Sept 18 (Sa) 2021 Absurdity and Remedies A to Z : Aim Big; Do Small

 

Sept. 16 (Th), 2021 No free lunch/speech!

Krystal LC Huang
" The industry-sponsored ALEC has weathered controversy and flourished because it also offers conservative GOP elected officials a social network, access to campaign donors and a blueprint for how to accelerate their political careers.

The networking takes place at ALEC's annual meetings, where the group fetes and entertains lawmakers and their families. Relationships are forged over drinks and dinners, where lawmakers sit alongside conservative luminaries and corporate chiefs." - Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Rob O'Dell
USA TODAY, April 3, 2019

Elizabeth Witt
Gosh, I don't know how many years ago I was introduced to the existence of ALEC by Bill Moyers on PBS and it scared the crap out of me. And they're stronger than ever.

Krystal LC Huang
Elizabeth, indeed!  Here is a tiny background info for the post about ALEC regarding politicians make speech to the ALEC.  ( Quite "expensive", though, not only to irritate its opposite Party...)

Deemed as pro-capitalism due to the China's civil war, the defeated Nationalist Party (KMT), carrying the anti-communist ideology retreated to Taiwan.

Historically speaking, the US. Dem Party has the tendency to sympathize communists in China, such as President Carter's normalization with China in 1979, Clinton's support China's access to WTO in 2000. In some sense, the Dem Party played a key role in transforming China.

Some politicians in Taiwan may strategically choose to align with GOP stance for support, such as currently, with the connection to Pompeo, Bannon, Cruz, Rubio...etc. (including the above extreme right-wing ALEC). Not to mention, the major politicians ever visited Taiwan were from the Rep camp, such as President Eisenhauer (1960), Regan (1971, when, the governor of Cal).

Not until a rising China acerbated by the Wuhan pandemic crisis, did some high-profile politicians from the Dem camp visit Taiwan - the strategic hub of the First Island Chain.

With a democratic reformation through last 7 decades, the new Taiwan practices somewhat within a welfare capitalism or state capitalism range. (My point of view, might not without some biases.)

Krystal LC Huang
Continued. The only constant is Change. Some of those bureaucrats, military personnel, enjoying freedom in Taiwan, who used to hoist the anti-communist colors, now turn for an authoritarian capitalistic- fakecommunist regime for various reasons - money, fame, safety, a big and strong vanity...and the rest.

Elizabeth Witt
I firmly believe that Taiwan (and all other nations) have the right to determine their own way but I would not trust anything coming from ALEC myself. This is so hard to say but I think other countries should distrust US politicians anyway. I mean, you're here you know how idiotic we are about Asia/Asians in general.

Krystal LC Huang
Elizabeth Well thought out, genuinely said. Thanks for the feedback.

Sept 6 (M), 2021 Learning via saying tied to a current event #47 (61) Autotomy

Brian
謝謝
You have heard that Beijing is pushing a new initiative of a more western-based educat
ion (moving from memorization of facts more to critical thinking/problems solving). Do you think Beijing understands the problem it is going to create with all of the "thinking" that will take place...will the lizards in the central government have to cut off their tails in another 10 years in order to maintain communism?

Sun Huang
Brian, nice to read your thoughts. Indeed, critical thinking capacity (ctc) is the biggest enemy to the authoritarian/ totalitarian regimes. In fact, ctc is quite a challenge in some parts of the US., and many parts of the world. So, I think it is a token, or an excuse to fix the favoring of the edu-capitalist trends in the CCP, now. This tightening up control in media-edu-entertaining approach has many functions to solidify their leader's next term, also centralize the money floats to the hand of their politburos and so on.

Sun Huang
Several renowned high rank politburos ( for example, the famous one -薄熙來) used redistribution of wealth and through anti-corruption as a political tool to build momentum for climbing up the Party ladder.
Once in a while, they would nail-down some "corruptive rich" for gaining popularity to please the mass, or change gears to divert attentions. The current leader has done several times to capture many big shots in the military, politico-financial fields: such as 周永康, 郭伯雄, 李刚, 賴小明, 胡怀邦 and the long long list of targeted corruptive public officials. More info, refer to: https://zh.wikipedia.org/.../%E4%B8%AD%E5%8D%8E%E4%BA%BA...
The hardworking and the less fortunate mass can sense the brutal money/wealth concentration during last 2 decades in the CCP after its economy taking off.
Now CCP is on the top of income inequality ratio in the world. The regime has to fix it before another man-made calamity happens.
A few days ago, their leader advised his subdominants - never stop class struggle, never cease to fight for "social justice".... Well, justice for whom? Ya, perhaps, the Party politburos?


ZH.WIKIPEDIA.ORG
中华人民共和国腐败案件列表 - 维基百科，自由的百科全书中华人民共和国腐败案件列表 - 维基百科，自由的百科全书

Sun Huang
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-35957228

Many rich people in the highly unequal societies do so:


BBC.COM
Panama Papers: How China's wealth is sneaked abroad Panama Papers: How China's wealth is sneaked abroad

Sun Huang
https://www.scmp.com/.../chinas-elite-hiding-billions...


