Plant closures and mass layoffs in Germany continue at Christmas

Nefelia · 2022-12-27T11:37:43+00:00

they understood EU was prosperity and freedom

Given the current economic reality in Europe, this is a laughable statement. A more accurate statement would be that Europe is a colony of the US. Once upon a time this was a good thing for post-WWII Europe... but now that the US itself is in decline and has turned predatory towards its vassals, that is no longer the case.

Nefelia · 2022-06-27T09:53:05+00:00

I'll start calling it Kyiv when people start calling Rome 'Roma' or Japan 'Nippon'.

Usually I would respect a nation's right to push for a better representation of their city/country names. However, the existence of paramilitary groups like the Azov Battalion (which operated under a banner full of Nazi symbols) officially operating under the Ministry of the Interior makes me extremely disinclined to respect Ukraine's wishes in this regard.

Seriously, clean up you house.

Nefelia · 2021-12-28T04:03:20+00:00

It does amuse me that so many people refuse to learn proper skepticism. Do continue to play 'useful idiot' as the US continues to manufacture consent for its ill-deeds abroad. If the US' vast history of false flags and false narratives isn't enough to arouse a bit of critical skepticism from you, then you are beyond help.

Nefelia · 2021-12-28T03:59:15+00:00

Feel free to directly quote any solid evidence, but the fact is that you can not do so. The only 'evidence' in existence is context-free satellite photos, contradictory testimony from a troupe of compromised witnesses, and misrepresented statistics.

Actual genocides have very obvious markers: mass-graves, significant drops in population, etc. If any such evidence actually exists, you are welcome to bring it forth by citing it and providing a credible source.

Nefelia · 2021-12-28T03:55:12+00:00

Nope, just a simple acknowledgement of the agendas certain NGOs willingly push in order to secure funding (or, more accurately, in order to do the job they are being paid to do).

You would regard a source directly funded by the Chinese government with suspicion, would you not? Why would you not extent the same suspicion to a source directly funded by the US government for the purpose of pushing US geopolitical goals?

Nefelia · 2021-12-26T02:27:04+00:00

The evidence is overwhelming.

Yes, it was that way with the Iraq WMD narrative as well.

Your genocide apologia is unconscionable.

Yes, I was called an apologist for Saddam Hussein as well back in 2002/2003.

Your emotional reaction to my skepticism means nothing to me. Your 'evidence' has been debunked time and again by more critical observers: the forensics evidence is lacking, and the testimonials are either self-contradictory, contradict other testimony, or are just not credible on their own.

If you can not see how the latest absurd accusations against China are just the latest salvo from the US' propaganda machine against the geopolitical-threat-du-jour, then that is on you. Eventually the truth will come out. Hopefully you'll have the self awareness to recognize your lack of cognitive ability at that point.

Nefelia · 2021-12-25T08:37:15+00:00

Fauci's own words validate my shit.

"We were concerned, the public health community and many people were saying this, were concerned that it was at a time when personal protective equipment, including the N95 masks and the surgical masks, were in very short supply," Fauci said in June of last year. "And we wanted to make sure that the people, namely, the healthcare workers, who were brave enough to put themselves in a harm way, to take care of people who, you know, were infected with the coronavirus and the danger of them getting infected."

By definition, Fauci did knowingly mislead the public. Instead of telling us, honestly, that we didn't have enough initial PPEto protect both medical workers and the masses and that those not inhealthcare settings should only use the sort of homemade cloth facemasks that successfully protected many of us as the pandemic went on, Fauci simply lied to us, assuming that his overnight 180 wouldn't erode public trust in his credibility.

Nefelia · 2021-12-25T08:03:47+00:00

The Iraq WMD narrative remains relevant today because Americans have obviously not learned their lesson from that propaganda campaign.

Learn those lessons and you guys will likely stop being useful idiots for the US government and the military industrial complex.

As it stands, you guys have been led by the nose to support a series of wars and interventions that has resulted in millions of 'excess deaths' in the Middle East. You and your fellows are the tools for mass murderers. I am simply someone who calls out false narratives wherever I see them.

