even when Biden explicitly said they would destroy it!

Only for Trump to take credit for it anyway.

They’ll just wait for people to lose interest and do it quietly. Or use some other warehouse.

You get to meet your boss everyday?

All the “Chyna lab leak bioweapon” accusations were always a projection.

Who would’ve guessed.

The US is stealing any oil tanker they can see in the Caribbean, lack of will is not the problem.

“Almost as an article of faith, some individuals believe that conspiracies are either kooky fantasies or unimportant aberrations. To be sure, wacko conspiracy theories do exist. There are people who believe that the United States has been invaded by a secret United Nations army equipped with black helicopters, or that the country is secretly controlled by Jews or gays or feminists or black nationalists or communists or extraterrestrial aliens. But it does not logically follow that all conspiracies are imaginary.

Conspiracy is a legitimate concept in law: the collusion of two or more people pursuing illegal means to effect some illegal or immoral end. People go to jail for committing conspiratorial acts. Conspiracies are a matter of public record, and some are of real political significance. The Watergate break-in was a conspiracy, as was the Watergate cover-up, which led to Nixon’s downfall. Iran-contra was a conspiracy of immense scope, much of it still uncovered. The savings and loan scandal was described by the Justice Department as “a thousand conspiracies of fraud, theft, and bribery,” the greatest financial crime in history.

Often the term “conspiracy” is applied dismissively whenever one suggests that people who occupy positions of political and economic power are consciously dedicated to advancing their elite interests. Even when they openly profess their designs, there are those who deny that intent is involved. In 1994, the officers of the Federal Reserve announced they would pursue monetary policies designed to maintain a high level of unemployment in order to safeguard against “overheating” the economy. Like any creditor class, they preferred a deflationary course. When an acquaintance of mine mentioned this to friends, he was greeted skeptically, “Do you think the Fed bankers are deliberately trying to keep people unemployed?” In fact, not only did he think it, it was announced on the financial pages of the press. Still, his friends assumed he was imagining a conspiracy because he ascribed self-interested collusion to powerful people.

At a World Affairs Council meeting in San Francisco, I remarked to a participant that U.S. leaders were pushing hard for the reinstatement of capitalism in the former communist countries. He said, “Do you really think they carry it to that level of conscious intent?” I pointed out it was not a conjecture on my part. They have repeatedly announced their commitment to seeing that “free-market reforms” are introduced in Eastern Europe. Their economic aid is channeled almost exclusively into the private sector. The same policy holds for the monies intended for other countries. Thus, as of the end of 1995, “more than $4.5 million U.S. aid to Haiti has been put on hold because the Aristide government has failed to make progress on a program to privatize state-owned companies” (New York Times 11/25/95).

Those who suffer from conspiracy phobia are fond of saying: “Do you actually think there’s a group of people sitting around in a room plotting things?” For some reason that image is assumed to be so patently absurd as to invite only disclaimers. But where else would people of power get together – on park benches or carousels? Indeed, they meet in rooms: corporate boardrooms, Pentagon command rooms, at the Bohemian Grove, in the choice dining rooms at the best restaurants, resorts, hotels, and estates, in the many conference rooms at the White House, the NSA, the CIA, or wherever. And, yes, they consciously plot – though they call it “planning” and “strategizing” – and they do so in great secrecy, often resisting all efforts at public disclosure. No one confabulates and plans more than political and corporate elites and their hired specialists. To make the world safe for those who own it, politically active elements of the owning class have created a national security state that expends billions of dollars and enlists the efforts of vast numbers of people.”

― Michael Parenti, Dirty Truths

In fact, it goes back all the way to Christopher Columbus: https://museumfacts.co.uk/atrocities-committed-by-christopher-columbus/

All European colonizers were child sex traffickers (among the rest of their crimes).

Hint: they can determine who is responsible.

Who do you think “installed” the Iranian government?

As you say, they didn’t care about blowing up the “hostages”, the issue was they had to manage the annoying demonstrations by their relatives who were making relatively a lot of noise. Now, there won’t be any “Israelis” demanding ceasefire anymore.

China is obvious, but our US comrades need to realize they wanna do the same with the US also. You are not safe in the imperial core. Those times have ended.

Yeah, great essay.

Keep coping that, however bad you have it your country, China must be worse, so it’s fine that you and your fellow citizens won’t do anything about the deteriorating conditions.

Classic western resistance: “people taking hopeful actions that go against the grain.”

Who needs actually achieving environmental goals, it’s the purity that matters.

All labor unions must belong to the state-sanctioned All-China Federation of Trade Unions. Independent strikes and labor organizing are illegal and strictly suppressed. There are strong anti-union sentiments in the US, but independent unionizing is still very much legally permitted.

Westerners can stay mad forever that China won’t allow CIA and NED to set up “independent” “labor unions”.

Not OP, but I highly recommend the “Primitive Accumulation” mini-series (Part 1: The collapse of Feudalism and Part 2: The Great European Witch Hunts)

Call me skeptical, but back in Trump 1 times EU was very loud about a need for “independent alternative financial transaction system” too. They even created it, performed 1 (one) transaction and then quietly shut it down after a year.

I’ve been watching some modern Chinese “Red” shows and they mention Edgar Snows’s Red Star over China multiple times, and I’ve heard it mentioned before, so I decided it’s time to read it. Overall very informative and enjoyable account of China’s revolutionary years and Mao’s personal development from a run of the mill liberal to the Mao we all know and love.

As a teaser here’s Snow talking to some random Chinese on a train when he was about to reach the Communist controlled territories:

“But in Szechuan don’t people fear the Reds as much as the bandits?”

“Well, that depends. The rich men fear them, and the landlords, and the officials and tax-collectors, yes. But the peasants do not fear them. Sometimes they welcome them.” Then he glanced apprehensively at the old man, who sat listening intently, and yet seeming not to listen. “You see,” he continued, “the peasants are too ignorant to understand that the Reds only want to use them. They think the Reds really mean what they say.”

“But they don’t mean it?”

“My father wrote to me that they did abolish usury and opium in the Sungpan [Szechuan], and that they redistributed the land there. So you see they are not exactly bandits. They have principles all right. But they are wicked men. They kill too many people.”

Then surprisingly the greybeard lifted his gentle face and with perfect composure he made an astonishing remark. “Sha pu kou!” he said. “They don’t kill enough!” We both looked at him flabbergasted.

could trigger a humanitarian crisis

Yeah, that’s the point of the blockade.

Surely this couldn’t possibly have anything to do with a certain country using its control over financial institutions to prevent processing payments from “bad” countries.