Comments on "Is China quietly dumping US Treasuries?"

[FRED]

http://www.itulip.com/images/chinamap.gifComments on "Is China quietly dumping US Treasuries?"

by John Craig - Centre for Policy and Development Systems, Queensland (CPDS)
CPDS supports leaders developing enterprise, economic, community and governance systems – Visit CPDS website (http://cpds.apana.org.au/index.html) - which addresses local and global issues from the perspective of Queensland, an Australian state
In relation to the article Is China Quietly Dumping Treasuries (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/09/05/bcnchina105.xml) (Telegraph 5/9/07) consider the possibility that it is Japan, not China, that is taking the lead role in dumping US Treasuries. The background to this suggestion is outlined in Financial Market Instability: Two Sides of the Story (http://cpds.apana.org.au/Teams/Articles/Financial_instability.htm) which is my take on current financial market problems.

Specifically, note that financial crises in 1987 and 1997 were apparently initiated by withdrawal of Japanese capital (see also Commentary on 'Liquidity Boom and Looming Crisis' (http://itulip.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1490)); there appears to be a 'clash of civilizations' dimension to the global financial imbalances which have caused so much concern to the Bank of International Settlements (see Structural Incompatibility Puts Global Growth at Risk (http://cpds.apana.org.au/Teams/Articles/unsustainable_growth.htm)). This clash is more significant than that with Islamist extremists.

The core of this 'clash' is that epistemological assumptions (i.e., about the nature of knowledge) in countries with an ancient Chinese cultural heritage make it hard to deal with abstract ideas, including financial profitability as a means for coordinating economic activities. Economic activities tend to be coordinated by relationships amongst a hierarchy of social elites, rather than by the profit that can be achieved by independent actors. That clash appears to be reflected in An Invisible Clash of Financial Systems (http://cpds.apana.org.au/Teams/Articles/competing_civilizations.htm#financial_systems) - which may be the direction in which Japan's 1980's determination to become "No 1" has gone.

At stake is the nature of the global financial system, and ultimately the nature of the global order; China (Japan's chief competitor in any alternative global financial / political order) is vastly more exposed to the consequences of any serious economic problems in US than Japan is - and if global economic growth faltered because of a collapse of US demand, China would probably descend into political instability which would result in its present regime losing power. Thus China's sabre-rattling can probably be taken with a grain of salt.

Editor's Note: I liked this analysis because it brings up a point that is often missed in the business press: cultural and historical influences on financial system decision making.

Witness the Chinese response to US complaints about product safety:Hyping safety problem is a sickness, China says (http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSPEK32949820070905?src=090507_0919_DOUBLEFEATUR E_more_toy_recalls)

BEIJING (Reuters) - Hyping China's food and product safety problem is a sickness in itself, the country's new health minister said on Wednesday, a day after Mattel announced a third global recall of Chinese-made toys.My Chinese wife explained the issue to me. Western culture in the process of addressing a social problem seeks to take a small problem and make it big and public. Chinese culture is to take big problems and try to make them smaller, usually by burying them. That’s what the Chinese commentator above means by "hyping" as a "sickness."
Because of this difference in approach to addressing problems, Westerners mostly will be surprised by the way China may deal with the Beijing Olympic Games air pollution problem. With less than a year left to fix it and little progress made over the past five, many observers are wondering how the Chinese government is going to clear the air enough for the games to proceed. Encountering un-breathable air in 2008, complaining visitors may find that the government has simply declared the problem solved. Anyone who makes a big deal about the pollution will be accused of overstating the issue and, if they persist, will be told that the criticism is politically motivated. We shall see. - Eric Janszen

iTulip Select: (http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1032) The Investment Thesis for the Next Cycle™
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[Charles Mackay]

Because of this difference in approach to addressing problems, Westerners mostly will be surprised by the way China may deal with the Beijing Olympic Games air pollution problem. With less than a year left to fix it and little progress made over the past five, many observers are wondering how the Chinese government is going to clear the air enough for the games to proceed. Encountering un-breathable air in 2008, complaining visitors may find that the government has simply declared the problem solved. Anyone who makes a big deal about the pollution will be accused of overstating the issue and, if they persist, will be told that the criticism is politically motivated. We shall see. - Eric Janszen

They'll probably do it the same way that the Pasadena and L.A. Chambers of Commerce did it before every Rose Bowl during the halcyon days of basin SMOG. They simply convinced all dirty industry that it would be in their best interest to shut down 3 weeks before the game...take a long Christmas vacation and magically L.A. would look like a paradise during the parade and game... a place that everyone wanted to move to! :)

[necron99]

The core of this 'clash' is that epistemological assumptions (i.e., about the nature of knowledge) in countries with an ancient Chinese cultural heritage make it hard to deal with abstract ideas, including financial profitability as a means for coordinating economic activities. Economic activities tend to be coordinated by relationships amongst a hierarchy of social elites, rather than by the profit that can be achieved by independent actors.

