December 19, 2010
The Cave - How man is controlled
Plato, The Allegory of the Cave
The son of a wealthy and noble family, Plato (427-347 B.C.) was preparing for a career in politics when the trial and eventual execution of Socrates (399 B.C.) changed the course of his life. He abandoned his political career and turned to philosophy, opening a school on the outskirts of Athens dedicated to the Socratic search for wisdom. Plato's school, then known as the Academy, was the first university in western history and operated from 387 B.C. until A.D. 529, when it was closed by Justinian.
Unlike his mentor Socrates, Plato was both a writer and a teacher. His writings are in the form of dialogues, with Socrates as the principal speaker. In the Allegory of the Cave, Plato described symbolically the predicament in which mankind finds itself and proposes a way of salvation. The Allegory presents, in brief form, most of Plato's major philosophical assumptions: his belief that the world revealed by our senses is not the real world but only a poor copy of it, and that the real world can only be apprehended intellectually; his idea that knowledge cannot be transferred from teacher to student, but rather that education consists in directing student's minds toward what is real and important and allowing them to apprehend it for themselves; his faith that the universe ultimately is good; his conviction that enlightened individuals have an obligation to the rest of society, and that a good society must be one in which the truly wise (the Philosopher-King) are the rulers.
The Allegory of the Cave can be found in Book VII of Plato's best-known work, The Republic, a lengthy dialogue on the nature of justice. Often regarded as a utopian blueprint, The Republic is dedicated toward a discussion of the education required of a Philosopher-King.
The following selection is taken from the Benjamin Jowett translation (Vintage, 1991), pp. 253-261. As you read the Allegory, try to make a mental picture of the cave Plato describes. Better yet, why not draw a picture of it and refer to it as you read the selection. In many ways, understanding Plato's Allegory of the Cave will make your foray into the world of philosophical thought much less burdensome.
* * * * * *
[Socrates] And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened: --Behold! human beings living in a underground cave, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the cave; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.[Glaucon] I see.
[Socrates] And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent.
[Glaucon] You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners.
[Socrates] Like ourselves, I replied; and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave?
[Glaucon] True, he said; how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?
[Socrates] And of the objects which are being carried in like manner they would only see the shadows?
[Glaucon] Yes, he said.
[Socrates] And if they were able to converse with one another, would they not suppose that they were naming what was actually before them?
[Glaucon] Very true.
[Socrates] And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came from the other side, would they not be sure to fancy when one of the passers-by spoke that the voice which they heard came from the passing shadow?
[Glaucon] No question, he replied.
[Socrates] To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.
[Glaucon] That is certain.
[Socrates] And now look again, and see what will naturally follow if the prisoners are released and disabused of their error. At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains; the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows; and then conceive some one saying to him, that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye is turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision, -what will be his reply? And you may further imagine that his instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to name them, -will he not be perplexed? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him?
[Glaucon] Far truer.
[Socrates] And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away to take and take in the objects of vision which he can see, and which he will conceive to be in reality clearer than the things which are now being shown to him?
[Glaucon] True, he now.
[Socrates] And suppose once more, that he is reluctantly dragged up a steep and rugged ascent, and held fast until he 's forced into the presence of the sun himself, is he not likely to be pained and irritated? When he approaches the light his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything at all of what are now called realities.
[Glaucon] Not all in a moment, he said.
[Socrates] He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world. And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and other objects in the water, and then the objects themselves; then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars and the spangled heaven; and he will see the sky and the stars by night better than the sun or the light of the sun by day?
[Glaucon] Certainly.
[Socrates] Last of he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of him in the water, but he will see him in his own proper place, and not in another; and he will contemplate him as he is.
[Glaucon] Certainly.
[Socrates] He will then proceed to argue that this is he who gives the season and the years, and is the guardian of all that is in the visible world, and in a certain way the cause of all things which he and his fellows have been accustomed to behold?
[Glaucon] Clearly, he said, he would first see the sun and then reason about him.
[Socrates] And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the cave and his fellow-prisoners, do you not suppose that he would felicitate himself on the change, and pity them?
[Glaucon] Certainly, he would.
