Thursday, September 29, 2011

陈凯再版/人 vs. 人民 Human Being vs. People


Ayn Rand: Racism VS. Individualism 安. 兰德:集体/种族主义 vs. 个体主义


陈凯博客www.kaichenblog.blogspot.com

人 vs. 人民
Human Being vs. People


“自由人”对抗“中国人”序列
"Free Beings" vs. "Chinese" Series


"人, 人民"与“Human Being, People”
中文与英文词汇内涵对照

- Contrast Chinese Character in Its Implications on Humanity with English Meanings of Being Human -

By Kai Chen 陈凯 (Written 3/23/2006, Reprint 9/29/2011)

In China, the mail is addressed in following fashion:

People’s Republic of China 国(党朝)名 
(Note 注:No election - Republic??  没有选举也叫“共和” - 天大的笑话)
Name of the Province 省名
Name of the City 城市名
Name of the Work Unit 单位名
Street Address 街道名
Name of the Recipient 个体名

In America, a sharp contrast:

Name of the Recipient 个体名
Street Address 街道名
Name of the City 城市名
Name of the State 州名
United State of America 国名

The above illustration of two different and contrasting ways to address an envelope is a simple, but very telling/powerful example of how individuals are viewed in China and in America. In China on the left, the individual name is pressed at the bottom of the information columns, while in America, the individual name is always on top of the others, be it a company, a city, a nation.

Some say this is only a cultural habit. Who cares as long as the recipient receives the mail? But one has to admit this simple illustration reflects the deep seated philosophical contrast of two opposing values. Individuals at the bottom vs. individuals on top, individuals oppressed, enslaved and burdened by all kinds of collective, invisible, somehow seemed sacred entities vs. individuals as primary, undeniable, indivisible, absolute unit of free existence above all what his mind has created. This simple arrangement of priority is not a trivial difference that most leftists tend to assert and dismiss as such. It is the deepest contrast between two entirely opposing forces in interpreting how an individual lived, has lived and should live in his or her social, cultural and political environment. And the implications of the Chinese arrangement of priorities often carry profound, deadly and devastating consequences. Human mind is chained and shackled to a daily, moment to moment, unbearable state of enclosure which separates the individual from the true state of living and the true state of mind of his existence from himself, isolating himself from his own nature. Not only he is never viewed as a free being, he is conditioned to submit himself and accept that all mentioned entities from his own mind are above him, are more valuable than him, and are the masters of him. He as a human being is only the subject of these entities; he has no rights, no claims to his own property and creation, nothing to call his own. He is a virtual nothingness.

This thinking pattern and mode of perception of reality is further reinforced, solidified and legitimized by the very tools he uses to comprehend and interpret his surroundings – his own written and speaking language. The alienation is thus extreme.

Take the Chinese character “Ren” 人 as an example. It is written and composed by one front slash and one back slash (人). It was originated from the pictorial description by our ancestor – two legs as a human figure. There is no head, there are no arms. There are only two legs. The simplicity of this character cannot simply be viewed as a matter of utility. It carries far-reaching implications affecting culture, philosophy, societal and political institutions. We often sense and complain, even protest against the cultural tendency that the Chinese lives are cheap. And in China humans are not treated as humans. They are too often trampled only as animals that can speak. They are only numbers that can be added or eliminated in a governmental scheme. Mao openly and proudly claimed that he was willing to sacrifice 400 million Chinese lives to fight against Russians and Americans. And somehow, no one in China ever questioned the legitimacy of his claim on any moral basis. Somehow people in China passively accept that the culture, the power of guns, the prestige of his personality though a cult, gave him his legitimacy to do such a thing. If deaths fell upon them through Mao-a living God backed by guns and violence, then so be it. Everyone has to die someday, somehow, anyway.

The connotation of the Chinese character “Ren” (人) directly and indirectly conveys that a human is only a physical existence, only flesh and blood. It has only two legs with no mind and no meaning of its own. It is only an image, only a shell, only a fleeting illusion without any substance and significance. Most ancient Chinese literature clearly reflects this nihilistic tendency. Only governments, the emperor, the officials with titles, the invisible collective entities have mandate from heaven to be endowed with meaning, and often carried with it, absolute, arbitrary and unquestioned power. This phenomenon is much symbolized by the Chinese character “Guo” – Nation (for much of the Chinese history meaning the domain of the Emperor). The character is composed with an enclosed rectangle and in it there is the character meaning “Jade” (simplified). Only “Guo”-the nation gives individual his meaning of existence. All the Loyal officials and brave generals who died in ancient times died for “Guo” and in defending “Guo”. Most literatures of the past are ones singing in praise of them.

Even today, very seldom one sees a Chinese person without an official title, or cultural titles. It is impolite to call someone just by his or her name. A title must be added because with the title, an artificial meaning is instilled into this individual life. Otherwise, he or she is a none-existence.

Contrast to Chinese, English has many words that related to the concept of human. I will list them and interpret them by meaning below.

- Human (s) – A term related to Humanoid, as a differentiation from other life forms.

- Person (s) – A term that differentiates one from the collective, the masses.

- Individual (s) – A term that implicitly and explicitly conveys the meaning that such an entity is indivisible and inseparable – a finite form that has its own beginning and end.

- Human Being (s) – A term that carries the connotation of a state of existence. “Being” itself means a state of awareness to one’s own life.

- Man (Men) 人 – A term that has deep philosophical and even religious meaning. (Ayn Rand used this term extensively in her works) It implies a sacredness of a living being.

Imagine all these meanings are simplified, belittled, demeaned, denigrated, degraded and condensed into a character (人) with two legs and no head and no arms. How do you expect the Chinese take human lives, take human conditions, take human beings as sacred entities with meaning endowed upon them by only God and themselves. All the bloodshed, the atrocities, the violence and sadistic treatment of individuals are no surprise if you truly comprehend how the Chinese view humanity. It is ironic, laughable, and even hilarious to think that today the Chinese have the gall to debate and discuss something like “Government by Laws” or “Government by Men”. In a society that has no “Man”, how can you have government by “Men”? Today’s reality is that the Chinese government is not governed by “Men” at all. It is governed by Power, by meaningless Titles, by omnipresent Officialdom, by omnipotent walking dead. There is no “Man” in the first place to even begin to talk about “Democracy”.

“Democracy” 民主 – in Chinese “MinZhu” has a twisted meaning from the original concept of “Self-Government” (beside other positive definitions). It means “People Rules”, or “People Dictate”, or “People are the Masters”. A simple glance of this distortion makes one shudder at the thoughts if people carry this superficial interpretation to its logical conclusion that would happen. No wonder no one questioned the Communists when they initiated the term “Democratic Dictatorship” and used it extensively to legitimize their cruel and sadistic practices toward the Chinese people during their rule.

“People” 人民 – “Renmin” in Chinese, is the extension of “No Man” rule. “People” in English is used only as a secondary expression and description. It means a (plural) congregation of individuals. In China, it is used as a primary expression and description. Thanks for the features of Chinese character, “People” has become the indivisible, inseparable, and paramount concept to dictate individuals. People’s Money, People’s Bank, People’s Hall, People’s Republic, People’s Park…, everything belongs to this monolithic and God-like entity called People. Individuals are only the subjects of “it”. “People” is used not as a plural as in English, in China “People” is always used as singular, much like what Nazis described their “State”, as something alive and needing a constant feeding of human individual corpses.

“Guo” (国,国家) - the Nation, and “Renmin” 人民 - the People have become the constant, absolute, sacred, omnipotent and omnipresent expression of the Chinese values. Somehow the Chinese have managed to have completed the intricate and painstaking work to invent these terms to enslave themselves, to enslave their own mind. People are now judging their own worth and daily conduct according to these two terms. Their happiness, their meaning of life, their physical existence is now all dependent on these absolutes. “Serve the People”! 为人民服务!Mao’s famous call for all the Chinese to be absolute obedient tools for the use of this entity is only the logical manifestation of this absolute value. It has long become the sacred altar for the individuals to sacrifice themselves. It is still dominating the Chinese vocabulary today.

Not so curiously and not so surprisingly, with these two dominant terms over the Chinese heads and lives, “Quan” 官 - Power, has become the preoccupation in all the Chinese endeavors and has long dominated Chinese lives. Everyone realizes that without “Quan” 官 they will have no status in the hierarchy defined exclusively by “Renmin” and “Guo”. All of ancient Chinese literature is about struggles for power. Thanks again for the indefinable, imprecise and confusing nature of Chinese language; “Quan” merges the two opposing components, two distinctively conflicting elements “Power 权力and Rights 权利” into a single character. With such a confusion, (which is deliberately done that way,) of course the Emperor’s power is endowed and given by Heaven and therefore legitimized forever by not a philosophical validity, but by a deliberate confusion of mind and by the Chinese language.

With all the ill effect and negative connotations intrinsic in the Chinese language, Chinese lives are reduced to nihilistic emptiness. People’s lives have no substance. Activities have no essence. Physical existence has no meaning. Concern of saving face dominates people’s mind. Image oriented, descriptive and none-judgmental arts and literature have inundated the entire intellectual and artistic landscape. Human portraits never have emotions and inner feelings (contrast to Western oil paintings and portraits of human beings). Conformity becomes normal and valued. Creativity suppressed. Joy is sin. Hollow shells of human bodies are the preeminent presence in society. The movie “To Live” describes the Chinese life with the unforgettable ending of four members of the family sitting by the table sipping small bowls of porridge. Somehow the movie legitimizes such existence as “living”. Yet, I would never call such a condition “living” if one understands the meaning of the English word. “To Survive” would have been much more appropriate in interpreting the Chinese words “Huozhe” 活着.

No wonder the famous Chinese ancient literature “Dream of Red Chamber” ends with the famous, undeniable nihilistic, saying by a priest named “Nothingness”:

“All human struggles and endeavors, all the heroes and romances, all the stories ever existed are for nothing but the joke and pastime story-telling of common folks after they eat and drink.”

I often ponder on the phenomenon when debating a Chinese person (on any issues) that they somehow possess a magic trick to escape their own Identity, much like the famous “Monkey King” who can change his physical forms hundreds times a second, so no one ever knows who he really is. (I call it, with a scientific term, accurately nonetheless, a Bipolar Disorder, or Schizophrenia) One moment he is a human being trying to survive. A second later he becomes a loyal, fierce fighter defending the Chinese “Guo” and “Renmin”, willing to sacrifice himself for the collective, willing to be the New Terracotta Warriors to be buried with the Communists. Then and only then I can sense their eyes start to spark, a genuine emotion shown, as they finally have found the meaning of their lives.

Pity!

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

陈凯再版/日本天皇的起码人性 Japan's Emperor's Basic Humanity - Unconditional Surrender


Japanese Sign Final Surrender 日本天皇宣布无条件投降


陈凯博客www.kaichenblog.blogspot.com

日本天皇的起码人性
Japan's Emperor's Basic Humanity - Unconditional Surrender


中共党奴朝的官员们: 请效仿日本天皇的榜样: 用你们仅存的人性与良知,向自由世界宣布你们的“无条件投降”。
Chinese Party-Dynasty's Officials: Please emulate the Japanese Emperor during WWII - Declare your unconditional surrender to the Free World.


价值一语: Words of Value:

There is nothing evil save that which perverts the mind and shackles the conscience. --- St. Ambrose: Hexaem

邪恶就是那些腐蚀我们头脑与奴役我们良知的东西。 --- St. Ambrose: Hexaem


***********************************

By Kai Chen 陈凯 (Written 5/31/2006, Reprint 9/28/2011)

Recently the Chinese party-state has tried to use the Chinese anti-Japanese emotions left since WWII, to solidify their control of the population, and to legitimize their illegitimate regime. Many Chinese, morally confused and intellectually dishonest, followed the call of the Chinese authority. They smashed Japanese businesses, boycotted Japanese products, humniliated and beat Japanese tourists... I think if today the Communists want to fight a war with Japan, many would join.

What the self-righteous Chinese fail to see is even the Japanese Emperor Hirohito during WWII had had more moral courage and more humanity than the Chinese ever had in their history -- He, against many militants of the time in his own country, declared "Unconditional Surrender" to the free world. And more, he accepted the occupying American troops and their authorities over him to reform the country's institutions and culture, allowing the establishment of democratic institutions, granting women's rights to vote, renouncing the past evils and policies... Indeed the Japanese Emperor had committed war crime against humanity, but his final act was human and humane indeed.

Contrast to what the Chinese authorities did to their own people along the dehumanizing Chinese history, Emperor Hirohito accepted the fact of defeat and admitted his own evil and crime. His final moral courage and humane action to declare Unconditional Surrender had saved many lives.

