Campaign Creations

thebrowncloud wrote:

tipereth wrote: Capitalism and communism are 'wrong' for essentially the same reasons. (people get screwed by the system) People who prosper under capitalism obviously wouldn't want communism. People who would benefit more from communism obviously would want to end capitalism. The concept of success through hard work goes basically hand in hand with the American Dream, so capitalism fits the American mentality perfectly.



Fuck communism.

That. Couldn't have said it better myself.

"DEATH IS A PREFERABLE ALTERNATIVE TO COMMUNISM."

DrumsofWar wrote:Do you understand that the Communists in China killed up to 2 to 8 million of their own people in the Cultural Revolution with bloody purges of anyone deemed to be an enemy of the state (including other Communists) and caused the deaths of another 3 to 8 million by starvation during the Great Leap Foward by forcing all farmers to collectively send their wheat to the government which would redistribute it to them?  (Some farmers who tried to hide food in order to survive were arrested and killed with many peasants resorting to killing their own family members to survive.)

The actual number of people killed as a result of Communist policies in China is probably higher than that. Various sources (listed here: http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm#Mao) attribute 20 to 80 million deaths to the purges, the famine of the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and the labor camps, with a median death toll of around 40 million people.

This isn't even factoring in the 12 MILLION FUCKING PEOPLE that Stalin killed in his own batshit Purge in Soviet Russia

The statistics (http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm#Stalin) show that 20 to 60 million perished in the Soviet Union under Stalin due to the purges and gulags, with 30 million deaths as the median.

or the tens of thousands of Fulan Gong, Buddhist, and Christian Chinese that the Communist Chinese have killed in the past decade or the millions imprisoned in Chinese prisons who are routinely executed for their organs

The Chinese government persecutes practitioners of Falun Gong by detaining and allegedly mistreating or torturing them (http://web.archive.org/web/20030711022606/http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/engASA170112000).

Although atheism is required of Communist Party members, the Chinese government somewhat approves of Buddhism, as evidenced by its hosting of the first international Buddhist conference (BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | China hosts first Buddhism forum). In any case, it does not persecute Buddhists.

Christians are only persecuted if they do not belong to state-approved churches. This persecution amounts to imprisonment, and "about 300 Christians are in detention in China at any one time" (BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | China's Christians suffer for their faith).

Chinese dissidents and members of Falun Gong originated allegations of organ harvesting. China says that two thirds of organs for transplants come from death row inmates (BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | China admits death row organ use). China executes about 5,000 people every year (http://www.handsoffcain.info/bancadati/index.php?tipotema=arg&idtema=12000547). Capital punishment, as I hope you know, is not unique to Communism.

or the two million people of their own people that the North Vietnamese killed during the Vietnam Conflict or the two million that the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia killed which amounted to one quarter of their population.

Do not forget the 2 million that the North Koreans killed during the Korean War, the 2.5 million dead from the Chinese Civil War (http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm#Chinese), and the 9 million from the Russian Civil War (http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm#RCW), my comrade!

There's a reason that the Chinese government in Beijing is considered an "oppressive regime" that violates human rights

You are so right! Only an "oppressive regime" would increase the literacy rate of its people from 20% to 90% over 60 years (http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/research/edu20/moments/1949china.html). Enlightened states prefer to bathe in the bliss that is ignorance while their primary education system deteriorates due to policies like No Child Left Behind and their higher education system retains its superiority due to the massive influx of human capital from places like China and India.

Only an "oppressive regime" would promote equality of gender because "women hold up half the heavens" (http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/ce/cegv/eng/bjzl/t210715.htm) The wise and benevolent rulers of paradise on Earth know that prostitution, pornography, infidelity are what women really need.

Only an "oppressive regime" would increase its country's GDP by nearly 10% per year for the past 30 years. If you really loved your people, you would express your love by crafting magnanimous policies that would topple your country's housing, banking, automobile, and insurance industry's in a matter of months.

Only an "oppressive regime" would offer a hand to Africa and Latin America by investing and building there. If China really wants to improve its human rights record, it should just follow the example of the moral leaders of the world and colonize, enslave, depopulate, and utterly exploit the rest of the world.

Only an "oppressive regime" would promote peace and science with the guidelines of the peaceful rise and scientific development. I do not see what is so great about peace, and as for science, why should we let rational thinking get in the way of Christian dogma, dogma that includes such lines as "Blessed are the peacemakers" (Matthew 5:9)...? China needs to revoke atheism in favor of Christian fundamentalism and then proceed to fund coups in war-torn countries, wage a Crusade against Iran, and humiliate naked prisoners in detention camps.

Only an "oppressive regime" would see its leader fly to areas hit by natural disasters within 90 minutes (http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1739622,00.html?xid=feed-cnn-topics) to assess the damage, comfort the people, and lead the relief effort. China's leaders should change their ways so that it would take days for any meaningful government response and thereby do a real "heck of a job."

and that Communist was considered one of the worst things to happen in the 20th Century

Ask a European, and he will say National Socialism.
Ask an American, and he will say terrorism.
Ask a Chinese, and he will say Japanese aggression.
Ask a Jew, and he will say the Holocaust.
Ask a Muslim, and he will say Zionism.
Ask an African, and he will say imperialism.
Ask a religious man, and he will say materialism.
Ask a scientist, and he will say religious fundamentalism.
Ask a worker without shelter, he will say poverty.
Ask a peasant without food, he will say hunger.