[Socrates] And if they were in the habit of conferring honors among themselves on those who were quickest to observe the passing shadows and to remark which of them went before, and which followed after, and which were together; and who were therefore best able to draw conclusions as to the future, do you think that he would care for such honors and glories, or envy the possessors of them? Would he not say with Homer,
Better to be the poor servant of a poor master,
and to endure anything, rather than think as they do and live after their manner?[Glaucon] Yes, he said, I think that he would rather suffer anything than entertain these false notions and live in this miserable manner.
[Socrates] Imagine once more, I said, such an one coming suddenly out of the sun to be replaced in his old situation; would he not be certain to have his eyes full of darkness?
[Glaucon] To be sure, he said.
[Socrates] And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of the cave, while his sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become steady (and the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight might be very considerable) would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if any one tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death.
[Glaucon] No question, he said.
[Socrates] This entire allegory, I said, you may now append, dear Glaucon, to the previous argument; the prison-house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world according to my poor belief, which, at your desire, I have expressed whether rightly or wrongly God knows. But, whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; and that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally, either in public or private life must have his eye fixed.
[Glaucon] I agree, he said, as far as I am able to understand you.
[Socrates] Moreover, I said, you must not wonder that those who attain to this beatific vision are unwilling to descend to human affairs; for their souls are ever hastening into the upper world where they desire to dwell; which desire of theirs is very natural, if our allegory may be trusted.
[Glaucon] Yes, very natural.
[Socrates] And is there anything surprising in one who passes from divine contemplations to the evil state of man, misbehaving himself in a ridiculous manner; if, while his eyes are blinking and before he has become accustomed to the surrounding darkness, he is compelled to fight in courts of law, or in other places, about the images or the shadows of images of justice, and is endeavoring to meet the conceptions of those who have never yet seen absolute justice?
[Glaucon] Anything but surprising, he replied.
[Socrates] Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind's eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye; and he who remembers this when he sees any one whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to laugh; he will first ask whether that soul of man has come out of the brighter light, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness to the day is dazzled by excess of light. And he will count the one happy in his condition and state of being, and he will pity the other; or, if he have a mind to laugh at the soul which comes from below into the light, there will be more reason in this than in the laugh which greets him who returns from above out of the light into the cave.
[Glaucon] That, he said, is a very just distinction.
[Socrates] But then, if I am right, certain professors of education must be wrong when they say that they can put a knowledge into the soul which was not there before, like sight into blind eyes.
[Glaucon] They undoubtedly say this, he replied.
[Socrates] Whereas, our argument shows that the power and capacity of learning exists in the soul already; and that just as the eye was unable to turn from darkness to light without the whole body, so too the instrument of knowledge can only by the movement of the whole soul be turned from the world of becoming into that of being, and learn by degrees to endure the sight of being, and of the brightest and best of being, or in other words, of the good.
[Glaucon] Very true.
[Socrates] And must there not be some art which will effect conversion in the easiest and quickest manner; not implanting the faculty of sight, for that exists already, but has been turned in the wrong direction, and is looking away from the truth?
[Glaucon] Yes, he said, such an art may be presumed.
[Socrates] And whereas the other so-called virtues of the soul seem to be akin to bodily qualities, for even when they are not originally innate they can be implanted later by habit and exercise, the of wisdom more than anything else contains a divine element which always remains, and by this conversion is rendered useful and profitable; or, on the other hand, hurtful and useless. Did you never observe the narrow intelligence flashing from the keen eye of a clever rogue --how eager he is, how clearly his paltry soul sees the way to his end; he is the reverse of blind, but his keen eyesight is forced into the service of evil, and he is mischievous in proportion to his cleverness.
[Glaucon] Very true, he said.
[Socrates] But what if there had been a circumcision of such natures in the days of their youth; and they had been severed from those sensual pleasures, such as eating and drinking, which, like leaden weights, were attached to them at their birth, and which drag them down and turn the vision of their souls upon the things that are below --if, I say, they had been released from these impediments and turned in the opposite direction, the very same faculty in them would have seen the truth as keenly as they see what their eyes are turned to now.
[Glaucon] Very likely.
[Socrates] Yes, I said; and there is another thing which is likely. or rather a necessary inference from what has preceded, that neither the uneducated and uninformed of the truth, nor yet those who never make an end of their education, will be able ministers of State; not the former, because they have no single aim of duty which is the rule of all their actions, private as well as public; nor the latter, because they will not act at all except upon compulsion, fancying that they are already dwelling apart in the islands of the blest.
[Glaucon] Very true, he replied.
