Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Second rate reporter says what?

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Friday Morning Open Thread: Another TianAnMen Square Anniversary

Friday Morning Open Thread: Another TianAnMen Square Anniversary

by | 115 Comments

This post is in: , ,


Reader Interactions

115Comments

  1. 1.

    Spanky

    It will happen here once authoritarianism permiates the military from jcs to grunts. We were lucky the jcs firewalled Trump.

  3. 3.

    Betty Cracker

    Favorite story of the day so far:

    The Gizmo article includes a 40-minute video of the event but neglects to point readers to the time when the dongcopter interrupts the speech. After attempting to find a shorter clip on YouTube, I can report that searching “dongcopter” on that platform returns some surprising results, but alas no clip of the incident in question.

  5. 5.

    MomSense

    I can’t believe it was 32 years ago.
    The big three at the time were China, the USSR, and the USA.  Look at us now. The actual crises we faced then were completely ignored and allowed to worsen.  Wonder how things will look 32 years from now.

  10. 10.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @raven:

    Oh Raven ??

    I know you’ve been expecting this for quite a while. It’s still the toughest thing.

    RIP Bohdi, a very good boy.

  11. 11.

    debbie

    @MomSense:

    Back then, authoritarian governments were not common; now, authoritarian-leaning countries are just about everywhere, it seems.

  14. 14.

    Anne Laurie

    @raven: Raven, I’m so sorry.  Losing an old friend is no easier when they’re ready to move on…

    May the thought of him soon bring a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eyes!

  32. 32.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Native American tribe in Maine buys back island taken 160 years ago

    The advert painted an idyllic picture of White’s Island.

    For $449,000 you could buy 143 acres of forests with sweeping views of the rugged shoreline of Big Lake in Maine, on the east coast of the United States. “[It’s] a unique property … steeped in history … with only two owners in the last 95 years,” wrote the real estate agent from privateislandsonline.com.

    In fact, Kuwesuwi Monihq, or Pine Island, is its original name, and it technically has just one true “caretaker”; the Passamaquoddy: a small tribe of 3,700 Native Americans who had lived there for at least 10,000 years.

    It’s a spiritually important place for the tribe, filled with graves from devastating smallpox, cholera and measles outbreaks caused by white settlers.
    ……………………………….
    “The land was stolen from us and it’s been every chief’s goal ever since to return it,” said chief William Nicholas, 51, leader of the tribe’s Indian township reservation for the last 11 years, who spotted the advert on a shop noticeboard on 4 July last year.

    In March, with a grant from conservation charities, the tribe raised $355,000, and finally bought the island back.

    Donald Soctomah, the tribe’s historic preservation officer, added: “Our concept of land ownership is that nobody ‘owns’ land. Instead, we have a sacred duty to protect it. This is like finding a lost relative.”
    ……………………………
    For the Passamaquoddy, who lost members to Covid-19, reacquiring Pine Island during a pandemic is significant.

    It was during the “Great Dying”, when 90% died from European diseases between the 1500s-1800s, that the island came to their rescue.

    In an act of self-sacrifice, infected members quarantined on the neighboring island of Muwinuwi Monihk, that was renamed “Gordon’s Island” by the colonialists who took it, but which was returned by a paper company in 2003.

    Corey Hinton, a young Passamaquoddy lawyer who has just welcomed a new baby, told the Guardian: “It made me realise that my people have lived and died on that island since time began. When the pandemic is over, we will return to dance with our ancestors again.”

  34. 34.

    MomSense

    @debbie:

    Leaving aside when there were more authoritarian governments, I do want to know just WTF needs to happen for humanity to be able to address the actual problems we face. Even now while we are still dealing with a global pandemic, the GQP states are jumping on the super important issues of policing the playing of sports and use of restrooms, denying people their right to vote, and firing up gas chambers for capital punishment.

  36. 36.

    Van Buren

    This school year began with me losing a dog and tomorrow my beloved and oh so sweet Kendall will be going. I thought it would be easier than when we lost Jackson, because she was never quite as attached to me, but it is devastating just the same.

