陈凯一语: Kai Chen's Words:
我将Wafa Sultan的演讲与新书的链锁贴在这里,望你们欣赏这个无畏的反传统专制的阿拉伯女性。 她对世界所说的关于反人性的穆斯林传统的分析与否定与我对世界所说的关于反人性的中国传统文化的分析与否定是完全一致的。 对美国自由精神的捍卫与褒扬是我们共同的结论。 我们希望世界都变得像美国,而绝非美国变得像世界其他国家。 --- 陈凯
I paste Wafa Sultan's speech and book links here for all of you to enjoy this brave thinking woman from Syria. Her opposition to her own traditional Muslim (anti-human) pseudo values is parallel to my opposition to my own Chinese traditional (anti-human) pseudo values. Our views about American values we love are also the same. We believe the world should become more like America, not the other way around. --- Kai Chen
Wafa Sultan Speech Link 演讲链锁:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up3yuQDAWKQ
Wafa Sultan's New Book: 购书链锁
A God Who Hates 仇恨之神
http://www.amazon.com/God-Who-Hates-Courageous-Inflamed/dp/0312538359/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256925679&sr=1-1
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陈凯一语: Kai Chen's Words:
在中国专制官方的庇护允许下发表的书籍刊物都是经过“洗脑部门”筛选过的。 作者们的话要不就是讲一半儿,要不就是有内部政治斗争的因素而“故泄机密”的。 望人们在读袁伟民的“体坛风云”的时候多问多思。 一件事可以肯定: 中共系统现在是一片混乱。 一场残酷的内部权力斗争正在展开。 --- 陈凯
Under the ubiquitous political examination, all the books and publications in China are either all fake or half fake. The authors' words should always be taken with a grain of salt. They either tell half of the story (half truth) or they only reveal certain things under the tutelage of their own party bosses for some political gain over their opponents. When you read Yuan Weimin's book, you should take the same approach. One thing is for sure: China's communist system is in total disarray. A deadly power struggle is well under way. --- Kai Chen
China calls foul over tell-all sports memoir 袁伟民的书被贬
Yuan Weimin's book includes details of secret deals to get Beijing chosen to host the 2008 Olympic Games. Some have branded him a liar and a traitor, while others applaud his candor.
By Barbara Demick/LA Times
October 31, 2009
Reporting from Beijing - Yuan Weimin was the toast of China's sporting scene from the early 1980s, when he coached the women's gold medal volleyball team, to 2001, when as head of the Chinese Olympic Committee, he helped bring home the biggest prize of all -- Beijing's selection as host city for the 2008 Summer Games. Now the 70-year-old retired cadre is being denounced by some as a liar and a traitor, accused of spilling state secrets and disrupting Chinese harmony.
The offense lies between the covers of his memoir, "Yuan Weimin: Winds and Clouds of the World of Sports," published this month in Beijing.
In the book, so far only available in Chinese, Yuan writes about a deal he says was cut during a cloak-and-dagger meeting in a Geneva hotel room eight years ago in which China promised to support the candidacy of Belgian Jacques Rogge as head of the International Olympic Committee in return for his support of Beijing's Olympic bid.
It was all kept hush-hush because Rogge, as a European representative, couldn't publicly endorse Beijing when two European cities -- Paris and Istanbul -- were also contenders, Yuan writes.
"We had a mutual understanding that we all understood clearly, even if it was not in writing," says Yuan, who credited ancient Chinese military strategies for shaping the tactics.
Yuan drops other tidbits from the backroom discussions of China's Olympics bid, including how the nation sought to deflect criticism of its human rights record. He also writes of fears during the 2000 Sydney Olympics that Chinese athletes (no names here) would be disqualified for doping, and of a women's volleyball coach arranging for the Chinese team to lose a match in the 2002 world championships to avoid facing a tougher opponent.
It is fairly mild stuff by the standards of tell-all-memoirs: no sex, no shoe boxes stuffed with cash. But it is making a splash in China just the same because it is so unusual for anybody from the inner sanctum of the Chinese sporting world to break the code of silence that usually prevails over sensitive subjects.
"I haven't seen many tell-all books come out after the Olympics, not in any country, much less in China," said David Wallechinsky, the author of several books about the Games.
Although the Chinese government has not taken action against Yuan or the publisher, a nongovernmental organization, the Chinese Assn. for the Promotion of Olympic Culture said last week it would file a civil lawsuit against Yuan's publisher, Beijing Fonghong Media Co., to prevent publication of any copies beyond the 200,000 in print in China.
"The book contains content which is far from the truth and . . . its publication can be considered as leaking of state secrets," the association said in a statement last week.
The association's head, He Zhenliang, a Chinese member of the International Olympic Committee, is accused by Yuan of having nearly scuttled Beijing's Olympic bid by supporting a South Korean candidate, Kim Un-yong, to head the IOC instead of Rogge.
The Swiss-based International Olympic Committee also rejects Yuan's allegations.
"Any insinuation that deals would have been made is absolutely false," the IOC said in a statement released last week.
The book's publication has stung many Chinese sports fans, one of whom wrote plaintively on a sports Internet bulletin board: "Even if some of the things he said were true, did he have to reveal them?"
But the influential Southern Metropolis Daily and several other major Chinese newspapers have applauded Yuan's candor.
"This is the first time that somebody in the high ranks told the inside story of the Chinese sports world," said Xu Jicheng, a prominent basketball commentator who was deputy director of media operations for Beijing Olympics organizing committee. "I think he picked the right time. Since the Olympics, Chinese people are more confident and I think we are ready to listen with an open mind."
Yuan declined an interview request, saying through his publisher that he preferred to maintain a low profile. At a news conference this month in his hometown of Nanjing, Yuan told Chinese reporters he didn't want to cause controversy.
"The purpose of this book is to tell the truth. It's just about the truth and nothing more," he said.
Yuan's revelations cover only the bidding process for the Olympics because he was not around for the Games themselves. He was sacked as sports minister at the end of 2004 in the midst of an audit into his financial dealings -- perhaps one reason for a streak of animus that runs through the book -- and replaced by a Communist Party apparatchik with no sporting experience.
In the memoir, Yuan writes that he differed with other Chinese officials about how to handle critics who said the Olympics should not be hosted by a one-party nation.
Many Chinese officials, he says, wanted to use overseas Chinese groups as proxies to counterattack, while Yuan thought the Olympic committee needed to tackle the issue directly.
"My opinion was that we should talk about human rights ourselves," he writes. "Even if only a few simple words, it would show we have the courage to talk about it and not avoid the facts."
Wallechinsky, the author, said he is disappointed that Yuan's memoir does not go farther in spilling secrets of China's winning Olympic bid.
For example, he wonders whether the officials who submitted the winning bid to host the 2008 Games had been sincere in their representations during the bidding process that China would improve its human rights situation.
"After Beijing was selected, as soon as the ink on the contract was dry, the International Olympic Committee ceded control of the Games to the Communist Party of China," said Wallechinsky.
Wallechinsky noted, however, that if Yuan divulged how that happened, "he would have to leave China immediately."
Tommy Yang and Nicole Liu of The Times' Beijing Bureau contributed to this report.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
Anita Dunn, Were You Also Joking About Mother Teresa? 毛与特丽莎修女?
陈凯一语: Kai Chen's Words:
Jamie Glazov 提出不能让 Anita Dunn 崇毛事件就这样轻率了结。 我完全同意。 Anita Dunn 说她只是说着玩儿。 这让我想起尼克松基金会的人说毛塑像展出只是为了“有历史感”一样。 崇魔的借口真是无所不有。 --- 陈凯
Jamie Glazov mentions here that we should not let Anita Dunn's "worshipping Mao" incident off the hook that easily. I totally agree. Anita Dunn is now saying that she was only joking when she said "Mao is one of her favorite philosophers". That reminds me of the people from the Nixon Foundation (maybe Nixon himself) that display of Mao's statue among the world leaders such as Winston Churchill is only for "history". The excuses/pretenses for worshipping devil are indeed colorful and countless. --- Kai Chen
Mao's statue in Nixon Library with visitors from China
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http://frontpagemag.com/2009/10/26/anita-dunn-were-you-also-joking-about-mother-theresa-by-jamie-glazov/
Anita Dunn, Were You Also Joking About Mother Teresa? 毛与特丽莎修女?
– by Jamie Glazov on Oct 26th, 2009 and filed under FrontPage.
Jamie Glazov is Frontpage Magazine's editor. He holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in Russian, U.S. and Canadian foreign policy. He is the author of Canadian Policy Toward Khrushchev’s Soviet Union and is the co-editor (with David Horowitz) of The Hate America Left. He edited and wrote the introduction to David Horowitz’s Left Illusions. His new book is United in Hate: The Left's Romance with Tyranny and Terror. Email him at jglazov@rogers.com.
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So President Obama’s White House communications director, Anita Dunn, is off the hook just like that? She praises Mao Zedong, the greatest mass murderer in history, and when confronted on it says she was joking and that’s it. Why is that just it? Would it be just it if any politician or any person in a responsible position out there verbalized an admiration for Adolf Hitler?
The key issue here is that Dunn was clearly not joking. Watch her videotaped speech to high schoolers and see for yourself. With the utmost earnestness, she calls Mao “one of the two people that I turn to most” and goes into a detailed and completely serious explanation of why she holds both Mao and Mother Teresa in high regard in the context of perseverance and choosing one’s own path.
Anita Dunn should not be let off the hook so easily, let alone let off the hook at all. And here at NewReal Blog we are not going to let her off the hook. We’re not going to let an adviser to the President of the United States off the hook for articulating a veneration of a communist despot who murdered 70 million of his own people.
And so today at NewsReal we are starting a campaign. And that campaign consists of one question to Anita Dunn that we want answered: Were you also joking about Mother Theresa being “one of the two people that I turn to most”? Because you did mention Mao in combination with Mother Teresa. So if you were joking about Mao, were you also joking about Mother Teresa? We want our question answered. And we are asking for all members of the media to join us in this campaign to get an answer from Anita Dunn. Please support us and demand an answer to this question.
Editor’s note: Get the whole story on why leftists venerate communist mass murderers in Jamie Glazov’s new book, United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny and Terror.
Jamie Glazov 提出不能让 Anita Dunn 崇毛事件就这样轻率了结。 我完全同意。 Anita Dunn 说她只是说着玩儿。 这让我想起尼克松基金会的人说毛塑像展出只是为了“有历史感”一样。 崇魔的借口真是无所不有。 --- 陈凯
Jamie Glazov mentions here that we should not let Anita Dunn's "worshipping Mao" incident off the hook that easily. I totally agree. Anita Dunn is now saying that she was only joking when she said "Mao is one of her favorite philosophers". That reminds me of the people from the Nixon Foundation (maybe Nixon himself) that display of Mao's statue among the world leaders such as Winston Churchill is only for "history". The excuses/pretenses for worshipping devil are indeed colorful and countless. --- Kai Chen
Mao's statue in Nixon Library with visitors from China
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http://frontpagemag.com/2009/10/26/anita-dunn-were-you-also-joking-about-mother-theresa-by-jamie-glazov/
Anita Dunn, Were You Also Joking About Mother Teresa? 毛与特丽莎修女?
– by Jamie Glazov on Oct 26th, 2009 and filed under FrontPage.
Jamie Glazov is Frontpage Magazine's editor. He holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in Russian, U.S. and Canadian foreign policy. He is the author of Canadian Policy Toward Khrushchev’s Soviet Union and is the co-editor (with David Horowitz) of The Hate America Left. He edited and wrote the introduction to David Horowitz’s Left Illusions. His new book is United in Hate: The Left's Romance with Tyranny and Terror. Email him at jglazov@rogers.com.
-------------------------------------------
So President Obama’s White House communications director, Anita Dunn, is off the hook just like that? She praises Mao Zedong, the greatest mass murderer in history, and when confronted on it says she was joking and that’s it. Why is that just it? Would it be just it if any politician or any person in a responsible position out there verbalized an admiration for Adolf Hitler?
The key issue here is that Dunn was clearly not joking. Watch her videotaped speech to high schoolers and see for yourself. With the utmost earnestness, she calls Mao “one of the two people that I turn to most” and goes into a detailed and completely serious explanation of why she holds both Mao and Mother Teresa in high regard in the context of perseverance and choosing one’s own path.
Anita Dunn should not be let off the hook so easily, let alone let off the hook at all. And here at NewReal Blog we are not going to let her off the hook. We’re not going to let an adviser to the President of the United States off the hook for articulating a veneration of a communist despot who murdered 70 million of his own people.
And so today at NewsReal we are starting a campaign. And that campaign consists of one question to Anita Dunn that we want answered: Were you also joking about Mother Theresa being “one of the two people that I turn to most”? Because you did mention Mao in combination with Mother Teresa. So if you were joking about Mao, were you also joking about Mother Teresa? We want our question answered. And we are asking for all members of the media to join us in this campaign to get an answer from Anita Dunn. Please support us and demand an answer to this question.
Editor’s note: Get the whole story on why leftists venerate communist mass murderers in Jamie Glazov’s new book, United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny and Terror.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Comments on Anita Dunn and Nixon Library 奥巴马/尼克松与崇毛症
Comments on Anita Dunn and Nixon Library 奥巴马/尼克松与崇毛症
Folks:
These comments show you the extent of communist pollution upon American political cultural landscape. Then you know why I did what I did. I think I have succeeded quite handsomely in exposing the contradictions between American principles and American behaviors.
Best. Kai Chen
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Comments:
You might say the same of Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, George W Bush all were admirers of Mao. Nixon even personally picked out the statue of Mao that currently sits in the Nixon Presidential Library.
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http://www.slate.com/discuss/forums/thread/3332421.aspx
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Discuss the history...
Your accusations are boring and incorrect...but your inability to discuss the subject at hand in the thread is obvious...So...comments on Nixon's dealing with Mao and the statue that has been in the library for 20 years are welcome...
You, like Sgt Rock, seem to believe business with mass murderers is a wonderful diplomatic achievement, but quoting one is not. Be careful with this tact...as you might be surprised who has quoted Mao...
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Feel free to discuss the shared commonality between the quotes offered in the actual comment, as opposed to the left out aspect in the article you provided.
Feel free to discuss Nixon's business with Mao...and the continued favored nation status bestowed by all US Presidents since 1980...and the current controversy surrounding the Mao statue in the Nixon Library...
Why do I have the feeling you will do none of this?
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http://fray.slate.com/discuss/forums/thread/3330860.aspx
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Nixon PRAISED Mao ..... Kissinger PRAISED Mao .... Conservative Pat Buchanan even warmed up to Mao and decided NOT to resign from Nixon's Administration. There is currently a statue of Mao at Nixon's Library. I have a hunch Beck does not know one thing about Mao & why Mao was so important - in a good way - to America & China & the world.
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Mixed reactions to Mao
Where are the protests from Chinese-Americans? A few weeks ago, demonstrators gathered outside the Nixon Presidential Library to protest a statue of Mao.
The Orange County Register reported:
"Wearing T-shirts with the words 'Tiananmen Square' designed to look like blood dripping onto the words 'Beijing Olympics,' the protestors said having a statue of Mao in the library was like having a statue of Soviet leader Josef Stalin in the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum.
" 'Mao was crueler than Stalin, crueler than Hitler,' said Kuo Chiang Fung. 'Would you have a statue of Hitler in the museum?' "
I am mystified by the proliferation of Mao-logoed clothing. I suspect some people may just not know what they are wearing or what it symbolizes. There are some reports, however, that Mao's popularity is "surging" in China.
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The Chicago Tribune reported on the wave of Mao nostalgia sweeping over China:
"A wave of Mao nostalgia is sweeping through China, and it crests here in his birthplace, the village of Shaoshan (pop. 1,387). The Hunan province community -- a cross between Bethlehem and Mount Vernon, Va. -- is expected to draw a record 3.5 million visitors this year, most of them Chinese pilgrims paying homage to their late leader.
"Even on a weekday, the queue to get into the mud-brick farmhouse where Mao was born in 1893 is three people wide and snakes around to the front lawn.
" 'Business is better than ever,' said Mao Juxiang, 36, a sales clerk who stands behind a glass counter stocked with bronze busts ($85), snow globes ($7) and key chains ($4.25).
"Like many of the villagers, she claims common lineage with Mao, whom she credits for China's prosperity: 'We have a brilliant life because of Chairman Mao's ideas.' "
Friday, October 23, 2009
An underground challenge to China's status quo 美媒体呼吁奥巴马关注退党潮
陈凯一语: Kai Chen's Words:
奥巴马的即将访华应是人们关注的话题: 是将中共党政放在第一位还是将自由与人的尊严放在第一位。 奥巴马的中国行会暴露他自己的本质。 --- 陈凯
The up-coming visit to China by Obama will expose what priority his administration takes -- Freedom/human rights? Or Kowtowing to the communist regime in pursuit of his domestic socialist agenda? We are all watching. --- Kai Chen
www.kaichenblog.blogspot.com
Opinion
An underground challenge to China's status quo 美媒体呼吁奥巴马关注退党潮
As Obama plans his visit to China in November, he should pay attention to the Tuidang movement. It shows that the Chinese people understand human rights and civil liberties.
By Caylan Ford / Christian Science Monitor
from the October 21, 2009 edition
Washington - The lead image on the Sept. 27 edition of the Jinzhou evening newspaper was hardly unusual. In anticipation of the 60th anniversary of Communist Party rule in China, it featured a street lined with enormous red flags beating in the wind.
It would have been nearly indistinguishable from any other Chinese state-run newspaper that day but for one important detail. In the bottom left corner of the photo, scrawled on a bike rack, were eight tiny but clearly visible characters: "Heaven condemns the Communist Party; denounce it and be blessed."
Similar writings that dare to challenge the divine mandate of China's rulers appear regularly across China, hanging as banners in city parks, posted on Internet forums, or handwritten on paper bank notes. It is all evidence of a movement that has silently swept the nation. Called Tuidang, which translates simply as "withdraw from the party," the movement encourages people to publicly renounce their membership in Communist organizations. The implications are manifold. This is the first time since the 1980s that China has seen such a large, organized dissident movement – if an underground one.
The day after the image ran, the Jinzhou newspaper came under investigation by the government. Its website was shut down, and the paper taken out of circulation.
The incident represents a fitting analogy for the state of the Communist Party today. Beneath the pomp and power lie resentment, discontent, and questions. In 60 years of Communist rule, China has endured political and social upheaval that have left deep psychic wounds.
But in the country's totalitarian climate, the people have few avenues to openly discuss their country's history or to make peace with their own role in it. Since China has not had its opportunity for truth and reconciliation, its citizens are finding their own ways to do this.
Perhaps that explains the extraordinary appeal of the Tuidang movement, which organizers say has more than 60 million participants. It began in late 2004, when New York-based Chinese dissident newspaper DaJiYuan (Epoch Times, affiliated with the spiritual movement Falun Gong) ran a series of polemic editorials detailing the history of the Communist Party in China. They also proclaimed that the country would not truly be free or prosperous until it was rid of the party, which, it argued was at odds with China's cultural and spiritual values.
