If you're foolish enough to listen to/watch any of the various blowhards on that paragon of intellectual idiocy, FOX News (O'Reilly and Hannity among others) you might be under the impression that the dark forces of liberal secularism, including the ACLU and the NewYork Times, are waging a not-so secret campaign against Christmas as part of their agenda to destroy all that is good and holy in America. The preposterousness of this is, I hope, obvious to all even semi-intelligent people. Yes, the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) has filed suit against some governments for allowing nativity sets, an obvious Christian symbol, in public buildings, but then the 1st amendment to the U.S. Constitution is very clear: "Congress [by most taken to mean not just the Federal legislature, but all levels of government] shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." For any level of government to privilege Christian religious symbolism above Judaic, Islamic or any other is to go against, if not the letter then definitely the spirit, of this very important constitutional principle. To exagerate this necessary process as a "War on Christmas" or Christians in general is to engage in the most ridiculous and shameful demagoguery - seemingly a specialty at FOX News.
Okay, so some corporations have opted to go with more generic pronouncements like "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas," but then why is this a problem? There are a lot of people who aren't Christian whether they, she or anyone else likes it or not so why not use words that include those celebrating Hannukah, Kwanzaa, the Winter Solstice or the non-religious just enjoying a holiday?
What I find most ironic about those who complain about businesses not celebrating Christmas though - with some even encouraging people to boycott those that do not - is that, if anything, Christians should be thankful for this happening. After all, haven't many Christians (including members of my own family) been decrying for years the rampant commercialization of Christmas? That this date meant to celebrate the birth of Christ has become instead a time for businesses to boost their profit margins by selling things to people buying gifts? Think of the Macy's Christmas parade in New York City made famous in the movie Miracle on 34th Street. Was it really to celebrate the birth of Christ or simply a way to improve their financial bottom line by using Christmas to promote their stores and thereby sell more products? The answer is of course obvious. Rather than lamenting the lack of Christmas references in society, Christians should be thankful that Christmas is no longer being as much used by those who care nothing about Christ in order to make money - rather sacriligious don't you think?
No one is proposing getting rid of Christmas, but in a largely secular society where the real meaning of Christmas has, whether one likes it or not, been largely lost in the "sinfulness of modern society(here in Taiwan being a great example; very few Christians here, Christmas isn't even a holiday from work, few people know what any of the symbols mean, yet the songs are played, the trees are put up and I got stuck being Santa Claus for school class Christmas pictures and for handing out candy), Christians should be glad to have it back from those who would self-interestedly profit from it. Was it not Christ himself after all who cleansed the Temple of the money-changers and traders?
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Sunday, December 18, 2005
Bush, China and Taiwan
There are few things that the conservative-libertarian Cato Institute (www.cato.org) and the right-wing editors of the online-only Frontpage Magazine (www.frontpagemag.com) could ever be expected to find agreement on with Alexander Cockburn and the leftist magazine Counterpunch (www.counterpunch.org) he co-edits. Indeed, more reliable opposite opinions on pretty much any political issue would be hard to find.
Yet curious about the specific remarks George Bush made in Japan during his recent Asian trip—contrasting Taiwan’s political freedoms with mainland China’s continued authoritarian repression—I googled “Bush” and “Taiwan” in search of a transcript. I found what I was looking for, but in the process also discovered three articles, one on each of the above sites, with remarkably similar viewpoints. They each charged the Bush Administration with hypocrisy for claiming to be promoting democracy and freedom around the world as a universal good, while simultaneously accepting the People’s Republic of China’s claim that Taiwan—an island off the coast of China that has had de facto independence for over 50 years and has, since the lifting of a 40 year long period of Martial Law in 1987, become one of the freest in Asia—is but a “renegade” province that must at some point rejoin China, as well as doing little in response to China’s threats of armed response if Taiwan makes any moves towards asserting its right to self-determination and independence (even passing an Anti-Secession bill earlier this year that explicitly demands a military response to prevent such a thing from happening).
Taiwan was ruled by the Kuomintang (KMT) Party for nearly fifty years, but since 2000 Chen Shue-bian of the pro-independence Democratic People’s Party (DPP) has been President leading to ever greater friction with China. During the 1996 Presidential election, China, fearing the example set by a freely contested democratic election, test-fired missiles in the Taiwan Strait to try to intimidate the Taiwanese people. Then President Bill Clinton responded by sending in the largest U.S. naval deployment since the Vietnam War—two full carrier groups—to get China to back off. It did, and has since chosen to use subtler ways of coercion against Taiwan.
In 2004 Chen, running for re-election, proposed a referendum on two issues concerning Taiwan-China relations (The two questions were: (1) The People of Taiwan demand that the Taiwan Strait issue be resolved through peaceful means. Should Mainland China refuse to withdraw the missiles it has targeted at Taiwan and to openly renounce the use of force against us, would you agree that the Government should acquire more advanced anti-missile weapons to strengthen Taiwan's self-defense capabilities?
(2) Would you agree that our Government should engage in negotiation with Mainland China on the establishment of a "peace and stability" framework for cross-strait interactions in order to build consensus and for the welfare of the peoples on both sides? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROC_referendum,_2004). Neither concerned outright independence, but instead dealt with how Taiwan should react to China’s threats and state of general belligerence having as it does hundreds of ballistic missiles aimed at the island—a most reasonable and responsible action by any democratically elected government. While standing beside Wen Jiabao, China’s then new leader, on his trip to Washington in late 2003, however, Bush warned Chen against having the referendum and of otherwise upsetting the status quo. As Dave Lindorff writes in Counterpunch, “Referendums, it seems, are appropriate for Californians, not for Taiwanese or Chinese” (“Bush Sells Out Another Democracy Movement: Hypocrisy on Taiwan,” http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff01032004.html).The referendum questions won wide margins of approval among those who voted, but, at least partly because of a boycott promoted by the KMT opposition (made up largely of those mainland Chinese who fled to Taiwan in 1949 at the end of the Chinese Civil War and who prefer conciliation and eventual unification with the mainland), less than %50 of the population voted thus preventing the results from being legally binding.
Ted Galen Carpenter rightly argues in his Cato Institute article that:
[This] is no way for Washington to treat another democracy. It is unsavory for the United States to criticize a democratic polity for choosing to hold a referendum on a policy issue-however sensitive that issue might be. It is even worse to criticize such a basic exercise of democracy, as Bush did, while saying nothing about the PRC's [People’s Republic of China] destabilizing and provocative deployment of missiles across the Taiwan Strait (“President Bush's Taiwan Policy: Immoral and Dangerous,” http://www.cato.org/dailys/03-31-04.html).
In his Frontpage Magazine article, Don Feder reminds us that shortly after his Presidential election in 2001, Bush “said in a television interview that America had an obligation to do ‘whatever it took’ to help Taiwan defend itself” (“Bush’s New Taiwan Doctrine,” http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ ReadArticle.asp?ID=11285 ). Not long after, his Administration approved the largest sale of arms to Taiwan in a decade (though the KMT-opposition controlled Congress has consistently blocked the approval of the deal from Taiwan’s side ever since). This seemingly showed his Administration’s resolve to continue the policy of “strategic ambiguity”—accepting the “One China” policy that Beijing insists upon yet at the same time helping to defend Taiwan diplomatically and militarily from any use of force by China—that has defined U.S.-China relations since the U.S. switched its diplomatic recognition from the Republic of China (Taiwan) to the People’s Republic of China (communist mainland China) in 1979. That same year the Taiwan Relations Act was passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by then President Jimmy Carter that states:
…that the United States decision to establish diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China rests upon the expectation that the future of Taiwan will be determined by peaceful means…to consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means including by boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States…to provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character, and…to maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan (Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, http://www.usconsulate.org.hk/ustw/geninfo/tra1979.htm).
So what explains Bush’s shift away from this position of assertively defending Taiwan’s interests—those of a free and democratic “country” in sharp contrast to the continued authoritarian dictatorship and political repression of mainland China—to rebuking its government for daring to hold a referendum on relations with its threatening neighbor? All three articles agree that it largely has to do with the continuing crisis over North Korea’s nuclear weapon program and the Bush Administration’s felt need to get China, as the only country seemingly able to, to put pressure on its government to rejoin the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that it withdrew from in 2003.
While acknowledging the exigencies of international relations realpolitik Bush’s blanket appeasement of China’s bellicosity towards Taiwan is of little value – because China itself is not happy with N. Korea’s nuclear program and would not dare to attack Taiwan while there is still such a gulf between its military capabilities and the USA’s; especially before it hosts the 2008 Summer Olympic Games – and only shows Bush’s supposed promotion of democracy and freedom to be the feigned words of a moral hypocrite.
Since the lifting of Martial Law Taiwan’s democracy has taken root with a number of parties representing a range of opinion now taking part in a vibrant political process. This is in marked contrast to the continuing repression of the non-democratic, authoritarian Chinese government that still holds thousands of political prisoners in slave labor-like conditions where torture is commonly used. Of course with the mountain of evidence that has come out over the last couple of years detailing, despite the Bush Administration’s repeated denials of the appropriateness of the term, the use of torture by American military and intelligence personnel in apparent agreement with directives coming from as high up as the White House itself the United-States, at least under this Administration, has largely lost the moral authority to even speak out against China’s use of torture. The fiscal recklessness of the Bush Administration, and that of the Republicans controlling Congress, has also brought about a situation in which the health of the U.S. economy is now so massively dependent on the continued purchase of U.S. Treasury bonds by East Asian countries – China primarily (though Japan, Taiwan and S. Korea are not far behind) – that if China were to “blink” and stop, or even just slow down, their bond purchases the U.S. Federal Reserve would be forced to raise interest rates, possibly precipitously, in order to finance its debt almost certainly driving the U.S. economy into recession. Though it would not be in the self-interest of the Chinese government to do this, given that its exports to the U.S. are the primary fuel for the economic growth necessary to placate the already disgruntled teaming masses of citizens that would undoubtedly suffer, a conflict over Taiwan could very well convince them otherwise. That the Bush Administration would allow China to have such a leverage over the U.S. economy while squandering America’s moral authority in speaking out against its systemic human rights abuses are but two of the reasons why Bush should not have been re-elected.
He was, however, and though in his speech in Japan before visiting China he mentioned the freedoms of Taiwan as an example of the direction Beijing should move towards, his irresponsibility on other aspects of U.S.-China relations can only make people wonder how serious he actually is about helping to maintain Taiwan’s independence.
Yet curious about the specific remarks George Bush made in Japan during his recent Asian trip—contrasting Taiwan’s political freedoms with mainland China’s continued authoritarian repression—I googled “Bush” and “Taiwan” in search of a transcript. I found what I was looking for, but in the process also discovered three articles, one on each of the above sites, with remarkably similar viewpoints. They each charged the Bush Administration with hypocrisy for claiming to be promoting democracy and freedom around the world as a universal good, while simultaneously accepting the People’s Republic of China’s claim that Taiwan—an island off the coast of China that has had de facto independence for over 50 years and has, since the lifting of a 40 year long period of Martial Law in 1987, become one of the freest in Asia—is but a “renegade” province that must at some point rejoin China, as well as doing little in response to China’s threats of armed response if Taiwan makes any moves towards asserting its right to self-determination and independence (even passing an Anti-Secession bill earlier this year that explicitly demands a military response to prevent such a thing from happening).
Taiwan was ruled by the Kuomintang (KMT) Party for nearly fifty years, but since 2000 Chen Shue-bian of the pro-independence Democratic People’s Party (DPP) has been President leading to ever greater friction with China. During the 1996 Presidential election, China, fearing the example set by a freely contested democratic election, test-fired missiles in the Taiwan Strait to try to intimidate the Taiwanese people. Then President Bill Clinton responded by sending in the largest U.S. naval deployment since the Vietnam War—two full carrier groups—to get China to back off. It did, and has since chosen to use subtler ways of coercion against Taiwan.
In 2004 Chen, running for re-election, proposed a referendum on two issues concerning Taiwan-China relations (The two questions were: (1) The People of Taiwan demand that the Taiwan Strait issue be resolved through peaceful means. Should Mainland China refuse to withdraw the missiles it has targeted at Taiwan and to openly renounce the use of force against us, would you agree that the Government should acquire more advanced anti-missile weapons to strengthen Taiwan's self-defense capabilities?
(2) Would you agree that our Government should engage in negotiation with Mainland China on the establishment of a "peace and stability" framework for cross-strait interactions in order to build consensus and for the welfare of the peoples on both sides? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROC_referendum,_2004). Neither concerned outright independence, but instead dealt with how Taiwan should react to China’s threats and state of general belligerence having as it does hundreds of ballistic missiles aimed at the island—a most reasonable and responsible action by any democratically elected government. While standing beside Wen Jiabao, China’s then new leader, on his trip to Washington in late 2003, however, Bush warned Chen against having the referendum and of otherwise upsetting the status quo. As Dave Lindorff writes in Counterpunch, “Referendums, it seems, are appropriate for Californians, not for Taiwanese or Chinese” (“Bush Sells Out Another Democracy Movement: Hypocrisy on Taiwan,” http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff01032004.html).The referendum questions won wide margins of approval among those who voted, but, at least partly because of a boycott promoted by the KMT opposition (made up largely of those mainland Chinese who fled to Taiwan in 1949 at the end of the Chinese Civil War and who prefer conciliation and eventual unification with the mainland), less than %50 of the population voted thus preventing the results from being legally binding.
Ted Galen Carpenter rightly argues in his Cato Institute article that:
[This] is no way for Washington to treat another democracy. It is unsavory for the United States to criticize a democratic polity for choosing to hold a referendum on a policy issue-however sensitive that issue might be. It is even worse to criticize such a basic exercise of democracy, as Bush did, while saying nothing about the PRC's [People’s Republic of China] destabilizing and provocative deployment of missiles across the Taiwan Strait (“President Bush's Taiwan Policy: Immoral and Dangerous,” http://www.cato.org/dailys/03-31-04.html).
In his Frontpage Magazine article, Don Feder reminds us that shortly after his Presidential election in 2001, Bush “said in a television interview that America had an obligation to do ‘whatever it took’ to help Taiwan defend itself” (“Bush’s New Taiwan Doctrine,” http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ ReadArticle.asp?ID=11285 ). Not long after, his Administration approved the largest sale of arms to Taiwan in a decade (though the KMT-opposition controlled Congress has consistently blocked the approval of the deal from Taiwan’s side ever since). This seemingly showed his Administration’s resolve to continue the policy of “strategic ambiguity”—accepting the “One China” policy that Beijing insists upon yet at the same time helping to defend Taiwan diplomatically and militarily from any use of force by China—that has defined U.S.-China relations since the U.S. switched its diplomatic recognition from the Republic of China (Taiwan) to the People’s Republic of China (communist mainland China) in 1979. That same year the Taiwan Relations Act was passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by then President Jimmy Carter that states:
…that the United States decision to establish diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China rests upon the expectation that the future of Taiwan will be determined by peaceful means…to consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means including by boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States…to provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character, and…to maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan (Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, http://www.usconsulate.org.hk/ustw/geninfo/tra1979.htm).
