Chinese official English-language news outlets predicted this phenomenon at the beginning of the pandemic restrictions. Saying that the crisis provided an opportunity for the world to see the differences between the different governing models of the western liberal democracies, individual liberty vs the Chinese collectivist authoritarian governing model. Reasoning that while the western model allowed for more creativity and innovation in ordinary times, that people prefer the "strong hand" of authoritarianism in times of crisis. They studied human psychology well.
It's only the institutions of liberal democracies that keep us from succumbing to temptations of authoritarianism. The moment we removed those institutional protections because of an emergency declaration was the moment we lost western liberal democracy, individual liberty. Now it's up to We, The People to reclaim it; it won't be given back to us by even the most benevolent authoritarians. And until individual freedom supporting Patriots make the case to more of We, The People that our former governing model remains superior for quality of life and the most rewarding human experience, they will continue to embrace their own submission to tyranny. For the greater good. "Govern me harder, Daddy." China warned us. We didn't listen.
"Whatever the price of the Chinese Revolution, it has obviously succeeded, not only in producing more efficient and dedicated administration, but also in fostering a high morale and community purpose. The social experiment in China under Chairman Mao's leadership is one of the most important and successful in human history.”
-- David Rockefeller, CFR chairman, New York Times, 1973-08-10
Same stuff, different decade. CFR members on the "Biden team" include the secretaries of State, Treasury, Defense, Commerce and Homeland Security. Also the CIA director, Fed chairman, ambassador to China, and dozens of deputies, advisors, etc.
"Describing the Communist plan to “liquidate” the five million kulaks, relatively well-off farmers opposed to the Soviet collectivization of agriculture, Duranty wrote in 1931, for example: “Must all of them and their families be physically abolished? Of course not – they must be ‘liquidated’ or melted in the hot fire of exile and labor into the proletarian mass.”
Taking Soviet propaganda at face value this way was completely misleading, as talking with ordinary Russians might have revealed even at the time. Duranty’s prize-winning articles quoted not a single one – only Stalin, who forced farmers all over the Soviet Union into collective farms and sent those who resisted to concentration camps. Collectivization was the main cause of a famine that killed millions of people in Ukraine, the Soviet breadbasket, in 1932 and 1933 – two years after Duranty won his prize.
Even then, Duranty dismissed more diligent writers’ reports that people were starving. “Conditions are bad, but there is no famine,” he wrote in a dispatch from Moscow in March of 1933 describing the “mess” of collectivization. “But – to put it brutally – you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.”"
And the important point is that collectivism always fails. Xi is about to rediscover that point. While the west has created certain "socialist" items in the main we have preferred self-reliance. Sadly we are eroding that preference in our teaching giving up some of that freedom for a dependence on government. To my mind that trend leads to fewer innovations necessary to social improvement. Those innovations via creativity have reduced poverty and improved living standards over the globe. Tragic to think that era might be ending.
Chinese official English-language news outlets predicted this phenomenon at the beginning of the pandemic restrictions. Saying that the crisis provided an opportunity for the world to see the differences between the different governing models of the western liberal democracies, individual liberty vs the Chinese collectivist authoritarian governing model. Reasoning that while the western model allowed for more creativity and innovation in ordinary times, that people prefer the "strong hand" of authoritarianism in times of crisis. They studied human psychology well.
It's only the institutions of liberal democracies that keep us from succumbing to temptations of authoritarianism. The moment we removed those institutional protections because of an emergency declaration was the moment we lost western liberal democracy, individual liberty. Now it's up to We, The People to reclaim it; it won't be given back to us by even the most benevolent authoritarians. And until individual freedom supporting Patriots make the case to more of We, The People that our former governing model remains superior for quality of life and the most rewarding human experience, they will continue to embrace their own submission to tyranny. For the greater good. "Govern me harder, Daddy." China warned us. We didn't listen.
"Whatever the price of the Chinese Revolution, it has obviously succeeded, not only in producing more efficient and dedicated administration, but also in fostering a high morale and community purpose. The social experiment in China under Chairman Mao's leadership is one of the most important and successful in human history.”
-- David Rockefeller, CFR chairman, New York Times, 1973-08-10
Same stuff, different decade. CFR members on the "Biden team" include the secretaries of State, Treasury, Defense, Commerce and Homeland Security. Also the CIA director, Fed chairman, ambassador to China, and dozens of deputies, advisors, etc.
Mao's China...Hitler's Germany...Stalin's Soviet Union. Same stuff. Different decades. "You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs," you know.
New York Times Statement About 1932 Pulitzer Prize Awarded to Walter Duranty
https://www.nytco.com/company/prizes-awards/new-york-times-statement-about-1932-pulitzer-prize-awarded-to-walter-duranty/
"Describing the Communist plan to “liquidate” the five million kulaks, relatively well-off farmers opposed to the Soviet collectivization of agriculture, Duranty wrote in 1931, for example: “Must all of them and their families be physically abolished? Of course not – they must be ‘liquidated’ or melted in the hot fire of exile and labor into the proletarian mass.”
Taking Soviet propaganda at face value this way was completely misleading, as talking with ordinary Russians might have revealed even at the time. Duranty’s prize-winning articles quoted not a single one – only Stalin, who forced farmers all over the Soviet Union into collective farms and sent those who resisted to concentration camps. Collectivization was the main cause of a famine that killed millions of people in Ukraine, the Soviet breadbasket, in 1932 and 1933 – two years after Duranty won his prize.
Even then, Duranty dismissed more diligent writers’ reports that people were starving. “Conditions are bad, but there is no famine,” he wrote in a dispatch from Moscow in March of 1933 describing the “mess” of collectivization. “But – to put it brutally – you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.”"
And the important point is that collectivism always fails. Xi is about to rediscover that point. While the west has created certain "socialist" items in the main we have preferred self-reliance. Sadly we are eroding that preference in our teaching giving up some of that freedom for a dependence on government. To my mind that trend leads to fewer innovations necessary to social improvement. Those innovations via creativity have reduced poverty and improved living standards over the globe. Tragic to think that era might be ending.