  39. 39.

    debbie

    @MomSense:

    I wish I could think of something. It’s beginning to seem like power is more primal than sex ever has been. What would Freud say?!?

  43. 43.

    Amir Khalid

    @raven:

    They’re never just pets to us, are they? Each one of them is a loving and beloved individual, whose memory stays with us all our lives. Rest in peace, Bohdi. There will be other dogs, but never another Bohdi.

  44. 44.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Van Buren:

    I’m very sorry. It’s always so hard.

    Raven used to post this quote from Irving Townsend when jackals had to say goodbye to beloved animal companions. I’ll post it today for both of you (ETA: and everyone else who is remembering a beloved departed pet, which I think is pretty much the entire Jackaltariat):

    We who choose to surround ourselves with lives even more temporary than our own live within a fragile circle, easily and often breached. Unable to accept its awful gaps, we still would live no other way. We cherish memory as the only certain immortality, never fully understanding the necesssary plan.

  45. 45.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Betty Cracker:

    After attempting to find a shorter clip on YouTube, I can report that searching “dongcopter” on that platform returns some surprising results 

    After watching 2 search results, I highly recommend everyone do some searching on YouTube.

  47. 47.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @raven: Damn, man. Damn. Always too soon, always too few years.

    The Heaven of Animals

    By James L. Dickey

    Here they are. The soft eyes open.   
    If they have lived in a wood
    It is a wood.
    If they have lived on plains
    It is grass rolling
    Under their feet forever.

    Having no souls, they have come,   
    Anyway, beyond their knowing.   
    Their instincts wholly bloom   
    And they rise.
    The soft eyes open.

    To match them, the landscape flowers,   
    Outdoing, desperately
    Outdoing what is required:
    The richest wood,
    The deepest field.

    For some of these,
    It could not be the place
    It is, without blood.
    These hunt, as they have done,
    But with claws and teeth grown perfect,

    More deadly than they can believe.   
    They stalk more silently,
    And crouch on the limbs of trees,   
    And their descent
    Upon the bright backs of their prey

    May take years
    In a sovereign floating of joy.   
    And those that are hunted   
    Know this as their life,
    Their reward: to walk

    Under such trees in full knowledge   
    Of what is in glory above them,   
    And to feel no fear,
    But acceptance, compliance.   
    Fulfilling themselves without pain

    At the cycle’s center,
    They tremble, they walk   
    Under the tree,
    They fall, they are torn,   
    They rise, they walk again.

    (I never had an animal companion, but Dickey’s poem has always felt to me fitting. I’m confident you guys will tell me if it’s not.)

  51. 51.

    Subsole

    @raven: Sorry, man. That’s never easy.

     

    @debbie: The entire continent of Africa is screaming right now.

    Though yes, it is alarming to see cracks in the foundations of established democracies. It’s kind of crazy how that whole BRICS thing turned out, neh?

    Fortunately we have been handed a chance to arrest that slide.

  52. 52.

    Soprano2

    @MomSense: Speaking of, in MO some Republicans in the state legislature want the governor to call a special session for the extremely important issue of regulating how cities spend the money they’ve budgeted for police, as in prohibiting them from spending it on anything Republicans disagree with. I wish someone was able to kill the myth that Republicans are all for local control, because that’s a lie – they’re only for local control when it’s things they agree with. I swear, they need to quit trying to make policy based on being pissed off at St. Louis officials, because that’s what drives most of their hissy fits.

  58. 58.

    TomatoQueen

    Ave atque vale Bohdi.
    We shall all miss the tales your dad has told of you, to share the love he has for you.
    Bohdi on the Bridge.

  59. 59.

    OzarkHillbilly

    American politics in a nutshell:

    Slava Malamud @SlavaMalamud
    I have lived in America for exactly 30 years, and I have figured out how the political system here works (thread).
    Voter: “Hi, I am a regular white American voter, proudly voting in my home state. I’ll elect a Republican executive because I don’t want any of that socialism here”

    A not very long thread follows.

  60. 60.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Soprano2: I swear, they need to quit trying to make policy based on being pissed off at St. Louis officials, because that’s what drives most of their hissy fits.

