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Further anecdotal indicators follow.
Ciro's wife and family are clearly of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchu_people[Manchu ethnicity] just by looking at them, and they originally lived in the North East of China
His wife's family name is the very unusual 艾, pronounced "ai4", which she claims is a reference to the 愛(also pronounced ai4) in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aisin_Gioro[愛新覺羅], which is the name of the Manchu ruling clan of the Qing dynasty.
Ciro's father-in-law, who he barely met, was very old when he had his daughter, and passed away before Ciro could talk a lot with him, which is consistent with the claims that he spent several years in jail during <<mao-zedong,Mao's>> purges, see also: <<wife>>.
Bibliography:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_of_the_House_of_Aisin_Gioro
* https://www.zhihu.com/question/34813921 现在清朝皇室的后代现状如何？ What is the current status of the descendants of the Qing royal family?
* https://www.quora.com/Are-there-any-descendants-of-the-Qing-Dynasty-left-currently
* https://arxiv.org/pdf/1412.6274.pdf "Y Chromosome of Aisin Gioro, the Imperial House of Qing Dynasty" unknown year. Unfortunately Ciro's wife does not have an Y chromosome like her father. This does however mention the book used as a genealogy reference: https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/愛新覺羅宗譜.html?id=Pj4EAQAAIAAJ 愛新覺羅宗譜 On Douban: https://book.douban.com/subject/4162448/ gives ISBN 9787507713428 On Amazon unavailable: https://www.amazon.com/dp/7507713423
.Ciro Santilli's portrait as Qing emperor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:清_郎世宁绘《清高宗乾隆帝朝服像》.jpg[Original image].
image::{cirosantilli-media-base}/Ciro_Santilli_portrait_as_Qing_emperor.jpg[height=600]
==== Ciro Santilli has a preconceived opinion about China that cannot be changed 三西猴对中国成见很深，无法改变
<<ciro-santilli>> tries to justify why he think China would be <<richer,better with democracy>>, but I know that ultimately all of this is useless.
Everyone's opinions are all determined genetically and by <<brainwashed-by-usa,bring-up>>, and there is nothing he can do to change yours, or you change his.
From that point of view, all of this is just a cold blooded political game, in which Ciro tries to force the CCP to take down the Firewall: <<why-keyword-attack>>.
Ciro never gets mad about China, even if your opinion is contrary to his, and therefore wrong.
Using the <<reply-policy,reply policy>> is one of the reasons why Ciro never gets mad.
Ciro also has doubts about the efficiency of certain things I do as expressed throughout this FAQ, e.g. <<embargo>>.
In the end, he just end up thinking about new replies to things people say to him, and add them to this FAQ so that future replies will be faster to copy paste. See also: <<better-to-do>>.
The real goal of any online discussion, is not to convince people, but rather to determine who is an ally and who is not, and get those allies together to defeat the commies.
[[flg-bias]]
==== Does Ciro Santilli support FLG just because his wife and mother-in-law do it?
Not consciously, Ciro thinks would likely support them even if I didn't have family ties to <<falun-gong>>.
Likely he wouldn't have started this campaign if he didn't know them of course.
But of course, this is impossible to answer objectively.
Wouldn't you be rather upset if your <<ciro-santilli-mother-in-law-jail,mother in law were put into jail unfairly for 15 days>>?
But don't you think that <<flg-important,**70 million** people (6% of the total population in 2000!)>> getting completely squashed by the Party illustrates extremely well the dangers of the dictatorship?
With that in mind, Ciro tries his best to give FLG only the right level of exposure I think it deserves relative to other events, according to these guidelines: <<keyword-choice>>.
Ciro Santilli
committed
If more recent events of mass human rights violations happen, especially affecting in the order of tens of million people, I will probably rank higher than Falun Gong, this was the case for <<xinjiang,Xinjiang in 2019>> for example, even though it only affected a measly million.
==== Why did Ciro Santilli start his keyword attack?
Ciro Santilli
committed
The last straw that led <<ciro-santilli>> to start the <<keyword-attack>> on <<stack-overflow>> was when on March 2015 his girlfriend's mother was arbitrarily kept 15 days in jail for doing <<falun-gong>>. He posted about this at:
* https://twitter.com/cirosantilli/status/579270450984984576
* https://www.facebook.com/cirosantilli/posts/952661734753174
I then continued because I hate political <<censorship,censorship>>, and because <<does-ciro-santilli-hate-china,I love China>>.
[[ciro-santilli-mother-in-law-jail]]
===== Ciro Santilli's post when his mother-in-law was put into jail
Maybe some people would be happy if their mother-in-law were put into jail. But unfortunately, this wasn't the case for <<ciro-santilli>>.
.<<ciro-santilli>> with his soon-to-be mother-in-law before his wedding in 2017. Annoying? Sometimes. But threat to the fucking Chinese State? How fucked does your political system have to be for the answer to be a "yes"?
image::{cirosantilli-media-base}/Ciro_Santilli_with_his_mother_in_law_during_his_wedding_in_2017.jpg[height=600]
====== Jail post en
My girlfriend's mother, a 63 year old lady, was kept 15 days inside a Chinese "correctional facility" because she does Falun Gong.
She had to stay all the time in a small room with a bed and a toilet, under video surveillance, being fed three meager meals a day.
I see Falun Gong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Gong as just another <<flg-religion,moderate religion>> which causes no harm to its believers. The only reason that it is unofficially outlawed in China is because the communists fear it as a political competitor.
There was no trial and no explanation. She was going to take a train to visit her sister. But she didn't know that there was an important political event happening in the capital: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12th_National_People's_Congress So the police at the station, who already knew she did Falun Gong, took her away.
When she came back home, the house had been searched and was all messed up. Her religious books and computer were missing.
I'm glad she was not physically harmed. I find it fascinating how even well educated Chinese support a government which simply does not represent some of its people. How will you feel <<intolerance,when something like that happens to your own family, and there is nothing you can do about it>>?
====== Jail post zh
Translation by <<why-does-ciro-santilli-love-china-so-much,my wife>>:
我女朋友的母亲，一位63岁的女士被监禁在一个中国的"劳教所"，只因为她炼法轮功。
她被迫待在一个小屋子里面，只有一张床和一个排泄的地方，一直处在监视器下，每天两个窝头一碗只有几个白菜叶的汤。
我看过法轮功https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Gong 只是一个和平的信仰，对相信它的人没有任何坏处。它在中国被非官方的定为违法（其实没有一项明确法律禁止），唯一的原因就是工产党害怕它是一个政治竞争对手。
没有审讯没有任何解释。她正准备坐火车去看她的姐姐。但是她并不知道那个时候有重要的政治会议正在首都进行：https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12th_National_People's_Congress
所以那些知道她炼法轮功的铁路警察把她带走了。
当她回到家中时，房子被搜查过了，四处一切混乱。她的信仰书籍和电脑都没有了。
我很庆幸的是她身体并没有受到伤害。我觉得很意思的是一些受过良好教育的中国人怎么能够迫害一部分它的人民的政府呢？如果这样的事情发生在你的家庭，而你什么都不能做，你会怎么想？
====== Jail post pt
Translation by myself:
A mãe da minha namorada ficou 15 dias num "centro de correção" chines porque ela faz Falun Gong.
Ela ficou o tempo todo num quarto pequeno com uma cama e banheiro, sobe videovigilância, recebendo 3 refeições pequenas por dia.
Para mim, o Falun Gong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Gong é apenas mais uma religião moderada que não causa nenhum problema para seus crentes. A única razão pela qual ele é proibido na China é porque os comunistas tem medo dele como competidor politico.
