Covid-19: Why China is sticking to “zero tolerance” public health measures

 China’s covid strategy has been to identify and interrupt community transmission through swift containment measures, sometimes for whole cities. And, despite already vaccinating over 75% of the population, it seems to be sticking to this approach. Andrew Silver asks why

Maintenance of containment has greatly reduced the impact of covid-19 lives lost and socioeconomic progress, wrote researchers including George Gao, head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in Nature Medicine in April.1

When people test positive for covid-19 in China they have to isolate, and authorities must implement targeted movement restrictions and PCR testing in geographical areas, working quickly to trace contacts who may have been exposed so that they too can be isolated. Authorities that don’t act quickly enough and people who don’t comply with covid-19 regulations face punishment.

Covid-19 measures led to the closure of Shanghai Disneyland, and testing was required before the guests already inside were allowed to leave.2 The government has also built a 5000 room quarantine facility on the outskirts of Guangzhou to house domestic and international travellers for at least two weeks of quarantine.3

In their paper,1 Gao and colleagues wrote that public health measures for covid-19 could change with the introduction of vaccines in China and elsewhere.

“PCR testing strategies will be adjusted to fit the changing epidemiological situation in China—probably one in which few or fewer non-pharmaceutical interventions will be needed for effective epidemic control,” the authors wrote. “Throughout 2020, PCR testing served the public well, helping to make and keep China nearly free of SARS-CoV-2 and providing socioeconomic space and time for vaccine development and long term prevention and control of covid-19.”

Today, however, China has already fully vaccinated over one billion of a total population of around 1.4 billion people, and some are wondering why measures haven’t changed. “Suppression strategies are not ‘solutions’ to covid-19 but rather ways to buy time, and fairly costly ones,” says Thomas Hale, a public policy researcher at Oxford University, UK, who leads a project that tracks government responses to covid-19 worldwide. “China has now vaccinated a large share of its population, so the question is, what is the value of buying more time?”

Immunity

Reuters has reported that Ruili, a border town and international transit hub in southwestern China, has had multiple outbreaks and disruptions, leading to a rare outburst against covid-19 restrictions from a former vice mayor, who wrote on social media that “the long term closure of the town has formed a deadlock in the town’s development.”4

Some say that China—a country ranked 177th for press freedom in 2021 by Reporters Without Borders5—may be balancing a number of factors, including public perception of the government and economic effects of SARS-CoV-2. “They want people to see them as being very confident and good at governance, and containing an outbreak is a very observable thing,” says Sean Sylvia, a health and development economist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA. “You’re not going to have a lot of people reporting on people facing economic hardship."

The South China Morning Post reported that in September, Zheng Zhongwei, head of medical 
science development at China’s National Health Commission, told a health forum on the 
sidelines of the China International Fair for Trade in Services in Beijing, “We will not relax 
controls until we have reached a certain level of vaccine coverage. We will not relax controls 
unless we make a judgment about the virus and how vaccination can guarantee the 
effectiveness of adjusting epidemic control measures.”

By 5 November about 76% of China’s population were fully vaccinated, said a calculation by Reuters based on data announced by China’s National Health Commission.6 Only domestically developed covid-19 vaccines are approved for emergency use in the country.7 These use more traditional and easier to deploy technology, such as an inactivated virus, rather than mRNA vaccines, which have more complex supply chains. Sylvia and others think that shortcomings with vaccines or the vaccination rate could be delaying a change in China’s covid tactics.

Few publicly available studies have reported the efficacy of China’s vaccines, including those from two leading brands, Sinopharm and Sinovac, which are also exported abroad and which, alongside Pfizer-BioNtech, are the most widely used covid-19 vaccines in the world in terms of doses delivered.8 The available studies indicate lower efficacy levels than those of mRNA vaccines such as Pfizer-BioNtech’s (World Health Organization data suggested 51% effectiveness at preventing symptomatic disease with Sinovac’s CoronaVac and 79% with Sinopharm, compared with over 90% with Pfizer) and antibody levels that last three to six months.8

Wang Weibing, an epidemiologist at Fudan University in Shanghai, says that the main reasons people in China haven’t been vaccinated are concerns about efficacy or safety. Some others can’t be vaccinated because of underlying conditions.

The Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines are approved by the European Medicines Agency and WHO, which emphasise that the drugs provide protection against severe disease and hospital admission. “The demand to get vaccinated is rather strong at our centres,” says Charles Poon, medical director of Raffles Medical China North Zone in Beijing. But he adds that “there is also quite a lot of interest and a waiting queue” for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. The Wall Street Journal has reported9 that health officials delayed approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine because of concerns that it would hurt confidence in locally developed vaccines.

Sylvia says, “The Chinese government realises that there’s a lot of hesitancy in China and that the vaccine is not particularly effective or is [not] as effective as they hoped, which is why the other containment policies become more important.”

Although Sylvia is not privy to deliberations, he adds that if the vaccines available were considered effective enough and the vaccination coverage was higher, it would be rational for China’s policy to change. “Say you had maximum take-up of the vaccine and it was effective and everything—it would make less sense to invest as much in strict containment,” he said.

