In 1940 Hitler and Stalin were doing their very best to destroy Poland

Image via Wikipedia

I just viewed Andreaj Wajda’s film about the Katyn Forest Massacre. This event characterized Stalin’s paranoid politics as no other event could. We have the basic human honesty of the Poles to thank for that. They seemed beaten down by Hitler, Stalin and their own Communist politicians, but they survived and now they are telling their stories.

This morning I read that the conflict in Kashmir has taken the lives of over 70,000 over the last 40+ years. The title of this post by Arundhati Roy, an Indian writer, is titled “Is Democracy melting?”

I can recall too many reminders that India is the oldest and largest democracy in the world that works! And there is little doubt that if you need to find evidence of how messy democracy can be, there is no better democracy than India’s.

In the dirty thirties and bloody forties of the 20th century it was all about Hitler and Stalin. Now there is a leaky virulent strain of political violence that nests very effectively in SE Asia.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Wajda’s movie gave me the creeps with it’s forthright truth telling. The story revealed by Ms. Roy gives me the shivers, especially because so many new Canadians are from SE Asia. Will the virulent strain of political violence leak from Kashmir to India to Canada?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Russian historian blames Poland for World War II (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• In praise of … German aristocracy (guardian.co.uk)
• Attacks kills 2 soldiers, wounds 7 in Kashmir (ctv.ca)
• Christina Patterson: Interview with Arundhati Roy: ‘We need a feral howl’ (huffingtonpost.com)

American culture is dumb and dumber

Image via Wikipedia

Today there is going to be a mad stampede in most large cities as American nitwits apparently want to get a copy of Dan Brown’s latest trash lit, The Last Symbol.

But apparently no US distributor is interested in distribution rights to “Creation” a film biography of Charles Darwin. American cultural sensibilities, which deal with guns in public and covert and overt racism toward their President, can’t deal with the story of Charles Darwin. The crassness of this makes me want to puke literally. I wonder does that mean that I won’t get to see that film?

Dan Brown’s trash lit along with JK Rowling’s is fine, but real people and an authentic story about a renowned scientist are just too “controversial”. Sometimes I lose all hope about a better and freer tomorrow when a key part of Western civilization is dominated by childish fantasy. For F..ks sake get over it. Evolution is approved by the Vatican and 99% of the cardinals and bishops. But Dan Brown’s trash lit is not~

Related articles by Zemanta

• Darwin’s Voyage Done Over, Live (science.slashdot.org)
• Bettany initially nervous about acting with wife (ctv.ca)
• Hold the front page! Dan Brown cover reveals things we already knew (guardian.co.uk)

Background reading and viewing about Hitler-Stalin mutual support pact in 1939

The first is a review of a recent book by Richard Overy, who is a recognized historical expert about Hitler and Stalin. And here is an excerpt from that review:

Poland is central to Overy’s analysis, which suggests he may not be offering anything very new. His preface outlines the role of Danzig after the Treaty of Versailles, the vital supply channel for Polish trade that ultimately provoked Hitler’s disquieting request for lebensraum. Danzig remains the fault-line for the declaration of war, although clearly there are other causes: pride and obstinacy, failed brinkmanship and both sides’ belief that they were the last true upholders of western values. Overy suggests that the sheer exhaustion of the antagonists, particularly Neville Chamberlain, also played a part. A week after the war began, the prime minister wrote to his sister that his days “of stress and strain” had made him lose all sense of time: “Life is just one long nightmare.”

Then there is this video of an interview with Overy about that very subject.

My own personal connection with this very sad part of WW2 history is that I was living in Paris with my birth family since my father had, since April 1939, taken up his posting with RBofC as manager of their 10, rue Scribe branch in Paris. By then I had lived in three countries, born in Barcelona in Oct 1935, in Montmagny QC with my mother and siblings in Aug 1936 till Oct 1937 and then Vernets-l-bains in the French Pyrenees. We had been unwillingly chased from Barcelona in mid-July 1936 by the outbreak of

Image via Wikipedia

the Spanish Civil War, which happened with violent clashes in and around Barcelona, which was the industrial heartland of Spain then.

