vdare--2020-04-11--Corporate Execs Firing Americans In Favor Of Foreigners

It is illegal to make a decision to hire or fire based on citizenship , except by government agencies : only Americans may work for the Federal government , except in certain limited circumstances .
Similarly , most States keep government jobs for Americans .
However only in certain limited circumstances may a private sector employer discriminate based on citizenship , usually related to Federal contracting requirements .
But certain corporate executives think they are above the law .
That law is Title 8 United States Code , Section 11324b , Unfair Immigration Related Employment Practices .
It is enforced @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( DOJ ) Immigrant And Employee Rights Section ( IER ) , part of the Civil Rights Division ( CRD ) .
The IERS is charged with investigating and prosecuting instances of discrimination in employment and employment conditions based on citizenship .
It is specifically charged by the statute to protect Americans from discrimination based on their American citizenship .
However , there are some arrogant corporate executives out there whothink they can hire and fire Americans at will in favor of aliens , in most cases those aliens who have stolen an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ H-1B Non-Immigrant Visa ( NIV ) for specialized skills based employment in the United States .
Generally , H-1Bs are used not for some specialized skill , but to drive wages down for American citizens .
With the contrived panic over the China Flu , employers are routinely firing American employees , but retaining their H-1B employees , and doing so illegally , as terminating an employee because they are American is illegal , and not terminating an alien employee is because they are an alien is also illegal .
But the Slave @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
As usual , the Lying Press starts out with the standard '' World Ends , Women , Minorities , Immigrants , And Children Hardest Hit . ''
The transition to working remotely is full of hiccups for just about anyone who doesn ’ t do it on a regular basis .
But for the state ’ s immigrant workers and their employers , it ’ s “ total chaos , ” said Minneapolis immigration attorney Sandra Feist .
Take a university professor who is in the United States on an H1-B visa @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Technically , that university should be filing an H1-B amendment , which is crazy , ” Feist said .
“ It adds a huge amount of work , it ’ s pieces of paper that need to be assembled and mailed , and it requires people to leave their homes .
It doesn ’ t make any sense .
So that ’ s one example.
” [ Coronavirus Fueling ‘ Total Chaos ’ And Tough Decisions For Minnesota ’ s Immigrant Workers , by Megan Burks , Minnesota Public Radio News , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Radio ( MPR ) does not care about the impact on American workers , they are disposable .
However , immigrants are very important .
And the Slave Power can do anything , including fire Americans , to protect immigrant workers .
Smith is co-founder and CEO of a company called Kipsu that lets travelers give feedback to their hotels via text .
With travel at a near standstill , hotels are increasingly unable to pay Kipsu for its services .
“ We ’ ve been heads down , focused on dealing with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Smith said .
“ It ’ s been a lot of real-time decision making just to preserve our business.
” One of those decisions was to furlough workers .
Once it became clear his staff would receive unemployment benefits while on furlough , Smith temporarily laid off two-thirds of his team .
Less clear , however , was what to do about an H1-B visa holder on staff .
Traditionally , if that employee isn ’ t working for 60 days , they would have to leave the country .
The injunction AILA @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Smith ultimately decided not to furlough the worker to protect their legal status .
He said the decision did right by the employee and won ’ t put the time and money he ’ s invested in them to waste .
And Chris Smith does not care about Americans on his team , they are expendable , but he does care about the bottom line for his company , American workers be damned .
In fact , Smith will go to great lengths to protect his cheap foreign labor , the law @ @ @ @ @ @ @ trying to figure out how to make sure that our cash flow lasts for as long as possible , and so any sort of employing we ’ re doing during the window of time when our customers can ’ t pay us takes away from our long term stability , ” Smith said .
“ We ’ re willing to go to great lengths to keep our team , but this is especially challenging for us.
” Well , that decision to protect aliens instead of American citizens could be costly , as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be reported here by calling the DOJ CRD IER at 1-800-255-7688 or with this online form .
Hopefully Based Bill Barr will light a fire under the IER and Chris Smith will feel the heat and bear the cost of illegal discrimination against Americans .
You can contact Smith and Kipsu here and at ( 612 ) 503-4000 .
Also ask him if his VP of Engineering , Othman Smihi , is one of the team members he protected .
Maybe it is Dongmin Park , Ayoub Belemlih , or Chee Lee .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ are many heritage Americans who lost their jobs at Kipsu , they ’ re punished for being Americans .
Why ?
You can also contact the DOJ CRD here at ( 202 ) 514-4609 and light a fire under Assistant Attorney General Eric S. Dreiband .
Will he fight for Americans ?
Time will tell .

It is illegal to make a decision to hire or fire based on citizenship, except by government agencies: only Americans may work for the Federal government, except in certain limited circumstances. Similarly, most States keep government jobs for Americans. However only in certain limited circumstances may a private sector employer discriminate based on citizenship, usually related to Federal contracting requirements.
But certain corporate executives think they are above the law. That law is Title 8 United States Code, Section 11324b, Unfair Immigration Related Employment Practices. It is enforced by the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Immigrant And Employee Rights Section (IER), part of the Civil Rights Division (CRD).
The IERS is charged with investigating and prosecuting instances of discrimination in employment and employment conditions based on citizenship. It is specifically charged by the statute to protect Americans from discrimination based on their American citizenship.
However, there are some arrogant corporate executives out there whothink they can hire and fire Americans at will in favor of aliens, in most cases those aliens who have stolen an American job and likely fraudulently obtained an H-1B Non-Immigrant Visa (NIV) for specialized skills based employment in the United States.
Generally, H-1Bs are used not for some specialized skill, but to drive wages down for American citizens. With the contrived panic over the China Flu, employers are routinely firing American employees, but retaining their H-1B employees, and doing so illegally, as terminating an employee because they are American is illegal, and not terminating an alien employee is because they are an alien is also illegal. But the Slave Power thinks they are above the law.
As usual, the Lying Press starts out with the standard"World Ends, Women, Minorities, Immigrants, And Children Hardest Hit."
The transition to working remotely is full of hiccups for just about anyone who doesn’t do it on a regular basis. But for the state’s immigrant workers and their employers, it’s “total chaos,” said Minneapolis immigration attorney Sandra Feist. Take a university professor who is in the United States on an H1-B visa and needs to teach classes online. “Technically, that university should be filing an H1-B amendment, which is crazy,” Feist said. “It adds a huge amount of work, it’s pieces of paper that need to be assembled and mailed, and it requires people to leave their homes. It doesn’t make any sense. So that’s one example.” [Coronavirus Fueling ‘Total Chaos’ And Tough Decisions For Minnesota’s Immigrant Workers, by Megan Burks, Minnesota Public Radio News, April 7, 2020]
Chris Smith, Scourge of American White Collar Workers
Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) does not care about the impact on American workers, they are disposable. However, immigrants are very important. And the Slave Power can do anything, including fire Americans, to protect immigrant workers.
Smith is co-founder and CEO of a company called Kipsu that lets travelers give feedback to their hotels via text. With travel at a near standstill, hotels are increasingly unable to pay Kipsu for its services. “We’ve been heads down, focused on dealing with the fire in front of us” Smith said. “It’s been a lot of real-time decision making just to preserve our business.” One of those decisions was to furlough workers. Once it became clear his staff would receive unemployment benefits while on furlough, Smith temporarily laid off two-thirds of his team. Less clear, however, was what to do about an H1-B visa holder on staff. Traditionally, if that employee isn’t working for 60 days, they would have to leave the country. The injunction AILA is seeking would prevent that from happening. Smith ultimately decided not to furlough the worker to protect their legal status. He said the decision did right by the employee and won’t put the time and money he’s invested in them to waste.
And Chris Smith does not care about Americans on his team, they are expendable, but he does care about the bottom line for his company, American workers be damned. In fact, Smith will go to great lengths to protect his cheap foreign labor, the law be damned.
But it’s a financially risky decision. “We’re trying to figure out how to make sure that our cash flow lasts for as long as possible, and so any sort of employing we’re doing during the window of time when our customers can’t pay us takes away from our long term stability,” Smith said. “We’re willing to go to great lengths to keep our team, but this is especially challenging for us.”
Well, that decision to protect aliens instead of American citizens could be costly, as it is illegal. And Smith can be reported here by calling the DOJ CRD IER at 1-800-255-7688 or with this online form. Hopefully Based Bill Barr will light a fire under the IER and Chris Smith will feel the heat and bear the cost of illegal discrimination against Americans.
You can contact Smith and Kipsu here and at (612) 503-4000. Also ask him if his VP of Engineering, Othman Smihi, is one of the team members he protected. Maybe it is Dongmin Park, Ayoub Belemlih, or Chee Lee. Inquiring minds want to know. There are many heritage Americans who lost their jobs at Kipsu, they’re punished for being Americans. Why?
You can also contact the DOJ CRD here at (202) 514-4609 and light a fire under Assistant Attorney General Eric S. Dreiband.
Eric S. Dreiband, Assistant Attorney General
Will he fight for Americans? Time will tell.


vdare--2020-04-11--Michigan "Coronavirus Task Force on Racial Disparities" To Blame Whites For Blacks Being "Hardest Hi

Michigan "Coronavirus Task Force on Racial Disparities" To Blame Whites For Blacks Being "Hardest Hit" By Virus

