It is the world’s fastest-growing economy. Within our lifetimes, it will become the largest. And yet, the face China presents to the world belies the truth of the lives of 1.4 billion people. To speak of broad generalities and the grand sweep of history is to ignore the human and very real concerns of the individuals who comprise those figures.
When and if it becomes the world’s pre-eminent nation, economically and militarily, how will it exercise that power? Will it seek to settle old scores? An incident yesterday, unreported either in the Chinese press* or the Western media, may shed some light on this issue. An anti-Japanese riot in Tianfu Square, Chengdu, the capital of the province of Sichuan, attended by thousands of demonstrators and marching under a banner proclaiming Japanese Dogs, Get Out Of Asia, took to smashing windows of Japanese shops and restaurants. LibertyGibbert’s resident China correspondent, Locusts, was the only Western witness, and though in clear personal danger, remained to record his remarkable and terrifying account of this event here.
There can be little doubt that this riot took place with prior knowledge of the Chinese government, and by extension tacit approval, if not outright support. What can one make of such an event clearly designed to inflame the local population, but not intended for Western eyes? And how will the Japanese respond? In its long history, China has little or no record of expansionist tendencies or military adventurism, although territorial disputes exist between the two nations over several island groups in the East China Sea, and Locusts’ account makes clear these disputes were part of the focus of the demonstrators. Is it a distraction from other pressing local problems, or does it point to a wider agenda? Inscrutable as always, China will reveal itself in its own time, and on its own terms.
*Update:
The cat’s out of the bag; Xinhua News Agency and the China Media Project have just released reports of the riots, with pictures; more photos available at Sichuan New Media’s Flickr.com page. It’s going to go viral now.
The Xinhua report noted the following:
In Tokyo, right-wing groups had planned to mobilize 3,000 people to gather in front of the Chinese Ambassy to “clarify Japanese’s attitude on the issue”.
This could get ugly.
Be Responsible - Be Free! 
Ozboy,
I also noticed in your link, “China’s rising economic and political power have triggered discontent among Japanese people”.
Ah, so it’s the discontented Japanese who have triggered such widespread unrest in China. And all because they are jealous of China’s rise to power and capitalism. Curious and curiouser.
But Russia is backing the Chinese claims – and it seems with good reason.
“He said the U.S. controlled the islands as part of its occupation of Okinawa from 1945. Soon after Tokyo’s surrender, aligning of forces turned upside down. The U.S., he said, began considering its former ally China as a new enemy.
“The United States sided with their recent enemy and handed Diaoyu back over to Japan in 1972,” Khramchikhin said.”
Aha, so it was meddling old Uncle Sam who has caused the whole ruckus.
On the last thread when I responded to Locusts’ account I had no clue as to what the grievance was, and was more concerned for Locusts’ safety in such a volatile situation.
However, I must say I can now understand the Chinese point of view.
I don’t like the way their Govt however, orchestrates such “spontaneous” outbursts from the people. I didn’t like it when they did it in Australia, on our soil, against our policies and create mayhem on our streets abusing our country’s guests.
As you say Oz, it could get ugly – especially as Uncle Sam has handed them the stick with which they can clout him.
BTW in the crowd picture, did you see the white guy munching on a Big Mac?
G’day Swanny,
Now BBC is running with it; still nothing in CNN – Oz
ozboy…In its long history, China has little or no record of expansionist tendencies or military adventurism
Er you are totally wrong on that the Chinese under the Mongols attempted to invade Japan, also all of there neighbours. Which is why Vietnam has now allied itself to the USA informally.
Ozboy and the Tibetans beg to differ.
I’m sure they do, and I don’t claim any great authority on the subject of Tibet. I’m trying to ask questions in this thread, not provide any answers. Perhaps I should have added, “compared to the Mongols” – Oz
Ozboy history is a fun subject I like to study and it was not just the Mongols once the Chinese have conquered somewhere even briefly they consider it Chinese forever. I have bad news for the Afghans.
Off topic
I put a post just now on James’ thread about the Fox connection. It is pompous, arrogant and offensive. It is meant to be – to see if I can push the buttons of arrogant would-be scientist Steven Dobbs and get him to implode. The sentiments and attitudes I expressed are as cold and superior as I could make them, and don’t express my real self.
But exquisitely put – Oz
Oz,
As I’m no authority either, am I imaging it or doesn’t the Korean War (I mean police action) count as “military adventurism”? Weren’t all the UN Forces, including us, fighting the Chinese in Korea? If they hadn’t been involved in the “adventure” would the US have kept tens of thousands of Military Personnel on the 39th Parallel for 60 years?
Just as the Chinese maintain a permanent garrison north of DMZ.
Would the current North Korean situation be so perilous without the finance, technology and military aid of China and would they really be lobbing missiles over Japan without such support? No wonder the Japanese are nervous.
Would they be resisting China’s historic claim over these tiny islands if huge oil and gas fields weren’t involved?
Just asking.
Now Tibet is another whole story.
blackswan
You didn’t address me, but….
I don’t think it was military adventurism. Truman, Marshall and Acheson adopted a strategy of “containment,” and this was an agonizingly difficult example of keeping to that policy. I don’t think mineral reserves had much to do with it from the American side, but maybe it did from the Japanese side.
Oz,
There is deep enmity and hatred still over the Japanese, the Chinese consider their ‘little’ neighbours to be the ‘new kids on the block’, the new kids Lorded it over China in the 60s- early 90s, then always in the back of Chinese minds the Japanese are ‘owed’ one by the Chinese people.
The Japanese occupation is remember for many reasons, the Japanese were cruel overlords and as the Allied + British forces found out post Singapore, they are not given (Japanese) to acts of altruistic benevolence to their captives/conquered.
The atrocities during the Japanese occupation have NEVER been forgotten (Nanjing), long memories these boys – the Chinese certainly do have.
I think though, there is a greater play at work here, it is a domestic agenda, Locusts will have a better idea maybe…….. but, be careful Locusts, you might start being a person of ‘special interest’ to the authorities.
Thanks Ed, you’ve brought the discussion back to where I tried to point it: Locusts’ experience, and what (if anything) it portends for the future of Sino-Japanese relations, if not geopolitics generally – Oz
Hello msher
Responding to Oz, I was really addressing my comments into the ether and hoping someone could give me some perspective on something I know so little about.
However, I can’t agree with Oz’s view that “China has little or no record of expansionist tendencies or military adventurism”. That’s the context in which I commented.
I think Communism was the Bogey Man for the US in the ’50s and has remained so. The oil & gas fields came up as a motive for the Japan of today to defend their claim to those little islands in the face of a Chinese challenge. I think there’s more to it than fishing rights.
For many of us, the turmoil of south-east Asia ended in 1975 with the American withdrawal from Saigon. How naive of us to have these long-running tensions simmering away unnoticed, especially considering our geographic location. We should have been paying attention and maybe Locusts’ report is a timely heads-up for us to educate ourselves about what makes those people tick.
As long as it’s not tick, tock, tick, tock. ……..
I guess it’s a question of scale. Three thousand years and all they’ve got to show for it is two countries on their border – Tibet and North Korea (sort of)? Expansionism, yes, but small beer I’d say. This is expansionism. And this. And this. That’s not to minimize China’s belligerence under Mao, but it rather puts it into perspective – Oz
Oz,
The Japanese are not happy with the Chinese deployment of subs at Hainan and a general flexing of it’s muscles in the China Sea, Taiwan has been quietened for the moment, the USA looks elsewhere and has it’s own problems.
I think the Chinese sense a window and a bit of anti Nippon feeling or agitation boosts the government of China’s strategic direction.
I also sense some internal unrest, the Dragon (thinks maybe) it can deflect this mutinous stirring with an aggressive foreign stance, IMHO, classic diversionary tactic.
