Why would the US and the world leave Taiwan at the mercy of China?

By Boyko Nikolov 

BULGARIANMILITARY.COM

On Nov 9, 2021

PANAGYURISHTE, ($1=1.69 Bulgarian Levas) – A few days ago, US President Joe Biden answered a question asked by CNN journalist Anderson Cooper whether the United States would defend Taiwan in the event of an attack by China. Biden replied, “Yes, we have a commitment to do that.”

Biden went further in his speech, telling a broad audience of the TV channel that the United States is the most powerful army in the world and “Russia, China, and the whole world know this.”

Biden loves to talk and emphasize the superiority of Americans over the world. Another issue is that very often his words do not overlap with reality. Look at Afghanistan – the US president has stated emphatically that Kabul is in safe hands and there is no way a 330,000 army can fall at the feet of 70,000 Taliban. We already know what happened.

Another example of the US administration’s lack of orientation, in reality, is the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. Many members of the US Senate and Congress, as well as Biden and Donald Trump, have stated emphatically that Russia’s monopoly on natural gas production and transportation to Europe will be interrupted that Nord Stream 2 will be sanctioned, but again – we saw what happened.
Is Joe Biden’s statement serious?

US President Joe Biden’s remarks are ambiguous. It is not clear from his answer – how exactly will the United States defend Taiwan? There are two probabilities.

The first possibility is that the United States will continue to negotiate, sell and deliver its latest weapons technology to Taiwan, as it has done so far.

The second possibility – the United States to participate with its equipment, troops, and intelligence in a direct conflict between Taiwan and China.

There is a third probability, which is half, ie. with the help of satellite support, the United States to provide intelligence on the movement and deployment of Chinese troops, and military equipment.

However, such a categorical statement by Joe Biden is not serious about the audience – the one in the United States and the world. It is not diplomatic, it is not well thought out, which calls into question whether Biden listens to his advisers, or whether his advisers correctly rely on the political and economic situation in the world or the Indian Pacific region.

Such a statement takes us back to the Cold War when the economic situation itself was radically different – a Western market built on competition and capabilities, and an Eastern market, which was dictated by the USSR and was a closed circle of trade relations. Then, such a statement made sense, because the very signal it carries with it speaks of a change in political and economic relations around the world. Today the world is different and China is present.
The forgotten facts

Taiwan has its currency, widely accepted passport, postage stamps, Internet TLD, armed forces, and a constitution with an independently elected president. However, Taiwan is not a member of the United Nations and does not have observer status in the organization. The reason for this is China’s policy.

On October 25, 1971, UN Resolution 2758 was adopted by 76 votes to 35, with 17 abstentions, recognizing the People’s Republic of China as China’s sole representative to the United Nations. Countries that support China are France, India, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, and some of the abstaining countries are Japan and the United States.

Taiwan has formal diplomatic relations with 14 of the 193 UN member states and the Holy See. These are the so-called official diplomatic channels. In addition, many other countries maintain informal diplomatic ties through missions and institutions in Taiwan.

Notice which are the 14 countries that have official diplomatic relations with Taiwan and recognize the de facto independence of the island nation – Guatemala, Honduras, the Holy See, Haiti, Paraguay, Nicaragua, Eswatini, Tuvalu, Nauru, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Kitts, and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Belize, Marshall Islands, Balau.

China’s influence on recognizing Taiwan as a separate and independent country is enormous. China keeps all international organizations in check, forcing them not to grant Taiwan membership through politics and economics. Sometimes this barrier is overcome, but only if different names of Taiwan are used, which are again after agreement with China.
This is more of an internal conflict than an international one

In reality, if a war breaks out between the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan, it will be more of an internal conflict than a war between two countries. The UN will not support the United States and will try to prevent a war with diplomacy, trying to restore peace and return the two countries to their original position.

Russia is likely to take a neutral position, as will most UN members but will continue co-operation between Moscow and Beijing on the axis of military co-operation in production and know-how.

Much of Europe will remain neutral, and so will Central and South America. Britain and Japan are also unlikely to support the United States.

Taiwan will be abandoned by the United Nations and the world, forcing the United States to do the same. The very fact that the United States has no official diplomatic relations with Taiwan eloquently leads us to the outcome of this conflict.

The United States, Europe, and the world cannot send troops and military equipment to defend Taiwan. It will be a serious propaganda tool in the hands of Beijing, Moscow, and other opponents of Washington. This will lead to serious inflation and an economic crisis all over the world, on an unimaginable scale.

China is strong economically and that matters

After the United States, China is the world’s second-largest economy in terms of gross domestic product. The difference between the first two countries is minimal, while the difference between the second and third (Japan) is huge.

However, the influence of the Chinese economy on the world economic index is greater than that of the United States. China’s trade and foreign exchange trade worldwide is greater than that of the Americans.

Let’s not forget another important factor – the United States and China continue to trade, despite the economic sanctions that countries have exchanged in recent years. A war between the two countries, at the expense of a third (Taiwan), will be devastating for the standard of living in the two countries, for the price of their currency, for their economy and production.

If these two countries suffer, the whole world will suffer economically. The world will go back at least 100 years and start rebuilding its markets. Millions will die more from hunger, and misery than from the war itself, which is likely to take tens of thousands.

Biden’s last lie

No, the United States does not have the most powerful army in the world. This statement was valid 30-40 years ago. The words of US President Joe Biden are most likely dictated by one fact – the US has the largest military budget in the world (750-770 billion USD), which does not mean that it has the most powerful army.

China has the second-largest military budget in the world and has shown a new generation of weapons in recent years. We cannot say what the capabilities of Chinese weapons technology are, but we can say that they exist, that so far China and the United States have not faced each other in a confrontation, and that the outcome of this confrontation is unclear militarily.

Diplomacy

The United States, the world, and China must find a way to diplomacy, and one of the first steps is to stop heating their political and trade relations.