An epidemiologist at a university in Beijing has told The BMJ under anonymity that they think some public health measures could change once 80-85% of people have been fully vaccinated and have received a booster shot. The CDC’s Gao has said in a TV interview that China may reach 85% by early next year.2 Gao had also accepted an interview request from The BMJ, but his personal assistant at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Microbiology asked to reschedule a phone interview set for 30 September and did not offer an alternative arrangement or reply to follow-up requests for alternative dates. Gao had not responded to an emailed list of questions for this article by the time of publication.

Chinese authorities currently recommend booster shots to select groups six months after vaccination because of waning protection, and 37.97 million people in China had received a booster shot as of 5 November, the National Health Commission said.6 But Nancy Qian, a professor studying China at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, USA, says that rolling out an annual booster to the population is not a simple task.10

Qian wrote on Bloomberg, “Most countries, including China, are not accustomed to offering annual flu vaccinations. Administering a round of new boosters every year is much more expensive and logistically difficult than delivering basic vaccines—say, for measles—that only need to be injected a few times during a person’s life.”

Outbreak risk

China is the fourth largest country in the world—behind Russia, Canada, and the US—and has a higher population density than all three: 153 people per km2 in China, compared with 9 per km2 in Russia, 4 per km2 in Canada, and 36 per km2 in the US.11 “The denser the population, the higher the likelihood of transmission to potential hosts,” says Ian Lipkin, an epidemiologist at Columbia University in New York, who was a special adviser to China’s science and technology minister during the 2003 SARS outbreak.

Outbreaks could stem from cases arriving from outside the country, similarly to what happened in countries entirely surrounded by water such as Australia and New Zealand. Earlier this year researchers estimated that of every 100 000 travellers to Australia and New Zealand, five would transmit SARS-CoV-2 to a border or health worker or to someone in the community with a link to quarantine and isolation systems.12

“If we look at Australia and New Zealand, their geography helped their covid control measures, but nothing is foolproof,” says Bonny Ling, an independent researcher in the UK who studies human rights and migration in the Asia-Pacific region.

There may also be non-human risks from inside China’s borders. The origins of SARS-CoV-2 remain a controversial enigma, but David Hayman, an epidemiologist at Massey University in New Zealand and member of WHO’s original SARS-CoV-2 origins investigation team, says that because we don’t know how the people in Wuhan were infected, it’s not known whether the virus is still circulating in a wild bat or other animal host. “It is not possible to say that another SARS-CoV-2 outbreak from an animal source couldn’t happen again, including inside China,” he says.

China claims that it’s able to extinguish outbreaks, but not all public health experts are sure. “I have no reason to believe in their reports on epidemics,” says Vasily Vlassov, an epidemiologist at National Research University’s Higher School of Economics in Moscow. He says that if waterlocked Australia and New Zealand couldn’t do it, why would China, with its long land borders?

One problem with controlling covid-19 is that regular surveillance would be needed, as even people with no or mild symptoms can transmit SARS-CoV-2. Chen Chien-jen, an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Genomics Research Center in Taipei, served as health minister for Taiwan during the 2003 SARS outbreak and says that China would need to test everyone for covid-19 every week if it wanted to identify all cases. “Otherwise, how can you identify a virus in the population?” says Chen. This could be particularly challenging in rural areas.13

Oxford University’s Hale says that governments should continuously evaluate the costs and benefits of covid-19 approaches and should not be inflexible. He adds, “If China waits until covid-19 is widely suppressed around the world to relax its stance, it may—sadly—be waiting a very long time indeed.”

Footnotes

• doi: 10.1136/bmj.n2759

警惕玄武之流打着爱国主义的大旗 做流量生意

 文｜凤凰网特约体育评论员张宾

　　中国拳手玄武

　　玄武这下子真的出名了。他的目的可能达到了。

　　日前，在武汉举行的一场拳击比赛中，中国选手玄武在对阵日本前WBO（世界拳击组织）蝇量级世界拳王木村翔使用了抱摔的动作。在拳击规则下，抱摔是违规动作。玄武违规在先，却成了胜利者，理由是木村翔一方宣布退赛。

　　事情到此已经十分明了，玄武不讲武德，场裁没有严格执法。场裁张旭解释称开赛前被口头告知比赛方式变更为“中国功夫VS日本拳击”，允许使用抱摔的动作。这显然不合乎常识，一场正式比赛，即便没那么正规，规则也不可能在比赛前临时变更。何况，玄武的对手还是一个货真价实的拳王，曾经击败过邹市明而在中国名声大噪。

　　这就是一出彻头彻尾的闹剧。如果事情到此结束，还不至于酿成国际事件。在比赛之后，玄武继续挑衅，他在网上留言称：“中国打日本还需要规则吗？他不死我睡不着觉啊！”

　　而木村翔的回应则有礼有节，“世界上任何一个国家，都有坏人、好人、真诚的人和狡猾的人，希望大家不要因为这件事讨厌中国人。”与玄武的姿态比起来，品格高下立判。

　　玄武明显在偷换概念，将普普通通的一场拳击比赛，演绎成“中日对决”，试图挑起民族仇恨，为自己脸上贴金。

　　地缘政治的冲突让中日之间的关系变得紧张，这是客观事实。在当下，民众的爱国热情普遍高涨。“国家公祭日”刚刚过去不久，大多数国人还沉浸在对历史的缅怀中。不得不说，玄武很会利用时机，在这样一个敏感的历史当口，想通过挑起中日对立，将自己置于道德的高位。