Previously by Paul Kersey : Black Baltimore Councilman Says `` Implicit Bias '' Of White Doctors Greater Threat To Black Community Than Coronavirus There is one certainty coming from the fallout of the Coronavirus/China Virus : white people are going to be blamed for the racial disparities in deaths befalling the black and Hispanic communities across the nation .
Be it racial segregation in housing ( redlining ! )
, implicit bias within the healthcare system , structural inequities in the job market or just straight up white racism , we are only a few weeks away from a concerted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ disproportionate Coronavirus deaths in the black community .
In 49 percent black/43 percent white St. Louis , all Coronavirus deaths have been blacks .
And for this , we will see elected officials in individual cities/states and then in Washington D.C. push for a massive transfer of wealth to racially benefit every community in the country , save whites .
Because , you see , whites will be blamed for these racially disproportionate deaths impacting the black community with a ferocity only high rates of segregation , a lack of financial resources , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ market can explain .
GRAND RAPIDS , Mich. ( WOOD ) — Gov .
Gretchen Whitmer on Thursday created the Michigan Coronavirus Task Force on Racial Disparities , designed to work out why African Americans have been disproportionately affected by the outbreak .
Michigan Lt. Gov .
Garlin Gilchrist [ Pictured right ] and the first African American to hold that post , is heading up the task force .
It will tackle a problem that the administration had highlighted as a problem even before the coronavirus outbreak : health care in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is one that impacts the nation .
“ It ’ s critical , ” he said .
“ Black people make up 14 % of the population in the state of Michigan but we make up 40 % of the COVID-19 deaths .
This is something that has proven particularly lethal in communities of color across the state of Michigan and , frankly , across the country and that ’ s why we have to look into this.
” And for him , it ’ s personal .
“ I felt this personally @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have passed away from COVID-19 and I have several other extended family members and friend who are either hospitalized or have tested positive , ” the Detroit native said .
“ This is hitting home for more and more people in our state.
” According to the governor ’ s office , the group will be made up of state government leaders and health care workers from communities most impacted by the coronavirus .
Obviously the task force has a bogeyman behind the Coronavirus racial disparities already in its crosshairs : white racism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can never discuss genetic factors behind the disparities , or individual life choices ( diabetes rates higher among blacks , for instance ) collectively illustrating why blacks are dying at higher rates , because it ’ s so much easier to just blame redlining or implicit bias within the healthcare system as the culprit behind the otherwise invisible killer .
Or , that blacks are failing to engage in social distancing the state is enacting for the safety of all citizens .
You read it here first : before June , we will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ level for a redistribution of wealth and stimulus package dedicating solely for the advancement of colored people ’ s health and whitey will be asked to fit the bill .
And then we will see an even bigger bill pushed at the federal level .
For in Black-Run America ( BRA ) , any racial disparity existing must always be blamed on white people .

Previously by Paul Kersey: Black Baltimore Councilman Says "Implicit Bias" Of White Doctors Greater Threat To Black Community Than Coronavirus
There is one certainty coming from the fallout of the Coronavirus/China Virus: white people are going to be blamed for the racial disparities in deaths befalling the black and Hispanic communities across the nation.
Be it racial segregation in housing (redlining!), implicit bias within the healthcare system, structural inequities in the job market or just straight up white racism, we are only a few weeks away from a concerted effort to blame white America for the disproportionate Coronavirus deaths in the black community. In 49 percent black/43 percent white St. Louis, all Coronavirus deaths have been blacks.
And for this, we will see elected officials in individual cities/states and then in Washington D.C. push for a massive transfer of wealth to racially benefit every community in the country, save whites.
Because, you see, whites will be blamed for these racially disproportionate deaths impacting the black community with a ferocity only high rates of segregation, a lack of financial resources, and racial glass ceilings in the job market can explain.
Lt. gov. leading task force on coronavirus racial disparity, WoodTV.com, April 10, 2020 GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Thursday created the Michigan Coronavirus Task Force on Racial Disparities, designed to work out why African Americans have been disproportionately affected by the outbreak. Michigan Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist [Pictured right] and the first African American to hold that post, is heading up the task force. It will tackle a problem that the administration had highlighted as a problem even before the coronavirus outbreak: health care in the black community. Gilchrist said the issue is one that impacts the nation. “It’s critical,” he said. “Black people make up 14% of the population in the state of Michigan but we make up 40% of the COVID-19 deaths. This is something that has proven particularly lethal in communities of color across the state of Michigan and, frankly, across the country and that’s why we have to look into this.” And for him, it’s personal. “I felt this personally. Fifteen of people in my life have passed away from COVID-19 and I have several other extended family members and friend who are either hospitalized or have tested positive,” the Detroit native said. “This is hitting home for more and more people in our state.” According to the governor’s office, the group will be made up of state government leaders and health care workers from communities most impacted by the coronavirus.
Obviously the task force has a bogeyman behind the Coronavirus racial disparities already in its crosshairs: white racism, in its every iteration. We can never discuss genetic factors behind the disparities, or individual life choices (diabetes rates higher among blacks, for instance) collectively illustrating why blacks are dying at higher rates, because it’s so much easier to just blame redlining or implicit bias within the healthcare system as the culprit behind the otherwise invisible killer.
Or, that blacks are failing to engage in social distancing the state is enacting for the safety of all citizens.
You read it here first: before June, we will see a massive push on the local/state level for a redistribution of wealth and stimulus package dedicating solely for the advancement of colored people’s health and whitey will be asked to fit the bill. And then we will see an even bigger bill pushed at the federal level.
For in Black-Run America (BRA), any racial disparity existing must always be blamed on white people.
[Comment at Unz.com]


vdare--2020-04-11--New York vs. California: Lives Saved By Less Crowding

Earlier : Is the Subway Why New York City Is So Hard Hit By Coronavirus ?
California ’ s coronavirus death toll is way below New York ’ s .
Here ’ s why social distancing California ’ s relatively quick action to close businesses and order residents to stay home has tamped down the coronavirus pandemic and left many hospitals largely empty , waiting for a surge that has yet to come .
… By late Friday , California had reported 598 deaths over two and a half months , fewer than New York experienced in a single day @ @ @ @ @ @ @ State died from COVID-19 , the disease caused by the virus .
California has averaged just under 45 deaths per day over the last week , with no spike in fatalities .
New York became the epicenter of the disease in America because of several factors .
The virus arrived there earlier than elsewhere and in more locations ; it is denser than any other U.S. city ; it depends more on public transportation , putting people close to one another ; So Philadelphia is slightly closer to Los Angeles in commuting style @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and it was behind California and Washington state in imposing restrictions on public movement , said Nicholas Jewell , a UC Berkeley biostatistician .
… Seven counties in the greater San Francisco Bay Area ordered residents to “ shelter in place ” and all but essential businesses to close at midnight on March 16 , a day when the number of coronavirus deaths in California doubled from six to 12 .
Three days later , Gov .
Gavin Newsom extended the order to the entire state , with the total death toll at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Andrew Cuomo made a similar order on March 20 , but it did not take effect until Sunday , March 22 , at 8 p.m. By then , his state already had recorded at least 150 deaths .
That action still preceded lockdowns across much of the nation .
Florida Gov .
Ron DeSantis didn ’ t impose a stay-at-home order until April 1 .
Of course , Florida still isn ’ t terribly hard hit .
The state ’ s most populous county , Los Angeles , continued to record the biggest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of 244 as of Friday .
But the average of 22 deaths-per-day over the previous week included no notable spikes .
… The early action appeared evident in the empty hallways and wards of hospitals around California .
This is a modern billion dollar hospital that opened in 2008 .
The downside is it only has 550 beds for its one million square feet of floorspace .
has been has been unusually quiet , said an attending physician , who wasn ’ t authorized to speak publicly .
Patients have been admitted , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ almost like ominous , ” he said .
“ The volume has been the lowest it ’ s been ever.
” There are currently 41 COVID-19 patients admitted to the hospital , a figure that appears to have plateaued in recent days , according to the university ’ s dashboard .
The doctor said they are encouraged by the state numbers , but remain anxious .
“ Are we just waiting for the peak ?
” he asked .
There had been a “ high panic ” about a month ago , as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of overflowing wards in Italy , said the UCLA physician , adding : “ Now it ’ s more like being scared to admit a little bit of confidence , maybe telling everyone … we ’ ve actually achieved something .
We won ’ t admit to ourselves that we ’ re out of the woods immediately , until late May.
” By the way , the weather in L.A. has been cool and rainy for the last month , which is nice because now we probably won ’ t have many brushfires @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rain has played havoc with my new Vitamin D fetish .