So what explains Bush’s shift away from this position of assertively defending Taiwan’s interests—those of a free and democratic “country” in sharp contrast to the continued authoritarian dictatorship and political repression of mainland China—to rebuking its government for daring to hold a referendum on relations with its threatening neighbor? All three articles agree that it largely has to do with the continuing crisis over North Korea’s nuclear weapon program and the Bush Administration’s felt need to get China, as the only country seemingly able to, to put pressure on its government to rejoin the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that it withdrew from in 2003.
While acknowledging the exigencies of international relations realpolitik Bush’s blanket appeasement of China’s bellicosity towards Taiwan is of little value – because China itself is not happy with N. Korea’s nuclear program and would not dare to attack Taiwan while there is still such a gulf between its military capabilities and the USA’s; especially before it hosts the 2008 Summer Olympic Games – and only shows Bush’s supposed promotion of democracy and freedom to be the feigned words of a moral hypocrite.
Since the lifting of Martial Law Taiwan’s democracy has taken root with a number of parties representing a range of opinion now taking part in a vibrant political process. This is in marked contrast to the continuing repression of the non-democratic, authoritarian Chinese government that still holds thousands of political prisoners in slave labor-like conditions where torture is commonly used. Of course with the mountain of evidence that has come out over the last couple of years detailing, despite the Bush Administration’s repeated denials of the appropriateness of the term, the use of torture by American military and intelligence personnel in apparent agreement with directives coming from as high up as the White House itself the United-States, at least under this Administration, has largely lost the moral authority to even speak out against China’s use of torture. The fiscal recklessness of the Bush Administration, and that of the Republicans controlling Congress, has also brought about a situation in which the health of the U.S. economy is now so massively dependent on the continued purchase of U.S. Treasury bonds by East Asian countries – China primarily (though Japan, Taiwan and S. Korea are not far behind) – that if China were to “blink” and stop, or even just slow down, their bond purchases the U.S. Federal Reserve would be forced to raise interest rates, possibly precipitously, in order to finance its debt almost certainly driving the U.S. economy into recession. Though it would not be in the self-interest of the Chinese government to do this, given that its exports to the U.S. are the primary fuel for the economic growth necessary to placate the already disgruntled teaming masses of citizens that would undoubtedly suffer, a conflict over Taiwan could very well convince them otherwise. That the Bush Administration would allow China to have such a leverage over the U.S. economy while squandering America’s moral authority in speaking out against its systemic human rights abuses are but two of the reasons why Bush should not have been re-elected.
He was, however, and though in his speech in Japan before visiting China he mentioned the freedoms of Taiwan as an example of the direction Beijing should move towards, his irresponsibility on other aspects of U.S.-China relations can only make people wonder how serious he actually is about helping to maintain Taiwan’s independence.
Saturday, December 17, 2005
Oh the arrogance!
I meant to write something about this sooner, but this week has been busy as I started working mornings (just a temporary sub job till the end of the month), which had been my prime writing time. I certainly couldn't remain quiet about this one though. Anyways, for those Canadians who have not been paying attention to the media's coverage of the Federal election (and any non-Canadians who for some reason or other have some interest in the vagaries of Canadian politics), Scott Reid, one of the top advisors to Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin, said during a December 11 television debate on the different parties child-care proposals that the Conservative parties proposal of giving $1,200 a year to parents for each child to be used as they wished was wrong because some parents might waste it on "beer and popcorn." Challenged by the woman representing the Conservatives for so insulting Canadian parents, Reid then defended his previous statement by arguing that "there are no controls over what that money [in the Conservatives' proposal] goes toward." Later that day during another television debate between party representatives, John Duffy, another Liberal party advisor, defended Reid's comments, stating that "there is nothing to stop someone from pocketing Stephen Harper's [the leader of the Conservative Party] $1200 supposed child-care bonus...and spending it however the heck they want." In other words (if you haven't gleaned the point from these remarks already), the Liberal party believes that Canadians can't be trusted to take care of their own children; this must instead be solely the provenance of the oh so enlightened government. Instead of giving money directly to parents trusting them to make the best decision for their children, the Liberal's propose to spend $5 billion or so in transfers to the provinces to create a system of approved child-care centres across the country. Now given that the Liberal's have shown nothing during their last twelve years in power if not a brazen carelessness with taxpayers money, this supposed cost of $5 billion must be at the very least doubled to $10 billion. This is the same essential government, even if the leader has changed, after all that said when first proposing their almost completely useless Firearms Registry in 1995 that it would have a net cost of $2 million - 10 years later it has cost well over $1 billion. A modest doubling of their proposed cost is therefore a more than reasonable projection. This money comes from, of course, the taxpayers of Canada who are already being penalized if a parent decides to stay at home and take care of their children instead of enrolling them in institutionalized day-care; a situation that can only be expected to worsen if the Liberal’s plan is put into place. How so you ask?
Right now in Canada all expenses for enrolling one’s child in an official day-care are %100 tax deductible. If a parent decides, because their spouse is willing and able to work enough to support them, to stay at home to take care of their children, however, none of the costs associated are equivalently eligible for a tax deduction. If one is wealthy enough the cost could be easily accepted, but if one is relatively poor, the difference might very well be enough to force both parents to work and their children into day-care against their wishes. The government is thus discriminating against parents who choose to take care of their own children rather than putting them in institutionalized day-care — hardly a proper role for any government to be engaged in. The Liberal’s plan would only compound this problem through the inevitability of raising taxes to pay for yet another universal social program with its legion of bureaucrats, public-sector unions and lack of any real accountability to individual citizens.
Yet even if it were to "only" cost $5 billion and did not require any tax increases, the Liberal's proposal would still be wrong. It reveals clearly an attitude that is all too prevalent in Canada, but that few seem to worry about: that government always knows best. Though the Canadian health-care system is far from perfect I accept the necessity of government involvement as the price to pay for making health-care universally accessible; one thing I think should be a basic right of citizens in civilized countries, though people, unlike what has been the case until recently (and is still considered heresy by many on the Left), should be allowed to purchase health-care services privately if they have the desire and the means. As well, the profusion of bureaucracy that seems to necessarily accompany government social programs seems to be, in this case, in fact better than the evidenced alternative in the USA where a substantially higher percentage of their GDP is spent on health-care (though over 40 million people are not covered); mainly because of their even worse health-care bureaucracy caused by having so many different insurers for health-care providers to deal with (though the Canadian system could certainly learn a great deal from the USA in terms of introducing competitive mechanisms into its health-care system in order to motivate better service and efficiencies that are now discouraged by the government monopoly. See the findings of Senator Kirby’s Report on Health-Care for more details.)
The technology of health-care has become so complicated that massive bureaucracy, whether public or private, seems to be an inevitable and unavoidable consequence. In the case of child-care, however, no such government intrusion should be accepted. Despite the repeated insistence (that is usually uncritically repeated by the media) of self-interested child-care professionals’ unions, raising children has not become increasingly complicated on account of “the need to stay competitive” or any such associated drivel. Instead, this is a standard justification for the introduction of universal child-care plans, like the one the Liberal’s are proposing, that are in fact little but disguised power grabs by bureaucrats, unions and socialist intellectuals who would prefer everyone were the same. Human beings are incredibly adaptive and if raised with love, caring and the appropriate educational opportunities will develop the means and skills necessary to accomplish the greatest things. This is much more likely to happen in a non-institutionalized environment—either provided by the parents’ themselves or by someone directly responsible to them—than a government run, unionized system of child-care centres where individual differences are sacrificed to the interests of the Rousseauian General Will. Though I have no children as of yet, I have no desire to entrust the government with their care; intimations of Huxley’s Brave New World come far too easily to mind.
A couple of quotes pertaining to Reid’s “beer and popcorn” remarks also deserve to be read. First is an editorial from The National Post from December 13, 2005 (http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/editorialsletters/story.html?id=03bf9410-125a-407b-8acf-954095d417bf) excerpts below:
Some commentators have described Scott Reid's controversial comments on a weekend television panel as nothing more than a "gaffe." Far from it. The suggestion by Paul Martin's most senior spokesman that parents would use the child-care benefits being proposed by the Conservatives to buy "beer and popcorn" was more than a mere slip-up. In fact, it was a rare look through the Liberals' glasses -- a chance to see how they view Canadians, and why they favour such a paternalistic mode of government.
The two major parties' differing philosophies on child care have laid bare a larger philosophical divide. By providing parents with $1,200 per child per year to spend as they see fit, the Conservatives have shown they trust Canadian parents to make their own decisions about how to care for children and manage a family budget. But not the Liberals. Rather than leaving it up to parents to decide among daycare, nannies, stay-at-home parenting or care by relatives, Paul Martin insists only one option should be favoured: a top-down network of state-approved daycare centres. According to this view, bureaucrats know better than parents what is best for children. Just think, Mr. Reid, told viewers: If child-care money were under the control of parents themselves, they would simply "blow [it] on beer and popcorn."
…
Sadly, this condescending theory of government extends well beyond child care. On health care, the Liberals refuse to permit personal choice -- insisting that Canadians either sign on to their Soviet-style health monopoly or flee the country to get more timely care in the United States. Rather than trusting most Canadians to be self-sufficient, they continue to create a culture of dependency through regional subsidies. In a purported effort to protect us from ourselves, the Liberals established a $2-billion gun registry that served little purpose other than to harass and humiliate law-abiding firearms owners. And in general, they continue to tax us at a far higher level than is needed to provide the basic services expected of government -- because in their view, a dollar in the hands of government will be better spent than a dollar in the hands of the average Canadian.
And from www.proudtobecanadian.com/blog an edited version of columnist Andrew Coyne's take on the issue:
Liberal policy, disguised as a gaffe
[...] But it wasn’t a gaffe: It’s Liberal policy. This wasn’t some no-name MP wandering off-message. This was the Prime Minister’s chief spokesman. It wasn’t an inadvertent slip of the tongue, or an unguarded moment. It was a considered, deliberate soundbite, delivered on national television. And in case there were any doubt of its purpose, the comment was repeated, defended and elaborated upon later in the day by another of the Prime Minister’s sound-biters, John Duffy. The apologies came only after they had measured the media reaction.
Still, if the Reid Doctrine does not meet the precise definition of a gaffe—in Michael Kinsley’s classic formulation, when a politician tells the truth—it was revealing enough in its own way: if not as a mirror of objective reality, then as a window into the Liberal mind.
[...] On the other hand, it is true that Liberals think that. It may be a silly way of putting it, but it reflects a sincere belief that parents are not the best people to look after their children—that others, more expert, are.
Is that not the implicit, if not the explicit message of the Liberals’ own daycare policy? To hear the Grits talk, you’d think they were dividing up the loaves and fishes: for whereas the Tories would fob off parents with a measly “$25 a week” for each child under six, the Liberals would spend “billions” creating “spaces.” As always, they’re hoping nobody does the math: When you add up all those measly individual payments, the Tory plan would pump twice as much money into daycare each year as the Liberals’, money which, when presented to daycare providers, has a way of opening up “spaces.” It’s just that these spaces would not necessarily be where the government prefers, but rather where parents preferred.
And that’s the difference between the two plans. The implications are inescapable. The Liberals don’t trust parents to choose the right daycare provider, for the same reason they don’t trust them to decide whether to put their kids in daycare at all: because, fundamentally, they don’t trust parents. They don’t think they’re up to it. [...]
And if they don't trust parents to do what's best for their children, why would they trust any person to take care and be responsible for themselves at all? According to this logic the government should take away all of people's money - because individuals might after all misspend it - and with its enlightened wisdom build a "system" that would solve all of societies problems. This promise of a socialist utopia has been tried, of course, in dozens of countries and has not once succeeded; maybe, just maybe, because the premises are wrong...
Right now in Canada all expenses for enrolling one’s child in an official day-care are %100 tax deductible. If a parent decides, because their spouse is willing and able to work enough to support them, to stay at home to take care of their children, however, none of the costs associated are equivalently eligible for a tax deduction. If one is wealthy enough the cost could be easily accepted, but if one is relatively poor, the difference might very well be enough to force both parents to work and their children into day-care against their wishes. The government is thus discriminating against parents who choose to take care of their own children rather than putting them in institutionalized day-care — hardly a proper role for any government to be engaged in. The Liberal’s plan would only compound this problem through the inevitability of raising taxes to pay for yet another universal social program with its legion of bureaucrats, public-sector unions and lack of any real accountability to individual citizens.
Yet even if it were to "only" cost $5 billion and did not require any tax increases, the Liberal's proposal would still be wrong. It reveals clearly an attitude that is all too prevalent in Canada, but that few seem to worry about: that government always knows best. Though the Canadian health-care system is far from perfect I accept the necessity of government involvement as the price to pay for making health-care universally accessible; one thing I think should be a basic right of citizens in civilized countries, though people, unlike what has been the case until recently (and is still considered heresy by many on the Left), should be allowed to purchase health-care services privately if they have the desire and the means. As well, the profusion of bureaucracy that seems to necessarily accompany government social programs seems to be, in this case, in fact better than the evidenced alternative in the USA where a substantially higher percentage of their GDP is spent on health-care (though over 40 million people are not covered); mainly because of their even worse health-care bureaucracy caused by having so many different insurers for health-care providers to deal with (though the Canadian system could certainly learn a great deal from the USA in terms of introducing competitive mechanisms into its health-care system in order to motivate better service and efficiencies that are now discouraged by the government monopoly. See the findings of Senator Kirby’s Report on Health-Care for more details.)
The technology of health-care has become so complicated that massive bureaucracy, whether public or private, seems to be an inevitable and unavoidable consequence. In the case of child-care, however, no such government intrusion should be accepted. Despite the repeated insistence (that is usually uncritically repeated by the media) of self-interested child-care professionals’ unions, raising children has not become increasingly complicated on account of “the need to stay competitive” or any such associated drivel. Instead, this is a standard justification for the introduction of universal child-care plans, like the one the Liberal’s are proposing, that are in fact little but disguised power grabs by bureaucrats, unions and socialist intellectuals who would prefer everyone were the same. Human beings are incredibly adaptive and if raised with love, caring and the appropriate educational opportunities will develop the means and skills necessary to accomplish the greatest things. This is much more likely to happen in a non-institutionalized environment—either provided by the parents’ themselves or by someone directly responsible to them—than a government run, unionized system of child-care centres where individual differences are sacrificed to the interests of the Rousseauian General Will. Though I have no children as of yet, I have no desire to entrust the government with their care; intimations of Huxley’s Brave New World come far too easily to mind.
A couple of quotes pertaining to Reid’s “beer and popcorn” remarks also deserve to be read. First is an editorial from The National Post from December 13, 2005 (http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/editorialsletters/story.html?id=03bf9410-125a-407b-8acf-954095d417bf) excerpts below:
Some commentators have described Scott Reid's controversial comments on a weekend television panel as nothing more than a "gaffe." Far from it. The suggestion by Paul Martin's most senior spokesman that parents would use the child-care benefits being proposed by the Conservatives to buy "beer and popcorn" was more than a mere slip-up. In fact, it was a rare look through the Liberals' glasses -- a chance to see how they view Canadians, and why they favour such a paternalistic mode of government.