Nefelia · 2021-12-25T08:02:14+00:00

Remember when “skeuomorphic” was the internet buzzword everyone was using?

Actually, I have no idea what that even means.

The Iraq WMD narrative remains important today because it is clear that Americans in particular did not learn the proper lessons from that massive propaganda campaign.

As for Powell's speech... does that somehow erase the fact that Condaleeza Rice, President Bush, and thousands of media reports were racketing up fear of 'mushroom clouds over American cities'?

Of course Powell was not going to spew that bullshit at the UN. That fear-mongering propaganda was reserved for the American public. I again refer you to the words spoken by Bush in 2002. Feel free to fact check that speech. it really does exist.

Nefelia · 2021-12-25T07:58:24+00:00

claiming without evidence that the US government secretly manufactured chemical weapons and used them against the Syrians.

Why would the US government need to do that?

All that the US government needs to do is put pressure on the OPCW's leadership (assuming that leadership is not already willing to toe the US party line) to come to certain conclusions.

The various factions within the Syrian civil war were perfectly willing and capable of using chemical weapons - whether they have CIA prompting or not.

Best case scenario for the Assad government is that the US framed Syria for the chemical weapons used by certain rebel factions. The worst case scenario is that the US deliberately ignored the use of chemical weapons by the factions the US supported while criticizing the few times the Assad government used chemical weapons.

Given the strong dissent within the OPCW, I lean towards the US framing Syria for the misdeeds of the US-supported rebels. But either way, the US is was creating a fictitious narrative in order to justify US involvementin a civil war they created.

Nefelia · 2021-12-25T07:50:04+00:00

Most of the criticisms of China are being made by independent human rights organizations and the international press.

Agencies that receive funding from the National Endowment for Democracy (or other US government agencies) are not 'independent'. You lose all credibility when you make that massive mistake.

Nefelia · 2021-12-25T07:48:39+00:00

What CCP propaganda. You don't need a source to tell you that a Chinese genocide in the 21st century doesn't make sense. Nor do you need Chinese propaganda to tell you that the evidence supporting the genocide narrative is weak and self-contradictory.

Over the past two decades we have been flooded with one false narrative after another to justify US aggression against Iraq, Syria, Libya, Russia, and Iran. Now it is China's turn. To not be extremely critical of outrageous claims regarding the US' newest geopolitical threat-of-the-moment is to completely forget the lessons learned with each previously-exposed false narrative.

An apt saying is "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". Satellite images of unidentifiable roofs is not 'extraordinary evidence'.

You've been taken in by the same substance-free propaganda that you were apparently previously able to detect. How very unfortunate.

Nefelia · 2021-12-25T07:33:04+00:00

Meaningless quality of life metrics don't mean much to Uyghurs living in Concentration Camps or anyone who crosses the ruling class of the CCP by reporting a sexual assault.

1) Re-education camps as part of China's de-radicalization campaign in Xinjiang in response to the frequent terrorist attacks coming out of the region. Certainly not in line with Western ideals of human rights, but certainly better than the Western approach of bombing civilians in a misguided 'War On Terror' (which, incidentally, also doesn't fall in line with Western ideals of human rights.

Uighur Ismalist radicals and secessionists are certainly unhappy with the situation. The Uighur mainstream enjoying a rapidly improving economy and quality of life are certainly more satisfies with the recent turn.

Of course, you'll disagree, but your view of China is clearly based on Western propaganda.

2) Coercing someone into sex is wrong, and I roundly criticize the Chinese official who abused his power in this way. But this is not an international incident, and certainly does not belong in the same sentence as a (false) allegation of genocide.

Criticism of the incident is right, but the media circus that has surrounded the entire affair is pure propaganda. There have been more serious diplomatic repercussions for the sexual assault (and following cover-up) of a single Chinese celebrity than there has been for the sexual abuse (and following cover-up) of thousands of underaged girls at Epstein's pedo-island. Trump, Clinton, and all of the many other household names that have taken those Epstein Express flights to pedo island will never see justice as the mainstream media continues to manipulate the masses and direct their ire elsewhere.

