Chinese Olympics: No Boycott

As you may have seen recently, there has been a load of debate on the NZ libertarian blogosphere as to wherever the 2008 Olympics should be held in China, due to its totalitarian government and human rights abuses, including mobile execution vans*.

I agree that China does have some serious problems with its totalitarian government, still communist in many respects. But it's for those reasons that I'm NOT for the boycotting of the 2008 Olympics; they could be ideal in shedding light on the current regime in China -just what it's been doing recently.

Up until now, commentators on both the left and right have been largely ignoring China's totalitarian aspects, instead focussing on China's recent economic boom, which has had a great effect in creating a Chinese middle class and getting many Chinese out of poverty. Most of this phenomenon occuring in China, however, has been largely concealed to the Exclusive Economic Zones and big cities. Outside of these growth-magnets, many Chinese still live in squalor, under an oppressive government that, despite the lift of regulations and introduction of some property rights since the 1980s, is still essentially communist, especially in social and political terms. Many of these people go to live in the cities to work in the factories, with very little money.

So, hopefully these Olympics will shed light on the plight of Chinese people who haven't been able to escape to the glitzy, Capitalist cities. It all depends, however, on whether the world wants to watch.

And while China's government is a concern, I wonder if it is the primary reason behind John Minto and other figures of the far left organizing protests and raising lefty "awareness" of the situation in China. Many of these people -whether in London, Paris, San Francisco or NZ- were wearing Mao badges 30 years ago, and not just because it was "the thing". China was FAR WORSE back then. I suppose they just hate the Capitalist elements that have been introduced since then, and the fact that a big, evil bourgeois class has been created.

But, at the end of the day, the only nation that can tame the tempered Chinese Dragon is the United States. Luckily, they, unlike Europe, actually act on their values and beliefs.

*Ever wondered why China's imprisonment rate is less than in the US!?

Fidel Castro Resigns...

...and good riddance. The murderous dictator, famous for shooting people trying to escape to the US down in the Gulf of Mexico for shark food, has finally resigned and handed over full power to his brother Raul. Although Raul is no better, let's hope that Cubans will finally start talking out about the third-world conditions they have been suffering for 50 years, and the communist regime there will come to a peaceful end.

In other news, Kosovo has finally declared independence from Serbia. Especially with the Russians ardently against Kosovo's independence, let's see how long this lasts.

Hugo Chavez NOT "Dictator Perpetuus"!

In a smart move to combat Hugo Chavez's dictatorial ambitions, the Venezuelan people have voted in a referendum against Hugo Chavez being named "dictator for life" in Venezuela. Even so, those are still his ambitions. But still, a good step away from socialism and the trash heap of the world, in a nation that prefers capitalism more than the US.

I can imagine why. With the country being the incredibly dysfunctional, corrupt and dangerous it is (its murder rate is nearly 7 times that of the US), it's just not a place you want to be.

Brit Gets It Right!

The bumbling Brits don't usually get it right first time; but on the subject of education, this guy gets it dead spot on.

And he thinks Britain gets it bad!

"The World is a Prettier Place Now"

This is a story many people would find truly remarkable. Just a few days ago, a Polish man named Jan Grzebska who'd been in a coma for nearly 2 decades, since before the breakup of the USSR and the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, suddenly woke up (as you do). He's woken up to a better world.

...And it's not just me saying that. She herself said that "the world is a prettier place now", and she is particularly impressed by the range of food in Polish supermarkets.

More on this incredible story and its repercussions at American Daily.

Venezuelans...

This will come as a shock to Socialists, but certainly not to any Libertarians. From Investors.com, a Free Market News Source:

"Even in Venezuela, a country whose clueless ruling dictator explicitly seeks to destroy the private sector and rails against capitalism, a stunning 72% of the public support free markets."

...that's even greater than in America, the great Capitalist behemoth of the world.

Funny how the people who most support free markets usually come from Socialist/Communist nations...

(the survey was done by the Pew Research Center)

Stupid Left-Wing saying

A little saying is going through some far left circles at the moment:

"If you knew what communism was, you'd be a communist".

Indeed! If you knew what communism was!

Boris Yeltsin, Russian Father of Democracy, dies

Boris Yeltsin, the man who heroically stood on a tank one day in 1991 and declared the USSR (and, subsequently, almost all Communism around the world) extinct, has finally passed away.