[Socrates] Then, I said, the business of us who are the founders of the State will be to compel the best minds to attain that knowledge which we have already shown to be the greatest of all-they must continue to ascend until they arrive at the good; but when they have ascended and seen enough we must not allow them to do as they do now.
[Glaucon] What do you mean?
[Socrates] I mean that they remain in the upper world: but this must not be allowed; they must be made to descend again among the prisoners in the cave, and partake of their labors and honors, whether they are worth having or not.
[Glaucon] But is not this unjust? he said; ought we to give them a worse life, when they might have a better?
[Socrates] You have again forgotten, my friend, I said, the intention of the legislator, who did not aim at making any one class in the State happy above the rest; the happiness was to be in the whole State, and he held the citizens together by persuasion and necessity, making them benefactors of the State, and therefore benefactors of one another; to this end he created them, not to please themselves, but to be his instruments in binding up the State.
[Glaucon] True, he said, I had forgotten.
[Socrates] Observe, Glaucon, that there will be no injustice in compelling our philosophers to have a care and providence of others; we shall explain to them that in other States, men of their class are not obliged to share in the toils of politics: and this is reasonable, for they grow up at their own sweet will, and the government would rather not have them. Being self-taught, they cannot be expected to show any gratitude for a culture which they have never received. But we have brought you into the world to be rulers of the hive, kings of yourselves and of the other citizens, and have educated you far better and more perfectly than they have been educated, and you are better able to share in the double duty. Wherefore each of you, when his turn comes, must go down to the general underground abode, and get the habit of seeing in the dark. When you have acquired the habit, you will see ten thousand times better than the inhabitants of the cave, and you will know what the several images are, and what they represent, because you have seen the beautiful and just and good in their truth. And thus our State which is also yours will be a reality, and not a dream only, and will be administered in a spirit unlike that of other States, in which men fight with one another about shadows only and are distracted in the struggle for power, which in their eyes is a great good. Whereas the truth is that the State in which the rulers are most reluctant to govern is always the best and most quietly governed, and the State in which they are most eager, the worst.
[Glaucon] Quite true, he replied.
[Socrates] And will our pupils, when they hear this, refuse to take their turn at the toils of State, when they are allowed to spend the greater part of their time with one another in the heavenly light?
[Glaucon] Impossible, he answered; for they are just men, and the commands which we impose upon them are just; there can be no doubt that every one of them will take office as a stern necessity, and not after the fashion of our present rulers of State.
[Socrates] Yes, my friend, I said; and there lies the point. You must contrive for your future rulers another and a better life than that of a ruler, and then you may have a well-ordered State; for only in the State which offers this, will they rule who are truly rich, not in silver and gold, but in virtue and wisdom, which are the true blessings of life. Whereas if they go to the administration of public affairs, poor and hungering after the' own private advantage, thinking that hence they are to snatch the chief good, order there can never be; for they will be fighting about office, and the civil and domestic broils which thus arise will be the ruin of the rulers themselves and of the whole State.
[Glaucon] Most true, he replied.
[Socrates] And the only life which looks down upon the life of political ambition is that of true philosophy. Do you know of any other?
[Glaucon] Indeed, I do not, he said.
[Socrates] And those who govern ought not to be lovers of the task? For, if they are, there will be rival lovers, and they will fight.
[Glaucon] No question.
[Socrates] Who then are those whom we shall compel to be guardians? Surely they will be the men who are wisest about affairs of State, and by whom the State is best administered, and who at the same time have other honors and another and a better life than that of politics?
[Glaucon] They are the men, and I will choose them, he replied.
[Socrates] And now shall we consider in what way such guardians will be produced, and how they are to be brought from darkness to light, -- as some are said to have ascended from the world below to the gods?
[Glaucon] By all means, he replied.
[Socrates] The process, I said, is not the turning over of an oyster-shell, but the turning round of a soul passing from a day which is little better than night to the true day of being, that is, the ascent from below, which we affirm to be true philosophy?
[Glaucon] Quite so.
http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/allegory.html
December 16, 2010
YouTube - The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America
YouTube - The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America
This video was originally created to be part of an art exhibit for Exposed the Art Project http://www.exposedtheartproject.org , a multimedia collaboration raising awareness of social issues. The group decided that the message in the Deliberate Dumbing Down of America shouldn't be put on hold. So here it is. The other artists of Exposed the Art Project are: painters Barry Gross and Viktor Safonkin, and photographers Adela Holmes and Presscott McDonald. We picked four themes for our premier—Social Commentary, Spirituality, Metamorphosis and Time and Chance. This is my contribution for Social Commentary.
