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One by One, My Friends Were Sent to the Camps

theatlantic.com

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Re: One by One, My Friends Were Sent to the Camps

#71

Post by GravitasFailure »

deregulateMed wrote: post #16
Chris2048 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who's "they", or "the world"? Do we have a world government already? You either interfere (on a global scale) in the sovereignty of other nations, or you don't. Hitler was only stopped after a very costly war. How would any alliance have the disproportionate resources to police the globe, while allowing free trade and the distributed opportunity that allows any nations to get rich enough to challenge them? You talk o…

Tariffs over intellectual property wasn't enough or aimed at the correct problem. How hard would it be to ban trade with China? I know automotive tooling is inside china and impossible to get out, but if it costs 4 trillion dollars, it's still less expensive than coronavirus. I say all of that, then get embarrassed at the evils my government committed over the years.

>How hard would it be to ban trade with China?

It depends. A lot of why China is such a manufacturing powerhouse right now is not only do they have the factories and machines, they have people trained to do that kind of work. They also have lots of factories working near each other with shipping and energy infrastructure to support them, none of which is easy to do quickly. A lack of OSHA and EPA protections certainly helps things move quickly and cheaply in ways our current automation doesn't...yet.

Some industries can switch to different countries much more readily than others (injection molding is easy, rare earth production and silicon foundries much less so), so I wouldn't expect to see trade banned over night, but we have been seeing some manufacturing moving away from China for some time now.

Re: One by One, My Friends Were Sent to the Camps

#72

Post by VictorPath »

kragen wrote: post #30

I hadn't realized that the absolute number in the Xinjiang camps --- "more than 1 million", according to the article --- is half the number of people in US prisons. It's 4% of the population of Xinjiang, compared to less than 1% of the population of the US, but of course it's 0.1% of the population of China as a whole, and there are US communities that are more heavily incarcerated. The whole situation is appalling,…

China has been facing a series of Uighur terrorist attacks. The US faced one day of attacks loosely related to Muslims living on the western border of Xinjiang, and the US just had a (partial!) withdrawal from there this month after 20 years there (or more going back to the 1970s). The US going to the other side of the world, while the Chinese are dealing with a threat in their own country. Puzzling to see the same Americans bemoaning the US ending the invasion of Afghanistan while wailing about the Chinese actions just over the border. Well not puzzling, but this posturing is ridiculous.

As you say, the descendants of the enslaved Africans are more persecuted and incarcerated in raw numbers than the Uighur. The US News media blasts any mischief in George Floyd's youth over the airwaves endlessly, before turning to reports of the Chinese dealing with their internal terrorism problems (critical of the Chinese).

Re: One by One, My Friends Were Sent to the Camps

#73

Post by JohnWhigham »

fencepost wrote: post #66
JohnWhigham wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's undeniable that the Atlantic has become overly polarizing (like every other American outlet). But for every Pulitzer winner, they have 5 other writers writing overly-partisan clickbait. Right now under their "Most Popular" column, the top article has "Trump" in it. Trump has been out of office for over 6 months, and people are still fucking writing about him, still giving him coverage . If Trump wins again in 20…

Right now under their "Most Popular" column, the top article has "Trump" in it. Trump has been out of office for over 6 months, Have you somehow failed to notice that the former guy is both legitimately significant in the news (legal troubles, ongoing "fraudit" movements) and the defacto leader of US Republicans?

That's valid, but writing blatant incendiary opinion pieces titled "There’s a Word for What Trumpism Is Becoming" isn't helping. People should look at Trump being deplatformed from the big social media sites, how much of a resounding success it was, and do that: deplatform their crummy opinions about him being spread. Stick straight to the news.

Re: One by One, My Friends Were Sent to the Camps

#74

Post by schnable »

shadowgovt wrote: post #52
nomoreplease wrote: post #6

After visiting Auschwitz, I expected (or maybe hoped) that the world would never let it happen again. “How could they do this?”, People asked. “That would never happen today” people murmured. Yet, here we are. Reading the 15th article about it, while the White House deletes tweets that likely anger the CCP They should be removed from most favored nation status. Governments could do a lot more but don’t

Practically speaking, there's very little most governments can do to the most populous nation in the world with a military infrastructure rivaled by only a handful of other countries. And even fewer things they could do that don't ultimately culminate in massive bloodshed.

The US government has many tools at its disposal - sanctions, tariffs, supplier policy, etc.

But culturally we can do a lot more. Western filmmakers, actors, and athletes should not censor themselves (or allow themselves to be censored) to avoid irritating China. There could be a BDS-like movement against China. The media and activists could spend some cycles focusing on the genocide occurring in China in between much lower stakes issues that get disproportionate attention.

Re: One by One, My Friends Were Sent to the Camps

#75

Post by benrbray »

yunohn wrote: post #68
benrbray wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of Americans were very outspoken against the Vietnam and Iraq wars, among other blunders. Plenty of us find the state of American politics absolutely deplorable. There is no shortage of critics. Sure, there is plenty of room for improvement. I wish more people cared about social and economic issues, and I wish those who did care were more willing to act. But at least in America it's part of the conversation.