Earlier: Is the Subway Why New York City Is So Hard Hit By Coronavirus?
From the Los Angeles Times news section:
California’s coronavirus death toll is way below New York’s. Here’s why
social distancing By JAMES RAINEY, SOUMYA KARLAMANGLA
APRIL 10, 20205:19 PM California’s relatively quick action to close businesses and order residents to stay home has tamped down the coronavirus pandemic and left many hospitals largely empty, waiting for a surge that has yet to come. … By late Friday, California had reported 598 deaths over two and a half months, fewer than New York experienced in a single day Wednesday, when 799 in the Empire State died from COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus. California has averaged just under 45 deaths per day over the last week, with no spike in fatalities. New York became the epicenter of the disease in America because of several factors. The virus arrived there earlier than elsewhere and in more locations; it is denser than any other U.S. city; it depends more on public transportation, putting people close to one another;
So Philadelphia is slightly closer to Los Angeles in commuting style than it is to New York.
and it was behind California and Washington state in imposing restrictions on public movement, said Nicholas Jewell, a UC Berkeley biostatistician. … Seven counties in the greater San Francisco Bay Area ordered residents to “shelter in place” and all but essential businesses to close at midnight on March 16, a day when the number of coronavirus deaths in California doubled from six to 12. Three days later, Gov. Gavin Newsom extended the order to the entire state, with the total death toll at just 19. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo made a similar order on March 20, but it did not take effect until Sunday, March 22, at 8 p.m. By then, his state already had recorded at least 150 deaths. That action still preceded lockdowns across much of the nation. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis didn’t impose a stay-at-home order until April 1.
Of course, Florida still isn’t terribly hard hit.
The state’s most populous county, Los Angeles, continued to record the biggest share of fatalities, with a total of 244 as of Friday. But the average of 22 deaths-per-day over the previous week included no notable spikes. … The early action appeared evident in the empty hallways and wards of hospitals around California. Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Westwood
This is a modern billion dollar hospital that opened in 2008. The downside is it only has 550 beds for its one million square feet of floorspace.
has been has been unusually quiet, said an attending physician, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly. Patients have been admitted, but few. “It’s almost like ominous,” he said. “The volume has been the lowest it’s been ever.” There are currently 41 COVID-19 patients admitted to the hospital, a figure that appears to have plateaued in recent days, according to the university’s dashboard. The doctor said they are encouraged by the state numbers, but remain anxious. “Are we just waiting for the peak?” he asked. There had been a “high panic” about a month ago, as doctors and nurses watched television news accounts of overflowing wards in Italy, said the UCLA physician, adding: “Now it’s more like being scared to admit a little bit of confidence, maybe telling everyone … we’ve actually achieved something. We won’t admit to ourselves that we’re out of the woods immediately, until late May.”
By the way, the weather in L.A. has been cool and rainy for the last month, which is nice because now we probably won’t have many brushfires until July or later. But the rain has played havoc with my new Vitamin D fetish.
Smart-thermometer maker Kinsa Health showed that on April 9 just 0.3% of Los Angeles County residents had fevers, as associated with both common flu and the coronavirus, compared with an expected 3.2% for that date.
[Comment at Unz.com]


vdare--2020-04-10--Globalization=Sinification, Here And Down Under, Plus Captains, Kings, And Queens

