Orwell being so right about governments using the constant threat of a virtual enemy has got to be one of the all time top on the money predictions ever.
Orwell being so right about governments using the constant threat of a virtual enemy has got to be one of the all time top on the money predictions ever.
https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-enemies-from-within-...
Pretty much everyone.
Only difference in which enemy is pointed to, is who you ask.
As for the "pardoned cronies", isn't today a bad day to single one side out based on that?
(Not to mention the singling out for "war criminals", when the other side is warmongering hawks, bombing, openly pushing for war, sabotaging peace deals, and openly assisting a slow burning genocide).
Biden pardoning his son is a black mark, especially for the tax evasion. (I think pardons should be abolished.) Yet an order of magnitude less worrisome than the scum Trump has pardoned and promises to pardon.
As to warmongers... which party voted almost unanimously to invade Iraq without hard evidence of WMDs? Who backed out of the Iranian nuclear deal? Who praises bullies and dictators? Who moved the embassy to Jerusalem? Who is so deluted they claim merely winning an election will bring peace to the Middle East and Europe? Who threatened to pull support from allies -- in the midst of a war -- because they want dirt on political rivals or to catch up on underpaid bills. (Trump knows a thing or two about not paying when he owes someone.)
Why the silence about my other remark? Does assaulting, denigrating, and stripping the rights of women not bother you?
Why do you carry water for this man?
The warring US tribes certainly made an effort to associate their internal enemy with these (Democrats insinuating Republican subversion by Russians, Republicans insinuating Democrat sympathies with China and Iran). Arguably, this did not really catch and the majority of people are more preoccupied with their internal outgroup, which suggests that the external-enemy strategy is currently falling flat in the US. You could make a better case for it being in place in various European countries.
Has China been accepted as a "real" enemy? To me, China is the main virtual enemy that politicians trout out to create fear and distraction.
The USA without cheap Chinese manufacturing is basically dead in the water. It is approximately unfathomable how much of the comfortable and cheap way of life enjoyed in the US is directly dependent on trade with China and mindbendingly cheap Chinese manufacturing labor.
The ~most valuable company in the country is 100% beholden to Chinese manufacturing to make the most popular product that makes all of their money. They are doing their best to replicate manufacturing capacity in India but you can’t make 50,000 iPhones an hour without years of build-up and thousands upon thousands of trained staff.
If China invades Taiwan, the USG is basically game theoretically forced to make Americans endure some significant hardships until a new metastability is achieved.
If anything, the US-led blockade of advanced chips to China will make it more likely for China to use force. If China can't get their hands on the most advanced TSMC chips, then why would they let the US do so and get too far ahead in AI? Both can't have them then.
So much propaganda.
American propaganda...one day Americans are going to wake up and realize, China has taken over in all areas of tech and Americans are going to be in such denial that they'll want war... sigh. China is already leading in many areas, not all of them yet, but they soon are
you watched too much MSM
1. the whole taiwan thing is just an excuse to force the united state to waste more resources on a topic selected and controlled by China. nothing is better at wasting US efforts by forcing it to keep investing borrowed $ in its military presence over 10,000km away from its mainland, nothing is affordable at such distance.
2. Taiwan doesn't make those ASML machines, they operate those imported machines very efficiently, that is all. China is playing a long game, trying to master and eventually control the full semiconductor supply chain at any cost by developing its own industrial bases. In such a big picture, Taiwan with what it has today is tiny, it doesn't worth such an invasion. With 1.4 billion population and its ongoing competitions with the US, China doesn't have the luxury to select which sectors or fields it must control - it has to control everything to just have its people employed on half decent pays.
Man Americans are oblivious to how fast China is progressing.
The Chinese leadership is well aware of this and is massively funding efforts to build these indigenously, but they're chasing moving targets and still decades away from catching up.
China will win through brute scale and determination, I believe.
War is not a joke, it does no good to both sides.
Good "return on propaganda investment" for those guys.
Smedley Butler told us how this was all gonna work a long time ago.
It extends as far as Zuckerberg hiring PR firms to write hit pieces on Tiktok and lobbying government officials in order to stave off competition.
"China bad" is profitable for everyone it seems, except the commoners.
