zhang.dianli

I have a crackpot model based on bits and pieces I've picked up from all over (including from the ancient text Discourses of the States; actually that informs a lot of my views on things these days).

There are, in most (all?) current societies, three general classes of people. I'm going to group them under the terms “Crown”, “Nobility”, and “Commoners”. I'm only using these labels as a short, convenient term intended as a placeholder for more complicated things. To ensure we're all on the same page, I'll explain each term as it is intended to be used in this essay.

Crown

In essence the Crown is the nominal head of state. The Crown is the person (or group) officially “in charge” on paper at least. It could a king in an ancient feudal state, or it could be a dictator in a fascist state, or it could be an elected parliament or some other such thing. The key is that the Crown is the titular (if not necessarily de facto) source of all authority in society for a given time. (In a democracy authority is supposedly the people's, but in practical democracies that authority is exercised in a punctuated way that swaps out authorities at need: in essence in practical democracies the people vote who gets to be the source of all authority for a bounded period of time.)

Nobility

Nobility represents, in this model, people of extreme power. This could be literal nobility like the powerful lords in feudal states, or it could be powerful corporations in fascist or democratic states. The source of the Nobility's power can be diverse: land holdings, military might, money, or some combination of all three. Whatever the source, however, they are powers to be reckoned with that the Crown and the Commoners both need to be aware of.

Commoners

Statistically speaking: you and I. Normal people without any formal authority, without any real, meaningful power at the societal level. Ordinary workers, small business owners, etc. Just regular people with varying degrees of mild authority or power or wealth, but nothing compared to the juggernauts of Crown and Nobility.

A little note on hierarchy

Note that some people who are Nobility at, say, a national scale might be Crowns at a local scale. For example a corporate CEO in North America is part of Nobility, but is also Crown of their corporation. This hierarchical arrangement goes right down to family structures where the parents might be Nobility in the neighbourhood association but Crown in their homes.

The eternal struggle

From Orwell we get the rather pessimistic outlook that the Crown (which he called the upper class) and the Nobility (which he called the middle class) are locked into an eternal struggle: Nobility wanting to exchange places with the Crown with Commoners (which he called proles) just useful tools of the middle and upper classes in their goals. And ... he's not wrong. This is pretty much identical to the model I'm using, but more pessimistically worded. In his view the Commoners (proles) are eternally getting stamped on by their “betters” of the Crown and Nobility.

In my model that struggle exists. It's just that the relationship of the commoners to the struggling parties is slightly different. This is because a Crown with any degree of enlightened, long-term self-interest will want to remain Crown for a long time and will not want to succumb to the Nobility.

Scenario 1: Crown sides with Commoners

In one scenario, the Crown sides with the Commoners, putting restrictions on the Nobility' powers for the benefit of the Commoners. The Crown is still the Crown, mind. The Crown still holds all the reins of power. The Crown doesn't have to be good, or kind, or moral ... just SMART.

See, there is one power Commoners have. (The secret word is Jacquerie!) They have the power to overthrow society entirely, and this is a power that fed-up Commoners have used through the ages. The Yellow Turbans of late-Han China. The Bolsheviks of Russia. The Revolutionaries of the USA. Yes, in many cases, that power was cynically directed by other powers, but the fact still remains: Commoners can completely tear down the social order.

A Crown who is aware of this power and who (rightly) fears this power will step gently. Will ensure that the Commoners are at least mostly satisfied with their lot. Will make sure that Commoners don't get fed up to the point of triggering empire-destroying wars.

A society which has such a smart Crown, working against the Nobility to keep the Commoners at least mildly contented will be a stable and long-lasting one. The moment the Crown forgets this, society gets unstable and, ultimately, when (not if!) taken too far, collapses at the hands of the Commoner mob.

Which brings us to...

Scenario 2: Crown sides with Nobility

When this happens, instability invariably follows. If carried on for too long, that instability causes society to fall apart, usually in an orgy of violence directed against the Crown and Nobility both. Society collapses and is replaced with something else. That something else always seems to be hierarchical in nature and always seems to have a Crown of some sort (Lenin, say, in Russia) and Nobility (wealthy landholders, say, in post-Revolution USA). The cycle repeats itself as Crowns side with Commoners to rein in the Nobility until the Crown takes the fatal misstep of working with the Nobility to ... lather, rinse, repeat.

So how does Scenario 2 happen? If it always leads to the eventual destruction of society, why would any smart Crown ever side with Nobility?

The key word there is “smart”. Nothing guarantees that the Crown will be smart. The Crown may have stumbled into power. Or maybe the first Crown was smart but the children/grandchildren/whoever inherited down the line were idiots. Or maybe the Commoners elected an idiot for any number of reasons (including machinations of the Nobility) in purported democracies.

Once a stupid, or at least short-sighted, Crown is in power, the siren's song of wealth and power from the Nobility is hard to resist. After all Nobility has more in common, socially, with the Crown than do Commoners. If the Crown isn't careful, they'll forget that the Nobility are their enemies and are trying to tear them down to put one of their own in the Crown.

And in the mean time the Commoners fester and stew in increasing resentment until it's time to burn everything down again.

Hopeless?

The picture I paint is bleak, but it's bleak because anything made with forced hierarchy is pretty much automatically bleak. When you embrace the concept of innate authority in any way, you're giving up and are falling into this model. (The fact that this model fits almost every historical society ever with only mild shaving needed around the edges is a tragic observation.)

Don't believe the lies of the Nobility or Crown, even if the Crown is “on your side” as in Scenario 1. There is no such thing as innate authority. Authority is granted and should be taken away as soon as it's proven to be unworthy. And if that means occasionally burning down a building or ten to hammer home the point, go for it! (Just be aware that the Crown and the Nobility both have very large amounts of power that they will direct against you! This will cost you, personally.)

And while you're not taking authority away, try ignoring it where it's convenient. Work with your fellow Commoners to make your life better while dodging the machinations and vile behaviour of the Nobility and Crown. Make the schemes of both as irrelevant as possible to your life.

For instance in the modern age that could mean not using corporate social media; use organic social media that's not driven by the corporate world and agenda instead. (If you're reading this it's likely that's what you're doing now, in fact!) It could also mean doing business with each other. It could mean learning how to repair goods instead of throwing them away and buying new ones. It could mean feeding those less fortunate than you, or giving them a place to at least rest.

Treat your fellow Commoners, in short, like humans instead of falling for the lies of the Crown and the Nobility.

So there's this thing that's been going around Mastodon that's making the white, middle-class membership of the Fediverse go all weepy. It's this:

Declaración universal de los Derechos de los niños a escuchar cuentos

Now ignoring the utterly cringe-worthy wording of even the title[1], which (for those who don't speak Spanish like, say, me) in English says, according to DeepL, “Universal Declaration of the Children's Rights to Listen to Stories”, there's a whole lot to unpack in this short document. I've put the DeepL translation at the bottom of this rant so you can follow along.

I should be clear before I start that I'm not opposed to the ghost of the idea that's behind this pile of glurge. As such I will be making some specific recommendations at the end to improve it. But first I'll have to start unpacking this perfect example of left-flavoured white supremacy.

Universality

The “declaration” is termed Universal, meaning the declarers consider it to apply to everybody around the world. This is further cemented by the name of the organization publishing this “universal declaration”: the International Storytelling Network.

Inconsistency

Item 1 says that it advocates the “most beautiful stories from all the oral traditions of the world”. And then proceeds to cite not a one. There's not a single Russian or Saudi or Iranian or Indian or Bangladeshi or Vietnamese or Chinese or Innu or Kazakh or Turkish or Georgian or Tanzanian or Ethiopian or ... and the list goes on and on and on ... author or story cited anywhere else in the document. This is quite arguably the single most grotesquely offensive part of this document (and the largest motivator in me writing this rant).

Recommended authors

So why is there not a single non-Eurosphere author listed in section 5 among “all the books, stories and poems” whose authors adults are “obliged to make available”? There's eight writers cited, all of whom are in the Eurosphere, most of whom are, I'm guessing, Spanish or Portuguese (I can't really tell apart by names, sorry), and not a single person from outside the, putting it bluntly, white European world. Not one.

Referenced stories

The referenced stories in section 10, where I recognize them through (bad) translation, are purely white European in origin. Of the two I don't recognize, one of them might possibly be African in origin (but given the tenor of the rest of the list it likely isn't). I'm not going to recite the list of nations above again. Just scroll up and read the list again and ask yourself where the folk stories from these nations and hundreds more! might be.

Cultural values

This phrase in section 1 is a killer to me: “... especially those that stimulate the child's imagination and critical thinking”. This is for a few reasons.

First, an incoherent, meandering list of ten vague “universal”, “international” declarations is not exactly a good place to be talking about stimulating critical thinking. Someone needed to apply a bit of critical thinking to this list before shouting it out to the world.

Next, there's this bizarre assumption that stories which stimulate a Eurosphere child's imagination will stimulate all children's imaginations where the truth is far more likely that many stories that are in the cultural background of the Eurosphere, with its Biblical-based moral and cultural assumptions, are going to cause confusion and incomprehension rather than stimulate imagination.