Não houve julgamento nem explicação. Ela ia pegar um trem para ver sua irmã, mas ela não sabia que teria um evento político importante na capital: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12th_National_People's_Congress Então a polícia da estação, que já sabia que ela faz Falun Gong pegou ela.
Quando ela voltou pra casa, a casa tinha sido procurada pela polícia e estava uma bagunça. Os livros religiosos e seu computador foram confiscados.
Eu fico feliz apenas que ela não sofreu abuso físico. Eu acho fascinante como mesmo muitos chineses educados apoiam ainda um governo que não representa parte do povo. Como você vai se sentir quando algo do tipo acontecerá com a sua família, e você não pode fazer nada sobre isso?
===== Further details about Ciro Santilli's mother-in-law's persecution
March 2015: 15 days in jail for no reason: https://www.facebook.com/cirosantilli/posts/952661734753174
June 2017: 3 cops came to her house. She was there. They asked if she still did Falun Gong. She said yes. They took photos of her Falun Gong books / posters. They were polite.
October 2017: 7 - 8 cops came to her house _at 11PM_. They knocked the door strongly and made noise, and questioned neighbours of her whereabouts. Luckily she was not there.
=== China is fine as it is, stop making it worse
Welcome to the wonderful world of democracy, a world where people can have different political opinions than you :-)
If you are so fine, why are you reading this at all? Go back to being fine.
See also:
* <<why-end-dictatorship>>
* <<preconceived>>
[[i-like-my-dictatorship]]
==== I like my Dictatorship 我喜欢我的独裁统治
It must feel good to have <<li-hongzhi,absolute truth>> in the <<democracy-is-a-religion,Cult of Xi>>, and let the black police <<against-censorship-and-flg,get rid of weirdos for you>>.
But when the dictatorship turns again you our your family, will you fight, or will you just let them do whatever they want because they can never be wrong? See also: <<intolerance>>.
And when your son <<man-in-the-high-castle,betrays you or sacrifices himself for the Dictator>>, will you just smile and accept it?
See: <<seventeen-moments-of-spring>>
[[seventeen-moments-of-spring]]
===== Seventeen Moments of Spring (1973)
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeen_Moments_of_Spring
* https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Семнадцать_мгновений_весны_(телефильм)
<<russia,Soviet>> mini-series about about Stierlitz, who is an undercover Soviet spy acting as a Nazi officer in <<nazi,Nazi Germany during WW2>>.
As a fun note, it seems that <<putin>> is a Stierlitz fan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stierlitz#cite_note-Sakwa-5[], and Putin also served in Germany like Stierlitz, but in Dresden, which was in East Germany.
A scene from the awesome mini-series comes to mind when thinking about <<i-like-my-dictatorship>>.
In Episode 7, Stierlitz travels on a train with a Nazi officer.
No democracy in our Reich!
Any democracy in our country is doomed to end up with one thing: the dictatorship of small shopkeepers.
The more freedom we have, the sooner we want to be controlled by SS troops again.
And then we want our the secret police back, and concentration death camps again, and the universal fear everywhere! Only then we feel calm and secure.
Ciro Santilli
committed
No need to prove your point of view in defending the fate of the homeland.
Ciro Santilli
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Just raise your hand in honor of him, <<xi-jinping,who will take care of everything for you>>,
Just shout out "Hail Hitler!" and everything will become understandable.
.https://youtu.be/pc6DP1jNEec?list=PLHiAMOiVIvsD2u8g0RLwvdRScEe9yiUr5&t=1527 Seventeen Moments of Spring (1973), Episode 7, general confession scene.
video::pc6DP1jNEec[youtube,height=400,width=600,start=2086]
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It is amusing to see Soviet series criticizing dictatorships, given that the Soviet Union was itself a major dictatorship!
[[most-chinese-people-like-their-dictatorship]]
===== Most Chinese people like their dictatorship 中国大众支持他们的独裁
It is easy to reach an agreement, when everyone who disagrees goes to jail or gets killed due to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inciting_subversion_of_state_power[Inciting subversion of state power 煽动颠覆国家政权罪] or <<picking-quarrels>>.
Also ask the millions of people who were affected by <<tiananmen>>, <<falun-gong>>, <<xinjiang>> or <<dissidents>>.
One is reminded of the game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Happy_Few["We Happy Few" (2018)], which which people are forced to be happy. <<nineteen-eighty-four>> also comes to mind of course.
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zndzntIDLFE IGN review of the "We Happy Few" (2018) game.
.Westerner: "How is life in China?" Chinese: "Oh, we can't complain." Westerner: "That's awesome." Chinese: "No, seriously... we can't." is a word play between the more common "we can't complain because everything is great" and "we can't complain because <<xi-jinping,Xi>> will <<censorship,make us disappear>>". https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3933168[Source]
image::https://web.archive.org/web/20200514071323im_/https://tnimage.s3.hicloud.net.tw/photos/2020/05/13/1589352986-5ebb9a1ad0a98.jpg[height=600]
=== There are bad things happening all over the world, why doesn't Ciro Santilli fight for those causes as well/instead?
We have to choose the one we think is the worst, and focus on it.
What is worse is a subjective choice. For <<ciro-santilli>>:
* he <<why-does-ciro-santilli-love-china-so-much,loves China and my Chinese wife>>, see also: <<bias>>, and doesn't want it to get fucked further by the CCP
* he hates dictatorships, and China is the largest one by population/GDP/link:https://www.ploughshares.org/world-nuclear-stockpile-report[nuclear stockpile], and therefore <<war,the most dangerous>>
My <<keyword-choice,SO username>> and <<better-to-do,protest time>> are not infinite.
See also: <<western-democracies-are-not-perfect>>
That is definitely true.
Nothing is perfect in this world.
<<ciro-santilli>> just believes that they are way better than a <<dictatorship>> like China, and that the Chinese government <<evil-west,brainwashes its people to think that the West is evil to stay in power>>.
As link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority[Churchill] once brilliantly link:https://richardlangworth.com/worst-form-of-government[put it]:
____
Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
____
However, this is all obviously subjective, and believing that dictatorship is a better form of government is also a valid belief.
If you find an event on a Western democracy that you would like to highlight, send a pull request.
We will not however include events that are not currently censored.
Every country did fucked-up things in the past, the question is if they currently allow discussion about it or not.
Posts that only mention <<evil-west,"evil West">> non-censored events without adding anything to the discussion will be marked as <<shitpost>> and treated as such, since spamming those is the primary <<wumao>> technique to stop intelligent discussion.
The reason why "Evil China" posts are not shitposts in general on the other hand, is that they have one specific purpose: <<why-keyword-attack, to destroy censorship>>.
