Posted On: Monday - April 11th 2022 9:03PM MST
In Topics: Music China Totalitarianism
Maybe that should be "... of the World's tyrants in training".
I've got some more news from my China source of the stupidity and evil going on in Shanghai, China right now. Some of this comes off of the We Chat contacts, some off of Telegram, and some from personal stories of contacts in that country.
Again, the political story here is that 95 y/o Jiang Zemin is at the top of the financial power of the country, and he aims to keep it that way. It's not for himself, mind you, but he has a son and son-in-law with whom he wants that power to stay. Xi-the-Pooh way over there in Peking is at the top of political power in China, being President for life per the '17-revised Constitution (how conveeeenient!) He's also Chairman* of the Chinese Communist Party. As I wrote in the previous post on this China Kung Flu revisited story - or we can call it "COVID ZERO", as they do - they are not getting along. Totalitarians with that much power don't like to share.
Therefore, Shanghai has taken the brunt of this new attempt to re-attain COVID ZERO, seeing as not every soul, or even chickens, fish, and politicians too, test negative for this virus that has mutated to the level of the common cold**. Here are a couple of stories.
The Chinese health "authorities" are swabbing people's noses over and over. They are using those pieces of personal iEspionage, that we all know as "Smart Phones" for their Orwellian contact tracing methods. You may have tested negative for 2 weeks, but if you hung out near someone who has been positive for some positive value of time, t, you get re-set to Day Zero of whatever quarantine or LOCKDOWN program you might have been on.
What are some of these programs? Well, in general, people are being sent to camps. I did not ask my source what these camps are like, but I will get back to you all on that. One thing about the camps though, is that lots of unrelated people stay in the same areas, so diseases get spread. Haha, that is ironic, in a non-Morissetteian sense, as in, unlike a fly in one's Chardonnay, it actual IS ironic. The holding of people together due to a fake, or at least now petered-out, epidemic is causing REAL epidemics, which reminds me of the Spanish Flu 105 years ago spreading in Army camps.
People are dying of heart attacks and the like due to the hospitals being ordered open only for Covid patients. That doesn't correspond so much to seriously sick people, but just some of the people who've tested positive and maybe have a symptom or two.
The people dying of heart attacks may have been slightly stressed out, what with all the new Totalitarian measures. At some point in middle or early March, Chinese people who got word of the LOCKDOWNs coming started stockpiling food. Well, you know how that goes, if EVERYBODY does this - up the the point they can't - there would be panic. Store shelves would be empty, and there'd be fights over food. So, the Shanghai government told the population on the 22nd that there would be no such LOCKDOWNS, so this stockpiling was unnecessary. That did the trick, as most Chinese people know, if you gotta trust somebody outside the family, you trust the government. 3 days later, the LOCKDOWNS were started.
Still, this is much better than the Great Leap Forward times, when 30-40 million Chinamen starved. At least now there's food on the shelves. It's just that not everyone can go get it.
And yet, China is the envy of the world. You can envy the modern Chinese people's can-do spirit, and the manufacturing might and the new infrastructure. No, but, people*** still praise China's job against the Kung Flu in '20. "If we could have just done it up right like China did, no roadblocks like we had here, just implement whatever we 'NEEDED' to do."
The people of the huge financial and port city of Shanghai, the shining jewel (when the smog settles) on the Huangpu River, are miserable right now. They are under Totalitarian, Orwellian control. It's a 1960s Science Fiction novel come to life, though not a best seller, as it's too bleak, stupid, and depressing to have made that great of a story.
If curing the common cold means living like the people of today's Shanghai, forget what I said about that "we can send a man to the moon, but ..." business. Strike it from the record, so as not to give any local Totalitarians any ideas. I'm fine with an extra blanket and a stuffed nose, thank you very much.
The monsters who are treating their fellow Han people this way are nothing new. Lots of those Red Guards of the 1960's-'70s went home after a while and have died since. Many of the Khmer Rouge must have been shot after their nation-destroying regime was ousted in Cambodia. They come back though, just the same. Maybe it's reincarnation, or maybe it's that those same genes that form this Totalitarian personality keep propagating. The evil keeps coming back.
I'm sorry - it sounds like Mick Jagger had some sympathy for these people, but I'm fresh out of sympathy myself. Yeah, I can guess their names.
We don't need the lyrics version, but I wanted to get this same version of the music that I'd originally heard off of Hot Rocks, a 2-record compilation album I first listened to in 1980.