Mao had openly declared that he would sacrifice half of China's population to acquire world domination. He and the likes such as Hitler, Stalin would never have a shred of basic decency and humanity of human beings. They would never, as Hitler demonstrated by his own suicide, have the common sense as Hirorito did. Some of the Chinese officials in the military have already declared they would fight a nuclear war with the US if America is to intervene in the Taiwan's defense against mainland invasion. Other high-ranking Chinese government officials also indicate that if the Communist Party is to be ousted or collapsed, they will tie all the Chinese people as human hostages on their way to hell. They will not hesitate to start wars with other nations and civil wars with their opponents. They will be just like Hitler, committing suicide and along the way killing millions upon millions of innocent people.

Those insane Chinese nationalists and nation-lovers will eventually side with the Communist scheme of suicidal wars against others and the freeworld. They will be the modern day Boxers 义和团 to support the evil government against the inevitable destruction of the despotic regime.

I here want to call upon those who, though already had committed atrosities and crimes against humanity, have still had a shred of humanity left in them, to follow the example of Emperor Hirohito, in their final act of repentence, declare "Unconditional Surrender" to the people of the free world.

Your days are numbered, the Communist butchers and tormentors: No matter how much you want your evil regime and culture to last, you are nearing your end!

请效仿日本天皇的榜样: 用你们仅存的人性与良知,向自由世界宣布你们的“无条件投降”。

Sunday, September 25, 2011

陈凯访谈/民众狂批《环球时报》讽骆家辉 They are Working for Us, Not the Opposite


Garry Locke in China 骆家辉在中国


陈凯博客www.kaichenblog.blogspot.com

陈凯访谈/民众狂批《环球时报》讽骆家辉
They are Working for Us, Not the Opposite


2011年9月23日 星期五

http://soundofhope.org/programs/162/199203-1.asp

中共官方媒体《人民日报》旗下的《环球时报》9月22号发表社评,讽刺并批评了新任美国驻华大使骆家辉。国内民众一边倒的批驳《环球时报》。美国自由活动家陈凯认为,骆家辉的行动是美国自由文化中产生的政治常态,大陆当局的恐慌正说明其执政的非法性和病态思维。

《环球时报》的社评题目是“希望骆家辉好好做'驻华大使' ”。文中讽刺骆家辉是做“廉洁秀”,批评他“以巧妙的方式干预中国舆论,增加中美之间新的误解和怀疑。”

美国自由活动家陈凯听到这种社评后大笑。他说,【录音】不是廉洁。我跟你讲,这个是美国的精神,是美国的政治文化。自由文化所产生的自然现象。美国的政治文化就是说所有的政府的官员,他们是给我们工作的,我们不是给他们工作的。这个是中国病态的政治文化,他们不把他们作为民众的服务者,他们把他们作为民众的影响者,或者是这个主子。其实在美国的话哪有这种事啊,你在大街上走跟我是一回事吗?!

大陆著名作家王朔发微博说,骆家辉不过是吃了碗炸酱面,坐了个经济舱,去了一趟民工子弟学校,并申请将孩子安排在该校读书,我们的报纸如环球时报就不干了。警告人家好好做自己的大使。你一个中国报纸,中国贪官你不敢报道也就算了,人家老外吃穿简单点也碍着你了,非得跟你们一起鲍鱼鱼翅同流合污。

陈凯分析说,【录音】他们在看一切事物的时候都是畸形的。自由社会的政治文化不是政府在我们上面,是政府在我们下面。他们认为政府官员一举一动都是有什么政治内涵,有诡计,有阴谋的。这个不对。就是在美国的话,政治官员他上班的时候是政治官员,下班的时候就是普通民众,他跟这有什么关系呢?他这个政治官员本身并不是为所欲为的啊!他是在我们的允许之下去行政的。我们不允许他,他就不能行政。他要做的事情就是不合我们的意,下次选举就没他啦。

著名网络评论家笑蜀表示,骆家辉确实没啥了不起,那些举动在人家不过是常态之举。但常态之举到了中国却成了奇迹,而让官媒紧张到如临大敌,愈加反衬出中国官场的变态。不反思自己的变态反而责备人家的常态,用四川民谚讲,这叫没饭吃怪筲箕。

陈凯指出,【录音】这个同时也说明这个中共现在官方和舆论的一种极度的恐慌,这种恐慌说明什么东西?说明他们自己非常没有安全感,知道自己不是一个合法的政府,知道自己不是一个合法的政体。因为他们不把自己作为人,他们在看任何事物的时候都把自己作为一个专制等级里面的一个分子。就是上边有人,下边有人,我要不是踩着别人,要不就是我扛着别人。他不会有平等的概念。

大陆著名论坛凯迪社区转载了《环球时报》这篇社评后,一天之内有近5万人次浏览,保留的500多个回贴一边倒都是嘲讽、分析或驳斥《环球时报》的。网友“坚决不唱红歌”写道,作为环球时报,好好办你的报纸,别成天造谣生事。

希望之声国际广播电台记者唐音、唐丽采访报道。

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

屠杀面前,中国道德哲学为何破产 Blood-Thirst is Chinese Morality


CIA Archives: American Views of China - The Roots of Madness Documentary Film (1967) 人的嗜血疯狂从哪儿来 - 中国的例子


陈凯博客www.kaichenblog.blogspot.com

屠杀面前,中国道德哲学为何破产
Morality/Immorality, Blood-Thirst - Chinese Style


陈凯一语: Kai Chen's Words:

“壮志饥餐胡虏肉,笑谈渴饮匈奴血”-- 岳飞的“满江红”仍旧被今天的“反共人士们”屡唱不鲜。可见中国传统专制文化心态的“嗜血非人”是根深蒂固的。 -- 陈凯

李铁先生的文章是少有的用中文反省中国文化中的邪恶与病态的文章。 基督精神是他文章中分析评判的道德与理性的准则。 我只希望更多的用中文的人们能像李铁先生一样自省自评,走入真实的道德与正义的世界。

Mr. Li's article is a rare piece that penetrates the evil core of the despotic, man-eating Chinese culture. Christianity is the foundation on which he based his moral judgment and analysis. I only hope more people will be like Mr. Li, gradually establish a moral foundation in Christianity to guide their thinking and behavior. Thus a just world for free beings can be possible in our future.


“在中国的文明史上,似乎从未有人因惨案而宣布过文化的失败,可问题是,从未宣布过失败才是我们文化最大的失败。” --- 李铁

In Chinese history, no one has reflected upon its cultural and spiritual foundation after an anti-humanity atrocity/crime committed by the government or the rebels. But the truth is undeniable: Not to see our failure in our cultural formation is the biggest failure of the Chinese. --- Mr. Li Tie


-------------------------------------------------------

屠杀面前,中国道德哲学为何破产
Morality/Immorality, Blood-Thirst - Chinese Style


作者:李铁
2010-05-07 16:58:41

“杀一个够本,杀两个赚一个!反正不想活了,临死也要拉几个垫背的!砍头不过碗大一个疤,二十年后,又是一条好汉!”

如果有人已经完全放弃了此世的意义,喊出以上令人毛骨悚然的宣言,我们怎幺办?我们的文明如何去制约各式各样的反人类罪行?


一部文明史,也是一部与各种反人类罪行斗争的历史。当仇恨和杀戮蔓延的时候,人们往往将罪行归咎为政治和社会的因素。但文明中的一些基本原则,正是为了应付最极端的社会政治环境而设定的。

各种不同的文化在防止反人类罪行方面都有不同的制约机制。孰优孰劣,自然应该由历史效果来评价。当我们比较中西历史上的各种屠杀和罪行,我们不得不面对一个残酷的现实:

中国历史上的反人类罪行,不论死亡人数还是残忍级别,都远胜西方。中国的传统文化设计,不仅在面对罪行的时候缺乏制约力,显得苍白而浅薄。而且在罪行发生之后,我们的文化严重缺乏忏悔和反思。再大的悲剧,也只是轻飘飘地化解为少数人在表演的闹剧,我们总是太容易以“化悲痛为力量”、“相逢一笑泯恩仇”为借口而快速淡忘,以至于对于历史上发生的一些惨痛无比的灾难,中国人自己都非常陌生。

中国历史上的奥斯威辛

二战时期,600万犹太人惨遭纳粹屠杀。作为屠杀和集中营的象征,奥斯威辛成了一个文化符号,妇孺皆知。在西方的思想著作中,“奥斯维辛以后”(After Auschwitz)已成为一个专门术语,知识界为此陷入了深刻的反思,与此有关的研究成果,汗牛充栋。

德国哲学家阿多尔诺的名言:“奥斯维辛以后诗已不复存在”,被广为流传。他甚至这样提问:奥斯维辛以后是否还有理由让自己活下去?对于奥斯威辛,这样的反省绝非个别,而是知识界的普遍现象。法国哲学家利科说,当今哲学面临恶的决定性挑战。思想家们纷纷质问:“奥斯威辛以后,人怎么还能谈论上帝?”他们甚至宣布,奥斯威辛是西方近代文明失败的公开证明。

在中国的文明史上,似乎从未有人因惨案而宣布过文化的失败,可问题是,从未宣布过失败才是我们文化最大的失败。

中国历史没有过奥斯威辛吗?不,看看这些事实吧:

先看看被某些人美化的农民起义领袖黄巢都干了些什么?

攻陷城池之后屠城,对黄巢来说,只是“小菜一碟”,仅广州一城,保守估计就杀了12万人。更可怕的除了杀人,还有吃人,超大规模地吃人。

黄巢围攻陈州,也就是今天的河南淮阳,军粮不足,就开始吃人。陈州守将赵犨也不含糊,也出来抢人吃。《新唐书》记载:指乡聚曰:“啖其人,可饱吾众。”官军追蹑,获盐尸数十车。

黄巢看到官军来抢人,干脆下令将周边所有的活人都杀了,做成“便携食品”。《旧唐书》记载,黄巢下令建造了数百巨碓,将大批乡民,不分男女老幼,都纳入巨舂,磨成肉糜。陈州四周的老百姓被吃光了,就“纵兵四掠,自河南、许、汝、唐、邓、孟、郑、汴、曹、徐、兖等数十州,咸被其毒”。史家估算,当时被黄巢军吃掉的人数,超过三十万。这样令人作呕的兽行,你还在哪个民族的历史中见过?

再说明朝末年张献忠屠川。他在成都、在四川各州县进行了灭绝种族的大屠杀。这些都被欧洲传教士利类斯和安文思二人亲眼目睹,载入了他们所着的《圣教入川记》。经过张献忠和后来清军的几番屠戮,四川的人口由明中叶的310余万陡然下降至清初的9万余人。

还有太平天国战争,战争之前,中国人口为4.3亿。太平天国失败后,中国人口只剩下2.3亿人。一场农民战争使中国损失了2亿人,是人类历史上人口损失最多的战争,超过了动用了原子弹在内的现代化武器的二次世界大战。

对于这些历史,中国人基本不提。

恶魔们为什么无所顾忌

鲁迅说:“我翻开历史一看,这历史没有年代,歪歪斜斜的每页上都写着‘仁义道德’几个字。我横竖睡不着,仔细看了半夜,才从字缝里看出字来,满本都写两个字是‘吃人’!”对于中国历史,这样的文字绝非只是文学修辞。

诚然,灭绝人性的恶魔哪里都有,再文明的社会也无法杜绝校园杀童惨案。但中国历史上的疯子和恶魔实在多的有点离谱,专制极权固然是仇恨的热土,但除了现实的政治社会因素,中国传统哲学的一些基础设计,对于罪恶的制约力之苍白,我们也必须有清醒的认识。

首先,中国文化缺乏一种绝对的正义观念,极容易陷入道德相对主义。

按照一种粗线条的宏观概括,中国哲学讲天人合一,西方哲学讲天人相分。对于西方人而言,除了现世的此岸世界,还有一个绝对高于此世的,与此世相分离的,超自然、超历史的造物神上帝。这个代表真善美最终极原因的上帝永远在彼岸世界,与“罪”的、非神圣的此世人永恒对立,与此岸世界存在着永恒的紧张关系。

另外,人生的意义要到上帝那里寻找,现世的人不可能自救,人只有蒙受上帝的恩宠才能获救。人生是否有意义,是否符合正义,最终不由人自己来判定,上帝才是真善美的终极原因和裁判。这样一种文化设定,无疑为现世的道德、正义、价值评价提供了一种神圣的普遍性准则。使得正义具有绝对的意义,能够对人间罪恶给予绝对否定,杜绝了道德相对主义。

而中国传统哲学则缺乏两个世界的悲观性对立。它没有设定一位绝对超越的上帝与堕落的有“罪”的被造物的世界的对立。

马克斯·韦伯指出,儒教是一种“绝对地肯定世界与适应世界的伦理”。儒家认为人通过自身的心性修为、道德功夫与宇宙之整体秩序合而为一,即可达到成圣成贤的人生最高境界,并且是“人皆可为圣贤”。

韦伯说,在中国传统中,由于没有两个世界的悲观性对立,人们缺乏对现世生活的非神圣、易堕落的体认。这样的文化,自然缺乏对现世罪恶的批判力。

16世纪时,罗明坚、利玛窦等西方传教士来华传教,他们很快发现,“罪”的观念大概是当时儒家最难明白的观念之一,因为在中国的传统文化中,没有与天主教中的“罪” 的观念相对应的观念。我们相信现世就是完美的,怎么会有罪呢?