Millions of copies of the articles found their way into mainland China through e-mails, faxes, and underground printing houses. Some Chinese readers say the articles finally confirmed what they suspected all along – about the Great Leap Forward, the Tiananmen massacre, the Cultural Revolution. This offered recognition that their memories were real and their suffering was shared.
But despite appearances, this is not a political movement in the conventional sense. Unlike the student movement of 1989 or the more recent Charter 2008 manifesto – both of which embraced the language of Western democracy – the Tuidang movement employs distinctly Chinese language and meaning. More Confucian than humanist, it often makes its points by drawing on Buddhist and Daoist spirituality.
Denouncing the party is thus not simply political activism, but takes on spiritual meaning as a process of cleansing the conscience and reconnecting to traditional ethics and values.
In December 2004, one month after the articles were published by the dissident newspaper, its editors starting receiving statements from readers declaring their wish to disavow membership in the Communist Party, the Communist Youth League, or the Young Pioneers, sometimes after their memberships had technically expired. Today, statements representing some 60 million people have been sent to the newspaper, which posts them to an online database.
The authenticity of the declarations is impossible to independently verify. Most people sign them using aliases to protect their safety, and there are no provisions to prevent fraudulent postings.
But the numbers are really not the point. For those who do send in their statements disavowing the party, the postings offer a rare platform to vent frustrations, discuss ideas, share stories of suffering, or find forgiveness.
Many relay tales of personal victimization under the Communist Party. Take, for instance, Ding Weikun, a 74-year-old veteran party member from rural Zhejiang Province. In 2003, his town's government colluded with private developers to seize the land of local farmers. The farmers protested, Mr. Ding wrote, and armed thugs were brought in to suppress them. "I witnessed the killing and injuring of dozens of villagers, on the spot," he noted. The old man tried to pursue justice by appealing to the local government, but he was arrested and sentenced to prison by the very party that he had served for 40 years.
While some write of their personal suffering, others speak of their crimes. For them, withdrawing from the party is about seeking absolution.
"I have always thought that I was a good man, but looking back I realize that I had gradually lost myself," wrote Xiao Shanbo, a former party member from China's northeastern Liaoning Province. "My mind and heart slowly became corrupted. I declare invalid all the words and deeds I have done in the past. These were decisions that I made out of ignorance due to the lies and propaganda of the [Communist Party]."
Mr. Xiao never specifies his crimes, but closes his posting with a plea for forgiveness: "God, please give me this chance! I have gone through much arduous soul-searching, and I intend to change my ways and make up for what I have done."
The Communist Party has reacted to the phenomenon with predictable disdain. Terms related to the movement are among the most vigorously censored on the Chinese Internet, and at least 71 people have been imprisoned for possessing movement literature or propagating its spread. That means that, if found, the activist who vandalized the bike rack in Jinzhou city will be in serious trouble.
The party may have good reason to be anxious. For decades, its power has relied on an ability to censor information, control public memory, and suppress dissenting views. The statements of participants offer a rare glimpse and great insight into the sources of discontent in China.
The Tuidang movement also shows the manner in which Chinese people understand human rights, civil liberties, and democracy, and how they might reconcile these ideas with a more traditional Confucian worldview. It could perhaps even serve as a precursor for another democracy movement.
But one way or another, the movement certainly challenges the popular view that most Chinese people are satisfied with the status quo. As President Obama prepares for his November visit, it is reason to consider engaging more with the Chinese people, and not only with their government.
Today, as more and more Chinese citizens are remembering their past, they may well change China's future, too.
Caylan Ford is a master's degree candidate in international affairs at The George Washington University, where she studies Chinese politics and international security. She is currently writing a thesis on organized dissent in China. She is also a volunteer analyst at the Falun Dafa Information Center and was a staff writer for Epoch Times until 2007.
美媒体呼吁奥巴马关注退党潮
2009年10月23日 星期五
10月23日讯,在美国总统访华前夕,《基督教科学箴言报》(Christian Science Monitor) 10月21日发表名为《挑战中国现状的地下运动》(An underground challenge to China's status quo)的评论文章说:既然奥巴马计划11月访问中国,他应该关注中国的退党运动。因为这表明,中国人民完全理解人权和公民自由。
这篇文章从9月27日《锦州晚报》的头版大图片出现“天灭中共”字样的事件起笔,指出以民众精神觉醒为主要特征的退党大潮正在冲击中国社会、特别是中共独裁政权。文章表示,奥巴马总统正准备11月访华,这是一个很好的理由考虑接触更多的中国民众,而不仅仅是政府。
文章还描述道:敢于挑战中共统治的类似字样现在在中国随处可见,在城市公园悬挂的横幅上,互联网论坛的帖子上,或手写在钞票上。这完全是一个已经悄然席卷全国的迹象。这是自20世纪80年代以来第一次看到中国有这么大规模的持不同政见者的运动。
唾弃共产党因而就不仅仅是政治层面上的诉求,更重要的是在精神意义上,他是一个清洁良知、回归传统的伦理道德和价值观的过程。
共产党有充分的理由感到焦虑。几十年来,它的权力一直建立在审查信息、控制公众记忆和镇压不同意见的基础上。退党者的声明提供了一个洞见中国社会不满的难得机会。
共产党对退党现象的反应是可以预见的。所有与退党有关的词条都是中共互联网审查的最敏感词汇,至少已有71人因传播退党而遭监禁。
奥巴马的即将访华应是人们关注的话题: 是将中共党政放在第一位还是将自由与人的尊严放在第一位。 奥巴马的中国行会暴露他自己的本质。 --- 陈凯
The up-coming visit to China by Obama will expose what priority his administration takes -- Freedom/human rights? Or Kowtowing to the communist regime in pursuit of his domestic socialist agenda? We are all watching. --- Kai Chen
www.kaichenblog.blogspot.com
Opinion
An underground challenge to China's status quo 美媒体呼吁奥巴马关注退党潮
As Obama plans his visit to China in November, he should pay attention to the Tuidang movement. It shows that the Chinese people understand human rights and civil liberties.
By Caylan Ford / Christian Science Monitor
from the October 21, 2009 edition
Washington - The lead image on the Sept. 27 edition of the Jinzhou evening newspaper was hardly unusual. In anticipation of the 60th anniversary of Communist Party rule in China, it featured a street lined with enormous red flags beating in the wind.
It would have been nearly indistinguishable from any other Chinese state-run newspaper that day but for one important detail. In the bottom left corner of the photo, scrawled on a bike rack, were eight tiny but clearly visible characters: "Heaven condemns the Communist Party; denounce it and be blessed."
Similar writings that dare to challenge the divine mandate of China's rulers appear regularly across China, hanging as banners in city parks, posted on Internet forums, or handwritten on paper bank notes. It is all evidence of a movement that has silently swept the nation. Called Tuidang, which translates simply as "withdraw from the party," the movement encourages people to publicly renounce their membership in Communist organizations. The implications are manifold. This is the first time since the 1980s that China has seen such a large, organized dissident movement – if an underground one.
The day after the image ran, the Jinzhou newspaper came under investigation by the government. Its website was shut down, and the paper taken out of circulation.
The incident represents a fitting analogy for the state of the Communist Party today. Beneath the pomp and power lie resentment, discontent, and questions. In 60 years of Communist rule, China has endured political and social upheaval that have left deep psychic wounds.
But in the country's totalitarian climate, the people have few avenues to openly discuss their country's history or to make peace with their own role in it. Since China has not had its opportunity for truth and reconciliation, its citizens are finding their own ways to do this.
Perhaps that explains the extraordinary appeal of the Tuidang movement, which organizers say has more than 60 million participants. It began in late 2004, when New York-based Chinese dissident newspaper DaJiYuan (Epoch Times, affiliated with the spiritual movement Falun Gong) ran a series of polemic editorials detailing the history of the Communist Party in China. They also proclaimed that the country would not truly be free or prosperous until it was rid of the party, which, it argued was at odds with China's cultural and spiritual values.
Millions of copies of the articles found their way into mainland China through e-mails, faxes, and underground printing houses. Some Chinese readers say the articles finally confirmed what they suspected all along – about the Great Leap Forward, the Tiananmen massacre, the Cultural Revolution. This offered recognition that their memories were real and their suffering was shared.
But despite appearances, this is not a political movement in the conventional sense. Unlike the student movement of 1989 or the more recent Charter 2008 manifesto – both of which embraced the language of Western democracy – the Tuidang movement employs distinctly Chinese language and meaning. More Confucian than humanist, it often makes its points by drawing on Buddhist and Daoist spirituality.
Denouncing the party is thus not simply political activism, but takes on spiritual meaning as a process of cleansing the conscience and reconnecting to traditional ethics and values.
In December 2004, one month after the articles were published by the dissident newspaper, its editors starting receiving statements from readers declaring their wish to disavow membership in the Communist Party, the Communist Youth League, or the Young Pioneers, sometimes after their memberships had technically expired. Today, statements representing some 60 million people have been sent to the newspaper, which posts them to an online database.
The authenticity of the declarations is impossible to independently verify. Most people sign them using aliases to protect their safety, and there are no provisions to prevent fraudulent postings.
But the numbers are really not the point. For those who do send in their statements disavowing the party, the postings offer a rare platform to vent frustrations, discuss ideas, share stories of suffering, or find forgiveness.
Many relay tales of personal victimization under the Communist Party. Take, for instance, Ding Weikun, a 74-year-old veteran party member from rural Zhejiang Province. In 2003, his town's government colluded with private developers to seize the land of local farmers. The farmers protested, Mr. Ding wrote, and armed thugs were brought in to suppress them. "I witnessed the killing and injuring of dozens of villagers, on the spot," he noted. The old man tried to pursue justice by appealing to the local government, but he was arrested and sentenced to prison by the very party that he had served for 40 years.
While some write of their personal suffering, others speak of their crimes. For them, withdrawing from the party is about seeking absolution.
"I have always thought that I was a good man, but looking back I realize that I had gradually lost myself," wrote Xiao Shanbo, a former party member from China's northeastern Liaoning Province. "My mind and heart slowly became corrupted. I declare invalid all the words and deeds I have done in the past. These were decisions that I made out of ignorance due to the lies and propaganda of the [Communist Party]."
Mr. Xiao never specifies his crimes, but closes his posting with a plea for forgiveness: "God, please give me this chance! I have gone through much arduous soul-searching, and I intend to change my ways and make up for what I have done."
The Communist Party has reacted to the phenomenon with predictable disdain. Terms related to the movement are among the most vigorously censored on the Chinese Internet, and at least 71 people have been imprisoned for possessing movement literature or propagating its spread. That means that, if found, the activist who vandalized the bike rack in Jinzhou city will be in serious trouble.
The party may have good reason to be anxious. For decades, its power has relied on an ability to censor information, control public memory, and suppress dissenting views. The statements of participants offer a rare glimpse and great insight into the sources of discontent in China.
The Tuidang movement also shows the manner in which Chinese people understand human rights, civil liberties, and democracy, and how they might reconcile these ideas with a more traditional Confucian worldview. It could perhaps even serve as a precursor for another democracy movement.
But one way or another, the movement certainly challenges the popular view that most Chinese people are satisfied with the status quo. As President Obama prepares for his November visit, it is reason to consider engaging more with the Chinese people, and not only with their government.
Today, as more and more Chinese citizens are remembering their past, they may well change China's future, too.
Caylan Ford is a master's degree candidate in international affairs at The George Washington University, where she studies Chinese politics and international security. She is currently writing a thesis on organized dissent in China. She is also a volunteer analyst at the Falun Dafa Information Center and was a staff writer for Epoch Times until 2007.
美媒体呼吁奥巴马关注退党潮
2009年10月23日 星期五
10月23日讯,在美国总统访华前夕,《基督教科学箴言报》(Christian Science Monitor) 10月21日发表名为《挑战中国现状的地下运动》(An underground challenge to China's status quo)的评论文章说:既然奥巴马计划11月访问中国,他应该关注中国的退党运动。因为这表明,中国人民完全理解人权和公民自由。
这篇文章从9月27日《锦州晚报》的头版大图片出现“天灭中共”字样的事件起笔,指出以民众精神觉醒为主要特征的退党大潮正在冲击中国社会、特别是中共独裁政权。文章表示,奥巴马总统正准备11月访华,这是一个很好的理由考虑接触更多的中国民众,而不仅仅是政府。
文章还描述道:敢于挑战中共统治的类似字样现在在中国随处可见,在城市公园悬挂的横幅上,互联网论坛的帖子上,或手写在钞票上。这完全是一个已经悄然席卷全国的迹象。这是自20世纪80年代以来第一次看到中国有这么大规模的持不同政见者的运动。
唾弃共产党因而就不仅仅是政治层面上的诉求,更重要的是在精神意义上,他是一个清洁良知、回归传统的伦理道德和价值观的过程。
共产党有充分的理由感到焦虑。几十年来,它的权力一直建立在审查信息、控制公众记忆和镇压不同意见的基础上。退党者的声明提供了一个洞见中国社会不满的难得机会。
共产党对退党现象的反应是可以预见的。所有与退党有关的词条都是中共互联网审查的最敏感词汇,至少已有71人因传播退党而遭监禁。
Thursday, October 22, 2009
AP declared Obama “Kenyan-Born” 奥巴马蒙骗自己出生地
AP declared Obama “Kenyan-Born” 奥巴马蒙骗自己出生地
http://www.infowars.com/ap-declared-obama-kenyan-born/
"This report explains the context of the oft cited debate, between Obama and Keyes in the following Fall, in which Keyes faulted Obama for not being a “natural born citizen”, and in which Obama, by his quick retort, “So what? I am running for Illinois Senator, not the presidency”, self-admitted that he was not eligible for the office."
当有人问起奥巴马是否因在肯尼亚出生而影响在美国从政时,奥巴马回答:“那又怎么样。 我只是竞选参议员,又不是竞选总统。” 自己承认他无法定资格竞选美国总统。
John Charlton
October 16, 2009
What most people know is that the Associated Press (AP) is one of the largest, internationally recognized, syndicated news services. What most people don’t know that is in 2004, the AP was a “birther” news organization.
How so? Because in a syndicated report, published Sunday, June 27, 2004, by the Kenyan Standard Times, and which was, as of this report, available at
http://web.archive.org/web/20040627142700/eastandard.net/headlines/news26060403.htm
The AP reporter stated the following:
Kenyan-born US Senate hopeful, Barrack Obama, appeared set to take over the Illinois Senate seat after his main rival, Jack Ryan, dropped out of the race on Friday night amid a furor over lurid sex club allegations.
This report explains the context of the oft cited debate, between Obama and Keyes in the following Fall, in which Keyes faulted Obama for not being a “natural born citizen”, and in which Obama, by his quick retort, “So what? I am running for Illinois Senator, not the presidency”, self-admitted that he was not eligible for the office. Seeing that an AP reporter is too professional to submit a story which was not based on confirmed sources (ostensibly the Obama campaign in this case), the inference seems inescapable: Obama himself was putting out in 2004, that he was born in Kenya.
The difficulty in finding this gem of a story is hampered by Google, which is running flak for Obama: because if you search for “Kenyan-born US Senate” you won‘t find it, but if you search for the phrase without quotes you will find links which talk about it.
For those who believe what they see, here is the screen capture of the page from the Kenyan Sunday Standard, electronic edition, of June 27, 2004 — Just in case that page is scrubbed from the Web Archive:
Readers should take note that this AP story, was syndicated world-wide, so you should be able to find it in major newspapers, archived in libraries world-wide. If any reader does this, please let The Post & Email know, so that we can publish a follow up-story. You can scrub the net, but scrubbing libraries world-wide is not so easy.
Hanen of Sentinel Blog Radio broke the public news of the existence of this AP story at on October 14, 2009 at 12:31 pm. However, The Post & Email can confirm that a professional investigator had uncovered this story months ago, and that certified and authenticated copies of this report, meeting Federal Rules of evidence, have already been prepared and archived at many locations nationwide.
It should be noted that on January 8, 2006, the Honolulu Advertiser also reported that Barack Hussein Obama was born outside the United States.
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2006/Jan/08/ln/FP601080334.html
A Chronology of Deceit
One can now ask an important question which has not yet been emphasized enough: “Just when did Obama begin to publically claim he was born in Hawaii?” This question is distinct from the question, “Just where in fact was Obama born?”, and from the other question, “What do official documents say about where he was born?”
Regarding his claims, we can summarize what is known:
1. As of Monday, Aug. 28, 2006, Obama’s Campaign was putting out that he was born in Hawaii. This is known from the introductory speech given by Prof. George A. O. Magoha, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Nairobi, on the occasion of a speech given there by Senator Obama that day. (One presumes that the Vice-Chancellor was given notes from the Obama campaign, as is customary on such occasions)
2. From the newspaper reports above, it is clear that the Obama campaign was putting out that he was born in Kenya, or overseas, during the period of June 27, 2004, until January 8, 2006.
3. In October of 2004, during the ABC Chicago Affiliate’s broadcast of the Obama-Keyes debates, Obama openly admitted — he conceded — that he was not a natural born citizen. (C-Span aired the uncut version of the debates, which contained this exchange, in the second half of April, 2005)
4. It is known from a classmate of Obama at Harvard University, that while at Harvard, Obama at least on one occasion admitted that he was born in Kenya. (This friend went on record on a call in radio program in Idaho in early July, 2009)
If any reader can find a link which documents a claim to a birth location before Aug. 28th, 2006, which differs from this timeline or which supports it; please let The Post & Email know of it, by posting it in the comment section below.
In a follow up report, The Post & Email has published a brief analysis of the Google Newspaper archive, which shows that Obama’s story changed after June 27, 2004.
Finally, that the AP did cover this story, reprinted by the East African Standard, can be seen from the citation made to AP stories about it (Jack Ryan dropping out of the race), in the following contemporary news articles, which however are incomplete:
June 25, 2004 — http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,123716,00.html
June 26, 2004 — Bellview News Democrat
June 26, 2004 — AP Online Story by Michael Tarm
June 25, 2004 — AP Syndicated Story by Maura Kelly Lannan
(Second Source on June 26, 2009, which cites Associated Press Special Correspondent David Espo and reporter Dennis Conrad as contributors to this report)
(Third Source, The Ledger, print edition of June 26, 2009: partial republication)
Back to top
http://www.infowars.com/ap-declared-obama-kenyan-born/
"This report explains the context of the oft cited debate, between Obama and Keyes in the following Fall, in which Keyes faulted Obama for not being a “natural born citizen”, and in which Obama, by his quick retort, “So what? I am running for Illinois Senator, not the presidency”, self-admitted that he was not eligible for the office."
当有人问起奥巴马是否因在肯尼亚出生而影响在美国从政时,奥巴马回答:“那又怎么样。 我只是竞选参议员,又不是竞选总统。” 自己承认他无法定资格竞选美国总统。
John Charlton
October 16, 2009
What most people know is that the Associated Press (AP) is one of the largest, internationally recognized, syndicated news services. What most people don’t know that is in 2004, the AP was a “birther” news organization.
How so? Because in a syndicated report, published Sunday, June 27, 2004, by the Kenyan Standard Times, and which was, as of this report, available at
http://web.archive.org/web/20040627142700/eastandard.net/headlines/news26060403.htm
The AP reporter stated the following:
Kenyan-born US Senate hopeful, Barrack Obama, appeared set to take over the Illinois Senate seat after his main rival, Jack Ryan, dropped out of the race on Friday night amid a furor over lurid sex club allegations.