Lest you think I'm imagining this and that story appeal is universal, one problem I had when teaching English to Chinese students was precisely that storytelling style in China is very different from storytelling style in Europe and descended cultures. Most notably the children were very uncomfortable that there was no moral to be taken from the story attached at the end. It was disquieting to them that the desired “lesson” to be taken from the story was not there. I'd spend half a class explaining how to discern the moral indirectly by analysis only to be told that this was wasteful when the writer could have just said it. They, in short, didn't get their imaginations stimulated by the stories because the stories were alien in structure (not to mention content).

Finally, the cultures that value harmonious coexistence and communal effort are not going to exactly agree with individual imagination and “critical thinking” as a goal. (Are they wrong to not value individual critical thinking? Not our place to decide for them!) For a “universal” declaration it's looking mighty white and middle class. Thus a lot of popular western stories, which seem to hinge upon the solitary hero fighting the status quo will not parse. The result of people from these cultures reading them will once again be bafflement and disquiet, not imagination and critical thought stimulation.

Translation

The “International” Storytelling Network apparently isn't sufficiently international to actually translate the document with native speakers. Instead they give a hook into Google Translate, a site that is absolutely God-awful at translation of anything that isn't whatever it is that nerds are interested in this week.

If you're an “international” group and you're making a “universal” declaration ... where are the proper translations?! Diving around that web site I see people from all over the place registered as members of this network. Why haven't any of those stepped up and provided a translation of the declaration? (Here's a hint: many of them likely wouldn't want to given the contents...)

Sheer silliness

So let's look at some (and I stress some) of the silly parts of the declaration:

2 ... the full right to demand that his parents tell him stories at any time of the day.

Any time of day?! So in these people's worlds children don't have school, apparently, and adults don't have to work, both of which, to be even marginally productive at, require restful sleep in advance.

3 ... the absolute right to ask the adult of his/her choice to tell them ...

The absolute right to demand stories from any adult? What!? If some child walks up to me when I'm going about my day and “demands” a story, I'm going to look around for the parent or guardian and give them one Hell of a tongue-lashing! Part of this is because it's presumptuous for anybody, child or not, to tell me how I spend my time, and part is because children need to learn at an early age to respect others' boundaries, not intrude upon them with demands. Do you want to raise a generation of narcissists who believe their every demand should be catered to by everybody around them at a whim? 'Cause that's how you raise such a generation! (Just ask the Chinese and their “little emperors”...)

4 ... the right to listen to stories sitting on the lap of his grandparents.

Flirting with cultural values again. Grandparents aren't the indulgent, child-spoiling crowd in all cultures. In some they're the disciplinarians. Or they're the ones keeping the household in order while the parents labour twelve hours a day. Or they're ... you know, anything but someone who can just stop, put a child on the knee, and tell stories. I'm sorry if it bothers you to know this, middle-class, suburban western woman, but in a lot of places people work hard until literally the day they die. There's no universal privileged class of people who can just sit around and tell stories on demand by virtue of age.

7 ... their parents are in the obligation to decontaminate them [ed: of television] leading them by the ways of the imagination of the hand of the hand of a good book of infantile stories.

The idiotic anti-technology vibe is noted and rejected. There is quality television and there is crap television. Not all kids are interested in books, much like not all kids are interested in, say, caterpillars. Stop forcing your very middle-class, very white values on everybody else! If children are motivated to tell their own stories based upon what they see on television let them do it, dammit! Just because you're a Luddite (as am I: I don't watch television) doesn't mean you get to inflict that stance on everybody else in the world!

8 Adults have the obligation to nourish themselves permanently with new stories, their own or not, with or without kings, long or short.

Not all adults have skill in making up new stories, nor time in memorizing them. Again, only the white middle class in the Eurosphere systematically has a parent who can afford that much time to do things like this.

All this silliness is where I know that this declaration is absolutely the product of white, middle-class people (probably women). For only in this world is the conceit conceivable of making story-telling the absolute centre of every child's life. But even from this perspective some of this is ridiculous.

Sillyness: bafflement subsection

6 Every child has the full right to know the fables, myths and legends of the oral tradition of his country.

I am genuinely baffled here. Where, precisely, are they finding places on Earth where children are not permitted to know their cultural fables, myths, and legends? I've lived on a rather sizable fraction of the planet's surface and have never, not even once, encountered a place where this is true.

7 The child has the right to invent and tell his or her own stories, as well as to modify existing ones, creating his or her own version.

Same question here. Where on Earth are they finding cultures that prohibit children from inventing their own stories?

BE DECREED AND PUBLISHED

I'm hoping this is an artifact of bad mechanical translation because otherwise this is just so over the top and pretentious it deserves nothing but derision.

So how can this be fixed?

As I said at the top, I like the idea that's at the core of this declaration. I just think the execution is woefully inadequate, bordering on being simultaneously offensive and silly. So here are some specific recommendations.

• Take down the declaration as it is now. It's an embarrassment and you should be embarrassed having put it up in the first place in the state it is in.

• Take an editor's pen to some of the bombastic and silly sections. Figure out what you're actually trying to communicate there and do just that: communicate it. The current hyperbole is just not ... good. At all.

• You're an international organization with “1,300 professional storytellers from 61 countries on all continents”. Solicit their input! Whatever groups, channels, mailing lists, etc. you all communicate over, go over this declaration and have frank discussions over its merits (there are some!) and liabilities (there are many!). Then solicit the input of non-European (I fear a storytelling circle is almost always going to be middle class) people for the following items:

  • recommended authors/collections
  • recommended tales
  • cultural blinders in your assumptions of how things are done
  • a hint of realism in how children and adults both actually lead their lives

• Use that same status as an international organization with 1300 storytellers from 61 countries and translate the document properly into as many languages as you can find people comfortable with translating it for you instead of using the horrible translations that come from the clown pants-wearing Big Tech sphere.

---

DeepL Translation of original source document:

Universal Declaration of the Children's Rights to Listen to Stories

Compiled and adapted by the International Storytelling Network

1. Every child, without distinction of race, language or religion, has the right to hear the most beautiful stories from all the oral traditions of the world, especially those that stimulate the child's imagination and critical thinking.

2. Every child has the full right to demand that his parents tell him stories at any time of the day. Those parents who are caught refusing to tell a story to a child, not only incur in a serious crime of culpable omission, but they are also condemning themselves to the fact that their children will never ask them for another story again.

3. Every child who for one reason or another has no one to tell him/her stories, has the absolute right to ask the adult of his/her choice to tell them, as long as he/she does it with love and tenderness, which is how stories should be told.

4. Every child has the right to listen to stories sitting on the lap of his grandparents. Those who have their four grandparents alive can pass them on to other children who, for various reasons, do not have grandparents to tell them. In the same way, those grandparents who do not have grandchildren are free to go to schools, parks and other places where children gather, where they can freely tell as many stories as they wish.

5. Every child has the right to know who José Martí, Hans Christian Andersen, Elena Fortún, Lewis Carroll, Elsa Bornemann, Carlo Collodi, Gloria Fuertes, María Elena Walsh, among others, are. Adults are obliged to make available to children all the books, stories and poems of these authors.

6. Every child has the full right to know the fables, myths and legends of the oral tradition of his country.

7. The child has the right to invent and tell his or her own stories, as well as to modify existing ones, creating his or her own version. In those cases of children very influenced by the television, their parents are in the obligation to decontaminate them leading them by the ways of the imagination of the hand of the hand of a good book of infantile stories.

8. The child has the right to demand new stories. Adults have the obligation to nourish themselves permanently with new stories, their own or not, with or without kings, long or short. The only obligatory thing is that these stories be beautiful and interesting.

9. The child always has the right to ask for another story, and also to ask to be told the same story a million times.

[ed. The translation failed badly on the next section and I had to insert a few guesses of my own for what stories were being referenced where I recognized them. Where not figured out I left the translation as-is with an appended [?] to mark it.]

1. Finally, every child has the right to grow up with the adventures of Alice, Little Red Riding Hood, of “Uncle Tiger and Uncle Rabbit” [?], of that little donkey called Platero [?], of Puss in Boots, of the bunting of fairy tales [?] and of the immortal “Once upon a time...”, magic words that open the doors of imagination on the road to the most beautiful dreams of childhood.

BE DECREED AND PUBLISHED

---

[1] I sincerely hope it isn't as cringe-inducing in the original Spanish as it is when translated to English!

I make no secret of my absolute disdain for the press. Any press. Any country. The previous link is pinned to my Mastodon profile and it's just a long, ill-tempered rant about just how badly the press sucks as an institution.

Today I'm going to highlight, far more brieflyin just as obsessive depth, a specific case of narrative-building which I will use to expound upon some propaganda techniques used in the world press.

CNN is press, press sucks, ergo CNN sucks; Q.E.D.

