The Death of Laughter in China
The hatred of human joy and happiness that resides within the heart of the totalitarian mind is once again on prominent display — this time in communist China, where Guo Degang, a beloved Chinese comic, has been viciously silenced by the tyrants at large. The Marxist despotism knows all too well that the prerequisite for enslaving man is to purge him of any human impulse or trait that can spawn a smile, or worse, a cheerful laugh.
Guo Degang is renowned among the Chinese people for his use of his culture’s popular xiangsheng, or “cross talk” — a traditional Chinese comedic performance art that blends stand-up comedy rich in puns, poetry, and allusions with a quick, bantering style. Degang’s performances were full of critical and mocking sarcasm, directed not only at himself and at the Chinese as a whole, but also at the communist regime and its rulers. He also sprinkled in an earthly sexual humor, which was finally, all too much to bear for the totalitarian puritanism of the regime. And so, in recent weeks, the government embarked on a Iranian-style “Anti-Vulgarity Campaign” — a crackdown on what President Hu Jintao calls the “three vulgarities“: sex-obsessed, mindless, and tasteless culture. Degang has become the poster casualty of that purge.
The torch-carriers for Mao Tse-tung’s Red Guards have seen to it that Degang’s CDs and books have been purged from all of Beijing’s store shelves. The comedian’s website has been repeatedly hacked so badly that he had to temporarily shut it down. The country’s media has launched a smear campaign against the comedian, making all kinds of defamatory accusations, which include financial corruption, non-payment of fellow comedians, and the seduction of married women. The authorities have shut down his comedy clubs and squashed his media appearances. Degang himself remains out of sight and the Chinese people do not dare utter his name.
The Chinese regime is clearly teaching its people a stern lesson: Don’t only stay clear of criticizing the rulers, but stifle in yourself the desire to laugh. Degang’s audiences roared with laughter. That was a problem. Humor knows no boundaries and is a deadly enemy of the totalitarian state.
There was a reason why Mao criminalized humor. The greatest mass murderer in world history understood how to run a killing machine well. That’s why his butchers criminalized “speaking weird words” — which involved anything from asking strange questions to articulating dissatisfaction to making any kind of wisecrack. These offenses would get one classified as a spy — the consequences of which were obvious.
For every true leftist believer — whether in power or struggling for power — the reality of human joy poses a lethal threat. People who are happy might not quite fully grasp the need for a bloody revolution. In the eyes of the radical who seeks to disinfect the earth from its impurities, experiencing amusement means succumbing to the false consciousness that anti-socialist forces try to induce into humans to distract them from the constant vigilance that is required to perfect a revolution through terror. That is why Vladimir Lenin adamantly refused to listen to music, since, as he explained, “it makes you want to say stupid, nice things and stroke the heads of people who could create such beauty while living in this vile hell.” For the mass-murdering Bolshevik leader, violent revolution was the priority — a priority endangered by the positive emotions music could induce.
And it is no wonder that other totalitarian systems have practiced Lenin’s dictum. Islam, for instance, has always obediently followed this same human-hating value system. Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian Muslim radical and Muslim Brotherhood theorist who became one of the godfathers of Islamism, personified Islam’s hatred of humor and happiness well. Living in Colorado from 1948 to 1950, he was enraged by Americans’ interest in having “a good time” and “fun.” He despised all the comforts of modern American life. He was particularly repulsed by a dance he witnessed after a church service. He writes with horror: “The dancing intensified. … The hall swarmed with legs. … Arms circled arms, lips met lips, chests met chests, and the atmosphere was full of love.”
Great piece, Jamie. My wife grew up in China during the Cultural Revolution. I’m sending this to her and some of her friends.
This article should be presented to Stephen Colbert, Jon Steward, Bill Mahrer and all the other left wing water carriers.
“This is what is waiting for you down the road you want to tread. His fate is YOUR fate! Only free people laugh, slaves dare not even smile.”
This is the world Obama and his ilk are trying to put into place here.
Mock this concern only at your peril.
Not having heard Guo Degang, this American’s sympathies are reserved. Frankly, I wish someone would muzzle some of the talentless clods passing themselves off as comedians right here in the USA. Put the annoying jerks up against the wall and shoot them for all I care. Start with Al Franken and Bill Maher.