This report explains the context of the oft cited debate, between Obama and Keyes in the following Fall, in which Keyes faulted Obama for not being a “natural born citizen”, and in which Obama, by his quick retort, “So what? I am running for Illinois Senator, not the presidency”, self-admitted that he was not eligible for the office. Seeing that an AP reporter is too professional to submit a story which was not based on confirmed sources (ostensibly the Obama campaign in this case), the inference seems inescapable: Obama himself was putting out in 2004, that he was born in Kenya.
The difficulty in finding this gem of a story is hampered by Google, which is running flak for Obama: because if you search for “Kenyan-born US Senate” you won‘t find it, but if you search for the phrase without quotes you will find links which talk about it.
For those who believe what they see, here is the screen capture of the page from the Kenyan Sunday Standard, electronic edition, of June 27, 2004 — Just in case that page is scrubbed from the Web Archive:
Readers should take note that this AP story, was syndicated world-wide, so you should be able to find it in major newspapers, archived in libraries world-wide. If any reader does this, please let The Post & Email know, so that we can publish a follow up-story. You can scrub the net, but scrubbing libraries world-wide is not so easy.
Hanen of Sentinel Blog Radio broke the public news of the existence of this AP story at on October 14, 2009 at 12:31 pm. However, The Post & Email can confirm that a professional investigator had uncovered this story months ago, and that certified and authenticated copies of this report, meeting Federal Rules of evidence, have already been prepared and archived at many locations nationwide.
It should be noted that on January 8, 2006, the Honolulu Advertiser also reported that Barack Hussein Obama was born outside the United States.
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2006/Jan/08/ln/FP601080334.html
A Chronology of Deceit
One can now ask an important question which has not yet been emphasized enough: “Just when did Obama begin to publically claim he was born in Hawaii?” This question is distinct from the question, “Just where in fact was Obama born?”, and from the other question, “What do official documents say about where he was born?”
Regarding his claims, we can summarize what is known:
1. As of Monday, Aug. 28, 2006, Obama’s Campaign was putting out that he was born in Hawaii. This is known from the introductory speech given by Prof. George A. O. Magoha, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Nairobi, on the occasion of a speech given there by Senator Obama that day. (One presumes that the Vice-Chancellor was given notes from the Obama campaign, as is customary on such occasions)
2. From the newspaper reports above, it is clear that the Obama campaign was putting out that he was born in Kenya, or overseas, during the period of June 27, 2004, until January 8, 2006.
3. In October of 2004, during the ABC Chicago Affiliate’s broadcast of the Obama-Keyes debates, Obama openly admitted — he conceded — that he was not a natural born citizen. (C-Span aired the uncut version of the debates, which contained this exchange, in the second half of April, 2005)
4. It is known from a classmate of Obama at Harvard University, that while at Harvard, Obama at least on one occasion admitted that he was born in Kenya. (This friend went on record on a call in radio program in Idaho in early July, 2009)
If any reader can find a link which documents a claim to a birth location before Aug. 28th, 2006, which differs from this timeline or which supports it; please let The Post & Email know of it, by posting it in the comment section below.
In a follow up report, The Post & Email has published a brief analysis of the Google Newspaper archive, which shows that Obama’s story changed after June 27, 2004.
Finally, that the AP did cover this story, reprinted by the East African Standard, can be seen from the citation made to AP stories about it (Jack Ryan dropping out of the race), in the following contemporary news articles, which however are incomplete:
June 25, 2004 — http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,123716,00.html
June 26, 2004 — Bellview News Democrat
June 26, 2004 — AP Online Story by Michael Tarm
June 25, 2004 — AP Syndicated Story by Maura Kelly Lannan
(Second Source on June 26, 2009, which cites Associated Press Special Correspondent David Espo and reporter Dennis Conrad as contributors to this report)
(Third Source, The Ledger, print edition of June 26, 2009: partial republication)
Back to top
The Obama Administration's Inner Mao 奥巴马崇毛-用目的为手段辩护
陈凯一语: Kai Chen's Words:
用目的与动机为邪恶手段辩护是世界共产邪权的共同特征。 毛共与中共的对无辜人们的大屠杀至今仍被大多数中国的人们与美(西)左派因其所谓高尚动机所接受与回避只说明这些人们灵魂的堕落与腐败。 --- 陈凯
Using end to justify means is a prominent feature among all evil communist/Fascist regimes in the world. Mao and the Chinese communist regime's crime that has resulted a horrendous holocaust against innocent human beings is indeed a crime against all humanity. The Chinese people's, along with today's American and West's leftists' acceptance and worship of such murderous thugs, "justified" by the pretense of their lofty/utopian goals, only demonstrate how corrupt these people have become in their souls. --- Kai Chen
--------------------------------------------------
The Obama Administration's Inner Mao 奥巴马崇毛-用目的为手段辩护
Using End to Justify Means -- Mao's Murderous Core
By George Neumayr on 10.22.09 @ 6:09AM
White House Communications Director Anita Dunn says that her comment about Chairman Mao as one of her "favorite political philosophers" has been badly distorted. Perhaps she meant to say that Mao is one of her favorite media strategists.
It is telling what Dunn regards as a reassuring defense: that she was only extolling Mao's can-do attitude and that her admiration for it came from Lee Atwater. "The Mao quote is one I picked up from the late Republican strategist," she said. So now the reviled creator of the Willie Horton ad is someone Democrats feel they can safely hide behind?
According to Dunn, she was simply telling the high school graduates to imitate Mao's means, not his ends. Boy, what a relief. After all, his means were so blameless. "Figure out how to do things that have never been done before," she told the students. And how did Mao accomplish that again? By killing 40 to 60 million people?
What might be called dilettantish socialism, of which Dunn's bizarre graduation speech is a species (she thought it "ironic" to couple a mass-murderer with Mother Teresa in her motivational remarks to the graduates), is a recurring problem in this administration, and an expected one given that it reflects the sensibility of the boss.
Pressed by "Joe the Plumber" on the purpose of taxation, Obama fell back on the Marxist fragment "to spread the wealth around." His memoirs contain an oblique mention of a Marxist mentor. He learned his community organizing from Saul Alinsky and his liberation theology from Jeremiah Wright. He blurbed one of the books of a Marxist terrorist and "educator," Bill Ayers. And until recently, he was stocking his administration with figures like Van Jones, who openly talked of environmentalism as a tool of Marxist change.
That his communications director holds up Mao as a quote-worthy "political philosopher" fits into this picture nicely. And it is appropriate since White House aides are if nothing else pursuing a Maoist media strategy: control debates by trying to ban opponents from them. His press secretary Robert Gibbs even offered a Maoist-style take on Fox: it is motivated by "profit." Why would a company be trying to make profit? Perhaps its property should be confiscated.
But some reliable liberals are finding this Maoist media strategy a little too transparent for their taste. Dunn's anti-Fox antics were so ham-handed that not even Helen Thomas or Eugene Robinson on MSNBC could bring themselves to defend them.
It looked like a tired reprisal of an earlier popped trial balloon: Rahm Emanuel's unleashing of Paul Begala and James Carville in February on Rush Limbaugh in the hopes of driving a wedge between conservatives and moderate Republicans. That just increased Rush's profile and boomeranged back on Michael Steele.
Begala and Carville had been chosen for the task because they were outside the administration; Dunn, according to press accounts, was chosen for this one because she is an "interim" communications director and will soon be gone.
Fox is a "wing of the Republican party," declared Dunn. If that is true, does that make ABC the "west wing of the Democratic party"? Dunn can walk down the hall and chat about media bias with Linda Douglass, the ABC reporter turned Obama press aide.
And what about MSNBC? To use Howard Dean's phrase, it appears these days to be the Democratic wing of the Democratic party. The vast left-wing conspiracy has never been stronger. But to a Maoist, a ninety-percent-Democratic press corps just isn't good enough.
用目的与动机为邪恶手段辩护是世界共产邪权的共同特征。 毛共与中共的对无辜人们的大屠杀至今仍被大多数中国的人们与美(西)左派因其所谓高尚动机所接受与回避只说明这些人们灵魂的堕落与腐败。 --- 陈凯
Using end to justify means is a prominent feature among all evil communist/Fascist regimes in the world. Mao and the Chinese communist regime's crime that has resulted a horrendous holocaust against innocent human beings is indeed a crime against all humanity. The Chinese people's, along with today's American and West's leftists' acceptance and worship of such murderous thugs, "justified" by the pretense of their lofty/utopian goals, only demonstrate how corrupt these people have become in their souls. --- Kai Chen
--------------------------------------------------
The Obama Administration's Inner Mao 奥巴马崇毛-用目的为手段辩护
Using End to Justify Means -- Mao's Murderous Core
By George Neumayr on 10.22.09 @ 6:09AM
White House Communications Director Anita Dunn says that her comment about Chairman Mao as one of her "favorite political philosophers" has been badly distorted. Perhaps she meant to say that Mao is one of her favorite media strategists.
It is telling what Dunn regards as a reassuring defense: that she was only extolling Mao's can-do attitude and that her admiration for it came from Lee Atwater. "The Mao quote is one I picked up from the late Republican strategist," she said. So now the reviled creator of the Willie Horton ad is someone Democrats feel they can safely hide behind?
According to Dunn, she was simply telling the high school graduates to imitate Mao's means, not his ends. Boy, what a relief. After all, his means were so blameless. "Figure out how to do things that have never been done before," she told the students. And how did Mao accomplish that again? By killing 40 to 60 million people?
What might be called dilettantish socialism, of which Dunn's bizarre graduation speech is a species (she thought it "ironic" to couple a mass-murderer with Mother Teresa in her motivational remarks to the graduates), is a recurring problem in this administration, and an expected one given that it reflects the sensibility of the boss.
Pressed by "Joe the Plumber" on the purpose of taxation, Obama fell back on the Marxist fragment "to spread the wealth around." His memoirs contain an oblique mention of a Marxist mentor. He learned his community organizing from Saul Alinsky and his liberation theology from Jeremiah Wright. He blurbed one of the books of a Marxist terrorist and "educator," Bill Ayers. And until recently, he was stocking his administration with figures like Van Jones, who openly talked of environmentalism as a tool of Marxist change.
That his communications director holds up Mao as a quote-worthy "political philosopher" fits into this picture nicely. And it is appropriate since White House aides are if nothing else pursuing a Maoist media strategy: control debates by trying to ban opponents from them. His press secretary Robert Gibbs even offered a Maoist-style take on Fox: it is motivated by "profit." Why would a company be trying to make profit? Perhaps its property should be confiscated.
But some reliable liberals are finding this Maoist media strategy a little too transparent for their taste. Dunn's anti-Fox antics were so ham-handed that not even Helen Thomas or Eugene Robinson on MSNBC could bring themselves to defend them.
It looked like a tired reprisal of an earlier popped trial balloon: Rahm Emanuel's unleashing of Paul Begala and James Carville in February on Rush Limbaugh in the hopes of driving a wedge between conservatives and moderate Republicans. That just increased Rush's profile and boomeranged back on Michael Steele.
Begala and Carville had been chosen for the task because they were outside the administration; Dunn, according to press accounts, was chosen for this one because she is an "interim" communications director and will soon be gone.
Fox is a "wing of the Republican party," declared Dunn. If that is true, does that make ABC the "west wing of the Democratic party"? Dunn can walk down the hall and chat about media bias with Linda Douglass, the ABC reporter turned Obama press aide.
And what about MSNBC? To use Howard Dean's phrase, it appears these days to be the Democratic wing of the Democratic party. The vast left-wing conspiracy has never been stronger. But to a Maoist, a ninety-percent-Democratic press corps just isn't good enough.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
甦曉康︰從德國經驗看文革 Contrast between Germany and China
德國Grey使用毛澤東、希特勒、本拉登形象作避孕套廣告 German Commercial
甦曉康︰從德國經驗看文革 Contrast between Germany and China
"毛澤東的畫像還掛在天安門城樓上、他的遺體還躺在對面的紀念堂里——請一個德國知識分子設想一下,假如二戰之後希特勒在德國還仍然享有這樣的待遇,德國民族還能反省第三帝國對猶太人的罪行嗎?他們還有能力認識“為什麼大多數人違反最基本的道德原則,而跟著偉大領袖走”嗎?中國官方在最權威的公共空間保護著這個“象征”,就保護了每一個文革參與者心里的“小毛澤東”——“同謀與受害者”這個雙重身份就不會瓦解;毛澤東就依然俯視著中國,而在他的注視之下,人們就不必理會受害者;而且,文革之後的一幕幕歷史,又一再加固了必須保住“毛澤東”這塊神牌的思路,因為他就是這個政權的來源。其實問題沒有那麼深奧︰德國民族跟著希特勒毀滅過一次,中國則沒有。" --- 甦曉康
作者 : 甦曉康 2009-10-21 3:00 AM
官方在最權威的公共空間保護著毛澤東這個“象征”,就保護了每一個文革參與者心里的“小毛澤東”——“同謀與受害者”這個雙重身份就不會瓦解;文革之後又一再加固了必須保住“毛澤東”這塊神牌的思路,因為他就是這個政權的來源。
今年法蘭克福書展很熱鬧。胡杰制作的卞仲雲死難紀錄片《我雖死去》,被譯成德語上了書展,由一個小出版社譯制,主人叫施威德茨克(Wolfgang M. Schwiedrzik),據說曾經是個“毛分子”,他的妻子則是大名鼎鼎的維也納大學漢學家甦珊娜·魏格林(Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik),文革期間留學北京,學的是中共黨史。據說他們夫婦看了這個紀錄片,很震動,找到芝加哥大學的王友琴,聯絡上胡杰。
魏格林教授還寫過一篇《如何面對文化革命的歷史》,在網上很流行。自然,此文拿德國經驗(納粹)跟中國的文革經驗作對比,無疑極有價值,尤其她作的是關于罪與責的對比。我想,沒有哪個民族比德國人更有資格談這個問題。
同謀與受害的兩面性︰中德類比
假如我的理解無誤,她的一個重要觀點是︰希特勒曾使每一個崇拜者獲得滿足,由此也導致所有德國人都自覺是受害者,而拒絕面對真正的受害者;這種同謀者與受害者的“雙重身份”或“兩面性”,曾是一個重大障礙。
這種“雙重身份”的德國式尷尬,套用到中國官方的身上,果真非常合適——“存活下來”的鄧小平為首的整個中共體制,它的全部官員(走資派),當然也包括“保爹保媽”的高干子弟們,既是毛澤東的受害者,也是他的幫凶;更典型的,還要算是“副統帥”林彪集團、“小爬蟲”王關戚等,但沒能存活下來;不知道“四人幫”和陳伯達是不是也可以算上?其實在一定意義上,他們也是“受害者”——那就要看德國人怎麼界定戈林元帥和黨衛軍首領希姆萊。
至于民間,魏格林認為處于一種“記憶群體”分散、割裂狀態,大家各取所需、相互攻訐,因為“每一個人、每一個曾經參加過運動的階層、每一個政治團體都要從歷史經驗中尋找出能夠支撐重建其自尊的東西,同時又要設法忘卻與此目的不相關的東西”。這個觀察很準確,但是沒說原因——因為她不會知道,這恰好是官方所樂 見的一個局面。
毛澤東殺的都是本民族同類
說實話,西方漢學家看中國或中國歷史,總會給人感覺隔了一層什麼,何況文革這種雲山霧罩的歷史呢?魏格林能看到這個份兒上,已經是“火眼金楮”。不過,我還是想指出她某種“隔”的東西。
首先,主席與元首的區別——德國人跟希特勒的關系,與中國人跟毛澤東的關系,最不一樣的地方,是毛澤東從來沒有讓所有中國人都“自我滿足”、自豪過,恰好相反,這位梟雄在每一次不同的政治運動中,依次讓不同的社會階層跌入地獄,飽嘗挫折感、罪惡感、“另冊”感,他用“運動”群眾的這個法寶,變著花樣挑動中國老百姓互相批斗,把中國變成一座“古羅馬斗獸場”;“與人奮斗,其樂無窮”——這是希特勒絕對沒有的一種興趣,大概漢學家們也很難了解,若是曾經霧里看花地崇拜過毛澤東的,就更難了。
還有一層不同。納粹歧視非日耳曼人,專殺猶太人,也有個專用名詞,叫著“種族滅絕”(genocide);可是斯大林、毛澤東殺的大多是自己黨內的競爭者、 自己民族和國家的老百姓,這該叫個啥,好像還沒人發明個詞出來。這個區別,不是沒有意義的,因為它使“同謀加受害者”的雙重身份,更加曖昧,直接影響魏格林說的整個民族的“道德記憶重建”。
“全民族遺忘運動”
不可忽視的還有,在現實體制層面,第三帝國徹底崩潰,希特勒沒有任何繼承者存活下來,這使得德國人的反省沒有任何制度的阻力。這在中國恰好是一個相反的情形。魏格林問道︰“年輕一代為何不起來強烈要求公開討論文革的問題,這是一個難以理解的現象”。可是,為什麼她沒有問︰“中國當局為什麼至今不允許公開討 論文革?”而且,中國當局在“六四”以後所竭力施行的“全民族遺忘運動”,難道是國際社會和西方漢學界視而不見的嗎?今天中國的年輕人,除了還知道毛澤東是誰,對劉少奇、林彪、四人幫等一概聞所未聞,連二十年前的趙紫陽都很少有人知道了。這麼一個民族,你還指望她有道德記憶,不是異想天開嗎?
