Years of Poems and Spirits

本不想再动笔,但”树欲静而风不止”. 翁安事件后, 离发生地不远的贵阳市在其属下的5个区县展开”海选”.

贵阳“海选”县委书记 瓮安事件成“命题焦点”:

“… 贵阳市日前召开公推竞岗动员大会，决定对花溪区、修文县等出缺的4个区、县党委书记职位，采取公推竞岗的方式择优选拔。消息传出后，即刻在全国引起强烈反响。中央电视台新闻频道也罕有地在昨日对竞岗现场在重要时段做了直播。值得注意的是，在本次竞聘答辩中，贵州瓮安“6·28”事件成为“命题焦点”… 贵阳“海选”区、县党委书记消息传出后，即刻在全国引起强烈反响。在百度、google等搜索，其相关网页均分别达到千个以上，人民网、新华网等国内知名网站和媒体也纷纷对该消息进行了转载或报道，引发热议。”

香港明报的标题是”翁安海选以息民愤”. Although the title was inaccurate (Weng An is not part of the Gui Yang municipality), the connection may not be far off. But that is just fascinating!

1. China has had few (none notable enough that I read) semi-free elections (i.e. direct vote and open candidacy) beyond village level. That is something Whiting drilled into our heads. So how significant is this event?

2. The change of procedure comes right after a widely reported riot and amidst widespread cynicism, I don’t know whether this is a sign of weakness/desparation or that of confidence? How much this is used as a ploy to defuse tension, or is this an instance where local reformers/a new generation of leaders are trying to find space to maneuver?

3. Isn’t this an unique opportunity to measure/observe how ready (local) civic culture is to reshape politics? The setting is perfect: something dramatic is happening in the political periphery, like 洋务运动, 公车上书, Deng’s reform, etc. If a participatory and disciplined civil culture is there but dormant under suppression, then this is an opportunity where a new equilibrium (it may take a long while) may form. However, if there is no such a civic culture, the vacuum will be soon re-filled by petty despotism.

What would Elizabeth Perry say?

It was always a pleasure meeting like-minded folks. This is true for hillbilly racists, white working class laborers, liberation theologists, too-poor-to-own-property-but-enough-to-afford-a-latte-a-day liberal activists. So is it true for immigrant intellectuals from the Orient.

ZDS is a professor in law school. We are of the same age but took quite different routes to the same spatial and temporal location as we did this afternoon… that is too much. We met in his office about my coal mine paper.

But the conversation diverged soon after. I am pleasantly surprised that he’s a fan of Foucault and Said too (more so of the latter and P Bourdieu). His has a insightful view concerning the two: Foucault is too concerned with domination and permeation. Said, however, expands Foucault’s thesis and dares to contest the symbols that were created by the powerful.

Our different views of recent events: Tibet, 08 election and the Western liberal democracy, echo our choice of favorite between Said and Foucault. I suspect his training in law and legislation breeds in him a more optimistic outlook for the outcast surviving in democracy. After all, his job is to protect the right to be different.

I am much more pessimistic about where the liberal legacy in the U.S. is heading to. Now think of it, I may have been “shocked and awed” by the collective reactions following 9.11. But the force of conformity is unmistakeable.

Will an Obama presidency change the paranoia, the hysteria of fear and the intolerance of dissent? To me, that is the hypocracy and the weakness of popular democracy, for it creates a paradox that is unsolvable: even if Obama’s election will change the political ethos of our time, he cannot win unless sufficient majority are ready for the change. If, just for the argument’s sake, the majority is wrong, irrational or stupid, what’s in liberal democracy that can bring a change to this sorry reality?

Just saw the news that Obama openly repudiated Rev. Wright. Also, there are reports that the Wright appearance in the Press Club was in part orchestrated by a Clinton supporter within the organization.

I have never been so disgusted by the political process since I came to the States. I can barely think now.

1. Why the liberals can’t appeal to more Rockefeller Republicans but have to pander to the Reagan Democrats? I would rather give in to the R.R. on tax cuts, law and order, and restrained regulations, rather than to the guns and religon of the racist hillbillies. Is it ever possible to keep a mass of ignorant, easily manipulated, and even reactionary people happy and to commence progressive social changes at the same time? What is the point to keep those people in the tent, so to speak? Do their votes help or hurt the liberal cause more?

2. What Obama is doing is to repent in public: I have sinned for knowing this man. What he did is no different from what a jailed dissident has to do in a Totalitarian regim: he can only be released after he confesses his “crime” and begs for forgiveness. What Wright said is extreme but is well within the limit of freespeech (and is true too!) But the mob society just quartered this guy: humiliated him ruthlessly and played him subtly. Apparently, this is not enough. Obama has to confess too. Otherwise, how best can the powerful mob ensure that Obama, who is running to be their President, is sufficiently disciplined and obdient than forcing a black man to repudiate another black man for protesting against racial injustice–in public and in earnest?!

3. Hillary Clinton is perhaps the most deserving President for this mob society. Not unlike what Bush and Cheney did after 9.11, she knows how to appeal to the worst in human beings. To ascend to the pinnacle of power, to fulfill her own imagined destiny, she is more than happy to pimp herself out to the dirtest fetish of the least desirable group of men, and the insecurity of the pettiest group of women.