Ciro Santilli
committed
This "Western censorship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copypasta[copypasta] string" https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/gct0ox/all_moderation_services_suspended_for_the_next_24/fpeends/[was posted automatically] by a bot during <<anti-ccp-info-sources,r/China>> purge day:
____
North Dakota Access Pipeline Protests 北达科他州接入管道抗议 +
Ferguson Riots 弗格森暴动 +
2017 St. Louis protests2017 年圣路易斯抗议活动 +
Nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll 比基尼环礁的核试验 +
Unite the Right rally 团结右集会 +
Charlotte riots 夏洛特暴动 +
Attack on the Sui-ho Dam 袭击穗河水坝 +
Milwaukee riots 密尔沃基骚乱 +
Shooting of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile 奥尔顿·斯特林和菲兰多·卡斯蒂利亚的射击 +
Occupation of the Malheur NationalWildlife Refuge Malheur国家野生动物保护区的占领 +
death of Freddie Gray 弗雷迪·格雷的死 +
Shooting of Michael Brown迈克尔·布朗的拍摄 +
death of Eric Garner, Oakland California 奥克兰奥克兰市埃里克·加纳（Eric Garner）逝世 +
Operation Condor 神鹰行动 +
Occupy WallStreet 占领华尔街 +
My Lai Massacre 我的大屠杀 +
St. Petersburg, Florida 佛罗里达州圣彼得堡 +
Kandahar Massacre 坎大哈屠杀 +
1992 Washington Heights riots 1992年华盛顿高地暴动 +
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No Gun Ri Massacre 无枪杀案 +
L.A. Rodney King riots 洛杉矶罗德尼·金暴动 +
1979 Greensboro Massacre 1979年格林斯伯勒大屠杀 +
Vietnam War 越南战争 +
Kent State shootings肯特州枪击案 +
Bombing of Tokyo 轰炸东京 +
San Francisco Police Department Park Station bombing 旧金山警察局公园站爆炸案 +
Assassination of MartinLuther King, Jr. 小马丁·路德·金遭暗杀。 +
Long Hot Summer of 1967 1967年炎热的夏天 +
Bagram 巴格拉姆 +
Selma to Montgomery marches 塞尔玛到蒙哥马利游行 +
Highway of Death 死亡之路 +
Ax Handle Saturday 星期六斧头 +
Battle of Evarts 埃瓦茨战役 +
Battle ofBlair Mountain 布莱尔山战役 +
McCarthyism 麦卡锡主义 +
Red Summer 红色夏天 +
Rock Springs massacre 岩泉大屠杀 +
Pottawatomie massacre 盆大屠杀 +
Jeju uprising 济州起义 +
Colfaxmassacre 科尔法克斯大屠杀 +
Reading Railroad massacre 阅读铁路大屠杀 +
Rock Springs massacre 岩泉大屠杀 +
Bay viewMassacre 湾景大屠杀 +
Lattimer massacre 拉蒂默大屠杀 +
Ludlow massacre 拉德洛屠杀 +
Everett massacre 埃弗里特屠杀Centralia Massacre 中部大屠杀 +
Ocoee massacre Ocoee大屠杀 +
Herrin Massacre 赫林大屠杀 +
Redwood Massacre红木大屠杀 +
Columbine Mine Massacre 哥伦拜恩矿难 +
Guantanamo Bay 关塔那摩湾 +
extraordinary rendition 非凡的演绎 +
Abu Ghraib torture and prison abuse 阿布格莱布的酷刑和监狱虐待 +
Henry Kissinger 亨利·基辛格
____
Some quick replies to the idiotic things wumaos like to post:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_George_Floyd[George Floyd] https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/乔治·弗洛伊德之死[乔治·弗洛伊德之死]: the murder video went viral and was not taken down (would have been in China), all four officers were charged, and the event sparked nation wide protests
+
And the Chinese are also obviously at least as racist, if not more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/25/coronavirus-exposed-china-history-racism-africans-guangzhou
+
Wumao example: https://web.archive.org/web/20200618071130/https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/112#issuecomment-645716105
See also:
* <<richer>>
* <<preconceived>>
* <<bias>>
.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signe_Wilkinson[Signe Wilkinson] 2017 Free Speech "Can you just move it so it doesn't cover them?" umbrella cartoon. Ciro once saw a <<wumao>> post this. It made him smile. If the cartoon were about <<dictatorship,dictatorships>>, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Sam[Uncle Sam] would be instead <<intolerance,decapitating and raping the people on one half of the umbrella>>. Of course humans are <<flg-intolerance,shit in democracies as well>>, but at least that system makes it harder for them to oppress each other. http://www.cartoonistgroup.com/store/add.php?iid=161799[Source].
image::https://web.archive.org/web/20180319052924if_/http://www.cartoonistgroup.com/properties/signe/art_images/cg599721e743615.jpg[height=400]
===== Western democracies have invaded other countries and crushed separatism
Yes, Western democracies are not perfect.
What matters is that citizens can disagree with those actions, publicly say it, vote accordingly, and not go to jail, so that policy will be changed if the majority so wants.
In China, the minority controls the majority, and the majority cannot say anything even if they disagree.
If the majority wants to do evil however, evil will get done, it is impossible to prevent that.
See also:
* <<separatism>>
* <<richer>>
===== Western democracies also censor subjects such as child porn and hate speech
First, if you don't think child porn should be banned, there isn't much point in arguing with you.
But of course, there is censorship in Western democracies, and there is a gray area between what should be censored or not.
<<ciro-santilli>> only argues that there is on type of speech that must never be <<censorship,censored>>: political speech.
This way, the majority can always discuss and vote to change what can be censored or not.
In China, trying to discuss such changes in laws <<internal-censorship,puts you in jail>>, so bad laws cannot be changed.
Otherwise, this leads to extremely serious problems:
* <<corruption>>: politicians can <<internal-censorship,censor>> anything bad that they did to stay in power
* <<war>>: if the CCP leaders decide that a war must be made, everyone who opposes it will go to jail, and the war will be made
* <<intolerance>>: if the CCP decides that <<xinjiang,some minority>> is <<falun-gong,a danger to their power>>, this minority gets fucked
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/爱德华·斯诺登
Censoring anyone who says "my president is shit", which is what China does, is much, much more serious than censoring intelligence leaks.
The problem with dictatorships, is that they make _every_ information that makes them look bad a "state secret". Including any information that hundreds of thousands of people have witnessed, or economic performance metrics! See also: <<internal-censorship>>.
The level of unknown surveillance that Snowden uncovered is a bad thing about the US.
Snowden's prosecution was inevitable. Countries need secret services. Secret services need laws that prevent leaking classified information that was produced by government officials.
<<ciro-santilli>> has never and will never criticize China or any other country for spying or prosecuting spies.
If Snowden were Chinese, the Chinese government would ban talking about him or anything he uncovered. A <<keyword-attack,keyword attack>> with "Snowden" in the West has no effect.
It is obvious that the level of surveillance in any dictatorship will be infinitely higher, since the Government has much more power and no-one can criticize.
On the West however, the debate Snowden sparked cannot be censored, and has helped to control excessive and secret state power.
Ultimately, Ciro thinks camera surveillance is somewhat inevitable, because people will always want to fight crime and terrorism and surveillance technology keeps getting cheaper and cheaper.
Ciro Santilli
committed
He also believes that a good solution to balance out government power is the second amendment. It is better to have more school shootings and less full-blown dictatorship led genocides / mass human rights violations.
In 2019 China amusingly censored passages Snowden's "Permanent Record" autobiography book, which Snowden then published on Twitter:
* https://twitter.com/snowden/status/1194092273170038784 (https://web.archive.org/web/20191112083232/https://twitter.com/snowden/status/1194092273170038784[archive])
* https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/dv5q8o/china_censors_edward_snowdens_new_book_he/ (https://web.archive.org/web/20191112083147/https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/dv5q8o/china_censors_edward_snowdens_new_book_he/[archive]).
As a https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/dv5q8o/china_censors_edward_snowdens_new_book_he/f7axckl/[Redditor put it]:
I don't think they understand that what Snowden stands for is completely the opposite of what the Chinese gov is lol
Snowden then later released the entire Chinese version of the book for free online with the censored parts underlined: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/02/10/snowden_china_censorship (https://web.archive.org/web/20200213001653/https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/02/10/snowden_china_censorship[archive]), link to the book: link:++https://a.temporaryrecord.com/Permanent_Record_-_CN_edition_with_underlined_redactions.pdf++[] (https://web.archive.org/web/20200212144108/https://a.temporaryrecord.com/Permanent_Record_-_CN_edition_with_underlined_redactions.pdf[archive]). One wonders why he didn't just do that in the first place for all versions, maybe he needed to pay the writer that helped him?