既然中国人相信“人皆可为圣贤”,那么价值标准也可以由人自己说了算,这很容易导致道德相对主义盛行。“成者为王败者寇”、“历史由胜利者书写”、“法律只是统治阶级的工具”,这些相对主义论调,我们是不是再熟悉不过了?

试想,如果一个人像郑民生那样觉得此世已经无意义了,不想活了,像黄巢那样觉得拥有暴力就拥有一切,我们拿什么去制约他?

对于西方人而言,即便你现世不想活了,也不得不有所顾忌。基督教义中讲末日审判,耶稣将于世界末日,审判古今全人类,分别善人恶人,善人升天堂,恶人下地狱。

意义世界的基础设定,对于个人而言,或许不一定对每个人都具有约束力,但是作为一个民族的文化设定,却意义重大。中国哲学的这种设定,缺乏一个稳定的正义支点,很难从自身产生实际的约束力。面对罪恶的反思和批判,尽显苍白无力。

中国人性论的问题

中国传统道德哲学的核心是心性之学,喜欢谈人性的善恶,中国人很热衷于讨论谁是君子谁是小人。而在讨论反人类的罪行时,按照传统人性论,不论是性善还是性恶,都不利于对罪行作出有力的反省和批判。

中国的人性论多数都持人性本善的立场。这种理论认为“善”和“诚”是人类的本性。但是“性相近,习相远”,人生来是纯洁的,但是后天的影响变得丧失了本性。孟子讲求放心,儒家都讲要求恢复本性,反身而诚。

这种设定,很容易让我们把罪行都推给社会环境,原因很简单,我的人性那么纯洁,那么真诚,怎么会犯罪呢?即使犯了罪,也是好人办坏事,是政治腐败、环境所逼。孔子说,君子有三畏:畏天命、畏大人、畏圣人之言。这里,唯独不畏自己,不怕自己犯罪。这种人性论,如何能有忏悔和反思?

把恶魔的行为归于性恶,同样不利于反思。说犯罪者人性本恶,实际可以为公众提供一种心理上的极大安慰。将犯罪者视与我们迥然不同的疯子和性恶之徒,我们自己的纯洁与高贵就不会受到威协。他是恶人,我们继续还是善良的君子。这种善恶的区分,实际是把罪恶置于“我们之外”。


与中国传统哲学不同,西方人反对人性善恶的讲法。西方哲学认为谈人性是善是恶,人自己是不知道的,只有上帝知道,人不能对其他人做这种终极评判。

西方哲学不谈论人性,他们很早就提出了一个更根本的伦理问题--人的自由意志问题。如果一个人的行为没有自由意志,就无所谓善恶,一切善恶都立足于人能够选择,立足于人的故意。

在西方文化看来,谈人的本性是很奇怪的。既然是人性如此,那就是一个决定性的东西,就像自然规律一样,没有自由意志,就谈不上善或者恶。

按照西方人的这种理论,郑民生、黄巢的行为,只要他们存在自由意志,存在自由选择,就不能把罪恶推脱给社会政治环境,他们必须为自己的行为负上应有的道德责任。

犯罪者有责任,那么其他人是不是不需要反省了呢?在西方传统中,自以为无罪,自以为纯洁,一定是在自欺,是最大的恶。儒家那种认为人通过自身的心性修为即可达到拯救,成为圣人,在西方人看来是绝对的被造物的狂妄。

在西方传统中,人性不是一个点,而是一段历史。人背负有原罪,而且既然有自由意志,随时都可能堕落和犯罪,因此,我们永远需要反省和忏悔。

圣经里有这样一个故事:有一次,耶路撒冷的一个高塔突然倒下了,压死了十八个人;无巧不成书,犹太总督比拉多也把一些加里肋亚人杀了,把他们的血搀和在祭品中。有人把这些事报告给耶稣,耶稣喟然而叹:“你们以为他们是因为犯下大罪,才遭此天谴吗?我告诉你们,你们所犯下的罪和他们的一样大。”


--原载:《李铁Blog》,2010-05-06

http://litie2003.blog.163.com/blog/static/672020320104610636287/

Sunday, September 18, 2011

陈凯再版/屎虼螂的颂歌 Sing in Praise of Dung Beetles


“My Way" - Episode Three “我的路”- 第三集


陈凯博客www.kaichenblog.blogspot.com


Three basketball players, three different ways of life.  You must choose.  三个球员三种生活。你必须选择。


屎虼螂的颂歌(中文)
Sing in Praise of Dung Beetles (in Chinese)


陈凯一语: Kai Chen's Words: 

Recognizing reality is the prerequisite for seeking truth and building a future. Unless one has the will, the ability and the courage to recognize reality, one will be doomed to live forever in falsehood, therefore eternal despair.

承认真实的现状是寻找真理, 创造未来的必要先决条件。 如果一个人没有意愿,能力及勇气去承认真实的现状,他就会永远生活在虚假之中,也因此永远生活在默默的绝望之中。

Tolerance of difference is a virtue, but tolerance of evil is the most insidious vice there is on earth. The saddest thing for the Chinese is that they seem to have zero tolerance for difference, but unlimited tolerance for evil. They take the former as a weakness and the latter as a strength and even take pride in their own fear and tolerance toward evil. Such a tendency of moral confusion (a negative culture) can only be defined as corrupt and evil itself. --- Li Bangding (My Father, 1921 - 1988)

容忍不同是一大良德。 容忍邪恶却是一大败坏。 中国的悲哀在于中国人对不同的毫不容忍,而对邪恶的无限怯懦与忍让。 他们还不以为耻、反以为荣地将前者作为软弱,并将后者作为光荣,力量与骄傲。 这样一种道德混乱的文化只能被定义为邪恶与腐败的文化。 --- 李邦定 (陈凯的父亲,生1921 - 逝1988)


 

我叔叔李邦训-台湾空军英雄
My Uncle's Photo and Squadron Information 黑蝙蝠中队”/歌曲(刘德华)视频连锁:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOnSNzjE8ZM



From left to right: My aunt Li Bangqin, my father Li Bangding, my mother Doris Chen, my uncle Li Bangxun (1987, San Francisco)

从左至右: 姑姑李邦琴,父亲李邦定,母亲陈斗娥,叔叔李邦训 (1987年,旧金山)


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香香嘴,臭臭腚,硬硬吊 - 满足人体洞穴(孔学 - 孔洞之学)的功能是一个中国人生命的意义
Satisfying the functions of one's body cavities - The meaning of life for a Chinese person and the essence of Confucianism.   ---  陈凯  Kai Chen


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陈凯博客: www.kaichenblog.blogspot.com

屎虼螂的颂歌

陈凯 著 By Kai Chen (Written 4/2/2007, Reprint 9/18/2011)

农夫们将自己一生的积蓄带到市场上去购货。 他们想买一件东西来证实他们一生的价值。

市场上卖货的人很多。 他们有不同种族的人们,有不同宗教的人们,有不同文化的人们、、。 他们的货也是多种多样的,五颜六色,五花八门。 农夫们看花了眼,搞不清哪件货值得他们一生的积蓄。 于是农夫们就将注意力集中在卖货人的身上。

最后农夫们决定只从那个长的与他们相近的商人那里买货。 但那个商人的货都是放在一个个四四方方的盒子里的。 谁也看不到盒子里究竟是什么。 商人卖货的唯一条件是买货的人只能在回家以后才能将盒子打开。 商人并让农夫们许诺绝不退货。

农夫们想要知道盒子里到底装了什么,但又不愿从与他们长相不同的商人们哪里买货,即使那些商人们的货品是公开让顾客察看检验的。 农夫们最终决定用他们一生的积蓄去买那些装在盒子里,不能看,不能摸的货。 每一个农夫都将自己一生的积蓄买了一个盒子回家。

当他们回家打开盒子一看的时候,发现盒子里有一个用极为精巧的包装展现的棕色的圆球。 它是潮湿的,拳头大小,有些尚没消化的草叶从中滋出。 一种农夫们非常熟悉的气味从中弥漫出来。 农夫们觉得非常困惑,不知如何鉴定。 只是当他们的孩子们看到后叫出来“驴粪蛋”的时候,他们才恍然大悟。

有的农夫非常愤怒。 但他们已经许诺绝不退货。 他们知道自己受了骗,一生的积蓄已荡然无存。 他们离开了他们的祖地,不断地告诫着他们的后代不要再重犯他们的无知,偏见与愚蠢。 他们决心绝不重蹈覆辙并在新的家园建立新的正义的文化。 他们把那新的家园称之为“美德国度”。

更多的农夫们不光不觉得羞耻与受骗, 他们大骂着他们的后代们并让他们住口。 他们为他们的驴粪蛋起了一个新名称:“黄金蛋“。

他们建立了”黄金蛋“研究所,”黄金蛋“大学,不断地教育,告诫他们的后代们”黄金蛋“的伟大。 他们说黄金蛋之伟大是因为它的得来是不易的,是来自农夫们一生的血汗辛劳。 他们说黄金蛋之伟大是因为它来自”黄金驴“-- 它披着”黄金甲“,食了”黄金草“,喝了”黄金河“的水。 他们不知疲倦地,兢兢业业的将他们毕生的精力投入了”黄金文化“,有所发明地研究着为什么黄金蛋的光泽是那么亮,黄金蛋的味道是那么美,黄金蛋的气味是那么香,黄金蛋的品质是那么纯,黄金蛋的原由是那么古,黄金蛋的价值是那么高、、。 他们发明了”黄金蛋“文学并书写了一卷又一卷不朽的”黄金卷“及”黄金诗篇“,如”黄金游记“,黄金演义”,“黄金浒传”,“黄金楼梦”、、。 近代的最高的“黄金著作”叫做“黄金选集”。 自然地“黄金主义“,“黄金思想”,“黄金理论”,“黄金原则”,“黄金坚持”,“黄金代表”,“黄金荣耻”都应运而生。 他们称着“黄金帝”,舞着“黄金龙”,披着“黄金袍”,打着“黄金旗”,宣扬着“黄金特色”的“黄金主义”。 一批批的“黄金圣人”被一代代的“黄金传人”推上了“黄金祭坛”。 “黄金文化”由此不断发扬光大,一代又一代地千古流传。

那些生活在“美德国度”的人们偶然返回他们的祖地,惊异地发现他们的祖地已经没有了人的存在。 在那满地驴粪蛋的,臭气熏天的大地上,只有大大小小的屎虼螂们兢兢业业的打理着,维护着,建造着驴粪蛋的事业,弘扬着驴粪蛋的文化,唱赞着驴粪蛋的悠久与伟大。


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陈凯博客www.kaichenblog.blogspot.com

屎虼螂的颂歌(中英文)
Sing in Praise of Dung Beetles (in Chinese and English)


陈凯 著  By Kai Chen  (Written 4/2/2007, Reprint 9/18/2011) 
www.kaichenblog.blogspot.com

Translation into English by Kai Chen 12/28/2010

农夫们将自己一生的积蓄带到市场上去购货。 他们想买一件东西来证实他们一生的价值。

Peasants brought their life savings to the market, wanting to purchase one thing that could demonstrate to the world their lives’ worth.

市场上卖货的人很多。 他们有不同种族的人们,有不同宗教的人们,有不同文化的人们、、。 他们的货也是多种多样的,五颜六色,五花八门。 农夫们看花了眼,搞不清哪件货值得他们一生的积蓄。 于是农夫们就将注意力集中在卖货人的身上。

There were many merchants selling their merchandise on the market. All of them were from different places and of different races, cultures and religions. Their goods also reflected this diversity. They were colorful and full of varieties. The peasants had never seen so many goods and they were very excited yet confused and fearful, not knowing what to buy to prove their lives’ worth.

