Voting Blue No Matter Who Got You Kamala Harris (Who Is Less Popular Than Dick Cheney)

Vice President Kamala Harris’s favorability rating is lower than Dick Cheney’s at his lowest point. Not only is she unlikely to do anything to drastically improve those numbers, the potential for them to drop lower is very real.

Having Kamala Harris as our Vice President is a result of following a “Blue No Matter Who” strategy, a strategy and catchphrase created for an essentially corrupt party. The situation in which we now find ourselves is the result of listening to the “experts”, the “adults”, the “smart” people. This is the predictable result you get when you mindlessly absorb the propaganda issued by corporate, imperialist sources. This is the unavoidable result of entrusting your vote to those whose attitudes, votes, and very souls have been purchased by the Military Industrial Complex and Wall Street.

Look at Kamala Harris for a moment. Gaze deeply into her soul.

What’s that you say? You don’t see anything? There is nothing she’s ever said or done that points to some inward driving force? That it’s like staring into a dark and empty void accompanied by a mindless chuckle?

Exactly. Behind the empty platitudes, behind the racial and gender posturing, behind her Converse shoes, there is a vacuum. There is nothing motivating her actions beyond the desire to serve power. She is not motivated to the plight of immigrants, to whom she says “Do not come.” Not motivated to help poor people of color, whom she so joyfully placed in prison in her role as Attorney General of California. Nor was she motivated to help the people who lost so much in the Crash of 2008 while big banks were being bailed out. While she was busy imprisoning the parents of truants (and laughing about it), she did not have time to prosecute Steve Mnuchin, who was behind the foreclosures of so many people’s homes.

So now Kamala Harris’ favorability rating is lower than Dick Cheney’s was at its lowest. Dick Cheney, a man who was so unlikeable there was no way he could ever have been elected president.

Hey, guess who the Democratic Party has placed into position as the person most likely to become the next Democratic Party Presidential nominee? While the equally unlikable and soulless Pete Buttigieg waits in the wings as the eager understudy, it is for the moment Kamala Harris. They will never permit you to have anyone better. Never.

It’s my turn to play the adult card. I’ve sat more or less silently on the sidelines for decades while the media’s professed adults-in-the-room have endlessly repeated their august pronouncements of why we have to continuously compromise not only our aspirations but our moral framework by voting for the sellouts that are the only candidates the Democratic Party will permit to come out on top.

So let me speak to you now as a loving parent might speak to a teenager who is dating a confirmed reprobate: They don’t care about you. They don’t care about you they don’t care about you they don’t. They don’t care about beating Donald Trump or the Republicans, their only mission is to stop you from getting single payer health care. It’s the only thing they’ve done successfully in the last forty years. You have a better chance of getting single payer health care from Trump, who cares more about being liked by the average American than Democrats do.

Sorry. I apologize for my somewhat emotional outburst. Perhaps I am not the grownup in the room, after all. I’ll be quiet now and let the adults explain the wisdom behind making Kamala Harris the future of their party. I’ll let the people who are paid millions of dollars tell you why it was the epitome of wisdom to choose as Joe Biden’s successor a person less likely to become president than that cross between Mr. Potter and a junkyard dog, Dick Cheney. I want to hear about how it was a stroke of genius concocted by well-paid strategists far beyond the understanding of us regular folk.

Was it because Dick Cheney turned you down?

P.S. Vote Blue No Matter Who. Don't be a child.

Why Afghanistan Doesn’t Make Sense (A Conspiracy Theory)

 

 

 If you’re in an abusive romantic relationship and your boyfriend comes home late smelling of cheap perfume, if you start asking questions he’ll call you crazy. If you’re in an abusive relationship with the government and you start asking questions, they’ll call you a conspiracy theorist.

 Here's something that will undoubtedly be called a conspiracy theory, but I’m just trying to make sense of something that does not make sense. How does a group of fighters without an airplane take over a country against the wishes of the most powerful military power the world has ever seen? The answer, or conspiracy theory, if you will, is: they don’t.

 Keep in mind that a conspiracy theory is exactly what the words imply, a working hypothesis that two or more people or groups have reached a secret agreement. This is literally what “conspiracy theory” means. Forget the negative connotations that have been attached to the term and understand that people conspire all of the time. Or did you think that those who are willing to steal, cheat, lie, kill, coup, and exploit are above a little behind-the-scenes agreement? To construct a theory that includes a possible conspiracy is merely to create a model in order to see if the facts stick to it. In the absence of any clear understanding of what the hell happened in Afghanistan, it is only natural to construct some theories to see if any of them provide some clarity.

 The theory I propose is this: the United States government, whatever forces that might be, have reached an agreement with the Taliban to allow them to take control of Afghanistan in order that they no longer have to fight them. In return, the Taliban will live within certain frameworks dictated by the United States. And should they not provide what they have agreed to provide, the United States will simply bomb them or drone them until they remember their agreement. By the way, the conditions the United States set will have nothing to do with women’s rights or gay rights or anything the typical Democratic voter would expect of a Democratic President and congress. No, the rights the United States will stick up for are mineral rights. And, of course, the Taliban will need to not cooperate with Iran or China. Afghanistan is right between Iran and China, which would create a bit of a road block for the Belt And Road Initiative China has proposed.

 Absurd, shocking, unthinkable, right? Except that there is nothing shocking about it. Consider the amount of stink the United States has put up about Saudi Arabia’s treatment of women and the LGBTQ community, regardless of which party is in power. Absolutely none. And consider the amount of support the United States has provided to fundamentalist Islamic terrorists in the last few decades. It started in the ‘70’s in Afghanistan. And even after 9/11, the United States has worked with and supplied arms to terrorist groups in order to fulfill their geo-strategic aims in Libya, Syria, and elsewhere. When it comes to power, it seems the United States has no limits to the kind of people they’re willing to work with.

 Here's the truth, and it should be obvious to anyone paying even a little bit of attention: when it comes to foreign policy, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans care a whit about women’s rights, human rights, gay rights, or starving children. They care about the rights of Afghani women as much as they do about the freedom of Estonians or the souls of indigenous children, which is to say not at all. Such things are merely the excuses provided to make our actions seem noble and necessary. Adolph Hitler used the same pretexts when invading Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland.

 Why go through a twenty-year occupation when the United States was willing to cut a deal with the Taliban to begin with? Perhaps the twenty years of bombing and occupation was necessary to reach a compromise the United States could trust. Perhaps dropping the Mother Of All Bombs on the Taliban, a bomb comparable in blast to a nuclear bomb, made them more amenable to seeing things our way. More likely it was the excuse required to establish the United States as a military force that had the right to impose itself anywhere the “war on terror” demanded. Which, as it turns out, is most of the planet.