毛澤東的畫像還掛在天安門城樓上、他的遺體還躺在對面的紀念堂里——請一個德國知識分子設想一下,假如二戰之後希特勒在德國還仍然享有這樣的待遇,德國民族還能反省第三帝國對猶太人的罪行嗎?他們還有能力認識“為什麼大多數人違反最基本的道德原則,而跟著偉大領袖走”嗎?中國官方在最權威的公共空間保護著這個“象征”,就保護了每一個文革參與者心里的“小毛澤東”——“同謀與受害者”這個雙重身份就不會瓦解;毛澤東就依然俯視著中國,而在他的注視之下,人們就不必理會受害者;而且,文革之後的一幕幕歷史,又一再加固了必須保住“毛澤東”這塊神牌的思路,因為他就是這個政權的來源。其實問題沒有那麼深奧︰德國民族跟著希特勒毀滅過一次,中國則沒有。
(原載《動向》雜志2009年10月號)
甦曉康︰從德國經驗看文革 Contrast between Germany and China
"毛澤東的畫像還掛在天安門城樓上、他的遺體還躺在對面的紀念堂里——請一個德國知識分子設想一下,假如二戰之後希特勒在德國還仍然享有這樣的待遇,德國民族還能反省第三帝國對猶太人的罪行嗎?他們還有能力認識“為什麼大多數人違反最基本的道德原則,而跟著偉大領袖走”嗎?中國官方在最權威的公共空間保護著這個“象征”,就保護了每一個文革參與者心里的“小毛澤東”——“同謀與受害者”這個雙重身份就不會瓦解;毛澤東就依然俯視著中國,而在他的注視之下,人們就不必理會受害者;而且,文革之後的一幕幕歷史,又一再加固了必須保住“毛澤東”這塊神牌的思路,因為他就是這個政權的來源。其實問題沒有那麼深奧︰德國民族跟著希特勒毀滅過一次,中國則沒有。" --- 甦曉康
作者 : 甦曉康 2009-10-21 3:00 AM
官方在最權威的公共空間保護著毛澤東這個“象征”,就保護了每一個文革參與者心里的“小毛澤東”——“同謀與受害者”這個雙重身份就不會瓦解;文革之後又一再加固了必須保住“毛澤東”這塊神牌的思路,因為他就是這個政權的來源。
今年法蘭克福書展很熱鬧。胡杰制作的卞仲雲死難紀錄片《我雖死去》,被譯成德語上了書展,由一個小出版社譯制,主人叫施威德茨克(Wolfgang M. Schwiedrzik),據說曾經是個“毛分子”,他的妻子則是大名鼎鼎的維也納大學漢學家甦珊娜·魏格林(Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik),文革期間留學北京,學的是中共黨史。據說他們夫婦看了這個紀錄片,很震動,找到芝加哥大學的王友琴,聯絡上胡杰。
魏格林教授還寫過一篇《如何面對文化革命的歷史》,在網上很流行。自然,此文拿德國經驗(納粹)跟中國的文革經驗作對比,無疑極有價值,尤其她作的是關于罪與責的對比。我想,沒有哪個民族比德國人更有資格談這個問題。
同謀與受害的兩面性︰中德類比
假如我的理解無誤,她的一個重要觀點是︰希特勒曾使每一個崇拜者獲得滿足,由此也導致所有德國人都自覺是受害者,而拒絕面對真正的受害者;這種同謀者與受害者的“雙重身份”或“兩面性”,曾是一個重大障礙。
這種“雙重身份”的德國式尷尬,套用到中國官方的身上,果真非常合適——“存活下來”的鄧小平為首的整個中共體制,它的全部官員(走資派),當然也包括“保爹保媽”的高干子弟們,既是毛澤東的受害者,也是他的幫凶;更典型的,還要算是“副統帥”林彪集團、“小爬蟲”王關戚等,但沒能存活下來;不知道“四人幫”和陳伯達是不是也可以算上?其實在一定意義上,他們也是“受害者”——那就要看德國人怎麼界定戈林元帥和黨衛軍首領希姆萊。
至于民間,魏格林認為處于一種“記憶群體”分散、割裂狀態,大家各取所需、相互攻訐,因為“每一個人、每一個曾經參加過運動的階層、每一個政治團體都要從歷史經驗中尋找出能夠支撐重建其自尊的東西,同時又要設法忘卻與此目的不相關的東西”。這個觀察很準確,但是沒說原因——因為她不會知道,這恰好是官方所樂 見的一個局面。
毛澤東殺的都是本民族同類
說實話,西方漢學家看中國或中國歷史,總會給人感覺隔了一層什麼,何況文革這種雲山霧罩的歷史呢?魏格林能看到這個份兒上,已經是“火眼金楮”。不過,我還是想指出她某種“隔”的東西。
首先,主席與元首的區別——德國人跟希特勒的關系,與中國人跟毛澤東的關系,最不一樣的地方,是毛澤東從來沒有讓所有中國人都“自我滿足”、自豪過,恰好相反,這位梟雄在每一次不同的政治運動中,依次讓不同的社會階層跌入地獄,飽嘗挫折感、罪惡感、“另冊”感,他用“運動”群眾的這個法寶,變著花樣挑動中國老百姓互相批斗,把中國變成一座“古羅馬斗獸場”;“與人奮斗,其樂無窮”——這是希特勒絕對沒有的一種興趣,大概漢學家們也很難了解,若是曾經霧里看花地崇拜過毛澤東的,就更難了。
還有一層不同。納粹歧視非日耳曼人,專殺猶太人,也有個專用名詞,叫著“種族滅絕”(genocide);可是斯大林、毛澤東殺的大多是自己黨內的競爭者、 自己民族和國家的老百姓,這該叫個啥,好像還沒人發明個詞出來。這個區別,不是沒有意義的,因為它使“同謀加受害者”的雙重身份,更加曖昧,直接影響魏格林說的整個民族的“道德記憶重建”。
“全民族遺忘運動”
不可忽視的還有,在現實體制層面,第三帝國徹底崩潰,希特勒沒有任何繼承者存活下來,這使得德國人的反省沒有任何制度的阻力。這在中國恰好是一個相反的情形。魏格林問道︰“年輕一代為何不起來強烈要求公開討論文革的問題,這是一個難以理解的現象”。可是,為什麼她沒有問︰“中國當局為什麼至今不允許公開討 論文革?”而且,中國當局在“六四”以後所竭力施行的“全民族遺忘運動”,難道是國際社會和西方漢學界視而不見的嗎?今天中國的年輕人,除了還知道毛澤東是誰,對劉少奇、林彪、四人幫等一概聞所未聞,連二十年前的趙紫陽都很少有人知道了。這麼一個民族,你還指望她有道德記憶,不是異想天開嗎?
毛澤東的畫像還掛在天安門城樓上、他的遺體還躺在對面的紀念堂里——請一個德國知識分子設想一下,假如二戰之後希特勒在德國還仍然享有這樣的待遇,德國民族還能反省第三帝國對猶太人的罪行嗎?他們還有能力認識“為什麼大多數人違反最基本的道德原則,而跟著偉大領袖走”嗎?中國官方在最權威的公共空間保護著這個“象征”,就保護了每一個文革參與者心里的“小毛澤東”——“同謀與受害者”這個雙重身份就不會瓦解;毛澤東就依然俯視著中國,而在他的注視之下,人們就不必理會受害者;而且,文革之後的一幕幕歷史,又一再加固了必須保住“毛澤東”這塊神牌的思路,因為他就是這個政權的來源。其實問題沒有那麼深奧︰德國民族跟著希特勒毀滅過一次,中國則沒有。
(原載《動向》雜志2009年10月號)
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
White House Urges Other Networks to Disregard Fox News 奥巴马洗脑热
陈凯一语: Kai Chen's Words:
奥巴马当局的政宣洗脑热与他的媒体官员阿尼塔的崇毛病是一脉相承的。 共产社会主义者们都是想在“重建人性”中找出路的。 --- 陈凯
Obama administration's obsession with brainwashing American population is congruent with Obama's communication director Anita Dunn's worship of Mao. All communist/socialist dictators want to "reform/reinvent" human nature. --- Kai Chen
-------------------------------------------------
White House Urges Other Networks to Disregard Fox News 奥巴马洗脑热
Senior Obama administration officials took to the airwaves Sunday to accuse Fox News of pushing a particular point of view and not being a real news network.
FOXNews.com
Monday, October 19, 2009
The White House is calling on other news organizations to isolate and alienate Fox News as it sends out top advisers to rail against the cable channel as a Republican Party mouthpiece..
Top political strategists question the decision by the Obama administration to escalate its offensive against Fox News. And as of Monday, the four other major television networks had not given any indication that they intend to sever their ties with Fox News.
But several top White House officials have taken aim at Fox News since communications director Anita Dunn branded Fox "opinion journalism masquerading as news" in an interview last Sunday.
White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel told CNN on Sunday that President Obama does not want "the CNNs and the others in the world [to] basically be led in following Fox."
Obama senior adviser David Axelrod went further by calling on media outlets to join the administration in declaring that Fox is "not a news organization."
"Other news organizations like yours ought not to treat them that way," Axelrod counseled ABC's George Stephanopoulos. "We're not going to treat them that way."
Asked Monday about another Axelrod claim that Fox News is just trying to make money, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that while all media companies fall under that description, "I would say sometimes programming can be tilted toward accentuating those profits."
But by urging other news outlets to side with the administration, Obama officials dramatically upped the ante in the war of words that began earlier this month with Dunn's comments.
So far, none of the four other major networks has given any indication that they wish to disinvite Fox News from the White House pool -- the rotation through which the networks share the costs and duties of White House coverage and the most significant interaction among the news channels.
The White House stopped providing guests to "Fox News Sunday" after host Chris Wallace fact-checked controversial assertions made by Tammy Duckworth, assistant secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, in August.
Dunn said fact-checking an administration official was "something I've never seen a Sunday show do."
"She criticized 'Fox News Sunday' last week for fact-checking -- fact-checking -- an administration official," Wallace said Sunday. "They didn't say that our fact-checking was wrong. They just said that we had dared to fact-check."
"Let's fact-check Anita Dunn, because last Sunday she said that Fox ignores Republican scandals, and she specifically mentioned the scandal involving Nevada senator John Ensign," Wallace added. "A number of Fox News shows have run stories about Senator Ensign. Anita Dunn's facts were just plain wrong."
Fox News senior vice president Michael Clemente said: "Surprisingly, the White House continues to declare war on a news organization instead of focusing on the critical issues that Americans are concerned about like jobs, health care and two wars. The door remains open and we welcome a discussion about the facts behind the issues."
Observers on both sides of the political aisle questioned the White House's decision to continue waging war on a news organization, saying the move carried significant political risks.
Democratic strategist Donna Brazile said on CNN: "I don't always agree with the White House. And on this one here I would disagree."
David Gergen, who has worked for Democratic and Republican presidents, said: "I totally agree with Donna Brazile." Gergen added that White House officials have "gotten themselves into a fight they don't necessarily want to be in. I don't think it's in their best interest."
"The faster they can get this behind them, the more they can treat Fox like one other organization, the easier they can get back to governing, and then put some people out on Fox," Gergen said on CNN. "I mean, for goodness sakes, you know, you engage in the debate.
"What Americans want is a robust competition of ideas, and they ought to be willing to go out there and mix it up with some strong conservatives on Fox, just as there are strong conservatives on CNN like Bill Bennett."
Bennett expressed outrage that Dunn told an audience of high school students this year that Mao Zedong, the founder of communist China, was one of "my favorite political philosophers."
"Having the spokesman do this, attack Fox, who says that Mao Zedong is one of the most influential figures in her life, was not...a small thing; it's a big thing," Bennett said on CNN. "When she stands up, in a speech to high school kids, says she's deeply influenced by Mao Zedong, that -- I mean, that is crazy."
Fox News contributor Karl Rove, who was the top political strategist to former President George W. Bush, said: "This is an administration that's getting very arrogant and slippery in its dealings with people. And if you dare to oppose them, they're going to come hard at you and they're going to cut your legs off."
"This is a White House engaging in its own version of the media enemies list. And it's unhelpful for the country and undignified for the president of the United States to so do," Rove added. "That is over- the-top language. We heard that before from Richard Nixon."
Media columnist David Carr of The New York Times warned that the White House war on Fox "may present a genuine problem for Mr. Obama, who took great pains during the campaign to depict himself as being above the fray of over-heated partisan squabbling."
"While there is undoubtedly a visceral thrill in finally setting out after your antagonists, the history of administrations that have successfully taken on the media and won is shorter than this sentence," Carr wrote over the weekend. "So far, the only winner in this latest dispute seems to be Fox News. Ratings are up 20 percent this year."
He added: "The administration, by deploying official resources against a troublesome media organization, seems to have brought a knife to a gunfight."
奥巴马当局的政宣洗脑热与他的媒体官员阿尼塔的崇毛病是一脉相承的。 共产社会主义者们都是想在“重建人性”中找出路的。 --- 陈凯
Obama administration's obsession with brainwashing American population is congruent with Obama's communication director Anita Dunn's worship of Mao. All communist/socialist dictators want to "reform/reinvent" human nature. --- Kai Chen
-------------------------------------------------
White House Urges Other Networks to Disregard Fox News 奥巴马洗脑热
Senior Obama administration officials took to the airwaves Sunday to accuse Fox News of pushing a particular point of view and not being a real news network.
FOXNews.com
Monday, October 19, 2009
The White House is calling on other news organizations to isolate and alienate Fox News as it sends out top advisers to rail against the cable channel as a Republican Party mouthpiece..
Top political strategists question the decision by the Obama administration to escalate its offensive against Fox News. And as of Monday, the four other major television networks had not given any indication that they intend to sever their ties with Fox News.
But several top White House officials have taken aim at Fox News since communications director Anita Dunn branded Fox "opinion journalism masquerading as news" in an interview last Sunday.
White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel told CNN on Sunday that President Obama does not want "the CNNs and the others in the world [to] basically be led in following Fox."
Obama senior adviser David Axelrod went further by calling on media outlets to join the administration in declaring that Fox is "not a news organization."
"Other news organizations like yours ought not to treat them that way," Axelrod counseled ABC's George Stephanopoulos. "We're not going to treat them that way."
Asked Monday about another Axelrod claim that Fox News is just trying to make money, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that while all media companies fall under that description, "I would say sometimes programming can be tilted toward accentuating those profits."
But by urging other news outlets to side with the administration, Obama officials dramatically upped the ante in the war of words that began earlier this month with Dunn's comments.
So far, none of the four other major networks has given any indication that they wish to disinvite Fox News from the White House pool -- the rotation through which the networks share the costs and duties of White House coverage and the most significant interaction among the news channels.
The White House stopped providing guests to "Fox News Sunday" after host Chris Wallace fact-checked controversial assertions made by Tammy Duckworth, assistant secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, in August.
Dunn said fact-checking an administration official was "something I've never seen a Sunday show do."
"She criticized 'Fox News Sunday' last week for fact-checking -- fact-checking -- an administration official," Wallace said Sunday. "They didn't say that our fact-checking was wrong. They just said that we had dared to fact-check."
"Let's fact-check Anita Dunn, because last Sunday she said that Fox ignores Republican scandals, and she specifically mentioned the scandal involving Nevada senator John Ensign," Wallace added. "A number of Fox News shows have run stories about Senator Ensign. Anita Dunn's facts were just plain wrong."
Fox News senior vice president Michael Clemente said: "Surprisingly, the White House continues to declare war on a news organization instead of focusing on the critical issues that Americans are concerned about like jobs, health care and two wars. The door remains open and we welcome a discussion about the facts behind the issues."
Observers on both sides of the political aisle questioned the White House's decision to continue waging war on a news organization, saying the move carried significant political risks.
Democratic strategist Donna Brazile said on CNN: "I don't always agree with the White House. And on this one here I would disagree."
David Gergen, who has worked for Democratic and Republican presidents, said: "I totally agree with Donna Brazile." Gergen added that White House officials have "gotten themselves into a fight they don't necessarily want to be in. I don't think it's in their best interest."
"The faster they can get this behind them, the more they can treat Fox like one other organization, the easier they can get back to governing, and then put some people out on Fox," Gergen said on CNN. "I mean, for goodness sakes, you know, you engage in the debate.
"What Americans want is a robust competition of ideas, and they ought to be willing to go out there and mix it up with some strong conservatives on Fox, just as there are strong conservatives on CNN like Bill Bennett."
Bennett expressed outrage that Dunn told an audience of high school students this year that Mao Zedong, the founder of communist China, was one of "my favorite political philosophers."
"Having the spokesman do this, attack Fox, who says that Mao Zedong is one of the most influential figures in her life, was not...a small thing; it's a big thing," Bennett said on CNN. "When she stands up, in a speech to high school kids, says she's deeply influenced by Mao Zedong, that -- I mean, that is crazy."
Fox News contributor Karl Rove, who was the top political strategist to former President George W. Bush, said: "This is an administration that's getting very arrogant and slippery in its dealings with people. And if you dare to oppose them, they're going to come hard at you and they're going to cut your legs off."
"This is a White House engaging in its own version of the media enemies list. And it's unhelpful for the country and undignified for the president of the United States to so do," Rove added. "That is over- the-top language. We heard that before from Richard Nixon."
Media columnist David Carr of The New York Times warned that the White House war on Fox "may present a genuine problem for Mr. Obama, who took great pains during the campaign to depict himself as being above the fray of over-heated partisan squabbling."
"While there is undoubtedly a visceral thrill in finally setting out after your antagonists, the history of administrations that have successfully taken on the media and won is shorter than this sentence," Carr wrote over the weekend. "So far, the only winner in this latest dispute seems to be Fox News. Ratings are up 20 percent this year."
He added: "The administration, by deploying official resources against a troublesome media organization, seems to have brought a knife to a gunfight."
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Russia’s Leaders See China as Template for Ruling 中共新法西斯模式被世界效仿
陈凯一语: Kai Chen's Words:
China's Neo-Fascist mode of development is being fast emulated by authoritarian states in the world, even the left in the US is eyeing China with envy. The struggle between good and evil has never ceased. The world is approaching the biggest struggle between freedom and despotism since WWII. --- Kai Chen
中国所带头的新法西斯发展控制模式已在全球被专制社会所引用效仿。 甚至美国的左派们也对中共新法西斯模式飚以青睐。 正义与邪恶的斗争在人类历史上从未停止,也绝不会停止。 世界正在孕育着一场即将到来的自由与专制的大战。 --- 陈凯
------------------------------------------------------
News Analysis
Russia’s Leaders See China as Template for Ruling 中共新法西斯模式被世界效仿
CLIFFORD J. LEVY
Published: October 17, 2009
MOSCOW — Nearly two decades after the collapse of the Communist Party, Russia’s rulers have hit upon a model for future success: the Communist Party.
Wang Jianwei/Xinhua
Aleksandr D. Zhukov, a Russian deputy prime minister, praised the Chinese Communist Party at a meeting in Suifenhe, China.
Or at least, the one that reigns next door.
Like an envious underachiever, Vladimir V. Putin’s party, United Russia, is increasingly examining how it can emulate the Chinese Communist Party, especially its skill in shepherding China through the financial crisis relatively unbowed.
United Russia’s leaders even convened a special meeting this month with senior Chinese Communist Party officials to hear firsthand how they wield power.
In truth, the Russians express no desire to return to Communism as a far-reaching Marxist-Leninist ideology, whether the Soviet version or the much attenuated one in Beijing. What they admire, it seems, is the Chinese ability to use a one-party system to keep tight control over the country while still driving significant economic growth.
It is a historical turnabout that resonates, given that the Chinese Communists were inspired by the Soviets, before the two sides had a lengthy rift.
For the Russians, what matters is the countries’ divergent paths in recent decades. They are acutely aware that even as Russia has endured many dark days in its transition to a market economy, China appears to have carried out a fairly similar shift more artfully.
The Russians also seem almost ashamed that their economy is highly dependent on oil, gas and other natural resources, as if Russia were a third world nation, while China excels at manufacturing products sought by the world.
“The accomplishments of China’s Communist Party in developing its government deserve the highest marks,” Aleksandr D. Zhukov, a deputy prime minister and senior Putin aide, declared at the meeting with Chinese officials on Oct. 9 in the border city of Suifenhe, China, northwest of Vladivostok. “The practical experience they have should be intensely studied.”
Mr. Zhukov invited President Hu Jintao, general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, to United Russia’s convention, in November in St. Petersburg.
The meeting in Suifenhe capped several months of increased contacts between the political parties. In the spring, a high-level United Russia delegation visited Beijing for several days of talks, and United Russia announced that it would open an office in Beijing for its research arm.
