Travelogues From Hell - Down The New & Improved Yangtze - Globe & Mail

[hatrack]

EDIT

The Three Gorges Dam will literally plug up the Yangtze. Call it the new Silt Road. Already, the newly placid waters of the reservoir are depositing 40 per cent of their silt upstream as far as Chongqing. And it's not just silt, but sewage from the hundreds of millions living along the banks, not to mention industrial pollution, which could soon create the world's largest septic tank.

Meanwhile, Shanghai, with 18 million people, needs silt to bulk up its ever-eroding shoreline. A massive subway expansion and relentless road-building have weakened the muddy foundations upon which that city rests. It already has nearly twice as many high-rises as New York; in fact, this year alone, Shanghai has built as many new skyscrapers as the total number of office buildings in New York. "It's still too early to say whether this dam will be the shame or pride of China," says River Guide Yang. Certainly, it's a big draw for Chinese tourists. On an overcast day, they arrive by the thousands at the site, encircled with barbed wire and guarded by soldiers.

Just before dinner, our boat squeezes into the first of five locks. (China invented the first double-lock dam in 984, on the Grand Canal; the first one in the West was not completed until 1481, in Italy.) We are so close to the ship beside us that I could bum a cigarette. The new concrete walls are already greasy with oil and sludge, which hasn't deterred some hardy soul from scrawling romantic graffiti. In each lock, we drop 20 metres. The transit takes three hours and 15 minutes. As we sail out of the last lock, a giant red billboard proclaims, Wei min zao fu -- "create wealth for the people."

The dam has begun generating electricity even as 15,000 workers work around the clock to complete it by 2009. Officially, 150 have died in 11 years of construction, but guides quietly mention death tolls nearly twice that. While electricity and improved navigation are two key goals of the dam, an unimpeachable third reason is always given to allay criticism -- flood control. In the past, the Yangtze flooded about once every decade, according to records starting in 185 BC. But critics say the flood problems could actually worsen. Already, average temperatures in the lake-like reservoir area have risen 2 degrees, increasing humidity. In the last two years, heavier than usual rains have caused major flooding in Chongqing. This site was picked because, unlike most of Yangtze riverbed, the Three Gorges area boasts a layer of granite 20 metres thick. Experts say it can withstand an earthquake of up to 7.2 on the Richter scale. But cracks already have been found and patched that run the full height of the concrete wall.

EDIT

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20051029/CHINACOVER29/TPEnvironment/?pageRequested=3

[obsqueesha]

1. Great article!

Thank you so much for including it! I have long followed the progress of the dam and love to read stories about people's real experiences there.

[NNadir]

2. I have a very strong feeling that this dam will turn out badly.

There are many things I admire about China, including the strong effort to elevate scientific education, and the striving out of abject poverty and the most severe over-population crisis on earth.

But I don't get a good feeling about this thing.

Then again I am biased by a strong preternatural abhorrance of dams, with the possible exception of those built by beavers.

[thegreatwildebeest]

3. I too admire...

I too admire the Chinese governments ability to enforce an atrocious one child policy, there ability to maintain near slave like work conditions and the lack of real worker rights, as well as the dearth of human rights.

Oh wait, no I don't.

There are many aspects of Chinese culture, history, and tradition to be admired. Too many in fact to count. The current Chinese government, however, is not one of them, in any shape or form.

[NNadir]

4. I, and most of the Chinese I personally know, approve of the one child

policy. The alternative is rather dire. I have worked rather closely with native Chinese people for a number of years, and I think they have a somewhat more nuanced view of their government than is generally appreciated by foreigners. With respect to the one child policy, many have remarked quite simply "there is nothing else that can be done." If you have a better idea, maybe you can share it with us.

As for the great socialist people's victory for worker's rights, I agree with you. State socialism has been an enormous setback for human rights wherever it has been practiced, as noted allegorically by Orwell 60 years ago with his evocation of the pigs. Personally I have come a long way from my Maoist Marxist youth in the 1960's and I now recognize that communist government almost everywhere is enormously oppressive, quite as bad as the worst that unrestrained capitalism has offered, in some cases much worse.

