The shit-for-brains media culture that Brooks finds so amusing is one of the trends that has helped DESTROY investigative reporting, or at least, driven it to the fringes of mainstream respectability. Only in Bobo’s deluded world could they be seen as two examples of the same thing.
Back to Main
June 6, 2005
Billmon: 06/06
Comments
China:
The Washington Post also has a positive OpEd by Sebastian Mallaby: China’s (Petty) Fiscal Crimes
China is getting hammered for its currency peg, its violation of intellectual property rights and its bad habit of supplying Americans with cheap clothing. All this is supposed to be sinister, evil and unfair.
…
But its economic performance is neither sinister nor evil: It lifted 400 million people above the $1-a-day line between 1981 and 2001, a period when the net progress against poverty in the rest of the world was zero.
…
[debunking of a lot of bad-China-myth]
…
What’s Congress doing about the U.S. budget deficit, about egregious farm subsidies or about the scandal of U.S. anti-dumping laws that are rigged against foreigners? No more than China is doing about its problems, actually.
My brother was one of the young people back then inspired to go into journalism by Woodward and Bernstein. Nowadays his attitude towards politics is that all politicians are the same, and accuses me of being “out there” for expressing my opinions on my blog. This is how journalists have become today, and it saddens me. Both that the state of journalism is so bad, and that my once idealistic brother now complacently accepts the state of things in this country, because he got his share of the pie, I suppose.
But then I guess that is how most Americans are these days. As long as they are comfortable and relatively well off, and those darn gays aren’t allowed to marry, they don’t really care what is happening in the government or what is happening in the world. So what’s up in the real news, like the Michael Jackson trial?
Friedman, Tierney, Brooks are not great writers. Neither is Krugman. The pressure to pump out two quality 400 word essays per week is intimidating, I’m sure. But, surely there are better writers available for NYT?
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 6 2005 18:54 utc | 3
slothrop,
You’re right about that, especially when they (Fried.,Brooks) have to make shit up all the time. Funny how writers on the right are so dependent on imagination — and yet so few find their way to great writing. Maybe their poetic license should be revoked on the weight of truth infractions, then they could walk to work, in the real world.
Posted by: anna missed | Jun 6 2005 19:19 utc | 4
CHINA
has been investing in Africa.
The China-Africa Cooperation forum:
Link
Le Monde Diplomatique has an ‘overview’ (English):
Link
In South America, too.
While the US is busy in Iraq so many are breathing deep and hiding under the radar and loving those win-win loans or deals…
Posted by: Noisette | Jun 6 2005 19:22 utc | 5
I am here to sue one Billmon.
Comparing shit to brains is civilly actionable.Comparing shit to brooks’ brain will probably result in punitive damages.
While my client Mr. Shit is outraged, he authorized me to say that he would prefer to settle this matter out of court. He would rather not have his good name dragged through the journalistic sewer once again.
Spanky Ham
Lye, Cheete, Steele, and Ham LLP
Posted by: Spanky Ham | Jun 6 2005 19:37 utc | 6
What is it with these Americans, lecturing the Chinese? Americans have been in business for less than four hundred years; the Chinese, for 10,000 years….. Ah, but I forgot that experience is a reality-based value!
Posted by: alabama | Jun 6 2005 20:02 utc | 7
from the fatal shore (theage.com)
Defector won’t be punished: China
By Tom Allard
June 7, 2005
China says it won’t punish a former diplomat now in hiding who has claimed Beijing has up to 1000 spies keeping tabs on dissident groups in Australia.
Chen Yonglin, 37, is seeking asylum in Australia, saying he fears for his life after walking out on the Chinese consulate-general in Sydney 11 days ago.
He has been in hiding with his wife, Jin Ping, 38, and their six-year-old daughter, and says he fears persecution if he returns home after his four-year posting in Australia.
Last Tuesday – after being told by a foreign affairs officer that his political asylum bid had failed before he had even been interviewed – Mr Chen tried to defect to the United States.
A US embassy spokeswoman would not comment further, although the US took the approach that this was a matter for Australia to sort out.
