tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5850172499490375035.post9047412251569674976..comments2024-02-23T00:53:07.310+00:00Comments on Rooksmoor's Tablets of Lead: Who Really 'Won' the Cold War?Rooksmoorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15563445039351828997noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5850172499490375035.post-79850905043258872192011-06-29T15:34:15.640+01:002011-06-29T15:34:15.640+01:00Fanaticism, cruelty, ignorance and lawlessness won...Fanaticism, cruelty, ignorance and lawlessness won the cold war. They are still making gains in every nation and conflict today, So the War to oppose them will never be over. Mainly because the wars that are happening now are being perpetrated on all sides by those who support these belief systems as acceptable.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5850172499490375035.post-45744765184271938642011-02-02T16:05:46.911+00:002011-02-02T16:05:46.911+00:00One comment from an online contributor printed in ...One comment from an online contributor printed in 'The Guardian' back in January of this year has nagged at me for the past few weeks. The commentator condemned the fact that 2011 would see more best-selling books written by White men, without the ability to read Chinese, warning of the threat of China to the rest of the World.<br /><br />That kind of attitude, that simply because someone cannot read the language of a country, they should be prevented from warning of its very obvious behaviour, is an incredibly dangerous one and plays right into the hands of dictatorships like China.<br /><br />I can read some Chinese and have attended numerous lectures by Chinese people and researchers of other nations who are looking into what is going on in China. This has enabled me to understand a range of issues such as increasing sexism in China, nationalistic attitudes in the popular Chinese media, the extent of internet penetration into rural China and the rapid increase of Chinese consumption of luxury goods.<br /><br />However, none of us need to have even that level of engagement with China to know it is a risk to the rest of the World. It takes minimal efforts to conceal its appaling human rights record and no effort to conceal its imprisonment of protestors. China is a member of the World Trade Organisation and its trading figures, levels of reserves and the artificial pegging of its currency are all public knowledge.<br /><br />Knowing these things alone is enough to know that China is dangerous. It is a totalitarian dictatorship which is taking no steps towards democracy and is busily buying up resources across the World. You do not need to read Chinese to know this. In fact official Chinese publications, the only kind which come out of China, would try to paint a very different, highly inaccurate picture.<br /><br />No-one needed to speak German to know Hitler was a danger; no-one needed to understand Khmer to understand that Pol Pot was carrying out genocide nor Serbo-Croat to comprehend the atrocities that happened as Yugoslavia dissolved. China is an unpleasant country whose power is growing year by year. It has a very arrogant attitude and sees nothing wrong in the combination of its rapid informal imperialism and its denial of human rights. It supports other regimes with similar records. <br /><br />Do not let people tell you that you have to understand any particular language to recognise the true danger of a regime. All you need is to be human and have an affinity for other humans.Rooksmoorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15563445039351828997noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5850172499490375035.post-10364087415423294682010-11-17T12:55:39.008+00:002010-11-17T12:55:39.008+00:00David Cameron's visit to China last week showe...David Cameron's visit to China last week showed how beholden the West has become to the country and how, even more than ever, sales come before any concern over human rights. 'The Economist' is warning of a spate of Chinese takeovers as finally the massive savings built up in the country over the past two decades are turned to buying up the economies of western states. This will limit these countries' freedom of action even further and they will be obliged to hold back from making even mild protests about China's behaviour for fear that the Chinese will shift their funds elsewhere and make more of that country's citizens unemployed.<br /><br />What this means is 65 years after the West seemed to bring an end to widespread Fascist dictatorships and twenty years after many of the Communist ones came to an end, the dictatorial approach to running a state is now actually winning out.<br /><br />China is a one-party state with an appalling human rights record, which supports similar states across the world. Its undemocratic approach using secret police and torture will increasingly be seen as at least tolerable if not acceptable. The example of the USA's readoption of torture under George W. Bush shows how easily this happens. China's 'victory' is a real blow for free speech, democract and the ending of torture across the world not only in China itself.<br /><br />I have no problem with Chinese people themselves, as I have never had a problem with Russian or German people, but we need to oppose the Chinese regime in the way we opposed those of the USSR and Nazi Germany. Otherwise in the years to come ever more billions of people will be denied basic human rights.Rooksmoorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15563445039351828997noreply@blogger.com