From the CSM:
The heat over China’s media censorship was turned up Tuesday after a baker’s dozen of senior Chinese officials warned that preventing freedom of expression would “sow the seeds of disaster for political and social transition.”
Reuters reports that 13 scholars and ex-officials released a letter to the Chinese government, condemning its decision to shut down “Freezing Point,” an investigative section of the China Youth Daily. They called the closure a “historic incident” in the struggle between Communist Party controls and media freedoms, and expressed concern over what such censorship would mean for China.
“History demonstrates that only a totalitarian system needs news censorship, out of the delusion that it can keep the public locked in ignorance,” they said in a public letter signed February 2 but issued on Tuesday….
They said China’s elaborate restrictions on information could have dire consequences for China’s political evolution.
“Depriving the public of freedom of expression so nobody dares speak out will sow the seeds of disaster for political and [social] transition.”
The BBC notes that the letter “is all the more surprising because of who it comes from.” Among the letter’s signatories are Li Rui, a former secretary and biographer of Chairman Mao; Hu Jiwei, a former editor in chief of the People’s Daily; Zhu Houze, a former propaganda boss; and Li Pu, a former deputy chief of the official Xinhua News Agency.
As Allah notes in his email, “Interesting that the Chinese are seeing the benefits of freedom of expression just as so many in the west are ready to sell it out.”
Which would be a pointed quip were the two situations not so totally different. After all, the Chinese are only in the early stages of discovering the importance of free expression. It is not until much later—once identity politics and political correctness and all those other trappings of perverse soft bigotry infect liberalism by way of Orwellian refigurations of “tolerance”—that freedom of expression is redefined as freedom from having to hear freedom of expression, when the freedom of expression in question could damage the delicate psyches of certain groups who’ve been granted special dispensation based on their ability to negotiate grievances into public policy concessions.
But hey—it’s a nice first step! GO CHINA!
“Freedom of expression”? Where’s Tamara Moonier’s freedom of expression to falsely accuse men of rape? Huh?
BECAUSE OF THE PATRIARCHY!
Perhaps that’s because China, having experienced the blessings and benefits of socialism in all its perverted glory, understand what a bunch a crap socialism is and as a result truely value freedom.
Whereas many on the left, in our country and western Europe have never been exposed to real socialism and all of its cascading effects throughout a society. The wannabe socialists of the west don’t want to have to face that reality because it means that everything they believe is wrong and that socialism doesn’t work. Denial is a powerful thing.
I’d give my left nut to be able to express thoughts that well. And I’m not just sucking up this time.
“Litteral Examples of poor sentence structure – appended version”
“… Keep your nuts sticky, Jeff is just warming up…”
– Earth to Chinese “former officials”. Yes. thats what totalatarian countries do. Like the one you’re living in. There. In China. That place.
– We’ll know just how much real progress has been made by the number of days it takes for them to be jailed.
Next up, the freedom not to grease the bogey wheels of a People’s Liberation Army tank with your body fluids!
Pretty good crack at summarizing the entire past forty years of American political history in a single paragraph there, Jeff.
Well, there’s a new purge for you.
“Success is dangerous as Failure.” Lao-tzu
They act as good men trying to teach a bad Government. But since Heaven and Earth remain impartial and both treat all things like straw dogs; who knows how this will turn out.
Still asAllah notes: Courage fades in one place yet it springs forth in another. As long as this happens Evil can never permanently win.
The long war continues.
bbh’s fortune cookie-like advice:
COOKIEIST!!!
The people who have experienced tyranny themselves are our biggest allies, not the soft, frightened left. Our Vietnamese and Eastern European students, who all lived under the boot, tell our effete lefty profs off regularly. Because of them, for instance, the Communist Vietnamese flag no longer flies at our campus.
There’s one strange paragraph in the BBC article that’s gone into knots to advertise for RSF, soi disant free speech crusaders who helpfully make their press releases re: the U.S. (but not about bloggers imprisoned in Iran) available in Arabic.
Example: http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=16429
That’ll help.