00m43s Globalization = Sinification .
( The big winner from globalization has been … ) 06m38s Sinification down under .
( Aussies learn to love Big Brother . )
12m42s Carrier Captain canned .
( Quite right , too . )
18m05s Monarchs in the news .
( One good , one bad . )
28m07s Chicago Mayor gets haircut .
( And so do I . )
29m24s Get well soon , Marianne .
( As years go by . )
34m18s The return of COBOL .
( I 'm employable again ! )
01—Intro .
And Radio Derb @ @ @ @ @ @ @ listeners , from your loyally genial host John Derbyshire .
This is Holy Week for Christians , Passover for Jews .
I shall have things to say about all that later .
First , some commentary on the news .
02—Globalization = Sinification .
The last thirty years , following the end of the Cold War , has been an era of unrestrained globalization : of lowered tariffs , world-wide supply chains , and First World nations outsourcing their manufacturing to cheaper workers in the Third World .
Also , in the Western @ @ @ @ @ @ @ open borders and lax enforcement of immigration laws .
The hope has been expressed—for example by Greg Johnson , as I mentioned in last week 's podcast—the hope has been expressed that our current travails will open the eyes of Western electorates to what a really bad idea this unrestrained , unquestioning globalization has been .
We all live on the same planet , to be sure , and we have common concerns in areas like , oh , public health ; but making your nation dependent on a geopolitical rival for some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ key manufacturing processes , is seriously stupid .
Concerning that hope—the hope that our people will awaken from their opium dream of globalized plenty with no downsides and become sturdy nationalists—I remain skeptical .
I do , though , see signs of a spreading awareness about one particular aspect of globalization : the fact that by far the biggest winner from globalization has been communist China .
This is easiest to see in the most thoroughly globalized organization of all , the United Nations .
The most prominent UN agency in this current @ @ @ @ @ @ @ World Health Organization .
The Director-General of the WHO is an Ethiop named Tedros Something Something , or Something Something Tedros .
Anyone who pays any attention at all to the news now knows that this Tedros bloke is a bought-and-paid-for shill for the Chinese Communist Party .
Since the WHO is just the currently most prominent UN agency , it 's reasonable to suspect that the rest of the UN is similarly compromised .
To be perfectly fair to the UN , there are some contrary indicators .
Last year saw some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over China 's treatment of Muslim Uighurs in ChiCom-occupied East Turkestan .
Twenty-three nations issued a joint statement of concern .
Who were the 23 nations ?
The U.S.A. , Canada , Japan , Australia , New Zealand , … and the other 18 were all European countries .
The ChiComs easily countered with a much bigger list of nations saying they were just fine with whatever was being done to the Uighurs .
That pro-China list included majority-Muslim countries like Pakistan , Egypt , Somalia , Saudi Arabia , and the United @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Cuba , North Korea , the Philippines , and a bunch of rat-hole countries in Africa and Central Asia .
If you look at the lists of nations protesting China and nations supporting China , the fundamental difference is n't hard to figure .
An outfit named Transparency International publishes an annual list of the world 's nations ranked by how corrupt they are .
The nations critical of China come from the bottom part of that list , the least corrupt ; the nations supporting China are just the ones most easily @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a similar pattern .
Since most of the world 's nations are Third World—which here I am using as a synonym for `` poor and corrupt '' —globalization means Third World-ification .
And since China leads the Third World thus defined , with the most money to splash around and the least reluctance to just buy other countries ' leaders with bags full of cash , globalization means Sinification .
03—Sinification down under .
The First World is n't altogether immune to this globalization-equals-Sinification phenomenon .
Our own capitalist boss class is not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Imagine , if you can , a major Hollywood studio making an honest movie about the Land Reform terror in China around 1950 , or the mass famines that followed the Great Leap Forward ten years later , or the Cultural Revolution of 1966-76 , or the 1989 uprisings .
You ca n't imagine it ; no such movies could be made .
The studios like their China market .
That 's not corruption , at least I do n't think it is .
That 's just economic pressure .
In this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , an interesting case study is Australia .
I mentioned Australia in the previous segment , in that list of nations criticizing China at the UN last year .
Well , stick around .
Five years from now , Australia may be on the other list , supporting China .
Australia is well on her way to being a Chinese satellite .
That 's not straightforward corruption , either .
Australia 's a high-trust Anglo-Saxon nation with low levels of corruption .
The case study here is one of economic pressure .
I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a 12-minute YouTube clip out of Wendover Productions , which so far as I can tell is unbiased .
Australia is big , the same size as our 48 continental states .
While those states have over 300 million people , though , Australia has fewer than 26 million .
By comparison with the U.S.A. , Australia is quite dramatically under-populated .
All the more so when compared with China : there are 56 Chinese people for every one Australian .
Australia makes a big part of her national living by digging stuff @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to other countries .
She 's the world 's largest exporter of minerals : iron , lead , diamonds , gold , uranium .
Coal , too , and liquified natural gas .
She makes another big part selling agricultural products .
Thirty percent of her exports go to China .
Australian colleges and universities , like ours , are also exceptionally hospitable to Chinese students , who pay full tuition .
The number of Chinese students in Australia is variously reported as in the range from 150,000 to 250,000 , so I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 's one per every 130 Australians , paying in about twelve billion Australian dollars a year to the Australian treasury , around seven and a half billion U.S .
The consequences of all this are not hard to figure .
As the video clip says , quote : Hence the recurrent news stories about China meddling in Australian politics .
The ChiComs also of course carefully monitor their students in Australian universities .
If a student expresses open support for the Hong Kong demonstrators , for example , he will soon hear that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pulled in for interrogation by the secret police .
So , as I said , stick around : By 2025 or 2030 , public criticism of China will be taboo in Australia .
The Aussies will love Big Brother .
04—Military justice .
Captain Brett Crozier was skipper of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier the U.S.S .
Theodore Roosevelt until April 1st , when he was relieved of his command .
After a port call in Vietnam in early March , there 'd been an outbreak of coronavirus on the carrier .
Captain Crozier @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this , variously described as either a letter , a memo , or an email , to Pacific Fleet leadership .
The letter/memo/email is quite long , three and a half pages , and requests all kinds of actions and assistance .
What got the captain fired was , he sent the letter out through channels not sufficiently secure .
The San Francisco Chronicle got a hold of it and published it March 31st .
This is one of those stories where you get a sharp difference of opinion , pro-Crozier or anti-Crozier @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from him at an April 4th presser : Most of the commentariat was pro-Crozier .
Sample , from a piece by Michael O'Hanlon at the Brookings Institute , quote : Radio Derb 's in the anti-Crozier camp .
The captain was sloppy sending out his request through unsecured channels .
A carrier is a very big , extremely expensive , military asset .
The ChiComs have huge , intensive , 24/7 teams of engineers working on missiles that can sink a carrier , the crazy North Koreans probably likewise .
Letting the whole @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is unforgivable .
`` We are not at war , '' wrote Crozier in his letter .
That 's not for you to say , Captain .
You can be not at war one minute , at war the next—ask the guys who were at Pearl Harbor in 1941 , if any are left among us .
As for Michael O'Hanlon 's snark about `` hewing slavishly to a preset ship deployment schedule , '' it 's properly called `` obeying orders . ''
Sure , you can question the orders , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hostiles know you 're doing so .
The praise for Captain Crozier 's `` caring '' for his crew is misplaced .
Of course he cares for his crew .
Every officer cares for his men .
That 's no excuse for ignoring the proper chain of command and putting the entire crew at possible danger .
There is also somewhat of a girlish tone about much of the pro-Crozier commentary .
Which reminds me : Can we get an update on pregnancies aboard our navy ships in general , and the U.S.S @ @ @ @ @ @ @ last time Radio Derb commented on this , three years ago , sixteen percent of women serving on military vessels were pregnant .
I doubt that percentage has changed much these three years , and it seems to me a far greater impediment to military effectiveness than an outbreak of flu , even a flu as exceptionally nasty as COVID-19 .
And if you still feel unhappy on Captain Crozier 's behalf , let me remind you of an old adage : Military justice is to justice , as military music is to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Constitutional monarchs have been in the news recently .
Here 's one : Betty Windsor , Queen of England and sundry other territories ( including Australia ) .
April 5th Her Majesty made a four-minute speech to the nation .
You can watch it on YouTube , or read the transcript at the BBC website .
She did n't say anything very consequential , and no-one expected her to : This was just a cheer-up message urging Brits to keep a stiff upper lip .
Along the way , Betty alluded to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in 1940 , when she was just fourteen .
Whatever you think of her , or of monarchy in general , that 's pretty darn impressive .
Has anyone else made two broadcasts to a nation eighty years apart ?
On the rare occasions I mention the Queen in these podcasts , I usually confess having a soft spot for her .
She 's been there all my life , the still center of a changing world , showing up on TV every Christmas to offer some pleasant platitudes in the same fruity @ @ @ @ @ @ @ speaks any more .
Her coronation in 1953 was the first big public event to really impinge on my awareness .
My sister Judith still has her coronation mug from that event ; I forget what happened to mine .
I probably threw it at Judith and missed .
In the circles I now move in , the circles of immigration patriots and white advocacy , if you bring up mention of the Queen , someone will snarl that she should be dethroned , or worse , for not having spoken up against @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these past few decades .
In her capital city , only a minority of people are today legacy British , of deep British ancestry .
Entire towns have been taken over by Muslims .
This is a dreadful thing , a crime committed by the British people against themselves .
If the Queen had spoken out against it early on , it might have been prevented .
Why did n't she ?
There are a number of thing in play .
One , she is a constitutional monarch .
Constitutional monarchs are supposed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 's the point of them .
You might read the job description differently ; but that 's the way she reads it , and she 's not way out of line to do so .
And then , there 's the general atmosphere of imperial paternalism she grew up amongst .
The native peoples of the empire—African and Caribbean blacks , the Muslims and Hindus of the South Asian subcontinent , the Maoris and aborigines of New Zealand and Australia , and all the rest—these were simple-minded children who had to be lifted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Why should we have any fear of children ?
Plus , the Queen is not very numerate .
I think she 's a fairly intelligent woman—I 'd put her IQ in the 100-110 range—but she does n't think numerically .
I 've quoted before from my grandad 's 1922 world atlas , which gave the population of British West Africa as less than half the population of Britain .
Today those same territories have over three times Britain 's population .
The Queen was born in 1926 , when that stupendous demographic transformation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ never registered with her .
In her mind , the darkies of the Commonwealth are not only children to be patronized , they are also few in number .
What 's to be afraid of ?
I do n't think Betty hates ordinary white British people , the way so many of Britain 's ruling class do—the way so many of our own ruling class hate ordinary white Americans .
She probably regards them the way she regards the Maoris , Jamaicans , Kikuyu , and the rest : paternalistically … ma-ternalistically , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ me , I 'd hate her back , as some of my friends do .
I do n't , though , so I ca n't .
And you have to admit : As constitutional monarchs go , she is at least way better than the current King of Thailand , Vajiralongkorn .
That monarch reacted to the coronavirus panic by taking himself and twenty of his concubines off to Germany , where he rented a luxury hotel—yes , the entire hotel—in the Bavarian Alps .
I see that he flew back to Thailand @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I bet he 'll be back in Bavaria before long .
That made an unhappy contrast with his dad , Bhumibol , who was king for over seventy years until he passed away four years ago at age 88 .
Bhumibol was from the same mould as Elizabeth , with a strong sense of duty .
Whatever the coronavirus did to Thailand , Bhumibol would have suffered along with his subjects .
The Thais are Jungle Asians , not Fancy Asians , and their country is chronically unstable , with regular military coups @ @ @ @ @ @ @ steadying hand of a sober , dutiful monarch to damp down the instability some .
Instead they have gotten a dimwitted playboy .
That 's the problem with constitutional monarchy : it 's a lottery .
You might get a sober , dutiful monarch like Elizabeth or Bhumibol , or you might get a self-indulgent knuckle-head like Vajiralongkorn .
It 's a roll of the dice .
06—Miscellany .
And now , our closing miscellany of brief items .
Imprimis : I may be with President Trump on the business about Captain Crozier @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mind since last weekend , but I continue to seethe at the President 's spiteful and unmanly persecution of Jeff Sessions .
March 31st the chief operating officer of Trump 's current Presidential campaign , presumably with Trump 's approval , sent a vicious and insulting letter to Sessions saying , amongst other low insults , that a campaign mailer the Sessions campaign had put out , quote , `` makes the delusional assertion that you are President Trump 's number one supporter , '' end quote .
That mailer Sessions had put @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his Republican primary campaign against Paul Ryan clone , Chamber of Commerce lacky , open-borders shill Tommy Tuberville .
Further quote from Trump 's campaign manager , quote : So much for Donald Trump as any kind of leader on the National Question .
For shame , Mr President , for shame .
Go , Jeff , go !
Item : Among sidebar stories about the coronavirus I note this one from the April 6th Chicago Tribune , headline : Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot defends getting a haircut amid coronavirus outbreak , says @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ' .
The headline tells the story .
It only got my attention because the other day I found myself in dire need of a haircut .
The ever-resourceful Mrs Derbyshire stepped up to the challenge with scissors and comb .
She did a splendid job of work .
And I did n't have to make small talk !
I 'm no good at small talk , and I feel the same way about barbering as the king of ancient Macedon who , when the barber asked him how he wanted his hair @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . ''
I think I may give up on barbers altogether and let the Mrs take over .
Item : Another sidebar on the virus panic : I note that among those who have tested positive is Marianne Faithfull .
Latest I have is that the lady is in a London hospital responding well to treatment .
She is 73 years old .
That 's why her name caught my eye .
Marianne is a Brit of my generation—a year and a half younger than me .
She was a pop singer in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ camp follower of the Rolling Stones .
Says Wikipedia : `` she had a highly publicised romantic relationship with Mick Jagger . ''
Unfortunately for her , she will for ever be associated in the minds of my , and her , generation with an urban legend concerning her , Mick , a surprise police drugs raid , and a popular item of British confectionary .
You can look up the grisly details for yourself at Snopes.com , which thoroughly debunks the story , but it persists anyway .
That 's a shame @ @ @ @ @ @ @ full recovery .
Just for the nostalgia , here 's a clip from her first big hit , which the Stones themselves later recorded much more vigorously .
Item : Returning to the demographic replacement going on in Britain , one of the craziest aspects of it has been the mass importation of Somalis .
I 've no doubt there are some pleasant , well-behaved Somalis ; but as I 've been writing for years , Somali averages are simply terrible .
No sensible nation would permit settlement of Somalis in any quantity @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the most sensationally horrible crime to come out of the mother country in many years .
A pretty little English girl named Emily Jones , seven years old , was enjoying the spring sunshine—it was actually Mothers ' Day over there—riding her scooter in a town park with her family , when a Somali woman attacked and attempted to decapitate her .
The poor child died of her injuries .
There was no apparent motive for the attack ; but it was n't the first time a Muslim African had tried to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ public place .
It happened to British serviceman Lee Rigby seven years ago .
Following the early stories about Emily Jones ' killing , the British mainstream media obediently grabbed their ankles and instituted a news blackout on the case .
I check in on the British news stories most days ; there 's been nothing .
The only commentary is from social media and dissident-right websites .
Which is where we also learn that the killer was Somali .
Are those sources reliable ?
I 'm betting they are .
If the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ British mainstream media would be shrieking about the insult to a community of pitiful , harmless `` refugees . ''
Their silence tells us it 's true .
Item : Finally , I mentioned last week the difficulty people in my state , New York , are having registering for unemploment benefit .
The phone lines are hopelessly clogged , and the computer systems are old and crappy .
It 's the same in other states , apparently .
There 's a silver lining , though , for us old mainframe-heads .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ story , headline : Obsolete 1950s computer code is causing unemployment chaos amid huge lines : Appeal for retired programmers who know obscure COBOL language to fix outdated computer system in states across US Let me just unpack that for younger listeners .
Before there were smartphones and tablets , before there were even laptops and desktop PCs , there were mainframe computers : great lumbering behemoths in rooms dedicated to them , with miles of cable under the floors and quarter-million-dollar specialty air-conditioning units .
Each mainframe computer was attended by a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ '' tasked with getting the machine to do whatever the organization wanted it to do—print out payroll checks , inventory pick lists , financial reports , and so on .
I was for many years one of those drudges .
It was a nice middle-class living , being a programmer .
That was before organizations discovered that by buying a few congressmen they could re-jig our immigration system to bring in cheaper programmers from abroad .
These drudges , these programmers , communicated with the beast via languages that have since sunk into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as the headline says , now `` obscure . ''
The languages had weird names like BAL , RPG , PL/1 , FORTRAN , REXX , APL , and , yes , COBOL .
Now , as these ancient unemployment-registration systems are collapsing under the strain , the states are looking for programmers to shore them up .
They want COBOL programmers !
07—Signoff .
That 's my contribution for this week , ladies and gentlemen .
Thank you for listening .
This week has been Easter Week for Christians , Passover @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who 've been staying home these past few days , the original Passover story has more than the usual weight of meaning .
I have n't heard of anyone actually daubing lamb 's blood on the door posts and lintels of their house to ward off the coronavirus ; but walking my dog round the neighborhood I 've seen one or two religious pictures newly taped to doors and windows , I suppose for protective purposes .
For Christians at Easter , the lamb and his blood have a somewhat different meaning .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ I know , I 'm going to play us out with the Treorchy Male Voice Choir singing the hymn `` All in the April Evening . ''
This comes with a preamble , though—please bear with me for a moment .
I 've known this hymn since my childhood ; but setting it up for the podcast , I found myself wondering about its origins .
The choral music , I found , was composed by Sir Hugh Roberton , a Scotsman , some time in the early 20th century .
The lyrics @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Irish lady , Katharine Tynan , right , written around 1880 .
Tynan was a very busy writer .
She published over a hundred novels and story collections , many books of verse , three stage plays , and five volumes of autobiography .
She was a nationalist and a radical , and featured in the Irish literary revival of the late 19th century .
The poet W.B .
Yeats was a close friend , and in 1890 he actually offered her a proposal of marriage , to which she reacted very Irishly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sake , you go to the devil ! ''
Katharine Tynan 's poem reads very well all by itself , if you do n't mind religious verse .
Tynan was a devout Roman Catholic ; but you do n't have to be of that confession , nor even I think a Christian , to appreciate it simply as a poem , as a window into another person 's true soul .
The lines are short and the diction exceptionally plain—I counted 104 one-syllable words , 27 two-syllable words , and no words at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you think it 's easy to produce something memorable with vocabulary as spare as that , try it .
Just indulge me a little further , please : Let me read the poem before I play the choral version .
Thank you .
[ Music clip : Treorchy Male Voice Choir , `` All in the April Evening . ''
]