We open with a link to a story on CNN: “China Eastern takes delivery of the world’s first made-in-China C919 jet” Since CNN is noted for editing published stories in subtle ways with only cryptic comments buried at the bottom to indicate this, I'm going to also nab a snapshot of the offending passage:

The text, for those using screen readers, is this:

The C919 currently relies heavily on Western components, including engines and flight control systems, from companies such as GE (GE), Safran (SAFRF), and Honeywell International (HON).

This is a very weird thing to put into a news report. When CNN reported on the release of the Airbus A380 I don't recall seeing a paragraph like this:

The A380 currently relies heavily on American components including engines from Engine Alliance (GE/P&W) ...

Nor do I remember a paragraph like this on reportage from the release of the Boeing 737-MAX:

The 737-MAX currently relies heavily on French components including engine technology from Safran ...

So why the difference?

Hint: It's just the narrative

The difference lies in exactly why I despise the press: there is a narrative that the press wants to establish based on its masters, and that narrative drives all reportage. Western media is owned by a very small number of very wealthy people or by governments these days. Each has its own agenda, naturally, but in general billionaires want the same thing (low taxes, open trade with impunity), and governments in the west tend to be beholden to billionaires to varying degrees.

China's very existence as the #2 world economy (and rising fast) is a threat to this wannabe oligarchy since the Chinese government caters to a disjoint set of billionaires (i.e. not western billionaires) and, too, tends to actually worry more about long-term stability over short-term gains. Chinese governance, especially as exemplified by just how stunningly badly the west handled COVID-19, is a threat to the burgeoning plutocracy the billionaire class is building in the west with such single-minded patience.

Obviously this cannot stand. So the west's propaganda instruments (their much-vaunted “free press”, beholden to monied interests yet somehow still laughably called “free”) tell narratives. Fairy stories, really, with just enough truth to them to let the unwary (most readers) not see the meticulous use of classic story-telling techniques.

What are these techniques?

There are several techniques used. I'll address three examples of them:

• casual dismissal of accomplishment;
• othering; and,
• motive-mongering.

Casual dismissal of accomplishment

The example I used above is the technique of casual dismissal of accomplishment. “They'd never have done it without outside help.” You see it in this article about the COMAC C919 aircraft. (It's all western technology that's just being assembled in China, you see.) You see it in reportage over China's space program. (The space capsules are Soviet in design. Ignore the fact that they're larger, completely different on the interior, with better avionics than any Russian capsule has ever had in the entire history of its space program.) You see it in reports on China's electrical grid, on China's rail system, on China's shipbuilding capacity, on China's naval vessels, on China's military (and now civil) aviation ... they always include how it was “really” someone else's work that the Chinese are just aping.

And yes, I used that word “aping” for a reason: that's literally what people in the west largely think of the Chinese: subhuman.

Othering

In that long rant I linked earlier, I spent quite a bit of time babbling about the so-called facekini “craze”. There never was such a craze, naturally, and you can find evidence of this fact in the very reports on it themselves. A lot of creative photographic techniques had to be used to make it look like the facekini was a craze, to the point that this could not be an accident. People were deliberately and carefully cropping out or blurring out all the evidence that the facekini was not an actual craze.

Why?

Because the narrative has to show that the Chinese are just “weird” and “different” to otherwise “other” them. Ideally this should be done in a way that makes the reader feel superior.

Other versions of othering included all the utter and complete bullshit about masks in China where ignorant know-nothings mouthed off in media about how the Chinese were more prone to wearing masks because they believed in “Qi” and in conserving it. This is damnable violence to the memory and reputation of one Wu Liande who used evidence-based science to invent the use of PPE for mitigating and reversing horrible epidemic diseases.

You know those modern-day N95 masks that the west is (rightly!) so proud of? They're a direct descendent of the Wu mask of 1910. (Why is reportage on the N95s not commenting that these would not exist had Wu not invented the notion of PPE? I mean aside from the obvious racism.)

And, ironically, this othering has killed more westerners than Chinese despite the obvious long-haul intent. By othering the Chinese, the western press pretty much guaranteed that these manuals published by the Chinese government starting in FEBRUARY 2020 would never be followed by anybody in the west. The Handbook of COVID-19 Prevention and Treatment alone has been available (and constantly updated with the latest information) since February of 2020. As have manuals for constructing proper care and treatment wards, etc. But because it was Chinese, and the Chinese are “different from us”, it was pretty much guaranteed that, when combined with the innate white supremacy of western thought, that the advice and research contained within those publications would never be followed to infamous effect:

Motive-mongering

This dovetails nicely into the final technique I'd like to cover: motive-mongering. When you can't plausibly dismiss accomplishment, and when “othering” backfires, as it did in COVID-19 handling, there's another card you can play that will Trump all others (see what I did there?): you can cast aspersions on the motives of the “other”.

It seems daily, now, when I even bother opening a news site, that China's motives in everything are questioned. China is visiting Saudi Arabia—obviously they want to undermine America's rightful claim on Saudi oil! China is making good telephone equipment—obviously this is so they can do surveillance on the west! China makes a social media site that's a runaway success among young people—obviously they just want to spy on western youth so they can find leverage against them later on in their lives!

This would be hilarious were it not so dangerous!

Why hilarious?

1. The reports on Xi's visit to Saudi Arabia are just shy of saying the quiet part out loud: the USA feels they have a proprietary claim on Saudi oil and find it very upsetting that the Saudis might start doing business with China instead of the USA.

2. The reports on how grave a threat Chinese telephone equipment is to western interests are basically based on what we already know: every major vendor of telephony equipment in the west has espionage back doors in them to spy on people in other countries. (They've repeatedly revealed this in reports about how they caught famous international criminals and terrorists.) These breathless reports are very much hypocrisy writ large.

3. The hysterical arm-flapping over TikTok very carefully ignores that every single western social media site without exception siphons up every bit of data they can from users and non-users(!) and sells that information to whoever ponies up the cash, even foreign powers. (Facebook and Russia, for example.)

Why dangerous?

Well, I've already pointed out why bad reportage over COVID-19 and China led to millions of preventable deaths, so I won't flog that horse much more. But it goes deeper and darker than that. There's very clear war drums sounding right now, and the press, instead of questioning if this is even sane, is leaping right in to amplify the sticks on the drum heads. Ever since the collapse of the Союз Советских Социалистических Республик (СССР), the west has tried a series of existential threats to throw up in the faces of the general public in an attempt to distract attention away from domestic problems (like the USA's completely broken “democracy” or Europe's fatal error in breaking the rules for EU membership to accept nations willy-nilly or the UK's fatal Brexit error or ...). In my lifetime I've noticed these existential threats shoved in my face:

• The Cold War
• The War on Drugs (brown-skinned people from Mexico and further south)
• The War on Terror (brown-skinned people from the middle east, plus innocents mistaken as such by ignoramuses)
• Russia (round 1, at about the point Putin started gathering power)
• China (round 1, as the Beijing Olympics started to get coverage)
• Russia (round 2, at about the time that they seconded Crimea)
• China (round 2, at about the time that Chinese military technology started getting actually good)
• Russia and China (because somehow China is being blamed for Russia invading Ukraine)

I've probably overlooked several in that list, but the point remains: everything is reported through a lens of othered motivational speculation. “They” are evil because “they” are different from us and “their” motives are vile and dangerous and a threat to our existence! So don't look at the problems that are actually around you and actually impact you on a daily basis. That is what “they” want! Don't be a sucker!

And this is heading inexorably to war because there is nothing quite as dangerous as an uneducated and/or ignorant populace being driven into a frenzy by demagogues trying to conceal their own shenanigans.

So what can we do?

Well for starters, stop giving the press so much power. You live in a world now where you can directly talk to people anywhere in the world, practically. DO THAT! Don't rely on unreliable narrators with an agenda set by oligarchs to filter the world for you. Talk to the people that are actually at issue. You'll likely find that, aside from superficial surface issues, most people are not as different from you as your masters would have you believe.

I'm not saying you should stop reading the press. I'm saying you should read the press far more critically than you're doing now. I'm saying you should in particular be very wary of confirmation bias when reacting to press. Read the press from a variety of sources. Find out what people who are nominally different from you are saying. I'm also saying you should take the press to task when they distort the truth and/or flatly lie. They are supposed to serve us, not the other way around. Democracies in particular cannot succeed with a weak, craven, beholden press.

But that's only part of it. You do have to supplement the press with reports from regular people elsewhere: the clichéd “boots on the ground”. Build up social media circles that aren't algorithmically designed to put you into an echo chamber. Reach out past political, racial, cultural divides and broaden your horizons.

Or be ready for destructive war that will bring you immense misery. It's really your choice.

I had an interesting interaction on Mastodon[1] that led me to a few thoughts about racial supremacy, racism, and how tricky it can be to navigate that quagmire.

Background

The original posts that started that interaction (and line of thoughts) were these:

@aurynn

the default position of all white people should be: – Recognising that you're racist – And that you don't necessarily know how you're racist – And listening to people who are impacted by racism on the ways you do racist things – And trying to change

@drV

@aurynn I would probably change that to 'of all people'. I was talking to someone a while ago who worked in a middle eastern refugee camp. She said there was a pecking order that strongly depended on how pale your skin was. I'm sure even the people at the top of that pillar experienced racism from white-white people, but that didn't stop them from being racist to people down the chain.

