China is celebrating the 70th Anniversary of it's Communist Incarnation today, last night, and the way the BBC and NPR report on it remind me of why I have always had a love and fascination with China. It's been 11 years, now, at least, since I wrote the song "Welcome to China" - about a sixth or a 7th of their total modern history. China has been on the rise for at least half of that time, bringing millions of people out of poverty and leading the world in Development. I feel a greater trust in China to lead the Green Revolution though unfortunately they are still funding fossil fuel industries around the world - but that is part of being a Global Player - and China is in the position to change the entire game - I wish they were setting the full example pioneering green energy but I think that they are doing that, too, and will win that competition - especially as America is kowtowing to Russia and the Gas Giants. As much as I distrust Modi in India they have to get credit for developing the largest solar field in the world - though he probably deserves no credit, personally. The solar panels all over the Federal Center near where I live show that our US Federal Government also believes in Solar Power - even though half the government, or more, claim to not believe in the Sun or whatever.
I heard some reports on the radio about comic books that made me consider what has always made me so fascinated and favorable towards China - I've known all my life that it was the way our American News and Culture reports on China and depicts it, like a taboo mystery and negatively, that ALWAYS made me suspicious about what "our" agenda was. I knew that the same system I live in, The USA, was racist and sexist and apparently had a specific issue with China, so it made me think favorably of them. Weed is another perfect analogy: The Culture I lived in said Weed Was Wrong and Bad for You. And then I found out they were wrong and lying, that weed is good for you. They always said sex in most circumstances was bad for you - I always imagined they were lying and eventually found out they were lying about that, too. But even before weed and sex, before I even knew those concepts, I could tell that this same culture was saying it was wrong to be black, or a girl, or wrong to be China - and I could tell from a very young age that this was bullshit.
I didn't see the "comic" connection in any of this until just this last week when I heard two interviews on the radio with "comic creators." One was with the writer and director of Captain Marvel, Anna Boden. She said some things about getting into comics, on American Military bases and how the American style comics were "90% Superheros" and that fit with the American Military culture - I thought she was going to say that by comparison other countries did not focus on Superheroes so much - it might have been implied but she didn't say it. She did somewhat condemn the patriarchy of this military culture, and the wider culture - but it was only implied, I guess, maybe I read that into it, too. When she said her mom gave her Wonder Woman comics for doing the dishes the female host, I think, said how awesome that was to get a "feminist icon" as a reward - and the male host made a joke about the "irony" of getting Wonder Woman for doing the dishes - "something Wonder Woman would never do." But that is misrepresenting feminism - it's not about "No one does the dishes" it's about "everyone does the dishes."
In the reporting on China, lately, they mention how empowering and inspiring it was for Mao to say, and everyone to repeat, that Women Hold Up Half the Sky. Some of the reports were about sexism in the culture and how the Government was pushing a "Domestic Ideal" for women there, to encourage women to "stay home and have kids" - apparently because the "one child" policy worked a little too well and they now need to encourage population growth - or as a side effect of Capitalism.
The way we report on China all the Good Things that happened were a result of their embrace of Capitalism and all their problems were due to communism. "Communism" the the culprit for the 50 millions of people who died during the Cultural Revolution - but when you think about how many were killed in the Revolution iself, you COULD blame "communism" - or you could just blame War. The Civil War in America killed 620,000 Soldiers - and probably millions more People as a result, not just soldiers. How many would have been killed if the eventual losers had just surrendered? It's War that kills people, not the ideologies on either side - but ultimately the better ideologies DO win - sometimes they win wars but REAL winning is winning without war. The point is that the ideologies don't kill people, wars kill people. Famines kill people - and if things are run well then famines and droughts and floods won't kill people - but they do and that's why things need to be run better. And Wars don't help that - or again, if the eventual loser of the wars would have just quit at the start millions of lives would have been saved - but don't blame the deaths on Communism, blame it on the entrenched interests of the establishment that is willing to send others to die to preserve it's privilege.