　　可是，他的算盘打错了。反对体育政治化，一直都是各方秉承的态度。诚然，体育不可能完全与政治无关，但在竞赛场上，还是应该让体育保持纯粹。尊重对手，尊重规则，尊重裁判，这才是体育的精神内核。

　　当然，任何国际性赛事，不可能不掺杂民族情感。中国选手与国外选手之间的对决，国人为中国选手加油助阵，这是人之常情，但这与复杂的政治背景没有多大关系。中国选手与日本选手同场竞争，并不应该被为国复仇的复杂情感所羁绊。他可以为国而战，但只是为了朴素的爱国情感，没有任何道德的绑架和束缚。

　　玄武将他与木村翔一场普普通通的拳击比赛，上升成中日民族对决，属于典型的偷梁换柱。幸运的是，这一次无论是中国民众，还是日本民众，都没有被玄武忽悠。两国网民都在互联网上声讨玄武，他成为了“风箱里的老鼠”。玄武的行为，不仅仅是对体育精神赤裸裸的亵渎，更是试图通过与爱国主义相捆绑实现不可告人之目的。

　　针对玄武跳梁小丑的行为，其实没有必要长篇大论进行口诛笔伐，因为他不配。但是，我们必须还是要承认，他这一波“骚操作”的目的可能达到了。通过违反规则的举动，以及捆绑爱国主义的行为，他让自己获得了不菲的流量和名气。

　　恕我孤陋寡闻，在这一事件之前，我丝毫不知道玄武究竟是何方神圣，只知道玄武湖（现在，我感觉玄武对玄武湖都构成了某种程度的玷污）。百度百科显示，他的身份是武术散打运动员、拳手，最辉煌的履历是2004年中国VS日本真功夫争霸赛中获得52kg级冠军。

　　他的对手木村翔在中国赫赫有名，不仅仅是因为他曾经击败过邹市明，还有一个很重要的原因是他“外卖拳王”的身份。如果不是因为生活所迫，很难想象他会来到武汉和这么一个不知名的选手（玄武）进行一场小小的表演赛。

　　这场比赛对外宣传的主办方是：WBU世界拳击联盟、WKF世界自由搏击联合会以及中国国际综合格斗联合会。不过，比赛当天，WKF中国区与WBU大中华区就发布联合声明，表示该比赛未获得口头承认或者官方书面授权。中国国际综合格斗联合会也发表了声明，否认是该比赛的主办方。

　　在这样一个不入流的小比赛中，赛前口头更改规则，赛后挑动网友情绪，我有理由猜测这是玄武提前布好的局，就是为了哗众取宠，博取流量，从而在未来以此谋利。在这样一个互联网时代，“审丑模式”大为流行，很多跳梁小丑收获了足够的流量，从而赚得盆满钵盈。

　　这是我们尤为要警觉的，也是我在开篇为什么说他的目的可能达到了。他就是想要通过裹挟爱国主义情绪，从而实现暴得大名的目的，最终去变现。

      有时候聪明反被聪明误。当下确实爱国主义情绪高涨，但在他这个事件上，民众还是保持了足够的清醒，反而集中火力炮轰他不讲武德的举动，以及绑架爱国主义的行为。他的狼子野心被识破了，并且遭到了反噬。这足以让他被钉在体育历史的耻辱柱上。

　　“耗子尾汁”的那位马大师，已经被历史的尘埃湮灭。玄武的行径，同样令人不齿。舆论应该对他这样的人弃之如敝屣，让他无法从中渔利，最终被历史所抛弃。

　　我们同样需要警惕的是，在体育界，会不会有越来越多的玄武披着爱国主义的大旗，绑架民意，表面上看起来是为了民族大义，实则无非为了个人的名与利。爱国是一种崇高的情感，表现在行动上，并不表现在嘴皮子上。很多口口声声爱国的人，实际上却是做着爱国主义的生意，满口仁义道德，满肚子蝇营狗苟。

　　这不仅让我想起了周星驰的经典电影《九品芝麻官》里的一句台词：“老佛爷是要放在心里尊重的，像你这样整天挂在嘴边讲，只有贬低她的身份。”

　　透过这个事件，我认为，防止不轨之人做爱国主义的生意，人人有责。尤其是在体育领域，各级机构三令五申反对体育政治化，还有宵小之徒铤而走险，更是人人得而诛之。

世上本是有路的 走的2B多了 也就没了路…

 王五四｜炮弹要在天上飞多少次，才能被永远禁止

我深深地感觉到，这个社会太惯着这些傻逼了。以前的社会风气再不堪，这些傻逼也不敢轻易冒头，因为有羞耻心。现在倒好了，羞耻心全无，反而还顶着光鲜亮丽的爱国帽子出来丢人现眼，以前还有句话来形容这些人，“别以为你爱国了，祖国就看不出你是个傻逼”，现在这话也失效了，这些人肆无忌惮，横行霸道。这是什么道理，这是不讲道理，明明是他们丢人现眼的言行，损害了同胞的形象和祖国的利益，不仅无人敢管，反而大家都躲着走，躲恶臭可以理解，但长此以往，国将不国。难怪司马南说自己住在南锣鼓巷八号，有人现场查看完之后说是公共厕所，这有什么问题吗？有些物种就喜欢在厕所里咕咏，特别是以公共面目示人的，就喜欢在公共厕所翻滚。

