Wednesday, August 14, 2019
Wilbur Ross - Hong Kong an "Internal Matter."
Since WWII, democracy is something totalitarian regimes use tanks to suppress. There was the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 and the Soviet/Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.
Now there are signs that Chinese armoured vehicles are massing along the border with Hong Kong.
When it comes to the White House the people of Hong Kong are on their own. Trump has shown little interest, commenting that it's just part of China. Today, US commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, has called the situation an "internal matter." Those are loaded words. They're the same message conveyed to Saddam Hussein by the then US ambassador to Iraq that Hussein took as greenlighting his invasion of Kuwait.
After they crush this one, who will be China's Chretien? Maybe this time they won't need one. How many current and future agents of the state will be among the quarter million waving their Canadian passports in our collective face as they await the demanded rescue? Once again, congratulations Sucker Nation. Or should I say Post-Nation?
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ReplyDeleteJohn,I recall a night around a huge campfire at a family reunion in Wartime, Saskatchewan. It was my ex's clan. Present was Bill McKnight, my ex's cousin and then immigration minister (I think) in Mulroney's government.
He and I got into it over Mulroney's 'entrepreneur' immigration plan whereby an investment of $300,000 bought you and your immediate family a path to Canadian citizenship.
I found it crass that Muldoon & Co. could put such a cheap price on citizenship. How, I asked, could he reconcile his government's value on citizenship to people, like my dad and my uncle, who had left their loved ones and served overseas for several years and returned badly wounded, damaged?
That, is part and parcel of neoliberalism. Perpetual, exponential growth in almost every way. Everything has a price but, gradually, value is erased.