Interesting, because you see this same attitude in Latin American cultures, despite the fact that they get at least half their heritage from Western Europe. In China the Party is the social elite; in Japan, rich business families probably form the social elite, whereas in Latin America people tend to look out for their own families and relations -- political or regional/tribal dynasties form the political elite whom everyone just assumes will naturally be in charge of the economy.

Although admittedly you see the independent-actor lone businessman and profiteer occasionally in those cultures as well (often corrupt). I'm neither sociologist nor historian, but one might conjecture that the apparent comfort with social elites running the economy is a cultural feature of the Native American side of the Latin American culture, and that the Native American culture was basically a colonization by Eastern cultures two thousand years ago.

On the other hand, in the United States, familial elites and old money control the economy to a far, far greater degree than we like to admit. Bush vs. Gore in 2000 was from a certain viewpoint a clash of dynastic families.

[GRG55]

...On the other hand, in the United States, familial elites and old money control the economy to a far, far greater degree than we like to admit. Bush vs. Gore in 2000 was from a certain viewpoint a clash of dynastic families.

My sense is that most of the world, with the notable exception of the Anglo-Saxon countries, operates pretty much along the lines of...Secure political power by whatever means - revolution, military coup, rigged election, etc. - and then use that political power to secure economic power.

The Anglo-Saxon countries seem to be exactly the opposite. There it's a matter of amassing significant wealth first, and then using that wealth to secure political power, either directly or through financial sponsorship of elected agents. Note how important the sponsorship of Wall St., Bay St., the City, and "big business" has become to political candidates of somewhat modest financial means regardless of party affiliation.

[necron99]

Interesting point there, GRG55, seems pretty valid as far as I can tell.

Of course, just as there are "bad" ways of amassing political power suddenly -- coup, rigged election, etc., as you cite -- there exist "bad" ways of amassing wealth (vis-a-vis, Enron, etc.), yet Americans seem as inured and jaded about such things as Latin Americans are inured and jaded to corrupt politicians and military juntas.

[GRG55]

Interesting point there, GRG55, seems pretty valid as far as I can tell.

Of course, just as there are "bad" ways of amassing political power suddenly -- coup, rigged election, etc., as you cite -- there exist "bad" ways of amassing wealth (vis-a-vis, Enron, etc.), yet Americans seem as inured and jaded about such things as Latin Americans are inured and jaded to corrupt politicians and military juntas.

No disagreement from me. The level of corruption that now permeates the FIRE economy is breathtaking to behold. A few recent observations:

The spectacle of some of Wall St.'s finest lobbying that their incomes should continue to be preferentially taxed, compared to other citizens, would be amusing if it wasn't so outrageous. That vacuous arguments of their outsized contribution to global commerce, and the advancement of domestic productivity, are being considered at all by elected officials shows just how deep the rot goes.
Public listings of private equity companies like Blackstone should be a red flag to everyone - I am surprised that nobody has called them to account for their hypocritic bi-polar behaviour.
Has anyone else noticed that the financial media and their interviewees have taken to using the phrase "the real economy" with remarkable frequency in recent weeks? It's as though they're all scrambling to disassociate themselves from a potentially disreputable affiliation with purveyors of that "other" economy. Nothing cleanses like being born again...;)

[BiscayneSunrise]

I believe they have already begun doing exactly that. (Shutting down dirty factories)

[c1ue]

I believe they have already begun doing exactly that. (Shutting down dirty factories)

Bis,

I wonder how well that would work?

Even in 1994 when I visited, the smog was pretty bad. There were certainly factories then, but what I was told (and saw) was that most people still heated their homes and cooked with coal.

Factories can be temporarily shut down, but it is a hard sell to get people to stop cooking and heating.