 Now is where I remind you this is just a theory. There’s nothing wrong with constructing a theory, so long as one is honest about seeing if the facts match it rather than trying to make the facts fit the theory. Let’s see how this plays out in the coming days and months. I’m going to guess the establishment narrative about Afghanistan will prove quite unsatisfactory. I’m guessing it will have to be quite vague in order that the facts will be hard to pin to the narrative. I’m guessing my conspiracy theory will gibe quite well with the facts, much better than what the establishment media puts forth. That’s kind of a bold prediction for someone such as myself, but I’ve come to discover I have a much better track record than the establishment media and politicians. Both seem to be able to say one thing one day and the complete opposite the next without taking any heat for it. There is no accountability for them, there will be for me, and yet I feel confident enough to share this for posterity’s sake.

 If you liked what I write enough to support me, you can buy me a coffee. If you liked it but don't have a credit card handy, please share. Also, follow me on Twitter or Facebook, sign up for my newsletter, or check me out on Amazon.

Advice On Defeating Fascism

 

From all the information I’ve gleaned from a modest study of the subject, fascism is not going to be beaten back with hypocrisy and fear. It will be conquered neither with histrionics nor with a smug insistence that we know better than the fascists and those who are on the fence about fascism.

You can’t defeat fascists by threatening them because they’ve already wedded themselves to a doomsday cult. People will do anything, even die and kill, in order to feel that they belong to something larger than themselves. A fascist is one who is already committed to dying for a cause, while those considering putting their support behind a fascist movement are already asking themselves if there is anything else worth investing their energies and their hopes into.

People don’t lightly join a doomsday cult. They do so because the world has given them no real opportunity to advance themselves. It has given them no sense of safety or belonging. Perhaps they were cruelly treated as children and bent beyond their ability to straighten themselves. Or perhaps they were shown a modicum of love and guidance from parents who tried their best, but the crushing realities of a cruel system have given them no options for a decent life. Broken people do broken things and desperate people do desperate things. Those to whom no mercy or compassion were shown are willing to embrace an ideology that tells them they need not show any to others, that they themselves are not broken despite the lack of humanity that has been shown to them. They are forced to believe in a system devoid of pity, and it is only further driven home by those who speak of pity and yet offer none to them. To those who have never received pity for their brokenness, pity is a lie spoken by hypocrites.

Those who are teetering towards embracing fascism, who are inclined toward it due to a broken life, can only be reached by giving them healthy alternatives. They try us as a drug addict tests the family he belongs to, because in the process of dealing with his disease, we are forced to confront the dysfunction within the family. The drug-addicted family member is most often started upon his road to addiction because of undealt with family trauma. And he is further permitted along his road because the family he belongs to is unwilling to confront the very issues the addict is revealing about the unhealthy situation within the family. The family members of an addict will be tested. Hypocrisy and weakness will be exploited. Those dealing with someone like this must be strong, yes, but they must also be honest and open to healing the trauma that exists within the family and within themselves.

Fascism will not be conquered by proxy, either. We can’t just hand the problem of fending off fascism to those who offer their services, the intelligence agencies, entrenched government bureaucrats, and powerful capitalists. Because history show us that those are exactly the kind of people who are going to throw their support behind a fascist movement the instant they realize their power and their wealth are being threatened. Giving our institutions the power to combat fascism will only strengthen the institutions fascists will use against us. History shows quite clearly that you cannot hand a problem off to those who seek power and get the results you want.

There will always be an element of fascism in our society. I remember people dressing up in Nazi uniforms and marching in Skokie in the ‘70’s. The thing is, back then people mocked them. The Blues Brothers included them in the movie where Jake and Elwood run them off the road into the river. People mocked Nazis then because they weren’t desperately looking for answers to life’s problems. If things are different nowadays then it is up to non-fascists to provide a suitable alternative to fascism so that such an ideology does not seem appealing.

I don’t know why this does not seem obvious to others, but growing fascism is a sign of an unhealthy society. Just as a healthy body is more likely to keep illness at bay, a healthy society will lessen the risk of fascism.

It won’t be an easy battle and I can’t help thinking everyone is looking for an easy solution so that they can go back to their normal routines. But it is precisely the routines they have been engaged in that have permitted fascism to rear its ugly head in a way we haven’t seen in quite some time. This is going to call for a real gut check. This will call for a deep questioning of assumptions. This will not call for the sacrifices of a few we can send off to war but the sacrifices of the many to not only change the way they look at life but the way they live their lives.

This, I believe, is the answer to fascism. To not try to rely on the system for solutions. Because after all, that’s what fascists do. We cannot rely on authority to solve fascism, because that IS fascism. We can’t rely on censoring fascists, because using the tools of the enemy only justifies the behavior of the enemy. We must be other than fascists ourselves. Fascism at its roots is fear lashing out. It is weakness masquerading as strength. It is the rationalization that we must sometimes choose irrationality over reason, hatred over love. We must not only be something different than this, we must do whatever we can to cleanse ourselves of such tendencies.

This won’t be easy. This will require real sacrifices. It will often leave you feeling alone and vulnerable and it will be up to you to be strong when you just want to feel part of the herd, even if the herd is an angry mob. I think that fascism is a battle that must be fought in each individual’s heart and mind. The word fascism derives from the word fascio, meaning “bundle of sticks”. The symbolism is that a single stick is relatively easy to break, whereas a bundle of them is strong. The key to undoing the power of fascism is to lure those who are tempted to join away from the herd, to motivate them with something other than fear. One must show them it is both possible and preferable to be a strong individual with a sense of purpose and community. And the only way to do that is to exemplify that in yourself, not by trusting the system to set things right.

 

 If you liked what I write enough to support me, you can buy me a coffee. If you liked it but don't have a credit card handy, please share. Also, follow me on Twitter or Facebook, sign up for my newsletter, or check me out on Amazon.

A Critical Read Of An Opinion Piece In The Guardian (A Search For Honesty)

The piece in question is "There is now more evidence than ever that China is imprisoning Uighurs". I share my investigation with others because this article was shared with me and I wanted to show how the typical news article holds up to honest and earnest inquiry. Keep in mind that the title claims there is more evidence than ever when trying to follow the links provided for actual evidence.

 The first thing I noticed is the writer is not a journalist working for The Guardian but a researcher for Australian Strategic Policy Institute. So whatever he writes is going to be in accord with the agenda of the think tank that employs him and the people who finance him. I am guessing you will not find any article coming from the ASPI that in any significant way contradicts the opinions of Nathan Ruser. I’m willing to bet the opinion of Nathan Ruser was not sought out by the Guardian but was sent to them as a press release which they saw fit to publish, their full reasoning I do not wish to speculate on.

 Whenever I research a think tank, I try to find their funding sources because that tells a lot about what their findings will be. The funding list is somewhat obscure but it is undeniable that it is mainly funded by the military. 17% of their funding is coming from foreign governments. They do not admit to which ones, but I suspect China is not one and the U.S. and perhaps Britain are.