.Snowden highlighted defects on abuses of power in a Western democracy, and the discussion he sparked helped to control such abuses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Edward_Snowden-2.jpg[Source].
image::https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Edward_Snowden-2.jpg[height=400]
===== Fake news
When a government controls all information to make it look good, and no one can challenge it, you cannot trust _any_ of the news produced by that country, as anything could be fake.
Ciro Santilli
committed
It is much better to have some fake news, but also few sources that are likely telling the truth.
===== Bad things have been done in the name of freedom
E.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks[September 11th].
Bad things have been done in the name of anything.
It's just that <<war,much>>, <<xinjiang,worse>> <<tiananmen,things>> are done without freedom than with it.
Democracies cannot necessarily protect weak countries from powerful ones either. No political system can do that, because humans are trash essentially.
What democracy do is to protect its own people against its own government. Because when the government turns against part of the population in a dictatorship, that part of the population gets crushed entirely, without any chance to fight, because they don't have an army or ally countries like other countries do.
Here are some images that <<wumao>>'s like to post:
* Left Right Slaughterhouse comic: https://9gag.com/gag/ayn7KmW?ref=fbp
Russia is clearly the number 2 <<dictatorship>> in the world by population / GDP and the link:https://www.ploughshares.org/world-nuclear-stockpile-report[#1 nuclear arsenal], so here we go.
Ciro Santilli
committed
Ciro has always been curious about how Russia can be both oppressive and a appear democratic, unlike China which doesn't even try to pretend. This is what he gathers:
* the government controls all major media. If any media says bad things against them, the government finds pretexts to create lawsuits or increase taxes against such companies. Therefore all people end up thinking that the government is good.
* just like China, <<evil-west,they emphasize the threat of the foreign countries>>, especially the US, as a justification for having an oppressive power.
Ciro Santilli
committed
* the government puts pressure on any significant opposition candidate. One technique is to find some reason to put them in jail for two months, which by Russian law forbids them from participating in further elections. Only candidates that don't really stand a chance are left as a fake opposition. But if you reach some prominence, you start taking the same risks as politicians, although you are more likely to face more brutal illegal gangster violence threats as you are less visible
See also: <<communist-youth-league>>
While we are at it, some interesting news:
* 2019-12-14 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-50902496 "Russia 'successfully tests' its unplugged internet". Russia's <<gfw>> is ready?
* 2018-04 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-43752337 "Russia to block Telegram app over encryption"
* 2017 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-40635267 Russia Jehovah's Witnesses banned after they lose appeal
* 2017 https://www.scmp.com/news/world/russia-central-asia/article/2085395/its-now-illegal-russia-share-image-putin-possibly-gay
* 2016 https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/kzgkv3/russians-now-need-a-passport-to-watch-pornhub
* 1995 Vladislav Listyev
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladislav_Listyev
** https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Листьев,_Владислав_Николаевич
Poisonings: Russia apparently has a long list of poisoning political enemies: https://nypost.com/2018/06/23/inside-russias-long-history-of-poisoning-political-enemies/
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poison_laboratory_of_the_Soviet_secret_services[Poison laboratory of the Soviet secret services] (link:++https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Токсикологическая_лаборатория_НКВД_—_НКГБ_—_МГБ++[Токсикологическая лаборатория НКВД — НКГБ — МГБ])
* <<skripal>>
* 2012 Alexander Perepilichny Перепеличный, Александр Юрьевич https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Perepilichny | https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Перепеличный,_Александр_Юрьевич
* 2004 Anna Politkovskaya Анна Политковская https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Politkovskaya | https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Политковская,_Анна_Степановна
* 2004 Viktor Yushchenko Ющенко, Виктор Андреевич https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Yushchenko | https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ющенко,_Виктор_Андреевич
* <<litvinenko>>
The Russians have very different style to the Chinese, who are much more subtle, and just put people in jail or handicap them in several ways without killing them.
Other political murders or attempts:
* 2015 Boris Nemtsov Немцов, Борис Ефимович https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Nemtsov | https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Немцов,_Борис_Ефимович
Some other interesting political suppression lists:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_Russia[list of journalists killed in Russia] (https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Список_журналистов,_убитых_в_России[Список журналистов, убитых в России]).
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Soviet_and_Russian_assassinations[List of Soviet and Russian assassinations]
* 2017 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/03/23/here-are-ten-critics-of-vladimir-putin-who-died-violently-or-in-suspicious-ways/ "Here are 10 critics of Vladimir Putin who died violently or in suspicious ways"
Other random stuff:
* <<seventeen-moments-of-spring>>
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin
* https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Путин,_Владимир_Владимирович
Coverage:
* 2019-12-19: Putin proposes abolishing term limits. <<xi-abolishes-term-limits-2018-03,Learnt from Xi>>:
** https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/putin-presidential-term-limit-russia-moscow-conference-today-a9253156.html
** https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-russia-putin-constitution/putin-says-hes-open-to-tweaking-presidential-term-limits-idUKKBN1YN1JO
** 2020-03-25 vote delayed due to <<corona>>
* 2014 Putin khuylo!
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putin_khuylo!
** https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Путин_—_хуйло!
[[superputin]]
====== Superputin
Meme partially supported by Putin himself, showing how physically strong and <<gay-putin,manly>> the president is.
Similar to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Norris_facts[Chuck Norris facts].
"Putin does manly things" photo galleries:
* 2017-06-07 https://mashable.com/2017/08/07/the-swaggering-masculinity-of-vladimir-putin/?europe=true (https://web.archive.org/web/20200412092201/https://mashable.com/2017/08/07/the-swaggering-masculinity-of-vladimir-putin/?europe=true[archive])
* https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/vladimir-putin-doing-manly-things/
.Putin swims Butterfly stroke in a Siberian lake around August 2009. The Telegraph https://web.archive.org/web/20200412090316/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/6175324/Vladimir-Putin-gives-strong-signal-he-may-be-president-again.html[correctly interpreted this as a sign that he would be re-elected in 2012]. For reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Baikal[Lake Baikal in Siberia has a maximum temperature of 14 °C in summer]. Other dictators have used similar swim tactics before, the most notable possibly being <<mao-swim>>. https://web.archive.org/web/20200412090316/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/6175324/Vladimir-Putin-gives-strong-signal-he-may-be-president-again.html[Source].
image::https://web.archive.org/web/20200412090316im_/https://secure.i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01472/Vladimir-Putin_1472816c.jpg[height=400]
.Putin riding a horse shirtless https://nypost.com/2014/08/29/putin-its-best-not-to-mess-with-us/[near Lake Seliger in August 2009]. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/worl-photo-caption-contest-shirtless-putin_n_3263512[Source].
image::https://web.archive.org/web/20200412092919im_/https://i.huffpost.com/gen/1133558/original.jpg[height=500]
.Putin riding a bear. https://www.pinterest.fr/pin/469429961142687422/[Source].
image::https://web.archive.org/web/20200412094400if_/https://i.pinimg.com/564x/07/68/05/076805e00f6ad771818d36ccef62cfd3.jpg[height=400]
.Putin riding a shark. https://sharkdivers.blogspot.com/2011/05/russian-pm-putin-rides-great-white.html[Source].
image::https://web.archive.org/web/20160614201455if_/http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FYfgqjECs1I/TeJoA2899DI/AAAAAAAAEII/7js84oWpRPk/s400/tumblr_kuxr34jtOb1qzeu38o1_400.png[height=400]
.Putin riding a giant eagle. https://www.quora.com/Is-this-picture-of-Vladimir-Putin-riding-a-bear-fake-or-real[Source].
