Posted on 11/28/2022 5:12:16 PM PST by MtnClimber
The huge protests engulfing China right now against lockdowns have left a lot of people wondering if these are just protests. The size, and scope, and vehemence, and fearlessness of the Chinese public against their very oppressive communist masters has made them appear to be a mass movement. In Shanghai, they are calling for the ouster of the entire Communist Party of China. When a billion-strong nation rises up on a cause that has unified them such as this, there's clearly the scent of revolution in the air.
The New York Times did a huge spread on the matter this morning, and it is worth looking at here.
I wrote about its particulars with Twitter videos from Chinese locals yesterday here.
I see tweets like these from financial market types who watch China: [tweets at link]
How do we explain this, how do we judge it, and is this just another round of protests that ends up leaving the status quo, such as we continuously see in places run by other dictatorships beset by protests, such as Iran, Russia, Venezuela, and Cuba?
There's an argument that it isn't.
Lockdowns bring tremendous financial hardship. They turn former middle classes into the poor, dependent on government handouts, if they can get them, which, in China, can be pretty meager, if that.
China, unlike many of those other places, has in the recent past seen a significant surge in economic prosperity brought on by trade with the West, with GDP typically hitting about 9% growth a year. A lot of people moved from the countryside to the cities for this prosperity, seeking jobs in sweatshops, uprooted from their traditional villages and families, but doing better financially than they had in the past.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Xi is a pretty good analogue of Stalin. Stalin reasserted Party control and the Terror to end a period of relative(!) freedom and rising prosperity. He did not get popular blowback, though, because of the Terror, the random arrest and killing of millions. No individual trusted any other.
Good point. Xi is about 30 years too late for that. The time to have gone full Stalin would have been 1989 after the Tienanmen Square massacre.
Yes. I think so.
Xi’s Terror would likely begin with tanks in several cities at once. The the Chinese version of NKVD would go in and start disappearing random folks by the thousands. Through history the Chines have been pretty passive until a weakened dynasty begins to lose control then a leader, usually from a heretofore quiescent local wealthy family who would gather an army and take over portions of the countryside before marching on the capital and instituting a new dynasty. The regimes were totally centralized and totally corrupt as with the current Communist Dynasty.
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Anyone who has done some serious fasting can tell you that - after three days - the raging desire to eat leaves you. After that it is a matter of choice how long to continue the fast - up to about 40 days. Then the body turns on its own alarm and it is wise to comply. Of course water or fluids must be maintained on a daily basis.
Like the NAZI party, the communist party is adept at thuggery.
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