It’s a place of bizarre contradiction; economically they’re super neoliberal and socially restrictive. But they’ve also got steep taxes, the social housing and medicine you mentioned, and technically the state is considered the owner of all the private property; businesses are more or less leasing the capital from the state. So on paper it’s highly statist capitalism, but practically if one considers Yew’s family’s long control of the state, it’s almost like the city is a private fiefdom.
Ironically, his name is Cotton.
And it's kinda funny how this maniac character turned out to not be racist, so much as he just hates Japanese nationals for personal reasons.
Yea I think they were talking to Zuckerberg at some point and I tuned in and some chid was just yelling over and over again "yes or no will you personally compensate everybody who lost somebody because of your site"
And I was rooting for zuck to tell them "no fuck off are you stupid"
Same thing with them repeatedly asking "do you agree the internet is a dangerous place for children" and if he started a response with anything other than yes they'd just yell over him. They asked him why he wouldn't answer the question directly and he was like "I'm not going to say on congressional record that the internet is dangerous for all children because you're going to try to use that to justify banning children from the internet"
How are politicians so dogshit it makes the literal bad guys of society seem repeatable and reasonable
It would be so cool if the CPC had like, affiliate membership. Not that you could vote or anything, just that they let you be an affiliate member if you’re a commie. You get a little card that says you’re a CPC member, I’d do that in a heartbeat.
It’s actually quite difficult to join the CPC. You need recommendation letters and all that. They usually pull from high school and university students who excelled academically.
I have friends in the CPC and for me it’s totally not worth it, unless you like the perks of being a party member (networking/connections, better promotion opportunities in SOE etc.).
Rest assured, you will not be discussing socialist theories with your comrades. My friends told me the regular meeting is just bunch of people talking about their “personal development”, what challenges they are facing and how they encourage each other to solve it (mostly about jobs, finances, and other issues). This is in Shanghai by the way, so a fairly middle class demographic, it could be run quite differently in rural townships and villages though, I’m sure there’s more emphasis in solving local issues etc.
Yeah, speaking as an outsider my impression is that the CPC in Shanghai is full of folks who're liberals but pragmatically letting them into the CPC and being nerd failures is better than letting them turncoat for some liberal or western group.
Remember when Western countries had tests to see if people were secretly loyal to other countries or religions? I don't know why the thought occurred to me; entirely a coincident.
Am I giving them too much credit or is the point of asking questions like this to make sound bites for fundraising and reelection? I don't see constituencies waiting to hear responses to these asinine questions when they've already made up their minds.
At this point, I'd rather replace the representative Chew, tell Tom Cotton and the Senate to fuck their mothers, and repeat the Michael Parenti quote:
“During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime's atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn't go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them.
If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.”
Were you ever, or are you now, a member of the American Council on Soviet Relations?
Did you act as a so‐called official collection substation in December 1941 for the Russian War Relief?
Have you sat in meetings of consultation with the American heads of the Communist Party, William Z. Foster, Earl Browder, and Jack Stachel?
Do you recall signing a protest against the Anti‐Soviet Campaign, an aftermath of this Alter‐Ehrlich case in Poland?
Are you now or have you ever been a member of the International Workers Order?
Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Citizens Committee to Defend Representative Government, an organization supporting the Communist Gerson?
Do you recall being listed as a sponsor of an advertisement for a mass meeting in 1943 of the Jewish Anti‐Fascist Committee in New York City in praise of the Soviet Union?
Do you recall telegraphing Governor Lehman in September 1942 protesting against the American Legion fight on communism?
Why did he even show up? They have no standing in Singapore to compel him to even show up. He could have just made tiktok videos mocking them and there wouldn't be anything they could do about it.