My mother and I were forced to leave Paris after the German Wehrmacht invaded Western Europe so successfully on May 10, 1940. After lots of scrambling we made our way with my father and all siblings, Helen, Jean-Paul and Annette the latest arrival (May 16, 1940) back to Canada via the south of France, Portsmouth UK, and convoy out of Greenock, Scotland to Halifax, where we finally landed on July 13, 1940.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Review: 1938: Hitler’s Gamble (thejc.com)
• Russia accuses Poland of starting Second World War (telegraph.co.uk)

A word picture of Barcelona in 1937

Image via Wikipedia

Since my father worked, as a manager of the Royal Bank of Canada, and lived in Barcelona during 2/3rds of the Spanish Civil War, I have often wondered how working and living conditions were there. Of course, it is factually accurate that I was born in Barcelona October 8, 1935.

This morning I googled into an essay by Albert Weisbord and encountered this word picture that seemed quite authentic and credible to me:

The appearance of Barcelona in May 1937 proclaimed unmistakably that the proletariat was now asserting itself. All the important buildings in the center of the city were occupied by workers organizations. The top floors of Hotel Oriente had been taken over by the Syndicalists and on Via Durutti (renamed after a popular Anarchist leader who fell in battle a year ago) the National Confederation of Labor (C.N.T.) made its headquarters in the magnificent building which formerly housed the Chamber of Commerce. Hotel Falcon had been converted into a center for the Workers Party of Marxist Unification (P.O.U.M.), especially for its soldiers on leave from the front. On the exclusive Pasco de Gracias a beautiful building had been taken over by the Unification Socialist Party of Catalonia (P.S.U.C.) and was now the Case Karl Marx. An enormous propaganda sign covered its basement and first floor but when the fighting began in May, at once the sign had been ripped and the machine guns concealed behind it had opened fire on the revolutionary workers who were behind the barricades in the streets.

One startling innovation was the huge picture of Stalin three stories high which stared at one from the facade of the Hotel Colon, the swankiest hotel in Barcelona which had also been requisitioned by the P.S.U.C. It seems the picture had been accompanied by a picture of Lenin of similar size, but Lenin’s picture had fallen down (let those who will look for a hidden symbolism in this incident) and had never been replaced.

Las Remblas and Plaza Catalunya were a riot of color not only with the red flags of the Communists and Socialists and the red and black flags of the Anarcho-Syndicalists, but with other enormous banners and signs placed over the avenue and center of the square. Here in bright pictures and large letters the masses were called upon to fight fascism and to build a new society. The old street names had been replaced to honor Spanish revolutionists or even Russian celebrities who had caught popular fancy (such as Calle Pavlov or Calle Tolstoy).

The sunny calm that in 1932 had pervaded the city’s thoroughfares had given way to a contagious atmosphere of strain. It was civil war now in all its grimness. Many streets were still torn up where the recent barricades had been erected. The barracks of the old guards near the Columbus column were in a state of complete destruction, a reminder of the July days of 1936, with huge shell holes marking the spot where the cannon of Montjuic in the hands of the workers had smashed the resistance of the guards and had forced them to come down from the top of the column where they had placed their machine guns and to surrender.

The straw-sandaled picturesque dancers in the streets, the gay crowds hanging about the sidewalk cafes, all had vanished. Now groups stood tensely to hear the radio reports of casualties from the front and the stern directives for the citizen on how to win the war. At night all lights were out; searchlights played over the city and on every corner placards notified people where to go in case of an air raid or bombardment. Soldiers, home on leave from the front, were everywhere.

But if the old civil guards in the patent leather hats had disappeared to go with Franco, new guards and police, the Asaltos and Carbineros, had been formed by the conservative elements in the government. These bodies were now apolitical and deadly enemies of the old Workers Patrol Control which had been dominated by the trade unions and revolutionary parties. Once again there was appearing the ubiquitous spy and the night raid. Daily, nightly, individuals known to be active members of this or that revolutionary organization would simply disappear never to be seen again.

Even for the moneyed stranger life was not what it used to be. Few hotels could boast of hot water or warm baths. Food was becoming poor in quality even in the pensions and restaurants where meals were restricted to two courses with one small piece of bread per customer. For the rest of the people there were bread and milk lines while olive oil, tobacco, charcoal, soap and medical supplies had become very scarce. In general only simple fare was obtainable consisting of rabbit, muscles, plain cuts of meat and rice, the standbys of the poorer classes. Nevertheless in certain restaurants patronized by the officials and by well-to-do strangers in the know such delicacies as lobster, chicken, ice cream and strawberries might be enjoyed. Evidently Catalonia was still far from having realized the Socialist Commonwealth where all would be treated alike.

