Anti-China and Stuff.

THE hatred for China. Let’s go back in history. <1>1899 to 1901, an 8-nation alliance forced China to open its trade ports to the West. <2>2000, U.S. and China trade pact. China’s expansionism is all trade, unlike Europe and America’s military conquests. Beijing works its leverage shrewdly: Pertinent minerals, raw materials, and labor force. We need those. So they sell and we buy. Business, economics. We hate them because they outsmarted us on the trade table? 

       <1>1899 to 1901 a.k.a. Boxer Rebellion. An Eight-Nation Alliance of American, Austro-Hungarian, British, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Russian troops moved into China to quell the anti-colonial uprising of the Yihetuan Movement, towards the end of the Qing Dynasty. <2>2000, U.S. and China trade pact, signed by Bill Clinton and Jiang Zemin, which paved the way for Beijing to enter WTO the following year. From that point China emerged as a global economic power. Why are we pushing China to a war, what is the point? Because we don’t what them to be #1? I don’t think that China wants that stature though. 

       China works around economics beyond Western models but still within WTO regulations. Through provision of direct support to Chinese industries through state funding or subsidies and tax breaks, the CCP controls industries and centralizes profit. Russia, which entered WTO in 2012, pretty much employed the same system via its oil/natural gas, which are also state-owned. India is the same. All three powers are members of BRICS, the counterweight to G7. 👲🇨🇳👲

TOMS, founded by Blake Mycoskie in 2006, is a tiny business that grew big because it chose to work with the Chinese, than compete with them. Toms is all about hip shoes, eyewear, coffee, apparel, and handbags. The company became famous for its “one for one” program. For each pair of shoes sold, they give away a pair to charity. Toms president Laurent Potdevin: “Toms would not be what it is today without China.” 

       Thousands of American companies are active in China. For a reason or two, or more. China wasn’t Toms first choice though; it was Argentina. But it didn’t work so Toms flew East. And so on and so forth. Now what about U.S. giants in China? Apple, General Motors, Ford, Starbucks, Boeing. Etc etcetera. By comparison, you may google Chinese FDIs in the U.S. Not even in the Top 10. 👲🇨🇳👲

<>Facebook Posts and Letters to the Editor. <>Rich and Poor.

A FEW of my responses to discussions/posts in Friends’ Facebook page, slightly edited. 

<>Facebook Posts and Letters to the Editor.

BEFORE the advent of the internet, letters to newspapers were carefully screened. Identities checked, edited for space and brevity. Lengthier insight landed on op-ed as essay etcetera but from those who knew what they're talking about. 

       These days on Social Media, people write inane stuff and punkish one-liners as a cover for cluelessness, boredom, and idiocy. Yet in past informal public gatherings, such as in barber shops and town plazas, those who disagreed were not banished but reminded of civility and coolness. If rabblerousers failed to comply, they were barred. 

       Social media is weird. Many don't want to be told they are wrong. Everybody is a genius. I am cool with that as long as I am presented with insight per their own words and not nasty slogans and dismissive self-righteousness. And “newslinks” as response to a conversation is simply irritating. 🗣👤👥

<>Rich and Poor.

LIFE. There are rich and there are poor. There are bad people and poor people. But rich doesn't automatically make you bad or good; poor, the same. But, yes it is true, the eerie space of convenience and comfort between rich and poor drive people to sadness, anger and grief. But that is not the fault per se of the rich just because we the poor don't have wealth to pay $thousands to frolic for an hour in the Milky Way in Jeff's spaceship or chill (and die) in a sub down the sea to ogle at a historical relic. 

       Mostly, the social divide is caused or ushered or enabled by a government that is tasked to lessen agony of the poor and distribute more richness to the impoverished in an equal manner, somehow. But if our government tosses billions$ (such as $113 billion) of taxpayer money to a war that feeds the corporate rich than works ways to negotiate peace, then this displeasure continues to exist. 

       The rich in general becomes open target and we the poor stay wanting. Because we are so divided and our energy so spread out that we lose the power to reform a leadership or correct an inept and weak governance. Why don't we just let the rich bury their dead, allow them to grieve in private. and live their life. And we the poor enjoy the little blessings that we get here in America where, many times, our relatively cool endowments and entitlements blind us from a quiet pursuit of our own respective happiness. Cool? 😒😔🤨

<>The Fascination for Chuck Bukowski.

A FEW of my responses to discussions/posts in Friends’ Facebook page, slightly edited. 

I READ and wallowed on Chuck Bukowski when I was in college. Great mind. But that's what to cultivate in/from him. His work. His life was an orgy of drinking, chain-smoking, dalliances with hookers (or sex workers) and other inebriated walks on the wild side. Sadly, that "life" of toxic excess made him more "cool" than the brilliance of his writings. Of course, he was late to bed and late to rise. LOL!

       But Mr Bukowski isn’t alone in this deadend gig. The list is endless: Edgar Allan Poe, Ernest Hemingway, Jack Kerouac, Jack London, William Faulkner, Eugene O'Neill, John Steinbeck, Dylan Thomas, Hunter S. Thompson, Thomas Pynchon, etc etcetera. Many died via suicide caused by severe depression but not necessarily alcoholism or substance abuse (but often they came together): David Foster Wallace, Virginia Woolf, Anne Sexton, John Berryman, Sylvia Plath, and of course, Hemingway and Thompson. 

       Although alcoholism is a constant, "perverted" (to describe these literary geniuses) is a matter of opinion. Meanwhile, there are also many who are relatively sober or spot-clean such as Isaac Asimov, Patricia Highsmith, Philip K. Dick, James Baldwin, L. Frank Baum, Pearl S. Buck, Michael Crichton, and more. Some kicked the bottle and drugs and continued on in prolific spree such as Stephen King or Bob Dylan. 

       Bottomline, I focus on the work and not the person. And for me, substance intoxication ain't cool. Drugs and alcohol don't make or unmake a great person or writer/artist. It is circumstantial or a matter of access and availability. Such as addiction. And alcohol and drugs got more addictive in time due to commercial bombast or sociocultural pitch as cool. 

       Going deeper and wider, I am against "canceling out" great writers or their work due to their personalities or way of life and that of course including the "perverted" ones which are also many. It's the work, not the writer. The product, not the producer. Anyhow, from George Harrison: "It's all within ourselves. No one will make us change. Within you, without you." 🍻🥃🍻