Bull in the China Shop

The American Conservative ^ | March 10, 2008 | Eamonn Fingleton

[JACKRUSSELL]

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[grey_whiskers]

The criminal fascist syndicate occupying Washington defines freedom as the ability to buy a cell phone from one of four different manufacturers.

Four different foreign manufacturers.

Cheers!

[fightinbluhen51]

I did, and someone a while ago when the Dollar was starting to flux more than it had in a decade (so this was about 1.5~2 years ago) said that this could be a Washington strategy to fix the trade deficit. Of course, there is still a LONG way to go to criple their ecconmy and bring ours back to the prosperity that is actually earned and worked for, and not just put on “paper”.

Like I said, if we could just become the “cheapest” place for a business to opperate, we’d win this trade deficit thing without any problems. Unfortunately, our capital-socialistic society won’t let that happen. It’s pretty said when the greatest nation on earth has the highest tax rate for it’s corrporate citizens forcing them to outsource and avoid the tax penality just to get on a level playing field with the rest of the world.

I’m not in favor of isolationism, but, getting these countries to play fair, is the only way to beat them, and if that means cutting taxes to bring buisness and manufacturing home (as well as the illegal imigration problem) then that’s what make senese (but then again, since when has Washington had common sense).

[Triple]

So those people in tianeman square did not want freedom? Bs

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

The Tiananmen Square protest of ‘89, had to have been one of the stranger events of the 20th Century.

“While the protests lacked a unified cause or leadership, participants were generally against the authoritarianism and economic policies of the ruling Chinese Communist Party and voiced calls for democratic reform within the structure of the government.” - from the Wiki.

However, what the *government* leadership saw, was very different indeed. Their near catatonia was, weirdly enough, out of the fear that the protest was a resurrection of the mobs of the Cultural Revolution. Most of the then leadership of China had suffered terribly during that time, being put in camps and having family members killed. The reason the demonstration lasted so long was because the leadership was half scared to death.

(I might add that using strange historical lenses to see things seems to fit the Chinese leadership. That is why they are so profoundly afraid of the Falun Gong, as they imagine them to be a return of the astoundingly bloody followers of the “Son of Heaven” in the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864), perhaps the second bloodiest conflict in human history after World War II.)

In the final analysis, while the Tiananmen Square protest did not get democratic reform, it did get some of the economic reforms of the three major groups in the protest, that the unions, students, and intellectuals had demanded.

Today, most of the major protests still taking place are in the more rural areas, and in cities away from the big coastal population centers. This is not just due to reforms, but also the emphasis the central government puts in putting down protests in those areas.

[Cyber Liberty]

I found that episode awe-inspiring.