 Researching ASPI further, I came upon this article from Counter Punch, by Binoy Kampmark. While not going too deeply into his background, Kampmark is an Australian professor and lecturer. As far as I know he has no ties to or funding from China and seems a pretty independent thinker. Let me provide you with a few quotes from his article, all of which is worthy of a read:

 “In conducting this exercise, accuracy can become the logical casualty. The security think tank often acts as an operational mercenary. The funders want advice that confirms and affirms a position; the advising think tank wants continued funding. Such a match is a poison for contrarian assessments. The think tank thereby operates in circles more reminiscent of astrology, seeing patterns where there are none, and impressing their funders that a threat exists on a scale not previously thought possible. This ensures more funding and future projects.”

 The amazing thing cyber journalism offers that print journalism never did is hyperlinks. I am impressed by the ability of independent journalists to use this to great effect. Read a Caitlin Johnstone piece sometime and see how she is able to bolster her case by providing indisputable evidence through hyperlinks. I am likewise disappointed at the poor manner in which corporate journalism tends to use them. More often, they lead me on a wild goose chase that goes nowhere.

 Case in point: The first hyperlink Ruser uses is attached to the words “about 10%”, as in “By most estimates, about 10% of Uighurs and other Muslim nationalities in Xinjiang have found themselves arbitrarily detained in these camps.” So I clicked on the link in order to find the source of the estimates, because I like to think my overriding agenda is to know the truth and I want to know where he got that figure. It links to this article. The article itself provides little more information on the assertion. What little it does provide is this sentence, along with another hyperlink: “Around 10% of the Uighur population is locked up, according to the U.S. Government and human rights organizations.” A pretty cheap and misleading use of a hyperlink, if you ask me, but undoubtedly effective for the majority who trust what they read from corporate journalism. Nevertheless, in a desire to be fair and follow the trail to its end, I clicked on the provided hyperlink.

 I read through the article and came upon this statement: “Up to 1 million ethnic Uighurs and other Turkic-speaking Muslims are held in Xinjiang’s camps, according to a U.N. report released in August.” (Here I wish to relate to you that this was not as I saw it earlier in the day, where there was no hyperlink and I remember it being phrased differently. This could be due to the fact that I was looking at it on my Kindle rather than my computer and the fact that I remembered wrong, but it could also be due to the fact that, unlike print articles, cyber articles can be and often are changed to fit an evolving narrative).

 So, having read the entirety of the 7000+ word document proposed to show that “Up to 1 million ethnic Uighurs” and others are held in Xinjiang’s camps, below is what I’ve found to be of any interest. By the way, the fact that I, a blue collar worker not being paid for my efforts, am doing the work paid journalists should have been doing if they were interested in informing the readers, is an indictment of the journalist community as a whole. Because not one person but many people have failed in providing you with useful information that was easily accessible. I’m pretty sure that’s what journalists are paid to do.

 Below is the UN document used as evidence of the figure of one million Uyghurs in camps. I have omitted many aspects of it that relate to other regions of China, such as Hong Kong and Macao. I fully expect you to skip over all but the bits I have highlighted, but I have included the rest in case you doubt my thoroughness or my intent. In fact, I recommend you skip this section entirely, because there is no relevant information in it, but I wanted to show you I took the time to read through it and comment where appropriate, even pointing out a couple of spelling errors.

 

Committee Experts, in the dialogue that followed, congratulated China for creating extraordinary prosperity and lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, including in the eight multi-ethnic provinces and regions, but remained concerned over the growing inequality, particularly for ethnic minorities who continued to disproportionally experience poverty.  China was lacking an anti-racial discrimination law and a national human rights institution in line with the Paris Principles, while the recent Foreign Non-Governmental Organization Management Law and the Charity Law imposed restrictions on the funding and operations of domestic non-governmental organizations.  A great source of concern was racial discrimination in the context of laws fighting terrorism, separatism and extremism, particularly against Tibetans, Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities.  In the name of combatting “religious extremism” and maintaining “social stability”, an Expert said citing “credible sources”, China had turned the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region into something that resembled a massive internment camp shrouded in secrecy, a “no rights zone”, while members of the Xinjiang Uyghur minority, along with others who were identified as Muslim, were being treated as enemies of the State based on nothing more than their ethno-religious identity.  Experts recognized China’s vigorous efforts to promote education among ethnic minorities, and in this context raised concerns about the quality of and access to education in ethnic minority areas and the provision of bilingual education for ethnic minorities, which was sometimes at the detriment of ethnic languages.

In conclusion, Yu Jianhua, Permanent Representative of China to the United Nations at Geneva, said that eliminating racial discrimination was a daunting task facing the international community, and reiterated China’s commitment to ethnic equality and solidarity and to conscientious implementation of the Convention.

Report

The Committee has before it the combined fourteenth to seventeenth periodic report of China CERD/C/CHN/14-17.

Presentation of the Report

YU JIANHUA, Permanent Representative of China to the United Nations Office at Geneva, said that since its last review by this Committee in 2009, China had made great progress and had entered a new phase in its development.  A strong sense of community for the Chinese nation guided China’s work in the new era, said Mr. Yu, noting that Han and the other 55 ethnic groups made up one Chinese nation.  The March 2018 changes to the Constitution reflected more fully the features of ethnic policy whose most important features were ethnic equality and solidarity, and inter-ethnic mutual assistance and harmony for common prosperity and the realization of the Chinese dream on national rejuvenation.  China continued to steadfastly develop the system of regional ethnic autonomy, and the ethnic legal framework had taken shape, underpinned by the Constitution and supplemented by the Law on Regional National Autonomy.  Law-based governance had been pursued vigorously since 2012 to protect the legitimate rights and interests of people of all ethnic groups, and over 20 laws and administrative regulations had been adopted which provided for the prohibition of ethnic discrimination or hatred and the promotion of ethnic equality.  Autonomous ethnic regions had enacted or amended over 20 regulations on the exercise of autonomy, thus further improving the legal framework on ethnic affairs, while 14.7 per cent of the deputes to the National People’s Congress were ethnic minorities, higher than the proportion of ethnic minorities in the overall population.  

In recent years, the Government had made great efforts to bridge the developmental gap between ethnic and other areas and the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan of Economic and Social Development 2016-2020 included sections on the promotion of the healthy development of ethnic areas and the development and opening of border regions.  In 2017, in five autonomous regions - Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, Tibet, Ningxia and Xinjiang – and three multi-ethnic provinces – Guizhou, Yunnan and Qinghai – the economy had made significant progress and people’s living standards continued to rise.  The population living in poverty went down from 31 million in 2012 to 10 million, and the poverty rate dropped from 34 per cent to six per cent.  Supported by economic growth, health, education, cultural and ecological preservation programmes had also made headway, and the Government remained committed to protecting and promoting the cultures of ethnic minorities.  Some ethnic areas were still lagging behind, said Mr. Yu, adding that China was at a crucial phase of poverty eradication and that it needed to further address livelihood, health, education, protect the environment, and improve the legal framework for ethnic autonomy.  The implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination was a major contributing factor to the realization of the Chinese dream through the united effort of all the ethnic groups in China, and China stood ready to enhance the cooperation with the Committee.