image::https://web.archive.org/web/20200412093557if_/https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-71e8b8cddfce751d8e0a8ed45b316731.webp[height=400]
.Putin riding a meteor. https://www.quora.com/Is-this-picture-of-Vladimir-Putin-riding-a-bear-fake-or-real[Source].
image::https://web.archive.org/web/20200412093551if_/https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-ae21d615c5a8738a7321478bc1b686c5.webp[height=400]
[[gay-putin]]
====== Gay Putin (2017)
Coverage:
* https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-putin-gay-clown-memes-internet-extremism-opposition-president-kremlin-a7669486.html
<<gay-rights,Homosexuality>> is not super popular in Russia in general:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Russia
* 2013 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_gay_propaganda_law Russian gay propaganda law (2013) forbids the favorable depiction of homosexuality to minors
.The possibly Gay Putin clown image banned in 2017. https://www.scmp.com/news/world/russia-central-asia/article/2085395/its-now-illegal-russia-share-image-putin-possibly-gay[Source].
image::https://web.archive.org/web/20200312233919if_/https://cdn1.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/1200x800/public/images/methode/2017/04/06/0a2ae706-1a94-11e7-b4ed-ac719e54b474_1280x720_145124.jpg[height=400]
.Possibly Gay Putin kissing possibly Gay <<flg-trump,Trump>> mural entitled https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_Everything_Great_Again[Make Everything Great Again] painted in Lithuania in 2016 by by artists Dominykas Čečkauskas and Mindaugas Bonanu. It references the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections[Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections]. It was https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/12/vandals-censor-image-of-putin-snogging-trump-lithuania[later vandalized]. Now we just need a Putin <<xi-jinping>> kiss. Trump Xi kiss https://www.dw.com/en/sierens-china-survival-of-the-fittest/a-49498499[can be found here]. https://www.euractiv.com/section/global-europe/opinion/putin-will-pay-a-high-price-for-trumps-friendship/[Source].
image::https://web.archive.org/web/20191022004820if_/https://en.euractiv.eu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/11/Putin-Trump-kiss-800x450.jpg[height=400]
====== The poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal Серге́й Ви́кторович Скрипáль (2018-03-04)
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Sergei_and_Yulia_Skripal
* https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Отравление_Сергея_и_Юлии_Скрипаль
In 4 March 2018, the Russian double agent and his daughter were poisoned with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novichok_agent[Novichok agent] (https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Новичок_(отравляющие_вещества)[Новичо́к]), a Soviet-era nerve agent, which was likely put on their front door knob in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salisbury[Salisbury, UK], exact address https://goo.gl/maps/oKASuLWpcSmLqL8F9[Christie Miller Road]! Straight out of a spy novel.
On 30 June 2018, the man of an unlucky drug addict couple found the counterfeit expensive looking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_Ricci_(brand)[Nina Ricci] Premier Jour perfume bottle containing the poison, and gave it to the woman who died. How unlucky can you fucking be, as if heavy drug addiction weren't enough, you still have to deal with fucking Russian Novichok!
.The assassination suspects Alexander Mishkin (Алекса́ндр Евге́ньевич Ми́шкин, alias Alexander Petrov) and Anatoliy Chepiga (Анатолий Владимирович Чепига, alias Ruslan Boshirov) in a CCTV still at Salisbury Station on 3rd March 2018 the day before the assassination. Both GRU and Alexander being a doctor, which is consistent with a poisoning assassination attempt. They later explained on an RT interview that they were visiting the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salisbury_Cathedral[world renowned Salisbury Cathedral] in their 3 day trip to the UK, and that they <<gay-putin,were not gay>>. Some Western sources interpreted this as an intentional suggestion that they are gay, which for many Russians would imply that they cannot be FSB agents. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/sep/05/planes-trains-and-fake-names-the-trail-left-by-skripal-suspects[Source].
image::https://web.archive.org/web/20200313103134if_/https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/31a18fa18d2fedb11136fc3d2c39952e4aec1ce5/0_97_1114_668/master/1114.jpg?width=620&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=19c40235440efb1be4b1b8d9ef1b87d7[height=400]
.Counterfeit Nina Ricci Premier Jour packet that contained the Novichok. https://www.npr.org/2018/09/05/644782096/u-k-charges-2-russians-suspected-of-poison-attack-on-skripals[Source].
image::https://web.archive.org/web/20200404112526im_/https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2018/09/05/skripal-perfume_wide-8e5147ab76a27976e4bde6adffce910f4f297d25-s1100-c15.jpg[height=400]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ku8OQNyI2i0 "Full Skripal case interview with the UK's suspects (EXCLUSIVE)" by RT with Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov. Not gay moment at: https://youtu.be/Ku8OQNyI2i0?t=461[461s].
====== Electoral fraud in Russian elections
Besides barring opposition from participating such as <<alexei-navalny>>, electoral fraud was off the charts:
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KQlCRLCw_I 2019-09-12 CCTV footage of Vasily Dyachenko (Василий Дьяченко), who had reported electoral fraud concerns regional 2019 elections, getting surprise punched in the stomach at the St. Petersburg polling station 1619, while the police who is right in front of it do nothing about it. English coverage: https://www.rferl.org/a/russian-police-stand-idly-by-as-election-observer-sucker-punched/30160427.html
video::-KQlCRLCw_I[youtube,height=400,width=600]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oSeRyaFllY 2018-03-18 alleged https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_fraud#Ballot_stuffing[ballot stuffing electoral fraud] caught on CCTV in Lyubertsy, Moscow Oblast
video::3oSeRyaFllY[youtube,height=400,width=600]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMEqv-NNLW4 Мусора избили ребёнка и наблюдателей на выборах TODO find English version
Related:
* Golos (Голос) is the main independent election monitor organization in Russia:
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golos_(election_monitor)
** https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Голос_(мониторинг_выборов)
====== The murder of Alexander Litvinenko Литвиненко, Александр Вальтерович (2006)
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Litvinenko
* https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Литвиненко,_Александр_Вальтерович
Poisoned with polonium-210:
* 2006-10-29
** meets with two former FSB agents Dmitry Kovtun and Andrey Lugovoy at Millenium Hotel London TODO exact address
** eats with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Scaramella[Mario Scaramella] at an Itsu in London TODO exact address. <<ciro-santilli>> believes the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itsu[Itsu] food to be the real cause of death.
* 2006-11-01 falls ill
* 2006-11-03 admitted into hospital
* 2006-11-23 dies
* 2007-01-26 UK police says they had found a teapot at Millenium Hotel containing extremely high Poloninum-210 traces
* 2010-12 US leaked cables show that Dmitry Kovtun left "positive traces" of radioactive polonium-210 in Germany before departing for Britain https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/11/wilileaks-cables-litvinenko-murder
.Litvinenko in his death bed.
image::https://web.archive.org/web/20200404123347im_/https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/guardian/About/General/2010/12/11/1292079941381/Former-Russian-Agent-Pois-006.jpg?width=620&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=2a623e83efa1042cc1cd07295d54a57b[height=400]
[[russia-mandatory-registration-of-bloggers]]
====== Mandatory registration of bloggers (2014)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-28583669
Bloggers with more than 3000 daily readers must register and cannot be anonymous.
The following Chinese policies come to mind:
* <<icp-license>>
* <<anonymous-accounts-ban>>
===== Putin opposition
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_to_Vladimir_Putin_in_Russia
[[alexei-navalny]]
====== Alexei Navalny Алексе́й Анато́льевич Нава́льный
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Navalny
* https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Навальный,_Алексей_Анатольевич
Casually barred from the 2018 presidential campaign:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Alexei_Navalny_presidential_campaign
* https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-42479909
* https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Навальный,_Алексей_Анатольевич#Президентские_выборы_2018_года
His Wiki page does say one thing of interest though, he has right wing tendencies which scared off liberals:
The BBC noted in a profile of Navalny that his endorsement of a political campaign called "Stop feeding the Caucasus" and his willingness to speak at ultra-nationalist events "have caused concern among liberals".
