"Why do people pretend that a political system that rolls tanks and artillery out against civilians without weapons represents a government worthy of our admiration or (is such a word possible?) affection?"
If he truly would like an answer, he could do worse than to ask his fellow China Post colleague, "Traitor Joe" Hung.
"After the conquest [of Taiwan], China would rule Taiwan as a province as Japan did from 1895 to 1945. The Japanese colonizers did improve the life of the colonized a great deal. The Chinese conquerors would outperform the Japanese."
"Perhaps, it may be much better to be conquered for Taiwan's next generation and those after them. All's well that ends well."
Chinese ships have been ramming into and firing water cannons at Vietnamese vessels trying to stop Beijing from putting an oil rig in the South China Sea, according to officials and video footage Wednesday, in a dangerous escalation of tensions over waters considered a global flashpoint.
Thousands of Vietnamese set fire to foreign factories and rampaged in industrial zones in the south of the country in an angry reaction to Chinese oil drilling in a part of the South China Sea claimed by Vietnam, officials said on Wednesday.
The brunt of Tuesday's violence, one of the worst breakdowns in Sino-Vietnamese relations since the neighbours fought a brief border war in 1979, appears to have been borne by Taiwanese firms in the zones in Binh Duong and Dong Nai provinces that were mistaken for Chinese-owned companies.
[...]
Gates were smashed and rioters set 15 factories on fire...
China cannot expect Vietnamese to respect Chinese property rights while the Chinese blithely violate theirs.
But it's a shame that this perfectly-understandable anger was taken out on the Taiwanese, though. Because (as readers of this blog are no doubt aware): Taiwanese are not Chinese.
In vain, Taiwanese companies themselves belatedly scrambled to communicate this elementary fact:
Some Taiwanese firms had spray-painted messages on the road and across their gates saying "We Support Vietnam" in an effort to distinguish themselves from Chinese enterprises.
Perhaps the current government of Taiwan might have alleviated the situation if had spent less time pretending to be China, and concentrated its efforts on sending the message that Taiwan is a completely different country altogether.
“We have to establish a distinct identity [from China],” Mr. [Antonio] Chiang said. “Or not only will this happen in Vietnam, but other countries, too.”
Oh, my goodness! What a strange little paracosm the editors of the China Post dwell in!
Here's the China Post, on how it imagines we foreigners think of Lady Chiang Kai-shek:
On display at the “Forever Madame Chiang” exhibit [at Taiwan's Dead Dictator Memorial Hall] are more than 250 photos and memorabilia of May-ling Soong, better known in the West as China's eternal first lady. [Emphasis added]
Where to begin?
Listen, about the only China-related epithet Westerners are familiar with is "Butcher of Beijing". And that's really about it.
Now in all fairness, there isa book by that name. But since it languishes somewhere around #680,000 on Amazon's best seller's list, we can safely conclude that the phrase is not likely to ever catch on.
As a Westerner, my hypothesis is that in terms of recognition:
Madame Chiang Kai-shek>May-ling Soong>>>"China's eternal first lady"
In the next day or two, I'll poll a few people here in Waiguoren-land, and see how my prediction holds up.
1,600 Chinese missiles targetted on Taiwan, ready to rain terror down on its citizens at any time...yet Taiwan's China Post distracts its readers with a jeremiad against American drones somewhere off in far-flung Yemen, or Pakistan, or wherever.
So on the basis of this, I'd have to say, no, David Kan Ting of Taiwan's China Post DOES NOT take pleasure in innocent Chinese being mowed down by automatic machine gun fire.
But not so fast. You see, Soong May-ling is long dead-and-gone. And now, David Kan Ting has a new female hero. (A she-ro, if you will.) His latest idol de jour is Peng Liyuan, first lady ogress of China.
(Peng Liyuan, entertaining PLA troops after the Tiananmen Massacre. Unlike Elvis, she don't look "all shook up". Thousands of Chinese murdered? Time to par-tay!
Image from the International Business Times)
So we come once more back to the original question: Does David Kan Ting of Taiwan's China Post take pleasure in innocent Chinese being mowed down by automatic machine gun fire?
Given Dave's rather eclectic choice of heroes, the best that can be said is that the answer is...inconclusive.
But I digress. My goal here is not to investigate Soong May-ling's place in history, but to ascertain her attitude concerning the Tiananmen Massacre.
† Since the China Post does not have online archives extending as far back as 1989, this is a second-hand quote by Soong May-ling, from a source whose reliability is suspect (to say the very least!)
The main title exaggerates slightly: China's current first lady, Peng Liyuan, didn't personally butcher any Chinese at Tiananmen Square. That we know of...
A photo of China's new first lady Peng Liyuan in younger days, singing to martial-law troops following the 1989 bloody military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, flickered across Chinese cyberspace this week.