(Refers to Hong Kong and is therefore irrelevant to the article)
CHEUNG DOI-CHING, Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of China, said that there were some 250,000 ethnic minority members in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China.  In order to strengthen their adaptation and social integration, sometimes difficult due to language and cultural differences, a steering committee had been set up in 2018 to coordinate and review the support for ethnic minorities, and Hong Kong $ 500 million had been earmarked for support services in the 2018-19 budget.  Chinese was being taught as a second language in primary and secondary schools since the 2014/15 academic year to help non-Chinese speakers and facilitate their joining to mainstream Chinese language classes as early as possible, thus providing them with more opportunities to pursue studies and career.  The funding to schools to facilitate the implementation of the Chinese language as the second language framework had been increased to over Hong Kong $ 200 million per year since the 2014/15 school year.  The Government attached great importance to providing ethnic minorities with equal opportunities in seeking employment, including through dedicated employment services provided by the Labour Department and dedicated training courses to meet career aspirations by the Employees Retaining Board.  Under the labour laws, foreign domestic workers enjoyed the same employment rights and protection as local workers in relation to rest days, paid holidays, annual leave, sickness allowance, maternity protection, and severance payment.  In March 2018, the action plan to tackle trafficking in persons and to enhance the protection of foreign domestic helpers had been promulgated in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China.

(Refers to Macao, and is therefore irrelevant to this article)

LIU DEXUE, Director of the Legal Affairs Bureau, Macao Special Administrative Region of China, reaffirmed that all persons in Macao Special Administrative Region of China or subject to its jurisdiction were equal before the law, irrespective of their nationality, descent, race, sex, language, religion, political views and other grounds.  This cornerstone principle was expressly stipulated in the Basic Law, and rights to equality and non-discrimination were enshrined in the legal system by a diversity of sources, and everyone was equal before the law and through the law.  Illegitimate subjective discrimination was prohibited, and positive discrimination was only admissible under the law to correct de facto inequalities.  Of the 650,000 inhabitants, 170,000 were non-resident workers, thus Macao Special Administrative Region of China, a city of tourism and culture, embraced the values of tolerance and respect for cultural diversity; every ethnic group shared the same dignity and was entitled to its own cultural life, to practice its own religion and to use its own language.  The public consultation mechanism for government policies and future legislation was an important tool to engage the population in public affairs, including different ethnic and minority groups.  The Commissioner against Corruption accumulated other Ombudsman functions, including to promote and protect rights and freedoms, safeguard interests of individuals, and ensure that the exercise of public powers abided by the criteria of justice, legality and efficiency.  The Commissioner could directly propose to the Chief Executive the enactment of normative acts, their amendment or repeal, and could conduct inquiries and issue recommendations and redress measures.  

Questions by the Country Rapporteurs
 
NICOLÁS MARUGÁN, Committee Rapporteur for China, congratulated China for creating extraordinary prosperity and lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty over the past 30 to 40 years: between 500 and 767 million according to the World Bank, including in the eight multi-ethnic provinces and regions where the incidence of poverty had dropped from 26 per cent in 2011 to 12 per cent in 2015.  However, ethnic minorities continued to suffer the greater rate of poverty and inequality: they represented 8.49 of the total population but made up around one third of the poor in China. (ME:In the United States, Hispanics make up 18% of the population but are 28% of those living in poverty) In its National Human Rights Action Plan 2016-2020, China had acknowledged the very high levels of inequality, said the Rapporteur, noting that the GINI coefficient in the distribution of net household income had grown from 0.28 in 1981 to 0.49 in 2007.  Was ethnic disaggregated data on poverty available?

What measures were in place to ensure that laws aiming to fight terrorism, separatism and extremism did not undermine the non-discrimination provisions of the Convention and those contained in the Constitution and the Law on Regional National Autonomy protecting ethnic minorities?  Mr. Marugán asked the delegation to explain why there were very few complaints of racial discrimination in China, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China and Macao Special Administrative Regions of China, and to explain how the under-reporting of hate crimes was being addressed.  

There were reports that the situation of Tibetans and Uyghurs was deeply problematic, and that most ethnic minorities in China were exposed to serious human rights challenges.  In Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China, despite having one of the highest rates of gross domestic product per capita in the world, inequality had worsened and the rate of ethnic minorities living in poverty had increased from 15.8 per cent in 2011 to 19.4 in 2016, while the poverty rate among South Asians was at 25.7 per cent, with Pakistanis registering the rate of 56 per cent.  The Rapporteur reiterated the concern expressed in 2016 by the Committee against Torture about cases of torture, deaths in custody, arbitrary detention and disappearance of Tibetans, Uyghurs and Mongolians.  Would China impartially investigate officials implicated in such cases and bring them to justice?

GAY MCDOUGALL, Committee Co-Rapporteur for China, raised concern about the numerous and credible reports that in the name of combatting “religious extremism” and maintaining “social stability”, the State party had turned the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region into something that resembled a massive internment camp shrouded in secrecy, a “no rights zone”, while members of the Xinjiang Uyghur minority, along with others who were identified as Muslim, were being treated as enemies of the State based on nothing more than their ethno-religious identity.  The Co-Rapporteur noted reports of mass detention of ethnic Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim minorities, and estimates that upwards of a million people were being held in so-called counter-extremism centres and another two million had been forced into so-called “re-education camps” for political and cultural indoctrination (this mentions the reports but we still do not know the source of the allegation. And this is not the position of the UN as a body but the assertion of a single American).  All the detainees had their due process rights violated, while most had never been charged with an offense, tried in a court of law, or afforded an opportunity to challenge the legality of their detention.  

Reports further indicated, continued Ms. McDougal, that the State party was making even the most common-placed expressions of ethno-religious significance to Muslims into a penal offence, including daily greetings, possession of certain Halal products, and growing a full beard or wearing a full-face headscarf.  Recent amendments to the legal framework appeared designed to enable even greater control of Xinjiang Uyghur and other minority groups; the Criminal Law amendments, the National Security Law of 2015, the Counter-Terrorism Law of 2016, the Cybersecurity Law of 2017, and the Religious Affairs Regulations Law amended in 2018, established imprecise and too broad definitions on national security offences related to “terrorism” and “extremism” that enabled abusive, arbitrary and discriminative prosecution and conviction.  

VERENE SHEPHERD, Committee Co-Rapporteur for China, recognized China’s vigorous efforts to promote education among ethnic minorities, as well as the education on ethnic unity in the country, and expressed concern about the failure in the implementation of some policies.  The Committee’s main concerns related to the quality of education, provision of bilingual education for ethnic minorities, improving literacy rates in ethnic minority areas, and ensuring access to education for ethnic minority children.  Was there ethnically disaggregated data and statistics available on school enrolment and on drop outs?