The two major parties' differing philosophies on child care have laid bare a larger philosophical divide. By providing parents with $1,200 per child per year to spend as they see fit, the Conservatives have shown they trust Canadian parents to make their own decisions about how to care for children and manage a family budget. But not the Liberals. Rather than leaving it up to parents to decide among daycare, nannies, stay-at-home parenting or care by relatives, Paul Martin insists only one option should be favoured: a top-down network of state-approved daycare centres. According to this view, bureaucrats know better than parents what is best for children. Just think, Mr. Reid, told viewers: If child-care money were under the control of parents themselves, they would simply "blow [it] on beer and popcorn."
…
Sadly, this condescending theory of government extends well beyond child care. On health care, the Liberals refuse to permit personal choice -- insisting that Canadians either sign on to their Soviet-style health monopoly or flee the country to get more timely care in the United States. Rather than trusting most Canadians to be self-sufficient, they continue to create a culture of dependency through regional subsidies. In a purported effort to protect us from ourselves, the Liberals established a $2-billion gun registry that served little purpose other than to harass and humiliate law-abiding firearms owners. And in general, they continue to tax us at a far higher level than is needed to provide the basic services expected of government -- because in their view, a dollar in the hands of government will be better spent than a dollar in the hands of the average Canadian.
Sorry for this being so damn long, but it’s been bugging me all week so I’ve given it a lot of thought. Any comments would of course be appreciated.
A next day update
And from www.proudtobecanadian.com/blog an edited version of columnist Andrew Coyne's take on the issue:
Liberal policy, disguised as a gaffe
[...] But it wasn’t a gaffe: It’s Liberal policy. This wasn’t some no-name MP wandering off-message. This was the Prime Minister’s chief spokesman. It wasn’t an inadvertent slip of the tongue, or an unguarded moment. It was a considered, deliberate soundbite, delivered on national television. And in case there were any doubt of its purpose, the comment was repeated, defended and elaborated upon later in the day by another of the Prime Minister’s sound-biters, John Duffy. The apologies came only after they had measured the media reaction.
Still, if the Reid Doctrine does not meet the precise definition of a gaffe—in Michael Kinsley’s classic formulation, when a politician tells the truth—it was revealing enough in its own way: if not as a mirror of objective reality, then as a window into the Liberal mind.
[...] On the other hand, it is true that Liberals think that. It may be a silly way of putting it, but it reflects a sincere belief that parents are not the best people to look after their children—that others, more expert, are.
Is that not the implicit, if not the explicit message of the Liberals’ own daycare policy? To hear the Grits talk, you’d think they were dividing up the loaves and fishes: for whereas the Tories would fob off parents with a measly “$25 a week” for each child under six, the Liberals would spend “billions” creating “spaces.” As always, they’re hoping nobody does the math: When you add up all those measly individual payments, the Tory plan would pump twice as much money into daycare each year as the Liberals’, money which, when presented to daycare providers, has a way of opening up “spaces.” It’s just that these spaces would not necessarily be where the government prefers, but rather where parents preferred.
And that’s the difference between the two plans. The implications are inescapable. The Liberals don’t trust parents to choose the right daycare provider, for the same reason they don’t trust them to decide whether to put their kids in daycare at all: because, fundamentally, they don’t trust parents. They don’t think they’re up to it. [...]
And if they don't trust parents to do what's best for their children, why would they trust any person to take care and be responsible for themselves at all? According to this logic the government should take away all of people's money - because individuals might after all misspend it - and with its enlightened wisdom build a "system" that would solve all of societies problems. This promise of a socialist utopia has been tried, of course, in dozens of countries and has not once succeeded; maybe, just maybe, because the premises are wrong...
Saturday, December 03, 2005
Chomsky on Cambodia
Those who know me well are aware of my ever-growing dislike for that intellectual guru of anti-Americanism Noam Chomsky. This comes after a few years of serious interest and agreement with his ideas during the "radical" days of my early 20's. Though I never found his writing very appealing - presicent in some ways I guess I was - the Canada Film Board financed hagiography of him (shown in an edited version on CBC television) Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media had a pretty profound effect on me.
My disillusionment with him began sometime around the time I saw a simulcast of an award ceremony he was given by the University of Calgary, and subsequent speech, while atttending the University of Alberta in 1997/98. A group of self-described, wanna-be "radicals"around this time had taken to making, wearing and selling t-shirts that read simply "Read Chomsky" on the front with a quote from him on the back. Though I still thought I agreed with Chomsky the sanctimoniousness of this bothered me with its "St. Chomsky"-ish overtones. The speech itself, excited as I was to almost see him in person, burst my bubble even more; anti-climactic as Dorothy's first glimpse of the Wizard of Oz as he turned out to be not the dramatic speeker the film had made him out to be, but instead a rather befuddled academic who in a rather croaky voice rambled on in seeming smug self-assurance of his own perspicaciousness.
On coming out of the theatre, I was even approached by a reporter for the U of A's student newspaper (that I later wrote a great deal for) asking my opinion of the speech. The spell had not been totally broken, but while saying that I liked it I also made some comments that I think rather irked the Chomskyites on campus to the effect that it had rambled on and not been entirely coherent.
It wasn't until the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001, however, that I finally freed myself from the Cult of Chomsky as he, parroting an opinion that had already by this time disgusted me, maintained that it was all the fault of America and that those killed might somehow deserve their fate.
Since then my dislike of the man's opinions has grown evermore. Recently I came across an excellent article online that discusses his disturbingly disingenuous attitudes towards the Khmer Rouge and their rule of Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. It's rather long, but well worth reading as the best analysis of not only how wrong Chomsky was, but how he dishonestly he has dealt with his errors ever since he was proved to be so wrong. Chomsky is, of course, one of the foremost spokespersons again the mainstream media's "propaganda model," but what Bruce Sharp so convincingly shows in this article is how skilfully Chomsky himself propagandizes.
Propaganda is, by its nature, advocacy. The American Heritage dictionary defines propaganda as "The systematic propagation of a doctrine or cause or of information reflecting the views and interests of those advocating such a doctrine or cause." Chomsky often describes the Western media as propaganda. Yet Chomsky himself is no more objective than the media he criticizes; he merely gives us different propaganda.
Chomsky's supporters frequently point out that he is trying to present the side of the story that is less often seen. But there is no guarantee that these "opposing" viewpoints have any factual merit; Porter and Hildebrand's book [Cambodia: Starvation and Revolution] is a fine example. The value of a theory lies in how it relates to the truth, not in how it relates to other theories. By habitually parroting only the contrarian view, Chomsky creates a skewed, inaccurate version of events. This is a fundamentally flawed approach: It is an approach that is concerned with persuasiveness, and not with the truth. It's the tactic of a lawyer, not a scientist. Chomsky seems to be saying: if the media is wrong, I'll present a view which is diametrically opposed. Imagine a mathematician adopting Chomsky's method: Rather than insuring the accuracy of the calculations, problems would be "solved" by averaging different wrong answers.
Describing the difference between good science and bad, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman stressed the importance of including all available evidence:
"Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can -- if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong -- to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it... In summary, the idea is to give ALL of the information to help others judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another."(Feynman, Richard: Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman, p. 341).
By contrast, consider the tactics employed by a devoted partisan. The partisan has already decided where her or his sympathies lie; the goal is to convince others to adopt the same position. Toward that end, a partisan will not concede anything, and will not encourage the examination of conflicting points of view. Seen in this light, the first step is to discredit conflicting accounts of any event. Arguments advanced for this purpose need not be consistent. If one reader decides that Barron and Paul are unreliable because they relied on government sources, fine; if another reader decides that Chomsky and Herman are reliable because they relied on government sources, that's fine, too. If one reader believes that the Khmer Rouge averted widespread starvation thanks to their ingenious irrigation projects, that's fine; if another reader believes that there was widespread starvation, but that it was due to the US bombing two years earlier, that's also fine.
Why are so many people persuaded by Chomsky's arguments? In large measure, this is because Chomsky is undeniably brilliant. As propagandists go, he is skillful and persuasive... or at least, persuasive to people whose only knowledge of the topic at hand comes from Chomsky himself.
Chomsky understands a critical axiom of sophistry: it's far better to mislead than to lie. Obfuscation is the propagandist's best friend. A skilled propagandist will not say, "Hildebrand and Porter's book shows that conditions under the Khmer Rouge were fairly good." Better to say that the book presents a "very favorable picture," to praise it as "carefully documented," and let the readers draw their own conclusions. Don't say, "Ponchaud's book presents a false picture of atrocities under the Khmer Rouge." Instead, simply say that this "grisly account" is "careless," and that "its veracity is therefore difficult to assess." And never forget the value of a good disclaimer: "We do not pretend to know where the truth lies..."
The whole article can be found at: http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/chomsky.htm
My disillusionment with him began sometime around the time I saw a simulcast of an award ceremony he was given by the University of Calgary, and subsequent speech, while atttending the University of Alberta in 1997/98. A group of self-described, wanna-be "radicals"around this time had taken to making, wearing and selling t-shirts that read simply "Read Chomsky" on the front with a quote from him on the back. Though I still thought I agreed with Chomsky the sanctimoniousness of this bothered me with its "St. Chomsky"-ish overtones. The speech itself, excited as I was to almost see him in person, burst my bubble even more; anti-climactic as Dorothy's first glimpse of the Wizard of Oz as he turned out to be not the dramatic speeker the film had made him out to be, but instead a rather befuddled academic who in a rather croaky voice rambled on in seeming smug self-assurance of his own perspicaciousness.
On coming out of the theatre, I was even approached by a reporter for the U of A's student newspaper (that I later wrote a great deal for) asking my opinion of the speech. The spell had not been totally broken, but while saying that I liked it I also made some comments that I think rather irked the Chomskyites on campus to the effect that it had rambled on and not been entirely coherent.
It wasn't until the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001, however, that I finally freed myself from the Cult of Chomsky as he, parroting an opinion that had already by this time disgusted me, maintained that it was all the fault of America and that those killed might somehow deserve their fate.
Since then my dislike of the man's opinions has grown evermore. Recently I came across an excellent article online that discusses his disturbingly disingenuous attitudes towards the Khmer Rouge and their rule of Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. It's rather long, but well worth reading as the best analysis of not only how wrong Chomsky was, but how he dishonestly he has dealt with his errors ever since he was proved to be so wrong. Chomsky is, of course, one of the foremost spokespersons again the mainstream media's "propaganda model," but what Bruce Sharp so convincingly shows in this article is how skilfully Chomsky himself propagandizes.
Propaganda is, by its nature, advocacy. The American Heritage dictionary defines propaganda as "The systematic propagation of a doctrine or cause or of information reflecting the views and interests of those advocating such a doctrine or cause." Chomsky often describes the Western media as propaganda. Yet Chomsky himself is no more objective than the media he criticizes; he merely gives us different propaganda.
Chomsky's supporters frequently point out that he is trying to present the side of the story that is less often seen. But there is no guarantee that these "opposing" viewpoints have any factual merit; Porter and Hildebrand's book [Cambodia: Starvation and Revolution] is a fine example. The value of a theory lies in how it relates to the truth, not in how it relates to other theories. By habitually parroting only the contrarian view, Chomsky creates a skewed, inaccurate version of events. This is a fundamentally flawed approach: It is an approach that is concerned with persuasiveness, and not with the truth. It's the tactic of a lawyer, not a scientist. Chomsky seems to be saying: if the media is wrong, I'll present a view which is diametrically opposed. Imagine a mathematician adopting Chomsky's method: Rather than insuring the accuracy of the calculations, problems would be "solved" by averaging different wrong answers.
Describing the difference between good science and bad, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman stressed the importance of including all available evidence:
"Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can -- if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong -- to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it... In summary, the idea is to give ALL of the information to help others judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another."(Feynman, Richard: Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman, p. 341).
By contrast, consider the tactics employed by a devoted partisan. The partisan has already decided where her or his sympathies lie; the goal is to convince others to adopt the same position. Toward that end, a partisan will not concede anything, and will not encourage the examination of conflicting points of view. Seen in this light, the first step is to discredit conflicting accounts of any event. Arguments advanced for this purpose need not be consistent. If one reader decides that Barron and Paul are unreliable because they relied on government sources, fine; if another reader decides that Chomsky and Herman are reliable because they relied on government sources, that's fine, too. If one reader believes that the Khmer Rouge averted widespread starvation thanks to their ingenious irrigation projects, that's fine; if another reader believes that there was widespread starvation, but that it was due to the US bombing two years earlier, that's also fine.
Why are so many people persuaded by Chomsky's arguments? In large measure, this is because Chomsky is undeniably brilliant. As propagandists go, he is skillful and persuasive... or at least, persuasive to people whose only knowledge of the topic at hand comes from Chomsky himself.
Chomsky understands a critical axiom of sophistry: it's far better to mislead than to lie. Obfuscation is the propagandist's best friend. A skilled propagandist will not say, "Hildebrand and Porter's book shows that conditions under the Khmer Rouge were fairly good." Better to say that the book presents a "very favorable picture," to praise it as "carefully documented," and let the readers draw their own conclusions. Don't say, "Ponchaud's book presents a false picture of atrocities under the Khmer Rouge." Instead, simply say that this "grisly account" is "careless," and that "its veracity is therefore difficult to assess." And never forget the value of a good disclaimer: "We do not pretend to know where the truth lies..."
The whole article can be found at: http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/chomsky.htm
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Very interesting...
I had the most remarkable conversation the other day with a girl from southern China. I'd never met her, but had instead been connected to her through a site called myspace.com (very much like friendster.com or hi5.com: put up a "profile," invite friends, personalize it some ways, blah blah blah...). I don't frequent it very often, but having a few friends who use it a fair bit I check it out once in a while. A couple months back I changed my location to "Taiwan" and since then have gotten a few wanna-be friends "invitations" from people, mostly girls, in this part of the world. This girl was one of them. We exchanged emails anyways and I added her onto my MSN Messenger list but we'd never chatted until a few nights ago.
It began with the usual chit-chat, but upon being reminded that I was in Taiwan she said I should come and visit China. I responded by saying I'd like to someday, but that not being a fan of her government I'm reluctant to go as I don't want to in any way support it. Her response, "I don't understand."
So I start discussing the specifics of what I don't like about the Chinese government: its brutal annexation and ongoing ethnic cleansing of Tibet, its beligerence towards Taiwan and claim that it is but a "renegade" province of China that must at some point be reunited with the mainland instead of the rightfully independent country that it should be recognized as, its lack of democracy, use of slave labor, persecution of the Falum Gong members, and continued denial of any lives being lost when the "Peoples Liberation Army" ended the pro-democracy protests in Tianenmmen Square on June 4, 1989 among other things.
To say that she didn't appreciate my lack of appreciation would indeed be an understatement. "Oh, so you're probably one of those who think Taiwan should be independent," was more or less the gist of her response to which I replied that that is exactly what I think; saying furthermore that I didn't think China had any legal right to Taiwan and that China should respect the right of self-determination of the people of Taiwan as expressed in the UN Charter to which it is a signatory.
"You just don't understand; you're not Chinese" was then her only response to my requests for reasons as to why Taiwan "belonged" to China, but I insisted sending her links to the Wikipedia page detailing the Tianenmmen Square massacre and other Chinese atrocities which only seemed to make her angrier so then the insults started. "Gay" was the least of it, culminating in the "C" word for female genitalia - she was livid; insisting that she could say whatever she wanted, contrary to my condemnation of China's lack of freedom or press, assembly and religion, and that I didn't know anything about China. When I insisted otherwise, mentioning more details of the Chinese government's horrors, she continued the insults before finally quitting the conversation.