A truly fascinating development, I think it is perhaps time for some of the corporations that have been sponsoring the AGW alarmism to perhaps have a re-think about their position.
Scud bought to my attention a radio broadcast, available at…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00v72r3
What we hear is that Tuvalu, the low lying nation in the pacific, has threatened to sue Australia and the United States for their contributions to climate change and in the latest and most high profile case Katrina victims are taking the big oil companies BP, Shell, Chevron Exxonmobile, to court.
From…
http://activistteacher.blogspot.com/2007/05/dgr-in-my-article-entitled-global.html
‘By the beginning of 2007 the corporate campaign had significantly scaled up its activity, with the creation of several new organizations. The Pew Center and Partnership for Climate Action now created a political lobbying entity, the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP). USCAP membership included the key players in the initial effort, such as BP, Dupont, the Pew Center, and Environmental Defense, and added others, including GE, Alcoa, Caterpillar, Duke Energy, Pacific Gas and Electric, Florida Power and Light, and PNM, the New Mexico and Texas utilities holding company. PNM had recently joined with Microsoft’s Bill Gates’ Cascade Investments to form a new unregulated energy company focused on growth opportunities in Texas and the western U.S. PNM’s CEO Jeff Sterba also chaired the Climate Change Task Force of the Edison Electric Institute. Also joining USCAP was the Natural Resources Defense Council, the World Resources Institute, and the investment banking firm Lehman Brothers whose managing director Theodore Roosevelt IV chaired the board of the Pew Center and was soon also to chair Lehman’s new Global Center on Climate Change. As Newsweek now noted (March 12, 2007). “Wall Street is experiencing a climate change,” with the recognition that “the way to get the green is to go green.” ’
Here we can see that the corporations that are going to be sued are also the big backers behind the AGW propaganda machine.
This could be the death knell of this hoax; the idiots are so stupid they do not realize that they are turning on themselves.
Lawyers and eco-tarts versus watermelons and fat cats, sounds like interesting battle.
Will they realize that they are biting the hand that feeds them?
NoIdea
Ozboy….I guess it’s a question of scale. Three thousand years and all they’ve got to show for it is two countries on their border – Tibet and North Korea (sort of)? Expansionism, yes, but small beer I’d say. This is expansionism. And this. And this. That’s not to minimize china’s belligerence under Mao, but it rather puts it into perspective – Oz
Actually look at a map of China over the last 2000 years it has ebbed and flowed, to the North and West Desert to the South Jungle but they are now looking at Siberia as China uber alles.
Shit, looking at those flickr photos, I know I shouldn’t have gone for a pint. I’m not in any of them!
Item in today’s DT.
http://joannenova.com.au/2009/10/the-main-%E2%80%9Ccause%E2%80%9D-of-global-warming-is-air-conditioners-p7
I know its OT but I just had to post it – isn’t that what we’ve all been saying for ages?
It gets worse …
Pointman
Fen,
I feel another “reasons for warming” item from you coming on. Maybe rubbing Hoo-sticks together for a start?
Spotted on the Delingpole blog – the best blog insult I think I’ve ever seen, from rastech aimed at aphillips:
If you are running a brain in for an idiot, well done, carry on, keep up the good work.
Otherwise, seek help.
Don’t know if ras made that one up himself, but it’s priceless.
NoIdea says:
October 17, 2010 at 7:24 pm
That’s why I feel the Chamber of Commerce and coal industry and chemical coalition letters requesting they file anti-racketeering affadavits against organizations such as you mentioned is not a waste of time. I should also point out that one of the major financiers and behind-the-scenes interests in the greentard scam is Red China, through which they are expressing tacitly their true imperialistic aim, which is commercial in object, not military, but imperialism nevertheless.
It should also be pointed out the the Japanese are not the cartoon cutouts the MSM portrays them as, nor is this anything less than an argument between fellow ideologists. Japan has the largest legal Communist Party in the West. This is more a dispute between a prosperous North Korea and an emerging as prosperous Stalinist regime, rather than a proxy West versus Maoist East.
http://www.jcp.or.jp/english/
There is LOTS of information at this site to answer a lot of questions in depth respecting the ideological and economic warfare and its basis in mutually non-negotiable line item issues.
BTW, Pearl Harbour started this mess. The USA is not the donkey on which to pin the tail this time out, guys. It’s pathetic that should even come up on anyone’s radar screen. Or are the posters who believe that to be so really closet Labour Party members? This dispute is entirely between Japan and China, and would have surfaced eventually without our previous historical intervention. We are the only players in that hemisphere who do not have a history of genocidal racist imperial aspirations.
B-b-b-but look at the Indians, a-a-a-a-nd the black man, a-a-a-a-nd the Spanish. Let’s do, please! Show me the Chinese and Japanese civil rights acts and their enabling legislation. They were kicking each other’s butt long before there was even a North American European based civilization, even going back to before Biblical times. This is just a direct, linear, “logical” extension of that eternal race-based warfare.
Blackswan is right about Truman and Acheson, but omits the major efforts made by the Commonwealth as a whole to aid in preventing eruption of yet another world war. Viscount Field Marshal Templar’s successful campaign in Malaysia is a case in point.
Not to be blunt, but that campaign is the only one I can think of off the top of my head which was successful, and was the model for other campaigns of that nature which worked (and others which didn’t that I can remember, too LOL). We shouldn’t discount the Crown’s role also in trying to keep these nations from murdering each other and pulling the rest of the world into the abyss of their making in the process.
Back to the salt mine and more formatting. Grrrrrrr…….
Ozboy says:
October 18, 2010 at 12:41 am
Rather good, I do admit, Ras has been working up a head of steam, we observed in thrilled silence.
The engine of China’s hypersonic economic growth is coal gasification or if I may faintly amuse you as the Bear of Many Names, coal fascification. The technology is controlled through multi-layers patents which mutate to stay alive like plague vector bacteria under the tender attentions of—Surprise!—German interests:
http://www.uhde.eu/competence/technologies/gas/techprofile.de.epl?profile=10000003&pagetype=1&pagenum=1
This is slightly ludicrous, while ironic and mindbendingly cynical while eminently effective in keeping a now-critical technology out of the hands of both greentards and the Western industrial sector (Motivation? Democracies the German mind do not yield the returns, nor are they receptive to the tender ministrations provided by German, i.e., EU altruisms respecting “German basic human values,” perhaps?), if one is a political purist, which I am not.
There is no need for carbon sequestration. The Prenflo process uses it all and in fact requires the injection of CO2 to optimally function. As shown, the process was developed, as they say with Zyklon B clarity, in the early Forties in Germany, and now is used globally, under strict licencing agreements, oom-pah-pah. This, at the same time Deutsche Bank has 60 billion Euros tied up in the carbon fraud.
The object of the industrial activities at the 38 death camps devoted to coal gasification which met 75% of the Third Reich’s liquid fuel and lubricant needs was to secure pre-eminence one day in the field of non-petroleum derived hydrocarbon products. Well, they have.
China is the primary beneficiary of this process, which is also applied by GE and Siemens and Alstom for the coal IGCC power plants being built or operational in Red China, all 40+ of them in the 400-1,600 MWe range each.
It therefore does not take a major reconfiguration of one’s brain cells to sort out that this conflict between China and Japan in many respects is a continuation of the first two world wars by other means, this time out with Japan, as it is still developing variants of this technology on their own.
Be safe, Locusts. As if you could ever tell that to a Briton without getting a “You must be joking, surely” smile in return.
*multi-layered
I do not assign blame. I am describing the organic evolution of a process in which we are all participants as either consumers or process providers.
Or maybe to be more blunt, if we do not want our hair to smell badly, we ought not to defecate in our own hats.
Maybe the Allies ought to have kept a tighter rein on German industry a bit loner too, instead of saying “Eff it, I’m buying Krupp stock, and let them sell where they may.”
