WashPo Editorial: "The CIA funded a culture war against communism. It should do so again."

I'm not expecting anything, but it's undeniable that the political right, during and after the 20th century, was most institutionally supportive of nefarious CIA activities in the Middle East and Latin America. I appreciate that there is now some grassroots skepticism from the right on the agency, but it sure as shit didn't seem to exist until fairly recently.

As much as I hate US foreign policy it was far better for the continent to be inline with the US than with Soviets. East Europe has no love for socialism and they lived the real deal, that tells you about the regime.
 
As much as I hate US foreign policy it was far better for the continent to be inline with the US than with Soviets. East Europe has no love for socialism and they lived the real deal, that tells you about the regime.

I hold no love for the USSR or their imperialism in Eastern Europe.

However, fear of USSR influence did not/does not excuse the massive slaughter of democratic movements and undermining of human rights and labor rights in the region - especially when they were usually in actuality completely unrelated to the Soviets.

I personally don't think Soviet paranoia was all that great a consideration at all: it was just used as one then and is used as one now to justify the suffering we caused. In actuality, it was just all about economic domination and expropriation of wealth, just like it was before the Soviets and just like it has been after the Soviets.
 
Yes, I did. Because I care about shaming morons, as I stated. Someone - you - was clogging up the front page by shit posting tens, maybe hundreds of times just to refuse to cite a bunk claim that you made in ignorance, instead of owning up to your ignorance like a man.

All it would take was an honest representation of what I said, which nobody could do. Just like you couldn't honestly represent your role in it here. Sound about right?
 
All it would take was an honest representation of what I said, which nobody could do. Just like you couldn't honestly represent your role in it here. Sound about right?

Honest representation, a direct quote in fact:

You: "It is a well documented fact that Pontius Pilate's [letters] containing his writings about his time in Judah and his interactions with the man who came to be know as Jesus survived more or less in [their] original form into the Early Middle Ages when [they were] taken by monks to a monastery where the current canonical story of Jesus was created, and the actual history of the real man and Pontius Pilate destroyed."

And your lol-worthy reason for refusing to? "I know what my claim is. I also know the basis for it. I feel know obligation to justify it to you, mainly because of the pretentious, smug, self important goof manner in which you always behave"

You then spent 30 pages refusing to document said well-documented fact. You whined like a pussy and tried to dodge instead of owning up to not being able to do so. Accordingly, you were ridiculed and will continue to be ridiculed, as this instance is a proper microcosm of your pitiful posting history.
 
People worship Jesus when it should really be James Clerk Maxwell. But whatever.
 
People worship Jesus when it should really be James Clerk Maxwell. But whatever.

I'm a loosely-affiliated Christian, but I was always of the mind that the Bible, even down to its fundamental narrative tenets, was allegorical. Accordingly, it doesn't really change anything to me if JC's story was just a mosaic of monotheistic and pagan lore. Hand wringing over the historicity of the Bible just seems silly to me.
 
I hold no love for the USSR or their imperialism in Eastern Europe.

However, fear of USSR influence did not/does not excuse the massive slaughter of democratic movements and undermining of human rights and labor rights in the region - especially when they were usually in actuality completely unrelated to the Soviets.

I personally don't think Soviet paranoia was all that great a consideration at all: it was just used as one then and is used as one now to justify the suffering we caused. In actuality, it was just all about economic domination and expropriation of wealth, just like it was before the Soviets and just like it has been after the Soviets.

Most Coups were a route to stop countries from going communist and the "democratic movements" in Latin America were never a fight for democracy, most of them wanted to remove a military government to replace with communism, from one dictatorial govt for another. Most of the people fighting the militaries in Brazil were trained in Cuba with USSR support, Che tried to expand Communism in Bolivia for god sake and failed miserably.
 
Most Coups were a route to stop countries from going communist and the "democratic movements" in Latin America were never a fight for democracy, most of them wanted to remove a military government to replace with communism, from one dictatorial govt for another. Most of the people fighting the militaries in Brazil were trained in Cuba with USSR support, Che tried to expand Communism in Bolivia for god sake and failed miserably.


