Beru's Communism Omnibus Thread

[Bearu]

Every dispatch I've read from China (other than those released by the government itself) paints it as a desperately unhappy and corrupt country where it is essentially impossible to live with integrity due to a complete lack of accountability and transparency, combined with the breakdown of basic social trust.  Getting anything done requires a bribe, state jobs and social services are given preferentially based on personal rank and influence, and its vast body of rural workers is reduced to something nearly identical to serfdom.  They can leave their land to work in the cities, but they can't stop being rural-status, which means their descendants will be pathetic migrant laborers indefinitely.  Also, ridiculous amounts of censorship.

The presence of the dramatic differences in the quality of the sources would indicate the potential bias from the people in the article. The western journalists who promote the information tend to disseminate the disillusionment of the journalist with the potential damage from the current affairs in the country, and the migrants from the country tend to demonstrate a pro American bias since the individual undertook the efforts to migrate from the country. Who would ask an American immigrant in China about the quality of life in the United States of America? The answer would likely contain a negative or derogatory tone about the country. The Americans tend to distort the images of the countries with a tenuous relationship because the government fears to provide an objective truth about the situation, and the objectivity of the matter revolves around the ability of the individual to distance the analysis from the biased perspective of.the individual or company. With the development of the western superpower, an objective analysis of the material, in consideration of the conditions and circumstances of the country from a historical perspective, remains an essential tool to dispel the power of bias on the goal of an analysis. The presence of the information from the activity demonstrates the important role of the activity in the dissemination of propaganda in the country.
The presence of the economic actions originate from the demonstrations of the population in a reasonable manner in the country.  After the havoc from the western imperial powers of Japan, Europe, and Nationalists in the early century and the collapse of the Qing Dynasty, the standards applied in the west fail to address the potential realities of China in the period. The presence of the government represents a necessary and desirable aim for the region because the population, even under Mao in an monetarily poor state, received a significant level of social benefits to provide the population with an improvement in the quality of life for the population. If the quality of life does not match the absurd luxury of the American state, then an adjustment in the expectations of the population represents a necessary consideration in the ethical consideration. When a country attempts to implement a system beyond the creation of the capitalist world, the standards of the monetary wealth fail to address the provisions of the other benefits from the state. The provisions such as subsidized housing, healthcare, education, subsidized food, construction, and employment without the concern of selling yourself like a prostitute on the street beyond the credentials from the nearly free education in the country represent a few general examples of the actions in the country. The presence of the benefits represents a serious action in the country for the improvement of the population.
Does the government ensure the absolute equality of the population in the country? The majority of the American population appears to presume Socialism desires the establishment of a completely equal position in the world. As the majority of the people on the forum appear to represent an adult population, the users need to realize the ability of the system to provide an absolute equality represents an absurd proposition. The presence of the absurd proposition originates from the products of the American education system, and a decent portfolio of the material in refutation of the subject appears in every decent writer on a number of sites with the theoretical materials included on various sites such as marxist archive.org. The provision of the social benefits represents the singular method to ensure the continued survival of the species because the movement into space requires an initially authoritarian style of management in the contemporary period, and the instability in several countries necessitates the presence of an authoritarian government for the stability of the population while providing the necessary resources to develop the country. The presence of authoritarian government represents a less ideal solution in the United States of America or another western country, and the ideal solution remains the ability to match the government of the culture with the dictates of the society through a system, for example, of democratic centralism in the United States of America. The inability to adapt the solution to the needs of the individual country represents the false comparisons seen in the contemporary society due to the abundance of material in the U.S.A. versus the provision of the material in say China. The factual and objective analysis requires the selection of the system to best match the needs of the country, but the fundamental goal remains to reduce material difference in the population.

[Bearu]

All around the world,
the western powers set anchor,
stealing the resources and people of every land,
through the influence of the manipulative International Monetary Fund director.
(Paraphrased and modified from Henry D. Hwang's M. Butterfly)

The phrase represents the virulent influence of the bourgeois feculent pollution known as literature among the population, but the poem demonstrates a popular sentiment among certain populations. What happens when the world refuses to acknowledge the action in the international arena? The people receive a number of ominous threats from the international community.