By the looks of things, we will have to fight the same fights against killer clowns in different, but only mildly different, ideological clown suits within our lifetimes.
*longer
I agree with Edward about this being used by the government as a diversion. Better to focus unrest externally than inwardly. My limited knowledge of China is that it sits on a powderkeg of potential problems related to the division of wealth between urban and rural people. I’ve always thought that increased awareness of the standard of life in the west was the ultimate undoing of the Soviet Union. It must so in China where the spectrum is from stone-age to ultra modern living conditions.
Also, the Chinese economy is it’s own bubble and while it has a tremendous internal market for it’s goods it will take a major hit from slumping western demand. Layed-off factory workers being sent back to their villages is a recipe for trouble for Beijing.
Nice read on this continuing eternal Asian adversarial relationship and others by the folks who will have to sort it out:
Click to access 20100202GST_4_Global_Strategic_Trends_Out_to_2040UDCDCStrat_Trends_4.pdf
http://www.timesofthesigns.com is sort of like Captain Sherlock with a budget and a medical degree, but it has lots of data on why the Nuremberg Trial proceedings against I.G. Farben are still not made publicly available, with an online free book posted which was written by the guy at U.S. Justice Dept’s Anti-Trust Division who actually participated in those proceedings at Nuremberg on behalf of the Tribunal. Most important of all, though, Dr. Rath provides lots of PRIMARY SOURCE, not hearsay blather, musings and “it is logical so it must be so” connect-the-dots” rants. If Dr. Rath’s site were sued, it could very well stand its ground in court with impunity.
Krupp/Thyssen and Uhde are all one company now. Madness. Doesn’t Germany have any anti-market fixing reg’s?
Also, not exactly OT, does anyone know if Congress voted to hand Kabalama power to shut down the net for 4 months at a stretch if he wanted to in the vote on that House bill on or about 26 June 2010, please?
*DOCUMENTS
I’d feel a whole lot safer if Yosemite Sam without the moustachios were Prez still.
Lyndon Johnson? – Oz 😀
Definitely Non-Panda Bear
“Yosemite Sam without the moustachios”
That did make me laugh!
If we could, I’d say: Bring back RR.
Pointman
or alternatively http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mN3z3eSVG7A&feature=related
Pointman
What a delicious man he was, God love him and keep him.
Pointman
Pointman
NoIdea says:
October 17, 2010 at 7:24 pm
It was planned that way from Day One. The monetization of carbon with the Thyssen/Krupp/Uhde processes has been known and used in its modern incarnation since 1940. Carbon is entirely beside the point. The scheme is exactly like the Tom Hanks & Dan Ackroyd comedy “Dragnet,” where the plummy-voweled preacher played to exquisite perfection by Christopher Plummer is running a church, a recovery clinic and a pornography printing operation, and a Stanist cult (remember the goat dance?).
Either side of the court equation wins, the greentards make money. We would call it a Motor City Shakedown.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThgKbHnL91Q&feature=related Woober Goober wif De Green Teeth on the microphone.
In point of fact, that is what happened to Detroit, when Lee Imacorker unilaterally decided to moved everything overseas and to East Lansing and to Traverse City and Tennessee, and the other auto manufacturers followed. That’s why the relief money never happened. Even the most naive of politicians could see through the fraud.
I am going to do what I did with the MISO/JCSP windfarm scam: post affadavit formats citing legal chapter and verse as a template for the States, UK and Oz according to the listed complaint forms at the SFO, Department of Justice, and whatever Oz has.
There is no bloody way a government can peg the value of an issued security at 23 bucks or ten cents, which has to be underwritten if it is a security. It’s not only unconstitutional and illegal even without a constitution: if the carbon credit tanks, then the situation respecting debt is only made worse. Let’s do for Gizzard also.
As I belaboured your brains and eyes with Rudolf Valentino’s tango, here is one a bit more to my liking. Always liked Bryan Ferry. Class act always:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuXKgLlsQcw Love those clothes. Can you even get fabrics like that anymore, asks the kid who sold men’s attire in high school back when everything in the haberdashery was either US or English-made?
Just passing through, but:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/elvis/photos/020415_1335/pages/5364-19.htm
P.S. Seven others besides me filed last time out. Let’s do it again.
For anyone following the poll at
http://www.greenerenergyexpert.co.uk/showthread.php?t=21
The results were 12% YES and massive 88% NO about 10 mins ago
Greensand is currently going ballistic since the pollsters have turned the result round to read 12% NO and 88% YES
CHEAT, CHEAT and if the answer is wrong then CHEAT AGAIN
GREEN IS CORRUPT
AGW IS CORRUPT
REVIEWS ARE CORRUPT
IPCC IS CORRUPT
WHAT A TERRIBLE WORLD WE LIVE IN!!!!
motm
manonthemoor says:
October 18, 2010 at 8:28 am
MOTM, what’s the betting on them closing down the poll fairly soon … ?
Pointman
Pointman says:
October 18, 2010 at 8:42 am
Hi Pointy
Seems all we can do is to SHOUT from the roof tops what they have done, the illegal stunt they have pulled to manipulate the results.
Hopefully JD will pick it up but it will disappear off DISQUS all too soonand get lost hence my post here
motm
Cahil O’Pointman
manonthemoor says:
October 18, 2010 at 8:48 am
Reminds me of that poll the Science Museum ran. Remember how it suddenly stopped taking votes …
Pointman
MOTM. The last 2 commenters have cried ‘foul’ and their posts are still up there. To delete or not ? Either way the pollsters are stuffed.
speaking of polls……………..
Sydney Radio’s top-rating breakfast program in the last few days had an on-line poll asking the question:
Do you want the Australian Government to introduce an Emissions Trading Scheme/Carbon Tax?
Of the 21,365 who participated, 98.7% said NO.
Looks like Bob Brown is going to have to marshal the foot-soldiers if he’s going to skew such polls in true Green/Marxist/Socialist fashion.
Will our Green/Marxist/Socialist Govt pay any heed to the voice of the people?
Well, they haven’t so far.
Bob will simply run a poll with a fluffy polar bear cub on the top and ask “do you really want to kill this poor defenceless creature?” 98.7% of respondents will say “no”. It’s all been laid out before – Oz
Blackswan says:
October 18, 2010 at 9:43 am
G’Day Swan. With Joolyah’s slim hold on power, she better start listening.
Pointman
O’Bear in many guises
“The USA is not the donkey on which to pin the tail this time out, guys. It’s pathetic that should even come up on anyone’s radar screen. Or are the posters who believe that to be so really closet Labour Party members?”
Er, No & No.
Uncle Sam came up on my computer screen when I was trying to find out what this island dispute is all about. I had no idea that the US had controlled these islands after 1945 and had subsequently handed them back to Japan despite China’s historic claims.
Personally, I think Japan should have counted themselves lucky not to have their heads handed back to them in hessian sacks in 1945, let alone demand the return of any territory seized from another nation.
I said it was a pity the US had handed China another stick with which to clout them.
Still, exchanging opinion and perspectives on Blogs causes “a major reconfiguration of one’s brain cells” and I’ve learned much about many subjects (and people) I would never have known had I not dipped my (webbed) toes in these fast-flowing waters.
No pins, no blind-folds, no donkeys.
G’day Oz,
Too true. I think I should be able to claim my “Yes Minister” series as a tax deduction under “educational material”.
Hello Pointman
Considering Abbott got more of the vote in our election, I reckon her seizure of power due to shady back-room deals is tantamount to a coup.
Blackswan says:
October 18, 2010 at 10:25 am
“Still, exchanging opinion and perspectives on Blogs causes “a major reconfiguration of one’s brain cells” and I’ve learned much about many subjects (and people) I would never have known had I not dipped my (webbed) toes in these fast-flowing waters.”
“drink deep or taste not the perian spring”.
