Xi Jinping "Brainwashing" The Chinese People

Xi Jinping is trying to brainwash the Chinese people by claiming a fusion of Communism with Confucianism.

The author is either stupid or deliberately ignoring the role of Chinese Nationalism, and the global rise of nationalism in general. That is the unspoken elephant in the room, and that explains Xi much better than whatever Cold War crap the author is trying to peddle. Yes, America has been trying to sell its version of "Democracy" for almost 200 years now. And an universal vision for "Human Rights" for close to 250. But that vision has been in retreat for a long time now, and the author fails his mission by ignoring the nationalism factor.

The ideological conflict with the #Globohomo is merely a large but minor factor in Xi Jinping’s turn back to Communism. The China of the early 2000's was ultimately a soulless China, due to its eager embrace of materialism, manifesting in the rampant corruption throughout all ranks of the PRC and CCP bureaucracies. The concomitant rise of Falun Gong and Christianity in China was a blatant indicator of Chinese development failures. Despite Western analysts' caricature of the practical materialist soulless Chinese people. It turns out that Chinese people do care about ethics, religions, and ideologies, Western (and Communist) portrayals notwithstanding.

So Xi Jinping faced a spiritual crisis of the CCP. Party members no longer believed in a party or ideology. Nationalism was rising and globalism in retreat throughout the world, evidenced by 2007 financial crisis and the resulting Arab Spring and Colored Revolutions. Xi Jinping was trying to get ahead of the curve and resurrect the CCP as the best and most correct guardian of Chinese Nationalism. By trying to .eld Communism with Chinese Characteristics. Whether he can succeed, of course, is the question of the 21st Century. The answer will also be whether ideologies will ever be relevant again. Or if it is forever subordinated under culture and nationalism.

Myanmar, Civil War, China, and the scam call centers

Information on the criminal personalities and organizations near the China-Myanmar border, the scam call centers plaguing China and Southeast Asia, and their relationships with the governments. And hints on their and the governments' interactions with the ethnic militias and the other insurgents.

And contrary to Indian fevered imaginations, China appears conflicted in the Myanmar Civil War. The Myanmar junta and civilian ex-government both appear to chart a relatively independent course from both India and China. Some of the ethnic-Chinese militias are explicitly Kuomingtan in nature, complicating any PRC sympathies.

This article is a relatively good record on the entity-level information for new analysts.

HIV Drug Diversion and Counterfeiting: Civ Collapse Commences

American counterfeit drug traffickers buy HIV drugs (and other Medicare- and homeless-funded drugs), sanitizes the bottles, sometimes resells the pills and substitute with cheaper drugs, and sell the bottles back into the supply chain.

The collapse of the HIV medication system is one of the first visible signs of the civilization collapse. This is because the drugs are expensive, while the victims are often parasites of the productive class. Therefore there is a lot of subsidies earmarked for a politically vulnerable class. Looks like it has already started.

I had often thought that this collapse would start with the African HIV subsidy scheme. But perhaps this is happening in Africa, too. There almost definitely are people in Africa diverting the HIV medication and selling them on the secondary market. Which accounts for the continuing epidemic. But it is interesting that public awareness is starting with the American scammers.

Charisma and Selfishness: "Vibe Popes"

"Vibe Popes" leverage their charisma to make sure everyone has a good time at parties and other social gatherings. And other people can learn to be more charismatic, too, by knowing what to say.

Typically female, (and typical of most midwits), the author focuses and defines "Charisma" in terms of conversations. However, as the common saying goes, 70% -90% of communication is non-verbal, and similarly for Charisma and other status effects. So right off the bat, we can see that the author is presenting a biased form of Charisma.

Her talk of Selfish Charisma and Selfless Charisma is also silly. Charisma is orthogonal to internal motivation. And an organization headed by selfish Charismatic individuals can still have strong social cohesion, with very satisfied members, compared to selfless charismatic-led organizations. To some extent, most people are at the mercy of the charismatic individuals in their lives. The author seems like she is bitter about that fact of life. Which is silly, and why her study is futile.

Ukraine Leopards now doing indirect fire, too

Ukraine now employing Leopard tanks in indirect fire roles for infantry fire support, instead of Western style fire and maneuver.

Thus completing the Ukrainian evolution back into Soviet tactics. Russia has been doing this all along. And most of the resurrected T-55 and T-62 tanks are used similarly.

A few months ago, Western "analysts" were concern-trolling the Russians, by saying that using tank cannons as artillery will wear out the barrels too fast and cause all kinds of problems. Well, it turns out that tank cannon indirect fire was standard Soviet tactic, which has continued post-Soviet. We know that Russians do know how to regularly replace cannon and howitzer barrels based on battle usage. We don't know if they have enough barrels to keep up regular replacement. (Given the apparent ammunition semi-shortage, they probably don't have enough barrels either. But then, they're not firing as many, so it all kinds of work out.)

And a few months before that, Western analysts were again concern-trolling by talking about barrel failure from over-use. What they didn't realize, was that Russian howitzer barrels (not sure about cannon ones) are made with untensioned steel, whereas Western ones are made with tensioned steel. Therefore, Western howitzers will explosively fail from over-use, whereas Russian ones will simply get less accurate and less range.

So what this story says, more than anything, is that Ukraine is definitively ending their "Counter-Offensive". And that the vaunted "American/NATO" tactics are merely an alternative to Soviet ones, not terribly better or worse. And that, concern-trolling aside, Russian Army does kind of know what they are doing, and are sometimes fairly good at their jobs. This story is manifest evidence that most of what "Western analysts" were telling us is merely propaganda. (Useless propaganda at that, because their opinions have little effect on Russian performance.) And now it seems that the Russian "failures" during 2022 Spring is more a result of a more lethal battlefield (a la Nagorna-Karabakh) than Russian ineptitude or Ukrainian aptitude. (And relearning classic lessons like tanks cannot survive an unsupported attack, that all attacks must be infantry-led.)

Now that Europe has no more tanks to give out. (Nor many more American ones, due to production constraints and Taiwan demands.) So that means Ukraine will not do more armor assaults/exploitations in 2024, probably nor 2025. And Zelensky is complaining that his howitzer shells are going to Israel instead. (Which sounds like giving out excuses for upcoming failures.) This phase of the Ukraine War is likely coming to a close soon. Unless Russia gets some DPRK mercenaries, or many more DPRK rockets and shells, then the frontlineis unlikely to change much for the next few years.

And notice that Business Insider does not know which Ukrainian Leopard is doing the indirect fire, I or II. It cites a Swedish II, but shows a I picture. Can you really trust them for quoting analysts correctly.

San Francisco Chinese name shenanigans

San Francisco now forbid non-Chinese people from using Chinese-type names on ballots, giving them generic transliterated names instead. If they have not been using their Chinese names in public for at least 2 years.

So stupid.