[Vanderbilt]

The core of this 'clash' is that epistemological assumptions (i.e., about the nature of knowledge) in countries with an ancient Chinese cultural heritage make it hard to deal with abstract ideas, including financial profitability as a means for coordinating economic activities. Economic activities tend to be coordinated by relationships amongst a hierarchy of social elites, rather than by the profit that can be achieved by independent actors. That clash appears to be reflected in An Invisible Clash of Financial Systems (http://cpds.apana.org.au/Teams/Articles/competing_civilizations.htm#financial_systems) - which may be the direction in which Japan's 1980's determination to become "No 1" has gone.
(...)
Editor's Note: I liked this analysis because it brings up a point that is often missed in the business press: cultural and historical influences on financial system decision making.

Witness the Chinese response to US complaints about product safety:
Hyping safety problem is a sickness, China says (http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSPEK32949820070905?src=090507_0919_DOUBLEFEATUR E_more_toy_recalls)BEIJING (Reuters) - Hyping China's food and product safety problem is a sickness in itself, the country's new health minister said on Wednesday, a day after Mattel announced a third global recall of Chinese-made toys.My Chinese wife explained the issue to me. Western culture in the process of addressing a social problem seeks to take a small problem and make it big and public. Chinese culture is to take big problems and try to make them smaller, usually by burying them. That’s what the Chinese commentator above means by "hyping" as a "sickness."
Because of this difference in approach to addressing problems, Westerners mostly will be surprised by the way China may deal with the Beijing Olympic Games air pollution problem. With less than a year left to fix it and little progress made over the past five, many observers are wondering how the Chinese government is going to clear the air enough for the games to proceed. Encountering un-breathable air in 2008, complaining visitors may find that the government has simply declared the problem solved. Anyone who makes a big deal about the pollution will be accused of overstating the issue and, if they persist, will be told that the criticism is politically motivated. We shall see. - Eric Janszen

That "analysis" is one of the most archaicly bigoted loads of crap I have read in a long time.

For one, it reduces the rationality of something like 2.5 billion people to nothing, somehow "incapable of abstract thought". These are the people who invented paper money. The people who have a civilization in thousands of years of continuous operation. The people whose civilization was the impetus for Europeans to climb out of tribal mud to grab textiles, spices and civilization itself any way they could. And the way they grabbed it? By using the gunpowder and horses that civilization had invented. Along the way, the "Chinese mind" accumulated an empire that was the largest ever accumulated, still exists in very large part, and now owns the debt and manufacturing of America. Somehow, all without grasping abstract concepts. As if.

For another, it talks like America (and other non-Chinese civilizations) never deals with our problems by minimizing them, avoiding "hype", or just denying them. How about the way our government dealt with this specific example problem, poisonous toys exported from China to the US? From the start, our government inspections ignored the problem. Like how it's been ignoring the problem of poisonous food, first in pets and then in human food, exported from China. How about that Iraq War this society has been minimizing or denying as much as humanly possible? The one that's paid by $10 TRILLION in government debt (plus $10T consumer debt, plus another $10T mortgage debt - total US debt greater than the gross terrestrial product), all financed by these Chinese "simpleminds"?

Even the Chinese written language is based on abstract concepts, while English, for example, is literal instructions of what sounds to make.

The list of American (to pick just one non-Chinese country) tendencies to fail to see abstract concepts, to favor denial, is probably matched only by Chinese triumphs in abstract thinking, including transforming a medieval society into a modern industrial global powerhouse. However brutal and mafia, China still represents a vast project of successful abstract thinking. Chinese people might not be any better at abstract thought than the rest of humans, but there's no argument showing they have any harder time with it than the rest of us do.


Of course, someone's Chinese wife's explanation, without statistics, history or any facts whatsoever, is ample proof of the superiority of the non-Chinese mind.

I don't know whether Chinese people are saying unsupportable
things about how stupid non-Chinese people are. But that essay is the kind of stupid nonsense that creates "clashes of civilizations" where there weren't any. Chinese people, Japanese people, are all thinking abstractly of making money off America's stupidity in spending much more than we make. And dumping our increasingly worthless debt seems like the ultimate abstract thinking competition.

This isn't "cultural and historical influences on financial system decision making". It's bigoted China-bashing. It's trash. And it's endorsed by this site's editor as if it were something else.

Is that what passes for coping with selling America's economy to China and Japan, instead of paying our way or fixing our terrible debt problems we sucked them into as they chased profits with faith in our own "abstract thinking"?

[Lukester]

Er, Vanderbilt -

Regarding the "bigoted gibberish"?

