Something something Manufactured Consent :chomsky-yes-honey:
Yeah, even the "China bad" people should be outraged at this. Comparing the worst plausible allegations of China's human rights abuses (such as the allegation of cultural genocide) is not on the same order of magintude as the fucking Holocaust. It's soft Holocaust denial to even make the comparison.
Abolish the Olympic Games.
They're a corporate money-grab, a hive of abuse and pedophilia, and part of the neoliberal spectacle papering over the nightmare of global capitalism.
Getting the US out of the Olympic Games would be nothing but good for everyone involved, even if we did it for the wrong reasons.
the idea of an international sporting competition is cool
but the Olympics are a fucking sham
https://www.americanprogressaction.org/progress-reports/a-gold-medal-in-outsourcing/
The Salt Lake games cost taxpayers 1.5 times the amount spent on the previous seven Olympics held in the U.S. — combined. While some money went to security, much of it was spent on infrastructure and “questionable projects of marginal value to the Salt Lake games.” Mother Jones reports that the taxpayer money was something of a slush fund for wealthy donors:
Wealthy Utahns used the games as an excuse to receive exemptions for projects that would otherwise never meet environmental standards, or to receive generous subsidies for improvements of questionable value to the games—but with serious value to future real estate developments. In one example, a wealthy developer received $3 million to build a three-mile stretch of road through his resort. Where’d he get the money? Federal funds that had been deposited in the Utah Permanent Community Impact Fund.
Indeed, Mitt Romney was so eager to get “free stuff” and other things from the government that he even became a registered lobbyist. It appears that Romney may have been lobbying some of the same legislators to whom he was giving thousands in campaign cash.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_Gymnastics_sex_abuse_scandal
On May 1, 2018, former national team member Sabrina Vega also accused Nassar of sexual abuse, claiming she was abused hundreds of times, beginning when she was 12. In August 2018, UCLA gymnasts and 2012 and 2016 Olympians Kyla Ross and Madison Kocian came forward as victims of Nassar. The following month, Alabama Crimson Tide gymnasts Bailie Key and Amanda Jetter also came forward with accusations against Nassar.[47] In October, Tasha Schwikert, a member of the 2000 US Olympics team, came forward as a victim and claimed that Steve Penny pressed her to publicly support USA Gymnastics at the height of the Nassar scandal. In November, Florida Gators gymnasts Kennedy Baker and Baumann made public allegations against Nassar; Baker said she was abused during the 2012 Olympic Trials.
https://www.ran.org/the-understory/olympic-timber-scandal/
Our relentless campaigns got the Tokyo 2020 organizers to disclose how much tropical wood they’ve been using to construct the Olympic venues, and we were shocked to find out that over 170,000 massive sheets of plywood made from tropical rainforests had been used as of the end of November 2018, mostly to construct their brand new Olympic Stadium. In fact, almost every new venue being built for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics — aside from the new archery field — was built with tropical plywood either from Malaysia or Indonesia.
Last fall, investigations with our partners— TuK INDONESIA and WALHI — exposed how one major Olympic wood supplier — Korindo — had a history of cutting down rainforest in some of the most diverse tropical ecosystems in the world and was illegally grabbing community land. We traced Korindo wood from the Olympic construction site in Tokyo all the way to the pristine rainforests of Indonesia that were being clear cut for palm oil. We even caught Korindo sourcing wood from the habitat of critically endangered Orangutans in Borneo. This was unsustainable sourcing at its worst. See our video below.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-olympics-rio-corruption-exclusive/exclusive-more-olympic-projects-under-investigation-for-corruption-prosecutor-idUSKCN0XG2GR
Lima is a lead prosecutor on a task force that discovered a cartel of engineering firms siphoning kickbacks from state oil firm Petrobras PETR4.SA to political parties, a scandal fuelling a crisis that could force President Dilma Rousseff from power.
His comments were the clearest indication yet that the Olympics has become a focus of the two-year-old investigation. The corruption allegations are not expected to hinder work on infrastructure for the Games, which is nearly finished, but they do further cloud an event set to start in the middle of Brazil’s worst political and economic crises in decades.
The lower house of Brazil’s Congress, many of whose members are themselves under investigation for corruption, voted on Sunday to impeach Rousseff on charges she manipulated budget accounts.
Good ass post.
This is only the tip of the iceberg, too. The Olympics are so bad even my lib ass poli sci classes in uni would talk about them being terrible for literally everyone but their big brand supporters
Imagine cutting away from a field hockey tournament and listening to Bob Costa drone on for an hour about how brave some gymnast's mom is for turning her daughter over to a known pedophile, and calling that fun.
