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Volume 9 Issue 17…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…April
24, 2006
Intuit’s Vibe
Snow (1936)
By Mao Tse-Tung
North country scene:
A hundred leagues locked in
ice,
A thousand leagues of
whirling snow.
Both sides of the Great
Wall
One single white immensity.
The Yellow River's swift
current
Is stilled from end to end.
The mountains dance like
silver snakes
And the highlands* charge
like wax-hued elephants,
Vying with heaven in
stature.
On a fine day, the land,
Clad in white, adorned in
red,
Grows more enchanting.
This land so rich in beauty
Has made countless heroes
bow in homage.
But alas! Chin Shih-huang
and Han Wu-ti
Were lacking in literary
grace,
And Tang Tai-tsung and Sung
Tai-tsu
Had little poetry in their
souls;
And Genghis Khan,
Proud Son of Heaven for a
day,
Knew only shooting eagles,
bow outstretched
All are past and gone!
For truly great men
Look to this age alone.
On Wal-Mart
By Dot
Remember the 'buy America campaign,' that was primarily pushed by
labor unions to encourage US consumers to support unionized workers by buying
products made in America that carried union labels? When we moved into our
Gresham Park neighborhood in the early 1980s, the campaign was in full swing.
We purchased a new Ford (Fix or Repaid Daily) car with the idea of buying an
automobile made in the USA. The car was a piece of junk complete with its
cracked Mitsubishi engine.
Like US manufacturing, since the 1980s, our area has undergone a series of
serious transformations. It began as all-white and thriving in the 1950s to
predominantly black and victimized by redlining. With little of commercial
interest to keep dollars circulating in the neighborhood, it had neither
amenities nor convenience; we were forced to drive outside our community to
shop for necessities from household goods to clothing and groceries.
Re-gentrification came to the area. A Wal-Mart in walking distance recently
opened. With all the negative news reports about the giant discount retailer
from its ill-treatment of employees to unfair competition that undercuts and
drives out small area businesses, we joined the nationwide boycott Wal-Mart
campaign several years ago. Now, there is a Wal-Mart superstore in our
neighborhood.
Initially, we continued to spend our limited funds with the nearest grocer and
home improvement store. Gas prices rose making it harder to drive past
Wal-Mart.
One day, we had to fix a leaky faucet. A new one at the local hardware store
cost twice as much as a comparable one at Wal-Mart. Moreover, in a price
comparison of the things we regularly buy, we found the basket of goods costs
less at Wal-Mart. Coincidentally, just about everything in that basket and at
Wal-Mart in general was made in China.
Coupled with the rising cost of transportation, (gas at $3.00 a gallon), which
has severely limited our disposable income, we officially ended our Wal-Mart
boycott. It is much like the buy America campaign. The USA no longer makes much
of anything, and what it does make, especially automobiles, is inferior to its
foreign competitors.' At this point, not shopping at Wal-Mart or not buying
foreign-made goods just does not make good economic sense.
Mao Tse-Tung (1893-1976)
Born December 26, 1893 to a fairly well-to-do peasant family in the
village of Shaoshan in Hunan Province, Mao attended middle school in Changsha,
the capital of Hunan. Swept up by the 1911 Revolution led by Dr. Sun Yat-Sen to
overthrow the imperial government, Mao served in the Hunan provincial army. He
read extensively before entering Hunan First Normal University. On graduating
(1918), Mao went to Peking, where he became an assistant in the university
library and student at Peking University. There he and other Marxists founded
the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which can be dated to the 'May 4 Uprising'
(1919) in which students protested against the Paris Peace Conference
concessions granted to Japan.
After his travels in China, Mao returned to Hunan, where he led
efforts to promote collective action and labor rights. He became principal of a
primary school in Changsha and helped organize the Changsha branch of the
Communist Party. In 1921, he attended the 'First Congress' of the Communist
Party and became General Secretary for Hunan.
The CCP joined Sun Yat-Sen's nationalist party, the Kuomintang
(KMT), and embraced its plan to unify China. In March 1925, Sun Yat-Sen died
and General Chiang Kai-Shek assumed KMT's leadership. As the KMT gained
control, peasants responded to the CCP's idea of overthrowing landlords.
However, some powerful KMT officials were landlords or relatives of landlords.
Recognizing the problem, Chiang ordered a series of purges, which
began in April 1927. Hiding in the hills, Mao escaped Chaing's massacre of
communists and militant workers in the cities. With Zhu De, he co-founded the
People's Liberation Army as the Red Army on August 1, 1927. Following
an unsuccessful assault on Changsha, called the Autumn Harvest Uprising, Mao remained
in his guerilla base high in the mountains of Chingkangshan.
Working from his base, Mao took villages one by one. Red Army
guards rounded up landlords and allowed peasants to discuss their 'crimes '
before executing them. Mao believed communism could be implemented in China
only by making revolutionary changes to the social systems and the economy in
the countryside; this included the redistribution of land.
In October 1934, Chiang surrounded the communists. At the end of
the "Long March," a retreat from southeast to northwest China, Mao
emerged as Communist leader. From his base in Yan'an, he led the Communist
resistance against the Japanese in the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945).
