Finally, Someone is Using the Word “Compromise”

Due to my hectic schedule, this blog is on the verge of being abandoned. To keep my post brief, here is a long waited opinion that I can’t agree more:

Fie, Fatal Flaw!

“It Makes China Look Bad”

I recently read a New York Times article about the closing down of a law office in Beijing. The lawyers, who took many sensitive civil rights cases, are facing disbarment. The article is pretty short, which you can find it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/world/asia/18china.html?_r=2&ref=asia It briefly talked about that on the day of the incident, 20 cops entered the law office and confiscated office equipments. It also mentions at the same time, a dozen other civil rights lawyers in China have been disbarred.

I sent this link to a friend (American) working in China. She replied, saying that the article is too “China bashing” and makes China looks extremely bad. Thinking that I might mistakenly sent the link of Amnesty International rather than NYtimes, I retracted the link and re-read the article. My conclusion is: it is a very brief and fair report; it does make China look bad, not because the tone or biased information it uses, but rather the substantive story itself indeed shows the dark side of China.

It is, of course, unthinkable in the US that the ABA can disbar lawyers just because they take certain kind of cases. But for one who takes this kind of “constitutional safeguard” for granted and travels around the world with it, one can find it hard to apply to other countries. Do we really need more examples? Here is one: the city of Guangzhou recently had a new regulation: every household is limited to only one dog; owners of more than one dog before the rule was made should find a way to dispose of one of the dogs or the cops will do it. Unthinkable? Applying a rule retroactively just like that? What about the underlying purpose of the law? Two dogs are more dangerous than one? Two blind and cripple dogs without teeth are still more dangerous than one? How about “disposing of” your own dog and choosing between which one to keep? Does this make China look bad? Then how do we report the story without making it look bad? How do we talk about the holocaust without making Hitler look bad? The mere verbatim citation to this regulation itself will unavoidably make China look like a barbaric country; there really is no need for further fabrication or defamation. If not making a country “look” bad is the essence of news report, then this is the best I can do about Tiananmen massacre if I were to report it 20 years ago. “Troops opened fire on civilians; Many killed; but come on, guys, China has great food! Look at the Great wall, how magnificent! Look at its history, it makes America look like a toddler! And things are as cheap as dirt here! Definitely one of the coolest country in the world!” Hope that balanced out the negativity in the report.

However, whether this NYtimes article did make China look bad or not is not the point of this post. What is more worrisome is the fact that China (or to be more precise, the Chinese government) has the ability of manipulating some foreign travelers’ views. Of course, It is more probable that it is not so much of the CCP’s power of manipulation that we need to worry about, but rather the human being’s tendency to forget and open for manipulation. One such example is the Olympics. For the readers from other galaxies, the humans think that this game stands for world peace. The last game was held at the very city were a massacre took place 19 years ago. You would think that by having the game there, it at least indirectly indicates that the massacre has been vindicated and people are truly celebrating peace. Unfortunately that is not the case; it is a taboo to merely mention the date of the massacre. Yet, most of the people are totally comfortable with forgetting it, merely 19 years later. I don’t know if I should say it is because the CCP is especially smart or that people are especially stupid and forgetful. By looking at the next example, I can only say that the conclusion might be the latter. My classmate went to Beijing for a summer program 2 years ago. He came back and told me how cool China is and said that maybe the Cultural Revelation wasn’t such as bad thing after all because the poor farmers in the countryside had the opportunity to come to the cities. What on Mars is he talking about? First of all, the poor farmers didn’t get to go to the cities during the cultural revolution; it’s the intellectuals in the cities who got to be sent to the countrysides! Second, really? I mean, really? A movement, which crippled a whole country for ten years during which the main thing in people’s mind was how to prove your neighbor was a capitalist and report him, not to mention the millions who lost their opportunity to education because schools were closed, can be justified by the mere possibility that some farmers got to come to the city to… do what by the way? Selling farm products on the street? That was punishable by the law! Even today you can be punished for setting up a small stand on the street and selling your stuff without a permit! My best guess is that his time in China was such as blast that he was still in hangover. However, if a smart American law student can be so easily fooled within such short period of time, there really is something the world needs to worry about.

PS: I just saw another piece of news about the officials closing an organization distributing free legal pamphlets to people living with Hepatitis B. The pamphlets contain nothing more than a know-your-rights compilation of the laws in China regarding discrimination. Does this make China look bad or should we just direct our attention whole-heartedly to each and every skyscraper it’s building and nothing else?

