The World Keeps Turning

 

The secret to any good magic trick is deception. The audience’s attention is diverted up into the air, while the trick is pulled off under the table. Politics is, in and of itself, a type of magic. How do governments and high-level officials pull off the corruption they do? Everyone else is looking away.

If you could find me an American who isn’t aware of either Coronavirus or Black Lives Matter, I would be shocked. The entire nation is held captive by these era-defining moments. Important as they are, it is imperative that we pay attention to the other events happening in the world around us that have just as much potential to play into future conflicts as Black Lives Matter does.

China is still moving forward with its One Belt One Road initiative. The Nine-Dash Line through the East and South China seas still encircles Taiwan and invites chaos at the behest of a communist superpower. The protests in Hong Kong (yes, remember those?) are still occurring and the methods being used to control those crowds are the same as are being used here. But of course, no one is offended by what’s happening in Hong Kong anymore. The Chinese ranking system and surveillance state has continued to expand. The Uighurs in Northwestern China are still being persecuted. Organs are still harvested from Falun Gong prisoners.

Iran still has its sights set on developing nuclear capabilities. They haven’t forgotten that we killed one of their top generals, Soleimani, this past January. Iranian boats continue to harass U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf, daring our military and challenging our authority in the Middle East. Iran still funds and supports global terrorist groups such as Hamas. And, they fund Iraqi militias in an effort to push the U.S. out of Iraq. Coronavirus cases spread amongst senior Iranian officials revealing the strength of ties between China and Iran in February of this year. 

Iran and China are two topics with which I am both educated about and interested in. By no means is this a finite list of everything else going on in the world which we ought to pay attention to. Rather, it is a reminder that the world keeps turning. Our politicians have chosen to keep Black Lives Matter firmly at the center of the Overton window, giving other issues little airtime. The ability to pick and choose what is and isn’t important at any given time isn’t magic. It’s just politics.

Published in General
This post was promoted to the Main Feed by a Ricochet Editor at the recommendation of Ricochet members. Like this post? Want to comment? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

There are 7 comments.

Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.
  1. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Sophie Dasko: The ability to pick and choose what is and isn’t important at any given time isn’t magic. It’s just politics.

    Excellent.

    • #1
  2. The Scarecrow Thatcher
    The Scarecrow
    @TheScarecrow

    Are the kids still being “put in cages” down there? Are the caravans still flooding across the border? Maybe it’s like the constant black shootings in Chicago – if the press isn’t covering it it’s not happening.

    Is Hunter still being paid by the Gas company? Did he ever pay his back child support?

     

    • #2
  3. Front Seat Cat Member
    Front Seat Cat
    @FrontSeatCat

    Here’s a story on a Trio collaboration from hell:

    https://www.jpost.com/international/russia-china-build-case-at-un-to-protect-iran-from-us-sanctions-threat-630899

     

    • #3
  4. Ontheleftcoast Inactive
    Ontheleftcoast
    @Ontheleftcoast

    Our politicians have chosen to keep Black Lives Matter firmly at the center of the Overton window, giving other issues little airtime.

    It’s not just our politicians. It’s the Chinese Communist Party, which is running a huge “Information Dominance” campaign featuring social media, agitprop and more. 

    This is from a report by Gregory Copley (interviewed on the topic of the PRC’s development and use of conditioning techniques here) which is excerpted in a Red State article by Elizabeth Vaughn.

    Copley (emphasis added):

    Beijing, at the end of May 2020, fired the initial salvos of its now-open war with the US on the streets of the West, and mainly the US. It had been an increasingly implausible covert war until that point.

    The war’s principal weapons and doctrines were, by the end of May 2020, in the information dominance (ID) realm, and the ID performance art of agitprop — agitation propaganda — crystalized the fight on many US and Western streets. It was a very pointed reinforcement, or refreshment, of the fear pandemic which was triggered by the COVID-19 crisis.

    The deliberate use of agitprop to spur a continuation of the lockdown of the US and Western economies, and a continuation of unrest which this had caused against governments, meant that the May-June 2020 ID campaign was a critical part of Beijing’s strategic war to win the People’s Republic of China (PRC) some relief.

    . . .

    Many US domestic groups, but particularly local communist parties and well-funded ultra-left groups such as the “antifa” were already in search of a new cause with which to attack the Government of Pres. Donald Trump in the run-up to the November 3, 2020, elections.

