China isn't the country we're reading and hearing about. Reporters, at least, don't see her as she really is, because they are looking at her thru Cold War glasses and using all the wrong terms to describe her.
Let me tell you how I came to this conclusion. My epiphany started with me eating breakfast in front of the tv and me asking myself, "What good is FoxNews?" If you are like me, and I hope not, you may have asked this question in the past. Well, I have the answer.
The answer is that the clueless morons on FoxNews are there to piss you off and to move the potential energy resting in your lazy butt up to your brain and get enough synapses snapping to write a blog. Like this one.
I was channel checking as I gobbled down my scrambled eggs and I landed on FoxNews. The subject was China. I could not believe my ears. Fox has so loaded up words with Cold War political Orwellian connotations that the words they use no longer have meaning.
Let's start with the fact that China is a communist country. Yes, they are. China is also a totalitarian country like Bush and Cheney wanted for America where a few people made the rules for the rest of us, but didn't have to obey them. But I digress. Yes, China is totalitarian. But just because Americans think "totalitarian is bad" and they also think "communism is bad" does not mean "communism = totalitarianism" even if that has been the way it was back when the USSR was the boogie man.
Communism and totalitarianism are different. There are forms of communism that are less bad. Like farmers banding together to sell product or to buy the stuff they need. Or dare I say it, to buy healthcare. I can't think of an example where any form of totalitarianism is good, outside of American business which internally is totally totalitaristic.
With that as a preamble (at least I didn't tell you about my eggs), the Fox reporter and anchor were talking about China's "free market capitalistic economy" and their projected 8% growth rate and both was mystified. The moron reporter and the idiot anchor couldn't understand how that could be justified with "communism." They were both baffled about how these concepts could coexits.
They couldn't figure it out because the "politically weighted" words they used don't mean what they originally meant. To them capitalism is the enemy of communism. They are diametric opposites that can not exist together, and if anyone tried America either blew them up or boycotted them, not necessarily in that order.
That's why, by the way, Republicans scream "Healthcare is Socialism" and the little dittoheads cringe in fear. Because to them socialism = Soviet Russia and we don't want a Soviet system to ruin America the Free.
Duh!
I think we need to get with the program, the new program in which China has redefined the game, the playing field, the rules and the positions. China is a totalitarian regime, which has nothing to do with communism.
Think of them as China Inc. running their country like an American business in a totally totalitarian manner. The working people under them exist in a communistic society which shares in the wealth, just about like workers here, which mostly means in either place that there's not very much wealth to share.
Let's look at Free Markets and Capitalism. (Damn, this blog is going on longer than I thought because for once I accidently found myself thinking.) China doesn't have Free Market Capitalism like the FoxNews idiots were saying. China Inc. sells in a free market, but their markets are not free and open.
In terms of Capitalism, China Inc. it a capitalistic powerhouse, the biggest conglomate in the world. If they ever go public, a very communistic capitalistic concept, buy, buy, buy that IPO. Even Cramer will be on board.
As long as the geniuses on FoxNews (and other places) are playing with words using Cold War connotations as meanings, and as long as they are trying to explain today's economic situation in outdated terms, they'll remain clueless.
I think the entire situation requires a fresh look. And accurate descriptives from political, economic, and socialogical point of view.
BTW: They were good eggs, but with a little too much salt.
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David Price
cartouche
Lyn LeJeune
fernsy
Dr. Strangemom
Amanda Brooks
Salon.com
Comments
R
Even back in the 70s economist talked about the US being a mixed economy. There's not one politically correct answer called capitalism or socialism. When we realize we're just adjusting the mix, without demonizing the other side, we might do better. I hope that's what Obama is doing now.
...with a little humor for flavor.
Thanks!
Socialist
Atheist
Feminist
Gay
OK, I'm the first 3, anyway!
Just try to take away a farmers' co-op & see how loud they scream. And what is it? Pure socialism, my friends. Which are considered the best countries to live in, by their own & other countries' citizens, year after year? Why the ones with democratic socialism, that's which! And, what's even more mystifying to most of my USAmerican friends, people who have socialized or at least heavily regulated public programs don't even mind the high taxes they pay to support them. What a concept!
If there's to be a change in the USofA, it's going to have to start with a change of attitude. From the bottom up AND from the top down. Sometimes I get to thinking that the best bet would be to gather every citizen who self-identifies with the neo-cons & ship them off to Antarctica...or Mars. It'd be cheap at the price.
"gather every citizen who self-identifies with the neo-cons & ship them off to Antarctica...or Mars." Let's just let Texas secceed and send them there.
slave labor and no environmental regulation continues to destroy our industrial base and our middle class
it matters