China's Influence Widens Nobel Peace Prize Boycott

c0lo writes "Not only did China decline to attend the upcoming Nobel peace prize ceremony, but urged diplomats in Oslo to stay away from the event warning of 'consequences' if they go. Possibly as a result of this (or on their own decisions), 18 other countries turned down the invitation: Pakistan, Iran, Sudan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Colombia, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Iraq, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Venezuela, the Philippines, Egypt, Ukraine, Cuba and Morocco. Reuters seems to think the 'consequences' are of an economic nature, pointing out that half of the countries with economies that gained global influence during recent times are boycotting the ceremony (with Brazil and India still attending)."

Comments

Creating own award

[Unoriginal Nick]

The AP is also reporting that China is creating a Confucius Peace Prize to be given out the day before the Nobel Prize.

Re:Creating own award

[holamundo]

I wonder what Confucius would think of this. Ignoring pleas of the people isn't exactly the kind of things he advocated. Seriously what China is going to achieve with the award? What will the award winners feel? Reminds me of raspberries, though they have different natures.

Re:Creating own award

[Anonymous Coward]

...Which should be given to Assange, for the sake of symmetry.

Re:Creating own award

[oldspewey]

What will the award winners feel?

Nervous dread? Blinding pain as they are led out into bright sunlight for the first time in months? The cold, wet embrace of cement being poured around their ankles? The anguish of knowing your entire family has been imprisoned? Cold metal against the back of their neck?

The possibilities really are limitless.

Re:Creating own award

[oWj9*7!7dsggh7]

It's true that the Nobel Peace Prize has been unreasonably politicized — not so much with Liu Xiaobo, but certainly with Gore and Obama. Then again, international events are intrinsically political and always have been.

I don't know what to say about the Confucius Peace Prize, though. Confucius was not about either peace or war — he was about extreme social conservatism. I suspect that one of these days, the world is going to stop finding China cute and see it for what it is: a first world colonialist culture with a high developed traditional theory of realpolitik and a chip on its shoulder about not being treated with sufficient respect. China will then be a much more interesting foil to the United States than it is now.

I mean, assuming the United States and China both still exist and haven't destroyed each other or merged into some horrible monster.

Re:Creating own award

[Hao Wu]

I wonder what Confucius would think of this. Ignoring pleas of the people isn't exactly the kind of things he advocated.

Do you know how Confusion society treated women?!? They were only slightly better off than women in the strictest Islamic societies.

Re:Creating own award

[corbettw]

Ignoring pleas of the people isn't exactly the kind of things he advocated.

Are you kidding me? Harmony of the state and living under a strict hierarchy are the linchpins of Confucious thought. The very idea that the "people" should be able to have a voice, let alone use it, would have been anathema to him and his contemporaries.

Confucius was a statist, pure and simple. Trying to paint him otherwise does a disservice to history and distorts the man's beliefs (however much I might disagree with them, I'm not going to deny he had them or that he was proud of them).

Re:Creating own award

[blackraven14250]

Let's be clear though, Confucius also advocated that the leaders of said hierarchy were thinking of everyone in the tree when doing anything. Not that I think it's right either way, but that's the way he thought. There was an obligation for the bottom to respect the top, and also for the top to respect the bottom.

Re:Creating own award

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

The AP is also reporting that China is creating a Confucius Peace Prize to be given out the day before the Nobel Prize.

Like the Party's massive focus on Beijing Opera that mimicked the west while using a thin veneer of native culture as a pretense of not copying the west, the Chinese autocracy proves that they still suffer from a serious inferiority complex.

Re:Creating own award

[PitaBred]

There's a reason Joss Whedon chose a mix of Chinese and English as the evolution of language in Firefly...

Re:Creating own award

[Culture20]

Do you know how Confusion society treated women?

I don't quite.. umm. Hrm. What do you... Huh. I think you're confused.

Re:Creating own award

[the_womble]

That Iraq and Afghanistan are on this list, when they are countries that the US has spent a huge amount of effort bringing them into its sphere of influence is a triumph for China.

There are also parallels with US diplomacy in the past: organising the Olympics boycott over Afghanistan, and getting support for the Iraq war with promises for a share of the loot.

Economic influence usually trumps political and military.

Re:Creating own award

[silentcoder]

"There was an obligation for the bottom to respect the top, and also for the top to respect the bottom."

In practice - identical to the way class-society worked in Victorian (and earlier) England. The upper classes were meant to have a duty of protection, charity and upliftment toward the lower-classes who did all the work and got none of the benefits of education, wealth or power.

The difference is- the West actually learned that this doesn't work. It was in the context of a country not very long *out* of a full class system (the Victorian "democracy" was starting out at best with almost all the power at that stage in the House of Lords - which was decidedly undemocratic), that Churchill made his famous dictum about democracy being the worst form of government except for all the others.

But mind you - Britain didn't really shed the class system as a cornerstone of their society until the 70's. The great class war was fought to the music of the sex pistols !
It took a good hundred years to get to that far and even today British royalty and upper classes are still privileged (though their say in the day-to-day running of the country has been largely destroyed)...

China however, hasn't even made the slightest start.

The entire world has been the kind of complete statist that China is now. We all did it. All our ancestors tried it, practically every Western nation was once an absolute monarchy. The reality is- we changed it because it doesn't work. China hasn't learned that yet, but if history is anything to go by - they will.
The real question is - will China fall (like most of those monarchies) in bloody revolution ? Or will they have the sense (like a few of them) to recognize the inevitability of the fall of statism- and implement reforms themselves before it comes to that ? The current Chines politburo's approach and statements (especially the rather telling ones on this peace prize) suggest that we shouldn't bet on it...

Re:Creating own award

[Anonymous Coward]

horrible monster? Will it attack Tokyo?

Re:Creating own award

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you know how Confusion society treated women?!? They were only slightly better off than women in the strictest Islamic societies.

And roughly on par with women in the strict Christian, Buddhist, and Hindu societies of the same era (in a broad sense).

So your point is...?

Re:Creating own award

[TheLink]

The reality is- we changed it because it doesn't work. China hasn't learned that yet, but if history is anything to go by - they will.

I think you ignore the fact "if history is anything to go by" China has had emperors for thousands of years.

This democracy thing is quite "untested" in comparison.

There were countries with democracies in the past and they too collapsed or were destroyed.

India is a democracy, it's not proven that it will do significantly better than China in the long run.

Re:Creating own award

[vegiVamp]

Confusius was a philosopher, not a ruler, you idiot.

Re:Creating own award

[mwvdlee]

"I want power/money/whatever; screw the rest of the world" IS "thinking of everyone in the tree".

Re:Creating own award

[erroneus]

Woah. Are you SURE the west has learned this doesn't work? The status of the educational system is still declining and the way it is set up is clearly identified as having the apparent intent on creating workers instead of thinkers (essentially keeping people 'in their place') rather than uplifting them. I can't speak for what other western nations are doing, but the system in the U.S. is pretty pathetic and getting worse. And the problems go beyond education. The differences between the today's U.S. and the days of the East India Trading Company are decreasing where business is becoming government.

There is change going on -- in the wrong direction.

Re:Creating own award

[polle404]

Gore, Obama, and most certainly with Yassir Arafat.
You can think what you want on the whole middle eastern situation, but the man was a what we in this day and age label as a terrorist.

The Nobel peace price has lost it's meaning.

I'll expect them to give it post posthumously to Che Guevara next year...

Re:Creating own award

[DNS-and-BIND]

Confucian thought was (is) the foundation of Chinese government. And stop calling other people idiots.

Re:Creating own award

[pjt33]

Britain didn't really shed the class system as a cornerstone of their society until the 70's.

I think you can safely drop the last three words. Maybe it's different in Scotland or Wales, but read an anthropological study of the English and then tell me that the class system isn't a powerful part of today's English culture.

Re:Creating own award

[thetagger]

That's a bit like saying Aristotlian thought is the basis of Western society.

Re:Creating own award

[Xaositecte]

The current education system trains people to accept their place in life, encourages them to accept it and teaches them how to do so effectively.

The brilliance of it all comes from the fact that a fair number of people are willing to do just that, accept being "mere" workers their entire lives. The only thing that's really changed is that the few who absolutely refuse to accept their lot in life have the opportunity to spend even more time working their asses off for EVEN MORE benefit to the wealthy in the vain hope of actually breaking into the upper class.

Compare this to China (or previous political systems used in the west) - where refusing to accept your lot in life forces those in power to waste time and effort stomping you back down.

Re:Creating own award

[Anonymous Coward]

in a broad sense

I see what you did there

Re:Creating own award

[silentcoder]

All you say is true - but meaningless because you misunderstood my point. I didn't say that they don't work as in "they collapse" - I meant they don't work as in "they inevitably lead to abuse and eventually the response to that abuse is revolution".

Re:Creating own award

[silentcoder]

> but read an anthropological study of the English and then tell me that the class system isn't a powerful part of today's English culture.

Oh no doubt about that ! I even acknowledged as much - but the class system's political power prior to the 1970's class-war was orders of magnitude greater than it is today. Culturally that power is still incredibly prevalent, but politically it's quite watered down -especially in this age where half the Lords in the house weren't even born aristocrats.

Re:Creating own award

[chrb]

The reality is- we changed it because it doesn't work.

The system worked well enough to make the British Empire the largest empire the world has ever seen, and to give a relatively small nation dominance and influence above it's weight for several centuries.

The system has worked so far in propelling China towards becoming the world's largest economy, and in urbanising and significantly raising the standard of living for hundreds of millions of people who previously lived as subsistence farmers.

This is not a question of being "statist" or "not statist", as the terms are too simple... some people would say that the legal authority of the Federal Reserve to print notes is statist. Using the military to enact social and political goals through both war and plain old "defense spending"? Statist. Building highways and railroads? Statist. Even the Wikipedia article fails to give some actual measurable attributes of what makes a thing "statist". All governments must plan growth by investing in infrastructure and technologies, but at what level does this get labelled "statist"?

The more interesting question is - what exactly is it that has given China this competitive advantage now? Does removing human rights protection (and hence democracy, as people would not vote for this) result in huge economic growth? Or is it just the natural result of having a billion-person common market with wages massively below the rest of the world? In response to the recession both the U.S. and China announced the creation of high-speed rail networks - the result being that China will have created the world's largest network in just over a decade, whilst Americans will have spent that decade arguing in the courts. China has flattened entire towns, to be paved over and replaced with newly built cities - this may be more efficient development, but would we be willing to give the government the right to do this in order to remain competitive in the global economy? If democracy and personal freedom (or greed) really is a less efficient way to manage a large national economy, then what do we choose - less democracy, less individual power, more government/corporate power, or stay the same? Which way do you think the powers that be are trying to drive our society in order to become more competitive in this new global age?

Re:Creating own award

[Yvanhoe]

More like saying that Christian thought is the basis of Western society.

Re:Creating own award

[Anonymous Coward]

> India is a democracy, it's not proven that it will do significantly better than China in the long run.

Let's get off the high horse, shall we (*)? For a foreigner, the view is not so rosy: the US no longer holds the standard of democracy.

It feels like some more conservative folks are surprisingly saying security measures trump democracy, and free expression is ok if it's not against "national" (hah!) interests.

Corporations and lobbyists are hijacking power and making the citizen live in a Orwellian nightmare.

Though far away still from China, I wonder what would happen if Assange gets a Nobel...

(*) I'm not implying the above post is from an US citizen, nor that I am. Also, this is not vented out of a strong emotion, but rather from a perplexed view of the sudden derangement of US society.

Re:Creating own award

[Loundry]

India is a democracy

"Democracy" is probably one of the most abused words in political discourse. What does it mean to you? What does it imply?

"Eternal, unflinchingly rigid caste system", perhaps?

Re:Creating own award

[Anonymous Coward]

It's true that the Nobel Peace Prize has been unreasonably politicized — not so much with Liu Xiaobo, but certainly with Gore and Obama. Then again, international events are intrinsically political and always have been.

Gore actually deserved it, I think - at least in the way that anyone who received it in the last 20 or 30 or 50 years did. Despite liking Obama a lot (yes, still; everyone, feel free to launch a tirade in reply to this) I'll concede that he basically appears to have gotten it for not being George Bush, but Gore is actually working on a very serious problem, even if half of Slashdot would rather believe that global warming doesn't exist (again ,feel free to reply with long tirades here, fellow Slashdotters).

One could say that he's not working for peace, of course, but then, the peace prize has been about positive social change instead for quite a while.

Re:Creating own award

[couchslug]

That approach doesn't work forever, but in fact HAS worked SO FAR to give Chinese a wealthier lifestyle than ever before in their history. Keep in mind China was a smoking ruin when the ChiComs took over in 1948.

Pre-1948 conditions are a living memory. Order and food are more useful than freedom, which is merely a means toward more comfortable order and more food. China is evolving quite rapidly, and shouldn't be judged by EU standards because it isn't Europe.

Re:Creating own award

[OneMadMuppet]

Typically, "Democracy" means "I don't understand the word Republic".

Re:Creating own award

[Anonymous Coward]

Confucius was not about either peace or war -- he was about extreme social conservatism.

I don't know where you get this idea, or against what is Confucius "extreme". I mean, how can you be more conservative than Christian Fundamentalism in the US, or even worst, Muslim Fundamentalism in Middle East?

As least, Confucius accept that sex, like hunger, is normal human desire and behavior, rather than some sinful thing you need to suppress. I think Confucius is more about having a structured society with more explicit social contract, and harmony between people. If you call that "social conservatism", then maybe you prefer society more like wild west America complete with occasional gunfights?

Re:Creating own award

[Anonymous Coward]

This democracy thing is quite "untested" in comparison.

Really? I seem to recall that e.g. ancient Athens and Rome had democracies. Now granted, Athens was just a city state (and their idea of democracy was quite different from ours, anyway), and Rome started with kings, then got a democracy, and then moved back to emperors, but it's hardly untested.

What *is* unclear is whether democracy can stand the test of time, and whether it's the stable solution that all systems will eventually and naturally converge to, at least on average; witness e.g. Rome moving back to emperors. And it certainly isn't clear whether it provides for an economic advantage, which is what your comment about India appears to be about.

But you're misunderstanding the GP's point, I think; it's not about economic success. It's about whether the idea that there can be a social compact between the peons and the nobility that both sides do respect can succeed or not, and I think China, like pretty much every country, is actually a good example of how this is not the case. As was pointed out, the peons WILL be exploited by the nobility, and - seeing as they are peons - they will, for the most part, not be able to fight back. In that sense, the system isn't successful: in reality, it fails to adhere to its own posited values.

Re:Creating own award

[Neil Boekend]

Mainly: it was a cool way to get around censorship. They obviously curse, but since it was in Mandarin the censors weren't offended. Joss Whedon chose Mandarin because China was quite an easy extrapolation, it's the only country that's evolving into a superpower instead of declining or clinging to the memory. English was of course required to sell it in the USA, and because the USA is the last "old" superpower.

Re:Creating own award

[Zediker]

So, essentially what societies should eventually converge to is a form of government that offers the most utility and minimizes apathy to the greatest extent. Anyone have any idea what form of government maximizes utility and minimizes apathy? Most seem to offer one or the other, and almost never both (in the previous stated relationship).

Re:Creating own award

[Anonymous Coward]

India is a democracy? Since when?

We do have elections. But that is just an excuse for corrupt politicians to share a teeny weeny bit of their ill gotten gains with the unwashed masses.

Every leader is very corrupt - yes this includes Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi who are thought off so highly in the western press.

Elections cost about Rs. 500 per vote in some of the southern states. Now, 5 years later, it will be higher to account or inflation. But still well within affordability of our politicians.

Re:Creating own award

[jandersen]

The difference is- the West actually learned that this doesn't work. It was in the context of a country not very long *out* of a full class system (the Victorian "democracy" was starting out at best with almost all the power at that stage in the House of Lords - which was decidedly undemocratic), that Churchill made his famous dictum about democracy being the worst form of government except for all the others.

I think you are waxing lyrical here.

First of all, the West has not actually learned anything of the sort; we may subscribe to a different view in words, but words is all it is. Otherwise, why is it that rich kids somehow don't get punished as hard as the filthy junkie when they commit the same crime (drug dealing)? Western society is as class divided as it always was; it seems almost to be something built into human nature. The only real difference is that Confucianism formalises the concept and we pretend that it isn't so.

And the effect of that is that where in Chinese thinking there tends to be a clear expectation that the rulers have the common good at heart, in the West everybody thinks that the only thing that matters is to grab as much as possible and try to get away with itin any way possible.

I am not saying that Democracy is not right, but we don't hold the patent here in the West - again, we just pretend, because it makes us feel superior. How much real democracy is there when you can only get elected president if you can somehow manage to spend in the 100s of millions of USD? It is little more than X-factor for rich people, and not even as entertaining.

Re:Creating own award

[Anonymous Coward]

This is exactly what Mussolini preached and it is coupled with corporatism the core of fashist ideology. Class collaboration is the linchpin in fashist and nazi thought. Feudalism was also for "enlightened leaders" the reality is that it doesn't work that way. Consider this in relation to our current "democracy".

Re:Creating own award

[peragrin]

The only real response to to dictatorships is revolution as nothing else will work. There is no other method for change. Democracies in the past have collapsed because they were either killed off(Greece was conquored by the romans), put to much power in person's hands making them an emperor (rome).

The real solution is not to have one person with all the authority. However that creates two problems bureaucracy, and it is slow to react to anything.

In reality for all the grandstanding the President of the USA is almost powerless. He can't do much without approval of congress, he can only challenge things in court. He can deploy the military sure but only for 60-90 days. He can't create jobs, he doesn't control the economy or interest rates, all he can do is approve the budget. Oh and he gets all the blame.

there si a reason why everyone who goes into that office comes out ragged. You have no power to fix anything but you get all the blame when it goes wrong.

Re:Creating own award

[peragrin]

England got lucky, in two respects. Most of their kings and queens weren't total idiots, and since the 1300's the Lords had enough power that the kings and queens had to at least listen to them. Over time that power expanded into a parliament.

As for the size of their empire that too is pretty much all gone. American's revolted in a bloody fued, India was freed after several years of mostly non violent struggles, Their influence could only hold so long. After India all the other area's slowly became free too.

Re:Creating own award

[hairyfeet]

Yeah, about that....those in power really might ought to remember that whole "tree of liberty, blood of tyrants" bit. Come to the flyover states you've got endless abandoned homes and stores, huge masses of unemployed with no future side by side with huge masses of illegal immigrants with again no future. Hell the whole thing is a powderkeg and it really wouldn't take much of a match to light that fuse. The only thing that is keeping the masses from taking to the streets is the endless unemployment because thanks to offshoring we have lost 22,000 FACTORIES just since 2001 and the "business district" of most of the small towns down here look like something from "Escape from New York".