《环球时报》的中肯胡退休了，据说他退休后还将以环球时报特约评论员身份继续发言，有人是退而不休，老胡这叫退而喋喋不休，是挺烦人的，关键是十几年过去了，一点长进都没有，他当总编的环球时报，所有言论一句话就可以形容，那就是“全世界都想害我们，因为全世界都不如我们。”这是什么思想，这是小农思想，这与改革开放背道而行，这与共同富裕公然作对，以胡锡进为首的文人用看似爱国的笔触损害祖国的利益，用看似为国争光的腔调随时给祖国脸上抹黑，从未真正树立理想信念，从未对人民忠诚老实。

《环球时报》总编辑胡锡进近日宣布退休

“庙小妖风大，池浅王八多”，当前的舆论氛围可以说是乌烟瘴气，好人不敢作声，恶人指鹿为马，凡事不讲道理，凡事不讲法律，一句“你不爱国”就能引来千夫所指，自己百口莫辩。你们哪来那么多“不爱国”的帽子，义乌小商品批发市场批发来的吗？中国人是内敛的，他们的爱深藏心底，反而是那些动不动张嘴就是爱国的人，像极了社会上的渣男，爱国成了这些无赖手里的投枪，可他们在精神上爱国无脑，在情感上爱国无心，在行动时爱国无胆，在前行时爱国无力，只有在安全的时候，在他们的小算盘上，爱国无价，一不需要付出代价，二能捞着不可估价的利益。还是《霸王别姬》里段小楼的那句话，“一个个都他妈忠臣良将的摸样，这日本兵就在城外头，打去呀，敢情欺负的还是中国人！”

我现在写文章基本已经放弃跟人讲人话了，常识更是不敢奢求的谈话内容，想骗人的请继续，愿意受骗的请自便，我只是想抬升一点做人的底线，让眼前的生活不至于过于荒诞和可笑，以后后辈研究起我们生活的时代时不至于说“那样的环境下你们是怎么苟活下来的”“那样的时代，你们居然还赚到了钱”“那样的日子，一定是不要脸才会过得那么心安理得吧？”“那种垃圾人，你们怎么容忍他胡说八道的”“那样的情况，你们做出过什么努力吗？”以前我总觉得“逼良为娼”是很坏的结果，其实那也是一条路，一种选择，现在我发现很多时候我们把“娼”都逼的无路可走了，鲁迅说，世界上本没有路，走的人多了，变成了路，可他妈现在走的人太多了，一条路上挤满了傻逼，一条路上挤满了坏逼，二逼相乘，逼得人走投无路，世上本有路，走的二逼多了，也就没了路。

1962年，毛泽东说过，“不要给人乱戴帽子。我们有些同志惯于拿帽子压人，一张口就是帽子满天飞，吓得人不敢讲话。”他还说“让人讲话，天不会塌下来，自己也不会垮台。不让人讲话呢？那就难免有一天要垮台。”1996年，陆定一留下了两句遗言，“要让孩子上学，要让人民说话”，可见总有人试图不让人民说话，现在孩子是可以上学了，教师却不敢讲话了。

上海震旦职业学院女教师宋庚一，对南京大屠杀的人数表达了一下不同的意见，不仅仅被开除，还被央媒点名批评，被一些自媒体踏上了一万只脚，还有众多狂欢咒骂的网民，当然，他们都是不值得一提只会蚕食国家利益和败坏祖国形象的乌合之众，在我眼里，他们除了嘴里爱国，所言所行，于国于民，肯定不如他们咒骂的“日本走狗”宋庚一。有什么问题是不能拿来讨论的吗？有什么话是不能说错的吗？说错了就要经受这般惊涛骇浪，一个普通人经受不起这些，你们如此热爱历史上死去的同胞，连个数字都不能说错，却又如此冷酷残忍的对待眼前活着的同胞，你们算什么东西。你们是不是要带着红袖章，去街头拦住每一个人问，南京大屠杀死了多少人，那些回答不出的人，是不是要被你们拿着皮带扣抽得头破血流才行。

宋庚一老师说三十万的数字缺乏确证，她也说了，有人说是几千，几万，也有人说是比三十万还多的五十万，这样的探讨有什么问题，记住南京大屠杀的历史，并不是因为死亡了三十万人，难道死了三千死了三百，你们他妈就记不住了？的确，有很多这样的情况，都被你们遗忘了，于是这种灾难一次又一次的发生，对于你们而言，死亡人数不够多，不够悲惨，不值得记住，你们不仅记不住，反而一言一行像极了那些凶手。宋老师说“不应当永远去恨，而是反思战争如何而来”，这话怎么了？不去恨就是忘记历史了吗？你又是如何去恨的？中日友好医院，中日友好饭店，中日友好城市，各种日本品牌，你要如何恨他们？反战难道不是人类共同的目标吗？居然有人拿着这一点来痛批宋庚一老师。在第二次世界大战结束之后，国际社会和许多国家，不断举行各种纪念活动，为的就是祭奠战争死难者，反思战争历史，怎么到了我们这，就变成了人人喊打。在我看来，这些挑动群众情绪煽动民族主义的人的诉求很简单，流量，接下来就是流量变现，以前他们还披着民族大义的外衣，现在批这件衣服的人多了，他们光着腚也上了，毕竟错过这波韭菜，就损失了实打实的利润，他们为了获取那点利益，不惜损害的是整个社会的利益，战争是一将功成万骨枯，而到了他们眼里却是万骨枯了好带货。

