Give me a f**king break!
I am a Chinese, and I am fed up with the white trash journalists claimimg
that they are doing something for me because I am not free to do it.
Would you white racists just shut up and do not making those outragious
claim that I and other Chinese like me do not know what I need? Or you just
need to pretend so that people like you can attack another race under a
fig-leaf?
Where did Jack Cafferty say that his insults are on Chinese government.
He used the word "Chinese" in his insult.
Not a shred of conscience is in his white racism author.
Getting A Grip |
Never Apologize to Goons and Thugsby Michael I. Niman |
|
|
CNN's Jack Cafferty has China's number
What do you do if someone calls you a “goon” or a “thug”? If you’re a real thug, a Tony Soprano sort of character, you have them whacked. End of story. Yes, you’re a thug. Everyone knows it. But no one dares voice it. The more people point out your brutish ways, the more you prove them right, and the more you terrorize others into an uncomfortable silence. Empires, albeit fragile ones, have existed by these rules for generations. Whether you’re talking about corrupt municipal patronage machines, brutal police forces, repressive monarchies, or totalitarian bureaucracies, the rules are the same. Never voice the obvious.
If you’re not a goon or a thug, however, you don’t have to worry much about people calling you a goon or a thug.
Y’all know where I’m going with this. Last week CNN’s Jack Cafferty, in an on-air editorial, called the goons and thugs that run China’s one party state “goons and thugs.” And right on cue, these autocrats—the ones who still hold survivors of their 1989 massacre of nonviolent, pro-democracy activists locked away in a mysterious gulag system replete with slave labor factories—proved Cafferty right, demanding that CNN retract his remarks and apologize to the offended goons and thugs.
Cafferty specifically charged that the Chinese government was run by “the same bunch of goons and thugs” that “they’ve been for the last 50 years.”
Let’s look critically at Cafferty’s charge. Clearly China has changed quite a bit since the days of the Korean War and, later, the Cultural Revolution. But what hasn’t changed is the one-party system that runs that country and its iron-clad intolerance of dissent in any form.
Sure, the party leadership has developed a tolerance for Western decadence in the form of opulent displays of wealth by successful entrepreneurs who curry their favor. And they’ve developed a tolerance for poverty, which provides cheap, disposable labor to be ground up in some of the world’s most toxic trinket factories. But one thing has remained a constant, as China moved from being a social egalitarian regime with political repression to a nation whose great disparity of wealth is enforced by repression of a brutally impoverished majority, and that’s repression. It appears that Cafferty is on the money here. Anyone who doubts this should try to build a papier mâché replica of the Statue of Liberty in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
Cafferty’s other blaspheme was his allegation that we import Chinese “junk,” making specific mention of products tainted with lead paint. Of course not everything we import from China is “junk.” I’m writing, for instance, with a Chinese-made keyboard, on a Taiwanese computer packed with Chinese components. I ride to work on a Chinese bike. I sometimes eat off of Chinese-made ceramic plates. And I’m happy with all of these products. But that doesn’t alter the reality that the nation’s Wal-Marts and Dollar Stores are packed with Chinese-made crap. Anyone who ever had a barbecue spatula break apart in their hands or watched black smoke rise from their meditation candle knows China produces, among other things, a steady stream of junk. Not everything China produces is crap, but most of the crap we consume is produced in China. Cafferty’s on the money again. If the Chinese government wants their nation’s products to be known for their quality, they need to stop exporting flotillas of crap. Put in business terms, their branding strategy is obviously flawed. Chastising journalists isn’t going to change this.
On one level it’s hard for me to support Cafferty. Quite frankly, I think he’s a scumbag. In 2003, for instance, he pled guilty to leaving the scene of a hit-and-run collision in Manhattan after he ran down a bicyclist with his car. Five pedestrians chased after him as he sped through two red lights, dragging the bicycle under his New Jersey-plated Cadillac.
But he is a journalist who made accurate statements in an editorial opinion forum, and that concept—the right of a scumbag to mouth off against a powerful government—is alien to China’s autocrats.
In the one area where Cafferty was literally wrong, he was dead-on figuratively, which I believe was his intent. He stated that we’re buying Chinese products in Wal-Mart made by workers who earn a dollar a month. Well, actually Chinese workers producing products for the US market often make $75 to $110 for a month of grueling 80-hour weeks. The truth is that the main victims of the Chinese regime are the vast majority of Chinese citizens who labor their health away to make sweatshop owners rich, yet can go to jail for trying to organize a real union.
Whatever else China is, however, it is the world’s emerging economic superpower. CNN recognizes this and groveled appropriately, issuing an apology packaged as a clarification—a sort of Media 101 for the Chinese government—explaining that Cafferty’s forte is expressing his controversial opinions and engaging in robust discussion, and that no offense was directed against the Chinese people. This, however, wasn’t good enough for the goons and thugs, who are pressing for CNN to do more to take back what the Chinese government calls “vicious” and “vile” remarks.