Pointman
Pointman says:
October 18, 2010 at 8:06 am
Yep.
See you on the road to Sligo pointy.
Pointman
And near impossible to tippy-toe about with webbed feet.
Edward says:
October 18, 2010 at 10:43 am
Or Wigan Pier …
Pointman
For a socialist, Orwell gave us a few things to think about. Maybe he should be considered a whistleblower.
People who love to read should never conglomerate. It’s a bit boring for those who choose not to do so.
Pointman
Indeed – “who’s next?” Love it.
Blackswan says:
October 18, 2010 at 10:57 am
Swan, I’d call him a reformed Socialist – see Ronnie’s joke earlier.
Pointman
Blackswan says:
October 18, 2010 at 11:05 am
Ha ha. The best bit of Lit Crit I’ve ever see – “I don’t take shit from no one”.
Pointman
Pointman says:
October 18, 2010 at 11:09 am
For me, that’s a given – it’s the “WHO’S NEXT?” that nailed me…..LMFAO
What happened with Dylan Thomas anyway? Wonderful, immediate, everyman poetry but he’s barely mentioned; not even taught. It’s another Jimi Hendrix thing except it’ll take a bit more than 20 years until the simple genius is apparent enough to sell Joe Public something.
Pointman
Pointman,
At one time, in the days before any notion of the social safety net existed, and the idea of an 8-hour workday was laughable (legally in the States, 12 hours was the case until after the Korean War, same in the UK, I fink), and there was no unemployment compensation, disabilities comp, and mill towns where the company owned the housing, grocery store, hospital, and even required the workforce to go to their church–in the States, until after WW II in the South but also in Illinois, Missouri, the Southwest and Ohio–no decent person had any business being anything other than a Red. These people though were machinists and mechanics, farmers, railroad workers, steel workers, needle trade workers, and factory crew, not Chaunceys and Millicents from the burbs copping a faux poverty stance to get even with their parents or being green to get into the pants of the cute hippie chick sitting next to him in sociology class. The UK got the National Insurance Act in 1911: we in the States got nothing equivalent to that until LBJ initiated the Great Society programme in 1965, and all aspects of that were not activated through enabling legislation until 1972, the same year I entered the service. If our conduct seemed or seems primitive socially, well, erm, we are, after a fashion, but mostly we cannot afford the layers of social and quality of life protections other nations provide.
It’s simply the Simon Schama’s and Hobsbawm’s of the West preserving this myth of our ruthless imperial ambitions driving the US economy when most of us dearly wish we had never, ever heard of China or Japan or Germany, all of which were major international dole recipients for years and to a large extent are all still major negative flow elements to our economy. The “occupation” by US forces was and is not only grossly well compensated by us, but in all instances have been major factors in the development of these “oppressed” occupied territories’ economies, both as purchasers of local goods and services but also as direct employers of the local inhabitants.
The latter is the only point I was trying to make. Not to give offence. I’ve been told off by sofa socialists in Canada while at their businesses when half the merchandise on their oilfield equipment supply shelf was of US manufacture and they were all driving either GM Canada or Ford Canada pickup trucks. Pfffft. Ya know? Sigh.
Evil America, bad America. I still think we are going to have to put down the mad dogs of Asia and Europe yet again. From what Angela Merkel had to say Friday about the not-so-shining success of German multi-kulti, it will probably happen within the next ten years.
“taught” – eek. Such is life.
Pointman
While I admire George Orwell’s work and career achievements, and we shared similar trades as jungle-based military policemen, it is a bit silly to think he was anything other yet another 1930’s John Cornford type playing out their lives as the star in their own personal move interpretation of “The Prince and the Pauper,” just like Ayn Rand would have called a policeman if a steelworker put his greasy hands on the waxed shine of her Lincoln Essex limo to pause and catch his breath on the walk home from the mill. He always had clean white linen and brandy and dinner at every manor house in the Realm awaiting him should he pop by to belabour (sorry, I couldn’t resist the double entendre) his hosts with yet another tale of his adventures in the jungles of dirtiest, smelliest working class Great Britain.
*other than
Walt, the Germans got a nasty surprise when the reunification happened. They were reconciled to paying an extra tax in their paypackets, “the reunification tax”, to rebuild East Germany (and it really needed rebuilding) but some of the ‘yoof’ of East Germany were and are decidedly nasty, racist, Neo-Nazi, Jew-hating and generally scumbags. That’s exactly what was bequited to them from 50 years of Communist rule. Go figure …
Pointman
OzBoy,
Sorry this is so dreadfully off topic, but this video is just too amusing not to share:
You know something, Dave? He IS clean and quite articulate! – Oz
I think also my posts sometimes suffer from the InterNet Invisible Megaphone Disorder occasionally. Remember when you first started sending e-mails and people would write back asking what are you so agitated about, when you weren’t? It’s like TV was for actors in the early days; film in the 1940’s was an extension of stage acting and about putting one’s entire body into a role unless it was a closeup. TV is about standing still and delivering lines moving the minimum amount of muscles or you look like a large bird with no feathers flapping one’s wings trying to take off.
Sorry if I gave offence. Businessmen from America overseas are always imperialists until they find out it doesn’t work, Business is people exchanging goods and services for money only, not fitting the client into ideological templates before doing the deal. Outside of the Spanish American War, we’ve been dragged screaming into every foreign military “adventure.” If it wasn’t for Hitler and Tojo having a mutual self-defence treaty, we probably would have stayed neutrals for the duration of the 1939-1945 conflict and cheerfully continued to supply both sides. It was taking one’s life into one’s hands in America to address the wrong crowd in favour of the defence of Europe against the Nazis right up until the day after Pearl Harbour. Scary thought.
I flipped through until I couldn’t stand it anymore a book called “The Rise and Fall of the British Empire,” which was couched in terms not dissimilar to William Shirer’s “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.” There is no mention of the schools, disaster relief efforts, charity aid missions, job provisions, major infrastructure projects, industrial development, and promotion of self-governance which the Colonial Office served as one-way channel for. It reminded me of that scene in “Life of Brian” where one Jewish revolutionary asked another “Well, what have we got the Romans to thank for?” and Eric Idle thought a sec then said “Oh, aqueducts, schools, sewage drainage systems, irrigation, trade, defence….” along those lines.
America isn’t the only country whose legacy is smeared by the jealous non-attainers.
Pointman says:
October 18, 2010 at 11:25 am
I’m beginning to think all our technology is doing us a disservice in our most basic perceptions. Just this week the OZ Govt, in the development of a National Education Curriculum, is considering a return of “handwriting” as an important skill. It seems that as our matriculation exams are hand-written (especially English), students’ writing has become generally illegible and big problems loom. They even have remedial classes for it.
My only experience of this is the fact that my Cygnets’ keyboard skills are amazing – their fingers a blur across the keys. Similarly, their speed-reading ability is beyond my understanding. I think it’s a problem for anyone of any age who types huge volumes of work and consequently are required to read vast quantities of material.
When it comes to literature, poetry & prose, how can one absorb the light and shade, the nuance and reflection, contemplate its significance when the page is read in a few-seconds glance? To me its akin to zooming around an art gallery on roller-blades.
Even on blogs I’ve noticed how often comments are attributed mistakenly, key phrases taken out of context and misconstrued. An habitual “skimming” of information can make the reader “deaf” to the writer’s “voice”.
How can you truly read Dylan Thomas and not “hear” his voice? It’s not only loud head-banging music that is making our children deaf.
The Wind
Salt air blows into everything:
tussock grass, rabbit fur, wings;
and froths up the glittered breakers
till the heart of the cliff-climber sings.
Woodsmoke blows just as searchingly,
wreathing round pinecones and boughs;
and both have the sweet scent of freedom
that only the wind allows.
–written on a balcony in the Great Smoky Mountains, summer 2009. Sent it to my grandfather in England (Dorset, with a view of the sea), who told me he particularly likes it, so I thought I’d bung it in here.
