The Party looks for enemies –
Tyranny
Foreign Affairs, State Power, Tyranny
The EU’s New Totalitarian Temptation
Communism, Crime, History, Tyranny
The Ideology of Poverty and Murder
China, Tyranny
China Makes Obedience to the State a Game
The One-Party State keeps score –
China, Tyranny
A Game for Obedience
With a concept straight out of a cyberpunk dystopia, China has gamified obedience to the State.China has created a social tool named Sesame Credit which gives people a score for how good a citizen they are.
Via China has made obedience to the State a game @ The Independent.
Liberty, Tyranny
Scenes from Despotic Iran
Human Rights, Tyranny, United Nations
At the Human Rights Post
When I think “champion of human rights” I always think of Saudi Arabia. What with the public beheadings and women not being allowed to drive cars and all. Oh, and being gay is punishable by death too.
Via Saudi Arabia Elected Chair of UN Human Rights Council Panel @ Against Crony Capitalism.
Blogging, Censorship, Free Speech, Tyranny
Oppression
Prominent #Vietnam blogger Ta Phong Tan freed from prison and arrived in U.S. http://t.co/GiVAh2wgdx #PressUncuffed pic.twitter.com/Z0Qh5lCht4
— CPJ Asia Desk (@cpjasia) September 21, 2015
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China, State Capitalism, Tyranny
Official Chinese Growth Numbers a Lie
The Party is founded on lies –
For starters, Citi thinks China’s true real GDP growth rate is more like 4%, or even lower, not the 7% or so that the Chinese government reports. Their “global recession” call suggests that growth will dip to just about 2.5% by the middle of 2016. China’s growth hasn’t been lower than that since 1976, when Chairman Mao was still alive.
Via Business Insider.
China, History, Tyranny
The History of China’s Labor Camps
Crony Capitalism, Cronyism, State Capitalism, Tyranny
Paper Capitalists
“China, despite what you may have heard is NOT now a capitalist country. It is a crony capitalist country. The chief cronies are the members of the old Communist Party.” Via China tells workplaces they must have Communist Party units (Remember when the FCC wanted govt monitors in newsrooms last year?) @ AgainstCronyCapitalism.org.
Tyranny
Intolerable
Cato, Foreign Affairs, Libertarians, Liberty, Tyranny
Why Liberty? Freedom Abroad
Today, thousands of Venezuelans are protesting Nicolás Maduro government. Juan Carlos recalls his experience in Caracas, Venezuela witnessing the struggle for freedom and liberty. Juan Carlos Hidalgo is a Policy Analyst on Latin America at the Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity at the Cato Institute. Via Cato Institute Video.
Liberty, Photography, Tyranny
China: Photo of an umbrella brings jail, three years’ exposure
Even a photo is more than the party can bear: Wang Li, the wife of the Beijing-based poet Wang Zang, told The Telegraph her husband was taken into custody on October 1 after the 29-year-old expressed his support of the protests by posting a photograph of himself holding an umbrella on the Internet. The following…
Surveillance, Technology, Tyranny
Technology for Good
The long, ceaseless fight against state power takes many forms: ….Citizen Lab, the watchdog group Deibert founded over a decade ago at the University of Toronto that’s now orbited by a globe-spanning network of hackers, lawyers, and human rights advocates. From exposing the espionage ring that hacked the Dalai Lama to uncovering the commercial spyware…
Tyranny
June 3, 1989
Crime, Music, Tyranny
Where a music video is a crime
Liberty, Surveillance, Tyranny
Greenwald’s Traditional Critique of a Radical NSA
….But it is a mistake (albeit a common one) to survey the NSA-surveillance controversy and to conclude that Greenwald represents the radical position. His writing can be acerbic, mordant, biting, trenchant, scathing, scornful, and caustic. He is stubbornly uncompromising in his principles, as dramatized by how close he came to quitting The Guardian when it…
Blogging, Censorship, Free Speech, Liberty, Tyranny
Vietnam Torments Another Blogger
(New York) – All charges against the blogger Pham Viet Dao, 62, should be dropped, and he should be released immediately and unconditionally, Human Rights Watch said today. Pham Viet Dao, 62, was arrested on June 13, 2013, in Hanoi, for allegedly violating Vietnam penal code article 258, which provides for up to seven years…
Blogging, Censorship, Crime, Liberty, Tyranny
Vietnam censors and represses, again
The 30 month prison sentence for Vietnamese human rights lawyer and blogger, Le Quoc Quan, was today upheld by a Hanoi appeals court. Quan, who has frequently blogged about human rights violations by the government, was convicted in October 2013 on tax evasion charges. He has been arbitrarily detained since December 2012. A crowd of hundreds…