@aurynn Also related: the very first time I ever visited Auckland I was subjected to a long rant by an Indian taxi driver about how Māori were ruining the country.

@aurynn

@drV White supremacy infects everyone 😞

It's at this point that I interjected my first response and another brief round of exchanges followed:

@zdl

@aurynn @drV

It's not always white supremacy. In China there have been social orders based on skin colour since long before anybody in China met a white person.

It's a class thing here.

Dark skin meant (means!) you work out in the sun. You were a peasant farmer. The paler your skin was, the more likely it was you were of an elevated social class.

Skin whiteners (like mercury or arsenic products) have been in use for over a thousand years here as a result, among other ways to be paler.

@aurynn

@zdl @drV thanks for your insight here. I’m not very familiar with Chinese history and I can really only speak from a position of being an unwilling participant in white supremacy, and trying to help reduce that.

@zdl

@aurynn @drV It's a laudable goal, make no mistake! Just be aware that there is some meta-supremacy when you assume everything that pattern-matches on your culture's thoughts is the same thing or is caused by your culture.

I've had to gently explain (or sometimes not-so-gently when things got strident) to well-intentioned “white man's burden” types that not everything is about white history and white sensibility; that sometimes things happen that aren't from them. It ... often goes poorly.

So, and...?

Well, this is where I first used that term “meta-supremacy”, though the thoughts leading up to that term spilling out of me have been with me for years now as I watch interaction between my newly-adopted home and the outside world.

And it boils down to this in a nutshell: It's not all about white people.

Obvious white supremacy

On the repulsive side of the fence, naturally, we have the white power types, the “ZOMG THE WHEIT RAICE IS DYEING OWT!!!!1111oneoneoneeleventy!” crowd. The openly racist racial purists, racial separatists, and other scum of the Earth. These can be safely discounted beyond monitoring and watching for them to ensure they don't cause excessive damage to the world. On the same side, but not as repulsive, are the “not all” crowd. “Not all Chinese are soulless death-mongers who eat their children, no you're different.” That kind.

Inobvious white supremacy

But on the other side of the fence we also have colonial white supremacy. Look back at this:

@drV

@aurynn Also related: the very first time I ever visited Auckland I was subjected to a long rant by an Indian taxi driver about how Māori were ruining the country.

@aurynn

@drV White supremacy infects everyone 😞

See how @aurynn assumes that Indians ranting about the Māori are because of white supremacy? It's as if brown-skinned people lack all agency in the face of the White Juggernaut™. As if brown-skinned people can't be racists themselves and only become racists when toxic whiteness is introduced. Despite, as I pointed out for China at least, the Chinese preferring fair skin long before the first white guy was a thing in China. (And no, it wasn't frickin' Marco Polo! He'd painfully obviously never set foot inside China!)

Racism in general isn't white-only. Ask any Chinese people who are part of a minority. Ask Mongols in China. Or the Yi peoples. Or the Miao. Hell even among the Han there is racism. Ask the Hakka, a Han-ethnic minority.

So why does this matter?

Well, aside from the insulting assumption that only whites have agency and thus anything brown-skinned people do is a white infection, there's a darker side to this: because the causes of racism and prejudice are likely different in other cultures, even if they superficially look similar, the treatments required to mitigate and reverse them will also likely be different. If you walk into a situation like an Indian person moaning about Māori and assume that the Indian person is just reflecting the white supremacy s/he was raised under, you're going to make things worse in trying to address this, not better.

The bottom line is that, while the second batch have their hearts in the right place, they still have an outsized view of how important whites are in the grand scheme of things, seemingly unable to see anything in the world that isn't them. While they are (far!) more pleasant as people than the first batch of racialists and open supremacists, they still have a strong negative impact on the world when not held in check. (And as I hinted at in my own response above, not all of them like being held in check or corrected. @aurynn was one of the self-reflective kind and didn't seem to mind.)

OK, ZDL, you've convinced me so how do I fix this?

This one is easy, actually. If you're seeing something outside of your experience (like racism from the Chinese), ask and, importantly, listen before you react. The Chinese subtle (and not-so-subtle) “friendly” racism toward African blacks is not from the same source as American racism toward blacks. Assuming it comes from the same place will increase the problems, not reduce them.

Find out the reality before you try to address the problem. And if that reality is hard to find, perhaps consider giving this one a pass. You can't fight every battle that crosses your path. Hold your tongue, make a note to learn, and let that one instance go until you can effectively fight the problem.

But most of all, stop assuming “white concerns” and “white behaviours” have anything at all to do with whites. Racism is a human universal fuelled by the universal human condition of xenophobia. The world is a bigger, wider (and often scarier!) place than you can possibly imagine.

---

[1] A Twitter-alike that is a “federated” part of the “Fediverse” among other nerd-facing terms that is largely more thoughtful and friendly a place than any corporate social media is.

That's what you hear all over the place from Americans (and others, but I'll focus on the USA here because otherwise this will get far too long). All over social media people bray the mantra “COVID-19 is over!”. In American media they don't quite put it in those words, but they show that they consider it to be over in how little they report on it, not to mention the death cult media (a.k.a twee names like “Fox” or “OAN” or their ilk) that actively trumpet how COVID-19 is just not a thing any longer.

Which is damned peculiar.

But let's start with a history lesson first before we address how “over” COVID-19 is, shall we?

A history lesson

The USA entered WWII officially on 1941-12-07 and fought in it until 1945-09-02. Over those 1365 days, it lost 419,400 troops and civilians to the war. That's an average, over those 3 years, 8 months, and 26 days of approximately 307 deaths per day. This represents approximately 0.00022% of the 1945 national population each and every day.

The war ended in 1945. It is currently 2022. In the nearly 77 years since that war, the people who died in it are (rightly!) remembered for their sacrifice and mourned for their absence. There are not one, but TWO national holidays dedicated at least in part to the people dead of that war. It is a major source of cultural trauma that resonates to this day.

So what does this have to do with COVID-19?

Quite a bit. In the past month of “COVID-19 is over!” the daily death rate to COVID-19 has ranged between a low of 255 and a high of 528, averaging somewhere, eyeballing that graph, between 390 to 400.

Dead.

Daily.

The “over” COVID-19 is currently killing people off at a rate higher than WORLD WAR II! And true, that rate (call it 400 for ease of calculation) is “only” about 0.00011% of the current American population, but still, 0.00022% is cause for commemoration three quarters of a century later, while half that is “meh”?

COVID-19 is far from over

COVID-19 is not “over”. It's killing 400 Americans per day alone, which puts it in the same league as, and I can't stress this enough, WORLD WAR II! And this is during a lull in the deaths. In January of 2022 it was averaging about 2000 deaths per day (and the January before that it was averaging about 2800).

All we need is another new strain, perhaps one that's vaccine resistant, for that number to go shooting through the roof again.

So the take-home message here is COVID-19 is deadlier than WWII to Americans.

And it's still going strong.

The grim future

The USA was in WWII for 3 years, 8 months, and 26 days. Day by day, on average, it lost over 300 people. COVID-19 has been with us formally (dating from the Wuhan Lockdown of 2020) for 2 years, 5 months, and 9 days. And the period of it being “over” kills more daily than the average of WWII.

Even scarier, since the death rates of both events are not constant, the actual average daily death rate of COVID-19 (deaths divided by days) is 1130. Which is is almost 4 times higher than WWII's.

And since it's not actually over, that number will only continue to rise, day by day, increasing with each new strain generated in the viral breeding factory given the odd name “The United States of America”. When 3 years, 8 months, and 26 days arrives, COVID-19 will still be killing Americans faster than WWII did.

Do you think there will be national days of commemoration set aside for these victims of western ignorance, hubris, and death worship?

There was an obscure folk singer who lived in the high arctic called Ted Wesley. I listened to his music when I lived there and a lot of what he sang about resonated with me at the time while living in an isolated little town. Sadly his music has faded into obscurity, and as of December 2021 he's no longer with us. I can only find one album, bootlegged, available to give a taste of his music, and not a single instance anywhere of the song that has stuck with me over the years.

That song was entitled “Instant Expert” and was a lament about people who knew nothing at all about life in the far north who would fly up from “down south” and become instant experts on all things arctic, invariably screwing things up for the people who lived there after they got their consulting fee and flew back “down south”.

I'm reminded of this song almost every time I talk to Americans.

And yes, that specifically: Americans.

#NotAllAmericans

If you've got your back up already because I'm generalizing, and have your mind snapping shut at the notion that you might be part of this, feel free to apply the #NotAllAmericans hashtag and carry on reading.

Just be aware that I may very well be talking about you, so read and think: do you act in this way?

The unbearable weight of conversation

So, let me begin with an illustration of the problem. There's a pattern there. See if you can spot it. (If you're American you likely won't. Which is a huge part of the problem.)