Speaking of blindfolds and donkeys (yes, I know Walt, but I’ve got a book to hand and will get to it right after I write this):
True account here of what someone said at an American college’s picnic for graduate students in political philosophy. (And I don’t mean angels-on-a-pin stuff, I mean serious human-life inquiry, deep views into politics and justice: ever heard of the ‘theological-political question’? Ever heard of Leo Strauss?)
So they’re egg-heads and geeks, really, and no one’s doing volleyball or watching short shorts through binoculars, and they’re standing around wondering what to do next. One of the profs asks for suggestions and a grad student says: ‘I know: let’s play “pin the moustache on Nietzsche”.’
Isn’t life wonderful?
Swan, Walt, I’ve got a real problem with you two buggers; your posts are not the stuff of quick replies. They have real content and merit commensurate, but considered replies, quicky posting doesn’t do justice to the discussion. We’ve all got each other’s email, let’s do the deep stuff that way.
Pointman
As Yul Brynner would have said, “Let is so be written, let it so be done.” You know where I’m at.
*it
In the mean time, let’s shame the Clash with what Rachid Taha can do with their number. Pump up the vol and enjoy …
Pointman
Lovely poem, Amanda, and much appreciated on this brisk fall day. For some reason our leaves haven’t turned yet, but they are working on it. Bingotown has seven hills to it like Rome, all well forested with deciduous, so it should be quite a show in the next two weeks.
I’m as bad if not worse than you are, Amanda LOL
Heeeelp! It’s sucking me into the Void! Heeelllp!
Gee Pointy,
I was just cogitating while digging ice and frost out of a chest-style freezer. Whose bright idea was “spring cleaning” anyway?
This weather’s madness eh Swanny? Summer starts down here in six weeks and I’m freezing my arse off. I’m out woodcutting this arvo; everyone enjoy yourselves – Oz
Blackswan says:
October 18, 2010 at 1:19 pm
Spring? You lucky Devil. We’re just doing Fall and we now know what faces us, thanks to you guys and it’s not going to be easy …
Pointman
G’day, soon to be goodnight All.
Never mind Walt, there must be a BA group somewhere out there … on … the Internet! Ha ha ha.
Thank you Walt for your kind appreciation. The thoughts mean a lot to me because they describe in detail my actual experience: first stanza: Exmouth, Devon, down the way from Exeter where I was early 20s and penniless and staying in the top floor of some bloke’s house, sharing the loo with some other bloke, down a ladder more like a rope, feeding pound coins like they were nothing into the meter to keep the heater going… and had left my boyfriend back in Canada. Anyway did nothing all day but wandered round the city and nearby villages, and took the train through breath-taking countryside wherever my whim directed me, on my own — and fetched up on this cliff overlooking the sea, with rabbits hopping everywhere. Felt ecstatic standing there in the wind, looking out at the farther cliffs and boats beyond. I didn’t have a job or more than a suitcase: but then again, nobody owned me. My time was entirely mine. I felt completely free. And I never feel freer than by the sea. And the woodsmoke part was inspired by the brazier on the balcony, burning the twigs we’d collected from the trees around the chalet.
Pointman: And one of the other trois soleils … Faudel. A suppler sound, e.g.:
A.
Pointman
Around here Spring is purely a notional calendar thingy. The reality is snow, rain, sleet and scything winds. Good for indoor jobs (commiserations Oz) except when you’re conducting a long-overdue excavation of your freezer….lol
P. S. Oh gawd help us, memory lane — but I had such lovely contacts with people ‘when I was free’. I have a memory of laughing my head off with a much older woman when our train went through a tunnel and we were plunged into darkness — I don’t know why, but we were great friends for the journey, and she pointed her family up to me when she got off the train and they waved. And then there was the boy with the broken leg, off the train, and I held my umbrella over him because it was pouring, as any decent person would. He looked so grateful, though it was just a little thing. And even the bloke I shared the loo with — I knew nothing about him and it was a poor situation — but he took beautiful photos of flowers and he gave me two glossy ones to go home with. I put them later, back in Canada, into a card I made for my boyfriend’s sister-in-law for her birthday. The bud was on the front and I wrote ‘yesterday 29’… and the inside showed the blossomed flower and said ‘today 30’. She liked it much more than the earrings we’d bought her.
On that warm fuzzy note, goodnight.
Amanda says:
October 18, 2010 at 1:51 pm
You have to admire their anger http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7688ZyX5JE
but the agony is still there and that’s what’s important http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFyUPRPMvcE
but nothing’s changed in over two decades, despite our best efforts. That’s the real tradegy.
Pointman
Pointman and Blackswan,
Pointman, “Back to School” is one of my all-time favourite films. Rodney played a mechanical contractor, as I recall. Good stuff. Thanks.
Poetry reading needs context and ceremony unless a book of it is your own private hideaway while traveling or in the middle of a tough situation. it is profoundly difficult to find anyplace on the planet where a cell phone isn’t chirping and br-r-r-ringing and someone is yammering into it, even in libraries now. There is no private space.
There is a universal cellphone jamming device that some facilities (mostly Federal) and courtrooms use that should be by law installed into libraries as part of the building code. If they did that I wonder if some statistician or polling group could correlate doing that to grades improvement in schools.
Pointman, hi. Always just one last song, just another listen, and then I find it’s 2:00 in the morning.
Incredible music — put a shiver down me. These people really *need* music which is why tyrants like the Taliban want to outlaw it, among their very many other unspeakable cruelties.
And let us not forget beautiful young Cheb Hasni (cheb for ‘young’ as against sheikh for ‘elder’, as I understand it):
‘Leader of the Algerian Rai-music Cheb Hasni was gunned down on September 24 1994 [for being a musician who appreciated freedom and sang about love], victim of intolerance and human cruelty.
Hope carrier for all a youth roughly touched by the unemployment, the misery and the fear, the singer is murdered squarely heart of his natal city of oran, leaving behind him of the millions of heart orphans. Since his death, his song Matoub Lounes, is symbol of liberty and resistance to the oppression’.
Just watching Jooolya Gizzard’s performance in the House during Question Time.
Probably the most irritating trait, is the oh-so-careful and eeeelongated enunciation of every syllable in that whining nasal extrusion of her voice (as when talking to the deaf or those with learning difficulties), closely followed by the stylized hand gestures.
Maybe it’s the background arrangement of Noddies for the camera shot, vigorously pumping their heads about in agreement. Sooo annoying.
The level of obfuscation, spin and refusal to answer questions is only to be expected from this Govt, but it’s the “Dorothy Dixers” to Ministers giving them the Floor to spout their waffling policies that really are the pits.
Still, not a mention of Climate Change yet in discussing Environmental River Flows.
Amanda, my best memories are of hitchhiking in the Sixties and late Seventies. Such landscapes, and the silence interrupted often very infrequently by passing vehicles. One stretch in New Mexico I was dropped off at a remote intersection and could see the vehicles oncoming from both directions 15 minutes or so before they passed me. I had to sleep overnight out at that time. It was an education in just how night shift kicks in for the wildlife when the sun disappears.
That world is entirely gone now. I cannot imagine young folk hitchiking in the States today, and it is illegal on all interstate highways now by Federal law. No problem: they can do it in the summer up on the TransCanada Highway still. Did that once across Canada. When you hit the Rockies heading West was when it got interesting, though it was a lot of fun most days. Some days you walked farther than you rode LOL
For me, this song’s got a lot of content.
Pointman
Construction Estimator Bear says:
October 18, 2010 at 2:44 pm
“unless a book of it is your own private hideaway” – True.
Still, you have that nearby riverbank for some contemplative moments these days. Works for me.
That remote New Mexico location sounds like the scenes of Cary Grant in North by North-west. Bit like Central Oz really.