Gone were the pleasant diversions which formerly used to ease the stay of the tourists in the city. In the fashionable neighborhood near Tibidabo the buildings had been sequestered as sanitoriums or hospitals for the wounded, homes for refugees or orphaned children and similar institutions of social welfare. The cable cars, deserted, no longer operated. The fountains of Montjuic likewise were silent… who would want to spend money on colored waters when there was dire need for arms and munitions for the front and hundreds of thousands of the best blood of Spain were dying on the field of battle? The fortress of Montjuic was still there (The Anarchists had captured it for a brief moment during the fighting of the May Days) but as for the old prison, the bastille in which so many champions of the people had suffered torments in the old days, the populace of Barcelona had stormed it and released the prisoners.

As for the music halls with their accompanying prostitution, after July, 1936, when the workers had crushed the fascist revolt throughout Catalonia and were on the road to becoming the chief power, there had been a determined effort to stomp out these hotbeds of vice. Many of the pimps were killed and the women liberated. Educational posters were spread throughout the city advising the soldiers that prostitution was the disgrace of the army and the degradation of the women; it was an agency of Franco and must be stamped out. But in the months that had elapsed since then, during which the influence of the workers’ organizations was waning, there had been a general relaxation of discipline and the dance halls were now open once more with their languishing sirens. By June the Syndicalists had been ousted from Hotel Oriente where now a hot abaret flourished.

How far the revolution had emancipated the women of Spain was an intriguing question for all those who had followed the heroic participation of these women in the actual fighting in defence of their country. To what extent had the old semi-harem status of the feminine sex, so strongly rooted in the traditions of the country, actually broken down? It must be confessed that, in spite of the efforts of the progressive forces in Spain, the enlightenment of the women has not proceeded very far. In everyday life the customs of centuries still had their grip on personal relationships.

Women in Spain were still divided into two simple groups, prostitutes and respectable women, the latter consisting of cloistered virgins and fanatically loyal mates. Revolutionary soldiers could be found beating their wives and even so-called professional revolutionists were still ready to kill their life companions if they were caught conversing with other men. It is true that a certain breath of freedom has blown over the women. Its first expression have been rather freakish ones inspired by Hollywood, heads bleached blond and pained faces glaringly incongruous among the natural dark beauties of Spain. Women constituted still but a small percentage of the membership in the revolutionary organizations, and the women secretariats which had been recently appointed were having an exceedingly difficult time of it to make the men understand the need of drawing the women into the movement and the women to understand their place in the new social order.

Similarly with the school system. The Generalidad was making efforts to introduce new methods and curricula, yet in only two or three of the nine high schools of Barcelona had they succeeded to any great extent. Old fashioned methods of drill and an antiquated routine still prevailed in the rest. Attendance of children at school was not strictly enforced, although a great part of the people was still illiterate. Yet one could see that much more reading was being done on the whole by the adult population. In Las Rambles, adjacent to the flower stalls, large numbers of book stalls had now opened up selling revolutionary literature of all sorts. But it must be admitted that among the serious pamphlets and books, “literature” of a quite different sort was common: pornographic novels and magazines that purported to speak of physical culture, of nudism and the emancipation of women but in reality were cheap commercial ventures calculated only to stir up the sexual passions of the “liberated” readers.

Gone was the censorship of the clergy, as were the priests, monks and nuns themselves. The churches were no longer anything but blackened shells, where fire had finished whatever bombs and dynamite had left of their walls. Not a church was left standing intact in Barcelona except the old Cathedral which, singularly enough, had been preserved by all factions as a work of art.

Nothing so sharply characterized the change in regime that had taken place as the nature of the newspapers in circulation. All the old sheets that one used to read, El Debat, A.B.C., etc., were nowhere to be seen and their place was taken by the papers of the workers’ groups, formerly poorly printed sheets issued weekly in small numbers, but now grown to powerful dailies. Now it was “Soli”, Solidaridad Obrera, organ of the C.N.T. leading the way with a circulation of about 225,000, La Batalla, paper of the P.O.U.M., El Treball and Las Noticias, P.S.U.C. papers in Catalan and Spanish, that were most read. Many of the radio stations in operation in May – later they were all taken over by the government © were controlled by the same workers’ organizations. The programs that blared out most frequently consisted of news from the front, international news and propaganda or proclamations.

