[OT] Re: Malware "best practices"

[Randy Edwards]

 > China is definitely the one to watch, because they are the ones with the
 > *real* power -- economic power over the US. The US may "talk big", but
 > will quickly roll over and whimper like a puppy whenever China seriously
 > threatens to flex its muscle.

   Who's "fault" is that?  The above seems to portray China as inherently evil 
because they are not destroying their country with trade and budget deficits 
and wars of aggression that they cannot afford to pay for.

   Just so you don't get me wrong, I wouldn't want to live in China.  They 
have an oppressive gov't which and are building their economy by 
hyper-exploitation of the Chinese people.

   But to wave around threats that China might "flex its muscle" is ludicrous 
for two reasons.  First, it paints Chinese thrift and economic common sense 
as a negative.  But it also paints a picture of a warlike China, which is 
directly contradicted by literally hundreds of years of history.  Sure, China 
has issues over Taiwan, but those are legitimate concerns.  To portray China 
as an imperial power with a mindset like the US is far from the truth.

 > And, of course, China's alliance with Russia and various other countries
 > that currently despise the US, well, let's say it makes for a rather
 > fetching state of affairs!

   I know of no such alliance.  And "despise the US"?  While massively 
overstated, let's remember a few points of reality:

* It is not China or Russia which has a publicly stated goal of achieving 
worldwide military supremacy and undermining even potential rivals -- that is 
the US.

* It is not China or Russia who claims the "right" to launch sneak attacks 
against any country on earth; that "Bush Doctrine" not only violates the UN 
Charter, but int'l law dating back to the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia -- and 
the country doing that is the US.

* It is not China or Russia who maintains over 700 overseas military bases and 
calls this "defense" -- that is the US.

* It is not China or Russia who aggressively puts military bases on the border 
of the US -- it's the opposite, it's the US putting military bases on the 
borders of China and Russia.

* It's not China or Russia who arms Israeli aggression and who flies 
diplomatic cover for Israeli war crimes -- that is the US.

* It is not China or Russia who is waging a war that violates the UN Charter 
and who everyone from the UN Secretary General, to the Dali Lama, to the late 
Pope has called "illegal" -- that too in the US, a nation led by de facto war 
criminals.

   If there are people who do "despise the US", before jerking our knee in 
mindless nationalism, perhaps we ought to seriously look at things from their 
perspective.

 Regards,
 .
 Randy

-- 
"I came to America because of the great, great freedom which I heard existed 
in this country. I made a mistake in selecting America as a land of freedom, 
a mistake I cannot repair in the balance of my lifetime." -- Albert Einstein, 
1947.