Questions by Other Experts

GUN KUT, Committee Rapporteur for Follow-up to Concluding Observations, commended China for the timely provision of the follow-up report to the Committee’s concluding observations issued after the 2009 review.  China had implemented the recommendation to extend the national human rights plan, and the Committee wished to hear more about its results and outcomes.  The second theme for follow up concerned re-education in labour camps, which in law had been abolished but had – alarmingly - continued in practice in different shapes and forms.  The Committee had asked China to ensure that lawyers exercised their profession freely, particularly in cases involving human rights violations.  China had amended the Lawyers Law, however, the harassment and intimidation of human rights lawyers, including disbarment and administrative sanctions of various sorts, continued.  Was this true?

Other Experts asked about concrete measures taken to combat poverty in rural areas and the legal justification for counter-terrorism activities against the Tibetans and their religious practices.  The Committee was concerned that China continued to deny refugee status to asylum-seekers from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and it also continued to forcibly return them to their country of origin, regardless of a serious threat of persecution and human rights violations.  Also, China failed to establish a mechanism for refugee recognition and determination of refugee status.

Experts also raised the issue of statelessness, particularly for children abandoned by their Chinese fathers, and the situation of non-recognised ethnic groups, which – due to their non-recognition – found it hard to have a voice and representation.  The Committee was concerned about the situation in Inner Mongolia autonomous region, and the reports of surveillance and harassment of peaceful protesters opposing mining, deforestation and other activities causing environmental degradation, as well as about mass resettlement of ethnic Mongolians to make place for development activities.

The delegation was asked whether ethnic minorities recognized themselves in the portrayal of ethnic minorities in the media, the plans to eliminate by 2020 the difference between agricultural and non-agricultural workers, and the situation in accessing health services, particularly ante-natal services, for ethnic minorities.  What level of religious freedom was available to Uyghurs and how was the practicing of their religion protected?  

What was being done to extend protection to the defectors from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, including from refoulement, and to protect them from trafficking and exploitation in China?

Questions by the Country Rapporteurs

VERENE SHEPHERD, Committee Co-Rapporteur for China, said that the use of bilingual education seemed to have completely displaced the use of Uyghur language in education.  What was being done to protect the use of ethnic languages?  What policies were in place to support Portuguese or Macanese speakers in learning Chinese and so enable them to take advantage of the rapid development of the Macao Special Administrative Region of China?  The Committee was concerned about the laws and attitudes towards the use of the Tibetan language in schools and everyday life.

GAY MCDOUGALL, Committee Co-Rapporteur for China, asked the delegation to explain the grounds on which Uyghurs were sent to re-education camps, which laws they had violated and were there police reports of those violations.  What were the current circumstances of Uyghurs who, following the issuing of the 2017 directive, returned to China, voluntarily or not, from their studies abroad, including in Egypt, Turkey and Thailand?

Replies by the Delegation

YU JIANHUA, Permanent Representative of China to the United Nations Office at Geneva, said that as a developing multi-ethnic country with a large population, there was still room for improvements in China, which was why China accorded importance to the work of this Committee.  The Government was making a mid-term assessment of the implementation of the National Human Rights Action Plan, said Mr. Yu, emphasising (sic) that the right of ethnic minorities to participate in political affairs had been guaranteed.  All 55 ethnic groups were represented in the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, where they accounted for 14.7 per cent of the delegates.  Poor populations in ethnic minority areas had dropped from 14 million in 2016 to 10 million in 2017, and education for ethnic minorities had developed rapidly, as rural students were exempted from all tuition and fees for compulsory education and the public funding for primary and secondary schools in rural areas had been increased.  

The Belt and Road Initiative had greatly opened up ethnic minority areas and was serving as a driver of development there.  The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region served as a core area on the Silk Road Economic Belt, and remarkable achievements had been made in ethnic minorities areas, for example, Xinjiang had become a major corridor of energy and resources on land, a large-scale base of coal, coal-fired electricity and coal chemical industry, a large-scale wind power base, and a hub for transportation and commercial logistics.

Instead of establishing a stand-alone national human rights institution, China had designated the human rights promotion and protection responsibilities to different departments, for example, the Office of Letter and Calls of People’s Congress and Governmental departments at all levels to investigate and handle human rights violations.  The State Ethnic Affairs Commission bore significant responsibility for protecting and promoting the rights of ethnic minorities.

Citizens of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea who illegally entered China were dealt with in accordance with international law, domestic laws, and humanitarian principles.  These individuals had entered China for economic reasons and did not qualify as refugees as defined by the Refugee Convention.  China provided such individuals with a great deal of humanitarian assistance, therefore their exploitation and maltreatment did not exist.

Poverty-stricken areas were mainly located in the central and western regions of China due to historical reasons, and within the same region, poverty did not differentiate between different ethnic minorities.  The population of the 12 provinces where ethnic minorities were concentrated was 347 million, or 27 per cent of the total population, but only 16 million of that population were poor.  Extraordinary measures had been adopted to lift ethnic minorities out of poverty, including additional state funding: 60 per cent of the central Government’s additional funding in 2018 was earmarked for the three regions and three prefectures, to benefit the 3 million poor.  For ethnic minorities, the past five years had witnessed the fastest increase in living standards, reaffirmed the delegation.

Laws such as Amendments to the Criminal Law, the National Security Law, the Counter-Terrorism Law and the Cyber-Security Law of China stipulated the measures and procedures to safeguard national security, public security and the security of people’s lives and property.  Provisions of the laws, said the delegate, were specific and clear and there was no so-called ambiguity in the provisions concerning national security.

Another delegate explained the system of complaints for discrimination by ethnic minorities and said that the central Government had instructed sub-governments on handling of ethnic discrimination, direct and indirect.  To ensure the implementation, special long-term inspection projects had been set up, such as the United Front Work Department of the Communist Party of China, the State Ethnic Affairs Commission, the Ministry of Public Security, and others.  Some local authorities had set up community legal aid centres and made hotlines available to ethnic minorities.  Any victim of criminal behaviour had the right to report such events to the public security organs, who took measures to stop the crime and impose sanctions on the offenders, or to transfer the case to judicial organs for criminal punishment.

Starting from 1949, the Chinese Government had identified 55 ethnic minorities through an ethnic identification process, and had ensured their rights on an equal footing.  There were no unrecognized ethnic minorities in China, but there were 600,000 unidentified people, who still fully and equally enjoyed their rights, even if their ethnic identities had not been recognized due to complex reasons, said the delegate.

The purpose of the Non-Governmental Organizations Management Law and the Charity Law was to protect the legitimate rights and interests of all individuals and organizations involved in charity activities, including foreign non-governmental organizations, the delegation said.  Public security organs, civil affair departments and other relevant departments at all levels had made great efforts to facilitate the activities of foreign non-governmental organizations operating in China in accordance with the law.  The Ministry of Civil Affairs had recently rolled out regulations enabling it to serve as a competent department to facilitate non-governmental organizations’ activities.

