bound to happen
I really don't believe in leaders, though I tend to see the point of parking meters. . .
.....MICHAEL MOORCOCK
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Beihai Park, Beijing Winter 1984, I can recall them quite clearly despite my consistent hangovers, two hunched old women wrapped in their thick Mao blue fake fur lined overcoats, I can remember mapping out in my head a space in front of the two of them the size of my normal stride and counted as they shuffled through my imaginary lines. One required twelve steps, the other just ten to walk the same distance as one of my strides, I sat on the chilly bench next to a local and he smiled (and probably spat, as was the continuous custom) as i marvelled at my first sight of the last living remnants of Imperial China, bound feet. As they slowly made their way past my seat, I expected to see their faces etched in permanent pain, yet saw none as one of the elderly women turned from her conversation, noticed me and let out a stream of abuse in Chinese and spat at my feet. This was to be just one of the six or seven times I was spat on during my stay, and all for the same reason, the woman with the bound feet mistook me for Russian in my giant winter coat and excessively furry Marmot hat.
My local began to gesticulate wildly, and shout out, the only word I could make out was, "Ow Dow Li Ahh" which I repeated in my near perfect imitation of the Chinese word for Australia, the old woman blushed, smiled, patted my face and I can only imagine apologised. Then she and her companion shuffled on slowly into the wintry depths of the pavilion. I honestly didn't expect to ever see, except in photos in a museum, bound feet, that ancient practice of wrapping female infants feet in layers of bandages so that they would not grow beyond 6 inches,
for the Imperial Chinese it was a sensual to them as a boob job is to us.
The Chinese Government of today has hobbled itself as surely as those bound feet with its desire to hold the Olympics. Bindings of the tyranny of a single voice to speak for all Chinese, swathed in the tightening bandages of the suppression of dissent in Tibet, the inevitable corruption that comes from all such centralised power as is vested in the Peoples Party, the failure of the rule of law to be applied equally to all, the failure to develop a free press or transparent government or judiciary, the complete failure to allow even mild dissension to rise without the heavy hand of the state to crush it.
These things deform a state and no matter what the progress made on the economic front, they twist a society from the inside and eventually make the old saying, a state divided against itself must fall, become a truism. But then that can take many years and meanwhile the state learns to walk on its hobbled feet, even after a while, comes to see the situation as natural, a billion voices from a hundred separate ethnic backgrounds, that can only speak with a single Han accent is the real voice of modern china, as modern china is told.
Ross Terrill describes modern China as "an Empire pretending to be a nation" and Tibet since 1951 has fallen under the spell of that pretence, as has the rest of the worlds governments which have refused to recognise any other government ruling Tibet save China. The current uprising in Tibet was inevitable the closer the Beijing Olympics came, the focus on China from the outside world and the hope that granting it the worlds premier sporting event would lead to a freer more open nation was bound to be tested by those living under the yoke of Han oppression. The Dalai Lama, after so many years of counselling a peaceful solution has conspicuously not condemned the frustrated citizens of his homeland nor come out against the violence, merely pointed out the reasons for it and condemned the cultural genocide taking place for what it is.
With Tibet now closed to the worlds prying eyes, the true Chinese response to Tibet's uprising will take a long while to filter out and of course be met with that single voice announcing as it has, "that not one single live bullet" was fired into the rioting crowds. Reports of 100's of dead will be met with official statistics saying that 10 or 12 "terrorists" were killed, and depending upon your political bent and what you can gain from the outcome, you will believe one or the other, the truth here is as deformed as any other object wrapped so tightly.
And of course, no tyrannical state these days can help itself in clothing its tyranny in the language of the War On Terror, western Chinese separatists are going to be allied, as we saw last week, with Al Queda and all demonstrations or critics will be contaminated and conflated with the Bushy white house rhetoric. The farcical WoT now cloaks a myriad of tyrants in the emperors new clothes.
For anyone travelling to Beijing for the Olympics, play a little game when your standing in Tianajim Square, get out your stop watch and every time you see a banner hoisted aloft, count the seconds before a mob of plain clothes "Beijinians" subsumes them in a human pyramid. And wait for the unofficial reports of the round ups in the count down to the torch being lit. As with the "terrorist" hijacking of an Australian tour bus last month, don't wait for the explanation for the actions to come from anywhere except the State, and then don't believe a word about "madman", al queda or any other word that may come from official sources.
For all my deep, deep love of China, I know a savage, self inflicted, deformity when I see one.
if you want my bumper sticker response:
Free Tibet, Not Hippies.
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Speaking of the ever lovely franchise of the WoT, the War For Peace that is Iraq, its just passed its fifth birthday, and like the over sized, jagged kidney stone that it is, the passing has just brought howls of pain to my nethers.
After five long bloody years, we still don't have a clue why we started it in the first place.