As for enmity of frivolity, its history predates communism and Islam. Even those who enjoyed humor lopped off the head of an annoying jester now and again in the ancient of days. Comedy was always a tough game.
One could easily insert “comedians” into the first three stanzas, the point remains the same. If we do not speak out against injustices against others, there may not be anyone around to speak out against injustices to us.
Spare me your sanctimony ConservativeWanderer. You need to worry about threats closer to home. Comedy clubs in the USA aren’t being raided by the police and comedians aren’t being arrested as they were in Lenny Bruce’s time but the suppression of comedic talent in our own country is fierce. And from the left this time, not the right.
Can you name a popular conservative American comedian? Dennis miller, maybe. But Miller is only one lonely jokemeister and and Miller’s public exposure is severely limited. You will never see Miller on Saturday Night Live or any other big-time comedy venue. The left dominates American media and Miller’s humor isn’t welcome. Meanwhile, Franken, Maher, Stewart and Colbert and hundreds of other comedic mediocraties of leftist persuasion are afforded every opportunity to come into America’s living rooms and bore millions with their dullard shtick and adolescent political insights.
And it ain’t just comedians being shut out. Mark Steyn may be the finest editorial writer in the English language we have but the ordinary reader of the New York Times never heard of him.
Criticize the Chinese regime for grotesque and inhumane population control policies and genetic engineering; for offences against the Tibetan people; for blindly idealogical economic policies that led to the starvation of many millions and for a thousand and one other good reasons. But for shutting down comedy clubs and leaning heavily on troublesome comedians?
Ya gotta be kidding.
I can’t believe somebody would rebuke someone for quoting Niemöller’s “First They Came…” But on a lighter note, there are plenty of “conservative” comedians:
“BLUE COLLAR COMEDY TOUR” is very conservative. Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engvall, Ron White and obvious FOX viewer, Larry the Cable Guy. They present a crass, funny, Southern/Midwestern take on the culture.
Speaking of FOX, the RED EYE show is also very funny. They present a crass frat boy take on the culture. Also, lots of (playful) gay-baiting and (not-so-playful) hippie punching.
Or how about Stephen Crowder and Alfonzo Rachel/’ZO NATION on Pajamas Media?
Plenty of these comedians can be sampled on the internet. But again, they can be very crass. “Conservative” doesn’t necessarily mean “clean.”
Censorship is a two way sword but I must say that my first thoughts were along similar lines. The left wing comedians are not funny enough to warrant a reprieve. Line ‘em up pronto!
Amazing how communists always use rampant, unrestricted sex to weaken and collapse societies they target, then outlaw it when they gain power.
Ridicule, too.
How do I put this?
It should be easy for anyone reading my previous comments that I am a Pajamas Media fan and a realist conservative in Politics; that would put me in the side favoring Freedom of Speech, the Media, Expression and Right of Association.
However, this Post is based on the assumption that Freedom is the same everywhere and that all countries have the same situations, and, with respect, THAT IS WHERE YOU GO WRONG IN THIS INSTANCE.
We could go on and on and never reach agreement, so I won’t labor the point.
This is one occasion of which there are many when it would be best for other countries to let China go their way. It has no bearing on American principles and understanding of Freedom on the one hand, and China’s priorities to build a prosperous State in which they will maintain Law and Order the way that they believe in it.
It would be best not to publish this sort of criticism of a country as strong as China; best not throw stuff that can boomerang.
Why does this story remind me of Hillary Clinton in a pants suit?
Yes, this makes China sound like a miserable place, but since all they do is work, work, work, for peanuts, they are working us under the table, while we are enjoying life more. This article is ironic, since many have come to believe that we pursue pleasure, entertainment, escapism etc too much…and we want to retire early.
This analysis of society definitely cut BOTH ways.
The image of a society so threatened that it brings its entire weight to bear on a single individual is telling.
It’s a little disturbing that many of America’s comedians still won’t touch the leftists or the Koolaid Chef, obama. The left wants to take all our money, and silence our laughter and public conversation. Gee, they sure know how to make the world a fine place, don’t they?
It’s good to remember what Psalm 2 says about the Almighty’s personal plans for the future with regard to the nasty rulers of earth who don’t much like Him: “He who sits in the heavens shall laugh. The Lord shall hold them in derision.” There WILL be laughter.