The fights for social democracy and socialism in countries like Chile, El Salvador, and Honduras and the subsequent quashing of them by US subterfuge was paradigmatically anti-democratic and included the ouster of democratically elected candidates, even allowing for the (at times unfounded) expectation that that democratically elected official would deconstruct democracy. A central government operated by citizens of that country and for citizens of that country is, in my opinion, fundamentally more democratic than central governments operated by a plutocratic class toward the interest of foreign powers. In the case of Cuba, the provisional revolutionary government was by far the most democratically representative government to have ever existed in that country.
 
I'm a loosely-affiliated Christian, but I was always of the mind that the Bible, even down to its fundamental narrative tenets, was allegorical. Accordingly, it doesn't really change anything to me if JC's story was just a mosaic of monotheistic and pagan lore. Hand wringing over the historicity of the Bible just seems silly to me.

Yea, I was brought up in a Lutheran family typical of the Midwest USA but strayed pretty quickly by preteen years and considered myself an agnostic by high school. For me, there is just too much convenience in how much of it is rooted in invisible beings, undetectable forces, inaudible voices and judgments that aren't made until after you die, but that's faith I guess.

At the same time, I -ordinarily- don't engage in mocking religious people so long as they aren't bringing archaic fundamentalist rhetoric to the table and I also feel like I'd be shitting on some of my own family and that makes me feel bad because I know they're good people whose beliefs don't infringe upon anyone in contemporary society. I would actually credit religion for being a postive factor in the sense of community and social cohesion of places that tend to rate high on it, such as North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota, et al.
 
Yea, I was brought up in a Lutheran family typical of the Midwest USA but strayed pretty quickly by preteen years and considered myself an agnostic by high school. For me, there is just too much convenience in how much of it is rooted in invisible beings, undetectable forces, inaudible voices and judgments that aren't made until after you die, but that's faith I guess.

At the same time, I -ordinarily- don't engage in mocking religious people so long as they aren't bringing archaic fundamentalist rhetoric to the table and I also feel like I'd be shitting on some of my own family and that makes me feel bad because I know they're good people whose beliefs don't infringe upon anyone in contemporary society. I would actually credit religion for being a postive factor in the sense of community and social cohesion of places that tend to rate high on it, such as North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota, et al.

Yeah, to me it's become more of a cultural thing than a doctrinal thing. I try to abide by the teachings of the New Testament and appreciate their usefulness in civic organization, but biblical textualism is both (a) inherently silly given the obvious contradictions, and (b) almost always inauthentic and selective.
 
I both respect and loathe them in equal measure.

WaPo: Waking Up To China’s Infiltration Of American Colleges


NYTimes: China's Intellectual Property Theft Must Stop




Between this here and ghosting hundreds of thousands of Uyghur Muslims into re-education camps, it's actually pretty damn, err... impressive? The PRC doesn't fuck around.

RFA: China Aims For Near Total Surveillance, Including People's Homes

By 2020, China will have completed its nationwide facial recognition and surveillance network, achieving near-total surveillance of urban residents, including in their homes via smart TVs and smartphones. According to the official Legal Daily newspaper, the 13th Five Year Plan requires 100 percent surveillance and facial recognition coverage and total unification of its existing databases across the country.

Authorities in the southwestern province of Sichuan reported in December that they had completed the installation of more than 40,000 surveillance cameras across more than 14,000 villages as part of the "Sharp Eyes" nationwide surveillance network, the paper said. Guangdong-based Bell New Vision Co. is developing the nationwide "Sharp Eyes" platform that can link up public surveillance cameras and those installed in smart devices in the home, to a nationwide network for viewing in real time by anyone who is given access.

"Sharp Eyes" comes from a ruling Chinese Communist Party slogan, "the people have sharp eyes," which traditionally relied on the eyes and ears of local neighborhood committees to keep tabs on what its people were up to.

Soon, police and other officials will be able to monitor people's activities in their own homes, wherever there is an internet-connected camera. A Chinese internet user who asked to remain anonymous said the social media platform WeChat has also begun issuing warnings to anyone posting messages that the government deems undesirable.

"The internet and our smartphones have been under government surveillance for a long time already," the user said. "A friend of mine in Anhui is under surveillance, and he tried to buy a plane ticket to go overseas, but he couldn't leave the country. We can be placed under restriction or persecuted by them, or asked to 'drink tea,' [with state security police], or placed under surveillance, at any time," he said. "Overall, it feels as if we're not free at all."

'Social Credit' System

The Sharp Eyes system will be implemented in tandem with a "social credit" system that makes simple actions like buying a train ticket subject to sufficient social credit.