So they might want to learn from their history. No intent to Godwin but the Germans didn't give a shit if they called themselves nationalist or socialist or what, just that they had someone to hate and "bread and jobs". Despite the right's attempts to try to pin that hate on the immigrants I can tell you that many of those in the flyover states have a nice seething hatred for the rich and frankly wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire. It really wouldn't take even a speaker of Lenin quality to rile up the masses and turn them on the rich right now like Pol Pot did to Cambodia. People with no hope and no future got nothing to lose. They might want to remember that.

Re:Creating own award

[Anonymous Coward]

All you say is true - but meaningless because you misunderstood my point. I didn't say that they don't work as in "they collapse" - I meant they don't work as in "they inevitably lead to abuse and eventually the response to that abuse is revolution".

Democracy also inevitably leads to abuse and eventually the response to that abuse is either cesarism, or mafia rule (aka feudalism). After a long cycle it ends in new revolutions and brief periods of unwarranted optimism (early democracy), and again and again ... Perhaps Confucianism is result of long enough written historical records? We only had records of one cycle in history of the West: Roman, ... maybe two (case of Napoleon Bonaparte).

Overall, I don't think social arrangement can bring individual happiness, only individuals are responsible for their own well-being and only the state is responsible for itself to function. The state should count on individuals to challenge it, but not too boldly if they know what's good for them and individuals should count on state to oppress them, but not too hard if it knows what's good for it. What one does depends on what one deems more or less important goals. What I consider really unethical and unfair is to lie public about how their state really works. For instance, saying that criticism is good, then punishing the ones who criticize. Or, claiming there is no need of bribery then favoring those who do bribe. Everybody deserves at least fair warning and accurate map.

Re:Creating own award

[hairyfeet]

I'm sure I'll get hate from the left, but the ONLY award Gore deserved was 'hypocrite of the year'. If they would have given to someone like Ed Begley JR, who actually walks the walk as well as talks the talk? I'd have been right there with ya. But Gore farting around in his personal Lear Jet while paying HIS COMPANY for carbon credits and going back to his McMansion that could power a suburb with the juice it blows on AC? Yeah bullshit. The guy has sat himself up behind the scenes to become a carbon billionaire and is pushing his own interests. maybe we should give it to Cheney for all the work for Haliburton?

As for TFA? I have one word that the USA seems to have forgotten...nationalism. Why did the sun not set on the British Empire at the start of the 20th? White Man's burden, aka nationalism. Why did the USA emerge powerful out of WWII? Because it put America and the American way of life FIRST. Just look at how quickly we STFU about the Nazis when they could give us new rocket tech. Well while we were sleeping China learned our lessons, and they learned them well. China is all about China FIRST, fuck everyone else. You may not like it because it isn't hand holding and kissy kissy nice, but the world has never been a nice place folks. The next wars won't be fought for beliefs, or for land, but for resources. And China is making damned sure those resources will be headed their way. Just look at how quickly they are hooking up with Africa. think they care about the plight of the African people? Fuck no, they got resources China needs, period.

It would be nice if we woke up and actually went back to an American first policy, instead of kissing banker ass, but sadly i think we will suffer a complete and total collapse, followed by the bankers having to do a reenactment of the fall of Saigon before that happens. I give it another decade, 20 tops before the money is as worthless as a Zimbabwe dollar. Whether we will emerge fascist, totalitarian, socialist, or something else? Who knows, but forgetting the lessons of the past WILL bite us in the ass.

Re:Creating own award

[elrous0]

Confucius say this year's prize goes to the brave hero who drove his tank into Tiananmen Square to strike a blow for peace against violent, anarchist protesters!

Re:Creating own award

[Anonymous Coward]

Was.

See the Four Olds and the Criticize Confucius campaigns of the Cultural Revolution.

Re:Creating own award

[blackraven14250]

The whole discussion wasn't about practice, it was about theory, since it was about Confucius, not the political reality in China.

Re:Creating own award

[jollyreaper]

The entire world has been the kind of complete statist that China is now. We all did it. All our ancestors tried it, practically every Western nation was once an absolute monarchy. The reality is- we changed it because it doesn't work. China hasn't learned that yet, but if history is anything to go by - they will.
The real question is - will China fall (like most of those monarchies) in bloody revolution ? Or will they have the sense (like a few of them) to recognize the inevitability of the fall of statism- and implement reforms themselves before it comes to that ? The current Chines politburo's approach and statements (especially the rather telling ones on this peace prize) suggest that we shouldn't bet on it...

I'm making my own prediction. Not sure if I'll be right on this one but I think it's got an even shot of it.

I think that the corruption within the current Chinese economy will cause the whole thing to collapse. It's pretty much the same problem the US and USSR suffered from but coming from different angles. Right now the people are supporting the government because prosperity seems to be at hand. Well, what happens when the economic engine shuts off? America's facing the death of the American dream. Will we embrace serfhood happily or will we rebel? Uncertain. The Russians like having a powerful autocrat in charge and have a cultural familiarity with being fucked over by one type of autocrat or another. The Chinese are, as pointed out, a really big mix of ethnic groups with rival priorities. The Three Gorges Dam is a prestige project that the party says has to get done but there was a lot of corner-cutting to make it happen. I don't think it's going to hold up under the next big quake they have.

My bet is that the collapse of Three Gorges will either precipitate a crisis of government or occur during a crisis and push things over the edge. What comes next will, as the Chinese say, be interesting times.

But like I said, this is just a personal theory. The Chinese may remain subservient without that sort of intervention. After the worst of the Yeltsin years and now Putin we've never seen any sort of revolutionary reform movement over there. We're looking at the end of the American Dream in this country with capitalism no longer plausibly seen as a force for social good for the poor and nobody cares. So maybe all that will happen in China is one group of autocrat assholes supplants another group of autocrat assholes and things continue as before.

Re:Creating own award

[Anonymous Coward]

If there were any truth to that at all, then they wouldn't keep voting to give the rich more of all of our money. These are the Republican areas of the country, they asked for exactly this

No. They voted Republican, which is a stance that allows the rich (and everyone else) to not be taxed as much. Liberals like Obama give the rich (themselves) more of OUR money (TARP) while creating programs that make more barriers for upward mobility from poor to lower-middle class. (Fund unemployment for another year to prevent job loss? what?)

ob. sig:

-- Catholic: A person who willingly pays to have children's assholes raped until they bleed.

Liberal: A person who willingly pays to have children's assholes raped until they bleed. FTFY

Re:Creating own award

[Eunuchswear]

Typically, "Democracy" means "I don't understand the word Republic".

The UK
Canada
Australia
New Zealand
Norway
Denmark
Sweden
Belgium
Holland
Spain
Japan

Republics? Democracies?

China

Republic? Democracy?

Republic is orthogonal to Democracy.

Re:Creating own award

[hairyfeet]

You can't really go by polls, because the young and the poor have already given up on the system and know voting is as worthless as in any third world country. if you look at the polls in the red states you will see a good 60%+ are over 55 and voting for religion, and the right makes sure to keep thumping them bibles.

But trying to judge the populace at this point by polls is like trying to judge Russia before Red October by what those at the top felt. the young and the poor have ALREADY given up on your system friend. Do you know what gangbangers are pushing their thugs into? The military. Makes great trained soldiers ready to fight. We have oath takers pledging to take down the USA government if they go against the constitution. Did you see that 20 years ago? nope, because people still believed in the American Dream, which is dead to large sections of your populace. the future won't be found in your polls, they'll be found in your streets. Like I said, one decade, two tops. Then you get to see the fall of Saigon up close. It ain't gonna be pretty folks, and I bet a lot of bankers will be hanging from the trees.

Re:Creating own award

[Eunuchswear]

No, it lost its meaning when they gave it to Kissinger and Le Duc Tho.

(Le Duc Tho had the balls to decline it).

Re:Creating own award

[cobrausn]

Well, for a brief instant, we will likely be anarchistic.

Re:Creating own award

[Asic Eng]

The more interesting question is - what exactly is it that has given China this competitive advantage now?

Low wages (or wage dumping at this point, together with currency manipulations to keep export prices attractive), relative stability (as long as growth rates are high, at least) and the fact that they are in a catching-up position. It's a lot easier (and initially more profitable) to copy proven designs from mature economies instead of coming up with their own. If you look back - Taiwan used to have similar growth rates. Now that wages have increased and they've moved to technology leadership in many fields, rather than being followers, their growth rates have slowed down.

The system has worked so far in propelling China towards becoming the world's largest economy

Largest exporter, actually - that's quite different. The US economy is about three times the size. Anyway if you lump the GDP of a billion people together, you ought to end up with a large number. If you lump the EU together (and there is some justification for doing that) you'd end up with 500 million people and an economy four times the size of China's. (See here.)

If you compare a country's performance you should really look at something like GDP per head, instead. China is at $3735, Taiwan at $16372, the US at $46436. (Using IMF data.) So the system has worked in the sense that it has increased China's GDP, but right now it's working nowhere near as well as the systems in developed countries.

Re:Creating own award

[Anonymous Coward]

Confucius was not about either peace or war — he was about extreme social conservatism

The other side of Confucius's argument about mutual respect between those who rule and those who are ruled is purposefully forgotten in modern China. So the prize will be politically motivated, ultimately.

Re:Creating own award

[m50d]

But interestingly enough, the empire only fell after the introduction of democracy.

Re:Creating own award

[ultranova]

I think you ignore the fact "if history is anything to go by" China has had emperors for thousands of years.

It did. The end result was going from the most powerful civilization of the world to an abused colony of Western powers. An emperor will always prefer the status quo with himself on the top to progress.

China's current success is because the government has loosened the reins a bit. But make no mistake, it's still mostly an agricultural country - it's just so huge even a tiny bit of industrialization counts for a lot.

Re:Creating own award

[tophermeyer]

In reality for all the grandstanding the President of the USA is almost powerless. He can't do much without approval of congress

He's not meant to. The office of POTUS was intended to enforce decisions from Congress, who were intended to have decision making authority but no ability to enforce it. The courts exist to make sure everyone is playing nice. Separation of power and all that.

IMO the problem is that POTUS is too involved with policy and Congress is too involved with enforcement. Our direction and leadership was intended to come from our locally elected representatives, with POTUS serving as neutral enforcement of Congress' decisions. Too much decision making is being done by POTUS, so Congress is responding by trying to pick up some enforcement capabilities.

Re:Creating own award

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I for one can't wait until we all reach the "Where do we eat?" stage.

Re:Creating own award

[Gilmoure]

The Greco-Roman/Judeo-Christian Western Society?

Re:Creating own award

[ultranova]

The system worked well enough to make the British Empire the largest empire the world has ever seen, and to give a relatively small nation dominance and influence above it's weight for several centuries.

The British Empire - both of them - wasn't born until after Magna Carta was.

The system has worked so far in propelling China towards becoming the world's largest economy, and in urbanising and significantly raising the standard of living for hundreds of millions of people who previously lived as subsistence farmers.

Most of them still do. And Mao's tyranny did nothing to help that. It wasn't until after he died that China began its rise. And even that is mostly linked to Chinese government loosening the reins and restoring the order after the chaos of Cultural Revolution. Mass industrialization could never have happened under Mao, since he was intent on killing all engineers and other educated people.

Sanity has advantages, and dictators tend to be insane - that's the point here.

Re:Creating own award

[tophermeyer]

But the democracy practiced by the Empire was more like democratic imperialism, not the kind of fully representational democracy that we think of today..

The motivations for the notable revolutions were that democratic principles were not being applied to the colonies. They had democracy in England, but English democracy controlled India and the America's.

Re:Creating own award

[Grishnakh]

The US isn't a democracy at all. It's a corporate fascist state. To confuse the voters, there's two parties, that talk about certain hot-button issues to get voters riled up, but when it comes to actually running the country (i.e., economic things, like laws on how large corporations and banks operate), these parties are actually the same. So there's a big charade about giving voters the "choice" between two sides of the same coin.

Democracies (or more properly, "republics" or "representative democracies") don't work in countries that are too large, or where the citizens are too uneducated. They work well in small countries, with homogeneous populations and cultures, high standards of living, and good public education systems. This isn't going to happen in the USA until it breaks up into a bunch of much smaller countries.

Re:Creating own award

[Grishnakh]

Sounds exactly like the USA. All our leaders are corrupt, with a few exceptions (Ron Paul and Bernie Sanders appear not to be corrupt).

Re:Creating own award

[Grishnakh]

Don't confuse the USA with "western democracy". The USA is a corporate fascist state, not a democracy by any stretch of the imagination. We don't even have any choice in our elections, just two utterly corrupt political parties that say different things but then do the same thing when in power.

Also, the USA's education system isn't like that of other western nations (i.e., western European countries). That's why we're always ranking in the bottom.

Democracy (or more accurately, what we call a "republic") works well in small countries with good public education systems and homogeneous people. It doesn't work in big countries with too much diversity and too much power. Diversity (i.e., too many different cultures) causes people to fight each other, and power (coming from being large, like we see in China) corrupts the leadership.

Re:Creating own award

[ljgshkg]

Well, top respecting bottom and bottom respecting top is not impossible. The situation of the west is different. China has a huge system of local, provincial, and national wide exam since almost 2000 years ago. And basically all government officals have to go throuh national examination in the capital, and only the top can get in. As a result, the government is filled with scholars who do care about the people (or not). Now, China is much larger than European countries. And emperor is the head of country, but not head of government. Power of top government officals are huge compare to the west because given the country size, they can have a good base to rebel against the royal family if the government get little respect. And since most officials arises from national examinations, together with the traditoin, anything that is seriously against "the good" will likely get strong opposition from many officals, from top officals to local officals. Let alone famous "colleges/schools" who do comment on all kind of policies. This turns into a complex power game. On one side, they have to follow tradition/law at least on the surface and keep everything in harmony. On the other side, each groups with very different ideas have their own power "alliences" (we call them "party" in Chinese). That result in a situation very similar to what you see in today's parliments, parties picking on each other's fault, promoting their own ideas, etc. And in normal time, the final decision is most often made when most top officals reaches consensus. Or if one party gain majority offical support, which can add strong pressure on the emperor even if he oppose to a suggestion.

Here, the top is not neccessary respecting the bottom, but respecting the tradition, worring about their own "look" in history in the future, and affected by power of top officals/parties. But at least, because of confusious based system, they can't go too far in normal times. Chinese care a lot about how they appear in history, and want a name in history, giving pride to their family.

The bottom does not neccessary respect the top, but because all local government head are officals appointed by province or central governments, they also do not want their "bad decisions" to be known by upper officals, who want harmony in their area of control to make sure nothing block them from rising to upper level of governments. As a result, the power of the bottom is also quite powerful in normal times.

There are of course some problem with the system that was caused by reality situation of different times. But the bottom line is, there is usually a equilibium. Not neccessary by "respect", but by tradition, strong view of good or bad ruling in confusious, and government officals who arrises from national examinations.

That is why the idea of "elite government" is quite popular in Chinese cultural area. Even in democratic countries like Japan and Korea, this kind of cultural value is still embedded within voter's decision. One example is Singapore, which is always critizied by the west. Is totally not critizied by even democratic east asian countries. Why? Because it works, and it worked well before. Way better than democratic governments today in the good times. There is no absolute good between "elite" or "democracy". What you need is to identify the short falls o what you have right now and correct them with new ideas or pulling in ideas of other types of government to create your own combination that works.

Re:Creating own award

[aeoo]

Ignoring pleas of the people isn't exactly the kind of things he advocated.

Are you kidding me? Harmony of the state and living under a strict hierarchy are the linchpins of Confucious thought. The very idea that the "people" should be able to have a voice, let alone use it, would have been anathema to him and his contemporaries.

Contemporaries? Really now? There was a big diversity of opinion on this matter inside China even during the time of Confucious. Chuang Tzu (Zhuangzi) was a notorious critic of Confucian thinking, and Daoism, of which Chuang Tzu is the second highest ranking patriarch after Lao Tzu, is arguably as popular and as essentially Chinese as is Confucianism.

Re:Creating own award

[Grishnakh]

Why did the USA emerge powerful out of WWII? Because it put America and the American way of life FIRST.

Not exactly. The USA emerged powerful out of WWII because it was the only industrialized western power left standing after an extremely destructive war. The European powers were all bombed out, as was Japan. The USA experienced no destruction whatsoever, except for one naval base in Hawaii. All of the USA's industrial facilities were intact, and in fact it had massively increased industrial capacity for the war, while the other powers all had their industrial locations bombed. So, when the war ended, all the other countries had no one to turn to to help rebuild but the USA. We got rich selling them shit and rebuilding them. The other countries of the world that weren't highly affected (such as, say, India, or various African countries) were not industrialized and had no industrial capacity to speak of.

It wasn't about any ideological thing, it was simple economics. The USA was in the right place at the right time with the right qualities: educated and skilled workforce, tons of industrial manufacturing capacity, plenty of resources, no war damage to fix, surrounded on both sides by thousands of miles of water making aerial attack impossible, etc.

Re:Creating own award

[Anonymous Coward]

> I think you ignore the fact "if history is anything to go by" China has had emperors for thousands of years.

Just like everyone else did? And, just like everyone else, Chinese imperial dynasties stagnate, rot, and collapse. Some of their favorite old stories are about several decades of war in between. (The in-between-dynasties wars that they don't like to talk about tend to involve either being conquered, or dragging on much longer, or both). Their history isn't one big monolithic piece; it's as vividly tangled as any other region's history.

It's the Chinese *culture* that has endurance, not the politics. The politics have always been kinda crappy.

Re:Creating own award

[zugedneb]

no, we have only moved up the stairs, the lower classese are China, India, Bananaland and so on...

I well praise freedom and democracy when we manufacture our own shit, and perfect the skill of living of the "local land" instead of others...

Re:Creating own award

[corbettw]

You're right, "contemporaries" was a poor choice of words. I should have used "colleagues", since I was primarily referring to others in the Imperial Civil Service.

Re:Creating own award

[MaskedSlacker]

why is it that rich kids somehow don't get punished as hard as the filthy junkie when they commit the same crime (drug dealing)?

The filthy junkie is usually dumb (or ignorant rather) enough to confess, often inadvertantly.

The rich kid knows not to talk until Daddy and the Lawyers have told him what to say.

I'm not saying it's fair, but it's not (usually) like the prosecutor looks at Dad's tax returns before deciding whether to prosecute.

Re:Creating own award

[sumdumass]

Well, you are also forgetting that the US government was supposed to be little more then a head of state (read foreign affairs) for the several states and settle or set rules to avoid disputed between the states. It was never intended to be this omnipotent being that has jurisdiction over the entire country in every matter. This is evident by how it doesn't have any ability to enforce most of it's laws unless they are violated on government property or somehow cross state lines.