鲍勃·迪伦有首著名的反战歌曲《blowin’ in the wind》，是美国民谣史上最重要的作品之一，这首歌的歌词于2016年获得诺贝尔文学奖。这首歌写于1962年，当时美国在越战的形势并不乐观，政府不顾本国人民的意愿将更多士兵送入越南，目睹自己同胞满怀爱国热情却为了不必要的战争断送了性命，鲍勃·迪伦用他的歌声表达了他对和平的思考，希望世人能以和平而理性的态度来解决争端，当时的美国政府没有禁止他歌唱，美国也没有人站出来指责他忘记了“莱克星顿的枪声”，也没有人问他会不会背诵林肯的葛底斯堡演讲全文，不会背就滚出美国。

How many ears must one man have

一个人有多少耳朵

Before he can hear people cry

才能听见身后人的哭泣

How many deaths will it take

要牺牲多少条生命

Till he knows that too many people have died

才能知道太多的人已经死去

How many times must the cannon balls fly

炮弹要多少次掠过天空

Before they‘re forever banned

才能被永远禁止

有些人永远听不懂这首歌表达的意思，即便翻译成了中文。但有一点是确认的，他们知道这是一首美国歌曲，他们会大声训斥你，“你怎么能拿一首美国歌曲来诋毁我们的爱国热情，你究竟有什么不可告人的阴谋。”我只能回答，我去你妈的！

To Paramilitary Groups, Rittenhouse Verdict Means Vindication

 On Friday, as Kyle Rittenhouse stood in a courtroom in Kenosha, Wisconsin, awaiting the verdict in his trial, a large bald man with mutton-chop sideburns sat in a pew several rows behind him. As a court clerk announced Rittenhouse’s acquittal on all charges, a faint smile passed across the man’s lips.

“I’m walking on sunshine,” the man, Kevin Mathewson, said the next day. A local private investigator and former city alderman, he had attended every day of the trial, in which he had more than a passing interest.

Mathewson had become a prominent and divisive figure in Kenosha. Days after George Floyd was killed by a police officer in Minneapolis, Mathewson had created an organization called the Kenosha Guard, an armed group that declared its intent in a Facebook post “to deter rioting/looting” amid racial justice demonstrations in Kenosha. In August 2020, after the police shooting of a Black man named Jacob Blake brought a wave of protests and rioting to the city, Mathewson had written on the Kenosha Guard’s Facebook page urging Kenoshans to take to the streets with guns to defend the city. His Aug. 25 post went viral, drawing thousands of RSVPs and comments threatening violence.

Mathewson’s call to arms was one of several in Kenosha that day, which collectively brought dozens of mostly white armed paramilitaries into the streets of the city’s small downtown, creating a heavily armed confrontation with demonstrators that came to a head with the Rittenhouse shootings. Mathewson went home hours before the shootings, and no evidence ever connected Rittenhouse — whom Mathewson said he had never met — to his Facebook post. But his proximity to the incident led to him being banned from Facebook, where his Aug. 25 post had been flagged repeatedly for violating the platform’s ban on militia activity and had left an aura of suspicion around him.

Now that Rittenhouse had been acquitted, Mathewson felt cleared by association. “It vindicates Kyle,” Mathewson said. “I felt vindicated by it.” And, he said, “It vindicates people that say, ‘Look, no one’s coming to help, we have to help ourselves.’”

The Rittenhouse shootings, and the clash between paramilitaries and demonstrators in which they occurred, represented the lethal culmination of this idea: that the United States had reached a point of crisis in which citizens were required to take up arms to defend it from their fellow citizens. It was an idea with deep roots in American history, and also one deeply entangled with the country’s legacy of racial conflict.

White vigilante groups, some of them openly white supremacist, responded violently to unrest in Black communities in multiple cities in the late 1960s, often with the acquiescence or active support of local police. Photographs of armed Korean American business owners in Los Angeles defending their properties during the 1992 riots have been touchstones for Second Amendment advocates for years, and they were circulated again as social media memes after the Rittenhouse verdict.

In 2020, this strain of armed vigilantism was reactivated by the struggles of mostly Democratic state and local governments and law enforcement in responding to rioting and prolonged unrest in several major cities after Floyd’s death. And it was fanned by conservative media figures and Republican politicians, who encouraged their audiences and supporters to see the failure to preserve order as part and parcel of the Democratic agenda.

“I’m really concerned about the gun fetish, and those who really buy into the ‘good guy with a gun’ scenario,” Anthony Kennedy, an alderman in Kenosha, said after the verdict. “Those people who see the breakdown of society, think they need to be armed — this just validates their worldview. And that’s bad for all of us.”

Rittenhouse’s trial was an important test of how the legal system would address one of the signature developments that emerged amid the violent fracturing of American politics in 2020: the presence of armed counterprotesters at racial justice demonstrations, both peaceful and otherwise. In some cases, the armed groups and individuals were openly opposed to, and antagonistic toward, demonstrators. In others, they presented themselves as a volunteer security presence for private or government buildings, or even as neutral peacekeepers, although they were rarely welcomed as such by demonstrators.

Their actions were not without precedent. Members of the Oath Keepers militia were present in Ferguson, Missouri, after the police shooting of Michael Brown there in 2014. Elizabeth Neumann, a former assistant secretary for counterterrorism and threat prevention at the Department of Homeland Security, where she tracked domestic extremism, argued that such groups represented a particularly elusive kind of security threat, in part because the armed groups themselves did not necessarily see themselves that way.