The fascination with the Chinese Communist Party underscores United Russia’s lack of a core philosophy. The party has functioned largely as an arm of Mr. Putin’s authority, even campaigning on the slogan “Putin’s Plan.” Lately, it has championed “Russian Conservatism,” without detailing what exactly that is.
Indeed, whether United Russia’s effort to learn from the Chinese Communist Party is anything more than an intellectual exercise is an open question.
Whatever the motivation, Russia in recent years has started moving toward the Chinese model politically and economically. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia plunged into capitalism haphazardly, selling off many industries and loosening regulation. Under Mr. Putin, the government has reversed course, seizing more control over many sectors.
Today, both countries govern with a potent centralized authority, overseeing economies with a mix of private and state industries, although the Russians have long seemed less disciplined in doing so.
Corruption is worse in Russia than China, according to global indexes, and foreign companies generally consider Russia’s investment climate less hospitable as well, in part because of less respect for property rights.
Russia has also been unable to match China in modernizing roads, airports, power plants and other infrastructure. And Russia is grappling with myriad health and social problems that have reduced the average life expectancy for men to 60. One consequence is a demographic crisis that is expected to drag down growth.
The world financial crisis accentuated comparisons between the economies, drawing attention to Moscow’s policies. In June, the World Bank projected that China’s economy would grow by 7.2 percent in 2009, while Russia’s would shrink by 7.9 percent.
Politically, Russia remains more open than China, with independent (though often co-opted) opposition parties and more freedom of speech. The most obvious contrast involves the Internet, which is censored in China but not in Russia.
Even so, Mr. Putin’s political aides have long studied how to move the political system to the kind that took root for many decades in countries like Japan and Mexico, with a de facto one-party government under a democratic guise, political analysts said. The Russians tend to gloss over the fact that in many of those countries, long-serving ruling parties have fallen.
The Kremlin’s strategy was apparent in regional elections last week, when United Russia lieutenants and government officials used strong-arm tactics to squeeze out opposition parties, according to nonpartisan monitoring organizations. United Russia won the vast majority of contests across the country.
Far behind was the Russian Communist Party, which styles itself as the successor to the Soviet one and has some popularity among older people. The Russian Communists have also sought to build ties to their Chinese brethren, but the Chinese leadership prefers to deal with Mr. Putin’s party.
The regional elections highlighted how the Russian government and United Russia have become ever more intertwined. State-run television channels offer highly favorable coverage of the party, and the courts rarely if ever rule against it. United Russia leaders openly acknowledged that they wanted to study how the Chinese maintained the correct balance between the party and government.
“We are interested in the experience of the party and government structures in China, where cooperation exists between the ruling party and the judicial, legislative and executive authorities,” Vladimir E. Matkhanov, a deputy in Russia’s Parliament, said at the Suifenhe meeting, according to a transcript.
United Russia praises the Chinese system without mentioning its repressive aspects. And the party’s stance also appears to clash with repeated declarations by Mr. Putin, the former president and current prime minister, and President Dmitri A. Medvedev that Russia needs a robust multiparty system to thrive.
The two endorsed the results of Sunday’s local elections, despite widespread reports of fraud, prompting opposition politicians to call their words hollow.
Sergei S. Mitrokhin, leader of Yabloko, a liberal, pro-Western party that was trounced, said the elections revealed the Kremlin’s true aspirations. And the China talks made them all the more clear, Mr. Mitrokhin said.
“To me, the China meeting demonstrated that United Russia wants to establish a single-party dictatorship in Russia, for all time,” he said.
Throughout recent centuries, Russia has flirted with both the West and East, its identity never quite settled, and analysts said that under Mr. Putin, the political leadership had grown scornful of the idea that the country had to embrace Western notions of democracy or governing.
That in part stems from the backlash stirred in the 1990s, after the Soviet fall, when Russia faced economic hardship and political chaos, which many Putin supporters say the West helped to cause.
Dmitri Kosyrev, a political commentator for Russia’s state news agency and author of detective novels set in Asia, said it was only natural that the Kremlin would cast its gaze to the East.
“When they discovered that there was a way to reform a formally socialist nation into something much better and more efficient, of course they would take note,” Mr. Kosyrev said. “Everyone here sees China as the model, because Russia is not the model.”
China's Neo-Fascist mode of development is being fast emulated by authoritarian states in the world, even the left in the US is eyeing China with envy. The struggle between good and evil has never ceased. The world is approaching the biggest struggle between freedom and despotism since WWII. --- Kai Chen
中国所带头的新法西斯发展控制模式已在全球被专制社会所引用效仿。 甚至美国的左派们也对中共新法西斯模式飚以青睐。 正义与邪恶的斗争在人类历史上从未停止,也绝不会停止。 世界正在孕育着一场即将到来的自由与专制的大战。 --- 陈凯
------------------------------------------------------
News Analysis
Russia’s Leaders See China as Template for Ruling 中共新法西斯模式被世界效仿
CLIFFORD J. LEVY
Published: October 17, 2009
MOSCOW — Nearly two decades after the collapse of the Communist Party, Russia’s rulers have hit upon a model for future success: the Communist Party.
Wang Jianwei/Xinhua
Aleksandr D. Zhukov, a Russian deputy prime minister, praised the Chinese Communist Party at a meeting in Suifenhe, China.
Or at least, the one that reigns next door.
Like an envious underachiever, Vladimir V. Putin’s party, United Russia, is increasingly examining how it can emulate the Chinese Communist Party, especially its skill in shepherding China through the financial crisis relatively unbowed.
United Russia’s leaders even convened a special meeting this month with senior Chinese Communist Party officials to hear firsthand how they wield power.
In truth, the Russians express no desire to return to Communism as a far-reaching Marxist-Leninist ideology, whether the Soviet version or the much attenuated one in Beijing. What they admire, it seems, is the Chinese ability to use a one-party system to keep tight control over the country while still driving significant economic growth.
It is a historical turnabout that resonates, given that the Chinese Communists were inspired by the Soviets, before the two sides had a lengthy rift.
For the Russians, what matters is the countries’ divergent paths in recent decades. They are acutely aware that even as Russia has endured many dark days in its transition to a market economy, China appears to have carried out a fairly similar shift more artfully.
The Russians also seem almost ashamed that their economy is highly dependent on oil, gas and other natural resources, as if Russia were a third world nation, while China excels at manufacturing products sought by the world.
“The accomplishments of China’s Communist Party in developing its government deserve the highest marks,” Aleksandr D. Zhukov, a deputy prime minister and senior Putin aide, declared at the meeting with Chinese officials on Oct. 9 in the border city of Suifenhe, China, northwest of Vladivostok. “The practical experience they have should be intensely studied.”
Mr. Zhukov invited President Hu Jintao, general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, to United Russia’s convention, in November in St. Petersburg.
The meeting in Suifenhe capped several months of increased contacts between the political parties. In the spring, a high-level United Russia delegation visited Beijing for several days of talks, and United Russia announced that it would open an office in Beijing for its research arm.
The fascination with the Chinese Communist Party underscores United Russia’s lack of a core philosophy. The party has functioned largely as an arm of Mr. Putin’s authority, even campaigning on the slogan “Putin’s Plan.” Lately, it has championed “Russian Conservatism,” without detailing what exactly that is.
Indeed, whether United Russia’s effort to learn from the Chinese Communist Party is anything more than an intellectual exercise is an open question.
Whatever the motivation, Russia in recent years has started moving toward the Chinese model politically and economically. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia plunged into capitalism haphazardly, selling off many industries and loosening regulation. Under Mr. Putin, the government has reversed course, seizing more control over many sectors.
Today, both countries govern with a potent centralized authority, overseeing economies with a mix of private and state industries, although the Russians have long seemed less disciplined in doing so.
Corruption is worse in Russia than China, according to global indexes, and foreign companies generally consider Russia’s investment climate less hospitable as well, in part because of less respect for property rights.
Russia has also been unable to match China in modernizing roads, airports, power plants and other infrastructure. And Russia is grappling with myriad health and social problems that have reduced the average life expectancy for men to 60. One consequence is a demographic crisis that is expected to drag down growth.
The world financial crisis accentuated comparisons between the economies, drawing attention to Moscow’s policies. In June, the World Bank projected that China’s economy would grow by 7.2 percent in 2009, while Russia’s would shrink by 7.9 percent.
Politically, Russia remains more open than China, with independent (though often co-opted) opposition parties and more freedom of speech. The most obvious contrast involves the Internet, which is censored in China but not in Russia.
Even so, Mr. Putin’s political aides have long studied how to move the political system to the kind that took root for many decades in countries like Japan and Mexico, with a de facto one-party government under a democratic guise, political analysts said. The Russians tend to gloss over the fact that in many of those countries, long-serving ruling parties have fallen.
The Kremlin’s strategy was apparent in regional elections last week, when United Russia lieutenants and government officials used strong-arm tactics to squeeze out opposition parties, according to nonpartisan monitoring organizations. United Russia won the vast majority of contests across the country.
Far behind was the Russian Communist Party, which styles itself as the successor to the Soviet one and has some popularity among older people. The Russian Communists have also sought to build ties to their Chinese brethren, but the Chinese leadership prefers to deal with Mr. Putin’s party.
The regional elections highlighted how the Russian government and United Russia have become ever more intertwined. State-run television channels offer highly favorable coverage of the party, and the courts rarely if ever rule against it. United Russia leaders openly acknowledged that they wanted to study how the Chinese maintained the correct balance between the party and government.
“We are interested in the experience of the party and government structures in China, where cooperation exists between the ruling party and the judicial, legislative and executive authorities,” Vladimir E. Matkhanov, a deputy in Russia’s Parliament, said at the Suifenhe meeting, according to a transcript.
United Russia praises the Chinese system without mentioning its repressive aspects. And the party’s stance also appears to clash with repeated declarations by Mr. Putin, the former president and current prime minister, and President Dmitri A. Medvedev that Russia needs a robust multiparty system to thrive.
The two endorsed the results of Sunday’s local elections, despite widespread reports of fraud, prompting opposition politicians to call their words hollow.
Sergei S. Mitrokhin, leader of Yabloko, a liberal, pro-Western party that was trounced, said the elections revealed the Kremlin’s true aspirations. And the China talks made them all the more clear, Mr. Mitrokhin said.
“To me, the China meeting demonstrated that United Russia wants to establish a single-party dictatorship in Russia, for all time,” he said.
Throughout recent centuries, Russia has flirted with both the West and East, its identity never quite settled, and analysts said that under Mr. Putin, the political leadership had grown scornful of the idea that the country had to embrace Western notions of democracy or governing.
That in part stems from the backlash stirred in the 1990s, after the Soviet fall, when Russia faced economic hardship and political chaos, which many Putin supporters say the West helped to cause.
Dmitri Kosyrev, a political commentator for Russia’s state news agency and author of detective novels set in Asia, said it was only natural that the Kremlin would cast its gaze to the East.
“When they discovered that there was a way to reform a formally socialist nation into something much better and more efficient, of course they would take note,” Mr. Kosyrev said. “Everyone here sees China as the model, because Russia is not the model.”
Anita Dunn: Why is being a fan of Mao more acceptable than being a fan of Hitler? 美左崇毛可被接受?
Anita Dunn: Why is being a fan of Mao more acceptable than being a fan of Hitler? 美左崇毛可被接受?
Youtube Link: “Anita Dunn 崇拜毛泽东”视频链锁: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAXAivdHYW0
Posted by Erick Erickson (Profile)
Thursday, October 15th at 11:31PM EDT
Anita Dunn is Barack Obama’s Communications Director.
She tried starting a war with Fox News that left even leftwing commentators scratching their heads calling Obama a wimp. Claiming that Fox News is part of the right wing echo chamber, Dunn ran to CNN to complain about Fox News not offering sexual favors to Obama like . . . well . . . CNN and the other networks.
How dare it maintain its integrity!?!
Well, thanks to our friend Glenn Beck, we have Anita Dunn on tape declaring her favorite philosopher is Mao — the Chinese Hitler. Mao led the communist revolution in China and became China’s dictatorial and insanely paranoid leader.
Hitler sought to exterminate a whole race of citizen. Mao decided to exterminate all of his citizens, or at least significant classes of citizenry, driving many to suicide to avoid ritualistic violence at the hands of Mao’s red brigade. Mao’s response? “China is such a populous nation, it is not as if we cannot do without a few people.”
Mao’s political and philosophical writings read like Hitler’s Mein Kampf. He drove the educated classes to starvation. Kids were put in charge of adults. Educated workers were forced to work in fields. He fostered a cult of personality that affects China even today.
She describes Mao as not just her favorite political philosopher, but one of the “two people I turn to most.” The other, tragically or humorously depending on your frame of mind, being Mother Teresa. I can bet you that between the two it is not Mother Teresa who Anita Dunn looks to for guidance on abortion policy.
How in God’s name is it acceptable for the woman in charge of the White House’s communications shop to declare Hitler her favorite philosopher? The answer is that it is not. Why then is Mao acceptable?
Youtube Link: “Anita Dunn 崇拜毛泽东”视频链锁: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAXAivdHYW0
Posted by Erick Erickson (Profile)
Thursday, October 15th at 11:31PM EDT
Anita Dunn is Barack Obama’s Communications Director.
She tried starting a war with Fox News that left even leftwing commentators scratching their heads calling Obama a wimp. Claiming that Fox News is part of the right wing echo chamber, Dunn ran to CNN to complain about Fox News not offering sexual favors to Obama like . . . well . . . CNN and the other networks.
How dare it maintain its integrity!?!
Well, thanks to our friend Glenn Beck, we have Anita Dunn on tape declaring her favorite philosopher is Mao — the Chinese Hitler. Mao led the communist revolution in China and became China’s dictatorial and insanely paranoid leader.
Hitler sought to exterminate a whole race of citizen. Mao decided to exterminate all of his citizens, or at least significant classes of citizenry, driving many to suicide to avoid ritualistic violence at the hands of Mao’s red brigade. Mao’s response? “China is such a populous nation, it is not as if we cannot do without a few people.”
Mao’s political and philosophical writings read like Hitler’s Mein Kampf. He drove the educated classes to starvation. Kids were put in charge of adults. Educated workers were forced to work in fields. He fostered a cult of personality that affects China even today.
She describes Mao as not just her favorite political philosopher, but one of the “two people I turn to most.” The other, tragically or humorously depending on your frame of mind, being Mother Teresa. I can bet you that between the two it is not Mother Teresa who Anita Dunn looks to for guidance on abortion policy.
How in God’s name is it acceptable for the woman in charge of the White House’s communications shop to declare Hitler her favorite philosopher? The answer is that it is not. Why then is Mao acceptable?
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Anita Dunn and Mao Zedong 奥巴马行政官员阿尼塔崇拜毛泽东
President Obama with Anita Dunn, David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel, and Robert Gibbs (via White House Flickr stream
www.kaichenblog.blogspot.com
陈凯一语: Kai Chen's Words:
奥巴马行政官员阿尼塔崇拜毛泽东是一个“政治哲学家”。 这并不奇怪。 许多奥巴马当局官员是马克思社会主义者。 美国的人们必须对此高度警惕。 --- 陈凯
Many officials in the Obama administration are either Marxists or socialists, if not out right communists. Anita Dunn's statement to worship Mao is no surprise to me. American people must pay close attention to what kind "transformation" Obama administration intends to implement in this nation. --- Kai Chen
--------------------------------------------
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/10/15/anita-dunn-a-corruptocrat-flack-and-a-mao-cheerleader/
Friday, October 16, 2009
Anita Dunn and Mao Zedong 奥巴马行政官员阿尼塔崇拜毛泽东
[Hans von Spakovsky]
Glenn Beck showed an absolutely damning video of Anita Dunn on his show yesterday. As everyone knows, she is the White House communications director who has declared war on Fox News. The video shows Dunn giving a speech in which she highlights the two most important political philosophers shaping her outlook on politics: Mao Zedong and Mother Teresa. The first “political philosopher” Dunn is praising was a tyrannical dictator who imprisoned, tortured, and killed millions of his own people. In fact, it is estimated that the Chinese Communists — led, inspired, and controlled by Mao — have killed 65 million Chinese citizens since 1949 through the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and the Gulag system of slave-labor prisons (the “Laogai” system) that Mao implemented.
Imagine what would happen if a White House communications director cited Adolf Hitler as one of her favorite political philosophers. Not only would it be an above-the-fold, front-page story in every major newspaper in the country, but there would also be outraged howls in the editorial pages. Mao killed more people than Hitler — they were two of the three worst mass murderers of the 20th century (the third being Joseph Stalin). However, the revelation of Dunn’s comments will probably be greeted by the mainstream media with a big collective yawn.
-----------------------------------------
Anita Dunn: A corruptocrat flack and a Mao cheerleader
By Michelle Malkin • October 15, 2009 07:53 PM
Earlier this week, I spotlighted White House interim communications director and chief Fox-basher Anita Dunn’s career-long commitment to flacking for one of the Beltway’s most entrenched and crooked creatures, Tom Daschle.
I also noted that Dunn is married to Obama thug lawyer Robert Bauer, who tried valiantly to get the DOJ to prosecute conservative critics and punish TV stations for running an ad critical of Obama’s relationship with Weather Underground Bill Ayers.
Add to the mix this fun fact from Glenn Beck…Dunn is a Mao enthusiast. The White House says she is joking.
Doesn’t seem that way. And, um, who would joke about such a thing?
www.kaichenblog.blogspot.com
陈凯一语: Kai Chen's Words:
奥巴马行政官员阿尼塔崇拜毛泽东是一个“政治哲学家”。 这并不奇怪。 许多奥巴马当局官员是马克思社会主义者。 美国的人们必须对此高度警惕。 --- 陈凯
Many officials in the Obama administration are either Marxists or socialists, if not out right communists. Anita Dunn's statement to worship Mao is no surprise to me. American people must pay close attention to what kind "transformation" Obama administration intends to implement in this nation. --- Kai Chen
--------------------------------------------
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/10/15/anita-dunn-a-corruptocrat-flack-and-a-mao-cheerleader/
Friday, October 16, 2009
Anita Dunn and Mao Zedong 奥巴马行政官员阿尼塔崇拜毛泽东
[Hans von Spakovsky]
Glenn Beck showed an absolutely damning video of Anita Dunn on his show yesterday. As everyone knows, she is the White House communications director who has declared war on Fox News. The video shows Dunn giving a speech in which she highlights the two most important political philosophers shaping her outlook on politics: Mao Zedong and Mother Teresa. The first “political philosopher” Dunn is praising was a tyrannical dictator who imprisoned, tortured, and killed millions of his own people. In fact, it is estimated that the Chinese Communists — led, inspired, and controlled by Mao — have killed 65 million Chinese citizens since 1949 through the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and the Gulag system of slave-labor prisons (the “Laogai” system) that Mao implemented.
Imagine what would happen if a White House communications director cited Adolf Hitler as one of her favorite political philosophers. Not only would it be an above-the-fold, front-page story in every major newspaper in the country, but there would also be outraged howls in the editorial pages. Mao killed more people than Hitler — they were two of the three worst mass murderers of the 20th century (the third being Joseph Stalin). However, the revelation of Dunn’s comments will probably be greeted by the mainstream media with a big collective yawn.