Re:Creating own award

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

"Democracy" is probably one of the most abused words in political discourse. What does it mean to you? What does it imply?

As far as I'm concerned, democracy is a Greek euphemism for mob rule.

Re:Creating own award

[shutdown -p now]

Typically, "Democracy" means "I don't understand the word Republic".

From my experience on Slashdot, typically it's the other way around.

As a side note, a very strong hint that person doesn't understand the modern meaning of the word "democracy", and its non-exclusive relationship with "republic", is when said person capitalises them as "Democracy" and "Republic".

As another side note, I've yet to see a non-American confused about the two.

Re:Creating own award

[xaositects]

my kingdom for mod points

Re:Creating own award

[CodeBuster]

a chip on its shoulder about not being treated with sufficient respect.

If China wants the respect of other nations then they must demonstrate, through actions, that they are worthy of that respect according to our value systems and not what they think our value systems should be. Everyone decides for themselves who is worthy of respect; respect is in the eye of the beholder. China is a somewhat odd in that they claim cultural superiority and profess not to care what others think of their deeds and yet they complain when the rest of the world responds with "tsk, tsk, tsk". It seems to me that, despite the age and pedigree of their civilization, the Chinese have much to learn when it comes to respect and deeds worthy of praise.

Re:Creating own award

[uninformedLuddite]

it must have been the influence of the Greco-Roman bit as I read your comment as Wrestling Society

Re:Creating own award

[uninformedLuddite]

How sad is it that the stupidity of SERIOUS /. posters have me MISSING the good old days of GNAA.

It's getting so sad I am beginning to miss AOL

Re:Creating own award

[uninformedLuddite]

"Democracy" is probably one of the most abused words in political discourse. What does it mean to you? What does it imply?

War? Misery? Hunger? Lies? Are these the 'missing' eternal truths?

Re:Creating own award

[uninformedLuddite]

My favourite is GUB

Re:Creating own award

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep Ron Paul is just retarded instead (though not to the same degree as his shockingly moronic son Rand at least...). Sanders is pretty chill though...

Re:Creating own award

[silentcoder]

I don't consider even one of the things you mentioned to be examples of a system that works, none of them had anything to with why the statism was ended either.
Alexander's absolute rule conquered half the world too - conquest is practically built into statism and one of the reasons why it DOESN'T work - sooner or later every empire built that way collapses under it's own weight because they are by definition ill equipped for what actually matters -keeping their own citizens well fed and happy.
Rome more than anything fell to starvation - even as their wars of conquest persisted. When the enemy comes to your gates, starving citizens tend not to be very loyal defenders.
Britain during it's period as the largest empire on Earth committed some of the worst human rights atrocities in history. The Nazis could have taken lessons from them. The culmination was the flagrant murder of 27 thousand boer women and children in the 3-years war. Couldn't beat the men in the field, so they killed off the women and children in the first ever example of concentration-camp slaughter (that lesson the Nazis actually DID learn from them).

At the same time, the socio-economic state within England itself (it's own citizens) was rapidly declining. It peaked in terms of education levels near the late Victorian age - when worker-run universities provided some of the best science education in the world, it was from this breeding ground that people like Darwin came.

At the same time they had the highest child mortality rate in human history. No nation before or since has matched. 99% of all children dying before age 10. That disaster was the basis of Dickins' famous books - and the reason why most modern countries ended up making child-labor illegal.

I don't think how much of the world you conquer is any indication of how well your system works - on the contrary, it tends to be an indication of how misplaced your priorities are. A state can only be said to function in a sustainable way when it places the welfare of it's citizens as it's SOLE priority. All other goals are either pursued to promote said welfare, or not pursued at all.

Re:Creating own award

[Synonymous Homonym]

Why did the sun not set on the British Empire at the start of the 20th?

Colonialism.

Why did the USA emerge powerful out of WWII?

In part because it waited until Russia and the Resistance had done most of the work, then founded the CIA to buy up and coordinate what was left of the Nazi partisans,
in part because of the Bomb,
but mostly because of the Bretton-Woods system, which was installed in 1944, in which every currency and debt was measured against the US dollar, and which became untenable in 1973.

nationalism

You keep using that word.

Nationalism was a popular movement against monarchism, the idea that people should be separated according to ethnicity, not according to whoever held title of the land at any given moment. It is a kind of Chauvinism in that its imperative is that the own nation is more important than any other, which merely reflects the mercantilism practiced by the aristocracy. It meshed well with Smith's ideas of capitalism, however, and thus became a cornerstone of fascism.

Whether we will emerge fascist, totalitarian, socialist, or something else

it will be a state of emergency either way.

Re:Creating own award

[silentcoder]

"How much real democracy is there when you can only get elected president if you can somehow manage to spend in the 100s of millions of USD?"

America != the West.
Western democracy also exists in many other places -and works better in a lot of them. For starters the the combined campaign expenses of every German Chancelor since World War 2 is less than the lowest campaign expense by any single elected US president in the same period. Money doesn't win elections there !
This may explain why they are the only country to come up with the brilliant idea of offering companies a tax benefit if - during recessions they reduce worker hours rather than cutting jobs (people are generally better off with a temporary reduction in income than with losing it entirely). Why their socialist wellfare state is the only nation in Europe or the Americas to have not had major job losses in the last two years - and in fact has seen employment rates start to increase already.
You can't become Chancelor of Germany by being a good personality with lots of money - you have to convince people you can actually do a good JOB !
Of course Merkel and those before her aren't perfect leaders, but I'll tell you this I would MUCH rather live in Germany than in the USA.
Not to be playing favorites or anything - the point is merely that democratic republics can work, can work a lot better than it does in the USA, and that apparently a bit of socialism isn't all that bad either. Germany's economy has consistently done remarkably well despite their welfare state.
In fact - on her last visit there in 2008 Gondoleeza Rice asked Merkel how Germany manages to do so consistently well in the economy despite their rigid job protection, highly-complete welfare ( though Rice didn't mention this but we should keep in mind it is nicely counteracted by systems that make it nicer to have a job than welfare, and help make sure you probably won't lose that job because some bankers on another continent were greedy and corrupt).
Merkel replied: "It's really simple. Unlike you - we still MAKE STUFF".

>"It is little more than X-factor for rich people, and not even as entertaining."
This made me laugh - best description of politics (as it happens in most countries I admit) that I've ever read.

Re:Creating own award

[silentcoder]

>"What comes next will, as the Chinese say, be interesting times."

Sorry the nitpicker in me has to point out that no such phrase exists in Chinese. Either as an expression or a "curse" as it's often quoted. It is quite telling that throughout the West, people use this phrase, invariable attributing it to a Chinese curse - when in fact the phrase is of English origin and has never existed in any other language - it certainly doesn't reflect anything that actually gets said in China.

Re:Creating own award

[silentcoder]

You know if I hadn't already started this thread - and had modpoints - I would spend every single one upmodding you for this post !

Re:Creating own award

[jandersen]

I'm not saying it's fair, but it's not (usually) like the prosecutor looks at Dad's tax returns before deciding whether to prosecute.

The point I was making is still valid, though: being rich mean being able to buy privileges. OK, so people don't talk overtly about being "high-born" and that sort of shit, but what is the difference, really? It has always been possible, if not common, to start out in life as a churl and end up as "his Excellency, the right honourable ..."

Class divisions simply mean that some are more equal than others.

Re:Creating own award

[MaskedSlacker]

The point I was making is still valid, though: being rich mean being able to buy privileges

Class divisions simply mean that some are more equal than others.

Yes. I don't disagree. I suppose a better way to state my previous point would be to say that the legal system is not the source of the problem, and that it is (generally, there are exceptions of course) extra-legal conditions (education, first and foremost) which create the 'justice gap.'

Re:Creating own award

[davielp]

Republic is orthogonal to Democracy.

How so?? I agree they are orthogonal in the sense that they can't even be compared since they aren't adjectives of the same stuff. Democracy is a regime, republic is a way of government, a country can be both or none. USA is a democratic republic, it's under democratic regime and republican government. It's easy to say if a country is a republic because you just have to examine it's government, but democracy is a very subjective issue, you have to observe not only the existence of direct elections, but also press liberty, education and information access, liberty of ideas, freedom plurality in political parties and etc. Maybe americans get messed up about this because of the political parties name, it puts these 2 different stuff in the same plane: political ideas when actually these names are only a matter of "marketing" (Republican party is democratic as well since it tries to govern through democracy and direct elections). If you take a look at ancient greek cities such as Sparta and Athens and also Rome during the republic, you'll see they were clearly republics, and also due to it's republican govern democracy existed in a very limited way even if democracy concept wasn't clear at that time. So you can say that these 2 stuff are complementary, they may even be implemented separated, but when they are used together (+ capitalism and freedom) you have a very solid basis for a democratic and free society.

Re:Creating own award

[Gilmoure]

The Boulder is conflicted. But he has not worked through his emotions and will now crush his opponents!

Re:Creating own award

[Eunuchswear]

Republic is orthogonal to Democracy.

How so?? I agree they are orthogonal

Are you agreeing with me or disagreeing?

So you can say that these 2 stuff are complementary

You can say anything you want. A coherent argument might be nice.

Re:Creating own award

[Anonymous Coward]

If that's your argument, then what you said is meaningless too, where's your proof that democracies don't also inevitably lead to abuse?

I think you should provide a better definition "worked" vs "didn't work".

And nothing of value was lost

[MrEricSir]

When I think of countries contributing to global peace, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt, etc. don't come to mind in the first place.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[girlintrainingpants]

What about the USA?

Mr. Obama was elected and was immediately awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize before he had a chance to make any change. I wouldn't call him a warmonger, but we're still at odds with the Middle East, and he/we appear to have no plan in sight to change that.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[carnalforge]

Serbia?

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Anonymous Coward]

Point well made. Not that I would consider China "freer", but they haven't waged war with just about everything like the US.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[MrEricSir]

I never said that countries that are NOT in the list are peaceful; I merely said that the ones that ARE in the list don't strike me as such.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[khallow]

Point well made. Not that I would consider China "freer", but they haven't waged war with just about everything like the US.

They haven't had the power. And the US doesn't wage wars all that often even as the global policeman.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[gustgr]

And yet, for the last 50 years they have been at war with one sixth of all humans -- their own population.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[interval1066]

"I would consider China "freer", but they haven't waged war with just about everything like the US."

No, the Chinese prefer to simply bludgeon their own (Tibet, Tienanmen Square, and constantly threatening war over Taiwan...)

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Anonymous Coward]

After the 2009 award to Mr. Obama, Nobel lost any meaning it had. Nothing against the man, but he simply hadn't done anything to warrant that kind of acknowledgment, yet. Nobels are about as meaningful as Oscars, now. They can fade away.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Shadow99_1]

The funny thing about the Taiwanese is that they are, as a people, mostly willing to return to China. The government is very much not and alot of businesses aren't either. And for us in IT since Taiwanese motherboard makers make up nearly all the retail board makers in the world... Is probably best it not scoot back to China right now...

The people though generally support China, and not Hong Kong style China, but the mainland originally CCP government.

But taiwan is strange in general... Historically when they were the pirate port for Chinese goods over the seas, the Chinese government hunted them down and cut off their heads. Around a hundred years later when Manchuria invaded China and took over, the taiwanese sided with the Chinese government against the Manchurians... Only to have the Manchurians take a huge disliking to them to the point of harsh treatment including a scorched earth tactic on the mainland for around 15 years as they built a navy to sail to Taiwan to put them down. Then China looses Taiwan to Japan before the start of the 20th century as they fail to modernize. And after WW2 Taiwan plays a role again as the former dictatorship of China flees from the CCP and ends up in Taiwan as their new home.

Obviously just some highlights, but it's been an... interesting place...

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the US does. And that's just counting the "official" ones.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[asher09]

Well said. This reminds me in a creepy way of the boycott debate about the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany (featuring the Nazi regime) except that this time, the "bad" guys are the ones boycotting. Scary...

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[angus77]

Not that I would consider China "freer", but they haven't waged war with just about everything like the US.

You mean recently. China's not exactly known for their peaceful past.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlike the united states, paragon of justice, democracy and peace which hasn't started any wars for it's own benefit, toppled regimes for their own benefit and what the heck nuked a city or two because who the hell cares about some yellows. Oh evil China how much do you have to learn.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't the 1962 war between China and India count as aggression? Also, invasion of Tibet in 1950.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[mirix]

Is harmful to world peace? Hardly.

Maybe you meant something else, hard to interpret a one word comment.

I presume they are abstaining due to the fact that china supports their sovereignty over kosovo.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[readin]

"I would consider China "freer", but they haven't waged war with just about everything like the US."

No, the Chinese prefer to simply bludgeon their own (Tibet, Tienanmen Square, and constantly threatening war over Taiwan...)

The Chinese do consider the Taiwanese "their own", but the Taiwanese are not too fond of slavery and being someone else's possession. Taiwan and China have a lot of common ancestry and culture, but only about the same as the Americas and Europe. They have a similar history two, with immigration from China to Taiwan starting in the 1600s and largely displacing and assimilating the natives.

After Taiwan was separated from the Empire of China back in 1895, back when the Russians had a czar, back before the Cubs last won the World Series, back when Queen Victoria was on the throne, and back before Cuba and the Phillippine were separated from Spain. Since that Time, Taiwan and China have been under the same Chinese government for about 4 year. Right after WWII when the Phillippines were returned to the U.S., Vietnam to the French, and Hong Kong to the British, Taiwan was similarly re-colonized by the Chinese, resulting in the 2-28 massecre in which many thousands were killed.

The Chinese leadership that the Allies put in charge of Taiwan promptly lost their civil war in China, and fled to the island where they declared martial law and continued to imprison or kill too many Taiwanese. Only in recent years have the Taiwanese started to have a voice in government.

Calling them "China's own" offends many of them. Despite that Chinese government spending 45 years of unopposed propaganda telling the Taiwanese that they are really "Chinese", and continuing to do so even to day with control of most of the media, most Taiwanese still consider China a foreign country.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[mutherhacker]

I assume you base your opinion on your extensive study of world history huh? Sounds more like fox conservative TV narrative to me. Read up a little you ignorant drone.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[mutherhacker]

I assume you base your opinion on your extensive study of world history huh? Sounds more like conservative TV narrative to me. Read up a little you ignorant drone.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[readin]

The funny thing about the Taiwanese is that they are, as a people, mostly willing to return to China.

Opinion polls show more people in Taiwan desire immediate independence than want to be part of China. I suspect far more would rather return to Japan than return to China; Japan treated Taiwan better than China did. Opinion polls the vast majority want to "maintain the status quo" which is of course de facto independence with no formal declaration. It's easy to see why: they have neighbor 50 times larger than them who keeps threatening war if they formally declare independence. Status quo maintains independence without the risk of war.

The government is very much not and alot of businesses aren't either.

The government, which despite Taiwan's democracy is still controlled through bureaucratic inertia by the Chinese and their descendents who showed up in the 1940s, is torn between its loyalty to their Chinese homeland and the preference for being a big fish in a small pond instead of a small fish in a big pond.

Businesses are similarly torn. Businesses, unlike the government bureaucracy, are often run by Taiwanese who are loyal to Taiwan. But there is a lot of money to be made in China. Also, even those businesses run by Chinese nationalists recognize that being part of China means a serious degradation in property rights.

And for us in IT since Taiwanese motherboard makers make up nearly all the retail board makers in the world... Is probably best it not scoot back to China right now...

The people though generally support China, and not Hong Kong style China, but the mainland originally CCP government.

Where are you getting this? I suspect you've landed in a group of Chinese nationalists (which means you probably live in Taipei or in an expat community outside Taiwan). Chinese nationalists and their descendents make up only about 10 to 15% of the population. I include "descendents" because I have noticed that anytime someone from Taiwan has told me they consider Taiwan to be part of China, they have anscestors who came from China in the 1940s or later.

But taiwan is strange in general... Historically when they were the pirate port for Chinese goods over the seas, the Chinese government hunted them down and cut off their heads. Around a hundred years later when Manchuria invaded China and took over, the taiwanese sided with the Chinese government against the Manchurians... Only to have the Manchurians take a huge disliking to them to the point of harsh treatment including a scorched earth tactic on the mainland for around 15 years as they built a navy to sail to Taiwan to put them down. Then China looses Taiwan to Japan before the start of the 20th century as they fail to modernize. And after WW2 Taiwan plays a role again as the former dictatorship of China flees from the CCP and ends up in Taiwan as their new home.

Obviously just some highlights, but it's been an... interesting place...

And let's not forget that the Taiwanese fought for the Japanese in WWII. If you read most of the news reports in English, the Japanese era tends to be overlooked. The statement is always something like "Taiwan and China split amid civil war" but this is misleading. The Chinese Nationalists an the Chinese Communists split, but the Chinese Nationalists were not synonymous with Taiwan. They were newcomers taking over a society that had become educated and industrialized by Japan and had fought against the Chinese Nationalists in WWII.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Anonymous Coward]

China invaded Vietnam in response to Vietnam clearing out Pol Pot. Militarily, a failure.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[mutherhacker]

Sorry, meant to reply to the parent.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should China wage war against the rest of the world? They only need have the U.S. do it for them, and then they can wage war on a bankrupt, exhausted, and distracted wreck of a nation that the U.S. is becoming, if not just buy them outright. Far more efficient that way.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[blackpaw]

When I think of countries contributing to global peace, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt, etc. don't come to mind in the first place.

Given that Iran hasn't invaded another country in *centuries* I'd say your mind is pretty empty of critical thought.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah you are right. Neither is the US, UK, Israel, France, Russia and so on. Peace? what peace are we talking about.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[silentcoder]

>> Point well made. Not that I would consider China "freer", but they haven't waged war with just about everything like the US.

> They haven't had the power. And the US doesn't wage wars all that often even as the global policeman.

Sorry.. what ?
The US has had less than one complete year of peace (e.g. not at war with anybody at all) since the end of World War 2. In the same period there has been only 22 days of world peace - and the USA were in fact involved in more wars with more nations than any other country on the planet ! In fact, 75% of all the other wars since then were civil wars (of which the vast majority happened in African countries). The country that since the last world war has made war on more nations, more of the time than any other is still the USA.
Global policeman is the least of it. In a far greater number of those wars you deposed democratically elected leaders who thought their own people's welfare should be rather more important than the profits of American corporations in order to replace them with puppet dictators who weren't so stubborn. Brazil, Nicaragua... the list is endless, hell in Panama you actually made a CIA spy the president of the country !