Otherwise, China will invade Taiwan, and neither the United States nor the rest of the world will be able to help the islanders. Taiwan will remain at the mercy of China

Unknown: F-22 Raptor covered with a mosaic of reflective material
By Boyko Nikolov 

On Nov 21, 2021

WASHINGTON – Military aviation photographer Santos Cáceres managed to capture an interesting innovation on the hull of the American stealth fighter of the fifth-generation F-22 Raptor during its takeoff from the Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. BulgarianMilitary.com has learned that the photo is new and was taken on November 19, 2021.

Photo credit: Santos Caceres

The photo shows that the “normal skin” of the F-22 Raptor has a carefully placed metal coating similar to tiles, precisely applied so as not to interfere with the key access points of the air jet, fighter sensors, and critical areas, and antenna areas.

Experts from The Drive say that such a metal coating has not been seen so far on such a class of aircraft by the US Air Force. It is assumed that this particular fighter tested the new coating in flight. It is not clear what the purpose of the metal coating is.

Military analysts point out that this is not the first time that American engineers have tested such components. Last year, in June, test flights of Scaled Composites Model 401 “Son Of Ares” also attracted attention, as the aircraft was covered with a reflective metal coating. The debate among experts at the time was in-depth and offered a variety of options for indoor use – from advanced infrared sensors to laser guidance systems.

The mention of infrared search and tracking systems [IRST] is not accidental. Currently, the US military is in the process of various tests of such systems. The concept is that in the future, infrared systems and laser systems will become leaders on the battlefield, and therefore, dozens of unmanned aerial vehicles in the United States receive such developments and are tested under different conditions.

There is a good reason for the F-22 Raptor to be part of the test program of such systems. This fighter often encounters thin and cold air, as it flies at altitudes above 60,000 feet (18-19 km), makes it at a certain angle, and often in the upper atmosphere. Experts suggest that tests at such heights are relevant to the innovations being tested. Otherwise, the Pentagon would use a standard fighter, such as the F-15 or F-16.

The very fact that the United States is investing in such a development suggests that this mirror metal coating of the F-22 Raptor is important for the United States and the highly changing geopolitical environment. It is possible that this mirror coating has evolved into a modular and non-invasive application that is now part of this development ecosystem.

F-22 fleet received $ 10 billion budget

As we reported on November 6, the U.S. Air Force signed a contract with Lockheed Martin to upgrade its F-22 Raptor fighter. The agreement concluded under the Advanced Raptor Enhancement and Sustainment program or ARES provides for up to 10 years of maintenance and modernization of the fifth-generation fighter.

According to the US Department of Defense, the contract will cover services including upgrades and technical support for Raptor. Lockheed Martin will also provide logistics services and upgrade equipment kits.

If all the terms of the contract are met, the Pentagon expects the work to be completed by October 31, 2031, that is, by the time the F-22 can theoretically retire.

Earlier, the Chief of Staff of the US Air Force, General Charles Quinton Brown Jr., spoke about the phasing out of the F-22 and the rationalization of the fighter fleet.

High-ranking Air Force officials are confident that this fighter will not have enough of its combat capabilities to provide an advantage in the air in the next decade.

At the same time, in the future, the United States plans to put into operation aircraft such as the F-35, F-15EX, F-16, and the sixth-generation NGAD fighter.

***

Ready for air taxis? Aerospace engineers and entrepreneurs aim to change how we see the sky

Sun., Nov. 21, 2021This NASA illustration shows a possible future air taxi hovering over a municipal vertiport. (Tribune News Service)

By Daniel DesrochersThe Kansas City Star

The next time you are outside, look up.

You might see houses, buildings, a few trees. Higher you may see some clouds, a commercial airplane, a military airplane. Maybe there’s a helicopter.

In other words, not much. That’s changing.

Aerospace engineers and entrepreneurs across the world are in a race to fundamentally change how we see the sky.

They are working on new air vehicles – in an industry called advanced air mobility that will be used to drop packages on your doorstep, transport people and cargo over shorter distances and could even give people the ability to call air-taxis.

“It’s not an if, it’s a when,” said Davis Hackenberg, the Advanced Air Mobility project manager for NASA. “Electric aviation is going to happen.”

Earlier this month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill sponsored by Kansas Rep. Sharice Davids that would create a working group to study what the federal government needs to do in regards to the fledgling industry. It now heads to the U.S. Senate, where it’s being shepherded by Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran.

The bill is an attempt to get the government prepared for what will likely change the future of transportation. It will mean everything from new safety regulations, to infrastructure in the form of “vertiports,” to getting the public onboard with the concept of drone-like planes flying around their neighborhoods.

It’s also an attempt to keep Kansas with its well-established aeronautics industry at the forefront of the next generation in flight.

“I think we’re well positioned to not only be able to be the air capital of the world for all the general aviation and commercial aircraft that we have been historically but we can be the air capital of the world for advanced air mobility too,” said Pierre Harter, the Director of Research and Development for National Institute for Aviation Research at Wichita State University.

For nearly a century, air travel has largely been limited to airplanes and helicopters. For the average passenger during much of that period, it’s meant going to an airport, sitting for an hour and getting herded into a seat that seems to get smaller every year.

But technology may soon change the way we think about flying.

Batteries keep getting smaller. Materials to build the aircraft are lighter than ever. Software is getting more sophisticated. A modern cockpit from 20 years ago can’t do half as much as the phone in your pocket, according to Harter.

It has enabled an even greater focus on electric technology in aviation over the past 15 years. That’s allowed for new aircraft designs. It’s changed the way they fly. It’s changed how aircraft can be used. It has made them quieter, so they can get closer to people’s homes.

“It’s a big, wide-open, wild west,” Harter said. “There’s a lot of people out there, a lot of dreamers trying to crack this nut. You have a lot of folks who are not traditionally aerospace who think they can crack this nut as well.”
End to ‘transportation deserts?’

Already, companies like Joby Aviation, which has investments from Uber, are testing passenger vehicles in the hopes of getting them certified with the FAA. Amazon and Wing, which is owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet, already have permission to use drones to deliver packages in some places. Hyundai has an advanced air mobility group and traditional aviation companies like Boeing have invested in start-ups.


So what, exactly, would this future look like?