What’s so bad about it?

Splitting the nation is bad bad bad. That’s basically what the people in China were taught over and over ever since they were in elementary school. But if you look at all the arguments made by the government, the “badness” simply stops short of being bad. The argument is simply “it’s bad because it’s bad.” It never, for a single minute, tries to explain why it is bad. (And I just start to get tired of typing the word “bad.”) It never even bothers to point at Taiwan and say “look, that’s an example of why no one should break away from China.” In fact, it can’t find any evidence to prove that Taiwan is now worse off than if it were part of China. It also cannot argue that the Chinese culture stops to exist in Taiwan because of its break-off. In fact, many people agree that Taiwan is doing a better job than China today in terms of preserving the Chinese culture.

What’s most funny that sometimes the slogan is not “splitting the nation”, but rather “splitting the Chinese race.” Now this is just convenient. The implied assumption is that people of a same cultural or racial background should live under a single regime. Again, why? Who made such rule? Second, we need to look at the term “Chinese race.” Before we do that, we need to look at the TV animation “American Dad!” Remember it’s opening song when he sings “saluting to the American race”? That’s supposed to be a joke, because there is no such thing as “American race” especially when the nation is composed of people from all over the world. As for China, it does claim that it has 56 ethnic groups. Yet, if any of these groups want to break away or simply live life in their own way, they are “splitting the Chinese race”; only when they agree to be ruled by only one of the ethnic groups out of 56, that is Han, can they safely say they themselves are a distinctive ethnic group, and, Lo and Behold, they add diversity to this great nation or “race.” How does that logic even work? What I see, is that if you agree to behave like a slave, then you get to claim that you are free; if you want real freedom, sorry, you are harming the “greater good.”

Indeed, when someone decided to wander across the red sea and go up north and east over 20,000 years ago, they were harming the “greater good,” they were splitting the human race. Indeed, they managed to split the human race, resulting in Asians, Caucasians, and more, not to mention the different languages. And look at those bunch of traitors in Siberia who decided to walk across a layer of ice and into North America! How dare they build their own empires like Inca. And how dare the people who borrowed the Chinese language and chopped it up and created something called Japanese and Korean? They are manipulating the greater good!

But the real question is, what’s so bad about it?

A Possible Compromise?

In 1991, merely 2 years after the Tienanmen Massacre, Nancy Pelosi went to Tienanmen square and carried a banner paying tribute to those who lost their lives. Now, she is about to visit Beijing again as the speaker of the House.

At the press conference, she did not hint whether she would mention human rights during her visit. If she had the courage of flying a banner on that square when the blood was fresh, she should have the courage to carry on the fight 20 years later. Of course, to her, the fight today might be more difficult since most of the Americans care nothing more than economy, within which China is an indispensable part. Human rights is always lighter on the scale when money is on the other end. Circumventing the question about whether she will talk about human rights or not is consistent with the trend of this and the preceding administrations: the main business of America is business; human rights has become a shady business as if mentioning it would cause endless pains and sufferings.

Compromise. Or should I say appeasement? To draw a portrait called “monster,” one should not only put that monster in the frame. Those who are patting it should never be left out.

Shaking Hands with the Devil

I often watch Fox News for sheer entertainment. The commentators often times have no idea what they are talking about; their blind rage toward the current administration is pretty funny. At the same time, MSNBC makes me sick. The Rachel Maddow show is not that different from a news talk show in China or North Korea. Really, you don’t find too much critical thinking about the current administration there. What you can find is the constant comparison between this administration and the last one. The last thing this country needs is a bunch of journalists pointing out how bad the past used to be. I get it: in the past, we used to live in caves, eat raw meat (that is, if we were lucky) and mate with our own family members; that pretty much means today we are living in paradise.

Watching these channels, it really strikes me how easy these guys can sell their lies and biased opinions to the public, who often buy one side or the other. Many comments on these channels are not even based on simple facts in history or logic.

For example, Fox News made a big deal about Obama shaking hands with Chavez, saying that the president shouldn’t even bother to touch that dictator. They are arguing that since Obama is the leader of the free world, he should send a strong signal to the anti-freedom regimes that we are not your friends and we don’t deal with you. Fine. But why the hell did US even bother to negotiate with North Korea? Is that country really our ally now? How about China, whose current president, when he was serving as the CCP head of Tibet, ordered a bloody crackdown there in 1989 shortly before the Tiananmen massacre? Is he a freedom loving dude now? Hey, what about Mao Zedong who shook hands with Nixon at a time when Cultural Revolution was ongoing and US flags were still burned along with the Soviet flag? Guess what China got shortly afterwards? The UN security council seat.