Conversation #1

American: I couldn't live in China. That “social credit” system is just too Black Mirror for me! Me: “Social credit” isn't a thing. American: Yes it is! I read/heard about it in <insert American media>. Me: Yes. You did. It's fabrication. 100% false. It doesn't exist. You are being lied to. American: HOW WOULD YOU KNOW!? Me: I live in China. I live with a Chinese SO. I work in a Chinese company with Chinese coworkers. Nobody knows what you're talking about here if you say “social credit”. American: You're probably working for the CCP! Me: OK, you don't believe me, how about these American sources with detailed analysis of what “social credit” really is and how it really works based on translations from original laws and policies, complete with original sources, side-by-side translations, and detailed analyses? American: Oh. I guess it isn't a thing. Me: You figure?...

Conversation #2

Same American: Everybody knows that Chinese companies are just arms of the government. Me: No they aren't. Same American: Yes they are! I read reports in <insert American media>! Me: No. They really aren't. You're being lied to. Same American: HOW WOULD YOU KNOW!? You probably work for the CCP! Me: I live in China. I live with a Chinese SO. I work in a Chinese company with Chinese coworkers. I'm in a position of trust with the boss. I know every facet of the business from the ground up. I know for a fact there's no government involvement in business beyond the usual issues of licensure that every company in every nation in the world deals with. Same American: Oh. I guess I might have been wrong. Me: You figure?!...

Conversation #3

Same American: I won't do business with China until they admit to the massacre of students at Tiananmen Square. Me: There was no massacre of students at Tiananmen Square. Same American: Yes there was! Me: No. No, really, there wasn't. Same American: I SAW THE PICTURES! Me: You saw some pictures, yes. Taken out of context, moved geographically, all to further a narrative that was more acceptable to the rich people who owned your newspapers in 1989. Same American: Are you claiming there wasn't a massacre!? Me: No. I'm saying there was no massacre of students at Tiananmen Square. Same American: What are you talking about? Me: The massacre was of rioting workers and was the culmination of months of nationwide unrest that even included minor officials and PLA soldiers in cities all around the country. The massacre happened at Muxidi, several kilometres away from Tiananmen Square. Same American: But I saw video of tanks leaving the square! What about Tank Man!? Me: Tank Man wasn't in the square. And didn't get run over either, no matter what you think you saw. Same American: But I did see the video of him getting run over! Me: No. You didn't. Here's the full video footage, before editing for news. Same American: Oh. ... Maybe I was wrong. Me: You figure!!?!... Same American: Why are you being so angry? Me: 🙄

The pattern

Americans have a firm belief that they are the aforementioned Instant Experts™. They have Strong Opinions™ which they believe are Perfectly Valid™ and will fight to hold on to those beliefs at all costs. If you introduce information that is contrary to these Strong Opinions™ you are in for a draining conversation where, no matter what your relative levels of knowledge and information, you have to beat down the Strong Opinion™ (which, recall, is Perfectly Valid™) with ever-increasing amounts of proof until finally, outside of the worst of the extreme left and extreme right, they'll accept the correction.

A full-on battle royale. Every. Time.

And this is just incredibly wearying. Even friendly Americans with nothing but the best of intentions (who are not as common as you'd really wish of a world power!) have a strong tendency to be this way: they challenge everything, telling people who work in a field, live in a place, etc. what it's “really” like and won't take anything on authority, even after a repeated pattern of the person they're talking with knowing their shit.

Literally every time I speak to an American—including friends—I steel myself for Yet Another Battle Royale. I steel myself for being mansplained, whitesplained, westsplained, etc. I steel myself against the curse of the Instant Expert rearing its ugly head again and fucking up my day and the relationship.

The solution

There are actually two solutions. One is on my end (and is frequently done by others too: like how LGBTQ+ groups in China deal with this problem vis a vis American LGBTQ+ groups): avoidance. I find myself, over time, withdrawing from interactions with Americans. I ask myself when about to talk “Are you ready for another endless slog of smacking down mis- and disinformation?” And increasingly the answer is “no” and I disengage. I move on to someone else who isn't making me ask this question.

This is probably a sub-optimal solution for those who wish to actually converse, so this is where the other solution comes in. Unfortunately I don't think Americans are actually able to implement this, so the first solution is the one that is going to keep going on until, in the end, Americans find the people around them who aren't American are just not talking to them anymore. (Like the aforementioned Chinese LGBTQ+ groups.)

This second solution is based on something Americans are absolutely terrible at: humility. Something deep in the American psyche—some profound insecurity—makes admitting that they don't know something anathema. Yet, that's the first step to the real solution to this.

So have the humility to understand you don't know everything. This is true of literally every human being on the planet, incidentally. Just by way of example, the Library of Congress (only one of the very large libraries on the planet) has almost 1400km of bookshelves. That's about 40 million or so books. If we assume 250 pages per book, that's 10 billion pages. A good reading rate for non-fiction material is two pages per minute. That's five billion minutes. 83 million hours. 3.5 million days. 9.5 thousand years.

Ignorance is normal. No, it's inevitable. Embrace it and instead of trumpeting proudly on shit you don't know, take the opportunity to learn instead.

That means don't tell someone living in China for 20 years, deeply embedded by family and working life in the nation, how things “really work” there. Don't tell epidemiologists how diseases spread. Don't tell soldiers how battles are fought. Don't tell Hindus what they actually believe. Don't tell Byzantine historians ...

You get the idea.

The solution is to be humble. To listen. To learn. To ask instead of tell. Do that and you'll find that you won't be dismissed as “instant experts” and avoided with a rolling of eyes so hard that the person in question has to reach around blindly on the floor to pop the eyes back into their face.

And in the process you get two of the greatest joys of life: companionship and learning.

By now everybody in the world has heard of the massive COVID-19 outbreak in Shanghai. You know, the one that gives us a graph that's been repeated in many different forms that looks roughly like this:

Of course the press being the press there is a major problem with this graph: it is utterly devoid of context. In that image there it looks like some seriously scary shit is going down in Shanghai (and, honestly, there is some seriously scary shit going down in Shanghai!). But this graph is being used in service of a narrative that is flatly false: Zero Covid Doesn't Work.

The Press' lies and its consequences

So before we fall prey to the press' wild exaggerations (a polite way of saying “lies”), let's supply a bit of context, shall we?

Suddenly that “scary” “spike” in Shanghai barely registers as a rounding error compared to the day to day reality of a bunch of western nations. (Selection criterion for those nations: these are nations where I have family, friends, and acquaintances I interact with regularly).

Ever since the press lies (oops!—I meant “wild exaggerations”!) started, I've had family and friends asking me if I'm OK because they're worried for me with this “huge” outbreak. I keep having to point out to them that I'm safer than they are even if I were living in Shanghai. So hell-bent are the press on forcing the “Zero-Covid doesn't work” horseshit that friends and relatives who are at tremendously greater risk than I will ever be are worried for me instead of themselves!

So what's the reality?

The reality is that by Chinese standards Shanghai's outbreak and their handling of the same are shockingly inept. I predict that, as happened in Wuhan in January 2020, the leadership of Shanghai will be mass-sacked and many will likely be expelled from the Party with several higher figures jailed (or, as persistent rumours about the former mayor of Wuhan keep saying, executed) for gross incompetence and misconduct.

The reality is that Shanghai is an outlier, and they're an outlier precisely because they didn't follow the examples set down by the cities you never heard of ... precisely because “big city stomps COVID-19 before case count exceeds two digits” isn't headline news material. Had Shanghai followed sane procedures done by cities like Shenzhen, Guangzhou, even Beijing (and, if you hold your nose, Dalian), this outbreak would have been stopped dead in its tracks in the low four-figure case count tops.

And if they'd gone like Wuhan they wouldn't have even broken into 3 figures.

So Wuhan did well, then?

Yes.

When the big outbreak started in Shanghai, cities across China went on high alert. Shanghai is a major commercial hub and people travel to and from Shanghai in every major city (and most minor cities) in the country. Wuhan was no exception.

Wuhan has at all points of ingress testing stations set up. If you've come in from an at-risk location (previously, for example, it was Shenzhen), you are tested on the spot with test results that are guaranteed to be ready in 24 hours. Anybody who'd been in Shanghai in the past week, when the news broke, got tested on entry.

And they caught three asymptomatic cases.

That was on a Thursday evening that the results came out. By Friday morning everybody in Wuhan was required to get tested. Everybody. In a city of 11 million people. Tested in a day. By Saturday the asymptomatic cases caught had climbed to 10. Under the emergency regulations the populace was to be tested in its entirety every 48 hours. If you didn't have negative test results within a 48-hour period, you were banned from public transit (they check!), from grocery stores and shopping centres (they check!) and generally your life is hemmed in. You don't have to get checked. If you want to stay at home and do nothing, nobody cares. But for those with jobs and those who want to buy little things like, you know, food, you needed testing done.