“An Oath Keeper, they see themselves as being there for protecting,” she said. Their mindset, she added, is that “they’re there in case there’s a bad day — and if the government keeps violating our rights, there might come a day when they need to launch a revolution.”

The armed groups that materialized in Kenosha appeared to span a range of motivations. Some were highly ideological, including members of the anarchic far-right Boogaloo movement, who could be seen in footage from several nights placing themselves between demonstrators and police and guarding private property. Others saw themselves as simply defending local businesses or providing a sort of heavily armed neighborhood watch in the absence of an overstretched police department.

Doug Flucke, who stood watch as part of a group outside a restaurant in another part of Kenosha the night of the Rittenhouse shootings, said in a Facebook message last month that his group was “ready to help and stand next to our Blue to show them that they had support from their community and they weren’t alone.”

Prominent media and political personalities on the right in Wisconsin and elsewhere had discussed throughout the summer the need for this kind of community-level response to what they depicted as Democratic failure in the face of rioting. Appearing on a talk-radio program the day after the Rittenhouse shootings, David Clarke, the former Milwaukee County sheriff and a right-wing political celebrity, said that he did not advocate “some of the stuff that’s starting to happen” but that he would not condemn it either, and he advised listeners to have a plausible argument for their actions in such cases.

“Think about it, have a plan,” he said. “You have to act reasonably. Then you’re going to have to articulate what you did afterwards.” After the Rittenhouse verdict Friday, Clarke told Newsmax that he had to “hold back tears” after the verdict was read. “I’ve talked to this young man,” he said. “He’s been under a lot.”

A 2013 Urban Institute study found marked disparities in how often homicides were deemed justifiable by juries based on the race of the parties involved. And “stand your ground” laws, which codify a particularly expansive right to self-defense, have played a role in the acquittal of defendants accused of killing Black people who were unarmed in several high-profile cases, most notably in George Zimmerman’s shooting of Trayvon Martin, a Black teenager, in 2012. Three white men currently on trial in Georgia for the murder of Ahmaud Arbery — a 25-year-old Black man who was unarmed and whom the men pursued through their neighborhood — have similarly claimed self-defense.

Rittenhouse’s detractors rushed to cast his acquittal as part of this pattern. “This system isn’t built to hold white supremacists accountable,” U.S. Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., a Black Lives Matter activist elected to Congress last year, wrote on Twitter shortly after the decision.

But the Rittenhouse shootings — which happened after he brought an assault-style rifle to the aftermath of a racial justice protest — diverged in significant ways from that template. The three men Rittenhouse shot, two of them fatally, were all white, and the shootings occurred in a genuinely chaotic and violent situation, with deadly weapons present on all sides.

His acquittal was considered a likely outcome by legal analysts, who had regarded the prosecution’s path to conviction on homicide charges as exceptionally steep because it would have required demonstrating beyond reasonable doubt that Rittenhouse had not acted in self-defense. “I think this is not a terribly surprising verdict,” said Michael O’Hear, a professor at Marquette University Law School in Milwaukee.

“I don’t think the kid was a Klan member,” Raymond Roberts, a local data analyst and activist, said of Rittenhouse. “It was just the privilege of it: ‘Because I’m white, I can walk around in tac gear with a rifle, and the police will say thank you.’”

In June 2020, Roberts, who is Black and an Army veteran, had organized an armed demonstration to counter Mathewson’s Kenosha Guard, calling on fellow veterans to openly carry firearms in solidarity with racial justice demonstrators. But at the event, Roberts had chosen to carry a permitted concealed handgun rather than a rifle — a common choice among local racial justice activists who armed themselves at demonstrations in Kenosha that summer.

To Roberts, the Rittenhouse verdict was a stark reminder of who was likely to be seen by the police and jury members as “helping” in a situation such as the one Rittenhouse placed himself in, and who was not.

“I have to be honest and say I’m angry because I’m jealous,” Roberts said. “That 17-year-old white boy, this country belongs to him more than it’ll ever belong to me. It doesn’t matter how many years I did in the Army, how much taxes I pay. I can’t do what he did. I can’t walk around in the middle of the night open carrying.

Kennedy, the alderman, who is also Black and an Army veteran, agreed. If he had been in Rittenhouse’s situation, “My ass would’ve been dead on the street,” he said. “I wouldn’t have been arrested.”

© 2021 The New York Times Company

德国人收藏的中国宣传画 如今看来很有意思

 

老照片，一个时代的烙印，一个久远的故事，一份珍贵的记忆。德国有本名为GEO的地理人文性杂志，最近一期是介绍近现代中国的。我在达姆火车站等车的时候无意中见到，就翻开来看看，感觉里面不少照片和宣传画很有意思。

我在德国早就听说过一个来自阿姆斯特丹的汉学系教授，名叫 Stefan R. Landsberger，他在上世纪70年代就喜欢收集中国的宣传画，截止到现在，怎么着也有几百上千幅了。此人曾经出过相关的书籍。今天我就把他收集的，建国后到76年，中国大部分时间处于极左年代时的宣传画，部分地展示给大家。我估计很多画，老一代的人应该有印象，年轻人就好好学习学习吧。

