Lmao coming back to the us from China...
Is just such a shock from being in China. Just got harassed and essentially threatened for being a socialist. They searched my bags and commented on my China flag and my little red books and my copy of Blackshirts and Reds. Fucking police state. The security in China is strict, but they don’t give a fuck about your thoughts, whereas this guy was very aggressive about “consequences” for being a socialist.
That reminds me of when I was in Helsinki airport.
I still had some time for my flight, and was walking around to get something to eat. The place itself is very cozy, lots of wooden architecture, places arranged to seem like they're in the middle of a forest, etc. Then I look the wrong way and see inside the smokers' lounge. There, a bald middle-aged guy wearing a black hoodie with the coat of arms of Nazi Germany on it, vaping.
I somehow doubt that person got into any trouble for it. One of the rare Germany Ws is that that would be very illegal here.
Good. They're afraid and have no counterargument. Scare them Comrade.
Yeah he tried real hard to imply I might get the wall, and I said, you know, I’ll do what I have to do, and you do what you have to do. He calmed down a bit once he realized idgaf what he says, I’m gonna do me, but he was very edgy lmao.
"THEYLL KILL YOU!" Cries the capitalist to the liberal, pointing at the dead fascist.
We should be critically supportive of the TSA, given that it helps accelerate the downfall of the empire by wasting 9.7 billion dollars per year on unfounded paranoia
The notion of "wasting money" doesn't really apply to a country that can print the global reserve currency at will. There is effectively no bottom to the money bag for the US.
Unfortunately.
it's always such a kick in the face when I go from Mexico to the US. I usually sink into a depression for the first two weeks or so due to the isolation and just kinda oppressive feeling of the United States.
usually the customs officers don't hassle me much because I'm white but tsa is always happy to help themselves to a groping, which is why I typically do not fly in the US. usually I cross in tijuana so I can deal with sane and pleasant mexican authorities instead of like getting groped for my sunscreen or whatever insane shit the US be smoking this week
The oppressive feeling in the US as a foreigner is so spot on. There are plenty of things I appreciate about visiting the states but there’s also stuff that just feels so… off. It always feels like such a weight off my shoulders when I return to Canada
TSA is so bizarre, they’re literally on guard for a terrorist attack that became unfeasible DURING 9/11 when that one flight crashed in a field in Pennsylvania because the passengers fought back. Not to mention they’ve deadbolted the cockpit doors, there’s always a chance of an Air Marshal on the flight and many pilots are armed…
Some claim they could “simply” bomb the plane. As if it were that easy. Explosives are tightly regulated and controlled and even a homemade 9/11 event simply isn’t happening. Look at every other airplane based attacker from the shoe-bomber, to the underwear bomber to the guy that tried to mix the liquid explosives in the lavatory. Which apparently wouldn’t work, anything liquid that’s unstable enough to be a high explosive couldn’t be casually brought in your hand luggage, and “mixing a binary explosive” in the bathroom is extremely difficult.
They’re chasing ghosts.
What's even funnier is like they failed to catch something like 80% of the weapons snuck through in undercover testing a few years ago lol. so they're not even good at it.
one of the things that cracks me up about the bolting the pilot in the cockpit thing....... Latin American airlines don't do that. the pilot will come out, have nachos, go to the bathroom, and you know why?
because Latin American countries don't conduct themselves in a manner that people wanna hijack their planes and fly them into buildings
Yeah, I recently got back from a trip to Costa Rica and I could immediately feel the fascistic shift in atmosphere coming back. As soon as the plane touched down the immediate first thing I hear is, "LET'S CLAP AND CHEER FOR OUR TROOPS, EVERYONE ELSE WHO BUST THEIR ASS AT NORMAL JOBS, FUCK YOU YOU ARE NOT IMPORTANT."
Jesus Christ that’s bad. I got rerouted and came back through Vegas airport, and seeing people not even make it out of the airport before getting sucked into gambling really made the differences apparent.
wtf the immigration officer was saying all of this when you got back to the US?
Commies can't immigrate to America. Seriously
I have no idea how much this is enforced though, since I used to know several Vietnamese people who were communist party members who were also American citizens or permanent residents. One ran a donut shop.