Of course a testing mandate really only works if testing is freely available and convenient. That's the other genius of their system. Testing stations are everywhere. (I get tested at the medical centre in my work compound, but I could get tested in my residential compound, or in any number of street clinics for testing, or in any other residential compound, or ...) You get in line (outdoors, not indoors, and with mandatory distancing), you wait a few minutes (the longest wait I ever had was the first one at 20 minutes), you get your QR code scanned if you're Chinese, or some personal information entered (basically passport number and telephone number), and then you get your throat swabbed.

Test over.

Within 24 hours your health app is updated with your test results and you're free to go anywhere for 48 hours. You've taken a few minutes out of every second day and ...

What were Wuhan's results then?

Well, as I said, on Friday (2022-04-08) there were three known asymptomatic cases. By Saturday this was 10 cases. By Monday it was this:

To explain the numbers, the first number is new symptomatic cases. (Zero.) The second is new asymptomatic cases. (Twelve.) The third is total active symptomatic cases. (Zero.) The final number is the recovered cases. (That number is pretty huge because, well, COVID-19 ground zero.)

On Tuesday (which I sadly didn't snap a screenshot of) the first three numbers were 0 7 0 respectively. Culminating in today's numbers:

It's instructive to compare this with Shanghai's numbers for today:

Shanghai isn't proof that “ZOMG ZERO COVID DOESN'T WORK!!!!!111oneoneoneeleventyone!”. It's proof that Zero Covid works fine since only a single city, the city that thinks it's somehow special and different and thus able to get away with (almost literally) half-assing COVID mitigation, got hit hard by an outbreak since the initial outbreak in Wuhan in 2020. (There were some scary countryside issues, to be fair, in the latter half of 2020, but those got squelched too.)

Summary

The Zero COVID-19 strategy works. How do I know?

• Omicron BA.2 came.
• We saw it.
• WE KICKED ITS MOTHERFUCKING ASS!

Just like plain 'ol Omicron and Delta before it.

Another religious residential school is found to have a secret graveyard. Up to 169 unmarked graves adding to the already frightening death toll in these charnel houses of Christ.

And it's not only Canada. Canadians learned well from their neighbours to the South, after all.

When these body counts started getting revealed, along with the duplicitous concealment of them, Canadians got a shock to our collective system. Canadians were, after all, the “good guys”. We weren't like that. We were the tolerant, open, multi-cultural society. We wouldn't do this.

...must rise and save us from ourselves

It became an easy go-to to blame Catholics (despite a narrow majority of these schools being run by non-Catholic organizations), or, more broadly, Christians (despite several nominally secular organizations also running these horror shows, and despite all of them in theory being overseen by a secular government). Churches were burned in the name of tolerance. Social media exploded with condemnation of Christianity and Christians, in another ironic display of tolerance.

But...

This is misdirected. Because these schools are not an expression of Christian intolerance. These schools are an expression of Canadian intolerance, and this is something that does not sit well with the bulk of Canadians: secure in their white majority where everything is defined in terms of themselves.

Self-image shattered

See, we Canadians never were the good guys, not even for that small period of our history where we paraded ourselves around as such.

The shock is understandable. Most people don't read their own country's history outside of the sanitized versions presented in their primary schooling. If they had they might have noticed the little giveaways. Little giveaways like how slavery was banned in Canada in 1833: a blink of an eye ago in historical terms. Under French rule and British rule both, slaves were a thing in Canada: the French primarily enslaving native peoples and the British primarily enslaving African peoples in the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

(And before we get the WELL AKSHOOALLEE!! crowd piping up, yes, some native tribes, especially along the west coast, were slavers as well.)

Similarly every wave of immigrants that weren't French or English in background brought with them a matching wave of racial bigotry that frequently spilled over in violence:

• The Chinese head tax.
• The Anti-Oriental Riots of 1907.
• The Komagata Incident of 1914.
• The Anti-Greek riots of 1918.
• The Chinese Immigration Act (a.k.a. the Exclusion Act) of 1923.
• Japanese-Canadian internment of 1942.
• The antisemitism that has long simmered under Canada's placid surface, occasionally breaking out into a rollicking boil here and there.
• The moral panic over Romany refugees starting in 1997 and having never really stopped, only gone a bit quieter and underground (like the antisemitism).

And those are just the big incidents; incidents sufficiently large to make it into history books. In my own lifetime I've seen smaller, less overt (and less violent) such things. Like the anti-German sentiment that I got double-whammied with alongside the anti-Chinese sentiment. Our (Jewish) Ukrainian neighbours who got double-whammied with antisemitism and anti-Ukrainian sentiment. The huge kerfuffle over Iranian and Iraqi refugees in the '80s. Somali refugees in the '90s. It all paints a picture of a nation far less tolerant than it believes itself to be.

Colour me completely unsurprised

Of course what I'm saying comes as absolutely no surprise to anybody who is a “visible minority” (and I'm not even going to begin to unpack just how revealing that phrase is, nor how revealing it is that Canada's natives are not classified as such) in Canada. Let's go with some personal experience.

How many white Canadians of my generation had people making slant-eyes (or some equivalent thing that is more appropriate for caucasians) at them: both overtly and covertly? (By way of comparison, I've never seen a Chinese person making “straight-eyes” at the non-Chinese.) How many white Canadians ever had the phrase “they don't value life like we do” carelessly (or deliberately!) spoken in their presence about their ethnicity? (Protip: A lot more white racists are going to be hearing that phrase tossed their way after the COVID-19 debacle exposed the west for the clown pants wearing culture it is!) How many white Canadians were then the subject of feigned “Oops!” body language while slyly being glanced at after doing any of these? Or, possibly even worse, a condescending reassurance that, “no, you're one of the good ones!”

I think that if white Canadians sat down with any “visible minority” (or natives, since perversely in Canada natives aren't considered this)—or even just those whose culture is different in “multicultural” Canada—and actually listened (a skill most of them lack when it comes to criticisms of their behaviour, sadly), they would find out rather rapidly that Canada is not as “open” and “tolerant” and “multicultural” as they like to profess it to be.

And maybe, just maybe, if they sat down with a history book that wasn't bowdlerized pabulum made for children and read it with open eyes they might find that none of this “rising tide” of racism and bigotry that is spilling forth again in Canada is new.

Witch Hunt

And maybe, just maybe, these people, upon reading about Yet Another Pile of Native Children's Bodies being discovered, can, instead of pointing fingers of blame, look into the mirror and reflect[1] upon their own lives, their own behaviours, and their own culpability not in these specific deaths (which almost nobody alive is culpable for), but for the system in which these deaths were enabled and concealed.

Maybe.

[1] Pun fully intended, yes!

Well, courtesy of the rat-lickers of the west—people apparently comfortable with increasing piles of bodies so long as they don't get personally inconvenienced—COVID-19, which blew up here in Wuhan, catching a city larger than New York completely unawares and started spreading sickness and death, has returned. I once again face the prospect of lockdown and terror because nearly a billion selfish asshats decided that TEH EKKONEMEEE was more important than human life, ironically destroying their own economies in the process of extinguishing each others' lives.

The notice

From an official Hubei government posting we get the following (full text and bad translation courtesy of Baidu Translate appended at the end of this post):

• 10 new cases of COVID-19 (strain not yet established) have been found in Wuhan.
• The cases were found in a training course's instructors and students.
• There were 14 identified cases total from the course, four of whom left the city.
• There were 66 trainees total, 24 of whom have left the city.
• All known cases are in hospital and being treated.
• 4 known cases are Wuhan natives (the translation to “Han nationality” is just the kind of bad translation you get from “AI” translation).

After this each individual case is discussed including source of infection (in case of infected family members) and origin of each as well.

Further, the areas the training course's students are known/expected to have interacted in are cited for all three days of the course and people living in those areas are locked down pending testing.

What you can glean

First, contrary to all the verbiage in western press about the “opacity” of Chinese governments, there's not a single western government I've seen that's even close to the transparency surrounding this outbreak. Each case is identified by where the spread likely occurred, which neighbourhoods/locales are impacted by it, and even where the people still remaining in Wuhan currently reside. And this is posted in a public notice for anybody to read.

This means that if you're in one of the impacted areas, you know if you're at risk and can take appropriate measures. So while I have creeping terror at another outbreak in Wuhan that infects and kills thousands like the last one, that is a purely emotional reaction caused by the impact of a lockdown back when we knew nothing about this disease and what was going on.

In reality, however, though I am somewhat afraid, the calm professionalism, the open transparency, and the detailed information provided settle my nerves enough that I'm experiencing mild trepidation instead of stark terror. Unlike my family in Canada I'm confident that this outbreak will be squelched before it reaches three digits cases, likely before it even cracks the half-way mark in two digits. I can go to work with heightened countermeasures (mostly scanning in and out of places again) and not have to worry about loss of income, loss of health, or loss of life.

And the major point

Note the alacrity and thoroughness of this response. The first case was identified on February 21. Immediate contacts were traced and tested on the same day. Contact tracing and locale tracing were performed on the same day, going back to the 17th when all the students arrived. Lockdowns in the impacted neighbourhoods and locales were started on the next day.