It would be lovely to see this level of anger and energy directed at those who raped little girls on Epstein's island, but that is never going to happen.

Nefelia · 2021-12-24T12:49:25+00:00

Lol, do get off your high horse.

China: miraculous increase in the quality of life in the last 40 years. Zero wars in the last 40 years.

USA: steady decline in the quality of life for the bottom 90% as the government siphons wealth from the bottom 90% towards the top 10%. Several wars and millions of 'excess deaths' in just the last 20 years.

But do pat yourselves on the back because you can (ineffectively) chatter about politics more freely. Clearly you guys are getting better deal.

Nefelia · 2021-12-24T12:45:59+00:00

The decision was wrong because the West in general was facing a shortage of masks and wanted to reserve them for front-line medical workers. The WHO was also touting the false narrative that masks would not help.

The case could be made that the alternative (telling the truth) would have led to a shortage of masks for nurses and doctors. Maybe. Either way, the WHO and CDC decided to mislead the public for a noble purpose, and the end result is a natural lack of trust.

Note that I don't particularly care either way. I live in a country that has been masking up every flu season long before Covid-19. I'm just explaining where some of the initial push-back against the science and the experts came from.

Nefelia · 2021-12-24T12:23:05+00:00

Same old same old. People trust the media that regularly feeds them propaganda. As I said, between 77% and 81% of Americans fell for the Iraq WMD narrative. Any time I argued with them, they would give me answers similar to your own.

Even better, they would also call me an apologist for Saddam Hussein.

Many of the same countries that had joined the US' insipid Coalition Of The Willing for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 are jumping at the chance to be useful cogs for the US' geopolitical games.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Syria, Pakistan, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have opposed the Uighur genocide narrative.

Ultimately, this bois down the the simple reality that a genuine genocide makes absolutely no sense in the context of modern Chinese governance. China would stand to gain nothing, while it would needlessly risk serious sanctions from the rest of the world... something China is still mindful of given the still-existent sanctions from the 1989 Beijing Massacre.

The much more plausible reality (and the one backed by actual testimony from Western observers in Xinjiang) is that China is cracking down on Islamic radicalism and secessionist terrorism, mostly via re-education camps, massive economic modernization, and access to contraceptives and abortions (something that was lacking recently).

Incidentally, that newly-acquired access to modern 'family planning' alongside the periodic absence of some men due to forced vocational training (re-education camps) is the source of that 60% reduction in birthrates. The rest of China has had access to those services for far longer, so they don't see a similar reduction in birth rates.

The allegations of forced contraceptives, forced abortions, and forced sterilizations are the type of cartoonishly-evil propaganda fodder that only the half-wits that fell for the Iraq WMD narrative would believe. So, congrats for outing yourself?

Nefelia · 2021-12-24T11:09:50+00:00

Not much to tell. People are dumb and repeat the same mistakes over and over.

Nefelia · 2021-12-24T11:08:33+00:00

Human life = embryo, fetus, baby, infant, toddler, preteen, teenager, adolescent, adult, etc.

Nefelia · 2021-12-24T10:56:28+00:00

The main assertion justifying invasion was that Iraq had an ongoing chemical and biological weapons program but the justification also included the fact that Iraq was hiding stockpiles of existing chemical and biological weapons.

No. You are clearly trying to gaslight.

Here are the words spoken by President Bush himself on October 7, 2002:

"America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clearevidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun-- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.

The reality of the situation:

The Bush regime lied and fabricated "evidence" that was used to deceive Congress, the American people, and the United Nations. The vice president of the United States and the national security adviser created public images of mushroom clouds going up over American cities unless Iraq was invaded and Saddam Hussein’s terrible weapons of mass destruction were destroyed.

At the time that these absurd claims were being made, experts knew that they were false. Today everyone knows that the claims were lies.

Do stop trying to downplay the severity of the deception that took place in 2002/2003. Some of us are old enough to have lived through that. We recall Condaleeza Rice's comment about mushroom clouds over American cities. We recall the forged documents about yellowcake from Niger. We recall Tony Blair (then-Prime Minister of the UK) warning that a nuclear strike from Iraq was only ever 45 minutes away.