There are far worse things than Communism.

and that's typically when one is able to kill more people than Hitler,

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm#Hitler

"Courtois: 25,000,000
Rummel: 20,946,000 democides
Brzezinski: 17,000,000
Urlanis: 15-16,000,000 (11-12M civilians + 3.9M POWs)
MEDIAN: ca. 15.5M
Our Times: 13,000,000 (6M Jews + 7M others)
Compton's: 12,000,000
Grenville: 10,000,000, including 2M children.
NOTE: These numbers only include outright murders, but keep in mind that some 28M civilians and 14M soldiers died in the European War. That's 42,000,000 deaths which can probably be blamed on Hitler to one extent or another."

Let us just use the median value of 15 million, then.

the US, the UK,

Slave trade: 15 to 20 million (http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstatv.htm)

Deaths due to unjustified presence in other people's land (so not even counting the world wars):

British involvement in China (Opium Wars, Taiping Rebellion, Boxer Rebellion, famines, etc.) - 30 million (http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/wars19c.htm#Taiping)
Deaths in the British Raj (wars, famines, etc.) - 17 million (http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat0.htm, http://www.zum.de/whkmla/military/india/milxbrindia.html)
Korean War - 3 million (http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat2.htm#Ko)
Vietnam War - 3 million (http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat2.htm#Vietnam)

AIDS,

2.1 million (http://data.unaids.org/pub/EPISlides/2007/2007_epiupdate_en.pdf)

and Columbus combined.

The number of indigenous Americans who died due to the European colonization of the Americas varies widely. Here are the best estimates:

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat0.htm#America

"15 to 60 million"
"around 40 million"
"[P]robably about 25,000,000 people, or about seven times the number living in all of England, were residing in and around the great Valley of Mexico at the time of Columbus's arrival in the New World"
"100,000,000"
"30,000,000 Mexicans and Peruvians were slaughtered"
"Conquistadors killed 15M Amerindians"
"Total dead among native Americans in colonial era: 49.5M out of pre-contact population of 55M"
"Mexico: Population fell from 25M (1519) to 16.8M (1523) to 1.9M (1580) to 1M (1605)"

The average is about 40 million.

So that is 87.5 million for Communism compared to 127.6 million for the triple threat of Hitler, Western colonialism, and AIDS. This includes only the figures for Hitler's genocides from World War II and nothing from World War I, which was essentially the culmination and explosion of Western European imperialism and militarism.

Oh, but you say, the deaths of indigenous Americans, Indians, and Chinese due to disease and famine were not intentional, so you take away 30 million from the indigenous American deaths, and 10 million each from the Indian and Chinese deaths. You get 77.6 million.

But then again, the famines under Mao and Stalin were not less unintentional, so you take away 30 million from the Chinese deaths and 5 million from the Soviet ones (http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm#Mao). You get 52.5 million.

Either way, what you stated is simply untrue.

Furthermore, China and Russia are currently major powers, with China doing superbly economically and Russia having a high standard of living and many natural resources. The Communist policies of the past have not shown themselves to be impediments to current growth.

On the other hand, Africa, despite having been liberated from the West in the decades following World War II, struggles to develop. The difference is that while Stalin and Mao adversely affected their countries for several decades, European colonizers were like a cancer afflicting Africa for centuries. The infant mortality rates in sub-Saharan Africa are extremely high; they are not so in China and Russia. This article (http://usa.mediamonitors.net/Headlines/Anglo-American-democratic-imperialism-and-0.9-billion-infant-deaths) claims that "Anglo-American hegemony and militarism is linked to global mass infant mortality" that has claimed the lives of 900 million people before they turned five years old.

So, you tell me what has been more harmful, Communism or self-righteous imperialism? What moral high ground does the West have?

So honestly shut the fuck up and do the research before you disapprove of "hatred" of China.

And where is your research?

Also, I like your knee-jerk reaction to disparage those who "disapprove of 'hatred' of China." It only shows you associate every bad thing Communists have done with the nation and civilization of China. I disapprove of "hatred" of Germany. Are you going to call me a Nazi now? You should not, because I can love Goethe but hate Goebbels. Many things I have typed probably reveal that I do not like the past actions and policies of some Western governments. However, I still love America because unlike you, apparently, I can distinguish between a nation and things a nation's government has done in the past.

DrumsofWar wrote:The people in charge in Beijing are the EXACT SAME PEOPLE who caused the massive body count 40 years ago

Again, you let your hatred of China blind you to the facts.

Fact:

The leaders of China during the Cultural Revolution were Mao Zedong and the Gang of Four, consisting of Mao's wife Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan, and Wang Hongwen. Mao died in 1976. Jiang, Zhang, Yao, and Wang were imprisoned later that year. Jiang died in 1991, Wang in 1992, and Zhang and Yao in 2005.