It was swiftly scrubbed from China's Internet before it could generate discussion online. But the image — seen and shared by outside observers — revived a memory the leadership prefers to suppress and shows one of the challenges in presenting Peng on the world stage as the softer side of China.
Meanwhile, David Kan Ting of Taiwan's pro-Communist China Post earlier this week beclowned himself by breathlessly praising the bestial Peng. A sampling of quotes:
China's new first lady was as graceful and glamorous as a supermodel when she emerged from Air China's 747 jetliner... --David Kan Ting, The China Post, Wed Mar 27, 2013
Peng Liyuan captivated millions of fans the moment she stepped into the international limelight. Wearing a smile and dressed in a simple black peacoat, she waved... --David Kan Ting, The China Post, Wed Mar 27, 2013
She is the United Nations ambassador for health, working to stamp out the scourge of AIDS. It seems that she possesses every quality necessary for accomplishing the daunting mission before her. --David Kan Ting, The China Post, Wed Mar 27, 2013 [Evidently, soullessness is now a UN job prerequisite. -- The Foreigner]
The star of Peng Liyuan is rising, to the ecstasy of her people at home who have never felt so proud in their lives. Some bloggers described her as “elegant and magnificent,” while others gushed over her “talents and beauty.” --David Kan Ting, The China Post, Wed Mar 27, 2013 [Tell us, Dave, for we really must know: Is she more elegant than magnificent...or more magnificent than she is elegant? Only a dedicated truth-seeker such as yourself can ever hope to be impartial enough to solve this baffling mystery. --The Foreigner]
It seems that the fever about Peng Liyuan is not going to recede any time soon, and rightly so. --David Kan Ting, The China Post, Wed Mar 27, 2013 [Ting's got a fever, and the only prescription...is more Chinese corpses. --The Foreigner]
Now with the godsend [represented by Peng Liyuan's very existence], it's worth the long wait. --David Kan Ting, The China Post, Wed Mar 27, 2013
Whoa, Dave, take a saltpeter or something. Not to run you down or anything, but I haven't seen analysis this objective since last week's hard-hitting expose on Justin Bieber.
David Ting began his slobbery fanboi column by humming an old Taiwanese tune from the '80s titled, "The Drizzle Comes Just In Time." (Drizzle being a good thing, Ting informs us, especially after a period of a long drought.)
Well, it might come as a surprise, but I, too, cannot help humming a tune from the '80s when I now think of Peng Liyuan. Granted, it's not nearly as famous as Ting's -- just some obscure song by a little-known band that never went anywhere. Maybe you've heard of it though.
It's called, Another One Bites The Dust.
Given that China's new first lady, Peng Liyuan, publicly supported the massacre of thousands of her own countrymen, it seems entirely appropriate. (And as an added bonus, it's even got lyrics about machine guns, bullets and dead men dropping like flies as well.)
Postscript: Other '80s songs which could serve as lietmotifs for China's bloodthirsty first lady ogress:
Hit Me With Your Best Shot -- Pat Benetar
Cold-Hearted Snake -- Paula Abdul
I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight -- Cutting Crew
It's A Sin -- Pet Shop Boys
Wipeout -- Fat Boys & Beachboys
What Have You Done For Me Lately? -- Janet Jackson
Don't Forget Me When I'm Gone -- Glass Tiger
Everybody Wants To Rule The World -- Tears for Fears
A View To A Kill -- Duran Duran
Eyes Without A Face -- Billy Idol
An Innocent Man -- Billy Joel
Do You Really Want To Hurt Me? -- Culture Club
Der Kommissar -- After the Fire
Back On The Chain Gang -- The Pretenders
Overkill -- Men at Work
Hard To Say I'm Sorry -- Chicago
Hurts So Good -- John Cougar Mellencamp
Stop Draggin' My Heart Around -- Stevie Nicks
Guilty -- Barbara Streisand & Barry Gibb
[Don't!] Do That To Me One More Time -- Captain & Tennille
Cruel Summer -- Bananarama
UPDATE: One wonders what '80s song Fang Zheng recalls when thinking about Peng Liyuan?
Having been "liberated" from his legs by the tank treads of an "elegant" and "magnificent" PLA panzer, Fang no doubt bitterly remembers the Pet Shop Boys' What Have I Done To Deserve This?
No word yet from David Ting on whether Fang Zheng wore a pair of absolutelyFABULOUS designer prosthetics to the inauguration of Peng Liyuan's husband. They must've been simply to-die-for though, right Dave?
Like Peng Liyuan, Asma too was the subject of journalistic puff pieces -- which were quietly withdrawn out of sheer embarrassment once her husband began massacring Syrians.
UPDATE #2: All copies of Vogue's infamous "A Rose In The Desert" article have apparently been scrubbed from the internet, save for this one on a Bashar al-Assad fan-site run by an employee of the (ahem!) Syrian State News Agency living in Rome. As for the profile's author, Joan Juliet Buck, she regrets ever writing it.