00m43s Globalization = Sinification. (The big winner from globalization has been …)
06m38s Sinification down under. (Aussies learn to love Big Brother.)
12m42s Carrier Captain canned. (Quite right, too.)
18m05s Monarchs in the news. (One good, one bad.)
26m15s Trump's ongoing war against Sessions. (For shame, Mr President.)
28m07s Chicago Mayor gets haircut. (And so do I.)
29m24s Get well soon, Marianne. (As years go by.)
31m47s Crazy Somali killer. (Shush, you bigot!)
34m18s The return of COBOL. (I'm employable again!)
37m31s Signoff. (With an Easter hymn.)
01—Intro. And Radio Derb is on the air! Welcome, listeners, from your loyally genial host John Derbyshire.
This is Holy Week for Christians, Passover for Jews. I shall have things to say about all that later. First, some commentary on the news.
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02—Globalization = Sinification. The last thirty years, following the end of the Cold War, has been an era of unrestrained globalization: of lowered tariffs, world-wide supply chains, and First World nations outsourcing their manufacturing to cheaper workers in the Third World. Also, in the Western part of the First World—the white part—of open borders and lax enforcement of immigration laws.
The hope has been expressed—for example by Greg Johnson, as I mentioned in last week's podcast—the hope has been expressed that our current travails will open the eyes of Western electorates to what a really bad idea this unrestrained, unquestioning globalization has been.
We all live on the same planet, to be sure, and we have common concerns in areas like, oh, public health; but making your nation dependent on a geopolitical rival for some high proportion of your medications, or key manufacturing processes, is seriously stupid.
Concerning that hope—the hope that our people will awaken from their opium dream of globalized plenty with no downsides and become sturdy nationalists—I remain skeptical. I do, though, see signs of a spreading awareness about one particular aspect of globalization: the fact that by far the biggest winner from globalization has been communist China.
This is easiest to see in the most thoroughly globalized organization of all, the United Nations. The most prominent UN agency in this current crisis has been the WHO, the World Health Organization. The Director-General of the WHO is an Ethiop named Tedros Something Something, or Something Something Tedros. Anyone who pays any attention at all to the news now knows that this Tedros bloke is a bought-and-paid-for shill for the Chinese Communist Party.
Since the WHO is just the currently most prominent UN agency, it's reasonable to suspect that the rest of the UN is similarly compromised. To be perfectly fair to the UN, there are some contrary indicators. Last year saw some to-ing and fro-ing in the General Assembly over China's treatment of Muslim Uighurs in ChiCom-occupied East Turkestan. Twenty-three nations issued a joint statement of concern.
Who were the 23 nations? The U.S.A., Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, … and the other 18 were all European countries. The ChiComs easily countered with a much bigger list of nations saying they were just fine with whatever was being done to the Uighurs. That pro-China list included majority-Muslim countries like Pakistan, Egypt, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, along with Russia, Cuba, North Korea, the Philippines, and a bunch of rat-hole countries in Africa and Central Asia.
If you look at the lists of nations protesting China and nations supporting China, the fundamental difference isn't hard to figure. An outfit named Transparency International publishes an annual list of the world's nations ranked by how corrupt they are. The nations critical of China come from the bottom part of that list, the least corrupt; the nations supporting China are just the ones most easily bought.
Any globalized enterprise will display a similar pattern. Since most of the world's nations are Third World—which here I am using as a synonym for "poor and corrupt"—globalization means Third World-ification. And since China leads the Third World thus defined, with the most money to splash around and the least reluctance to just buy other countries' leaders with bags full of cash, globalization means Sinification.
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03—Sinification down under. The First World isn't altogether immune to this globalization-equals-Sinification phenomenon. Our own capitalist boss class is not at all keen to offend ChiCom sensibilities.
Imagine, if you can, a major Hollywood studio making an honest movie about the Land Reform terror in China around 1950, or the mass famines that followed the Great Leap Forward ten years later, or the Cultural Revolution of 1966-76, or the 1989 uprisings. You can't imagine it; no such movies could be made. The studios like their China market.
That's not corruption, at least I don't think it is. That's just economic pressure. In this context, the context of economic pressure, an interesting case study is Australia.
I mentioned Australia in the previous segment, in that list of nations criticizing China at the UN last year. Well, stick around. Five years from now, Australia may be on the other list, supporting China. Australia is well on her way to being a Chinese satellite.
That's not straightforward corruption, either. Australia's a high-trust Anglo-Saxon nation with low levels of corruption. The case study here is one of economic pressure. I'm going to use data here from a 12-minute YouTube clip out of Wendover Productions, which so far as I can tell is unbiased.
Australia is big, the same size as our 48 continental states. While those states have over 300 million people, though, Australia has fewer than 26 million. By comparison with the U.S.A., Australia is quite dramatically under-populated. All the more so when compared with China: there are 56 Chinese people for every one Australian.
Australia makes a big part of her national living by digging stuff out of the ground and selling it to other countries. She's the world's largest exporter of minerals: iron, lead, diamonds, gold, uranium. Coal, too, and liquified natural gas. She makes another big part selling agricultural products. Thirty percent of her exports go to China.
Australian colleges and universities, like ours, are also exceptionally hospitable to Chinese students, who pay full tuition. The number of Chinese students in Australia is variously reported as in the range from 150,000 to 250,000, so I'll say 200,000 for convenience. That's one per every 130 Australians, paying in about twelve billion Australian dollars a year to the Australian treasury, around seven and a half billion U.S.
(In parentheses here: Before I went to live in China in 1982, I had read somewhere that it takes four Chinese peasants to support one non-peasant. Strolling around in the countryside with Chinese friends, any time we saw a peasant I'd exclaim, in English: "Hey, I know that guy—he's one of my four!" I'm not quite sure why that came to mind …)
The consequences of all this are not hard to figure. As the video clip says, quote:
There is a very clear but unspoken threat by China to Australia: If you make things difficult for us politically, we'll make things difficult for you economically.
Hence the recurrent news stories about China meddling in Australian politics. The ChiComs also of course carefully monitor their students in Australian universities. If a student expresses open support for the Hong Kong demonstrators, for example, he will soon hear that his family back in China have been pulled in for interrogation by the secret police.
So, as I said, stick around: By 2025 or 2030, public criticism of China will be taboo in Australia. The Aussies will love Big Brother.
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04—Military justice. Captain Brett Crozier was skipper of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt until April 1st, when he was relieved of his command.
After a port call in Vietnam in early March, there'd been an outbreak of coronavirus on the carrier. Captain Crozier sent out some kind of communication about this, variously described as either a letter, a memo, or an email, to Pacific Fleet leadership. The letter/memo/email is quite long, three and a half pages, and requests all kinds of actions and assistance.
What got the captain fired was, he sent the letter out through channels not sufficiently secure. The San Francisco Chronicle got a hold of it and published it March 31st.
This is one of those stories where you get a sharp difference of opinion, pro-Crozier or anti-Crozier. President Trump was anti, quote from him at an April 4th presser:
I thought it was terrible what he did, to write a letter. I mean, this isn't a class on literature. This is a captain of a massive ship that's nuclear powered, and he shouldn't be talking that way in a letter. He could call and ask and suggest.
End quote.
Most of the commentariat was pro-Crozier. Sample, from a piece by Michael O'Hanlon at the Brookings Institute, quote:
Taking care of the crew mattered more than hewing slavishly to a preset ship deployment schedule.
Radio Derb's in the anti-Crozier camp. The captain was sloppy sending out his request through unsecured channels. A carrier is a very big, extremely expensive, military asset. The ChiComs have huge, intensive, 24/7 teams of engineers working on missiles that can sink a carrier, the crazy North Koreans probably likewise. Letting the whole world know that your carrier is combat-compromised is unforgivable.
"We are not at war," wrote Crozier in his letter. That's not for you to say, Captain. You can be not at war one minute, at war the next—ask the guys who were at Pearl Harbor in 1941, if any are left among us.
As for Michael O'Hanlon's snark about "hewing slavishly to a preset ship deployment schedule," it's properly called "obeying orders." Sure, you can question the orders, but not in any way that lets potential hostiles know you're doing so.
The praise for Captain Crozier's "caring" for his crew is misplaced. Of course he cares for his crew. Every officer cares for his men. That's no excuse for ignoring the proper chain of command and putting the entire crew at possible danger.
There is also somewhat of a girlish tone about much of the pro-Crozier commentary. Which reminds me: Can we get an update on pregnancies aboard our navy ships in general, and the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt in particular?
The last time Radio Derb commented on this, three years ago, sixteen percent of women serving on military vessels were pregnant. I doubt that percentage has changed much these three years, and it seems to me a far greater impediment to military effectiveness than an outbreak of flu, even a flu as exceptionally nasty as COVID-19.
And if you still feel unhappy on Captain Crozier's behalf, let me remind you of an old adage: Military justice is to justice, as military music is to music.
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05—Monarchs in the news. Constitutional monarchs have been in the news recently.
Here's one: Betty Windsor, Queen of England and sundry other territories (including Australia). April 5th Her Majesty made a four-minute speech to the nation. You can watch it on YouTube, or read the transcript at the BBC website. She didn't say anything very consequential, and no-one expected her to: This was just a cheer-up message urging Brits to keep a stiff upper lip.
Along the way, Betty alluded to the first national broadcast she'd made back in 1940, when she was just fourteen. Whatever you think of her, or of monarchy in general, that's pretty darn impressive. Has anyone else made two broadcasts to a nation eighty years apart?
On the rare occasions I mention the Queen in these podcasts, I usually confess having a soft spot for her. She's been there all my life, the still center of a changing world, showing up on TV every Christmas to offer some pleasant platitudes in the same fruity 1930-ish upper-class accents that no-one but she speaks any more. Her coronation in 1953 was the first big public event to really impinge on my awareness. My sister Judith still has her coronation mug from that event; I forget what happened to mine. I probably threw it at Judith and missed.
In the circles I now move in, the circles of immigration patriots and white advocacy, if you bring up mention of the Queen, someone will snarl that she should be dethroned, or worse, for not having spoken up against the demographic catastrophe that's engulfed Britain these past few decades. In her capital city, only a minority of people are today legacy British, of deep British ancestry. Entire towns have been taken over by Muslims.
This is a dreadful thing, a crime committed by the British people against themselves. If the Queen had spoken out against it early on, it might have been prevented. Why didn't she?