What to think of a young woman who has obviously been so brainwashed that any opposing viewpoints are attacked as heresy? She was on her way to Bali for a vacation so she was obviously not very poor, but clearly had never been exposed to any "truths" other than those of the Chinese government she found nothing wrong with. And to think that there are undoubtedly hundreds of millions of people just like her in China. A scary thought indeed...
It began with the usual chit-chat, but upon being reminded that I was in Taiwan she said I should come and visit China. I responded by saying I'd like to someday, but that not being a fan of her government I'm reluctant to go as I don't want to in any way support it. Her response, "I don't understand."
So I start discussing the specifics of what I don't like about the Chinese government: its brutal annexation and ongoing ethnic cleansing of Tibet, its beligerence towards Taiwan and claim that it is but a "renegade" province of China that must at some point be reunited with the mainland instead of the rightfully independent country that it should be recognized as, its lack of democracy, use of slave labor, persecution of the Falum Gong members, and continued denial of any lives being lost when the "Peoples Liberation Army" ended the pro-democracy protests in Tianenmmen Square on June 4, 1989 among other things.
To say that she didn't appreciate my lack of appreciation would indeed be an understatement. "Oh, so you're probably one of those who think Taiwan should be independent," was more or less the gist of her response to which I replied that that is exactly what I think; saying furthermore that I didn't think China had any legal right to Taiwan and that China should respect the right of self-determination of the people of Taiwan as expressed in the UN Charter to which it is a signatory.
"You just don't understand; you're not Chinese" was then her only response to my requests for reasons as to why Taiwan "belonged" to China, but I insisted sending her links to the Wikipedia page detailing the Tianenmmen Square massacre and other Chinese atrocities which only seemed to make her angrier so then the insults started. "Gay" was the least of it, culminating in the "C" word for female genitalia - she was livid; insisting that she could say whatever she wanted, contrary to my condemnation of China's lack of freedom or press, assembly and religion, and that I didn't know anything about China. When I insisted otherwise, mentioning more details of the Chinese government's horrors, she continued the insults before finally quitting the conversation.
What to think of a young woman who has obviously been so brainwashed that any opposing viewpoints are attacked as heresy? She was on her way to Bali for a vacation so she was obviously not very poor, but clearly had never been exposed to any "truths" other than those of the Chinese government she found nothing wrong with. And to think that there are undoubtedly hundreds of millions of people just like her in China. A scary thought indeed...
SUV love affair no more?
Apparently Sport Utility Vehicles sales aren't doing so well and I couldn't be happier about it. In today's Washington Post:
Gas prices have fallen in recent weeks, but U.S. consumers are still avoiding big sport-utility vehicles in favor of passenger cars, forcing domestic automakers to slow truck production...
Industry-wide, passenger cars gained market share from light trucks in November. Toyota's U.S. sales rose 13 percent, and Honda reported an 8 percent increase. Nissan Motor Co. trailed its larger Japanese rivals in the United States; sales fell 4 percent.
The sales spiral of the Ford Explorer demonstrates consumers' shifting tastes. It was once one of the nation's most popular vehicles, but Ford sold fewer than 12,000 last month, a 52 percent drop from November 2004.
At the height of the SUV boom in 2002, Ford routinely sold 25,000 to 40,000 Explorers a
month.
Ford is looking to offset the weakness in trucks with more sales of passenger cars, including the Ford Fusion and Lincoln Zephyr.
GM also felt the SUV crunch. In November, sales of the Chevrolet Suburban and Cadillac Escalade dropped 46 percent and 48 percent, respectively, from November 2004.
Analysts have blamed slumping SUV demand in part for the automakers' deteriorating financial condition. The automakers blame high labor costs, including health care costs and payments for pensions, and inflexible union rules.
U.S. consumers remain skittish about buying sport-utility vehicles after the fuel-price volatility during this year's hurricane season, said Robert H. Schnorbus, chief economist at J.D. Power and Associates. "Even though prices are down from their peaks, I think there is still a big concern or big issue in buyers' minds," he said.
It was really only a question of when such ridiculousness would finally come to an end. $3 a gallon gasoline is something Americans are going to have to get used to.
Gas prices have fallen in recent weeks, but U.S. consumers are still avoiding big sport-utility vehicles in favor of passenger cars, forcing domestic automakers to slow truck production...
Industry-wide, passenger cars gained market share from light trucks in November. Toyota's U.S. sales rose 13 percent, and Honda reported an 8 percent increase. Nissan Motor Co. trailed its larger Japanese rivals in the United States; sales fell 4 percent.
The sales spiral of the Ford Explorer demonstrates consumers' shifting tastes. It was once one of the nation's most popular vehicles, but Ford sold fewer than 12,000 last month, a 52 percent drop from November 2004.
At the height of the SUV boom in 2002, Ford routinely sold 25,000 to 40,000 Explorers a
month.
Ford is looking to offset the weakness in trucks with more sales of passenger cars, including the Ford Fusion and Lincoln Zephyr.
GM also felt the SUV crunch. In November, sales of the Chevrolet Suburban and Cadillac Escalade dropped 46 percent and 48 percent, respectively, from November 2004.
Analysts have blamed slumping SUV demand in part for the automakers' deteriorating financial condition. The automakers blame high labor costs, including health care costs and payments for pensions, and inflexible union rules.
U.S. consumers remain skittish about buying sport-utility vehicles after the fuel-price volatility during this year's hurricane season, said Robert H. Schnorbus, chief economist at J.D. Power and Associates. "Even though prices are down from their peaks, I think there is still a big concern or big issue in buyers' minds," he said.
It was really only a question of when such ridiculousness would finally come to an end. $3 a gallon gasoline is something Americans are going to have to get used to.
Ah Shakespeare
Back when I was working on the Fascination, the Carnival Cruise ship I was on from January through May of this year, I made a pretty incredible find in a book shop in Key West, Florida (our every Tuesday morning stop on the way from Miami to Cozumel): a hard cover edition of the complete works of Shakespear (including the sonnets) for $3.50 American! (I later also found in the same place a hard cover edition of the complete writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson for a whole $5.) Since then I've been reading a lot of the Bard. So much great writing. Here's a quote from Richard III:
"But then I sigh, and with a piece of scripture, tell them that God bids us do good for evil. And thus I clothe my naked villainy with odds and ends stol'n forth of Holy writ and seem a saint when most I play the devil."
By no means do I mean to imply anything self-descriptive by me posting this, but what a perfect description of the pure (though apparently historically inaccurate; the demonizing of Richard being a production of the later Tudor kings that succeeded the York dynasty that Richard had been the last King of England from; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_III_of_England) evil that Shakespeare charaacterized so brilliantly in that play. Ian McKellen's (of Lord of the Rings Gandalf fame) film version is well worth seeing if you're at all interested.
"But then I sigh, and with a piece of scripture, tell them that God bids us do good for evil. And thus I clothe my naked villainy with odds and ends stol'n forth of Holy writ and seem a saint when most I play the devil."
By no means do I mean to imply anything self-descriptive by me posting this, but what a perfect description of the pure (though apparently historically inaccurate; the demonizing of Richard being a production of the later Tudor kings that succeeded the York dynasty that Richard had been the last King of England from; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_III_of_England) evil that Shakespeare charaacterized so brilliantly in that play. Ian McKellen's (of Lord of the Rings Gandalf fame) film version is well worth seeing if you're at all interested.
Something to say
Yet again I find myself having written little on here of late, though that's mostly the result of being busy working on other writings; specifically an article for a foreigners magazine here in Taiwan who's deadline for submissions was yesterday. I got it in; we'll see what they think. They're looking for "New Journalism" kind of pieces, a la Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson, and this was my first extended, at least somewhat serious, experiment in that kind of style. Who knows, maybe they'll even publish it.
Otherwise, I've been working at my new job for three weeks now. Washington America Elementary School is the name and I'm teaching Reading and Social Studies to Grades 1 and 2, and Conversation/Listening to Grades 4 and 5. It's pretty relaxed and being an elementary school and not one of the plethora of "bushibans" or cram-schools that are also everywhere I only work Monday to Fridays. I was offered jobs before this one, but I really wanted to have my weekends off and eventually I found work where I did. I'm only working 17 hours a week though so given that I am here to make money after all, I've been looking for more work to fill in my time and it seems like I may have found some. A school emailed me about evening work 3 times a week so I'm hopefully going to meet with them today and see if it will work. I do like my free time, but after doing very little for my first two months here I need to start getting out of the hole of debt I've dug for myself.
Otherwise, I've been working at my new job for three weeks now. Washington America Elementary School is the name and I'm teaching Reading and Social Studies to Grades 1 and 2, and Conversation/Listening to Grades 4 and 5. It's pretty relaxed and being an elementary school and not one of the plethora of "bushibans" or cram-schools that are also everywhere I only work Monday to Fridays. I was offered jobs before this one, but I really wanted to have my weekends off and eventually I found work where I did. I'm only working 17 hours a week though so given that I am here to make money after all, I've been looking for more work to fill in my time and it seems like I may have found some. A school emailed me about evening work 3 times a week so I'm hopefully going to meet with them today and see if it will work. I do like my free time, but after doing very little for my first two months here I need to start getting out of the hole of debt I've dug for myself.
Friday, November 25, 2005
Quote for today
From Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner:
"Because who...has been in love and not discovered the vain evanescence of the fleshly encounter; who has not had to realize that when the brief all is done you must retreat from both love and pleasure, gather up your own rubbish and refuse - the hats and pants and shows which you drag through the world - and retreat since the gods condone and practice these and the dreamy immeasurable coupling which floats oblivious above the trammeling and harried instant, the: was-not: is: was: is a perquisite only of balloony and weightless elephants and whales: but maybe if there were sin too maybe you would not be permitted to escape, uncouple, return."
"Because who...has been in love and not discovered the vain evanescence of the fleshly encounter; who has not had to realize that when the brief all is done you must retreat from both love and pleasure, gather up your own rubbish and refuse - the hats and pants and shows which you drag through the world - and retreat since the gods condone and practice these and the dreamy immeasurable coupling which floats oblivious above the trammeling and harried instant, the: was-not: is: was: is a perquisite only of balloony and weightless elephants and whales: but maybe if there were sin too maybe you would not be permitted to escape, uncouple, return."
Saturday, November 05, 2005
Words
While I was in Taiwan these last two months I was reading, when I was reading which wasn't that often actually, Faulkner's Absalom! Absalom!; a hell of an interesting book by a truly great writer. I'd tried to read Faulkner before (The Sound and the Fury), but it was too much for me at the time; I was too young and inexperienced a reader. He's a writer who you have to work at to read; fight with almost at least at first until you begin to grasp the poetics of his language that once suitably immersed come to possess you with its intensity of expression. I'm still not finished, but I decided that I could use a break from it and that for this short trip to Thailand I should bring something else along so that I wouldn't run out while I was here. Spadework by Timothy Findley was the book thus chosen to accompany me; one I'd been curious about having read others by him (The Wars and Not Wanted On the Voyage) and having it sit in front of me on the coffee table where I've been living these last two months. My roommate Caitlin had got it from an ex-Canadian boyfriend but had yet to read it so I thought I'd give it a try.
Interesting it was. Set entirely in Stratford, Ontario of all places. Not exactly a difficult read anyways; I finished it in all of two days. An All's Well That Ends Well kind of book taking place as it does among the theatre gliterrati of Stratford's annual Shakespeare Festival. Happy family with underlying conflicts, crisis brought on by same conflicts, eventual resolution - hardly original plot structuring. But of course, what novels these days are in anyway original. Not too many. Instead, the characters are what's important and in this book, as in the others I've read by him, Findley does a pretty good job of telling us their story and thereby convincing us of their reality. Certainly not a great book, but rather a pretty good one.
One thing that bothered me about this book in which nearly every character smoked cigarettes at least a little, if not a lot, was his consistent usage of "lighted" as in "She lighted a cigarette as...". I know it's grammatically correct, but it sounds so stilted and awkward compared to the equally sensical and much more flowing "lit"; "she lit a cigarette..." sounds so much better don't you think?
And while on the topic of word usage, when did the indefinite article "an" become usable in front of words that don't start with vowels? Having finished Spadework I went out last night to find something new to read and at one of the many used bookstores scattered around Khao Sarn Rd. found The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace and the Course of History by Phillip Bobbitt. A very good read so far, but he consistently writes (not a quote since I don't have the book with me, but a similar example): "It happened in terms of an historical event not previously seen..." Huh? Since when has this been deemed grammatically correct? As I've been trying to teach my students in Taiwan, one of the vagaries of the English language is the different usages of the indefinite articles: "a" in front of words that begin with a consonant, and "an" in front of any word that begins with a vowel (a,e,i,o,u). Yet a Professor of Constitutionl Studies at a major American university with a PhD from Oxford apparently thinks differently and somehow managed to get his editors and publisher to go along with him. Can anyone explain this one?
Interesting it was. Set entirely in Stratford, Ontario of all places. Not exactly a difficult read anyways; I finished it in all of two days. An All's Well That Ends Well kind of book taking place as it does among the theatre gliterrati of Stratford's annual Shakespeare Festival. Happy family with underlying conflicts, crisis brought on by same conflicts, eventual resolution - hardly original plot structuring. But of course, what novels these days are in anyway original. Not too many. Instead, the characters are what's important and in this book, as in the others I've read by him, Findley does a pretty good job of telling us their story and thereby convincing us of their reality. Certainly not a great book, but rather a pretty good one.
One thing that bothered me about this book in which nearly every character smoked cigarettes at least a little, if not a lot, was his consistent usage of "lighted" as in "She lighted a cigarette as...". I know it's grammatically correct, but it sounds so stilted and awkward compared to the equally sensical and much more flowing "lit"; "she lit a cigarette..." sounds so much better don't you think?
And while on the topic of word usage, when did the indefinite article "an" become usable in front of words that don't start with vowels? Having finished Spadework I went out last night to find something new to read and at one of the many used bookstores scattered around Khao Sarn Rd. found The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace and the Course of History by Phillip Bobbitt. A very good read so far, but he consistently writes (not a quote since I don't have the book with me, but a similar example): "It happened in terms of an historical event not previously seen..." Huh? Since when has this been deemed grammatically correct? As I've been trying to teach my students in Taiwan, one of the vagaries of the English language is the different usages of the indefinite articles: "a" in front of words that begin with a consonant, and "an" in front of any word that begins with a vowel (a,e,i,o,u). Yet a Professor of Constitutionl Studies at a major American university with a PhD from Oxford apparently thinks differently and somehow managed to get his editors and publisher to go along with him. Can anyone explain this one?
Get me out!