Maybe you’re walking down the street to the vertiport, where you’ll catch an air taxi because you’re a little late to work. Something flies overhead, just above the houses. It may hover over its destination and send a string down to drop a package. Maybe, higher in the sky, there’s a vehicle carrying cargo from a business to the airport, but you don’t really notice because it’s so quiet, unlike a helicopter.

“I think over the next 10ish years … it’s realistic to say that you’re going to see some on the way to work in the morning,” Hackenberg said.

It won’t all happen at once. First, Harter said, we’re likely to see some of these planes, with a pilot, carrying boxes from one place to another. Those trips would enable companies to get comfortable with the technology and meet safety requirements so they can start flying with passengers. Then it will start to become autonomous.

“It won’t be autonomous to begin with,” Harter said. “There’s just a lot of development that has to be done, a lot of infrastructure that has to be built, a lot of public confidence that has to be built, not to mention the regulators have to approve it all first.”

As the new aircraft become more common, the result could be something as simple as cutting down travel time within urban and suburban areas, making it slightly easier to get to the airport or from the suburbs to downtown. But they could also be used to help get rid of “transportation deserts,” making it easier for a doctor to reach a patient in a rural area who has limited access to a hospital.

“I think part of the challenge is it’s going to depend a lot on the community’s priorities,” said Nancy Mendonca, the community integration lead for NASA’s AAM Mission. “And then understanding what the local community wants.”

There are a lot of outstanding questions before advanced air mobility becomes commonplace. There are safety precautions and regulations that need to be developed. There is pilot training and workforce development. There’s the cost. There’s figuring out who would use this type of transportation. There’s figuring out whether people want to have these aircraft near there homes, no matter how quiet companies say they are.

There are still more advances in technology that need to happen if you want them to go farther than 150 miles and to be unmanned. There’s infrastructure that cities and towns will need to create. There will be arguments over where to put vertiports. There will be questions of access, whether they will just be toys for the bourgeoisie or available to the hoi polloi.

The working group that would be formed if the bill passes Congress would be tasked to answer some of those questions.

“When drones were first being discussed, we kind of got behind the curve on that,” Davids said. “And I want to make sure that doesn’t happen with this emerging technology.”

Davids said she was “excited” about the industry, which is projected to grow significantly over the next 15 years. A report produced by Deloitte this January projected that the market around advanced air mobility could pull in an estimated $115 billion by 2035 and employ more than 280,000 people.

Hackenberg, from NASA, said there is going to be intense competition around the world and said, in his opinion, America “must win.”

“Aviation is the future,” Hackenberg said. “There’s a ton of competition. It’s like automotive, it’s gonna be distributed … there’s going to be vehicles and such built everywhere. But we need to own. We need to have the General Motors and the Fords. And hopefully, the Toyotas and the Tesla’s and everything else.”

Denver Airport Janitors Win Raise After Pre-Thanksgiving Strike

Sun, November 21, 2021


Hundreds of janitors at Denver International Airport walked out on the job on Saturday, November 20, before reaching a deal that included what their union called a “historic” $4-an-hour raise.

The Service Employees International Union Local 105 said janitors were striking to demand “fair wages and workloads” from their employer.

The agreement with Flagship Facility Services still needs to be ratified by union members, the Denver Post said.

The proposed $4 hourly raise would come in three increments over a three-year contract and would raise top-level pay for janitors to $21, local media reported.

Video posted by the Service Employees International Union Local 105 on Twitter shows workers celebrating the agreement. Credit: SEIU Local 105 via Storyful

Denver Airport Janitors Win Raise After Pre-Thanksgiving Strike (yahoo.com)

Kyle Rittenhouse Just Killed our Right to Peacefully Protest


Cliff Schecter
Sat, November 20, 2021

Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty

Only in America.

There are certainly other countries where a young man known to hang out with a fascist gang but not a member of any “well-regulated militia” could drive 20 miles across state lines in the direction of unrest while toting a gun illegally to end up shooting and killing other humans and walk away a-ok.

Yet, much like those with whom we compare these days in world health-care system rankings or our use of the death penalty, they’re not countries the world’s oldest sorta-still-going democracy should be proud to join on those lists. (“Hey, what’s the problem? We’re handling these things just like Lithuania and Colombia!”).

The point is that what happened with Kyle Rittenhouse doesn’t happen in any other high-income liberal democracy—and one that has gotten quite drunk on referring to itself as the leader of the free world and a beacon of opportunity might really wanna, at this point, check itself before it wrecks itself.

By the end of the trial, Strom Thurmondesque Judge Bruce Schroeder only surprised me by not offering Kyle a horsey ride on his knee and free NRA lifetime membership. If Schroeder seemed like a cartoon character out of Bugs Bunny or an extra from The Dukes of Hazzard, that’s because it’s pretty much what he is.

The Kyle Rittenhouse Judge’s Six Most Shocking Moments at Trial

It hasn’t stopped him from getting elected again and again and again to be a judge in Kenosha, Wisconsin. There’s a reason Innocence Projects across the land have freed thousands of wrongly convicted men and women. You saw just a little bit of it on live TV this past week.

I will mention one ruling that was germane not only to this trial, but to this whole dreadful episode, and by that I don’t mean just Kyle Rittenhouse. I mean the past 20 years of right-wing zealots and death profiteers’ attacking gun laws in this country to where they’re now beyond recognition if one applies any reason to their intent. In this case, Judge Schroeder used what can only be called a purposeful misinterpretation to let Kyle Rittenhouse skate on a gun charge.

Before the creation of the military style assault weapon in the mid 20th century, rifles and shotguns were the “long guns” (since our founding) our gun laws were meant to regulate. They were for hunting, and far less lethal than handguns. Kyle Rittenhouse’s possession of an assault rifle, far more lethal than a handgun, should have meant stricter laws meant to curb gun violence would be applied. A 17-year-old Rittenhouse was clearly not meant to possess a weapon of war.

Yet, Schroeder chose to apply a law created with a wholly different intent—to allow kids to hunt certain animals during the proper season with their families—to absolve Rittenhouse of illegally carrying a firearm explicitly created to hunt a very different species: Humans.