[Bearu]

The presence of the various competing ideologies suggests the potential defilement and rectification of the population's thoughts on the appropriate methodology for the future. While each person remains in essence able to support a specific perspective, the perspective of each person requires a specific thought pattern. How does a person distinguish the appropriate mass line for a situation? The presence of the specific task requires the individual to consider the potential implications and criticism for the faults in each philosophy among the potential thought patterns, and the creation of the necessary thought pattern remains a critical feature in the development of the appropriate dialectical analysis of the situation. Each person remains free to reject the analysis, and as Lenin (1908) mentioned in What is to be done?, the presence of the rejection allows the individual to return into the "marsh" of ignorance and reactionary tendencies among the general population (Chapter 1). The presence of the swamp mentality demonstrates the tendency of the right and left in the United States of America to proscribe into a particularly odious format of ideology on the basis of the capitalist tendencies in the country through the suppression of free thought. The presence of the right demonstrates the need of the people to walk the proverbially dangerous path to provide the necessary advantages and tactics to observe the strangulation of the population in the country. Where does your ideology reside on the current spectrum?

[Bearu]

The growth of rent strikes demonstrates the massive inequalities in the American Society, and the growth of the strikes in the urban areas represents a tactic from the early 1900's to destroy the enormous power of the individuals in the government office. The people need the power to resist the social aggression in the country, and the rent strike represents a useful tool to oppose the parasitic behavior of rich investors and gentrification.
https://www.liberationnews.org/la-tenants-fight-back-massive-rent-strike/

[Bearu]

Nikki Haley represents an advocate for the massive genocide and elimination of the Palestinians with the assistance and direct consolation of the American government. The American citizens need to protest the gross and flagrant inequalities and inequities of the problems from the American government, and the best method remains to denounce the gross violations of basic human rights with protests and disruptions. A video from a month and half ago and an article from last week reveal the extent of anguish over the genocide and apartheid in Palestine/Israel:

! No longer available

An article discusses the new changes to the constitution of Israel with the potential implications of apartheid as an official policy.

[url=https://www.liberationnews.org/an-apartheid-state-israel-makes-it-official/]https://www.liberationnews.org/an-apartheid-state-israel-makes-it-official/[/url]

[Bearu]

Image from Google
The 6 August 2018 assassination attempt on President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela represents a recent example of the threats on the life of the president as he attempts to maintain the Bolivarian Revolution against the subversion from right wing extremists and agents from the United States of America.
Nicolas Maduro continues to support the enactment of the Bolivarian Revolution in the country of Venezuela, and every decent citizen needs to support Nicolas Maduro in his legitimate presidency. I stand in solidarity with Nicolas Maduro and various parties in support of Nicolas Maduro; does the rest of the population support a legitimate presidency in Venezuela?

[Bearu]

I remain pleased to announce the coalition of the Shia and the Iraqi Communists Party recently won a majority in the elections for the prime minister position of Iraq, and the groups hope to establish a new government. The following article reveals the extent of new activity. [url=https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/iraq-prime-minister-solve-problems-181008150630260.html]https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/iraq-prime-minister-solve-problems-181008150630260.html[/url]
The second article discusses the reasons for Iraqi communists supporting the Shia Coalition.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/05/communist-leader-iraqis-decide-controls-iraq-180525181402905.html

[Bearu]

The 'vocational education camps'  in the People's Republic of China combat the instances of extremist actions in the western provinces.
https://dailycaller.com/2018/10/10/china-reeducation-camps/

[Bearu]

The Belt and Road Initiative expands the influence of China into the regions of Asia and North Africa through the creation of a road or railroad for commodities transport; the initiative also involves the investment of money into the foreign infrastructure. The article below discusses the possibilities for a better future in the world.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2018/09/04/chinas-belt-and-road-initiative-opens-up-unprecedented-opportunities/#d50fb23e9aa1

[Bearu]

