Harry's Place

A very strange person.

Andy Newman’s slavish loyalty to the reactionaries and thugs that rule China is truly mysterious. It is easy to imagine where he would have stood on Stalin 60 years ago.

This is a disgusting post. The Communist Party in China murdered people by the millions. Mao Zedong was the greatest mass murderer in the twentieth century.

We are prepared to sacrifice 300 million Chinese for the victory of the world revolution.

Mao Zedong

Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, Mao: The Unknown Story (Jonathan Cape, 2005), pp. 457-458.

What next from Andy Newman, will he be arguing that it is easy to criticise Pol Pot, Idi Amin and Papa Doc but that we should “take into account the historical context”?

No mention of the poor bastards who died in the great leap forward or the cultural revolution? Typical – some of these lefties need a decade or so work camp to teach them the true meaning of ‘maxism’

Newman is an intellectual and moral pygmy.

Great achievements, like the mass murder of millions during the Great Cultural Revolution; the enslavement of Tibet and the Uighurs in Sinkiang; the despoilment of the environment; tens of thousands of executions each year; rampant torture.

China is a model capitalist country, vital to the world economic order.

Without Chinese finance capital and low cost manufacturing, the US economy and the whole capitalist system would have come crashing down.

Harrys Place therefore owes a huge debt of gratitude to our capitalist comrades of the CCP.

We salute you.

Congratulations to our comrades in China.

By bringing China into the fold, we made the world safe for capitalism.

And we made lots of lovely money for our friends.

“It was one of the great historical achievements of the Twentieth century to throw out the Japanese, and Western colonialists, and unite the country.”

All this was done by the Nationalists who subsequently turned Taiwan into a developed world country. I wonder how far China would have come without the 20 years of stagnation caused by the Great Leap Forward or Cultural Revolution.

Maoist Unity.

Can you come up with some sort of patriotic flag-waving video put out by the Chinese Govt, similar to that video posted here a few weeks back with the old Soviet Anthem?

PS: Great post with right mix of comment and pictures.

From the comments thread on ‘Socialist Unity’:

‘These people need to be careful, congregating in Tiananmen Square. They might get run over by a tank.’

On behalf of my fellow CEOs and indeed the whole of American corporate capitalism, I would like to extend fraternal greetings to our comrades in the Chinese Communist Party.

Your sterling efforts in keeping the Chinese working class under the heel has provided us with a vast pool of cheap labor and endless opportunities for inward investment.

I wish your great, glorious and correct Party another 60 years of unswerving adherence to the demands of world capitalism.

“Every anti-Communist is a dog.”

-Jean-Paul Sartre

From Our Own Correspondent had a report this morning about the rather forlorn old souls still living on communes in China. Keeping the dream alive? Well, something like that, I suppose. In reality, China is the biggest of all the standing contradictions of the theory that capitalism is somehow related to democracy. And for all her many, many faults, the people who so especially hate China do so for precisely two reasons. They have made themselves (and the rest of us, not that they have ever asked us) dependent on her. And they are old Trotskyists from back in the day.

Tibet anyone…?

Tibet anyone…?

Tibet anyone…?

This is a joke, right? It’s cross-posted to show how mindless totalitarian groupies still poison the left with their stench, surely? Because Mao was responsible for the deaths of 60 million people. And that isn’t funny.

“In reality, China is the biggest of all the standing contradictions of the theory that capitalism is somehow related to democracy.”

I was waiting for David Lindsay to use an argument straight out of the “Morning Star”.

“People who so especially hate China … are old Trotskyists from back in the day.”

Always them isn’t it?

David Lindsay is right. China is capitalist heaven. Ultra high rates of exploitation. Surplus value up to your eyeballs.

All the CCP needs to do now is introduce some democracy, to give the people the illusion that they are in charge because they can put a cross on a scrap of paper every 5 years.

Then things will be perfect.

I love the comradely greetings from the CPB: http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/90883/6773802.html

Couldn’t Chairman Griffiths just have circulated a card for all his comrades to sign? And maybe a whipround for a bottle of plonk?

