{"id":22524,"date":"2021-11-15T20:52:44","date_gmt":"2021-11-15T20:52:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/?p=22524"},"modified":"2021-11-15T20:52:46","modified_gmt":"2021-11-15T20:52:46","slug":"arrias-shop-of-horrors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/arrias-shop-of-horrors\/","title":{"rendered":"Arrias: Shop of Horrors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Arrias.jpg\" width=\"214\" height=\"288\" \/>China is not Colombia.<\/p>\n<p>That is, you might say, a blinding flash of the obvious. But the illegal drugs that flow out of Colombia and into the United States do so despite the efforts of the Colombian government.<\/p>\n<p>China is different; China is a country controlled entirely by the Communist Party (CCP). Certainly, there are small slices that can function \u201cunder the radar,\u201d no control is perfect. But the major pieces operate with the guidance and control and oversight of the CCP. And the CCP isn\u2019t acting as a regulatory agency; its control is dictatorial.<\/p>\n<p>To think that dealing with Chinese \u201cmarkets\u201d somehow reflects \u201cmarket forces\u201d and Adam Smith&#8217;s invisible hand is comical; the Chinese market is controlled. A better word for it might be \u201crigged.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And this pseudo-market economy of China provides Beijing with funds to build:<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Nuclear weapons and missiles pointed at the US<br \/>\n&#8211; The largest navy in the world<br \/>\n&#8211; A large, capable and growing air force<br \/>\n&#8211; A large and very capable army<\/p>\n<p>But, so what? Other large countries have missiles and nuclear weapons and ships and tanks and all that.<\/p>\n<p>But there are some things China has, some things China does, that no-one else has or does. And when I use the word \u201cChina,\u201d I\u2019m referring to activities that are either actually run by the CCP or are under government control and oversight.<\/p>\n<p>China has concentration camps. Number of people in concentration camps &#8211; 1 million+ (estimates run as high as 3 million)<\/p>\n<p>China has re-education camps. Number of people forced through re-education camps &#8211; 8 million +<\/p>\n<p>China has organized organ harvesting. Number of people whose organs were force-harvested last year alone &#8211; 15,000+ (60,000 to 100,000 organ transplants per year, multiple organs from each person)<\/p>\n<p>China has forced abortions. Number of forced abortions &#8211; from 1979 to 2015 \u2014 400 million (and millions of mandatory sterilizations)<\/p>\n<p>Reef areas despoiled &#8211; more than 100 square miles of coral reef destroyed and covered by concrete<\/p>\n<p>International agreements and court findings &#8211; multiple findings against Beijing, all ignored<\/p>\n<p>And what about that virus that escaped from a lab in Wuhan and the Chinese sort of forgot to tell anyone but did make sure every nation got it?<\/p>\n<p>Number of countries infected by its virus &#8211; 193<\/p>\n<p>Number of dead &#8211; 5 million and counting<\/p>\n<p>Global economic damage from its malfeasance &#8211; $11 trillion (at least)<\/p>\n<p>And then there is the production of fentanyl, the synthetic heroin that any number of Chinese labs produce and ship to the US through cartels in Mexico and South America. China did move to cut production after pressure from the Trump administration, but more than 35,000 Americans have died this year (so far) from opioid overdoses; China is the principle source of those illegal opioids.<\/p>\n<p>Other \u201cfun\u201d stuff from the CCP:<\/p>\n<p>Seized and occupied Tibet; now colonizing it. In another two or three generations there will be no Tibetans.<\/p>\n<p>Re-educating (and sterilizing) the Uighurs; in two or three generations there will be no Uighurs.<\/p>\n<p>Hong Kong &#8211; used to be a free city\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Taking ever more of the flow of rivers out of the Himalayas, affecting virtually all of SE Asia and much of South Asia. Water rights may well generate the next war in Asia.<\/p>\n<p>And, there\u2019s the Great Leap Forward, wherein Chairman Mao worked to \u201cmodernize\u201d China. More than 70 million Chinese died. President Xi may not be going to try the same things as Mao, but he is working to gain more power than Mao ever held.<\/p>\n<p>The Nazis may have been more organized, but in raw numbers, they can\u2019t hold a candle to the CCP. The CCP has killed more of its own people than died in the entirety of World War II. Now, with the Wuhan flu they\u2019ve gone international.<\/p>\n<p>But if we trade with them, if we give them more money, certainly they\u2019ll change, they\u2019ll stop doing all this unpleasant stuff and become just like us!<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s the argument made by academia, the cognoscenti of the State Department and foreign policy elites for the last 40 years. Anyone who believes that is either dim-witted or morally depraved. It has to be one or the other.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s worth noting that many people in the 1930s, educated at the best universities, came to admire Nazi Germany. Corporations, too, were quite willing to engage in this sort of behavior (then as well as now). Large corporations, corporations that still exist, were active supporters of the Nazis before 1939; they understandably get upset when folks point that out. And now? What about companies that use Chinese labor camps to keep prices down? What about sports leagues or movie studios that are extra careful not to offend Beijing so as to keep the money flowing?<\/p>\n<p>If you don\u2019t believe the above numbers, get on the internet and start searching; hit multiple sites. What you\u2019ll find is people arguing about the actual numbers. Maybe there are \u201conly 1.5 million people\u201d in Chinese concentration camps right now. Maybe only 800,000! Maybe they only harvested organs from 13,500 people last year. Maybe Chinese fentanyl is only responsible for 90% of those Americans who died from fentanyl overdoses last year. (Or maybe more than 100 million Chinese were killed by the CCP, as several Russian sources have claimed.)<\/p>\n<p>Ask yourself this: is there an \u201cokay\u201d number? 15,000 forced organs harvested per year &#8211; endorsed by the CCP &#8211; that\u2019s okay? But 20,000 is wrong?<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s far too late for talk; we need to act. Our cultural and corporate \u201cleaders\u201d need to take a hard look at China. And at their own souls. And then, if they\u2019ve any moral fiber remaining, they need to act. Or join the CCP as equal targets of moral condemnation.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2021 Arrias<br \/>\nwww.vicsocotra.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>China is not Colombia. That is, you might say, a blinding flash of the obvious. But the illegal drugs that flow out of Colombia and into the United States do so despite the efforts of the Colombian government. China is different; China is a country controlled entirely by the Communist Party (CCP). Certainly, there are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arrian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22524"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22525,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22524\/revisions\/22525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}