-----------------------------------------
Anita Dunn: A corruptocrat flack and a Mao cheerleader
By Michelle Malkin • October 15, 2009 07:53 PM
Earlier this week, I spotlighted White House interim communications director and chief Fox-basher Anita Dunn’s career-long commitment to flacking for one of the Beltway’s most entrenched and crooked creatures, Tom Daschle.
I also noted that Dunn is married to Obama thug lawyer Robert Bauer, who tried valiantly to get the DOJ to prosecute conservative critics and punish TV stations for running an ad critical of Obama’s relationship with Weather Underground Bill Ayers.
Add to the mix this fun fact from Glenn Beck…Dunn is a Mao enthusiast. The White House says she is joking.
Doesn’t seem that way. And, um, who would joke about such a thing?
China Confidential 大阅兵--中国党政的真情
Quote from author: 作者引荐:
“Even the puritanism of the early days of Mao Tse-tung's rule was carried on with such a sense of enormousness that the entire nation seemed to have lost all individuality. ....
In that sense, the political economy of the PRC now more resembles the theory and practice of national socialism in Nazi Germany than of Soviet Communism.” --- George H. Wittman
“(且不说这个大阅兵)即使毛泽东的时代也同样有这样的华而不实的庞然大物。 中国的人们似乎全都失去了他们的个体感。 --- 有目共睹,中共党政当前的政治经济更接近纳粹德国,而不是过去的苏联。”--- George H. Wittman
At Large
China Confidential 大阅兵--中国党政的真情
By George H. Wittman on 10.16.09 @ 6:07AM
In honor of China's 60th anniversary of Communist rule a massive and colorful parade recently was held in Beijing. A panoply of weapons was displayed as thousands of carefully chosen military cadre in tailored uniforms goose-stepped through Tiananmen Square. As one military observer noted: "They dance well, they wear well-cut battle dress, but can they fight?"
Of course the question was sarcastic, but it was not without an element of reality. China has become enamored of display. Their economic success has encouraged extravagance as a symbol. In fact, this has been part of Chinese culture for years. Even the puritanism of the early days of Mao Tse-tung's rule was carried on with such a sense of enormousness that the entire nation seemed to have lost all individuality.
Now the material changes wrought by nearly thirty years of steadily achieved economic success have reversed the purposeful drabness of the Mao period in exchange for the exoticism of soaring skyscrapers, French-like fashion consciousness in the big cities and modernity in everything from construction equipment to telecommunications and electronics. Nonetheless everything and everybody continues to march forward in Maoist lockstep, strutting their material wealth. This is accomplished the same way it was done sixty years ago -- by hiding the failures and inadequacies of the governance.
From a military standpoint even the People's Liberation Army (PLA) would have to acknowledge they have not seen combat since the Vietnamese embarrassed them in 1979. They may have an impressive array of weapons, conventional and nuclear, as well as a reasonably modern air force and a growing, yet still small, blue water navy -- but that's about it. They have no combat experience and the command is unproven, inexperienced and highly politicized. As such, at this time the PRC poses no direct military threat to the United States; that does not mean they might not in the future. But as the attaché noted -- they do parade well.
Most of the fighting that China does these days is either on the domestic front in the form of intense personal and group competition for political positioning -- or internationally for economic and political influence in world affairs. The domestic front sometimes becomes the roughest. There's just too much money floating about in Chinese business and political life to not have a corrupting influence. However, that has never been necessary in the always smoldering environment of the all-powerful Chinese Communist Party (CCP), as anyone who can remember the days of Mao's wife Jiang Qing and the Gang of Four can attest.
Perhaps one of the best examples of the current depth of corruption occurred in the recent case of the mayor of the city of Shenzhen, the original free enterprise zone nearby to Hong Kong. Apparently this once trusted party leader was found to have bought his political position and then proceeded to take payoffs for every major project under construction in that city.
What is truly stunning is the fact that lesser posts throughout China for years have been purchased, or at least rented. Such positions include functionaries on all levels of local government including, surprisingly, the Communist party, itself. These posts carry the leverage to influence all contracts, and are compensated by substantial cash bribes -- as many who have done business with the PRC well know.
Supposedly the extremely secretive and powerful Central Organization Department vets all management job candidates from the smallest to the most important corporations and government positions. In spite of a plethora of sophisticated personnel tools -- including polygraphs, intelligence tests, and psychological profiling -- the COD has been unable to stem the continuing tide of corruption in Chinese government and commerce. But then one is forced to ask whether the purpose of this powerful department is to organize and police the nation's executive work force or simply to move around acceptable individuals in an orderly fashion, thus perpetuating the system.
The mistake would be to relate in any way the success of China's economy with the structure of preference and advantage that guides the country's still totalitarian-run political system. The Chinese leadership has found a way to preserve its control, indeed domination, over this vast nation while at the same time utilizing the structure and benefits of a market economy. In that sense, the political economy of the PRC now more resembles the theory and practice of national socialism in Nazi Germany than of Soviet Communism.
The difference is that Communist China, in spite of periodic saber rattling toward Taiwan, appears to be smart enough not to become involved in military conflict. The greater future problem, however, is that the still monolithic political structure seems ready-made for a dictatorial takeover. In the centuries of China's existence that has been its tendency. It's a danger that cannot be disregarded.
“Even the puritanism of the early days of Mao Tse-tung's rule was carried on with such a sense of enormousness that the entire nation seemed to have lost all individuality. ....
In that sense, the political economy of the PRC now more resembles the theory and practice of national socialism in Nazi Germany than of Soviet Communism.” --- George H. Wittman
“(且不说这个大阅兵)即使毛泽东的时代也同样有这样的华而不实的庞然大物。 中国的人们似乎全都失去了他们的个体感。 --- 有目共睹,中共党政当前的政治经济更接近纳粹德国,而不是过去的苏联。”--- George H. Wittman
At Large
China Confidential 大阅兵--中国党政的真情
By George H. Wittman on 10.16.09 @ 6:07AM
In honor of China's 60th anniversary of Communist rule a massive and colorful parade recently was held in Beijing. A panoply of weapons was displayed as thousands of carefully chosen military cadre in tailored uniforms goose-stepped through Tiananmen Square. As one military observer noted: "They dance well, they wear well-cut battle dress, but can they fight?"
Of course the question was sarcastic, but it was not without an element of reality. China has become enamored of display. Their economic success has encouraged extravagance as a symbol. In fact, this has been part of Chinese culture for years. Even the puritanism of the early days of Mao Tse-tung's rule was carried on with such a sense of enormousness that the entire nation seemed to have lost all individuality.
Now the material changes wrought by nearly thirty years of steadily achieved economic success have reversed the purposeful drabness of the Mao period in exchange for the exoticism of soaring skyscrapers, French-like fashion consciousness in the big cities and modernity in everything from construction equipment to telecommunications and electronics. Nonetheless everything and everybody continues to march forward in Maoist lockstep, strutting their material wealth. This is accomplished the same way it was done sixty years ago -- by hiding the failures and inadequacies of the governance.
From a military standpoint even the People's Liberation Army (PLA) would have to acknowledge they have not seen combat since the Vietnamese embarrassed them in 1979. They may have an impressive array of weapons, conventional and nuclear, as well as a reasonably modern air force and a growing, yet still small, blue water navy -- but that's about it. They have no combat experience and the command is unproven, inexperienced and highly politicized. As such, at this time the PRC poses no direct military threat to the United States; that does not mean they might not in the future. But as the attaché noted -- they do parade well.
Most of the fighting that China does these days is either on the domestic front in the form of intense personal and group competition for political positioning -- or internationally for economic and political influence in world affairs. The domestic front sometimes becomes the roughest. There's just too much money floating about in Chinese business and political life to not have a corrupting influence. However, that has never been necessary in the always smoldering environment of the all-powerful Chinese Communist Party (CCP), as anyone who can remember the days of Mao's wife Jiang Qing and the Gang of Four can attest.
Perhaps one of the best examples of the current depth of corruption occurred in the recent case of the mayor of the city of Shenzhen, the original free enterprise zone nearby to Hong Kong. Apparently this once trusted party leader was found to have bought his political position and then proceeded to take payoffs for every major project under construction in that city.
What is truly stunning is the fact that lesser posts throughout China for years have been purchased, or at least rented. Such positions include functionaries on all levels of local government including, surprisingly, the Communist party, itself. These posts carry the leverage to influence all contracts, and are compensated by substantial cash bribes -- as many who have done business with the PRC well know.
Supposedly the extremely secretive and powerful Central Organization Department vets all management job candidates from the smallest to the most important corporations and government positions. In spite of a plethora of sophisticated personnel tools -- including polygraphs, intelligence tests, and psychological profiling -- the COD has been unable to stem the continuing tide of corruption in Chinese government and commerce. But then one is forced to ask whether the purpose of this powerful department is to organize and police the nation's executive work force or simply to move around acceptable individuals in an orderly fashion, thus perpetuating the system.
The mistake would be to relate in any way the success of China's economy with the structure of preference and advantage that guides the country's still totalitarian-run political system. The Chinese leadership has found a way to preserve its control, indeed domination, over this vast nation while at the same time utilizing the structure and benefits of a market economy. In that sense, the political economy of the PRC now more resembles the theory and practice of national socialism in Nazi Germany than of Soviet Communism.
The difference is that Communist China, in spite of periodic saber rattling toward Taiwan, appears to be smart enough not to become involved in military conflict. The greater future problem, however, is that the still monolithic political structure seems ready-made for a dictatorial takeover. In the centuries of China's existence that has been its tendency. It's a danger that cannot be disregarded.
Friday, October 16, 2009
美国高中AP中文教材(中国现代史)-- 提供者:中共党政 American High School AP Chinese Language - Modern Chinese History (Provided by China's Government's Propaganda Dept.)
陈凯一语: Kai Chen's Words:
A friend of mine who teaches (AP)Chinese language in an American high school sent this material to me. I want to share it with you and tell the American public the extent of infiltration and corruption of American mind and educational system by the communist regime in China. --- Kai Chen
我的一位朋友在一所美国高中教中文。 她将此中文教材(中共党政宣传机构提供所有在美国的学校中文教材)转交给我,望我提示美国公众警觉中共对美国教育系统的渗透与腐蚀。 --- 陈凯
http://www.amazon.com/reader/0764194003?_encoding=UTF8&ref_=sib%5Fdp%5Fpt#reader
page 445-446
美国高中AP中文教材(中国现代史)-- 提供者:中共党政 American High School AP Chinese Language - Modern Chinese History (Provided by PRC - China's communist regime's Propaganda Department)
美国高中AP中文教材(中国现代史)Survey of Mondern Chinese history (Provided by China's Communist Regime's Propaganda Department)
"辛亥革命
1911年时旧历辛亥年,在这一年,中国资产阶级政党领袖孙中山发起了以推翻清朝统治、争取国家的独立、民主和富强为目的的资产阶级民主的革命,这就是“辛亥革命”,这次革命建立的中华民国。“辛亥革命”在政治上,思想上给中国人民带来了解放作用。
五四运动
1919年的“五四爱国运动”标志着资产阶级领导的旧民主主义革命的结束和无产阶级领导的新民主主义革命的开始。1921年,以毛泽东为代表的各地的共产主义小组在上海举行的第一次全国代表大会,成立了中国共产党。1924年,国民党和共产党进行第一次合作,这次合作推动了国民革命运动的发展。国共合作失败以后,1927年,中国共产党为反抗国民党统治,进行了工农武装革命,建立的革命根据地和中国工农红军,1931年,日本对中国发动了侵略战争,中华民族面临危机。1937年,日本帝国主义发动“七七事变”,中华民族全面抗战从此开始。中国人民经过八年奋战,终于取得了抗日战争的彻底胜利。此后,中国共产党又经过三年的解放战争,于1949年成立了中华任命共和国。
中华人民共和国
中华人民共和国初期,中国政府进行了土地改革,实施了中国第一个五年计划,取得了巨大的成就,使国民年均收入迅速增长,并且建立了一批基础工业。1957年到1966年,中国开展了大规模的社会主义建设。工业发展迅速,工业产量提高,国民收入增加。农业的基本建设和技术的改造也大规模展开。1966年到1976年中国经历了举世瞩目的“文化大革命”,使国家和人民受了严重的挫折和损失,使中国的经济建设大大倒退。1976年10月,中共中央粉碎了“四人帮”反革命集团,“文化大革命”结束,中国进入了新的历史时期。1978年,以邓小平为领导的党和国家领导人确立的改革开放的方针,提出了把工作重点放到现代化建设上的决策。改革开放以来,中国的面貌发生了巨大变化,经济飞快发展,人民生活水平明显提高。"
A friend of mine who teaches (AP)Chinese language in an American high school sent this material to me. I want to share it with you and tell the American public the extent of infiltration and corruption of American mind and educational system by the communist regime in China. --- Kai Chen
我的一位朋友在一所美国高中教中文。 她将此中文教材(中共党政宣传机构提供所有在美国的学校中文教材)转交给我,望我提示美国公众警觉中共对美国教育系统的渗透与腐蚀。 --- 陈凯
http://www.amazon.com/reader/0764194003?_encoding=UTF8&ref_=sib%5Fdp%5Fpt#reader
page 445-446
美国高中AP中文教材(中国现代史)-- 提供者:中共党政 American High School AP Chinese Language - Modern Chinese History (Provided by PRC - China's communist regime's Propaganda Department)
美国高中AP中文教材(中国现代史)Survey of Mondern Chinese history (Provided by China's Communist Regime's Propaganda Department)
"辛亥革命
1911年时旧历辛亥年,在这一年,中国资产阶级政党领袖孙中山发起了以推翻清朝统治、争取国家的独立、民主和富强为目的的资产阶级民主的革命,这就是“辛亥革命”,这次革命建立的中华民国。“辛亥革命”在政治上,思想上给中国人民带来了解放作用。
五四运动
1919年的“五四爱国运动”标志着资产阶级领导的旧民主主义革命的结束和无产阶级领导的新民主主义革命的开始。1921年,以毛泽东为代表的各地的共产主义小组在上海举行的第一次全国代表大会,成立了中国共产党。1924年,国民党和共产党进行第一次合作,这次合作推动了国民革命运动的发展。国共合作失败以后,1927年,中国共产党为反抗国民党统治,进行了工农武装革命,建立的革命根据地和中国工农红军,1931年,日本对中国发动了侵略战争,中华民族面临危机。1937年,日本帝国主义发动“七七事变”,中华民族全面抗战从此开始。中国人民经过八年奋战,终于取得了抗日战争的彻底胜利。此后,中国共产党又经过三年的解放战争,于1949年成立了中华任命共和国。
中华人民共和国
中华人民共和国初期,中国政府进行了土地改革,实施了中国第一个五年计划,取得了巨大的成就,使国民年均收入迅速增长,并且建立了一批基础工业。1957年到1966年,中国开展了大规模的社会主义建设。工业发展迅速,工业产量提高,国民收入增加。农业的基本建设和技术的改造也大规模展开。1966年到1976年中国经历了举世瞩目的“文化大革命”,使国家和人民受了严重的挫折和损失,使中国的经济建设大大倒退。1976年10月,中共中央粉碎了“四人帮”反革命集团,“文化大革命”结束,中国进入了新的历史时期。1978年,以邓小平为领导的党和国家领导人确立的改革开放的方针,提出了把工作重点放到现代化建设上的决策。改革开放以来,中国的面貌发生了巨大变化,经济飞快发展,人民生活水平明显提高。"
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
China's Export of Censorship 中国专制言论管制已蔓延全球
陈凯一语: Kai Chen's Words:
中国专制“精神艾滋病”已开始蔓延全球。 道德虚无症、视而不见症、良知聋哑症、无睾宦奴娼、无灵活死人已成为我们司空见惯的全球现象。 --- 陈凯
China's despotic "Soft Cold War" with its distinctive weapon of "spiritual AIDS" has already spread around the world, invading all healthy minds and souls, inflicting tremendous damages on all the people Chinese or not, making them nothing but zombies. Moral nihilism and blindness, timid conformist mentality, sweeping denial of reality have become so common now around us that we are numb toward them. --- Kai Chen
--------------------------------------------------
China's Export of Censorship 中国专制言论管制已蔓延全球
by Christopher Walker and Sarah Cook
Posted October 12, 2009
The Chinese government’s effort to prevent dissident authors from taking part in the prestigious Frankfurt Book Fair, an international showcase for freedom of expression, has offered Germany a close-up view of China’s intolerance of dissent.
In September, two Chinese writers, journalist Dai Qing and poet Bei Ling, had their invitations to the fair revoked by German event organizers after China’s organizing committee complained. The Chinese delegation threatened a boycott over invitations to the writers for a September symposium promoting the Frankfurt Book Fair, which begins on October 14. China is the "guest of honor" at this year's fair. In the face of this pressure, the event’s organizers withdrew the invitations. The writers’ participation was ultimately enabled when the German PEN club of independent writers invited the two Chinese dissidents.
While Beijing’s coercive behavior caught many Germans off guard, it should not have come as a surprise; the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) censorship ambitions are neither new, nor limited to Germany. In fact, this action is just the latest example of an ongoing pattern of interference, cooptation and intimidation beyond China’s borders used to muzzle voices critical of the Chinese government.
Two days after the opening of the Frankfurt Book Fair, a film festival in Taiwan’s second largest city, Kaohsiung, will begin. It, too, has come under pressure to censor. In this instance the issue is a planned screening of “The 10 Conditions of Love,” a documentary about exiled Uighur rights activist Rebiya Kadeer. Chinese authorities assert Kadeer has terrorist links, unsubstantiated claims not accepted by most Western countries or independent analysts. Despite pressure to shelve the film—linked to fears that the city’s growing industry servicing mainland tourists could be hurt—the Kaohsiung Film Archive and the organizing committee of the 2009 Kaohsiung Film Festival announced on September 27 that it would go ahead with the screening. A similar series of events unfolded at the Melbourne Film Festival this summer.
In September, Uighur activist Dolkun Isa, who holds German citizenship, was denied entry into South Korea, to take part in a conference on democracy. China is South Korea’s largest trading partner. Isa, who fled China in 1997 and obtained asylum in Germany, was held at the Seoul airport without explanation for two days after being denied entry to South Korea.
The Chinese authorities have developed an elaborate arsenal of censorship, including an extensive domestic apparatus of information control. Less appreciated and understood are the methods of interference and intimidation employed to muzzle critical voices abroad. Some of the modern authoritarian techniques the Chinese authorities use for this purpose beyond its borders are detailed in a study, “Undermining Democracy: 21st Century Authoritarians,” recently released by Freedom House, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia.
Economic coercion is a principal line of attack in the transnational suppression of issues deemed sensitive by China’s rulers. The coercion is applied directly and indirectly.
Instances of direct economic coercion and censorship typically occur when an event has already been planned or already begun. Pressure is then applied by Chinese government representatives on the organizers or local authorities to suppress certain activities or appearances deemed undesirable by the CCP. In such instances, explicit or implicit threats of boycotts, trade sanctions, or withdrawal of Chinese government funding have been used to force the hand of those in charge. The CCP’s Frankfurt Book Fair gambit fits this model, given the financial implications of the Chinese government’s $15 million investment in the event.