* You can call him Chairman Xi. That wasn't Mao Zedong's first name either, as people might think. It's a big thing in China to call people by their occupation, as in Teacher Wu, Fisherman Yue, or Welfare Recipient Jones (some black guy who lives in Guangzhou).
** I think my kid and I got it a week and a half ago. I can't smell very much right now. We're not positive. That is, we're not positive we've got it, as no way are we going to go get tested. It's the cold, bro. I am under a 2nd blanket right now, not exactly the end of the world as I've known it ... That's great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes, and airplanes. Lenny Bruce is not afraid. Well that tears it. If Lenny Bruce is not afraid ... I was able to get REM into your head for the next day and a half, so there's that ...
*** Ron Unz, a smart man in general, is a real tool on this one. He will not respond to comments I write to him addressing his being as wrong as one can be in wishing American could do, or could have done, what China did in '20 to attain COVID ZERO. Our measures were "haphazard". Yeah, man, a little liberty here and there, Federalism, and a central government that not many trust anymore - that sure makes it hard to take non-haphazard measures.
Comments:
The Alarmist
Tuesday - April 12th 2022 12:30PM MST
PS
Artificial ... aaargh!
Artificial ... aaargh!
The Alarmist
Tuesday - April 12th 2022 12:29PM MST
PS
Articial Stupidity, created by schools ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zV7b5hVPo8o
Articial Stupidity, created by schools ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zV7b5hVPo8o
MBlanc46
Tuesday - April 12th 2022 11:46AM MST
PS I’d thought that the Chink leaders were on the whole considerably more able that those who pass for leaders around here. I have heard some of ours making noises about implementing more “restrictions”, but most people have come to the realization that, as you say, for most people it’s not that terrible, and, in any case, we’re going to have to learn to live with it. Is the Plague that much worse in China, or is old Xi simply enjoying pushing people around?
Dieter Kief
Tuesday - April 12th 2022 9:27AM MST
PS
WHY THE PAST 10 YEARS OF AMERICAN LIFE HAVE BEEN UNIQUELY STUPID - - - It’s not just a phase.
By Jonathan Haidt
Illustrations by Nicolás Orte
... (very nice Illustrations, I want to say: - referring not least to - The Tower of Babel (s. also The Trump Tower as a real symbol (Ernst Bloch) of - Babelism...).
So - The Atlantic Monthly is Catching up. Mod.!
(It looks almost, as if Stupidity - Uniquely Stupid Actions, Peak Stupidity etc. - - - - would be trending?!)
Google: Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid - The Atlantic
Haidt sees (anonymus/unhinged) internet-communication and - lack of real social interaction - as the most damaging new phenomena. The coddling of the mainstream media is overlooked by him. -
- The lack of style that goes along with this trend is something, that the Rolling Stones - did have on their radar already: "If you meet me, have some Courtesy, have some sympathy and - have some TASTE". - That encompasses the whole communicative stupidty we see now, because this stupidity neglects the good customs to - honor the opponent.
- The Rolling Stones - following closely the Faust legend (Marlowe's Faust / and/or Goethe's Faust (?). I'd love to know. // Goethes Faust could be, because Jagger was (and is still) friends with playwright Tom Stoppard - and Jagger and Keith Richards dated Munich Bohemian Uschi Obermeier and Countess of Fürstenberg was also in thier circels for a while.
So - : - I'd have it this way: One of the root causes of the current stupidity is the eradication of the opponent, the other, the enemy (= the Stones' and Marlowe's and Goethe's Mephistopheles/the Devil). The idea that if you know the truth, you don't need to argue/ debate/ politizise...The idea that contradiction is the Devil and peace means to live in eternal harmony and contradiction/ opposition is no necessity but: A nuisance, and we'd all be better off if these enervating voices were not heard so much - or if, then in very small indeed - niches (Steve Sailer: "I did find a niche for myself the HBD-niche to work on) - - - of the public sphere...
WHY THE PAST 10 YEARS OF AMERICAN LIFE HAVE BEEN UNIQUELY STUPID - - - It’s not just a phase.
By Jonathan Haidt
Illustrations by Nicolás Orte
... (very nice Illustrations, I want to say: - referring not least to - The Tower of Babel (s. also The Trump Tower as a real symbol (Ernst Bloch) of - Babelism...).
So - The Atlantic Monthly is Catching up. Mod.!
(It looks almost, as if Stupidity - Uniquely Stupid Actions, Peak Stupidity etc. - - - - would be trending?!)