The Australian Government had not informed its close ally of the explosive diplomatic and intelligence development almost a week after it first came to light.
Australia and the US usually closely share intelligence, and a defection bid would have been a rare “code red” event, in the words of one espionage expert.
There have also been tensions between the US and Australia recently over the Howard Government’s closeness to China.
Although Mr Chen’s claim met with hostility by Australian officials – who immediately informed the Chinese Government, denied his plea for a safe meeting place and rejected his bid for political asylum without interviewing him – Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone said yesterday she was satisfied with how her department had handled the matter.
Mr Chen said his job was to monitor the activities of people involved in the Falun Gong movement, democracy advocates and people who support the separation of Tibet, Taiwan and East Turkistan from China.
He said there were as many as 1000 Chinese spies in Australia.
China’s ambassador to Australia, Madame Fu Ying, said yesterday that despite Mr Chen’s actions he would not be punished if he returned to China.
Madame Fu said there was no spy ring and Mr Chen was making the comments to boost his case to stay in Australia. The ambassador said the claim of 1000 spies had become “a joke”.
“If I can’t attend a dinner with one of my colleagues in the diplomatic corps, if I say, ‘I am busy, I’m sorry, I can’t come,’ they say, ‘Oh, it’s OK, you are busy with your spy network.’ ”
But Falun Dafa Information Centre spokeswoman Ana C. Vereshaka said: “The spies are not a big secret.”
When the group exercised in the Flagstaff Gardens, they were watched from a distance by men ringed by cigarette smoke and taking photographs, she said.
International relations expert Professor Michael McKinley said Mr Chen was likely to face persecution if he went home.
Gary Klintworth, an expert on Chinese refugee cases, said Mr Chen was likely to be allowed to stay in Australia, given the claims he had made.
On this, Madame Fu agreed, saying granting Mr Chen a protection visa would not hurt relations
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 6 2005 20:04 utc | 8
Hey Billmon, don’t you know that the world (starting with China) has a massive savings glut that the USA kindly agree to borrow and spend, thus saving the rest of the world the embarassment of not having a plce to park (or use) their money…
Posted by: Jérôme | Jun 6 2005 20:06 utc | 9
With Senator Biden’s acquiescence to the John Bolton nomination and Senator Reid’s desperate search for a strategy to counter President Bush’s optimism on the future of Iraq, I’d given up on Congressional Democrats.
However, Senator Clinton channels Billmon and today’s NY Times reports
Senator Clinton Assails Bush and G.O.P. at Campaign Fund-Raiser
Abetting the Republicans, she said in some of her sharpest language, is a Washington press corps that has become a pale imitation of the Watergate-era reporters who are being celebrated this month amid the identification of the anonymous Washington Post source, Deep Throat.
“The press is missing in action, with all due respect,” she said. “Where are the investigative reporters today? Why aren’t they asking the hard questions? It’s shocking when you see how easily they fold in the media today. They don’t stand their ground. If they’re criticized by the White House, they just fall apart.
“I mean, c’mon, toughen up, guys, it’s only our Constitution and country at stake,” she said. “Let’s get some spine.”
She decried his fiscal policies, particularly Republican-backed tax cuts, saying they were ballooning the deficit and ceding “fiscal sovereignty” to countries like China, which are harder to influence when they become “your banker.”
Posted by: Jim S | Jun 6 2005 20:25 utc | 10
Another of those journalists Bobo wants to degrade is one Seymore Hersh. He has a nice review of the WATERGATE DAYS
I also thought that Woodward and Bernstein were too far ahead, and too conversant with White House officials whose names I didn’t even know. Then, just before Christmas, Clifton Daniel was named Washington bureau chief of the Times. He bought me a box of Brooks Brothers shirts and sweaters—he did not think I was up to the Times’ dress standard—and told me that I was henceforth assigned to Watergate.
A few weeks later, after one of my early stories, which dealt with hush-money payments to a Watergate burglar, appeared in the Times, Woodward and Bernstein got in touch with me and essentially welcomed me aboard. That spring, when we were all doing a lot of daily reporting on the coverup, I spent a long evening with the two of them, talking about where the scandal might lead.