In recent years, China had been studying the possibility of formulating domestic laws governing the application for and the recognition of refugee status.  The Exit and Entry Administration Law of 2012 had a clause that allowed for the issuance of certificates of temporary stay for people who applied for refugee status, and certificates of residence to those whose applications were approved.  According to the United Nations Refugee Agency in China, in June 2018, there were 943 refugees in the country as well as asylum-seekers from 46 countries.

As a permanent member of the International Labour Organization, China was serious and responsible about ratifying its Conventions, and had expressly banned forced labour.  China would step up its efforts to research the possibility of ratifying the conventions on industrial and commercial labour supervision and on domestic workers.

Bilingual education of ethnic minorities was a concrete measure to respect and guarantee the right of ethnic minorities to receive education in their own languages and to enable ethnic minorities to master the commonly-used language, in order to ensure their equal enjoyment of political life and the fruits of the country’s economic development.  In some ethnic minority areas, the local people used ethnic minority languages in the daily life, and the popularity of the commonly-used language was still relatively low.  China was strengthening the education of the commonly-used language and characters and strove to make ethnic minority students master both languages.  Bilingual education in Xinjiang and Tibet was fully guaranteed in terms of bilingual teachers, curricula, textbooks and class time.  The statements that “Xinjiang or Hoten prohibited teaching in Uyghur language”, and that bilingual education aimed at replacing ethnic minority languages, were not true, said the delegation.  Nearly 40 laws and regulations, including the Constitution and the Law on Regional National Autonomy, provided for the use and development of languages of ethnic minority groups.  Of the 55 ethnic minorities, 53 had their own languages except the Hui and Manchu, 22 groups used a total of 28 languages, and ethnic minority languages were widely used in political and social life across China.

Concerning the protection of the freedom of lawyers to practice, a delegate explained that in recent years, the judicial reform, which aimed at promoting the rule of law in all respects, had contained measures to ensure the rights of lawyers to practice law.  The 2012 revision to the Criminal Procedural Law had improved the provisions governing lawyers’ right to interview clients, read case files and collect evidence, while in September 2015, the Supreme People’s Court, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, and the Ministries of Public Security, State Security, and Justice had issued a joint document: Provisions on Securing the Right of Lawyers to Legal Practice according to Law.  It had clarified the general requirements for authorities to protect the lawyers’ right to practice law and put forward concrete safeguard measures.  In April 2017, a joint quick response mechanism to safeguard lawyers’ rights to legal practice had been created.

The delegation said that the allegations of excessive use of force, torture, arbitrary detention and disappearance of ethnic minorities were “against the fact”.  China consistently adhered to the principles of ethnic equality, ethnic solidarity, and common prosperity of all ethnic groups, while judicial and law enforcement authorities treated all ethnic groups equally and fully protected their legal rights.  The delegate explained that Tashi Wangchuck had not been arrested for his comments on the protection of ethnic minority languages, but on suspicion of inciting secession, for which he had received in May 2018 a sentence of five years’ imprisonment by the Intermediate People’s Court of Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture.  His trial had been handled in strict accordance with the law and in an impartial and independent manner; the defendant’s rights had been guaranteed throughout the process, said the delegate.  

The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region always respected and guaranteed the human rights of people of all ethnic groups in accordance with the law.  There was no arbitrary detention or lack of freedom of religious belief, while the view that Xinjiang was a “no rights zone” was completely “against the fact”.  There were no such things as “re-education centres”, or “counter-terrorism training centres” in Xinjiang.  Xinjiang, an integral part of China, pointed the delegate, was a victim of terrorism, therefore, in order to secure the life and property of all ethnic groups, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region had undertaken special campaigns to clamp down on violent terrorist activities according to the law, and had put on trial and imprisoned a number of criminals involved in severe offenses.  Criminals involved in minor offenses were provided with assistance and education to assist them in their rehabilitation and reintegration.  The legal rights of the offenders assigned to vocational education and employment training centres were duly protected and they were not subject to any arbitrary detention, let alone ill-treatment.  

The delegate went on to reiterate that there was no deliberate targeting of any ethnic minority nor supressing or restraining the rights of the freedom of religious belief of the Uyghur people, and emphasised that the Regulations on Anti-Extremism of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region targeted religious extremism and not a particular religion.  There was no “de-Islamization” and there was no violation of ethnic minorities’ freedom of religion in the name of counter-terrorism.  Since the 1990s, the “three forces” of terrorism, extremism and separatism had been present in Xinjiang, which attempted to undermine its stability.  In response, measures had been adopted to strengthen social and security management, collect information, crack down on illegal and criminal activities of the “three forces”, and protect the State’s stability and citizen safety and security, in accordance with the law.

On the protection of the religious freedom and the traditional culture of the Tibetans, another delegate emphasised that Tibet enjoyed sound and rapid growth, ever-increasing living standards, improving eco-environment, progress and unity shared by all ethnic groups, harmonious religious lives, social law and order, and happiness enjoyed by all people.  The Chinese Government had taken good care of the Tibetan religion and culture, and long-gone were the days when Tibet had been secluded thanks to the tremendous development there.

With regard to the legislation on hate speech, the delegate explained that the prohibition of the dissemination of racism, and incitement to racial discrimination, hatred or violence, was expressly provided and sanctioned in the Criminal Law, the Press Law, the Law on the freedom of association, and the Law governing Radio and TV Broadcasting.  There had indeed been no prosecution or judicial cases of racial or ethnic discrimination, which could be explained by the deeply-rooted respect for cultural diversity, customs and traditions.      

Questions by Committee Experts

NICOLÁS MARUGÁN, Committee Rapporteur for China, asked for details concerning the budgeting and resource allocation for the implementation of the National Human Rights Action Plan.  What were the Government’s views on how the relationship with non-governmental organizations could improve?  What types of discriminatory actions and behaviours were prohibited by laws?  The concept of “separatism” was not clearly defined in the law, noted the Rapporteur, citing the example of Tibetans who were charged with separatism for peacefully protesting violations of their rights and the use of the law to hand down heavy handed sentences on Uyghurs.  What measures were in place to protect them from racial discrimination in the context of counter-terrorism?  What were the intentions concerning the removal of the two reservations to the International Convention?

GAY MCDOUGALL, Committee Co-Rapporteur for China, said that the Committee needed more than just denials that state and national security laws violated the rights of ethnic minorities.  To this end, the Committee needed numbers, figures, data on investigations, prosecutions and detentions, and the number of people in re-education camps.  

VERENE SHEPHERD, Committee Co-Rapporteur for China, recognized the critical importance of social integration in diverse societies and asked how the implementation of the education policy, in particular the bilingual language policy, was being monitored.  How was the history-teaching curriculum, which had an enormous power to divide or to unite, being developed?

The delegation was asked about specific measures adopted to protect the environment in the course of development; initiatives to inform domestic workers of their rights in the Macao Special Administrative Region of China, and the mechanism to deal with complaints of racial discrimination; and tens of thousands of stateless children who, due to statelessness, could not access basic services.

