however, I don't care so much what does it at this point, as long as it's done.

 

[Hawki]

You know, I was content for you and Silvanus to do your ring around the rosie, but then you had to go and say "my" slavery index.

Yes. You're right. I made up the GSI just to make China look bad.

As for other stuff:

You really want to talk about scale?

In Israel we have much the same but with more murder. And we endorse this. Millions of people in ghettos under blockade and periodic culling. That's already around the same scale just in tiny Gaza alone.

Much as I've criticized Israel (and as much as it deserves it), you're still letting Hamas off the hook.

Also, if we're talking about scale, you're comparing 2 million people in the Gaza Strip, to 22 million in Xianjiang, and 1 million (potentially up to 3 million) in concentration camps.

If you want to argue that conditions in Gaza are worse than Xianjiang, I agree, but if the US supporting Israel is bad (not too unreasonable an assessment), I'd have to point out (again) that China supports North Korea. And that...whatever Israel's sins (and there are many), North Korea takes the cake when it comes to despotic regimes.

Millions more people are afraid of days that aren't cloudy because of the potential for being murdered from the air by the United States. And when leaks exposed the slaying of Reuters journalists by drone, the United States chose to respond by declaring that no wrongdoing had occurred, denying FOIA requests for the video, and charging Julian Assange with crimes for doing a journalism. The only people who have seen consequences from the exposure of the crimes of the US military are the whistleblowers who revealed them and people involved with their publication. When you gesture at the so-called freedom of the press that in theory exists in the United States, I have to wonder what the fuck you're talking about.

You've kind of combined two aspects here - drone strikes, and press freedom.

One, yes, obviously, the US conducts more drone strikes, but both China and the US are major exporters of drones, so this isn't quite the moral high ground for China that you think it might be (with China primarily selling to ME countries, including Israel itself)

Second, you've mentioned Julian Assange (again). Yes, Julian Assange is an issue, but Julian Assange and Edward Snowden can't possibly compare to the no. of political prisoners that China has, whose 'crimes' include simply speaking out against the CCP (38 journalists were arrested in China in 2017 alone). Not even Trump, in calling the press "enemies of the people," ever arrested a reporter based on the fact that they were criticizing his administration.

Third, whatever flaws exist in the US media (and there are many), that the US has more press freedom than China is a fact. I know it's a fact that you won't accept, but here's the World Press Freedom Index:

The World Press Freedom Index

rsf.org

And this is the Freedom House Index for Internet access:

Freedom House Index: internet freedom global 2023 | Statista

What countries have the most internet freedom in 2022? Iceland is the worldwide leader in internet freedom, followed by Estonia and Costa Rica.

www.statista.com

There's plenty more sources I can cite. But most, if not all of China's media is controlled by the state, it blocks off Internet access to areas outside the country, and it has its own social credit system (which is arguably more terrifying than any of this).

Criticize the US media by all means, but it's frankly insane that you consider it on the same level as China.

I haven't even mentioned Yemen. Or Haiti. Or Puerto Rico. Or the effects of imperialism in Central and South America that have been mentioned by Kae.

I'm pretty sure you have mentioned those things in the thread, but that aside, there's pretty much a Chinese equivalent for all of them.

-For Yemen, take Syria

-For Haiti, take Tibet

-For Puerto Rico, take Hong Kong.

-For the effects of US imperialism in South America, take Chinese imperialism in Asia (e.g. Myanmar and North Korea, plus its actions within its own borders (Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, the actions going on RIGHT NOW, etc.)

Of course, nothing that China does excuses what the US does (and vice versa). We can list the sins of both countries until the cows come home. However, I still have to put China as being the worse 'sinner' right now. If this was solely about the projection of foreign power, that would be a different story, but when we factor in the stuff that China does within its own borders, then things become very dark, very quickly.

Domestically, the United States imprisons far more per capita than the Chinese could even dream of, and the reason for this is because the United States does not provide necessary social support to its people, instead subjecting them to both violent crime and arbitrary detention for non-violent "crime" and, once imprisoned, slavery. Slavery which, I'll note, is not (aside from that conducted by the GEO group) counted in Hawki's "Global Slavery Index".

Back to what I said earlier.

First, it isn't "my" GSI. Second, if it isn't counting it (and it's dubious as to whether it should be), it's dubious as to whether China would be less bad (clearly not every US prisoner is being subjected to "slavery"). This is still a country which is a 'world leader' in its incarceration of political prisoners, capital punishment, and mass detention of entire ethnic groups.