The conclusion is simple: Those commentators on Fox News are hypocrites. When it’s a small evil figure like Chavez, they find it easy to attack using arguments such as what they made; when it’s a tough or rich evil, they keep a blind eye to it. Is there a better word than coward that can fit in here? I don’t like politicians and their compromises. I do believe that the US government and most importantly, the American people, should have some strong principles in foreign policy that they are willing to stick to and sacrifice for. But nothing is more dangerous than having a policy that can be easily compromised with threat of force or economic power. This is sadly the situation today; most people don’t even realize it. Fox news at least in this incident, when seemingly defending the principle of freedom or democracy, is actually intentionally or unintentionally dragging the country deeper into this dangerous situation.

Another Grand Crusade?

For the first time, China unveils a “human rights plan.” Should we head out to buy fireworks now? No.

When is the last time that China drafts a “plan” that contains language so vague that can be subject to all kinds of interpretation? Probably last week. When is the last time that China drafts a “plan” that would restrict the government in anyway? Probably never.

This so-called human rights plan is nothing but a sham; it’s nothing but a foot soldier of the so-called harmonious society, which does not shy away from terminating almost anything for the sake of “stability,” even though most often than not, the sign of instability is never proven or hinted. Reading through the plan, one can easily find that it’s premised on economic growth, not the reform of (or merely restoration to that showcase) constitution. Most of the rights mentioned in the plan are actually included in the good-for-nothing constitution. If China is really serious about these rights, it can simply say “now, I decide to respect my constitution.” Making the rights bestowed by the government rather than the constitution, it’s easy for the government to take them away as soon as it feels its comfort zone has been violated.

For example, one of the rights is the right to a fair trial. How does this government, or any government guarantee fair trials? They can’t. One cannot give others a fair trial if one is the judge, the jury, and the executioner at the same time. If the judiciary is not independent, it definitely will not be fair in cases where the government is the defendant, which is already very rare in China; it may or may not be fair in everyday cases like neighbor disputes. If it’s not fair in those cases, or if the judges take bribes, a free media can disclose these. Oh, wait, media freedom is not mentioned in this “plan,” even though it is in the constitution.

This plan is no different from the numerous effects of the government to fight corruption of its officials, on its own! The fate of this plan will be similar to the fate of the “Olympics protest zones”: “fire away your protest ‘applications’ if you want; we will deny them all; and if you are lucky enough, we will re-educate you through labor.”

Since this plan is so heavily premised on economic stability, here is a quote that perfectly fits in:

“If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.” —W. Somerset Maugham

Yes, They are Crazy, But…

A professor in China’s top university said that 99% of the people who traveled all the way from their hometown to petition their unjust treatment in capital city Beijing have mental issues. He later apologized for the statement. I am sure he was not alone in despising those “adamant” or “stubborn” petitioners, whose actions might bring them nothing other than jail time or, worse yet, lockup in the mental facilities. Yet, this criticism is just another example of the nearsighted (or maybe cowardly) nature of the viewpoints of the naive intellectuals or commentators in China. They simply don’t, or dare not to, ask a further question: what makes these people crazy?

Let me begin with an example. Meet my imaginary son Roger. Roger is 5 years old and he has never had any contact with the outside world, because I wouldn’t let him to. Instead, I lock him up in a 6 feet by 6 feet cell in the basement, with no window. I feed him with dog food everyday, and instead of Transformer toys, he gets to play with rats. (Someone told me there is a Korean movie with the similar plot.) Now, when Roger reaches age 20, I release him to the outside world. I don’t know what he would become: a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher, or a serial killer. Actually I am pretty sure that he will become something very close to a serial killer. The bottom line is, that Roger is pretty crazy; he has some serious mental issues. There is no doubt about that. Yet, should inquires stop there? Should the world feel content to say “yep, he’s crazy alright.” People would probably ask what causes the mental problems of Roger: is it the 20 year long life in a dark cell? the rats? the food? a manipulative father? or the combination of all of the above? Most of the people would come to the conclusion that I, as his father, should be responsible for creating a monster.