最后农夫们决定只从那个长的与他们相近的商人那里买货。 但那个商人的货都是放在一个个四四方方的彩色盒子里的。 谁也看不到盒子里究竟是什么。 商人卖货的唯一条件是买货的人只能在回家以后才能将盒子打开。 商人并让农夫们许诺绝不退货。

After a tortuous hesitation and a long debate, the peasants decided to buy only from those who looked like themselves with similar racial, ethnic and cultural background. However, all such merchants’ goods were packaged in colorful square boxes and no one knew what was in them. The merchants had two conditions for all buyers of their goods: First, those who buy their goods must go home before they open their packages. Second, the buyers can never return the goods for refund.

农夫们想要知道盒子里到底装了什么,但又不愿从与他们长相不同的商人们哪里买货,即使那些商人们的货品是公开让顾客察看检验的。 农夫们最终决定用他们一生的积蓄去买那些装在盒子里,不能看,不能摸的货。 每一个农夫都将自己一生的积蓄买了一个盒子回家。

All the peasants wanted to know what was in those colorful boxes. They felt uncertain about buying from the merchants with such conditions. Yet they were much more unwilling to purchase anything from other merchants of different looks and backgrounds, even those merchants’ goods were open in the plain sight and everyone was allowed to examine them carefully before they bought them. Overwhelmed by their fear of differences, the peasants finally decided to spend their life savings on those colorful boxes from the merchants of similar looks and backgrounds. Every one of the peasants bought a colorful box and went home.

当他们回家打开盒子一看的时候,发现盒子里有一个用极为精巧的包装展现的棕色的圆球。 它是潮湿的,拳头大小,有些尚没消化的草叶从中滋出。 一种农夫们非常熟悉的气味从中弥漫出来。 农夫们觉得非常困惑,不知如何鉴定。 只是当他们的孩子们看到后叫出来“驴粪蛋”的时候,他们才恍然大悟。

After they returned home, they eagerly opened the boxes. They discovered inside the box there was an exquisitely packaged brown ball. The brown fist-sized ball was moist with some undigested grass sticking out from its surface. A very familiar smell emanated from this brown ball. The peasants were very puzzled, unable to decide what it was that they bought with their life savings. Only when their children yelled out “donkey dung, yak, donkey dung”, running away covering their nose, they suddenly understood.

有的农夫非常愤怒。 但他们已经许诺绝不退货。 他们知道自己受了骗,一生的积蓄已荡然无存。 他们离开了他们的祖地,不断地告诫着他们的后代不要再重犯他们的无知,偏见与愚蠢。 他们决心绝不重蹈覆辙并在新的家园建立新的正义的文化。 他们把那新的家园称之为“美德国度”。

Some of the peasants were very angry, knowing they were cheated. But they had already promised never to return what they bought. Their entire live savings were gone and their lives’ worth was nowhere to be found. They left their own homeland to start a new life somewhere else, all the time warning and educating their own children not to repeat their own stupidity based on bias and fear of differences. They eventually established a new village with a new culture based on individual virtue, justice, courage and rationality. They named their new village “Land of the Beautiful”.

更多的农夫们不光不觉得羞耻与受骗, 他们大骂着他们的后代们并让他们住口。 他们认为如果他们买到的是那么昂贵,那这个货品一定也同样有价值。 他们为他们的驴粪蛋起了一个新名称:“黄金蛋“。

However, most other peasants felt otherwise. They reacted by cursing their own children, calling them names and shutting them up. They reasoned that since they spent their entire life savings on this one thing, it had to be very valuable. So they named their donkey dung “Golden Ball”, just to reflect its preciousness.

他们建立了”黄金蛋“研究所,”黄金蛋“大学,不断地教育,告诫他们的后代们”黄金蛋“的伟大。 他们说黄金蛋之伟大是因为它的得来是不易的,是来自农夫们一生的血汗辛劳。 他们说黄金蛋之伟大是因为它来自”黄金驴“-- 它披着”黄金甲“,食了”黄金草“,喝了”黄金河“的水。 他们不知疲倦地,兢兢业业的将他们毕生的精力投入了”黄金文化“,有所发明地研究着为什么黄金蛋的光泽是那么亮,黄金蛋的味道是那么美,黄金蛋的气味是那么香,黄金蛋的品质是那么纯,黄金蛋的原由是那么古,黄金蛋的价值是那么高、、。 他们发明了”黄金蛋“文学并书写了一卷又一卷不朽的”黄金卷“及”黄金诗篇“,如”黄金游记“,黄金演义”,“黄金浒传”,“黄金楼梦”、、。 近代的最高的“黄金著作”叫做“黄金选集”。 自然地“黄金主义“,“黄金思想”,“黄金理论”,“黄金原则”,“黄金坚持”,“黄金代表”,“黄金荣耻”都应运而生。 他们称着“黄金帝”,舞着“黄金龙”,披着“黄金袍”,打着“黄金旗”,宣扬着“黄金特色”的“黄金主义”。 一批批的“黄金圣人”被一代代的“黄金传人”推上了“黄金祭坛”。 “黄金文化”由此不断发扬光大,一代又一代地千古流传。

Later on, they worked even harder to prove the priceless value of donkey dung and hence the value of their lives:

They established all kinds of institutes and universities to educate their offspring about how great the “Golden Ball” was and how valuable it was to all their lives. They told everyone that the Golden Ball’s greatness was in its price – the price of so many people’s lives and so much hard work. They invented fables, proverbs and folklores to sing in praise of the Golden Ball. They extolled that the Golden Ball was from Golden Donkey – It had Golden Armors on its back. It ate Golden Grass by the Golden River. They wrote many volumes of books to espouse the virtues of Golden Ball Culture. They marketed the Golden Ball with a feverish passion in the world, telling all mankind how beautiful the Golden Ball is, how fragrant the Golden Ball smells, how pure a quality the Golden Ball is if it is from the peasants’ homeland, how historical and valuable the Golden Ball is to all mankind in the world….

Their children have learned all about Golden Ball Culture. They have read Golden Poems, Golden Literature Collections from the ancients, Golden Thoughts from the modern saints and saviors, Golden Theories from sages and gods, Golden Principles from Golden Governments, Golden Rules, Golden Morals, Golden Ethics, Golden Characters, Golden Heroes and Martyrs, etc. etc…. They have worshipped Golden Emperors and Golden Chairmen. They have danced with Golden Dragons. They have upheld Golden Flags. They have fortified a Golden Society. They have forged Golden Generations with Golden Characteristics. They have all knelt before the Golden Alta to chant Golden Scriptures….

A Golden Existence thus has been emerged, prolonged and reinforced in the Golden Land, on and on, till eternity.

那些生活在“美德国度”的人们偶然返回他们的祖地,惊异地发现他们的祖地已经没有了人的存在。 在那满地驴粪蛋的,臭气熏天的大地上,只有大大小小的屎虼螂们兢兢业业的打理着,维护着,建造着驴粪蛋的事业,弘扬着驴粪蛋的文化,唱赞着驴粪蛋的悠久与伟大。

After awhile some peasants who live in the Land of the Beautiful returned to their ancestral land for a visit. To their horror, surprise and amazement, they have discovered that in their ancestral land there has long been a total absence of human beings. On the ancient abyss, enveloped with a nauseating stink of donkey dung, countless dung beetles are hard at work managing countless pieces of fresh and stale donkey dung, singing passionately in praise of a culture of excrement from donkeys and dung beetles.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

China's Imminent Collapse 中共党朝濒临崩溃


Gordon Chang: Coming bubble burst in China 中国的泡沫即将爆裂


陈凯博客www.kaichenblog.blogspot.com

陈凯一语 Kai Chen's Words:

只有民主宪政的自由社会才有机制与能力承受市场经济的必然起伏。 中共党奴朝的专制社会有如在经济潮汐面前的沙墙。 当一个专制政府将经济成长的功劳全部归于自身的时候,它也必然要承受经济危机/垮台的全部责任。 逻辑的力量是来自上苍的,是不以人的意志而被削弱的。

Only a free society with a constitutional democracy can sustain the natural tides of a free market economy. The Chinese Party State/Dynasty is like a fragile/flimsy sandy wall in front of powerful natural force of the ocean. When the Party/Dynasty wants to take all the credit of the economic growth, consequently it will have to take all the blames for the downturn of the tide. The collapse of the flimsy sandy wall is necessary and imminent. Such is the power of logic which only comes from God.


-------------------------------------------------------------------

China's Imminent Collapse
中共党朝濒临崩溃


http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/chinas-imminent-collapse-5880

John Quiggin
|
September 13, 2011

The annual gathering of the great and good at the World Economic Forum in Davos has proved such a success that it has generated a series of spin-off events. I have spoken at a couple in Australia, and doubtless there are many others. But the biggest, second only to the WEF itself, is the Annual Meeting of the New Champions, informally known as “Summer Davos.”

As its official title implies, the Summer Davos is focused on issues affecting the rapidly growing economies of Asia. This year, the event is to be held in Dalian, China, under the theme “Mastering Quality Growth.”

Both the theme and the conference program are redolent of the optimism about the beneficence and inevitable success of the market-liberal model epitomized in the pages of the National Interest by Francis Fukuyama’s essay, The End of History.

To be sure, the Davos discussions are not characterized by the glib triumphalism which was so dominant in the 1990s, when Fukuyama’s essay appeared. The path to quality growth, it seems, is beset with obstacles. Wise policy and good judgment are needed if these obstacles are to be avoided, and the very purpose of the Meeting of the New Champions is to provide guidance on navigating a path around them.

Nevertheless, the program evinces little doubt that China and other emerging Asian champions will in due course follow a slightly modified version of the trail blazed by already developed countries, acquiring the necessary institutions such as rule of law and liberal democracy along the way.

The impression of following a well-used trail is particularly evident in themes such as “disruptive innovation,” a slightly shopworn catchphrase coined by Clayton Christensen of the Harvard School of Business in the early years of the dotcom boom. Having helped to inflate that spectacular bubble, it is now being exported to the equally fizzy economies of East Asia.

The optimistic narrative offered at Davos is not without its critics. An alternative view is popular in two sharply opposed camps: those within the Chinese hierarchy who take the notion of “socialism with Chinese characteristics” at something like face value, and those in the United States who maintain the traditional suspicion of—and hostility to—China, either as a continuation of the Cold War or on the view that any two great powers must eventually clash.

On the alternative account, China (and perhaps other Asian countries) can grow rich without becoming either liberal or democratic. Having done so, Beijing will (and, in the view of Chinese supporters of this analysis, should) convert its economic power into political influence. Globally, this influence will naturally favor a strong version of the doctrine of noninterference in the internal affairs of sovereign states (at least until China is powerful enough to contemplate such interference itself) and support for autocratic governments of all kinds as a counterweight to the claims of liberal democracies to be the only genuinely legitimate governments.

On the face of it, the advocates of the second view have the better of the argument. Within China, the last twenty years have seen huge economic growth, but no net progress towards democracy. The hopes raised by the prodemocracy protests of 1989 have been crushed, and most Chinese appear to have accepted the political status quo and settled down to making money.

The promotion of local elections in rural villages as a training ground for democratization has turned out to be a dead end. Although the system of local elections has been in place for decades, it has not led to an extension of the system to the township level, let alone to the cities where economic activity is now centered. And the central authority does not hesitate to step on any village that takes its democratic rights too seriously—for example, by electing an unacceptable candidate or demanding the removal of a well-connected village chief.

Indeed, the system of local elections may be seen as a strategic retreat by the Communist Party, the better to defend its monopoly of power at the national level. With no remaining ideological interest in the way villages are run, handing off responsibility for the generally thankless business of local government makes a lot of sense.

Internationally, China has established the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, along with Russia and a group of authoritarian governments in Central Asia (the ’stans) and with India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan as official observers. This group has a common interest in promoting the view that there is no uniquely suitable model of government and that Asian circumstances require Confucian values of deference to authority.

Finally, the Chinese government has sought to secure control over natural resources and to use that control to pursue geopolitical goals. Among the most notable examples was the monopolization, through predatory competition, of the market for “rare earths” and the imposition of an embargo on exports to Japan following that country’s detention of a Chinese fishing boat in disputed waters.

All of these give the appearance of a unified regime in which economic and political power are wielded jointly in the pursuit of national interest. Unsurprisingly, this model is appealing to many Chinese and viewed with a mixture of fear and envy by many in the West.

But appearances can be deceiving. Great powers, actual or aspiring, tend to overestimate their ability to direct the course of events. The United States has long used embargos as a tool of policy (or at least as an expression of political anger), most notably against the government of Cuba. In the absence of broad international participation, however, such policies are at best useless and at worse counterproductive. The Castros are still in power, long after dictators less offensive to U.S. sensibilities have been driven into exile or thrown into prison.

The Chinese rare-earths embargo was even less successful than the Cuba embargo, being abandoned after only five weeks. Its only effect was a scramble among users of rare earths to secure alternative supplies, resulting in the reopening of mines that had been shut down as a result of low-cost Chinese competition. An expensively acquired position of market power was trashed for no return.

