Never forget national humiliation, but forget everything else

“Wùwàngguóchǐ“, or for the non-Chinese speakers, “never forget national humiliation” was originally coined in response to the ‘Mukden Incident’ and the resultant Japanese aggression in Manchuria. Fifteen to twenty million Chinese  were to ultimately die in World War II and during the period leading up to that war. Japan bears the responsiblity for most of those deaths. The Nanjing Massacre and numerous other crimes against humanity should not be forgotten.

However, “never forget national humiliation”, but forget everything else in the ‘People’s Republic of Amnesia’? Yes, forget the forty million or so who starved to death between 1958 and 1962 and the millions more who died either during, or because of, the Cultural Revolution. Don’t even think about the fact that the man, whose face appears on every Chinese bank-note, was a mass murderer on a par with Adolf and Uncle Joe. And, if you haven’t quite got the gist, those who propagate the “never forget” narrative are the same people who profited from the Chinese government ordering the slaughter of its own citizens in 1989.

Where this blackout, or, to be more accurate, block out, leads to became obvious once again this week when 100,000 plus signed a petition on behalf of a Vietnamese-American grandfather who was dragged off an overbooked flight. There they were our “chip on the shoulder, China must be strong” jingoistic nutters screaming out about the injustices that Chinese still have to suffer despite the fact that not only was the man very probably randomly selected, but he also wasn’t Chinese.Yes, of course,

Chinese lives matters, as all lives matter, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if they really did start to understand their own history. However, to be fair, while the “never forget” narrative in the “People’s Republic of Amnesia” is there to serve the interests of the CCP, the West has cultivated, and still is cultivating, a plethora of lies, lies, and statistics that has produced a rape of the planet that is still going on. Still, the first step in ensuring that an increasingly powerful China doesn’t metamorphose into a similar ogre might be for the country to confront the past in all its facets.

Manufactured News in China and the West

It was November 2007 and back then the Shanghai Maglev train, travelling at 431 kilometres per hour, took you from Pudong Airport to Longyang Road Station in about eight minutes. From there it was a hop, skip, and a jump to my chum’s appartment near Century Park. Well, it wasn’t actually his appartment, but rather it belonged to his friend, who was a journalist with Xinhau. Not only had I just experienced travelling 30 kilometres in about seven minutes, but I had also arrived at a place in China where there was unlimited access to Western media.

Fast forward nine and a half years or so, and ego is supping his afternoon cappucino in a German High Street Cafe while embarking on Yang Jisheng’s “untold story of Mao’s great famine”, ‘Tombstone’. After graduating, he was assigned to Xinhau News Agency and exposed to facts that contradicted the party line, he writes, before going on to say, “as a Xinhau reporter, I learned how “news” was manufactured and how news organs served as the mouthpieces of political power” (ibid:11).

In the Kingdom of the Blind, the one-eyed man is King, perhaps, but while it might be imagined that knowing what they know could have been at least source of frustration for both Xinhau journalists, in a country where trains travel at 431 kilometres per hour, it is to be expected that today there are a few hundred million Chinese citizens who privately find the party’s narrative total bullshit at best. As the “never forget national humiliation, but forget everything else”, gobblydegook wears thin this is what gives ‘The People’s Republic of Amnesia’ a modicum of hope.

Yes, where there is hope, ….. and what hope is there for the West? The Syrian government is being blamed for a horrific gas attack in the Idlib Governorate this morning, which killed “at least 58 people” . Unsubstantiated “evidence” and there is a sense of Déjà-vu. After all, is it really so long ago that the Western media conjured up a similar narrative when it used the  East Ghouta chemical attacks in an attempt to facilitate a crusade against the Assad regime?

Yes, Yang Jisheng might have discovered that news is manufactured and the news organs serve as the mouthpieces of political power when he started to work at Xinhau, but wouldn’t it be a welcome revelation for a BBC journalist to come out and actually confess that he is broadcasting disgustingly dangerous drivel? After all, “not knowing” the truth cannot be, or at least shouldn’t be, an excuse.

 

Parcel O’ Rogues: Robert Burns

Sleazy subterfuge, dasdardly deceipt and bullying and blackmail will accompany London’s last hurrah, as it stoops to the methods of the guttersnipe in an attempt to head off that civic nationalism that will still culminate in an independent Scotland.

Therefore, even if harkening back to the bygone days of yore, might seem like some sort of misplaced nostalgia for a non-existent time before the Act of Union,  it is important that we remember how that union came about and in doing so reaffirm that Scotland not only was, but still is a very different place from xenophobic Brexit Britain.