Been a while since I last checked the blog, and I noticed a comment on my Tsai Eng-meng post.
For those unfamiliar with Tsai Eng-meng, Tsai Eng-meng is a Taiwanese food magnate. Got his start in Taiwan, but made it big in China.
Upon returning to Taiwan, Tsai bought up some Taiwanese news media organs. And changed their editorial stances to more Communist-friendly positions.
But around the beginning of 2012, Tsai caused a stir in an interview with the Washington Post, remarking that the Chinese Communists were jolly good fellows who just couldn't possibly have killed very many people at Tiananmen Square. His reason for thinking so? Because the driver of a single tank hesitated to run over the iconic "Tank Man" of Tiananmen Square.
(As I recall, he also expressed scorn for Taiwan's hard-won democratic freedom, which he derided as a poor substitute for a walletful of Chinese redbacks.)
And so, without further ado, I submit my replies to one of Tsai's comradely supporters.
Jon: Not to side with Tsai here...
The Foreigner: Here it comes...
Jon: ...but he was citing the fact that the "Tank Man" lie [sic], which is often perpetuated in western media.
The Foreigner: Can I interrupt to say that it suits you? The whole passive-aggression routine, I mean.
If experience is any guide, I do believe you're fishing for some kind of groveling apology.
Jon: For example a supermajority of Americans believe falsely that the "Tank Man" at Tiananmen was run over by those tanks.
The Foreigner:Bullshit.
A cursory web check of the New York Times, Newsweek and Time reveals nothing of the kind. NONE of them declare that Tank Man was definitely run over by tanks at Tiananmen.
Furthermore, I find it exceedingly difficult to believe anybody wasted good money to poll Americans about "Tank Man". But, assuming for the moment that it IS true, you forgot to mention that the Chinese DID run over at least one man (Fang Zheng) with their tanks. (To this day, the Communist propaganda ministry maintains that Fang Zheng lost his legs in an everyday, run-of-the-mill "traffic accident".)
So perhaps Americans' beliefs are a perfectly understandable result of mistaken identity:
Tank Man gets photographed in front of limb-crushing tanks.
Fang Zheng is photographed minus a couple of limbs (compliments of Tsai Eng-meng's Communist benefactors).
Mental conflation of Tank Man (who was NOT run over by Chinese tanks) with Fang Zheng (who WAS run over by Chinese tanks).
But here's a crazy PR suggestion: if the Chinese don't want Westerners to think they run people over with tanks...MAYBE they should stop running people over with their tanks!
Jon: He is still alive according to most accounts and the "conspiracy theory" sites claim he died months later.
The Foreigner: It is, of course, a red herring to bring up the fate of any one single individual (Tank Man) in the face of a massacre of thousands. Tsai's hasty generalization is that since Tank Man MAY have survived, then "not that many [Chinese demonstrators] could really have died."
And if Anne Frank were to turn up alive tomorrow, would this Communist quisling then argue that the Jewish Holocaust never happened?
Also, it's patently untrue to say Tank Man is still alive according to "most accounts". Wikipedia -- hardly a "conspiracy theory" site -- points out the conflicting stories on that score.
If he IS alive, let him come forward to say so to the media.
Oh, that's right. He can't. Because if he comes forward, the Chinese government will kill him.
Golly. Maybe the Butchers of Beijing really AREN'T the nice, harmless guys Tsai Eng-meng claims they are. Ya think?
Jon: As for "democracy-hating", there is nobody who truly loves ALL democracy. For example, the Weimar Republic elected Hitler.
The Foreigner: The "Weimar Republic" didn't vote for Hitler. The political system known as "democracy" didn't vote for Hitler.
MEN voted for Hitler. Men who hated democracy, and wanted it abolished.
Men such as Tsai Eng-meng. And yourself.
It was Germany's great misfortune that these men got what they wished for.
Jon: The French Republic massacred women and children (guillotined them).
The Foreigner: Straw man. Democracy, as a term describing a form of government advocated in the modern world, does not include the French revolutionary model lacking constitional safeguards (formal and informal).
But allow me to make a further rebuttal to your line of thinking. Around the time of the French revolution, doctors carried out a host of unproven treatments, some of which were either ineffective or even downright harmful to their patients (blistering of the skin or confinement for psychological problems, bloodletting, enema use, frontal lobotomies, "spermatorrhoea" prevention, homeopathy, and purging).
On the other hand, they also pioneered procedures which have stood the test of time, such as vaccinations, percussion-based diagnosis, and various surgical techniques.
Only an ignoramus would argue that modern doctors should be loathed and present-day medicine rejected out-of-hand simply because doctors of the past once used some questionable practices.
By the same token, only the genuinely infantile reject modern liberal democracy simply because 200 years ago, some long-dead Frenchmen didn't recognize the importance of checks-and-balances, the necessity of constitutionalism, and the limits to the perfectability of man.