The people who claim that the petitioners are crazy should ask the similar questions. When those (supposedly crazy) people would have to flood into the capital city of the nation to informally petition their unjust treatment elsewhere in the nation, something must not be working. Is it the anything-but-independent judiciary? Is it the anything-but-free media? And they should also ask themselves this question: if their only house were torn down, their life depending land was converted into a nuclear power plant with little compensation, apart from becoming a true Buddha or cutting off their hands so that the severe pain can distract their hurt feelings, what would they do? Remember, they have to also suppose (suppose? or is it the reality?) that they cannot sue the governmental officials, or protest on the street, or go to the media in the hope that they will broadcast some “voice of the people.”

“FRDUM FOOF SPETGH”

While I was reading voting rights cases, I though I have to record this funny footnote. Before the civil rights movement, the southern states have literacy requirement for voting. Those requirements typically asked the applicants to prove their ability to read, write, understand and interpret certain matters. The purpose and effect are simple: the illiteracy rate among African American was significantly higher than the whites. By turning down illiterate voters, those states were actually guarding the white dominant voting results.

But even that facially neutral discriminatory rule was enforced in a de facto discriminatory manner. Here is one hilarious example. A white applicant in Louisiana satisfied the registrar of his ability to interpret the state constitution by writing, “FRDUM FOOF SPETGH.” (United States v. State of Louisiana, 225 F.Supp. 353, 384.)

My best guess: “FREEDOM OF SPEECH.”

Immune System, Anybody?

I’d like to keep it short. Here is the main idea.

Most of the people in the world have caught a cold at some point of their lives. Most of them have survived. It is also the same thing for flu and for other diseases. While being sick is not fun in anyway, few see it as a life threatening issue. Few would wear full body space suit with its own oxygen for their whole life. Unfortunately, for full blown AIDS patients, that is not the case. To know how to avoid even the slightest disease can sometimes save their life, even though there is no way to restore their immune system.

Same analysis for governments. Check out the following story.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/world/asia/08china.html?_r=1&ref=asia

Watchmen Has Come

Turning on the TV lately, these are the headline news: shooting in NY, shooting in Pittsburgh, killing in WA, and North Korea launched its missile. (Of course, the ongoing senseless murders, disease and poverty in Africa has long been a proud symbol of that Continent, which has long lost attraction for the news media.) Is there a better background like this for the story of Watchmen?

In a world (actually it might have been always the case) where the selfish billions focus only on their own pathetic little lives, where the past lessons of genocide shed no light on the new world politics, where principles can be bent almost proportionally based on the GDPs of the perpetrators, where compromise is almost a virtue, I can only turn to the quotes of and about a psychopathic vigilante–Rorschach. Strangely, I find great comfort there.

“The city is dying of rabies. Is the best I can do to wipe random flecks of foam from its lips? Never despair. Never surrender.” –Rorschach’s journal, October 13, 1985.

“Soon there will be war. Millions will burn. Millions will perish in sickness and misery. Why does one death matter against so many? Because there is good and there is evil, and evil must be punished. Even in the face of Armageddon I shall not compromise in this. But there are so many deserving of retribution … and there is so little time.” –Rorschach’s journal, October 13, 1985.

“For my own part, regret nothing. Have lived life, free from compromise… and step into the shadow now without complaint.” –Rorschach’s journal, November 1, 1985.

“So what do you do when confronted with such filth? Do you walk by and pretend there is no infestation? Do you focus only on the least repulsive and delude yourself into the belief that the world is good underneath it all? Or do you become an exterminator, stomping all the human cockroaches you can while relentlessly pursuing the rest? You’ll never get them all, for they scurry to the shadows when the light is turned on. But you can get some; you can make a difference. And even if all you manage is a tiny ripple in the fetid slime, at least you lived respectably; you never became one.” — Jacob Held, “Watchmen and Philosophy”

“Rorschach refuses to compromise, to sell out justice, even if it means dispelling the illusion Veidt created and thereby guaranteeing that the millions who died did so in vain. As tears stream down, knowing his fate, he yells at Dr. Manhattan, “Do it!” and Dr. Manhattan evaporates him. Rorschach did not seek death; he did not commit suicide by Manhattan. But he understood what the others did not. ‘It is better to sacrifice life than to forfeit morality. It is not necessary to live, but it is necessary that, so long as we live, we do so honorably.’ Even in the face of Armageddon, never compromise. Life is not valuable simply in virtue of not being death.” — Jacob Held, “Watchmen and Philosophy”