Fact:

The current leaders of China are Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao. Hu and Wen were both born in 1942, making them 24 years old when the Cultural Revolution began and 34 when it ended. They both worked as engineers during this period.

Hu's father was actually denounced during the revolution (http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2007/10/2008525172536374792.html), and Wen was actually one of the reformers with Zhao Ziyang, who sided with the students during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 (the man in black: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/04/Zhao.jpg).

and they're still doing stuff like killing members of religious groups,

Whom have they killed? Surely they have killed far less religious people than the United States has in Iraq and Afghanistan.

jailing the most amount of people in the world (% and raw number),

Fact:

Actually, that prestige belongs to the United States of America. "The United States has, for instance, 2.3 million criminals behind bars, more than any other nation, according to data maintained by the International Center for Prison Studies at King's College London. China, which is four times more populous than the United States, is a distant second, with 1.6 million people in prison" (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/world/americas/23iht-23prison.12253738.html). Even with the "hundreds of thousands of people held in administrative detention," the United States has a greater number and percentage of prisoners than China.

killing members of minorities,

Fact:

Actually, in the recent Ürümqi riots, most of the victims were Han Chinese. "In fact, it appears that the majority of the victims were Han Chinese, brutally killed by gangs of Uighurs roaming through the back streets of Urumqi. There are some horrific pictures circulating of rows of bloodied bodies and cyclists lying in puddles of blood with their heads bashed in. I apologise for running ahead of the facts, but the idea that Chinese troops had been unable to prevent the Uighurs from murdering Han Chinese honestly never occurred to me." (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/malcolmmoore/100002509/urumqi-riots-signal-dark-days-ahead/)

farming executed prisoners for organs,

On what grounds do you object when "[a]bout 1.5 million people in China need transplants, but only about 10,000 operations are performed annually" (BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | China admits death row organ use)? Humanitarian grounds? Is it somehow more humane for executed criminals to keep their organs than for innocent people in need of them to receive them?

mass-evicting villagesby force that have existed for millenia to build a factory,

Eminent domain exists in the West, too, and villagers are compensated for the land they lost.

and literally censoring the word democracy on search engines.

Do you live in China? http://www.google.cn/search?hl=zh-CN&source=hp&q=democracy&btnG=Google+%E6%90%9C%E7%B4%A2&aq=f&oq=

1) A figure of "300 Christians" is grossly understated considering both the constant reports of persecution received from any number of denominations' who have missionaries in China and just pure math - there's at least 20 to 100 million Christians in China.  (Estimates vary depending on whether you're asking underground churches or the state-run churches.)

2) The government definitely persecutes Falun Gong and Buddhists.  Just ask anyone who's lived in Tibet in the past 50 years or the Dalai Lama.

3) The Communist regime "enlightened" its people and raised the literacy rate by forcing them to learn state-written propaganda (and still do).  Pointing out "No Child Left Behind" is a pretty terrible argument considering it happened after the US literacy rate was well over 90% for almost a century not counting first-generation immigrants.

4) Beijing has "offered" a hand to Africa specifically for its own interests or maybe you can explain to me why they deal directly with Iran and the Sudan, while saying nothing about the death the leaderships there have caused?

5) Pointing fingers at Abu Ghraib is also a fairly terrible argument considering it is still considered an isolated incident (even by al-Qaeda) compared to the half century of genocide, purges, artificial starvations, paramilitary police, and systematic capital punishment system which kills 5,000 people a year (compared to the 1200 executed in the past 33 years in the US)

6) The government response to the Szechuan earthquake was flawed despite the practiced visits by leaders.  Whereas the New Orleans levees were built three levels thick (the lack of a fourth barrier is cited as a reason for the deaths), Szechuan's infrastructure was neglected for countless decades and it is generally faulted for the high death toll.

7) Communism IS one of the worst things to happen by the number of people killed and the number of people affected, period.  There is nothing worse, in terms of disease, weapon of war, dictator, or idea which has caused so much destruction in the world in the 20th Century or ever.  

Assigning the total death toll of World War II, the Korean, or the Vietnam War as the entire fault of the US and UK is again, taking blame away from Communism.  The North Koreans caused the deaths of millions both in the war and afterwards in the camps.

The North Vietnamese were responsible for a staggering majority of civilian deaths both on the north and south of the Parallel.  

8) The National People's Congress, the Politburo, and the State Council are all led by men (and they are all men) who have been in the Party and the government since before Mao died and were weaned on his rhetoric.  There's certainly political careerism in the West but ascendancy to the chief executive post certainly does not take nearly 40 years.

Pointing out much much older transgressions of the West or much more recent smaller ones and comparing them to the terrible things Communism and Communist China is responsible for in the past 50 years (and has been unrepentant for) is specious logic.  For the record, I love America and I certainly love China but I don't like how much the Communist regime regressed China to the point where only now are its people, my people, recovering.  So my "knee-jerk" reaction is both personal and well researched, unlike your

Haha you can't say that he didn't do research though.  He got a bunch of links from internet

DrumsofWar wrote:1) A figure of "300 Christians" is grossly understated considering both the constant reports of persecution received from any number of denominations' who have missionaries in China and just pure math - there's at least 20 to 100 million Christians in China.  (Estimates vary depending on whether you're asking underground churches or the state-run churches.)