In the words of that lover all all things Totalitarian ” Thomas Freidman “But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages”
From Jonah Goldberg:
So there you have it. If only America could drop its inefficient and antiquated system, designed in the age before globalization and modernity and, most damning of all, before the lantern of Thomas Friedman’s intellect illuminated the land. If only enlightened experts could do the hard and necessary things that the new age requires, if only we could rely on these planners to set the ship of state right. Now, of course, there are “drawbacks” to such a system: crushing of dissidents with tanks, state control of reproduction, government control of the press and the internet. Omelets and broken eggs, as they say. More to the point, Friedman insists, these “drawbacks” pale in comparison to the system we have today here in America.
I cannot begin to tell you how this is exactly the argument that was made by American fans of Mussolini in the 1920s. It is exactly the argument that was made in defense of Stalin and Lenin before him (it’s the argument that idiotic, dictator-envying leftists make in defense of Castro and Chavez today). It was the argument made by George Bernard Shaw who yearned for a strong progressive autocracy under a Mussolini, a Hitler or a Stalin (he wasn’t picky in this regard). This is the argument for an “economic dictatorship” pushed by Stuart Chase and the New Dealers. It’s the dream of Herbert Croly and a great many of the Progressives.
I have no idea why I still have the capacity to be shocked by such things. A few years ago, during the worst part of the Iraq war, I wrote a column saying that Iraq needed a Pinochet type to bring order to Iraq and help develop democratic and liberal institutions. To this day, I get vicious hate mail from liberal and leftist readers for my “pro-dictator” stance. Meanwhile, Thomas Friedman, golden boy of the NYT op-ed page, is writing love-letters to dictatorships because they have the foresight to invest in electric batteries and waterless toilets or something. It looks like there’s reason to hope I was wrong about Iraq (I certainly hope I was). But at least I favored a dictatorship of sorts — for another country! – because I thought it would lead to a liberal democracy. Here, Friedman lives in a liberal democracy but has his nose pressed up against the candy store window of a cruel, undemocratic, regime and all he can do is drool over the prospect of having the same power here. It’s disgusting.
Creeps like Freidman can say this because they know where there place would be in such a system. The elite top crust, dining in the finest clubs and restaurants in DC, writing op-eds in favor of the regime, in control of the proles. And like in most dictatorships Freidman and his cronies would be entertained behind closed doors by the likes of Guo Degang.
Friedman is a legend in his own mind. He’s a hack.
Wow, sounds somewhat like Modern Corporate America.
Lets not condemn the Chinese on par with Islam or the Russians. Lets not forget that obscene books were banned in certain regions (Boston?) the western world well into the early 20th century.
China today is a unique sort of “tyranny” in that people can become millionaires as long as they maintain “good taste.”. The “Others” aren’t persecuted by the system, simply because they’re “others”. Property rights are also being recognized now, so its going to be a slow transformation to “maturity”. This is clearly not a defense of oppression per se, but the Chinese ruling elite are not mindless “thugs” (once you get past Mao), unlike the Russians or Arabs.
After reading a review of Jonathan Franzen’s new trashy book (The big Os have given it publicity – Obama and Oprah) I’m beginning to think that true conservatives would be revolted by the vulgarity in our culture. (can you even imagine Reagan reading Franzen’s book?). This is going off on a tangent here but he’s (Franzen) also on TIME magazine’s cover. An utterly vulgar mind emanating unmitigated trash. And he’s America’s foremost novelist.
To draw a parallel: hardcore libertarians advocate open borders and zero taxes. Our condemning the Chinese for enforcing “good taste” is not quite dissimilar to, say, the libertarians condemning our immigration laws or tax laws, though obviously the subjects under discussion are not in the same sphere of human affairs. Libertine behavior in private shouldn’t be prohibited by law. Its unthinkable. However, resisting the coarsening of culture (public sphere)…is within the realm of the government regulation. If you disagree, and call it censorship, you should be fighting against the FCC’s indecency rules as well. And file civil rights suits against “no shoes ,no shirt, no service” signs
(Yes yes I understand that the FCC reports to the elected officials and the Chinese elite aren’t “democratically” elected. Their offices aren’t hereditary either.)
“For every true leftist believer — whether in power or struggling for power — the reality of human joy poses a lethal threat. People who are happy might not quite fully grasp the need for a bloody revolution.”