More insidious has been an indirect form of economic intimidation, whereby publications, event organizers or governments engage in self-censorship on topics deemed sensitive to the mainland, a dynamic some have dubbed “pre-emptive kowtowing.” Given their small size, proximity and relationship to the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan are particularly vulnerable to this phenomenon.
This June, the Hong Kong edition of Esquire magazine, published by South China Media, pulled a feature story by journalist Daisy Chu on the Tiananmen Square massacre slated to run on the 20th anniversary. In 2008, a prominent legal journal in Hong Kong made a last-minute decision not to publish an article on Tibetan self-determination. A blackout on independent coverage of the Falun Gong is believed to be practiced among certain Hong Kong and Taiwanese outlets whose owners have close ties to Beijing or significant business interests on the mainland.
As China’s economic clout and role on the global stage grows, it will inevitably exert greater influence beyond its borders. However, the issue is not whether China—which features one the world’s least hospitable environments for free expression—will project influence but what shape this growing power will take. The CCP plans, for instance, to spend billions of dollars on expanding its overseas media operations in a potentially massive show of “soft power.” But whether this enormous investment will simply project the deeply illiberal values that characterize China’s domestic media scene to a wider playing field is a question advocates of free expression should seriously ponder.
This critical question, so far, does not provide an encouraging answer.
China’s attempts to insinuate itself into Taiwan’s media sector, and Beijing’s ongoing efforts to limit the vitality of Hong Kong’s media, are among the examples of this phenomenon in Asia. The CCP has recently demonstrated its willingness to suppress open expression in Germany and Australia. The United States is not immune to this pressure. The Dalai Lama will be waiting a bit longer for his meeting with President Obama.
The Chinese government’s position at the vanguard of efforts to monitor and filter Internet content, using its wealth and technical acumen to devise methods to limit the free and independent flow of information online, also has serious transnational implications for free expression. China effectively serves as an incubator for new media suppression; authoritarian governments around the world carefully watch China’s censorship techniques and learn from its innovations.
The community of democratic states must acknowledge the Chinese government’s growing media ambitions and efforts to censor beyond its borders. Acquiescence in this challenge will only embolden the Chinese authorities.
Christopher Walker is director of studies and Sarah Cook is an Asia researcher at Freedom House.
中国专制“精神艾滋病”已开始蔓延全球。 道德虚无症、视而不见症、良知聋哑症、无睾宦奴娼、无灵活死人已成为我们司空见惯的全球现象。 --- 陈凯
China's despotic "Soft Cold War" with its distinctive weapon of "spiritual AIDS" has already spread around the world, invading all healthy minds and souls, inflicting tremendous damages on all the people Chinese or not, making them nothing but zombies. Moral nihilism and blindness, timid conformist mentality, sweeping denial of reality have become so common now around us that we are numb toward them. --- Kai Chen
--------------------------------------------------
China's Export of Censorship 中国专制言论管制已蔓延全球
by Christopher Walker and Sarah Cook
Posted October 12, 2009
The Chinese government’s effort to prevent dissident authors from taking part in the prestigious Frankfurt Book Fair, an international showcase for freedom of expression, has offered Germany a close-up view of China’s intolerance of dissent.
In September, two Chinese writers, journalist Dai Qing and poet Bei Ling, had their invitations to the fair revoked by German event organizers after China’s organizing committee complained. The Chinese delegation threatened a boycott over invitations to the writers for a September symposium promoting the Frankfurt Book Fair, which begins on October 14. China is the "guest of honor" at this year's fair. In the face of this pressure, the event’s organizers withdrew the invitations. The writers’ participation was ultimately enabled when the German PEN club of independent writers invited the two Chinese dissidents.
While Beijing’s coercive behavior caught many Germans off guard, it should not have come as a surprise; the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) censorship ambitions are neither new, nor limited to Germany. In fact, this action is just the latest example of an ongoing pattern of interference, cooptation and intimidation beyond China’s borders used to muzzle voices critical of the Chinese government.
Two days after the opening of the Frankfurt Book Fair, a film festival in Taiwan’s second largest city, Kaohsiung, will begin. It, too, has come under pressure to censor. In this instance the issue is a planned screening of “The 10 Conditions of Love,” a documentary about exiled Uighur rights activist Rebiya Kadeer. Chinese authorities assert Kadeer has terrorist links, unsubstantiated claims not accepted by most Western countries or independent analysts. Despite pressure to shelve the film—linked to fears that the city’s growing industry servicing mainland tourists could be hurt—the Kaohsiung Film Archive and the organizing committee of the 2009 Kaohsiung Film Festival announced on September 27 that it would go ahead with the screening. A similar series of events unfolded at the Melbourne Film Festival this summer.
In September, Uighur activist Dolkun Isa, who holds German citizenship, was denied entry into South Korea, to take part in a conference on democracy. China is South Korea’s largest trading partner. Isa, who fled China in 1997 and obtained asylum in Germany, was held at the Seoul airport without explanation for two days after being denied entry to South Korea.
The Chinese authorities have developed an elaborate arsenal of censorship, including an extensive domestic apparatus of information control. Less appreciated and understood are the methods of interference and intimidation employed to muzzle critical voices abroad. Some of the modern authoritarian techniques the Chinese authorities use for this purpose beyond its borders are detailed in a study, “Undermining Democracy: 21st Century Authoritarians,” recently released by Freedom House, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia.
Economic coercion is a principal line of attack in the transnational suppression of issues deemed sensitive by China’s rulers. The coercion is applied directly and indirectly.
Instances of direct economic coercion and censorship typically occur when an event has already been planned or already begun. Pressure is then applied by Chinese government representatives on the organizers or local authorities to suppress certain activities or appearances deemed undesirable by the CCP. In such instances, explicit or implicit threats of boycotts, trade sanctions, or withdrawal of Chinese government funding have been used to force the hand of those in charge. The CCP’s Frankfurt Book Fair gambit fits this model, given the financial implications of the Chinese government’s $15 million investment in the event.
More insidious has been an indirect form of economic intimidation, whereby publications, event organizers or governments engage in self-censorship on topics deemed sensitive to the mainland, a dynamic some have dubbed “pre-emptive kowtowing.” Given their small size, proximity and relationship to the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan are particularly vulnerable to this phenomenon.
This June, the Hong Kong edition of Esquire magazine, published by South China Media, pulled a feature story by journalist Daisy Chu on the Tiananmen Square massacre slated to run on the 20th anniversary. In 2008, a prominent legal journal in Hong Kong made a last-minute decision not to publish an article on Tibetan self-determination. A blackout on independent coverage of the Falun Gong is believed to be practiced among certain Hong Kong and Taiwanese outlets whose owners have close ties to Beijing or significant business interests on the mainland.
As China’s economic clout and role on the global stage grows, it will inevitably exert greater influence beyond its borders. However, the issue is not whether China—which features one the world’s least hospitable environments for free expression—will project influence but what shape this growing power will take. The CCP plans, for instance, to spend billions of dollars on expanding its overseas media operations in a potentially massive show of “soft power.” But whether this enormous investment will simply project the deeply illiberal values that characterize China’s domestic media scene to a wider playing field is a question advocates of free expression should seriously ponder.
This critical question, so far, does not provide an encouraging answer.
China’s attempts to insinuate itself into Taiwan’s media sector, and Beijing’s ongoing efforts to limit the vitality of Hong Kong’s media, are among the examples of this phenomenon in Asia. The CCP has recently demonstrated its willingness to suppress open expression in Germany and Australia. The United States is not immune to this pressure. The Dalai Lama will be waiting a bit longer for his meeting with President Obama.
The Chinese government’s position at the vanguard of efforts to monitor and filter Internet content, using its wealth and technical acumen to devise methods to limit the free and independent flow of information online, also has serious transnational implications for free expression. China effectively serves as an incubator for new media suppression; authoritarian governments around the world carefully watch China’s censorship techniques and learn from its innovations.
The community of democratic states must acknowledge the Chinese government’s growing media ambitions and efforts to censor beyond its borders. Acquiescence in this challenge will only embolden the Chinese authorities.
Christopher Walker is director of studies and Sarah Cook is an Asia researcher at Freedom House.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
中共软冷战 尼克松基金会浮出水面 China's Soft Cold War against America
中共软冷战 尼克松基金会浮出水面 China's Soft Cold War against America
陈凯一语:
尼克松图书馆曾放置如下公告。 但在媒体采访期间,此公告被撤下。 我想知道为什么此公告被放置与撤下及将来尼克松图书馆会如何对待此公告。 --- 陈凯
Nixon Library had displayed a sign (the content is as below)after I protested/communicated with Mr. Naftali (the Director of Nixon Library). But during the media visit to the library, the sign was taken down. I want to know why the sign was put up and taken down and what the Nixon Library is going to do with it in the near future. --- Kai Chen
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The Sign by Mao's Statue since late June, 2009:
Why is there a statue of Chairman Mao in the Nixon Library?
Many visitors have asked why this room contains a statue of Mao Zedong who was Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party from 1949 until 1976. Historians agree that Mao’s policies including the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution resulted in the deaths of many millions of Chinese citizens.
When the private Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace constructed this gallery nearly twenty years ago, President Nixon asked that it included statues of major world figures he had dealt with throughout his career. (His book leaders includes vignettes about many of the people represented in this room) Because Mao was among the most consequential people that President Nixon encountered, he was included in this gallery beside Winston Churchill, Golda Meir, and others.
The presence of the statues of Mao and other foreign leaders in this gallery does not imply that the United States government which has operated this museum since 2007 takes a position on their legacies.
--------------------------------------------------
为什么尼克松图书馆会有一个毛塑像?
许多来本馆参观的人们会问为什么在尼克松图书馆会有一个毛泽东的塑像。 毛是中国共产党主席(1949-1976)。 历史学家们都对毛有一致的看法:他的政策,包括“大跃进”和“文化大革命”导致了几千万中国公民的死亡。
当“尼克松私人图书馆与出生地”近二十年前建立了这个展部的时候,尼克松总统本人建议将他在他的政治生涯中所交往过的世界主要人物放置在这个展部中。(他的书,包括许多在这间展部中所陈列的许多人物)因为毛是尼克松总统所交往过的最有影响结果的人物之一,他就被放在包括丘吉尔、梅捷夫人等的这个展部中了。
在这个展部中,毛的塑像与其他外国领袖的塑像的展出并不代表美国政府对他们的政治遗迹的政策立场。 (美国联邦档案文物局自2007年接管了尼克松图书博物馆。)
新唐人电视 www.ntdtv.com 2009-10-11 11:15
文章 视频: Link 链锁:
http://ntdtv.com/xtr/gb/2009/10/11/a360063.html
【新唐人2009年10月11日讯】
近年来,中共凭借经济手段,在海外自由世界政治、文化、宣传等领域的渗透已达到无孔不入的程度。近日,居住在美国的原中国大陆国家篮球队队员陈凯,却让中共的文化渗透在美国加州的尼克松图书馆遇到了麻烦。
美国的尼克松图书馆位于南加州橙县的Yorba Linda,与尼克松故居、墓地纪念图书馆并设在同一处。以前由非政府组织「尼克松基金会」管理,从2007年开始纳入美国国家档案馆的「总统图书馆」序列,成为联邦政府主持管理的机构,但目前的交接工作还在進行当中。
根据资料显示,这个非政府组织的「尼克松基金会」一直以来与中共来往密切,尤其近年来,其基金会主席和执行长频繁与中共方面接触。而这个美国前总统尼克松的弟弟爱德华.尼克松,更是在中国大陆河北保定投资,与中共共同开发能源「经济合作项 目」,他从1983年起至今,「访问」中国大陆达三十多次。
加州的尼克松图书馆原为美国唯一一个由前总统私人拥有的图书馆,其世界领袖厅里,陈列着10位20世纪的各国领袖,其中包括英国的丘吉尔、法国的戴高乐、苏联的勃烈日涅夫和赫鲁晓夫,德国的阿登纳、以色列的梅厄夫人、埃及的萨达特和日本的吉田茂。其他人均为站像,唯有毛泽东和周恩来是坐姿,放在前面最突出的位置。
6月中旬,居住在加州的原中国大陆国家篮球队队员陈凯以普通美国纳税人的身份,对尼克松图书馆这种明显褒扬共产独裁者的做法提出质疑,他以「热爱自由的来自中国的新移民和美国公民」的身份向尼克松图书馆方面提出交涉,呼吁将毛泽东和周恩来的铜像「马上从尼克松纪念图书馆中撤除」,他并要求图书馆方面必须回应。
稍后,新任的尼克松图书馆馆长Timothy Naftali通过电话交谈,给陈凯解释了馆方的做法,表示只是「历史呈现」。但陈凯对他的解释并不满意,并在10月1日在尼克松图书馆前发动了「全球逐毛」的抗议活动,陈凯呼吁美国社会关注中共针对美国的「软冷战」。
陈凯:每个人都应该懂得,在一个自由的社会里,我们不能让我们自己甚至让我们的敌人利用这个自由来消灭我们所珍视的自由。这个我觉得是一个非常重要的信息。今天我觉得在美国的整个社会里有一个很重大的危机,就是由中共所代表的新共产法西斯,所進行的我把它叫做「软冷战」,今天他们所使用的软冷战的武器不是导弹、不是军队、坦克对世界的威胁。而是一种更危险、更阴险的一种武器,这种武器我把它叫做道德的艾滋病、灵魂的艾滋病、良知的艾滋病。它吸引你去跟它做爱,跟它上床。然后它用来这种方式消灭你的灵魂、消灭你辨别真假是非对错。
针对陈凯的抗议活动,国家档案馆委派的新任尼克松图书馆馆长Timothy Naftali的态度很耐人寻味,他在接受洛杉矶时报采访时表示认同陈凯的观点,他也认为毛泽东是个刽子手,并在馆内贴出提示牌,提醒公众,把毛和周的铜像摆放在领袖厅内不代表美国政府的立场。
Naftali:我们很清楚告诉大家,我们要对它進行改变。我想很清楚地告诉人们,事实上我们从一开始就是这样说的,这些展览并不是我们(联邦政府)的设计。我们将展示自己的展览,那个时候观众就可以看到联邦政府的展览和尼克松私人的展览有何不同。当陈凯先生把他的担心告诉我们,认为目前展览对参观者所导致的一些认知上的迷惑,我们希望消除这种迷惑,这也就是我们为什么放置那个说明牌。
围绕着陈凯的抗议活动产生了不小的风波。《洛杉矶时报》、《橘子县周报》、MSNBC网站都有专门的报道《桔子县周报》政治评论员马特. 柯克尔在他的名为《警惕亲共倾向在美国》的文章中明确指出,中共一直以来都在利用尼克松图书馆作为给美国人和中国人洗脑的基地。文章的最后这样写道,陈凯先生:我们都为你祈祷,望你懂得你行动的真实意义。
陈凯一语:
尼克松图书馆曾放置如下公告。 但在媒体采访期间,此公告被撤下。 我想知道为什么此公告被放置与撤下及将来尼克松图书馆会如何对待此公告。 --- 陈凯
Nixon Library had displayed a sign (the content is as below)after I protested/communicated with Mr. Naftali (the Director of Nixon Library). But during the media visit to the library, the sign was taken down. I want to know why the sign was put up and taken down and what the Nixon Library is going to do with it in the near future. --- Kai Chen
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The Sign by Mao's Statue since late June, 2009:
Why is there a statue of Chairman Mao in the Nixon Library?
Many visitors have asked why this room contains a statue of Mao Zedong who was Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party from 1949 until 1976. Historians agree that Mao’s policies including the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution resulted in the deaths of many millions of Chinese citizens.
When the private Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace constructed this gallery nearly twenty years ago, President Nixon asked that it included statues of major world figures he had dealt with throughout his career. (His book leaders includes vignettes about many of the people represented in this room) Because Mao was among the most consequential people that President Nixon encountered, he was included in this gallery beside Winston Churchill, Golda Meir, and others.
The presence of the statues of Mao and other foreign leaders in this gallery does not imply that the United States government which has operated this museum since 2007 takes a position on their legacies.
--------------------------------------------------
为什么尼克松图书馆会有一个毛塑像?