Replies by the Delegation 

Over the past five years, one person was alleviated from poverty every two seconds, and those persons were mainly from north-west China.  This represented an important contribution to the defence (sic) of the rights of ethnic minorities, the delegation said.  In terms of the implementation of the provisions of the Convention, China stressed that States were different in their concrete situations, and there were no unified answers in this regard.  In the course of the dialogue, China was concerned that some Committee Members had made unsubstantiated statements; most materials on which such statements were made were not credible and were aimed at splitting China.  

China attached greatest importance to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and to the goals of the International Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination, and stressed that the dialogue must be based on the United Nations Charter principles of respecting State sovereignty and territorial integrity.  Equally, the Committee must share the objectives of fighting terrorism which was the best way to protect ethnic minorities.

Concluding Remarks

GUN KUT, Committee Rapporteur for Follow-up to Concluding Observations, expressed disappointment because most of the answers were very defensive, while some rejected certain Experts’ questions as baseless. (Again, which experts? I was brought here from several articles in order to learn this very question.)  There could have been a better and more fruitful discussion on how to ameliorate the situation in China, for the benefit of China itself, he concluded.

NOUREDDINE AMIR, Committee Chairperson, thanked civil society organizations for their interest in the constructive dialogue with China, and thanked the delegation for all the efforts to respond to hundreds of questions asked.  The Committee, stressed the Chair, worked on the exclusive basis of the Convention; it was a legal rather than a political Committee, and it was not a tribunal or a court of justice.

NICOLÁS MARUGÁN, Committee Rapporteur for China, asked China to provide written information on the allegations of torture and on the intentions concerning the establishment of an independent mechanism for the investigation of allegations of torture and deaths in custody in Tibet and in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.  The Rapporteur thanked the delegation for the many good responses provided, and emphasised the importance that the Committee attached to freedom of expression, thanking civil society organizations for the reports and information submitted.

YU JIANHUA, Permanent Representative of China to the United Nations at Geneva, said that China took a factual approach and had provided much information and hoped that there would be opportunities for further exchange, within the limits of the Committee’s mandate.  Unfortunately, China was not able to provide answers to the questions that were not factual.  Eliminating racial discrimination was a daunting task facing the international community as a whole, Mr. Yu said, and reiterated China’s commitment to ethnic equality and solidarity and to conscientious implementation of the Convention.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, hours later, I still have no idea where the source of the “million Uyghur” assertion comes from, which by now has become indisputable fact according to countless articles. In fact, each article that sites the million Uyghur assertion serves to buttress every other article that makes the assertion. One thing I’m beginning to realize, though, is that this is not how journalism is supposed to work. It is supposed to supply the reader with the evidence needed to get an understanding of what is really going on.

Finally, with the help of the Grayzone, I came upon the source for the million Uyghur assertion (I highly recommend the Grazone as a source of solid journalism). They linked me to this article which says “The estimate used most widely for over a year—of a million Uyghur Muslims held in Chinese camps—was arrived at using similar methods by a group called China Human Rights Defenders (CHRD), and by (Adrian) Zenz.” CHRD arrived at the number by interviewing “dozens of Uyghur people in Xinjiang. Interviewers gave estimates of how many people were being detained in their towns”, the numbers were added up and divided by the amount of people asked. According to the Grayzone article itself, the number of people interviewed was actually eight.

 Now, admittedly, in the article linked by the Grayzone to confirm the number as eight, I did not find any proof that the number was eight and not dozens. Nonetheless, it does appear to give the lie to the assertion that the source was the United Nations itself but was from a single American who made the assertion without citing sources. It also pretty clearly lays out who is funding the CHRD and what its mission is.

 As for the other source of the million Uyghur number, Adrian Zenz, he appears to be an end times fundamentalist with a religious reason for opposing China. Here’s a bit of video of an interaction between him and Max Blumenthal. Nowhere have I found any evidence provided by Zenz, but I am open to any that others might share. My search has not been exhaustive, but on the other hand those who have put forth claims have not been open with their evidence.

 Further down in the Grayzone article I see the evidence for the eight interviews rather than the dozens stated elsewhere. It seems pretty direct, compelling, and damning. I will provide a second link to the article because it is worth reading in its entirety. Contrast their use of hyperlinks to the examples above.

 This is not the first time I have come across such a situation when diving into news stories. Often, too often, I am told a certain assertion has so much evidence behind it that I am foolish to argue with it, only to be unable to find the actual evidence. Instead I watch as establishment media engage in a circle jerk where each elevates the claims of the other without ever questioning those claims. I remember a time when the media was expected to question itself.

 Indeed, entire shows were dedicated to just that. Less than two decades ago I remember listening to Dave Berkman, professor of journalism, on Wisconsin Public Radio every Friday at 5 pm. Even FOX News had a very good weekly program with Jeff Cohen and others. The media is no longer interested in questioning itself. People like Jeff Cohen aren’t welcome on U.S. media anymore, though you can find him on RT.

 If you liked what I write enough to support me, you can buy me a coffee. If you liked it but don't have a credit card handy, please share. Also, follow me on Twitter or Facebook, sign up for my newsletter, or check me out on Amazon.

Only You Can Prevent Psychopathic Murderers

 

I feel it necessary to point out that killers sometimes aren't completely honest. This might be disillusioning to some of you, but people who are capable of killing other people aren't above telling a little fib in order to justify their murder.

 

As a matter of fact, I'm going to go out on a limb and say most people who kill other people lie about it. Hell, I've been in way less bad situations than trying to justify a murder that I've lied myself out of. I get it. That's why I've found it's a good idea to feel someone out a little when they've told you they just got done killing someone.

 

You don't have to worry about offending a killer by questioning his alibi, either. You shouldn't have to worry about coming off as racist or sexist or anti-Semitic when they tell you they had a good reason for blowing up children. Anyone who's not a psychopath will be willing to answer any questions you might have.

 

Let's face it, each race, ethnicity and gender produces its own murderers. It's not unique to one segment of the global population. Austrians are fine folk, but even they popped out a Hitler. It probably would have been better had people been more suspicious of the reasons he was giving for why he had to kill millions of people rather than refrain out of politeness. But you see, even Hitler felt compelled to lie about what he was doing.

 

Hitler was a really bad guy, but I don't judge Austrians by the fact that he was responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of people. But I assure you I won't let a person's Austrian background prevent me from asking questions when he's told me he just garroted someone. Millions of those killed by Hitler were Jews, but thankfully that didn't prevent investigators from asking the hard questions that led to the arrest of David Berkowitz. Women have traditionally been on the receiving end of most violence, but I'm glad her gender didn't wipe clean Aileen Wournos's guilt. And even though African Americans have endured incredible violence, and even though the jury did not convict him, I still think O.J. Simpson might have murdered his wife. Does it make me an anti-Semitic misogynist racist for saying that?