当然了，很多人是出于艺术价值的考虑去收藏这些画，事实上很多特殊时期的宣传画现在确实已经非常值钱了，但这不在今天的讨论范围之内。



设计者：哈琼文  翁逸之   1960年1月



设计者：徐灵  1950年



设计者：赵延年  钱大昕 1953年10月



设计者：佚名 1955年



设计者：翁逸之   1956年5月



设计者：田郁文  朱章  1958年10月



设计者：佚名  1960年



设计者：钱大昕   1965年4月



设计者：毕成 1956年9月



设计者：李平凡  平野  1958年7月



设计者：杨文绣 1959年12月















1966年，作者不详



设计者：佚名 1968年11月



设计者：：佚名1967年



设计者：呼和浩特革命造反联络总部美术组  1966年



设计者：佚名  1967年1月 北京政法学院政法公社毛zedong主义红wei兵宣传队



设计者：佚名  1968年4月



设计者：王晖  1967年



设计者：上海红旗机械厂革委会  1969年12月



设计者：浙江工农兵美术大学, 王肇达供稿  1969年5月





设计者：驻沪海军航空某部东海红  1971年1月



设计者：吉林省电影发行公司革委会供稿  1971年6月







设计者：佚名  1967年1月





设计者：佚名  1966年



设计者：华北民兵编辑部  1972年纪念毛zhuxi大办民兵师指示二十周年宣传画之二



设计者：佚名  1966-1967年



设计者：四川人民出版社   1977年5月



设计者：哈琼文  1965年7月克莱因瓶是一个不可定向的二



设计者：佚名  1967年





设计者：王永强  1977年1月



设计者：佚名  1976年

克莱因瓶是一个不可定向的



设计者：天津人民美术出版社，1976年11月

人们常说东方文明是精神的文明，西方文明是物质的文明或唯物的文明。这是有夸大狂的妄人捏造出来的谣言，用来遮掩我们的羞脸的。其实，一切文明都有物质和精神的两部分：材料都是物质的，而运用材料的心思才智都是精神的。比如，木头是物质，而刳木为舟，构木为屋，都靠人的智力，那便是精神的部分。

器物越完备复杂，精神的因子越多。一只蒸汽锅炉，一辆摩托车，一部有声电影机器，其中所含的精神因子比我们老祖宗的瓦罐、大车、毛笔多的多了。

神总结：“厉害国”到底是一个什么样的国？

 这是网上流传的一篇文章，可惜不知是谁所总结，但是总结很到位。所谓的厉害国，实际上是这个地球上最垃圾的国家，自豪吧，厉害国！

中国不一定是与邻国土地争端最多的国家，但肯定是与本国公民土地争端最多的国家。争端不是问题，问题是：对外用和平解决土地争端，对内却用暴力解决土地争端。对外土地争端你们从来没有赢过一次，对内土地争端你们从来没输过一次！

世上有个国家，看征税像欧洲国家；看福利像非洲国家；看政府大楼像超级大国；看边远地区像山顶洞人部落；看官员生活像海湾国家；看百姓生活像食人族国家；看官员发言像君子国；看官员做事像谎话国；对政府有利的就与国际接轨；对政府不利的就装神弄鬼；对外是最负责任的国家；对内是最不负责任的国家。

这个世界的荒唐之处是：自由世界的人们对自己拥有的自由从不满足，而不自由国家的子民却对压根沾不到边的自由表现出一副心满意足的样子。

一个连文字都被敏感屏蔽的国家，不要相信它的任何报道；一个连言论都能将你治罪的国家，不要相信它的任何宣传；一个连良心都能把你判刑的国家，不要相信它的任何口号；一个连巨贪都能获得轻判的国家，不要相信它的任何承诺；一个连枪口都能对准百姓的国家，不要相信它的任何举措。

有人问：不撒谎会死吗？！其实我们很多普通人真的不知道，在中国不撒谎真的会死。知识分子不撒谎，不是气死就是憋死；当官的不撒谎，不是屈死就是冤死；商人不撒谎，不是破财死就是跳楼死；老百姓不撒谎，不是穷死就是累死。近代中国，每一个所谓成功故事的背后，都藏着无尽谎言。

一条海峡把中国人民隔成两个政治实体。一边的公民牛逼了，追着官员骂，把官员骂得低头撅腚。另一边的贪官牛逼了，追着人民打，打得人民哭爹喊娘。

大陆政府跟台湾政府的最大不同是：台湾政府无论怎么服务民众，民众都能找出他们服务不到位的地方加以批评。大陆政府则是无论怎么伤害民众，都能找出这是出自于为人民服务的好意服务很完美的理由。

美国是移进最多、移出最少的国家，证明是最好的国家。某国是移出最多、移进最少的国家，证明是最差的国家。朝鲜是既不让移进、也不让移出的国家，证明是最邪恶的国家。无论你自称制度多么先进、自称道路多么自信、自称理论多么牛逼，老百姓用脚投票来证明：这都是个屁！

从新闻里看到谎言；从历史里看到无耻；从外交里看到无能；从维稳里看到残暴；从强拆里看到贪婪；从贪官里看到腐朽；从司法里看到黑暗；从禁言里看到心虚；从打压里看到崩溃；从反抗里看到胜利！

【关于社会】

一朋友两口子要移民美国，其父亲是老革命老党员，苦劝未果后暴跳如雷：你们要移民美国，就断绝父子关系。夫妻执意前往，工作顺利后生一子，邀请父亲来看望小孙子。老头子思孙心切，多次拒绝后终于同意前往。半年后依然不打算回国，给国内自己老友打电话：“他奶奶的，俺被骗了一辈子啊！”