Islam teaches the same thing. They have bans on music, female singers, kite flying and movies. Islam generates its own dissatisfactions and it wants to channel this despair into jihad. The book they follow seems to be a manual for exporting revolution. They discovered these principles 100′s of years before Lenin did.
The first casualty in Ideology is the truth.
Gou Degang got himself into an altercation with a Television Station, he is very popular comedian, has a bit of an ego and it got the best of him. That aside, I watched tapes of his shows on CCTV last night. You can still hear him on the radio and see his shows on TV. I know this as i live in China. His tiff with the Media was well publicized, with public opinion falling on both sides of the event, just like everything that occurs in each country on earth.
What i find interesting is the manner this get spun by Foreign Media, that the government is cracking down on him, and his tapes are barred or restricted. That is not the case, and for any journalist to mention Mao’s Red guards has obviously not set foot on Chinese soil for over 40 years.
the first casualty is Truth.
“China Central Television (CCTV) is the national TV station of the People´s Republic of China”
Odd that someone from China has full web access to read and post on Western political blogs. Wonder how that could be? Thought there was a great firewall there? How do you get special access to go around that firewall?
What a splendid column. One for the archives.
Something I read once – and I truly don’t remember the source – suggested a staggeringly simple antidote to dictators in totalitarian regimes. If all of the regimes subjects would simply gather en masse at a speech by the dictator and laugh uproariously at everything he said, the dictator would find himself deposed in very short order. Being laughed at by people who are supposed to be under your thumb is supposed to be the ultimate expression of derision and scorn toward the dictator from his subjects. No dictator can sustain his power if he is not taken seriously. Or so goes this theory.
I’ve never seen this idea attempted, at least with humour, although we saw something comparable in Nicolae Ceausescu’s last public speech in Romania. See the sick look on his face when the crowd stops following their scripts at about 2 minutes and 30 seconds into this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWIbCtz_Xwk….
Just imagine Kim Jung Il giving one of his big addresses in North Korea and then have the entire audience bursting into relentless laughter whenever he brags about the great freedom and wealth of the North Korean people….
That’s amazing footage from Romania. How great that that was captured….whoever grabbed it could not possibly have understood the YouTube impact it would be making over the decades.
Makes me sick to see what’s happening in China. Not surprising, of course, but always sickening to see personal liberty stomped for the state. We remember, of course, what they did before the Olympics. They play the world like a fiddle, pulling the liars in and out according to their will. The reason liars are so easily deceived is because they always think they’re smarter that anyone else.
Well, as the liars and wannabe dictators in the Cocktail Party (that would be ruling class Republicans) and the Parasite Party (that would be the “give me your money–NOW” democrat party) are showing their true colors these days, it’s good to reminded that when it’s time to laugh at them, I just believe we will. Loud. And long.
Humorless?
That describes Obama to a tee.
And this article explains much about his lack of humor. Wasn’t he tutored by marxists?
Sure – he makes his ‘enemy of the day’ the butt of his jokes but you never see him deride himself in jokes unless it’s to mock the Tea Party or unfavorite righty of the day. I may have missed it but I doubt he could just tell a joke that didn’t make someone he dislikes politically the butt of that joke.
He couldn’t be a commie – could he?
Sorry. I’m not impressed by this article. I’m too busy watching America swirl down a toilet of hedonistic delights. There’s an extremist flip-side to totalitarian crackdowns against joy. It’s called “limbo culture: how low can you go?”
I just don’t feel like patting myself on the back for not living in a place where a comedian has run afoul of the government while I live in a place where we get polygamy “reality” shows; where every teen pop star that your kids watch eventually dispenses with “squeaky clean” and devolves into “slut.”
Nope. I’m not going to throw stones at China while my country drops down a hedonism hole.
Lord, do people truly think Chinese Govt have some sort of firewall that prevents everyone from accessing the net or blogging..? There is nothing i cannot access or respond too. Its called the WORLD WIDE WEB for a reason.
I am US citizen and left California in 2005, it seems US has kept its blinders on and cannot accept other nations actually progress, or believe the nonsense about China and Russia and other nations…it does so at its own risk.
