Mark’s Soap Box

The unspoken part of that Mao statement is the “facts” are what the elite say are the “facts.” It’s a classic lefty catch-phrase. Sounds good, until you know the whole story. They always leave out something important.

The LA Times spins the demise of Mao and the Marxist Morons in China.

Professor Tao Xiuao cracked jokes, told stories, projected a Power Point presentation on a large video screen. But his students at Beijing Foreign Studies University didn’t even try to hide their boredom.

Young men spread newspapers out on their desks and pored over the sports news. A couple of students listened to iPods; others sent text messages on their cellphones. One young woman with chic red-framed glasses spent the entire two hours engrossed in “Jane Eyre,” in the original English. Some drifted out of class, ate lunch and returned. Some just lay their heads on their desktops and went to sleep.

Sounds like American Colleges and High Schools. So much for the vaunted Chinese educational system. Maybe bad teaching is ingrained in the government educational philosophy. Then again, maybe it’s the fact that they don’t pay for their education that causes them to not respect it. Hmmm.

This student has not shot at a job at the LAT or NYT.

“Compared to my normal opinions about the world … it’s [Marxism] something like fiction,” said Du Zimu,

However I did find the next editor of the Nation.

Zhao Fan, who uses the English name Nathan while he’s studying the language, was the most conservative, arguing that Marxist education, if somewhat boring, was essential for any Chinese student.

“I think it’s very important to learn these principles,” he said. “Sometimes it’s boring, but it’s really useful.”

Yea, kiss ass.

Nathan saw no contradiction between Marxist beliefs and his career goals: He wants to go into marketing, ideally for one of China’s largest corporations, get an MBA from a foreign university and go into management.

Of course not, like all Marxist he believes the ends justify the means. Lying is o.k. as long as you win and don’t get caught. It’s “meaning well” that matters to Socialists and Marxists.

The funniest quote from the article is this:

“The main reason Chinese officials and scholars do not talk about communism is that hardly anybody really believes that Marxism should provide guidelines for thinking about China’s political future,” he wrote. “The ideology has been so discredited by its misuses that it has lost almost all legitimacy in society…. To the extent there’s a need for a moral foundation for political rule in China, it almost certainly won’t come from Karl Marx.”

Yea it’s the misuse of the failed ideology that is to blame. Oh and the person quoted is

Daniel A. Bell, a Canadian who is the first Westerner in the modern era to teach politics at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China’s most elite educational institution,

Gee a Canadian, what a shock. The Chinese are ejecting Marxism, while Canada embraces it. The LA Times and NY Times are still flogging it as well. They are even less mainstream than Canada. However Canada might be coming around, too soon to call.

It may be because they know that to succeed in China, it helps immensely to be a member of the ruling Communist Party. It may be because Marxism and Maoist philosophy are so deeply woven into the fabric of Chinese life that students take them for granted, the way some American students accept a constitutional democracy without thinking too deeply about the alternatives. It may be because they truly believe in Marxism, and see the current period as a necessary stage on the path to true communism.

Pretzel logic and spin.

First: the U.S. is a Representative Republic, not a Democracy of any stripe.

Second: The fact that you have to be a member of the communist party to succeed should make it clear that Marxism and more broadly Socialism are still rampant in China. Anyone else see similarities to the Union movement? I do. Also note that the Democrats here in the U.S. espouse the same thoughts on government and belonging to the right group. Hmmm

Third: the true-believer nonsense would be comical if it were not so diabolic in it’s results. Sadly the Democratic party thinks exactly that way.

Gao Pan was on the other side of the ideological spectrum. Dressed in a black T-shirt, he was the rebel of the group, complaining about the lack of academic freedom in China. Referring to Marxism, he said, “If a theory proves to be wrong, you ought to be able to challenge it.” That you can’t, he said, “is a problem in China.”

Don’t think it’s any better at American Universities. They still thinks it’s 1949.

The LAT stumbles upon the problem. Indoctrination. They don’t see it that way of course.

“In our real life,” he said, “most students complain a lot about these kinds of lessons. Nearly everyone. I think it’s because we have learned all these things from the very beginning … even since kindergarten, so it’s become so routine that everyone’s bored. I think all of these lessons are very important and useful. But we shouldn’t learn them every year.”

It’s the repetition that is the problem. The philosophy of course is right on.

That is where Chinese educators say reform will make a difference.

To demonstrate, they invited a reporter to a model junior high school in Beijing, not far from the iconic Temple of Heaven, one of China’s greatest religious and architectural shrines. At the school, students are participating in a pilot program to learn the fundamentals of environmentalism, as part of a “values” class that used to contain a strong dose of Marxist ideology.

That’s rich. Values based upon Marxism. Remember that Mikail Gobachev went to work as an Environmentalist.

Same crap, different package.

Tian Qing, a professor of environmental education at Beijing Normal University, said this was one of 30 schools in Beijing, and a larger number scattered around the country, using an environmental curriculum developed in conjunction with the World Wildlife Fund and the British oil giant BP.

The WWF is a “friend of China”. They are known for their Panda love, and they work well with the Chinese. This of course means they are good little commies.

The most disgusting part of the article was this:

LATER, Song had them write all the ways their families waste energy or water, and selected students to read their answers to the class. Everybody cracked up when one boy said his family might be wasting water because they have a fish tank with just one fish in it. “Maybe we should get another fish,” he said with a smirk.

Gee sounds like “1984″, and the Hitler Youth. The LAT thinks is no big deal, just learning about the earth.

The class, one education official added, adheres to the motto “Think globally, act locally”

Sound familiar? That is how far behind are the Chinese. They are just now quoting the 60s clap trap.

“We do like it,” 13-year-old Yu Yang said after class, “because it’s relevant to our lives.” Not, he said, like some classes — history, for instance.

Just like U.S. students.

A lot of American students would say the same thing, so it’s not fair to blame Marx for Yang’s distaste for history. Still, what’s happening at schools like his, not to mention what’s happening outside their doors, suggests that Marx’s hold on China may be slipping.

Yea, Marx he is not to blame. It must be America’s fault.

“They don’t believe in God or communism,” he said. “They’re practical. They only worship the money.”

I am so tired of people saying that. It is pure poppycock. Wanting a better life is not greed. Dumbasses.

Tags: china, communists, los angeles times, new york times, socialist, mao, mao zedong