Years of Poems and Spirits

I was just arguing for Diane yesterday and said, given my age and knowledge of American political system (and how easily it is to find about anything I like to know), “rarely has any one brought more significant marginal increase to what I know than Diane does.” And here is an good example today.

The topic of discussion is “Earmark Reform“. This was a contentious topic during the Presidential Campaign and a rather arcane one too. I knew what it is but didn’t know enough to make up my own mind about the need to reform.

Listening to today’s show changed all that. Diane has the uncanny ability to find the right guests for the right topic: not only are they knowledgeable, but also very articulate. The reform advocate (Melanie Sloan) has a very coherent argument for her cause, but the moderate guy and the status-quo guy are very engaging too. Nobody dismisses the other’s ideas out of hand so that the discussion degenerates into a shouting match. Even though Norman Ornstein appeared exacerbated at the notion of a whole-scale reform, he did a good enough job to make his point across.

After the program, a rather confusing topic now becomes pretty clear to me. I think the most effective and achievable reform at this stage is the continuation of making the process more transparent. I wouldn’t even go as far as publicly tying campaign contributions from earmark recipients (if you remodel your house, would you ask your contractors how much he made from every transactions involved in the project?)

Compared to most other talking heads, particularly those on cable TV, Diane’s program is a fine example of how journalists can keep Democracy the best political system in the world.

Too busy today, may add on to the following thoughts:

The problem of New York Times: the castrated ms media leader who would rather go after individual politicians than to challenge interest groups–whether it is Israel Lobby or Labor Unions; the unachieveable goal of “fair and balanced” reporting by any commercial enterprise; the critique of mainstream media in digital age in the New Yorker by A. Huffington; the power-hungry beasts like Politico and cable news and their impact to political discourse; and again, hallelujah to Diane!!

It is the 50th anniversary of Dalai’s escape from Tibet so the topic is in the news again recently. In my previous exchange with Denis B, he recommended John Powers’ book History as Propaganda. I thought I owe him (and myself) to read the book. Now half way into the book, I wondered why I even bothered.

There is not much I can do if at all. Talking about a sense of frustration and despair … if a dog likes to scratch a healing wound, it is because scratching gives him some comfort at that moment. But I don’t feel any sense of satisfaction learning any more about Tibet. Yet I am still doing so. The appeal of “truth” can be sickeningly overpowering. I probably shouldn’t have picked up this topic to begin with.

It started when I felt that the West’s condemnation of Chinese policy in Tibet was over the top. I thought a new “Orientalism” was clearly present. True, China is practicing some form of Imperialism in Tibet. But (however strange this sounds) that is what nations do!

Since the dawn of civilization, every nation performed some form of Imperialism (in the sense of forcefully incorporating “other” people) during inception . It is part of the nation’s founding myth. In fact, one can’t name any bona fide nation without some blood on their hands. Yet everyone finds a way to turn that blood stain into a badge of honor.

The Israelites blown down Jericho and we wrote a Bible to praise them. The Americans slaughtered Indians and that becomes part of the frontier spirit (aka American Exceptionalism which any public figure would feel proud to defend). The Brits, the French, the Turks … need I say more?

Yet to many Western minds, China is not to allowed to slaughter the sacrifice lamb, so to speak. That is where I had the most grudge against the Europeans. That is why I thought of Said even though he probably would have sided with the Tibetans. And that is the rock I am leaning against as a Chinese native, as a student of history and as a Realist.

But the hard place is found in the presense of the victims, and in the fact that I don’t find the Chinese government a representative of my opinion.

So what do I do? Trying to read more to find some solace in the presence of historical facts. But if any thing, Powers convinced me that unlike histories in other places, the one of Tibet has always been tempered with. In other words, the historians on both sides always had the sovereignty issue on their minds when they wrote history, and the debate we have today? They have been having it for centuries.

Not to say Powers is a nihilist on Tibet. He comes down more on the Tibetan side. I understand one’s need to find justification of the present in history. But is the Tibet question a history issue? Or how much of it is?

A letter I wrote to the Professors after reading an article on YanTan:

I was really moved by an article online: http://yantan.org/bbs/thread-87041-1-1.html. I don’t know why … just thought there is hope. Basically, the author went to a district in Sichuan after the earthquake and documented the struggle and formation of a new civic society. The article touched on several aspects in China’s civic culture I once thought was hopeless, for example, the destruction of an old tradition and the lack of a new, healthy ethos in this increasingly secular era, or the lack of trust among the populace.

What the story tells me is that if the threat and the promise of a omnipotent State is removed, and the life of people is returned to themselves, people generally will bring out their “social best”. In other words, people can be more trusting, more cooperative if they are entrusted with their own lives. This sounds so obvious but somehow, the world on the other side of the Pacific is so distorted, I never know whether the obvious is the reality or vice versa.

I wish I could hear more stories like this.