I think blocking cell phones in schools would be a great idea, libraries and restaurants too. Funny how the concept of being literally unreachable is so alarming to people. It’s my preferred state these days.
Pointman says:
October 18, 2010 at 3:04 pm
Thanks, that was sooo good. Had to play it over to savour all that “content”.
“Time to think of the ones we love while the miles roll way……..” Maybe that’s why I really like looong road trips – perspective.
There are remote parts of Mississippi Walt you would not wish to go hitch hiking through even today as the sound of dueling banjo’s strike up and you notice everyone has webbed toes and they can count up to 13 on them.
Hey Crown
Careful with the webbed toes thingy. Swans get techy about it.
Pointman says:
October 18, 2010 at 12:55 pm
//Swan, Walt, I’ve got a real problem with you two buggers; your posts are not the stuff of quick replies. They have real content and merit commensurate, but considered replies, quicky posting doesn’t do justice to the discussion. We’ve all got each other’s email, let’s do the deep stuff that way.//
You are joking, I hope.
The whole purpose of this board is to have a public discussion about these subjects.
Not some confidential Michael-Mann-type email circuit or some DT-like reflexes because some comments are “better” or because they are “deep stuff”.
I wondered how long this board would last as a venue for meaningful discussions and exchanges of views …
Not very, it seems !
Yes but yours are not through generations of inbreeding.
Amerloque sometimes the way Walt posts I think he has found the fabled Gran Cafe beans from the special coffee bushes only found in the Yemen which are said to induce visions, prophetic ability’s and insomnia. The drinkers are said to speak in tongues and commune with nature and God.
Hi CA !
Well, then there isn’t really any reason for reading his writing(s), is there ?
His are full of insight, humour, and information. That’s why I read them.
Best,
L’Amerloque
Amerloque says:
October 18, 2010 at 4:45 pm
Don’t despair mon ami,
It takes much to silence garrulous swans (we hiss when cranky) ……
All is well, that’s why “they” invented a scroll option. While we can’t shove our opinions other people’s throats, I’ve learned much from those who are more forthcoming (especially Walt who is so generous with his humour, expertise and experiences), and am happy to chat with those who contribute differently.
As with the JD/DT and other newspaper blogs, the puerile and banal are easy to ignore. Aussies are fairly up-front so I guess Ozboy will call ‘Time Swan’ in the Bar & Grill when he’s had enough of my opinions or inquiries.
One of Tasmania’s really nice country towns, Scottsdale – in the north-east, has just been rocked by the news that the town’s major industry and employer, the saw-mill is closing down in a few months. People are devastated.
Bob Brown’s avowed Green policies to close down old-growth forest logging proceeds apace. He has demanded a switch to plantations. We’ve had radiata pine plantations for many decades but the hardwood eucalypts (the long fibres favoured in paper production) are a fairly recent development and most are too immature for any meaningful yield.
The mill’s owners cite a lack of logs to maintain its viable operation.
Green policy to close down forest operations, closely followed by a complete shut-down of coal mining (exports plus power plants) are the trade-offs Govts are accepting in return for Green votes in Parliament. When they take control of the Senate next July, such policies should accelerate.
Bastards, one and all.
crownarmourer says:
October 18, 2010 at 3:55 pm
Been there, done that. Beyond weird. I went through towns where everyone looked alike because they were all related. There was one place I went through where the big ruckus was the FBI closing in on a pastor who had “congregants” locked up back in the swamps whom he used for forced labour and other things not worth mentioning. In the Seventies in the States that was not that unusual, with a new cult starting every week, it seemed like. I still won’t buy or drink Kool-Aid. Believe if memory serves me that this was in Pascagoula, home of Avondale Shipyard, the former Ingalls Shipyard.
Weird moment just now as I just realized I used the term “Web Surfer.” Do you think that dates me or what LOL Tumbling into the abyss of 10,000 Laotian huntsman spiders, more like.
Speaking of which, I just came up with a way to bust the Screen Actors Guild for all time. Film contracts for actors don’t cover after when they’re dead, and the ClayMation folks are so good at what they do, you could easily do films using dead actors. They just get a little ripe after a spell, but hey, what’s bringing in the big bucks more than zombie films. We could do “Night of the Living Bonzo.”
Well, maybe not.
The drinkers of Yemeni coffee get pancreatic cancers as big as basketballs that if you freeze them you can do the local bowling alley royt wifout owning a bowling ball. Turkish coffee is the most potent. It tastes sort of like chocolate, a spoon will almost stand up in it, and one demitasse of that go-juice will have your teeth chattering for three days until they shatter like glass.
All Arabs drink strong coffee. Anthropologically they used to be blue-eyed blondes, but the coffee did for their hair colour, eyes and complexions over 100,000 years. It is also why the Middle East has so much turmoil. For more insight into this coffee-induced syndrome, please http://www.tmcm.com
Too much production typing will do for you, too.
This one from the Too much Coffee Man site is one of her better ones:
http://www.tmcm.com/comics/webcomics/173_happystupid
Y’all have ta go back in tahm a spell in them there ar-kives to fahnd the goodest ones.
Cafe Bar, er Bear…….
One day a real smart stand-up comic is going to pinch your stuff and stiff you for the credit, and the cash.
“they used to be blue-eyed blondes, but the coffee did for their hair colour, eyes and complexions” – one of my faves.
Still laughing……….
This is what popular music looks like to someone who has been classically trained:
http://upcoming.yahoo.com/flickr/1135150/event/2916460786
If I can’t sleep, nobody sleeps.
I’ll bet you a zillion bucks this Boston band over-copiously photographed sounds better than any letter-perfect Japanese or Chinese copy band doing their own material. In history. Going back to the Cretaceous Period.
I think both Japan and China know that. This is why they want to kill each other.
As an act of mercy for the betterment of humanity.
A quick follow up note about the demonstration:
A Chinese man when pointing out that all of the Japanese restaurant owners were Chinese, he asked, why didn’t everyone go and attack the embassy? Why don’t they go attack the Japanese car show rooms, rather than attack japanese cars bought by fellow Chinese.
Many of those in the crowd will be back in those Japanese shops before long, as stuff made in Japan, is well, made in Japan; much better than stuff made in er… China!
During the Olympics there was some hoo-hah about a disabled Chinese woman carrying the torch in Paris, or something. Protests against France ensued, and everybody resolved never to shop at Carrefour again.
I’ve been to Carrefoure a few times since then. Sometimes I see the queues and walk straight out again, and the last time I walked out in disqust, as they sold everything that a Chinaman might need, but no bloody CHEESE!
Should I open a business in China. A slip of the tongue by Clegg or Obama or anyone Anglo-Saxon, and my joint gets attacked, whilst those that can afford the losses are left alone.
Fresh faced wimpish demonstrators. Really, anyone with any balls would have attacked something really Japanese, rather than the faux-sushi joints run by their own countrymen.
Locusts & Wild Honey says:
October 18, 2010 at 8:14 pm
Hello Locusts
Some interesting observations – perhaps the Chinese feel that, with their sheer numbers as consumers, such boycotts will intimidate foreign Govts.
I run a few boycotts of my own. I don’t for a moment think entire economies will crash because one person in northern Antarctica won’t buy their products. It’s enough for me to know.
There was major anti-French feeling here some years ago, over the nuclear tests in the Pacific, their sinking of Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior vessel causing death, their subsequent freeing of the French Govt agents responsible.
Human Nature prevails, memories are short, and it wasn’t long before trendoid Aussies were quaffing Moet again.
Such is the way of these things.
This could indicate an interesting trend…………
Late ABC TV News is reporting that Greenpeace is targeting the ANZ Bank (one of Australia’s biggest) as one of the biggest Corporate Polluters by its investment in the Coal Industry.