So, where is your source? And how many of those in detention are tortured or killed? Also, do you deny that the United States unreasonably jails Muslims?

I find it odd that you never present any sources of your own and yet tell other people to "do research."

2) The government definitely persecutes Falun Gong and Buddhists.  Just ask anyone who's lived in Tibet in the past 50 years or the Dalai Lama.

I never denied that the government persecutes Falun Gong. People in Tibet are persecuted for their separatism, not their religion. Regardless, what point are you trying to make here other than reiterate arguments I have already agreed with or addressed?

3) The Communist regime "enlightened" its people and raised the literacy rate by forcing them to learn state-written propaganda (and still do).  Pointing out "No Child Left Behind" is a pretty terrible argument considering it happened after the US literacy rate was well over 90% for almost a century not counting first-generation immigrants.

So, what "state-written propaganda" has the government "forc[ed]" people to learn? According to you, Chinese students only know Marxist-Leninist ideology? Then I find it odd that so many Chinese schools are teaching English that Chinese Anglophones will outnumber native speakers of English within two decades (http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=6803197).

4) Beijing has "offered" a hand to Africa specifically for its own interests or maybe you can explain to me why they deal directly with Iran and the Sudan, while saying nothing about the death the leaderships there have caused?

Because they do not act like sanctimonious colonizers who actively interfere in other nation's internal affairs? By the way, maybe you should read this: BBC NEWS | Africa | China praised for African links

"Rwandan President Paul Kagame has praised the way China does business in Africa, criticising the West for basing relations with the continent on aid."

And this is not some corrupt African leader: "Paul Kagame is liked in the West because of achievements in Rwanda."

But then again, what do those poor Africans know, right? It is the white man's burden to educate them...

5) Pointing fingers at Abu Ghraib is also a fairly terrible argument considering it is still considered an isolated incident (even by al-Qaeda) compared to the half century of genocide, purges, artificial starvations, paramilitary police, and systematic capital punishment system which kills 5,000 people a year (compared to the 1200 executed in the past 33 years in the US)

Really, is Guantánamo an isolated incident, too? What about Haditha? Bagram? Guatemala 1954? Chile 1973? Óscar Romero? My Lai? Jim Crow? Lynching? Black Codes? Grenada? The bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade?

6) The government response to the Szechuan earthquake was flawed despite the practiced visits by leaders.  Whereas the New Orleans levees were built three levels thick (the lack of a fourth barrier is cited as a reason for the deaths), Szechuan's infrastructure was neglected for countless decades and it is generally faulted for the high death toll.

Blame poor countries for poor infrastructure... how sensible. Neglect the response of the leaders, a meter applicable to both rich and poor... sounds like perfect logic to me!

7) Communism IS one of the worst things to happen by the number of people killed and the number of people affected, period.  There is nothing worse, in terms of disease, weapon of war, dictator, or idea which has caused so much destruction in the world in the 20th Century or ever.

Imperialism has killed more, as my figures show. Where are your statistics or evidence?

Assigning the total death toll of World War II, the Korean, or the Vietnam War as the entire fault of the US and UK is again, taking blame away from Communism.  The North Koreans caused the deaths of millions both in the war and afterwards in the camps.

You honestly did not read my post, did you? Or did you give up on critical thinking after you saw your prejudiced and outdated ideas fall apart? I specifically stated "Deaths due to unjustified presence in other people's land (so not even counting the world wars)" and "This includes only the figures for Hitler's genocides from World War II and nothing from World War I, which was essentially the culmination and explosion of Western European imperialism and militarism."

"[T]aking blame away from Communism"? Did you not read my figures for deaths caused by Communism, either?

Vietnam War - 2 million
Pol Pot - 2 million
Korean War - 2 million
Chinese Civil War - 2.5 million
Russian Civil War - 9 million

These were included in my figures. Stop trying to twist my words.

The North Vietnamese were responsible for a staggering majority of civilian deaths both on the north and south of the Parallel.

No kidding, but it is not like the Americans did not kill anyone in Vietnam.

8 ) The National People's Congress, the Politburo, and the State Council are all led by men (and they are all men) who have been in the Party and the government since before Mao died and were weaned on his rhetoric.

The National People's Congress has no real power. In fact, a woman delegate stated, "As a parliamentary representative, I don't have any real power" (BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Chinese delegate has 'no power').

As for the Politburo and State Council, Liu Yandong is a member of both.

Before her, Wu Yi was a member of the Politburo and State Council and a Vice Premier. She was considered the second most powerful woman in the world in 2004, 2005, and 2007 (http://www.forbes.com/lists/2007/11/biz-07women_The-100-Most-Powerful-Women_Rank.html).