中国人是最幽默的！有人去保卫钓鱼岛，结果落水后被日本人救了，回国后却被自己人抓了。有人说香港澳门回归了，想去自己土地扬眉吐气一次，结果通行证没办下来。有人讲海峡两岸同属一个中国，打电话想问候那边的亲人，结果按国际漫游收费。

当匹夫有难时，国家不见了；当国家有难时，匹夫有责。神逻辑。你们的女人你们抱，你们的国家你们保。我们只是看客。

昧著良心赞美，这叫五毛。用指责与批评督促执政者改良，这叫公民。明明身处最底层，却站出来维护统治者，这叫脑残。听到讲真话的人，扑上去就咬，这叫走狗。两耳不闻窗外事，吃饱喝足是最高境界，这叫猪。

打你，叫执法；一起打你，叫联合执法。你跑，叫畏罪潜逃；你不跑，叫妨碍公务。你防卫，叫抗法；你反抗，叫暴力抗法。你正当防卫，叫故意伤人；他故意伤人，叫正常执法。你死，叫突发急病。你喊冤，叫社会不稳定因素。你上访，叫精神病。你上网，叫散布谣言。生命无须精彩，活着就是奇迹，且活、且珍惜。

【关于他们】

《国际歌》唱道：从来就没有什么救世主，也不靠神仙皇帝。他们却高叫：只有他们才能救中国！毛主席是大救星！

他们建党以来做了四件事：以革命的名义杀人，以公有的名义抢劫，以改革的名义分赃，以维稳的名义封口。

（两个凡是新解）凡是能够从人民手里收钱的，哪个角落他们都不会遗忘，不论道路、学校、医院、风景、名胜、寺庙、地摊……凡是需要承担责任的，都没有他们的影子，不论教育、养老、住房、医疗、公益……

杂技演员走钢丝时，手里都拿根长杆儿，身子歪时，就用长杆儿找平衡。如果你非要求他身子完全保持垂直，那他一定会掉下来。一个国家、一个社会，如果你总看见执政者拿着杆子左一下右一下，维稳姿势特难看，那基本可以断定，他们走的绝不是康庄大道。杆子晃动得越频繁，就越说明他们快坚持不下去了。

你怀疑食品有毒，他们骂你多事；而当地沟油出现时，他们却沉默了。你说贪腐严重，他们骂你汉奸；而当大批房叔表叔出现时，他们却沉默了。你说有豆腐渣工程，他们说你胡说；而当桥塌楼倒时，他们却沉默了。你说过度发展会引起环境污染，他们骂你卖国；而当雾霾天气出现。他们却沉默了。他们的良心被狗吃了吗？

【关于历史】

六十五年前，有个声音向全世界宣告：中国人民从此站起来了！六十五年后，又有个人向全世界宣告：中国这头狮子已经醒了！明白了，原来这六十五年，中国人是站着睡了一觉，难怪做了那么多噩梦。

“你想发财吗？你想不交租吗？你想分财主的东西吗？你想睡东家的小老婆么？跟着红军走吧！”——工农红军宣 1928年8月。

经官媒巧妙引导，钓鱼岛成为“爱国”热点，而比钓鱼岛重要百倍的海参崴却了无声息。敢去要海参崴吗？1945年签订“中苏友好同盟条约”，国民政府提出收回大连、海参崴、库叶群岛等地的主权。苏联同意归还大连、旅顺和满洲铁路，并达成协议50年后中国收回海参崴。按约1996年中国应收回海参崴，但2001年签订中俄条约，竟确认海参崴等地为俄罗斯领土！最搞笑的是：自带干粮跑到海参崴去喊打钓鱼岛，这不是幽默吗？

延安时代的两性生活：露水夫妻每晚交5毛行房费。 1938年前后，延安队伍男女比例30:1，巨大悬殊让青年女性成为最引人注目的一道风景。许多新婚男女因条件限制，只有周末才能到窑洞的“青年宿舍”团聚性交，一晚5毛钱。看来五毛历史悠久啊！现在发一帖顶原来搞一晚，通货膨胀啊。

白龙尾岛面积数十倍于钓鱼岛，扼守北部湾中部，岛上居民全部是说中文的中国人。台湾军队一直占据到1957年，被解放军拿下。不久被送给了越南。

【关于国人】

一个跪了太久的民族，站起来会恐高，并且能为下跪找出一万个理由。正如梁启超说：财产被劫掠时，他说还有自由；自由被剥夺时，他说还有生命；生命被扼杀时，他还谢主隆恩。即使眼前一无是处，他也能找到赞美的一万个理由。

内战当过炮灰，朝战帮过金胖子，大跃进炼过钢铁，放过卫星，然后饿过三年肚子，文革搞过打砸抢，批斗老师和亲人，捧著红宝书被上山下乡，熬到回城被晚婚，想生孩子被计划，没两年成了下岗职工，外出告状被维稳，退休了还被污水和雾霾包围。难得的是，他们依然唱红歌怀念毛主席。

日本著名管理大师大前研一说：在中国旅行时发现，城市遍街都是按摩店，而书店却寥寥无几，中国人均每天读书不足15分钟，人均阅读量只有日本几十分之一，是典型的“低智商社会”。