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I've just gotten around to reading this now (email inbox tidying as bad as the living room sort...).

Those protests just petered out, didn't they? And Xi is stronger than ever.

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IIRC the CCP reversed course on covid fairly quickly after this -- now they're destroying all the evidence :/

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I hope you've got hard copies of every Substack you've published. And a fire-proof safe.

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I was actually thinking about making some sort of hard copy.....

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You should know better than to rely on any sort of device-related backup for work this sensitive.

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The difference between America and every other country is that we have alternatives to riotous protesting - our Constitution and laws. We have to find ways to USE THEM while they still exist because they are the ultimate target of the regime. Punishing citizens is just one tool in the arsenal; we're simply gear-cluttering impediments to the Goal. FJB's utter hatred is evident-lucky for us he's a terrible actor.

And the enabling and corrupt media truly is the Enemy of the People

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Also, I have only now realized the need for some Snow Crash style datafilters, because I want to make sure that I never ever hear that recording of that fire. I will lose my shit. Possibly permanently.

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China is in quite a pickle of it's own making. The demographics are becoming awful with fewer workers in general and many of the young simply refusing jobs. Their zero covid policy has created unrest on a huge scale and people are seeing the futility of the lockdowns. The foreign exchange revenue has collapsed and they face the issues of importing adequate food. Wonder how their security forces are fairing as they are required to quell the troubles. Those people have homes and families as well to consider.

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Dr Fauci says he’s open to theory that Covid came from a lab leak: ‘Just hasn’t been proven yet’ good for him, at least for now.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/dr-fauci-says-hes-open-to-theory-that-covid-came-from-a-lab-leak-just-hasnt-been-proven-yet/ar-AA14DF3P

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It doesn't matter if this specific bat-origin coronavirus came from the shoddy Chinese lab or not, we know for a fact that Fauci and his merry gang funded dangerous gain-of-function research into bat-origin coronaviruses at a shoddy Chinese lab.

"But it was maybe not this specific virus" sort of misses the point, which is why Fauci and the media always frame it that way.

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My background is in the biological sciences, and I even went to nursing school, graduated, but it wasn't for me. I never was supportive of gain of function and like most who are against it saw the possibility of a leak. I don't like Fauci and I think he's more of a hindrance then a help. Okay, took the initial shot and the booster, but now I'm too afraid to take the recent boosters since my brother and his wife became quite ill, and my Vet's wife had to be hospitalized. She developed pneumonia and covid right after the booster, but was given Ivermectin and recovered. She must be in her fifties or sixties. Now I don't want to take the boosters, and just feel everything is just plane crazy and China is acting like a bunch of disgusting fascists, beating people. I'm just so sick of it all, and have totally lost any sense of trust.

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now somebody tell those revolutionists to take off THEIR F'ING MARKS OF IDIOCY! until then, i have no feelings for those people.

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If you are in America with a mask you are an idiot, in China it is providing protection (not against covid!)

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Facial recognition software everywhere there, no doubt.... We might need to remember to be aware of that some day.

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Hiding their faces while protesting is smart in China.

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I'm watching this all very cautiously. That last set of videos out of China depicting interesting times in Dec 2019 turned out to be significantly less than true. But the lack of media outrage in the US suggests the videos might be real this time, so... maybe.

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As you said, the fact the western media is almost silent on this makes me inclined to believe it more. The powers that be in the west don't want anyone getting any ideas. See their villainizing of the truckers' protests in Canada and their lack of reporting on the Dutch farmers' protests.

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The Biden administration is all about "democracy vs. autocracy," and yet here we have popular uprisings in China and Iran, two of the worst autocracies in the world, and the White House refuses to publicly voice support for the activists risking their lives for freedom. Pretty cowardly.

https://twitter.com/FreeBeacon/status/1597323402578386944?s=20&t=FjpYzNHLAZT8QAr_CWDYGA

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He refuses to support them because he secretly wishes he could treat us the same way.

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Cause they're paid! (The same reason Lebron & Co are silent about everything Chinese)

https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/now-that-were-done-pretending-hunters

The laptop is real. Everybody knows it. It proves that Joe Biden is bought and paid for. Now it’s time to ask the hard questions: What would a bought president be doing? Cutting our energy independence? Hurting Americans by cutting off trade via sanctions? Pushing us into a war we can’t possibly win that would likely lead to the rise of China as the world’s superpower? Devaluing the dollar and gutting the middle class?

Maybe the better question is: If Biden’s goal was to wreck the economy and enable the rise of China, would he be doing anything at all differently?

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In a country with over a billion people, some unruly protests, each one with hundreds of people, aren't enough to change the policies. Maybe the protests are building though.

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While chinese protesting is a good thing, note that they are in no way or capacity challenging the one party state. They are protesting because the rules and restrictions are unnecessary.

But any change from their 'conformity for conformity's sake' is welcome.