The United States has never had a female head of state. Song Qingling, the widow of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, was head of state of the People's Republic of China from 1968 to 1972 and in 1981.

Again, Hu and Wen worked as engineers during the Cultural Revolution. If they were "weaned on [Mao's] rhetoric," why would they take up the reforms of Deng Xiaoping? Why would Hu try to clear the name of his father, who was denounced when Mao was the leader (http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2007/10/2008525172536374792.html)?

Also, I like how you abandoned your stance that "[t]he people in charge in Beijing are the EXACT SAME PEOPLE who caused the massive body count 40 years ago" without acknowledging your mistake.

There's certainly political careerism in the West but ascendancy to the chief executive post certainly does not take nearly 40 years.

Exactly, it takes about 20, so the current leadership began in the government in the 1980s, in the era of Deng Xiaoping's reforms.

Pointing out much much older transgressions of the West or much more recent smaller ones and comparing them to the terrible things Communism and Communist China is responsible for in the past 50 years (and has been unrepentant for) is specious logic.

You are the one who brought up "Hitler, the US, the UK, AIDS, and Columbus combined." Are you mad because you are simply too accustomed to bashing China whenever the opportunity presents itself, are not used to having your authority questioned in this forum, or both?

I really doubt you know anything about China other than what the Western media have spoon-fed you since 1989. You certainly possess that wonderful trait of not supporting anything you say with actual evidence.

For the record, I love America and I certainly love China

Really? Then why do you tell those people who "disapprove of 'hatred' of China" to "shut the fuck up"? What is one good thing you have said about China? I am really beginning to wonder if you read your own posts...

but I don't like how much the Communist regime regressed China to the point where only now are its people, my people, recovering.

Yeah, the Qing Dynasty was so much better than modern China...

So my "knee-jerk" reaction is both personal and well researched, unlike your

Are you insinuating that 1) I did have a knee-jerk reaction to anything you stated and 2) that reaction was both impersonal and badly researched?

If so, I really must pity you for being so blind and narrow-minded.

I am sorry you did not directly address half my post. If you want me to, I can present less facts next time to make it easier for your fallacious arguments to assail them.

Negi wrote: Haha you can't say that he didn't do research though.  He got a bunch of links from internet

Those links either are news articles or reference scholarly articles and books. If I cited newspapers and books, you would complain that you could not access them. This way, everyone can see the evidence and references easily and directly.

1) Just type in "China persecute Christian" into Google.  There's several hundred unique sources all describing the efforts of the government to regulate, attack, and jail Christians but unsurprisingly, most of them are Christian websites so it ultimately depends on whether or not you want to believe those sources, international journalists, internal dissident blog posts, or Xinhua.

2) As for the Tibetans, saying they're persecuted for their separatism is semantics considering they want to separate specifically because they were conquered and because they want to create a distinct Buddhist state.  No matter how many hairs you split, the regime conquered an independent state, put down its religion, killed its citizens, and jailed anyone who dared to speak out.

I'm sure there's examples of one of the two dozen Western nations doing that at some point but the difference is that China is still doing it unrepentantly and denies any evidence to the contrary.

3) By state-run propaganda, I'm referring to the teachings of Mao and the Party which are still taught from an early age well into high school.  You can claim that the Pledge of Alleigance or teaching American history is somehow indoctrination in the United States, except students are not required to spend 12 years reading and writing about how perfect and glorious the State is.

Granted, most students in China now just do it out of obligation and habit, then forget about Party teachings once they come to adulthood, but it doesn't change the fact that the government still does it.

4) You still didn't address the fact that China directly does business with Iran and Sudan and opposes any UN action or sanction against those nations.  In fact, China is deliberately making diplomatic ties with dictatorships whose human rights record causes most other countries to shy away, Rwanda's Kagame included.

5) All the incidents you mentioned from Haditha to the accidental bombing of the Belgrade agency, including half a century of lynching, STILL pale in comparison to the amount of people that the Chinese government executes EACH YEAR.  Congratulations on quietly ceding the point that the worst excesses of the Western capital punishment system pale in comparison to China's though.

6) So China is a poor country yet you argue its miraculous GDP and economy are a result of its government's actions?  You can't have it both ways, even if the regime does.



You've argued that imperialism, or the West, has killed more people than Communism and that's clearly wrong.  Go ahead and add up the Holocaust, the death of the Amerindian tribes, the deaths caused directly or indirectly by British colonialism, and the massive devastation caused by Columbus to the Carribean population and it pales in comparison.

What's more, this all occurred over hundreds of years.  While the United States caused the deaths of millions of Amerindians, it also created the largest breadbasket in the world and a home for tens of millions of immigrants.  While the UK deprived countless countries of natural resources, it also created a massive infrastructure and unrivaled trade network as well as slowly giving independence to almost all of its territories. 

Communism had no benefit.  The innocent people that the regimes killed were THEIR OWN, unlike what you can say about the West.  Their colossal lack of leadership and understanding of economics caused a near total collapse in both the Soviet Union and China, causing the "unintentional" deaths of tens of millions.  Their militarism at the cost of feeding their own people caused the collapse of Moscow and the change of Communist China towards CAPITALIST ideas by Deng Xiaoping.

