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.
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