There are a number of thing in play. One, she is a constitutional monarch. Constitutional monarchs are supposed to keep out of politics. That's the point of them. You might read the job description differently; but that's the way she reads it, and she's not way out of line to do so.
And then, there's the general atmosphere of imperial paternalism she grew up amongst. The native peoples of the empire—African and Caribbean blacks, the Muslims and Hindus of the South Asian subcontinent, the Maoris and aborigines of New Zealand and Australia, and all the rest—these were simple-minded children who had to be lifted up to British standards of civilization. Why should we have any fear of children?
Plus, the Queen is not very numerate. I think she's a fairly intelligent woman—I'd put her IQ in the 100-110 range—but she doesn't think numerically.
I've quoted before from my grandad's 1922 world atlas, which gave the population of British West Africa as less than half the population of Britain. Today those same territories have over three times Britain's population.
The Queen was born in 1926, when that stupendous demographic transformation had barely gotten started. It has never registered with her. In her mind, the darkies of the Commonwealth are not only children to be patronized, they are also few in number. What's to be afraid of?
I don't think Betty hates ordinary white British people, the way so many of Britain's ruling class do—the way so many of our own ruling class hate ordinary white Americans. She probably regards them the way she regards the Maoris, Jamaicans, Kikuyu, and the rest: paternalistically … ma-ternalistically, whatever.
If I thought Betty hated me, I'd hate her back, as some of my friends do. I don't, though, so I can't.
And you have to admit: As constitutional monarchs go, she is at least way better than the current King of Thailand, Vajiralongkorn. That monarch reacted to the coronavirus panic by taking himself and twenty of his concubines off to Germany, where he rented a luxury hotel—yes, the entire hotel—in the Bavarian Alps. I see that he flew back to Thailand for a festival on Thursday; but I bet he'll be back in Bavaria before long.
That made an unhappy contrast with his dad, Bhumibol, who was king for over seventy years until he passed away four years ago at age 88. Bhumibol was from the same mould as Elizabeth, with a strong sense of duty. Whatever the coronavirus did to Thailand, Bhumibol would have suffered along with his subjects.
The Thais are Jungle Asians, not Fancy Asians, and their country is chronically unstable, with regular military coups and revolutions. They could use the steadying hand of a sober, dutiful monarch to damp down the instability some. Instead they have gotten a dimwitted playboy.
That's the problem with constitutional monarchy: it's a lottery. You might get a sober, dutiful monarch like Elizabeth or Bhumibol, or you might get a self-indulgent knuckle-head like Vajiralongkorn. It's a roll of the dice.
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06—Miscellany. And now, our closing miscellany of brief items.
Imprimis: I may be with President Trump on the business about Captain Crozier, assuming Trump hasn't changed his mind since last weekend, but I continue to seethe at the President's spiteful and unmanly persecution of Jeff Sessions.
March 31st the chief operating officer of Trump's current Presidential campaign, presumably with Trump's approval, sent a vicious and insulting letter to Sessions saying, amongst other low insults, that a campaign mailer the Sessions campaign had put out, quote, "makes the delusional assertion that you are President Trump's number one supporter," end quote.
That mailer Sessions had put out was of course in aid of his Republican primary campaign against Paul Ryan clone, Chamber of Commerce lacky, open-borders shill Tommy Tuberville. Further quote from Trump's campaign manager, quote:
We want to be absolutely clear about it: President Trump and the Trump Campaign unambiguously endorse Tommy Tuberville.
End quote.
So much for Donald Trump as any kind of leader on the National Question. For shame, Mr President, for shame. Go, Jeff, go!
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Item: Among sidebar stories about the coronavirus I note this one from the April 6th Chicago Tribune, headline: Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot defends getting a haircut amid coronavirus outbreak, says stylist wore 'a mask and gloves'.
The headline tells the story. It only got my attention because the other day I found myself in dire need of a haircut. The ever-resourceful Mrs Derbyshire stepped up to the challenge with scissors and comb. She did a splendid job of work.
And I didn't have to make small talk! I'm no good at small talk, and I feel the same way about barbering as the king of ancient Macedon who, when the barber asked him how he wanted his hair cut, replied: "In silence."
I think I may give up on barbers altogether and let the Mrs take over.
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Item: Another sidebar on the virus panic: I note that among those who have tested positive is Marianne Faithfull. Latest I have is that the lady is in a London hospital responding well to treatment. She is 73 years old.
That's why her name caught my eye. Marianne is a Brit of my generation—a year and a half younger than me. She was a pop singer in her own right, but also a camp follower of the Rolling Stones. Says Wikipedia: "she had a highly publicised romantic relationship with Mick Jagger."
Unfortunately for her, she will for ever be associated in the minds of my, and her, generation with an urban legend concerning her, Mick, a surprise police drugs raid, and a popular item of British confectionary. You can look up the grisly details for yourself at Snopes.com, which thoroughly debunks the story, but it persists anyway.
That's a shame. I wish Marianne a swift and full recovery. Just for the nostalgia, here's a clip from her first big hit, which the Stones themselves later recorded much more vigorously.
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Item: Returning to the demographic replacement going on in Britain, one of the craziest aspects of it has been the mass importation of Somalis. I've no doubt there are some pleasant, well-behaved Somalis; but as I've been writing for years, Somali averages are simply terrible. No sensible nation would permit settlement of Somalis in any quantity.
The week before last came news of the most sensationally horrible crime to come out of the mother country in many years. A pretty little English girl named Emily Jones, seven years old, was enjoying the spring sunshine—it was actually Mothers' Day over there—riding her scooter in a town park with her family, when a Somali woman attacked and attempted to decapitate her. The poor child died of her injuries.
There was no apparent motive for the attack; but it wasn't the first time a Muslim African had tried to decapitate a white British passer-by in a public place. It happened to British serviceman Lee Rigby seven years ago.
Following the early stories about Emily Jones' killing, the British mainstream media obediently grabbed their ankles and instituted a news blackout on the case. I check in on the British news stories most days; there's been nothing. The only commentary is from social media and dissident-right websites.
Which is where we also learn that the killer was Somali. Are those sources reliable? I'm betting they are. If the killer was not a Somali, the British mainstream media would be shrieking about the insult to a community of pitiful, harmless "refugees." Their silence tells us it's true.
[Permalink]
Item: Finally, I mentioned last week the difficulty people in my state, New York, are having registering for unemploment benefit. The phone lines are hopelessly clogged, and the computer systems are old and crappy.
It's the same in other states, apparently. There's a silver lining, though, for us old mainframe-heads. The Daily Mail April 9th headline tells the story, headline: Obsolete 1950s computer code is causing unemployment chaos amid huge lines: Appeal for retired programmers who know obscure COBOL language to fix outdated computer system in states across US
Let me just unpack that for younger listeners. Before there were smartphones and tablets, before there were even laptops and desktop PCs, there were mainframe computers: great lumbering behemoths in rooms dedicated to them, with miles of cable under the floors and quarter-million-dollar specialty air-conditioning units.
Each mainframe computer was attended by a staff of drudges called "programmers," tasked with getting the machine to do whatever the organization wanted it to do—print out payroll checks, inventory pick lists, financial reports, and so on.
I was for many years one of those drudges. It was a nice middle-class living, being a programmer. That was before organizations discovered that by buying a few congressmen they could re-jig our immigration system to bring in cheaper programmers from abroad.
These drudges, these programmers, communicated with the beast via languages that have since sunk into oblivion; or at any rate are, as the headline says, now "obscure." The languages had weird names like BAL, RPG, PL/1, FORTRAN, REXX, APL, and, yes, COBOL.
Now, as these ancient unemployment-registration systems are collapsing under the strain, the states are looking for programmers to shore them up. They want COBOL programmers!
Hallelujah, I'm employable again!
[Permalink]
07—Signoff. That's my contribution for this week, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for listening.
This week has been Easter Week for Christians, Passover for Jews. For those of us who've been staying home these past few days, the original Passover story has more than the usual weight of meaning. I haven't heard of anyone actually daubing lamb's blood on the door posts and lintels of their house to ward off the coronavirus; but walking my dog round the neighborhood I've seen one or two religious pictures newly taped to doors and windows, I suppose for protective purposes.
For Christians at Easter, the lamb and his blood have a somewhat different meaning. For the loveliest expression of this that I know, I'm going to play us out with the Treorchy Male Voice Choir singing the hymn "All in the April Evening." This comes with a preamble, though—please bear with me for a moment.
I've known this hymn since my childhood; but setting it up for the podcast, I found myself wondering about its origins. The choral music, I found, was composed by Sir Hugh Roberton, a Scotsman, some time in the early 20th century. The lyrics were originally just a poem by an Irish lady, Katharine Tynan, right, written around 1880.
Tynan was a very busy writer. She published over a hundred novels and story collections, many books of verse, three stage plays, and five volumes of autobiography. She was a nationalist and a radical, and featured in the Irish literary revival of the late 19th century. The poet W.B. Yeats was a close friend, and in 1890 he actually offered her a proposal of marriage, to which she reacted very Irishly, quote: "For Heaven's sake, you go to the devil!"
(Being proposed to by Yeats was, I should say, not a very remarkable distinction. Poor W.B. couldn't catch a break with the ladies. He turned his rejections into some very lovely verse, though, so there is that.)
Katharine Tynan's poem reads very well all by itself, if you don't mind religious verse. Tynan was a devout Roman Catholic; but you don't have to be of that confession, nor even I think a Christian, to appreciate it simply as a poem, as a window into another person's true soul. The lines are short and the diction exceptionally plain—I counted 104 one-syllable words, 27 two-syllable words, and no words at all longer than two syllables. If you think it's easy to produce something memorable with vocabulary as spare as that, try it.
Just indulge me a little further, please: Let me read the poem before I play the choral version. Thank you.
Sheep and Lambs
by Katharine Tynan
All in the April evening,
April airs were abroad;
The sheep with their little lambs
Passed me by on the road.
The sheep with their little lambs
Passed me by on the road;
All in the April evening
I thought on the Lamb of God.
The lambs were weary, and crying
With a weak, human cry;
I thought on the Lamb of God
Going meekly to die.
Up in the blue, blue mountains
Dewy pastures are sweet:
Rest for the little bodies,
Rest for the little feet.
But for the Lamb of God
Up on the hill-top green;
Only a cross of shame
Two stark crosses between.
All in the April evening,
April airs were abroad;
I saw the sheep with their lambs,
And thought on the Lamb of God.
[Permalink]
[Music clip: Treorchy Male Voice Choir, "All in the April Evening."]