Dick Cheny this week called it a “successful endeavor” and boasted of the “phenomenal” improvements, and as if that were not the height of delusion, still insists that despite a report out last week from the Pentagon declaring that there were NO, I must repeat, NO ties between Saddam and Al Queda, Ol, "Shoot em in the face and see if they apologise" Dik, has said that the report "conclusively proves" that there were. Not only that but he repeated his favourite bed time fairytale, that Mohamed Atta met with Saddam's operatives in Prague before the 9/11 attacks, even though it was debunked and has been completely debunked by every agency, every country, every pre-school kid in the entire World.
But then re-writing history to suit your own point of view is the natural habit of all supporters of the Iraq Fiasco, why just last week our ex- foreign minister, Downer repeated what has been told for the last few years by Howard, Cheny, the big furry Bush, Blair, Richard Perle and all the neo-cons, a very big fat lie aimed at revising the historical memory. ergo:
"Prior to the invasion the French and the Germans believed that Saddam had WMD's."
When you hear that little gem pop up in conversation, here's a couple of questions:
How many troops did the French and Germans send to invade with the Coalition of the Willing?
Why did the French describe Colin Powells assertions of facts at the UN as "thin" and "unsubstantiated"?
Why if the French and Germans felt as strongly about the threat from Saddam as you do, did they insist upon UN inspectors being given more time to get to the truth of the facts as presented?
Weren't the French and Germans 100% correct in insisting that UN inspectors be allowed to do the job the UN gave them, and if they were allowed to do their job, wouldn't the French and Germans be 100% right in their stance not to join the invasion?
Point to the documents that the French and German governments presented that unequivocally state that Saddam had WMD? Bet ya cant find one that isn't filled with qualifiers. Or calls for letting the UN inspectors do their jobs.
You can have your own opinion, but you cant re-write history by making up your own facts.
The other little canard that is constantly being trotted out by our Ex-pm and his favourite poodle Alexander, and been used by such sterling luminaries as Paul "Sorry, My fuck up" Bremer, Dick Cheny and the man who just don't look like he wants to be there, Pres Bush, is the answer to the very simple question.
Knowing all that you know now about the Iraq Invasion and subsequent occupation, would you still do it?
The answer from these fools is always the same. Yes, of course, Im insulted that you even ask such a ludicris question.
So my question is equally as simple, knowing what you know about Enron and its jagged, suicide inducing, pension plan wiping, collapse, would you today, recommend buying shares in the company?
Can I sell you some $170.00 a share?
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Where are all the free marketeers today, maybe in bed with a cold??
ah the good old days of the savings and loan collapses come back to haunt the market. My favourite images of the S&L scandal that exposed Reganonomics for what it is, where the sights of bulldozers ploughing under entire newly built resorts once the real value of these phony valuations where brought into the light of day. What one day was worth $100 million on the books of the West Texas S&L, today aint even worth the price of hauling away for firewood, sound like anything that may have happened over the last few weeks. Give you a hint, last year the stock peaked at $170.00 a share, last week it was $65.00, last night it was $50.00, right now....$2.00
NICK PARSONS, NAB CAPITAL:There's a range of lending that's been done against some fairly stretched asset valuations....trying to put a proper valuation on the assets that banks have already got.
every global and supernational organisation is going to be telling us that the fundamentals are sound and we don't need to worry. Well, I think last Friday's events showed us we should take those sorts of comments with a bit of a pinch of salt.
....$2 a share is derisory when you compare it with the $35 at which it closed on Friday, the $65 at which it opened on Friday morning. The reason it didn't go down to zero because frankly there would have been a feeding frenzy for the lawyers.
ALI MOORE: Indeed, you talk about how fragile it is and just tonight our time, morning your time Lehmann Brothers has had to come out and say that their liquidity position is OK?
NICK PARSONS: They're all OK as of now. As of this moment we don't know what those liquidity positions would look like in an hour's time, let alone 24 hours or a week.
(today the shares began to slide on the back of the "everything is wonderful over here" statement issued by the bank, market rule of thumb, if you need to tell everyone its all fine, then there must be some problems)
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John McCain the Straight Talk Express, some people are starting to notice those speed bumps, as he hits them, the make the sound "flip-flop-fwap"...lets all drink to embracing far right religious bigots. Yeee haw..thats some straight shootin tex...
and now for the best of his foreign policy analysts, more neo-cons and still more neo-cons, the same people who if they repeated your name back to you, you would feel the need to call your mother to confirm that its correct, coz they ain't bin right on one damn thing they ever said, period.
Meanwhile Fox lets you know the rules for smearing in the coming election if Obama wins, before you can hitch up your skis to the next Swift boat....
Ive weighed both cheeks and it is true, my arse IS more "Fair and Balanced"
posted by the bluhamster at 12:16 PM
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