You joined this community two weeks ago? You seem to have arrived with alacrity at some rather strenuous convictions that this Mr. Janszen chap may be suffering from bigotry - a.k.a. "an excessively narrow cultural outlook"?

I struggle to extract from your obviously indignant and heartfelt post an indication of where in this article you understood clearly this suggestion that cultural differences between West and East might be a specific pejorative.

According to my read there is little if any pejorative there, and a further reading of this contributor elsewhere might alleviate your anxious concern on the matter. You may in fact (gasp!) be "tilting at windmills" in your quest to rehabilitate what you conclude is a lack of respect for Chinese civilization among us?

If I may suggest it to you, your portrayal of the commentator above with a Taiwanese wife as a bigot has the quite unintended effect of sounding just a shade comical.

By asking around among other readers here, or perhaps better yet by reading a little further, you may be able to help us locate where else this Janszen chap has posted further evidence of this regrettably narrow cultural outlook.

Do not be too discouraged in your diligent search, if you get more discreet smiles than expressions of mutual concern regarding this author's bigotry from other readers here though. They must have missed what you have seen entirely!

Do not be discouraged! With due further diligent reading you will no doubt be able to quickly shed some definitive light upon the matter! :p

[jk]

i think the epistemological difference, if there is one, is secondary to a different idea of the relationship between the individual and the community.

[BiscayneSunrise]

I have friends that travel to Beijing frequently. They say that while the government has shut down a few of the worst offenders, and experimented with odd/even driving days, things are as bad as ever there. The odor is noticeable while still on the airplane descending into the haze layer, they say.

Some of the smog is attributable to industrial pollution, some to charcoal fires for home cooking, and some to poor topography like LA or Denver, with sand coming in from the Gobi Desert and meteorological conditions holding the noxious mix in place.

[plebeian regime]

The Chinese and the Japanese don't like debt unless they own it. This has a cultural dimension to it of course. Risk aversion; and shame (collectivist) rather than guilt (individualist) based decision making. Debt is not seen as honorable or a sound strategy to the Chinese and Japanese. Anonymous debt even more so. Many Japanese don't have credit cards and lots of stores still don't take them. One prominent Japanese company has held from it's inception a cornerstone policy of never using debt financing. That company: Toyota.

I think what the "not dealing with abstract ideas" comment was really trying to get at is that the Chinese and Japanese don't like abstract financing. They're old school. And hell, it ain't working too badly for 'em.

[Vanderbilt]

Er, Vanderbilt -

Regarding the "bigoted gibberish"?

You joined this community two weeks ago? You seem to have arrived with alacrity at some rather strenuous convictions that this Mr. Janszen chap may be suffering from bigotry - a.k.a. "an excessively narrow cultural outlook"?

I struggle to extract from your obviously indignant and heartfelt post an indication of where in this article you understood clearly this suggestion that cultural differences between West and East might be a specific pejorative.

According to my read there is little if any pejorative there, and a further reading of this contributor elsewhere might alleviate your anxious concern on the matter. You may in fact (gasp!) be "tilting at windmills" in your quest to rehabilitate what you conclude is a lack of respect for Chinese civilization among us?

If I may suggest it to you, your portrayal of the commentator above with a Taiwanese wife as a bigot has the quite unintended effect of sounding just a shade comical.

By asking around among other readers here, or perhaps better yet by reading a little further, you may be able to help us locate where else this Janszen chap has posted further evidence of this regrettably narrow cultural outlook.

Do not be too discouraged in your diligent search, if you get more discreet smiles than expressions of mutual concern regarding this author's bigotry from other readers here though. They must have missed what you have seen entirely!

Do not be discouraged! With due further diligent reading you will no doubt be able to quickly shed some definitive light upon the matter! :p


I analyzed the post itself. And I backed up my analysis with facts about the post. Can you rebut the points I actually made? Or is your rebuttal solely a fallacious "argument from authority", because I've been posting only a couple of weeks?

What am I supposed to find in their other posts that will change the words in this one? The bigotry isn't some euphemistic "excessively narrow cultural outlook", but rather a falsely higher valuation of their own culture over another, by misrepresenting at least one, and usually both, to their own pretended advantage. Putting down Chinese culture (and the other cultures, like Japanese, that are rooted in it) with unsupportable (and unsupported) insults like "they can't think abstractly" is bigotry. If they have posted otherwise elsewhere, that just shows they also lack integrity or consistency, on top of bigotry. Which calls other posts into question, even lacking obvious bigotry, because it could fall somewhere between, but remain too subtle or complex to notice without a lot of analysis. But why bother?