    As a former STLian, I can only say, “I am so proud.”

  62. 62.

    Matt McIrvin

    @OzarkHillbilly: Most of our voters are actually individually more partisan than that–there’s less ticket-splitting and party-switching than you might think; that’s just the collective effect of the whole electorate. It’s a good description of a certain type of centrist, but it’s more a matter of differential enthusiasm of voters, combined with the historical tendency of a large subset of Democratic voters to not vote downticket at all.

  67. 67.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Rachel’s first 20 or so minutes last night was devoted to MO legislators. There’s the Republican woman who claimed she had invented a “stem cell” cure for Covid-19 and a slew of other ailments; she’s under indictment but Republican leadership won’t fire her.

    There’s the Republican man whose grown children have accused him of sexual abuse and begged Republican leadership not to seat him, but they did.

    There’s the other Republican man, a former cop, who had sex with a drunk teenage girl while he was on duty; his former chief of police begged Republican leadership not to seat him, but they did.

    Did I mention that they’re all Republicans? Funniest coincidence.

  68. 68.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Matt McIrvin: I am talking about America as a collective voter, not any particular individual. I think the results are dependent on voter turnout and which side has more enthusiasm. There are those of us who vote every election and the rest who only vote once every 4 years… If they feel like it.

  69. 69.

    Immanentize

    @raven:  I’m very sorry. But not only did Bohdi give you a long life filled with adventure, he also gave me (and many others, I suspect) moments of real happiness. Fishing with Bohdi and him trying to get that Whistle Pig are moments I will always hold dear and which always bring a smile.

    So he will get to find out before you what the other side might be like and whether Lil Bit is running in the fields.

  71. 71.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Soprano2: They have a deep and principled commitment to control by whatever level of government is most dominated by Republicans.

  73. 73.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    About Hong Kong: I highly recommend the 20-minute documentary “Do Not Split” about the Hong Kong protests and the new security law.

    Remember Louis DeJoy? He’s still there but perhaps not for much longer. Biden’s three nominees for the USPS Board of Governors have all been approved. (See here for instance). And the FBI is getting interested in him.

  74. 74.

    Soprano2

    @SiubhanDuinne: There’s the Republican woman who claimed she had invented a “stem cell” cure for Covid-19 and a slew of other ailments; she’s under indictment but Republican leadership won’t fire her.

    That woman has a clinic in my city that serves low income people. This story has been in our paper for a couple of months now. She’s the rep for the district just south of Springfield. It’s her first election. The people down there probably still love her.

    And Rachel didn’t even talk about crazy Mike Moon https://www.google.com/search?q=mike+moon+missouri&rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS955US955&oq=Mike+moon+&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0i355j46j0l7.4523j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 MO Republicans aren’t any crazier than Republicans in other states; some of them are worse.

  76. 76.

    Soprano2

    @Matt McIrvin:They have a deep and principled commitment to control by whatever level of government is most dominated by Republicans.

    This is the truth that should be repeated over and over and over again.

  78. 78.

    Kay

    Claire Goforth
    @clairenjax
    Jacksonville author Tim Gilmore points out that DeSantis didn’t only sign an anti-trans bill on the first day of Pride, he did so at a school one congregant from the church referred to as the “pedophile paradise” of Baptist preacher Bob Gray

    This is him:

    The former pastor of a Florida Baptist mega-church charged with sexually abusing 21 women and one man when they were children won’t face his accusers in court. Bob Gray, 38-year-pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Fla., died Saturday, just days before his criminal trial was scheduled to start.
    Gray’s death won’t affect six civil lawsuits pending against his former church. They accuse Trinity Baptist of knowing Gray was a child molester but doing nothing to protect children and covering it up to protect the reputation of the church. Weeks before falling ill Gray took a 27-page deposition, in which he reportedly invoked the Fifth Amendment 150 times.

    I had a long running case involving a fundamentalist religious sect and child (and animal) abuse and the women who leave and become dissenters and opponents are really interesting. I say “women” because just women contacted me. They’ve grown up in these sects so they’re odd to a “modern” person- quiet, serious, really polite, but furious. They’re a force to be reckoned with :)

    I always think of them when I watch Handmaid’s Tale.