The Chinese establishment seems hell-bent, however, on proving all of Cafferty’s “vile” remarks absolutely true. Toward this end, the All China Journalists Association (ACJA), the acquiescing body representing China’s heavily censored “press,” jumped into the fray, condemning CNN and Cafferty for having “disregarded a journalist’s professional ethics to attack a country with insulting words.”
China also accused CNN of trying to sow discord between the Chinese government and its people. Such tension, however, is the hallmark of democracy—and it’s the responsibility of a free press to maintain a healthy level of tension. A relationship based on fear and silence is not a healthy one.
When I read the ACJA statement all I could say was, “Those poor bastards. Is the concept of a free press so alien to these self-proclaimed journalists that they can’t fathom it?”
Or are they just shameless puppets lending their name to whatever stupid drivel their puppeteers pen? How are those for “insulting words”? Maybe I’m too harsh. Maybe these so-called journalists are just like many members of our own corporate press—weak, frightened people trying to make it in the middle-class, selling out their fellow citizens in the process.
The government that Cafferty attacked, however, is the same government that has made a mockery of journalism in China. It’s the government that turned China’s would-be journalists into groveling stenographers. It’s the same government that currently supports brutal repression in Burma, Darfur, and Tibet, not to mention China. It’s the same government that is currently selling out the Chinese people’s future by poisoning its environment. It’s the same government that jails Chinese activists who stand up for the rights of China’s horribly impoverished and exploited majority. This is a government that, because of its actions, deserves “insulting words”—lots of them. If we are to stand up and support the Chinese people in their struggle against repression, we have to hurl “insulting words” at this repressive regime—if for no other reason than that the Chinese aren’t free to do so.
Reader Comments
Yalin 24 Apr 2008, 00:25
Phil Spectre 24 Apr 2008, 02:44
Say Yalin, Chinese of your ilk, and there are a LOT of em, throw the "white
trash" thing around like you were talking about the price of pork. Let's
see, "white devils", "running dogs", "barbarians", and loads more.. yeah,
you all like to dish it out but you just can't take it. Confucius' spin on do unto others not working for you? I frankly believe Chinese have some genetic flaw that prevents them from perceiving their own name-calling hypocrisy.
Kenneth Gray 24 Apr 2008, 07:58
It was very clear that Cafferty was referring to the government of China
and not the people of China in his disparaging remarks. For a satirical viewpoint on the dangers of unrestricted trade with China, please watch our music video on YouTube. Search for Nothing Could Be Finer (than to buy my stuff from China).
Michael 24 Apr 2008, 08:16
The Chinese Government are the Chinese people. People's Republic of China.
Mike 24 Apr 2008, 09:05
Yalin: Do you think the Buddah is White Trash (which BTW is a pejorative
term - please don't use it)?
Yalin 24 Apr 2008, 11:58
How is was clear that Caffert was referring to the governement? Because your white friends said so? Read the script of his remark, word-by-word. If white people can use goons and thugs on Chinese, I have a right to use white trash to describe those racists. quid pro quo. He who insults others derserves being insulted. Those who claims others are genetically flawed are the textbook examples of racists. He should have his own gene examined for defects.
Kenneth Gray 24 Apr 2008, 14:19
Okay, let's put it this way. If Cafferty or anyone else said, America's
disastrous economic and international policies have been shaped by the same
goons and thugs who have been in charge for the last seven years, I would
assume, very correctly, he was referring to the Bush Neocons and not me or
any other American
Yalin 24 Apr 2008, 17:22
Since those authors and commentator refuse to do this. Here is verbatim of
Cafferty's comment, word-by-word: "CAFFERTY: Well, I don't know if China is any different, but our relationship with China is certainly different. We're in hawk to the Chinese up to our eyeballs because of the war in Iraq, for one thing. They're holding hundreds of billions of dollars worth of our paper. We also are running hundred of billions of dollars worth of trade deficits with them, as we continue to import their junk with the lead paint on them and the poisoned pet food and export, you know, jobs to places where you can pay workers a dollar a month to turn out the stuff that we're buying from Wal-Mart. So I think our relationship with China has certainly changed. I think they're basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they've been for the last 50 years." Where exactly was he referring to Chinese government? The economic progress in China has more to do with ordinary Chinese than government. Those poor bastard journalists. Is the concept of "non-white people unwilling to subordinate to white power" so alien to those self-righteous racists that they cannot fathom it?
yeejacob 24 Apr 2008, 17:52
Yes Yalin, Jack Cafferty must apologize to all Chinese People and resign.