As for the idea that a Taiwanese wife, even one cited as a source of such bigotry, exempts one from bigotry: that's another fallacious argument from authority. It's like the infamous "some of my best friends are Black", if one's Black friends are toadies, who think less of themselves - exactly the kind of friends or wives a bigot prefers. If a Taiwanese woman says "Chinese cultures produce people incapable of abstract thought", she's at very least confessed that her opinion (her abstract thoughts about culture), as a product of a Chinese culture, is worthless. That it discredits itself makes it even more clearly worthless. And suggests that the man who married her, who's quoting her, has other reasons than merit for prizing it. Further supporting the low value of his own opinions, if not (necessarily) his bigotry.

These "civilization clashes" are most popular among people who are bigots and authoritarians. It's a frame most popular in America today among rightwingers, eager for a Crusade to answer the jihads. That kind of thinking was popular even through the European Enlightenment, which insisted that, for example, Africans weren't just innocent of ever having civilization, but were mentally incapable of it. It's a dehumanizing technique to rationalize inhumane treatment of an enemy. To destroy their civilization and lives, to steal all their property, to make them slaves. Your repeated appeals to authority, with no other defense of that post, are consistent with the authoritarian style of our own culture with its roots in our own most bigoted "abstract thinking".

These kinds of bigoted attacks are very serious. When featured prominently in a site dedicated to something important like economics, that must avoid bigotry and bias to avoid being at best a travesty, they deserve to be opposed immediately and clearly. Your response treats the matter as frivolous. Which says everything about your post, and nothing about mine - though it does suggest a deeply unserious attitude towards the subject of the bigoted post we're discussing.


I struggle to extract from your obviously indignant and heartfelt post an indication of where in this article you understood clearly this suggestion that cultural differences between West and East might be a specific pejorative.
If you read my post with an eye to understanding it rather than merely denying and dismissing it, you'd have seen quite clearly:
For one, it reduces the rationality of something like 2.5 billion people to nothing, somehow "incapable of abstract thought".
(...)
For another, it talks like America (and other non-Chinese civilizations) never deals with our problems by minimizing them, avoiding "hype", or just denying them. (...)
I could get more explicit now, by quoting the unambigous statements in the original post to which I referred, rather than paraphrasing them. But to what effect? The original statements are perfectly clear. And your unserious response offers no assurance that more work explaining to you what you should already see will penetrate any deeper. Instead, I recommend you reread both their post and my rebuttal. If you still can't see it, despite my several explanations, you really have a lot more examination ahead of you - of yourself - or you'll never understand any of it. And, in that case, remain the kind of unselfconscious bigot who eats up pronouncements from authoritave bigots like I've laid bare here.


FWIW, my first post pointed out that the editor endorsing this post, the main author of this site, found it convenient to question the (paid) motives of a major economic pundit in a post a few months ago, but then held nothing but praise for their punditry, without even mentioning that bias, in a hagiography to which I replied.

If that's the quality of analysis and "debate" here, I'll reconsider the recommendation that sent me after getting a dose of the actual quality. It's one thing to be "contrarian", if it's rigorously logical or at least has its own integrity. Contrary to good sense, as I've seen in just the two posts which have moved me to respond, is something else. Something contrary to "good". Ie., bad.

[Lukester]

Vanderbilt -

I am stunned - humbled by your savage denunciation of the unconscious small-town bigotry rampant amongst the reactionaries on these pages.

There is another chap over on the 'backing up the truck' thread now [ GOPRISKO ] who seems like you to be one of the "angels of judgement" descending upon us. Only he seems to be more incensed that I am not according to President Chavez of Venezuela his due place alongside Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Ghandi. Woe is me! I keep failing miserably at my history!

My only observation on your repertory here was that "the soapbox" needs to be raised a little higher at the podium, so your profile can be raised a bit more commandingly, so to speak .. Also they need to do something about that darned wobble ...

Your humble acolyte, etc.

[FRED]

Quick reminder of iTulip Forums Rule #1: Respect your fellow members as you want them to respect you.

[Vanderbilt]

Quick reminder of iTulip Forums Rule #1: Respect your fellow members as you want them to respect you.

Unless, evidently, they're incapable of abstract thought, or live in a Chinese-derived culture - same difference, right?