NealF: http://www.youtube.com/user/NealF
December 13, 2010
THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU'LL EVER READ ABOUT CHINA
Fact or Fiction?????????????
"Doctor Baumgartner." This female voice--one-part nasal, two parts whine--grated my left eardrum.
"Is Joy Baumgartner there?" I inquired.
"This is Joy." Her voice sounded anything but joy.
"Emil Rubitski suggested I phone you to..."
"You want to talk about China, right?"
"Yeah, I..."
"My consulting rates are two hundred and fifty dollars per hour."
"I thought we might have lunch," I said, "and..."
"It's the same."
"I see. How about if I take you to lunch to figure out what it is you know that's worth two hundred and fifty dollars an hour?"
"How long a lunch?"
"A couple hours.'
"It'll be five hundred dollars."
"Whoa. What if we only talk about China for an hour?"
"What else would we have to talk about?"
"The weather?"
"Read it in the paper," said the un-playful Baumgartner.
"All right, I'm in for one hour. Can you come to my office?"
"Where is it?"
"Near Mexico Ave. Near AU."
"Fine, but it'll cost you an hour travel time."
"Jesus, what are you, a lawyer?"
"That's exactly the point," whined Baumgartner. "Lawyers charge for their expertise. They run a meter. I'm an expert on China. You want to learn what I know about China. Why shouldn't I run a meter?"
"Don't you folks at CSS generally like to share your expertise?"
"For the purpose of promoting CSS, yes. In general, no. Are you a potential contributor to our programs?"
"Absolutely. Me and Morton Levi."
Silence.
"You work for Morton Levi?" asked Baumgartner.
"With Morton Levi."
"Hmm. I suppose that qualifies. Okay, lunch tomorrow. The Palm. One o'clock. I have another call waiting." She disconnected me.
I utilized the dial tone to phone Emil Rubitski.
"This Baumgartner, Emil. Is she a ball-buster or what?"
"You think I don't know this?" said Rubitski. "The first rule new fellows learn when they arrive at this Center is, Don't Turn Your Back On Joy."
I chuckled.
"No joke," snapped Emil. "It's a known fact that she keeps a loaded pistol in her purse."
Baumgartner wasn't at the Palm at one o'clock. I stooled myself at the bar, Beefeater, olives.
Eight minutes later, the maitre d' pointed me out to a short rotund woman with tussled blonde hair, betrayed by dark-brown eyebrows.
"Hi, doc," I said. "I'm Jay."
Baumgartner sized me up. "Let's sit at a table," she said before turning on the maitre d'. "A good table at the front."
"Of course."
I followed the brazen Baumgartner to a good table.
"I'd like to meet Morton," Baumgartner announced, rearing her rump. "If you're working for him, and it involves China, and you want my knowledge and expertise, I should meet directly with him. I only operate at the highest level."
A waiter passed.
"Vodka tonic," snapped Baumgartner. "Slice of lime, not lemon." She turned to me. "When will you introduce me to Morton?"
"I didn't know we'd graduated from if to when."
"Without him," said Baumgartner, "we're back to two hundred and fifty dollars an hour."
"Plus lunch?" The Palm wasn't cheap.
She didn't even smile. "We're already here."
"So we are. Tell you what, if I don't get you in to see Morton, I'll pay your fee."
Baumgartner shook her head. "You pay. If I meet Morton, I refund you."
"Will you take American Express?"
"No. But I'll take a personal check." This was supposed to be a compromise.
"I don't have my checkbook here. Will you invoice me?"
Baumgartner glanced at the menu and pushed it aside. "What exactly is it Morton wants to know about China?"
"I'm interested in princelings," I said. "Specifically, Yao Li."
"Yao Li has no testicles." Baumgartner spat this with matter-of-fact delight.
"Do you mean that metaphorically?"