  80. 80.

    Subsole

    @Kay: I read an interesting book about women who leave the FLDS church. Under the Banner of Heaven.

    They have to be formidable to survive that treatment.

  81. 81.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay:

    “The family is confident, as he was confident, that he is in heaven now by God’s grace,” Gray’s family said through an attorney. “The family prays everyone involved can find peace.”

    Sure he is.

  83. 83.

    satby

    @raven: Deepest condolences on the loss of your very good boy, so soon after the loss of your sweet girl. You gave them wonderful lives.

  84. 84.

    Another Scott

    @raven: Condolences to you and all who loved him.  Thanks for sharing him with us.

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  89. 89.

    Kay

    @Subsole:

    Loved that book. They have big problems getting out. No high school diploma, no credit history, no medical history (this group was opposed to any traditional medical treatment) – one of them didn’t have a birth certificate. I kept up with one of the women for a time. She would come by and tell me what she was doing. They weren’t really rural people- they had just purchased property out in the country for a kind of compound but they didn’t know what they were doing, so they would have the women doing things like planting 5 acres of strawberries and cultivating by hand. No one ever made any money. It was literally just work to keep them working (and controlled) all the time.

  92. 92.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    “The family prays everyone involved can find peace.”

    There’s always a demand. Just fuck off and leave them alone. How about that.
    They need advice from these people?

  93. 93.

    prostratedragon

    @Soprano2: that serves low income people
    For brunch only, or also dinner? Hardly original, especially around here, but these are cartoonishly horrid people.

  94. 94.

    Kathleen

    @rikyrah: Good! I’m glad the sergeant is getting more screen time. Writers need to develop a couple of more characters on her team to balance Stabler. Did you see SVU finale? I love Garland and it’s heart wrenching to see what he’s enduring.ETA what’s your opinion?

  101. 101.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: My husband got me that book “Uneducated” by Tara Westover. It was at turns inspiring and horrifying. It’s hard to believe the government allows people to treat their children like that, but all people have to say is “religious belief” and “homeschool” and people are allowed to do pretty much anything they want. It’s a miracle she and her brother got out, and tragic that she couldn’t persuade more of them to leave that life. The stuff about her abusive brother was something else.

  103. 103.

    Subsole

     

     

    @Kay: Dear God.

    That stuff right there is why we can’t just “write off” the south, or wherever.

  105. 105.

    Brachiator

    not gonna lie, i took for granted our ability to commemorate tiananmen 8964 in hong kong. i regret that i didn’t take more footage of the vigils i attended. this is from 2012.

    It will be up to us to stop the GOP pivot into authoritarianism. Otherwise, someone in the future will be saying this about our democracy.

  106. 106.

    YY_Sima Qian

    I posted the below comment in A.L.’s TAM anniversary post last year, but was late to the discussion. I will post it again for your reference:

    I was in 6th grade in 1989, that spring and early summer was a truly heady time. I could barely comprehend what was being shown on the news, but I distinctly remember a sort of hopeful carnival atmosphere in the cities. The CCP leadership was divided and paralyzed as to how to respond to the protest movement, there was overwhelming support among the urban population. Even cadets from police academies were marching on the streets.

    I would not say the vast majority were marching for democracy at the time, most had no idea what it is. Most of the students only had vague notions, too. What united the people was anger against growing corruption, bouts of hyperinflation, the shock of the economic cycle (after decades on the iron rice bowl, which were in the process of being dismantled). Urbanites saw their fixed incomes decimated by inflation, and yet access to foodstuffs and daily necessities were still rationed (buying stuff required both cash and ration coupons). Urbanites were definitely marching for personal freedom, since the Party was much more intrusive into people’s lives, which were closely supervised and monitored by one’s work unit, even marriage were often arranged and approved by cadres in work units. Central to the movement were the intellectual class, which had been privileged for millennia in Chinese society, but who had suffered immensely during the Anti-Rightist Campaign and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution during the Mao years. The reforms and loosening of the 80s brought them first hope, then frustration, as they found themselves marginalized economically in the first decade of reforms. Students were assigned work places after graduation, university professors earned less than street vendors. They were inspired by the loosening in the fUSSR and Eastern Europe.