Or if they call that kind of "analysis" bigotry, with ample demonstration, and get the kind of response devoid of respect for anything that I got here from Lukester.

[GRG55]

At the risk of also being labelled an "authoritative bigot" I'll put out a couple of little anecdotes for target practice...

First a bit of background: I do not have the benefit of a Chinese wife. However, my parents are Asian, I was born in North America, educated there and in Asia, have lived and worked as a professional in North America, Africa, Central Asia, Western Europe, and now reside in the Arabian Gulf. I will suggest, admittedly presumptuously, this background, and my current vantage, may provide a perspective on the "clash of civilizations" that is perhaps divergent from the rightwinger bigots and authoritarians, proponents of Crusade all, that apparently infest America (thank-you Vanderbilt).

One of the Gulf sheikdoms offers scholarships to study abroad to the top ranked nationals coming out of their high school system (the children of the wealthy merchant families are usually sent to boarding school abroad and don't qualify for the scholarship). In the early years the program was on the verge of failure. A significant majority of the best and brightest, both males and females, could not meet the minimum academic requirements to stay in their courses regardless of faculty or particular university. Most of the students wished to return home after their freshman year - if they made it that far.

In a conversation with the (Arab) head of the program he told me the students were "ill equipped to grasp and deal with abstract concepts" common to the teaching methods in "western" universities (his words, not mine). To address this, the program introduced a supplemental curriculum of "critical thinking" (their label, not mine) that is now compulsory for any student prior to applying for the scholarship competition.

Debating whether the difficulties of the students are a function of the education system, an environment of enforced respect for authority, strictly controlled information dissemination, the conforming influence of Islam in everyday life compared to the fiercely secular west, some combination of these, or any number of other factors, would be entering the realm of conjecture - best left to others. Regardless, recent scholarship recipients, with few exceptions, are performing measurably better than their earlier counterparts in part, one presumes, because of the extra curricular learning opportunity.

Nobody is suggesting that Arab "culture" is somehow deficient, but it is clear that transplanting people from one environment into another that is in many ways alien, and then setting expectations and performance metrics with reference to the established norms of that new environment, can easily lead an observer to first "see" chronic failure, from which only a minute additional leap leads to concluding "inferior". Equally dangerous is the assumption that anyone delineating such differences and hypothesizing regards their origins or implications has ipso facto danced that two-step.

Like much of the world the Arabian Gulf is trying to deal with the issues of globalization and modernity -the real clash of civilizations. One illustration of the depth of the challenge is a quote from Lubna Olayan, a Saudi businesswoman, addressing a Financial conference in Jeddah, who described the Kingdom's aspiration as "Progress without change" (apparently they've hired the ghost of Mark Twain as a management consultant). From a North American frame of reference one does not need to be a rightwinger bigot to struggle a bit with that concept...

[bill]

Because of this difference in approach to addressing problems, Westerners mostly will be surprised by the way China may deal with the Beijing Olympic Games air pollution problem. With less than a year left to fix it and little progress made over the past five, many observers are wondering how the Chinese government is going to clear the air enough for the games to proceed.


Throw a party, loosen the grip, serve some beers, what air quality are you talking about I’m here to party.

Hang the Police, We're Here to Rock! The Beijing Pop Festival, Sept 10 and 11 2007 (http://shanghaijournal.squarespace.com/journal/2007/9/12/hang-the-police-were-here-to-rock-the-beijing-pop-festival-s.html)




http://shanghaijournal.squarespace.com/journal/2007/9/12/hang-the-police-were-here-to-rock-the-beijing-pop-festival-s.html

[Lukester]

GRG55 -

You wrote:

<< the rightwinger bigots and authoritarians, proponents of Crusade all, that apparently infest America (thank-you Vanderbilt). >>


Just to clear up any misunderstanding, where on these pages have you spied a serious reference to "clash of civilizations"? This reference more than anything else here seems to have prompted you to respond? I ask, because to my knowledge, I am the only one here who has even made a fleeting reference to that phrase? I made one reference to it, but it was so evidently sarcastic, that it left little margin to misunderstand the employment of the term was rhetorical?.

Quick question therefore, and I would rely on you to be quite frank as being less than frank in response implies a lack of conviction - do you see any "rightwinger bigots" anywhere on this website? If not, who are your observations addressed to?