The workers factions were by no means in harmony among themselves, the chief quarrel being between those who wished to retain the present republic while fighting Franco, and those who wanted to pursue the revolution further along the lines of the Russian Revolution of October 1917. These latter groups (The Anarchists, the Syndicalists and the P.O.U.M.) had been mainly responsible for the collectivization of industry which is one of the most fundamental changes that have been effected in Catalonia. Restaurants, means of transportation, as well as all key industries have been thus collectivized.

During the fighting of the July Days of 1936, many owners of industry, shopkeepers and restaurateurs, tired of the perpetual tumult and fearful of their lives should a social revolution be successful, fled the country. To take over the abandoned enterprises and operate them was at once a natural step and a necessity for the continued economic existence of Catalonia. The expropriation was carried out principally by the C.N.T. which in the course of the past year has become the leading industrial corporation as well as the most powerful proletarian group. The change of direction was not effectuated without considerable confusion during the early period of workers’ control.

Oh my goodness! Doesn’t that sound like a place just east of hell on earth. My father’s superiors at the RBofC did urge him to leave Barcelona and he told them that he felt he must stay there to protect the lives and livelihood of his Spanish employees. Yes, this does sound like something my father would do and give as his reason for doing it. A bit sanctimonious, well meaning and taking himself more seriously than he should have, probably.

All during his lifetime he never told me anything about his experiences in Barcelona, not one thing! I inherited some papers from him that said little of fact or feelings.

After sending his wife and children back to Canada in July 1936, he came to get us in the fall of 1937 and brought us back to live in Vernet-l-bains in the French Pyrenees about 80 klicks west of Perpignan, a wonderful Provencal city of the “Cote Emeraude”.

That’s my mother’s handwriting at the bottom of the photo.

Related articles by Zemanta

• What Spain Sees in Robert Capa’s Civil War Photo (time.com)
• Spanish Civil War bodies exhumed (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Spain thanks civil war veterans (guardian.co.uk)

The quotable Einstein!

Image via Wikipedia

Since this was posted on the Internet for free re-use I decided to copy it into this blog. I love the simple think approach of Albert E. In his time and after he was considered very quotable. So here it is:

[Note: This list of Einstein quotes was being forwarded around the Internet in e-mail, so I decided to put it on my web page. I'm afraid I can't vouch for its authenticity, tell you where it came from, who compiled the list, who Kevin Harris is, or anything like that. Still, the quotes are interesting and enlightening.]

Collected Quotes from Albert Einstein

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.”
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
“Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.”
“I want to know God’s thoughts; the rest are details.”
“The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.”
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
“The only real valuable thing is intuition.”
“A person starts to live when he can live outside himself.”
“I am convinced that He (God) does not play dice.”
“God is subtle but he is not malicious.”
“Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.”
“I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.”
“The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.”
“Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.”
“Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.”
“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”
“Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak minds.”
“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
“Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.”
“Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one’s living at it.”
“The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.”
“The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.”
“God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically.”
“The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.”
“Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.”
“Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.”
“The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.”
“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
“Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school.”
“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.”
“Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.”
“Equations are more important to me, because politics is for the present, but an equation is something for eternity.”
“If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.”
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the the universe.”
“As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.”
“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.”
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
“In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep.”
“The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there’s no risk of accident for someone who’s dead.”
“Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves.”
“Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism — how passionately I hate them!”
“No, this trick won’t work…How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?”
“My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.”
“Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our politics and our equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation stands forever.”
“The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking…the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker.”
“Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.”
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”
“A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeeded be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.”
“The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge.”
“Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
“You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.”
“One had to cram all this stuff into one’s mind for the examinations, whether one liked it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect on me that, after I had passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year.”
“…one of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one’s own ever-shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought.”
“He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.”

“A human being is a part of a whole, called by us _universe_, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest… a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.” (Sign hanging in Einstein’s office at Princeton)
Copyright: Kevin Harris 1995 (may be freely distributed with this acknowledgement)

Related articles by Zemanta

• Quotes Uncovered: The Universe and Stupidity (freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com)

The NY Times raises an interesting point, History’s Verdict …

about torture by US of A institutions, the military, CIA et al. Here’s a quote from an opinion piece written by Charles Fried :

If you cannot see the difference between Hitler and Dick Cheney, between Stalin and Donald Rumsfeld, between Mao and Alberto Gonzales, there may be no point in our talking. It is not just a difference of scale, but our leaders were defending their country and people — albeit with an insufficient sense of moral restraint — against a terrifying threat by ruthless attackers with no sense of moral restraint at all.

He is a professor at Harvard Law School and is the author of “Modern Liberty”.