I note however that Chinese history has not been notable at any period in the last 500 years for it's lack of extreme poverty and oppression, both foreign and domestic. It is hard to argue that conditions are economically worse there than ever before. China is NOT the United States. The imposition of American values there - American assumptions of cultural superiority aside - may not have worked any better than the imposition of American values has worked in Iraq.

I think the participation of many hard working and decent Chinese citizens in the world community has been a boon to Chinese culture and world culture as a whole. There has been a great deal of eclecticism in the Chinese experiment, and many Chinese policies - certainly not all or even the majority - are relatively enlightened, especially with respect to the rapidly declining theocracy that now exists in the United States.

Certainly there have been huge mistakes in China, particularly in the environmental area. These have lead to some very poor decisions, of which the Three Gorges Dam is certainly one. The coal orgy is another, and is fast approaching the coal orgy in the United States.

China, for all of its problems, is growing intellectually and financially. It is in some ways more open to the world than the United States is. It may be more civilized. Although there has been some military muscle flexing, I note that the Chinese army has not militarily occupied foreign territory for any reason since the Vietnam incursion of 1979. With respect to the United States, the aphorism about glass houses certainly applies.

I expect that the political situation of the Chinese people is bound to improve. The Chinese genie is out of the jar and a huge cultural import is taking place. To paraphrase the old American song, "How are you going to see them down on the collective, after they've seen Paree, and Harvard, and Berkeley, and Yale?"

Of course, I have had the advantage of working with the Chinese elite, the most educated and scientifically advanced representatives of their culture. The ability to emigrate to the United States certainly represents a filter on what I know of Chinese culture and attitudes. That said, I know a number of people who have acquainted themselves with US technology have of their own free will gone back to China.

[thegreatwildebeest]

5. If you approve of patriarchy yes...

policy. The alternative is rather dire. I have worked rather closely with native Chinese people for a number of years, and I think they have a somewhat more nuanced view of their government than is generally appreciated by foreigners. With respect to the one child policy, many have remarked quite simply "there is nothing else that can be done." If you have a better idea, maybe you can share it with us.

It's a policy that enforces patriarchy, by the fact that no one will simply want to have a female child. Where are these lost and orphaned children to go? What is to be done with them? Its nice to throw up your hands and say "Nothing else could be done", but that doesn't cut it, particuarly to the large number of orphaned.

The simple fact is that women, and women alone, are the only ones who should make decisions as to the number and spacing of their children. Bar none. If you as a woman chooses to have one child, than that is okay. If she chooses to have ten, it is fine. Anything that reeks of coercion or attempts to control these numbers is ridiculous outside of providing sexual health education, contraceptive options, and the right/availibility of abortion and adoption. You cannot goal orient reproductive health or population numbers. Otherwise you are playing with a choice that is not yours to make. Its also interesting to note that no "Goal oriented" population control objective, from Indias attempts to Chinas, have been done without coercion, forced sterilization, the robbing of womens rights, and discrimination against the poor and the ethnic/caste minority. Such nasty bits might be okay for you, as a man, but its not to a woman.


As for the great socialist people's victory for worker's rights, I agree with you. State socialism has been an enormous setback for human rights wherever it has been practiced, as noted allegorically by Orwell 60 years ago with his evocation of the pigs. Personally I have come a long way from my Maoist Marxist youth in the 1960's and I now recognize that communist government almost everywhere is enormously oppressive, quite as bad as the worst that unrestrained capitalism has offered, in some cases much worse.

Orwell was a socialist. What he wasn't however, was a Marxist of the Stalinist mold as indicated in Animal Farm. He in fact fought in a Marxist union army in the Spanish Revolution, and of itself, had no problem with Communism, though he had large problems with those who oft preached it.


I note however that Chinese history has not been notable at any period in the last 500 years for it's lack of extreme poverty and oppression, both foreign and domestic. It is hard to argue that conditions are economically worse there than ever before. China is NOT the United States. The imposition of American values there - American assumptions of cultural superiority aside - may not have worked any better than the imposition of American values has worked in Iraq.


