For 11 years, Mark Swidan has languished in a Chinese prison on charges no one believes. ‘If this were a politically connected person, he would have been out a long time ago.’
"In China, the criminal justice system is not really about crime or justice as much as it is a tool used by the powerful to shut down or scare off those who threaten their power. "
I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in China a bit over ten years ago. I was friends with a young man my age in the town I was teaching who I knew smoked weed, which didn't bother me though I knew it was illegal. He was a funny guy, and early into my two years of being a volunteer English teacher, I found making friends very difficult, but he was an easy guy to talk to and hang out with. One day he disappeared. Over a year later, I was at a local restaraunt and suddenly I saw him at a table near me. He was dangerously skinny and missing many teeth. He told me that he had been arrested for marijuana posession, and had been beaten daily while in jail by both guards and other prisoners. The authorities released him when his mother paid them their life savings. This was a 22 year old local young man who's father had passed away years ago and whose mother was not wealthy, not even by the very low standards of that part of China.
We ate lunch together, though he wouldn't really make eye contact and barely ate. It took him the entire meal to really tell me what happened to him. After the meal, we walked out and I gave him my number again and told him to call me some time, that we should go get a beer like old times. He smiled just a little, the only time he did during that meeting, and said sure. I never saw him again.
The CCP are thugs, and stupid ones at that, pure and simple.
I have a friend who was in a Chinese prison for three years. She came home last summer. She lived in China, working for a company that teaches English there. She helped the teachers with their legal paperwork and whatnot. She was arrested out of the blue, at an airport on her way home for a visit. None of the charges against her were real. Her stories of her time there are absolutely horrific. The State Dept was involved, but I think the lawyer her family hired (for God knows how much money—he worked on her case for years) is who finally got her out.
I guess if she had been a basketball player who checked some “diversity” boxes (and even knowingly broke the law in the country she was visiting), maybe the U.S. would have traded a terrorist arms dealer for her freedom. But she was just an ordinary straight, white, cis female who did nothing wrong, so her family had to drain their bank accounts, raise funds, and rack up debts to get her out. She came home severely malnourished and obviously emotionally scarred, so they all get to pay that price as well. Never, ever will I travel to China or allow my children to.
China is a dangerous evil country. Travel there at your own risk. I’m more concerned with OUR broken justice system. Political prosecutions. Incarceration for years for misdemeanors-j6. IRS used to intimidate journalists. We have PLENTY of judicial problems here that need to be addressed.
I try never to buy Chinese-sourced stuff ever. Such small economic quibbling is the only real power that I have. But, of course, it's virtually IMPOSSIBLE not to buy Chinese-sourced stuff.
And we let this nation send 300k students to study in our universities and 10s of thousands more work in our research labs. Any sane, coherent nation would cancel all visas with such a hostile nation. Get this if you get nothing else. The Progressive/Marxist victory is in part based on two very important ideas. First, that the individual is secondary to the collective. Anything can be done to a single individual in service to the collective. Second is that the very idea of the 'nation state' is anachronistic and morally flawed at some basic level. They have succeeded in brainwashing most Americans with these ideas at an ambient level, like it may not be something most could overtly state but most Americans are suspicious of individualism and nationalism at this point.
So maybe someone on here can help the Mom set up an art exhibit of the drawings to bring attention to the situation and maybe sale the ones that are not to personal since she is on government assistance? Would be one way her son could help provide for her since he can't do it in person. I heard the Verdict podcast about this and the one take away is that being quiet about it for a decade and letting diplomats do their job hasn't worked. Maybe it is time to make some noise and shine a never ending light on it like the cell he is being kept in.
This only helps point out what so many already know. The government will sacrifice you for trade or a chance to get a news story about how great they are making relations with other countries. The other is that although not perfect, the US legal system is not as bad as the wokesters would have you believe. It is actually the ability of morally corrupt people to get elected that makes our system not function as intended. People saying my desires and beliefs out weight the written code of law.
Big difference here. Britney was guilty of her crime and Swidan is not. Anyone who thinks Britney wasn't a priority because of race and lesbian choice is delusional. The State Department under any administration is pretty much useless and is corrupt from the inside.
I would suggest a 20 percent tariff on all Chinese goods until our people are set free. Do we need their crap, NO! We do anything not to offend a communist, ruthless, deranged, and self serving elite communist structure. Yet, we will screw our own people over and over again and call it progress. But, you get what you vote for, watch Chicago that just elected another woke mayor.