Thing is, I actually agree with you that the US prison system is broken, and that a lot of crime would be reduced if the country had a stronger safety net. But this isn't a question as to whether the US prison system is bad, it's a question as to whether it's worse. And I simply can't equate it with what China is doing.

Given that the corporate news is uncritically promoting your narrative about the superior moral position of the United States compared to China, I very much doubt that. Have you heard of the Church Committee? There is no apparent reason to think anything has changed since then, aside perhaps from the admonition on the CIA not to directly attempt to assassinate foreign leaders with its own agents. The findings about CIA recruitment of journalists and planting of stories gives anyone good reason to be skeptical of the corporate news as well as the very credible human rights NGOs which are not some metaphysically distinct category that prevents them being manipulated in the same way.

First, I don't know what you mean about US media "uncritically promoting" the US. I mean, unless you're watching Fox News, you can easily turn to a source like CNN and see the press criticizing the country ad nauseum. The media criticizing Trump and whatnot? That would never be allowed in China. You can look at their mass incarceration of political prisoners for evidence of that.

Second, you keep throwing "corporate news" around willy nilly. I'm not sure where you draw the line here, but using a local example, I suppose I could put ABC and SBS in one category (in that they're government funded) and put other news networks in another category when they have ad breaks. However, two things. First, that China is doing terrible stuff isn't some magical fact that only "corporate news" knows, it's a fact that comes from every credible news outlet, and any number of other groups, including people who've fled the country. There's a reason why Ughyrs have made their way here, and why many in Hong Kong are seeking asylum in the UK.

Second, back to what I said earlier. Even if the news landscape in the US is "corporate," it can't compare to the state-run news of China. I've already provided you the levels of press freedom in both countries, and as I said, if the US was China, its news would never be able to critique its own government.

And yes, NGOs would have their bias, but again, you're comparing hypothetical bias of NGOs to state-level bias in China, which, as I've pointed out, allows almost no media freedom. Again, there's no equivalance here.

Everything you're saying about China could be true, even the most wild imaginings of the "Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation", and it still wouldn't approach the scale of crimes that the United States perpetrates right now.

I completely agree, except re-arrange China and the United States in that sentence.

Feel free to replace the VCMF with whatever equivalent you want.

 

[Silvanus]

That's debatable. There's actually limits to the energy of wind and solar. Not in terms of tech, but in terms of the laws of physics (I forget what the limit is, I think it's thirty-something percent).

I see absolutely no reason why this would be true.

Also, renewables get far more investment than nuclear.

Only if you exclude the establishment & dismantling cost of the plants & equipment. That's where the real cost lies; not in upkeep.

You really want to talk about scale?

In Israel we have much the same but with more murder. And we endorse this. Millions of people in ghettos under blockade and periodic culling. That's already around the same scale just in tiny Gaza alone.

Millions more people are afraid of days that aren't cloudy because of the potential for being murdered from the air by the United States. And when leaks exposed the slaying of Reuters journalists by drone, the United States chose to respond by declaring that no wrongdoing had occurred, denying FOIA requests for the video, and charging Julian Assange with crimes for doing a journalism. The only people who have seen consequences from the exposure of the crimes of the US military are the whistleblowers who revealed them and people involved with their publication. When you gesture at the so-called freedom of the press that in theory exists in the United States, I have to wonder what the fuck you're talking about.

I haven't even mentioned Yemen. Or Haiti. Or Puerto Rico. Or the effects of imperialism in Central and South America that have been mentioned by Kae.

That wasn't the comparison that was made, to which I was speaking-- The equivalence was specifically drawn with incarceration and treatment of protesters within the US.

I'm not creating some score-sheet to prove the US or China or whoever gets crowned as shittiest world power overall; there isn't a medal. My point was that equating the Xinjiang internment camps with incarceration of US protesters enormously downplays the severity of what amounts to genocide.

Given that the corporate news is uncritically promoting your narrative about the superior moral position of the United States compared to China, I very much doubt that.

I've already explicitly said they don't hold any moral high ground, so that's not "my position".

Of course, you don't really get news any more corporate that the Global Times, doing exactly the same thing for another corporate gov. Different corporatists; different financial interests, in different countries. Both have an interest in fig-leafing their grotesqueries for the domestic audiences.

Everything you're saying about China could be true, even the most wild imaginings of the "Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation", and it still wouldn't approach the scale of crimes that the United States perpetrates right now.

I'll make sure to be present for the crowning ceremony.

I'm more interested in addressing the posts spent downplaying or dismissing the severity of what's happening, in order to make sure the US keeps that "coveted" top spot.