China: Land of Paradoxes

As the Chinese New Year passes once more, I am struck by the traditions and how prescribed everything seems to be. As I looked out into the surrounding apartment blocks last night, I couldn't help but notice that all the televisions were tuned to the same channel: CCTV1's New Year's Gala. It's as prescribed as they come and every year is pretty much the same shtick. The odd thing is that everyone I know who watched it thought it was boring, and yet, they will all watch it again next year, because that's what you do. Almost all parties are equally prescribed and ordered. If you are invited to a party, chances are, there will be a microphone, a stage, and coerced performances.

At the same time, so many other aspects of society are without order at all: lines and traffic are two prominent examples. If you go to a bank, for instance, there isn't normally an orderly single-file line, rather a half circle crowd around the wicket. Traffic is equally oblivious to rules as cars often drive on both sides of the road or drive through red lights.

It's odd, whereas in the West, we work in order and relax in chaos the opposite is true in China.

Israel's vow to defend its soldiers: what is tells us about Israel

Israel's statement that it will defend its soldiers tells us two things about Israel: the higher levels of the administration may be implicated in the war crimes and/or they are complicit in the potential war crimes and not a just or humane nation.

The first is quite easy to deduce. Often people at the top of the command chain fear the bottom speaking out about those above in return for leniency. Whether you are a drug lord or a government war criminal, it is always the upper echelon giving the orders that is the golden prize, not the drudge soldiers who carry out said orders.

Even if the above point is untrue, and the soldiers acted individually and committed war crimes of their own volition, what does it say about a society that wishes to obscure justice? In civilian law, even manslaughter – an unintentional destruction of life – is punishable; why is there a different standard in a time of war? A hallmark of Western values is that that which is large must protect that which is small, or those with the most power carry the greatest responsibility. This is still further proof of the secularism entrenched in the modern state of Israel and how removed it is from Judaism, which maintains those values.

Bill O'Reilly recently said how sometimes one must compromise your values to ensure security, to which Jon Stewart pointed out that in that case they are no longer values. It's a sad state of affairs when Israel and its defenders agree more with Bill O'Reilly than Jon Stewart.

Cold, Hard Great Firewall of China

I was surprised to find Wikipedia blocked until I proxied it: Jan. 23 marks an important anniversary in China as seen on their home page, and so it was blocked. Other Wikipedia pages, if I type in the URL directly, are accessible, so hopefully by tomorrow, the block will be lifted.

Sometimes the cold, hard reality of living under communist rule hits you like walking into a glass door: you feel stupid for not foreseeing what seems so obvious in hindsight.

Below is what it looks like to try to trick the computer into loading an elicit page; it simple stops loading.

China's PR Woes Continue

Obama's reference to defeating communism, as you may well know, has been censored in China. This shows the continued myopia of the government's PR battle with the world and more importantly its own citizens. Had they not censored the portions, there would be no story afterwards of how they censored the speech, and this blog would not exist, nor the plethora of news stories across the world about the incident. Reuters carried a story in which the government defended its right to edit whatever they want, but that argument gives the sense of a petulant child. Yes, it's also my right to never shower again, but I will have to live wit the ramifications of my decision. Likewise, they have every right to manipulate the media, but they must understand that such actions will have a greater impact than whatever it was they were censoring in the first place. In 2008, China learned the value of PR, even going so far as to hire a PR company, but it's clear that they still have a long way to go to understand that blatant, objectively provable control of information is in an of itself a story, and a PR black eye both abroad and at home.

Show Me the Pressure

We keep hearing that Israel is under increasing pressure to halt its operations in Gaza, but there is never an explanation as to what pressure is being asserted. The best the international community could do was gather in a hot sweaty UN room and bang out a ceasefire agreement after several days only to have it ignored. Sorry, there are no marks allotted for effort. Israel has now (at least) shelled a UN school, shelled a home they asked Palestinian civilians to hide in, shot at the UN contractors picking up humanitarian aid during the three hour "humanitarian corridor", and the next day shot again at a medical team trying to retrieve the body from that said attack on humanitarian workers. All in two weeks. What pressure has there been?

One story today really sums up what is going on. A CNN reporter standing atop a building in Egypt reports Israeli fighter jets passed over head, to which the Israeli officials said, "no". What is the recourse? Israel is a child with Oreos all over his face and denying he got into the cookie jar. "Eye witnesses be damned," he is saying, "I'm not lying, trust me. Don't trust the bias of the Red Cross and UN, trust me to follow my God given moral code of war."

The world's reaction so far has been to condemn the incursion into the metaphorical cookie jar, but watching and allowing the child to continue to gorge himself. Naomi Klein calls for a boycott of Israel, and although she is correct in her assessment, world leaders will certainly not take such a stance, and the continued "world pressure" we see peppered throughout articles will remain vacuous. There is no pressure because there are no repercussions, and they know that. Indeed, this is a sprint to next month's elections, which – unlike the Palestinian elections – will be recognized by the international community no matter how hegemonic the elected leader is, and will yield an abundant reward for the seeds sown with Palestinian blood.

Hopeless

I truly feel the plight of the Palestinian people is hopeless. There is a great article here by John McCarthy, but as good and ostensibly objective as the article is, I'm quite sure that all the articles and blogs published are useless. People who already agree with these opinions come away with confirmation of their preconceived notions, whereas those who disagree either would never read the article in the first place or dismiss it outright.

Just trot over to Haaretz and see if you don't feel sick to your stomach while perusing the articles. The articles' jingoistic tone is only superseded by selectively posted comments (I can assure you my comments have never been displayed).

Articles and blogs on this issue seem to primarily serve cathartic purposes, not enlightenment.

Israel: Bombing Its Own People

A majority of pro-Operation Cast Lead talking points revolve around protecting the citizens of Israel, but what are the people of Gaza? Are they not under the "care" and control of Israel? True, Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005, but it retains control over its borders (both land and sea) and airspace. It is not a sovereign nation. Is it completely separate from the West Bank? With established (and a continuation of the establishment of) Israeli settlements in the West Bank, it is clearly not an independent state and Israel does control it.

So, when Israel is bombing/shooting Palestinians in defense of Israelis, they are really bombing/shooting Israelis in defense of Israelis. You cannot defend your sovereign state from itself, and as long as Palestine is not granted sovereignty over its own borders and airspace, how can this argument of defending its people stand?

The Obama Myth: One President at a Time

While many news outlets are lamenting Obama's silence over the bombardment of Gaza, at the same time they are complicit in asserting that there is only one President of the United States at any given moment.

We can clearly remember, however, a time when both John McCain and Barack Obama made public pronouncements about the Russia-Georgia conflct even prior to the White House. Additionally, Obama has made several speeches and announcements regarding financial/economic matters. Who is meant to be naive, the people or the Obama team, in believing that somehow the economy is domestic policy? How many times have we heard – quite rightfully so – that the economy and national security, particularly when it comes to "energy independence" (buzzword of the election cycle), are intertwined?

The fact of the matter is that Gaza is as much a domestic crisis as the financial crisis. America's unwavering support of a foreign government, Israel, has had consequences in the wars it is currently embroiled in, and if subjecting troops to a quagmire is not a domestic crisis, I'm not sure what is. After all, all politics is local.