Your answer in the affirmative would suggest to me you view the comments on these pages from a fundamentally different perspective than I do, as I've read around a good deal here and I think that ascribing "rightwing bigot" to any comment here would be a considerable stretch - or to be more precise, it would look like a stretch perhaps to any inhabitant of the center of politics, rather than someone further out on one of the left or right wings. I've also lived and traveled in a good number of disparate places in the world, so I enjoy at least some of your own cultural flexibility.

For what it's worth, I hail from a family of four or more generations of democrats, and am the "black sheep" of this fold, having at some point regurgitated all that I was taught, into what could best be described as a "large ideological hairball". In reaction to this experience however, I've only ever ventured to the dull grey middle ground of political convictions, you know, one of those dull, bland, stolid centrist types that reads the Economist?

I should alert you however, that I do regard with caution anyone who describes the US (to the exclusion of comment on any other country) as "infested" with "right wing bigots".

What would regain my confidence in that person's objectivity, would be their scrupulousness in mentioning that many other parts of the world have far more structural bigotry to struggle with, such as the systematic subjugation of women, as in - no vote, no driving privileges, no marital property rights in separation, stoning for multiple different offenses, etc. ?

I am also a marked sceptic of the effete intellectual and ethical response to this in secular nations, that explains systematic subjugation of women away, in about a fifth of the world's populations, via employment of "cultural relativism". Cultural relativism won't do much to resuscitate the many young women who have died or been cast out onto the street by their (many wived) husbands to accomodate such practice.

This exists in countries as disparate as Nigeria, to the Gulf States, through the middle east, and all the way to Indonesia, so you could say a large number of nations seem to be escaping scrutiny for systematic bigotry here while a good deal of enthusiasm is lavished on the shortcomings of the USA.

We can indeed wish that the US's vast hinterland of working class people many of whom are very conservative, would adhere to the exemplary progressivism of the many educated ones in this country who are "progressive" to a fault. And we can indeed regret the large educational gap between middle and upper classes and the harsh stratification of the working class in the US.

But it would be questionable indeed to not condemn all this without qualifying one's condemnation by observing the vast, systematic bigotry inherent in the hundreds of millions of women in many other cultures, who are helpless in the grip of their male abused society. Civil rights and property rights for this "silent half" of their populations are abysmal.

This does not even venture into the religious bigotry which permeates the Muslim World, whereby you see zero Christian Churches in Muslim nations, yet you see Mosques proliferate, their congregations freely grow and integrate into their host countries, and they and their successive generations of children practice their religious faith freely in practically every Christian country worldwide? I've spent a good deal of time on Al Jazeera, trying to get a single person there to offer me a straight answer on this thorny question without success, and so of course this question returns full circle to the very bigotry you excoriate in the US.

Have you also made this small observation, living and working in the Arab world, that there are Israeli Arab members of Parliament in Israel, many successful Arab merchants and doctors and lawyers practicing in Israel protected by all the same civil and property rights as non-Arab Israelis, yet virtually no non-Muslim in any Muslim country in the world holds office, and the strata of Christian or Jewish doctors, lawyers or other professionals in the Muslim world could best be described as "vanishingly small"?? Bigotry? What bigotry?

These nations today fan the drumbeat of excoriation of the US's failings, which seems to fire your imagination (and I'd amusedly wager gains Vanderbilt's enthusiastic endorsement), yet they maintain half their populations (women) in the most abject and silent subservience?

There are certainly a good number of "rightwinger bigots" in the US. The notion they exist predominantly here whilst the rest of the world is miraculously free of of them however would leave me "somewhat skeptical" of your objectivity, if "cultural relativity" is what you adhere to, to explain all this away.

Your comments on "the relativity of bigotry"?

[GRG55]

GRG55 -

You wrote:

<< the rightwinger bigots and authoritarians, proponents of Crusade all, that apparently infest America (thank-you Vanderbilt). >>


...Just to clear up any misunderstanding, where on these pages have you spied a serious reference to "clash of civilizations"? This reference more than anything else here seems to have prompted you to respond? I ask, because to my knowledge, I am the only one here who has even made a fleeting reference to that phrase? I made one reference to it, but it was so evidently sarcastic, that it left little margin to misunderstand the employment of the term was rhetorical?...

Lukester: I am truly sorry that you took offense at my comments; be assured causing offense was as far from my intent as could possibly be. My profound apologies.