Yeltsin will be forever remembered for that. But he will be remembered for lots of over things as well-among them, his eccentric behaviour. He was the very first Russian leader to resign from office. And yesterday, his life finally came to an end.

So, what's going on in Russia today? Unfortunately, after Communism fell rather quickly, Russia has become a somewhat fascist state. Many Russians feel they are worse off now than under the USSR.

However, the situation of the Russian Federation is hardly a failure of Capitalism and Democracy. Russia ranked only a pitiful 131st on the Heritage Foundation's list of most Economically Free Nations. Compare that to what is easily the most well-off former USSR state, Estonia that came 12th. Russia lacks basic property-rights and doesn't have a properly organised bearaucracy, compared to Estonia, of which is also much more smaller. Russia is also plagued with corruption, which is anything but a Free-Market institution.

If Russia needs to get ahead, it needs to grant basic property rights, and gets it's government in order. Estonia, which was in fact built off Milton Friedman's ideas in his book Free to Choose as former PM Mart Laar says, would be an excellent example.

Is Anyone Surprised?

...North Korea failed to meet the deadline to shut down it's nuclear reactor.

The US told North Korea on Sunday that it must take action within days to suspend it's nuclear weapons program, after a pledge North Korea made two months ago. Democrat nominee and current New Mexico governor Bill Richardson remains optomistic, who just returned from a trip to North Korea collecting remnants from American soldiers who died in the Korean war. He believes that North Korea will shut down their nuclear reactor this week. It is the sixth trip he has had to the country.

The US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill has said that the countries involved (US, China, both Koreas, Japan and Russia) will likely meet again toward the end of this month. North Korea has yet to decide on a deadline before which to completely dismantle it's nuclear program.

Good ol' Communism huh.

Marx and Friends... Not the Nicest Guys in the World

A new blog has been set up called "Marxwords". It's all about things that Marx and fellow cronies like Lenin said that, as it says on the top of the page, "Marxists hope you never hear about". Although more of the quotes require a bit of intellect to understand, it's an interesting read if you get some spare time (and Easter will be perfect). I suggest that you pass it on to as many Marxists as possible.

National Roles in Today's World

This very intriguing graphic has got me thinking about the roles nations play in the world today, about recent wars, and about how all-encompassing force of Globalisation is reshaping national rolls in the turbulent world we live in today.

In the graphic, some pictures are shown of American cemetaries in France, where soldiers died in both World Wars. In both, America had an isolationist policy of "don't get involved unless completely necessary".

-In World War I under President Woodrow Wilson, America stayed neutral to the conflict until 1917, when it decided to get involved, on the side on the Allies against Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After the war, America along with member of both sides decided to sign the "Peace Treaty of Versailles". Because of the Treaty, Germany had to pay reparations. An armed force was banned and much of Germany's former territory was lost. America was one of the founding members of the League of Nations.

-In World War II, America once again had a neutral position (although it was widely believed that President Franklin Roosevelt was looking for a justification to enter). In the end, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and it was Hitler who declared war on America, not the other way around. Just as in World War I, America decided to join France on the Western Front, while also fighting the Imperialist Japanese in the Pacific and in Asia. Once again, Germany was on the losing side.

The two World Wars had something very, very similar. In both, the nations in Western Europe-particularly France-were losing out badly to Germany. America, which remained Isolationist well into both wars managed to change all that. By no means is America wholly responsible for winning both World Wars. But if America had decided not to get involved, France would've been far more destroyed the Germans than what it was, on two different occasions.

In all conflicts America has gotten into until the Iraq war, America had been on the defensive. In the Korean war, and in Vietnam, America had always been defending the attacked nation. One of the reasons for this is the fact that the Cold War was on. America and the USSR had been locked in a rivalry for superiority. Neither wanted to be destroyed, so neither-with the exception of Soviet involvement in Afghanistan-neither nation dared lift a finger.

The Cold War is over. There is no more rivalry between Capitalism and Communism. Communism was destroyed. Millions of people across the world were liberated. Great deals of them rejoiced.

However, with Communism destroyed, a new problem arised. It was not Al-Qaeda, which, with some serious effort on the West's behalf, could be stomped out. It was the fact that there was only one remaining superpower in the world. I'm certainly not anti-America, but America, being the only state in the world today that is a superpower, is, as its latest actions in Iraq have shown, can be dangerous. I refer to Ayn Rand's famous quote on government's relation with human rights:

"A government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights; it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims."