When talking about Wonder Woman Anna Boden said something that, to me, showed how entrenched sexism is in our culture - because she is the example of the feminist, the one who broke the barriers and had a billion-dollar blockbuster superhero movie starring a female character. And she made many good feminist points. But when talking about Wonder Woman she said "Wonder Woman wasn't entirely the role model of feminism that we imagine her to be in the 70's and 80's" - and when she said this I'm sure it's true that even with some feminism being expressed, surely, it also must have come from and reinforced patriarchal views, as well. But the way she summed it up made me think that we, in modern times, today, are also not as feminist as we imagine we are - she said "- a lot of bondage." Again, surely there are sexist ideas and my first thought, since I didn't really read those comics, was that Wonder Woman gets tied up a lot, or uses her magic lasso in various ways, and this is the "bondage" that Boden characterizes as "not so feminist." "You're waitresses, you're not people!" Mel just said on "Alice" in their episode about equal pay for women - in the 80's. I've never accepted the "product of their times" or "consider the time they lived" arguments - because there have ALWAYS been Advanced people who did not accept the evils of any given time. I don't accept that Sex is bad or that The Feminine is bad, I reject these ideas and reject the ideas that China, or weed, or rock or rap are bad - I reject these judgments. And so when Anna Boden says "She's not really as feminist as we like to think - a lot of bondage" it reminds me that "bondage" isn't "anti-feminist" any more than doing the dishes is anti-feminist. It reminds me of the Anthony Bourdain show "Parts Unknown" where he goes to Japan and asks some sex workers what percentage of Japanese women or men are into bondage and they say "100%" - with the caveat that some might just not admit it. To me this is proof that in a culture where some sex expressions are less taboo they aren't part of any one "kind" of fantasy or gendered but part of a spectrum of experience that doesn't have "sides."
Carson just joked, from 1980, about Carter appointing a woman to the Supreme Court and saying it wasn't political just his commitment to the women's movement - but he didn't believe in it. Real, good communism is feminist, the ideal is equality so if itis good and lives up to that ideal it will be feminist and intersectional so it likewise champions all minorities and works to eliminate all disadvantage. You don't have to call it communism you can just call it Good Government - but I've always called it communism because I've always seen our capitalist bias, demonizing the "other", when we certainly don't do a good job of taking care of everyone and eliminating disadvantage via capitalism.
This is where the comic book principle, the magic of comic books comes into play. Anna Boden mentioned this magical quality of comics in her interview. She said that unlike movies and TV and even books that set the pace for the viewer, comics are more participatory: the reader sets the pace, spends the time and focus on the panels, but most importantly imagines and envisions the action, the sound effects, etc. This point was re-emphasised in another interview with the writer of the comic "Unseen," Chad Allen. This is a comic for the blind, an audio presentation of a comic book - and for everyone because even though I am not blind I was intrigued and wanted to read it. He made the point that all the action, all the story in comics takes place in your mind, too. The writing / pictures suggest the action, the sounds, the scenery - but the "movie", the story, takes place in your head. You can say that this is true of books, too - except in books all the description of words is part of the style and focus of the writer. This is true for comics, too, the writing and pictures emphasise certain things - but it is really more up to the reader to "fill in" the whole story, the things that happen between the panels, or are suggested - there is more left out of a comic than a book despite having so many pictures to guide you. Books are more directed by the author, its like entering the author's mind and sharing their mind for the story - of course with your own associations but basically following along into their world. Comics are more participatory, the writers and authors often meet each other "in the middle" but even self-drawn comics where the writer and author are the same person they creation teacm meets the reader "in the middle" moreso than in books - it's part of the writing process to rely on people's existing understanding and relationships with the characters.
The main point I want to make, here, about the magic of comics is how by selecting certain things to focus on and others to "leave out" it isn't as though those parts of the story are "omitted" from a story, in comics, but rather that they are left to the reader to supply. In books there is an idea that if the author doesn't say something it can be implied or suggested - but there is a specific vision of what the author is saying, what the story "really is." Comics aren't "up for interpretation" - it's not as though people will read the same comic and experience drastically different stories - but there are things that are Left Out, unshown, in comics that everyone is supposed to understand and supply the suggested "missing" parts of the story. Comic authors and artists are part of a long tradition of this kind of interplay with the audience, suggesting and leaving the rest to your imagination. It's like a magic tradition where to everyone else it just works, like magic, and we don't even know how it happened, but the ones who craft it do know, more, what they are doing and how their work produces the real work in the reader's imagination in a way that is beyond other art forms - comics have taken this aspect of art, this hiding and revealing and leaving for discovery, further than any other medium that comes to mind, except perhaps video games and other games.