Senator Clinton Assails Bush and G.O.P. at Campaign Fund-Raiser
Say what you like about her (and I’ve said plenty) the woman knows how to stay on message.
Posted by: Billmon | Jun 6 2005 22:16 utc | 12
Giap one of the pertinent things which is rather unreported in the Oz media is that Chen Yonglin’s father went missing during the cultural revolution and died.
The chinese authorities will say this is proof that a/ the bamboo curtain is down because how else could the son of a counter revolutionary get to be first secretary at the embassy and b/the son’s actions prove that the fate of the dad was a reasonable action.
But Australians won’t be interested, in that the fellow will be portrayed as a main chancer trying to get the best deal possible for himself and his family, the old much maligned ‘economic refugee’. This will probably work since that is the way that many chinese migranst are already perceived. It will not help that falun gong and other ‘dissident’ groups have already said that as far as they could see Chen Yonglin was just as full on repressing and spying on their members as any other foriegn affairs security official.
That’s also his biggest problem the Chinese government has never let the official state security apparatus loose in their embassies, instead they have always preferred to use foreign ministry employees especially trained up for the task and there is little information exchange between the foreign ministry and the internal security services. This means that Chen Yonglin is going to have a deal of difficulty ‘proving’ that this 1000 spies were doing anything other than ‘safeguarding’ china’s national interests overseas.
It’s not much fun thinking about china down this part of the world at the moment because as the US becomes more engaged in the middle east the chinese are becoming more active in the pacific and politicians just don’t seem to understand that the best solution is to have none of these players hanging around interfering.
Our Prime Minister has just got back from Asia. She spent a while in China laying the groundwork for the first free trade agreement that any country has had with china. We have buckley’s of getting a free trade agreement with the US since we aren’t in Iraq. This is a situation that most of us think fine since we don’t really want those draconian intellectual property laws the Australians had to introduce to get their US deal. But there’s an election coming up and she wants something to trumpet to the small business-people whose votes she thinks she needs. Naturally she forgot to mention human rights whilst in china but while in Japan grandstanded for a bit about japans increased whale quota. Now I don’t want to see any more whales needlessly killed for ‘science’ either but at some point we need to admit that people also matter. In actual fact the green parties are not usually the worst at putting everything else ahead of humans frequently the leftish parties go overboard trying to capture the environment vote and sell out people.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jun 6 2005 22:22 utc | 13
now debs if i had my way i’d ask the aboriginal people to enter into a land lease arrangement with the chinese – they couldn(t be treated any worse than they already are by successive australian governments & i think they have better time/space connections
a small favour debs – i have been looking high & low all over europe for a catalogue on new zealands & i feel the greates painter of the 20th century, colin macahon(?) – there is a catalogue called gates & bridges – do you know of him or the book
from these isolated nations come the cunning & the noble
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 6 2005 23:08 utc | 14
Giap
I am of course aware of Mccahon esp since a member of my whanau (extended family) was part of the push that was instrumental in promoting him as the leader of a group of exclusivly NZ artists. I’ve just had a quick look around but apart from waxing nostalgic from seeing pieces from long forgotten friends and acquaintances I was unsuccessful in finding the book you mention. But all is not lost I will ask around and the small community where I have exiled myself prides itself on being the ‘artistic centre’ of this country so doubtless if the book exists I will find it.
The treatment of Australian aborigines makes a great target for contempt but it also needs to approached with caution. Even if only that attitude further entrenches Yolgnu as victims unable to determine their own destiny. I worked with Yolgnu (east arnhemland word for our people) for many years on remote communities in northern australia. In some ways thesewere the most challenging communities to work with in others the easiest because most still had their own land language and lifestyle. Still any intervention of any sort has to be carefully considered because consequences can’t always be forseen. For that reason we practised a policy of getting as much money as possible out of Canberra but not doing anything with it until assistance was requested from a community. This is easily interpreted as neglect and was by the bureaucrats in Canberra when they were trying to get us to reach their ‘targets’ but as much as possible the communities I worked with practised self determination ie most decisions were made through community councils and that takes time. Sure it would be possible to ‘persuade’ a community to build a new school or develop a market garden but sometimes agreement would be nothing more than politeness on the part of a community which didn’t want to offend a friend or relative. It is necessary to take a ‘skin’ to provide a structure for the community to relate to you.