Turin 24 Apr 2008, 19:27
Yalin is right. Liberals (in this case, journalists) are phony baloneys
who stooge as leftists, for the capitalists, and they use the same
rationale, as the right, of liberating another people from its own culture.
In 1765, Niman would have been just another Captain Thomas Davies, bringing Christ to the heathen, while protesting it. He'd be liberating Kunta, and, while bleating against his own establishment, be going along with it ...just like he does with his consumer middle class. Kunta Kintai would have preferred to have been left alone, but, between the "healthy tension" of the slaver and that of the conscientous objector, he fared so badly, that, today, his descendants are still feeling the lingering effects of slavery. I can believe Yalin when he comes off sounding like he wants to tell the Occidental moderate to shove his/her "freedom" up his/her hypocritical ass. Colonial history is replete with examples of the divide and conquer game and of how it exploits and destroys a people, simply, so that garbage middle classes can exist carefree and comfy off of the cheap labor of dispossessed serfs and slaves. A racial factor *is* in this story ...both, in Cafferty's comments, and in Niman's. The healthy tension, here, is that the commentators believe themselves to be more subtle than the Chinese people can perceive, just because their own accustomed middle-white-trash audiences don't have the intellectual integrity to not place politics and economics before principles and substance...
Mike 24 Apr 2008, 19:33
You can't effectively spin this as a race thing when all of the victims are
Asian. Nobody is accusing the Chinese government of oppressing White
people. The great unified movement of workers and students that coalesced
in 1989 was comprised of Chinese citizens. The people toiling away in
sweatshops for $2 per day - upon whose backs the new Chinese economy is
being built - are Chinese. The workers who are denied safe working
environments, a living wage and an 8 hour day are Chinese. The political
prisoners rotting away in Chinese jails are Chinese. What part of an
international solidarity movement with oppressed Chinese citizens is
racist? As for the question regarding the legitimacy of the Chinese government and its relationship with the Chinese people -- that can easily be settled with an election. What part of allowing the Chinese people to vote is racist?
Turin 24 Apr 2008, 20:02
You can't effectively spin this as a non-racial thing simply by criticizing
their way of life, using your own (Western) cultural standards. The number
of Chinese is precisely why it *is* a racist issue. The Chinese (including
Yalin), are accurately seeing this as a dispute between themselves (as a
monolith) and the U.S. *You* are cultural imperialists, telling them to do
things a different way. And, Tiananmen Square was organized by the usual emerging professionals who wanted to emerge as a more privileged class of bourgeois. After they had gotten what they wanted, labor would have been left by the liberals to rot, as usual, except for whenever they were needed for rabble rousing. That, and the fact that it was such an anomaly, hardly makes it a referendum on the Chinese government by the Chinese people.
Yalin 24 Apr 2008, 21:43
Funny someone brought up 1989 student movement in Beijing. I was one of the
students protesting governemnt then! What a difference 19 year makes. There is something profound going on right now among Chinese. Large swath of them have come to realization, no matter what difference they have, that the western media is dominated by white racists, for whom nothing short of death of Chinese civilization is satisfactory to them. They are uder various banners, but share the common goal. In that regard, those journalists and activists are the foot soldiers of civilization clash. Judging from the strong negative reactions from Chinese oversea communities, The "international solidarity movement with oppressed Chinese citizens" obviously never bothered consulting Chinese. But that is hardly a surprise as that really was never their true goal to start with. Behind the fig-leaf of "helping Chinese to win their right", it is just naked racism. Nothing more, nothing less. Liberation of Iraqis was a lie, liberation of Chinese is an even worse lie.
Forest Chen 25 Apr 2008, 02:18
I agree with Yalin. As a Chinese-American, I feel offended by Cafferty's
remarks. My father, mother, sisters, and brothers live in China and they
told me they feel offended by his remarks too. Chinese people made the
"junks" and Chinese companies exported the "junks", not the Chinese
government did that. From his original text, he was refering to Chinese
people. He should not have so easily called Chinese people "goons and
thug", neither should some commenters here have so easily agreed with him.
Shame on him and you!
jessica 25 Apr 2008, 10:10
i agree with artvoice. we dont do stuff like that. we're the good guys.
its state media and extremism!
Plumj 25 Apr 2008, 22:02
The reason that Cafferty is widely denounced because he is a "shining"
example of the many racist voices that have sounding through this past
month. These voices couldn't care less about Tibetans, what they care is
really finding a reason to hate China for "stealing" jobs, for doing work
for one tenth of our wage, for the economic malaise in this country. China
is a diversion, or rather made into a scape goat for our own doing in the
housing and credit bubble. The last massive Chinese toy recall was mainly
due to design error. Too bad that poor US design does not make a great
headline! To say that China is a perfect or the worst country are both
lies. Media voice like that above need to take their jobs as journalists
seriously. You have to try to report news with professionalism and
knowledge, and not "make" news full of bias and prejudice.
