3 posts tagged “communist”

Dabysan has a few interesting observations about Moment of Truth, the game show airing on a Murdoch Press network in the US and, God help us, TV2 in New Zealand.
   The good news is that this show has reached the end of its run in New Zealand as of this Friday and let’s hope it doesn’t return.
   It’s basically a game show that paints a highly negative image of United States and the decline in taste and responsibility of New Zealand television programmers. The cancellation may be a sign that the Kiwis have found some sense again (as is the return of Life on Mars and the airing of Jekyll). The only reason it ever aired, as far as I can tell, is that it must be dirt, dirt cheap.
   Dabysan wrote: ‘The show is a sure sign of the coming of the apocalypse.’ How right that is.
   On Dabysan’s blog is a clip of one of the episodes:

   That is the sum total of the show but somehow through “editing” (which means using the same footage over and over again, and having really long and repetitive previews telling TV audiences to come back after the break) it lasts the full 46 minutes (i.e. a commercial television hour).
   If it were shown in this shortened format I might not think so ill of it, but for it to occupy an hour of some viewers’ lives is daft.
   I wrote in the comments:

I can’t see the entertainment value in Moment of Truth. The contestant knows what questions will be asked so she should not be surprised. She was obviously not ashamed to reveal his or her answers to a total stranger, so why should millions of strangers be a problem? As for their loved ones, the contestant obviously has no shame to have engaged in embarrassing conduct so she shouldn’t be ashamed now. If she is potentially ashamed, she should not have gone on. I am glad this show is getting killed off after this Friday’s episode in New Zealand after a very short run.

   What I did not write is that this sort of show, displaying the lax morals of certain US citizens, is an insult to decent Americans—but it has a secondary effect. There is a very real danger that all Americans are grouped in our minds as being like those idiots on the show.
   When you see this and news about how many sexual partners a typical New York woman has had or that one in one hundred adult Americans are in jail, you begin to form a very negative image indeed: sleep around, cheat, lie, dis your parents, be unfaithful, commit crimes. Meanwhile, the American newsmedia, as broadcast internationally, play down things such as Sen. John McCain’s military record or provide us with exemplary behaviours (exceptions of US shows that do include the little-watched Real Life Heroes).
   The blogs are good in that they give voice to some normal folks—but most people are still influenced by the stereotypes and the sensationalism caused by biased editing in the old media.
   It is the same effect as the casting of Middle Eastern actors as terrorists in US shows, which groups them into a negative bunch and propagates a false stereotype.
   A second danger is that young people watching this show—I forget what time it airs in New Zealand but it is not that late—might think that such behaviour is acceptable.
   The message is: you can engage in any behaviour, from sexual deviancy to outright deception, and be rewarded for it if you have no sense of shame.
   I can think of a few people already who act this way and am delighted at the distance I have from them.
   It is not dissimilar to some reality TV shows which show that connivance and arrogance are the keys to winning major cash prizes.
   The world simply does not work this way, and if it ever came to that, then civilization is in deep, deep crap.
   When some people point out conspiracy theories about Communists seizing the media, promoting a value-destroying ideology and showing that emotionally harmful behaviours are normal, it’s easy to laugh at them. Then you see just what the media are propagating and you have to really think: jeez, they have a point, regardless of what Snopes might say.
   It might not be Commies doing the dirty work, as some citizens are quite happy to go down a destructive path, exhibiting behaviours that every experience tells them is bad. There are enough of us whose lives have been rendered so valueless by our own governments or corporations that Schadenfreude pushes us to enjoy seeing others’ shame and controversy.
   A good society, a decent, honest, progressive one, would never have the time or inclination to indulge in shows such as Moment of Truth or, for that matter, gossip tabloids that depend on a declining society for their success.

Being Chinese, I was always raised with the idea that Tibet is not an independent country, something backed up by a history book I remember at college that showed world maps going back many centuries. Certainly by the time the Mongols invaded, China, Tibet and Mongolia were governed as a single empire. However, I believe in the right of self-determination of all peoples, and if the Tibetans believe they should not be subject to the Communist Party, then so be it. That right is no less than the one held by East Timorese or any other group that has wanted to break from a larger nation.
   Many years ago, I understand that Chiang Kai-shek asked if HH the Dalai Lama would fight with him against the Communists and revolt, but that was declined. It remains a historical “could-have-been”.
   On the other side, I have heard from a Communist official who believes that the Dalai Lama is actually the largest landowner in Tibet and his control over the country means that he can impose his will on the peasants there. But remember that Beijing has spun whatever it has liked.
   Wikipedia, interestingly, features both the Tibetan and Red Chinese positions as well as a section on the lack of foreign recognition of Tibet. It also has a map from 1914 that is not unlike the ones I saw at college:

 
   While Wikipedia is not a definitive source, or, as I found while working on Autocade, an accurate source (there are preciously few error-free pages, but I am a lazy ass and want to run facts via Google first, then, grudgingly, get up and go to my reference books) the Tibetan sovereignty article does appear to have both sides recorded accurately.
   That last section reads:

No country publicly accepts Tibet as an independent state ^[32], in spite of several instances of government officials appealing to their superiors to do so ^[33]. Treaties signed by Britain and Russia in the early years of the twentieth century ^[34] and others signed by Nepal and India in the 1950s ^[35], recognized Tibet's political subordination to China. The Americans presented their view on 15 May 1943:

No sovereign states, including India, have extended recognition to the Tibetan Government-in-exile.^[37] This lack of legal recognition of independence has forced even some strong supporters of the refugees to admit that:

   Whatever the case, violence and murder against civilians and the denial of self-determination are what matter right now.
   There must be a better way. The PRC–ROC standoff will probably never be resolved, which is why there has never been an Armistice and why some countries stay on the fence. One writer suggested China be a Commonwealth. It could work, wth representation for Tibetan, Communist and Republican. A solution that has little connection with the past may be one released from politicking, working for the future.

It’s interesting to get the Communist Party’s official news on the NAC MG Longbridge ceremony in the People’s Daily, which includes claims of NAC’s popularity in Europe (false; it is MG’s) and the highest honour being given to the MG 7 (née MG ZT) at Auto Shanghai, the Shanghai Motor Show (probably true, but so far I have not seen this reported in western media). The criticisms have been removed (e.g. whether 130 was too small a workforce and union demands for an increase, and the age of the MG TF design shown). On the whole, however, I believe the Longbridge ceremony to be good news, so this article doesn’t really rub me too badly.