This piece from today's LA Times underscores
something that's gone on for time out of mind:
Talk-Show King Is Yanked From Chinese Airwaves
The Taiwan-born TV commentator railed against corporate corruption and other problems he saw in market reforms. By Don Lee, Times Staff Writer, March 15, 2006
SHANGHAI -- For two years, Larry Lang relished his role as China's business talk-show king.
On Friday night television, the Taiwan-born host of "Larry Lang Live" railed against corporate corruption and other ills of China's market reforms. The clean-cut, telegenic finance professor boiled economics down to ordinary chatter and he struck a nerve with folks disenchanted with the sagging stock market and widening income disparity.
Speak truth to power and they'll take away your soapbox.
But this month, Chinese officials pulled the plug on his program -- the latest move by Beijing to censor influential critics of its policies and to control information disseminated to the public. In the last year, the government has jailed journalists, banned dozens of newspapers and restricted searches on the Internet.
Online, many Chinese quickly voiced support for Lang, whose writings and opinions are widely available on the Web.
China Business Network, the Shanghai-based producer of the show, said the 49-year-old Lang was taken off the air because he didn't qualify for a government certificate for TV and radio hosts. CBN refused to elaborate, and Lang declined to comment. [snip]
The risk might have been heightened because Lang wasn't a lone voice in the wilderness. He led an increasingly vocal group of so-called new leftists who have attacked the failings of the privatizing of state-owned assets and China's economy.
By all accounts, that has clearly been heard in Beijing.
"I think the leadership seems to have realized that the action of the left has had an impact," said Green, the Shanghai economist. "It's reached a fever pitch, ... a level of concern to senior leaders. They decided there needed to be some limits on the criticism from the left."
Disturbing pattern eh? When you're right, you're right...but if you creep to the left you're out!
How bizarre is it when someone living in a communist country is censored for speaking out against capitalist corruption?
Back to topic, that `time out of mind' thing.
It doesn't matter what the stated ideology of a nation's ruling class is so long as no one calls them out when their actions go against their `official' purpose for existing.
There isn't a representative government in the entire world that wasn't established by, and exists to serve, the interests of the powerful over that of the ordinary people of their respective nations.
Thinking people will agree with this statement, kool aid drinkers will hit the back button in disgust, dismissing this as just another post by some damn lefty (freak) criticizin' the (my) gummint!
Fine by me.
It takes but a single generation after a revolution for an aristocracy to reassert itself, it happened right on schedule here and it (quite apparently) has already occurred in `communist' China as well.
Whosoever controls the law controls you.
So it is that we have gasbags like Hannity and Limbagh on the air all over the dial shilling ceaselessly for the corrupt administration while folks like Krugman and Rich find themselves behind a subscriber's only firewall...
As this particular piece points out, our media/government is not unique when it comes to silencing the voices of dissent.
Government by the (corrupt) few...for the rest of us.
As is becoming increasingly apparent, our government was `hijacked' and the criminals responsible for this are in the process of looting the treasury...while their cohorts stand `guard' in the halls of power shooting down any attempts to restore sanity.
This is a nasty set of circumstances but lift your head and look out around the world and you'll see the same thing happening everywhere...
Global conquest via international monetary policy...who knew?
This is a really weird way of going about global conquest since money is imaginary. We're getting our butts whooped by something that technically doesn't exist!
That said, this magical substance is the grease that keeps the wheels of society turning.
It is a truly bizarre fact that the less there is the harder you have to work to get it...in case you're wondering why most of the world lives in abject poverty while those trillions keep flowing in and out of the same set of pockets.
Time out of mind, you're either born to it or you're not and the current `philosophy' surrounding this line of so-called logic is it's the way it should be, some are born to rule while others were born to serve...period.
So it is the privilege of serving society becomes the divine right of the privileged, who ultimately end up believing that society exists to serve them.
Whosoever controls the law controls you.
If we were to start over from scratch (and it's looking like that's exactly where we're headed) who would you `entrust' with the law?
No offense guys but the only person I trust is me...and the same should go for the rest of you!
I want a direct vote on any proposed law and you should want to have your say too!
The rule of law is a funny thing because the only way it works is if nobody has the power to interpret the laws as they wish...like they do now.
Income taxes and the federal reserve were brought into being in the `dark of night' (during a `special session' called by Republicans while Congress was out for Christmas recess) as just one example of allowing a few people to make decisions for the rest of us without our ever being consulted.
To counter the mob mentality of direct democracy new laws could only be passed by a super majority of all voters (workers) and leaders would have no power over the law, no power to make new ones and no power to change existing ones.
Seems like I've gone off on a tangent but I'm still addressing that time out of mind thing. For as long as anyone can remember, longer than our written history, a few have made decisions for the rest of us, often with disastrous results. (Can you say South Dakota?)
I'm gonna squeak that wheel one more time, nothing will change until we change how things get done.
The wealthy have embarked on a campaign to impoverish and enslave the entire world. The only way to stop them is to take their power away from them and that means changing the rules of money, that grease that makes the world go `round.
Uh, all that said, the only way we will ever hear the truth is when no one has the power to influence the media.
Thanks for letting me inside your head, you are an exceptional individual if you've read this far and that alone proves there is hope!
Gegner