This story is depressing on many levels. China really isn’t a Communist country today. It’s a totalitarian market economy. They’re turning the place into, essentially, a big corporation. Except that you don’t have the free will to switch jobs, and your penalty for doing a bad job is death or imprisonment. ….

WhatSlushfund on December 4, 2012 at 10:41 PM

The Borg

Coming soon to your neighborhood.

The liberal dingbats and the communists try to sell the idea of socialism like Star Trek where everyone is happy and has no wants or needs because it just is.

kim roy on December 4, 2012 at 10:09 PM

It is once again time to post the famous rebuttal that shows even Star Trek is lying and must rely upon capitalism to survive…

Who Mines the Dilithium?

Chinese communist party officially bans pomp and circumstance

“But I can still bow, can’t I? That’s still allowed, right?”–Barry

The big worry for the elites in Beijing is that there appears to be a Maoist revival in at least one province and you have to know that those Little Red Book carrying hotheads probably don’t much like what the elites are doing…. they’ll never tell you that they just want to be the ones handing out the favors…
ajacksonian on December 5, 2012 at 7:28 AM

Again, disturbingly similar to what’s going on here. Most American moonbats are hardcore Communists, so they were a little dismayed to find that Obama is enacting Fascist policies. There’s a little tension but it’s easily kept under control.

Stalin figured it out a long time ago: Fascism, Socialism and Communism are merely slightly different ways of doing the same thing. All that really matters to any collectivist is power.

It ain’t the length of the speeches that marks a totalitarian dictatorship. It is the length of the applause at the end. Want to be the first one in the room to stop applauding glorious and exalted leader? No? Didn’t think so. The gulag was full of once faithful commies under Stalin whose only flaw was not being the last one in the room to stop clapping.
coldwarrior on December 5, 2012 at 12:47 AM

Well, good news, now there’s just as much danger in clapping too much as in clapping too little.

As the old saying goes: the purpose of terrorism is to terrorize. The plebes must never know exactly how to please their masters; they must constantly wrack their brains trying to figure out what The State’s wishes might be from one moment to the next.

What is going to happen to China when the Chinese policy of one child per family comes hits the fan? How is the generation of one child families going to support so many aging parents and press forward economically? China will become a nation of nursing homes.

SC.Charlie on December 5, 2012 at 5:30 AM

I guess they’ll have to increase productivity per worker a bit.

And the so-called one-child policy may soon be history.

Is China still Communist? Or is it becoming something else?

Axe on December 4, 2012 at 9:40 PM

Fascist is what it is becoming.

Private enterprises needing the blessing of the State to get money from crony banks. Banks where prior crony businessmen have walked away from huge piles of debt that, since China doesn’t need to be transparent, never shows up on the books. In a communist systems the workers would just be redeployed to fruitful utility on farms until they were lost forever… the fascists just let them become poor where they are, don’t care for them, make the environment worse and does its best to lower the life expectancy. In both cases the ruling apparatchiks get through fine and dandy.

The big worry for the elites in Beijing is that there appears to be a Maoist revival in at least one province and you have to know that those Little Red Book carrying hotheads probably don’t much like what the elites are doing…. they’ll never tell you that they just want to be the ones handing out the favors…

Whenever you hear ‘Third Way’ between Communism and Capitalism, it is Fascism. That’s why the DLC spouting ‘Third Way Politics’ couldn’t really make the sale…

57 now? Does each tree symbolize a state?

Gingotts on December 4, 2012 at 9:51 PM

“The Organization of the Islamic Conference. The OIC has 57 member states.”

Merry Christmas.

O/T- Just finished watching some election night YouTube videos of Romney supporters at his “victory party”. I really feel for those people who allowed themselves to be interviewed after Romney conceded. I didn’t realize the loss stung that bad.

HotAirLib on December 4, 2012 at 10:06 PM

…that’s ok HotLips ! …you always crap your pants when you aren’t singing DAISY…so we understand!