SCMP.COM
China's elite hiding billions overseas, US report says China's elite hiding billions overseas, US report says

Sun Huang
Seemingly, Communist-Capitalism is more effectively than anything else to create the super-rich, super-powerful, and the super social inequality in wealth, status and power in a short period of time (CCP takes 3 decades, and the US, perhaps a century?).
On the other hand, doesn't it also hold unlimited coercive power (the other one of the prongs) to deal with the monsters whom the Party breeds?

Isn't this the largest experiment on human nature entangled with politico-economic ideology ever happening on this planet? And the peculiar news is that - there are always massive population (human bees-n-ants) either obediently or submissively, under the 360 degree of surveillance-control to endure such a long term, gigantic human lab's existence...

Sun Huang
Here is a fun piece, posted on July 24, relevant to the above threads:



Sun Huang
The massive working/laboring poor classes are downtrodden into much ado for little gains. The gigantic rising tide mostly lifts up the rich and super rich in the CCP regime (and most parts of the world). This is not what the original Marxism was about. Perhaps, Marx did not take Biology/Social Psychology seriously, nor foresee Spencer's propounding social Darwinism. Greed and Power thirst is hard to be quenched, no matter in the right wing, or, to the left wing regimes.

Elizabeth Witt
I consume a lot of Asian television shows and I follow a drama web site. It has been interesting to read other people's comments regarding the clamp down on entertainment. I first thought it might have been driven by homophobia (I still think it is part of it). I see people blaming it on rabid fans misbehaving online. Something is going on. There's a bottleneck of programming that hasn't been released a year or more later, and some of it involves some big names in the Chinese entertainment industry. I'm not quite sure what they expect to accomplish.

Brian Schwahn
Elizabeth  watch some older Chinese Soap Opera like Ryui Royal Love but haven't been invested in the new one from last year out of Beijing. Do you speak Mandarin by chance?
I try not to get involved in the politics much? I am on Douyin and all the comments posted there are positive? Yet what choice do they have?

Elizabeth Witt
Brian  I don't speak Mandarin yet but I am starting to learn. I have picked up a few phrases from watching so many programs. I watch almost anything although lately I have been watching more Wuxia and Xianxia. I also watch Taiwanese dramas and a great deal of Korean shows. A little bit of Japanese and Thai. I understand some phrases in both Mandarin and Korean although if I were to try to say them myself my pronunciation would probably be atrocious. I want to learn both languages better starting with Mandarin. I don't understand much about the politics. It's hard to wade through American opinions on China that aren't laced with a lot of bias and sometimes outright racism. I try to listen to more voices, especially of people like Sun Huang, that I know I don't have to filter out a baseline racist perspective.

Elizabeth Witt
We have a serious racism problem in the US against a lot of groups not just African Americans. The most backlash I seem to get comes when I call people out on racist comments towards Asians and Chinese in particular. We can't have a rational understanding of what's going on in China or a rational response when our first instincts come from a place of racism.

張銘峰
晚上愉悅

Brian S
A few of you may know this CVTC Grad, Li Le Rambo...she and her husband are good friends and she
wanted to forward greetings to you Crystal.

Krystal LC Huang
Prof Brian, I miss them too. Please say hello, if by chance you meet them again. Thanks for your and Elizabeth's feedback.

Sometimes I see myself like a sandwiched person jam-packed within the US. Taiwan and China, among other things. Particularly, crammed among different types of politico-economic ideologies makes me hard to say things straight. I have to use words carefully and sometimes end up equivocality.
Being an educator, I try to be fair-minded, but sometimes, I might be sentimental when I know that my native country is under attack, or endures tremendous threats (such as, the unrestricted warfare) from a neighboring big nation, while the weaponry-purchasing budgets continue sky rocketing for various reasons. I do separate the notion between the Party regime and the most hardworking Chinese people.

I recognize that it is a huge task of the CCP to feed and control 1.3 billion people "effectively", and am aware of some success that CCP has accomplished "efficiently"- at the cost of tightening surveillance on the massive people under the capitalistic-communist ideological ruling.

(One more note: it is repeating the environmental aftermass happening in the last century of some advanced countries' damaging the ecosystem. Indeed, who can deny that people in different societies have the hope and desires to pursue the material comfort and enjoy life when opportunities are available?)

Some people (inside and outside the regime) believe that a big country like China cannot loosen up the tight control for fear of mobocracy or disintegrating the whole "empire", due to historical, cultural, demographic and other reasons. There are many debates regarding different type of political entities that defy an ideal type of a centralized/unitary government.

My only idea of being human is that one can feel natural genuinely.

Krystal LC Huang
About my plan to have a free online learning Mandarin project, so far, I have checked some websites and programs that are very good, though some are quite commercialized. Social Sciences and Art teaching seems less challenging to me. Designing a new curriculum of Learning Mandarin, I might not be competent as those experts. As prof Brian mentions, the pronunciation part that maybe I can help. Cultural aspects, I can share too.
A penny for your thoughts?

Krystal LC Huang
I have a reflection posted a while ago about the issue mentioned above. I am trying to translate it.

Sept. 5 (Sn), 2021 Microstories #16 and 17 The great expectations