Posted on 06/30/2007 3:12:04 PM PDT by DogByte6RER
Red Star Ignorance - Cameron Diaz and the great Peruvian faux pas
By Court Pearman
Epoch Times Washington, D.C. Staff
June 30, 2007
Oh, Poor Cameron Diaz! She got roasted for wearing a bag with a red star and a quote from Mao Tse Tung on it in Peru, a country that suffered massive bloodshed at the hands of Maoist rebels. People who survive civil wars are so uptight.
It is not like she was wearing a bag with a Hitler quote and a black swastika on it. That would have been really bad. And she wasn't wearing a KKK bag that said "White Power" on it.
Let me be straight with you for a moment. Since the communists took control of China in the 1940s, they have killed more than 80 million people. When Mao took power he had all the intellectuals and religious people executed, shut down the universities, and took away private property. According to the book "Hungry Ghosts," during Mao's "Great Leap Forward" campaign 30 million people starved to death during a time of plenty; other sources put the death toll at over 40 million—in any case, several times the number killed during the Holocaust. Mao's murdering henchmen all wore red stars.
That's just the beginning of Mao's crimes, and his legacy of terror lives today in various persecutions in China, as well as in the minds of terrorist groups in Latin America and Asia, including in the recent violence in Indonesia and Nepal. He is not chic, campy, nor a mis-understood hero. Mao is a mass-murderer.
If Cameron Diaz wants to understand this, perhaps she should talk to Richard Gere—he would never be caught accessorizing with a Mao bag. He knows that Mao invaded Tibet, slaughtered ten percent of its population, colonized it, and began wiping out its ancient culture. The soldiers conquering Tibet all wore red stars.
In the case of Peru, the Maoists tried to duplicate China's brutal revolution by destroying the native Incan culture, sowing discord in the rural areas to choke off the cities, and carrying out mass executions for minor "counterrevolutionary" offenses such as selling vegetables independent of the central government. The brutality of its "popular trials" included slitting throats, strangulation, stoning, and burning. Maoist victims were never allowed burials.
Theodore Dalrymple, famous English-writer and retired prison-physician and psychiatrist wrote that "The worst brutality I ever saw was that committed by Sendero Luminoso [Shining Path] in Peru, in the days when it seemed possible that it might come to power. If it had, I think its massacres would have dwarfed those of the Khmer Rouge."
Peru's Truth and Reconciliation Commission revealed in its 2003 report that 69,280 people had died or disappeared—22,507 fully identified as dead and 46,773 disappearances. Human Rights Watch confirms those numbers.
But Cameron is not alone in her red-star ignorance. Those Che shirts are everywhere, and Che was a communist versed in Maoist logic. Even Macy's Department Store has a red star for their logo. I cringe every time I see it. The five-point red star is not cute; it is culpable ignorance.
I live in Washington DC, so I go to the Smithsonian museums from time to time. A big disappointment to me is the Freer and Sackler Museum gift shop. The Freer has a superb Asian art collection, but the gift shop has some Mao stuff in it, including a book called "The Tao of Mao," which offers up Mao quotes as daily inspiration. The Smithsonian is run by smart people; why would they have such a thing?
I guess the squeaky wheel gets the grease. The Chinese people have been pretty quiet about their Communist experiences. It is no wonder. They know what Mao's heirs do to those who complain.
Plus, nobody has made a movie called Jose's List about a Latino businessman who saves the villagers from the brainwashed communist rebels waving Mao's "Little Red Book" in the streets of Lima. After all, don't the Chinese still have a communist government today, and it's been more than ten whole years since they massacred thousands of students on Tiananmen Square. And those Che shirts are just everywhere.
We are so quick to forget. Some things are just simply off-limits. Mao and communism need to be added to that list, and the public notified.
There are a WHOLE BUNCH of people who could attest to the horrors of communism living in this country. Why are they never interviewed for public consumption? It is inexplicable. In fact one of the big criticisms of the cold war “loyalty oaths” and such during the 50s, the government purposefully excluded and discriminated against the very folks who ought to be able to recognize subversive legislation and the like.
We had a bit of local flavor on this several years ago. A very promising business concern which made high quality gearboxes had OSHA come after them. Something to do with low-voltage wires not having conduit, real chicken-shit stuff from a safety standpoint. But fines are retro-active (something that everyone needs to look at using for decent and honorable issues) and the owner fought it tooth and nail. He complained that OSHA was (paraphrased) ‘worse than the nazis and the communists” or somesuch, and he could get away saying that, because he had suffered under all of them, he was a refugee.
truth be known tho, I'm sure the people who view it are clueless about who it is or what the message is......
Don’t feel guilty. I used to give money to PETA, Greenpeace, Planned Parenthood, the ACLU and The Wilderness Society (or something like it), etc.
Boy have I changed. Now my money goes to the Republicans, Freep, FrontPage, etc.
We all make mistakes, learn and grow and hopefully wise up about reality and our own survival.
I’ve bought several shirts from:
I like to wear them on the weekendss and walk around the hippie infested farmers’ markets and organic food stores.
The look on their faces is usually one of surprise, then they just turn away.
They’re too cowardly to actually confront me. Just a bunch of limp wristed, spineless pansies with bad hygiene.
She wasn't on very long - makes me wonder if Macy's might have gotten many complaints like mine (I hope so)
Yes, like I would buy anything endorsed by any hollywood know nothing. Actually, I wouldn’t buy anything endorsed by ANYONE. I make my own choices and don’t need these blow hards to make my decisions for me. Sadly though...there are some out there who cant do a damned thing for themselves and have to have someone tell them what to do. Amazing, isn’t it?
The commercials that really upset me are the ones for reverse mortgages for senior citizens. Every time I see James Garner on one of these, I think “shame on him”.
Yep, thats where I got mine.....
She has gushed over Hillary Clinton....not sure how innocent she is in all this.
Oh wait, George is scewing up, but is it the chicken or the egg here? Is he as screwed up as they are or is he taking their crappy advice?
I KNOW!!! What about Ed McMahon and that sweepstakes whatever he used to advertise for. More $$$ for them is all that matters. Dont bother to “shame on them.” If they had any shame they’d never agree to these in the first place.
Daveinyork...you are forgiven.
You were just a young, arrogant dummy like most of us were at some point. It is like partying and drinking to excess.
Oh, wait...
They look good. I’m trying to decide if I should get the “commies aren’t cool” version or the plain “red slash” Che.
Now that I know that commie hag Sarandon is the spokesperson, I won't shop there either.
Cameron Diz????
I once told someone that if all faces were scrubbed clean there wouldn’t be any more good-looking women than there are good-looking men 80)
I become more convinced of it every day! Any woman who really looks great without makeup is a real heart stopper!
I may be forgiven, but, there are all the POW’s who were stuck in Hanoi all those years, and tortured. There are all those millions of people who suffered and died under Communisms yoke in Southeast Asia. I may have grown up, but, how does one make it up to all those people who suffered while we, the effete, impudent, snobs, who characterized ourselves as intellectuals, gave aid and comfort to the enemy? After all, the war was not lost in Southeast Asia. It was lost in the opinion polls in the US. We helped in that effort.
Ge Ming Yi Qian Sui!!!
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