It's been a long time since I've been punched in the face, but, as if I could find any less reason to want to be in Bangkok, I had such a thing happen to be a short while ago. As I was walking down a street shared by pedestrians and motor vehicles, a taxi pulled up in front of me and just as I walked by the back door of the side I was on opened just as I happened to be walking by it nearly smashing my knee if I hadn't jumped out of the way. Not sure the exact words that came out of my mouth, but an expletive of some sort it was as I kept walking. Perhaps ten seconds later I hear a voice behind me and am pushed in the back. Turning around I find myself confronted with an enraged Thai guy screaming at me, throwing punches (most of which I block, but one of them lands on my left cheek) and kicking. I, of course, try to reason with the guy (I guess I somehow insulted him though he was the one who nearly hit my leg with the taxi door), but whether he just couldn't understand English, just wanted to fight, was flipped out on speed (leading to not very calm personalities; a very common problem here depsite the government's anti-drug crackdown of recent years) or a combination of all three all I could do was block his repeated attacks and try to talk some sense into him. Thankfully his friend came and pulled him away though he continued to scream at me for my apparent indiscretion. Thank god I have only one more night in this city...
Friday, November 04, 2005
Bangkok blues
Sartre's dictum that (translated from the French of course) hell is other people has never been an opinion I've wished to grant my aquiesance to, but after another day spent in the environs of Khao Sarn Rd. in Bangkok I'm prone to agree. I'm only in Thailand to renew my visa that was going to run out in a few more days and so this whole trip, far from being a desirable escape/vacation from Taiwan is rather an expensive annoyance I wished I could have avoided. So I find myself yet again in this traveller ghetto of ghettos. Sick of these masses of middle/upper class western humanity strutting their usually drunken selves down these streets of casual cavortment; all attempting to impress with their so hip, yet completely conventional relative to everyone else fashion sense. Yes, this is sadly the future right now...
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
My apologies...
For not having written anything of late; a couple weeks even. Lazyness undoubtedly has something to do with it, but I also have been feeling pretty lousy the last week and a half due to a cold/flu leaving me not very inspired to put words to thoughts. Has been relatively eventful though. About a month ago now I went and checked out a live music club called Grooveyard that's been open since May or so of this year and who should I find behind the soundboard when I walked in, but a guy named Patrick from Edmonton who used to play in a band called Wide Awake and Dreaming with two friends of mine Ross and Jacob. I never really knew him back home, but I recognized him though I hadn't seen him in probably 5 or 6 years. He runs the place with an Aussie guy named Roger, plays (tenor and soprano sax) around Taiwan and does booking and managing for some bands on the side. To make a long story short I soon started playing with him and Roger in their jazz group and given that the Taichung Jazz Festival's going on, we played this last Sunday to a fair sized crowd. I bought an acoustic guitar here, but for playing with a band a guy I met that I'm in the process of starting a country band with lent me his surprisingly good Aria Pro II electric, a Les Paulish thing that actually plays and sounds quite good. He also lent me his delay and volume pedal for the gig; definite treats for one who loves effects like me. The people seemed to like it anyways, even being asked to have my picture taken with a woman. The $3000 NT (about a $110 Canadian) was certainly nice as well...
Unfortunately, my visa runs out next Monday so I have to leave the country to renew it. Hong Kong's the cheapest place to go, but they also therefore happen to be the stingiest when it comes to visa renewals. So back to Bangkok I must go being the next cheapest place. Though I finally have a job, I haven't been working long enough to make very much so I can ill afford it, but it's not like I have much choice in the matter; visa overstays get you into a mess of problems I have no desire to deal with. At least I'll have a time-out from Taiwan, though since I actually quite like it after only being here two months it's rather a waste, but hopefully I'll enjoy Bangkok more than my last time spent there when I spent far too many frustrating days waiting to get my first visa to Taiwan.
Unfortunately, my visa runs out next Monday so I have to leave the country to renew it. Hong Kong's the cheapest place to go, but they also therefore happen to be the stingiest when it comes to visa renewals. So back to Bangkok I must go being the next cheapest place. Though I finally have a job, I haven't been working long enough to make very much so I can ill afford it, but it's not like I have much choice in the matter; visa overstays get you into a mess of problems I have no desire to deal with. At least I'll have a time-out from Taiwan, though since I actually quite like it after only being here two months it's rather a waste, but hopefully I'll enjoy Bangkok more than my last time spent there when I spent far too many frustrating days waiting to get my first visa to Taiwan.
Monday, October 17, 2005
Maybe it's not so bad after all...
So the theory that the use of marijuana makes people stupid has suffered yet another setback. (Of course, one of the supposedly definitive proofs of said theory was an experiment undertaken in the 70's while Ronald Reagan was governor of California that involved force feeding pure marijuana smoke to monkeys - literally suffocating them - and then using the inevitable brain damage that resulted as "proof" of marijuana's toxicity. Could anyone imagine a more biased "scientific" experiment? Details here: http://www.sumeria.net/politics/noclo.html; and for some still needed for many marijuana de-mythologizing go to http://paranoia.lycaeum.org/marijuana/facts/mj-health-mythology.html) Recent studies at the University of Saskatchewan seem to indicate that substances found in marijuana actually promote brain cell growth.
Most "drugs of abuse" such as alcohol, heroin, cocaine and nicotine suppress growth of new brain cells. However, researchers found that cannabinoids promoted generation of new neurons in rats' hippocampuses.
Hippocampuses are the part of the brain responsible for learning and memory, and the study held true for either plant-derived or the synthetic version of cannabinoids.
"This is quite a surprise," said Xia Zhang, an associate professor with the Neuropsychiatry Research Unit at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon.
"Chronic use of marijuana may actually improve learning memory when the new neurons in the hippocampus can mature in two or three months," he added.
The research by Dr. Zhang and a team of international researchers is to be published in the November issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, but their findings are on-line now.
The scientists also noticed that cannabinoids curbed depression and anxiety, which Dr. Zhang says, suggests a correlation between neurogenesis and mood swings. (Or, it at least partly explains the feelings of relaxation and euphoria of a pot-induced high.)
The rest of the article can be found here:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20051014.wxcanna1014/BNStory/specialScienceandHealth/
And for a reminder of the insanity that is continued prohibition laws against marijuana (via http://www.andrewsullivan.com) go to http://www.mpp.org/releases/nr20051017.html.
Most "drugs of abuse" such as alcohol, heroin, cocaine and nicotine suppress growth of new brain cells. However, researchers found that cannabinoids promoted generation of new neurons in rats' hippocampuses.
Hippocampuses are the part of the brain responsible for learning and memory, and the study held true for either plant-derived or the synthetic version of cannabinoids.
"This is quite a surprise," said Xia Zhang, an associate professor with the Neuropsychiatry Research Unit at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon.
"Chronic use of marijuana may actually improve learning memory when the new neurons in the hippocampus can mature in two or three months," he added.
The research by Dr. Zhang and a team of international researchers is to be published in the November issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, but their findings are on-line now.
The scientists also noticed that cannabinoids curbed depression and anxiety, which Dr. Zhang says, suggests a correlation between neurogenesis and mood swings. (Or, it at least partly explains the feelings of relaxation and euphoria of a pot-induced high.)
The rest of the article can be found here:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20051014.wxcanna1014/BNStory/specialScienceandHealth/
And for a reminder of the insanity that is continued prohibition laws against marijuana (via http://www.andrewsullivan.com) go to http://www.mpp.org/releases/nr20051017.html.
Thursday, October 13, 2005
About The Dead
You may or may not know of my love for the music of the Grateful Dead. Though I never had the opportunity to see them live being from western Canada where they hadn't played since the early 70's and only 18 when Jerry died in August of 1995 when I was just getting into their music I truly feel that they were one of the greatest musical groups ever. (I did see one show of the simply re-named The Dead's 2003 summer tour and three of their 2004 tour and though there was no Jerry, they were great shows played by a phenomenal group of musicians that I thoroughly enjoyed.) I actually even managed to tie them into my undergraduate honours thesis, which was entitled "A Critique of Adorno's Theory of Popular Music: On Improvisation, the Realization of Difference and the Grateful Dead" in which tried to work out of the possibility of a truly progressive "popular" music practice using the model of the Dead's live music ethos.
I'm working on an article that I'm going to try to get published in Bass Player or Musician discussing the bass playing of Phil Lesh, which is to me one of the fundamental innovations of the Dead's music and once it's done I'll post it here or link to it, but in the meantime I found this discussion of their uniqueness to be a worthwhile read so I thought I'd pass it along.
http://www.crecon.com/davidwomack/dead.html
Key quote:
...the Grateful Dead were perhaps the most artistically sublime of units, with band interaction that must be equated with genius given their unflagging devotion, prodigious output and unparalleled resourcefulness. The trick was in absorbing influences from absolutely every direction imaginable, from the "simple" forms of country, bluegrass, rural blues, pop and soul, to the esoteric realms of avant garde, classical, jazz, and cultural music from around the globe. Channellers with gates wide open, spirit, music and life flowed forth. Beatific and reverent, unplanned and contrived, sloppy and perfect, erratic (day to day) and consistent (ultimately), clumsiness only enhanced their high wire act. Analytical rigor mortis was held at bay by refusing to chart destinations; simplistic redundancy was eluded by big, complex, ideas. Communication was clear, if elliptical. The Grateful Dead were a stunning mixture of the hearts of simple music lovers with the minds of self-conscious, ambitious aesthetes.
In the words of Bill Graham, they weren't the best at what they did, they were the only ones who did what they did.
I'm working on an article that I'm going to try to get published in Bass Player or Musician discussing the bass playing of Phil Lesh, which is to me one of the fundamental innovations of the Dead's music and once it's done I'll post it here or link to it, but in the meantime I found this discussion of their uniqueness to be a worthwhile read so I thought I'd pass it along.
http://www.crecon.com/davidwomack/dead.html
Key quote:
...the Grateful Dead were perhaps the most artistically sublime of units, with band interaction that must be equated with genius given their unflagging devotion, prodigious output and unparalleled resourcefulness. The trick was in absorbing influences from absolutely every direction imaginable, from the "simple" forms of country, bluegrass, rural blues, pop and soul, to the esoteric realms of avant garde, classical, jazz, and cultural music from around the globe. Channellers with gates wide open, spirit, music and life flowed forth. Beatific and reverent, unplanned and contrived, sloppy and perfect, erratic (day to day) and consistent (ultimately), clumsiness only enhanced their high wire act. Analytical rigor mortis was held at bay by refusing to chart destinations; simplistic redundancy was eluded by big, complex, ideas. Communication was clear, if elliptical. The Grateful Dead were a stunning mixture of the hearts of simple music lovers with the minds of self-conscious, ambitious aesthetes.
In the words of Bill Graham, they weren't the best at what they did, they were the only ones who did what they did.
Post Double 10 Day ruminations
I haven't posted in a while due to...well a number of things. It was Double-10 days on Monday here (10/10), which is Taiwan's National Holiday and celebrates the founding of the original Chinese Republic in 1912 by Sun Yat-sen after the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty, and so for the long weekend (a rare occurence here in Taiwan where many people still work six days a week) some friends and I went to check out some hot springs that my roommate Caitlin had been to a few weeks before. Since then I haven't felt too inspired, but thankfully that's at least somewhat changed.
Googling "Double ten day Taiwan" I came across this article written marking the holiday, "Taiwan: Double Tenth: A Time for Rededication to Freedom" with no stated author on the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization website at http://www.unpo.org/ news_detail.php?arg=50&par=3055. It points out how dramatically Taiwan has changed for the better over the last 20 years from a forty year long military dictatorship by first Chiang Kai-Shek and then his son Chiang Ching-kuo that lasted until 1987 to a multi-party democracy that is among the most free in Asia, if not the world. This contrasts sharply, of course, with mainland China that has been under the despotic, authoritarian rule of the Communist Party of China for the last 56 years. For those of you who have read my article (posted below) discussing this in relation to U.S. foreign policy this is fairly familiar, but it is well worth reading. Here's an excerpt.
According to Freedom House’s Freedom in the World 2005 survey, Taiwan is one of the few countries in Asia that qualifies as ``free.’’ It shares that with two other nations, Japan and South Korea. Taiwan ranked Asia's most free with overall rating of 1.5 on a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 represents the freest.The same survey rates China ``not free,’’ at 6.5, only a half point away from sharing the world's worst rating with Sudan, North Korea and Myanmar.Here lies the greatest external threat to Taiwan's free and democratic way of life.The tyrants who ruthlessly oppress the Chinese and Tibetan people declare the Taiwanese their chattel and rant that they will stop at nothing to crush Taiwan's sovereignty.In March, the rubber-stamp Chinese parliament unanimously approved a so-called ``anti-secession law,’’ which claims that the Chinese Civil War is still on and will end only when the Taiwanese people, who, except for those forcefully conscripted, took no part in that war, are united with a society that does not share their appreciation of human rights, freedom and democracy.In their hypernationalistic rhetoric, Beijing officials have claimed that Taiwan poses the gravest danger to China's national security. The world can see through such hysterical raving.
Well I would hope so, but it's still the case that most countries in the world, my country of Canada included, would rather not stand up to defend Taiwan against its expansionist neighbour preferring to accept China's line about it being but a "renegade" province that must eventually be ruled again by the mainland in order to keep good relations with the butchers of Beijing. Sadly, with the general incompetence that has plagued U.S. actions in Iraq since the war began (primarily due to Rumsfeld's desire to "do it on the cheap" with 175,000 troops as opposed to the 300,000 plus that many generals were advocating) and the continuing morass that is at least partly the result of said incompetence in plain view for all to see, America's, being the country that has kept Taiwan free for 50 years, resolve to defend Taiwan were China to invade lacks the credibility it once had. China would still have to be insanely self-destructive to take such an action, but then who thought the "progressive" Deng Xiao-ping would countenance the slaughter of hundreds, possibly thousands of protestors in Tianenmen Square on June 4, 1989? (If you need a refresher on what exactly happened that very sad day, check out http://www.christusrex.org/www1/sdc/tiananmen.html for an overview that also has some incredible pictures posted. For a very interesting read about the U.S.' view of the situation, see http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB16/; a declassified history from the U.S. National Security Archives) An event that should certainly not be forgotten.
Googling "Double ten day Taiwan" I came across this article written marking the holiday, "Taiwan: Double Tenth: A Time for Rededication to Freedom" with no stated author on the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization website at http://www.unpo.org/ news_detail.php?arg=50&par=3055. It points out how dramatically Taiwan has changed for the better over the last 20 years from a forty year long military dictatorship by first Chiang Kai-Shek and then his son Chiang Ching-kuo that lasted until 1987 to a multi-party democracy that is among the most free in Asia, if not the world. This contrasts sharply, of course, with mainland China that has been under the despotic, authoritarian rule of the Communist Party of China for the last 56 years. For those of you who have read my article (posted below) discussing this in relation to U.S. foreign policy this is fairly familiar, but it is well worth reading. Here's an excerpt.
According to Freedom House’s Freedom in the World 2005 survey, Taiwan is one of the few countries in Asia that qualifies as ``free.’’ It shares that with two other nations, Japan and South Korea. Taiwan ranked Asia's most free with overall rating of 1.5 on a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 represents the freest.The same survey rates China ``not free,’’ at 6.5, only a half point away from sharing the world's worst rating with Sudan, North Korea and Myanmar.Here lies the greatest external threat to Taiwan's free and democratic way of life.The tyrants who ruthlessly oppress the Chinese and Tibetan people declare the Taiwanese their chattel and rant that they will stop at nothing to crush Taiwan's sovereignty.In March, the rubber-stamp Chinese parliament unanimously approved a so-called ``anti-secession law,’’ which claims that the Chinese Civil War is still on and will end only when the Taiwanese people, who, except for those forcefully conscripted, took no part in that war, are united with a society that does not share their appreciation of human rights, freedom and democracy.In their hypernationalistic rhetoric, Beijing officials have claimed that Taiwan poses the gravest danger to China's national security. The world can see through such hysterical raving.