I despise what China is, if I had to choose I'd live in the US over China for sure - but you're both near the BOTTOM of my list of places I would most like to live. China for how it treats it's own people, the USA for how you treat everybody else. You survived the great depression thanks to a war economy and you've kept that war economy going ever since by basically being at war non-stop.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[silentcoder]

>The funny thing about the Taiwanese is that they are, as a people, mostly willing to return to China. The government is very much not and alot of businesses aren't either. And for us in IT since Taiwanese motherboard makers make up nearly all the retail board makers in the world... Is probably best it not scoot back to China right now...

What on earth ? I have many Taiwanese friends. I talk to them regularly - whenever China comes up I hear them talk about how fortunate they feel to live in a democratic country that respects human rights. How they love that they have the freedom to be critical of their government - freedom of thought and of speech.
Now granted, my friends are mostly academics - and academics do not always represent the view of much of the rest of the population (just see conservapedia's page on "professor values" to see how different they can be...) but to say that most Taiwanese would be happy to give up their votes, give up their freedoms and join China... well that statement needs some serious backing up !

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[johncandale]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_military_operations#2000-2009

The US has been at war about 95 of the last 100 years., and if not warrinng, they are bombing countries. Not to mention their extreme involvement across the whole world in goings ons, from funding militaries and militia from south America to Africa, and other more subtle interventions. Not to mention the fact we have armed bases all over the world.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[rossdee]

Everybody here is too young to remember it, but Serbia started a war once that caused more deaths than any other war. (Even though it only lasted 4 years)

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Anonymous Coward]

I was going to try and find some kind of a list of attacks made by americans, but google it seems has no such lists in its searches.

You could probably have quite a large list of all the targets americans have attacked just in the last 10 years.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[erroneus]

And after all this time, he still hasn't done anything useful. He has perpetuated the warrantless wiretap program... still going on even if it's not in the news any longer. ACTA remained secret with Obama in support of it when it became more public (though people STILL haven't heard of it...and of course don't care). The Patriot act and the DHS are still here. He got the prize because he's black and in the highest U.S. office. It is still an achievement of sorts, but not necessarily for Obama, but for the people of the U.S. as a landmark showing we're not quite as racist as we once were.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[jpapon]

Seriously? You think it's bad that there have only been 22 days of world peace since WW2? How many days of world peace do you think there have been since the dawn of history? I'd be surprised if it was more than 40...

I'd say look at how many people have been killed in international conflicts per capita (and say, per year) since WW2. I'd be very much surprised if that figure wasn't the lowest in history. For as mean as the big bad USA is, their general policy since WW2 has been to conquer the world through capitalism, puppet regimes, and big stick diplomacy. They haven't really entered into (open) conflicts that willingly, since their general populace tends to disapprove of them.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[MrEricSir]

Again, that's NOT what I said at all.

Please read the post you're replying to before you get your panties all in a bunch.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[MrEricSir]

Perhaps, but the rhetoric coming from Mr. Ahmadinejad is alarming, to say the least.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[silentcoder]

>They haven't really entered into (open) conflicts that willingly, since their general populace tends to disapprove of them.

They did do all you say- but this line is just plain wrong, they've done it all too often and more-over been involved in just about every war any other western nation has fought as well !

As for this:
"Seriously? You think it's bad that there have only been 22 days of world peace since WW2? How many days of world peace do you think there have been since the dawn of history? I'd be surprised if it was more than 40..."

That is an example of the naturalist fallacy. Defined as stating that "the way something is, is the way it ought to be/ the only way it could be". Just because mankind has never managed to be peaceful does not mean that it's not a worthwhile goal.
Many other things that were once considered too normal to change HAVE changed. Slavery is now illegal in virtually every country on earth -once there was no country that didn't practice. Hardly any religions practice human sacrifice anymore - once the Aztecs sacrificed 26 thousand people in three months.
In short... the next great achievement our species needs is peaceful coexistence, and any suggestion that this is impossible is not only historically ignorant but reliant on a recognized fallacy. Fallacies are not valid arguments.
Now it's not going ot happen in a week, I'm pretty sure it won't happen in 5 years (sorry for the 5YP guys) - most of those other changes took 50 or 100 years to do... but they all happened. This one can happen too. Right now - the most important thing we can do about it is to complain everytime somebody orders people to war.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[jpapon]

The U.S. enters open conflicts, sure, but with the exception of the Iraq war I'd say that it was only in response to aggression, i.e. acting as the world's policeman.

Clandestine operations are another story of course, but Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Kosovo, and (arguably) Afghanistan were all wars that somebody else started.

That is an example of the naturalist fallacy. Defined as stating that "the way something is, is the way it ought to be/ the only way it could be".

My point wasn't that world peace can't be achieved; quite the opposite actually. I was saying that by acting as the "global policeman", and promoting global trade, the USA has reduced the amount of war. The scale of wars has certainly gone down.

Globalization, combined with a strong armed "policeman" is, in my mind, the only true way to stop war. When every nation has some form of path to prosperity, and a vested interest in not fighting wars (due to loss of wealth and punishment), then they won't. It has to be absolutely clear that war cannot be rewarding before countries stop fighting them.

That being said, it seems to me the U.S. is reaching the end of their time as the world's police force. You can criticize American policy all you want, but I find it unlikely that the Chinese will be very kind officers of the peace.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[ladoga]

Perhaps, but the rhetoric coming from Mr. Ahmadinejad is alarming, to say the least.

You should have learned by now that it's actions, not the rhetoric, that matters.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[khallow]

The US has had less than one complete year of peace (e.g. not at war with anybody at all) since the end of World War 2.

So what? The US maintains the current global hegemony. You expect a few wars. My point is that compared to the empires of history, the current global situation is pretty mild and has been since the end of the Second World War.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Anonymous Coward]

Everybody here is too young to remember it, but Serbia started a war once that caused more deaths than any other war. (Even though it only lasted 4 years)

:rolleyes:

First of all, it is common, especially in UK, misconception or even a delusion that Serbia single-handedly "caused" the war. The WW I was inevitable and the incident you refer to only sped the wheels that were already set in motion. Austria-Hungary Empire intended to get rid of Serbia one way or another and Archduke Francis Ferdinand came to Bosnia to inspect the military exercise along the border with Kingdom of Serbia. Besides, although Serbs performed the assassination, official Serbia was not behind it and even did whatever it could to prevent the conspirators from giving the Empire an excuse to smite her. It even accepted all terms of ultimatum, to no avail.

Second, even if one small, backwater, Balkan country could cause the breakout of war, it couldn't possibly dictate what kind of weapons would other countries use in it, or how many people would be drafted and thrown to each other.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[wvmarle]

Definitely; not going to deny that.

However the US has more of a history of going to the other side of the globe to fight a war. Vietnam, Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan come to mind. Europe and Japan a little longer ago. Even modern-day crazies like North Korea and Iran primarily target their neighbours.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[wvmarle]

Just 22 days of world peace I think is a pretty bad record. No matter the record before, it's a bad record. If something is improved, it's not necessarily good.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[wvmarle]

The US may think they're global police, but they are not.

A proper police force is controlled by their government, and is enforcing laws and regulation stipulated by that government. If the US is the world police, then the UN is the world government. And it's not that the US seem to care too much of what the UN thinks.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[wvmarle]

The current relationship Taiwan vs. China is a little more complex.

Both say they China: the first is the Republic of China (yes that is the official name of Taiwan!, the second is the People's Republic of China.

This is giving problems with diplomatic recognition: if a country wants to set up diplomatic relations with China, should they choose the ROC or the PRC? Apparently both is not possible (I don't know really why that is - they probably don't allow it from each other).

So negotiations between these two governments are also problematic. They agree that there is only one China in this world, and that the mainland and Taiwan belong to that one China, and they agree that they disagree about who represents that one China.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[khallow]

Ok, so the US is an "improper" police force.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there a name for the fallacy in which someone claims that because it seems the world ought to be some way, obviously the guys in charge are responsible for it not being that way?

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[wvmarle]

You could say so. And that is a bad thing. Bad police makes a place bad to live; good police makes it good to live.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[balaband]

Everybody here is too young to remember it, but Serbia started a war once that caused more deaths than any other war. (Even though it only lasted 4 years)

Considering that WW1 started in 1914 and you remember it, you are what, more than 100 years old?

Damn, I figured that you would have lower uid.... How old are 5 or 4 figure guys?

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Culture20]

Perhaps, but the rhetoric coming from Mr. Ahmadinejad is alarming, to say the least.

You should have learned by now that it's actions, not the rhetoric, that matters.

Not when it comes to the Nobel Peace Prize.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[sac13]

I despise what China is, if I had to choose I'd live in the US over China for sure - but you're both near the BOTTOM of my list of places I would most like to live.

What's your top 10 places to live?

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[vampire_baozi]

A note about the polls: as another one who lived in Taiwan (yes, Taipei, though I roomed with a dude from Kaohsiung, who was pretty green): Supporting the status quo does not mean supporting independence. Among virtually all supporters of the status quo, they support maintaining it until reunification is in their best interests.

That is, once mainland China catches up to them economically, and the human rights/democracy situation in mainland China improves to the points they aren't worried anymore, then they get a sweet reunification package, and reunify on (mostly) their terms. May take another generation, but time is overwhelmingly on China's side for this one. Most young Taiwanese- even in the south- speak Mandarin over Taiwanese. In Taipei, most people can't even speak Taiwanese (except to swear). Even in homes that speak Taiwanese, Mandarin is the language of school instruction, and as Mainland China's influence grows in Chinese pop culture, the next generation thinks of themselves as "Chinese" rather than "Taiwanese." Hell, even my Taiwanese roommate was happy to refer to himself as "Chinese" (in the cultural, linguistic, and ethnic sense; Huaren, Hanzu, etc).

Taiwan is complicated, but the GP was right when he said a majority of Taiwanese favored reunification. It's just that the majority favor it much, much later, not now. Noone in the Taiwanese government, or really noone other than a few extreme "nationalists", advocate for Taiwanese independence or consider it a realistic possibility. It's more or less an accepted fact- but "hey, no rush, let's wait til we get something really nice out of it, and have guarantees from a Chinese government we can trust".

But yeah, most of the people who want "immediate" reunification are Waishengren who came with the Nationalists in 1949. And Taipei is hardly representative of the "Nanbu". But hey, it is still the economic, cultural, and political center of Taiwan. And it rocks; I recommend the best eel outside of Japan, a place called "Feiqianwu" in Zhongshan district, right up one of the little red light alleys. You've got to wait in line to get in, but damn, that stuff is goooood.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Asic Eng]

They agree that there is only one China in this world, and that the mainland and Taiwan belong to that one China

There are differing opinions in Taiwan on that topic, I give you that. Certainly there are people in Taiwan who believe that Taiwan belongs to China, and the current president of Taiwan is among them. However he is far from the majority of Taiwanese on this topic, and previous Taiwanese governments took a different position. It's not clear whether Ma's opinion is official government policy, either.

That Taiwan is still called ROC is at China's "insistence", they regularly threaten war over things like that.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Anonymous Coward]

I expected to find the Weakestan and the Wimpestan from the list of countries as well.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[interval1066]

Who in the WORLD would mistake Taiwan for the People's Republic of China? Every time the world sees "The People's Republic of..." as a prefix for a country name that country is usually known for mass killing, slavery, and starvation of their own people. Why would any sane country want to be known as that?

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[WSOGMM]

When I think of countries contributing to global peace, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt, etc. don't come to mind in the first place.

To say that nothing of value was lost is a bit exaggerated, and maybe even a little pretentious. There are plenty of peaceful people in any of these countries. I consider it disrespectful and shortsighted to put an entire country in that category, even if the government of that country doesn't have a successful track record with human rights.

In fact, I think having all countries (even the "lacking" ones) attend the ceremony would be very valuable to the ultimate purpose of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Anonymous Coward]

Blah. By China's OWN propaganda, they're still fighting the communist revolution vs the nationalists (Taiwan), and have therefore had zero days of peace since WW2. Even not counting Taiwan, they've fought every one of their neighbors in that time, and have been running armed occupations of Tibet since the 50s and a chunk of India since the 60s. Similarly, North and South Korea are still at war. The same could easily be done for Russia.

That's the kind of stretch you'd have to be making to say the US is always at war. Completely dismiss quantity and quality and ride purely on interpreted technicalities.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[ultranova]

Right now - the most important thing we can do about it is to complain everytime somebody orders people to war.

I'm not sure that this is actually a good thing to do. Wars are bad, yes; but the biggest tragedies of recent years have happened because people were reluctant to enter war. The Jugoslavian genocide didn't stop until Nato bombed the Serbs, and Rwandan Genocide killed 20% of the populace since the UN couldn't get off its ass and end it. The Holocaust was ended only by crushing the Nazi regime by force. Nobody was there to stop Stalin and Mao, and so they kept killing until their deaths.

I've also been thinking about the ban of exporting weapons to conflict zones: the attacker knows he'll attack, so he'll stocpile weapons beforehand, while the victim can't buy any after he's attacked.

In any case, what I'm saying is, that sometimes barbarism rises its ugly head, and then it's the sad duty of civilized people to go to war and stomp it back down.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[ultranova]

If the US is the world police, then the UN is the world government. And it's not that the US seem to care too much of what the UN thinks.

Which, as far as I (an European) am concerned, is a good thing, since horrible dictatorships like China have a voice in the UN.

If the government is corrupt, the police must excersize their own judgement. It's not an ideal situation, but it's one that can't be helped except by changing the government.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[ultranova]

just see conservapedia's page on "professor values" to see how different they can be...

Also see Conservapedia's Bible Retranslation Project (setting new standards for blashphemy) and Political Aspects of the Theory of Relativity (setting new standards for stupidity).

Seriously, don't quote Conservapedia. Even by conservative standards, that site is batshit insane.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[shutdown -p now]

After the 2009 award to Mr. Obama, Nobel lost any meaning it had.

I thought it lost any meaning long before that, when it was awarded to Arafat, Kissinger, Gorbachev, Mandela, Mother Theresa ...

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[MysteriousPreacher]

It's pretty much a who's who of human rights abusers. Sure plenty others not on the list have some work to do, but the countries supporting China tend to be ones who aren't exactly places that'd be getting out the best china if Spinoza were to pay a visit.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Anonymous Coward]

You need a history lesson. Have you heard of this thing called the 20th Century? We only get involved in wars to make money, and with the exception of Pearl Harbor we have only the most awful lies to justify them. Oh, and the 19th Century wars don't count, right? Spain and Mexico are practically the same place, and who cares how many redskins die as long as they don't stink up the place.

Maybe you think that the 'Drug War' and the 'War on Terror' are somehow peaceful events? That the Cold War didn't kill people? That the armistice with North Korea means that conflict is over?

The US is a nation steeped in blood. So far we're only exceptional for being a little better at making the other bastard die for his country, and possibly in trying to whitewash our atrocities.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[MysteriousPreacher]

At RationalWiki we have a decent and well sourced write-up of CP:
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Conservapedia

Yup, they truly are batshit crazy - even by WorldNetDaily standards. The folks at WND were unimpressed when Andy (the owner of CP) turned Jesus in to a champion of capitalism and free-market principles. It's worth noting that WND is itself on the lunatic fringe of conservatism - with most of their advertising aimed at people stocking-up on supplies in advance of the impending UN invasion of America. CP pretty much replaced Jesus with Andy/Reagan in all but name.

The professor values page is part of Andy's long-running grudge against academia. Note that it's primarily a list of academics linked to negative behaviour. I could tomorrow write a similar article entitled "Car Mechanic Values" in which I'd provide a list of car mechanics who've killed and otherwise behave badly. Andy and sampling bias are close friends - which is odd given that Andy is fond of pointing out that he's done more courses in statistics than people who ask awkward questions such as "How did you choose your sample set?"

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[wvmarle]

They agree that there is only one China in this world, and that the mainland and Taiwan belong to that one China

There are differing opinions in Taiwan on that topic, I give you that.

The opinion I posted above is the formal position of both sides when it comes to negotiations of economical cooperation, and possibly eventual reunification.

There are indeed people that argue that it should be the mainland that comes under Taiwanese rule, and not the other way around, even though mainland is much bigger of course.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[RewriteQuran]

India, Pakistan & China must comply with UNSC resolutions and quit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jammu_and_Kashmir, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POK & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aksai_Chin

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[silentcoder]

I would turn your argument on it's head. All those atrocities happened because somebody was TOO eager to go to war. That people still go to war over racist, xenophobic or other incredibly stupid reasons like in for example Rwanda is incredibly sad, but it's something that has to change.

The atrocities didn't happen because other nations were recalcitrant about stopping them - they happened because the barbarians involved were NOT recalcitrant enough ! Now sure a global policeman is one way to reduce or prevent wars - the price is that nobody in the world has any freedom, which must inevitably lead to a world war the magnitude of which we cannot imagine.

The world is now filled with nations who despise America's power- exactly because of that. Because even free nations like mine realize we would be a LOT more free if it wasn't for America- especially as regards our economic freedom. And we're not a country you even care much about.

The only way to really end war is the same way we ended slavery - by education and political pressure until practically nobody on earth supports the idea anymore. Until any politician who even suggests HAVING a military is by definition unelectable. By the time we've crushed it into a few small illegal things in a few rare countries (which would be even rarer because fundamental to this one would be greatly reducing the number of poor countries around, which ipso facto reduces the places where criminals have free reign) - we can deal with those few.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Asic Eng]

I don't think so. In fact in the past Taiwan has explicitly renounced that claim. Whether Ma's interpretation (in a single interview) formally changes that, is up for debate. Negotiations between Taiwan and China are not (officially) done on presidential level, anyway.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[ultranova]

The only way to really end war is the same way we ended slavery - by education and political pressure until practically nobody on earth supports the idea anymore. Until any politician who even suggests HAVING a military is by definition unelectable. By the time we've crushed it into a few small illegal things in a few rare countries (which would be even rarer because fundamental to this one would be greatly reducing the number of poor countries around, which ipso facto reduces the places where criminals have free reign) - we can deal with those few.

How are we going to deal with them? They have a military and we don't.

Look, pacifism in its moderate form of preferring peaceful solutions to violent ones is a good thing, but taking it to the extreme where violence is never an option is suicidal, and letting a genocide continue even when you could stop it is monstrous. Furthermore, you seem to be suggesting that mass murderers can be shamed into stopping, which is completely delusional.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[silentcoder]

>How are we going to deal with them? They have a military and we don't.

With a POLICE force. The crucial difference is this: soldiers make wars. Policemen are supposed to KEEP THE PEACE.