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yeah. "we" are going off on those "protests" without asking questions. it's the same with the protests here in brazil. they are portraid as if the masses have understood while in reality it's just fanboys marching. lula fanboys staying home because they get the money and there's a virus outside. bolsonaro fanboys marching with masks on if told so.

the revolution will neither start in china nor brazil.

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It's about the same here, sans protests and marching (it's winter): 8 parties in parliament.

Green party. Christian Democrats. Moderates (1990s-style neoliberals). Liberals (european style, not US). Center party (WEF/globalists). Socialist Democrats. Communist party (as in the old originally used-to-be-run-from Moscow communist party from the days of Lenin). And the newcomers, the Sweden Democrats (conservative, but only relative the rest of them).

And these parties generally vote the same way in 19 out of 20 issues. About as democratic as the old DDR.

"Would you like an ice cream? We have vanilla, vanilla, vanilla, vanilla and also, we have vanilla."

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This Chinese protest won't work. Americans wouldn't even stand up for their rights during covid under the soft approach of US governors like Newsome and Whitmer and Cuomo. The Chinese can round people up and torture them and then have them replaced in a matter of hours with some useful idiot from the country. This Chinese protest will be short lived. The people behind these protests will be sent to "political reeducation" and never seen again. Sorry to burst everyone's bubble but I just tell it like it is.

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Yes, I had similar thoughts.

I cried when I saw the Berlin Wall fall - Russia and the Soviet Republics are free and can now join Western Civilization!! I was so happy, thought I would never see the day the Wall fell. Yes, I am that old- I was an adult watching it happen, with great hope for freedom. Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out as I hoped. Oligarchs took over instead of Western Civ. I fear the same for China. It won’t turn out to be a win for freedom.

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Be careful what we wish for. One thing worse than the Chinese Communist Party is a resurgent post-Communist China ruled by fanatical Chinese nationalists. The more you see of these guys out on the internet, the more thankful you are for the relatively steady hand of the CCP.

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Can you point to some notable examples of those nationalist fanatics to watch?

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No, I used to see them on Usenet and then they surfaced from time to time on other forums (now defunct, I'm pretty sure) where I hung out until about a decade ago. Very scary people. The first acts following a Chinese nationalist coup would be invasion of Taiwan and probably attack on Japan. So be kind to your local CCP apparatchik.

Obviously, when I refer to "Chinese nationalists" I'm not talking about the government of Taiwan. I mean fanatical mainland Chinese for whom the existence of a separatist Western-facing Taiwan is an insult.

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In Trudeau's defense, he's made it very clear that he doesn't consider the truckers nor the Chinese rebellion against COVID protests so much as troublemaking by people who think the government should consider them humans rather than livestock.

I think what China is up to is rather obvious. Their government's accidental or planned overreaction to COVID sparked a worldwide overreaction that benefited China greatly. Also, they are the head of the supply chain waters. The "leaders" think if they can continue to disrupt the supply chain, they will gain even more power, but they can't do it outright. Instead, they pretend they have a major health crisis that could spread, so they get the cover of altruism for their manipulation. (I would blame them, but we're the ones that handed them the keys to our economy, so really it's quite clever.) But to their government, the people really are just livestock (they are here too, though our government has to leave the illusion that most people buy that we're not). So they lose several million? What's several million out of two billion?

But I suppose my real question is, will the protests work? I mean, you want to see a place where you can literally starve for "wrongthink," it's China.

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You lost me at 'In Trudeaus defense'.....

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It was meant to be sarcastic, but I understand.

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The systems that govern over our lives have all been corrupted by people who do not have our best interests in mind. Society has lost trust in nearly all systems: government, voting, police, schooling, medicine, academia, science and even language (definitions).

But there is hope. This lack of trust can be restored. First we need to be talking about solutions, basic ones that we should mostly all agree on. This starts with transparency, decentralization, rationality, and this:

https://open.substack.com/pub/joshketry/p/embrace-decentralized-systems-fear?r=7oa9d&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post

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They are incredibly brave, since their government is more openly totalitarian. I admire that. Even the Jan. 6 protesters aren't being used for live organ transplants.

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True. The disturbing thing is the CCP put the chains on the people. Americans keep putting the chains on themselves.

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I see it as being very similar. It's the plutocrats/oligarchs/people in power that put the chains on the rest of us. China used the cultural revolution to achieve a lot of those goals, and we've got a soft cultural revolution here. Our founding fathers were smart enough to put checks and balances on their power and otherwise get in their way. We've got 2A here, so they can't go full on welding people in their homes, though I'm sure they would if they thought they could get away with it. Klaus Scwab is on record as saying he wants to emulate the CCP. It's up to us to defend our liberty, despite the poor propagandized sheep who will go along with anything.

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Great summary! I've been wondering about this, and since I despise Twitter, was not seeing much about it. Thanks for curating.

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