Recent news articles continue to attack China for the reeducation and thought reform of Chinese Uyghurs. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-45812419
The thought reform and transformation through labor of the Chinese Uyghurs represents a critical factor in the prevention and rehabilitation of dangerous outbreaks of social dissent and social diseases among the Chinese Uyghurs.
The thought reform process represents a modified version of cognitive behavioral therapy, and the process represents a rehabilitative process for the people experiencing the process. Traditional thought reform includes, in brief, the introduction of new thoughts into a group through the creation of an autobiography and the instruction on socialist subjects inside a classroom; the politically reliable elements generate a list of criticisms and self criticisms of the autobiography. The politically reliable elements also introduce the socialist education and values through the teaching of everything in the classroom. The criticism and bouts of socialist education repeat until the politically reliable elements either meet the minimum sentence or believe the person achieves a certain level of politically rehabilitation. The modern version of the process represents a similar vein of methodology, but the process incorporates the modern technology and western psychological methodologies into the process. Yu, Theodore. Thought Reform of Chinese Intellectuals . 1957.
The Chinese government's encounters with the radicalism and separatism of the Uyghurs demonstrates the importance of thought reform to harmonize the group into the larger social collective. The process works on people from any nationality, and the majority of people believe in the inviolate nature of political beliefs; thought reform reveals the fragile nature of political beliefs. Mu, Fung. The Wilting of 100 Flowers: The thought reform of Chinese Intellectuals. 1962

[Lorizael]

The thought reform process represents a modified version of cognitive behavioral therapy...

Where I'm from therapy is voluntary.

[Bearu]

The thought reform process represents a modified version of cognitive behavioral therapy...

Where I'm from therapy is voluntary.

The United States of America and China both possess a form of court mandated treatment and therapy sessions for offenders; China employs a similar principle for certain classes of offenders. https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/principles-drug-abuse-treatment-criminal-justice-populations/legally-mandated-treatment-effective

[Bearu]

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612458/exclusive-chinese-scientists-are-creating-crispr-babies

EXCLUSIVE: Chinese scientists are creating CRISPR babies
A daring effort is under way to create the first children whose DNA has been tailored using gene editing.

by Antonio Regalado November 25, 2018

When Chinese researchers first edited the genes of a human embryo in a lab dish in 2015, it sparked global outcry and pleas from scientists not to make a baby using the technology, at least for the present.
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It was the invention of a powerful gene-editing tool, CRISPR, which is cheap and easy to deploy, that made the birth of humans genetically modified in an in vitro fertilization (IVF) center a theoretical possibility.

Now, it appears it may already be happening.

According to Chinese medical documents posted online this month (here and here), a team at the Southern University of Science and Technology, in Shenzhen, has been recruiting couples in an effort to create the first gene-edited babies. They planned to eliminate a gene called CCR5 in hopes of rendering the offspring resistant to HIV, smallpox, and cholera.
Photo of Jiankui He
He Jiankui leads a team using the gene-editing technology CRISPR in an effort to prevent disease in newborns.
Southern University of Science and Technology

The clinical trial documents describe a study in which CRISPR is employed to modify human embryos before they are transferred into women’s uteruses.

The scientist behind the effort, He Jiankui, did not reply to a list of questions about whether the undertaking had produced a live birth. Reached by telephone, he declined to comment.

However, data submitted as part of the trial listing shows that genetic tests have been carried out on fetuses as late as 24 weeks, or six months. It’s not known if those pregnancies were terminated, carried to term, or are ongoing.

[After this story was published, the Associated Press reported that according to He, one couple in the trial gave birth to twin girls this month, though the agency wasn't able to confirm his claim independently. He also released a promotional video about his project.]

The birth of the first genetically tailored humans would be a stunning medical achievement, for both He and China. But it will prove controversial, too. Where some see a new form of medicine that eliminates genetic disease, others see a slippery slope to enhancements, designer babies, and a new form of eugenics.
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The step toward genetically tailored humans was undertaken in secrecy and with the clear ambition of a stunning medical first.

“In this ever more competitive global pursuit of applications for gene editing, we hope to be a stand-out,” He and his team wrote in an ethics statement they submitted last year. They predicted their innovation “will surpass” the invention of in vitro fertilization, whose developer was awarded a Nobel Prize in 2010.

Gene-editing summit

The claim that China has already made genetically altered humans comes just as the world’s leading experts are jetting into Hong Kong for the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing.

The purpose of the international meeting is to help determine whether humans should begin to genetically modify themselves, and if so, how. That purpose now appears to have been preempted by the actions of He, an elite biologist recruited back to China from the US as part of its “Thousand Talents Plan.”

The technology is ethically charged because changes to an embryo would be inherited by future generations and could eventually affect the entire gene pool. “We have never done anything that will change the genes of the human race, and we have never done anything that will have effects that will go on through the generations,” David Baltimore, a biologist and former president of the California Institute of Technology, who chairs the international summit proceedings, said in a pre-recorded message ahead of the event, which begins Tuesday, November 27.