The West's effect is certainly a mixed bag and we have far to go, but it's also where the greatest increase in the quality of life, the greatest technological innovations, and political progress has taken place in history.  Any progress China has made has been along these lines, albeit slowly, and not due to any Communist ideal, period.

The sad fact is this guy joined a starcraft campaign site just to defend China because he like all Communists are hyper sensitive to any criticism. These "China bots were all over youtube when CNN dared to criticizes them (just look at the comments).

* Chavez says stations no longer belong to 'bourgeoisie'

* Calls closures part of effort to democratize airwaves

* Critics say the move attacks freedom of speech (Adds Chavez comment)

By Raymond Colitt and Ana Isabel Martinez

CARACAS, Aug 1 (Reuters) - More than a dozen of 34 radio stations ordered shut by the Venezuelan government went off the air on Saturday, part of President Hugo Chavez's drive to extend his socialist revolution to the media.

http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSN0146551720090801

China’s ChinaJoy 2009 event on July 23rd was among the lucky few to have been chosen by Blizzard to host a public presentation as well as to make openly available the currently playable version of StarCraft 2. Blizzard’s participation in this event was scheduled to predate the massively successful presentation on the following day in South Korea.

Unfortunately, StarCraft 2 was banned from public play due to a recent ruling by China’s State Bureau Of Culture, which declared that “Starcraft 2 is much too bloody, which will severely affect the mental as well as physical health of adolescents” (translation courtesy of TeamLiquid).  The decision draws from a regulatory note, released on July 1st, 2009, which stated that

   Any activity related to foreign games, including their showing, demonstrating, trading and marketing promotion, shall also abide by the censorship laws aiming at imported online games and shall be subject to censorship and approval by the State Administration of News and Press. All promoters, sponsors, and companies related shall held their respective legal responsibilities.

http://www.sc2blog.com/2009/07/29/starcraft-2-welcome-in-south-korea-banned-in-china/

World of Warcraft, one of the most successful fantasy online role-playing games of all time, was recently shut down in China for weeks. On June 7, Activision Blizzard’s Blizzard Entertainment division changed its Chinese online operator from the9 to NetEase — a transition that could have been executed in a routine manner.

Perhaps it was a botched technical transition that was partly to blame? I am told that is not the case and that the technical transition happened weeks ahead of schedule. The delay in getting the game back up can also be attributed to a content review by the Chinese government. On July 31, NetEase started a limited beta test of the game, as a result of a compromise where the game could operate for free while still under government review. And only in the past week have gamers been allowed back on for free. A full relaunch should be coming in a matter of days. With each passing day, Activision Blizzard is losing a lot of money, since WoW had four million Chinese players who log in to the game at internet cafes with prepaid cards.

http://digital.venturebeat.com/2009/09/16/is-a-trade-battle-looming-with-china-over-world-of-warcraft/

DrumsofWar wrote:1) Just type in "China persecute Christian" into Google.  There's several hundred unique sources all describing the efforts of the government to regulate, attack, and jail Christians but unsurprisingly, most of them are Christian websites so it ultimately depends on whether or not you want to believe those sources, international journalists, internal dissident blog posts, or Xinhua.

I never said that the Chinese government does not persecute Christians. I specifically said that they persecute Christians who belong to churches not registered with the state. I quoted a BBC article saying up to 300 are in detention at any time. You responded by stating "[a] figure of '300 Christians' is grossly understated considering the constant reports of persecution received from any number of denominations' who have missionaries in China," so this is a question of amount of persecution, not existence of persecution, which is what you are now trying to turn it into.

You could not provide any sources other than Google, whereas I could. Regardless, let us look at Google:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=GFp&q=China+persecute+Christian&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

The first link, http://www.persecution.org/suffering/countryinfodetail.php?countrycode=16, is an "International Christian Concern" Web site. Even it only states that:

"There are currently at least 20 Catholic bishops under arrest"
"In 2004, many were arrested... including 12 priests who were attending a religious retreat"
"At least 100 pastors were arrested in 2004"
"In September 2003, house church leader Zhang Yinan was arrested with 100 Christians and was sentenced to two years of re-education through labor"
"In August 2004, house church activist Liu Fenggang and others were sentenced up to three years in prison for sending information of Christian persecution to organizations in the United States"
"There is a report of a Christian in Guizhou died [sic from torture by the police"

So there you have it, less than 300 Christians under arrest and one alleged death from even the most pro-Western sources. What was that about the "figure of '300 Christians' [being] grossly understated"?

Remind me of how many innocent Muslims the Americans have killed in Iraq and Afghanistan?

I am sorry, but despite how much you wish it were so, China has never barbarically killed as many Christians as has the West's "grandeur that was Rome."

2) As for the Tibetans, saying they're persecuted for their separatism is semantics considering they want to separate specifically because they were conquered and because they want to create a distinct Buddhist state.  No matter how many hairs you split, the regime conquered an independent state, put down its religion, killed its citizens, and jailed anyone who dared to speak out.