It is all about identity and those who still identify with the union in Scotland would do well to read the lyrics and listen to the song above. It might be enough! After all, the bribe of a better off future together is nothing but a pathetic platitude from the very people who have kept the Scottish people in their place since 1707 and, even if the British establishment is willing to grease certain palms, it is not going to be those of the deluded union flag wavers, who misguidedly identify with a horde of hoooray Henrys and a motley crew of hangers on, who really don’t give a monkey’s about them.

Can’t Pay? We’ll Take it Away, Zero Hour Contract Britain and the Post Brexit Race to the Bottom

You really cannot make this shit up; Theresa May’s “kind and generous country” ;  a country where voyeur Britain gets to watch reality TV shows like “Can’t Pay? We’ll Take It Away” and here you have it:

“Agents Stewart McCracken and Elmore Victor head to Liverpool for what they expect to be a routine repossession, but instead face the most challenging eviction of their careers. Behind the front door, they find a critically ill two-year-old child with major heart problems, who is on constant life support and unable to breathe without a ventilator.”

And there they are Stewart and Elmore, with their run of the mill, “well, no need to worry, you have got an hour to get your stuff together” . Still, Steward and Elmore, as they themselves say often enough, are “only doing their job”, and teven having a job is important in the “zero hour land of hope and glory’, where, despite the EU having slated these contracts,  they are still there and post Brexit Britain will at least have something left in the race to the bottom.

The “Terrorist” Khalid Masood and three quite stupid Articles

The Guardian maintains that Khalid Masood  “was known as a potential extremist in 2010”  and elsewhere the same newspaper tells us that he “acted entirely alone for reasons that may never be known”. It really is difficult deduce the exact message the mainstream media is trying to get across. Nevertheless, while anything the daily drivel pumps out might be viewed with academic caution, there is at least news value in both stories that is worth a modicum of cognitive processing.

A minimal of chewing the cud is as good as it gets with our shoddy press, but the Guardian articles, nevertheless, offer slightly more than a woeful piece in the Independent under the headline, “Khalid Masood: How popular schoolboy became a mass murder who brought terror to Westminster”. “He was a very good sportsman, his mother was a Christian, he was an all-round nice guy”, and the drivel and dross goes on and on and Alice Williams, 59, landlady of the Rose and Crown pub tells us that “he would do The Telegraph crossword and would make intelligent conversation, but he was a bit of a racist.”

Now, the gullible glaikit goons get sort of personally involved and genuinely interested in this refuse. After all, for many, gets real, sort of personal, as they could know, or have known, a real landlady like Alice Williams and, hey, who doesn’t like to play the amateur psychiatrist? Yes, who doesn’t want to kow, how a popular schoolboy could become a “mass murderer”?

What are we talking about here? We are talking about a man who “acted entirely alone for reasons that may never be known” and is responsible for four deaths and a few injuries and the real mass murderers? Well, alright there was Stalin and Hitler, Mao and Pol Pot ….but, do I hear that is history, as is Kissenger, Nixon, etc. and that the newspapers are about “news”? Well, if it is real news and real mass murderers that are to be discussed, look no further than the British government supporting the Saudis in killing poor Yemenites along with its active participation in the killing of innocent men, women, and children all over the Middle East.

There we have it and we might even discover that the butcher Blair “was a very good sportsman”, whose  “mother was a Christian, and that “he was an all-round nice guy”, or that the buffoon Boris Johnson “would do The Telegraph crossword and would make intelligent conversation, but he was a bit of a racist.”. But, now I am becoming even more implausible than the mediocre media that is forced upon us every day. After all, is anyone really going to believe that Boris Johnson could complete the Telegraph crossword and hold intelligent conversation?

The Attack in London and returning to the Real Issues

Let us make no mistake about it, terrorist attacks do not come out of thin air. There is always an action and a reaction and if British support of Saudi launching its’ own terrorist attacks on Yemen, one of the world’s poorest countries, is not enough to engender a reaction, then there is Bahrain, Israel, and countless other places throughout the globe. It is ongoing, it is continuous, and it didn’t start yesterday. But, then only a half-wit would think it did.

Nevertheless, even if it was not unexpected, yesterday’s attack in London was a tragedy and our immediate sympathies must go to those innocents who were injured and lost their lives. Moreover, before the conspiracy theorists start waving their false flag theories, they were, possibly the victims of a misguided religious nutter who believed that he was exercising some divine being’s will. Although, with it now being contended that Khalid Masood, 52, who was born in Kent and had previously been convicted of violent offences, was the perpetrator, it might even be that the elaborate modifiers are surplus to requirements and  what we have here is a simple nutter.