Not perfect, as no system or nor man is perfectably. However the best that can be reasonably achieved….with regards to liberty and man.

Perhaps all you pro war Labour types could club together to buy Andy a republished copy of State Capitalism? He seems a bit rusty.

I thought New Labourites were into a combination of mixed economy and mass murder. Wasn’t it in your last manifesto?

If anyone’s visiting Andy anytie soon, could they ask him to mention any significant victory of the Chinese communists – for that matter, the nationalistsl – over the Japanese? Ditto, can he mention any Western capitalist nation that was overthrown by them?

If anyone here’s visiting Andy over the next few days, could you ask him to recall any significant victory of the Chinese communists – or indeed the nationalists – over the Japanese? Ditto, also for overthrown western capitalist countries, other than those, of course, overthrown by the Japanese?

and the urgent requirement for economic growth as a precondition for social justice and progress

Since when has economic growth been a precondition for social justice (read human rights)?

“A very strange person.”

That’s very charitable of you. Alec. Or maybe just restrained.

I would be inclined to go with “fucking intellectually bankrupt Stalin-loving sick fuck” myself. Tragic that he’s reduced to supporting “Maoist” turbo capitalism these days.

This is scandalous. Doesn’t Andy Newman know where the apostrophe goes in People’s Republic of China?

There is only one people, consisting of lots of persons.

Oh, and Mao was worse than Stalin and Hitler put together.

I genuinely thought that for me to make the following comment was an impossibility, however:

I echo Ben’s comment on this one

“I would be inclined to go with “fucking intellectually bankrupt Stalin-loving sick fuck” myself. Tragic that he’s reduced to supporting “Maoist” turbo capitalism these days.”

Couldn’t have expressed it better myself.

China buying up the worlds resources, to produce, what in the main, is cheap rubbish, selling a large percentage of said cheap rubbish to the West and then using the money not to improve the lives of the workers but to increase its military capability is something a sinister communist state would do.

Oh sorry, forgot for a moment, the Peoples Republic of China is a sinister communist state, they are simply wearing the clothes of Capitalism so everyone will think they are just a big soft fluffy kitten that wouldn’t hurt a mouse.

In fact the one thing that all sinister communists states have in common, it seems to me, is they don’t appear to want to improve the lives of “the workers” which was the purpose of their revolutions in the first place but seem to be more interested in improving their military capability.

The West spends vast amounts of money on military defense and we do indeed produce utter rubbish from time to time, but we do it in the open, we are a capitalism based entity which doesn’t hide what it is.

China is what it is, it can try to hide what it is but it cannot change what it is, a Dragon cannot change its scales.

Maybe it’s just me, maybe I am in need of a lay down, after all I did just second a comment from Ben.

FFLP could you fuck off back to your shitty little blog? Thanks.

While the anti-imperialist of idiots and anti-Western sanctimonious nihilists celebrate China’s decimation of human rights, I am celebrating this just announced decision made by the Palestinian Authority:

The Palestinian ambassador to Geneva said that the Palestinian Authority intends to announce Friday that it withdraws its bid to adopt the Goldstone report, which accused Israel of war crimes, in the Human Rights Council’s concluding session.

“This step affirms the correct strategy embraced by the government of Israel and the Foreign Ministry warning that the adoption of the Goldstone report may prove harmful to the peace process,” Israel’s ambassador to Geneva Roni Leshno Yaar said.

who/where is the body covered with blood in the 3rd picture from?

OP- its good to have your grammatical whip around again – its been too long

who/where is the body covered with blood in the 3rd picture from?

Can’t answer the who, but the where is the tiananmen square massacre.

The picture just added by Gene reminds me of a relative of mine.