The SCO has been similarly ineffectual. It has not exercised a decisive influence on events in Western Asia. Russia’s actions in promoting separatist ministates like Abkhazia and South Ossetia have run directly counter to Chinese concerns for territorial integrity. Similarly, the organization has had little influence with respect to the fall of successive governments in Kyrgyzstan. When and if the autocracies in the other ’stans come under serious challenge from their subjects, it is hard to see the SCO doing much about it, or retaining much appeal for the successor states.

If Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires, Asia has been the graveyard of international organizations, and the SCO seems doomed to share the fate of SEATO, ASEAN, APEC, AP-6 and many others. These organizations (SEATO died through lack of interest in the 1970s, but the rest still exist) have held many meetings, but it’s hard to point to a single substantive achievement between them. And most of these organizations had a more coherent membership and rationale than does the SCO, which looks rather like a salon des refusés formed in defiance of the corresponding organizations of liberal democracies.

Finally, there is the big question of whether the Chinese Communist Party can maintain its monopoly on power in a fully developed market (or perhaps mixed) economy. Contrary to some optimistic hopes, there is little to suggest that the development of a market economy per se will be sufficient to produce a shift towards democracy. The party has been very successful in coopting leading members of the business sector and in ensuring that they have a substantial stake in the maintenance of the existing order.

On the other hand, as the example of the Arab Spring has shown, authoritarian governments may be much more fragile than they appear. The system of self-selecting oligarchy that has emerged in China since the death of Mao has been a source of stability, but it offers no good way of resolving fundamental disagreements about policy directions.

The spectacular economic growth of the past two decades has made the resolution of policy disagreements relatively easy. Simply put, there has been enough surplus to satisfy all important interests and still allow rapidly rising incomes for the mass of the population, or at least those in urban areas who might pose a threat to political stability.

Again, the example of the Arab Spring suggests that a slowdown in economic growth can bring about a sudden break in what seemed like an established political order. In democracies, economic shocks typically result in electoral defeat for the incumbent government, which at least provides the public with someone to blame, and a test of the hypothesis that the crisis was the result of mismanagement.

In a closed oligarchy like that of China, there is no such mechanism. The system could break down from within, as factional disagreements within the central committee spill out into the broader party and the public at large. Alternatively, large-scale public protests, combined with disagreements over the extent to which repression is desirable and feasible, could bring about a rapid breakdown.

Given the opacity of the system, there is no way of telling how and when such a breakdown might occur except to observe that is likely to be precipitated by an economic crisis of some kind. Moreover, there is no way to tell whether a crisis would produce a relatively smooth transition towards democracy or something more chaotic and perhaps bloody.

A collapse in the existing order, accompanied by an upsurge of demands for democratization would certainly be a prime example of “disruptive innovation.” But perhaps those who throw this phrase about should be careful what they wish for.

Friday, September 16, 2011

陈凯访谈/中国金牌体育沿袭苏联经验? China's System is from USSR


新唐人電視台 http://www.ntdtv.com


陈凯博客www.kaichenblog.blogspot.com

中国金牌体育沿袭苏联经验?
China's System is from USSR


加拿大新唐人电视台: www.ntdtv.ca 2011-09-14

【新唐人2011年9月14日讯】

俄罗斯最近举办了一场体育研讨会。与会人士谈到,中国近年来在国际大赛上摘金夺银,是因为获得了前苏联的体育经验。在此之前,评论人士指出,中国沿袭了纳粹德国与前苏联的举国体制,这种“金牌体育”已经背叛体育精神,成为中共对外装点形象,对内愚民的统治手段。

这场名为“俄罗斯——体育强国”的全俄体育论坛,是在俄罗斯莫尔多维亚共和国首府萨兰斯克市举行的。会上,云集了俄罗斯众多体育精英。

《美国之音》报导,一名来自西伯利亚雅库特的体育学院院长说,中国继承了前苏联体育机制,这使中国运动员在比赛中取得好成绩。

中国前国家篮球队队员陈凯:“中国的整个体育制度是从苏联搬过来的,这个很清楚。这个事情在50年代就已经形成了,这个制度,这个所谓的举国体制,我不认为它是举国体制,它是举党体制。这种举党体制的社会,一直在基点上都是一样的,跟以前的苏联都是一样的。”

2008年北京奥运,中国金牌数首次超过美国,成为世界第一。2010年广州亚运和2011年刚刚落幕的深圳大运会,中国体育代表团更是在金牌总数上远远领先。

不过这些金牌的背後,是政府主导下的巨大资源投入。中国备战雅典奥运会,花费200多亿元,最後收获32枚金牌,每一枚金牌的背後是近7亿元的巨额投入,堪称世界上最贵的金牌。而这7亿元国民的血汗钱,可以建造3500所希望小学。

中国前国家篮球队队员陈凯认为,中国的体育机制与苏联一样,都是为了共产党统治的稳固而设立的,运动员只是一种工具。

陈凯:“他整个人的利益是不能得到保证的,因为在中国没有这种保险制度。在美国NBA,谈完条件签了合同以後,你的整个利益得到保证。在中国没有这个东西呀,没有说运动员跟政府签合同的事情啊。在中国,政府是你的主人,你是政府的奴隶呀!它不给你签甚麽合同,你要受伤以後,你就下去了,没有甚麽保证。”


近年来,中国也引入了国外的联赛制度,是否意味着这种“举国体制”会有所改变呢?

陈凯结合八一队的情况谈了他的看法。

陈凯:“等於以前是,直接从政府拿钱的军队单位的话,现在等於转一个弯,骗人一样,从企事业拿钱,企事业的钱也是公家的呀。表面看起来好像是,这个不是军费直接拨给八一队的,就等於好像有些改革,根本实质上是没有改革的。”

陈凯还谈到,中国和美国的篮球运动根本上是不同的,美国是商业化模式,整个制度是根据运动来设立的。


陈凯:“在中国,运动是根据制度而设立的,这就麻烦了。所以这个基点不变,不要讲在中国有甚麽改变,不可能改变,只要共产党在,不可能改变。”

旅美学者薛涌认为,“举国体制”是和整个社会的效益相背离的,举国体制越发达,国民资源被消耗得越多,对整个社会、国民的损害越大,全民体育越难以实现。

新唐人记者陈汉、李谦、黎安安采访报导。

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Death by China 致命的中共党朝危及自由世界


Death by China 致命的中共党朝危及自由世界


Book Link: http://www.amazon.com/Death-China-Confronting-Dragon-Global/dp/0132180235/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1316103162&sr=1-1

陈凯博客www.kaichenblog.blogspot.com

China Poses Mortal Threat to Free World
中共党朝对自由世界的威胁


Column by new Root Striker Greg Autry.
Exclusive to STR

"Say it is a dictatorship, but we want to be associated with it. Say it is worthwhile being associated with the devil, as Churchill said, in order to defeat another evil which is Hitler. There might be some good argument made for that. But why pretend that Russia was not what it was?"

~ Ayn Rand, testimony to HUAC, 1947

America has been lulled into the proud and pleasant delusion that Ronald Regan defeated communism a generation ago and that with the fall of the Soviet Union, our nation faces no external threat more serious than cave dwelling extremists with a homemade WMD. The age of nation-state geopolitics and the fear of strategic nuclear warfare seem buried, as the entire world embraces “free trade.” Yet, somehow, while we were celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall, we missed those tanks emblazoned with red stars rolling over democracy advocates in Tiananmen Square.

Communism remains alive and well in China, though the dubious looks I often get from those I warn about it make me feel like Harry Potter yelling, “Valdemort is back!” I know my admonitions sound shrilly discordant against the chorus of media pundits praising the efficiency of Chinese “state capitalism” and the politicians who daily prophesize Beijing’s “peaceful rise.”

However, if you harbor any doubts about the nature of Beijing’s dictatorship, your must read “5 Myths about the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)”, an excellent article in Foreign Policy by Richard McGregor. The former Beijing bureau chief for the Financial Times begins:

If Vladimir Lenin were reincarnated in 21st-century Beijing and managed to avert his eyes from the city's glittering skyscrapers and conspicuous consumption, he would instantly recognize in the ruling Chinese Communist Party a replica of the system he designed nearly a century ago for the victors of the Bolshevik Revolution.

Or just take Premier Wen Jaibao’s word for it when he says, “We must make best use of the socialist system's advantages, which enable us to make decisions efficiently, organize effectively, and concentrate resources to accomplish large undertakings.” For Wen, market forces are just another weapon in the Communist Party’s arsenal of economic policies, a powerful tool when conducive to Party goals and one to be repressed when deemed inconvenient or dangerous.

Most Western writers, corporate executives, and politicians (including the ubiquitous Mr. Kissinger) experience China through carefully managed meetings in fine offices, restaurants, and nightclubs in modern Shanghai and Beijing. From those venues, it’s pretty hard to imagine that the Hammer and Sickle still rules with an iron fist. As a Chinese dissident friend of mine explained, “There are two views of China: the one where the CCP has tortured you with an electric baton because you support freedom and the other one.”

You can find the real China if you look. Visiting a Chengdu College last year, I was greeted by the Communist Party Secretary who runs a parallel administration dedicated to ensuring the political correctness of faculty and the students. Traveling in Yunnan with a charity, I dined at a fine restaurant while Party members who run healthcare explained, between many rounds of drinks, that China has no money to help kids who need heart surgery. That’s progressive thinking from a socialist dictatorship that has accumulated trillions in foreign reserves while growing their military and security apparatus faster than GDP.

Big Chinese companies also have political minders – picture Tim Curry’s role in “The Hunt for Red October” – while loyal Party members run the “joint partnerships” that multinationals like GM must use to access Chinese markets. No surprise that Cadillac sponsors a film called “Birth of a Party” (how ironically fitting) praising the Chinese Communist Party’s 90th anniversary.

With China’s leaders fully committed to Marx and Mao, we have to wonder what’s with that “vibrant market economy.” It is a lot less of a market than most Americans think. When Hu Jintao says that the Chinese Communist Party “loves capitalism,” file it with: “China’s currency is fairly priced” and “Tibetans love China.”

Despite the horde of small Chinese firms feeding, remora-like, off slain Western economies, real financial power remains in the hands of huge State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs). The top 20 firms in China are SOEs, as are all the big banks, the major energy and resource firms, the telecommunications firms, the big aircraft, auto, and ship builders, and even China’s largest retailer.

Further, though the stock of many of these firms is publicly traded– and probably in your 401(k) – the Central Organizing Committee of the Communist Party appoints the CEOs and runs the show. This control extends to many seemingly private firms since everyone who is anyone in China is either a member of the Party or beholden to it. As Richard McGregor explains in The Party, “The idea that the boards really run companies is basically as credible as the constitutional guarantee of free speech and religious freedom in China. It does not happen in reality.” Worse, the state sector is growing in what’s called “Guo Jin, Min Tui” (“The State Advances and the People Retreat”).

Sadly many of America’s strongest defenders of freedom have come to worship a logical Möbius Strip that twists the support of economic liberty into a rationale for funding totalitarians. Libertarian media and think tanks aggressively defend the “right” of multinationals to nourish China’s dictatorship via “free trade” no matter how much contempt Beijing shows for human rights, how much damage their mercantilism does to our economy, and how obviously they prepare to attack Asian democracies and gear up for eventual conflict with America.

While profiting off the back of labor coerced by others has been a successful business tactic since “free trade” England ran its mills on the cotton of American slavery, conducting business with criminals is no ethical “right.” Funneling commerce and capital to an avowed enemy of our most cherished principles is more like being an accessory to crime.

Ironically, the mercantilist trade of 19th Century America subsequently crushed both England’s mills and its economy. Now as “free trade” America meets a similar fate, the freedom-loving Cato Institute celebrates the communist victory by proclaiming “the world should rejoice in China’s becoming the world’s largest exporter.”

As Lenin was said to have remarked, “The capitalist will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.”

Monday, September 12, 2011

陈凯再版/美对华政策的败笔 America Is Out of Touch on China


China's infiltration into US politics 中共党朝对美国政治的渗透


陈凯博客www.kaichenblog.blogspot.com

America Is Out of Touch on China
陈凯再版/美对华政策的败笔


- On American Failure to Address Its Moral Principles since the Cold War -
从里根之后美国就再也没有出现对美国精神/自由的无畏宣扬者


“自由人”对抗“中国人”序列
"Free Beings" vs. "Chinese Series"


By Kai Chen 陈凯 (Written 2/10/2009, Reprint 9/12/2011)

I have monitored America’s China policy since I came to this country in 1981. I can’t help but to deplore, in witnessing the decline of American moral values, the increasing confusion and failure in American China policy-making. I have to say that the incremental corruption and neglect of the principle of individual freedom that America was founded upon let to today’s failure in American foreign policy-making. In today’s LA Times the article by Nina Hachigian “A to-do list for China” (article pasted below) advising Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s upcoming trip to China has clearly shown that America China policy is going toward a nihilistic cliff. A disaster is brewing on the horizon.