For “only” 10 (known) cases the city mobilized resources and stomped down hard on where the virus could have been. Testing is being done en masse in the impacted areas, and the unfortunates who live/work in them are being inconvenienced for enough time to ensure they're not infected. The rest of us are carrying on with our usual days with only minor inconveniences like spending a few extra seconds to get on and off public transit. (We were already wearing masks.)

THIS is why all the “Zero COVID strategies won't work because they're too expensive” arguments made by the western press (especially that shit rag Bloomberg) are just flat-out wrong. The cost to China of losing 1 in 356 of its citizens would be, in the Chinese view, far more expensive.

---

The original text plus bad computer translation

武汉市新增10例新冠病毒核酸检测阳性感染者的情况通报 Notification of 10 new cases of COVID-19 nucleic acid positive infection in Wuhan

大楚网 Da Chu net

今天（2月22日）下午 This afternoon (February 22)

武汉市召开新闻发布会通报武汉市最新疫情情况以下是发布会详情 Press conference held in Wuhan report the latest epidemic situation in Wuhan. Here are the details of the press conference

2月21日22时至2月22日12时，我市新增新冠病毒核酸检测阳性感染者10例。至此，全市累计报告新冠肺炎确诊病例和感染者14例，分布在6个区，其中4例为外地来汉人员。所有确诊病例和感染者均及时转运至武汉市金银潭医院隔离诊治。 From 22 hours in February 21st to 12 hours in February 22nd, 10 new cases of COVID-19 nucleic acid positive infection were detected in our city. So far, novel coronavirus pneumonia confirmed cases and 14 cases were reported in the city, distributed in 6 districts, 4 of which were from Han nationality. All confirmed cases and infected persons were promptly transferred to Wuhan Jinyintan hospital for isolation and treatment.

14例确诊病例和感染者中，13例均为某公司培训班学员，1例为某学员的家人。此培训班的培训时间为2月18日至20日，地点设在武昌区凯莱熙酒店和江岸区华清园小区内，共有66名学员参加，其中24人已离汉，武汉市已向所涉省市发出协查函，在汉人员均已采取隔离管控措施。 Among the 14 confirmed cases and infected persons, 13 cases were trainees of a training course of a company, and 1 case was the family of a trainee. The training time of this training course is from February 18 to 20. It is located in kailaixi hotel in Wuchang District and Huaqingyuan community in Jiang'an District. A total of 66 trainees participated, of which 24 have left Han. Wuhan has sent a letter of assistance to the provinces and cities involved, and the personnel in Han have taken isolation and control measures.

2月21日下午，我市发现本次疫情阳性病例后，立即启动应急响应机制，全面开展流行病学调查、相关人员排查、采样检测和隔离管控，落实相关场所及环境消杀等防疫措施。 On the afternoon of February 21, after finding the positive cases of the epidemic, our city immediately started the emergency response mechanism, comprehensively carried out epidemiological investigation, investigation of relevant personnel, sampling and testing, isolation and control, and implemented epidemic prevention measures such as killing in relevant places and environment.

现将14例新冠肺炎确诊病例和感染者有关情况及活动场所通报如下： 14 cases of novel coronavirus pneumonia confirmed and the situation and venue of the infected persons are notified as follows:

病例1：外地来汉参加培训人员，系因返乡需求主动核酸检测发现，核酸检测阳性，确诊为新冠肺炎轻型。 Case 1: novel coronavirus pneumonia was diagnosed as a new crown pneumonia with the active nucleic acid test found in the Han Chinese training staff.

病例2：外地来汉参加培训人员，系因返乡需求主动核酸检测发现，核酸检测阳性，确诊为新冠肺炎轻型。 Case 2: novel coronavirus pneumonia was diagnosed as a new crown pneumonia with the active nucleic acid test found in the Han Chinese training staff.

病例3：外地来汉参加培训人员，系因返乡需求主动核酸检测发现，核酸检测阳性，确诊为新冠肺炎轻型。 Case 3: novel coronavirus pneumonia was diagnosed as a new crown pneumonia with the active nucleic acid test found in the Han Chinese training staff.

病例4：培训班学员，现居住于我市江岸区后湖大道同鑫花园，在密切接触者排查中核酸检测阳性，确诊为新冠肺炎普通型。 Case 4: novel coronavirus pneumonia is now in the Tongxin garden, the rear area of Jianghu district.

感染者1：培训班学员，现居住于我市东湖高新区关东街光谷坐标城，工作单位在现代光谷世贸中心，在密切接触者排查中核酸检测阳性。专家正在做进一步诊断。 Infected person 1: the trainees of the training course now live in Guanggu coordinate city, Guandong street, Donghu high tech Zone, our city. Their work unit is in modern Guanggu World Trade Center. They have tested positive for nucleic acid in the screening of close contacts. Experts are making further diagnosis.

感染者2：培训班学员，现居住于我市武昌区积玉桥街道凤凰城社区华润置地凤凰城，在密切接触者排查中核酸检测阳性。专家正在做进一步诊断。 Infected person 2: the trainee of the training course now lives in Phoenix City, China Resources Land, Phoenix community, Jiyuqiao street, Wuchang District, our city. The nucleic acid test is positive in the screening of close contacts. Experts are making further diagnosis.

感染者3：培训班学员，现居住于我市洪山区青菱渔场小区，在密切接触者排查中核酸检测阳性。专家正在做进一步诊断。 Infected person 3: the trainee of the training course now lives in Qingling fishing ground community, Hongshan District, our city, and the nucleic acid test is positive in the screening of close contacts. Experts are making further diagnosis.

感染者4：培训班学员，现居住于我市汉阳区洲头街建港瑶琦园，在密切接触者排查中核酸检测阳性。专家正在做进一步诊断。 Infected person 4: the trainee of the training course now lives in Jiangang Yaoqi garden, Zhoutou street, Hanyang District, our city. The nucleic acid test is positive in the screening of close contacts. Experts are making further diagnosis.

感染者5：培训班学员，现居住于我市硚口区易家街道竹叶海嘉园，在密切接触者排查中核酸检测阳性。专家正在做进一步诊断。 Infected person 5: the trainees of the training course now live in zhuyehaijiayuan, Yijia street, Qiaokou District, our city. The nucleic acid test is positive in the screening of close contacts. Experts are making further diagnosis.

感染者6：培训班学员，现居住于我市洪山区珞南街岭秀华庭，工作单位为位于东西湖武汉客厅某乳制品公司，在密切接触者排查中核酸检测阳性。专家正在做进一步诊断。 Infected person 6: the trainees of the training course now live in lingxiuhuating, Luonan street, Hongshan District, our city. Their work unit is a dairy company located in Wuhan living room of Dongxihu lake. They have tested positive for nucleic acid in the screening of close contacts. Experts are making further diagnosis.

感染者7：培训班学员，现居住于我市江岸区融玺公馆，在密切接触者排查中核酸检测阳性。专家正在做进一步诊断。 Infected person 7: the trainee of the training course, who now lives in Rongxi residence, Jiang'an District, our city, has tested positive for nucleic acid in the screening of close contacts. Experts are making further diagnosis.

感染者8：现居住于我市江岸区后湖大道同鑫花园，为病例4的公公，在密切接触者排查中核酸检测阳性。专家正在做进一步诊断。 Infected person 8: now living in Tongxin garden, Houhu Avenue, Jiang'an District, the father-in-law of case 4. The nucleic acid test was positive in the screening of close contacts. Experts are making further diagnosis.

感染者9：培训班学员，现居住于我市江岸区后湖大道同鑫花园，为病例4的丈夫，在密切接触者排查中核酸检测阳性。专家正在做进一步诊断。 Infected person 9: the trainee of the training course, now living in Tongxin garden, Houhu Avenue, Jiang'an District, our city, is the husband of case 4, and the nucleic acid test is positive in the screening of close contacts. Experts are making further diagnosis.

感染者10：外地来汉参加培训人员，在密切接触者排查中核酸检测阳性。专家正在做进一步诊断。 Infected person 10: those who come to China from other places to participate in training have tested positive for nucleic acid in the screening of close contacts. Experts are making further diagnosis.

汇总上述病例近期活动场所，主要涉及以下点位： Summarize the recent activity places of the above cases, mainly involving the following points:

2月17日：天河机场，武汉火车站，凯莱熙酒店（武昌区户部巷店），户部巷，书亦烧仙草（中华路店），漫U餐吧，江岸区华清园，三阳路董厨，安庆水饺（三阳路店），老宅藕香(黄鹤楼店)，东湖高新区保利时代天悦，五彩美育（后湖五路），昙华林屈臣氏店，昙华林胡桃里。 February 17: Tianhe Airport, Wuhan railway station, kailaixi Hotel (hubuxiang store in Wuchang District), hubuxiang, shuyishaoxiancao (Zhonghua Road store), man u food bar, Huaqingyuan in Jiang'an District, Dong Chu on Sanyang Road, Anqing dumplings (Sanyang Road store), Ouxiang in Laozhai (Huanghelou store), poly era Tianyue in East Lake high tech Zone, colorful aesthetic education (Houhu fifth road), Tanhualin Watsons store, Tanhualin walnut.