When I was in my 20s, he’d take me aside and confide:

“The thing about you young people, you Labour supporters, is that you don’t appreciate what the Tories are doing for this country. The firm hand of authority, that’s what we need. You have to have order or else you’ll have anarchy…”

Some time later, he was sadly widowed, but married a soap star from Shanghai, and now lives half the year in China. So when I see him, I get:

“What you don’t appreciate is the incredible leap forward that Mao made. It might seem harsh but you’ve got to understand that China is a big country and it take a lot to hold it together. You can’t have troublemakers like the Falun Gong running around. You’ve got to have order, or else you’ll have anarchy…”

This will probably give Andy Newman, George Galloway & Co. a good willie.

“Communist China Marks 60 Years in Parade: Tanks, Weaponry displayed during military procession through Tiananmen Square”

(AP) “Tanks and other heavy weaponery rumbled across Beijing behind goose-stepping troops as China celebrated 60 years of communist rule Thursday with its biggest-ever military review – a symbol of its rapidly expanding global might.

The elaborate ceremony for the founding of the People’s Republic unfolded on national television but behind tight security that excluded ordinary people from getting near the parade route through Tiananmen Square.”

The People’s Republic is evidently afraid of the People!
Par for the course for any Police State.

Read the whole story at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/10/01/world/main5355497.shtml?tag=cbsContent;cbsCarousel

OT (and more important), read this: http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/oct/01/yon-the-greatest-afghan-war/

Jack Welch, American patriot is that you? So this is the GE Way huh? Outsource everything to the ChiComs and get the suckers back home to buy stuff with credit from GE Finance. You are a peerless industrial statesman, to be spoken off only in company with Alexander Hamilton and Henry Ford.

Best comment on Socialist Unity -

Andy, you are a morally repugnant fool and patsy. Sorry to say it.

“At no time has China ever had anything comparable to Stalin’s great terror;”

China has imprisoned millions. It has killed millions. It has at times set up police mechanisms for ‘exposing’ bourgeois elements and eliminating them.

“indeed China’s toleration of dissent is probably comparable with the USA’s over the last 60 years, if you take into account McCarthyism, the murder and crimialisation of Black Panther members, Kent State massacre, and now of course the Guantanamo bay camp,, and USA’s international network of torture centres.”

This is incomparable to the mismanagement and murder associated with the cultural terror of the Great Leap Forward or the vicious violent and cold-blooded murder of its own citizenry in the several hundreds at Tiananmen.

I actually was involved with the flotation (and privatisation) of CNOOC on to NASDAQ. Never have you met a more corrupt bunch of capitalist pigs posing as ‘Communists’, traipsing around the world shopping at Gucci and Saks, while 50,000 people were made redundant with 2 days notice with ZERO social safety net in order to meet the requirements. Their oilfields poisoned the local villages and rivers. These were the most disgusting people I have ever met, equalling anything I had met in the West. They then negotaited a discount on their fees by withholding funds contractually owed to our company. These funds were luxury expenses they themselves had insisted on, like private jets and luxury buses and hotels for their entourage of stooges.

I left the business soon after – dealing with the likes of CNOOC, Marconi etc. was a shambles – but the Chinese had not an ounce of dignity or ‘Socialism’ in their blood – they were money and powerhungry.

You’re a first class stooge and patsy. A mental and moral criminal.

Comment by Mick — 1 October, 2009 @ 6:56 pm

“indeed China’s toleration of dissent is probably comparable with the USA’s over the last 60 years, if you take into account McCarthyism, the murder and crimialisation of Black Panther members, Kent State massacre, and now of course the Guantanamo bay camp,, and USA’s international network of torture centres.”

Breathtaking, isn’t it? Quite on the same level as Bush=Hitler, Obama=Hitler or Gaza=Warsaw Ghetto.

“Peoples Republic” in the title
“Peoples’ Republic” in the opening paragraph
Both are misspellings.

And so is “acheived” (third paragraph)

…wasn’t it the Japanese Army who threw out Westerners ? And then didn’t said army wither on the vine while resources were drained away to fight the armies of the Anglosphere until finally in the end the Russians smashed the crippled remains…?

It is easy to criticise China, but much of the criticism doesn’t take into account the historical context of their development, and the urgent requirement for economic growth as a precondition for social justice and progress. Nor do the critics acknowledge the degree to which the Communist Party of China is self-aware of the difficulties and negative aspects of Chinese society – but there are often no easy answers to solve problems overnight.