Well I would hope so, but it's still the case that most countries in the world, my country of Canada included, would rather not stand up to defend Taiwan against its expansionist neighbour preferring to accept China's line about it being but a "renegade" province that must eventually be ruled again by the mainland in order to keep good relations with the butchers of Beijing. Sadly, with the general incompetence that has plagued U.S. actions in Iraq since the war began (primarily due to Rumsfeld's desire to "do it on the cheap" with 175,000 troops as opposed to the 300,000 plus that many generals were advocating) and the continuing morass that is at least partly the result of said incompetence in plain view for all to see, America's, being the country that has kept Taiwan free for 50 years, resolve to defend Taiwan were China to invade lacks the credibility it once had. China would still have to be insanely self-destructive to take such an action, but then who thought the "progressive" Deng Xiao-ping would countenance the slaughter of hundreds, possibly thousands of protestors in Tianenmen Square on June 4, 1989? (If you need a refresher on what exactly happened that very sad day, check out http://www.christusrex.org/www1/sdc/tiananmen.html for an overview that also has some incredible pictures posted. For a very interesting read about the U.S.' view of the situation, see http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB16/; a declassified history from the U.S. National Security Archives) An event that should certainly not be forgotten.
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
A new look from the Left?
On Open Democracy (at http://www.opendemocracy.net/conflict) Sasha Abramsky has an interesting article entitled: "Whose al-Qaeda problem?" which takes to task those on the Left (Tariq Ali, Robert Fisk, George Galloway, Naomi Klein, and John Pilger specifically) who have ever since the attacks of 9/11/2001, and again since the bombings in London of this year, done their rhetorical best to argue that it is the fault of the United-States and Britain that these events happened at all. Whether because of their (primarily the U.S.') support of Israel, or because of the sanctions on, and then later invasion of, Iraq, al-Qaeda is, these people insist, with some justification punishing these countries for their imperialist ways. The errors of this line of argumentation should be obvious to anyone: al-Qaeda's motivations stem from far deeper roots than American support for Israel or for any actions taken in recent years in Iraq. To understand Islamist fascism, of which al-Qaeda is one notable example, one must go back at least as far back as the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I and the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in the decades that followed. What was involved here (and still is today) was a reaction against the Enlightenment derived ideals of secularism, individual rights and the emancipation of women (among other things). These ideals, traditionaly celebrated and fought for by the Left, have instead been ignored in favour of finding common cause with reactionary religious fanatics who want to re-conquer Andalusia (Moorish Spain that came to an end in 1492), have targeted Australia (the Bali bombings of 2002 and again within the last week) for daring to help predominantly Christian East Timor become independent of Muslim dominatated Indonesia and have attacked any groups - the United-Nations, the Red Cross, Shi'as (who are seen as unredeemable heretics by Sunni fanatics like bin-Laden and Al-Zarqawi), Kurdish rights groups - who dare oppose their authoritarian ambitions.
Critiquing this "blame the West" mentality, Abramsky writes:
They assume that groups like al-Qaida are almost entirely reactive, responding to western policies and actions, rather than being pro-active creatures with a virulent homegrown agenda, one not just of defence but of conquest, destruction of rivals, and, ultimately and at its most megalomaniacal, absolute subjugation.
It misses the central point: that, unlike traditional “third-world” liberation movements looking for a bit of peace and quiet in which to nurture embryonic states, al-Qaida is classically imperialist, looking to subvert established social orders and to replace the cultural and institutional infrastructure of its enemies with a (divinely inspired) hierarchical autocracy of its own, looking to craft the next chapter of human history in its own image.
Simply blaming the never quite defined, yet implicitly all-powerful “west” for the ills of the world doesn’t explain why al-Qaida slaughtered thousands of Americans eighteen months before Saddam was overthrown. Nor does it explain the psychopathic joy this death cult takes in mass killings and in ritualistic, snuff-movie-style beheadings. The term “collateral damage” may be inept, but it at least suggests that the killing of civilians in pursuit of a state’s war aims is unintentional, regrettable; there is nothing unintentional, there is no regret, in the targeting of civilians by al-Qaida’s bombers.
Moreover, many of those who reflexively blame the west do not honestly hold up a mirror to the rest of the world, including the Muslim world, and the racism and sexism and anti-semitism that is rife in many parts of it. If bigotry were indeed the exclusive preserve of the west, their arguments would have greater moral force. But given the fundamentalist prejudices that are so much a part of bin Ladenism, the cry of western racism is a long way from being a case-closer.
We should attend to the way bin Laden and his followers invoke “the west.” They do so alternately to describe any expansive and domineering “first world” economic and political system and, even more ominously, to demarcate a set of ostensibly decadent liberal political, cultural, social, and religious beliefs and practices.
Indeed, what al-Qaida apparently hates most about “the west” are its best points: the pluralism, the rationalism, individual liberty, the emancipation of women, the openness and social dynamism that represent the strongest legacy of the Enlightenment. These values stand in counterpoint to the tyrannical social code idealised by al-Qaida and by related political groupings such as Afghanistan’s Taliban.
In that sense, “the west” denotes less a geographical space than a mindset: a cultural presence or a sphere of anti-absolutist ideas that the Viennese-born philosopher Karl Popper termed the “open society.” In his day, when fascists and Stalinists held vast parts of the globe, the concept of “the west” prevailed over a smaller territory than today. But with the rise of bin Ladenism, the prevalence of this concept again is shrinking.
It is because bin Ladenism is waging war against the liberal ideal that much of the activist left’s response to 11 September 2001 and the London attacks is woefully, catastrophically inadequate. For we, as progressives, need to uphold the values of pluralism, rationalism, scepticism, women’s rights, and individual liberty and oppose ideologies and movements whose foundations rest on theocracy, obscurantism, misogyny, anti-Semitism, and nostalgia for a lost empire.
His comments against Christopher Hitchens are, I think, undeserved since Hitchens, contrary to the polemic of many on the Left, has been nothing if not consistent in his anti-fascist viewpoint (check out http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/2005/09/26/ to see an example of his contrarianess), but then bashing Hitchens ("traitors" to a cause are always the most hated afterall) seems to be almost a requirement for many to be taken seriously on the Left. The article is a good one though. Let's hope others on the Left start to see past their dislike of Bush to the real danger we who believe in secularism, individual rights and democratic freedoms face.
Critiquing this "blame the West" mentality, Abramsky writes:
They assume that groups like al-Qaida are almost entirely reactive, responding to western policies and actions, rather than being pro-active creatures with a virulent homegrown agenda, one not just of defence but of conquest, destruction of rivals, and, ultimately and at its most megalomaniacal, absolute subjugation.
It misses the central point: that, unlike traditional “third-world” liberation movements looking for a bit of peace and quiet in which to nurture embryonic states, al-Qaida is classically imperialist, looking to subvert established social orders and to replace the cultural and institutional infrastructure of its enemies with a (divinely inspired) hierarchical autocracy of its own, looking to craft the next chapter of human history in its own image.
Simply blaming the never quite defined, yet implicitly all-powerful “west” for the ills of the world doesn’t explain why al-Qaida slaughtered thousands of Americans eighteen months before Saddam was overthrown. Nor does it explain the psychopathic joy this death cult takes in mass killings and in ritualistic, snuff-movie-style beheadings. The term “collateral damage” may be inept, but it at least suggests that the killing of civilians in pursuit of a state’s war aims is unintentional, regrettable; there is nothing unintentional, there is no regret, in the targeting of civilians by al-Qaida’s bombers.
Moreover, many of those who reflexively blame the west do not honestly hold up a mirror to the rest of the world, including the Muslim world, and the racism and sexism and anti-semitism that is rife in many parts of it. If bigotry were indeed the exclusive preserve of the west, their arguments would have greater moral force. But given the fundamentalist prejudices that are so much a part of bin Ladenism, the cry of western racism is a long way from being a case-closer.
We should attend to the way bin Laden and his followers invoke “the west.” They do so alternately to describe any expansive and domineering “first world” economic and political system and, even more ominously, to demarcate a set of ostensibly decadent liberal political, cultural, social, and religious beliefs and practices.
Indeed, what al-Qaida apparently hates most about “the west” are its best points: the pluralism, the rationalism, individual liberty, the emancipation of women, the openness and social dynamism that represent the strongest legacy of the Enlightenment. These values stand in counterpoint to the tyrannical social code idealised by al-Qaida and by related political groupings such as Afghanistan’s Taliban.
In that sense, “the west” denotes less a geographical space than a mindset: a cultural presence or a sphere of anti-absolutist ideas that the Viennese-born philosopher Karl Popper termed the “open society.” In his day, when fascists and Stalinists held vast parts of the globe, the concept of “the west” prevailed over a smaller territory than today. But with the rise of bin Ladenism, the prevalence of this concept again is shrinking.
It is because bin Ladenism is waging war against the liberal ideal that much of the activist left’s response to 11 September 2001 and the London attacks is woefully, catastrophically inadequate. For we, as progressives, need to uphold the values of pluralism, rationalism, scepticism, women’s rights, and individual liberty and oppose ideologies and movements whose foundations rest on theocracy, obscurantism, misogyny, anti-Semitism, and nostalgia for a lost empire.
His comments against Christopher Hitchens are, I think, undeserved since Hitchens, contrary to the polemic of many on the Left, has been nothing if not consistent in his anti-fascist viewpoint (check out http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/2005/09/26/ to see an example of his contrarianess), but then bashing Hitchens ("traitors" to a cause are always the most hated afterall) seems to be almost a requirement for many to be taken seriously on the Left. The article is a good one though. Let's hope others on the Left start to see past their dislike of Bush to the real danger we who believe in secularism, individual rights and democratic freedoms face.
Sunday, October 02, 2005
Saturday, October 01, 2005
And why not?
The inimitable Dan Savage penned an article for Salon.com about a year ago concerning the then recent coming-out-of-the-closet and resignation of New Jersey Governor James McGreevey. Having somehow missed it when it was first published (odd given that I'm a regular reader of Salon) I finally read it after linking to it from another article about Savage's new book, The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage, and My Family, and thought it a particularly well written and argued piece on the absurdity of those so against same-sex marriage. Key quote:
According to the Falwells, Robertsons, and Santorums of the world, I'm supposed to think less about the South African Olympic men's swim team and more about hell (hot!) and eternity (long!). Then I'm supposed to go find a woman I can trick into marrying me. So what if the foundation of my marriage is a lie? So what if I have to struggle against my sexual and emotional needs all my adult life? Do what you gotta do, faggot: If you need to think about other men -- like, say, all those nice boys on the South African Olympic swim team -- in order to perform sexually for your wife and make some babies, Sen. Santorum says go for it. And if the truth about my sexuality were to ever come out -- if I were, say, threatened with a $50 million lawsuit by my same-sex piece on the side -- the poor woman I've lied to will feel humiliated and violated but, shit, no one ever said that marriage was all sweetness and light, right?
If it does nothing else, the McGreevey marriage highlights the chief absurdity of the anti-gay-marriage argument: Gay men can, in point of fact, get married -- provided we marry women, duped or otherwise. The porousness of the sacred institution is remarkable: Gay people are a threat to marriage, but gay people are encouraged to marry -- indeed, we have married, under duress, for centuries, and the religious right would like us to continue to do so today -- as long as our marriages are a sham. As long as we're willing to lie to ourselves, our wives, our communities, our children, and for someone like McGreevey, our constituents. A closeted gay man like McGreevey can even marry twice and have both his marriages regarded as legitimate. Even as an openly gay man, McGreevey can remain married to his wife and smoke all the pole he likes on the side. There ain't no law agin' it, Sen. Santorum. But how does this state of affairs protect marriage from the homos, I wonder? If an openly gay man can get married as long as his marriage makes a mockery of what is the defining characteristic of modern marriage -- romantic love -- or if he marries simply because he despairs of finding a same-sex partner, what harm could possibly be done by opening marriage to the gay men who don't want to make a mockery of marriage or who can find a same-sex partner?
Read the whole thing here: http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2004/08/17/savage_mcgreevey/index.html, though you might have to watch a commercial first.
According to the Falwells, Robertsons, and Santorums of the world, I'm supposed to think less about the South African Olympic men's swim team and more about hell (hot!) and eternity (long!). Then I'm supposed to go find a woman I can trick into marrying me. So what if the foundation of my marriage is a lie? So what if I have to struggle against my sexual and emotional needs all my adult life? Do what you gotta do, faggot: If you need to think about other men -- like, say, all those nice boys on the South African Olympic swim team -- in order to perform sexually for your wife and make some babies, Sen. Santorum says go for it. And if the truth about my sexuality were to ever come out -- if I were, say, threatened with a $50 million lawsuit by my same-sex piece on the side -- the poor woman I've lied to will feel humiliated and violated but, shit, no one ever said that marriage was all sweetness and light, right?
If it does nothing else, the McGreevey marriage highlights the chief absurdity of the anti-gay-marriage argument: Gay men can, in point of fact, get married -- provided we marry women, duped or otherwise. The porousness of the sacred institution is remarkable: Gay people are a threat to marriage, but gay people are encouraged to marry -- indeed, we have married, under duress, for centuries, and the religious right would like us to continue to do so today -- as long as our marriages are a sham. As long as we're willing to lie to ourselves, our wives, our communities, our children, and for someone like McGreevey, our constituents. A closeted gay man like McGreevey can even marry twice and have both his marriages regarded as legitimate. Even as an openly gay man, McGreevey can remain married to his wife and smoke all the pole he likes on the side. There ain't no law agin' it, Sen. Santorum. But how does this state of affairs protect marriage from the homos, I wonder? If an openly gay man can get married as long as his marriage makes a mockery of what is the defining characteristic of modern marriage -- romantic love -- or if he marries simply because he despairs of finding a same-sex partner, what harm could possibly be done by opening marriage to the gay men who don't want to make a mockery of marriage or who can find a same-sex partner?
Read the whole thing here: http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2004/08/17/savage_mcgreevey/index.html, though you might have to watch a commercial first.
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Take a hint George!
I know it's a bit old, but Bill Maher's commentary from a few weeks back is hilarious and is a true must see.
Check it out at: http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/bushvideos/v/maherbushbungle.htm
"Mr. President, this job can't be fun for you any more. There's no more money to spend--you used up all of that. You can't start another war because you used up the army. And now, darn the luck, the rest of your term has become the Bush family nightmare: helping poor people. Listen to your Mom. The cupboard's bare, the credit cards maxed out. No one's speaking to you. Mission accomplished.
I've watched it three times and I still laugh...
Check it out at: http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/bushvideos/v/maherbushbungle.htm
"Mr. President, this job can't be fun for you any more. There's no more money to spend--you used up all of that. You can't start another war because you used up the army. And now, darn the luck, the rest of your term has become the Bush family nightmare: helping poor people. Listen to your Mom. The cupboard's bare, the credit cards maxed out. No one's speaking to you. Mission accomplished.