I don't see it as rational, but there is definitely an argument that the USA ought to remain positioned as number one, having the ability to dictate global politics. I don't think we deserve it, but it's certainly 'better' for us in the sense that it gives us an advantage and thus might improve our quality of life (cheaper imports, blah blah blah). I view that argument as entitled and promoting the status quo.
The Chinese people have worked hard. Actually, people all over the world work hard, although the Chinese have gone past industrialization and have a massive and capable population. The idea that they wouldn't have more power and would need to somehow remain under the US's thumb, where we get to say how they treat Taiwan or what currency they can trade in with other countries, just seems absurd. People come up with bullshit reasons for why the US ought to retain some control over their politics or how the rest of the world engages with the Chinese (and we don't just get to do that anyway), e.g., the Chinese are mean to the Uyghurs, as if anyone ever gave a fuck about the Uyghurs or whoever twenty years ago.
In all that sense, China is certainly a real threat. But the level of entitlement behind that argument is so blatant that I can't take it seriously.
But with Trumpism again being the winner, how much of the world still view the US positively? Obama's Iran Deal was a USA-EU-Iran agreement, when Trump pulled it, it didn't just piss off "the enemy" (Iran) but also the allies (EU), and it destroyed US's credibility, even with a Democratic president, anyone going to do a deal with the USA will ask for guarantees in case the deal gets wrecked after the next presidential election...
That said, China has stated that their long-term plan is to overtake our military, economic, and technological dominance.
That's, at the very least, a clear signal that they want to beat us.
Any source on that? From what I have read, according to CCP's official mouthpieces[1], "China's development strategy focuses on continuous self-transcendence, and does not aim to surpass the US or any other country".
Objectively, the state-promoted bogeymen in the USA are consistently Iran, China, DPRK, and increasingly Russia.
I just spent a month in China and the disparity between what we are told in western media and what is actually going on is substantial, but not in the ways I expected.
I was just in Shenzhen last month. It feels like a city that is 10 years ahead of any place in the US. The city felt extremely futuristic. Most cars on the road are EVs. Payments are all digital. Ordering at restaurants is on your phone. The entire city is extremely clean, civilized, efficient, safe which you can't say about any major US city. Hop on a high speed train at any time and go to anywhere in China within a few hours.
China basically feels like a bigger Singapore except people in China are generally friendlier and more down to earth.
When you're actually in China, the constant negative stories about China in your head will go away. What you'll see is just like any other place: people working hard, minding their own business, and generally friendly people.
It's easy to make changes quickly when the people making the change don't really have a choice. I've heard the murder rate in North Korea is almost 0 and the crime is very low compared to most other countries. The devil is in the details.
"When you're actually in China, the constant negative stories about China in your head will go away. What you'll see is just like any other place: people working hard, minding their own business, and generally friendly people."
There was never any doubt that the people are nice and friendly in China. The issue is the authoritarian government. As an example, do some research on how the Chinese government treats people from the LGBT community and get back to me.
China is a terrible place, the ultimate star wars crab bucket dystopian future. It’s shiny and pretty and has cool LEDs and malls.
Any place can be decades ahead if you simply outlaw the old ways of life. Authoritarianism is a terrible cancer.
I just spent a month in China and the disparity between what we are told in western media and what is actually going on is substantial, but not in the ways I expected.
The vast majority of people on Hacker News have drank so much "China bad" propaganda that they're even afraid of visiting.
Remember that China is not a "free country" (even as much as Western nations have started to make a mockery of that word) like those of the US or Western Europe. Your experience is highly curated by default. If you're just a tourist or a businessman visiting Shenzhen or Shanghai, it's unlikely you'll have any problems - those are major international business cities!
indeed, none of them had the freedom to get a full unconditional pardon by their father with terminal stage dementia.
I mean freedom of what? unlimited number of genders? fat dude wearing a dress competing sports against young girls? or maybe you are talking about the freedom to avoid jail time for convicted felony by being elected the leader of your free world?
And often it's the very people and organizations supported and lauded as allies and/or freedom fighters and lauded a few years earlier (like Shaddam or the Taliban).
* Trans people
* "The enemy within" or "the deep state" (i.e. their political opponents)
* The "woke left"
I suppose if you have people shooting and bombing you, "enemy" is a fair label to put on them. Those are the only types of "enemies" that are the same whether the view is from inside or outside the bubble.
But most of these people talking about their "enemies", are not in those situations at all.