Am I the only one who finds this inspiring?  A drop in the bucket, but who knows...

Thank you! That is just what I needed to hear!

Now that's what I call brave.  Made me think back to that guy standing alone in front of the tank in Tiananmen Square.

Thanks for posting.

Aphra

Lest we be so foolish as to equate the abundance of consumer goods with freedom and the just rule of law... China is ruled by the next generation of the old Revolutionary Party... you can vanish into their prison system for any reason or no reason and you will discover that you have no recourse, no civil rights... we naive westerners have been so enticed by their productive capacity (much the result of having few worker health or safety protections) that we easily forget that their hard political core is not, not, not populated by sentimental liberal squishes... as anyone unfortunate enough to be a member of Falun Gong Dafa...

That was probably the most moving image that I was able to watch live in my lifetime.

That's a really interesting thought, Mr SD - the most moving events you've ever seen live on TV.  One that immediately springs to mind, in a completely different way, is the Twin Towers coming down.  Seeing that as it happened - I'll never forget that - it was so shocking, in the truest sense of the word.

And again, in yet another sense, is watching the Berlin Wall come down, and all the people flooding in from the East.  Emotional, but also from a European and global perspective, thinking, now what?

I have other moments, but these three - Tiananman Square, Twin Towers and Berlin Wall - are significant turning points in history, I think, and to contemplate that you've lived through them - amazing!  Can you think of any others that have affected you?

Aphra

There is no pretense of being a democracy on their part.  They are trying to mix Left Wing extremist old guard communism with a free market capitalist economy.  At some point something will give.  Ultimately the Chinese government will have to do one of three things.  Either give up some power which they will never willingly do, or they will have to repress the emerging middle class to keep power. The third option and most likely interim course is to leverage rising Chinese nationalism against an external threat to keep the internal problems at as manageable level as they can for as long as they can.  Wonder who that external threat might be?  hmmmm

they have a far longer sense of history than we do... they'd rather slowly overwhelm and engulf an adversary than risk a head to head confrontation, in ten years they will be so much more developed you won't believe it... I know because I was there in the old RCP days when they were a dirt poor peasant society and when I see the new China it is unrecognizable... another thing nobody has ever done before with a society is selectively abort as many as 20% of their female fetuses in some regions....which means a much more male, horny, agressive, math and engineering based culture than has ever existed.... most of the women I associated with has a tubal ligation scar, state enforced family planning...and they study their adversaries very closely a long time before making their move...they're masters of the fake out, lulling an opponent into a false sense of security, they can be maddeningly ambiguous to deal with directly, like negotiating with an anaconda.... we're headed for "interesting times" in the coming decade.

Kerry's Chinagate - Loral Money Going to DNC
Charles R. Smith
Wednesday, July 7, 2004
Loral Space and Communications has hit hard times in recent years. On June 28, a Sea Launch Russian Zenit-3SL rocket failed to put the Loral Telstar 18 satellite into a proper orbit.


Loral officials stated the big telecommunications satellite had enough on-board fuel to reach a proper orbit but the failure typifies a long series of wrong turns for the ailing satellite firm.

In 2002, Loral Space reached a settlement with the State Department over charges of passing advanced military technology to the Chinese Army. Loral agreed to pay $20 million in fines, but did not admit nor deny wrongdoing.

In 2003, Loral declared bankruptcy. The aerospace giant that sold for $72 a share in 1996 watched as its shares tumbled to less than 20 cents a share.

Yet, despite hard times for its investors, Loral's CEO Bernard Schwartz has managed to cough up over $4 million in political donations for the Democrats and non-profit 527 organizations opposed to President Bush.

Schwartz has recently donated money in huge chunks exceeding $100,000 a pop to the DNC and its political committees. Schwartz has also donated money to the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and John Kerry. In addition, Schwartz has pumped thousands of dollars into liberal non-profit organizations such as Americans for Jobs, the New Democrat Network, and Joint Victory Campaign 2004.

No Special Treatment

Despite the recent and frequent donations to Democrats, Loral's CEO says that his company never sought special treatment. Yet, documented history speaks differently about Schwartz and Loral.

During the first years of the Clinton administration, Bernard Schwartz was mentioned as a candidate for Secretary of Defense. In June of 1994, presidential aide and Democrat Party fund-raiser Mark Middleton received a letter from Loral Chairman Bernard Schwartz.