If the Chinese government were against Buddhism, why would it encourage Buddhism among people who are not trying to create their own state, that is, the general population? Also, if you knew anything about Chinese history, you would know that Tibet has been an integral part of China since the Yuan Dynasty (that was over 700 years ago). After the Xinhai Revolution in 1911, warlords tore up China. Then, the Nationalists and Communists began their civil war, which was interrupted by the Japanese invasion. During this time, the Dalai Lama set up his brief theocracy in which slavery was tolerated. After the Communist victory, the People's Liberation Army reclaimed Tibet, continuing the sovereignty of the past 700 years. So China has more of a right to Tibet than the United Kingdom has to Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland and certainly more than America has to the fifty states.

I'm sure there's examples of one of the two dozen Western nations doing that at some point but the difference is that China is still doing it unrepentantly and denies any evidence to the contrary.

Then do you suggest that the English give half their land back to the Welsh, Scots, and Irish or that the Americans return everything to the indigenous Americans and Hawaiians as a sign of Christian repentance?

3) By state-run propaganda, I'm referring to the teachings of Mao and the Party which are still taught from an early age well into high school.  You can claim that the Pledge of Alleigance or teaching American history is somehow indoctrination in the United States, except students are not required to spend 12 years reading and writing about how perfect and glorious the State is.

Granted, most students in China now just do it out of obligation and habit, then forget about Party teachings once they come to adulthood, but it doesn't change the fact that the government still does it.

Wow, you truly reveal that you are a slave to old ways of thinking. Read this: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/01/world/asia/01china.html?ex=1314763200&en=abf86c087b22be74&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

"When high school students in Shanghai crack their history textbooks this fall they may be in for a surprise. The new standard world history text drops wars, dynasties and Communist revolutions in favor of colorful tutorials on economics, technology, social customs and globalization.

Socialism has been reduced to a single, short chapter in the senior high school history course. Chinese Communism before the economic reform that began in 1979 is covered in a sentence. The text mentions Mao only once — in a chapter on etiquette."

4) You still didn't address the fact that China directly does business with Iran and Sudan and opposes any UN action or sanction against those nations.  In fact, China is deliberately making diplomatic ties with dictatorships whose human rights record causes most other countries to shy away, Rwanda's Kagame included.

Yes, I did. I said "because they do not act like sanctimonious colonizers who actively interfere in other nation's internal affairs."

Did you not read the quote, "Paul Kagame is liked in the West because of achievements in Rwanda"?

5) All the incidents you mentioned from Haditha to the accidental bombing of the Belgrade agency, including half a century of lynching, STILL pale in comparison to the amount of people that the Chinese government executes EACH YEAR.  Congratulations on quietly ceding the point that the worst excesses of the Western capital punishment system pale in comparison to China's though.

I thought this was about the isolation of Abu Ghraib, not about capital punishment. But if you wish it to be so, I definitely agree that China executes more people than the West. In fact, I was the one who brought up the statistics. But China also has much more people. However, you fail to explain how capital punishment is a bad thing for society or what any of this has to do with the supposed evilness of Communism. Texas executes more than the other states. Does that make Texas the most Communist and evil state?

6) So China is a poor country yet you argue its miraculous GDP and economy are a result of its government's actions?  You can't have it both ways, even if the regime does.

You say it is impossible to be both poor and growing? Are you arguing that either China is rich or that China is not the fastest growing major economy in the world?

You've argued that imperialism, or the West, has killed more people than Communism and that's clearly wrong.  Go ahead and add up the Holocaust, the death of the Amerindian tribes, the deaths caused directly or indirectly by British colonialism, and the massive devastation caused by Columbus to the Carribean population and it pales in comparison.

I did, and I got figures of 87.5 million for Communism compared to 127.6 million for "Hitler, the US, the UK, AIDS, and Columbus combined."

I never said that this comparison was fair; you were the one charged that Communists "kill[ed] more people than Hitler, the US, the UK, AIDS, and Columbus combined," forcing me to show the ridiculousness of that statement.

What's more, this all occurred over hundreds of years.  While the United States caused the deaths of millions of Amerindians, it also created the largest breadbasket in the world and a home for tens of millions of immigrants.

I agree. This, however, does not make your previous allegations any less false.

While the UK deprived countless countries of natural resources, it also created a massive infrastructure and unrivaled trade network as well as slowly giving independence to almost all of its territories.

I disagree. Bangladesh, Belize, Botswana, Cameroon, Gambia, Ghana, Iraq, Kenya, Kiribati, Lesotho, Malawi, the Maldives, Myanmar, Oman, Namibia, Nauru, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestine, Papua New Guinea, Sierra Leone, the Solomon Islands, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Tuvalu, Uganda, Vanuatu, Yemen, Zambia, and Zimbabwe are not doing too well, are they?