Also one of my comrades in a local org is a communist from Guatemala who was affiliated with leftist groups in central America, he still ended up in the US.
I'm not saying there's restrictions for communists, I just also believe the American state is lazy, inefficient, and probably prioritizes racism over past political affiliation when it comes to deciding who gets in.
Also can't be on the ballot in many states even if one were to get the ridiculous amount of funds needed to run for office
American officials at the airport will grill you on whether you're affiliated with any communist party, they never stopped the McCarthyism.
This has made me realize I really need to up my commie game then because border agents have never said a peep to me. I'm affiliated with 2 anarchist orgs, 1 Marxist-Leninist party, and 1 homeless support network. I thought my name would be on a file by now wtf. Fucking Immigration feds are calling me a liberal.
Border control has never stopped me when I've come back to the US from abroad, and I've left the US twice this year already. I had a bag with the Disco Elysium commie symbol (the stars and antlers) but that's probably too subtle. I'm also very visibly non-binary
Ugh do I need to tattoo a sickle and hammer on my face
That very much depends on how they profile you then. I've been around US international airports quite a bit and I've never been asked about it even when applying for TSA PreCheck
I think they searched me because I had a whole bag just for gifts I brought back. It wasn’t until I got to the secondary search area that this happened, when they popped open my bag, saw the Chinese flag, the mao books, etc haha
Lmaooooo I'm never going back to Amerikkka, fuck that shithole
Went there once. Nope, never again. Fascist shithole makes Canada look like a utopia. They literally have 3rd world infrastructure.
I've read accounts from people returning to the US after a visit in China saying it feels like returning to the 20th century after experiencing what 21st century infrastructure is like. Did you get that sense that all? I suppose it is highly dependent on which city you visited.
Yes. I literally was just telling someone it felt like it was both a century ahead and a century behind in some ways. Infrastructure and walk ability are amazing. The trains are so nice and so fast. I took multiple high speed trains, and next time I go back I intend to do the maglev train from Shanghai to… wherever it goes, I just want to ride the train 😂
Not just infrastructure, payments are also convenient with Ali pay/WeChat pay. Everyone pays everything by phone, most haven't used cash or card in years, although you can if you want. Apps are also ridiculously well designed and integrated, less visible as a foreigner, as much if it is obviously in Chinese and you have a language barrier. But you can really do anything you can imagine in WeChat. Alipay can also translate in miniapps. Say you are in a restaurant, you will scan a qr code on the table, can have a menu that you can automatically translate if you so chose. You also can order and pay through that menu on your phone.
Bureaucracy exists like everywhere else, but tends to be faster and more efficient in my experience. It's not perfect, but the country does feel very different.
Also, it doesn't depend that much on the city. I have been to most large cities in China, many small and medium sized ones too. I have also been to the countryside. The latter is more relaxed, but everywhere has technology and infrastructure. Basically all cities are serviced by train. Towns will all have bus systems that mean you can get anywhere in the country with public transportation.
What I wouldn't do to be able to leave and never come back
I think my wife and I are gonna retire there, but I have a criminal record, so I can’t work there. Our plan is suck as much capital out of American jobs as we can and then retire there and hope we can live for a long time without her having to go back to work, since I can get a spousal residency.
This is something I have also thought about, if there's no chance of emigration within my working years for me. My pie-in-the-sky future is my wife and I (unfortunately burgerland born and raised) fucking off to the mainland and never looking back, but from my research even residency is still extremely strict if not outright impossible for us without a technical "in"- marrying or heritage- and for that matter pretty much no one on earth wants disabled immigrants (thanks life), so I'm not sure I have a hope in hell. I've worked in tech for a very long time, so there might be something there, but even that seems rough to navigate. Sure would be nice, thougn.
the US really sucks now and is just going to keep getting worse. it still sucked 5+ years ago, but at least you could say treats were cheap. food was cheap. housing prices weren't as exorbitant as they are now.
now even living is unaffordable, the infrastructure is falling apart, I really don't see what's left.