>Look, pacifism in its moderate form of preferring peaceful solutions to violent ones is a good thing, but taking it to the extreme where violence is never an option is suicidal,
It seemed to work for Ghandi. But even so I wasn't suggesting that TODAY. I know we aren't living in that world - but the reality is that the only world peace worth HAVING is the one you don't NEED to defend, and it is attainable. Not overnight, not in a few years - but it can be done.

>and letting a genocide continue even when you could stop it is monstrous.
At the point in time where I'm suggesting this scenario - genocides would not ever happen anymore. I never suggested it was right to let ones like Rwanda continue as long as we did. I did suggest that we should strive for a world where they NEVER START. How is that not BETTER than stopping them AFTER the fact ?

>Furthermore, you seem to be suggesting that mass murderers can be shamed into stopping, which is completely delusional.

Shamed ? No. Imprisoned and punished by a criminal NOT a military justice system - absolutely. I never said no justice. I never even said no violence. I said - peace forces as opposed to WAR forces. Policemen as opposed to soldiers. Nobody going onto a battlefield with effectively no real rights, there to be pointed at and pull a trigger at some other schmuck who is except for the colour of his uniform EXACTLY LIKE ME.
No flags. No targets. But justice systems so effective that individuals are incapable of ever amassing the kind of power you need to start a war - and if no government has a military then THEY are not a threat either. Your two kinds of warlords in this world are the official government, or the guy who wants to BE the official government but can't get there via the official channels.
Both of those need to be effectively neutralized and you've made war impossible.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[carnalforge]

true, mine was a one word comment. Let's expand.

Putting aside WW, where the serbian guy was just an excuse.
Fast forward at late 80's. See how it went with Yugoslavian federation. After Tito's death came in scene Slobo.

That meant war with Slovenia (lucky them, Croatia was closer to Serbia), war with Croatia, war with Bosnia, Macedonia was lucky as in between they had Kossovo, war with Kossovo. Lucky Montenegro that got out from that confederation with harm.

Judge by yourself about peace & Serbia.

Now mod me down to frost.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[ultranova]

How are we going to deal with them? They have a military and we don't.

With a POLICE force. The crucial difference is this: soldiers make wars. Policemen are supposed to KEEP THE PEACE.

Both police and army are used to enforce the laws of the land. They are simply employed against different level of threats. Also, it doesn't really matter if you call your fighters soldiers or police, if you use them to "deal with" another country you're waging a war.

It seemed to work for Ghandi.

It worked for Ghandi because the British were nice people unwilling to commit mass murder to keep India. Furthermore, and more cynically, the Empire was falling apart, and the British realized they couldn't keep India through military force since they didn't have enough of it, so they chose to accept the inevitable. India then promptly went and developed nuclear weapons.

But even so I wasn't suggesting that TODAY. I know we aren't living in that world - but the reality is that the only world peace worth HAVING is the one you don't NEED to defend, and it is attainable. Not overnight, not in a few years - but it can be done.

No, it can't. Aggression and ambition are parts of human nature, and for very good reasons. As long as they remain so, you have competition and the possibility of it turning violent.

At the point in time where I'm suggesting this scenario - genocides would not ever happen anymore. I never suggested it was right to let ones like Rwanda continue as long as we did. I did suggest that we should strive for a world where they NEVER START. How is that not BETTER than stopping them AFTER the fact ?

Thus far you've failed to either describe such a world or how it could be attained. Just saying that a peaceful world would be better than a violent one is not striving for one, it's just wishful thinking.

Shamed ? No. Imprisoned and punished by a criminal NOT a military justice system - absolutely. I never said no justice. I never even said no violence. I said - peace forces as opposed to WAR forces. Policemen as opposed to soldiers.

And as I said above, the only real difference between police and military is the level of violence they can counter. This opposition simply doesn't exist, especially since modern militaries take imprison rather than kill the enemies who surrender, just like police does.

Nobody going onto a battlefield with effectively no real rights, there to be pointed at and pull a trigger at some other schmuck who is except for the colour of his uniform EXACTLY LIKE ME.

So what will you do when these few remaining nations with a military send a horde of those poor schmucks to take over your country? Will you pull a stunt from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" and arrest them?

No flags. No targets. But justice systems so effective that individuals are incapable of ever amassing the kind of power you need to start a war - and if no government has a military then THEY are not a threat either.

Flags are nothing but symbols, just like the Scales of Justice is. And a system that prevents anyone from amassing power - in other words, keeps everyone in their place - is either a totalitarianism or at the very least a dictatorship and in both cases anything but just. And dictatorships are quite infamous for their militancy; after all, stomping down everyone who tries to rise requires a huge army.

Your two kinds of warlords in this world are the official government, or the guy who wants to BE the official government but can't get there via the official channels.

Most governments are not warlords on the account of not having waged any wars in decades, in some cases in centuries. One of the requi

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[silentcoder]

>Both police and army are used to enforce the laws of the land. They are simply employed against different level of threats. Also, it doesn't really matter if you call your fighters soldiers or police, if you use them to "deal with" another country you're waging a war.

No their not. At least in theory - the military is never deployed against your own citizens, there are massive differences in what they are - and what they aim to achieve. Soldiers want to WIN a war. Policemen have only one goal -to restore the state of peace.

>No, it can't. Aggression and ambition are parts of human nature, and for very good reasons. As long as they remain so, you have competition and the possibility of it turning violent.

Ants have those qualities and wage wars - do you truly believe that humans are INCAPABLE of evolving beyond their hive-mind mentality ? I'm the first to admit most of us haven't - we just dress it up in words like "patriotism" - but I do believe we are capable of it.

>And as I said above, the only real difference between police and military is the level of violence they can counter.
That is wrong on every possible level. Policemen shout stop BEFORE they shoot. Surrender is the option they WANT you to take. They only use violence as a LAST resort and you have rights even before they meet you. A policeman never goes up on a hill and starts shooting everybody wearing gang colors from afar. Policemen don't bomb neighbourhoods with high crime rates... the entire approach is almost directly opposite.
That is why an army is at worst a warforce, at best a defense force while the police is at best a PEACE force.

>So what will you do when these few remaining nations with a military send a horde of those poor schmucks to take over your country? Will you pull a stunt from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" and arrest them?

Better - I would pull a Monty Python and arrest their entire high command and every soldier for behaviour likely to cause a disturbance of the peace. Soldiers get life in prison, all officers and higher get an automatic death penalty. Nobody will even TRY to start a war then - unless they truly believe their armies can hold off every cop on the planet and are well aware that they are getting a guaranteed death penalty with no option of lenience if caught... because THAT is what they ought to face - not to mention - try to recruit soldiers and especially officers THEN ? Not even the worst madman will be able to get enough people willing to take that risk to get an army you can't subdue by the simple method of arresting the whole damn lot of them.

>Flags are nothing but symbols, just like the Scales of Justice is. And a system that prevents anyone from amassing power - in other words, keeps everyone in their place - is either a totalitarianism or at the very least a dictatorship and in both cases anything but just. And dictatorships are quite infamous for their militancy; after all, stomping down everyone who tries to rise requires a huge army.

You only look at history - you never consider how ELSE things may be done - only how they have been done before when the very IDEA of world peace requires us to consider something radically different. Now imagine a version of the UN that actually governs all people, and everyone on the PLANET gets a vote. Not one strong nation playing global policeman while all the rest of us hope to god they pick a smart president this time - which is what we have now (and it's failing miserably). But government by consent of the governed for all people - and the automatic restriction of power that comes from having to please damn near everybody. Oh - and conveniently, since everybody is your constituency - nobody left to actually fight with.
Flags are not just a symbol - they are a target. Flags were invented for the same reason soldier's uniforms were - so that they soldiers on your side could tell the soldiers on the other side apart, and know who to kill.
They serve no purpose in a world without wars.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[ultranova]

No their not. At least in theory - the military is never deployed against your own citizens, there are massive differences in what they are - and what they aim to achieve. Soldiers want to WIN a war. Policemen have only one goal -to restore the state of peace.

Of course military is deployed against your citizens if needed, such as in the case of open rebellion. The police handles small disturbances and asks military for aid if needed.

Ants have those qualities and wage wars - do you truly believe that humans are INCAPABLE of evolving beyond their hive-mind mentality ? I'm the first to admit most of us haven't - we just dress it up in words like "patriotism" - but I do believe we are capable of it.

Such an evolution is unlikely since it would make a person and society less fit. After all, your interests are more likely to align with your neighbours than with foreigners, and doing favours for said neighbours makes it more likely they will return them.

That is wrong on every possible level. Policemen shout stop BEFORE they shoot. Surrender is the option they WANT you to take. They only use violence as a LAST resort and you have rights even before they meet you.

Apart from oddball psychopaths, the army also wants the other guys to surrender. Why wouldn't they? As for shouting stop, you do realize that an army is called up when shouting stop has already been tried and failed - also known as diplomacy?

A policeman never goes up on a hill and starts shooting everybody wearing gang colors from afar.

Ever heard of police snipers?

Policemen don't bomb neighbourhoods with high crime rates... the entire approach is almost directly opposite.

No, they ask army for heavy-weapon support if needed.

Better - I would pull a Monty Python and arrest their entire high command and every soldier for behaviour likely to cause a disturbance of the peace.

How? You still haven't answered that question.

Soldiers get life in prison, all officers and higher get an automatic death penalty.

This rises a question of just why do you want peace so much, since you obviously aren't shy to deal death on a scale beyond most wars.

Nobody will even TRY to start a war then - unless they truly believe their armies can hold off every cop on the planet and are well aware that they are getting a guaranteed death penalty with no option of lenience if caught...

Any army can fight off every cop on the planet, simply by the virtue of having better weaponry.

Not even the worst madman will be able to get enough people willing to take that risk to get an army you can't subdue by the simple method of arresting the whole damn lot of them.

Plenty of madmen seem to have no trouble recruiting people to carry out suicide missions. You also seem to be completely ignoring guerrilla forces, French Resistance and other underground armies.

You only look at history - you never consider how ELSE things may be done - only how they have been done before when the very IDEA of world peace requires us to consider something radically different.

And you only look at your own fantasies which seem more nightmarish with each post.

Now imagine a version of the UN that actually governs all people, and everyone on the PLANET gets a vote. Not one strong nation playing global policeman while all the rest of us hope to god they pick a smart president this time - which is what we have now (and it's failing miserably).

No, instead I'll get to hope the Chinese don't shut down Slashdot this year, the Muslims don't force me to adopt Sharia, and the Africa

Much ado about nothing.

[MMC Monster]

The only one in that list that even raises an eyebrow is Russia.

As for half of the countries that gained global influence during recent times, that's just a veiled reference to the "BRIC" countries: Brazil, Russia, India, and China. Yes, two of the four BRIC countries aren't attending. But it's not like they're a statistical sample.

Re:Much ado about nothing.

[zakeria]

Why? they where the one's that militarized China after the collapse of the Soviet Union, China is their closest ally and fast becoming Russia's bigger brother.

Re:Much ado about nothing.

[MyLongNickName]

Fast becoming? You have the tense wrong.

China: 1.2 Billion people and a GDP of 5.0 Trillion dollars.
Russia: 0.14 Billion people and a 1.2 Trillion dollar GDP.

sources

Re:Much ado about nothing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Russia is already China's little lap dog. All China is interested in doing is to take Russia's (energy) resources and military knowhow.

Re:Much ado about nothing.

[Anonymous Coward]

BRIC? Why BRIC? Why not CRIB? Why put China last? You go now!

Re:Much ado about nothing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fast becoming? You have the tense wrong.

China: 1.2 Billion people and a GDP of 5.0 Trillion dollars.
Russia: 0.14 Billion people and a 1.2 Trillion dollar GDP.

sources

In Russia's defense, they are better are developing than China, and we don't really have any strong memes that involve China.

In Corrupted Communist China, the State copies your award!
In Corrupted Communist China, the State copies your post! ... see, it just doesn't stick. It isn't funny if it is just observational humor like this.

Re:Much ado about nothing.

[zakeria]

Indeed; but if you look at the military stance Russia is still ahead!

Re:Much ado about nothing.

[shutdown -p now]

I wouldn't be so sure. Russia is definitely ahead of the game on WMDs (nukes, and probably also chem/bio), but aside from that... yes, on paper Russia still has better tech - tanks and planes, especially. But it has to be well-maintained, and manned by well-trained people, otherwise it becomes a heap of metal very soon. And there is a major problem there. Russian army is mostly conscript, and even non-conscripts and officers are not particularly well trained these days. Chinese have conscription in theory, but in practice they have so many people there that they make do with volunteers, and even then get to pick the cream of the crop. And the more recent (90s on) Chinese indigenous tech, designs based on older Soviet ones but reworked and improved, is certainly a match for the remaining Soviet toys that Russian army fields, with no replacements in sight (some new military R&D is done is Russia, but there is too little financing to actually manufacture the results on sufficiently large scale). In an open conventional conflict, I'd bet on China.

Fear

[MyLongNickName]

On the one hand, I know the West tends to set up the "super bad guy" to use to rally its people against an external threat. On the other, China sure doesn't do a lot to make me comfortable with their new position in the world. And when looking at a lot of those countries, I wonder if we are going to end up with a semi-sphere vs semi-sphere block in the not-too-distant future.

Re:Fear

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other, China sure doesn't do a lot to make me comfortable with their new position in the world.

Let's face it. The only way for Americans to be "comfortable" with a country is for it to either

1. Be a European lapdog of the US (see UK), or a vassal state for non-european country (see Japan, Korea)
2. Be a dirt poor 3rd world country and make commodity for the US
3. Be invaded and bombed back to stone age (see Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq)

Americans will NEVER be comfortable with any country that got the guts and the power to say "no" to them. (see Russia, China, India, Pakistan)

We won't miss them

[Tablizer]

That list is almost a Who's Who of world assholes.

Re:We won't miss them

[Anonymous Coward]

What's this "We" stuff? -shifts a half step left-

Re:We won't miss them

[Tablizer]

Hey, at least we got rid of Boosh

Re:We won't miss them

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm wondering then why the US is not on that list too.

Re:We won't miss them

[Anonymous Coward]

Except the US, who has done much to advance the cause of war around the world. Especially recently.

Re:We won't miss them

[Anonymous Coward]

Think you forgot that the US tops that list.

Re:We won't miss them

[Ritz_Just_Ritz]

More accurately, it's more of Who's Who of Chinese financial aid and economic development assistance recipients.

Nothing to see here. They did the same thing to snub Taiwan at the UN/Olympics/etc. You've gotta love the childlike kneejerk political tantrums tough....

Consequences

[chebucto]

IMHO this is the consequence of turning the peace prize into a political too. Kissinger? Arafat? Bad enough to have warmongers who happened to make peace. But the Obama prize was the worst. I like Obama myself, but he did _nothing_, good or bad, to deserve that prize. It completely discredited the institution. At this point I wouldn't be too sorry to see it go.

Re:Consequences

[c0lo]

At this point I wouldn't be too sorry to see it go.

Won't it be better to be restored at its normal signficance (instead of seeing it go)?
I know nothing (yet) about this year's Nobel Peace Prize laureate... is it not a step in the good direction?

Re:Consequences

[Mysteray]

That really takes the cake, doesn't it?

The sad thing is - what if Obama actually does something to deserve one in the near future? (Leaving aside the question of just how likely this might be of course.)

They can't give it to him again - he's already used his up! So what they really did was they robbed Obama of the ability to earn the prize the honest way. Forever in the history books it will show he received the prize before doing anything of significance with the power he would wield.

The only possible interpretation is that the Nobel committee figured the time was right because his greatness was peaking. They must have estimated the chances were high that he would do something to make himself unworthy in the the future. Then they wouldn't be able to give it to him.

Re:Consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. Hearing they named Obama was like the first time as kid that I heard one of Time's boneheaded Person Of The Year awards; afterwards, the people in charge of it defend why the award was appropriate, and their defense is to make it clear that their standard for the award has nothing to do with what any sane person would have thought it would be. Thus, they successfully defend themselves by making it clear that their award isn't worthwhile.

Re:Consequences

[DigiShaman]

No. Let it die. Another form of peace recognition will take its place in time.

Re:Consequences

[nedlohs]

He was the first President after Bush. Which is apparently good enough.

Re:Consequences

[DigiShaman]

Greatness? Greatness?! What are you going on about? Obama is just another politician that became a product of the media. Never in my lifetime have I ever witnessed the ignorant swooning of the masses over this guy. At a global level at that. He's nothing special. He has done NOTHING special. Get over it. Please.

Re:Consequences

[c0lo]

Just how many peace prizes were created in the last couple of centuries? Of course, I'm somehow excluding "Confucius Peace Prize" - a strange association of a peace prize with words of bellicose connotations.

Re:Consequences

[macshit]

But in fact, this years prize seems to actually go in the other direction, of rewarding somebody who truly took personal risks to advance the cause of peaceful political evolution.

Of course China's amazing degree of freak-out about it simply drives the point home.

I'm a bit curious about the reasoning of the various countries that are "not attending" though -- which ones did it to curry political favor with China (at little perceived cost), and which ones did it because they're also busy killing/imprisoning anybody who makes a stand for democratic freedoms...?

Re:Consequences

[oldspewey]

What a bizarre sentiment.

Re:Consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

IMHO this is the consequence of turning the peace prize into a political too. Kissinger? Arafat? Bad enough to have warmongers who happened to make peace. But the Obama prize was the worst. I like Obama myself, but he did _nothing_, good or bad, to deserve that prize. It completely discredited the institution. At this point I wouldn't be too sorry to see it go.

Obama's nobel, It was his price to stand aside and let current events unfold without pause, no intelligent man could stand aside and not see what is happening. Obama is an intelligent man, something had to be his price.

Re:Consequences

[MadUndergrad]

You're a right-wing troll, but you're right. He's the Great Capitulator.

Re:Consequences

[haruchai]

And never in my life have I witnessed such unwarranted vitriol, hatred and lying denigration towards an intelligent, well-meaning, decent man. Obama's no saint and he may never be ranked among the great Presidents, but idiots in the US voted in a corporate puppet who couldn't articulate two sentences in a row TWICE. Just about anyone would have looked pretty good after that.

The US, and the world, was ready for change and that's how Obama was perceived - a man of average circumstances, who, in his person, represented a bridging of cultural, religious and linguistic divides. And, despite the political polarisation of present-day America, he has tried to reach across the aisle but the opposition are holding
the voters hostage to their elitist agenda.

Did ordinary civilians show up at Bush meetings carrying firearms? I don't recall any message from the President that he wants to revoke the Second Amendment.

I guess John Kerry got some ridiculously unfair treatment from the Swift Boaters but there did seem to be some legit questions about his war record and discarding his medals.
I'd love to see Time do an expose on the Koch brothers, who seem to be the real shadow power in America these last years.