That hits the point pretty well, that comics are more like Games than books are. But my other point is how this mentality, of filling in the gaps from what is missing, this ability of the imagination, is what always made me distrust the "Official Version" of news about China. The news still does this, they tell us the story and expect us to believe it - and most of us are trained to consume stories this way, without question or trying to participate. But if you DO expect to find the real story by reading between the lines, by looking at what they are trying to distract you from, then you piece together your own story and understanding that is deeper than what they present.
They rely on people accepting the news as it is presented and as long as enough people do they don't have to worry about us changing the world - but we must, to save it. The USA has demonized China because we are afraid of it because the difference in their system, the difference of admitting that the state is "all-powerful" and therefore ultimately responsible -THAT is what we want to avoid, taking responsibility for the consequences of our actions as a whole.
You can say that, instead of the struggle between Capitalism and Communism it is a battle of ideals between self-serving and communal. In our society privileged people protect our privilege by saying it's not OUR fault, or the System's, that people are disadvantaged - the poor need to 'pull themselves up by their bootstraps" - even though that phrase actually means something impossible to do and they adopted it and revered it's meaning. If they were actually about "Responsibility", not just "personal responsibility" or blaming the victim, they would be eager to hold individual wrongdoers to account instead of excusing them, like with Kavanaugh and Trump - and they would be eager to hold institutions, corporations, and The System to account - discover their wrongs and hold them accountable. But they don't.
Communal thinking isn't about authoritarian rule - that is what "self-serving" cultural ideals lead to. Communal is accepting that the Whole IS powerful but that we are all part of that whole, the power isn't crushing us but it is created by us. The best government is like a comic artist who does their part, directing, well but includes us, invites us in.
The USA has presented a "comic" or "cartoonish" image of China - not like a Comic Artist, I'm using this to insult the presentation - like a Racist Cartoon not the Good Art of Comics. And while they have limited what they present about China, only presented China in certain lights and ways, you can sense what they leave out.
My entire life I have been suspicious of the Anti-China and other prejudiced messages I got from the culture in the USA. Maybe I give them too much benefit of the doubt - if they have imprisoned a million Uighurs, even in "re-education camps," then that and any other discriminatory practices are wrong - but the US has MORE people in prison, 2 million, than any other country including China even though they have 5 times more people than we do. So we don't have the room to criticize.
The USA and BBC report that the protesters in Hong Kong are protesting for "Democracy" - and we act like that means they are on "our side" - as if we represent Democracy. The DNC rigging of the primary, the Russian interference and everything Trump stands for shows how far we have strayed from Democracy. While we still claim to stand for these ideals Trump has clearly shown that our System is lying about it and doesn't truly reflect the will of the people who are honest about it. Yet when the news comes out about Hong Kong and their leading protesters calling for TRUMP to save them, we know that this is not an organic movement of the people but a sham and exploitation of impressionable youth orchestrated by Putin and Trump to "weaken" China. It fits with ALL of Putin's Puppets plans - Boris to weaken the UK, Trump to weaken America, Bolsonaro to weaken Brazil - and it's not "ironic", just magical and cosmic principles that all of these "Strong Men" end up weakening and destroying the countries they lead - because they are leading us in the wrong direction, every one.
So we know the Hong Kong protest is fake - meaning it is actually happening but isn't motivated by the people of Hong Kong but by Putin and Trump, etc - the fascists who fear the ascendency of China. It won't work, China can just be cool and wait them out. It WILL work to expose the evils of Trump and Putin, though - meaning it will backfire on those who started it. I predicted, from the nature of it - a "leaderless" protest of disaffected racists - that the Yellow Vest protests that captured the news for MONTHS was actually ginned or vodkad up by Russian Trolls -it just had that feel to me. And it's not like it's ONLY Russian trolls though they do have factories for them, I'm sure American trolls got in on it, too, either on their own or with government or klan sponsorship. But a few months later i heard at least one news report that Russian Trolls had spurred on that protest, that I was right. I don't know if that message got around and helped quell the protests or if they went away for other reasons - but I still can't understand why in the UK there is not a more concerted effort to undo Brexit when they should know, by now, that they were also being played by Russian trolls.