So the school gets set up and the only people that can be found to teach there are drunks that bring alcohol in where the community has banned it or young women that have no idea what they are dealing with or ‘old hands’ who spend their time bullying the community. The market garden works for as long as someone is there to make it work but since the culture has no history of agrarianism it laspses when the person driving it dies or leaves.
We had most of our success with arts and cultural endeavours but that is slow and what works in one community doesn’t work in another. Just before I left one of the communities had an entire clan massacred by one of it’s young men. The clan had taken to painting it’s less confidential business on to bark. the paintings were very well received in the Northern hemisphere and even with the usual middle man rip offs common in the art world this particular mob were getting a lot of money which in turn was being ‘invested’ in alcohol. One of the young guys got angry and resentful as young men tend to do in cultures where age=power and hacked all of the rest of the clan (about 10 adults) to death.
In NZ people are very quick to criticise the fate of Australian Aboriginals which saves them from have to examine their relationship with Maori too much.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jun 6 2005 23:52 utc | 15
Read the comment section at Orcinus from his entry about the black guy in Santa Clara. Someone who calls himself ruffian or something. A true American Nazi who is just waiting for the a-okay.
He makes me wonder if I should seriously consider buying a gun and learning how to use it.
I wonder how many more like him are out there? Is it any wonder I think, everyday, about how I can get the hell out of here asap?
Posted by: fauxreal | Jun 7 2005 0:30 utc | 16
@fauxreal people like ruffian aren’t confined to America. Every country and culture suffers from them. The other sort described; the kids making hate messages and burning crosses etc, are a reflection of the current state of the US economy more than they are a reflection of the state of hate. Some kids need to externalise their predicament by blaming others for their situation. People like ruffian attempt to provide an intellectual rationalisation for it but of course really only display their own pitiful inadequacy.
Only you know your own mind and abilities but attempting to change things is usually more satisfying even if unsuccessful than moving from them.
It is always easier to make judgements on the state of a culture from outside where one remains relatively unaffected by changes to that culture.
Consider this for what it is worth. I use television as a way to see into other societies, not in the obvious way of judging a culture by COPS or The Apprentice but measuring a culture by it’s artistic endeavour.
US TV was easily the worst in the english language 20 years ago. It projected an unreal and totally false view of the society it came from. Twenty years ago the english probably made the best english language TV when Thatcher was at her worst. Now there is no doubt that the US still makes some awful TV but it also makes the best TV in the english language. English TV is now strictly soaps and costume drama a la US TV 20 years ago. I realise that if anyone reads this they will be tempted to shoot me down in flames but take a series like The Wire. The accurate charcaterizations, the moral ambiguity and the insight into the dominant power structure are absolutely spot on. After a few seasons it will be awful if it continues, but that’s the medium not the message. A program like that would have been unheard of in the 70’s or 80’s when the US was ‘better’. Yeah I know what good is a Michaelangelo in hell? Well it shows that people in the US are much more self aware and able to express that awareness than ever before. Change will come.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jun 7 2005 1:35 utc | 17
I agree with Debs’ view on US TV though it is difficult to say that it has the the best TV in the english language. One might compare it to an artichoke, you have to go through a lot of crap to get to the good part.
Posted by: dan of steele | Jun 7 2005 2:31 utc | 18
Brooks as Arfy. It had never occurred to me. Perfect. What’s his meltdown going to look like?