Biden needs to step up. Or have Kackles give speeches to the Chinese until their brains scramble and they agree just to shut her up. Either way, this is unfortunately what you can expect from out government these days.
This is the sort of thing Amnesty International used to exist to remedy. But they seem to have lost their way long ago, like the ACLU and Southern Poverty Law Center. Consistency demands principles, and political partisanship and tribalism are inimical to principles.
Why supposedly sane people visit these despotic hellholes continues to elude me.
Yet despite stories such as this about the viciousness and brutality of Chinese communism, our globalist masters such as Cook, Dimon, Gates and the the rest of that deplorable gang of human garbage continue to bow and scrape to their Chinese masters and invest and buy products made by abused slave laborers. Well, why not, when we have a President who has taken Chinese cash and is in their pocket? These fiends even pontificate that the "Chinese model" may be better for us. Quelle surprise. You're really nothing but a serf with better toys.
And now, in keeping with their love of all things China, they're even trying to turn our cherished justice system into the "Chinese model." The article points out "It didn’t matter. In China, the criminal justice system is not really about crime or justice as much as it is a tool used by the powerful to shut down or scare off those who threaten their power." We saw that played out yesterday as a puppet NYC prosecutor indicted Trump on utterly farcical charges. You may hate Trump but you cannot doubt that he threatens the elites in ways that scare them to their very bones.
If this site corrects the caption I will read the article. The scandal is not an American scandal. It is a scandal owned by the Leftist totalitarian countries where innocent people are imprisoned. The Left in America is now attempting to bring this @#$&ing practice to America. This is now the most pressing American scandal. It has been brought to America by the political party supported by the proprietors of this site.
And in the news today black activist, Moore of Austin, TX thinks prisons should be abolished and that murderers and robbers should clean houses instead. The USA has pandered to black misbehavior for too long. And in another article this morning- in San Fran a white tech entrepreneur, 43 was stabbed to death....
But yet the Biden administration went all out to get that thankless woman basketball player out. I wonder why? I’m sorry but I cannot stand Biden. He is a blatant hypocrite. So many of them are. We should be fighting to get them all out. Not just one who is politically expedient.
"In China, the criminal justice system is not really about crime or justice as much as it is a tool used by the powerful to shut down or scare off those who threaten their power. "
Same in the USA, unfortunately.
I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in China a bit over ten years ago. I was friends with a young man my age in the town I was teaching who I knew smoked weed, which didn't bother me though I knew it was illegal. He was a funny guy, and early into my two years of being a volunteer English teacher, I found making friends very difficult, but he was an easy guy to talk to and hang out with. One day he disappeared. Over a year later, I was at a local restaraunt and suddenly I saw him at a table near me. He was dangerously skinny and missing many teeth. He told me that he had been arrested for marijuana posession, and had been beaten daily while in jail by both guards and other prisoners. The authorities released him when his mother paid them their life savings. This was a 22 year old local young man who's father had passed away years ago and whose mother was not wealthy, not even by the very low standards of that part of China.
We ate lunch together, though he wouldn't really make eye contact and barely ate. It took him the entire meal to really tell me what happened to him. After the meal, we walked out and I gave him my number again and told him to call me some time, that we should go get a beer like old times. He smiled just a little, the only time he did during that meeting, and said sure. I never saw him again.
The CCP are thugs, and stupid ones at that, pure and simple.
I have a friend who was in a Chinese prison for three years. She came home last summer. She lived in China, working for a company that teaches English there. She helped the teachers with their legal paperwork and whatnot. She was arrested out of the blue, at an airport on her way home for a visit. None of the charges against her were real. Her stories of her time there are absolutely horrific. The State Dept was involved, but I think the lawyer her family hired (for God knows how much money—he worked on her case for years) is who finally got her out.
I guess if she had been a basketball player who checked some “diversity” boxes (and even knowingly broke the law in the country she was visiting), maybe the U.S. would have traded a terrorist arms dealer for her freedom. But she was just an ordinary straight, white, cis female who did nothing wrong, so her family had to drain their bank accounts, raise funds, and rack up debts to get her out. She came home severely malnourished and obviously emotionally scarred, so they all get to pay that price as well. Never, ever will I travel to China or allow my children to.
China is a dangerous evil country. Travel there at your own risk. I’m more concerned with OUR broken justice system. Political prosecutions. Incarceration for years for misdemeanors-j6. IRS used to intimidate journalists. We have PLENTY of judicial problems here that need to be addressed.