The Foreigner: Excuse me while I look that up in the latest edition of the Oxford Chinglish Dictionary.
Jon: ...a million Filipinos in the Philippine-American War, where the US conquered and annexed an independent nation, destroying their Republic, even though the Philippine Republic used the US constitution.
The Foreigner: I believe the number is closer to 250,000...and it's debatable whether it was a deliberate genocide.
But rather than argue about numbers, I'd like to point out that most of the casualties were caused by out-of-control military officers who went far beyond what the civilian leadership ever intended. It's a cause for celebration that modern democracies have matured and figured out that their militaries need to be kept on a much tighter leash.
Why and how did this maturation take place? It occurred because democracies are blessed with a built-in feedback mechanism: the free press. In short, American anti-imperialist papers were free to report atrocities, and thereby helped bring them to an end.
Which is something that doesn't ever happen in Tsai Eng-meng's glorious Communist utopia.
Or in Tsai Eng-meng's pro-Communist newspapers, for that matter.
Oh, one last thing before we move on...you neglected to mention that America went to the Philippines with the ultimate goal of granting it its independence. Which it did, in 1946.
Poor Tibet should be so lucky!
Jon[referring to dead Philippinos]: Rather funny. Democracy is a joke.
The Foreigner: Number of Chinese murdered (or, in your parlance, "genocided") by the anti-democratic doctrine within the last 50 years: 36,000,000. Number of Chinese killed by democracy within the last 50 years: 0.
Which of those two numbers is greater than the other, Jon?
I'll allow you to take your time to figure that out. Math is hard.
But since you're fond of jokes, here's a riddle for you:
Q: What do you call an Uncle Com who tries to bamboozle people into thinking the Chinese don't run their citizens over with tanks, when he's fully aware that they DO run their citizens over with tanks?
A: A lying asshole.
But I guess you've probably heard that one before.
Jon: If you go to any of the 200 democratic countries of the world...
The Foreigner: Which "world" are you referring to? Here on planet Earth, there are only 78 democracies.
Jon: ...everyone on the street will say it's a democracy, but ask them if they can be president or a congressman, and the average folk always say "no", and ask why, and they say because they lack money or influence.
Basically democracy only elects the aristocracy (wealth or fame).
The Foreigner: Have you ever heard of a guy named Barack Obama (D)? Or Bill Clinton (D)? Or Ronald Reagan (R)? [Apr 10 / 2013 Update: Or Richard Nixon (R)?]
Word on the street is that they all came from fairly modest beginnings...
But you labor under a misconception. Liberal democracy entails the consent of the demos. It does NOT mean that everyone gets to be president for their fricken' birthday.
Money and influence help in life. If you don't have 'em, you may have to set your immediate sights a little lower. Run for dog catcher. Or the PTA. Or city commissioner.
Bust your ass at it. Do a good job. Don't steal from the public purse. Don't get caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy.
Do all that, and you just might get further than you ever thought you could.
But even should you fail there's one final thought you may yet still console yourself with: your well-meaning efforts have not landed you in a urine-soaked Communist political prison.
Jon: Aristotle hated democracy for this reason and preferred monarchy.
The Foreigner: Was that the reason? Or was it because he was born an aristocrat, and was quite naturally predisposed towards the form of government under which he was privileged? (Or, along similar lines, was it because he worked for Alexander the Great, and knew which side his bread was buttered?)
Nevertheless, I understand Aristotle also believed that there were some men whose very natures destined them for slavery. Never much cared for the notion, although I'm perfectly willing to admit he may have been right..about individuals such as yourself.
Aristotle: "The principle that the multitude ought to be supreme rather than the few best is one that is maintained, and, though not free from difficulty, yet seems to contain an element of truth.For the many, of whom each individual is but an ordinary person, when they meet together may very likely be better than the few good, if regarded not individually but collectively, just as a feast to which many contribute is better than a dinner provided out of a single purse. For each individual among the many has a share of virtue and prudence, and when they meet together, they become in a manner one man, who has many feet, and hands, and senses; that is a figure of their mind and disposition. Hence the many are better judges than a single man of music and poetry; for some understand one part, and some another, and among them they understand the whole." -- Politics, Book 3.11
I'm not sensin' any of that "hate" you were talkin' about. He may have had his druthers, but unlike Tsai Eng-meng, he was at least honest enough to give democracy its due.
(And he certainly deserves credit for his intuition about the Wisdom of Crowds, long before anyone ever coined the phrase.)
Jon: And ALL of the Greek philosophers disagreed with elections, but rather preferred representatives to be chosen at random.
The Foreigner: It should then be a relatively simple matter for you to name at least five of them who held this opinion.
(Shaky camera-work alert. To listen, click PLAY and scroll the video off the screen.)
Update (Nov 8/2012): Tsai Eng-meng finds himself in the fine company of notable ancient Greek philosopherMahmoud Fraudmadinejad.