I really don't see what's left.
waiting for everyone to realize that their society is in free-fall collapse. but it's more likely that civilization will completely collapse before the working class of the west wakes up.
there won't be a "free-fall collapse" - like a single event - though. things are just going to slowly get worse and worse every year. the right wing courts will get rid of more rights. businesses will be more free to exploit workers and the environment. infrastructure will continue collapsing. life will keep getting more difficult for the working class. just like how the UK went from a globe spanning empire to a backwater.
Empires take a lifetime to fall apart. At some point it will be just another country. Who knows how many wars we will put the rest of the world through on the way down, though.
consequences for being a socialist.
What... like healthcare? pension? affordable housing? Shit dawg, sign me up!
Right? I get the feeling he was more thinking Ethel and Julius Rosenberg though. And fair enough, I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.
Well yeah... but make the chud have to explain openly that "we're just going to kill you for wanting healthcare and affordable housing" while having your bags publicly searched.
The security in China is strict, but they don’t give a fuck about your thoughts
You sure about that? I have heard plenty of first hand accounts from people who were born there, who live there, and elsewhere who go back to visit family often, that say otherwise.
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-forbidden-images-chinese-internet
Random person: tell what they experienced during their trip in China
Smug lib: "Are you sure you really experienced what you say you did? Me (who has never been to China) think you are mistaken."
Pooh isn't banned (just look up Disney Land Shanghai) and I am pretty sure neither is "tank man", because PRC television showed the riots live.
There was precisely one Pooh image that was taken down, and that was because of its racist conotations. Not against Xi, he was just compared to Pooh, but against Obama who was compared to Tigger. The text to the image read "Xi is Pooh, Obama is a Tigger.", I think you get the intention, it's one letter.
Western propaganda, as usual, left out half the story. Common technique used in the west.
The Hong Kong rioters frequntly use the Xinnie Pooh insult to mock Xi for his skin color and East Asian appearance which expose their anti-Chinese racism and their identity as European diaspora. When I questioned their racist connotation with the Winnie Pooh stereptype, they tried to make irrational excuses or change the topic. The interesting fact is that the self-proclaimed Hong Kong independence advocate used the ban on the Xinnie Pooh racism as the only example of Chinese media censorship. There is also other obvious evidence that the alleged Hong Kong independence movement is an attempts to return Hong Kong under British authoritarian rule like the refusal to talk about the life under British rule, the false association of British colonialism to independence and democratic utopia, the lack of awareness that all their activities in Hong Kong that they openly publicized in media could only exist under a democratic government, and their claim that Hong Kong belongs to sinophobic British people that are rude to Hong Kongers.
Yep. I am. My wife is Chinese, I just spent weeks there, and I’m friend with a rather vocal dissident Chinese citizen, to the point I would even call him an anti-communist. He’s just fine. That is a pretty typical bullshit article. Winnie the Pooh is advertised on tv dude.
As a Westerner that attends public events I attract these people indoctrinated by Western propaganda like flies. IF China was an dystopian authoritarian police state they would've hired me by now to supply them with names.
You should have told the officer "I can't be communist, I have a racist friend" 😂
Notice how that commenter responded to others but not back to you haha
These liberals have never been challenged a day in their life on their synophobic bullshit. The moment they do, they're immediately unable to properly respond without sourcing lies and disinformation.
I was going to comment about the fact that libs would say otherwise, but you beat me to it.
Here I was thinking that you were talking about books, and wanted to talk about how Chinese bookstores with dedicated English non-fiction sections shelve the same alt-right tech-bro fiction you find in the US.
But, no. It's just Pooh and Tank man memes, and thus I'm kind of disappointed.
Fav Star Trek series?
TOS -> TNG -> DS9 -> VOY -> ENT I never could get into TAS but it only like half counts any way. If we count the Orville place it right before TNG, and there are no there are no other star trek shoes that have ever been made ever.
Sure you can make amything sound bad if you just lie about it.
He also thinks it’ll be 5 years until we’re at war. I told him I give it 2 max. Lmaooo
I was just like, man, first I’ve heard someone else say that off the internet. Hell, that was the initial reason I started learning Chinese and incidentally how I met my wife was I expected war by 2025. I really fuckin hope not though, because I will die if I can’t see my wife anymore. I didn’t plan to meet her, but she completes me in a way I’ve never been completed before.
"I give it 2 max" average based comment