It appears the organizers of the summit were also kept in the dark about He’s plans.

Regret and concern

The genetic editing of a speck-size human embryo carries significant risks, including the risks of introducing unwanted mutations or yielding a baby whose body is composed of some edited and some unedited cells. Data on the Chinese trial site indicate that one of the fetuses is a “mosaic” of cells that had been edited in different ways.

A gene-editing scientist, Fyodor Urnov, associate director of the Altius Institute for Biomedical Sciences, a nonprofit in Seattle, reviewed the Chinese documents and said that, while incomplete, they do show that “this effort aims to produce a human” with altered genes.

Urnov called the undertaking cause for “regret and concern over the fact that gene editing—a powerful and useful technique—was put to use in a setting where it was unnecessary.” Indeed, studies are already under way to edit the same gene in the bodies of adults with HIV. “It is a hard-to-explain foray into human germ-line genetic engineering that may overshadow in the mind of the public a decade of progress in gene editing of adults and children to treat existing disease,” he says.

Big project

In a scientific presentation in 2017 at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, which is posted to YouTube, He described a very large series of preliminary experiments on mice, monkeys, and more than 300 human embryos. One risk of CRISPR is that it can introduce accidental or “off target” mutations. But He claimed he found few or no unwanted changes in the test embryos.

He is also the chairman and founder of a DNA sequencing company called Direct Genomics. A new breed of biotech companies could ultimately reap a windfall should the new methods of conferring health benefits on children be widely employed.
Photo of stage and audience at Human Gene Editing Summit
The first International Summit on Human Gene Editing, held in December 2015 in Washington, DC. The second is taking place in Hong Kong on November 27-29, 2018.
The National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine

According to the clinical trial plan, genetic measurements would be carried out on embryos and would continue during pregnancy to check on the status of the fetuses. During his 2017 presentation, He acknowledged that if the first CRISPR baby were unhealthy, it could prove a disaster.

“We should do this slow and cautious, since a single case of failure could kill the whole field,” he said.

A listing describing the study was posted in November, but other trial documents are dated as early as March of 2017. That was only a month after the National Academy of Sciences in the US gave guarded support for gene-edited babies, although only if they could be created safely and under strict oversight.

Currently, using a genetically engineered embryo to establish a pregnancy would be illegal in much of Europe and prohibited in the United States. It is also prohibited in China under a 2003 ministerial guidance to IVF clinics. It is not clear if He got special permission or disregarded the guidance, which may not have the force of law.   
Related Story
First Human Embryos Edited in U.S.
Researchers have demonstrated they can efficiently improve the DNA of human embryos.

Public opinion

In recent weeks, He has begun an active outreach campaign, speaking to ethics advisors, commissioning an opinion poll in China, and hiring an American public-relations professional, Ryan Ferrell.

“My sense is that the groundwork for future self-justification is getting laid,” says Benjamin Hurlbut, a bioethicist from Arizona State University who will attend the Hong Kong summit.

The new opinion poll, which was carried out by Sun Yat-Sen University, found wide support for gene editing among the sampled 4,700 Chinese, including a group of respondents who were HIV positive. More than 60% favored legalizing edited children if the objective was to treat or prevent disease. (Polls by the Pew Research Center have found similar levels support in the US for gene editing.)

He’s choice to edit the gene called CCR5 could prove controversial as well. People without working copies of the gene are believed to be immune or highly resistant to infection by HIV. In order to mimic the same result in embryos, however, He’s team has been using CRISPR to mutate otherwise normal embryos to damage the CCR5 gene.

The attempt to create children protected from HIV also falls into an ethical gray zone between treatment and enhancement. That is because the procedure does not appear to cure any disease or disorder in the embryo, but instead attempts to create a health advantage, much as a vaccine protects against chicken pox. 

For the HIV study, doctors and AIDS groups recruited Chinese couples in which the man was HIV positive. The infection has been a growing problem in China.

So far, experts have mostly agreed that gene editing shouldn’t be used to make “designer babies” whose physical looks or personality has been changed.

He appeared to anticipate the concerns his study could provoke. “I support gene editing for the treatment and prevention of disease,” He posted in November to the social media site WeChat, “but not for enhancement or improving I.Q., which is not beneficial to society.”
Related Story
US scientist who edited human embryos with CRISPR responds to critics
Can we safely fix the DNA of human embryos in a lab dish?