vdare--2020-04-10--Is the Subway Why New York City Is So Hard Hit By Coronavirus?

So , the monthly excess death toll in NYC in the month up through April 4 , 2020 is about twice as bad as September 2001 .
From the New York Times a couple of days ago : The M.T.A .
has been criticized for its response to the outbreak .
Now a staffing shortage has made it difficult to keep even a diminished system running .
At least 41 transit workers have died , and more than 6,000 more have fallen sick or self-quarantined .
Crew shortages have caused over 800 subway delays and forced 40 percent of train @ @ @ @ @ @ @ day .
On one line the average wait time , usually a few minutes , ballooned to as high as 40 minutes .
Ideally , the NYC subway system could respond to an epidemic by running more trains to reduce crowding .
But illness among its workers means fewer , more jammed trains , which increase the likely infectiousness risk of each .
I hadn ’ t realized how the NYC subway is an order of magnitude busier than the biggest “ heavy rail ” ( i.e.
, subways or elevateds with their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the next tier , D.C. and Chicago .
Other cities rely more on buses , but NYC has a huge number of buses too .
Basically , NYC has the fewest people with their own private cars .
My guess is that dangers of infection correlate with number of people standing in the mass transit vehicle and perhaps with straphanging .
My vague recollection is subways tend to have more floor space for standing than for sitting , while buses have more floor space devoted to sitting than standing , while commuter trains @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unfortunate event will cause some trouble for mass transit enthusiasts .

So, the monthly excess death toll in NYC in the month up through April 4, 2020 is about twice as bad as September 2001.
From the New York Times a couple of days ago:
41 Transit Workers Dead: Crisis Takes Staggering Toll on Subways The M.T.A. has been criticized for its response to the outbreak. Now a staffing shortage has made it difficult to keep even a diminished system running. By Christina Goldbaum, April 8, 2020 At least 41 transit workers have died, and more than 6,000 more have fallen sick or self-quarantined. Crew shortages have caused over 800 subway delays and forced 40 percent of train trips to be canceled in a single day. On one line the average wait time, usually a few minutes, ballooned to as high as 40 minutes.
Ideally, the NYC subway system could respond to an epidemic by running more trains to reduce crowding. But illness among its workers means fewer, more jammed trains, which increase the likely infectiousness risk of each.
I hadn’t realized how the NYC subway is an order of magnitude busier than the biggest “heavy rail” (i.e., subways or elevateds with their own right of ways) systems of the next tier, D.C. and Chicago.
Other cities rely more on buses, but NYC has a huge number of buses too.
Basically, NYC has the fewest people with their own private cars.
My guess is that dangers of infection correlate with number of people standing in the mass transit vehicle and perhaps with straphanging. My vague recollection is subways tend to have more floor space for standing than for sitting, while buses have more floor space devoted to sitting than standing, while commuter trains try to be all sitting.
This unfortunate event will cause some trouble for mass transit enthusiasts.
[Comment at Unz.com]


vdare--2020-04-10--John Derbyshire: Globalization Meant Sinification—Until China Virus Intervened