Replace “China” with “Israel”, “Communist party of China” with “Government of Israel” and “Chinese” with “Israeli”.

Now, I wonder if any socialist has ever said that paragraph or expressed that sentiment. Doubt it, since the ‘historical context’ is more often than not used to beat Israel up. Socialists are total fucking hypocrites.

The PA withdrawing from adopting the UN report and the Israeli ambassadors comment would give anyone a warm feeling of nostalgia for those fervent declarations of admiration for the chairman’s swimming from local Tibetan cadre.

Socialists are not in the main “total fucking hypocrites”. Andy’s very wierd retro-stalinism toward turbo-capitalism is hardly representative of anything much.

The PA withdrawing from adopting the UN report and the Israeli ambassadors comment would give anyone a warm feeling of nostalgia for those fervent declarations of admiration for the chairman’s swimming from local Tibetan cadre

Can someone translate johng’s comment, or smear, or whatever it was into English? Thanks.

What battles against the Japanese on land sea or air did the Chinese Communists, the Chinese Nationalists, separately or together,win?

It’s amusing to see that Cessna owners – probably a slightly right-of-centre lot – were utterly furious that Cessna proposed to shift a large proprtion of production to a Chinese plant at the same time as laying off US workers.

Cessna buyers were still furious even after the Cessna management explained that such a shrewd cost-cutting move would save 40% of production costs, or $70,000 per plane.

Can we replace our appalling politicians with cheaper, and better, Chinese?

>>> Jack Welch, American patriot is that you? So this is the GE Way huh? Outsource everything to the ChiComs and get the suckers back home to buy stuff with credit from GE Finance. You are a peerless industrial statesman, to be spoken off only in company with Alexander Hamilton and Henry Ford.

I am indeed an American patriot. But unfortunately the American worker has priced himself out of a job. Therefore, it makes good business sense to use the cheap labor kindly provided by the Communist Party of China.

And what is good for business is good for America.

If the American worker wants his jobs back, he could do a lot worse than learn from those slitty eyed commies.

Can someone translate johng’s comment, or smear, or whatever it was into English? Thanks.

Seconded.

Btw, when I first saw this article I thought it was a subtle parody.

But then I noticed it was crossposted to Socialist Unity and I have no idea how it’s meant.

Well, well now, what have we here? Johng was over at Shiraz having an attack of apoplexy when it was pointed out all he ever comments on is Israel/Jews. The little shit was fit to be tied.

So, in a post here about China and his disgusting fellow traveller Andy N, johng suddenly appears when the ‘I’ word is mentioned. What a sad, mentally unbalanced, rascist bastard you are john. Game over.

Are we to assume that no Harrys Place contributor has any cheap consumer durables or other goods produced in the People’s Republic of China?

Or automobiles with Chinese built components?

Or do they benefit in some other way from the high rates of exploitation in China?

Of course they don’t.

Otherwise we’d be forced to conclude, once again, that they are a bunch of steaming hypocrites.

>>> So, in a post here about China and his disgusting fellow traveller Andy N, johng suddenly appears when the ‘I’ word is mentioned. What a sad, mentally unbalanced, rascist bastard you are john. Game over.

a) Someone else raised Israel
b) This is the usual Zionist drivel: anyone who dares to criticize Israel is ipso facto a racist

This despite the fact that Israel itself is one of the few openly racist states left on earth. It refers to itself as “the Jewish state”.

Rather like Nazi Germany called itself an Aryan state.

are a bunch of steaming hypocrites.

Erm, no-one here has actually called for a boycott of Chinese goods. How exactly does the purchase of Chinese goods prevent one from commenting disparagingly on its government? I buy British goods too and have no problem complaining about Gordon Brown…

This is the usual Zionist drivel: anyone who dares to criticize Israel is ipso facto a racist

That’s not what I said but how unsurprising for you to leap that particular defence (feeling defensive are we?). The charge was hypocrisy – hypocrisy in that China’s anti-democratic/anti-human rights activities get ‘contextualised’ (i.e. excused, probably because it is a totalitarian communist state) whereas Israel’s actions never get contextualised (for example, folks like you don’t even acknowledge Israel has a right to defend itself when under attack) probably because Israel is considered imperial etc. but now that you mention it the stereotypical castigation of anything Israeli could very well be racism.