Re:Consequences

[ShanghaiBill]

I know nothing (yet) about this year's Nobel Peace Prize laureate...

His name is Liu Xiaobo. He is currently imprisoned in China. He advocates democracy. But that is not why he is in prison.

He also advocates abolition of the hukou. That is why he is in prison.

Re:Consequences

[gman003]

The Peace Prize has ALWAYS been political. Five years after it was first awarded (1906), Teddy Roosevelt got one for essentially bullying Japan into accepting worse terms than they should have after winning the Russo-Japanese War. 1973, Henry Kissinger got a Peace Prize essentially for just quitting a war. There's probably more, but that's

Re:Consequences

[gman003]

Dammit, pressed submit early.

The Peace Prize has ALWAYS been political. Five years after it was first awarded (1906), Teddy Roosevelt got one for essentially bullying Japan into accepting worse terms than they should have after winning the Russo-Japanese War. 1973, Henry Kissinger got a Peace Prize essentially for just quitting a war. There's probably more, but that's all I can point out off the top of my head.

Re:Consequences

[DigiShaman]

You suffer from psychological projection. I never said I hated the man. In fact, he's as much as a victim as we all are. But hey, he let himself be setup for the fall that was natural to come. And no, he hasn't done diddly squat in the way of policy to "bridge the divide" as near as I can tell.

Re:Consequences

[lennier]

I guess John Kerry got some ridiculously unfair treatment from the Swift Boaters but there did seem to be some legit questions about his war record and discarding his medals.

Yes, about that. I wish Kerry had stood by his anti-Vietnam War protest days. Because he was right. That was a horrible, pointless, war of atrocities which the USA should never have entered.

Kerry should have stood up proudly and said "Vietnam was wrong, Iraq is wrong, Afghanistan is wrong, Dubya is a war criminal, I'm an antiwar hero and proud of it, and if elected I'm pulling the USA out immediately, closing Gitmo and filing treason charges, you'd better believe it."

Would it have played to the 2004-era masses? Dunno, but it would have been the right thing to do. Politics shouldn't always be about lying to get elected. It should involve sometimes standing up and saying the truth.

Re:Consequences

[c0lo]

I know nothing (yet) about this year's Nobel Peace Prize laureate...

His name is Liu Xiaobo. He is currently imprisoned in China. He advocates democracy. But that is not why he is in prison.

He also advocates abolition of the hukou. That is why he is in prison.

A sincere thank you.

As usually, a good information creates more questions than answers, especially for an outsider or the system. Here would be 2 of them:

1. why would it be that, being imprisoned for other reasons, is China's govt so upset for his contributions on other lines are recognized?
2. what's so wrong with the abolition of hukou? (I'm not contesting China's right to create its own laws, by I'm on the principle that faulty laws create more troubles than solve).

Re:Consequences

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

And no, he hasn't done diddly squat in the way of policy to "bridge the divide" as near as I can tell.

Off the top of my head:

1) Massive watering down of the healthcare bill - like removal of the public option.
2) Looks like he's going to continue the Bush tax cuts even for the highest income brackets.

My impression is that he does make policy changes that republicans want, but short of up and quitting his job, the GOP would never give him credit for a single compromise.

Re:Consequences

[Zak3056]

idiots in the US voted in a corporate puppet who couldn't articulate two sentences in a row TWICE.

Oh, come now. Bush managed to string together a coherent statement at least three--maybe even four--times in his eight years. Saying he couldn't manage to do it just twice is base libel.

Re:Consequences

[fotbr]

Except for that tiny little detail of him being on record supporting going to war in Afghanistan and Iraq.....

Re:Consequences

[DigiShaman]

So if I'm on a path to utterly destroy this nation with bad policy, why should I be given praise and positive recognition when I only move back in the other direction ever so slightly? He's a Jimmy Carter Part II. He'll get my applause when he leaves office. I bet he's a fun guy to party with though.

Re:Consequences

[geoffrobinson]

Henry Kissinger actually worked out an agreement for peace for South Vietnam. The Congress pulled all support out from under the South Vietnamese and then thousands and thousands were slaughtered, the region plunged into darkness, and who knows how many were tortured and imprisoned.

Yay for simplistic peace activists!

Re:Consequences

[circletimessquare]

it is impossible to award a peace prize that isn't political. the process of peace is inherently about human conflict and the resolution of that conflict. that very process is called politics. you cannot separate the concept of politics and the concept of peace, making peace is nothing more than good politics, by definition

in other words, the more contentious and disputed the peace prize, the more valid the peace prize. because interests vested against a peace will be angered at the symbolism in the prize. and the greater those interests, the greater the conflict, and therefore the greater the potential peace at hand. so the awards committee chose very well this year

Re:Consequences

[Chibi Merrow]

Before he was against them, of course...

Re:Consequences

[Chibi Merrow]

And, despite the political polarisation of present-day America, he has tried to reach across the aisle but the opposition are holding the voters hostage to their elitist agenda.

Do you seriously believe that? Is saying your opponents need to get in the back of the bus reaching across the aisle? Is calling those who disagree with you 'enemies' reaching across the aisle? Those are just the two most recent examples I can think of... What exactly can you hold up as his efforts at bipartisanship?

Re:Consequences

[jensend]

Uh- he didn't introduce those compromises as a "bridging the divide" type thing, he did those because there was absolutely no way a public option or a tax bill not extending the full Bush tax cut would have made it through Congress. Can't really credit him as a unifier for doing that when he only did so because circumstances forced him to --esp. the fact that not everyone in the Democratic caucus is on the far left*, the voters' rejection of the broader health care tack as manifest in the Scott Brown election and the loss of a filibuster-proof majority, and the imminent GOP House takeover.

Republicans aren't asking him to quit, just to come to the table and try to reach agreement *first* rather than only resorting to it when it's become apparent the legislation preferred by the left wing of his party can't be ramrodded down the nation's throat.

The level of political discourse has really dropped a lot over the past decade. The 2008 presidential debates and the petty partisanship of Congress over the last few years make even the 2000 Bush-Gore debates and the Clinton impeachment debacle look like Webster v Calhoun and the Constitutional Convention by comparison.

*I really think it's unfortunate that so many of the Blue Dog Democrats lost office in this election. The effect is to push the Democratic party further left at a time when it really needs to rethink the hard left turn the party took when Pelosi became Minority Leader. They were often replaced by Tea Partiers who seem to be frothing at the mouth- I think many of the principles the Tea Partiers claim to represent are worthy enough, but most of the politicians affiliated with it are total loons and an embarrassment to those principles.

Re:Consequences

[Chibi Merrow]

1) Massive watering down of the healthcare bill - like removal of the public option.

Changing a bill because not even enough members of your own party will vote to pass it isn't exactly bipartisanship. That's just politicking. Bipartisanship would be developing the bill with input from the other side from the BEGINNING, not giving in just enough to get your bill passed after failing to force it down people's throats. Even "massively watered down" the bill is still a terrifying monstrosity.

2) Looks like he's going to continue the Bush tax cuts even for the highest income brackets.

Only because, once again, not even enough members of his own party are voting to pass the version of the bill without the extensions. Extending the tax cuts for two years is also attached to continued unemployment funding, so this isn't so much compromising as trading favors. Props to him for at least doing something to get the bill passed, and I hope the payroll tax holiday idea comes to fruition. Won't help employment any, since it won't affect the employer's share, but at least it's passing some relief down to the taxpayers.

Re:Consequences

[koxkoxkox]

Hukou is a way to reduce the movement of populations. China especially fears large migrations from the poor west provinces to the rich east coast and from the rural areas to the cities. It is quite similar to the immigration problems all around the world, except that it is inside the country.

However, Liu Xiaobo is by no means the only one criticizing this hukou system and a lot of people want to reform it, arguing that it creates a very unequal society, where citizens don't have the same rights to education, social security, housing, etc. depending on where their official hukou is.

The reason he is in jail right now is rather that he is the main force behind the "Charter 08". This charter is also what prompted the Nobel Price. I'll let you google it yourself, I can't access it from work.

Re:Consequences

[bigstrat2003]

Intelligent, sure. Well-meaning or decent, never. He's not only a politician, but one who was able to get elected to the office of United States president. That means that he's a corrupt, self-serving man.

Granted, I'm only 25, but out of all the presidents I can remember, not ONE served the people. Politicians almost always serve themselves, and are not to be trusted until proven trustworthy many times over.

Re:Consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

and Obama got it for what? Just talking about what he will do?

Re:Consequences

[Steauengeglase]

Occasionally I see folks linking to that site and I won't say that I disagree with some of the stuff I see there (as far as names and numbers go), but man, as far as the mindset of the world's Capitalists goes, they really don't get it. Their "enemy" really isn't sitting in a smoke filled room asking themselves, "How can we control the Chinese people?". That is completely divorced from their view of the world. It is just as bad as right-wing Americans who think that every Muslim on Earth spends 16 hours a day contemplating the destruction of the US. As long as you look at the world that way you are destined to be somebody's puppet.

Re:Consequences

[CrashNBrn]

The billionaire Koch brothers' war against Obama : The New Yorker (Aug 30, 2010)

Some critics have suggested that the Kochs’ approach has subverted the purpose of tax-exempt giving. By law, charitable foundations must conduct exclusively nonpartisan activities that promote the public welfare. A 2004 report by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, a watchdog group, described the Kochs’ foundations as being self-serving, concluding, “These foundations give money to nonprofit organizations that do research and advocacy on issues that impact the profit margin of Koch Industries.”

A 10 page article in the New Yorker, which is likely tldr; for most -- considering that a single "New Yorker" page is about the equivalent of a 10 page expose on PCMag/ZiffDavis et al ;)

Re:Consequences

[spacehunt]

Go read the charter yourself. Where the hell does it promote radical capitalism?

Re:Consequences

[Strange Ranger]

The Peace Prize was given to "Obama" for getting elected.
The USA electing a black opposition President in the time of Bush is a historical accomplishment;
the Peace Prize is yours too if you voted for him. It was like awarding the US the Peace Prize.
 
I see where you're coming from, but I view the Peace Prize as something really grand. Something that deserves to be capitalized.
So grand, that since it was awarded to Obama, when it was awarded, then that must mean it was intended for all of us who voted for him.
I think we should accept it that way.
 
What he's done since...

Re:Consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

The Peace Prize has ALWAYS been political.

So true. Always political, and always controversial.
The Nobel Peace Prize came about largely because of Nobel's personal friendship with Bertha von Suttner, a radial pacifist.
Now that's a controversial position even now, but it was even more controversial at the turn of the century,
the era preceeding WWI was one of the most jingoistic periods in Europe's long, bloody history. (Which is why they all raced so eagerly to go to war in 1914)
The very act of creating a prize for peace was controversial, because even advocating peace was controversial at that time! Especially considering Nobel was an arms manufacturer!

Politics isn't an exact science, there's no way they will always get it right, and there's no reason why it would ever be uncontroversial.
And note: The prize is for who "did the most in the last year" (all of them are, really), it's wasn't intended as some kind of lifetime-achievement award, or such.
Don't think for a second that the politicians in Stortinget liked Henry Kissinger, (and remember Norway is relatively left-wing, especially in the early 1970's), or thought he was a 'man of peace' or some such.
He got it because ending Vietnam was unarguably the most important step towards world peace taken that year.
There are many arguments for why you shouldn't want to appear to reward someone like him, but the fact is that his prize and Roosevelt's prize are not at all at odds with a literal reading of Nobel's will.

Re:Consequences

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Uh- he didn't introduce those compromises as a "bridging the divide" type thing, he did those because there was absolutely no way a public option or a tax bill not extending the full Bush tax cut would have made it through Congress.

Really? That liberal bastion, the wall street journal, totally disagrees with you, and they are far from alone on that topic.

Re:Consequences

[silentcoder]

>Before he was against them, of course...

Aaah yes - because when a scientist changes his mind about something we praise him for being open-minded and reconsidering things when new data comes to light, but when a politician does the same thing (like realize a war you were in favor of had become wrong, or perhaps just realizing that during an extremely emotional time you made an understandable mistake) we call him a flip-flopper who is weak an unprincipled...

Well... I don't do that. I hate that politics work like that. I PREFER politicians who are willing to change their minds. Now if he changes his mind about whether to keep a campaign promise or not - that's another matter, but when a politician changes his view on a policy issue that's a sign of a potentially great leader. Trust voters to call it weakness...

The irony with Obama is that what American's now seem to hate him most for: his healthcare bill WAS a campaign promise.
Holy shit, whoever heard of voters hating a politician for KEEPING a promise ?!?!?! That one is brand new.
You know in the UK the house of lords don't actually GET to vote on any bill that was a campaign promise ? By mere virtue of being a campaign promise neither parliament nor the HoL nor the queen can block a bill *and* their other oversight tasks are limited to literally "making sure nothing else is being slipped in".
Now THAT Is how it should be. A campaign promise is something the people ASKED for, it should be IMPOSSIBLE to even TRY to stop a president from passing a bill if he had it as a campaign promise. You may be able to sway some local votes, do some politicking and derail it (getting some really nice lobyist money in the process) but the reality is - he promised it, people voted for it- the choice is MADE and nobody should get a chance to second guess it again until the NEXT election.

When a system allows politicians to prevent an elected leader from keeping the promises that got him elected, democracy has already failed.

Re:Consequences

[DNS-and-BIND]

So the color of a man's skin is more important than the sum of his accomplishments. What a world we have created.

Re:Consequences

[DerekLyons]

At this point I wouldn't be too sorry to see it go.

Won't it be better to be restored at its normal signficance (instead of seeing it go)?

That's an acceptable alternative too.
 

I know nothing (yet) about this year's Nobel Peace Prize laureate... is it not a step in the good direction?

It (this years selected laureate) is not.

Re:Consequences

[QX-Mat]

News just in: Obama isn't G W Bush.

Obama's Nobel prize was a swipe in the face of the last 2 terms of US foreign policy. Obama's pledge to reduce the nuclear stock pile and kill Gitmo probably gave it some legitimacy.

Re:Consequences

[guruevi]

Kinda ironic that the guy who started the Nobel prize was the inventor of dynamite, patent holder and an arms dealer.

Re:Consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite a bit of FUD about the UK there: First the queen can't block ANYTHING. She can try, of course, but the moment she did she'd be swinging from a lamppost and the UK would be a republic. Her job is ceremonial. Secondly, parliament certainly DOES vote on campaign promises. I've no idea where you're getting your information about this from, but it's completely wrong.

Re:Consequences

[gnola14]

Uh, you do realize he's in the same side as you in this argument, don't you? Just because he didn't mentioned Obama doesn't mean he thinks he was worthy of the prize...

Re:Consequences

[gfreeman]

No irony at all - it's WHY he started the prize system. He was ashamed of the deaths caused by his invention.

Re:Consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

in other words, the more contentious and disputed the peace prize, the more valid the peace prize.

That is THE stupidest sentence I have ever read on slashdot. And that is quite a high bar.

At the risk being accused of Godwinning this thread, suppose Hitler was awarded the peace prize. That would certainly be as contentious and disputed a choice there is. According to your logic, that is proof that Hitler winning a peace prize would be the most valid choice possible.

I honestly don't know who is more stupid, you or the morons that modded you up.

Re:Consequences

[circletimessquare]

uh.... what does hitler have to do with what i said? you seem to be suffering from some sort of cognitive failure, where you see some meaning in my words that is not really there

Re:Consequences

[melikamp]

Ah, in Russia we called it propiska. It works great when almost everyone is a wage slave, with no real way to leave their shitty farms and factories and move to the place where all the food and material goods just happen to be collected and redistributed.

Re:Consequences

[Culture20]

that's how Obama was perceived - a man of average circumstances

Average circumstances being rich and popular for being popular like the Kardashians?

I don't recall any message from the President that he wants to revoke the Second Amendment.

Not while he's been president, no. I have a feeling those people were "clinging to their guns" as a means of political speech.

Re:Consequences

[bstender]

It's really a shame /. doesn't have a "-1 censor" choice so the squeemish mods among us can retain their integrity.

Re:Consequences

[Tim C]

Well, you said "the more contentious and disputed a peace prize is, the more valid it is". The AC pointed out that awarding Hitler a peace prize would be highly contentious, but invalid.

It's a reductio ad absurdum, but he has a point.

If you dislike the Hitler angle, consider if I were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize - that would be universally decried, and so valid?

I do understand what you're trying to say, that awarding the prize to someone who deserves it is bound to upset *someone*, but your argument catches far more people who would not deserve the award.

Re:Consequences

[haruchai]

He wasn't born rich and he didn't inherit his money or win a lottery,and, as the 1st person of color to be president of the Harvard Law Review, I'd say he's famous for a bit more than Kim K. whose fame derives largely from bouncing her fat ass on videotape on some rapper's cock.

Re:Consequences

[bstender]

So much to respond to here;
I happen to think my personal critique of Capitalism has some merit and don't mind testing _those_ ideas with you...but to keep it on topic, my point was simply to bring up the Chinese viewpoint more than start a Communism vs. Capitalism debate.
Characterizing 'anti-Capitalism' and 'anti-Capitalists' as you have is a straw man. The viewpoint we have been fed since birth in the West is that the former is GOOD and the latter is BAD. If someone or some group threatens the status quo, they are put into jail, sometimes without trial and even tortured--even in the USA--If the Nobel committe had given the prize to Osama Bin Laden for leading a fight against Imperialism and Colonial occupation, what would be the reaction in the USA? The point here is that this prize is very partisan, very NON-Peace, and the Chinese have every right to see it as an affront to their dignity.

Re:Consequences

[haruchai]

Are you looking in the mirror? I think you're projecting onto yourself. I was replying to you but not referring to you.
And, it's the opposition who refuse to bend. Obama's platform is pretty moderate and his healthcare isn't far off from what was proposed by Republicans in the past.

Re:Consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

You have such disdain for your fellow man. It is in all of us the ability to make good decisions. Applaud it when it happens, and don't condemn others based on expectations. This will give you a more balanced view of politics.

Re:Consequences

[DigiShaman]

Excuse me?! I can't speak for other nations, but when we (the USA) elect our President, we expect nothing short of fulfilment of the required job duties. The POTUS primary job includes keeping the government running as smooth as possible, vetoing bad bills, and protecting our nation as commander-in-chief. If those duties fail to be fulfilled, I will personally call him/her out on it! So please, don't give me this pap and wishy-washy drivel about not condemning failure. If you can't, or are not qualified to do the job, then you shouldn't run for the highest office in America.