[ Adapted from the latest Radio Derb , now available exclusively on VDARE.com ] The hope has been expressed—for example by Counter-Currents ’ s Greg Johnson , as I mentioned last week —that our current travails will open the eyes of Western electorates to what a really bad idea unrestrained , unquestioning globalization has been .
The last thirty years , following the end of the Cold War , has been an era of globalization : lowered tariffs , world-wide supply chains , and First World countries outsourcing their manufacturing to cheaper workers in the Third World .
Also , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ World—the white part—of Open Borders and lax enforcement of immigration laws .
We all live on the same planet , to be sure , and we have common concerns in areas like , oh , public health .
But making your country dependent on a geopolitical rival for some high proportion of your medications , or key manufacturing processes , is seriously stupid .
But concerning that hope—that our people will awaken from their opium dream of globalized plenty with no downsides and become sturdy nationalists—I remain skeptical .
I do , though @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about one particular aspect of globalization : the fact that by far the biggest winner from globalization has been communist China .
This is easiest to see in the most thoroughly globalized organization of all , the United Nations .
The most prominent UN agency in this current crisis has been the WHO , the World Health Organization .
The Director-General of the WHO is an Ethiop named Tedros Something , or Something Tedros .
[ Tweet him ] Anyone who pays any attention at all to the news now knows that this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Chinese Communist Party .
Since the WHO is just the currently most prominent UN agency , it 's reasonable to suspect that the rest of the UN is similarly compromised .
To be perfectly fair to the U.N. , there are some contrary indicators .
Last year saw some to-ing and fro-ing in the General Assembly over China 's treatment of Muslim Uighurs in ChiCom-occupied East Turkestan .
Twenty-three countries issued a joint statement of concern .
Who were the 23 countries ?
The U.S.A. , Canada , Japan , Australia , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ European countries .
The ChiComs easily countered with a much bigger list of countries saying they were just fine with whatever was being done to the Uighurs .
That pro-China list included majority-Muslim countries like Pakistan , Egypt , Somalia , Saudi Arabia , and the United Arab Emirates , along with Russia , Cuba , North Korea , the Philippines , and a bunch of rat-hole countries in Africa and Central Asia .
If you look at the lists of countries protesting China and countries supporting China , the fundamental difference is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ named Transparency International publishes an annual list of the world 's countries ranked by how corrupt they are .
The countries critical of China come from the bottom part of that list , the least corrupt ; the countries supporting China are just the ones most easily bought .
Any globalized enterprise will display a similar pattern .
Since most of the world 's countries are Third World—which here I am using as a synonym for `` poor and corrupt '' —globalization means Third World-ification .
And since China leads the Third World @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to splash around and the least reluctance to just buy other countries ' leaders with bags full of cash , globalization means Sinification .
The First World is n't altogether immune to this globalization-equals-Sinification phenomenon .
Our own capitalist boss class is not at all keen to offend ChiCom sensibilities .
Imagine , if you can , a major Hollywood studio making an honest movie about the Land Reform terror in China around 1950 , or the mass famines that followed the Great Leap Forward ten years later , or the Cultural Revolution @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
You ca n't imagine it ; no such movies will be made .
The studios like their China market .
That 's not corruption , at least I do n't think it is .
That 's just economic pressure .
In this context , the context of economic pressure , an interesting case study is Australia .
As I mentioned above , Australia was on that list of countries criticizing China at the U.N. last year .
Well , stick around .
Five years from now , Australia may be on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is well on her way to being a Chinese satellite .
That 's not straightforward corruption , either .
Australia 's a high-trust Anglo-Saxon nation with low levels of corruption .
The case study here is one of economic pressure .
I 'm going to quote here from a 12-minute YouTube clip [ Australia 's China Problem , November 19 , 2019 ] from Wendover Productions , which so far as I can tell is unbiased .
Australia is big , the same size as our 48 continental states .
While those states @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Australia has fewer than 26 million .
By comparison with the U.S.A. , Australia is quite dramatically under-populated .
All the more so when compared with China : there are 56 Chinese people for every one Australian .
Australia makes a big part of her national living by digging stuff out of the ground and selling it to other countries .
She 's the world 's largest exporter of minerals : iron , lead , diamonds , gold , uranium .
Coal , too , and liquified natural gas .
She makes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Thirty percent of her exports go to China .
Australian colleges and universities , like ours , are also exceptionally hospitable to Chinese students , who pay full tuition .
The number of Chinese students in Australia is variously reported as in the range from 150,000 to 250,000 , so I 'll say 200,000 for convenience .
That 's one per every 130 Australians , paying in about twelve billion Australian dollars a year to the Australian treasury—that ’ s around US $ 7.5 billion .
Before I went to live in China @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that it takes four Chinese peasants to support one non-peasant .
Strolling around in the countryside with Chinese friends , any time we saw a peasant I 'd exclaim , in English : `` Hey , I know that guy—he 's one of my four ! ''
I 'm not quite sure why that came to mind… The consequences of all this are not hard to figure .
As the Wendover Productions video clip says : Hence the recurrent news stories about China meddling in Australian politics .
[ China meddling claims hit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , April 9 , 2019 , ] The ChiComs also of course carefully monitor their students in Australian universities .
If a student expresses open support for the Hong Kong demonstrators , for example , he will soon hear that his family back in China have been pulled in for interrogation by the secret police [ A student attended a protest at an Australian uni .
Days later Chinese officials visited his family , by Fergus Hunter , Sydney Morning Herald , August 7 , 2019 ] .
So , as I said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2030 , public criticism of China will be taboo in Australia .
The Aussies will love Big Brother—unless , ironically , the China virus saves them , and us .
email him ] writes an incredible amount on all sorts of subjects for all kinds of outlets .
( This no longer includes National Review , whose editors had some kind of tantrum and fired him . )
He is the author of We Are Doomed : Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism and several other books .
He has had two books published by VDARE.com @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also available in Kindle ) and FROM THE DISSIDENT RIGHT II : ESSAYS 2013 .
For years he ’ s been podcasting at Radio Derb , now available at VDARE.com for no charge .
His writings are archived at JohnDerbyshire.com .
Readers who wish to donate ( tax deductible ) funds specifically earmarked for John Derbyshire 's writings at VDARE.com can do so here .

[Adapted from the latest Radio Derb, now available exclusively on VDARE.com]
Much earlier, by John Derbyshire: Importing Sino-Fascism? September 13, 2000
The hope has been expressed—for example by Counter-Currents’s Greg Johnson, as I mentioned last week —that our current travails will open the eyes of Western electorates to what a really bad idea unrestrained, unquestioning globalization has been.
The last thirty years, following the end of the Cold War, has been an era of globalization: lowered tariffs, world-wide supply chains, and First World countries outsourcing their manufacturing to cheaper workers in the Third World. Also, in the Western part of the First World—the white part—of Open Borders and lax enforcement of immigration laws.
We all live on the same planet, to be sure, and we have common concerns in areas like, oh, public health. But making your country dependent on a geopolitical rival for some high proportion of your medications, or key manufacturing processes, is seriously stupid.
But concerning that hope—that our people will awaken from their opium dream of globalized plenty with no downsides and become sturdy nationalists—I remain skeptical.
I do, though, see signs of a spreading awareness about one particular aspect of globalization: the fact that by far the biggest winner from globalization has been communist China.
This is easiest to see in the most thoroughly globalized organization of all, the United Nations. The most prominent UN agency in this current crisis has been the WHO, the World Health Organization. The Director-General of the WHO is an Ethiop named Tedros Something, or Something Tedros. [Tweet him] Anyone who pays any attention at all to the news now knows that this Tedros bloke is a bought-and-paid-for shill for the Chinese Communist Party.
Since the WHO is just the currently most prominent UN agency, it's reasonable to suspect that the rest of the UN is similarly compromised.
To be perfectly fair to the U.N., there are some contrary indicators. Last year saw some to-ing and fro-ing in the General Assembly over China's treatment of Muslim Uighurs in ChiCom-occupied East Turkestan. Twenty-three countries issued a joint statement of concern.
Who were the 23 countries? The U.S.A., Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand…and the other 18 were all European countries.
The ChiComs easily countered with a much bigger list of countries saying they were just fine with whatever was being done to the Uighurs. That pro-China list included majority-Muslim countries like Pakistan, Egypt, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, along with Russia, Cuba, North Korea, the Philippines, and a bunch of rat-hole countries in Africa and Central Asia.
If you look at the lists of countries protesting China and countries supporting China, the fundamental difference isn't hard to figure. An outfit named Transparency International publishes an annual list of the world's countries ranked by how corrupt they are. The countries critical of China come from the bottom part of that list, the least corrupt; the countries supporting China are just the ones most easily bought.
Any globalized enterprise will display a similar pattern. Since most of the world's countries are Third World—which here I am using as a synonym for "poor and corrupt"—globalization means Third World-ification. And since China leads the Third World thus defined, with the most money to splash around and the least reluctance to just buy other countries' leaders with bags full of cash, globalization means Sinification.
The First World isn't altogether immune to this globalization-equals-Sinification phenomenon. Our own capitalist boss class is not at all keen to offend ChiCom sensibilities.
Imagine, if you can, a major Hollywood studio making an honest movie about the Land Reform terror in China around 1950, or the mass famines that followed the Great Leap Forward ten years later, or the Cultural Revolution of 1966-76, or the 1989 uprisings.
You can't imagine it; no such movies will be made. The studios like their China market.
That's not corruption, at least I don't think it is. That's just economic pressure. In this context, the context of economic pressure, an interesting case study is Australia.
As I mentioned above, Australia was on that list of countries criticizing China at the U.N. last year.
Well, stick around. Five years from now, Australia may be on the other list, supporting China. Australia is well on her way to being a Chinese satellite.
That's not straightforward corruption, either. Australia's a high-trust Anglo-Saxon nation with low levels of corruption. The case study here is one of economic pressure. I'm going to quote here from a 12-minute YouTube clip [Australia's China Problem, November 19, 2019] from Wendover Productions, which so far as I can tell is unbiased.
Australia is big, the same size as our 48 continental states. While those states have over 300 million people, though, Australia has fewer than 26 million. By comparison with the U.S.A., Australia is quite dramatically under-populated. All the more so when compared with China: there are 56 Chinese people for every one Australian.
Australia makes a big part of her national living by digging stuff out of the ground and selling it to other countries. She's the world's largest exporter of minerals: iron, lead, diamonds, gold, uranium. Coal, too, and liquified natural gas. She makes another big part selling agricultural products. Thirty percent of her exports go to China.
Australian colleges and universities, like ours, are also exceptionally hospitable to Chinese students, who pay full tuition. The number of Chinese students in Australia is variously reported as in the range from 150,000 to 250,000, so I'll say 200,000 for convenience. That's one per every 130 Australians, paying in about twelve billion Australian dollars a year to the Australian treasury—that’s around US $7.5 billion.
Before I went to live in China in 1982, I had read somewhere that it takes four Chinese peasants to support one non-peasant. Strolling around in the countryside with Chinese friends, any time we saw a peasant I'd exclaim, in English: "Hey, I know that guy—he's one of my four!"
I'm not quite sure why that came to mind…
The consequences of all this are not hard to figure. As the Wendover Productions video clip says:
There is a very clear but unspoken threat by China to Australia: If you make things difficult for us politically, we'll make things difficult for you economically.
Hence the recurrent news stories about China meddling in Australian politics. [China meddling claims hit Australian government before vote, Straits Times, April 9, 2019,]
The ChiComs also of course carefully monitor their students in Australian universities. If a student expresses open support for the Hong Kong demonstrators, for example, he will soon hear that his family back in China have been pulled in for interrogation by the secret police [A student attended a protest at an Australian uni. Days later Chinese officials visited his family, by Fergus Hunter, Sydney Morning Herald, August 7, 2019].
So, as I said, stick around: By 2025 or 2030, public criticism of China will be taboo in Australia. The Aussies will love Big Brother—unless, ironically, the China virus saves them, and us.
John Derbyshire [ email him] writes an incredible amount on all sorts of subjects for all kinds of outlets. (This no longer includes National Review, whose editors had some kind of tantrum and fired him.) He is the author of We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism and several other books. He has had two books published by VDARE.com com: FROM THE DISSIDENT RIGHT (also available in Kindle) and FROM THE DISSIDENT RIGHT II: ESSAYS 2013.
For years he’s been podcasting at Radio Derb, now available at VDARE.com for no charge. His writings are archived at JohnDerbyshire.com.
Readers who wish to donate (tax deductible) funds specifically earmarked for John Derbyshire's writings at VDARE.com can do so here.