Last note before a much-needed sanity vacation.
[Ignorable long post so... TL;DR: Boycott *all* dictators and their enablers like morality-free corporations]
I've tried living by the "Be the change you want to see in the world" advice since my teens. For all my civil and human rights advocacy and e.g. campaigning for Tibetans' freedom from colonial repression virtually everyone around me has been flippantly funding their oppressors, the Chinese Party-state regime'. Oh, and they're also funding the repression of the 1.3 billion Chinese subjects (who are not Party members) and all the other global objectives of the CCP, including their support of russia, Iran, North Korea and virtually all existing and aspiring despots around the world. 🤷🏻♂️
That's been going on for *decades* now. Think about it.
I witnessed the CCP crushing Hong Kong's civil society in and after 2019 first hand despite the CCP having 'signed' a treaty (UK-PRC Joint Declaration) guaranteeing Hongkongers continued civil- and political rights and self-determination.
And then Muricans went and *elected* donald fucking trump *again* in Nov last year to do similar fascist takeover in the USA.
Note that in the last partially free elections in Hong Kong (Nov 2019) in *all* 18 districts popular vote supported pro-democrats. The USA and all other democracies did squat to pressure the CCP. It was just business as usual!
Who has stood with the Tibetans? With Hongkongers? With the Burmese? etc. etc.
Mandela said: "Your freedom and mine cannot be separated."
Memorize that quote. It carries countless insights.
I've tried to avoid funding anyone's oppressor since the last century, but equally importantly, and here's a wee request, we should *all* strive to avoid funding all dictators *but also their enablers*.
Not just the trumptards or the techbros the chinese or russian expansionist dictatorships et al but *also their enablers everywhere*.
(If we had done this, as I hoped, when the soviet empire fell and the CCP was on the ropes we would not be in this *global* pickle now. Reversing this sociopathic disaster will be far more difficult, but maybe if enough people — esp. in democracies but also in dictatorships — start "thinking globally, acting locally" we might have a long shot at honouring the founding principles of the original UN. They were never meant to be mere idealistic words to be sacrificed for easy profit and convenience.)
NB. The rise of Murican fascism hasn't only threatened to destroy American civil society, but it has removed the USA as a force for good globally since the 1990s, first as a more voluntary "hands off neo-libertarian approach" and since the turn of the century's even more hedonistic turn inwards while fighting imaginary 'culture wars' with the proto white supremacist MAGA...
How do you come back from deranged grifter-supremacist culture? How??
Ref. My first post after the last US presidential election results in Nov 2024 were confirmed:
@demi7en@infosec.exchange
