NEWS: China upset w/ NBA...NBA will lose $400 million

[michaeltex]

Regardless of what you think about Donald Trump, it is actually hilarious(ly sad) that the same people in the league who openly oppose him don't have the balls to call out China. Really puts things in to perspective.

(Two political posts in one night, I'm outa control)

Folks know about Trump. He's in our own backyard, and if you're on twitter, in your face. 

But folks have to read to know what's going on in China, although they've been brutal and oppressive to their own citizens since Mao (for about 70 years). Should we take folks in the U.S. to task for not openly opposing events in Kashmir, with the Kurds in Syria and Iraq, in Sudan, in Yemen, or in Myanmar? 

I'm not up on all the current human rights disasters worldwide. I just pulled up genocidewatch.com to type out that list. I mean maybe you're right, maybe we should all be talking about these things and openly opposing the oppressive regimes, but we typically don't.

China's been through a lot. (This is NOT a defense of their current actions) Going back to the late 1800's, China was manipulated by foreign forces due to a lack of technological sophistication. European and US participation in the Boxer Rebellion, basically ended the Chinese dynastic period. This was followed by the 2nd Sino-Japanese War, in which Japan's troops did horrendous things to the Chinese population (see Nanking Massacre). This was conflict was still ongoing when the US entered WWII,  the Flying Tigers were over there trying to help the Chinese. Immediately after WWII, there was civil war between communist and non-communist forces that lasted until 1949 when Mao's side took control and China became a communist country with a lot of horrible events behind a veil of secrecy to get the population in-line. So now that China is an economic powerhouse and there is upward mobility among the population, nobody there is going to stand for any criticism from outsiders and you'll find a lot of support for the government's position on this topic at least.

All I'm saying is that there is a lot of violent history there that has been perpetrated by the powerful on the non-powerful which leads to some social positioning that is counter to our westernized mindset. I think it's horrendous what is happening in HK and some of those drone shots look like something from a dystopian future but short of actually going to war, there is not a lot leverage the outside world has to change the situation.

Now I'm going to try and think of more pleasant topics, like how hard it's going to be to stop KP if he's feeling it.