Under a pilot social credit scheme, people who are considered to be "troublemakers" by the authorities, including those who have tried fare-dodging, smoked on public transport, caused trouble on commercial flights or "spread false information" online will now be prevented from buying train tickets, the government announced earlier this month. Employers who fail to pay social insurance or people who have failed to pay fines will also be on the restricted list, which takes effect on May 1.

The administration of President’s Xi Jinping is currently building a social credit system allowing government bodies to share information on its citizens’ trustworthiness and assign a "social credit score" to citizens. In early 2017, the country’s Supreme People’s Court said that 6.15 million Chinese citizens had been banned from taking flights for social misdeeds, Reuters reported.


What the PRC is attempting to do is so immoral, what the heck are they fans of George Orwell? Oh well.

images
 
Honest representation, a direct quote in fact:

You: "It is a well documented fact that Pontius Pilate's [letters] containing his writings about his time in Judah and his interactions with the man who came to be know as Jesus survived more or less in [their] original form into the Early Middle Ages when [they were] taken by monks to a monastery where the current canonical story of Jesus was created, and the actual history of the real man and Pontius Pilate destroyed."

And your lol-worthy reason for refusing to? "I know what my claim is. I also know the basis for it. I feel know obligation to justify it to you, mainly because of the pretentious, smug, self important goof manner in which you always behave"

You then spent 30 pages refusing to document said well-documented fact. You whined like a pussy and tried to dodge instead of owning up to not being able to do so. Accordingly, you were ridiculed and will continue to be ridiculed, as this instance is a proper microcosm of your pitiful posting history.

Yet another dishonest representation of what was said. I told him how to find what I was talking about, all he had to do was read my other comments. But again, we both know you don't feel any compulsion to be honest in your posts, that's why that thread went as long as it did and why you never got the answers you were looking for. Because you can't make intellectually honest arguments. It's sort of your schtick.
 
Yet another dishonest representation of what was said. I told him how to find what I was talking about, all he had to do was read my other comments. But again, we both know you don't feel any compulsion to be honest in your posts, that's why that thread went as long as it did and why you never got the answers you were looking for. Because you can't make intellectually honest arguments. It's sort of your schtick.

Yes, I was very dishonest with my.....direct quoting of your posts. But you know how you could solve this dilemma?

You could post the evidence for your claim. Or (lol) you could post those "other comments" that do.
But you won't.
Because you can't.
Cry more.
 
Yes, I was very dishonest with my.....direct quoting of your posts. But you know how you could solve this dilemma?

You could post the evidence for your claim. Or (lol) you could post those "other comments" that do.
But you won't.
Because you can't.
Cry more.

The ones of you crying and running out like you said you didn't? Honestly, we can just go back to thread and talk about it there instead of filling this thread up with nonsense.
 
The ones of you crying and running out like you said you didn't?

Crying as in telling you "Source or shut the fuck up"? Yes, that one. Where you neither provided a source, despite talking in circles for 30 pages, nor (of course) shut the fuck up.

Honestly, we can just go back to thread and talk about it there instead of filling this thread up with nonsense.

You're not going to post the evidence, because it does not exist. You've spent thousands of words claiming it does but refusing to provide it.
And you're not going to own up to your direct quotes, because you lack the courage.
And you won't just slink your way out of the discussion because you lack the shame and are too petty to not have the last word.
 
Yes, I was very dishonest with my.....direct quoting of your posts. But you know how you could solve this dilemma?

You could post the evidence for your claim. Or (lol) you could post those "other comments" that do.
But you won't.
Because you can't.
Cry more.
If it's dishonest to quote him directly, then that means he's full of shit.

<TheDonald>

We can bump that thread again if y'all want. I could do some bible talkin's this weekend.
 
If it's dishonest to quote him directly, then that means he's full of shit.

<TheDonald>

We can bump that thread again if y'all want. I could do some bible talkin's this weekend.

I take not responding as a de facto surrender, even if not an outright admission. I'll take that over having to bicker back and forth toward no cognizable end.
 
What the PRC is attempting to do is so immoral, what the heck are they fans of George Orwell? Oh well.

images

Well, if it's any comfort, there's a good chance that anything on Radio Free Asia (or Radio Free Europe for that matter) is just straight up propaganda.
 
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