Arguing that its better because they have nicer material things is a stretch at best. While it is true that Chinese history has been dominated by caste divisions as well a very strict Confucian social order, I would hesitate that it has been abject poverty and oppression for the past 500 years, disregarding the past 200 years or so of colonial rule. Chinese history is long, and to a very large extent, illustrious.


I think the participation of many hard working and decent Chinese citizens in the world community has been a boon to Chinese culture and world culture as a whole. There has been a great deal of eclecticism in the Chinese experiment, and many Chinese policies - certainly not all or even the majority - are relatively enlightened, especially with respect to the rapidly declining theocracy that now exists in the United States.

Well considering that to a large extent Chinese culture, science, and language is what dominates the Asian Pacific, and the influence thereof was profound upon both Middle Eastern and Western European cultures, I would say China's influence on the world stage is indominatable.


China, for all of its problems, is growing intellectually and financially. It is in some ways more open to the world than the United States is. It may be more civilized. Although there has been some military muscle flexing, I note that the Chinese army has not militarily occupied foreign territory for any reason since the Vietnam incursion of 1979. With respect to the United States, the aphorism about glass houses certainly applies.


China does not have to "grow" intellectually, since it is and has been a profoundly intellectual civilization, far before even the Greeks. And the idea that the Chinese government has not "occupied" something since 1979 flies in the face of the problems Tibet faces, as its continued state oppression is enforced upon it.

To argue against the Chinese government and its policies is not to argue FOR America's policies. Both are equally near sighted, egregious, and in need of serious reining in. I would like to see both radically and fundamentally changed from their current states. I do not see this as being an option of, as Mao Ze Dong once wrote, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". Not necessarily. And that is the case, to me, here.

[Pooka Fey]

6. It is NOT OK for a woman to "choose" to have 10 children. - or even 19

like the brainwashed fundie handmaiden whose picture was up on the board about a week ago.

Your philosophy re reproductive "rights" has had it's day in the sun. Your philosophy has been unchallenged by the legions of 'free thinkers' for decades. Those who sanctify the 'choice' of the individual and happily and self-righteously ignore that individual's responsibility to the collective without a backward glance have produced a dead earth. Thanks a fucking lot.

Look at our earth, look at our climate, look at our dried up river systems, our decimated forests, ocean die-off, massive species exterminations, huge tracts of land covered with filthy open-sewered shanty towns, entire populations dying of AIDS, the desertification of Southern Europe, melting glaciers --- look at the devastation to the planet - and tell me it is somehow completely unrelated to the relentless consumption of resources by the unstoppable virus-like reproductive rate of humans.

The fact that you are wrong is now being illustrated to you in almost every thread in the E&E forum.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[blindpig]

12. So how would you deal with human overpopulation?

Deny it? "Grow" our way out of it? Wait for education and prosperity to catch up to reality? Got news for ya, there is little if any time left for any solution that is humane and recognizes any of the rights that we hold dear. That the Chinese program has problems is not denied, I for one would like to see more carrot and less stick. It has nonetheless been successful in greatly curbing China's population growth and this cannot but be beneficial to the society as a whole. I for one would see this policy implemented worldwide though fine tuned with an eye toward individual rights.

These are no ordinary times. Human overpopulation is striking a blow against life on this planet that has not been seen since that comet whacked the dinosaurs. However, if you feel that ignoring the problem and waiting for the inevitable die off of our species after we've screwed up everything else is preferable to attempting a program that while not perfect tries to be fair then go ahead. That the accident of our mammalian ancestry puts the onus of any sort of reproductive policy on the female half of our species is something that greater minds than mine desperately need to sort out. Sterilization of males after the first livebirth of a child of their seed presents its own set of problems but is certainly on the table. If you can think of anything better please tell me.

[NNadir]

7. No it is neither fine nor moral for anyone to have 10 children.

Not in the United States, not anywhere. Certainly not in China.

