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One year ago, the National Republican Senatorial Committee sent to Republican election campaigns and to AM talk radio stations (Republican-owned media monopolies that use misinformation to torque US election outcomes across the nation) a detailed, 57-page memo authored by a top Republican strategist advising GOP candidates to address the coronavirus crisis by aggressively attacking China.

These talking point memos are sent to member stations of the Republican-owned AM Radio Monopolies on a weekly basis (sometimes daily) to coordinate the lies, prejudice, and propaganda across Red State America. We can see side effects of this propaganda in the thousands of attacks against innocent Asian Americans that took place during 2020 and 2021. Much of this propaganda was embraced by Democratic Party "moderates" and megaphoned by the Democratic Establishment in order to satisfy their Big Donors from the Defense Industry and their intelligence-agency political candidates and media cutouts.

Monday's Open Thread was a reminder the current Chinese Civil War began 95 years ago between the Chinese Nationalist and Chinese Communist Party. There has not been an official end to the conflict.

1927 – Chiang Kai-shek ordered the massacre of Chinese Communists in Shanghai, ending the First United Front.

As a person who sees the struggle with Russia and China as being about the nationalization of resources, which means the sharing of wealth with the workforce, versus ownership of resources by capitalists who oppress, terrorize, or enslave labor, I find the following articles important this week.

and I doubt it can be slowed let alone reversed.

In China there are a lot of problems, but at the moment, the Chinese, the party these days has proven an extraordinary ability to change. I make the joke, in America you can change political parties but you can't change policies. In China you cannot change the party but you can change policies. So in the 65 or 66 years, China has been run by one single party, yet the political changes that have taken place in China this past 66 years have been wider and broader and greater than probably any other major country in modern memory.

So in that time China has ceased to be communist. Is that what you are saying?

China is a market economy, it is not a capitalist country. Here's why. There's no way a group of billionaires could control the politburo as billionaires control American policy making.

So in China you have a vibrant market economy, but capital does not arise above political authority. Capital does not have enshrined rights. In America the interest of capital or capital itself has risen above the American nation. The political authority cannot check the power of capital. That's why America is a capitalist country. But China is not.

h/t lookout

The Nimitz and Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier strike groups are currently in the South China Sea carrying out the Orwellian-named Freedom of Navigation Operations.
Meanwhile, Congress is preparing to draw a line in the sand.

The Trump administration's policy of all-stick/no-carrot continues to fail.
This time with Iran.