The letter thanked Middleton for a 1994 meeting at the White House with another top Clinton aide "Mr. McLarty." This reporter obtained by the letter from the U.S. Commerce Department by using the Freedom of Information Act.

The White House meeting, according to a Loral attachment, was to ask Russia to change their "GLONASS" navigation satellite system to another radio frequency.

According to Loral, "international aviation interests are considering using GLONASS for position-location, navigation and precision landing of civil aircraft, either alone or in conjunction with the U.S. GPS system."

The "problem" was that the U.S. GPS system "could interfere with the receipt of GLONASS signals used by aircraft for precision landings.... The Russian administration is very interested in the use of GLONASS by the aviation community as part of a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) which would utilize both the U.S. GPS system and GLONASS."

"Russia has stated it is willing to consider such a frequency shift over the next few years. It is critical that the Russians make a commitment that the frequency shift will occur, and provide a timetable for implementation of this change," states the letter from Schwartz.

Trips to China

In August 1994, Schwartz flew to China only two months after writing Middleton. Schwartz traveled to China under a "Presidential Business Development Mission" with Commerce Secretary Ron Brown. Schwartz met with Chinese General Shen Rougjun - a key member of the PLA - with the personal approval of President Bill Clinton.

Chinese Army Lieutenant General Shen Rougjun was second in command at COSTIND - the Chinese Commission for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense.

According to a November, 1997 report, written for the Commerce Department by "think-tank" company SAIC, COSTIND was neither civilian nor engaged in purely commercial activities.

"COSTIND supervises virtually all of China's military research, development and production. It is a military organization, staffed largely by active duty officers... COSTIND also coordinates certain activities with the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), which produces, stores, and controls all fissile material for civilian as well as military applications. COSTIND approves licenses for the use of nuclear materials for military purposes."

In August 1994, Lt. General Shen and Minister Liu of China Aerospace consummated a series of multi-million dollar satellite deals with Loral. The technology obtained from Loral included advanced missile guidance systems and encrypted satellite telemetry systems.

Ickes Memo

In a September 1994 memo to Clinton, Harold Ickes, then White House chief of staff, informed him that Schwartz could be used to raise campaign donations "in order to raise an additional $3,000,000 to permit the Democratic National Committee to produce and air generic TV/radio spots as soon as Congress adjourns."

Ickes then urged Clinton to invite Schwartz to the White House "to impress [him] with the need to raise $3,000,000 within the next two weeks." In another memo, Ickes informed Clinton that Schwartz "is prepared to do anything he can for the administration."

Between October 1995 and March 1996, as Clinton mulled over whether to ignore the State, Justice, and Defense Departments' reasons against granting Loral waivers to export advanced technology to China, Loral Chairman Bernard Schwartz injected more than $150,000 into the DNC's coffers.

In 1996, President Clinton moved the oversight of satellite exports from the State and Defense Departments to the Commerce Department. After Clinton's decision to lift the ban in Loral's case and to allow the exportation of the company's technology to the Chinese military, Loral CEO Schwartz handed over an additional $300,000 to the DNC. In a May 3, 1996 letter signed by the CEOs of Hughes, Lockheed and Loral, the three executives expressed their thanks directly to Bill Clinton.

"In October of last year we wrote to you asking you to complete the transfer of responsibility for commercial satellite export licensing to the Department of Commerce. Your administration recently announced it intention to do just that."


"We greatly appreciate this action which demonstrates again your strong commitment to reforming the U.S. export control system," states a letter signed by Hughes CEO Armstrong, Lockheed CEO Norman Augustine and Loral CEO Bernard Schwartz.

The Commerce Department was ill equipped to deal with satellite exports to China. The resulting fiasco at Commerce allowed the Chinese Army to obtain a vast array of advanced missile, satellite and space technology. In fact, in 1998 the Defense Department charged that the Commerce Department exceeded its legal authority by authorizing export transfers to a foreign military. The result was Congress stripped the Commerce Department of its satellite export authority and returned it back to the State and Defense Departments.