许多来本馆参观的人们会问为什么在尼克松图书馆会有一个毛泽东的塑像。 毛是中国共产党主席(1949-1976)。 历史学家们都对毛有一致的看法:他的政策,包括“大跃进”和“文化大革命”导致了几千万中国公民的死亡。
当“尼克松私人图书馆与出生地”近二十年前建立了这个展部的时候,尼克松总统本人建议将他在他的政治生涯中所交往过的世界主要人物放置在这个展部中。(他的书,包括许多在这间展部中所陈列的许多人物)因为毛是尼克松总统所交往过的最有影响结果的人物之一,他就被放在包括丘吉尔、梅捷夫人等的这个展部中了。
在这个展部中,毛的塑像与其他外国领袖的塑像的展出并不代表美国政府对他们的政治遗迹的政策立场。 (美国联邦档案文物局自2007年接管了尼克松图书博物馆。)
新唐人电视 www.ntdtv.com 2009-10-11 11:15
文章 视频: Link 链锁:
http://ntdtv.com/xtr/gb/2009/10/11/a360063.html
【新唐人2009年10月11日讯】
近年来,中共凭借经济手段,在海外自由世界政治、文化、宣传等领域的渗透已达到无孔不入的程度。近日,居住在美国的原中国大陆国家篮球队队员陈凯,却让中共的文化渗透在美国加州的尼克松图书馆遇到了麻烦。
美国的尼克松图书馆位于南加州橙县的Yorba Linda,与尼克松故居、墓地纪念图书馆并设在同一处。以前由非政府组织「尼克松基金会」管理,从2007年开始纳入美国国家档案馆的「总统图书馆」序列,成为联邦政府主持管理的机构,但目前的交接工作还在進行当中。
根据资料显示,这个非政府组织的「尼克松基金会」一直以来与中共来往密切,尤其近年来,其基金会主席和执行长频繁与中共方面接触。而这个美国前总统尼克松的弟弟爱德华.尼克松,更是在中国大陆河北保定投资,与中共共同开发能源「经济合作项 目」,他从1983年起至今,「访问」中国大陆达三十多次。
加州的尼克松图书馆原为美国唯一一个由前总统私人拥有的图书馆,其世界领袖厅里,陈列着10位20世纪的各国领袖,其中包括英国的丘吉尔、法国的戴高乐、苏联的勃烈日涅夫和赫鲁晓夫,德国的阿登纳、以色列的梅厄夫人、埃及的萨达特和日本的吉田茂。其他人均为站像,唯有毛泽东和周恩来是坐姿,放在前面最突出的位置。
6月中旬,居住在加州的原中国大陆国家篮球队队员陈凯以普通美国纳税人的身份,对尼克松图书馆这种明显褒扬共产独裁者的做法提出质疑,他以「热爱自由的来自中国的新移民和美国公民」的身份向尼克松图书馆方面提出交涉,呼吁将毛泽东和周恩来的铜像「马上从尼克松纪念图书馆中撤除」,他并要求图书馆方面必须回应。
稍后,新任的尼克松图书馆馆长Timothy Naftali通过电话交谈,给陈凯解释了馆方的做法,表示只是「历史呈现」。但陈凯对他的解释并不满意,并在10月1日在尼克松图书馆前发动了「全球逐毛」的抗议活动,陈凯呼吁美国社会关注中共针对美国的「软冷战」。
陈凯:每个人都应该懂得,在一个自由的社会里,我们不能让我们自己甚至让我们的敌人利用这个自由来消灭我们所珍视的自由。这个我觉得是一个非常重要的信息。今天我觉得在美国的整个社会里有一个很重大的危机,就是由中共所代表的新共产法西斯,所進行的我把它叫做「软冷战」,今天他们所使用的软冷战的武器不是导弹、不是军队、坦克对世界的威胁。而是一种更危险、更阴险的一种武器,这种武器我把它叫做道德的艾滋病、灵魂的艾滋病、良知的艾滋病。它吸引你去跟它做爱,跟它上床。然后它用来这种方式消灭你的灵魂、消灭你辨别真假是非对错。
针对陈凯的抗议活动,国家档案馆委派的新任尼克松图书馆馆长Timothy Naftali的态度很耐人寻味,他在接受洛杉矶时报采访时表示认同陈凯的观点,他也认为毛泽东是个刽子手,并在馆内贴出提示牌,提醒公众,把毛和周的铜像摆放在领袖厅内不代表美国政府的立场。
Naftali:我们很清楚告诉大家,我们要对它進行改变。我想很清楚地告诉人们,事实上我们从一开始就是这样说的,这些展览并不是我们(联邦政府)的设计。我们将展示自己的展览,那个时候观众就可以看到联邦政府的展览和尼克松私人的展览有何不同。当陈凯先生把他的担心告诉我们,认为目前展览对参观者所导致的一些认知上的迷惑,我们希望消除这种迷惑,这也就是我们为什么放置那个说明牌。
围绕着陈凯的抗议活动产生了不小的风波。《洛杉矶时报》、《橘子县周报》、MSNBC网站都有专门的报道《桔子县周报》政治评论员马特. 柯克尔在他的名为《警惕亲共倾向在美国》的文章中明确指出,中共一直以来都在利用尼克松图书馆作为给美国人和中国人洗脑的基地。文章的最后这样写道,陈凯先生:我们都为你祈祷,望你懂得你行动的真实意义。
LA Times/China's class ceiling/cage 中国的玻璃牢笼
陈凯一语: Kai Chen's Words:
用暴力、威胁与利诱使人们放弃他们的记忆是中共党政今天维持其残喘的唯一手段。 当人们有勇气记忆起共产暴政的反人类罪行的时候,中共党政的末日就来到了。 在饭桌上往往人们回避不提的话题则是他们认为最重要的与最危险的。 --- 陈凯
Resorting to violence and the threat of violence, enticing people with economic benefit to forget what communist regime has done and is still doing to its own population is the only method employed today by the Chinese communist regime to prolong its grip on power. When people finally pluck up their courage to remember, the end of the communist regime will come. What people opt not to mention on their dinner table is often what they concern the most, and often the most dangerous subject. --- Kai Chen
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LA Times/China's class ceiling/cage 中国的玻璃牢笼
For the nation's growing economic elite, life is sweet. For dissidents and peasants, it's a different story.
By Ian Buruma
October 11, 2009
That the current ruler of the People's Republic of China, Hu Jintao, is a bore will no doubt be a relief to most people, including 1.3 billion Chinese. Hu's dullness is remarkable given the high drama of China's fairly recent transformation from a poor, blood-soaked totalitarian country to a rich (in patches) superpower aspiring to take over America's lead in the not-so-distant future. But perhaps his lack of charisma is part of the point. The first 27 years of the People's Republic, under Chairman Mao, when millions died in almost constant purges and upheavals, and tens of millions died of starvation in bizarre economic experiments, were so awful that most Chinese are quite sick of charismatic leadership.
China is the only ancient civilization in human history to have reemerged as a major force in the world. And Chinese are rightly proud of this. So why rock the boat? It is better to be ruled by boring technocrats like Hu who will keep things nice and steady.
This is not the story one might hear from unemployed workers in the rust belts of northeastern China, or from rioting farmers in Guangdong province who have been pushed off the land by greedy developers working in tandem with corrupt party officials. Nor is this view necessarily shared by the brave lawyers willing to take on some of those corrupt officials, or intellectual dissidents who still get arrested for arguing that Chinese should be entitled to basic democratic rights.
But it is the common line taken by people who benefit most from the current wave of fun, fashion and prosperity -- the new urban elite, some of whom are pampered children of Communist Party bosses. None are communist ideologues. All have taken the late leader Deng Xiaoping's "To Get Rich is Glorious" slogan seriously. And not a few of them, now in their 40s, were among the Tiananmen Square demonstrators in 1989 who demanded democratic freedoms and an end to corruption.
One pokes into this contradiction at one's peril, especially if one is a foreigner. A prominent figure in the new Beijing elite, a highly sophisticated woman who personifies the glories of getting rich in today's China, also happens to be a daughter of the Communist aristocracy. Hong Huang is a round-faced, expensively dressed media mogul who runs a string of trendy magazines. Her mother was Mao's English teacher. Her stepfather was Mao's minister of foreign affairs. Hong was partly educated in New York, and one of her husbands was the filmmaker Chen Kaige, another player in Beijing's gilded age.
A few years ago, I was taken to Hong's lovely country house in the mountains. I had been introduced by a mutual friend, the avant-garde poet Yang Lian, who lives in London with his wife, Yo Yo, a novelist. Neither Yang Lian nor Yo Yo are, strictly speaking, political dissidents. They don't write about politics much, but they are free-spirited authors who chose not to put up with the restrictions of an authoritarian society.
The evening started off amicably, with gossip about acquaintances on the Beijing scene. Then Hong started giving Yang advice. Why was he still living abroad? Why didn't he come back home? Things were great in China now. Lots of money to be made. Yang should get with the program. All that modernist poetry might fool foreigners, but life had moved on in Beijing. He should do some advertising, or maybe pop lyrics. There was no need to worry about censorship and all that, if you knew how to play the game.
A certain edginess crept into the bracing mountain air. Hong's advice began to sound more like bullying. Tiananmen had not been mentioned, but it was the elephant in the room. It was one of the reasons Yang and Yo Yo opted for residence abroad. Suddenly, Hong brought it up, turning to me as well. "Tiananmen, Tiananmen," she said, "foreign journalists are always going on about Tiananmen. I think it's time to forget about all that. We should move on and feel proud of our country. Foreigners just use it to bad-mouth China."
I felt I had to say something, but I didn't feel like picking a fight as Hong's guest. So I put it to her that the Chinese still insist on remembering the Nanking massacre of 1937, when Japanese troops went on an orgy of rape, looting and murder in what was then the Chinese capital. Indeed, this terrible event is a central part of what is now called "patriotic education." Japanese nationalists, on the other hand, want young Japanese to forget about it because they feel that it is time to move on and that the young should feel proud of their country.
Of course, I had picked a fight. And I will never forget the way Hong -- charming, cosmopolitan, New York-educated -- turned into a ranting Red Guard, screaming abuse at me, at foreigners in general and at Yang Lian and Yo Yo for defending me. Clearly a very raw nerve had been touched.
Yes, what Hong said was true. People, especially educated people with a certain cosmopolitan style, were doing all right in post-1989 China. There was money to be made, a lot of money. Fashion was booming. And so on. But at a price. And that price is what Hong called "playing the game" -- knowing what subjects to avoid, how to trim your views, how to stay out of politics. Let the dull technocrats rule China with a velvet glove -- and an iron fist for those who refuse to play the game.
To opt for this is entirely understandable. Exile is tough. And who wants to go to prison? Besides, life really is sweet for those who have made enough money and the necessary compromises. But they are compromises.
Because most foreign journalists, businessmen, diplomats and academics tend to meet educated, privileged Chinese like Hong, most reports from China reflect their views: that soft authoritarianism is good for China; that the Chinese masses are not ready for democracy; that to give them the right to vote would only create chaos. But the main argument for technocracy, heard not just from the Chinese elites but increasingly in Western countries too, is that it is more efficient. Once the rulers put their minds to something -- the Olympic Games, birth control, economic reform, perhaps even tackling pollution -- nothing and no one stands in the way of success.
People who like the idea of strong central government and top-down change are often attracted to the Chinese model. And so are businessmen who would much rather deal with authoritarian party officials than independent trade unions. China is often favorably compared with India, with its gross inefficiencies, dire poverty and huge problems with illiteracy, corruption and organized crime. Messy democracy, it might seem, is holding India back, while China is forging ahead with ever more impressive statistics.
There is some truth to this view. When I first saw Shenzhen in the 1970s, it was a tiny village across the border from Hong Kong. Since Deng Xiaoping declared, in 1982, that a new economic zone should arise there, his will soon became reality. It is now an industrial metropolis with a population of, give or take, 10 million people.
Technocracy, however, has great drawbacks too. Authoritarian technocrats are not very good in emergencies. When a devastating earthquake hit Sichuan province in 2008, killing about 70,000 people and leaving 10 million more without homes, China was much praised for its speedy and compassionate response. What has been mentioned less is that a disproportionate number of victims were children because schools collapsed. Developers had used shoddy materials and paid officials to look the other way.
Perhaps one cannot blame the technocrats in Beijing for this. But the central government should not be praised too highly either. Much of the early help came from ordinary Chinese who sped to the scene, and they were actually hindered by officials in the beginning. Later, when citizens, helped by lawyers, tried to investigate the corrupt practices that had led to the catastrophic number of children's deaths, they were blocked and, in some cases, sent to prison.
The other thing government-by-experts is singularly bad at doing goes to the heart of politics: solving conflicts of interest. Individual liberties have increased without the benefits of political liberties. The state will no longer decide whom a person can marry, where he can live, what kind of job he can seek. But any effort to further collective aims in an organized fashion independent from the state will be ruthlessly crushed. This leads to what old-fashioned Marxists called contradictions. What is good for the business elite of Shanghai may not be good for the peasants in Sichuan.
To justify its monopoly on power, the Chinese technocracy relies on the promise of order and constant economic growth, and the claim of patriotism. Supporting the government is patriotic, and criticism is unpatriotic or, if voiced by foreigners, "anti-Chinese."
But in the end, the greatest flaw in the system is that China's boring rulers are self-perpetuating. They cannot be punished by the ruled for their incompetence. Great blunders go unchecked. Conflicts of interest fester or erupt in violence. China's technocracy might well look stable and successful for a while to come, but it is unlikely to last without basic political reform. Some think the new wave of technocrats, the ones who went to Harvard or Yale, can bring this about themselves. One never knows. But as long as they haven't, I'd still put my money on messy democracy any day.
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Ian Buruma is a professor of human rights at Bard College and the author of, most recently, "The China Lover."
Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times
用暴力、威胁与利诱使人们放弃他们的记忆是中共党政今天维持其残喘的唯一手段。 当人们有勇气记忆起共产暴政的反人类罪行的时候,中共党政的末日就来到了。 在饭桌上往往人们回避不提的话题则是他们认为最重要的与最危险的。 --- 陈凯
Resorting to violence and the threat of violence, enticing people with economic benefit to forget what communist regime has done and is still doing to its own population is the only method employed today by the Chinese communist regime to prolong its grip on power. When people finally pluck up their courage to remember, the end of the communist regime will come. What people opt not to mention on their dinner table is often what they concern the most, and often the most dangerous subject. --- Kai Chen
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LA Times/China's class ceiling/cage 中国的玻璃牢笼
For the nation's growing economic elite, life is sweet. For dissidents and peasants, it's a different story.
By Ian Buruma
October 11, 2009
That the current ruler of the People's Republic of China, Hu Jintao, is a bore will no doubt be a relief to most people, including 1.3 billion Chinese. Hu's dullness is remarkable given the high drama of China's fairly recent transformation from a poor, blood-soaked totalitarian country to a rich (in patches) superpower aspiring to take over America's lead in the not-so-distant future. But perhaps his lack of charisma is part of the point. The first 27 years of the People's Republic, under Chairman Mao, when millions died in almost constant purges and upheavals, and tens of millions died of starvation in bizarre economic experiments, were so awful that most Chinese are quite sick of charismatic leadership.
China is the only ancient civilization in human history to have reemerged as a major force in the world. And Chinese are rightly proud of this. So why rock the boat? It is better to be ruled by boring technocrats like Hu who will keep things nice and steady.
This is not the story one might hear from unemployed workers in the rust belts of northeastern China, or from rioting farmers in Guangdong province who have been pushed off the land by greedy developers working in tandem with corrupt party officials. Nor is this view necessarily shared by the brave lawyers willing to take on some of those corrupt officials, or intellectual dissidents who still get arrested for arguing that Chinese should be entitled to basic democratic rights.
But it is the common line taken by people who benefit most from the current wave of fun, fashion and prosperity -- the new urban elite, some of whom are pampered children of Communist Party bosses. None are communist ideologues. All have taken the late leader Deng Xiaoping's "To Get Rich is Glorious" slogan seriously. And not a few of them, now in their 40s, were among the Tiananmen Square demonstrators in 1989 who demanded democratic freedoms and an end to corruption.
One pokes into this contradiction at one's peril, especially if one is a foreigner. A prominent figure in the new Beijing elite, a highly sophisticated woman who personifies the glories of getting rich in today's China, also happens to be a daughter of the Communist aristocracy. Hong Huang is a round-faced, expensively dressed media mogul who runs a string of trendy magazines. Her mother was Mao's English teacher. Her stepfather was Mao's minister of foreign affairs. Hong was partly educated in New York, and one of her husbands was the filmmaker Chen Kaige, another player in Beijing's gilded age.
A few years ago, I was taken to Hong's lovely country house in the mountains. I had been introduced by a mutual friend, the avant-garde poet Yang Lian, who lives in London with his wife, Yo Yo, a novelist. Neither Yang Lian nor Yo Yo are, strictly speaking, political dissidents. They don't write about politics much, but they are free-spirited authors who chose not to put up with the restrictions of an authoritarian society.
The evening started off amicably, with gossip about acquaintances on the Beijing scene. Then Hong started giving Yang advice. Why was he still living abroad? Why didn't he come back home? Things were great in China now. Lots of money to be made. Yang should get with the program. All that modernist poetry might fool foreigners, but life had moved on in Beijing. He should do some advertising, or maybe pop lyrics. There was no need to worry about censorship and all that, if you knew how to play the game.
A certain edginess crept into the bracing mountain air. Hong's advice began to sound more like bullying. Tiananmen had not been mentioned, but it was the elephant in the room. It was one of the reasons Yang and Yo Yo opted for residence abroad. Suddenly, Hong brought it up, turning to me as well. "Tiananmen, Tiananmen," she said, "foreign journalists are always going on about Tiananmen. I think it's time to forget about all that. We should move on and feel proud of our country. Foreigners just use it to bad-mouth China."
I felt I had to say something, but I didn't feel like picking a fight as Hong's guest. So I put it to her that the Chinese still insist on remembering the Nanking massacre of 1937, when Japanese troops went on an orgy of rape, looting and murder in what was then the Chinese capital. Indeed, this terrible event is a central part of what is now called "patriotic education." Japanese nationalists, on the other hand, want young Japanese to forget about it because they feel that it is time to move on and that the young should feel proud of their country.
Of course, I had picked a fight. And I will never forget the way Hong -- charming, cosmopolitan, New York-educated -- turned into a ranting Red Guard, screaming abuse at me, at foreigners in general and at Yang Lian and Yo Yo for defending me. Clearly a very raw nerve had been touched.
Yes, what Hong said was true. People, especially educated people with a certain cosmopolitan style, were doing all right in post-1989 China. There was money to be made, a lot of money. Fashion was booming. And so on. But at a price. And that price is what Hong called "playing the game" -- knowing what subjects to avoid, how to trim your views, how to stay out of politics. Let the dull technocrats rule China with a velvet glove -- and an iron fist for those who refuse to play the game.
To opt for this is entirely understandable. Exile is tough. And who wants to go to prison? Besides, life really is sweet for those who have made enough money and the necessary compromises. But they are compromises.
Because most foreign journalists, businessmen, diplomats and academics tend to meet educated, privileged Chinese like Hong, most reports from China reflect their views: that soft authoritarianism is good for China; that the Chinese masses are not ready for democracy; that to give them the right to vote would only create chaos. But the main argument for technocracy, heard not just from the Chinese elites but increasingly in Western countries too, is that it is more efficient. Once the rulers put their minds to something -- the Olympic Games, birth control, economic reform, perhaps even tackling pollution -- nothing and no one stands in the way of success.
People who like the idea of strong central government and top-down change are often attracted to the Chinese model. And so are businessmen who would much rather deal with authoritarian party officials than independent trade unions. China is often favorably compared with India, with its gross inefficiencies, dire poverty and huge problems with illiteracy, corruption and organized crime. Messy democracy, it might seem, is holding India back, while China is forging ahead with ever more impressive statistics.
There is some truth to this view. When I first saw Shenzhen in the 1970s, it was a tiny village across the border from Hong Kong. Since Deng Xiaoping declared, in 1982, that a new economic zone should arise there, his will soon became reality. It is now an industrial metropolis with a population of, give or take, 10 million people.
Technocracy, however, has great drawbacks too. Authoritarian technocrats are not very good in emergencies. When a devastating earthquake hit Sichuan province in 2008, killing about 70,000 people and leaving 10 million more without homes, China was much praised for its speedy and compassionate response. What has been mentioned less is that a disproportionate number of victims were children because schools collapsed. Developers had used shoddy materials and paid officials to look the other way.
Perhaps one cannot blame the technocrats in Beijing for this. But the central government should not be praised too highly either. Much of the early help came from ordinary Chinese who sped to the scene, and they were actually hindered by officials in the beginning. Later, when citizens, helped by lawyers, tried to investigate the corrupt practices that had led to the catastrophic number of children's deaths, they were blocked and, in some cases, sent to prison.
The other thing government-by-experts is singularly bad at doing goes to the heart of politics: solving conflicts of interest. Individual liberties have increased without the benefits of political liberties. The state will no longer decide whom a person can marry, where he can live, what kind of job he can seek. But any effort to further collective aims in an organized fashion independent from the state will be ruthlessly crushed. This leads to what old-fashioned Marxists called contradictions. What is good for the business elite of Shanghai may not be good for the peasants in Sichuan.
To justify its monopoly on power, the Chinese technocracy relies on the promise of order and constant economic growth, and the claim of patriotism. Supporting the government is patriotic, and criticism is unpatriotic or, if voiced by foreigners, "anti-Chinese."
But in the end, the greatest flaw in the system is that China's boring rulers are self-perpetuating. They cannot be punished by the ruled for their incompetence. Great blunders go unchecked. Conflicts of interest fester or erupt in violence. China's technocracy might well look stable and successful for a while to come, but it is unlikely to last without basic political reform. Some think the new wave of technocrats, the ones who went to Harvard or Yale, can bring this about themselves. One never knows. But as long as they haven't, I'd still put my money on messy democracy any day.
--------------------------------------------------
Ian Buruma is a professor of human rights at Bard College and the author of, most recently, "The China Lover."
Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times
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