    However, after the People’s Daily published a harsh editorial denouncing the protest movement in late Apr., those with more experience with the CCP rule knew the sky was darkening. I remember my maternal grandfather warning my older cousin, who was a freshman in college at the time, not to go to the streets. He even told my uncle and aunt to make sure the cousin stayed in the dormitory. He said a crack down was coming, and it would end in tears.

    By late May, the movement was running out of steam. A hardcore group of about 3K students held out at the Tiananmen Square by the evening of June 3rd, fortified by the more enthusiastic recent arrivals from the provinces, whereas many of from Beijing’s universities had gone back to campus or home. The daily marches dwindled in number, as Beijingers generally returned to work and life. That was when Deng Xiaoping ordered the army to march in and clear out the Square. The regime either underestimated the reaction of Beijing’s citizenry to the use of military force, or did not care. Beijing residents came out onto the streets in throngs to stop the soldiers, building makeshift barricades along Chang’an Avenue to slow their movement toward the Square. It appears the soldiers were ordered to clear the Square by any means necessary, but it is not known what prompted their shifting warning shots into the air to aimed shots into the crowds, nor the rule of engagement clear (many reports of soldiers firing into the apartment buildings that lined Chang’an Avenue, where families of government officials lived). The vast majority of the blood spilled that tragic evening were along the approaches to the Square, not in the Square itself.

    I have always wondered why the regime did not simply wait out the protest movement, a few more weeks might have seen it peter outs. On the other hand, the protests in 1989 was the last of a series of protest movements throughout the 80s. The regime probably knew that if the one in ’89 ended, it could reignite at any moment on any fuse.

    In hindsight, there was no chance that the movement in ’89 could have toppled the CCP regime, unless the regime itself gave up. The protest movements in the 80s were entirely urban, but Chinese population was 90% rural at the time. The peasants were the first beneficiaries of the Reform and Opening, during its first decade, the Party retained enormous support in the countryside at the time. The vast majority of the soldiers and officers in the army also came from the countryside.

    After suppressing the movement, the CCP regime suffered a crisis in legitimacy among the urban population. There was policy paralysis for 3 years, as the leadership debated how to proceed. Deng Xiaoping broke the impasse in 1992 and turbocharged economic reforms. The regime then  systematically went about addressing the grievances of the urban intellectuals and workers that fueled the protests. The Party steadily retreated from people’s personal lives. People had substantial freedom of movement, the work unit loomed ever less, college students were allowed freedom of employment, urban wages increased rapidly. During the second and third decades of Reform and Opening, it was the urbanites and intellectuals who benefited, the rural population that fell behind, and China saw the most rapid urbanization drive in the history of mankind. I have heard Sinologists say that the CCP regime rarely admits error, but generally learn from its mistakes. (Failure to sustain regulations of wildlife trade i wet markets after SARS in 2003, is clearly an exception!) That is why the regime has survived for so long, and its rule still appears to be secure. The People’s Liberation Army suffered a body blow to its prestige for firing on civilians, and it took two decades of enormous and truly heroic efforts at disaster relief, as well as massive propaganda effort, to substantially repair that damage.

    I think it is true that most Chinese have chosen amnesia with respect to the Tiananmen Square Tragedy. It was still hotly discussed and debated among the Mainland Chinese emigres overseas in the 90s, such as my father and his circle of friends, but the subject just does not come up any more. When prompted, people of the Tiananmen Generation, including those who marched and occupied the Square, often would concede (even in private, even when not in China) that restoring order was the correct decision, though they would still denounce the regime for employing such violence. Yes, the subject is indeed taboo in Mainland China, but it is not difficult to hop over the Great Fire Wall with VPN. Tens of millions of Chinese tourists venture overseas every year, tens of thousands of students go abroad annually to pursue higher education. Any bookstore in Hong Kong (still), Macau or Taiwan will have volumes on the Tiananmen Square Tragedy featured prominently, along with shelves of material denouncing the evils of the CCP regime. The odd Mainlander may pick up a volume, out off curiosity, but I do not sense these have any impact at all. Even the Mainland Chinese immigrants educated and living overseas, anti-CCP is definitely in the small minority, though I would not say most are actually pro-CCP, either. It is pretty common to encounter people who were much more anti-CCP when they were in China, but became more patriotic and more pro-CCP after leaving China, either physically or virtually via VPN. The commonly cited reasons: the ugly reality of democratic politics as practiced in the US/UK/AUS/CAN (where the vast majority went), the stunning hypocrisy of western politicians’ commentaries on China, and the clear bias and myopia of Western MSM coverage of China.