Posted by: david | Jun 7 2005 4:30 utc | 19
dan of steele I saw this show the other nite called “Dog The Bounty Hunter” what a classy piece of TV that was. The state has managed to contract foul mouthed bullying crooks to round up foul mouthed bullying crooks, and poor people and the hopeless/helpless. Thing is though I don’t really thing the show worked the way the producers intended. I suspect we were meant to empathise with Dog and his hateful ‘crew’. The million monkeys and typewriters approach but great tv. TV has to be dross but I can sit thru an episode of “The Wire” or “Carnivale” without being overcome by self loathing for wasting valuable lifetime sometimes I even feel challenged by the story. I would prefer Carnivale if it wasn’t reinforcing two thousand year old superstitions. So maybe that show is just good costume drama rather than great.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jun 7 2005 7:38 utc | 20
my neighborhood her in new orleans is very much a mix of just about everything.we’ve only had 2 murders in 5 years(very good in N.o.)’and those were domestic and drug related.we have one crack house that gets busted every year right before jazz fest,and we all know who is who because we have come together as a neighborhood.if someone in my neighborhood tried to pull off a hate crime i have no doubt we would take to the streets before completed.(alot of us are also up all night)i think that is where it has to start and stop.block by block,street by street in your own neighborhood.get out and know your neighbors.have block parties.cut your sick neighbors grass.connect.its not easy when you have different political veiws to hold political conversations,but after a year or two you can at least hold those conversations without fear because you have become part of a whole in a sense.you are a neighborhood.maybe soon we can cross over the blvd. and bring those blocks with a bit more violence into our circle.i hope so anyway.i feel for the families there just a cross street away living in fear.and in a way suggests the status of the rest of the country and the world.
Posted by: onzaga | Jun 7 2005 8:36 utc | 21
ruffian’s attitude–that only “acceptable” minorities get through to the level of elite is true in a certain sense, but the problem is, imo, the lack of enfranchisement that is a poor person’s life. no respect. looking into the bakery from the street.
I’m middle class (or was) and do not live in a fancy neighborhood (it’s mixed retirees, students, and families…more students coming in as retirees sell, so it’s a neighborhood that could be considered on the way down…except that I don’t consider this variety a bad selling point (thou I am happy party central is no longer across the street from me rattling my windows at 2 am…but we have noise laws after midnight b/c of this issue.)
anyway, my neighborhood has people from Russia, Thailand, various places in America, African-Americans, India Indians…used to have an Iraqi family…plus various other hyphen Americans…anyway, people here are not rich. some are professionals, some have blue collar jobs…
I think Ruffian’s problem is that the rich white guys have screwed everyone, and he blames minorities because they’re accessible to him.
I do know from experience, when I was mugged, that my first reaction is to fight back. To go for the nuts, in fact. I guess I got that from watching bad American tv. 🙂
actually, the only tv I can stand to watch is some pbs, adult swim cartoons (some of them..Harvey Birdman, not the melodramatic anime), the daily show, and democracy now…oh, okay, and The Simpsons and Malcom in the Middle and that one about the really strange, mean rich family whose dad is/was? in prison…if I remember to turn them on. I don’t watch any of them every time they’re on.
sometimes I think I’ll just drop tv, but my son would be very upset with me if he couldn’t watch baseball. since that’s his autistic “thing” –this is a big deal. no joke. I don’t have hbo, but I used to and they had some good stuff.
reality tv makes me want to blow cookies. and as a female, it’s no fun to watch girls gone wild commercials with your fourteen year old son, but it gives us an opportunity to discuss drunken ‘hos whose parents, let’s hope, are embarrassed to know their child is such a dumbass…or will people do anything for money…
Posted by: fauxreal | Jun 7 2005 19:19 utc | 22
While I was reading Bobo’s column on the meaning of Watergate, I had a lightbulb moment. I suddenly realized what his columns reminded me of. Remember on Seinfeld when Jerry and George were writing a series for NBC for a show about “nothing”? That’s what Bobo’s columns are about, “nothing”. No more puzzling about what he means, wondering if they are as dumb as they seem, lamenting his lack of focus, just assume the column is about “nothing”. Everything falls into place. Problem solved.
Posted by: janeboatler | Jun 8 2005 20:12 utc | 23