____
Related:
* https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-navalny-nationalist-fears/25059277.html
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVNJiO10SWw
[[2020-khabarovsk-krai-protests]]
====== 2020 Khabarovsk Krai protests (Протесты в Хабаровском крае)
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Khabarovsk_Krai_protests
* https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Протесты_в_Хабаровском_крае
In support to:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Furgal
* https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Фургал,_Сергей_Иванович
===== Censorship of images in the Soviet Union
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_images_in_the_Soviet_Union
.Before/after comparison of picture of Stalin with Nikolai Yezhov at the Moscow Canal. Nikolai was edited out form the second picture. (Credit: Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images & AFP/GettyImages) https://www.history.com/news/josef-stalin-great-purge-photo-retouching[Source].
image::https://web.archive.org/web/20191014084357im_/https://www.history.com/.image/c_limit,cs_srgb,q_auto:good,w_860/MTU3ODc4NjAzNTIxNzMwMjcx/image-placeholder-title.webp[height=400]
.A meeting of the St. Petersburg chapter of the Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class in February 1897, including Lenin and Alexander Malchenko. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Union-de-Lucha.jpg[Source].
image::https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/90/Union-de-Lucha.jpg/640px-Union-de-Lucha.jpg[height=500]
.Same as above, but with Alexander Malchenko edited out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:St_Petersburg_Union_of_Struggle_for_the_Liberation_of_the_Working_Class_-_Feb_1897_-_Altered.jpg[Source].
image::https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/90/Union-de-Lucha.jpg/640px-Union-de-Lucha.jpg[height=500]
.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_Yagami[Light Yagami] from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Note[Death Note]: "I can kill anyone by simply writing his name here". Stalin: "Bitch please". https://ifunny.co/picture/1-can-kill-anyone-by-simply-writing-his-name-here-TjXCcyuM2[Source].
image::https://web.archive.org/web/20200301233451/https://img.ifunny.co/images/55cb6c5de9cde6ebe7e9d1704c7f83e6d344e8154b44299fec9b9a029aa82c34_1.jpg[height=500]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZT2z0nrsQ8o "Rasputin vs Stalin." Epic Rap Battles of History YouTube video. This is fire. https://epicrapbattlesofhistory.fandom.com/wiki/Rasputin_vs_Stalin/Rap_Meanings[Explanations].
[[anti-russia-dictatorship-info-sources]]
==== Anti Russia dictatorship sources
* https://www.rferl.org/ Radio Free Europe: USA funded sister media of <<rfa>>: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Europe/Radio_Liberty
[[ccp-evil]]
=== Is the Chinese government evil? 中国共产党是邪恶吗？
Obviously not, just <<richer,inefficient>> and <<war,dangerous>>.
It is just another non-democratic empire like the Qing Dynasty, we might as well cal it:
____
Ciro Santilli
committed
共产朝 +
Expression previously mentioned at: https://web.archive.org/web/20161025220242/http://tieba.baidu.com/p/752094668
Like any other organization and individual everywhere in the entire world, they are just doing everything that they can to maintain their own power.
It just happens that China's the current is political system allows the CCP to do really bad things.
And it should also be noted that <<henri-meyer,it is in part the West's fault>> that China currently has this shitty system.
<<falun-gong>> thinks otherwise of course, they think the CCP is actually made up of devils in some dimension: <<does-ciro-santilli-believe-in-or-practice-falun-gong>>.
==== Chinese politicians really care about the Chinese citizens
Sometimes people say Ciro Santilli is naive.
Politicians are the same all over the world.
Some might have good intentions, but don't give a shit about anyone else.
But all must play a careful political game, and sometimes betray their own beliefs to not lose power entirely.
China's problem is not its politicians.
It's the current shitty political organization, which allows/convinces those politicians to do really bad things: <<richer>>, <<war>> and <<corruption>>.
The term evil does not make sense unless you are <<falun-gong,religious>>.
The best definition of evil is a psychopath with zero empathy for anyone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy although this can be better characterized as a disease or extreme personality trait.
The huge majority of those politicians are just regular dudes with a knack for politics but brought up in a fucked up political situation.
Just like you, Ciro Santilli and other politicians in any country.
=== Comparisons between the CCP and Nazi Germany 纳粹德国
* Xitler (习特勒). 习 "xi2" is very close in sound to the Chinese name of Hitler: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/阿道夫·希特勒[希特勒] (xi1 te4 le4)
* Chinazi (赤纳粹). TODO why 赤. Means Red, but where else is it used?
* link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum[Reductio ad Hitlerum]
The most notable aspect is the persecution of minorities of course, notably <<xinjiang>> and <<falun-gong>> which closely ressembles that of the Jews, see also: <<first-they-came>>.
Articles:
* http://yashalong.blog.caixin.com/archives/188877 这么好的人民，不倒点霉都对不起他们 "These are such good people, if they have a bit of bad luck, excuse them." article by yashalong 押沙龙 published on <<caixin>>. The article discusses how Nazi Germany propaganda worked, without mention to the CCP, but it was still apparently https://www.bannedbook.org/bnews/baitai/20190816/1175647.html[banned in China].
.Photoshopped <<xi-jinping>> with raised fist with Nazi uniform and flag on the background. https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/cuf3p7/chinazi_xitler/[Source].
image::https://web.archive.org/web/20191013080128if_/https://i.redd.it/c9q6vdybr7i31.jpg[height=400]
.Likely original or similar image of <<xi-jinping>> with raised fist as he took oath when coming into or renewing office. http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/2018-03/19/content_50723040.htm[Source].
image::https://web.archive.org/web/20180319114422im_/http://images.china.cn/site1007/2018-03/19/18f2dcae-19f4-459a-be06-016dd13c5a1d.jpg[height=400]
.German's 1938-1945 war flag called the "War Ensign of Germany" in English or "Reichskriegsflagge" in German. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichskriegsflagge[Source].
image::https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d0/War_Ensign_of_Germany_%281938%E2%80%931945%29.svg/320px-War_Ensign_of_Germany_%281938%E2%80%931945%29.svg.png[height=400]
.Hitler has of course a few raised fists on Google Images, but they tend to be more aggressive, and less compatible with Xi's apathic poker face. https://bodylanguageproject.com/xarticles/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Hitler-4.jpg[Source].
image::https://web.archive.org/web/20191218074716if_/https://allthatsinteresting.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/mouth-open.jpg[height=400]
.Photoshopped cover of Mein Kampf with Xi's face on top of Hitler's and other modifications such as Mian instead of Mein, likely the same 面 (mian4, face) as the Chinese character at the bottom right. https://foreignerinformosa.typepad.com/the_foreigner_in_formosa/2017/07/president-xitler-of-china-murders-political-dissident-liu-xiaobo.html[Source].
image::https://web.archive.org/web/20191013080043if_/https://foreignerinformosa.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834523d5069e201b7c90b8e9c970b-pi[height=400]
.Original cover of Mein Kampf. link:++https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Adolf_Hitler_-_Mein_Kampf_(855._Auflage,_1943).pdf++[Source].
image::https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b9/Adolf_Hitler_-_Mein_Kampf_%28855._Auflage%2C_1943%29.pdf/page1-423px-Adolf_Hitler_-_Mein_Kampf_%28855._Auflage%2C_1943%29.pdf.jpg[height=400]
.Photoshopped photo of Hitler giving the Nazi salute from a car with Himmler on the background with Xi's face on top of Hitler's. https://chinhdangvu1.blogspot.com/2017/09/xitler-chinazism.html[Source].