The USA stands a like 1,000% higher chance of descending into fascism than China ever will. Hell, we already got a friendly sort of fascism anyway in neoliberalism.
The USA stands a like 1,000% higher chance of descending into fascism than China ever will.
Only because the Chinese government is focused on the material needs of its residents in an effort to run an efficient economy. Meanwhile the US oligarchs stuff their faces with a generation's worth of seed corn, then order their media flaks to blame populism for the subsequent famine.
If the CCP's leadership ever starts drinking from the neoliberal kool-aid jar (as they very nearly did with Bo Xilai), it could very easily topple into American-tier hyper-nationalism and fascist militarism.
the US is already a fascist state, they have at least 9 of the [14 points of fascism] (Umberto Eco Makes a List of the 14 Common Features of Fascism)
Meh, that’s ideological thingy if I remember correctly. Materially, as soon as you have mobs of petit bourgeoisie and lumpen beating worker strikes (or leftists generally) on behalf (or at weak permission) of finance capital, that’s that. Floyd counterprotestors and capitol riot comes extremely close there, so. Read comrade :trot-shining: for that perspective
The 14 points of fascism:
The cult of tradition. “One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements.”
The rejection of modernism. "The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.”
The cult of action for action’s sake. “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”
Disagreement is treason. “The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge.”
Fear of difference. “The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.”
Appeal to social frustration. “One of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups.”
The obsession with a plot. “Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged.”
The enemy is both strong and weak. “By a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.”
Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. “For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.”
Contempt for the weak. “Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology.”
Everybody is educated to become a hero. “In Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death.”
Machismo and weaponry. “Machismo implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality.”
Selective populism. “There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.”
Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. “All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning."
sorry i forgot to link them, but the US has the 1,3,4,5,6,7,8,10,12 points
There's an argument to be made about the other 5 points being present too, but not prevalent/fully widespread
yeah you are right about that, but the thing with the Eco 14 points of fascism is that if the country in question has some of the points then its already light/Quasi fascism
The other 5 are absolutely present. The Republican base is absolutely already showing all 14. Even the Newspeak textbooks is being done in places like Texas and Alabama.
I'd even argue that since 9/11, "pacifism bus weakness" has become one of the driving mottos of US domestic policy. Expansion of the police state, glorification of military, etc.
Me, from my country with 2.2 million prisoners, that deported 26,000 people in month (some of them infants) and has so many children in concentration camps that it needs to build more camps with materials pillaged from the global south: China bad!
I swear to God the only comparison people know how to make is to Nazi Germany. There has only ever been one evil genocidal regime, and the good guys all teamed up to stop it! (Because we were mad about the holocaust, of course)
That's why the US jumped in last second to re-claim colonies in the pacific and stop the Red Army from passing through Germany.
Reminder that the Western allies waited to see if the Nazis would take Moscow before really committing to the war effort, they were leaving the door open to detente/coexistence with Hitler if he was able to achieve what the international intervention against the Bolsheviks couldn't 12 years earlier.
I believe accountability for human rights violations – especially ethnic cleansing and genocide — is paramount. But accountability and recognition of genocide should not be used as a cudgel in a political fight. It should be done based on academic consensus outside the push and pull of geopolitics.... For this reason, I voted “present” on the final passage of H.Res 296, the resolution Affirming the United States record on the Armenian Genocide.
couldn't even give a firm no on the armenian genocide. had to do the high horse thing. on a fucking genocide that took place a century ago, she says its too politically hot...
Yeah plenty of nuance she has when it suits her, she'll be bombing her home town pretty soon at this rate
Ilhan receives money from the Turkish-American Steering Committee (TASC). She has also regularly attended their conferences. TASC is a pro-Erdogan organization led by Halil Mutlu, Erdogan's cousin. [1]
The preponderance of evidence points to the fact that her opinions on foreign policy is heavily influenced by the TASC. Here are some exceptional foreign policy decisions which align with the TASC:
- Opposing recognition of the Armenian Genocide.
- Opposing sanctions on Turkey for invading Syria.
- Support for the Palestinian cause.
- Leading support for pro-Turkey separatists in Xinjiang.
How many times do they have to compromise with the butchers of the middle east and the justice department slavers before you figure it out?
How many times do we have to dilute the definition of Fascism before it starts applying to Hexbear moderation?
Socdems just want to show they are just as imperialist as their other :LIB: counterparts
for those who aren't aware, Turkey is one of the biggest supporters of the Uyghur separatists. Turkey is not shy in funding Islamic terrorists.