Both parties failed to address the fundamental principles upon which America is founded.

During the Cold War, both major political parties, Republicans and Democrats, had a consensus on what America is about – a beacon of freedom for mankind under the threat of tyranny. Since Ronald Reagan’s “Evil Empire” speech that brought forth the collapse of despotism/communism around the world, no such moral clarity has been exhibited and articulated by American politicians, either from right or from the left. The recent presidential debate between Obama and McCain over domestic and foreign policies of America focused only on the material and economic issues. It was as if when the evil gets well fed and dressed, somehow it will change its ways.

Both parties and their representatives have somehow duped themselves into a morally relative “group think”. We as human beings are no longer individuals in their eyes. Therefore morality is only a relative thing according to each individual’s group identity. An unprecedented tidal wave of moral nihilism has washed up the shore of America, in large part, due to the China phenomenon.

The gutless Republicans and morally confused Democrats are now both engaged in racing toward compromises with evil forces around the world hostile to freedom. What's left is only the faceless members of certain groups, be they defined by race, class, ethnicity, language, heritage, culture…, begging the government(s) for a better, more comfortable material life. Meaning has been cast aside. Sadly it seems I have lost the America I came to admire and live my dream with. Does this great country founded by the likes of Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, George Washington exist any longer? The rhetoric of the modern day American politicians contrasts sharply with their policy making: Somehow we are not spiritual beings experiencing a material world. Somehow we are only material beings having spiritual illusions. We are here only to be saved by our government, by compromising politicians.

China has never been a legitimate country with its communist government.

Failing to understand the nature of a government/regime only dooms any attempt by America to advance the cause of freedom in the world, that is if advancing the cause of freedom is still the purpose of this country at all.

Some people have the illusion that naming the evil by its name will harm American interest around the world, for somehow that will shut the door for conversation with the evil government(s). But naming the evil by its name was exactly what President Ronald Reagan did toward USSR. And by doing so not only did he open the door for concessions by the enemy, he helped the world understand the principle and the purpose of this great country, thus he put America at a moral high ground to engage its enemy. The result was an American triumph, was a great victory of freedom over tyranny. I am very disappointed today in America. There is a total lack of morally clear politicians to articulate the purpose of this country. In blindly pursuing material gain and economic advancement, somehow China has become the model for America, not the opposite. Time and again I read columns by some writers from the left wing such as Thomas Friedman, espousing what China is and represents – a morally nihilistic, oppressive regime gaining power by not only plundering the world of its material resources, but eliminating its moral compass. Nowadays, somehow China, a country in deep moral and spiritual crisis on the verge of collapse both economically and politically, becomes an acceptable form of government - “kinder and gentler” despotism in the eyes of America. Who is having an illusion?

The issue of China’s government’s illegitimacy, both morally and politically, has never been adequately addressed by both parties in American politics today. Yet the so-called intellectuals from left to right take a cowardly position, constantly calling for the world to accommodate a regime that has killed and murdered more than 80 million of its citizens since it took power 60 years ago. China’s history book is only a tool by the communist regime to distort history and brainwash its own citizens, handicapping them into some kind of moral and spiritual zombies without souls. Many Chinese students who come to America to study have yet to learn that Korea War was started by the communist North invading the South. And still many students today in China have yet to learn Tiananmen Massacre indeed had happened.

China is a major source of instability in the world. A new cold war has already begun.

Americans in recent years have exhibited an appalling moral confusion toward China. Besides a “moral affirmative action” toward China, tolerating a “yellow communism” instead of the “white communism” by USSR, there is an illusion that free trade is morally one way - for the US to change China toward the direction of freedom. Americans fail to understand the open trade also opens the door for China’s moral AIDS to invade America, as illustrated by American businesses being corrupted by China’s party-state/dynasy and its nihilistic culture. Google is only one such case, among many, that Americans have compromised their moral principles for a few bucks. And this invasion of souls have also infected many American politicians, making them virtual spokespeople or advocates for despotism in American political arena.

Since China joined the WTO, and not without America’s help, a new form of cold war with not missiles but a more potent, more dangerous, highly contagious and more deadly mutation of spiritual/moral AIDS has quietly and stealthily entered the world, as the orgasmic Beijing Olympic opening ceremony manifested. The virus has quickly spread around the globe in a form of short-cut economic ecstasy. The perversion of moral nihilism has already deeply penetrated America, eroding its principles and purpose by providing it with a fantasy culminated by multiple orgasms, resulted from a deadly intercourse with China.

Meanwhile, the Chinese government, sensing its success in numbing the world of its senses, in blinding it from impending catastrophe, has started its own insidious brainwash program world-wide. It has established more than 1,000 Confucian Institutes/classrooms in many countries to spread its own version of despotic philosophy. It sends out its eunuch artists like Zhang Yimo to stage operas like “The Qin Emperor” (or "Hero") and design/direct the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. It controls all the overseas Chinese student associations on various campuses in the West and sends them out like attack dogs for its insidious agendas. Jack Cafferty of CNN was only one among many such victims of the rampant Chinese nationalistic fervor around the globe. It provides all the Chinese language schools overseas with political propaganda materials. It utilizes overseas Chinese businesses, by intimidation and bribe, to stage intelligence gathering in the West. It manipulates Chinese businesses overseas to corrupt and sabotage Western, especially American political process. It trains computer hackers to interrupt/destroy American economic and military operations. The list goes on.

Globally, the Chinese government secretively funds the terrorist organization, selling them weapons to combat American troops, to distract America from facing the true evil behind. It supports all despotic regimes in the world, from Venezuela to Sudan to Zimbabwe, from North Korea to Burma to Iran to Cuba, with despotic philosophies such as Maoism, and the Chinese mode of economic development – a form of bureaucratic mercantilism, with weapons and technologies to combat the forces of freedom. It plunders all the natural resources and destroys not just its own environment but pollutes the world. It combines forces of tyranny from the former USSR to offset American agendas of peace and development, of advancing liberty and justice in the world.

Domestically, China’s tyrannical government continues to suppress all dissent, from religious group like Falungong, to underground Christians, to Tibetans, to democratic reformers. It continues to silence all voices f conscience. It continues to maintain one party rule and brainwash the population to accept it as some kind of legitimate form of governance with unique Chinese characters, as against values of democracy and freedom. It continues to ban all type of free speech and strictly controls the internet with its thousands of internet police and millions of 50 cents amateur internet political counselors.

America must wake up from its own moral stupor and face its responsibility.

With the upcoming Clinton trip to China, America must wake up to its moral responsibilities and its founding principles. American must face up to the issue of China’s illegitimate despotic nature and its global agenda to combat forces of freedom championed by America. America must stop talking about “cooperation”, “collaboration”, or “strategic partners” with a government viewed by its own people as illegitimate and evil. America must avoid the failure to appreciate the fragile nature of despotism and tyranny, as in the case that at the eve of the collapse of USSR, America was not prepared, assuming it was stronger than ever. American conservative and liberal wings must review their respective policies toward China, realizing the despotic and illegitimate nature of the government with which they are dealing, realizing the collapse of the communist dynasty is only numbered by years, not decades. America must hold up its founding principles of individual freedom, not being distracted by only the economic interests and security issues. “Those who want to give up freedom for security deserve neither freedom, nor security”. America must resist the temptation of shedding its own moral responsibilities, of compromising its founding principles, even at risk of joining the enemy’s camp. America must win the new cold war by China to corrode its own moral values.

America must stand up in a world gradually sinking into a nihilistic blackhole. “A shining city on the hill with its beacon to light the path toward freedom for mankind”, I only hope there will be more Ronald Reagan types with their moral clarity, with their simple but profound common sense. I only hope American people will wake up as responsible free beings to bear the torch of freedom in search of meaning of existence that makes life worth living.

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Kai Chen is a free lance writer and author of “One in a Billion – Journey toward Freedom”

You can contact Kai Chen: www.kaichenforum.com . or www.kaichenblog.blogspot.com


Email:  elecshadow@aol.com
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Reply by sprout:

Kai, very profound thoughts in regards to China, and its effect on U. S. and the rest of the world. I blame some of this on political correctness, a type of censorship that puts everyone on the defense. They should make Trump an ambassador to China, he seem to understand their shiftiness and their cut throat nature, I'm certain he can deal with them in a business way. He will at least get back what he gives, if not more. JMO!

Dear sprout:

Even Trump fails to criticize China in moral terms, though at least he recognizes China as the enemy.

If you take a look at the Chinese currency, every bill of the Chinese currency is printed with the image of the biggest mass murderer in human history - 80 million people were killed in peace time under Mao. To see that kind currency circulating the world is to recognize Mao's legacy - killing for power and everything coming from the muzzle of a gun. Do we want that kind of world? If we do, what kind of people are we and what kind of world will it be? Yet so far, no one, not a single US politician sees the moral aspect of dealing with China. Many in Obama administration even openly admire Mao. There are many Mao's Kitchens/diners/restaurants in the US now. There is a Mao's statue in the Nixon Library sitting among the likes of Winston Churchill. America is degenerating culturally now. And we must fight to restore the moral values of this great country, the only hope for humanity.


Best. Kai Chen

Sunday, September 11, 2011

The internet and China's rule-of-law games 婊子牌坊-中共的“法制”


Chinese information control 中共党朝的“阴阳”互联网

File: Chinese websurfers are seen at an Internet cafe in central China's Anhui province. (AFP)

Kai Chen Blog: www.kaichenblog.blogspot.com

陈凯一语 Kai Chen's Words:

这篇分析文章揭露了中国专制文化的精髓 -- 非良知非理性逻辑的走捷径/婊子牌坊的“筑尿盆”心态。 要经济成长而不要自由,要互联网而不要真实信息,要法制而不要制约政府。 这就是“中式”精神分裂症。

This article by Joe Sternberg reveals the essence of Chinese despotism - a schizophrenic search for an one-end stick. Wanting economic growth yet denying freedom of information flow, wanting the Internet to make money yet restricting communication between individuals, wanting laws to control the population yet protecting the government from the law.... This is indeed the Chinese-style insanity.


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The internet and China's rule-of-law games
婊子牌坊-中共的“法制”


09-SEP-2011 Intellasia | Wall Street Journal

JOSEPH STERNBERG

9 Sep, 2011 - 7:00:00 AM

Every day Beijing grows more uncomfortable with the degree of free communications it has accidentally allowed in China. Witness a growing list of commentaries appearing in official media outlets directed especially at Sina Corp.'s Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter. The site sparked authoritarian concern in the weeks after late July's deadly high-speed train crash in Wenzhou. Weibo became a conduit for inconvenient truths and cynical speculations about the accident. The Communist Party sees a huge threat.

This is as much a business story as it is a free-speech issue. In short, over the years Beijing has made certain decisions about how it would interact with the business world, especially concerning the rule of law. Those decisions are coming back to haunt the Communist Party.

A column published last week in People's Daily, the party's main mouthpiece, is inadvertently revealing. "We have failed to take into sufficient account just how much the Internet is a double-edged sword, and have a problem of allowing technology to advance while administration and regulation lag," the newspaper said, as quoted by Reuters, the emphasis ours. It's a telling remark because the italicised portion is false.

The fact is that Sina Weibo already is illegal. In the distant, misty reaches of history - April 13, 2000, to be exact - the site's parent company, Internet firm Sina, offered its shares on the Nasdaq. This extraction of Western capital from a Western market contravened the black-letter Chinese law that bars foreign investment in sensitive sectors such as Internet services.

This law existed precisely because the party understood the threat a vibrant Internet communications industry would pose. Yet by 2000, it also was clear that Beijing would need to allow some form of the Internet for the economy to thrive, and that the capital for doing so on a Chinese scale was overseas. Beijing discovered, not for the first or last time, that the "rule of law" in China was incompatible with economic growth.

So a fudge was found. Sina and every other Chinese Internet company listed in the West created what are called variable-interest entities, or VIEs. Western investors buy shares in an offshore holding company that owns a Chinese shell company. The actual Internet business remains wholly "owned" by its Chinese founders, but they engineer a series of contracts through which the Internet company agrees to pass along all its revenues and the like to the foreign-owned Chinese company. Accounting rules then allow the listed company to publish consolidated books as if it and the Internet firm were one and the same. They're not.