Greenpeace states it will campaign among its 100,000 members in Australia to bring pressure to bear on ANZ to end its investment in coal and close the industry down, along Greens Party policy lines.
As Tony Abbott said today, “It’s the Labor Party who is in Government but it’s the Greens who are in Power.”
I think that the more power they seize, the tighter will become their grip.
Swan
I’m not convinced that those demonstrating thought that far ahead. It was telling to see how upset the girls had become by three hours of protesting, why are the boys breaking stuff?
I wanted to point out that the logical conclusion ad absurdium would be for China to declare war on Japan. How many people would that please?
In fact, for the protest in the protesters eyes, it should at least have spilled over in to attacks on Japanese people, but then again, I’m sure the Government wouldn’t want that to actually happen. Diplomatic incidents are tricky enough to handle as it is.
Boycotts can have some impact. Nestle still suffers from being revealed to be African baby killers in the 80s, many British people still refuse to buy their products.
Greenpeace are obviously a bunch of idiots, much like protesters at a march. Have they actually thought through the consequences of their actions?
Where were they for the Indian and Pakistani Nuclear tests?
I am always interested in clever propaganda; here is a propaganda film about propaganda.
Here is some more propaganda about the response to the previous propaganda about propaganda.
Confused yet?
NoIdea
Locusts & Wild Honey says:
October 18, 2010 at 11:17 pm
“All things truly wicked start from an innocence.”
Pointman
Hi Locusts !
Wonderful report from the demonstration – thank you ! (Keep movin’ …)
Here in Paris last year (nothing to do with Olympics) there was a huge demo by resident Chinese against “discrimination”. They were simply following the other ethnics, since before than we had separate African, Arab, Indian, Basque and so forth demos over a couple of very nice spring wekends. (grin)
A newspaper article about that time stated that:
-“over 90% of “Japanese restaurants” here in Paris are in fact owned be Chinese; and
– over 80% of tobacconists’ shops, once the preserve of French from the provinces, are now Chinese-owned. Note that not only are cigarettes sold in those shops: you can also find lottery tickets, scratch tickets, OTB, newspapers on seekends, and so on.
Best,
L’Amerloque
Locusts & Wild Honey says: October 18, 2010 at 11:17 pm
“Greenpeace are obviously a bunch of idiots, much like protesters at a march. Have they actually thought through the consequences of their actions?
Where were they for the Indian and Pakistani Nuclear tests?”
No argument about the idiocy, but they are at least consistent idiots….
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/multimedia/photos/greenpeace-action-against-indi/
http://archive.greenpeace.org/nuclear/testing/india.html
At some point, bad politics starts costing real people, real jobs. Politicians spend other people’s money but businesses don’t have that option …
http://www.sharecast.com/cgi-bin/sharecast/story.cgi?story_id=3754128
Pointman
Izen
Thanks for the correction, though a hot air balloon is a bit of a damp squib isn’t it?
I’m always amazed at the size of Africa on a real globe.
Fenbeagle,
It looks like your cartoons have had an affect on old Chris Hoo-sticks:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/8070810/Eight-new-nuclear-power-stations-despite-safety-and-clean-up-concerns.html
There are days when you could lose all hope. By the walls of Babylon I knelt …
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11563359
Pointman
P,
I saw the Daily Mail story about that. I really can’t see how this is any different from the eugenics steralizations that went on many decades ago.
I called you P, but maybe Cassandra would be a more fitting name. There can nothing worse than being the only one who can see the truth…
Well there is that other saying, “In the Land of the Blind, the One Eyed Man is King”. We had Gordon Brown, and look where that got us.
Locusts & Wild Honey says:
October 19, 2010 at 12:20 am
Naw. We’re all better than that. I’m having the sort of day when I fall back on ol’ Ernest who had a way of saying things.
“Man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”
Pointman
Ozboy,
Synchronicity or what …
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/17/angela-merkel-germany-multiculturalism-failures
Pointman
Talking to a friend, I described Merkel’s statement as an earthquake in German concensus politics but thinking about it, tectonic is a more suitable adjective.
Pointman
Rioters protesting about the financal situation in Athens last May set fire to a bank building they thought was empty. It wasn’t – and three people died, one of them a pregnant woman! When they discovered that the riots stopped instantly.
Nooooooo!
Oz I’m so sorry – will SOMEONE tell me what I’m doing wrong please…….
Mel, whatever you’re doing wrong, I can’t see it. Never mind. It’s not as if images are forbidden or anything …
Pointman
Pointman says:
October 19, 2010 at 2:09 am
Why Allied troops are still in Germany is against such a contingency as this. WW II never ended. It is only another armistice while everyone builds up enough weapons and trains enough troops and gathers together enough beautiful lives, priceless artworks, architectural wonders, and worthy enterprises to bomb to smithereens and reduce to rubble, just like before.
This video explains things best: http://vimeo.com/6072528 To quote Germany’s second most famous liar, Gunter Grass, “Two Germans are stupider than one German.”
We Yanks are hardly in a position to talk. We set no conditions anymore for immigrants to assimilate linguistically nor even practically either. My forebears had to go through very rigourous “Americanization” (that’s what they were called then) classes supervised by the locals where they lived under immigration authority oversight. If one even gave a hint of being unhappy about being here at all, it was back where they came from in a thrice.
That being said, it is quite funny and not unexpected to note all my immigrant friends have a better understanding of and more respect for the US Constitution and our political institutions than those born and raised here. They never miss an election, either.
Meltemian, if you note with my posting of the video link, I put the link right up next to the text which follows that I insert to keep the whole video from becoming embedded.
A tune that I could hear some very anti green lyrics in…
The greens F✄☠K it up
And the greens tear it down
Rivers of blood
Environ-mental clowns
Greens sell it up
Greens sell it down
All those dead and gone
No need to smile or frown
Greens F✄☠K it up
Greens F✄☠K it down
NI
Pointman & Bear
I seem to have lost the part of the posting that came before the video, maybe that’s what’s wrong. It should have said something about the unintended consequences of demonstrations as mentioned by izen.
I know Oz doesn’t like the videos to be embedded as they take up time on the blog.
Here’s an interesting comment from the current “Green” column over on USA Today …
///
The first decade of the 21st Century may be seen as the decade in which environmentalism peaked, and then failed from its own hubris and corruption. It has taken about a decade in a deluge of environmental proselytizing, marketing, hysterics and gratuitous lies to expose the greed and fear mongering of a movement that exists now as just another political special interest.
Their shameful trade in scary eco-scenarios now falls on deaf ears in the public mind. Except for those for whom environmentalism is a practiced religion or commercial enterprise, eco-themes and incentives have been largely exhausted, and even caricatured in our popular culture.
Radical environmentalism can also be seen as a disorder, where the sanctimonious enviro-activist’s obsessive insistence that you should change your lifestyle toward eco-purity begins to impair their personal and professional relationships. The enduring negative impact of environmental activism is the politicization of your way of life.
As with other obsession and addiction disorders, therapies and counseling in the form of “12-Step” clinical programs may be helpful in moderating radical enviro-behaviors.
Here are 12 behavioral modifications that may be productive steps in recovery from ,or avoidance of, radical environmentalism:
1. Avoid the tactic of fear mongering campaigns;
2. Stop giving to taxpayer-subsidized, nonprofit eco-groups and think tanks;
3. Critically view progressive (a.k.a, liberal) enviro operatives in the media;
4. Accept that there are legitimate skeptics in debates over scary eco-scenarios;
5. Stop substituting personal compassion where science is required in environmental issues;
6. Stop assuming that another costly government regulation will fix every environmental problem;
7. Resist socialist initiatives claiming environmental justice and social justice;
8. Ignore the eco-claimed moral equivalence between human life and wildlife;
9. Reduce your associations with the union, bureaucratic, leftist and eco-terrorist political enablers of radical environmentalism;
10. Insist upon economic cost-benefit analyses in all environmental regulations;
11. Don’t accept that any government regulation can dictate any miraculous scientific breakthrough;
12. Accept that 40 years of local, state and federal environmental regulations have embedded cost increases in all of our goods, services and activities. And, understand that most of our real environmental problems are solved, or are under active management.