I for one lowly non-perfessor don’t believe that there is any moral difference between torturing one person or thousands, even millions. The moral point is that torture is torture, just like torturing and killing is morally repugnant whether one is done  or multitudes.

Oh you’re thinking, but Hitler was a “mad monster” who bloodlusted and so did Mao and especially Stalin. Well, they certainly didn’t consider one or many lives worth much if those lives stood in the way of their policies or exercise of state power.

For them the real issue was the ends and not the means. In fact, neither of them indulged in blood lust either openly or in private. Oh

Image via Wikipedia

, they villified their political and ethnic opponents with violent words and ideas, but they did not practice vampire like rituals. So do you still agree with the good Prof Fried that it’s obvious that Cheney et all can’t and shouldn’t be mentioned in the same breath as Hitler et al.

If you do then I suggest that you might think about how you would have behaved had you been an officer or soldier in the Nazi Wehrmacht or a neighbor of any concentration camp or had a relative in the SS or a Gulag guard, or a member of the Red Guards, like Jan Wong, who is a Toronto resident. She is and was then a Canadian citizen and a rabid Red Guard in “Communist” China. Morally culpable all  or not?

So this law professor and I will not be talking ever. Because whatever the rationale, immoral and proscribable acts are anathema, however the number of times they are done and according to whichever rationale they are excused by.

String ‘em up now!

I hear some of you saying to yourself that it’s easy for a nobody like this blogger to pass around charges of moral culpability since I never have, nor ever will, hold public office. But think about more about it. That’s not my point. The Professor never held public office either. But he considers it his right and priviledge to defend the likes of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzalez and GWB from charges of culpability, even of accountability for inhumane and immoral acts carried out under their watch.

Shame on you all!

Related articles by Zemanta

• The Bush Administration’s Most Despicable Act
• The Torture Report
• Donald Rumsfeld, War Criminal
• Andy Worthington: The Ten Lies of Dick Cheney (Part One)

Whatever Tom Cruise says or thinks here is what historians say about …

Image via Wikipedia

Count Von Stauffenberg and his attempted coup against Hitler and his thugs in 1944. It ain’t quite the story that Cruise tells about that desparate attempt to eliminate an obviously unbalanced regime and begin to arrive at peace with the Allies, especially the US of A.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Tom Cruise’s Nazi film Valkyrie gets release date
• Myth of ‘humane’ Nazi Erwin Rommel debunked
• Adolf Hitler at the centre of Austria’s City of Culture campaign

So the GWB interregnum was just a carryover from the 20th Century

Image via Wikipedia

So saith:

EJ Dionne:

What we call “The Sixties” in the United States, with its ethos of reform and protest, ended with Richard Nixon’s landslide reelection in 1972 and the winding down of the Vietnam War.

In the same way, the outcome of this year’s election means that 2009 will, finally, mark the beginning of the 21st century.

I sure hope that the next “century” begins better than the last one ended, with special mention of GWB’s horribilis regime!

Related articles by Zemanta

• History resumes

Does he fit the CW version of a “Communist”?

Image via Wikipedia

Here’s how James Fallows describes him in a recent issue of The Atlantic:

His office, in one of the more tasteful new glass-walled high-rises in Beijing, itself seems less Chinese than internationally “fusion”-minded in its aesthetic and furnishings. Bonsai trees in large pots, elegant Japanese-looking arrangements of individual smooth stones on display shelves, Chinese and Western financial textbooks behind the desk, with a photo of Martin Luther King Jr. perched among the books. Two very large, very thin desktop monitors read out financial data from around the world. As we spoke, Western classical music played softly from a good sound system.

Gao dressed and acted like a Silicon Valley moneyman rather than one from Wall Street—open-necked tattersall shirt, muted plaid jacket, dark slacks, scuffed walking shoes. Rimless glasses. His father was a Red Army officer who was on the Long March with Mao. As a teenager during the Cultural Revolution, Gao worked on a railroad-building gang and in an ammunition factory. He is 55, fit-looking, with crew-cut hair and a jokey demeanor rather than an air of sternness.

That certainly doesn’t give a real visual impression of a member of the Chinese Communist leaders class. It sounds much more like a con

Image via Wikipedia

ventional executive and national leader, which could be in Canada or the US after putting aside the description of the father’s story.

He embodies CAPITALIST CHINA. Get used to it, America!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Town that provided a refuge for Mao’s dream

A graphic picture of the spread of religion since the beginning!

Click here and see it spread over the world!