After WWII, Chiang and Mao fought for control of China. On October
1, 1949, Mao declared the formation of the People's Republic of China at
Tiananmen Square. In December 1949, his Red Army forced the US-supported Chiang
Kai-Shek to evacuate to Formosa (Taiwan).
From 1945 until his death (1976), Mao held the post of chairman of
the Central Committee. Under his leadership, the CCP initiated various economic
and political campaigns, such as the Anti-Rightist Campaign, the Great Leap
Forward and the Cultural Revolution.
In October 1966, Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, which was
known as the Little Red Book, was published. Party members were encouraged to
carry a copy with them and possession was almost mandatory as a criterion for
CCP membership.
Mao believed socialism was the only path for China since the US
and other Western countries would not allow it to join the ranks of advanced
capitalism. As if to validate Mao's theory, the US placed a trade embargo on
China that lasted until Richard Nixon decided Mao had made himself a force to
be reckoned with in dealing with the Soviet Union.
A calligrapher and brilliant political and military strategist,
Mao's military writings continue to influence those who seek to create an
insurgency and those who seek to defeat one. In addition to Mao's "Little
Red Book," he wrote several philosophical treatises and poetry. Mao is
remembered as a socialist, poet, strategist and ruthless ruler. The Chairman
had several wives which contributed to a large family. After a lengthy illness,
Mao died at the age of 82 on September 9, 1976. (Sources: www.geocities.com/franith,
www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao,
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong)
The Dark Knight-Batman/White Ninja/Zorro has long been encouraged
to save. Like the vast majority of folks in the USA, saving has proven nearly
impossible. The few dollars he received as birthday presents figuratively
burned holes in his pockets as he longed to add to his Yu-Gi-Oh card
collection. Not known for doing anything strenuous, when he could not get a
ride to the store, the Dark One/Ninja/Zorro declared, "I'll walk to
Wal-Mart!"
All Hat and No Cattle?
For the initiated, "All hat and no cattle" is a popular
Texas phrase that applies to guys that dress and talk the part, but are really
only pretending to be cowboys. The phrase was used by former Texas Gov. Ann
Richards in her re-election bid to describe her opponent George W. Bush. The
phrase may well apply to Georgia's immigration law.
When it comes to the problem of illegal immigration, Georgia is a
microcosm of the nation. Employers statewide use thousands of illegal workers.
A former slave state, Georgia employers have long relied on free and poorly
paid labor.
Years ago, illegal immigrants replaced Georgia natives, primarily
blacks and poor whites, in poultry processing plants, carpet mills and farms,
including those harvesting Vidalia onions, peanuts and peaches. Crews working
on state and local highways, streets and roads, doing landscaping in upscale
neighborhoods and in just about every aspect of the building and construction
trades are made up of mostly undocumented workers.
In the 1990s, when the Immigration and Naturalization Service
threatened to round up illegal immigrants harvesting Vidalia onions,
now-deceased Georgia Senator Paul Coverdell (R) stepped in on the side of
growers. The crop was timely harvested; no one was deported. It is an open
state secret that law enforcement officials turn a blind eye to the hoards
invading Georgia to provide cheap labor
Into this favorable climate for illegal workers comes the Georgia
Security and Immigration Compliance Act. Signed into law by Gov. Sonny Purdue
(R) on April 17 with a great deal of fanfare, "The law denies many state
services to illegal immigrants, forces contractors doing business with the state
to verify the legal status of new workers, and requires police to notify
immigration officials if people charged with crimes are illegal immigrants. It
prohibits employers from claiming a tax deduction for wages of $600 or more
paid to undocumented workers, imposes prison terms for human trafficking and
limits the services commercial companies can provide to illegal
immigrants."
While this measure is considered comprehensive and one of the
toughest state laws passed to date, those who know Georgia's immigrant history
are waiting to see how many illegal workers are rounded up and deported. Most
believe the measure is simply election year window dressing. When we see
Georgia workers replacing the thousands of illegals at Cagle's chicken
processing plants, picking onions and on construction sites, then we will
believe the new act is not just "all hat and no cattle."
Protests and Petitions
In a strongly-worded letter addressed to George W. Bush, thirteen of the
nation's most prominent physicists called US plans to reportedly use nuclear
weapons against Iran "gravely irresponsible" and warned that such
action would have "disastrous consequences for the security of the United
States and the world." Acknowledging the profession's responsibility for
bringing about nuclear weapons, they warned against dropping another bomb as it
heightens the probability that others will follow suit
The scientists that signed this and a previous letter include five Nobel laureates,
recipient of the National Medal of Science and three past presidents of the
American Physical Society (APS), the nation's preeminent professional society
of physicists. Read their letters and sign a petition to join the chorus
calling for Bush to abandon any thought of a nuclear option at http://physics.ucse.edu/petition/.
While online, you can read Marcy Winograd's petition, which denounces US war
plans against Iran and orders a halt to the bunker buster test scheduled for
June 2, 2006 on the Western Shoshone Native American reservation in Nevada. The
test of a 700-ton conventional bomb is viewed as a preliminary for the use of
actual nuclear weapons against Iran. The planned Energy Department test is
strongly opposed by the reservation's inhabitants.