Whatever happened on the street that led Rittenhouse to shoot and kill other human beings just doesn’t matter. Because, in every functioning democracy, a 17 year old choosing to place himself there with a weapon meant to kill would be considered outrageous, as it is, and he would’ve gone to prison for it. He created the confrontation by being there with that weapon, and then claimed self defense when it didn’t—or perhaps did—go the way he planned.

The very idea of self defense here is full of more bullshit than the Dutton Yellowstone Ranch.

But over the past 20 years, even before the GOP became a wholly owned subsidiary of a racist real-estate debtor, the NRA was paving the way for white nationalism—encouraging vigilante violence, launching scurrilous attacks on law enforcement and propagandizing with blatantly racist material. They’ve put their every waking hour into creating an America where Kyle Rittenhouse could claim self defense even when being somewhere he shouldn’t be, with a weapon he should never possess.

Through Stand Your Ground Laws, Castle Laws and the like, they’ve worked to transform us from a responsible citizenry where people retreated or avoided these situations when at all possible to a country where as long as you’re white, there’s no culpability as long as you can claim to have had an iota of an inkling that perhaps someone might have harmed you had you not shot them first. Right-wing media, Donald Trump, and a thousand baby Trumps have finished the job the NRA started. And so we’re here.

And the signal this trial sends—much like the trial of George Zimmerman and those of numerous cops who shot first and asked questions later in recent years including the shooting of Jacob Blake seven times in the back, which led to the protest where Rittenhouse decided his presence was necessary—is that lives matter. White lives, that is.

We’ve now lost our guaranteed First Amendment right to peacefully assemble to a half-cocked, cocaine-cowboy version of the Second Amendment. Mix that together with a witch’s brew of right-wing propaganda and white power, and the result is that any time you march for your rights you have to accept that any dimestore Kyle Rittenhouse can point a weapon of war at you and pull the trigger.

Only in America.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Rep. Cori Bush calls for expulsion of House Republicans who offered Kyle Rittenhouse an internship, says her job feels 'more and more dangerous' every day

Morgan Keith
Sat, November 20, 2021

U.S. Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., speaks during an interview Friday, Nov. 12, 2021, in Northwoods, Mo. Rep. Bush claims on social media that white supremacists shot at protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, but the city’s police chief says he was unaware of any such incident.AP Photo/Jeff Roberson


Rep. Cori Bush said in a tweet that every day working in Congress feels increasingly dangerous.


Rep. Paul Gosar and two other House Republicans have offered Kyle Rittenhouse an internship.


Bush called for Gosar's expulsion last week over a violent tweet that he was later censured over.

On Saturday, Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., tweeted out a call for expulsion of House Republicans who are offering internships to Kyle Rittenhouse, an 18-year-old from Wisconsin who was acquitted Friday on five charges related to his fatal shooting of two men and injury of a third during protests in August over the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

"Just being real: every day it feels more and more dangerous coming to work. Not only do these members fuel violence. Now they're actively recruiting someone whose sole qualification is killing people standing up for Black lives and getting away with it," Bush tweeted. "They must be expelled."

Bush included screenshots of three public offers to hire Rittenhouse as an intern from Republican Reps. Paul Gosar, Matt Gaetz, and Madison Cawthorn. Rittenhouse's criminal defense attorney said he thinks his client pursuing a career in politics would not be a "wise thing" to do in response to the offers.

However, this is not Bush's first time calling for the expulsion of Gosar.

Last week, Bush called for the expulsion of the Arizona Republican, who she called a "white supremacist clown" after he tweeted a violent "Attack on Titan" anime edit that was altered to depict him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.

The House of Representatives voted Wednesday to censure Gosar over the tweet, stripping him of his committee assignments.

Colin Kaepernick On Rittenhouse Verdict: 'White Supremacy Cannot Be Reformed'

Mary Papenfuss
Sat, November 20, 2021

Activist-athlete Colin Kaepernick on Friday called out the system that allowed for the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse on all charges in the shooting deaths of two unarmed men and the wounding of a third.

The verdict “further validates the need to abolish our current system. White supremacy cannot be reformed,” Kaepernick tweeted Friday.

“We just witnessed a system built on white supremacy validate the terroristic acts of a white supremacist,” wrote the former San Francisco 49s quarterback, who was forced out of the NFL after taking a knee before games to protest racism and police brutality.


The day he shot three people, Rittenhouse, then 17, had traveled from Illinois with an AR-15-style rifle to a protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, against the police shooting of Black resident Jacob Blake.


Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) expressed a similar perspective to Kapernick’s about who is protected in America. “What we are witnessing is a system functioning as designed and protecting those it was designed for,” she tweeted.


Outspoken former ESPN personality Jemele Hill also called out white supremacy’s role in the Rittenhouse verdict.



This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.

Hundreds protest Rittenhouse acquittal across US



 

Sat, November 20, 2021,


PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Law enforcement in Portland declared a riot Friday night as about 200 demonstrators protested the acquittal of a teen who killed two people and injured another in Wisconsin.

The protesters were breaking windows, throwing objects at police and talking about burning down a local government building in downtown Portland, the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office said. The crowd had dispersed by about 11 p.m., KOIN TV reported.

The Portland Police Bureau said several people were given citations, but only one person who had an outstanding warrant from another matter was arrested.

The protesters gathered following the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse, 18, in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Rittenhouse killed two people and injured another during a protest against police brutality in Wisconsin last year.

Protests have been held in several other U.S. cities into Saturday over the verdict, including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

About 1,000 people marched through downtown Chicago Saturday afternoon, organized by Black Lives Matter Chicago and other local activist groups. According to the Chicago Tribune, protesters held signs that stated, “STOP WHITE SUPREMACY” and “WE’RE HITTING THE STREETS TO PROTEST THIS RACIST INJUSTICE SYSTEM” with a picture of Rittenhouse carrying a weapon.

Tanya Watkins, executive director of Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation, spoke at a rally in Federal Plaza before the march, according to the Tribune.

