China: Years of Lockdown Abuses Trigger Anti-Communist Protests Nationwide: Protesters thronged the streets of cities across China over the weekend – defying a brutal crackdown from the Communist regime – to demand an end to coronavirus lockdowns and the resignation of dictator Xi Jinping. The protests quickly grew to astonishing size after an apartment building fire killed 10 people in Urumqi, the locked-down capital of occupied East Turkistan, where China is currently committing genocide against the indigenous Uyghur Muslims of the region. Protesters in the city of Guangzhou lined the streets with tents because they assumed the regime would use its dystopian “health code software” to lock them out of their homes as punishment: From Twitter: If you try to enter a public place with a yellow QR code...immediately an alarm goes off. Chinese govt can easily cut you off from society by remotely switching your health passport to code yellow or red. A green QR code is needed to access transport, food...even a residential complex. The demonstrators marched in phalanxes with their phones held aloft like weapons, signaling the regime that it could not hope to suppress the tidal wave of information flowing to the outside world. Another popular protest accessory is a blank sheet of paper, a symbol of mute defiance that grew popular during the Hong Kong pro-democracy protests of 2019 after the Beijing-controlled government systematically made every protest slogan illegal. Holding up a blank paper or placard calls attention to how China’s government silences its people, and also is a means of vexing the authorities because the blank pages contain no words or images that would justify arrest even under China’s totalitarian speech codes. The Urumqi apartment fire [which started the protests] was especially horrific, as a huge crowd of onlookers filmed people trapped inside the building screaming for help, to no avail. They were trapped because the exits were sealed under coronavirus lockdown protocols. (I heard that the doors were welded shut.) World’s Largest Active Volcano ‘Mauna Loa’ in Hawaii Erupts for First Time in Nearly 40 Years: Authorities in Hawaii announced on Monday that Mauna Loa, the world’s largest active volcano, has begun erupting for the first time since 1984, sending volcanic ash and debris raining down in the nearby area. An eruption began in the summit caldera of Mauna Loa, known as Moku’weoweo, at roughly 11:30 p.m. HST, according to the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. For the time being, the eruption is contained at the peak and poses no danger. The Consumer Economy Has Completely Collapsed – "It's A Ghost Town" For Holiday Shopping Everywhere: “Crowds? I see nothing. I’m surprised,” retail worker Jeremy Pritchett told FOX 2. “Normally, it’s wrapped all the way around the building. Today: no one.” Interestingly, almost every financial media outlet is using the same Retail Federation talking point about anticipating an 8% increase in holiday sales this year. Apparently, pretenses must be maintained. Meanwhile, news crews and camera crews are having a desperate time finding any holiday shopping to use as background footage for the claims that sales are strong. Maybe it's not a true collapse...? Maybe the nation is just exercising wisdom in conserving in these times, maybe they no longer want to be manipulated like puppets, maybe they are shopping online, maybe they don't want to be robbed as they go shopping, or shot to death by those who bear grudges and take it out on the innocent in public places..!?...? I heard its a combination of things for the lack of shoppers on Black Friday. Many just can’t afford the extra luxuries … they are living from paycheck to paycheck so their money is reserved for food, fuel and paying their bills. Others were saying in the past Black Friday was reserved for thee fabulous sales on the flat screen tvs, and Xbox, laptops, iPads, etc. but now .. stores have been doing thee Black Friday like sales all year long to get people into their stores so Black Friday has lost its meaning and thrill. And people in general I think are just trying to stay away from the crowds.
That’s the typical ground report from areas all over the country. No one, literally almost no one, is doing any holiday shopping and the traditional Black Friday rush to get deals and discounts just didn’t happen. Financial media are scratching their puzzlers, perplexed with furrowed brows.