    I guess performance legitimacy is real. The Chinese dream for the past two centuries has been restoring the nation and its people to position of wealth and power. That was the goal of generations of reformers and revolutionaries, since the end of the First Opium War and the start of the “Century of Humiliation”. Whether their leaning was liberal democrat, fascist or communist, monarchist or republican, that was the common aim. All the “-isms” were merely means to that end. The CCP regime is now delivering on restoring wealth and power to China, and dramatically improving the lives of the vast majority of the people in the process. That goes a loooong way.

  107. 107.

    david

    Remember when Liberals were laughing at and mocking people who had paid back their debts getting angry at suggestions of “student loan forgiveness”?

    Well, it looks like the shoe has now been placed on the other foot. Pro-vaxxers who already got their shots are not-so-keen at these latest giveaways from the states…

    Mike Janela @MikeJanela

    Me taking the Covid vaccine as early as I possibly could because it was the right thing to do and getting a sticker for it vs. everyone who refused now getting free cars and beers and millions of dollars to take it has some real high school group project energy

    15.2K Retweets
    1,458 Quote Tweets
    100K Likes

    Not judging, just noting.

  108. 108.

    Elizabelle

    I know we’ve got a bunch of Hollywood pre-code movie fans here.  Free program, an hour from now, 1:30 p EDT, but you have to sign up in advance with Eventbrite. I’ve watched several Zoom programs from the City of Westminster UK Libraries — they have wonderful events about film (the film music of Bernard Herrmann, James Mason) …

    https://www.eventbrite.com/e/pre-code-hollywood-and-the-career-of-norma-shearer-tickets-149581142223?aff=ebdssbeac&keep_tld=1

    “Where The Primroses Grow”: Pre-Code Hollywood, Female Stardom, and the Career of Norma Shearer

    The period between the advent of talking pictures in the late 1920s and the enforcement of the Hays Code in July 1934 is commonly known as the “pre-Code” era, a time of relatively unrestrained filmmaking during which Hollywood’s producers, directors and stars were able to explore adult topics in a way that would not again become possible until the mid-1960s.

    This talk will explore this time period in further detail, focusing on the mechanisms which led to the enforcement of censorship in mid-1934, but also on the possibilities offered to particularly female stars during the previous five years. In this context, I will highlight the contributions of key stars such as Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford and Greta Garbo, but focus particularly on a star now frequently omitted in favour of her better-remembered peers: Norma Shearer.

  109. 109.

    Brachiator

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    The Chinese dream for the past two centuries has been restoring the nation and its people to position of wealth and power. That was the goal of generations of reformers and revolutionaries, since the end of the First Opium War and the start of the “Century of Humiliation”.

    A very powerful observation.

    Thank you for your comments.

  111. 111.

    Matt McIrvin

    @david: I’m fine with it. My prize is, I got free vaccine and I was vaccinated (to some degree) while all these other people were playing Russian roulette. That’s worth something to me.

  112. 112.

    Brachiator

    @Elizabelle:

    I know we’ve got a bunch of Hollywood pre-code movie fans here.  Free program, an hour from now, 1:30 p EDT, but you have to sign up in advance with Eventbrite.

    Aarrrgh! Just missed it.

    Hope it shows up on YouTube.

  113. 113.

    Quiltingfool

    @YY_Sima Qian: My comment may be too late, but I very much appreciate you sharing insight into Chinese governance and citizens’ response to government actions.  Thank you!

Comments are closed.