“While I am not surprised by yesterday’s verdict, I am tired. I am disappointed. I am enraged. … I have lost every ounce of faith in this justice system,” said Watkins, who is Black.

In North Carolina, dozens of people gathered Saturday near the state Capitol building to protest the verdict, the Raleigh News & Observer reported. Speakers led the crowd of roughly 75 people in chants of “No justice, no peace!” and “Abolish the police!” Police officers on motorcycle accompanied the protesters and blocked traffic for them as they marched down a street past bars and restaurants.

After the murder of George Floyd last year by police in Minneapolis, there were ongoing, often violent protest in Portland. Some activists complained that the police were heavy-handed in their response. Shortly after the Rittenhouse verdict, Portland Police Bureau Chief Chuck Lovell said that officers were working on plans for Friday night and the weekend.

By about 8:50 p.m., about 200 protesters had gathered in downtown Portland and blocked streets. By 9 p.m., windows were broken and doors of city facilities were damaged.

The Multnomah County Sheriff's Office designated the event a riot, and said in a news release Saturday that some demonstrators had thrown urine, water bottles and batteries at deputies.

Kenosha Protest Shootings Reaction

A worker pressure washes around a boarded-up bank behind a vandalized bus stop in Los Angeles, Saturday, Nov. 20, 2021. Protests broke out in Los Angeles and other cities across the U.S. following the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse on all charges Friday after he testified that he acted in self-defense when he fatally shot two men in Kenosha, Wis., during a protest in 2020. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)More

Kyle Rittenhouse 'didn’t deserve to walk free': Top Wisconsin paper trashes 'chilling' not guilty verdict

Tom Boggioni
November 20, 2021

Kyle Rittenhouse

Saturday afternoon, the editorial board of the Wisconsin State Journal released a scathing editorial calling the not guilty verdicts in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial "chilling" and asserting that he should have been punished after killing two Black Lives Matter protesters

Leaving little doubt about the board viewed the outcome, they titled their piece: "Kyle Rittenhouse verdict sends a chilling message to Wisconsin and the rest of the country."

Getting right to the point, the editors wrote, "This wasn't the message Wisconsin or our nation needed to hear, even if the jury correctly followed the law."

"The disappointing verdict is sure to embolden militant people who seek to take the law into their own hands. It also could increase and complicate self-defense claims if more people carry — and use — firearms in the streets. That's a scary prospect," they then added.

The board decried those who are trying to turn the teen into a hero and suggested that jail time was warranted.

"Rittenhouse is no hero, as some of his defenders pretend. He behaved like a vigilante and didn't deserve to walk free, given his recklessness. Yet the law, unfortunately, skews in favor of shooters who claim self-defense. That needs to change," they wrote before claiming, "Rittenhouse, then 17, wasn't making anyone safer by parading through crowds of angry people with a semiautomatic rifle strapped to his chest and, according to prosecutors, pointing it at people before the conflict escalated."

According to the editorial, there is plenty of blame to spread around.

After writing, "If carrying an AR-15 down a crowded street isn't provocative, what is?" they added, "Rittenhouse even got off on a gun charge despite getting his weapon from a friend because he couldn't legally purchase it. Blame the state Legislature, not the judge who dismissed the charge, for that."

After providing the legislature with a roadmap to laws that need to be changed to limit a similar incident, they returned to the root of the problem.

"If Rittenhouse was justified in his actions, how does that apply if two people openly carry guns and point them at each other? Whose self-defense claim takes priority? Our state should be discouraging standoffs with guns, rather than encouraging more people to arm themselves out of fear or revenge," they wrote before concluding, "Did Rittenhouse face an unlawful threat that night in Kenosha, and was his use of force reasonable and necessary? The jury ultimately answered 'yes,' and we respect their decision — even though we don't like it. Responsible citizens who want to discourage similar tragedies should pressure their elected leaders for smarter gun laws. We the people, through our democracy, must demand that this troubling saga never happens again."

You can read more here.

There's nothing more frightening in America today than an angry White man

Supporters of President Donald Trump protest after storming the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.


Analysis by John Blake, CNN

 Sat November 20, 2021

(CNN)The Brute. The Buck. And, of course, the Thug.

Those are just some of the names for a racial stereotype that has haunted the collective imagination of White America since the nation's inception.

The specter of the angry Black man has been evoked in politics and popular culture to convince White folks that a big, bad Black man is coming to get them and their daughters.

I've seen viral videos of innocent Black men losing their lives because of this stereotype. I've watched White people lock their car doors or clutch their purses when men who look like me approach. I've been racially profiled.

It's part of the psychological tax you pay for being a Black man in America -- learning to accept that you are seen by many as Public Enemy No. 1.

But as I've watched three separate trials about White male violence unfold across the US these past few weeks -- the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, the Ahmaud Arbery death trial and the civil case against organizers of the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville -- I've come to a sobering conclusion:

There is nothing more frightening in America today than an angry White man.

Kyle Rittenhouse carries a rifle in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on August 25, 2020, during a night of unrest following the police shooting of Jacob Blake. Rittenhouse shot three people, two fatally, that night but was acquitted this week after claiming self-defense.

It's not the "radical Islamic terrorist" that I fear the most. Nor is it the brown immigrant or the fiery Black Lives Matter protester, or whatever the latest bogeyman is that some politician tells me I should dread.

It's encountering an armed White man in public who has been inspired by the White men on trial in these three cases.

The US' legacy of White male violence

I'm not suggesting we start racially profiling White men. The vast majority of White men are no menace to society.

Countless White men swallowed tear gas and braved rubber bullets while marching with demonstrators during last year's protests over the murder of George Floyd. Plenty of White men -- like the Rev. James Reeb, a White Unitarian minister -- died for Black people during the civil rights movement.

There is nothing inherently violent about White men, or any human being.

But recent events have convinced me it's time to put another character on trial: A vision of White masculinity that allows some White men to feel as if they "can rule and brutalize without consequence."

Demonstrators during a protest outside the US Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021.

This angry White man has been a major character throughout US history. He gave the country slavery, the slaughter of Native Americans, and Jim Crow laws. His anger also helped fuel the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol.