 

In the grand scheme of things, killing is worse than lying. So don't be surprised if a killer will resort to lying in order to get away with his crimes. I have to think we all lie to some degree and most of us aren't murderers. In the wildest days of my youth, I never did anything worse than bop somebody in the nose, but I told some whoppers in my day.

 

So when you visit a friend and there's a corpse in his driveway, question him. And if he says, "Yeah, I killed the guy, but he had it coming," probe a little deeper. Don't worry about offending him because if he's not a psychopathic killer, he's not going to get all defensive on you. And if he does, this should be a warning sign. A body and an unwillingness to discuss it are two major indicators that your friend might be a psychopath.

 

Because psychopaths do exist, you know, and it's important that we identify them. If we don't, there's no end of the trouble they might cause. You let someone get away with murder, especially a psychopath, and you can bet they’re going to go back for more. Even worse, you’re signaling to all the other psychopaths out there that they’re not going to get challenged when they starve children in some foreign land in order to overthrow the leader of that country.

 

This works even better before someone has committed murder. If they say they're about to kill someone, and they tell you they totally need to do it, you might want to ask a few hard questions. And make that person follow up. Don't let them off the hook. Again, don’t worry if they get offended if you doubt them. Only a raving psychopath would do that.

 

I've already discussed two major warning signs of psychopaths: the fact that they've killed someone (or are preparing to kill someone) and the fact that they get defensive when you ask questions. Here's a third one: psychopaths tend to hang out where other psychopaths congregate or where their desire to kill people and exercise power over others is tolerated. The primary place they tend to gravitate to is government, the one place where psycho killers can do what they love to do and not only get away with it but get medals for it. So if you hear someone saying they've killed someone or plan on killing someone, if you hear them say they are justified in killing someone and get all bent out of shape when you ask them questions, and if they have wormed their way into a system that encourages killing people, you have all the reasons you need to be suspicious. 

 

And let me remind you once more, this has nothing to do with country, gender, race, religion, or whatever else may serve to divide us. It’s not unpatriotic to question killers or potential killers, because they exist in every government and every country in the world. But a psychopath WILL use every excuse he can think of to deflect from his murderous tendencies. He will call you a racist, he will call you a sexist, he will call you anti-Semitic, he will call you unpatriotic, he will say whatever he needs to in order that he might kill with impunity. 

 

Don’t take it personally. And don’t let it stop you from asking the questions that need to be asked.

 

If you liked what I write enough to support me, you can buy me a coffee. If you liked it but don't have a credit card handy, please share. Also, follow me on Twitter or Facebook, sign up for my newsletter, or check me out on Amazon.

The Public Isn't Interested In A Sex Trafficking Scandal Involving Presidents And The Royal Family (An Imagined Newsroom Conversation)

 A young reporter rushes into the editor's office.

 Reporter: I’ve got a great story, Ed. This one’s got it all. It’s got sex, it’s got kidnapping, it’s got international intrigue. It’s got compelling human drama. Best of all, it’s got really huge names attached to it. It’s got everything you can imagine.

Editor: Calm down, Joe. Let’s approach this carefully. You might be on to something but we need to game plan this. The first question we ask in journalism is “who”. Are there any politicians involved? Even tangentially? They don’t have to be directly involved but we could use a known name in the headlines to get people’s interest.

 Reporter: I’ll say it has politicians involved! Not just politicians, actual FREAKING Presidents of the United States.

 Editor: Can it be confirmed by anonymous sources from any intelligence agencies?

 Reporter: It’s better than that, Ed. Something actually happened. Like there's actually tangible verifiable evidence. Actual witnesses. Real live people. There are pictures. of the current president. Standing next to an actual international sex trafficker. And flight logs showing a former president actually flew on the sex trafficker’s private plane! Dozens of times!

 Editor: Any connection to Putin?

 Reporter: Well, no…But even better! We’ve got a member of the Royal Family involved in this. You know how people love any scandal involving the Royal Family. This is going to be crazy huge!

 Editor: This member of the Royal Family, has he been to Russia in the last few years?

 Reporter: Uh…I don’t know. Anyway, forget about him for now. This sex trafficker, he’s got ties to Bill Gates. Bill Freaking Gates!

 Editor: I don’t know, Joe. I’ve got to go with my gut on this one and I’m not feeling any heat about this story. I want you to follow up on the Russian spy porpoises story. Any new leads on that?

 Reporter: Nobody cares about the Russian spy porpoise story, Ed. People thought it was stupid. I was embarrassed to have my name attached to it. Besides, only Democratic voters cared about it at all. This story about the international sex trafficker, now, EVERYBODY will want to know about this. Doesn’t matter if you’re a Republican or a Democrat or third party. It doesn’t matter if you’re not even into politics. And the best part, Ed, the best part is that nobody else is covering it. We’ve got this scoop all to ourselves. All we have to do is a little digging.

 Editor: Sorry, I just don’t think the public is interested in tawdry stories like this. Our readers are too sophisticated to get pulled into something so lurid. Anything breaking on the possible existence of videos of Russian prostitutes peeing on Trump?

 Reporter: Ed, there’s been nothing new on that story in the last four years. There never was any evidence, it was just rumor. But it’s indisputable that something really happened with this story. All we have to do is a little digging and we are certain to find gold.

 Editor: Sounds a little too “dog bites man” to me.

 Reporter: Are you kidding me?

 Editor: Trust me, I’ve been in the news business for twenty years. I’ve seen this kind of story come across my desk every few months.

 Reporter: No, you haven’t. And I’m not going back to the last assignment you gave me about Russian agents sowing discord on Instagram by promoting sex toys. I’m telling you, this story has legs and it’s going to be huge. We’ve got to run with it.

 Editor: I don’t know, maybe you’re seeing something I’m not. Is there an angle I’m missing here?

 Reporter: I didn’t even have a chance to tell you the really crazy part. This international billionaire sex trafficker who’s tied to hugely rich and influential people? He seemingly was allowed to kill himself before the truth could come out. It’s like Ruby killing Oswald except the cameras weren’t working this time.

 Editor: You say he killed himself?

 Reporter: Allegedly.

 Editor: But there wasn’t any video of him doing it, like with Trump and the Russian prostitutes?

 Reporter: I don’t think there’s any video of that either. But there was supposed to be two video cameras monitoring his cell and neither one was working.

 Editor: Any of the guards see anything?

 Reporter: The guards were negligent and didn’t check on the prisoner like they were supposed to.

 Editor: Wait a minute…I think I see an angle, a way we could make this a story worth reporting on.

 Reporter: You let me know boss, and I’ll start digging into it.

 Editor: Right. Okay, got it. I want you to see how independent journalists and people on social media are covering this and we can do a story about how quick conspiracy theories start.

 Reporter: Right away boss! Wait…What?!

    If you liked what I write enough to support me, you can buy me a coffee. If you liked it but don't have a credit card handy, please share. Also, follow me on Twitter or Facebook, sign up for my newsletter, or check me out on Amazon.