http://taichungjournal.blogspot.tw/2015/11/paris-in-taichung.html http://taiwwan.blogspot.tw/2015/11/my-opinion-eagle-never-hurt-flyhtml (168 combined)
It has been a bittersweet French weekend in Taichung. Besides
the French bread, which has turned to stone in the refrigerator, three cheeses
from France made our tummies smile last evening, even if the wine was Spanish.
With the reservations for the Paris Opera House and a few nights in Marseilles
made, we watched the musical film version of The Phantom of the Opera Friday evening.
The phantom, Erik, was a terrorist at the opera for the love and
respect he was denied because of the way he looked. In the book, by Gaston
Leroux, his mother abandoned him. The Persian (not in the Broadway show) cared
for Erik, saved his life, brought him to Paris, but saw how he had become a
monster. The Phantom taught Christine Daae’ to sing like an angel; she
loved Erik for what he was, and for his loving her. The police hunted him. In
the book, he died fulfilled, loved by Christine. In the musical, The Phantom
escaped the opera fire and laid a rose at Christine’s tomb in the final scene.
Waking up yesterday morning to
read about the carnage in Paris made me hate the U.S. and French governments
for causing desperation in the Middle World. They protect themselves with banks
made of marble with a guard at every door, so the desperate resort to the
murder of innocent victims in frustration. Do terrorists harbor
some ridiculous hope that public pressure will make our corrupted
governments change their mind about forcing their economic will on the world?
No; it is just revenge and frustration.
I watched the 1973 version
of "The Count of Monte Cristo" last evening, a film about French
government corruption, by Alexandre Dumas. Revenge, with unlimited wealth,
is possible, but one can never get back the wasted years, or the
lover you lost. The Count's biggest motivation was that his father was starved
to death by corrupt officials. It is still true for the families of terrorists.
What else is there in the world to cherish but love and family?
Who will lay a rose at the graves
of the Paris massacre victims? Keep the governments out of this. Only those who
cherish love and family can understand.
U.S. President Obama put his foot
in Taiwan's mouth the other day saying the U.S. and Taiwan are allies against
ISIS. It is not true. The support Taiwan gives to the people in the Middle
World is not to counter terrorism but to help victims of terrorism.
Taiwanese people must resist
being used by the U.S. and their allies in clandestine purposes creating ISIS
as a proxy to terrorize its own people. When President candidate Tsai Ying-Wen
wins in January 2016, the danger of terrorism in Taiwan will get worse; the DPP
may even use US 'proof' to blame China by insinuation.
Liu Shih-Chung, President
of the Taiwan Brain Trust, in wanting the KMT to "emulate the former DPP
administration which supported then President George W. Bush's 'global war on
terror" is suggesting Taiwan be put in danger by association. The last
thing the people of Taiwan need is to be mentioned by the U.S. President and
become entwined in the U.S. web of terrorism by proxy.
"The Eagle never hurts the fly." This applies to the
dynamics of Taiwan's place between two superpowers, The United States and The
People's Republic of China. Most Taiwanese are oblivious to the intentional
media blurring of U.S. maleficent interests in Taiwan. Likewise, the positive
intentions of the PRC for Taiwan are intentionally misinterpreted in most of
the press. The U.S. tells Taiwan, "Don't move and no one gets
hurt."
Taiwan is one of the safest places on earth, thanks to the
US-PRC tug-of-war. There isn't a tug unless China asserts itself offshore. The
ripples barely reach Taiwan. The rope is slack towards Taiwan with just enough
play for its neo-liberal guardians, the KMT and DPP, to hang themselves in
political jockeying for position.
The good people of Taiwan, caught in the grips of the
Western economic crash of 2008, have no need to fear that the equilibrium will
be disturbed; only the downturn in living standard and loss of jobs caused by
it. Taiwan enjoys a liberal and safe society, a safety that people in both
superpowers (and their proxy states) only dream of.
There has been no terrorism, homegrown or imported, in
Taiwan since the end of the KMT's "white terror" and dictatorship in
1979. The inter-party bickering, all a show, cannot hide an imprisoned former
president; a "red army" of hysterical populism purging Chen Shui-Bian
for crimes he did not commit.
The police force in Taiwan is civil and understanding. Their job
is to keep the peace. They do not, by policy, terrorize common people with
brutal tactics and ear-splitting police car sirens, like we hear in U.S.
cities. Police rarely use guns to shoot innocent victims or get involved in
deadly high-speed car chases. In a civil dispute, or public drunkenness, police
calm the situation down instead of making it worse. There is no racial
profiling; every life matters.