This despite the fact that Israel itself is one of the few openly racist states left on earth. It refers to itself as “the Jewish state”.

Rather like Nazi Germany called itself an Aryan state

…you compare Israel to the Nazis and you wonder why folks might call you anti-Semitic… Do you realise that when you employ such extremist rhetoric you make it much easier for the other side to dismiss all your arguments, regardless of substance? A lack of credibility is your reward for mindless provocation.

Now with correct tags!

are a bunch of steaming hypocrites.

Erm, no-one here has actually called for a boycott of Chinese goods. How exactly does the purchase of Chinese goods prevent one from commenting disparagingly on its government? I buy British goods too and have no problem complaining about Gordon Brown…

This is the usual Zionist drivel: anyone who dares to criticize Israel is ipso facto a racist

That’s not what I said but how unsurprising for you to leap that particular defence (feeling defensive are we?). The charge was hypocrisy – hypocrisy in that China’s anti-democratic/anti-human rights activities get ‘contextualised’ (i.e. excused, probably because it is a totalitarian communist state) whereas Israel’s actions never get contextualised (for example, folks like you don’t even acknowledge Israel has a right to defend itself when under attack) probably because Israel is considered imperial etc. but now that you mention it the stereotypical castigation of anything Israeli could very well be racism.

This despite the fact that Israel itself is one of the few openly racist states left on earth. It refers to itself as “the Jewish state”.

Pap. If you look at the full name of many of the Arabic states, they refer to themselves as Arabic e.g. Egypt’s full name is “Arab Republic of Egypt”. Does that make it racist? Of course it doesn’t.

Rather like Nazi Germany called itself an Aryan state

…you compare Israel to the Nazis and you wonder why folks might call you anti-Semitic… Do you realise that when you employ such extremist rhetoric you make it much easier for the other side to dismiss all your arguments, regardless of substance? A lack of credibility is your reward for mindless provocation.

HPocrisy: Pay attention you demented shit. The point made on Shiraz was that john only enters the fray when Israel is mentioned, and that point has been splendidly demonstrated.

But then I noticed it was crossposted to Socialist Unity and I have no idea how it’s meant.

If you follow the links, you’ll see the Social Unity posting has different pictures…

>>> How exactly does the purchase of Chinese goods prevent one from commenting disparagingly on its government?

The West wants it both ways. It wants to continue to benefit from cheap Chinese goods, labor and investment opportunities, and yet for domestic political purposes it harps on about human rights in China.

It is rank hypocrisy which as usual HP is more than happy to echo.

>>> Pap. If you look at the full name of many of the Arabic states, they refer to themselves as Arabic e.g. Egypt’s full name is “Arab Republic of Egypt”. Does that make it racist?

Depends what it does. If it refuses entry to a million former inhabitants based on their ethnicity, then yes, it is racist.

If it is building racially pure settlements on illegally acquired land, then yes it is racist.

If it is bulldozing the homes of an ethnic group in Cairo, and refusing that same ethnic group building permits, then yes, it is racist.

And a comparison with Nazi Germany would be justified.

“>>> Pap. If you look at the full name of many of the Arabic states, they refer to themselves as Arabic e.g. Egypt’s full name is “Arab Republic of Egypt”. Does that make it racist?

Depends what it does. If it refuses entry to a million former inhabitants based on their ethnicity, then yes, it is racist. ”

HPocrisy, what if that number was “only” 75 000?

Depends what it does. If it refuses entry to a million former inhabitants based on their ethnicity, then yes, it is racist.”