Communism had no benefit.  The innocent people that the regimes killed were THEIR OWN, unlike what you can say about the West.  Their colossal lack of leadership and understanding of economics caused a near total collapse in both the Soviet Union and China, causing the "unintentional" deaths of tens of millions.  Their militarism at the cost of feeding their own people caused the collapse of Moscow and the change of Communist China towards CAPITALIST ideas by Deng Xiaoping.

So is today's China Communist or not? If it is, how can you say that "Communism had no benefit"? If it is not, why do you continue to associate Mao's excesses with the current leadership to the point of saying that the people who are currently in power created the Cultural Revolution?

The West's effect is certainly a mixed bag and we have far to go, but it's also where the greatest increase in the quality of life, the greatest technological innovations, and political progress has taken place in history.  Any progress China has made has been along these lines, albeit slowly, and not due to any Communist ideal, period.

Really?

China invented paper. China invented printing. China invented gunpowder. China invented the compass. China invented the fork. China invented paper money. China invented the blast furnace. China invented the toothbrush. China invented cast iron. China invented meritocracy. China invented the crossbow. China invented the match. China invented the seismometer. China invented toilet paper. China invented the wheelbarrow.

Where do you think the West would be without any of these?

The West has "the greatest increase in the quality of life" at the cost of whom else? It has achieved "the greatest technological innovations" at the cost of whom else? What "political progress" have colonialism and fascism given us? Do you not realize that the type of Communism of which you accuse China was invented by the West?



DrumsofWar, you persevere in making many faulty arguments, but I notice that you have eluded mention of some of them. Perhaps you have seen the errors of your way and decided not to embarrass yourself any further. Or perhaps you just cannot muster up enough anti-China rhetoric to foment a rebellion against reality. I shall let you decide:

the tens of thousands of Fulan Gong, Buddhist, and Christian Chinese that the Communist Chinese have killed in the past decade or the millions imprisoned in Chinese prisons who are routinely executed for their organs

The people in charge in Beijing are the EXACT SAME PEOPLE who caused the massive body count 40 years ago

and they're still doing stuff like killing members of religious groups,

jailing the most amount of people in the world (% and raw number),

killing members of minorities,

farming executed prisoners for organs,

The government response to the Szechuan earthquake was flawed despite the practiced visits by leaders.

Assigning the total death toll of World War II, the Korean, or the Vietnam War as the entire fault of the US and UK is again, taking blame away from Communism.

The National People's Congress, the Politburo, and the State Council are all led by men (and they are all men) who have been in the Party and the government since before Mao died and were weaned on his rhetoric.  There's certainly political careerism in the West but ascendancy to the chief executive post certainly does not take nearly 40 years.

For the record, I love America and I certainly love China

but I don't like how much the Communist regime regressed China to the point where only now are its people, my people, recovering.

So my "knee-jerk" reaction is both personal and well researched, unlike your

It is especially ironic that you accuse me of not having any good research when you yourself have yet to provide a single reference to back up your claims, no?

Expecting a reference from anyone here, lol.

ching chong ming pang ^_______^

@Psuedonym: Are you defending China, communist ideology, or both?

Rule 11: All your carefully picked arguments can easily be ignored.

So lets talk about hating China and Communists more. Honestly, I think we are falling short of our true capacity for hating them. Shall we up the ante? Those damn Chinese Commies are taking American manufacturing jobs!!!

1) Congratulations on reading the first link on Google and showing your impressive research skills.  Now read the rest which are even more well sourced and you'll see exactly the torrent of persecution I'm talking about.

Just take even half of those claims and the amount of persecuted Christians is greater than the figure of 300 a year.  You also ignored the fact that the church is state controlled, which is already pretty bad, given the separation of church and state in most other nations for many centuries now.

Oh, and arguing that Tibet is an integral part of China is in the same vein of language as Imperial Japan's claim of "Asia for the Asians".  Not only do the people of the 50 States in America all accept Washington's rule of law as valid (except for those 2 guys in Texas and Palin's husband in Alaska), Tibet has had a valid claim for independence since before the Tang Dynasty when it was so strong that even the Emperor had to recognize them as a peer to Xi'an.

In that same vein, there actually is a Scottish independence movement in the works which is proceeding among peaceful lines.  (Some conducted polls gave as high as 50% support in Scotland.)  China is still actively persecuting Tibet and minorities elsewhere.

2) Congratulations on documenting the very change in China I was talking about.  Propaganda is no longer being taught because it's become vestigial and now all history before the reforms is being whitewashed.  (The devastation wrought by American expansion on Amerindian tribes is at least mentioned in our textbooks.)

3) Actively supporting brutal dictatorships and obstructing wide international efforts to stop them is much worse than being "actively interfering sanctimonious colonizers".

4) China has 3.7 times the population of the United States and has executed 138 times the amount of people per year.  Thanks for playing.


Really, you're blaming my language as being anti-Chinese when I've laid the blame exclusively on the Chinese regime.  I'd love to play the reference game but I really don't have to.

It's the same thing as if you were arguing that the US faked the Apollo moon landing and that the Soviets were capable of reaching the Moon with the Soyuz program and providing 5,000 web links to that effect.  I'm not obligated to prove that the US did land on the Moon on July 20, 1969.