I've watched it three times and I still laugh...
What's so intelligent about Intelligent Design?
William Saletan has a great article on Slate.com on the fallacies of those proposing "Intelligent Design" (ID) as a scientific alternative to Darwinian evolution; something being now proposed in Pennsylvania as a mandated part of the Biology curriculum.
The complaint that Darwinism can resort to an "infinite number" of processes misses the key word: processes. What makes Darwinism finite and falsifiable is its commitment to explain processes of evolution. Debunk one process, and Darwinists are forced to propose and test another. (For an excellent review of Darwinism's performance under empirical challenge, see Rick Weiss and David Brown's article in Monday's Washington Post.) What makes ID infinite and unfalsifiable is its refusal to explain intelligent design. You send your kids to biology class to learn by what processes living things evolve. ID doesn't even try to answer that question...
So here's what ID proponents are offering to teach your kids: They won't say how ID works. They won't say how it can be tested, apart from testing Darwinism and inferring that the alternative is ID. They won't concede it has to be falsifiable. All they'll say is that Darwinism hasn't explained some things.
(The full article: http://www.slate.com/id/2127052/)
In other words, ID doesn't belong in a science class! It's an anti-theory that cannot be falsifiable and is therefore by definition not scientific. It should be discussed, but in a Philosophy class not Biology. Of course sadly, few high school students are exposed to even the slightest bit of philosophical reflection; a tragic absense in anyone's education and one that, I think, partly explains what's wrong with the present system: no broader, multi-disciplined environment to discuss and learn to think about broad questions of human knowledge. And so ID continues to find itself more than ever where it does not belong.
The complaint that Darwinism can resort to an "infinite number" of processes misses the key word: processes. What makes Darwinism finite and falsifiable is its commitment to explain processes of evolution. Debunk one process, and Darwinists are forced to propose and test another. (For an excellent review of Darwinism's performance under empirical challenge, see Rick Weiss and David Brown's article in Monday's Washington Post.) What makes ID infinite and unfalsifiable is its refusal to explain intelligent design. You send your kids to biology class to learn by what processes living things evolve. ID doesn't even try to answer that question...
So here's what ID proponents are offering to teach your kids: They won't say how ID works. They won't say how it can be tested, apart from testing Darwinism and inferring that the alternative is ID. They won't concede it has to be falsifiable. All they'll say is that Darwinism hasn't explained some things.
(The full article: http://www.slate.com/id/2127052/)
In other words, ID doesn't belong in a science class! It's an anti-theory that cannot be falsifiable and is therefore by definition not scientific. It should be discussed, but in a Philosophy class not Biology. Of course sadly, few high school students are exposed to even the slightest bit of philosophical reflection; a tragic absense in anyone's education and one that, I think, partly explains what's wrong with the present system: no broader, multi-disciplined environment to discuss and learn to think about broad questions of human knowledge. And so ID continues to find itself more than ever where it does not belong.
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Down goes Delay
So uber-powerful House of Representatives leader Tom Delay has been indicted by a grand jury on charges of criminal conspiracy. Delay epitomizes the slimy depths that the Republican Party has sunk to in its 11 year control of the House and it's about time that someone - thank you Texas prosecutor Ronnie Earl - had the guts to stand up to this sleaze bag. He, of course, proclaims his innocence; labelling Earl "an unabashed partisan zealot" engaging in "personal revenge," though Earl has, in his 29 years as prosecutor, gone after far more Democrats (12) than Republicans (4).
Delay was the prime motivator of the Clinton impeachment process, the unconstitutional intervention of the Federal government in the Terri Schiavo affair, the unprededented three hour long vote call (that usually lasts 15 minutes) needed to pass the unaffordable and subsidies-for-big-pharmaceutical-companies ridden Medicaid Senior Drug Benefit and the pre-last election gerrymandering of the Texas House districts that not surprisingly gave the Republicans 6 more seats in that election (among other things). His initial impetus for getting into politics, having used to run an extermination business in Houston, was a fervent desire for government de-regulation; specifically aimed at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for having (horror of horrors!), in the seventies, banned Mirex: a probable carcinogen that becomes increasingly concentrated as it moves up the food chain, is highly toxic to marine crustaceans and was then being discovered in the breast milk of mother's in the Southeastern states where it was used to fight fire ants. Yes, this is the man who has been in effective control of the House since Newt Gingrich's resignation as Speaker in 1998, which explains a great deal what's gone wrong with the legislative branch of the U.S. government of late.
For a great discussion of Delay's career, check out NPR's discussion with Texas journalist Lou Dubose at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4052979
Delay was the prime motivator of the Clinton impeachment process, the unconstitutional intervention of the Federal government in the Terri Schiavo affair, the unprededented three hour long vote call (that usually lasts 15 minutes) needed to pass the unaffordable and subsidies-for-big-pharmaceutical-companies ridden Medicaid Senior Drug Benefit and the pre-last election gerrymandering of the Texas House districts that not surprisingly gave the Republicans 6 more seats in that election (among other things). His initial impetus for getting into politics, having used to run an extermination business in Houston, was a fervent desire for government de-regulation; specifically aimed at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for having (horror of horrors!), in the seventies, banned Mirex: a probable carcinogen that becomes increasingly concentrated as it moves up the food chain, is highly toxic to marine crustaceans and was then being discovered in the breast milk of mother's in the Southeastern states where it was used to fight fire ants. Yes, this is the man who has been in effective control of the House since Newt Gingrich's resignation as Speaker in 1998, which explains a great deal what's gone wrong with the legislative branch of the U.S. government of late.
For a great discussion of Delay's career, check out NPR's discussion with Texas journalist Lou Dubose at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4052979
China, Taiwan and the USA
The United-States (at least its Federal government) is often accused of letting self-interested, primarily economic, considerations determine its foreign policy. So it has been tirelessly argued: the invasion of Iraq was all about oil; the overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan was "really" about a US energy company building a natural gas pipeline through the country; its involvements in Central and South America over the last century due to imperialist dreams; its late entries into both World Wars seen as opportunistic gambits by power-hungry and hypocritical Presidents; even the tens of billions spenty (in todays dollars) to rebuild Europe after World War II have been reduced to the meanest of motives. I would instead argue that all these actions have been the result of an inevitable combination of self-interest and idealistic, liberal desires to change the world for the better. That to therefore reduce these, or any other historical event, to a purely materialist (generally Marxist) analysis is to overly simplify the true complexities of historical reality. One can certainly learn a lot from applying such analyses, but one must be aware at the same time of their limitations.
The USA's relations with Taiwan make particularly evident the sometimes poverty of this historical outlook. Taiwan is, of course, an island claimed by China as an indivisible part of itself, though it has only for a relatively brief time ever been under control of the government on the mainland (from 1683-1895). Since the Kuomintang (KMT) under Chiang Kai-Shek lost the Civil War to Mao Tse-Tung's Communists and fled to the island of Formosa in 1949 setting up the Republic of China (ROC) government there, the USA's foreign policy has changed from at first (from 1949-1972) refusing to recognize the People's Republic of China (PRC) Communist government - maintaining that the ROC rightfully represented China and had the right to its seat at the United-Nations even though it only controlled the now renamed island of Taiwan and a few other small islands off the coast of China - to an acknowledgement of the Communist Party's effective rule over all of mainland China and therefore its right to China's seat at the UN (1972) and for full diplomatic relations with the U.S. (1979). It has remained the foreign policy objective of the USA, however, to help Taiwan maintain its political independence from China despite its accession to China's insistence that Taiwan is but a "renegade" province that will eventually return to Chinese rule. This objective has been actively enforced; beginning with Harry Truman's sending of the 7th Fleet into the Taiwanese Strait in 1950 in order to forestall an expected Chinese invasion to Bill Clinton's deployment of two aircraft carrier groups to the straits in 1996 after China provocatively "test-fired" missiles over Taiwan during that year's Presidential election. The same year that the U.S. switched its diplomatic recognition to the PRC, the Taiwan Relations Act was passed stating, among other things, that the U.S. would consider "any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States."
Until 1991 and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Cold War and its related geo-political concerns were the most obvious basis by which to understand Sino-U.S. relations. So the refusal of the U.S. to recognize the PRC until 1972 is explained by the former's militant anti-Communism, just as the then shift towards the PRC (in "Nixon going to China") was motivated by a long-overdue recognition of the non-monolithic nature of the Communist world - specifically the serious disagreements that had arisen between the PRC and the Soviet Union (resulting in border clashes in 1969) as well as with then North Vietnam - and therefore the attempt to play the different Communist blocs against each other to the USA's, and other non-communist countries, advantage.
These foreign policy considerations were undoubtedly the primary reason for the "thaw" between the USA and the PRC that began in the 70's, but one must wonder, given the reality of today, if far-sighted economic prognostications did not play some role. For China, with it's population of well over a billion, has become the economic success story of the last 20 years. Trade between the two countries has increased exponentially to the point where China, in order to keep the value of its currency the yuan artificially low against the dollar, has become the main buyer of US currency in order to keep its exports cheap and economy expanding. The details of this are in themselves fascinatingly frightening (perhaps to be addressed in a future article), but what should be understood is how economically important China is to the USA.
Not that Taiwan is not of course. The official web site of the Taiwanese government (at http://www.roc-taiwan.org/usoffice/dc.htm) states that:
The trade in commercial goods between Taiwan and the United States totaled US$56.35 billion in 2004. Of that, U.S. exports to Taiwan accounted for US$21.73 billion, while U.S. imports from Taiwan totaled US$34.62 billion, resulting in a U.S. deficit of US$14.11 billion. Taiwan was the United States' eighth largest trading partner, its ninth largest export market, and its eighth largest source of imports.
Taiwan's investment in the United States totaled US$557 million in 2004, while U.S. investment in Taiwan totaled US$353 million.
And this with a population of only 23 million people.
Compared to trade with China, however, these numbers pale in significance. Economically there is no doubt which "country" (in scare quotes because Taiwan is not even recognized as a country by most countries in the world) is more important to the USA: clearly China; and yet, Taiwan remains a nearly perpetual stumbling block in China-U.S. relations. Here is a April 8, 2002 commentary (available online at http://english.people.com.cn/200204/07/93630.) from the Communist Party controlled People's Daily:
On April 9, the 23rd anniversary of the United States' troublemaking Taiwan Relations Act, the US Congress is due to unveil a 70-member Taiwan caucus. Most congressional caucuses are issue-based or for particular racial groups but this one will be devoted solely to Taiwan, an inalienable part of China. It is claimed that the caucus will serve as an official channel for legislators from both the United States and the island to exchange ideas. Such a provocative move will obviously overshadow the renewed Sino-US relations. On a more dangerous level, it may provide fodder to Taiwan's military forces and play into the hands of Taiwan separatist extremists... This comes at a time when there have been conspicuous signs of ever-increasing US-Taiwan military ties... In most cases, those who sow the wind will reap a whirlwind. The robust military build-up may not bring the so-called balance but menace instead cross-Straits peace and stability. Helping Taiwan build its military muscle will only foment pro-independence forces. Since the latest remarks and events may give these forces the impression that the United States is on their side and ready to provide military protection, they may become provocative enough to push the island to the edge.
In fact, the Taiwan Caucus of the U.S. House ofRepresentatives has since grown to 151 members, while the newer Taiwan Caucus in the Senate has a respectable 24. These are remarkably high numbers of U.S. government lawmakers to be interested and concerned with its fate despite the obvious displeasure it gives to the economically dominant power. Numerous pieces of legislation have been passed, primarily in the House, calling on the U.S. Administration to support Taiwan against the nearly incessant bullying of Beijing and to change the "One China" policy, in place since 1949, to a "One China-One Taiwan" policy thus affirming the latter's right to self-determination as expressed in the UN Charter. What explains this apparent concern for a "country" whose defense is seemingly so contrary to the economic self-interest of the U.S.?
Of course, the U.S. Administration must strike a much more delicate balance with the PRC - recognizing its formidable political, economic and military power - but no liberalistically inclined individual should think that the U.S. should not help protect Taiwan's sovereignty. Though the economic reforms of the last twenty years in China have been vast, political reform has been strangled since the Tianenmen Square Massacre of June 4, 1989 (in which the Chinese government still maintains that no one was killed) and internal dissent continues to be brutally supressed to this day. Taiwan, on the other hand, has, since the lifting of Martial Law in 1987, become a remarkably free and democratic country with multi-party, competitive elections; a vibrant, free press; and (in great contrast to the persecution of Falun Gong/Dafa and the near-genocidal policies directed at the religion and culture of Tibet by the Chinese Government) freedom of religious belief.
The USA's relations with Taiwan make particularly evident the sometimes poverty of this historical outlook. Taiwan is, of course, an island claimed by China as an indivisible part of itself, though it has only for a relatively brief time ever been under control of the government on the mainland (from 1683-1895). Since the Kuomintang (KMT) under Chiang Kai-Shek lost the Civil War to Mao Tse-Tung's Communists and fled to the island of Formosa in 1949 setting up the Republic of China (ROC) government there, the USA's foreign policy has changed from at first (from 1949-1972) refusing to recognize the People's Republic of China (PRC) Communist government - maintaining that the ROC rightfully represented China and had the right to its seat at the United-Nations even though it only controlled the now renamed island of Taiwan and a few other small islands off the coast of China - to an acknowledgement of the Communist Party's effective rule over all of mainland China and therefore its right to China's seat at the UN (1972) and for full diplomatic relations with the U.S. (1979). It has remained the foreign policy objective of the USA, however, to help Taiwan maintain its political independence from China despite its accession to China's insistence that Taiwan is but a "renegade" province that will eventually return to Chinese rule. This objective has been actively enforced; beginning with Harry Truman's sending of the 7th Fleet into the Taiwanese Strait in 1950 in order to forestall an expected Chinese invasion to Bill Clinton's deployment of two aircraft carrier groups to the straits in 1996 after China provocatively "test-fired" missiles over Taiwan during that year's Presidential election. The same year that the U.S. switched its diplomatic recognition to the PRC, the Taiwan Relations Act was passed stating, among other things, that the U.S. would consider "any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States."
Until 1991 and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Cold War and its related geo-political concerns were the most obvious basis by which to understand Sino-U.S. relations. So the refusal of the U.S. to recognize the PRC until 1972 is explained by the former's militant anti-Communism, just as the then shift towards the PRC (in "Nixon going to China") was motivated by a long-overdue recognition of the non-monolithic nature of the Communist world - specifically the serious disagreements that had arisen between the PRC and the Soviet Union (resulting in border clashes in 1969) as well as with then North Vietnam - and therefore the attempt to play the different Communist blocs against each other to the USA's, and other non-communist countries, advantage.
These foreign policy considerations were undoubtedly the primary reason for the "thaw" between the USA and the PRC that began in the 70's, but one must wonder, given the reality of today, if far-sighted economic prognostications did not play some role. For China, with it's population of well over a billion, has become the economic success story of the last 20 years. Trade between the two countries has increased exponentially to the point where China, in order to keep the value of its currency the yuan artificially low against the dollar, has become the main buyer of US currency in order to keep its exports cheap and economy expanding. The details of this are in themselves fascinatingly frightening (perhaps to be addressed in a future article), but what should be understood is how economically important China is to the USA.