image::https://web.archive.org/web/20191013080031if_/https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DGlPeEmXcAAaeQa.jpg[height=400]
.Original photo of Hitler giving the Nazi salute from a car with Himmler on the background. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hitler-car.jpg[Source].
image::https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/b9/Hitler-car.jpg/640px-Hitler-car.jpg[height=400]
.Chinazi flag by <<2019-hong-kong-anti-extradition-bill-protests,Hong Kong protesters>>. Seen https://chinadigitaltimes.net/chinese/2019/08/【盛世一景】赤纳粹旗（chinazi-flag）/[on streets]. https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/dbrken/google_bomb_china_flag_search_query_into_chinazi/[Source].
image::https://web.archive.org/web/20191003190442if_/https://i.redd.it/c0d340rtswp31.png[height=400]
[[xi-salute-young-pioneers-nazi]]
.Xi Jinping basically <<nazi,Nazi saluting>> kids from <<young-pioneers-of-china>> in Beijing, June 1, 2015. http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-06/01/c_138108706.htm[Source] (http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-06/01/c_138108706.htm[biased]).
image::https://web.archive.org/web/20200109143505im_/http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-06/01/XxjwshE007055_20190601_CBMFN1A006_11n.jpg[height=500]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD53MEbLDIE <<serpentza-laowhy86,laowhy86>> video "Can We Compare China to Nazi Germany?" published on 2020-04-29. Good side-by-side video comparisons. Says that China is mor like Nazi than <<russia>>, but Ciro disagrees, all three are <is-chinese-politician-x-evil,evil dictatorships>>.
=== Personal questions about Ciro Santilli
==== Can I contact you in Chinese?
If you don't know English well enough, that's fine though, go for Chinese.
But if you do, use English.
I am not going to learn Chinese because of your message.
It is more productive for you to write in English, so that the rest of the West can also learn something new.
Especially since it seems that most Chinese already know what you are talking about.
Ciro Santilli
committed
[[slang]]
===== I am going to use a bunch of Chinese slangs because it makes me feel smart 我知道网络语言，我很聪明
Ciro Santilli
committed
Obviously, if you want to be understood, use simple and standard Chinese, since as Ciro has already stated clearly, his Chinese sucks: <<does-ciro-santilli-speak-chinese>>.
Ciro Santilli
committed
Avoid slangs, otherwise Ciro might not have patience to Google your useless slangs down <<zhihu,Zhihu>> questions.
Of course, if you have to read this, you likely are not going to say anything useful in the first place, so not reading your post is likely fine, just make sure to mark it as a <<shitpost>> if you don't want Ciro to think you are a complete idiot.
Ciro Santilli
committed
Using slangs makes some people feel smart due their advanced knowledge of a specific subculture, or makes them feel part of that subculture to gather allies, or they just want to waste Ciro's time.
It mainly comes down to a way of avoiding any rational conversation about China's obvious problems by highlighting <<not-chinese>>.
Ciro Santilli
committed
Such idiots don't see however that every major slang is Googleable, and that every overly obscure slang is already not understandable by a large part of the Chinese population, and won't be understood by anybody in 5 years, so that you are wasting your time writing this gibberish. But since you are an idiot, it's not like you have anything better to do with your time, so maybe it doesn't matter.
If you want to efficiently prevent anyone from understanding your stuff, Ciro recommends that you just use SHA-256 instead:
....
$ printf 'heil xi' | sha256sum
286b183bf41d6c9de5315bbd64f1ca35a58157ae2e7f38086978c108e67c4882 -
....
A Chinese insult tip 101, avoid similar sound euphemisms. If you are going to say shit at least grow some balls or tits and use the proper characters, Ciro will respect you more for it:
* 屄 cunt, most often for https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/傻屄[傻屄]
** 逼
*** "sb"
*** "B": https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/105
Places to try and decrypt Internet slang when you feel like wasting your time:
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/中国大陆网络用语列表
** "网络用语" is the most common word for "Internet Slang", so also useful for Google searches
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Internet_slang
https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues?q=label%3Ai-know-slangs-i-smart+
[[vagina]]
.A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vagina[Vagina] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/阴道[阴道]) also known as cunt (屄), is the female reproductive organ, including the naturally occurring black hole that appears in front of it whenever a picture is taken to prevent <<github>> from taking down this page. Even though <<porn,you've never seen one>>, there's no need to be afraid of it, and refer to it in euphemisms like "SB". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rugae_vaginales.jpg[Background source] and https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Black_Hole_Milkyway.jpg[black hole source].
image::{cirosantilli-media-base}/Rugae_vaginales_with_black_hole.jpg[height=400]
[[shitpost]]
===== I want to take my chances and make a shitpost in cirosantilli/china-dictatorship
So, have you reached the conclusion that your https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shitposting[shitpost] is link:CONTRIBUTING.md[worth the risk of getting blocked]?
Remember that shitposts can also be creative: if you are going to insult Ciro Santilli, at least do it in a creative way, or else you look like an even bigger idiot than you really are.
A collection of shitposts for you to take inspiration from can be found at: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues?q=label%3Ashitpost+
Also, when opening a shitpost you may mark it clearly such with the shitpost issue template which automatically assigns the shitpost label. Doing so will make you look like less of an idiot.
While we require polite replies to polite posts, no matter what which side they are defending, if a post is marked as a shitpost, things are much more relaxed and fun, and you can generally get away with telling the OP to fuck themselves link:CONTRIBUTING.md[without getting blocked].
.Real shit photos may be posted in reply to shitposts. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Human_Feces_(cropped).jpg[Source].
image::https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/50/Human_Feces_%28cropped%29.jpg/517px-Human_Feces_%28cropped%29.jpg[height=400]
.Amazing shitposts may recieve a Golden Shit award. The image is from a Japanese https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kin_no_unko[Kin no unko (金のうんこ)], which is likely inspired by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sycee[golden Sycees]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kin_no_unko.jpg[Source].
image::https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/30/Kin_no_unko.jpg/450px-Kin_no_unko.jpg[height=500]
.To censor or not to censor good shitposts: that is not the question, <<ciro-santilli>> will never censor them! https://imgur.com/gallery/rA0K90g[Source].
image::https://web.archive.org/web/20200120095415/https://i.imgur.com/rA0K90g.jpg?1[height=600]
.The legendary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grass_Mud_Horse[Grass Mud Horse 草泥马 (caonima)] is also said to appear in shitposts from time to time.
image::https://web.archive.org/web/20200209012342if_/https://kpopalypse.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/alca.jpg[height=600]
===== I am going to write a huge text to prove my point
Feel free to do that, but no one will ever read most of it.
If you want your comment to be read, choose your key point well, and deliver it.
It is a shame that most people who are ever able to do that are <<shitpost,shitposters>>, but credit where credit is due.
Not as of 2019, he has only visited once in 2012, and it was <<does-ciro-santilli-hate-china,amazingly beautiful>>.
.Ciro Santilli with a stone carved https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budai[Budai (布袋和尚)] in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Maitreya_and_disciples_carving_in_Feilai_Feng_Caves.jpg[Feilai Feng caves (飞来峰)] near the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingyin_Temple[Lingyin Temple (灵隐寺)] in Hangzhou taken during his legendary 2012 touristic trip to China. Will he ever be able to go to China again to re-experience such marvelous locations? If the CCP falls before he dies, and if the statue hasn't been destroyed by the commies, Ciro will return to that exact spot and take a second picture. How will he look like?
image::{cirosantilli-media-base}/Ciro_Santilli_with_a_stone_carved_Budai_in_the_Feilai_Feng_caves_near_the_Lingyin_Temple_in_Hangzhou_in_2012.jpg[height=500]
But he doesn't think it is a good idea for him to do that now, in case his Visa got accepted, because he is not interested in learning about the Chinese jail system! :-)
He knows that if you don't mind contributing to making <<war,WW3>> deadlier and shut up and obey the CCP, China is already a fine place to live as much as any other developing country.