Still, removing the CCR5 gene to create HIV resistance may not present a particularly strong reason to alter a baby’s heredity. There are easier, less expensive ways to prevent HIV infection. Also, editing embryos during an IVF procedure would be costly, high-tech, and likely to remain inaccessible in many poor regions of the world where HIV is rampant.

A person who knows He said his scientific ambitions appear to be in line with prevailing social attitudes in China, including the idea that the larger communal good transcends individual ethics and even international guidelines.

Behind the Chinese trial also lies some bold thinking about how evolution can be shaped by science. While the natural mutation that disables CCR5 is relatively common in parts of Northern Europe, it is not found in China. The distribution of the genetic trait around the world—in some populations but not in others—highlights how genetic engineering might be used to pick the most useful inventions discovered by evolution over the eons in different locations and bring them together in tomorrow’s children.

Such thinking could, in the future, yield people who have only the luckiest genes and never suffer Alzheimer’s, heart disease, or certain infections.

The text of an academic website that He maintains shows that he sees the technology in the same historic, and transformative, terms. “For billions of years, life progressed according to Darwin’s theory of evolution,” it states. More recently, industrialization has changed the environment in radical ways posing a “great challenge” that humanity can meet with “powerful tools to control evolution.”

It concludes: “By correcting the disease genes … we human can better live in the fast-changing environment.”

Note: This story was updated after publication to include claims by He Jiankui that the trial had produced live births.

The issue of human genetic editing illustrates the importance of science and possibilities, without the involvement of  ethical concerns on the sanctity of human life under the necessity of progress, to generate a new society.

[Bearu]

The worker action organizations alleviate a few issues of the labor movement over the last century.

Brief Background

1. The labor movement suffered a major decline with a growing inequality among the members of society as the American society transitions from an industrial society into a knowledge and service society as Steve Fraser mentions in the Age of Acquiescence: The Life and Death of American Resistance to Organized Wealth and Power. [1]
2. The labor movement continues to suffer from the decline of participation in the movement because of violent reactions from the business corporations starting in the 1800's and continuing into the 1940's through the contemporary period as Fraser mentions in the book [2].
3. The labor movement in the modern world consists of a dramatic difficulty in attaining a level of organization because of onerous restrictions on the organization of labor movements and strikes against the corporations and capitalist governments as outlined in the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947. [3].
4. The contemporary labor movement develops from a problematic existence in the late 1970's of corporations eviscerating the labor movement of political clout over the last century until only "11%" of all workers reside in a union or socialist group; the level in the 1950's at the height of the labor movement resided around 50% of workers as Fraser outlines in the Age of Acquiescence [4].

Conclusion and Potential Organizational Actions

5. A modern solution for the problematic restrictions and hostility of Congress towards a labor action consists of the worker strike organizations to bolster the weakness of workers in the labor struggles against a company or organization. An example includes the Worker's Action Center [5].
6. The worker action organizations, according to my understanding, circumvent the labor laws through the placement of organizers outside the corporate environment with the sole purpose of organizing strikes and protests against the corporation instead of negotiating for better wages and working conditions. The subtle distinction allows for the creation of protests and industrial actions against both the target corporation and suppliers of the corporation. The process circumvents the necessity of informing the corporation about the protests because the organization involves people outside the organization as long as the protests receive the necessary permission from the government for a protest permit. The worker action organization represent a portion of a larger solution in the agitation and movement of workers into a new state of activism against the violence, exploitation, racism, and economic inequality behind the power imbalance of American society.

Footnotes

1. Fraser, Steve. The Age of Acquiescence: the Life and Death of American     Resistance to Organized Wealth and Power. Brown and Company, 2015. pg 397.
2. Fraser, Steve. The Age of Acquiescence et. al.. pg 273
3. Congress. "Labor Relations Management Act of 1947." House of Representatives and Senate, 1947. https://web.archive.org/web/20081208125122/http://vi.uh.edu/pages/buzzmat/tafthartley.html. Accessed 23 Dec. 2018.
4. Fraser, Steve. The Age of Acquiescence et. al.. pg 318
5. Worker's Action Center. Google Search. http://workersactioncentre.org/. Accessed 23 Dec. 2018

[Bearu]

The list nullifies the influence of religion on the holidays; the list contains some essence of socialist patriotism.