Gongol.com Archives: March 2021
March 31, 2021
Do they really think this sloppy nonsense works?
China's state-run Xinhua "news" agency shares an editorial cartoon that appears to try to deflect attention from China's slave-labor abuses in Xinjiang by making a reference to the practice of slavery on cotton plantations in the United States. There are really two different things that are amazing about this episode. ■ First, this isn't just the work of someone freelancing. In places like the United States, where freedom of speech prevails, an individual can have his or her idea published in an outlet that doesn't endorse that idea. In fact, the very practice of publishing opposing viewpoints is pretty central to the idea of the op/ed page or the letter to the editor. That's just not how it goes with a state-run outlet in an authoritarian regime, and everybody knows it. Nobody just "puts an idea out there" through Xinhua. Anything they publish had to have been approved by a whole chain of people. Not just edited -- approved. ■ Second, it becomes self-evident that nobody in the entire chain of approval understands how shame works. Aside from a trivial number of extremists, nobody in America defends slavery. Far too many people still fail to get the message that we need to end racism, but you couldn't gather 100 Americans chosen at random and find even one of them to defend slavery. We're rightly ashamed of that part of our history as a nation. It's our original sin; an inexcusable crime against humanity. Even James Madison knew it was wrong to permit slavery to continue, defending his proposed Constitution in Federalist Paper 38 with the line, "Is the importation of slaves permitted by the new Constitution for twenty years? By the old it is permitted forever." In other words, "It's bad, and we shouldn't let it go on, but at least we know well enough to end it." ■ Anyone who understands how shame works would recognize that no serious person in America today rises to the defense of slavery, and any attempt to remind Americans of the practice only reminds us how abhorrent and unforgivable it was -- and is, as it is being practiced by China's ruling powers today. Loftier minds even use the reminder of our forebearers' failure to ponder the need to continue improving. Condoleezza Rice said it well: "These are the tensions and contradictions that the admirable effort to overcome our nation's birth defect of slavery and prejudice has produced. That we are still struggling with these issues today, after more than two centuries as a nation, is yet another reminder that nothing is smooth on democracy's path." We have to take pride in the effort to struggle with our failures and overcome our sins. That only makes it easier to cast an unforgiving eye on those who practice those sins today, with the full knowledge of how wrong they are.
China's government will require "patriotism checks" before anyone is allowed to run for office in Hong Kong. What a repugnant way for a government to behave. From the outside looking in, it sure seems like the Communist Party is willing to torch everything that made Hong Kong a gem, merely to prop up the illusion that the party is, was, and always shall be the sole rightful power in China. Heartbreaking.
Where are the Covid vaccination lapel pins?
It's been a few years since our last lapel-ribbon craze. How long before we're pinning different colors of ribbons on our shirts to indicate vaccination status? Green ribbons for the fully vaccinated, yellow ribbons for those waiting eagerly, and red ribbons for the vaccine refuseniks.
Spotify enters the live-chat game
Live audio is a pretty tough thing to get right without heavy curation. A lunatic once took over a CB channel in central Iowa, just repeating over and over: "Raisins and pancakes...pancakes and raisins."
Better nursing rooms and changing stations at ballparks
A welcome sign of the times. We need to continue normalizing the idea of parenting in public.
Chinese government chases BBC reporter out of the country
There is no surer sign that a regime is destined for failure than when it puts its energy into silencing bad or critical news rather than fixing it. That's exactly what China's government is doing by persecuting reporters and whistleblowers -- and it is a colossally self-defeating practice. ■ Good news can take its sweet time to bubble up, but able managers always want to get alerted to bad news as soon as possible. The sooner you know what's going wrong, the sooner you can fix it. And something is always going wrong somewhere inside a big organization, whether it's a government, a firm, or a non-governmental organization. The most important thing leadership can do about it is get the bad news fast. ■ We may complain a lot as Americans about the fact that our politicians never seem to "work together" to "solve problems", but that's driven in no small part because every vote has some marginal value, and politicians (and parties) have to compete to win those votes. Consequently, some contentiousness is baked into the cake. (That doesn't excuse incivility, of course, but voters are free to punish that, too.) ■ But the consequence of freedom within a democratic framework is that there is a built-in institutional incentive on the part of multiple groups to root out shortcomings, failures, wrongdoing, corruption, and other bad things. The Fourth Estate has that incentive. So does a loyal opposition. Civil-society groups that depend upon their reputations for fundraising purposes have those incentives, and so do institutions with interests in public policies (including religious groups). ■ Of course there's room for bipartisanship and problem solvers. America could do with less cynicism and more mutual trust and common facts. But we should never mistake our fundamentally messy, combative, and sometimes lumbering processes for getting things done for a bad thing. The complications, fighting, and naysaying are features, not bugs. Voters remain capable of rewarding the things they want at any time, and if we collectively really wanted more pragmatic, less ideological politics, then we would get them. But part of that requires sacrificing a little ideological commitment -- which, if the Chinese experience is any guide, wouldn't be a bad idea at all.
Library book returns -- 50 years overdue
Who would have imagined that the person who checked out "Coup d'Etat: A Practical Handbook" wasn't a committed rule-follower?
That's pretty normal for springtime in Iowa