The reference to clash of civilizations is from Vanderbilt's response to your first posting (note my attribution in parentheses in the part you quoted above):

...These "civilization clashes" are most popular among people who are bigots and authoritarians. It's a frame most popular in America today among rightwingers, eager for a Crusade to answer the jihads...

I was attempting to register my strong objection, in a gently sarcastic fashion, to the stereotyping of Americans (and members of iTulip) implied in the tone of his statement(s) - evidently without success.

I truly hope that if you re-read my post (particularly the penultimate paragraph) you may see it in a different light. Further, if my posting...

...gains Vanderbilt's enthusiastic endorsement...

...I will hang up my keyboard in dejection (a suggestion that will no doubt attract considerable support from legions of iTulipers). ;)

[Lukester]

GRG55 -

I've been a real dunce. I re-read your post (more carefully this time!) and now understand it is in fact a modulated and very thoughtful response. I was completely bamboozled by your first paragraph which was intended as more ironic than literal.

I must offer you my sincere apologies for being a real dimwit. I promise tomorrow morning first thing I'll kick myself around the block seven times in penance. OK?

[GRG55]

GRG55 -

I've been a real dunce. I re-read your post (more carefully this time!) and now understand it is in fact a modulated and very thoughtful response. I was completely bamboozled by your first paragraph which was intended as more ironic than literal.

I must offer you my sincere apologies for being a real dimwit. I promise tomorrow morning first thing I'll kick myself around the block seven times in penance. OK?

Lukester: Many thanks for your sincere apology.

Now, my turn to ask you to forgive this tardy response. :o

Frankly, I couldn't see our views on the topic were that divergent and, despite my best efforts, I couldn't come up with a good reason to take any offense in the first place. :) It's pretty obvious it was inadvertent, and besides I invited some of it by using the phrase "target practice" in the first line of my original post.

"Gloves off", spirited exchange, conducted in a respectful manner, is one of the strengths of iTulip, and I think that's just what you and I have tried to do on this thread.

In closing, I am envious that you are apparently in much better athletic shape than I am. Despite determined efforts at the gym there is no way I could "kick myself" around even just my living room without doing serious bodily harm. :)

[Lukester]

GRG55 -

Thank you very much for your exemplary courtesy. Please therefore assume my questions regarding what constitutes objectivity in observing American bigotry are addressed to Vanderbilt here, and to those who think Vanderbilt's observations display any particular "depth of field" in their focus.

If you turn a disingenuous blind eye to bigotry in so many other places in the world, how much 'depth' and 'humanity' do you really exercise?

I am not 'right wing', let alone 'left wing'. I dislike rightwingers, and dislike leftwingers, but ideologically monolithic sloganeering of every stripe is yet less attractive. I am fed up with people who load one monolithic ideological view onto a single rail, such that their thinking becomes compelled to believe everything the US is doing in the world is unmitigated filth and bigotry, and yet all vast tribes of humans in other nations of the world carry no rats in their own closets. Many of them carry very large and quite vicious rats.

Do any of these people bother to remark on teen-agers in Iran being executed for mere blasphemy? No comment? Where is the intellectual integrity if you consider yourself compassionate, but choose to ignore the serious indictment this carries regarding those societies?

When you start looking into how many tin-pot vicious dictatorships exist, how many countries perpetrate horrible abuse upon women, how many countries hide considerable bigotry under their righteousness by refusing any religion other than their own to exist, refusing to allow adherents to any religion other than the 'approved' national one to gain property rights, civil rights, professional advancement, or even any toehold within their insular societies - then is it not legitimate to wonder as to the intellectual integrity of critics decrying US bigotry as the most apalling in the world, who by implication are suggesting it is the only one even worth comment?

I am not a cheerleader for the US's policies under this administration. It is in all likelihood the worst administration this country has endured and I am ashamed of the image which America today projects to the world. But I am very disappointed by the polarisation of political discourse in America, such that if you are 'progressive' you seem to live in fear of weakening your own arguments by ever acknowledging that great evil exists in many other parts of the world - it does, and it's thriving!

Thank you GRG55, for your carefully moderated observations. I've read around among much of your commentary and find it excellent.

[GRG55]

Some time back the Economist observed that although there are many legitimate difficulties with American policy in today's world, detractors should perhaps consider what the world might be without the presence or influence of the United States. They pointed to the emerging situation in Darfur as an example of what may happen when America cannot be persuaded to engage. I would add that the contrasting outcomes in Rawanda and Bosnia, both on Clinton's watch, are also instructive.