Update (Dec 7/2012): What's that, Ari? You'd like to weigh in on the subject of democracy again? Why certainly, be my guest...
"The basis of a democratic state is liberty; which, according to the common opinion of men, can only be enjoyed in such a state; this they affirm to be the great end of every democracy." --Aristotle, Politics Book 6.2
So, to paraphrase Jon's philosophical hero, Aristotle: "Liberty is the great result of every democracy."
Which just might be why would-be tyrants hate it so.
Update (Jan 9/2013): Jon averred:
"Basically democracy ONLY elects the aristocracy (wealth or fame)." [Emphasis added]
I gave 3 examples disproving this assertion. But this refutes the claim even more convincingly:
The chart plainly shows that half those in the U.S. Congress AREN'T wealthy. That works out to about 267 people (535 members of Congress / 2 = 267.5).
If someone has evidence that these 267 non-wealthy people are all incredibly famous (and yet, for some reason, not millionaires), then I'd be very interested in seeing it.
So it seems that there is a system in which only the rich and famous obtain political power. However, the evidence shows that that system is not democracy, but the one beloved by Tsai Eng-meng: Chinese Communism.
Update (Jul 24/2015): Yet more evidence that Communists always lie. What was that Jon said?
"the Philippine Republic used the US constitution"
The style of the document is patterned after the Spanish Constitution of 1812, which many Latin American charters from the same period similarly follow.
A Washington Post image of Tsai Eng-meng, billionaire chairman of the Taiwanese food/media company, The Want Want conglomerate.
It seems that with the recent re-election of Taiwan's capitulationist president Ma Ying-jeou, the island country's small population of pro-Communist plutocrats feel emboldened to out themselves as Tiananmen Massacre denialists. Or are they simply angling for jobs in Ma's propaganda ministry?
Tsai said he . . . used to fear China’s ruling Communist Party and didn’t want to risk doing business on the mainland, but that changed after the 1989 military assault on student protesters in Tiananmen Square. While the crackdown outraged most in Taiwan, Tsai said he was struck by footage of a lone protester standing in front of a People’s Liberation Army tank. The fact that the man wasn’t killed, he said, showed that reports of a massacre were not true: “I realized that not that many people could really have died.”
Wow. It gives pause to realize these are not merely the views of a isolated flake, but the views peddled by Tsai Eng-meng's newspaper and television divisions all across the nation-formerly-known-as-Taiwan.
For the sake of consumers, one can only hope that Want Want's food is less poisonous ☠ than the noxious views of its black-hearted chairman.
Postscript: The Taipei Times reports a somewhat...less-than-overwhelming response to Tsai's Tiananmen revisionism (and his concurrent calls for a swift Taiwanese surrender):
Several netizens have also vowed to boycott food products from Tsai’s business chains, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported on Tuesday. At press time last night, a “Resist the Want Want Group” page created on Facebook on Tuesday — whose boycott will continue until April 24 — had attracted 405 followers.
Not exactly the tar-and-feathers treatment, is it?
A whopping four hundred and five people.
Will boycott Want Want's products.
For the next three (count 'em, 3!) months.
(Bet the democracy-hating sonofabitch loses lots of sleep over THAT.)
Clashes broke out between Tibet support groups and Grand Hotel staff in the lobby yesterday after the management canceled a room reservation made by the groups in preparation for the arrival of a delegation headed by Sichuan Province Governor Jiang Jufeng (蔣巨峰).
“We have signed a [room rental] contract with you and it was clearly written on the contract that the room would be used to hold a press conference. How can you cancel our reservation at the last minute? Is this how the Grand Hotel honors its business contracts?” Taiwan Friends of Tibet (TFOT) president Chow Mei-li (周美里) asked Grand Hotel manager Michael Chen (陳行中) after being informed of the cancelation. [emphasis added]
Granted, it's understandable that the hotel management would want to avoid unpleasantness under their roof. The type of unpleasantness that might ensue after renting rooms to antagonistic parties. However, a contract is a contract, and having signed it the hotel was obligated to manage the situation as best it could.
But instead, hotel management decided to compound their error by plunging themselves into a public relations fiasco:
More serious verbal and physical conflict broke out when Tibetans accompanying Chow grew impatient and took out banners and Tibetan flags that were to be used to decorate the news conference venue. They shouted slogans calling on Jiang to release the more than 300 monks arrested from Kirti Monastery in the predominantly Tibetan area of Ngaba in Sichuan Province and to withdraw troops and police that had placed the monastery under siege.
The manager and other members of the hotel management tried to take the signs and banners from the Tibetans by force.
The two sides pushed and shoved, while hotel management and staffers chased Tibetans running around the lobby with Tibetan flags in hand. [emphasis added]
What a lovely picture that makes -- tourism workers in democratic Taiwan reduced to acting as paid goons of the Chinese Communist Party.