China is setting aside reserves to back its Dollar, Gold, Nickel, Copper and Silver reserves. As the US floats larger and larger deficits and debts and debasing its dollar, China is strengthening its Economy with hard assets.
Russia is spending BILLIONS on its energy and shipping industries, as well as its massive mining resources. Brasil is overtaking the US mining industry, Chile is selling its goods in euros and Yuan, avoiding the US dollar…
Media in the US keeps running fluff pieces while the rest of the world is planning how to improve their economy and increase their middle class.. wake up and learn about the world.
300 Million Chinese will enter the Middle class in the next 8-10 years. Think about that for a few hours, and how it will change the structure of geopolitics and world economics. Now ask yourself why isn’t the US government initiating policies to strengthen the Economy, bring back manufacturing, cut spending, cut taxes, and invest in the infrastructure needed to support the American private sector taxpayer?
Gee, I dunno, “alex,” maybe it was stories like this or this (note, that’s from the left-leaning Human Rights Watch), or this (from the UK’s Guardian newspaper, also hardly a bastion of conservatism), or even this from Harvard that might give us the idea that there’s censorship of the internet in China.
There’s lots more stories, but I think four should be sufficient to prove the point.
” Now ask yourself why isn’t the US government initiating policies to strengthen the Economy, bring back manufacturing, cut spending, cut taxes, and invest in the infrastructure needed to support the American private sector taxpayer?”
Ok I asked. The answer is that they are too busy growing government and installing a form of socialism that kills the economy while re-distributing other people’s money addicting a majority of our population to hand-outs in order to secure their votes permanently. They think the way to keep manufacturing here is to raise tariffs, subsidize favored industries and nurture extra strong unions to keep wages and benefits arbitrarily high. As for the infrastructure – all they need to do is get the h*## out of the way and let the private sector provide the investment and the decision-making as to what is needed. Fat chance.
Coming soon to left/liberal America… progressives have no sense of humor. (Remember in November!)
K.T. Thinking of the current occupant of the White House just makes me miss the good-natured humor of Ronald Reagan.
Well ” Conservative Wanderer”,
I would suggest better research on your part. Funny how the left becomes proof when it suits pre conceived ideas and ideals, but when there is something that conflicts with ideology the left becomes useless. Selective research.
China is about to overtake the United States in almost every Economic measure because of several serious errors; Allowing the Federal Reserve to control the Economy, removing the US Dollar from the Gold Standard in 1971, placing the US on the Petro Dollar System, Gutting the manufacturing sector with Nafta, and then burdening the taxpayer with incredibly massive entitlement programs guaranteed to bankrupt the Nation.
So instead of understanding the Economic Dynamics changing the world before our eyes, there are badly researched stories about a comedian being oppressed that isn’t accurate.
A people get the Government they deserve.
Pathetic spin, “alex.”
The point was about Chinese censorship of the internet, which I note you didn’t mention at all. Perhaps because you can’t deny it in the face of all the evidence?
By the way, I deliberately picked lefty sites to keep you from claiming that it was a conservative anti-China bias.
However, the point isn’t the sites, it’s that someone claiming to be from China apparently has open access to PJM, when the fact of Chinese censorship appears to well-established. Therefore, reasonable people have the duty to ask, are you really in China, and if so, how are you getting past the censorship? Do you, perhaps, work for the Chinese government, trying to squash stories like this that make them look bad?
Give it up “Alex”.
Anyone who disagrees with the teabots, is a leftwing chinese counter-propagandist/agent and/or is part of Soros’ massive leftwing conspiracy, preventing the “conservatives” from “taking America back”.
Didn’t you know?
(No matter even if you agree that the original article’s arguments are perfectly sane and devoid of flame-throwing.)
The fact that you’re against the Fed, does indicate that you yourself maybe a teabot. But they demand total purity.
–”unhinged”
Not yet described as an essential element in much of humor is the ability to laugh at oneself. This often involves admitting that one was wrong about something and then making jokes about all the egg on one’s face. There’s usually an inherent strength of character that comes across when this is done. Humility is usually somewhere on the horizon too.
On the other hand, making derogatory jokes about one’s opponent can sound petulant, insensitive, or even cruel, especially if one hasn’t first prepared the audience with an even bigger dose of one’s own shortcomings or humility.
