U.S. attorney general: Hollywood, tech companies “pawns of Chinese influence” • Hacker News Board

Re: U.S. attorney general: Hollywood, tech companies “pawns of Chinese influence”

#221

Post by TazeTSchnitzel » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 9:27 PM UTC

unethical_ban wrote: post #76

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #72

Multinational corporations have no loyalty to anything except their shareholders. Politicians should not feign surprise when they do not align with national interest.

That's only because they choose to. The "Fiduciary obligation to shareholders" thing is not only wrong, but it isn't the way a system needs to work. A corporation, which is a legal entity that owns capital, production and services, is composed of people. Those people could use the powers of the corporation to advance the well being of its community.

A corporation can go against the grain. But what incentive would it have to do so? It's not coincidence that corporations tend to aggressively pursue profit, it is the intentional structure of capitalism.

Re: U.S. attorney general: Hollywood, tech companies “pawns of Chinese influence”

#222

Post by Paradigma11 » Sat, Jul 18, 2020, 10:59 AM UTC

ghthor wrote: post #44

jhpriestley wrote: post #22

Barr didn't seem too concerned about foreign influence when it came to a national security advisor lying to the government about cash payments from Turkey and illegal coordination with Russia.

Those allegations turned out to be false.

The allegations about turkey are certainly not false. Flynn was being paid ~600k$ during the campaign to lobby for turkey. This for example was an oped he released under turkish supervision on election day: https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/foreign-policy/305021... He only declared this conflict of interest some months later. Nobody disputes this. The only question is if it can be proven that taking money from a wealthy turkish business man and friend of erdo to further turkish national interests constitutes working for the turkish gov.

He continued his pro turkey stance in his short term as NSA and tried some shady stuff like selling nuclear tech to the saudis while enriching himself and some friends.

This guys corruption is pretty impressive.

Re: U.S. attorney general: Hollywood, tech companies “pawns of Chinese influence”

#223

Post by Paradigma11 » Sat, Jul 18, 2020, 11:19 AM UTC

cpr wrote: post #55

scarface74 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flynn admitted lying. https://www.google.com/amp/s/thehill.com/policy/defense/4217...

Only because he was pressured to, to save himself and his son financially. This is an incredible scandal which didn't come to light since the DOJ dropped the case against him. The prosecutors colluded with his own law firm to deny him justice. This has all come out since Syndey Powell took his case.

When following the case at the time most ppl had the impression that the plea deal was excellent for Flynn and he didn't get charged with the heavy stuff (turkey..) because he cooperated in several investigations. Many commentators also said that in such cases getting charged and pleading to a lesser process crime (lying to the FBI..) is pretty standard. Flynns tactic in fighting this process crime and winning seems somewhat strange. If Trump loses in November, there will be new charges the next day and the first piece of evidence will be Flynns written testimony admitting to them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNZSwafPAFc&list=PL35erRp2I3...

Re: U.S. attorney general: Hollywood, tech companies “pawns of Chinese influence”

#224

Post by Paradigma11 » Sat, Jul 18, 2020, 11:28 AM UTC

entropea wrote: post #29

tehjoker wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to see an experiment where the united states stops killing people at the border, just letting people in prison die from COVID, and attacking peaceful protestors with military equipment. See how that works? Let us not forget the founding of the country was based on genocide and slavery. We ally with regressive states like Saudi Arabia and formerly places like nuclear apartheid South Africa. Only protests and…

You bring up a very good point about Saudi. We're friendly allies and I absolutely never see the rage for them and their human rights violations that I see against China. It's almost as if there's some manufactured consent occurring.

The rage about the murder of Kashoggi was absolutely there. The US government just sat it out and the interest waned after some time.

Re: U.S. attorney general: Hollywood, tech companies “pawns of Chinese influence”

#225

Post by cheaprentalyeti » Sat, Jul 18, 2020, 3:11 PM UTC

cowmoo728 wrote: post #118

There is so much to unpack here that it's difficult to even get started. The US government has encouraged companies to work with China for decades. I remember it being big news when GM opened a joint venture in China in 1997. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAIC-GM The Clinton administration pushed hard to increase trade with China and make it easier for American companies to outsource manufacturing. https://en.wikiped…

So Barr should not be allowed to turn around and say all the bad decisions we made over the past thirty years were bad decisions?

Re: U.S. attorney general: Hollywood, tech companies “pawns of Chinese influence”

#226

Post by echaozh » Mon, Jul 20, 2020, 7:48 AM UTC

ralmidani wrote: post #58

I detest Trump (voted for Clinton) and most, if not all, senior members of his administration, including Barr. But that doesn't prevent me from ultimately being OK with some of their statements/actions, even if they're all for the wrong reasons. The regime in China represents evil on a scale that is probably unprecedented in Earth's history, and anything that can stop or slow its world domination should be welcomed o…

>> he regime in China represents evil on a scale that is probably unprecedented in Earth's history

Yeah, Nazi is now the cute one in the room, given China is here, right? At least the Nazis are white.

I don't know, maybe killing Native Americans for their land, enslaving the black, and selling opium to weaken a whole nation for their silver are all less evil than what the Chinese are now doing. But who knows, people have forgotten those deeds haven't they?