It's this angry White man -- not the Black or brown man you see approaching on the street at night -- who poses the most dangerous threat to democracy in America.

That's a sweeping claim. But these trials represent something bigger than questions of individual guilt or innocence. They offer a disturbing vision of the future, and a choice about what kind of country we want to live in.

The facts of the trials are well known to many Americans.

In Wisconsin, a jury found Kyle Rittenhouse not guilty of all charges in the shooting deaths of two men and the wounding of another during a racial protest last year.

 Rittenhouse, who was 17 at the time, said he was in Kenosha during the protests after the police shooting of Jacob Blake to help protect property. He said he shot the men in self-defense.

In Georgia, three White men are accused of chasing and killing Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, last year while he was jogging. The men say they were trying to conduct a lawful citizen's arrest, and the man who shot Arbery says he acted in self-defense.

Defendant Greg McMichael listens during the trial over Ahmaud Arbery's shooting death on November 8, 2021, in Brunswick, Georgia.

And in Virginia, a civil trial is underway to determine if organizers of the "Unite the Right" rally intended to incite racial violence. One person was killed and dozens injured there after White supremacists clashed with counter-demonstrators.

Race is an inescapable theme that runs through all the trials. At the center of each are White men who are accused of using unjustified violence, either against an unarmed Black man or during racial protests. In Rittenhouse's case, a jury cleared him of criminal wrongdoing.

It's what's happening outside these courtrooms, though, that is most frightening. It suggests these trials are a symptom of a dangerous shift.

Our politics are becoming more menacing

If there was an Exhibit A to describe this shift, it might be an animé video. Earlier this month, Republican Rep. Paul Gosar posted a photoshopped animé video to his Twitter and Instagram accounts showing him attacking President Joe Biden and appearing to kill Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with a sword.

The House voted this week to censure Gosar, with virtually no Republicans backing the resolution. Gosar took down the video after facing criticism but did not apologize, and later retweeted a post that contained the video.

Congressman Paul Gosar of Arizona takes an elevator on Capitol Hill in Washington on November 17, 2021.

Gosar's video wasn't an isolated incident. Violent political rhetoric has been escalating among some members of the Republican Party. And while not all of it is fueled by White men, much of it starts at the top -- with former President Donald Trump.

Trump's violent and sexist rhetoric has been well-documented. More White men now identify as Republican, and the gender gap between both major parties is as large as it's ever been in the last two decades.

One New York Times columnist, under the headline "The Angry White Male Caucus," said this anger is driven by White men who fear a changing America "in which the privilege of being a white man isn't what it used to be."

The anger also seems to be getting worse. After President Joe Biden signed an infrastructure bill into law this month, some House Republicans who voted for it reported receiving death threats. Election officials and school board members across the country are also reporting escalating threats. A recent poll revealed that 30% of Republicans believe that violence is justified to save the country.

Political violence is not limited to the GOP. A Bernie Sanders supporter who publicly declared his hatred of conservatives shot five people at a Republican baseball practice in 2017.

But talking about assaulting and killing political enemies has become so normal -- and seemingly acceptable -- in conservative circles today that a White man felt comfortable enough to ask a right-wing activist at a public forum in Idaho last month:

"When do we get to use the guns? ... How many elections are they going to steal before we kill these people?"

President Donald Trump speaks during a rally on March 4, 2016, at Macomb Community College in Warren, Michigan.

Add to this toxic political atmosphere another element: Laws that not only protect White vigilante violence but, in some cases, seem to embolden vigilantes.

Activists hoped that widely seen videos showing White police officers and White men shooting Black men like Arbery would inspire the courts and state legislatures to revisit laws that made such actions possible.

But even after nationwide protests over the murder of George Floyd by a White police officer, little has changed. A growing number of Americans now want police funding increased. And though Georgia overhauled its citizen's arrest law, a reform bill called the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act died in Congress two months ago.

We could see more guns on the streets

The conservative-leaning US Supreme Court now seems poised to make it easier for people to carry guns in public, based on recent oral arguments over a New York gun control law.

The US' civilian population is already the most heavily armed in the world. And our streets could soon become even more violent.

"A significant portion of the gun safety movement's current agenda is likely to come under attack in the coming years," Adam Winkler, a UCLA law professor and author of "Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America," recently told Newsweek. "I think bans on assault weapons and bans on high-capacity magazines are ripe for the new Supreme Court, with its newly invigorated Second Amendment, to strike down."

Members of far-right militias rally near Stone Mountain Park in Georgia on August 15, 2020.

The Supreme Court has also recently ruled once again in favor of "qualified immunity," the legal doctrine that shields police officers accused of misconduct. There's been little national movement on reforming "stand your ground laws," some of which allow people who believe they're facing an imminent threat to use lethal force without first trying to escape. At least 25 states have such laws, according to the National Conference of State Legislators.

And despite the shocking nature of the Arbery video, there's been little progress on reforming citizen's arrest laws, which allow private citizens to detain or arrest someone they suspect in a crime.

The White men on trial in the Rittenhouse and Arbery cases both said they acted in self-defense. One of the men in the Arbery case testified that the unarmed Black jogger tried to take his gun, and his life was at risk.

But consider the potential danger of other White men -- or any person wielding a gun in public -- feeling emboldened to use deadly force against even an unarmed person by evoking the logic in those defenses, said Eric Ruben, a Second Amendment expert.

Judge Bruce Schroeder, left, Kyle Rittenhouse, center, and his attorney Mark Richards watch an evidence video during Rittenhouse's trial on November 12, 2021 in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

"In other words, their own decision to carry a gun became a justification to use it, lest it be wrested away from them," Ruben recently told the New York Times.

While prosecutors didn't show that Rittenhouse was angry that night, there is a perception -- fair or not -- that he went to Kenosha for reasons more than simply maintaining public safety.

The comedian Trevor Noah reflected this sentiment in a comment that became a meme: "No one has ever thought, 'Oh, it's my solemn duty to pick up a rifle and protect that TJ Maxx."