I really have no patience with this libertarian attitude that we can do what ever the fuck we want with no sense of responsibility to other people on the planet. I am not particularly satisfied that in a technologically challenging world with unprecedented demanding problems that any person can emotionally intellectually, emotionally or materially provide for more than one or two children. I strongly disagree that childbearing should be a political statement of any kind. I do not place the responsibility for these decisions on men, nor do I place them on women; I place them on human beings. We cannot afford simply to breed simply to make political statements about ownership of uteruses or penises. The time for joking and playing is over. If we insist on everybody doing whatever they want with respect to procreation, no one may survive. That's not politics. It's physics.

I note that the lower status of women derives from the long illustrious cultural history of China and is not the official policy of the modern government. It is tradition that values men above women, specifically the tradition that male children have the responsibility for caring for parents. China provides free access to contraception services, something that Zimbabwe and Ireland and the United States do not do. Abortion rights are not threatened in China as they are in the United States. The only right that Chinese women do NOT have, is the right to have more than one child. Many chinese women in practice violate this restriction, but many also support it. I know this from direct contact with Chinese citizens, many of whom I have had the pleasure of knowing personally quite well. It is true that females are often abandoned in China, but again, this is from cultural tradition, and not from official government policy.

I have some insight to this "must have a male child" mentality. My own father in law kept breeding endlessly in hopes of having a male. It sucked. It wasn't fair to his daughters.

I note that the status of women is intimately involved in controlled population, as is material wealth. The population of Western Europe is expected to decrease in this century, with birth rates below the replacement value whereas the population of Africa is expected to continue spiral out of control and probably be accompanied with complete environmental collapse, much human suffering, and probably enormous brutality of the type that Africa is already experiencing. To say that material wealth is irrelevant is typical mostly of those who already have it. It is a very different matter for those who don't.

The ecology of China and other places on the planet - India comes to mind - is definitely a function of population. Desertification, air pollution, and many other environmentally degrading practices are happening because China cannot now sustainably support its vast population. China is above its sustainable carrying capacity. Here's a clue for you. So is the rest of the planet. I note that if everyone in China and India had the standard of living of Mexicans, the world's atmosphere would barely survive another 20 years. Of course, it is not really correct to claim that Chinese cannot have higher living standards because they are Chinese.

I have not been to China but I have been to India, to Mumbai and other areas and I think I have an appreciation of what it means to have children indiscriminately in an environment of poverty and ignorance. It isn't pretty.

Now let's turn to literary criticism. To state that "Orwell was a socialist" is to express a rather naive and formulaic view of the writer. He was, in fact, inscrutable, and he may have actually did what thinking people often do, changed his opinion based on his experience. He did write Animal Farm and he did write 1984, both of which were rather scathing criticisms of the grand socialist experiment that prevails in China today and prevailed in many other places during Orwell's lifetime. In Spain he may have learned something about Stalinism that he did not know in 1935. Orwell is at best an enigma and to assert that he supported socialism throughout his life depends both on your definition of socialism and on privy knowledge of Orwell's thinking and his malleability.

Irrespective of who Orwell was, I merely note that people are always talking about socialism but most often when they attempt to put this ideology into actual practice, they end up with a Stalinist government. My own personal opinion is that the reason for this is that socialism does not derive from experience so much as it derives from dogma and ideological statements that were inherently flawed. Capitalism evolved. Socialism on the other hand needed to be "built," which in practice meant "enforced." I am a liberal and so I hold the idea of all state centralized systems in contempt. Socialism is simply a centralized monolithic mechanism for corruption in most places. It affords little room for creativity, flexibility, or innovation, which is why it mostly doesn't work. I don't trust socialists anywhere, because they have seldom proved worthy of trust. I really can't think of any country where socialism has been met with spectacular success, irrespective of Orwell's leanings. China has been providing better standards of living for its people since moving away from strict socialist dogma. Modern China, while it is communist, is far less Stalinist than many historical People's Socialist Worker's states have been.