Ken 25 Apr 2008, 22:27
Okay, how is this for racist? I'm a lo fan living in NYC. I have many
friends from Hong Kong and Taiwan. They will not buy any food products
coming from the mainland because the products suck and/or are spoiled.
Many years ago this was not a problem. They will only buy Asian foodstuffs
from Taiwan, Korea or Japan. So is this racist, Chinese Americans
boycotting Chinese products?
Turin 25 Apr 2008, 22:33
Yup. The "human rights" schtick of the liberal is just her/his own meal
ticket. The moralizer makes first contact into the culture ...openly, or
clandestinely... as the envoy for the invader and the soldier. The pointless symbolism of the Olympic protests amounts to the anger of a bunch of privileged brats and other bored bourgeois at an "inferior" culture achieving economic parity.
Turin 25 Apr 2008, 22:37
Call the news and have them verify your anecdotal account by doing a story
on it. Then, we'll answer your question.
Mo 26 Apr 2008, 01:14
It is really sad that people who correctly stand up against racism feel the
need to revert to it themselves to get their point acoss. There is more
racism evident in the first two comments above than in the entire article.
Racism is not the same thing as a cultural misunderstanding. National
identity and race are not necessarily the same thing, especially in a
diverse society. Niman does not strike me as a racist. What he is rallying
against here is oppression of freedom, including freedom of speech,
including YOUR freedom of speech. In the U.S., China, and pretty much
everywhere, this is a freedom under unrelenting assault. He is right to
defend it. Freedom of speech provides us with the means of overcoming
things like racism, cultural misunderstandings, and ignorance in general.
It also allows us to try to prevent abuses and corruption by people in
positions of power, whether in the U.S., China, or anywhere. And it also,
hopefully, allows us to gain a little wisdom, by having the chance to read
opinions that are not our own, and to see things with eyes that are not our
own, and to hear things in words that are not our own. Whether I agree with
what you posted, or not, I thank you for doing so....because I have a
broader perspective now because of it.
Yalin 26 Apr 2008, 02:46 The problem in Mo's point is that Niman was not a defender of freedom. He is more than willing to make up lies to pretend he is defending someone's freedom. Simple reason, in his heart, his racism is driving him. In what kind twisted world, would someone in his sane mind shovel his version of "freedom" down to your throat no matter how many time you tell him to mind his own f**king business? Only those who have utter contempt on other race or civilization. That is why people like Niman are racists in their core.
Turin 26 Apr 2008, 09:54
Get real, please. Niman isn't "rallying" against anything. He's just part
of the media circus. The only rallying probably goes under the header:
Hyping AV's Circulation. Though, that doesn't change the fact that the
opposition points were still valid. His kind of bellyaching falls in the same category as the standard liberal high-goal of the corporate-partnership. Ie. the "reformed" system. The liberal can't even demand the inherently granted constitutional right to freedom of speech within the workplace, like everywhere else ...only (sometimes) within that set-aside abstract neutral zone called "the media". Pathetic. Well, another difference, here, is that, in China, the government of the Chinese is also their employer. They acted pretty much in the same high handed way that U.S. corporations treat their own chattel. So, all of this grandstanding about one more thing, which doesn't really exist within our own fake democracy, is just another back door into their culture to attempt to start bleeding them, also, to pay for our culture's good time, along with the rest of our high cost of living. Racism is about subjugating another race. Not, the petty epithets involved. Whether genetic race or national identity, both components are part of the culture. Racism, per se, is a term that's been abused and played around with as a subject of satire, but it still refers to this core idea. So, Yalin is correct.
tina c. 26 Apr 2008, 15:33
eye for an eye Yalin, and the world would be blind as for the rest of it, it seems like a mountian out of a molehill he said what he said, ok we all do and its part of what we getto do in the free land of the good ole US of A!!
suzy q. 26 Apr 2008, 15:58
the mountain out of the molehill was when artvoice wrote a rant about it
after CNN groveled because they were wrong LOL!
zurmia
11 Jul 2009, 18:04
you know wut ur wrong theres a difference between a goon and thug did chu
know a thug is a killer they will murder you a goon is a crimanal with
skills combined they teamup with murders and crimes im a girl i know this
becuz my brothers are goons and thugs
Leave a Comment:
|
|
Issue Navigation> Issue Index > v7n17: Fistful of Dollars (4/24/08) > Never Apologize to Goons and Thugs This Week's Issue • Artvoice Daily • Events Calendar • Classifieds |
Subscribe 