If you agree that testing a bunker buster now will only undermine diplomatic
efforts and further destabilize the global community, please sign the petition
at http://winogradforcongress.com/actions/pnum266.asp.
Disgruntled wants to know: The price of a barrel of crude oil topped $75 on April 21. While
it has since pulled back some, oil analysts believe instability in the sector,
especially in Iran and Nigeria, guarantees the price will go higher. Some
speculate prices will climb as high as $80 to $90 a barrel. With regular gas
cresting $3.00 a gallon in most US cities, consumers are wondering when will
George W. Bush use his influence with oil and gas suppliers to jawbone down gas
prices, or if failing to have any sway in that department, do something to end
price gouging?
Disgruntled feels: Accomplices! Writing in an
online edition of Vanity Fair, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Carl
Bernstein, who with Bob Woodward helped expose President Richard Nixon's role
in the Watergate scandal, called for the US Senate to open a full-scale probe
of George W. Bush's conduct in office. Bernstein believes the time has come for
Congress to seriously investigate the run-up to the war in Iraq, the leak of
covert CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity and the administration's response to
Hurricane Katrina. Many of us have long held that the Bush regime has done the
nation a grave disservice on any number of fronts and should be held
accountable. Congressional inaction has gone on too long; its members are
accomplices incapable of acting as police against a criminal administration. It
is time to start fresh with a new Congress. Maybe then, we can get a serious
investigation.
Disgruntled says: Chinese President Hu
Jintao came to the US last week. Before traveling to the nation's capitol, Hu
visited Bill Gates, the world's richest man, and some other businesses, such as
Boeing. At the White House, Hu was dissed with a less than formal state dinner
and heckled by a protestor. After this, it is not surprising that George W.
Bush did not get any Hu concessions. Basically, Hu told Bush that he was not in
any hurry to devalue or allow his nation's currency to freely float on the
world currency market, a move that could improve the US trade deficit with
China. Hu's demeanor was reminiscent of a man with a sense of history. Unlike
Bush, leader of a country that has only been around a couple of centuries, Hu
represents a nation of 1.3 billion people that has a history extending back
several millennia. For some strange reason, the Hu-Bush exchange reminded me of
a proverb from the movie High Road to China. A wise man, when asked
for more advice, simply stated, "The oxen is slow, but the earth is
patient." Folks with a sense of history know the value of patience.
Mailbox: E-Mails, Faxes and Phone
Calls
Email www.irinnews.org
China entrenches position in booming economy...Luanda: The announcement earlier
this month that Angola had overtaken Saudi Arabia as China's premier supplier
of crude oil has underlined the deepening ties between the two red-hot
economies. Angola is sub-Saharan Africa's second largest oil producer, after
Nigeria, pumping 1.3 millions barrels a day (b/d) - a figure the government
expects to rise to 2 million b/d by 2008. Record oil prices are ensuring
double-digit growth, and the country is in the middle of a reconstruction boom
after a ruinous 27-year civil war ended in 2002. China has a significant stake
in the Angolan economy. Angola exported 456,000 barrels a day during both
January and February this year - accounting for 15 percent of China's total oil
imports - outstripping both Saudi Arabia and Iraq, according to figures from
Switzerland-based energy analysts Petromix.
Email ccasler@aol.com
Forrest Gump's Evil Twin...By Stephen Pizzo...How extraordinary. Something is
happening here that has never happened in America's history. A consensus is
sweeping the nation. Not that the war in Iraq is wrong, or that oil companies
are screwing us blue, or that the climate is going to hell, or that good-paying
jobs are being replaced by low-paying jobs, or that our national health care
system is a disgrace, or that the rich are getting a lot richer while the
middle class gets poorer. While all that's true, and more and more folks are
getting it, that's not the consensus of which I speak. Nope. This one is
bigger, enormous, huge! Here it is: The president of the United States is a
moron. Yes, stupid, dumb as common road gravel. And not figuratively, but
literally. George W. Bush, president of the world's last remaining superpower,
is a moron. Forrest Gump's evil twin.
Email smhcarlton@hotmail.com
Tide turns on Dubya's wreck...By Mike Carlton...Sydney, NSW, is a long way from
Washington, DC. Even at this distance, it is clear that the Bush administration
is falling to pieces. In recent weeks, scanning the political coverage in the
mainstream US media and sampling the blogs has been to watch a flood tide
ebbing to reveal a rotting, skeletal hulk. It is the George W. Bush ship of
fools, stuck in the mud for the world to see in all its mendacity, its
incompetence, its faith-based stupidity.
Email www.bbc.co.uk
Chinese influence in Brazil worries US...By Humphrey Hawksley...While the
United States has been fighting its war on terror, a new political idea has
begun to punch through with such weight that alarm bells have begun ringing
loudly in Washington. Under the slogan of "peaceful rising," China is
selling itself to the developing world as an alternative model for ending
poverty. The pitch is now winning an audience in Latin America, and Washington
is dispatching the assistance secretary of state Thomas Shannon to Beijing to
find out what is going on.
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