Beijing has never explicitly said that this trick is legal. Everyone has simply assumed it is because Beijing was content to allow Sina's IPO, and so many since, to proceed using this VIE structure. But Beijing could change its mind at any moment, "discover" the VIE trick has been used to circumvent foreign ownership restrictions, and crack down. It's one of the investment risks buried in each of Sina's annual filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission, and similar warnings lurk in every other IPO done through a VIE structure.

In this sense, the Communist Party's solution to Weibo ought to be simple - shut it down. Since the VIE structure so obviously violates the spirit of the relevant Chinese laws, Beijing would enjoy at least a fig leaf of rule-of-law to protect against charges of censorship. There's even a precedent: In 1998, authorities "realised" that the so-called China-China-Foreign strategy (a precursor of the VIE) used to funnel foreign investment into China Unicom violated the spirit of the foreign investment ban for telecoms. Beijing strong-armed the foreign investors into walking away with compensation paid by the hapless Unicom.

Indeed, Beijing probably once thought it would be able to repeat that strategy if the foreign-invested Internet sector got out of hand. To some, both inside and outside of China, it seemed like the perfect solution - allow the law to be bent in the name of economic development, with a built-in option to clamp down later. If anything, this constant threat ought to have made Sina even more pliant. Arguably it has, to a certain extent.

But now the Party won't or can't shut down Weibo. The real reason for all the worried official commentary about microblogging is that Beijing has reached a disturbing realisation: While the authorities obsessed over controlling the supply of Internet services, they lost sight of the demand. That demand for the service Weibo provides has made it so popular that Beijing must fear a backlash if ever the service were cut off. Hence all the talk about "regulating" Weibo but no talk about the simplest and most clearly legal means of ending the nuisance.

The problem is that in this instance, the rule of the party's law discouraging Internet investment would undermine the growth on which the party relies for legitimacy. Beijing needs businesses like Sina, whether it wants them or not. Having admitted this to itself more than a decade ago, Beijing finds it's too late to change its mind now.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903285704576556571876400118.html

Friday, September 9, 2011

陈凯再版/我与陈姓学委(陈介飞)的交锋 My Exchange with Jay Chen/Hacienda School Board


Hacienda School District "Confucius Classroom" and Norman Hsu Corruption Case 哈岗学区的孔学堂与学委徐乃星的腐败案

Confucius Classroom, Hacienda La Puente Unified School District, California 哈岗学区的孔学堂

My Exchange with Jay Chen/School Board
我与陈姓学委(陈介飞)的交锋


陈凯博客www.kaichenblog.blogspot.com

Note: Jay Chen is a member of the School Board (Hacienda La Puente Unified School District, California). He is a Harvard graduate with an Obama vision of a "New World Order" - establishing a Chinese-style, omnipotent government, thus fundamentally transforming America toward Marxism). Jay Chen belongs to an ultra-left organization/a quasi-communist/socialist group named "People for the American Way".  He is periodically trained by the organization to instill "political correctness" in America, especially in American youths.  Jay Chen is in his late 20s harboring a big political ambition and intends to run for the US Congress.

Jay Chen's blog:   http://jaychen.blogspot.com/   His personal information: http://www.electjaychen.com/tacl.html

----------------------------------------------------

(Posted 6/21/2010, Reprint 9/4/2011)


From a Jay Chen supporter:

"Y'all can shut up. You guys are the rudest bunch and guess what, those students organized themselves to defend their rights to an education that THEY WANT." -- From a brainwashed youth or parent.

Kai Chen's Reply:

If shutting people up is what you want, you have already been poisoned by the communist tactic of brainwashing. When Jay Chen and his girlfriend rounded up a few high schoolers, using them for his political agenda, then you know what is coming with Confucius Classrooms being implemented in all high schools aross US.

Jay Chen, Norman Hsu and their cohorts have already conteminated American political culture with the way they think and behave. Collaborating with the murderous Chinese regime to implement Confucius Classroom in US is only a result of their mindset. Kai Chen
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Kai Chen's Statement:

To all students and parents:

Last night I went to the School Board meeting again in Hacienda District. The other side, the school board members (Jay Chen and his girlfriend), organized a counter attack by using the communist tactic: They call an organizer to round up a few high school students, putting words in their mouths to shout pro-China slogans in the meeting. Even before the Confucius Classroom program is implemented, the communist tactics have already been used - propaganda, brainwashing the youths, rounding up people like sheep for political purposes... I felt so bad for the students being used this way. But I am very familiar with the communistic tactics to attack political opponents. The victims are almost always those who believe vehemently in the evil ideology. This made our effort on this front more valuable, especially now in America.

Kai Chen
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From a Jay Chen supporter:

Please do not make false accusations without any evidence. The words that these high school students were not "put" into the mouths by anyone. There was no "rounding up" of high school students to this meeting for PRO-CHINA SLOGANS but rather a group of concerned well educated students getting together and defending a cultural program that they passionately cared about.

Kai, your patriotic words that back your extreme position on this Confucius Classroom contradicts itself. You wrote " If shutting people up is what you want, you have already been poisoned by the communist tactic of brainwashing" on the post above but are you doing the same thing? Getting rid of programs teaching the culture of China in fear of Communism in America? If this is the path all Americans should take- what makes us different from Communists? How does that make America the Land of The Free? Is this not propaganda? Is this not a "communist" tactic?
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From Jay Chen:

Kai, thank you for reading my blog. It is unfortunate that you think everyone who does not agree with your extreme views and hate-filled speech has been brainwashed. What a lonely life you must lead.

Your reliance upon grandiose statements and patriotic verbiage are not fooling anyone. Whatever it is you are trying to accomplish, it is being thwarted by your own extremism, and it reflects very poorly upon yourself and the organization you are a part of.

I am very curious to learn more about your affiliations, and who is putting you up to this type of extremism. By the way, the eagle on your blog is actually chained and captive. You may want to choose a different picture.
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Kai Chen's Response:

Jay Chen and company:

First, please do not label your blog as "School Board Blog". You are misleading people to believe that your position represents the School Board's position. It seems your title/power is more important to you than your own integrity. Your political ambition is not unfamiliar to me, a person who has seen this too much before.

Secondly, the students you and your girlfriend rounded up for your political ambition are innocent and ignorant, much like the Red Guards during Mao's Cultural Revolution. I don't blame them. I pity them for they are the ultimate victims of your socialist/communist "New World Order" agenda.

The ones you try to shut up are free American citizens who acted upon their own individual conscience. The ones I try to warn not to be the pawns of your political agenda are ignorant teenagers who are eager to please the authority and you.

Indeed after all your research you will find I do act alone. But I am never lonely, for I have conscience and justice in my heart. The only one I have to answer and bow before is God. Power, money, popularity, fame mean nothing to me, unlike you and your cohorts on the School Board.

Indeed the eagle on my blog is bond by the chains of moral confusion, political correctness, group think and other negative traits of humanity. My task is to free her and make her realize her full potentials. The eagle indeed will die without freedom to fly.

Once again, please change your blog's title from "School Board Blog" to "Jay Chen's Blog".

With respect and thanks for posting here. Kai Chen
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From a Jay Chen supporter:

Quote from Kai Chen - "Indeed after all your research you will find I do act alone. But I am never lonely, for I have conscience and justice in my heart. The only one I have to answer and bow before is God. Power, money, popularity, fame mean nothing to me, unlike you and your cohorts on the School Board."

"God?" Is that how Li Hongzi refers to himself these days? I find it disturbing that a quasi-religious organization from China is attempting to influence U.S. education. Kai, you are right. There is brainwashing going on. But you are the victim of it. Get some medical help.
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Kai Chen's Response:

("God?" Is that how Li Hongzi refers to himself these days? I find it disturbing that a quasi-religious organization from China is attempting to influence U.S. education. Kai, you are right. There is brainwashing going on. But you are the victim of it. Get some medical help.) -- Quote from some anonymous coward.

When people attack Falungong practitioners, following the Chinese communist guidelines, they fail to see that Mr. Li Gongzhi is not the one who murdered millions upon millions of Chinese. While the West and America worship someone who was killed because of his righteousness, justice and morality - Jesus Christ, the Chinese worship the biggest mass murderer in human history - Mao. Mao's corps and portrait are still displayed on Tiananmen Square.

Attacking someone who merely believes in something different, in order to deny, avoid and cover-up the murderous culture and history under communism is a common tactic by the communist followers of Mao such as the one who posted this message.

That is why he will not reveal his true name, for America would revile someone like this - a coward who sneak attack and sucker-punch like the Japanese during WWII and 9/11 perpetrators. Watch out for people like this who will inflict more damage to America with the support of the Chinese communist government and a ubiquitous "political correctness".

Best to you all. Kai Chen
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From a reader:

Mr. Kai Chen, I read your blog with interest and share it with my friends. However, all this time I thought you were a Christian since you talk about God all the time. Do you believe in Jesus Christ as your savior or do you believe in Mr. Gongzhi. I await your answer eagerly.
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Kai Chen's Response:

Dear Reader:
Thanks for raising this question. I am never a FLG member or a believer in their doctrine. But I do believe in freedom of religion. As long as one does not hurt other individuals, one can believe in anything he/she wants.

I do believe in the spirit of Jesus Christ. "Only truth shall set you free." But I don't always agree with certain churches, such as the one Obama attended in Chicago, or the ones who believe that Christ is a socialist/communist, such as the People's Temple (Jone's Town tragedy)falsely lead people into suicidal misdeeds.

Indeed I do find it weird and perverse that someone is more concerned about Mr. Li Hongzhi with what he preaches than what Mao, the biggest mass murderer in human history, has committed in his atrocious anti-human crimes. It is indeed revolting to think someone who wants to attack Mr. Li and his practitioners more than the communist regime which still swallows millions today in China and in the world by supporting all the despotic regimes and threatening all the democracies (such as Taiwan).
I hope you are not one of those who is perverted in his moral judgment in questioning who and what I am. With respect. Kai Chen
--------------------------------------------
Kai Chen's Statement:

To Jay Chen:

You mention repeatedly your want to teach culture to American kids. What culture?

The ancient Chinese culture?

The ancient Chinese culture is a culture of despotism and dynastic cycles. What part of that culture do you want the American children to learn? Let me know the specifics. Chinese culture has never produced the concept of freedom. It has imbued into the Chinese population with fear of despotic rulers, passivity, stagnation in cultural development, tolerance of evil, moral confusion about right or wrong, truth or falsehood, good or evil.... The world should stay far away from such a negative and oppressive culture.

The modern Chinese culture?

What kind of modern political culture does China have? Communism/socialism/totalitarianism, period. If your fathers and grandfathers have been murdered by the Chinese regime, if your mothers and sisters have been raped by the Chinese regime, if millions upon millions of people have been tortured and damaged emotionally and psychologically..., yet the modern political culture wants the Chinese people to forget, to forgive, to numb themselves into oblivion, to tolerate more murders, tortures and mayhem, then what kind culture is it? Is it a culture you want to spread around the world, to teach American children, to numb their sense of justice and righteousness? If a billion people tolerate the killer and murderer of their family - Mao, and even worship him as some kind of patron saint, then what kind people are these? Should these people who close their eyes and all their senses to evil, just to survive, just to be able to climb the social ladder, have any moral right to teach your children? If a culture that preaches the power and money of the collective and those with authority, but ignores the trails of blood and dead bodies as the result of such an evil cult, do you want your children to be exposed to such a cult? If the Chinese today want to escape that Party-State with droves to come to the West and US for safety and a sense of peace, then why do you want to invite a culture that drives them to the US to our school district.

It just doesn't make any sense to learn from an outhouse people want to escape from. It is insane for people like you to use the contaminants and feces to pollute America which is relatively clean with freedom and human dignity still respected. Simply because you see a chaff in American bread, then you want to mix the Chinese feces into it. How insane can you be?

With respect. Kai Chen
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From Jay Chen:

Kai Chen,

It is clear that you have a very shallow and narrow grasp of Chinese and U.S. culture and history.

There are no perfect countries in this world. You have chosen to move to one that was built on the backs of African slaves and Chinese coolie labor, that interned Japanese Americans for no crime other than ancestry, that refused to allow non-whites and women to vote, and that most recently invaded another country based on false pretense.

As someone who seems so obsessed with justice and liberty, have you somehow managed to justify these atrocities in your mind? If so then you are sicker than your writings reveal.

True patriots do not need to manufacture enemies and rewrite history to their own liking and comfort. They recognize a country for all that it is, and all that it can become. I'm sorry Kai, but you are not a patriot.

It is sad that in your zeal to seem more loyal and more American than everyone else, you have adopted so much self-hatred. It is not necessary to mindlessly attack the country of your birth in order to prove that you are a "true" American. That type of acceptance is the beauty of the United States, and it is unfortunate that you do not understand that.