2月18日：凯莱熙酒店（武昌区户部巷店），江岸区华清园，汉口城市广场肯德基，大智路虾皇吉庆街旗舰店，安庆水饺（三阳路店），老宅藕香(黄鹤楼店)，东湖高新区保利时代天悦，江汉区M+蛙来哒，如新生活形象点专卖店和同一层瑞幸咖啡店，肯德基（中南路店），中南三路武南村南门培训机构，乔登美语幼儿园，世博园小区，华清园胡记早餐店、汉阳区复地翠微新城及小区旁798便利店、银泰创意城9楼来菜湖北头牌藕汤饭店、超级猩猩健身房（银泰店）、凯莱熙酒店对面的明家便利店。 February 18: kailaixi Hotel (Hubu Lane store in Wuchang District), Huaqingyuan, Jiangan District, Hankou city square, KFC, xiahuang Jiqing Street flagship store on Dazhi Road, Anqing dumplings (Sanyang Road store), Laozhai Ouxiang (Yellow Crane Tower store), poly era Tianyue in East Lake high tech Zone, M + frog laida in Jianghan District, Nu Skin life image point store and Ruixing coffee shop on the same floor, KFC (Zhongnan Road store), South Gate training institution of Wunan village, Zhongnan 3rd road, Qiaodeng American language kindergarten, World Expo Garden community, Huaqingyuan huti breakfast shop, Fudi Cuiwei new town and 798 convenience store next to the community in Hanyang District, Laicai Hubei top brand lotus soup Hotel on the 9th floor of Yintai creative City, super orangutan gym (Yintai store), Mingjia convenience store opposite kailaixi hotel.

2月19日：凯莱熙酒店（武昌区户部巷店），酒店旁徐唐氏热干面、东湖高新区保利时代天悦，粮道街赵师傅早点铺，凯莱熙酒店附近灌汤包子铺，甘记凤爪王烧烤（粮道街店），户部巷金明小吃店，五彩美育（后湖五路）。 February 19: kailaixi Hotel (Hubu Lane store in Wuchang District), Xu Tang's hot and dry noodles next to the hotel, poly era Tianyue in East Lake high tech Zone, master Zhao's breakfast shop in Liangdao street, Guantang steamed stuffed bun shop near kailaixi Hotel, Ganji Fengzhao Wang barbecue (Liangdao Street store), Jinming snack bar in Hubu lane, colorful aesthetic education (Houhu fifth road).

2月20日：凯莱熙酒店（武昌区户部巷店），酒店旁特色生煎、湖北省中医院花园山院区，武昌区凤爪王烧烤粮道街店，东湖高新区保利时代天悦，武昌区天天红油赵师傅热干面，武昌火车站，光谷天地，大唐沐足（凤凰山店），粮道街赵师傅早点铺，宜家必胜客，乔登美语幼儿园，花桥一村菜场。 February 20: kailaixi Hotel (hubuxiang store in Wuchang District), featured fried rice beside the hotel, huayuanshan Hospital of Hubei Provincial Hospital of traditional Chinese medicine, fengzhaowang barbecue Liangdao Street store in Wuchang District, poly era Tianyue in East Lake high tech Zone, hot and dry noodles made by master Zhao in Hongyou every day in Wuchang District, Wuchang railway station, Guanggu Tiandi, Datang Muzu (Fenghuangshan store), breakfast shop made by master Zhao in Liangdao street, IKEA pizza hut, Jordan American language kindergarten, Huaqiao village vegetable market.

2月21日：凯莱熙酒店（武昌区户部巷店），江岸区华清园，汉口城市广场肯德基，星巴克三阳路店、花园道店，超级猩猩健身房（花园道店），湖北省中医院花园山院区，现代光谷世贸中心园区食堂3+2店，武汉市第七医院，户部巷步行街面筋店、五谷渔粉、徐嫂糊汤粉和知秋咖啡店，普爱医院西院区，王府水饺（凯德西城店），焦本味餐厅和咖啡厅（东西湖区武汉客厅），新荣村菜市场，汪玉霞（百步亭店），乔登美语幼儿园，长航医院，徐东中冶南方大厦，三阳路江城黑皮牛肉面店，万松园王氏华华面。 February 21: kailaixi Hotel (Hubu Lane store in Wuchang District), Huaqing garden in Jiang'an District, KFC in Hankou city square, Starbucks Sanyang Road store, huayuandao store, super orangutan gym (huayuandao store), huayuanshan Hospital of Hubei Provincial Hospital of traditional Chinese medicine, canteen 3 + 2 store in Modern Optics Valley World Trade Center Park, Wuhan seventh hospital, Hubu Lane pedestrian street gluten store, Wugu fishing powder Sister Xu's paste soup powder and Zhiqiu coffee shop, Western Hospital of puai hospital, Wangfu dumplings (Kaide Xicheng store), jiaobenwei restaurant and coffee shop (Wuhan living room in Dongxihu District), Xinrong village vegetable market, Wang Yuxia (Baibuting store), Qiaodeng American language kindergarten, Changhang hospital, Xudong MCC south building, Jiangyang road Jiangcheng Black Beef noodle shop, wansongyuan Wang's HuaMian.

请与上述病例在同一场合、同一时段有交集或接触的人员，立即向居住地社区（村）、单位（或居住的酒店）主动报告，积极配合落实相关管控措施。 Please report to the community (Village), unit (or hotel) where you live and actively cooperate with the implementation of relevant control measures.

同时，请广大市民坚持严格做好个人防护，科学佩戴口罩，不聚集，不扎堆，勤洗手，多通风，保持一米以上安全社交距离。如出现发热、咳嗽、腹泻等症状，应做好防护措施，避免乘坐公共交通工具，尽快到就近的医疗机构发热门诊就诊。 At the same time, please insist on strict personal protection, wear masks scientifically, do not gather, do not get together, wash hands frequently, have more ventilation, and maintain a safe social distance of more than one meter. In case of fever, cough, diarrhea and other symptoms, protective measures should be taken to avoid taking public transport, and go to the fever clinic of the nearest medical institution as soon as possible.

武汉市新冠肺炎疫情防控指挥部 Wuhan novel coronavirus pneumonia prevention command headquarters

2022年2月22日 February 22, 2022

It's story time. But before the story comes a little perception problem that the story is about. The perception is about agency. Specifically, if you read western press, or look into western social media, it's about how the Chinese people lack any.

The prevailing wisdom, you see, is that Chinese people are tightly pressed under the thumb of the Party; that whatever the Party says goes and Chinese people will do it without question or grumbling or they'll get disappeared.

The technical term for this prevailing wisdom is “bullshit”. Let me illustrate why.

Orange Hotel

Depicted here is the front entrance of the Orange Hotel. It's a hotel that's about a 20 minute walk from my home. I used to go past it all the time while it was under construction, but a new way to get to work had me missing its completion.

And my utter amazement at seeing the finished product.

Look closer at that building. It's pretty weird architecture, isn't it? I mean it's like an architect known for making, I don't know, hospitals or such decided to use those skills to make a hotel. Look at that facing, look at the front entryway, look at the way the driveway relates to that entrance. It looks like the emergency entrance of a hospital!

“Orange Hospital”

It won't come as a surprise, now that I've pointed out the look of the place, that this was intended to be a hospital when it was under construction. One of my reasons for being amazed at the outcome is that while I was going past the construction site those years back, this was supposed to be a hospital, not a hotel. Specifically it was supposed to be a palliative hospital.

So why is it a hotel now? Therein lies our story that belies the conventional wisdom of how the poor Chinese people lack all agency and can only do what the government demands of them.

The residential compound

Depicted now is the side of the hospital, to the left of the original view above. Note the large, fairly upscale residences nearby. These residences are why the hospital is now a hotel. See the residents of these tower blocks fought tooth and nail to prevent that hospital from being commissioned. As I dug into the story, I found out there were protests. There were huge banner signs hung off the trees near the hospital construction site. There was even sabotage (!) of the construction equipment. The residents of that community wanted nothing to do with a palliative care facility in their back yard. (Or, rather, front yard.)

They put a patina of slightly-less-stupid reasons for it over their objections. They were afraid of X-Ray machine leakage. (Through solid stone and concrete walls.) They were afraid of diseases. But the real reason is purest superstition: the Chinese, even mainlanders, even under the officially atheist communist government, are in absolute dread of death and dead people. A facility that's explicitly there for people to die in is simply not going to happen without a fight. (It would literally cut all the property values of that compound by half or more overnight. This is how strong that superstition is.)

And in this case it didn't happen at all. The government blinked. The developer got its permits for opening a hospital revoked and the building was sold off to someone who decided instead to make it into a hotel, which is where we are now.

Agency

So here we have a facility that was cleared by government, then fully constructed, shut down in a sudden reversal because of protests from the people. Does this sound like people who are living under the thumb of whimsical, oppressive authority to you? Or does it sound like people who have far more of a say in a far more complex governmental system than you think?

(Hint: It's the latter.)