The exact same conditions surrounded the Hong Kong protests and I'm sure it will eventually come out that the Russian Trolls, Putin and Trump, are behind this, too. It really upset me to hear the "spokesperson" or not even - just a professor or journalist - say that the protesters had "the support of the world." If you are calling on Trump to save you, you do NOT have the support of the world, you are against the World - you merely have the support of a network of fascist leaders orchestrated by Putin. And they won't even protect themselves, in the end.
Trump is finally getting impeached. I and the whole country would be Celebrating this, Dancing in the Streets, if we could Trust it. Instead we are prepared for a drawn out process with Trump and Klan obstructing Justice at every turn like they were born to obstruct. It's already happening today with the State Department or White House refusals "casting doubt" on if the hearings are going to take place -they say the Congress is "intimidating" them - I hope by threatening to arrest them if they don't appear. But the way i hear this, Pompeo is throwing a fit and that is supposed to "cast doubt" when other things Government wants to do at this level just happen. When I looked up how to spell his name, just now, the news was that Democrats have warned Pompeo that his "Stonewalling" is just providing further evidence against Trump.
This is true - we can certainly trust SOME Democrats to insist on getting to the bottom of this we just have too much doubt in the system to hope that it will all result in removing him from office soon enough, or we fear that he will try to start another Civil War - which is again even more reason to get rid of him. The losers would lose far faster than they can even imagine, this time, if it came to that. But again, when you ARE on the losing side, the side of corruption that stands against all Good American ideals and threatens the health of the whole planet, you might as well just surrender and save everyone the trouble and pain. You'd lose the war anyway and there would never, ever be any glory in it, fighting for Trump, for Putin, for fascism and oil companies.
Putin put together this network of fascist leader and Zuckerberg helped him install them - they got what they wanted but it will all backfire on them. Because once we get rid of a few of these assholes, Boris and Trump, hopefully Bolsonaro, soon, too, the rest will fall as well and all the domino lines will go right back to Putin and Zuckerberg and overthrow them, too - if they even last that long. This is why I keep promotiing the #nationalizefacebook hashtag and idea, to just encourage every country to take over Facebook in their territory, seize it, from this fascist who "built it" and used it to help destroy the world.
China controls their internet and we bitch about it all the time - as a Sex-positive person I can take issue with them prohibiting pornography, for instance, but then again can't take too much issue with them, as a society, not spending billions of dollars on it every year like the rest of us do. Again, if Porn was better, if i wasn't all the potential bad things about it but was more of the Good Things, not only would China and other countries have less issues with it, it would be More Valued and Less Expensive - but good respectable work. While China is famous for their internet restrictions we have a terrible problem with using the internet for bad purposes, too - mostly white supremacist terrorism. And while we bitch about their "censorship" we don't care that Facebook censors leftist speech and allows right wing hate all the time, and we don't care that Modi shut off the internet in Kashmir when he put it under marshal law. I got an instant censorship from facebook last week for saying on "Tomi Lahren Fans" page that they were Nazi and Trump would not protect them any more - the support message from facebook saying the comment was removed came in the second I posted the comment - flagged as "spam" - but how does that Pro-Trump, pro-fascist group have an INSTANT ability to censor a comment - when if I report an obvious racist hate speech comment it takes them a week to report back to me that it "doesn't violate their standards." The other irony is that they called it "spam" when the whole reason I am even aware of that group is because on Bernie livestream videos they comment every 10 seconds with links to THEIR videos, which is actually spam, not One Critical Comment.