===== Would Ciro Santilli like to live in China?
If the dictatorship ends, <<ciro-santilli>> would like to <<does-ciro-santilli-hate-china,migrate to China>> if given a decent job to help China develop and become awesomer.
Before the Dictatorship, Ciro likely won't be able to enter/it wouldn't be a good idea: <<would-ciro-santilli-be-able-to-visit-china-before-the-ccp-ends>>.
And it is immoral to help make dictatorships richer by working for their companies: <<what-should-western-countries-do-about-china>>.
===== Would Ciro Santilli be able to visit China before the CCP ends?
It would be interesting to apply for a VISA to find out.
But Ciro won't do it because it is too risky that it would be a waste of Ciro's precious <<better-to-do,time and money>>.
Firstly, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45812399[Jamal Khashoggi] taught us that walking into enemy into consulates of enemy countries is a bad idea.
Then, even if the VISA were accepted, Ciro could still be turned back on entering the country, thus wasting the flight time and money. This could either be a genius plot to waste the money of enemies of the state, or due to a crappy divided IT system between the border control and the VISA people.
Finally, even after the border, there is still the possibility that Ciro could be stopped in the country half-way through the visit and sent back, or be interrogated for a few days, or less likely murdered with poison.
Therefore, if you think that living in China is fundamental to understand it, please just explain what you think one can learn from the experience instead. Do you really need to live there to see its censorship machine working? It would arguably be harder to see it from the inside.
See also: <<what-should-pro-democracy-chinese-living-in-china-do-about-the-dictatorship>>.
Bibliography: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/93
[[is-ciro-santilli-chinese]]
==== Is Ciro Santilli Chinese? 三西猴是中国人吗？
See: https://cirosantilli.com/#ciro-santilli
But <<why-does-ciro-santilli-love-china-so-much,his wife is>>.
[[does-ciro-santilli-speak-chinese]]
==== Does Ciro Santilli speak Chinese? 三西猴会说中文吗？
As of 2019, oral enough for daily things, but not understand most natural casual dinner conversation or watch TV series, because they go too quickly into vocabulary subject areas that he doesn't know.
When it matters, and with some patience, Can can make himself understood though with https://xkcd.com/thing-explainer/[some analogies] (https://web.archive.org/web/20190908144612/https://xkcd.com/thing-explainer/[archive]) and a dictionary.
From the HSK vocabulary list, he estimates that ihe is definitely HSK 3, but not quite HSK 4. This would likely equate A2 / B1 in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Reference_for_Languages[European system].
Phonetics wise, Ciro can't distinguish or produce a few sounds, notably `-ing` vs `-in` and his off-tone rate is high, but it tends to not matter at all compared to the lack of vocabulary.
Ciro reads with link:https://www.perapera.org/[Perapera], write with a mixture of link:https://www.pleco.com/[Pleco], Google translate and Googling to see if Chinese actually say the sentences that way.
He <<characters,hasn't tried to learn characters>> because <<chinese-characters-are-insane,too much effort>>, but he did learn some of the most common ones without trying.
Ciro Santilli
committed
Ciro really wishes he could learn more, but he has other more important endeavors at the moment :-(
He initially learnt from book that come with audio recordings in the first 6-months to 1 year in 2010, but that got impossibly boring afterward, so he later moved to just basically talking as much as possible non-important things to <<why-does-ciro-santilli-love-china-so-much,his wife in Chinese>>, and whenever he reaches one that he doesn't know that seems useful, he Plecos it up or just 怎么说 to his <<wife>> and then Pleco.
Spoken Chinese is in Ciro's opinion a relatively easy language to learn from scratch, because word formation is so often logical:, e.g.:
* volcano = fire + mountain: 火山(huo shan)
* train = fire + car: 火车 (huo che), a reference to old https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_locomotive[steam locomotives]
and there is no useless crap like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_conjugation[verb grammatical conjugation], https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_gender[grammatical gender], https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plural[plural inflection], capitalization, etc.
Yes Chinese characters are beautiful, yes, https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/2003/can-chinese-readers-scan-large-amounts-of-text-faster-more-accurately-than-their[maybe you can read faster], and yes, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_and_vertical_writing_in_East_Asian_scripts[vertical text (纵排)] is awesome (but is it more efficient? https://www.zhihu.com/question/22104723[Zhihu], https://www.quora.com/Can-literate-Chinese-people-easily-read-vertical-writing[Quora]).
But they just take too much time for any sane adult to learn, it's harder than C++!
It should also be mentioned that Ciro also feels that it would be better if all countries more officially adopted English as an international language that everyone should learn for reasons explained at: https://cirosantilli.com/#having-more-than-one-natural-language-is-bad-for-the-world
.The Sweet Brown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ain%27t_Nobody_Got_Time_for_That[Ain't Nobody Got Time for That] meme (https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sweet-brown-aint-nobody-got-time-for-that[knowyourmeme]) fits perfectly into how Ciro feels about learning Chinese characters.
image::{cirosantilli-media-base}/Sweet_brown_chinese_characters_meme.jpg[height=500]
[[chinese-characters-are-insane]]
===== Chinese characters are insane 汉字是疯狂的
Maybe the commies for once <<richer,did something good>> by introducing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Chinese_characters[simplified Chinese characters (简化字)]?
But they should have gone further and reduced it to pinyin like the Korean and Vietnamese did, this will make your culture much easier to export.
<<ciro-santilli>> smirked when he came across the character "蒄" in Pleco, and the translation was: "meaning unknown (herb mentioned in old books)". Yes, at the word level, the same like exists in phonetic systems, but that it takes up a modern dictionary and Unicode slot is still funny.
.The "fictional" Chinese character "Dou" from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncyclopedia[Uncyclopedia] is roughly translated as "Impossibly complex pictogram-based writing system that takes a person a thousand thousand years to learn." and illustrates well why pictograms are a bad idea. https://uncyclopedia.ca/wiki/File:Chinese_character_extreme.svg[Source].
image::https://uncyclopedia.ca/w/images/e/e1/Chinese_character_extreme.svg[height=400]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_cbW5JK9WM "The most complex Chinese character" by Vladimir Skultety does a reasonable analysis of which Chinese character is the most complex
video::t_cbW5JK9WM[youtube,height=400,width=600]
[[evil-chinese-characters-by-ted-chiang]]
====== 坏汉字 by Ted Chiang
https://www.douban.com/group/topic/162835411/
Ciro's <<does-ciro-santilli-speak-chinese>> was mentioned in a related Zhihu answer: <<zhihu-ted-chiang-answer>>.
Saying that someone is a radical is useless <<brainwashed-by-usa,ad hominem>>.
If you want to say something useful, give specific reasons why you think one specific thing that <<ciro-santilli>> said is incorrect.
Do you consider him a radical because it is unthinkable that China is not perfect?
Or just because he's trying to <<keyword-attack,take down,>> some more websites that your dictatorship still does not dislike enough to block: <<china-is-fine-as-it-is-stop-making-it-worse>>?
Don't you think that it is much more radical to <<intolerance,be put in jail for your beliefs>> and <<censorship,silenced if you disagree with anything the government says>>?
Ciro doesn't think either China or West is perfect: <<western-media-has-exaggerated-reports-on-flg-for-propaganda-reasons>>.
He's just listing arguments why he thinks democracy is better, e.g.: <<richer>>, <<war>>.