Re:Consequences

[bstender]

The charter is stridently Capitalist, privatization (profitization) of everything that people depend upon, this is a radical agenda for China. Radical is a term like 'terrorist', one man's radical is another's hero, so i will withdraw that term--it is a call for a Western Capitalist system in China. I don't reject that Charter in its entirety, it promotes many things I believe in, things good for people; freedom of association, religion etc. but I believe that Capitalism is the biggest problem facing humanity, so I don't blame them for shutting him down.

Re:Consequences

[circletimessquare]

i never even remotely suggested anything of what you are writing, nor can you even creatively extrapolate the meaning you are indicating, from my words. yet you write this bullshit about hitler as if it is a straight line between my words and this bullshit about hitler

do you have reading comprehension problems?

Re:Consequences

[haruchai]

I agree - he should have stuck to his guns ( no pun intended ). In the end, he got stuck with a flip-flopper label although his opponents were just as bad.

Re:Consequences

[TheoMurpse]

The Peace Prize has ALWAYS been political. Five years after it was first awarded (1906), Teddy Roosevelt got one for essentially bullying Japan into accepting worse terms than they should have after winning the Russo-Japanese War. 1973, Henry Kissinger got a Peace Prize essentially for just quitting a war. There's probably more, but that's

This message has been interrupted as gman003 has left to accept his Nobel Peace Price.

Re:Consequences

[jahudabudy]

Is calling those who disagree with you 'enemies' reaching across the aisle?

The Republicans don't just "disagree" with Obama. They have stated in words and proven in action that their main goal is to obstruct him in anything that might reflect well on his presidency. They haven't flat out said it (the Congress members haven't said it - media figures have), but it is obvious that the Republicans would prefer to see our country spiral further downward if that could be blamed on Obama than see us do well if that would be attributed to Obama.

So, yeah, I think "enemies" is a pretty accurate term. As an aside, I find it amusing (in a sad sad way) that bipartisanship is apparently a one way street to Obama critics. When have the Republicans worked towards compromise? Expecting one side to capitulate to the demands of the other isn't compromise.

Re:Consequences

[haruchai]

Actually, I wasn't giving him that much credit. I put the "TWICE" in the wrong place.
It should have read "TWICE voted in ......"

Re:Consequences

[haruchai]

Yes, I do believe it. Even when he compromises, which he did far too often, from the very beginning, no Republican would vote yea on one of his bills.

He's watered down every bill to try to placate them, at least somewhat, and it's gotten him nowhere. So, he's a fool for trying.
But his biggest headache, at least when he had control of the House, were the Blue Dog Democrats.
In what has to be the greatest irony of the Tea Party upset, is that the Blue Dogs were bounced to a greater degree than most of the Democrat incumbents. So those seats are actually a outright loss for Obama as he wouldn't have gotten their support without large chunks of pork.

Re:Consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

No silly. It's (partly) the fact that the whole country thought the color of his skin was just as presidential as any other skin.
 
We stood up as a nation and declared the opposite of what you're saying.

Re:Consequences

[Tablizer]

But the Obama prize was the worst. I like Obama myself, but he did _nothing_, good or bad, to deserve that prize.

* Closed "secret" overseas prisons

* Denounced and ended US torture

* Took down anti-ICBM system in Poland (Iran, the stated target, has no ICBM's, and thus made Russia nervous).

Re:Consequences

[alexo]

The Nobel Peace Prize came about largely because of Nobel's personal friendship with Bertha von Suttner [wikipedia.org], a radial [sic] pacifist.

It should have been a Geometry Prize.

Re:Consequences

[shutdown -p now]

What do you mean, "called"? We still call it that, even if the official term is "registration of residence" now. And it's still a pain in the ass.

Re:Consequences

[shutdown -p now]

I believe that Capitalism is the biggest problem facing humanity, so I don't blame them for shutting him down.

You support violent suppression of anyone who so much as advocates (rather than implements) any form of capitalism?

Re:Consequences

[melikamp]

Ya ne sledil za Rossiyskoy politikoy i ekonomikoy s teh por kak ya pereyehal v Redwood City v 1998-om, no to, chto vi soobshayete, menya sovsem ne udivlyayet.

Gorazdo udivitel'neye, chto /. ne podderzhivayet kirilitsu, v 2010-om.

Re:Consequences

[bstender]

absolutely not. i need to rephrase that; "it doesn't surprise me that they put him in jail". similar to our own red scare, a govt. reflexively shuts down anything that appears to be a significant threat to the status quo. The Wikileaks War says it all, no? the "openness" meme is a gigantic threat.
And a LOT of people support that 'feature' of a government, shutting down sedition, as things can get bloody real quick.
at the same time, I believe in a decentralized democratic State, we're all way too evil to trust.

Re:Consequences

[Mysteray]

Greatness? Greatness?! What are you going on about?

Did you even read what I wrote? Are you capable of parsing English? It sounds like you've skimmed for one or two words which trigger a reflexive response. You've referenced no facts to support any of your arguments.

...a product of the media...

Dude, that was so 20th century. My dumbest pet cat can troll better than that.

I'm a Dittohead!!!

There ya have it folks, a self-prolaimed dittohead deriding others for being products of the media.

Re:Consequences

[Chibi Merrow]

When have the Republicans worked towards compromise?

Bush (much to everyone's chagrin) pretty much let Ted Kennedy write the No Child Left Behind act. McCain-Feingold? Another stellar example of Republican led bipartisanship... Hell, the first President Bush sunk his presidency enacting Democrat led tax policy as an olive branch to Congress...

Re:Consequences

[Chibi Merrow]

He's watered down every bill to try to placate them, at least somewhat

Then you should be able to give me an example.

Re:Consequences

[haruchai]

He stupidly dropped the public option in favor of a more bipartisan bill, despite poll numbers that clearly showed the average Americans were heavily in favor of it and also despite him touting it for months.
He just doesn't seem to get it that the crop of Republicans of the last decade aren't just folks with a difference of opinion - they are diametrically against anything that doesn't line up with their agenda and what they think they can sell to the voters (and they're pretty good at selling bullshit)

And boycotting Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

...for their slow, klunky Web 2.0 interfacial.

Re:And boycotting Slashdot

[c0lo]

Who's boycotting /.? China and which other countries?

Nobel=bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Everybody should have took a pass last year with the great Obama.

I'm waiting for the US to join in

[Anonymous Coward]

All China has to do is threaten to stop financing the US Congressional spending spree and they'll get in line with the boycott. And yes I'm in the States, born and raised.

Nobel Peace Prize

[oldhack]

They made ass out of themselves handing the prize out to Al Gore and Obama.

It's not what it used to be.

Re:Nobel Peace Prize

[Osgeld]

+1

Re:Nobel Peace Prize

[JSBiff]

It's a good point. A prize/medal/honor of any sort, is only as good as the people who've won it. When you start giving out prizes not based upon what someone has actually *done* but what you think they will do in the future, the prize becomes meaningless. Obama was president for what, a month(?) when he was awarded the prize, and had done nothing other than get elected.

The Al Gore prize, I could *somewhat* understand - whether you (the reader) agree that Anthropogenic Global Warming (or whatever they call it this week), at least you could look and say that A) The Committee believes that AGW is a threat to world peace, and B) Al Gore had made a huge impact in getting more people around the world to be more aware of the issue, thinking and talking about it, to move towards change. Gore had done *something* (and, also, the prize was shared with the IPCC, which had done a lot of scientific work). Obama didn't even have that much.

However, it did still seem too early even for the Gore/IPCC award, because even though they had gotten people talking about the issue, it seemed like you would need the perspective of a decade or two of history (maybe even longer), to really evaluate whether Gore and the IPCC actually did have a meaningful impact on World Peace.

a good flex

[__aaeuwj6541]

it would appear that china is starting to flex a little more of that intimidating political Muscle it has, just to see who would fall in line with said flexing, when you are a nation close to a nation like china you can hardly argue if you want to keep trading with that nation. and avoid being invaded by a large military force that makes even the American military stop and say "hang on these guys have got some big guns", last time i checked china isn’t exactly a forgiving kind of nation.

Henry Kissinger

[Anonymous Coward]

The "peace" prize lost all value the day they handed it to Henry Kissinger. Everything else has been window dressing since then.

I wish my country was more like China.

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering the Nobel prizes get more political in nature every year, I gotta say I'm with the Chinese on this one.

Good - I hope the world boycotts it

[moxley]

Giving it to Obama proved that it's totally meaningless. ....the ironic thing here though, is that it's packed with allegorical meaning in that that prize and the way it was given to Obama is the perfect example of what the US stands for now - a meaningless "peace" prize founded by an arms manufacturer given to the "leader" of a sole superpower country that talks peace more than any other, but does more to create war and show disdain for peace than any other country in the world right now. There's some meaning for you.

Considering that one thing we heard when the decision to give this to Obama was questioned worldwide was that "The decided to give it to him because he ended Bush's reign, and Bush had started 2 wars, tons of illegal prisons, authorized torture, etc - and the funny thing is that despite all of his talk, Obama is doing EXACTLY the same thing.

Re:Good - I hope the world boycotts it

[Falconhell]

The same thing? Rubbish.

Which 2 wars has he started?

Did he not stop the torture?

Re:Good - I hope the world boycotts it

[Anonymous Coward]

He ended bush reign? I thought there was an election, not a coup. Also Bush did not run for a 3rd term, for some reason.

Re:Good - I hope the world boycotts it

[haruchai]

America is not the sole superpower. In the shape the US is in right now, they're no match, with support from their allies, for China

Re:Good - I hope the world boycotts it

[Anonymous Coward]

lol

Re:Good - I hope the world boycotts it

[Bigjeff5]

So you're saying I should be getting my notification for a Nobel prize shortly, huh?

I mean, I haven't even continued the two wars that someone else started! I'm way more peaceful than Barrack Obama! I'm quite possibly the most peaceful man on the planet!

BTW, Obama didn't do anything before he was selected, he didn't have time to. He won the award for being anything other than a Republican, preferably someone who says a lot of really nice things but never follows through. It wasn't just for not being Bush, as many people claim, there is no way in hell they would have given it to McCain.

That is pure, unadulterated bullshit right there.

Apparently the Peace Prize has been a joke since day one, as people who know the history of such things have been pointing out. That is really sad because every once in a while they seem to actually get someone half-way decent, and it tarnishes their reputation more than anything.

Re:Good - I hope the world boycotts it

[Bigjeff5]

I have to say I doubt it.

China's economy is very much wrapped up in ours, and their military technology still lags far behind ours. The two combined will make them eager to settle anything that comes to blows, and make any conflict extremely painful for them.

Our GDP is three times theirs, which means we have a lot more resources to leverage. War is not something China is in a good position to wage, which is why they don't fight many lately.

Re:Good - I hope the world boycotts it

[silentcoder]

>meaningless "peace" prize founded by an arms manufacturer

That last bit is not really accurate. Nobel invented dynamite. Dynamite literally means "safe explosive" - it's invention was NOT intended as a weapon - but as a safer explosive for mining. Compared to Nitro-glycerine dynamite was a major advance.
The truth is that strictly speaking Nobel's invention has saved millions upon millions of lives - not soldier lives, the lives of ordinary people who work in a mine, people with families just doing their job - by making mining hugely safer than it had been prior.

Now of course in retrospect it was pretty much inevitable that dynamite would become a weapon as well - the ability of controlled detonation for warfare was far to irresistible to the kind of people who think warfare is a good thing, but it's quite a slur on Nobel to pretend that this was his intention. Nobel invented a device to SAVE lives, and indeed every day it still does exactly that. It can also be used to take lives, but that wasn't HIS fault.

Re:Good - I hope the world boycotts it

[log0n]

Not that peaceful with all that vitriol you just spewed.

Re:Good - I hope the world boycotts it

[Anonymous Coward]

but that wasn't HIS fault.

In my opinion inventors and researches aren't free of all responsibility. They like to say "hey I just invented death-technology-du-jour but I didn't kill anybody" or "I just did it for the technology" but that's just nonsense they tell themselves to justify their actions.

Sure, there are many inventions that could not be forseen to be abused/malicious; it's just bad luck in this case.

However if you invent the means to kill, maim, spy and so on, you are responsible for what happens with these technologies. If you are intelligent enough to come up with something, you are intelligent enough to see how it would be used. Pretending you are not responsible is just a sad excuse.

Re:Good - I hope the world boycotts it

[Ailure]

Actually it was partially from his guilt of what his invention could be used for that got the whole Nobel prize thing started.

Re:Good - I hope the world boycotts it

[haruchai]

The US is too dependent on things made in China, and many items they buy from other countries rely on parts also made in China.

China has lots of resources too - the only major one they're lacking is oil - but they have plenty of coal and plenty of cheap labour. They can make petroleum out of coal like South Africa did during the apartheid years. I think their biggest worry would be a food shortage.
In a war with China, the US, without considerable support from their allies would have to consider the nuclear option.

Re:Good - I hope the world boycotts it

[Falconhell]

I note you did not address the facts of my post, just posted an irrevlevant rant. Care to actually stick to the facts, not right wing rhetoric?

Re:Good - I hope the world boycotts it

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not an authoritative source, but the first fucking sentence of the wikipedia article on Alfred Nobel describes him as an armaments manufacturer. This may have something to do with him manufacturing more weapons than almost anyone else at the time. Really it's one of the things he's most known for. Maybe you missed that part of the biography you read though.

Re:Good - I hope the world boycotts it

[Erikderzweite]

Did you not find the fact that Obama has received the Nobel Peace Price a week after he declared that thirty thousand additional troops will be deployed to Afghanistan somewhat ironic too?

Oh, and US troops are now longer in Afghanistan than USSR troops were. Ironic again as the USA were the loudest to cry foul about the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. A pity though, that there is no other superpower to train Afghans against US and to give them up to 2000 SAM's.

Re:Good - I hope the world boycotts it

[Falconhell]

The point I was discussing was that Obama had not
started any wars the origal made the claim he had done the same as Bush which was patently untrue.

I have no opinion on him getting the prize, I view
all such awards as meaningless, not worth any fuss
either way.

Mod parent up!

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up

China is pressuring India..

[Anonymous Coward]

China is pressuring India to boycott, the Chinese Premier comes to India on a state visit days after the ceremony.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/article929177.ece

This should put the US on notice

[bogaboga]

Reuters seems to think the 'consequences' are of an economic nature, pointing out that half of the countries with economies that gained global influence during recent times are boycotting the ceremony (with Brazil and India still attending).

With China and other foreign countries holding more that half of the US debt, such a development should put the US on notice. It appears that those countries that 'boycotted' the ceremonies have seen the writing on the wall: China matters, and matters big time.

Over in these United States, our politicians keep bickering about how to 'handle' the massive deficit all the while making it worse with every regime/administration.

Sad indeed. Just the other month, China and Russia plotted to dump the US currency. If this comes to fruition, all hell will break lose. Trust me on this.

Re:This should put the US on notice

[Anonymous Coward]

> With China and other foreign countries holding more that half of the US debt

The US has a lot of debt, and China owns a lot of that, but it's not half. Wikipedia has a fairly elaborate breakdown: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_debt

Of a total 13.56 trillion dollars of debt, 9 trillion is publicly held (the rest is debt different parts of the government owe other parts of the government). 4 trillion is held by foreigners. 847 billion is held by China - just a little more than Japan. That's six percent. If you add in Hong Kong (apparently still counted separately; I guess the finances haven't been merged yet?) and even add in Taiwan too, that's eight percent.

Definitely worry about the total size of the debt (ugh, damn near 100% of GDP). Don't worry much about the sliver of it owed to China.

> Just the other month, China and Russia plotted to dump the US currency. If this comes to fruition, all hell will break lose. Trust me on this.

Read the whole article. The talk was about for trade between China and Russia, not all trade. Why would you go out of your way to inflate the amount of US money China has, then go out of your way to say China's going to destroy the value of that same money it's holding?

Re:This should put the US on notice

[mm_202]

Someone mod the parent up.

Re:This should put the US on notice

[Anonymous Coward]

It appears that those countries that 'boycotted' the ceremonies have seen the writing on the wall: China matters, and matters big time.

Maybe they just don't give a damn?

The Nobel peace price has been shown to be a farce by giving it to Obama. The price has become meaningless political theatre

Oh well, at least the rabid opposition by China shows they might have picked a deserving person this time. If nobody in power complains, you know you made a meaningless choice ;)

Re:This should put the US on notice

[Anonymous Coward]

China is desperate to dump all their dollar holdings because by owning so much US money, they're stuck with a choice of being effectively taxed on it through inflation, or investing as much of it as they can, which given the sheer amount generally means having to accept buying US government bonds at pathetically low rates.

It isn't a currency reserve, their dollar holdings are the mechanism by which they maintain their currency valuation policies. In order to keep the value of their own currency fixed low, they have to offer a set price for dollars and buy them in any quantity people want to give. They can't then convert them to another currency without somebody being able to siphon endless cash out of them in three-way currency conversions.

China are stuck with handing out extremely low interest loans to the US and they hate it, but they can't stop it because if they do their currency value rises and their economy slows and people lose jobs. The Chinese people are very clear on what they expect from their government in some ways, and if jobs start disappearing, you can expect to see riots.

From the US side of it, it looks bad to see debt continually rising, but you'd be insane not to take advantage of a situation like this for as long as possible. All the power to dictate repayment rates is held on the US side, and so the debt is as cheap as you'll ever see it.

One weight, two measures

[gustgr]

I remember when Obama got the prize and a lot of readers were really supportive of him. Now that he's not that mystical figure any longer, the consense seems to be that China is right in her position mainly because the peace prize has lost its meaning, and as an example of this decadence a lot of readers are citing Obama as one of the examples of decandece of the Nobel peace prize.

Humans are really amusing.

Re:One weight, two measures

[angus77]

Ummm...I don't know what thread you read, but I see an awful lot of taking the piss out of the Nobel committee over that one.

Julian Assange for next year's prize?

[peterindistantland]

This would cause even more drama. I can't wait until that happens... Though his rape charges may prevent him from getting the prize.

Re:Julian Assange for next year's prize?

[ChipMonk]

Yeah, too bad they couldn't give Assange the prize before the accusations crawled out of the woodwork, like they did with Gore.

Nobel prize doesn't mean anything anymore...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ex: Barack Hussein Obama II won one for "hoping". A far cry from men that actually did something and won the prize....

China's govt demonizes like US with Assange (read)

[mykos]

According to this Chinese article he's a big jerk who loves foreign money and attention and hates China. He is greedy and only risks his life and spends time in jail because he is an arrogant rockstar-type.

Looks like the U.S. is taking a page out of this playbook for assange.

wow, talk about a rogue's gallery

[ChipMonk]

Of the 18 countries that turned down the invite, I don't know enough about Columbia, the Philippines, Tunisia, or Morocco. OTOH, the rest have fairly poor reputations for their treatment of dissidents. It isn't difficult to see why they wouldn't want to be seen at this year's ceremony.