My main point is that I believe it is a hallmark of most leftist/neototalitarian cultures to be incapable of making an admission that one has been wrong. Especially off limits is to say that the party line has been wrong. And without such ability, how can one make fun of oneself? Hence, there is far less foundation left for real humor. Rather, there is much more “reason” to find fault in any attempt.
Whilst there may not be any humour in Islam, this is not an article about the Islamic clampdown on fun in Iran or in Qutb’s writings. So why the parenthetical extended quotations on Islam and its lack of laughs? There is plenty to say about China, comedy and its “Communist” regime. It seems Jamie is scraping the barrel of fun to make his point. I’m sure this wouldn’t have been necessary if he’d actually spent any amount in time in China and seen for himself how Chinese comedians and artists live.
Show me a bully, I’ll show you a tyrant. Show me a tyrannical society I’ll show you a society persuaded to despise its’ children (casual appropriateness of abortion, not birth-control). The bully affect emphasizes woman as calm cool and collected. Men as hysterical, dissociative from family life and , and alienated from themselves. Throw into this bubbling cauldron, porn, celebrity adoring creep culture, naval gazing activities like vapid TV programming (turn it off & forbid your children from wallowing in it) , physical narcissistic body obsessions, or the opposite tact of trough like eating habits with non-nutritious foods to fill our empty voids. Yes, slippery slopes of a new form of slavery. Protect your families each and everyone of them. Your family and your values are the first line of defense, against bullies large & small. Mao enslaved due to want, we could be enslaved due to our inordinate prolificacies. Will our vigilance manage till midnight November 2nd PST. California we will be watching oh so closely!
I thought to let you have this from a Turkish guy living in Turkey and a devout Muslim.
http://www.bektashi.net/beliefs-jokes1.html
He tells me these are everyday jokes in Turkey, by Turks about Turkish Clergy and customs. It refutes the wide sweeping statements of our author. I am more inclined to agree with RKae in Comment #19.
Legalize it California (Pot) and the Hagen Daz ice cream filled semis will be backed up on every interstate and the tyrants (political class) will be waiting with the spoon. Ready and willing to spoon feed you into an oblivion way beyond Huxley’s imaginings! Bullying typically starts with a “I dare you”! A soft poke to our soft and pudgy romantic underbelly. Unconscious unaware. Then WHAM!
Conservative Wanderer,
Management of this site can verify my IP address is in Northern China, not far from the North Korean Border actually. Beautiful area, mountains, oceans, lakes, rivers, spectacular scenery. This region of China is highly traditional, the closer a person goes to Hong Kong in the south of China, the more westernized China becomes.
Political sites are rather popular in China, whether they are US / European or Chinese. There seems to be quite a but of confusion regarding the internet in China; I can access any site, post whatever, i’ve never been censored nor had access restricted other than the occasional system being down, maybe once every few months for a few hours for maintenance or power out, etc.
It may be popular to claim China is oppressive, these statements feed red meat to the core, and thats understandable from a strategic perspective to stimulate their ground pounding workers.
However it is not accurate.
And IP addresses are capable of being spoofed. But, hey, if you wanna continue to claim that, despite all the evidence, China is a free society, that’s your right. And it’s our right to take your statements with a large grain of salt and a heck of a lot of laughter.
“Political sites are rather popular in China, whether they are US / European or Chinese. There seems to be quite a but of confusion regarding the internet in China; I can access any site, post whatever, i’ve never been censored nor had access restricted other than the occasional system being down, maybe once every few months for a few hours for maintenance or power out, etc.
It may be popular to claim China is oppressive, these statements feed red meat to the core, and thats understandable from a strategic perspective to stimulate their ground pounding workers.
However it is not accurate.”
Excuse me, sir, I live in Shanghai, and I most wholeheartedly assure you that yes, there is extensive censorship of the internet here, including of many political sites, including Dissecting Leftism and EVERY site hosted on blogspot. Although PJM has never been blocked in my experience, countless other sites have been, including, at times, sites like Wikipedia (certain Wikipedia articles are STILL blocked) and even, briefly, ImDB. I guess one of three things is happening: you either live in such a remote countryside area that the gov’t doesn’t bother filtering the internet there; or you are so oblivious to what the Internet is like in free countries that you didn’t notice the massive, obvious degradation of it inside the PRC including the incessant 403′s from blocked sites; or, third, you are just a blatant liar.