Not that Taiwan is not of course. The official web site of the Taiwanese government (at http://www.roc-taiwan.org/usoffice/dc.htm) states that:
The trade in commercial goods between Taiwan and the United States totaled US$56.35 billion in 2004. Of that, U.S. exports to Taiwan accounted for US$21.73 billion, while U.S. imports from Taiwan totaled US$34.62 billion, resulting in a U.S. deficit of US$14.11 billion. Taiwan was the United States' eighth largest trading partner, its ninth largest export market, and its eighth largest source of imports.
Taiwan's investment in the United States totaled US$557 million in 2004, while U.S. investment in Taiwan totaled US$353 million.
And this with a population of only 23 million people.
Compared to trade with China, however, these numbers pale in significance. Economically there is no doubt which "country" (in scare quotes because Taiwan is not even recognized as a country by most countries in the world) is more important to the USA: clearly China; and yet, Taiwan remains a nearly perpetual stumbling block in China-U.S. relations. Here is a April 8, 2002 commentary (available online at http://english.people.com.cn/200204/07/93630.) from the Communist Party controlled People's Daily:
On April 9, the 23rd anniversary of the United States' troublemaking Taiwan Relations Act, the US Congress is due to unveil a 70-member Taiwan caucus. Most congressional caucuses are issue-based or for particular racial groups but this one will be devoted solely to Taiwan, an inalienable part of China. It is claimed that the caucus will serve as an official channel for legislators from both the United States and the island to exchange ideas. Such a provocative move will obviously overshadow the renewed Sino-US relations. On a more dangerous level, it may provide fodder to Taiwan's military forces and play into the hands of Taiwan separatist extremists... This comes at a time when there have been conspicuous signs of ever-increasing US-Taiwan military ties... In most cases, those who sow the wind will reap a whirlwind. The robust military build-up may not bring the so-called balance but menace instead cross-Straits peace and stability. Helping Taiwan build its military muscle will only foment pro-independence forces. Since the latest remarks and events may give these forces the impression that the United States is on their side and ready to provide military protection, they may become provocative enough to push the island to the edge.
In fact, the Taiwan Caucus of the U.S. House ofRepresentatives has since grown to 151 members, while the newer Taiwan Caucus in the Senate has a respectable 24. These are remarkably high numbers of U.S. government lawmakers to be interested and concerned with its fate despite the obvious displeasure it gives to the economically dominant power. Numerous pieces of legislation have been passed, primarily in the House, calling on the U.S. Administration to support Taiwan against the nearly incessant bullying of Beijing and to change the "One China" policy, in place since 1949, to a "One China-One Taiwan" policy thus affirming the latter's right to self-determination as expressed in the UN Charter. What explains this apparent concern for a "country" whose defense is seemingly so contrary to the economic self-interest of the U.S.?
Of course, the U.S. Administration must strike a much more delicate balance with the PRC - recognizing its formidable political, economic and military power - but no liberalistically inclined individual should think that the U.S. should not help protect Taiwan's sovereignty. Though the economic reforms of the last twenty years in China have been vast, political reform has been strangled since the Tianenmen Square Massacre of June 4, 1989 (in which the Chinese government still maintains that no one was killed) and internal dissent continues to be brutally supressed to this day. Taiwan, on the other hand, has, since the lifting of Martial Law in 1987, become a remarkably free and democratic country with multi-party, competitive elections; a vibrant, free press; and (in great contrast to the persecution of Falun Gong/Dafa and the near-genocidal policies directed at the religion and culture of Tibet by the Chinese Government) freedom of religious belief.
Consistent with its neo-imperial ambitions, however, China, in March of this year, passed an Anti-Seccession Law that states:
In the event that the 'Taiwan independence' secessionist forces should act under any name or by any means to cause the fact of Taiwan's secession from China, or that major incidents entailing Taiwan's secession from China should occur, or that possibilities for a peaceful reunification should be completely exhausted, the state shall employ non-peaceful means and other necessary measures to protect China's sovereignty and territorial integrity.
That this completely contradicts the UN Charter and its (Article 1, section 2) affirmation of the right of the "self-determination of peoples" seems to not worry the PRC who insist instead that the issue of Taiwan is a domestic one; that Article 2, section 7 explicitly states that, "Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter" and that therefore the right to self-determination does not in this case apply. The falseness of this argument is made evident by the obvious inapplicability of Taiwan being now "essentially within the domestic jurisdiction" of China. The PRC has, instead, in its history never controlled Taiwan; an obvious requirement for any territory to be accurately referred to as the "domestic jurisdiction" of a state. Though Taiwan is not even a member of the United-Nations (it applies for membership each year only to be rejected by China and its allies), it clearly has the right, based on its effective control of its territory for over 50 years, to determine its own fate. That it is a free and democratic country, as opposed to the authoritarian part-communist, part-fascist dictatorship of the PRC is yet another reason that it should be defended from the increasingly desperate seeming nationalism of the mainland.
If China were to actually invade Taiwan, however, the actions of the U.S. would undoubtedly be the most crucial determining factor in what the final result would be. Though comments have been made in China threatening to use nuclear weapons if the U.S. were to involve itself in a war across the Taiwan Straits, it seems unlikely that China would take such a step knowing the massive repercussions that would surely result. A much more likely scenario is a massive conventional surprise attack aiming to knock out Taiwan's defences and a near-simultaneous amphibious invasion designed to affect a fait d'accompli before anyone (meaning the U.S.) could involve itself.
Whether most Americans would actually want their country to get involved in a war with China to defend Taiwan is doubtful given the almost certain loss of life in the tens of thousands (at least) that would inevitably result, but that does not alter the rightness of such an undertaking. China would clearly be the agressor and in the spirit, if not the letter, of the post-World War II consensus that brought about the creation of the United-Nations Taiwan would deserve help to defend itself as did South Korea when North Korea invaded and nearly conquered the entire country in 1950 only to be saved from the last 53 years of totalitarian dictatorship, famine and slave-camps of Kim-il Sung Il and Kim-Jung Il by the actions of then U.S. President Harry Truman (a fact that many on the Left seem to forget in their Chomskian/Zinn-like crusades to paint the entirety of American's history of foreign policy actions in the worst possible light).
That the U.S. government (at least part of it) shows such concern for Taiwan to the point of being willing to go to war with China to defend it despite the obvious reluctance of the American people to fight and the far greater importance of China to the health of the U.S. economy is curious to say the least. How to explain something so seemingly contrary to U.S. self-interest?
One might argue that it expresses America's hegemonic impulses; that though the economies of the U.S. and China are increasingly dependent on each other, the U.S. sees China as its main emerging rival to its now singular Superpower status and that its support for Taiwan is merely a way of "containing" China's growing international ambitions. This is undoubtedly partly true as there has certainly been an increase in tensions due to China's increasing power, yet the price that could potentially be payed by the U.S. for its support of Taiwan is so much greater than whatever benefits such a containment might bring about that this explanation is far from adequate.
China is in many ways the perfect embodiment of the kind of country many on the Left have criticized the U.S. for supporting over the last 50 or so years: one with a capitalist economy of sorts (though the State still largely controls the economy through the many companies it continues to own; primarily in the banking system) that is very much addicted to American consumer culture, yet combined with a repressive, authoritarian political system. Taiwan is also very much addicted to American consumer culture, but it, on the other hand, is a free and democratic country that should at last be recognized as one, and be defended militarily if need be, despite the threats from the dictators of Beijing. Thankfully American resolve has so far been sufficient to dissuade China from imposing its tyranny on yet another part of the world, but as of yet few other countries have shown any support for Taiwan; primarily because of their having been cowed by China. That it is a group of U.S. Representatives and Senators in their respective Taiwan Caucuses (do such things exist in any other country in the world?), however, who do more to defend Taiwan than anyone else in the world is a testament not to America's imperialist ambitions, but rather, I would offer as the best explanation, to a sincere concern of many in the U.S. government with the rights and freedoms of the Taiwanese people. And so they, and all other liberally inclined people, should be.
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Monday, September 26, 2005
Should we fear the ambitious half-reptilian aliens?
Reprinted from the March 26, 2003 edition of The University of Alberta's student newspaper The Gateway.
You see, it’s like this. Everything going on these days (well, all the bad things anyways) are because of these twelve-foot-tall reptilian aliens from another dimension who came to earth about 200, 000 years ago. They wanted to control the world, so they bred with our ancient human ancestors to produce this shape-shifting, half-reptile, half-human race to rule us, and that’s what they’ve been doing ever since. It’s not our fault that everything’s so screwed up these days; it’s all because of the half-reptilian aliens! Every single President of the United States has been one, as well as all of the British Royal Family, the leaders of every major religion, Hitler, the Rothschilds, the Freemasons, and Tony Blair. You name it, they’re all lizards!
What the hell am I talking about, you must surely be asking? Well welcome to the wonderfully wacky world of one of the premier demagogues of our times, the conspiracy theorist to end all conspiracy theorists, “the most controversial speaker in the world” (well, that’s what the publicity blurb on his website says anyways): David Icke. And who is this nutcase? A former professional football (soccer) player, sports commentator, spokesperson for the British Green Party, and self-proclaimed son of God (in the Jesus sense) who is now a quite popular speaker on the extreme fringes, strangely enough, of the Left and the Right. Mixing right-wing paranoia of a secret cabal trying to control the world (insisting that the infamous anti-Semitic tract The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is actually true) with an appeal to the nascent New Age and anti-globalization/corporate/war movements he has helped bring about a frightening merging of cultures the result of which could perhaps be called eco-fascism.
Icke has since disavowed his Messiah status—people (for a reason I can’t understand) didn’t take him seriously enough, I guess—but still claims to be a secular "prophet" of sorts. His website opens with the oh-so-humble claim, “Remember, all that I am offering is the truth. Nothing more.” But hey, every wannabe prophet has to have a shtick, right? For Charles Manson it was seeing a prophecy of a racial Armageddon in the Beatles’ White Album (especially the song “Helter-Skelter”). Jim Jones figured it out by moving all his followers from California to Guyana and then having them all drink cyanide-laced Kool-Aid. Hitler blamed the Jews for the entirety of Germany’s problems while Marx saw the consummation of the inevitable Proletarian Revolution (and the necessary elimination of those nasty Bourgeois Capitalists) as justification for any means on the path towards his idea of the supposed End of History. Icke, on the other hand, insists nothing is actually the way it seems; everything is being manipulated by the evil reptilian Illuminati.
This conspiratorial solipsism, however, leads to some rather obvious logical difficulties. First, if shape-shifting, blood-sucking reptiles really were controlling the world to the extent he claims, why haven’t the reptiles blown up one of the innumerable airplanes he’s flown in over the years on his lecture tours around the world? Second, if we really should be doubting everything, then why not Icke himself? Why couldn’t he just as much be a part of the conspiracy as well? When you think about it, him telling us all these things about what’s supposedly going on is the perfect way to distract us from what’s really going on. But then again, maybe I’m part of the conspiracy as well; providing yet another diversion (and so on and so on)...
So, no, I actually don’t think all of our political and religious leaders are shape-shifting reptiles trying to control the world. Nor do I believe that David Icke has figured out the explanation for the last 200, 000 years of human history. An answer exists for why the world’s so screwed up, but it’s not on account of any scapegoat, whether that be alien-reptiles, the Jews, the Bourgeoisie or anything else “outside.” It is us - the evil within - and until we each start to take responsibility for it in the little pocket of the world in which we live, things just aren’t going to get any better.
And via www.damianpenny.com a very interesting article about Icke in The Guardian: http://books.guardian.co.uk/extracts/story/0,6761,457988,00.html
You see, it’s like this. Everything going on these days (well, all the bad things anyways) are because of these twelve-foot-tall reptilian aliens from another dimension who came to earth about 200, 000 years ago. They wanted to control the world, so they bred with our ancient human ancestors to produce this shape-shifting, half-reptile, half-human race to rule us, and that’s what they’ve been doing ever since. It’s not our fault that everything’s so screwed up these days; it’s all because of the half-reptilian aliens! Every single President of the United States has been one, as well as all of the British Royal Family, the leaders of every major religion, Hitler, the Rothschilds, the Freemasons, and Tony Blair. You name it, they’re all lizards!
What the hell am I talking about, you must surely be asking? Well welcome to the wonderfully wacky world of one of the premier demagogues of our times, the conspiracy theorist to end all conspiracy theorists, “the most controversial speaker in the world” (well, that’s what the publicity blurb on his website says anyways): David Icke. And who is this nutcase? A former professional football (soccer) player, sports commentator, spokesperson for the British Green Party, and self-proclaimed son of God (in the Jesus sense) who is now a quite popular speaker on the extreme fringes, strangely enough, of the Left and the Right. Mixing right-wing paranoia of a secret cabal trying to control the world (insisting that the infamous anti-Semitic tract The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is actually true) with an appeal to the nascent New Age and anti-globalization/corporate/war movements he has helped bring about a frightening merging of cultures the result of which could perhaps be called eco-fascism.
Icke has since disavowed his Messiah status—people (for a reason I can’t understand) didn’t take him seriously enough, I guess—but still claims to be a secular "prophet" of sorts. His website opens with the oh-so-humble claim, “Remember, all that I am offering is the truth. Nothing more.” But hey, every wannabe prophet has to have a shtick, right? For Charles Manson it was seeing a prophecy of a racial Armageddon in the Beatles’ White Album (especially the song “Helter-Skelter”). Jim Jones figured it out by moving all his followers from California to Guyana and then having them all drink cyanide-laced Kool-Aid. Hitler blamed the Jews for the entirety of Germany’s problems while Marx saw the consummation of the inevitable Proletarian Revolution (and the necessary elimination of those nasty Bourgeois Capitalists) as justification for any means on the path towards his idea of the supposed End of History. Icke, on the other hand, insists nothing is actually the way it seems; everything is being manipulated by the evil reptilian Illuminati.
This conspiratorial solipsism, however, leads to some rather obvious logical difficulties. First, if shape-shifting, blood-sucking reptiles really were controlling the world to the extent he claims, why haven’t the reptiles blown up one of the innumerable airplanes he’s flown in over the years on his lecture tours around the world? Second, if we really should be doubting everything, then why not Icke himself? Why couldn’t he just as much be a part of the conspiracy as well? When you think about it, him telling us all these things about what’s supposedly going on is the perfect way to distract us from what’s really going on. But then again, maybe I’m part of the conspiracy as well; providing yet another diversion (and so on and so on)...
So, no, I actually don’t think all of our political and religious leaders are shape-shifting reptiles trying to control the world. Nor do I believe that David Icke has figured out the explanation for the last 200, 000 years of human history. An answer exists for why the world’s so screwed up, but it’s not on account of any scapegoat, whether that be alien-reptiles, the Jews, the Bourgeoisie or anything else “outside.” It is us - the evil within - and until we each start to take responsibility for it in the little pocket of the world in which we live, things just aren’t going to get any better.
And via www.damianpenny.com a very interesting article about Icke in The Guardian: http://books.guardian.co.uk/extracts/story/0,6761,457988,00.html
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