John A, I’m sorry but refusing entry to 4 million people who wish to dismantle your country, most of whom were not former inhabitants, but 2nd, 3rd and 4th descendants of people who happened to be in British Mandate Palestine after 1946, as well as others who never lived in British Mandate Palestine at any point but still were able to obtain UNRWA status is not racist.

That’s why UNSC 242 demands both a “Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force” and a “just settlement of the refugee problem (Note: not ‘Palestinian Arab refugee problem’, but “refugee problem”, i.e. including: non belligerent Arab Palestinians who fled in 1948 and 1967 and in a few, or several instances, Arab Palestinians who were forcibly expelled after losing battles in 1948, as well as non-belligerent Jewish refugees ethnically cleansed from and looted by Arab states between 1948 and the aftermath of the 1967 war).

If you, one-state solution and apers of Soviet Zionology propaganda types were correct in your formulation that Israel is racist because it had the audacity to defend itself and defeat the hubristic Nasser because of the cassus belli he provided Israel, as well as defeat the belligerent military aggression initiated by his allies in Jordan and Syria in 1967, then UNSC 242 would have been worded entirely differently.

>>> refusing entry to 4 million people who wish to dismantle your country

Well I suppose at least you referred to them as people, not Untermenschen.

So maybe you aren’t as bad as the Nazis. Not quite.

Meanwhile let them rot in refugee camps, eh? And blame Yarafat/PLO/Hamas/the next bogeyman.

“Israel’s military ties with China—especially the upgrading of Harpy surveillance aircraft—are undermining the Jewish state’s security.”

Ref: http://www.meforum.org/926/at-what-cost-israel-china-ties

Just a thought. I’m not sure how we got onto Israel either.

Django you seem a bit up tight, tell us about it, were all friends here

Lbnaz, I agree with you.

The 75000 I was talking about is the estimated Jewish population in Egypt in 1948 (well from wikipedia.org, so it might be a false estimate, but I guess the order of magnitude is correct).

Sorry for being misleading.

FFLP: ‘I’m not sure how we got onto Israel either’

We got onto it because, like a dog returning to its vomit, you, HPocrisy and johng just feel that need. Now, back to your blog, someone might actually have left a comment.

Sorry John A I misread what you were quoting as your own comment when in fact it was a quote from the jerk who screams racism if you so much as disagree with either him or Syed Qutb.

Mao’s cultural revolution was a sad event in not just Chinas but, our planets history. It was however, 40 years ago. Democracy’s such as the U.K and the U.S are not blame-free however.

Mao is not China, just as Nixon isn’t America and Thatcher isn’t Britian.

We, in the West do not have perfect systems. This post is a bit of a cheap shot actually. Post some text celebrating the 1976 bicentennial and follow up with images of Hiroshima, Vietnam atrocities and U.S/U.K supported Pol Pot massacres maybe?

Maybe a little more intelligent debate and less reactionary diatribe?

Mao’s cultural revolution was a sad event in not just Chinas but, our planets history. It was however, 40 years ago. Democracy’s such as the U.K and the U.S are not blame-free however.

Mao is not China, just as Nixon isn’t America and Thatcher isn’t Britian.

We, in the West do not have perfect systems. This post is a bit of a cheap shot actually. Post some text celebrating the 1976 bicentennial and follow up with images of Hiroshima, Vietnam atrocities and U.S/U.K supported Pol Pot massacres maybe?

Maybe a little more intelligent debate and less reactionary diatribe?

The politics is well known but what about the environment? Equally devasting are the amazing levels of pollution and environmental disaster. “One planet”, the BBC flagship programme had some westernized “ch+nk” and I say this in the same spirit they call us big noses, obfuscating about the Yangste, smearing its made made pollution with Climate change and generally confusing the issue at the behest of the BBC vested interests. The average westerner would not believe the pollution in Chengdu with dogs howling when the sun does shine. These people have been destroying their environment for the last five thousand years!

What planet are you on? Ask the Tibetans what they think of millions of clones being sent to overrun their country and usurp their resources. The same has happened with the Muslims in the east. History has proved Mao to be a corrupt mass butcher. He has nothing to commend him. Just another dictator covered in blood.