With warm regards, Jay Chen
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Kai Chen's Response:

To Jay Chen:

This message just exposed what a dangerous mindset you have and what a despotic vision you envision in your liberal world -- Moral equivalency of a legitimate government based on the consent of the governed and on the US Constitution with a government of Party-State based on bloodshed, repression and fear. Your "multi-culturalism" is exactly based on your erroneous premise that all cultures are equal and should be respected.

First, it is exactly based on the spirit of Declaration of Independence and US Constitution, America progressed from slavery toward freedom.  Mistakes have been made along the way due to human imperfection. But using these mistakes to justify atrocities by despotism and tyranny shows your extreme moral confusion and corruption. To simply compare, Not contrast US and China is a perverse approach to understanding of human history and the direction of human progress. Your view of the world mirrors the Chinese view of the world - Everything is going nowhere but revolving around nothingness. This nihilistic view of the world dooms not only the Chinese society, it dooms everyone/anyone who takes such a view. So no wonder you don't give a damn about right or wrong, truth or falsehood, good or evil....  To people like you who sees no meaning in life, who sees everything is relative, power/social status/money is what you worship and see as absolute. All the socialist/communist countries are essentially nihilistic. So are all the liberal leftists in America. This is why people like you as Obama's follower in his vision for America pursue mindlessly and soullessly to emulate China - a model of fast growth without liberty, justice and human dignity. People like you and Thomas Friedman of NY Times (with his article on his admiration of Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony - a two billion dollar extravaganza) really admire the power the Chinese Party-State/Dynasty has.

It is too bad American college campuses have already been inundated by the morally perverse leftist professors who produce people like you. Now you want to take it further in your power to  push American youths into the morass of socialism/communism and proudly declare you are only following some politically correct "diversity" doctrine. People like you in America should spend some months in the Chinese Laogai (gulag) to experience the fruits of the vision you so cherish. Then you can come back and tell me you still want to invite this kind society and mindset into the US to be learned by our youngsters.

Thanks for exposing yourself so thoroughly that you cannot really call yourself a closet communist. You are truly a communist with your dialectic goggles. Good luck in your pursuit of power.

Kai Chen
-------------------------------------------------
From a Jay Chen supporter:

Mr. Kai Chen,

I understand your deep abhorrence with mainland China, but do you not see the burden of proof fallacy that lies on the crust of your entire argument?

To say that we were "rounded up" by Jay Chen's girlfriend just for this issue is quite fallacious. If you noticed, the majority of us did not speak, since this was the first time we attended such a board meeting, and it was at this meeting where we first met Ms. Karen Chang. Those signs were created by us, as concerned students of our school district. To go ahead and say that we are "brainwashed" lies on false pretenses.

If you have actually seen and read the course materials, then you would know that there is nothing that would demonstrate anything near "communist". I have seen the materials, and read through them. If you think books that teach a child how to read, write, or pronounce certain characters such as "motorcycle", or "rainbow" is communist, then I really do advise you to go back to primary school. Other materials include Sun Tzu's Art of War, and Laozi's work on Taoism--all created before common era, and are currently taught in many other schools and universities. Understand that Hanban, the organization which is the host of this Chinese course, has been working with College Board for many years already. Unless you find SAT, ACT, and AP tests to be "tainted with communism" now, then there really should be no problem with this course at Cedarlane Middle School. I have spoken with Mrs. Ezaki (the principal of Cedarlane) four days ago, and she told me that there were absolutely no complaints from both parents and students that were reported.

Mr. Kai Chen, I do agree with you that China does demonstrate human rights violation, along with censorship, but this does not distort the materials provided to us. Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth grade students are wise enough to distinguish between what is right and what is wrong.

I would find it beneficial if you read/re-read Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto. The ideal communist regime is a system where the working class and every member of society rules democratically, not to be confused with totalitarianism.

What I find quite confusing is how you believe learning Chinese, even if it is simplified, would "fundamentally transform" the United States of America. Learning Chinese does not destroy "young minds with their sense of individuality, common sense and moral judgement", nor is this a trait of "socialism and communism".

Being culturally aware does not destroy a child's sense of individuality; if a child understands what happens in different nations, it would allow them to expand their knowledge (becoming more aware)--hence turning away from the fascist practice of a "singular collective identity". With regards to the destruction of our common sense and moral judgement, I do not see how this develops. I understand the injustices which occurs in China, along with the injustices that occur America's capitalist system, but does knowing this "destroy" my "common sense", and "moral judgement"? It would be very beneficial to see both sides of the argument, rather than sticking with such adamant beliefs that seems to be built on speculation.

-Jeffrey Tso

Graduate of Cedarlane Middle School in 2008, and current student at Glen A. Wilson High School
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Kai Chen's Response:

Dear Jeffery:

Thanks for posting this message.

It indeed shows America how confused and ignorant some Americans are with regard to the Communist ideology and its effect upon humanity.

This is why the current American political culture is sickened by the likes of Obama and his cohorts who preach socialism and worship the biggest mass murderer in human history - Mao.

Most Americans are confused morally and intellectually to think China is just another country, no different from America. Yet I challenge you all to demonstrate an iota of legitimacy of the Chinese government. To confuse recognition with legitimacy indeed shows this moral and intellectual confusion and corruption.

China does not have procedual legitimacy for it is never elected with the consent of the governed. It is a regime based on guns, violence and threat of violence against its own citizens. It does not have moral legitimacy, for it is a criminal regime which killed 80 million innocent lives in China in peace time without any remorse or admission to its own atrocities. Even Tiananmen Square Masscre in 1989 is still being covered up and a taboo subject in China. Persecution of minorities, dissidents, religious groups, Falungong practitioners is still continuing to this moment. "One Child Policy" with million upon millions of forced abortions and sterilizations, with millions up millions of infanticides is still being enforced.

Chinese history books are propaganda tools with perverted and twisted history. The more education you have in China, the more morally and historically hadicapped you will become.

Mao's image is everywhere in China, on Tiananmen Square, in the Chinese notes of currency, in school campuses..... Chinese flag with its one big star and four small stars symbolizing tyranny and unconditional submission of individuals to the governmental power flies everywhere in China. The children in China have to ware red scarves to show their loyalty to the communist government. If you are not connected with the communist party, you will not advance in society. Communist organizations are everywhere -- in churches, in law firms, in businesses, in schools, in every governmental organs....

China is not a nation. Yes, you heard right. China is a Party-State/Dynasty. Everything and everyone is China is a tool for the communist party to maintain its power and control over the Chinese people.

Yet, you and confused mind like yours want to view China as a normal country, a normal society, a normal government. What a joke! Yet the joke is on you. The joke is on America. What a pity.

When China and Islamic terrorists view America as the biggest enemy, Americans are numb and complacent to think otherwise, to turn a blind eye to the moral threat from China and terrorists. Political correctness indeed reign supreme now under the current Obama administration and a sicken political culture in society.

Wake up America! Wake up not just to outside threat from China and Islamic terrorism, but to your own moral confusion, ignorance toward socialism/communism, and your own passivity and inaction.

I, for one, will stand up for this great nation, for this last bastion of human freedom and hope. I hope more people will stand up with me and join me to fight America's enemies - domestic and foreign.

Best to you all. Give me liberty or give me death. Kai Chen

Posted by Kai Chen 陈凯 at 9:07 AM

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2 comments:

Friday, June 18, 2010

Jay Chen's Original Post on His Blog:

At last night's board meeting it was refreshing to see so many young people who have decided to join in the education debate directly, instead of allowing outsiders and those with outdated political agendas shape their future for them. These students, all of whom are either graduates of Cedarlane (where our Chinese language class will be held) or current students of Wilson, expressed their support for the Chinese class and disappointment in the small group of individuals who insist on spreading lies about what we are doing in our district.
While these young students handled themselves with class and dignity, I was appalled by the response of Mr. Kai Chen, who is not a resident of the district, but began attending our board meetings ever since this controversy was manufactured. He interrupted one student to scream "poisoned!" and later called our students "Red Guards." Mr. Kai Chen claims in his many self-promotions that he is a defender of liberty and patriotism, but from his erratic behavior it is clear that he has other intentions and a different agenda.

I was also appalled to hear Ms. Teresa Macias call the students of Cedarlane "low-achieving." Mr. Chen and Ms. Macias regularly attack our program and our school board under the guise of caring about students, but from their words and actions it is clear that it is politics, not student welfare, that drives them.

During the meeting, Board Member Rudy Chavarria again expressed his desire to have the program canceled. I asked him if he had visited the class that he was so intent on canceling (since the Confucius grant merely subsidizes and expands our existing class), and he said he had not, and that it was his prerogative to not visit. I also asked him why he said he was against the teaching of culture, since our World History and Spanish classes already do so. Mr. Chavarria adamantly denied he had ever made such a statement. As I do not want to be accused of putting words in Mr. Chavarria's mouth, I have included the statement he made to Maritza Velasquez of the San Gabriel Valley Tribune on February 2, 2010:

- But school board member Rudy Chavarria, the only member to vote against the agreement, had several concerns, including the fact that culture would be taught in the classroom. "I don't believe in teaching culture. To me, it should be celebrated. Just like religion, culture should be taught at home. That's just what I feel" he said.

June 21, 2010 7:11 PM

Anonymous said... 

Mr. Chavarria may be denying his previous statements because he has discovered (after half a decade in office) that the teaching of language and culture are specifically advocated within the Foreign Language Framework for California Public Schools, as adopted by the California State Board of Education and California Department of Education.

Throughout this controversy, opponents of our program have shifted their arguments as they run into roadblocks to their logic. First, they were against the teaching of any Chinese language or culture (U.S. schools have been doing it for decades). Then, they said they were not against teaching Chinese, but they were against books from Communist China (opponent John Kramar admitted the books could be found in Barnes & Noble). Then they said even if the books were harmless, we should not be accepting support from a foreign government (China finances most of the debt that keeps our country afloat, and the U.S. Department of State regularly sends U.S. teachers abroad).

The latest argument offered by Mr. Chavarria is that it is not the program he is against (since he hasn't visited it) it is the process by which we voted on it... the same process we have used to vote on everything on our agendas. While the surface-level arguments shift, the anti-Sinoism, racism, and xenophobia that underpins this entire debate, as manifested by the personal attacks waged against the majority Asian board, remain strong and unwavering.

It is a shame that opponents have brought so much negativity and embarrassment upon themselves through their actions. However, their political self-immolation will not deter us from providing a world-class education to our students.

It is unethical for a board member to misrepresent his previous statements at a public board meeting, and it is the height of irresponsibility for an elected official to manufacture so much dissent and paranoia against a program that he knows nothing about, and chooses to know nothing about, as Mr. Chavarria has done. Our community deserves better leadership than that, and I am glad that this debate has stirred the next generation of young people to political action.
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CLASSROOM CONFUSION
课堂中的道德混乱


陈凯博客www.kaichenblog.blogspot.com

John Rabe / Coral Ridge Ministries

http://www.coralridge.org/default.aspx

Learn to Discern by John Rabe:

http://www.coralridge.org/medialibrary/default.aspx?mediaID=L2D20100319

Would you send your children to the Chinese Communist Party for indoctrination sessions? A dictatorial regime, born out of centuries of despotism, is hardly the most-sought-after role model for American children. Yet, a California school board has voted to import instructors from China to implement a controversial new program.

Cedarlane Middle School in Hacienda Heights, California plans to offer a “Confucius Classroom”, supposedly, at no cost to the district. But opponents maintain that there are plenty of negative costs to implementing Chinese-government sponsored propaganda.

Chinese immigrant and anti-communist activist Kai Chen says that, quote, “Confucianism is the foundation of Chinese despotism for 2,000 years. The combination of Chinese despotism and modern communism forms a most poisonous brew...” Unquote.

Chen says that Confucianism, which has formed the basis for millennia of emperor-rule in China, has become a virtually missionary and evangelistic ideology, with Confucius Classroom programs in 87 nations.

Teaching the truth—that America was founded as one nation under God, with the state subject to Him and our rights granted only by him—can now land you in court in some places. In a time when the basic truths about our country are virtually illegal, it’s unthinkable to import Chinese ideology, which has never produced freedom, into American classrooms.

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Response from a reader (a retired teacher from Hacienda School District): 读者(一位学区退休教师)回馈:

I read it all and am aware that Kai Chen has a firm grasp of what "moral relativism" is. His rebuttals were great.

I just returned from a 12 day Viking river cruise on the Yangtze River and visited Shanghai, Wuhan, Xian and Beijing. Our Chinese guide told us Americans a lot about life in China. My greatest fear is that we will become a socialist-capitalist nation like China. Jay Chen appears to be on his way of helping to make it happen.


Please continue to keep me informed.

Thank,

Roger French     9/9/2011