Nobody is denying that China has an illustrious history. It is merely worth noting that power and wealth has always belonged to a privileged and exceptionally brutal elite, which is not particularly unique to China, but neither has China been a huge exception to this historic transcultural experience. The existence of liberal democracies with profound respect for human rights is a relatively recent development - and it is a Western notion that frankly would have been regarded as absurd through most of the "illustrious" history of China, a barbarian concept beneath contempt. (Some interesting commentary on this notion has been advanced by the religious scholar Elaine Pagels, who notes that most cultures in history would have regarded Jefferson's famous dictum that "All men are created equal" as ridiculous.)

Now let's turn to Chinese Imperialism: The invasion of Tibet is a fait accompli, much as the US invasion of Mexico in 1846 is also a fait accompli. I don't necessarily approve of it, but it is now a historical fact, much like the US invasion of Mexico and for that matter Hawaii is a fact. The invasion of Tibet occurred in 1959 and all of the citizens of Tibet who lived before then are at least 45 years old. China has not invaded any country since then, except the brief foray into Vietnam which is not to say that they won't do so at a future date. I am not arguing however that the Chinese government is heroic or worthy of applause. I am certainly not thrilled to contemplate Tienanmen Square. I am simply remarking that China's government is not particularly worse than other governments that hold themselves up as exemplars to which the Chinese should aspire. Excuse me if I laugh when the Chinese say "Go fuck yourself."

I am a scientist by training and I note that irrespective of the former high culture of the past, Chinese experimental science is growing. While I don't really demean ancient chinese poetry or calligraphy, or art or architecture, I simply report that China is growing intellectually because its citizens are better educated and more technologically advanced than they were 20 years ago. It doesn't require a discussion of the 5th century BC to acknowledge that. All cultures should grow intellectually continuously. If they do not so, they will fail. The Chinese are doing better intellectually than we are. We are descending into mysticism and they are not. I follow energy research, and I can tell you that some of the most interesting work in that area is Chinese. They are at least doing something other than engaging in imperial murder and theft to ameliorate their serious energy risks. They are doing active energy research. They are not planning to invade Ecuador or Siberia, as we have done in Iraq and are contemplating in Iran. Rather they plan to buy Ecuadoran and Siberian oil with money they earned.

I live in the United States and am a citizen of that country. Before I make grand statements about China, I think it is incumbent upon me to get my own house in order. My country is committing murder in a foreign country based on now overt fraud and deceit. My country is despoiling the earth's atmosphere at an alarming rate, much higher than the rate exercised by China, even though its population is fractional compared to the Chinese population. My country has officially refused to even acknowledge that fact. That my country oppresses foreigners and not its domestic citizens - that my country commits atrocity out of sight and thus largely out of mind - does not absolve me of my own responsibility for that atrocity, nor does it give me the right to pontificate about the governments of foreign nations and their shortcomings. I think the citizens of Finland (where by the way the population is falling) are in a much better ethical position to cast aspersions on China or for that matter on Burma than are the citizens of the United States. In fact the citizens of Finland are probably as much appalled by the US as they are by China. The citizens of Finland for instance might note that the United States is nearly alone among nations in openly asserting a right to torture people in foreign countries with impunity and special exemptions from international justice, a right that China does not assert legally - irrespective of whether their actual practice is matched by their legal posture.

I'm sure that there are many people in Iraq today who might have preferred that the Americans weren't so zealous about "protecting" the rights of people in cultures about which they know next to nothing.

If you'll tell me about your ethical plans for the United States, I might better credit your pronouncements about the failings of China. Again, it is simply a matter of glass houses. I would rather leave Chinese affairs to be solved by Chinese, and would prefer if Americans worked to get American affairs - which are by the way a huge disaster - in order.

[thegreatwildebeest]

10. And next on the hit parade...

I note that the lower status of women derives from the long illustrious cultural history of China and is not the official policy of the modern government. It is tradition that values men above women, specifically the tradition that male children have the responsibility for caring for parents. China provides free access to contraception services, something that Zimbabwe and Ireland and the United States do not do. Abortion rights are not threatened in China as they are in the United States. The only right that Chinese women do NOT have, is the right to have more than one child. Many chinese women in practice violate this restriction, but many also support it. I know this from direct contact with Chinese citizens, many of whom I have had the pleasure of knowing personally quite well. It is true that females are often abandoned in China, but again, this is from cultural tradition, and not from official government policy.