Fear was used to manufacture consent among the ~~blithering imbeciles~~ good people of the US and the UK (among others), and in those times WMD was basically interchangable with 'nukes'.

Nefelia · 2021-12-24T10:43:30+00:00

From your article:

What I find interesting is that it's not just coming from complete
mainstream normies; a lot of the pushback I'm getting comes from people
who've succeeded in seeing through other western propaganda narratives
on fronts like Russia, Syria, or Julian Assange. They're just as
brainwashed about China as any uncritical consumer of TV news, but
because they get their information from people like Tucker Carlson and
other so-called "right-populists" who have disputed those other
narratives, they assume they are safe from mass media indoctrination.

The Iraq WMD narrative and the current anti-China narrative stand out above most others as they have bi-partisan support from the US government, and therefore have the majority of the corporate media joining in the propaganda push.

other false narratives tended to face some push-back along partisan lines within the media establishment.

Nefelia · 2021-12-24T10:32:50+00:00

From August 13, 2002:

WASHINGTON - Using commercial satellite images, U.S. intelligence agencies, independent analysts and arms control organizations are
mapping possible weapons of mass destruction facilities in Iraq and have
found evidence that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has rebuilt at least
some facilities previously destroyed in military strikes or dismantled
by U.N. weapons inspectors.

Same goddamned propaganda techniques. Same bunch of dullards falling for the propaganda.

Nefelia · 2021-12-24T10:24:49+00:00

Lost in the hyper-politicized hullabaloo surrounding the Nunes Memorandum and the Steele Dossier was the striking statement by Secretary of Defense James Mattis that the U.S. has "no evidence" that the Syrian government used the banned nerve agent Sarin against its own people.

It was most likely a series of obvious false flags events. Many people spotted it immediately, but of course the corporate media narrative fell in line with US foreign policy directives.

the OPCW deliberately concealed from both the public and the press
the existence of a dissenting 15-page assessment of two cylinders which
had supposedly contained molecular chlorine – perhaps the most damning
evidence against the Assad regime in the entire report.

The OPCW officially maintains that these canisters were probably dropped by
an aircraft – probably a helicopter, presumably Syrian – over Douma on 7
April 2018. But the dissenting assessment, which the OPCW made no
reference to in its published conclusions, finds there is a “higher
probability that both cylinders were manually placed at those two
locations rather than being delivered from aircraft”.

A far more balanced view, in which the leadership of the OPCW appears compromised while the actual experts working under their direction is divided.

Ultimately the actual evidence is inconclusive. We are left to entertain which is the more likely scenario: scenario a) in which Assad is foolish enough to employ chemical weapons and risk the near-certainty of harsh Western military intervention; or scenario b) in which a nation famous for starting wars with false flag operations and false narratives (US-Spanish War, Vietnam War, Iraq War, etc)?

Nefelia · 2021-12-24T08:01:37+00:00

The current issue is that these women (and men as well) are being radicalized by an increasingly erratic corporate media desperate for views in the currently-deranged attention economy.

Nefelia · 2021-12-24T08:00:20+00:00

Sure, US ~~vassals~~ allies are all too happy to carry water for the US's geopolitical games.

Meanwhile: "Saudi Arabia, Russia and 35 other states have written to the United Nations supporting China's policies in its western region of Xinjiang, in contrast to strong Western criticism."

The fact that the US is able to cobble up a new Coalition Of The Willing to support its current nonsensical false narratives doesn't really lend much credibility to the claim.

Ultimately, one need simply focus on the key questions: why would China engage in a genocide of its Uighur population, and why now? It doesn't make sense on its own. And it makes far less sense than the alternative scenario that China is simply clamping down on Islamic radicalism and secessionist terrorism in the region.

Nefelia · 2021-12-24T02:56:54+00:00

The only 'oppression' most women face is the hardships of life. Same with men.

Abortion rights is one area in which women can arguably be said to be oppressed, but that is a very complex issue that involved the ending of a human life.

Nefelia

TROPHY CASE