> Sure, there is plenty of room for improvement I imagine that you probably care more than the average American. But saying there’s room for improvement, while the USA has the largest military presence in the world, and uses it to bully everyone else, is quite frightening for the non-West. > Vietnam and Iraq wars It’s exactly these (older) examples which I am talking about. The West continues to fuel atrocities in th…

For the record, I mentioned Vietnam and Iraq not in the context of the present day, but because a significant proportion of Americans were very outspoken about those wars as they were happening.

You're right, it's harder to remain actively informed about the day-to-day military action that accumulates into something awful. Even when we know about it, our political system doesn't give enough opportunities to give fine-grained feedback about specific issues. Usually the national conversation is dominated by culture war issues, and I can't help but feel that it's an intentional distraction so the public will forget that we're plundering the middle east etc..

But at least I am free to voice my opinion, and to bother all my friends and family about geopolitics when given the opportunity.

Re: One by One, My Friends Were Sent to the Camps

#76

Post by joelbluminator »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #33
celticninja wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fail to understand why it is the west that speaks up for these Muslims, whilst the Islamic countries remain quiet. Where is the outrage from Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Iran? Why are the US the ones accused of needing to do more? Shouldn't Islamic countries at least do something?

>Shouldn't Islamic countries at least do something? They're farther down the hierarchy of nation state needs than where you need to be to be in order to call out someone like China. So they all shit on Israel because it's the only "local enough we could conceivably do something about it" problem they can all agree on.

I think you're simplifying it by a lot. Israel is not about "being able to do anything about" (they arguably can't do much about Israel in the sense of destroying it or changing it's policy). If that was the explanation they wouldn't call out the U.S (or sometimes Europe), yet they do (e.g Mohammed Cartoons).

The geography is also not a good explanation. The Mohammed Cartoons, which happened in Denmark, made Muslims go out to the streets all throughout the world.

My explanation for "why Israel" is another comment on this thread.

Re: One by One, My Friends Were Sent to the Camps

#77

Post by schnable »

JohnWhigham wrote: post #58
kvathupo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Keep in mind, The Atlantic is a lifestyle magazine. Have you ever read The Atlantic? Quite a few of its writers have either been nominated for or outright won Pulitzers, with one winner this year [1]. Even beyond awards, it has published important reporting [2] and very influential commentary [3]. [1] - https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/ed-yong-atlantic [2] - https://pulitzercenter.org/publications/atlantic [3] - ht…

It's undeniable that the Atlantic has become overly polarizing (like every other American outlet). But for every Pulitzer winner, they have 5 other writers writing overly-partisan clickbait. Right now under their "Most Popular" column, the top article has "Trump" in it. Trump has been out of office for over 6 months, and people are still fucking writing about him, still giving him coverage . If Trump wins again in 20…

I don't disagree, but worth noting that the Atlantic does publish a decent number of heterodox viewpoints, more than other center-left publications.

Re: One by One, My Friends Were Sent to the Camps

#78

Post by bsd44 »

I remember watching video footage of fabricated camps in the Balkan wars made by CNN and BCC in the mid 90s (I forgot the name of the video hosting website that was popular back then), following years of similar articles. Nothing changed really, people are as dumb as they ever were and even easier to manipulate nowadays.

Americans and their allies are responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths in the Middle East alone in the last twenty years or so, not counting their military orgies since the end of the II. world war. However China bad, Russia bad. Israel kills 66 children in just 4 days. No problem for the US and its allies. China bad. Russia bad.

This sort of media brainwashing will continue until there's nobody sane left to oppose the establishment in their military action against China in the distant future. No proof, no common sense, just..."news". From us, for us. Because nobody else matters. Vietnam fiasco can't happen again.

Re: One by One, My Friends Were Sent to the Camps

#79

Post by elliekelly »

motohagiography wrote: post #38

People like Tahir come to the U.S. and Canada to escape the regime, but also to warn us. We should take heed.

This line about his friend broke my heart:

> When Kamil had left for the U.S., though, the Chinese government had required that two of his friends serve as guarantors. If he did not return, they would be punished.

How evil and disgusting. But a reminder that the people who escape and tell us their story have paid a huge price to do so. And so have their families and friends.

Re: One by One, My Friends Were Sent to the Camps

#80

Post by shadowgovt »

enriquto wrote: post #59
shadowgovt wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Practically speaking, there's very little most governments can do to the most populous nation in the world with a military infrastructure rivaled by only a handful of other countries. And even fewer things they could do that don't ultimately culminate in massive bloodshed.

maybe stop financing them? We are voluntarily paying them to manufacture most of our stuff.

(Assuming "we" here is the US)

Trade embargo is a possibility, and the US has done it before. But only to smaller countries; it's a strongarm tactic, and the US's trade arm is not strong enough to do more damage to China's economy than the US would suffer cutting those ties.

When an opposed nation is weaker than one's own, one can use sanctions and trade embargoes. When they're the same strength or larger? Trade embargoes cut one's own nation out of the international community. China has India and Russia right next door; they don't need the US's trade.

It's definitely an option. I don't think Americans have the stomach for it. The government that tries it will be voted out and replaced by a trade-friendly one.

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