"Room service? This is the C.C.P. delegation. Someone here spotted a cockroach and a Tibetan on the premises. Would you kindly send somebody up to remove them?"
(Operating under the theory that "no publicity is bad publicity", thugs in the employ of Taipei's Grand Hotel set upon an unarmed Tibetan dissident in full view of press photographers. Image from the Taipei Times.)
But the hotel's antics were was all for nothing, because when police arrived, they took one look at the rental contract and admitted the Tibetans had a point. After which management conceded, grudgingly allowing the press conference to go forward . . . in a different room in the hotel.
From their grotesque opposition to defensive weaponry for Taiwan, to their sly anti-Dalai Lama rhetoric, to their enthusiastic support of the Politburo's demeaning "Chinese Taipei" appellation for the R.O.C., down to their unseemly cheerleading for the modern Chinese economic model (& on occassion, its political leadership as well) -- all these stances for several years now have made the paper's sell-out apparent to all.
But I'd always chalked-up the KMT mouthpiece's new-found pro-Communist leanings to the sentiments of Chinese ultranationalists who had made their peace with 'Communism' (if not 'communism'). How wrong I was.
As the paper was once fond of saying, cui bono?
That's Latin for, "Who benefits?" Or in the modern vernacular, "Follow the money".
[Pretty graphic image in the postscript. Readers may not wish to be eating while they scroll down.]
Interesting study concluding that babies as young as 6 months old already have the rudiments of a conscience, and can tell the difference between right and wrong (in their own fashion). Not sure that I necessarily buy the method behind it, but intuitively the general concept seems valid -- that morality is hardwired in us at birth to some degree or another.
Of course there are always exceptions, whom we generally describe as being sociopaths. Take for example, when the subject of the revolutions taking place in the Middle East came up. Carl Natong, a frequent commenter at Taiwan's pro-Communist China Post, had this to say:
Just think of our own country and family. Never mind about DEMOCRACY, COMMUNIST or other's system of gov't. Never mind what Uncle Sam shouting about DEMOCRACY.
Translation: a pig is a dog is a boy. Mullah Omar = the Dalai Lama = Ayatollah Khomeini = Mahatma Gandhi. And oh yes, all political systems are created equal. Who are WE to judge?
(And when Chiang Kai-shek or the Chinese Communist Party give you the orders to kill unarmed civilian protesters -- be it February 28th or June 4th -- you'd better damn well shoot. You OBEY the bloody orders your Chinese Fuhrer gives you. And you do it for mom, pop and the Fatherland.)
Poor Carl. Now that Taiwan's a democracy, the poor dear must be ever so disappointed that he can't find that plum political prison kapo job he was born and bred to believe was his birthright.
As an antidote to Carl Natong's ravings, I offer a short quote from someone who has just a little more grey matter. Someone who IS able to distinguish the difference between dictatorship and democracy. Someone who was there at Tahrir Square when Egypt's dictator went into forced retirement. A blogger who goes by the nomme-de-guerreSandmonkey:
Tonight will be the first night where I go to bed and don't have to worry about state security hunting me down, or about government goons sent to kidnap me; or about government sponsored hackers attacking my website. Tonight, for the first time ever, I feel free…and it is awesome!
Postscript: Lot of Sinofascist conspiracy-theorizing at that China Post link, speculating about who are the devious instigators behind the current Middle Eastern demonstrations. (America and the CIA of course being the perennial favorites. Although it is strange that none of the Post's resident whackjobs have yet to mention the Japanese the Nipponese, the Jooos, the Alien Saucer people or hallucinogens in the Nescafe. But just give 'em some time . . .)
Truth be told, the only instigators are the Arab leaders themselves. Hosni Mubarek was pressured for THIRTY FREAKIN' YEARS by FIVE different American administrations to democratize -- or at least liberalize -- and the stupid bastard didn't. (In that sense, he shares a lot in common with another stupid evil bastard, Chiang Kai-shek.)
So eventually the balloon goes up, because people have decided that they didn't want to put up with any of Mubarek's shit anymore. Exactly why this is so hard for the China Post and its tinfoil hat-wearing commenters, I really don't know.
(What's doubly tragic is that the Communist Party of China no doubt believes their own idiotic propaganda that democracy is a Western plot to destabilize their country, and will take all the wrong lessons from Egypt and Libya. So instead of liberalizing and aiming for a soft landing, they'll add to their apparatus of coercion and repression. "Oh, look at us, we are so damn clever." Thereby doing nothing more than postponing the Gotterdammerung that's certain to happen there someday when the population explodes in hateful rage. And when that day happens and Chinese blood is flowing through the streets like a river, it will be the C.C.P.'s own damn fault.)