Google: Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid - The Atlantic
Haidt sees (anonymus/unhinged) internet-communication and - lack of real social interaction - as the most damaging new phenomena. The coddling of the mainstream media is overlooked by him. -
- The lack of style that goes along with this trend is something, that the Rolling Stones - did have on their radar already: "If you meet me, have some Courtesy, have some sympathy and - have some TASTE". - That encompasses the whole communicative stupidty we see now, because this stupidity neglects the good customs to - honor the opponent.
- The Rolling Stones - following closely the Faust legend (Marlowe's Faust / and/or Goethe's Faust (?). I'd love to know. // Goethes Faust could be, because Jagger was (and is still) friends with playwright Tom Stoppard - and Jagger and Keith Richards dated Munich Bohemian Uschi Obermeier and Countess of Fürstenberg was also in thier circels for a while.
So - : - I'd have it this way: One of the root causes of the current stupidity is the eradication of the opponent, the other, the enemy (= the Stones' and Marlowe's and Goethe's Mephistopheles/the Devil). The idea that if you know the truth, you don't need to argue/ debate/ politizise...The idea that contradiction is the Devil and peace means to live in eternal harmony and contradiction/ opposition is no necessity but: A nuisance, and we'd all be better off if these enervating voices were not heard so much - or if, then in very small indeed - niches (Steve Sailer: "I did find a niche for myself the HBD-niche to work on) - - - of the public sphere...
The Alarmist
Tuesday - April 12th 2022 9:17AM MST
PS
Special Military Operation ... kind of like the Russian version of ‘Police Action,’ e.g. Korean War.
Special Military Operation ... kind of like the Russian version of ‘Police Action,’ e.g. Korean War.
Moderator
Tuesday - April 12th 2022 5:41AM MST
PS: Mr. Unz admits he doesn't know anything about the field of medicine. He goes with whoever he thinks sounds the most credible. He's a bad judge of people though, really bad sometimes.
Honestly, I don't know what the "SMO" is, Alarmist. I really haven't been following the the Russia/Ukraine war. Nobody at my workplace is saying anything about it, even the corporate people. That's fine with me.
I do know something about the Z's. However, "Z"s and "N"'s, yeah, they can be confused - my wife had bought us New Balance shoes, and we wondered what the "Z"'s on them were for, for a time. They were sideways "N"'s, I finally figured out.
Honestly, I don't know what the "SMO" is, Alarmist. I really haven't been following the the Russia/Ukraine war. Nobody at my workplace is saying anything about it, even the corporate people. That's fine with me.
I do know something about the Z's. However, "Z"s and "N"'s, yeah, they can be confused - my wife had bought us New Balance shoes, and we wondered what the "Z"'s on them were for, for a time. They were sideways "N"'s, I finally figured out.
The Alarmist
Tuesday - April 12th 2022 2:24AM MST
PS
As I’ve said before, China locked down hard, and the leaders of the “Free World™️“ said, “You can do that? Hold my beer!”
Ron has slapped me down on one comment on the WuFlu in the early days, when I said it was a bad cold for the vast majority of people, but very strangely enough, he commented on my comment on a Sailer post on the SMO in Kiev, and in the middle made a reference to the cytokine storm being the killer in COVID and comparing that to the West’s reaction to the SMO.
BTW, I’m highly discouraged at work to say anything that would seem to support Russia, so I refer to the SMO as the SMO and wear a little Z pin turned 90° so that it appears as a ‘N’ just to tweak them. Only one person asked about the pin, and I told her it was an abbreviation for BLM.
As I’ve said before, China locked down hard, and the leaders of the “Free World™️“ said, “You can do that? Hold my beer!”
Ron has slapped me down on one comment on the WuFlu in the early days, when I said it was a bad cold for the vast majority of people, but very strangely enough, he commented on my comment on a Sailer post on the SMO in Kiev, and in the middle made a reference to the cytokine storm being the killer in COVID and comparing that to the West’s reaction to the SMO.
BTW, I’m highly discouraged at work to say anything that would seem to support Russia, so I refer to the SMO as the SMO and wear a little Z pin turned 90° so that it appears as a ‘N’ just to tweak them. Only one person asked about the pin, and I told her it was an abbreviation for BLM.
Xi is not the only one who likes pushing people around either.
Alarmist, thanks for the "Artificial Stupidity" video. I got the term off of John Derbyshire as he used it to describe the modern electronics, which did play a part in the video's story. OK, got "SMO" now.