Still, even if that is not going to suit the establishment’s narrative, anyone else being behind yesterday’s attacks is about as likely as Thatcher having given Galtieri the green light to invade the Falklands. Still, didn’t Maggie milk that one, and with the BBC cancelling all of its normal programmes today, we are privy to the most disgusting pathos and “Durchhalteparolen” coming from the very same people who do indeed support Britain’s criminal actions in the Middle East and elsewhere. There might be no resurrection of the “Better Together” campaign when it comes to another Scottish referendum, but the message is already out there, the narrative is already set, and, with Article 50 and the Brexit also about to be triggered, the flags are already flying.

Certainly,there should be no false flag theories, but we should also not be waving a unin jacks. There was a tragedy yesterday in London, but the way that tragedy is being used and the jingoism that is already following on its’ heels is as old as the hills, and with ‘Blighty’s’ very own “Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda”, the BBC, going into overdrive, it remains important to concentrate on the real stories and the real issues. Back to those in the Scottish parliament on Tuesday, but one wonders if the remnants of empire in Westminster will ever be able to return to them. With the Brexit negotiations and a probable Scottish referendum coming up it will certainly make interesting watching. However, let’s hope that we can connect to the real story.

 

 

 

Israel, the United States, and the real Writing on the Wall

Peter Münch has been writing on Israel for ‘Die Süddeutsche Zeitung’ for a long time and his most recent article “Menetekel”, which translates as “the writing on the wall”, can only confirm a contention made in this blog exactly seven years ago; his reporting represents “drivel of the sort that requires very little research and certainly no thought.” Or, how else are we to view his account and analysis of Israel’s latest incursion into Syria?

The reader is told that this was a routine mission and Israel has been launching attacks like this for years and, even if it does contravene international law, it is given a veneer of normality when it would in fact be normal if Israel was criminalised for its actions. However, what is not normal for hack writers of Mr Münch’s persuasion is, …. wait for it, ….that Syria has retaliated, which Mr Münch sees as an indication of the following scenario if Assad and his allies win in Syria.

Iranian troops will be on Israel’s border, there will be a constant threat to the Golan Heights, which our hack fails to mention is illegally occupied Syrian territory, and the Hezbollah, battle hardened and armed with Syrian weapons, will be relieved of its commitments elsewhere and better prepared for a war with Israel than it was in 2006.

Not only does it appear doubtful that Mr Münch knows how well-prepared the Hezbollah actually was in 2006, but he seems to be unaware that Israel attacking its neighbours, which he says it has been doing for years, and describes as “routine”is in fact a blatant breach of international law. Indeed, all that his piece would appear to do is support the Zionist state in its belief that it needs to adopt an “iron wall” strategy in order to deal with the Palestinians and with its neighbours from a position of unassailable strength.

However, that should come as no surprise as the strategy has become almost synonymous with Israel’s raison d’être and, even if it should be a justification for putting the Zionist state beyond the pale, it is highly unlikely that Mr Münch and millions of other apologists for Israel are going to make that point. Therefore, what we have here is a classical rogue state, minus the unpredictability,unleashed, and unconstrained.

Of course, the reader has to leave the daily drivel pumped out by the mainstream media to get a more realistic assessment of what Israel is doing and Stephen Lendman hits the nail on the head when he says, “Israel reserves the right to attack Syria preemptively at its discretion for any reason any time – a flagrant international law violation” before referring indirectly to the “iron wall” strategy when he points out “if Syria exercises its right of self-defense in response to an Israeli attack on its territory, the IDF will unleash greater aggression than before.”

Mr Lendman the Journalist and Mr Münch the pseudo Journalist seem to agree on what Israel is doing. However, it is only the former who questions the legality of Israel’s actions before going on to criticise the world community when pointing out that it “is silent in the face of Israel’s announced intention to violate international laws governing warfare, besides numerous previous breaches against Gaza, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan and Iraq, along with subversion against Iran and other nations.”

Furthermore, Mr Lendman succinctly argues that “Israel’s only threats are ones it invents” to effectively continue its ethnic cleansing of Palestine and to continue its support of Washington’s foreign policy. Indeed with the US sending an additional 400 troops to Syria and with the American military having “declined to say how many troops it has deployed”, the evidence would appear to suggest that an original neocon/Israeli/Saudi plan for “regime change” in Syria is still very much on the agenda. Hardly unexpected, but at least proof that Trump’s promised move away from the policy of “intervention and chaos” was nothing more than hot air, but that is another story, even if it represents that bigger picture which totally eludes hacks like Peter Münch.