Again, I quote Sandmonkey, who tells how the benevolent Egyptian regime treated a blogger who was documenting police corruption. It's eerily similar to some of the human rights abuses one hears about in China:
[Khaled Said was] a 28 year old Alexandrian man, who got killed on the hands of two policemen a few days ago [This was back in June of 2010 -- The Foreigner]. And the story is equally disturbing and terrifying in its simplicity: He simply was sitting in a Cyber Cafe, when two policemen walked inside and demanded the ID's of everyone who was sitting there. When he refused to give it to them, they grabbed him, tied him up, dragged him out of the Cafe, took him to a nearby building where for 20 minutes they beat him to death, smashing his head on the handrail of the staircase, while he screamed and begged for his life, and as people around watched helplessly, knowing that if they did something, they would be accused of assaulting a police officer, which would pretty much guarantee them a similar fate. This went on for 20 minutes. Think about that. You are beaten to death, by those who swore to protect you, while the people in your neighborhood watched silently, and as your pleas for mercy fell on deaf ears. 28. Not yet married. Still having the rest of your life ahead of you. No More.
After the police discovered he died, they took the dead body to the Police station, where the Police [Chief] ordered them to throw it back on the street and call an ambulance, in order not to be held responsible for him. When his brother- who had American citizenship- found out, he went and confronted the head of the Police in his neighborhood, who told him that the story isn't true, and that his brother was a known drug offender and that he died from asphyxiation, for swallowing a bag of drugs when the police caught him with it.
This is Khaled before the "Asphyxiation":
This is Khaled after his "Asphyxiation":
Sandmonkey sardonically remarks:
"Amazing what Asphyxiation does to you these days, no?"
It's worth noting that under the former military dictatorship of the Chinese Nationalist Party, Taiwan too had its own share of 'accidental' deaths. Which thankfully, are now mercifully rare -- since the advent of democracy. And oh, what a bitter pill that must be to Carl and the rest of his fellow KMT die-hards!
One thing I DO wonder though: did Khaled here take Carl Natong's Peter-Pan advice and "just think of his own family and country" while the cops of Mubarek's dictatorship were beating him into an unrecognizable pulp?
And if he DID follow Carl Natong's perfectly marvelous suggestion, did "just thinking of his own family and country" during his last few horrific minutes on this earth make his journey into the next world one iota easier?
The story does have an epilogue, though, which Sandmonkey doesn't elaborate on. Only 7 months after this atrocity, one of the chief communication centers for the opposition rallies was an Egyptian Facebook page. A page titled, coincidentally, "We are Khalid Said".
It's a page which currently has 464,000 friends.
Correction: Make that 464,000 -- and counting . . .
UPDATE #3: Great stuff from Michael Totten on Libya. And he also wrote this, a long but amazing travelogue of his trip there (I believe from 2004). A sample:
I met one shopkeeper who opened right up when he and I found ourselves alone in his store.
“Do Americans know much about Libya?” he said.
“No,” I said. “Not really.”
He wanted to teach me something about his country, but he didn’t know where to start. So he recited encyclopedia factoids.
[ . . . ]
“And Qaddafi is our president,” he said. “About him, no comment.” He laughed, but I don’t think he thought it was funny.
“Oh, come on,” I said. “Comment away. I don’t live here.”
He thought about that. For a long drawn-out moment, he calculated the odds and weighed the consequences. Then the dam burst.
“We hate that fucking bastard, we have nothing to do with him. Nothing. We keep our heads down and our mouths shut. We do our jobs, we go home. If I talk, they will take me out of my house in the night and put me in prison.
“Qaddafi steals,” he told me. “He steals from us.” He spoke rapidly now, twice as fast as before, as though he had been holding back all his life. He wiped sweat off his forehead with trembling hands. “The oil money goes to his friends. Tunisians next door are richer and they don’t even have any oil.”
“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“We get three or four hundred dinars each month to live on. Our families are huge, we have five or six children . . ."
Hmm. "Keep your heads down and your mouths shut." To a Sinofascist of Carl Natong's ilk, there's a rosy vision of Taiwan's Paradise Lost.
When Mahmoudi created his pretend profile on Mawada, he figured 50,000 supporters would be enough to take to the streets. But using various aliases on the dating site, he said he ended up with 171,323 "admirers" by the time Libya's Internet crashed last Saturday.
Pity that I can't locate the video clip for y'all.
Also some very hopeful stuff there on the emergence of civil society in Libya based on the tribes. Of course, tribalism is a dirty word at Taiwan's China Post -- but it should be remembered that it was the tribes of Iraq which prevented Al Qaeda from seizing power there.
Don't imagine he'll ever make it out alive. Because to paraphrase Casablanca's Captain Renault: The Chinese Nationalist Party still hasn't quite decided whether he'll commit suicide or die while trying to escape.
On second thought, this is Lien Chan of Taiwan's Chinese Nationalist Party we're talkin' about. And the man has his priorities. When someone of his ilk has to choose between standing up for democracy advocates or bringing pandas to Taiwan, there's really no contest.