Chinese communist party officially bans pomp and circumstance

…welcome to the White House!

too-visible signs of excess

You mean, like, $4 million vacations in Hawaii, or countless assistants to the queen, er, first lady?

Anybody wanna go to China?

IlikedAUH2O on December 5, 2012 at 1:09 AM

I live in China, have for years ;)

Gingotts on December 4, 2012 at 11:37 PM

I never considered it that way. Thank you. I’ve honestly believed that this was the liberal utopia knowing that it was impossible to achieve. It is very easy to be happy with your position in life when you know that it’s your choice and not because you have to feed your kids and the electricity will be turned off.

Even happier when, as you said, you don’t have to support the freeloaders down the street on top of your family and have the replicator to give you everything you want or need.

Thanks for that – mentioning the replicator as the crux of the argument.

“…the party in China has eradicated or emasculated political rivals, eliminated the autonomy of the courts and media, restricted religion and civil society, denigrated rival versions of nationhood, centralized political power, established extensive networks of security police, and dispatched dissidents to labor camps. There is a good reason why the Chinese system is often described as “market-Leninism.”

You guys might find this article from Foreign Policy interesting and enlightening. It’s a critical but well-informed article on current realities in China.

DarkCurrent on December 4, 2012 at 10:30 PM

Some people are catching on to the sad fact that the last nations we freed from tyranny were liberated only after we destroyed their military and a few hundred thousand of their civilians.

The Wilsonian crap from President Bush or the even more questionable one worlder stuff from Bronco Bama doesn’t work. No… actually it works about as well as waving at the staff in your regional prison on your way by to work and expecting to change their system to resemble your local neighborhood and Rotary.

Anybody wanna go to China?

coldwarrior on December 5, 2012 at 12:47 AM

Which eventually leads to a point where a bell is installed, because otherwise everybody will clap forever refusing to be the first to stop the cruelly morbid game of chicken.

At that point, dearest leader can tell you when to stop clapping, delightfully happy both that his applause is received, and that his control has managed to extend even to that tiny detail.

I say we get there sometime in the middle of Obama’s 3rd term…

Bubba Redneck on December 5, 2012 at 12:38 AM

It ain’t the length of the speeches that marks a totalitarian dictatorship. It is the length of the applause at the end.

Want to be the first one in the room to stop applauding glorious and exalted leader?

No?

Didn’t think so.

The gulag was full of once faithful commies under Stalin whose only flaw was not being the last one in the room to stop clapping.

:-)

Who decides if a speech is too long or too boring?
Does he listen to it with a loaded rifle?
THAT should be adopted here.

And don’t get me started on the rescued Borg lady I heard some wiseass nickname “46 of D” – now I can’t get that name out of my head!

MelonCollie on December 5, 2012 at 12:02 AM

Seven of Nine or some stuff. That’s Voyager and I feel about Voyager the way many Star Wars fans feel about the Prequels and Greedo shooting first.

If there is any proof needed that Voyager was an abomination, remember that 46 of D was the beautiful Senator’s wife who divorced because she didn’t like getting freaky in the back rooms at sex clubs – a fact we would not know if not for the notoriously filthy campaign tactics of that Senator’s challenger in 2004.

I believe the episode where she gave in to Wesley is what gives us the Picard facepalm meme. Or maybe it was her run-in with Data’s cat.

Gingotts on December 4, 2012 at 11:48 PM

o.0 I don’t even want to know…

And don’t get me started on the rescued Borg lady I heard some wiseass nickname “46 of D” – now I can’t get that name out of my head!

Darn you for making me LOL this late at night!

MelonCollie on December 4, 2012 at 11:43 PM

Hey don’t blame me. Blame Roddenberry, Berman, et al. for having Troi boink anything that boarded the ship.

I believe the episode where she gave in to Wesley is what gives us the Picard facepalm meme. Or maybe it was her run-in with Data’s cat.

As is, Star Trek looks implausible because it never had an episode where she demands Picard provide her for more contraception due to her auxiliary role as ship’s mattress

Gingotts on December 4, 2012 at 11:37 PM

Darn you for making me LOL this late at night!