Re:wow, talk about a rogue's gallery

[JSBiff]

I don't think Columbia, and the other three you mentioned are particularly bad countries, I suspect mostly they are too small and dependent on China to risk reprisals. But I agree, most of the rest in the list seem a bit like a brotherhood of dictators. Good to see all the autocrats standing together.

Re:wow, talk about a rogue's gallery

[indi0144]

AFAIK Colombia is not going since we have a huge problem with floods and the government is dealing with a lot of problems right now, were not that dependent from China but we might as well see the writing on the wall and mind our own businesses. And yes, in the last 8 years we had a bad record of treating dissidents (mostly black PR campaigns) but that administration ended recently and things are going in other direction now. Wouldn't be the first international event were missing these days because of the floods I was talking about.

http://news.discovery.com/earth/colombia-rains-leave-many-dead-homeless.html

Re:wow, talk about a rogue's gallery

[Anonymous Coward]

The economic reasons aside, the Philippines isn't going because it has the world's longest running Maoist insurgency. They probably need China's help to fix that, either by omission (stop funding it) or commission (pressuring the local Reds). Colombia appears to have a left-wing insurgency of some sort also.

P.S. Funny but the captcha I have to answer reads "enemies"

Re:wow, talk about a rogue's gallery

[cpghost]

I don't know enough about Columbia, the Philippines, Tunisia, or Morocco.

I think Morocco declined the invitation, because it has had some diplomatic problems with Norway in the past. It may not be related to the Nobel Foundation at all.

The Nobel committee jumpted the shark...

[Lord Kano]

When they voted to give Obama the prize after three weeks in office.

LK

Re:The Nobel committee jumpted the shark...

[DeVilla]

They didn't jump the shark. They just had a few other candidates they needed to deal with prior to the shark. He'll be award the prize in a couple years.

Chinese Diplomacy

[bussdriver]

Clearly the Chinese need to read the US memos and bone up on their diplomatic skills. You are not supposed to openly do these things you hide it and attack anybody who might leak out your real activities.

Re:Chinese Diplomacy

[rtb61]

Please do not confuse Chinese and China. There are many democratic Chinese people living elsewhere in the world that want nothing to do with the corporo-fascist government of China. You can not even call it a Chinese government as the majority of Chinese living in China have little on no influence over the Government of China.

Personally this is a diplomatic mistake as it points out exactly which countries China has financial influence over, Pakistan, Iran, Sudan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Colombia, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Iraq, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Venezuela, the Philippines, Egypt, Ukraine, Cuba and Morocco. Russia is the interesting one, although it is likely they don't care one way or the other about China's opinion and stayed away for their own reasons. As for Iraq and Colombia, hmm, perhaps they are trying to get out from under the US and looking to build relations with China or more likely Russia. In fact quite a few more likely stayed away to align with Russia rather than China.

In fact it would be interesting to find out why Russia did not attend.

Re:Chinese Diplomacy

[wvmarle]

I'd say Iraq and Afghanistan with their US installed governments are the odd ones out.

Russia following China is not that strange. Russia and China are major trade partners: Siberia with its huge amount of natural resources (wood, ores, etc) is just north of China. China needs the resources, Russia needs the money. So it makes sense that Russia follows China. And it goes against the US as bonus.

Re:Chinese Diplomacy

[Eunuchswear]

But that's the genius of American policy since 9/11.

They've managed to install puppet governments that are the allies of their enemies.

Brilliant.

Re:Chinese Diplomacy

[Reservoir Penguin]

Strangely Russia's puppet states of Belorussia, South Osettia and Abkhasia are not on the list.

Re:Chinese Diplomacy

[ultranova]

Strangely Russia's puppet states of Belorussia, South Osettia and Abkhasia are not on the list.

It could be that Russia simply doesn't give a damn either way, and lets its puppets do what they will in this matter. The whole "Nobel Peace Prize" is a joke anyway.

Re:Chinese Diplomacy

[uninformedLuddite]

It could be that Russia simply doesn't give a damn either way, and lets its puppets do what they will in this matter.

That sounds like very puppety behaviour

Re:Chinese Diplomacy

[RewriteQuran]

Capitalism - Elections = China

Re:Chinese Diplomacy

[Anonymous Coward]

Most, maybe all, of those countries are not too fond of free speech anyway.
I doubt they stay away because of China.
I think they stay away for the same reasons as China.

Re:Chinese Diplomacy

[jgrahn]

Personally this is a diplomatic mistake as it points out exactly which countries China has financial influence over, Pakistan, Iran, Sudan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Colombia, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Iraq, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Venezuela, the Philippines, Egypt, Ukraine, Cuba and Morocco. Russia is the interesting one, although it is likely they don't care one way or the other about China's opinion and stayed away for their own reasons. As for Iraq and Colombia, hmm, perhaps they are trying to get out from under the US and looking to build relations with China or more likely Russia.

Isn't it obvious? They are all states which are likely to go "hm, we wouldn't want one of our *own* dissidents to win the prize in 2011".

I don't think chinese money is the main reason. Poor countries in Africa and South America where China has a huge economical influence are missing from the list.

Really?

[Nihn]

Kind of ironic that most of the people listed as not going are not the first place you think of when the word "peace" is involved. They conjure up images of civil wars, murderous gangs, beheading "enemies", totalitarian governments and so on. Goes to show what people think of the word "peace", it's just another phrase thrown around for the sake of ego boosting and political banter.

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder, with the leaked cable where China thinks the internet can be controlled, will they start offering better lower prices in trade or less harmful products if the US sets up some censorship gates? Of course, it's likely to be years from now...

Liu Xiaobo doesn't deserve it- try Ai Weiwei

[vampire_baozi]

If they wanted to give it to Chinese dissident, give it to one who actually deserves it.

Human rights are a worthy cause, but if anything, the reforms Xiaobo advocates could result in even more restrictions on human rights- not just through the Communist party clamping down, but rather through the horrendous consequences if people actually listened to him: there was an excellent editorial in the NYTimes today discussing this point.

Xiaobo has had some wonderful ideas, and Charter 08 was pretty cool as far as it went. But he has a lot of writings that go way too far- he basically claims China is inherently inferior, and needs to become a Western colony for 300 years (or at least as long as Hong Kong) before it has a hope of being civilized. Opinions like that aren't very warmly received, nor is his worship of anything associated with the West, be it democracy or laissez-faire capitalism or Christianity. I'm far more liberal than most Americans (and Europeans, for that matter), but most of his writings are far from constructive. He's had his moments, but for the most part, there are Chinese dissidents and intellectuals far more worthy of the prize than he. At least pick one who would rather see peace and prosperity in one of the largest nations on Earth than bloody revolution and chaos.

But then again, after Arafat, Kissinger, and Obama, it's a worthless prize anyway, so fuggedaboutit. If it's an anti-Peace prize now, then it's rather fitting.

Re:China's govt demonizes like US with Assange (re

[couchslug]

Doing things many people consider good, and displaying physical couragem in no way, at all conflict with attention whoring.

While in China...

[peterindistantland]

Under censorship, most ordinary Chinese had never heard of Xiaobo Liu, until they saw news headlines of the sort "Ministry of Foreign Affairs Condemn Nobel Committee for Interfering with Chinese Politics".

so much for change in China...

[rastoboy29]

To be honest, a couple of decades ago I was among those who thought that by helping China to modernize (meaning capitalize), that it would inevitably lead to a more open and pluralistic society.  Oh well.

I'm not saying it couldn't yet happen, and I'm not suggesting that confrontation would have been a better choice, but it is disappointing to see them still resorting to nonsense like this at this point in our engagement.

This is how a Burma, North Korea, or Iran act--not a great power.

reversal of furtune

[Anonymous Coward]

Sad reality of the world we live in. I remember the hoopla over boycotting tune to save the dolphins when I in grade school so naturally I inferred from the title that people are finally waking up to the corrosive effects of China's capitalistic authoritarian and maybe just maybe that global boycott of Chinese goods or any good that are made in countries without freedom of expression is coming true. . . . . that is until I read the summary.

Now I will have to consider adding more country to my avoid to buy list.

Yesterday we threaten China with economic sanction for not having freedom. Today, China threatens the world with economic sanction for having freedom. The sad part is that we, the freedom loving cheap consumer crap buying citizens of the world gave China that power. . . .

Of course not. Most of those states are US allies.

[copponex]

When I think of countries contributing to global peace, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt, etc. don't come to mind in the first place.

Sorry bro. Mubarak, Musharraf, Karzai, all buddy buddy with the United States. If Ahmadinejad would follow orders, he'd be our buddy too.

Re:China's govt demonizes like US with Assange (re

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course they are!! There are people in US government that would *love* to have the same controls over press as they do in China. And slowly buy surely they are inching closer at an ever increasing pace. Patriot Act was just one of the stepping stones of killing the American constitution.

"Stop throwing the Constitution in my face! It's just a goddamned piece of paper!" - George W. Bush - http://www.counterpunch.org/leupp12142005.html

But not to worry! Obama and Joe Liberman (US Senator, also democrat) keep pushing it further still!!! Soon enough, there will be no difference between freedoms in China and freedoms in the US or the western world for that matter... After all, in the US the constitution *is* just a goddamned piece of paper. No one even knows what it says anymore...

PS: CAPTCHA: chills

Seriously, slashdot is probably run by CIA and CAPTCHA is their "mood of poster" AI !!

There's no "peace" in prizes.

[bronney]

I find the very concept of a peace prize, and a ceremony after presentation disturbing. Those who deserves, doesn't care for the prize. Those who care, aren't peaceful.

obama got it last time made it a joke

[chronoss2010]

enough said

Re:China's govt demonizes like US with Assange (re

[mykos]

It's a race to the bottom between democrats and republicans. Who can strip rights faster?

And...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing of value was lost.

They're in great company..

[MoellerPlesset2]

The AP is also reporting that China is creating a Confucius Peace Prize to be given out the day before the Nobel Prize.

Well, they're in good company:
"The German National Prize for Art and Science (German: Deutscher Nationalpreis für Kunst und Wissenschaft) was an award created by Adolf Hitler in 1937 as a replacement for the Nobel Prize (he had forbidden Germans to accept the latter award in 1936 after an anti-Nazi German writer, Carl von Ossietzky, was awarded the 1935 Nobel Peace Prize)."

And of course the Soviets also banned (a bit on-and-off though) their citizens from recieving the Nobel, and Stalin created the Stalin Prize in his own honor.

Economic consequences?

[Arancaytar]

The Nobel prize is endowed by a private foundation, which basically means they can tell all those countries to fuck off - no matter how economically influential.

If China really gets its pants in a twist, like the last time the Dalai Lama came to Europe, they will ask the respective governments to censor and suppress this, and get laughed out the door because until quite recently, most European governments did not interfere with private, legitimate organizations that politically discomforted them.

Re:Economic consequences?

[Compaqt]

Although the money is private, the Nobel peace prize is awarded by members of Norway's parliament.

18 is only 10 more than usual

[Anonymous Coward]

There are always some countries not attending - usually around 10, so it is more like 8 countries more than usual. Barely statistically significant, but nevertheless interesting.

Re:China's govt demonizes like US with Assange (re

[Arancaytar]

Give the US some credit, China didn't come up with the whole "pressure Sweden to charge him with rape" thing.

Ridiculous award - in honor of a ridiculous MAN

[Anonymous Coward]

First off the peace prize is created by the Noble organisation (named after Alfred Nobel).
For all those of you that don't know MR. Alfred Nobel was both an arms dealer and a manufacturer. How very ironical!
Even though I find their award totally inappropriate, I cant believe they can give someone a prize on the promise that he/she is going to change the world in the future, Obama! What a stupid award - Nobel Peace Prize.
Secondly whether you like it or not, what goes up must come down - HISTORY has taught us this very well and the approaching century most likely be dominated from the east with US (as is now) begging for monetary sustainability from the East, tables turn as has always been the past. To stop banging on about this, all countries who abstained are being SMART! China is where the money is and don't tell me about un-democratic! the only democratic/free speech left in the west is sex/obscenity/infidelity/promiscuity/smoking dope! What a sorry world we have become, occupied by taxes and the lesser things in life!
Freedom of speech is non existent anywhere! it comes in levels, and every continent has its limit, as has been recently demonstrated by wikileaks.

Re:Ridiculous award - in honor of a ridiculous MAN

[Gravis Zero]

the approaching century most likely be dominated from the east with US (as is now) begging for monetary sustainability from the East, tables turn as has always been the past. To stop banging on about this, all countries who abstained are being SMART! China is where the money is and don't tell me about un-democratic! the only democratic/free speech left in the west is sex/obscenity/infidelity/promiscuity/smoking dope!

so... are you in China or Pakistan?

Peaceful co-existence

[Compaqt]

Well, but isn't there room for both models? Isn't it OK for China to have Confucianism and filial piety and the US can have creative destruction and individualism?

As long as both sides don't try to engage in regime change because country X isn't democratic enough or conservative enough, there shouldn't need to be a conflict.

Wikileaks

[Compaqt]

I haven't looked at the entire history of Nobel peace prizes, but I wouldn't be surprised to find significant fillips to Western policy or thought.

The whole Wikileaks thing brings this into focus. The Nobel prize went to Liu Xiaobo, accused by China of inciting subversion. Meanwhile, does anyone thing Julian Assange will get a Nobel, he being accused of inciting theft of words?

I'm not saying Liu is in the wrong, just that what's good for the goose is definitely good for the gander. In fact, if China really wanted to tweak the west, they would give Confucius prizes to Assange, then in turn to
-various American Indian leaders
-descendants of American slaves (rules out Obama)
-Inuit
-Sami (indigenous Nordics)
-Roma (gypsies)
-Northern Irish and IRA
-Gaelics
-Welsh
-Basque
-Parti Quebecois
-etc

USA no on the list

[Anonymous Coward]

Strange, I would have expected USA to be on that list.

Just curious...

[BenEnglishAtHome]

...you're both near the BOTTOM of my list of places I would most like to live

What's at the top of your list?

Re:Just curious...

[cobrausn]

A fantasy world, no doubt.

Let's also be clear

[Moraelin]

Let's also be clear: Confucius's idea of proper behaviour and knowing one's proper place includes not even having an own moral compass or will.

Analects 13:

1. The Duke of Sheh informed Confucius, saying, "Among us here there are those who may be styled upright in their conduct. If their father have stolen a sheep, they will bear witness to the fact."

2. Confucius said, "Among us, in our part of the country, those who are upright are different from this. The father conceals the misconduct of the son, and the son conceals the misconduct of the father. Uprightness is to be found in this."

I can see how an autocratic kleptocracy would _love_ this idea of "uprightness". If you're at the bottom, your duty is to cover up the misconduct of those above, not to judge it.

Analects 1:
Confucius said, "When a man's father is alive, look at the bent of his will. When his father is dead, look at his conduct. If for three years he does not change from the way of his father, he may be called filial."

You're supposed to follow your father's will to the letter while he's alive, to the extent that you can't even be judged for your own actions, because you're just doing what your father told you to do. And you're not a good person if you even do your own thing less than 3 years after your father died.

And that applies to all levels. Everyone should just know their place, not do anything above their station, etc. The peasant shouldn't even aspire at things reserved for the noble, and the noble is a no good person if he even does a religious pilgrimage normally reserved for the Emperor.

It seems to me like once you have something like that in place, any promises of it being two-sided are at best illusory. If one side should keep one's mouth shut and not even apply their own moral compass at all, then those above them effectively have a blank check to screw and plunder them as they see fit. Just like the European medieval social contracts were good in theory, but didn't prevent your grain being looted by both sides, including those allegedly protecting you (ok, then it was called a "levy"), as long as only they had a voice and your place wasn't to judge or refuse them.

But generally, I wouldn't give much of a fuck about what Confucius said, either way. Reading the whole damn thing ruined any illusion for me that it's some profound eastern philosophy. There is no deep philosophical thought put into it at all, the kind I came to take for granted from Roman and Greek philosophers in a similar time frame. All Confucius does is bare postulates, justified by no more than having been said by the great man himself. There is no going into the logic or intent or effects or justification of any of them. Confucius just postulates what is the right thing, and that is that.

In the rare occasions where things are slightly more than postulates, they're an implicit appeal to tradition. That's the way things are done in Confucius's province, therefore they're good.

And incidentally he comes across as basically the stereotypical kind of ultra-conservative cranky old guy. Things should be like they've always been, nothing should change, and these annoying young whippersnappers should just do what their elders tell them to do and shut up. You could just as well go find a modern day old guy shaking a cane at kids on his lawn and ask him about how the world should work. The lecture you'll get about how the world should have stopped in 1950, will be every bit a modern-day Confucius analect.

Re:Let's also be clear

[magarity]

2. Confucius said, "Among us, in our part of the country, those who are upright are different from this. The father conceals the misconduct of the son, and the son conceals the misconduct of the father. Uprightness is to be found in this."

This is alive and well today. Just google for 'my dad is Li Gang'

Just a heads up...

[Unnamed Chickenheart]

Taiwan is an island. Its governement is the Republic of China. Which is not to be confused with the People's Republic of China.

So there are two countries that call themselves China.

This post is not meant to argue with Parent Poster, but to make an effort into combating ignorance.

Re:China's govt demonizes like US with Assange (re

[makomk]

I saw that a few days ago. It is a truly, impressively blatant propaganda piece. They pulled out all the stops.

Before Gore and Obama

[wiredog]

Kissinger and Le Duc Tho. Arafat. Etc.. It's always been political, actually.

Correction "without support"

[haruchai]

from their allies

Looking at this the wrong way ...

[gordguide]

This is just a handy "laundry list" of countries that have had, currently have, or are likely to have their own annoying Peace Prize problems in the future. Nice of them to self-report; no need to follow every little thing in the news to pick sides the next time a Human Rights issue comes up.

Thanks for the link

[haruchai]

I look forward to reading it - I do have a soft spot for the New Yorker.

War is the answer

[codecore]

Consider this: War solves problems.

Colonial oppression: War of Independence.
Slavery: Unconstitutional law, followed by Civil War.
Fascism and Imperialist expansion: WW II.

After each, a new balance is achieved. People are better off for it. Tensions will build, and War will be fought, and the world is a better place for it.

The next Korean War will solve the reunification issue. Perhaps there can be a nice big one in south west Asia that will bring defeat to the Fascists and bring that region out of the dark ages. Peace won't do it. It will take War.

the plot thickens

[shnull]

the red line on the map gets more and more clear everyday, this is getting very interesting

Assange

[RewriteQuran]

I nominate Assange for next year Nobel Peace Prize.