(All my panda-huggin', all my panda-kissin', you don't know what you've been a-missin'...) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As for Japan, we'll see. On the one hand, Prime Minister Kan seems willing to bend over backwards to appease the PRC. On the other, his poll numbers seem to be tanking as a result:
Public support for Prime Minister Naoto Kan's Cabinet has plunged 14.9 points since early October to 32.7 percent, reflecting growing frustration with the government . . . reflect[ing] public dissatisfaction with the government's handling of Japan's row with China and a political funds scandal dogging ruling party kingpin Ichiro Ozawa.
Aw, you know. And just when I thought I'd done the whole "Ayatollah Ma Ying-jeou" thing to death, the ruling KMT party graciously provides more material:
Great fun at the China Post's comments section there. With anti-Semitic Chinese knuckledraggers who are apparently still unaware that Israel left Gaza a few YEARS ago. And a buffoon who insists the issue is a sacred matter of R.O.C. sovereignty -- after voicing in a previous thread his approval for Peking to determine Taiwan's immigration policies.
UPDATE: Has anyone in Taiwan had the gumption to ask the urbane, American-educated Ma what his position is on the stoning of adulteresses? Or is that something they didn't cover at Harvard Law School?
Rebiya Kadeer forbidden to enter Taiwan for three years by Ma Ying-jeou's cronies in Immigration. The story in today's Taipei Times. Although curiously, the Times quaintly persists in referring to the party in question as the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
But then, as dissident Yu Jie might have said to the Chinese Stasi during his recent interrogation, it's easy to mistake one axe-gang for another.
Amid allegations over his relationship with a convicted double murderer and former Nantou County gang boss, Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) yesterday said he would resign if the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) could provide any evidence of irregularities in their relationship.
[...]
The DPP has continued to question the premier’s links to Chiang since local media on Wednesday reported Wu and his wife were caught on camera vacationing in Bali with Chiang and Lee Chao-ching.
(There he is, clean as a whistle. Taiwan's KMT Premier, Wu Den-yih. When he's not taking vacations in Bali with his double-murdering, Chinese mafia pals. Image from Daylife.com.)
And in more recent (and somewhat related news), World Uygher Congress president Rebiya Kadeer has received a second invite to visit Taiwan. Saturday's Taipei Times has the story, and recaps how Chinese Nationalist Party sycophants in Taiwan prevented her visit last year in order to curry favor with their Communist Party overlords. (And note that "sycophant" is employed here in both the modern and ancient meanings of the word.)
The government [in 2009], however, denied Kadeer entry to Taiwan on the grounds that her visit would harm the national interest.
At the time, Minister of the Interior Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) said Kadeer, president of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC), should not be allowed into the country since she had “close relations to a terrorist group.”
So my question is: If Kadeer's entry in 2009 was deemed harmful to Taiwan's national interest because she had "close relations to a terrorist group" *, shouldn't Taiwan's second highest political office-holder be similarly blacklisted from the halls of government for his PROVEN close relations with a double murdering gangster?
"The new administration will push for clean politics and set strict standards for the integrity and efficiency of officials."
-- Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou's Inaugural address. May 21, 2008
Epic fail on those "strict standards for integrity" there, Hoss.
The ruling Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) of Taiwan has made it abundantly clear that foreign activists devoted to the cause of human rights in China are NOT WELCOME in the island nation. First, there was the sorry case of the Dalai Lama last month, who was originally told not to visit, and finally slapped with a government-issued gag order when he was grudgingly permitted to enter the country. Then to top things off, only a few weeks later the KMT placed the head of the World Uigher Congress, Rebiya Kadeer, also on their rapidly-growing blacklist.
Contrast that with the KMT's treatment of PRC zoo animals with annexation-oriented propagandistic names. Why, those are hailed and welcomed by the current Taiwanese government with open arms. Because THEY'RE not political !
Tiananmen Square demonstrators, can you take the hint? In Ma Ying-jeou's Taiwan, Orwell's dictum now applies. Four legs good, two legs bad.
On September 25th, Taiwan's Chinese Nationalist Party attempted to rationalize their blacklist in this way:
KMT spokesman Lee Chien-jung (李建榮) said US President Barack Obama had recently decided not to meet the Dalai Lama during his trip to the US to protect the country’s national interests. Japan had also prevented visits by former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) for the same reason.
“The decision made by the government today [to bar Rebiya Kadeer] is based on national and public interests,” he said.
Gee, only three days before Confucius' birthday, and the KMT demonstrates that it has a firm handle on the ethics of eight-year olds:
"Chinaaa hit me in the hallway! But he was too BIG for me to hit back, so that's why I hit little Rebiya instead!"
Perhaps though, they were merely following the Confucian Silver Rule. For who among us is unfamiliar with the Great Sage's moral imperative:
"Do unto others, as the Chinese Communist Party would do unto you."
Or something like that. The Analects tend to lose a little in the Chinese Nationalist translation.