It is defacto government policy when the government knows exactly what will happen with the one child policy. They can't just throw their hands up and say "We did not know this would occur". They knew quite well, and proceeded ahead full bore anyways. If thats not complicity I don't know what is then.

Now let's turn to literary criticism. To state that "Orwell was a socialist" is to express a rather naive and formulaic view of the writer. He was, in fact, inscrutable, and he may have actually did what thinking people often do, changed his opinion based on his experience. He did write Animal Farm and he did write 1984, both of which were rather scathing criticisms of the grand socialist experiment that prevails in China today and prevailed in many other places during Orwell's lifetime. In Spain he may have learned something about Stalinism that he did not know in 1935. Orwell is at best an enigma and to assert that he supported socialism throughout his life depends both on your definition of socialism and on privy knowledge of Orwell's thinking and his malleability.

He was not "inscrutable", unless you consider Homage to Catalonia "inscrutable", where he makes his political affiliations plainly known (socialism), his opinion on Stalinism, as well as his opinion on the anarchists who he fought with on the battlefield (whom, though he did not share their political ideology, he resolutely thumbed up for their zeal and their ability more than anyone else, to put into practice what they preach). Obviously Orwells opinions, like anyone elses, were ripe for change, nuance, and exceptions. But the catch all phrase of "socialist" does apply.


Irrespective of who Orwell was, I merely note that people are always talking about socialism but most often when they attempt to put this ideology into actual practice, they end up with a Stalinist government. My own personal opinion is that the reason for this is that socialism does not derive from experience so much as it derives from dogma and ideological statements that were inherently flawed. Capitalism evolved. Socialism on the other hand needed to be "built," which in practice meant "enforced." I am a liberal and so I hold the idea of all state centralized systems in contempt. Socialism is simply a centralized monolithic mechanism for corruption in most places. It affords little room for creativity, flexibility, or innovation, which is why it mostly doesn't work. I don't trust socialists anywhere, because they have seldom proved worthy of trust. I really can't think of any country where socialism has been met with spectacular success, irrespective of Orwell's leanings. China has been providing better standards of living for its people since moving away from strict socialist dogma. Modern China, while it is communist, is far less Stalinist than many historical People's Socialist Worker's states have been.

Capitalism was just as forced and as pushed upon people as any other political or economic ideology. The idea that it arose out of some free(white man's) association of people(landowners) is ridiculous, and ignores either the bajillion attempts by states and private individuals to enforce capitalism or to foist it upon others. There is nothing natural or evolved about it.


Nobody is denying that China has an illustrious history. It is merely worth noting that power and wealth has always belonged to a privileged and exceptionally brutal elite, which is not particularly unique to China, but neither has China been a huge exception to this historic transcultural experience. The existence of liberal democracies with profound respect for human rights is a relatively recent development - and it is a Western notion that frankly would have been regarded as absurd through most of the "illustrious" history of China, a barbarian concept beneath contempt. (Some interesting commentary on this notion has been advanced by the religious scholar Elaine Pagels, who notes that most cultures in history would have regarded Jefferson's famous dictum that "All men are created equal" as ridiculous.)

Jefferson himself thought it ridiculous, if you mean what he actually meant as opposed to what revisionists attempt to pin on it. It was for men of the landowning class, white, and no women allowed. That idea sounds very much in line with the rest of the world. And what do you know, its still defacto that way, even if its no longer written in law.


Now let's turn to Chinese Imperialism: The invasion of Tibet is a fait accompli, much as the US invasion of Mexico in 1846 is also a fait accompli. I don't necessarily approve of it, but it is now a historical fact, much like the US invasion of Mexico and for that matter Hawaii is a fact. The invasion of Tibet occurred in 1959 and all of the citizens of Tibet who lived before then are at least 45 years old. China has not invaded any country since then, except the brief foray into Vietnam which is not to say that they won't do so at a future date. I am not arguing however that the Chinese government is heroic or worthy of applause. I am certainly not thrilled to contemplate Tienanmen Square. I am simply remarking that China's government is not particularly worse than other governments that hold themselves up as exemplars to which the Chinese should aspire. Excuse me if I laugh when the Chinese say "Go fuck yourself."