But even if they have the power to censor they can't stop the ideas themselves - ideas spread magically. Furley is now telling Jack's "identical twin" that they look nothing alike, that anyone could tell he is a "real Man." Now Jack is going to have to play Austin in person to Furley - he manages to keep it up because it's Three's Company, he just puts on a hat and take it off and pops up from behind the couch on either side of Furley. But in real life you can't just pretend to be President when you are actually a Russian Pawn - you can't pull that off forever. They are finally busting him for asking the Ukraine to investigate Biden... because of the Ukraine's fabled investigatory powers?
I want to go on record that it could be some sort of trap or Trick - depending on whose side the Ukranian president is on. If he is also a Putin Puppet then it is probably a trap. If it is someone else behind exposing it, if it could bring down all three presidents, Putin, Comedian, and Klansman, then maybe there is really something to it - but it is still possible that it is a "trap" because Putin doesn't care who is sacrificed or how much damage is done - that's his goal.
It's the philosophy of all Bullies, to sew and drum up chaos but by being the one causing it or stirring it feeling like you "control it" - only you don't. It eventually boils over or reaches out and drags you into the cauldron. Various leaders have "gone along with Trump" because they fear the consequences but we should all fear the consequences of enabling this bully. China has stood up to him, called his bluffs, shown what Real Power is. It could spin the world into more recession and economic catastrophe, they say, if the trade war continues - but China will recover from that much faster or in ways we won't ever be capable of. Putin is playing Old World rules in what is fast becoming a New World Game- and Green is the Path that Wins so he's fighting a losing battle. While we haven't gone green, as a planet, China is taking advantage and building networks all over the world including funding coal plants in Africa -which is Wrong in principle but also what "everybody is doing" - and if the people, everywhere, start seeing Green Energy as the future they will resent ANY foreign government trying to saddle them with the Past - but for Now, in the meantime, China is surpassing all other countries in partnership for development, as far as I can tell, and when they retain those partnerships during the Green Revolution they will be that much further ahead of the rest of us.
I don't resent this at all - the ones who do the Best deserve to win and cheaters do not. And this stuff really matters. A scandal in sport this week occurred when the World Track and Field championships took place in Doha and the stands were empty. Everyone was offended and even said it hurt their performance because they train for the crowds, for the loudness and the energy - but it seemed like what they weren't saying was that without a crowd it doesn't feel important and they want to feel important. Compared to climate change it isn't important, though - most things we spend so much time and attention on are simply not important or won't matter, especially if we all die from our own entrenched ignorance and stubbornness and the ability of a few to distract us.
We are going to show up and make the changes we need - and we are going to leave behind the things that don't deserve our attention. I know the empty stands in Doha were not some sort of protest, just mismanagement: they even offered locals free admission, free food an drink, but couldn't get people to come. We can change the world with boycotts, by Not Showing Up for certain things -we can remind people of what is Really Important by putting ourselves and our time where it really matters - and more of us will wake up to what these things really are instead of being duped into pointlessness.
We have to know we CAN do something. Climate Crisis and other injustice in the world is a great way to remind us that we MUST do something but if we don't know what to do then that pressure just becomes dabilitating and we don't do anything. One wonderful thing about magic is it always reminds us there is MORE to it, what we do is only part of something bigger - but just doing ANYTHING can set of magical chains of events. And the more magic we go for the more it will do and the more we will realize that we aren't powerless at all, "to be greater you need to think greater" a commercial just said.
It helps up think better to realize that the frames THEY put things are only PART of the story and the magic of comics shows us where the rest of the story can always be found - within us. Stories that seem to be written already, predetermined, are dead compared to the living stories we are invited into, to participate in and choose our own adventures or seek a Happy Ending. We know we are being invited into those kinds of stories because we can feel the magic - and we share the magic because once we start thinking that way instead of the NPC way where we are just programmed and posted we become active in th story, we become the writers and characters in NEW stories, too.
China wrote a New Story 70 years ago, an open-ended story with that comic, magic quality that invites Everyone in to write it, together. This is the ideal, the same ideal we claimed 250 years ago founding America, but never fully lived up to. We need new reminders, contrasting reminders, of what this story REALLY is and we will find outselves, all of us, together in the Same Story, someday, as we save the planet and take an honored, instead of a shameful, place among the Stars.
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