///
meltemian says:
October 19, 2010 at 4:11 am
The be-all and end-all of novels which were written to explain the consequences of terminal and self-destructive do-gooding is a powerfully written intergenerational novel called “The Brothers Ashkenazi” written and published between the two world wars. Israel Jacob Singer, Isaac Bashevis’ brother, wrote it. Stunning in prescience, taste, balance and insight, and a silent film was also made of it which is the forerunner to dozens of intergenerational film sagas. Originally written in Yiddish and German, there are many superb translations of it. Like the oil paintings of Bruno Schulz, the Jerries made a point of eradicating his legacy from Europe, but fortunately the US newspaper “Forward” serialized it and it exists as part of the canon of must-reads for creators and students of American literature.
Don’t think of it as another world war when it comes. Think of it as another influx of amazing talent into countries which put a value on peace for its own citizens.
I never cared for Bruno Schulz’s novels as they were and are too luridly graphic about everything LOL There is such a thing as a too-rich pastry, and his work is a cargo ship full of them. I think he was reincarnated as the shoe salesman in “Married With Children,” if you have seen any of his pronographic (sic) artwork which he kept for himself which survives as priceless works of art (which they are, in all dispassionate fairness, even and especially on a technical draughtsman’s basis).
Amerloque says:
October 19, 2010 at 4:44 am
I look forward to a very Happy Holidays around December for our posse.
Having a bit of a lark relative to feedback from my site. It’s instructive, so I think I might get around to posting the whole back and forth. It’s a little premonitory tentacle of some greentard giant squid up from the abyss into which I’ve tossed several grenades over the past few month trying very intelligently and scrupulously to get my location coordinates precisely. Had a bit of a go-round with the Aristide crowd in Montreal in spring-summer of 2005 who were very interested in derailing the work I had set in motion in Haiti.
Hate the movie George Clooney is featured in at present, “The American,” and I have not even seen it yet nor am I aware of the logline describing the film’s premise; no doubt more solemn “be ashamed, be very ahamed” American leftard apologism. There is no high-velocity rifle one can put a Maxim silencer on such that a telescopic sight would be useful. You can only silence subsonic rounds. The reflecting shockwave otherwise knock the silencer into bits and the shooter end up having to have the bolt of the weapon surgically removed from what is left of their face. The still I saw shows either a silenced Springfield Armory M1A or M14 or a .223 calibre Ruger Mini-14. Pathetic. A much earlier film used one while I was on base, and half the troops watching the film walked out at that moment.
It would be lovely if one could silence a high-velocity round, just as it would be lovely if there were a shred of evidence to support the greentards’ arguments.
I thought I would ask OzBoy first before I posted the correspondence as it might be useful for the readership. None of this stupid stuff happens until I have 3 feet of paperwork stacked on my desk (sigh).
I love the InterNet. It’s my friend LOL
Pointman, you have my permission and unconditional release of rights to use the correspondence in your next thrillah, or the current one.
There are four kinds of valour under stress: bravery with which you are born, courage, which is what you use when you run out of bravery, curiosity, which does for cats, and not giving a rat’s fat behind. The last is of the most use, as it grants you the peace of mind to transform the hunter into the hunted while making of the situation play.
Locusts & Wild Honey says:
October 18, 2010 at 8:14 pm
Simples. The government stage-managed the entire event down to the last act of vandalism following the provision of copious amounts of swag and STFU money to the Chinese owners of the “Japanese” institutions. We do it here in the States, too. I knew one nark at Wayne State who let everyone know right off he was one, and that he had a wife and kid to feed, so could they please load him up with BS to feed to his masters so he could make rent? Everyone played along LOL One of the girls even baby-sat for him on occasion. Silly days.
G’day Y’All,
For those — hello Walt! — that are endeavouring to drag themselves away from the easy bong of the Internet (I did say bong, Pointman, not bonk! LOL), I’d like to dedicate this song in sympathy, understanding, and compassion:
[I’ve been making bread to this music, Walt: that’s how you know it’s me!]
Walt O’Bruin says:
October 19, 2010 at 5:18 am
You know me Walt, I steal wholesale …
Pointman
Pointman, since your tastes run from wild to holy and everything in between, what did you think of Peter Gabriel’s music for The Last Tempation of Christ? See the juke box if you like; I’ve posted my faves from that soundtrack there.
Well this is sort of “holy”
and a bit wild! Always makes me laugh though.
No good! Still doesn’t work! I reckon it’s Windows 7 messing me about.
meltemian says:
October 19, 2010 at 7:48 am
Don’t matter Mel, the clip’s frigging brilliant! Try this one in the same vein.
Pointman
Pointman says:
October 19, 2010 at 6:42 am
Here’s another one, courtesy of my old Sergeant Major:
The grass is always greener on the other side of the hill because that is where the bodies are buried.
Amanda,
Betcha it’s real good bread, too. Yummmmmm. It’s Monday, the day to watch everyone else in crisis mode, have another coffee, and laugh. This is no social crisis http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhuLhcbY_08 Just another tricky day for you.
I’ll get the entire megillah up here, if OzBoy doesn’t mind. Tuesday or Wednesday ought to be fun.
*bhong :>)
Oil and gas wholesale prices spiked today, so there must have been some rather large government procurements this date in preparation for an…advanced state of readiness? It takes LOTS of government procurement to make it spike like it did today.
Don’t worry about it, Jake. It’s only Chinatown.
G’day all,
I thought we might discuss Angela Merkel’s recent announcement, so I’ve put up a new thread here.
Cheers,
Oz
Amanda says:
October 19, 2010 at 6:49 am
I didn’t know Peter Gabriel ever did ‘difficult’ pieces like that. Impressive and needs a few listens.
Pointman
This rates at least a few hearty guffaws and Pffffffft’s.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/china-business/8068106/China-hits-back-at-US-clean-energy-probe.html
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
Having said that though, I always liked this piece.
Pointman
Amazing, the DT is being moderated to Hell. I’ve just done a rather mild post there noting that everything except the ravings of a semi-automated spambot were being deleted and that they’d have to lift their game if they wanted to catch the emigre readership of the Times.
It’s disappeared.
Pointman
Just posting at the DT
***********************
This is a test post since my last one disappeared after 58 seconds …
Pointman
****************************
Wonder how long it will last?
Pointman
Pointy,
Love that piece of music. New to me, and it’s a keeper. Thanks very much.
Oh, I see you’ve done another post. I refer to the Gabriel piece which I’ve just heard.
Sam Digging Implement Bear oil and gas spike or we have an election round the corner.
Of course it’s good bread, Walt. The bread machine bakes it :^)
I have to say to Locusts, whether he’s interested or not, that I was fascinated by his report and subsequent comments. Well done but as Walt said (I think): keep safe. Socrates would rather suffer injustice than do it (I’m not a Christian, but the same of course could obviously be said of Christ): but then also one must thrive and survive:
A.
crownarmourer says:
October 19, 2010 at 11:58 am
Or it’s the start of the heating season in the US Northeast and the northern EU :>p Or a keyboard operator at Pratt’s (sic) sneezed while doing a keystroke and send the market’s electronic puts and calls into an upward tailspin for 30 seconds.
Pointman, I always liked the snarky bourgeois anti-capitalist and danceability of this little number by Peter Gabriel. The animation is still amazing today and this is a 25 year old video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0FBi5Rv1ho&feature=related I love how millionaires slam their peers.
Omit first “and.”
Amanda,
Glad that you enjoyed my account, I’m just sorry I have no photos to share.
I tried posting this before, but it vanished…
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