And finally, there's a growing fear that no one will be severely punished for the January 6 insurrection because most of the rioters were White. The trials of various defendants are winding their way through the courts now. Jacob Chansley, the so-called "QAnon Shaman," was sentenced to 41 months in prison for his role in the US Capitol riot.

Jacob Anthony Angeli Chansley, known as the "QAnon Shaman," is seen at the Capital riots on January 6, 2021 in Washington. He was recently sentenced to 41 months in prison.

But many believe the punishment will never match the severity of the crime. What if, say, a mob of Black Lives Matter protesters attacked the US Capitol in an attempt to overturn the election of a Republican president? How do you think conservative lawmakers would react?

We are seeing more threats, more guns and more suspicion that the courts will go easy on White people who employ violence. This is the combustible mix that makes more violence almost inevitable.

Angry White men have damaged democracy

We have enough problems with White male violence as it is. Mass shootings in the US are committed more often by White men than by any other group. Top law enforcement officials now say the nation's biggest domestic terror threat comes from White supremacists. And many of the most indelible news images of recent years include angry, red-faced White men, often armed with guns.

Trump supporters clash with police and security forces as they try to storm the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 in Washington.

Consider scenes from the US Capitol riot, which were filled with angry White men wielding crude weapons and pummeling police. Or the snarling faces of young White men holding tiki torches during the 2017 rally in Charlottesville. Or the angry White men who clashed with anti-racist protesters across the US last year.

White male anger has become one of the most potent political forces in contemporary America. That anger helped a White man win the White House. Trump's rise to power is inconceivable without his ability to tap into White male anger and embody it.

Has there ever been an angrier modern president? He is the White male id unleashed.
This White male anger is causing many people -- including other White men -- to look over their shoulder when they go out in public. The two men who were shot and killed by Rittenhouse in Wisconsin were White, as was the man he wounded.

Ijeoma Oluo, author of "Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America," wrote that she lives with the constant fear that angry White men will turn violent toward her and "countless other black people, brown people, disabled people, queer people, trans people, and women of every demographic."

White male anger could prove to be one of the biggest roadblocks we face in building a successful multiracial democracy.

White supremacists chant at counter protesters after marching through the University of Virginia campus with torches in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 11, 2017.

Lee Drutman, a scholar who has studied political violence, recently told the New York Times: "I have a hard time seeing how we have a peaceful 2024 election after everything that's happened now. I don't see the rhetoric turning down, I don't see the conflicts going away. I really do think it's hard to see how it gets better before it gets worse."
This isn't hyperbole. It's history. It happened before.

After the Civil War, the US attempted to build the first biracial democracy by incorporating formerly enslaved people into the country's political and economic life. That period, known as Reconstruction, was destroyed primarily by the violence of White men who used terrorist and vigilante groups like the KKK to assassinate elected officials, prevent Blacks from voting and overthrow state governments.

In 1898, for example, a mob of primarily White men staged a coup against the city government of Wilmington, North Carolina, which had elected a multiracial coalition of leaders. More than 60 Black people were killed, and Black residents of the city were barred from voting, and from elected office, for decades afterward.

The January 6 insurrection wasn't unprecedented. In many ways it was a sequel.


No more lectures about Black 'thugs'

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham warned the GOP that "We're not generating enough angry White guys to stay in business for the long term."

He was wrong. The angry White guy business is booming. Yet no matter how obvious it becomes that the country has a problem with White male violence, most Americans will escape what Black and brown men experience on a weekly basis.

Trump supporters clash with police and security forces as people try to storm the US Capitol on January 6.

Not many drivers will lock their doors when White men approach at a stoplight. Few women will clutch their purse when they pass a White man on the street.

Someone recently posted a meme about this double standard by evoking the memory of Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old Black boy who was killed in Cleveland by a police officer who authorities said mistook his toy pistol for a real firearm.

"Tamir Rice was 12 and killed for having a fake toy gun. Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, killed two people. Walked by police after killing two people. Got to go home and sleep."

That meme is why it's hard for me for to tolerate hearing another lecture about "Black thug culture" or a "Black culture of violence."

My response to the White men who use these tired phrases: Look in the mirror.

And look at these three trials, because they point to one frightening future. This is what that future looks like: More angry White men emboldened by "stand your ground" and citizen's arrest laws, inspired by a conservative interpretation of the Second Amendment.

And more dead Americans.

POSTMODERN STALINISM

What happens to China’s disappeared – and why do so few in the West care?

Luke Mintz
Fri, November 19, 2021, 

'A faux pas that inadvertently ‘hurts the feelings of the Chinese people’ can kill your brand there in a minute,' says Dr Jonathan Sullivan

As a child in the enormous, crowded Chinese city of Tianjin, doctors told Peng Shuai she would never play tennis professionally because of a heart defect. Unperturbed, she underwent heart surgery aged 13, and by 15 had broken into China’s national tennis scene. She became known for her ferocious style of play, and her rare tendency to return a serve with both hands gripped to her racquet. In her late teens she bristled at attempts by Communist Party apparatchiks to collect two-thirds of her earnings; eventually, she was allowed to keep her money, as long as she “brought glory” upon China. By 27, she had won doubles at both Wimbledon and the French Open.

But on November 2 this year, a chilly night in Tianjin, her good fortune came to an end. In a lengthy blog posted to Weibo (the Chinese version of Twitter), the 35-year-old described an incident, some years ago, claiming she had been forced into sex by retired party official Zhang Gaoli, while a guard stood watch outside the door – an abuse of power that left her feeling “like a walking corpse”, she wrote. “I was so scared that afternoon. I never gave consent, crying the entire time.”

Unfortunately for Peng, the man she accused – a married 75-year-old – is also a former vice-premier of the Communist Party’s politburo, and ally of President Xi Jinping. Her post was wiped from the internet within minutes, although screenshots continue to circulate. There have been no confirmed sightings has of Peng in public since. (Zhang has so far made no comment).