"No, I mean it physically. When Yao Li was at Shanghai Textile University during the Cultural Revolution, he got beaten up by his classmates. They pounded on his testicles. The Doctors had to remove them to prevent hemorrhaging. Surgical castration." Baumgartner smiled for the first time, as if castration was her prescription for men in general. "I have it on high authority that Yao Li drinks a daily brew of cow dung and lizard skin to compensate for lost masculinity. He carries a steel ball--the size of a golf-ball--wherever he goes. He grips it to strengthen his fingers. When he gets into brawls, he smashes his steel ball against the skulls of his opponents." Baumgartner sipped a vodka tonic, set before her by the waiter, who now hovered for an order. Baumgartner waved him away. "We're not ready." She returned to me. "Yao Li has a vengeful streak, a characteristic he got from his father, Yao Lo, China's intelligence chief. You did know that, didn't you?"
I nodded.
"His father's nickname within the inner Council of Leaders is Trickman."
"Does the son, Yao Li, have a nickname?"
Baumgartner regarded me with a school-marmish contempt. "Are you interested in substance or gossip?"
"You're the one who brought up nicknames."
"Dickhead," snapped Baumgartner.
"Excuse me?"
"That's Yao Li's nickname: Dickhead. As I was saying before you interrupted, Yao Li has a vengeful personality. When he became powerful, he used his influence to confiscate Shanghai Textile University's campus and relegate them to several ramshackle buildings near the airport."
The waiter tiptoed back for an order.
"I want the two-pound lobster," said Baumgartner.
"Crab cakes," said I.
The waiter beat it.
"Trickman and Dickhead have their own private security force of Kazaks, a mountain tribe of Turko-Mongol origin. They are warriors, descended from the Golden Horde of Genghis Khan. It was the Kazaks who--with fixed bayonets--put down the student rebellions. Trickman takes the view that his generation sacrificed the lives of twenty million comrades to conquer China. Anyone who wants to take it from them--or their children, or their children's children--has to lay down twenty million lives. Trickman has devised a new strategy for Chinese domination of the world."
I waited for Baumgartner to say water.
"Money," said Baumgartner. "Trickman's favorite saying is Money oils civil society. Trickman spent a whole career in intelligence, posing as a banker in Britain, Germany, and Switzerland. He decided that money is the route to power, not tanks. Trickman concluded that if Hitler had had Wall Street, the Nazis would have won World War II." Baumgartner paused. "The Chinese secretly admire Hitler's sense of destiny. Trickman's new strategy is to connect to high finance. That's why Hong Kong--just the way it is, a capitalist financial center--is so important to them. But the real key to Trickman's financial strategy is people. Think about it: China possesses the cheapest, largest labor pool in the world. One billion workers. A quarter of this planet's population! Have you noticed that more than half of almost everything you see in the malls these days is made in China? China has become an economic force simply because it has turned five-sixths of its one-point-two billion population into a slave labor force. Foreign capital is flowing into China to exploit labor, encouraged by China's two hundred million-member elite. Our media would have us believe that because of this new connection to the West, China will evolve into a free market economy. Dumb bastards. It won't. What we're looking at is national socialism, Chinese-style. It was the late Deng Xiaoping who originally conceived China's economic reform. He shrewdly forged an alliance between the Chinese Communist Party and sixty million Chinese who reside outside of China, mostly throughout Asia--the lords of the Pacific Rim, as they are known. It is the money-management skill of these Chinese expatriates, these Pacific lords, that perpetuates oppression in China. Human rights? They don't exist--except for fifty million Communist party members and their one hundred and fifty million relatives. It is in China's national economic interest to oppress its dissidents and peasants and keep a billion people confined to laboring for the world while the pay-offs go to the oppressors."
Anger flashed in Baumgartner's eyes. She took this whole situation personally.
"Through its billion-person labor force," she continued, "and now through Hong Kong, China intends to manipulate world money. In so doing, it has embarked on a policy to make corporate America--who they perceive as the real government of the United States--to become dependent on cheap Chinese labor. Meanwhile, the expatriate Chinese, with their liquid cash, are strategizing corporate takeovers in the US."
"If what you say is true..." I started.
"It's true." Baumgartner narrowed her plucked eyebrows at me.
"Why isn't our government doing anything to counter this policy?"
"Counter this policy?" Baumgartner rolled her eyes. "Our elected government loves this policy!"
"Why?"
"Why indeed." Joy snorted contemptuously. "A few reporters are onto this, but the mainstream media continues to stick to press releases, or they're turning a blind eye. The reason why is this: old-fashioned deal-making. The president's financial supporters are cutting amazing business deals with the Chinese. You see what's happening here? The Chinese are playing our own so-called revolving door system against us. And, to this end, they're using their corrupt underground to help them."
"Oh?"