In the end Hughes and Loral were charged with violating national security. Both Hughes and Loral have since paid record fines. For some strange reason in Clinton's latest 900-page book, "My Life," Schwartz and Loral are never mentioned. Despite the meetings, the money, and the close-knit relationship between Bill Clinton and Bernard Schwartz, the ex-President saw fit to leave these little facts out of his memoirs.

Money to Kerry

Current Presidential candidate John Kerry began accepting donations from Schwartz at about the same time he took money from China-gate figure Johnny Chung. By this time, however, the Loral CEO was already very familiar with China Aerospace and its PLA connections.

During the August 1994 trade trip to China, Schwartz also met with Liu Ju-Yuan the minister of China Aerospace Corporation. Minister Liu was the official boss of Chinese Army Lt. Colonel Liu Chao Ying.

Lt. Col. Liu was well known in military and intelligence circles. Lt. Col. Liu's father, a retired PLA general, was until 1997 vice chairman of the Central Military Commission.

According to stories published in the New York Times, Newsweek and the New York Post, Chung came to Kerry's office in July 1996 to seek help in getting Lt. Colonel Liu Chao Ying in to meet with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Lt. Colonel Liu was then an executive of China Aerospace, a PLA military owned company that produces nuclear tipped missiles. Liu's sponsor Johnny Chung made it clear during a meeting in Senator Kerry's office that she was interested in getting China Aerospace listed on the U.S. Stock Exchange.

In response, Kerry ordered his aides to contact the Securities and Exchange Commission. According to Newsweek, "the next day Liu and Chung were ushered into a private briefing with a senior SEC official." Within a week of the SEC meeting, Kerry's staff wrote Chung asking him to host a Sept. 9 fund-raiser.

China-gate figure Johnny Chung pled guilty to funneling $10,000 to Kerry and $18,000 to Clinton's 1996 reelection on orders from Chinese General Ji, then the head of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) military intelligence. The money donated to Kerry came directly from cash provided by the Chinese Army General.

Ironically, a Freedom of Information request for the SEC documents of the meetings with Chung and Lt. Col. Liu revealed that the Commission could not find any responsive materials. Somehow, the request from a leading U.S. Senator - John Kerry - to the SEC has been lost.


During the 1996 election, Loral CEO, Bernard L. Schwartz, was the single largest individual donor to the Democrats. Schwartz and his wife Irene contributed $1,122,000 to federal campaigns, of which $1,089,750 went to Democratic candidates and party committees.

In 2004, John Kerry is getting loads of cash from Schwartz. Both Kerry and his running mate John Edwards are from the "engagement" school on export policy with China. It would appear on the surface of the checkbook that Schwartz expects a Kerry/Edwards administration will shift satellite authority back to the Commerce Department.

Of course, Schwartz still expects no favorable treatment from Kerry in return for his cash donations.

George W. Bush didn't win the 2004 election because of the illustriousness of his record.  He won because his opposition didn't convince enough of the electorate that John Kerry and the Democratic Party were an improvement over the incumbent.

Harping on how bad things are isn't enough.  An opposition that desires to win must convince the electorate that it would be an improvement over what they have already.  Tony Blair didn't win reelection because voters liked him; neither the Tories nor the Lib Dems were perceived as a substantial improvement.  Likewise for President Bush.  The Democrats didn't make a convincing case that their candidate ought to be our President.

If I had been presented with a better alternative than George W. Bush, I would have voted for him (or her).  And I don't think I'm alone.

For example, I think that fighting a war while pushing gargantuan tax cuts for billionaires is a horrible idea that has led to a loss of morale on the home front.  Yet, the activism of certain anti-war billionaires is, if anything, more irritating than the blundering at the White House.

Getting back to the original article prompting this thread, has everyone missed why the farmers were rioting? This was not an ideological battle as people have characterized it in this thread. The farmers weren't protesting because they felt less free. They were rioting because there is an alliance between big industry and government that is systematically destroying the ecosystem that they depend upon for sustenance and livelihood. Try re-reading the link and think of another super power whose government is closely aligned with big industry to the detriment of the people.

This is actually very good news.  The lack of environmental regulation over there is part of their competitive advantage and why companies are relocating manufacturing to China and other developing countries.  Lets hope that this continues and that eventually, the people force some balance between manufacturing and environmental responsibility over there.  That will help restore American jobs more than anything else.