We in Taiwan are safe. This year we watched the ubiquitous
TV news about the Tianjin fireball explosion in China, the U.S. fertilizer
factory fires and train wrecks, Russian planes shooting and being shot down
over the Middle World, the carnage in Syria, the collateral damage of war,
multitudes of innocent bystanders, far away, and now the terrorism in Paris and
Mali. The US and European allies blame the chaos on ISIS. None of those factors
are felt in Taiwan. Our "sabotage" is our own accidents, like a gas
pipeline explosion under the streets of Kaohsiung, or colored corn power
engulfing youthful innocents in amusement park inferno, killing and injuring
hundreds, with no accountability. They really are the product of local
recklessness.
There have been no pro or anti-Muslim attacks in Taiwan,
partly because there are few Muslim here, and because Taiwan does not send
troops to the Middle World. ISIS has no issue with the government of Taiwan,
and the US and China are not trying to destabilize us.
The only undercurrent of dissent is from under-employed
students in the so-called "Sunflower Movement" who have a feeling
that they are being had, but do not quite know by whom. Like the Occupy Wall
Street activists, they know they have no future, but are distracted from
blaming the right source of their oppression, ironically, the same oppressors
of the people in the rest of the world; U.S. military-industrial complex.
Despite the compromise of neo-liberal two-party peace and
pseudo-democracy, there is a line that the youth in Taiwan that came of age
after dictatorship cannot cross. The KMT is still in power, openly. The DPP
support of U.S. business-as-usual will be there when China gets too
close.
Blame the U.S. for the missiles pointed at Taiwan
from China. It is not the PRC's fault that the U.S. wants to renege on the
United Nations agreement to give back the last piece of China puzzled away by
foreign powers in the 19th century.
What if a U.S. spy had not learned of President Chiang
Ching-Kuo's nuclear weapons program in Taiwan in the '70's? Could Taiwan have
been a booby-trap and keep itself truly independent from PRC and U.S.
interference in the name of sovereignty for twenty-three million people? Look
how North Korea is able to protect their people from exploitation from
superpowers.
Yes, the most important news of
November 2016 was the meeting between Presidents Ma Ying-Jeou of Taiwan and Xi
Jun-Ping of the PRC. The English language press had a field
day, taking the DPP's side. Tsai Ying-Wen, the DPP Presidential candidate,
talked like President Ma gave her a burden to follow the One China policy, but
the DPP is all talk; all they want is business-as-usual as a U.S. lackey; no
talk of independence.
In this land of strange bedfellows, perhaps Ma is right to
not wallow in the internal politics of Taiwan; to jump-start re-unification
process with China. Despite his miserable economic record, reunification will
get Taiwan out from the CIA’s mitts. The KMT and China must put a halt to the
hegemonic monster gobbling Taiwan up, the U.S. using Taiwan as
a hindrance against Chinese growth. Just because the U.S. defeated
Japan in WW II, it doesn’t give it the right to dominate Asia, and the
world, forever.
“The
Eagle Never Hurts the Fly.” The terrorist attack in Paris last week shows again
how many parts of the world are susceptible to terrorist attacks; Taiwan is not
one of them. Taiwan is merely a fly to the eagles of the world, in a cocoon
between the US and PRC. It may change, one day, depending on how much the KMT
can get away with unilateral rapprochement with China, but not for now.
Mao wouldn’t understand what is going on now in Taiwan and
China, but in the struggle to keep its own identity and not be swallowed up by
the West’s capitalist hegemonic web, the PRC has to seem like they are giving
in a little to capitalism while keeping their finger on the internet for
another destabilizing Tiananmen Square. The U.S. government should not delude
itself into thinking that its hegemony is good for the world's future
generations. Look at all the pollution and global warming, if you need a
reminder.
The US will do anything to keep
Taiwan on the US side, even resort to agent provocateurs or create their own
crisis here in their struggle to contain and blame China. Taiwanese must resist
not having the right to freely choose what is best for its own people. As
former President Lee Tung-Hui said, neither the US nor China is Taiwan's
father.
Before the reports of U.S. President Barak
Obama bringing Taiwan's name up in his 'war on terror' against ISIS and 'their'
mentioning of Taiwan as an enemy, I was thinking about this. The Taipei Times, a supporter of the DPP's U.S. policy in
Taiwan, applauded the "recognition of Taiwan in the global fight against
terrorism."
I can see someone from the CIA walking up to
the President in the Oval Office with a slip of paper saying, "Hey, Barak;
throw this line into your speech about Taiwan being allies with us. Don't let
Ma and Xi think they're getting away with rapprochement. For good measure,
Taiwan's flag will be added to the propaganda piece about ISIS enemies."
Truth is stranger than fiction.
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