In or Out?
I rarely discuss religion or politics with anyone I don’t already know well. I save it for this blog, or shut up altogether. It took me a long time to develop that discipline.
I remember an incident that took place while I was an undergrad at USF, Tampa. It was a Sunday night and I was hanging at Skipper’s Smokehouse, a casual open-air seafood place with live music. I had met a nice looking German girl, and we were starting to hit it off. I couldn’t keep my mouth shut, and shot myself down in flames by talking politics.
I don’t remember how I started. Probably something about East Germany by way of Cuba, maybe with some other communist hellhole thrown in for good measure. As luck would have it, she took offense. I tried to reason with her by noting that any country which prohibits free emigration is by definition a prison. She told me (I will never forget it) that the Berlin wall was designed to keep westerners out. I tried not to laugh and asked her whether anyone had ever been killed trying to break in. She glared at me for a moment before she walked away. Smooth, eh?
I was reminded of that story by a letter I read on Mark Steyn’s site.
Watching, reading, and listening to media coverage of Iraq it seems hard to escape the conclusion that the country is worse than before the war and deteriorating every day. Afghanistan looks a little better but not much. All the commentators here in Aus seem sure that Iraq is a debacle. There was something missing though. When things get this bad there are normally streams of refugees.
I checked the published UNHCR reports and found something quite surprising. In 2004, the most recent year for which there are figures, 940,000 Afghanis returned to Afghanistan and 194,000 Iraqis returned to Iraq. 3.5 million Afghanis had returned home in just three years.
It seems to me that these figures are simply inconsistent with an analysis that the situations in both countries are worse than before liberation. Bagdad may not be Boston, Kabul may not be Calgary or Carlton, but to large numbers of Iraqis and Afghanis, people who had fled the Taliban or Saddam, there is cause for hope.
Sometimes people vote at the ballot box, and sometimes they vote with their feet. Just like the girl at Skipper’s.
Posted on March 29th, 2006 by pwyll
Filed under: General, politics
Entries RSS
On that note…..
The Chinese government, recently inviting the Rolling
Stones to play live, won’t let them play these four
songs:
Brown Sugar
Honky Tonk Woman
Beast of Burden
Let’s Spend the Night Together
Also, those songs weren’t allowed on the album (”Forty
Licks”) recently released in China.
Side note: The Stones were asked to play in China back
in the ’70s, but were then prohibited before it took
place. They will now, finally, play there on two
occasions. Both concerts are “open,” with the
exception of those four songs.
My questions are these…..
Why ban those songs?–They are neither offensive nor
lewd. (Not just by my standards, but from the obvious
standards of their other songs.)
And…..
Why would the Stones be willing to perform under these
circumstances?–Perhaps it’s progress. If China wants
to censor something trivial or irrelevant, better for “us” to
take a step now instead of having to jump later. (I
guess it’s not considered “giving in” if the
compromise is clearly in “our” favor.)
This leads directly to what we (my roommate and I)
talked about tonight. If China gives leniency to
songs like “Satisfaction” and “Undercover of the
Night” and “Heartbreaker” and “Gimme Shelter” and
“Monkey Man” and “Paint it Black” and “Under My
Thumb”, how can they deny the aforementioned four?
In my view, the latter songs listed are far more
damaging to their government. But if China wants to
censor, why would they allow the messenger when the
message will surely slip through?
Not to be extreme or lean on hyperbole, but this is
exactly the thing that befalls dictatorships. (Just
look at the USSR trying introduce “glasnost” but still
disallow “perestroika.”)
Ironically, this is the opposite situation of the
Chinese, but I think it will have the same result.
They want economic freedom…..but not free speech.
How is that possible?
It won’t happen.
It can’t happen.
It never does.
It never will.
It’s like asking for the “Stones”….but not wanting
“Satisfaction.”
Sorry. It doesn’t work that way.
If you give the people an inch, they’ll soon be
singing…..
“It’s down to me, oh yeah
The way she talks when she’s spoken to
Down to me, the change has come,
She’s under my thumb
Under my thumb
Her eyes are just kept to herself
Under my thumb, well I
I can still look at someone else
It’s down to me,
oh that’s what I said
The way she talks when she’s spoken to
Down to me, the change has come,
She’s under my thumb”
–”Under My Thumb” by The Rolling Stones
P.S. “She” is analogous to China, and the “thumb”
stands for the pressure of capitalism…..in case
you’re an idiot.