Baumgartner nodded vehemently. "Remember how our CIA teamed up with the mafia to try to overthrow Castro? Trickman is doing the same thing. He has recruited the Triad, China's notorious criminal underground."
"To do what?"
"Export contraband into the United States. Drugs and guns."
I'd forgotten, until this movement, what Samantha Wakefield of SIS had told me about Chinese gunrunning through Scrogg Island. I filed a mental note to nudge Pikestaff about that. Then I remembered Johnny Wang. "Do you know the name Johnny Wang?" I posed.
"Do I," spat Baumgartner, obviously disgusted by all she knew--or her inability to do anything about it. "Johnny Wang is a mobster. And he's also Yao Li's constant companion. Johnny Wang is homosexual. He and the castrated Yao Li are lovers."
My appetite departed as crab cakes arrived.
Baumgartner dug into her lobster, cracking and crunching and sucking each appendage. "Money, not gunpowder. That's the new Chinese weapon of choice." She pushed her plate aside. All that was left of the lobster was a shell and two beady eyes. "Our country is for sale," hissed Baumgartner. "Literally. US soil. Do you have any idea how fast Chinese communities proliferate?"
I shrugged. "Not really."
"Ha! Check out San Francisco. No, fly up to Manhattan and see how Chinatown has expanded into Little Italy. Pretty soon, Little Italy won't exist. The Italians can't afford the new rents, so the Chinese scoop up everything. They multiply and spread out. If anyone brings this to the surface, they're categorized as bigots. So in the interest of political correctness, no one says a word. But don't think because they're achieving their objectives with financial clout that they've renounced military might. Sure, they're smuggling their surplus guns into the US for baoli..."
"Baoli?"
"Chinese for keep the profit. They're lining their own pockets and promoting gangland violence and moral decline in our cities. Back to my point: they've embarked on a major hi-tech military build-up. For the first time, China is building aircraft carriers. Aircraft carriers! These are offensive, not defensive weaponry. They're buying fighter planes from Russia. They're designing a new class of nuclear ballistic submarine. And they're building intercontinental ballistic missiles with multiple warheads. Why doesn't anybody in this town ask why? Because they're all cashing in, one way or another, that's why. Even the people in government. Once they see how much the private sector is making off China, they quit government and go into business as brokers--the revolving door at high speed. The Chinese are building a war machine that will soon equal our own, with money they're getting from us. Money they get from forcing their fourteen-dollar-a-month labor pool to mass produce GI Joe and Barbie dolls. I'm not kidding. GI Joe is now made in China. Barbie, too. Our toy industry has moved to China. Ninety-five percent of everything you find in Toys-R-Us is manufactured by the Chinese, paid for in dollars. And they're using those revenues--our dollars--not to enrich their workers, but to build long-range nuclear missiles."
"What about the princelings?" I asked.
"Ah, the new generation of spoiled brats, born with silver chop sticks up their ass?" Baumgartner belched. "They've never had to fight or sacrifice for anything. They haven't had to suffer like their parents or grandparents. And they're all educated in the West. Do you see the irony here? We teach these princelings everything we know about stocks and bonds and securities and big money. Then they take what they learn back to China and use it against us! Not only do we encourage them to study here, we give them scholarships!"
"Yao Li went to Harvard, right?"
"Ha! That's what he wants the world to believe. Yao Li did a summer session at Harvard. That's another trick. Summer sessions at Ivy League colleges are easy to gain admission into--you just sign up and write a check. So they come over for a summer, take a couple of classes and claim they went to Harvard or Yale or Princeton. They use this to open doors throughout Asia--and even here in the United States. Yao Li tells everyone he went to Harvard on the basis of one summer-session course in business law, which he didn't even complete. He spent most of the time getting drunk in Cambridge. But don't believe me. Ask the woman confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life because Yao Li crashed his BMW convertible into her Honda. He was drunk. She was seventeen, very talented, and had her whole life ahead of her..." Baumgartner trailed off, clenching her teeth. "The State Department covered it up and the Chinese Embassy shanghaied Yao Li back to China. That's the reason he didn't finish summer-school." She paused. "I'd kill him with my bare hands."
"Why do you take this so personally?" I asked.
"It is personal." Baumgartner's eyes darkened, nostrils flaring. "The young girl Yao Li crippled is my sister."
December 10, 2010
December 09, 2010
December 08, 2010
December 07, 2010
December 05, 2010
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