Yes. And let us also extend our thoughts, prayers, and hearts to those political prisoners held in the DC Gulag. America's shame.
Very, very sad story.
I try never to buy Chinese-sourced stuff ever. Such small economic quibbling is the only real power that I have. But, of course, it's virtually IMPOSSIBLE not to buy Chinese-sourced stuff.
And we let this nation send 300k students to study in our universities and 10s of thousands more work in our research labs. Any sane, coherent nation would cancel all visas with such a hostile nation. Get this if you get nothing else. The Progressive/Marxist victory is in part based on two very important ideas. First, that the individual is secondary to the collective. Anything can be done to a single individual in service to the collective. Second is that the very idea of the 'nation state' is anachronistic and morally flawed at some basic level. They have succeeded in brainwashing most Americans with these ideas at an ambient level, like it may not be something most could overtly state but most Americans are suspicious of individualism and nationalism at this point.
Which is how this happens...
So maybe someone on here can help the Mom set up an art exhibit of the drawings to bring attention to the situation and maybe sale the ones that are not to personal since she is on government assistance? Would be one way her son could help provide for her since he can't do it in person. I heard the Verdict podcast about this and the one take away is that being quiet about it for a decade and letting diplomats do their job hasn't worked. Maybe it is time to make some noise and shine a never ending light on it like the cell he is being kept in.
This only helps point out what so many already know. The government will sacrifice you for trade or a chance to get a news story about how great they are making relations with other countries. The other is that although not perfect, the US legal system is not as bad as the wokesters would have you believe. It is actually the ability of morally corrupt people to get elected that makes our system not function as intended. People saying my desires and beliefs out weight the written code of law.
Big difference here. Britney was guilty of her crime and Swidan is not. Anyone who thinks Britney wasn't a priority because of race and lesbian choice is delusional. The State Department under any administration is pretty much useless and is corrupt from the inside.
I would suggest a 20 percent tariff on all Chinese goods until our people are set free. Do we need their crap, NO! We do anything not to offend a communist, ruthless, deranged, and self serving elite communist structure. Yet, we will screw our own people over and over again and call it progress. But, you get what you vote for, watch Chicago that just elected another woke mayor.
Biden needs to step up. Or have Kackles give speeches to the Chinese until their brains scramble and they agree just to shut her up. Either way, this is unfortunately what you can expect from out government these days.
This is the sort of thing Amnesty International used to exist to remedy. But they seem to have lost their way long ago, like the ACLU and Southern Poverty Law Center. Consistency demands principles, and political partisanship and tribalism are inimical to principles.
Why supposedly sane people visit these despotic hellholes continues to elude me.
Yet despite stories such as this about the viciousness and brutality of Chinese communism, our globalist masters such as Cook, Dimon, Gates and the the rest of that deplorable gang of human garbage continue to bow and scrape to their Chinese masters and invest and buy products made by abused slave laborers. Well, why not, when we have a President who has taken Chinese cash and is in their pocket? These fiends even pontificate that the "Chinese model" may be better for us. Quelle surprise. You're really nothing but a serf with better toys.
And now, in keeping with their love of all things China, they're even trying to turn our cherished justice system into the "Chinese model." The article points out "It didn’t matter. In China, the criminal justice system is not really about crime or justice as much as it is a tool used by the powerful to shut down or scare off those who threaten their power." We saw that played out yesterday as a puppet NYC prosecutor indicted Trump on utterly farcical charges. You may hate Trump but you cannot doubt that he threatens the elites in ways that scare them to their very bones.
What a terribly sad story. I used to travel to China for work. There’s no way I’d risk it now.
If this site corrects the caption I will read the article. The scandal is not an American scandal. It is a scandal owned by the Leftist totalitarian countries where innocent people are imprisoned. The Left in America is now attempting to bring this @#$&ing practice to America. This is now the most pressing American scandal. It has been brought to America by the political party supported by the proprietors of this site.
And in the news today black activist, Moore of Austin, TX thinks prisons should be abolished and that murderers and robbers should clean houses instead. The USA has pandered to black misbehavior for too long. And in another article this morning- in San Fran a white tech entrepreneur, 43 was stabbed to death....
If you are a Normal American, the Biden Administration and the GOPe hate you. Do not forget it.
But yet the Biden administration went all out to get that thankless woman basketball player out. I wonder why? I’m sorry but I cannot stand Biden. He is a blatant hypocrite. So many of them are. We should be fighting to get them all out. Not just one who is politically expedient.