There’s not anything the US can do to China that China isn’t capable of doing. China’s winning. They’re a totalitarian state who is quite literally committing genocide against a million of its ethnic and religious minorities in its western region. And the world does nothing except buy more Chinese goods. China will control Africa in 50 years, by which any sense of a border between the US and Central America will be non-existent. They’re beating us in artificial intelligence and autonomous drones.

They require every citizen to link their ID to their cell phone and online persona. They read their citizens email. They don’t have BLM activist shutting down a major highway or fire bombing a court house on a daily basis. They don’t have right wing nut jobs posting lizard man theories that get some dipshit Q leader elected. They have one media that spoonfeeds their population one narrative (how much we’re alike!), and their people are nearly unified/pacified.

Compared to the US who has both sides of its political divide in stale mate, who openly considers the merits of abolishing police or immigration enforcement. We argue over whether a woman can abort a 9 month old fetus crowning, where until very recently in China you needed permission to have a child.  The progressives in America believe the traditional understanding of free speech is too liberal. Our entire modern society is based on the concept of intersectionality and the isolation and uniqueness of arbitrary traits to be more of an individual, while China’s entire society is focused on the collective or group. I’ve been to China. Feel free to google the division of eastern and western concepts on autonomy and agency. It’s very real.

China’s people are tough and know hunger and strife. A sign of poverty in America is morbid obesity. I loathe China and everything Mao stands for. But that is a nation that is going to dominate the 21st century and be in an unrivaled position to act unilaterally at will. Europe can’t even handle a vaccine roll out it’s so over bloated in bureaucracy and lack of vision. Germany and France sacrifice their agency and power for fucking Greece and Romania? World superpowers 80 years ago, and they voluntarily agree to be handicapped by nations that haven’t mattered in 2k years.

The United States is a paper tiger. Our military is bloated and ill equipped. Yea, we actually have professionally trained Soldiers and the technology to circumcise a mouse with a drone strike from 8k miles away. Everyone we’ve fought since Korea has been our objective inferiors in any military capacity. That was by design. We can afford to give our soldiers 12k calories a day and internet access at night to drive in a 13 ton armored vehicle impervious to damage and shoot starving villagers who were told to fight or watch their child be raped by the local holy man. We defeated Iraq in a matter of fucking days. And they were in the top 10 armies of the world. Not with our heart of nobility, but because our Air Force vaporized theirs and bombed the fuck out of their cities destroying any command and control. Their armies surrendered in mass, and then we expected their people to be grateful we fucked over an entire generation. I’m not arguing the wrongness or rightness of the war, just crassly and accurately portraying the realities of it.

China doesn’t need to go toe to toe with our Soldiers or fancy ray guns. They just need to take out our comfort, and then the military will be ordered to restrain the riotous populace who freaks without access to gas, electricity or a guaranteed abundance of food. If COVID was lab released, (I’m not saying it is), then you have to evaluate if that was intentional. Who handled Covid better? The US or China?  What did we learn about the US when panic strikes from a virus that didn’t even harm a 1/6th of a percent of the population? How easy is it now to shut down a major energy pipeline (No not the Keystone pipeline Biden ended) like Colonial’s was? If you think China couldn’t knock the US out with a 1-2 punch, I think you’re gravely mistaken.

Isn’t that the case with most albums? I hear the solid UYI tracks like CW, DC, LALD, KOHD and a few others constantly on Sirius or my local FM stations. No, the illusions aren’t appetite. Appetite is one of the greatest albums of all time, probably top 10. I can only think of 1-2 songs of each zeppelin album including 4 that are in constant rotation, but no one questions that those albums are great. Same with Queen or Metallica. Master of Puppets is certainly one of the greatest metal albums and its title song arguably one of the best songs in the genre. But unless you’re a Metallica fan, Damage Inc. and Orion are probably songs you’ll have to google. Night at the opera? Can you name a song besides Bohemiam?

https://www.wired.com/story/the-teeny-t … ovid-kill/

Worth the long read

Cause federal and state unemployment are capped, and eventually she’ll get a job that pays her what her marketable skills will allow. No one voted or approved providing minimum wage employees a $25 hourly wage to sit at home. End the outrageous unemployment benefits that are clearly dissuading people from working, and they’ll go back to work. We’ve moved on from a $15 minimum wage discussion (no country pays teenagers $15 to flip burgers) to now providing 50k a year to capable people, who choose not to work because they’re paid more not to.

They’ll return eventually, and working people will rightfully look at them with scorn. Even Marx said to each their ability. No intellectual advocates people get a middle class living just for existing with no labor or effort.

This perplexes you? Millions who worked through the pandemic are upset there exists a contingent of people perfectly ok with “free” money that far exceeds their current earning potential?

I know you don’t view the “American dream” as I do, but a lot of people believe people should have to earn their comfort through labor as it’s been for all of recorded history.