Peng Shuai is a household name in China - Reuters

On Wednesday, Chinese state broadcaster CGTN released a mysterious statement it claimed had been written by Peng, in which she reversed her claim of sexual assault, adding: “I’m not missing. I’ve just been resting at home and everything is fine.” It was followed this weekend by purportedly new photos and video footage showing Peng in a Beijing restaurant with friends. China experts have expressed scepticism about the authenticity of both. For Nathan Law, the pro-democracy dissident who fled last year from Hong Kong to London, the statement bears all the hallmarks of a forced confession, a favoured tool of the Chinese authorities. “Whenever a scandal is revealed, Chinese authorities silence or attack the victim,” Law says.

Experts suggest that Peng was probably abducted into the government’s programme of “enforced disappearances”, known officially as RSDL – Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location. Usually, somebody who has criticised the Chinese regime vanishes for several months, while they are interrogated in a nondescript government building. It is not quite as punishing as prison, although some inmates are beaten by guards; others are deprived of sleep. Then, they re-emerge in society with an outwardly different personality, their plucky mode of resistance replaced by a supine deference to Beijing authorities.

The tactic began in the 1990s, but has quickened pace since the 2011 Jasmine Revolution (a crackdown on human rights campaigners), writes Dr Teng Biao, a human rights lawyer, in The People’s Republic of the Disappeared. Fear of a state-ordered van pulling up outside your home in the middle of the night is now the permanent background hum of Chinese politics – always there, but rarely mentioned.

“Everything points towards [Peng] being held in the RSDL system,” says Peter Dahlin, director of the Safeguard Defenders advocacy group. He estimates at least 10,000 people were taken into RSDL last year. “Part of the way they put pressure on you is solitary confinement, which can be incredibly damaging.”

And Dahlin would know – it happened to him. On January 3 2016, he was in his eighth year working at a pro-human rights organisation in Beijing. At 9.45pm, he heard an explosive bang at his door. Uniformed state officers swarmed in. He was blindfolded, along with his girlfriend. They were placed in separate cars and driven to a drab, four-storey former office block.

“[I was] freaking out, trying to figure out how this is going to end,” Dahlin remembers. “Am I looking at prison? Am I going to see my girlfriend? Is she going to end up in prison for the next decade just because she’s with me?”.

He was placed in a rectangular cell with beige padded walls, where he was watched at all times by two expressionless guards, neither of whom ever spoke – though they recorded his every action in a notebook. He was interrogated several times, deprived of sleep, and pressed for details on other human rights activists. He heard the prisoner on the floor above him being violently beaten. “These are padded cells so when you hear someone scream, it sounds like a very low voice, coupled with heavy thumps as someone is thrown into a wall.”

After three weeks, he was told he must confess to a series of crimes. He was ordered to remove his prison uniform and wear his normal clothes, then led into a studio and sat opposite a glamorous state-employed TV presenter. Just out of view of the cameras, officials watched him closely. “I have violated Chinese law,” he said once cameras were rolling, reading from a script. “I have hurt the feelings of the Chinese people. I apologise sincerely for this.”

Eventually, after 24 days, he was deported to his native Sweden. He thinks diplomatic pressure probably helped his case. Accounts like these are part of the reason why UK broadcasting regulator Ofcom revoked CGTN’s TV licence earlier this year.

Zhang Gaoli has so far not commented on Peng's disappearance - AFP

Peng's disappearance is reverberating through the sporting world. Serena Williams said this week she was “devastated” by the news, adding: “This must be investigated and we must not stay silent.” Andy Murray voiced his concern on Twitter using the #WhereIsPengShuai hashtag. Steve Simon, chief executive of the Women’s Tennis Association, said he was prepared to pull tournaments out of China potentially losing tens of millions of dollars.

Also attracting international controversy is the mysterious case of Jack Ma, who before October 24 last year was the richest man in China, and the charismatic owner of Alibaba, “China’s Amazon”. Then he stepped onto a stage in Shanghai and delivered a speech that was critical of the Chinese financial industry. He was quickly summoned to Beijing for “regulatory interviews” - and has not been seen since, except for one bizarre 43-second video, filmed at a stage-managed visit to a rural primary school, and posted online by a Chinese government agency. In it, Ma looks subdued, and says nothing about his business empire. “I have been studying and thinking, and have become more determined to devote myself to education and public welfare,” he says.

A-list celebrities are not immune, either. In 2018, China's most famous actress, Fan Bingbing vanished after being accused of tax evasion, to the consternation of her 63 million social media followers. Four months later, she resurfaced. “I sincerely apologise to society, to the friends who love and care for me, to the people, and to the country’s tax bureau,” she wrote. “Without the party and the country’s great policies... there would be no Fan Bingbing.” She has only spoken since to praise the Communist Party; at one point she even thanked them for detaining her.

It might seem obvious that such seemingly brazen attacks on human rights would provoke anger in the West, but within the sporting world open condemnation of Beijing is the exception rather than the norm. China’s 1.4 billion people represent the fastest-growing market, and sports officials in the US and Europe have often shown a reluctance to say anything that might anger Beijing censors.

“It’s hard doing business in China,” says Dr Jonathan Sullivan, Director of China Programmes at the University of Nottingham. “The rewards are still there, but there is always the risk of making a faux pas that inadvertently ‘hurts the feelings of the Chinese people’ and can kill your brand there in a minute.”

Illustrative was the case of Daryl Morey, manager of the Houston Rockets, an American basketball team, who in October 2019 posted what he believed to be an uncontroversial tweet supporting pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. Backlash was swift and severe. The Chinese state broadcaster announced they would stop showing Rockets games to China’s 800 million basketball fans. Chinese finance and fashion firms suspended multi-million dollar sponsorship deals with the team.

Eventually, in a statement written in Mandarin, the US’s National Basketball Association said they were “disappointed” by Morey’s “inappropriate” comment, adding: “He undoubtedly has hurt Chinese fans’ feelings severely.”

Now, perhaps, the wall of silence around such incidents is starting to break. Growing global outrage over Peng's disappearance could prove a turning point, say campaigners, shining a much-needed spotlight on China’s dark tactics. Whether it will do anything to help the tennis player herself, is less certain.