That applies not only to government power at home; governments can be just as tyrannical overseas.

A solution to the problem of only one superpower is to create another superpower, to become a Pluralist world again. This could potentially work well if one keeps the other in check and both respect Civil Liberties. However, there is no other nation in the world today that could fulfill that role sucessfully. The EU might be a candidate. But do we really want a continent that has been been through two world wars and will do, ultimately, do little to keep the world in order as a superpower?

The Libertarian solution is to create a Constitutional Amendment restricting government power overseas, not just in America but in all nations. And war, isn't the best way to create countries. Instead, nations should focus more on developing markets in once restricted economies. Capitalism, as history has shown us so many times before, is best at getting a country out of poverty, its government in order, and for it to introduce more Civil Liberties and Liberal Democracy. War only makes a nation go backwards. American intervention in Iraq has shown that. And I'd be willing to bet that the Iraqi people will be controlled by another dictator in 20 years time.

North Korea's way of getting what they want

The North Korean government has a special way of getting whatever they want, whenever they want from the West. From the International Herald-Tribune:

"Under a Feb. 13 agreement reached at six-nation talks in Beijing, North Korea must shut down its main nuclear reactor and allow U.N. inspectors back into the country within 60 days. In return, the North would receive aid equal to 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil from the other countries in the six-party talks on its nuclear program — the United States, South Korea, Russia, China and Japan."

I don't know why the West is engaging in this bribery with Kim-Jong Il, especially since the West has nuclear weapons of it's own, in a far greater amount than North Korea. The West is funding this crazy government, and it's crazy nuclear weapons program.

Also from the International Herald-Tribune:

"The Feb. 13 timetable is the first step toward implementing a September 2005 agreement in which North Korea agreed to abandon its nuclear programs in exchange for energy aid and security guarantees.
[U.S. Assistant Secretary of State] Hill said he was encouraged by Kim's willingness to look ahead to the more difficult next stage, which calls for the country's plutonium-producing reactor to be disabled and then dismantled — and for North Korea to make a full disclosure of its entire nuclear program."

Really? Perhaps Dubya and some of his collegues need to remember that North Korea is a COMMUNIST country, not at all unlike the USSR. And we should remember what the USSR brought us all to the brink of:

Banned in China

There's been news circling around the blogoshere about a brand new site called "Great Fire Wall of China". The site has been set up to show the embarrassing levels of censorship there really is in China. On it, you can test your site or blog's URL and see if you've been banned in China. Luckily for me, I'm still available to the Chinese public for viewership, (but it's quite probably a matter of time until I'm not) and some Chinese already have. Pacific Empire and Darnton Vs Clark have already been banned. No doubt, more blogs will be banned in the future.

The Chinese Government needs to realise that it's censorship is not doing it, or the country's, reputation any good. After all, most bloggers in New Zealand have nothing against the Chinese. Many are very well educated and China's recent sucesses in the economical sector, due to the liberalization of the economy, have been no short of brilliant. But it's time to bring China into the 21st Century permanently. Giving Chinese citizens more civil liberties and political freedoms-far more than what the Chinese currently have-will ultimately make them better citizens. And the first step in that process is removing censorship of all foreign blogs. China may have liberalized it's economy well, but in terms of civil liberties and political freedoms, is still very much a Communist country.

Something to think about for the next Chinese censor who comes on here.

Skyscrapers-Warsaw Palace of Culture and Science

Built in 1955, the Warsaw Palace of Culture and Science is a very special building. A "present" from Joseph Stalin to Poland, the skyscraper is 230 metres high (think slightly taller than the skydeck on the Skytower) and was built by 3500 men in three years. It looks similar to many other buildings built by the Soviets during that time.

There are 42 floors in the Palace of Culture and Science, which add up to a total area of 123,000 square metres. Although the state doesn't own the building anymore, many Poles originally hated the building because it represented Soviet domination over their people. A small group still does today.

The building has an observation deck 114 metres high, which is a popular local tourist destination. Locals used to make fun of the building with the joke that the tower had the best view of the city; it was the only place in the city that it could not be seen [in the cityscape].

Four six-metre high clock faces were added to the tower in 2000, making it the second tallest clock tower in the world.