Humor is a weapon. It can be used to destroy or to protect. The outlawing of humor is simply a disarmament of the people. Unfortunately, there is no consistent way of parsing between the aggressive and defensive modes. Remember, please, that Germans concentration camp guards used to like to listen to classical music while going about the work of exterminating people. Their behavior was not same as the “soup Nazi” of Seinfeld. It’s the content, stupid.
Laughter and joy are given to us by God, and are an “inalienable” right, embodied with the typical genius of the Founders, in the right to “the pursuit of happiness.” They are, in the end, worth defending with our lives. Better to die in the body than to let laughter and joy be put to death in the heart, mind, and soul. Laughter, joy, music, humor – long may they live! Tyrants beware – these precious things will outlive you all, and all of your works.
yes wanderer, your absolutely correct;
The Chinese government has seen fit to “spoof” as you call it, my IP address to infiltrate Pajamas Media.
It has been brought to our attention the stories on this site are far more important than managing our economy, strategic assessment of foreign affairs, keeping 1.4 Billion people working, managing expansion of our entire infrastructure, balancing the acts of the madman in N. Korea against our need to maintain buffer states, expanding our navy and Submarine fleets, expanding our capabilities to achieve routine space travel, and the myriad other small items that require our attention.
It is the rise of Pajamas Media that has brought the organization and attention of Central Chinese government to a standstill until we can infiltrate pajamas Media completely and turn attention away from the effects of this paralyzing story which has stopped our nation and brought to a standstill.
End of Sarcasm ( just in case you take it seriously).
Anyone could have easily found out the truth about Gou Degang; his help assaulted reporters researching a story on his illegal expansion of property without a permit, encroaching on his neighbors legal property.
Yes, that is what happened, simple property dispute. His Ego could not allow him to acquire necessary permits to expand his house, so he set out on his own. When reporters showed up to research the story, his employees attacked the reporters and sent them to the Hospital. There is footage of the attack, just like in the US cell phones and the reporters own cameras recorded the assault. There are lawsuits against him by the reporters as a result.
Unfortunately the truth is not as glamorous as spinning this into oppression and Censorship, it just doesn’t sell as well, or feed into the diet of pre conceived ideology, does it..?
The First Casualty of ideology is the TRUTH
So, let me get this straight, “alex.”
You are telling me that all these news stories from various sources telling us that China censors the internet are wrong, and YOU are right.
The equivalent would be someone claiming that all the news reports that Barack Obama is President are wrong, and John McCain is really the President of the United States of America.
Do you see why you’re not convincing me, or anyone else, for that matter?
Wow, these comments are disturbing.
1. Humor is universal. There is no culture that does not have some form of humor. Suppressing humor is unnatural, and forcing huge groups of humans to behave in unnatural ways never has a good outcome. I do not mean uncivilized; most people recognize and embrace the need for civilized behavior.
2. Instead of pointing out there are few conservative humorists, why not ask where those humorists are? I see plenty of comedy, often beautifully pointed, here and at other blogs in posts and comments alike – and the humor is not mean-spirited, but of a different brand than what you find at liberal blogs. I suspect there has been a form of communal censorship – the world of comedy is very competitive, and when you’re sure that YOUR particular brand of humor isn’t going to get a break, it probably makes you give up quick – or become a minister or politician.
3. Humor is a critical, though overlooked, balance in society because the main element in every single joke is its core of truth. Every funny joke starts with an observation of a fact in the world, then twists it to get the audience to observe it from a different and unexpected angle. That’s where humor comes from – that sudden light in your head when you realize what the comedian is really saying. Medieval kings had jesters for a reason – the jester could tell his lord the truth when no one else could. When a society eliminates the jesters, they take another step toward totalitarianism.
You may find this story silly or funny, but I say this sheds a sobering light on China (no pun, of course).
A piece so poignant and well constructed , . . .
Hi,
Just wanted to suggest a place which is industry insiders’ first choice for skincare contract manufacturing needs
http://www.gscos.com
G.S. Cosmeceutical is a cosmetics and cosmeceuticals custom formulator offering the state-of-the-art facilities, anti-aging, natural and organics skin care ingredients, experience and responsiveness you expect for your successful skincare product launch.
Warm Regards,
Jim Benett