It is nice to know what you consider it a dead fact, and brush off the nasty bits so neatly off the desk. Some people there may not be willing to do so as easily. In fact, last I checked, a similar "fait accompli" is still raging right now in the Middle East, despite a similar time span. So no, one poster is America, coveniently brushing off history, does not a fait accompli make.


I live in the United States and am a citizen of that country. Before I make grand statements about China, I think it is incumbent upon me to get my own house in order. My country is committing murder in a foreign country based on now overt fraud and deceit. My country is despoiling the earth's atmosphere at an alarming rate, much higher than the rate exercised by China, even though its population is fractional compared to the Chinese population. My country has officially refused to even acknowledge that fact. That my country oppresses foreigners and not its domestic citizens - that my country commits atrocity out of sight and thus largely out of mind - does not absolve me of my own responsibility for that atrocity, nor does it give me the right to pontificate about the governments of foreign nations and their shortcomings. I think the citizens of Finland (where by the way the population is falling) are in a much better ethical position to cast aspersions on China or for that matter on Burma than are the citizens of the United States. In fact the citizens of Finland are probably as much appalled by the US as they are by China. The citizens of Finland for instance might note that the United States is nearly alone among nations in openly asserting a right to torture people in foreign countries with impunity and special exemptions from international justice, a right that China does not assert legally - irrespective of whether their actual practice is matched by their legal posture.

The idea that one can't as an individual criticize other countries whilst at the same time criticizing your own country is ridiculous, particuarly for someone as myself who is no fan of ANY states or any of their functionary organs. So no, I don't feel I should be any less harsh on anyone else when the American government, whom I owe shit none allegiance to in anyway and work actively against, is just as bad or worse. I make no distinctions in the marks of my criticism, and I am certainly not sparing anyone or anything just becuase I am nominally an American (an ex-pat at that currently floating between Japan and America). So yes, I will criticize whoever I damn well please thank you.



If you'll tell me about your ethical plans for the United States, I might better credit your pronouncements about the failings of China. Again, it is simply a matter of glass houses. I would rather leave Chinese affairs to be solved by Chinese, and would prefer if Americans worked to get American affairs - which are by the way a huge disaster - in order.

So wait, if you approve of Chinese policy, thats considered hands off and not making "pronouncements" but if I criticize, it is? How so?

[Nihil]

11. Lots of good points there.

:applause:

[phantom power]

13. Was the problem "state socialism" or was it "single-party govt?"

This is a bit of a digression, but as long as the subject came up, I've wondered about this for a long time. The concept of Communism never seemed like such a bad idea to me. The main failure of the USSR (and China?) was the inflexibility and corruption caused by single-party government (which we're seeing a bit of here in the US, these days).

Is it fundamentally impractical (or impossible) to have something like, say, a parliamentary democracy that adheres to a communist economic policy?

Not that I particularly favor communism over other systems, but the critiques of the USSR on economic grounds always seem to be somewhat missing the mark.

[phantom power]

14. The Glen Canyon dam once came very close to disaster.

The overflow tubes were bored out of the native rock, which is sedimentary (at that level) and prone to erosion. During a "rare" flood, one of the overflow tubes developed a cavitation from erosion, that quickly grew very large. After the flood was over, the engineers determined that it had come quite close to eroding thru the canyon wall, which would have bypassed the flow control. Flow through this cavitation would then have continued unchecked and probably destroyed the dam's anchor with the canyon wall, thus destroying the entire dam. I believe they lined the tubes with concrete to prevent any future erosion.

Hopefully the Chinese engineers have learned well from past mistakes.

[hatrack]

15. They cut air channels in the tops of the spillway necks

Now, Glen Canyon Dam is "safe" - at least, officially.

[XemaSab]

8. This is an appalling article

thanks for posting!