    What was significant was that many of these groups had already been penetrated by the Communist Party of China’s (CPC’s) Ministry of State Security [China’s intelligence, security and secret police agency], with which they were in open sympathy, and were ready to take their “performance art” onto the streets.

    Defense & Foreign Affairs has seen credible evidence as well as strong secondary evidence of linkages between the MSS and other CPC assets in the commission of the eruption of street violence which was then, in turn, seized upon by other anti-Trump bodies in local and state governments to further their agenda.

    For Beijing, this was a logical and vital step in its war to ensure that Trump did not get re-elected and that the US could not prevail against the PRC’s strategic rise.
    The CPC was fighting for its life.

    • #4
  5. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Ontheleftcoast (View Comment):
    It’s not just our politicians. It’s the Chinese Communist Party, which is running a huge “Information Dominance” campaign featuring social media, agitprop and more. 

    That needs a conversation of its own.

    • #5
  6. Eridemus Coolidge
    Eridemus
    @Eridemus

    This is just my amateur stab at why the problem of our press is so hard to combat. Foremost is their attachment to creating a narrative (which gives themselves a noble “purpose”) rather than covering the multi details of reality. But that dovetails with the ease with which unpatriotic political currents can use it to mask their goals.

    I read that Floyd was not ”everyman” like Bill Moyers in an interview on the Amanpour show had to say. Floyd may have been trying to improve but at one point in his life he pointed a loaded gun at a pregnant woman in a larceny, I read from other sources. We don’t get the whole truth from big media (not that it justifies bad police training). Everything has to serve a ”story,” but the press uses the fact that the American people don’t have time to absorb a lot of nuanced truth and some of them don’t want anything but simplification anyway. And any who may suspect the complexity is hidden can’t say anything (don’t have the means to respond other than in more obscure realms like Ricochet), and  are limited to how they vote. Or to move away from disruptions, which can take years to show up. All that socialism would do is destroy initiative and grind us all down to the same low level. Meanwhile the press is devoted to convincing masses of people that the goal of forced “equality” can result with no cost to the standard of living in spite of all the historic record giving counter-proof. Meanwhile the extremists really don’t care and foreign enemies hope for the worst.

    • #6
  7. CarolJoy, Above Top Secret Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Above Top Secret
    @CarolJoy

    Ontheleftcoast (View Comment):

    Our politicians have chosen to keep Black Lives Matter firmly at the center of the Overton window, giving other issues little airtime.

    It’s not just our politicians. It’s the Chinese Communist Party, which is running a huge “Information Dominance” campaign featuring social media, agitprop and more.

    This is from a report by Gregory Copley (interviewed on the topic of the PRC’s development and use of conditioning techniques here) which is excerpted in a Red State article by Elizabeth Vaughn.

    Copley (emphasis added):

    Beijing, at the end of May 2020, fired the initial salvos of its now-open war with the US on the streets of the West, and mainly the US. It had been an increasingly implausible covert war until that point.

    The war’s principal weapons and doctrines were, by the end of May 2020, in the information dominance (ID) realm, and the ID performance art of agitprop — agitation propaganda — crystalized the fight on many US and Western streets. It was a very pointed reinforcement, or refreshment, of the fear pandemic which was triggered by the COVID-19 crisis.

    The deliberate use of agitprop to spur a continuation of the lockdown of the US and Western economies, and a continuation of unrest which this had caused against governments, meant that the May-June 2020 ID campaign was a critical part of Beijing’s strategic war to win the People’s Republic of China (PRC) some relief.

    . . .

    Many US domestic groups, but particularly local communist parties and well-funded ultra-left groups such as the “antifa” were already in search of a new cause with which to attack the Government of Pres. Donald Trump in the run-up to the November 3, 2020, elections.

    What was significant was that many of these groups had already been penetrated by the Communist Party of China’s (CPC’s) Ministry of State Security [China’s intelligence, security and secret police agency], with which they were in open sympathy, and were ready to take their “performance art” onto the streets.

    Defense & Foreign Affairs has seen credible evidence as well as strong secondary evidence of linkages between the MSS and other CPC assets in the commission of the eruption of street violence which was then, in turn, seized upon by other anti-Trump bodies in local and state governments to further their agenda.

    For Beijing, this was a logical and vital step in its war to ensure that Trump did not get re-elected and that the US could not prevail against the PRC’s strategic rise.
    The CPC was fighting for its life.

    And yet, Trump sat at the helm of the nation and let the cities burn. Why?

    • #7
Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.