Wukan Revolt

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Enki
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Wukan Revolt

Post by Enki »

Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.
-Alexander Hamilton
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Zack Morris
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Re: Wukan Revolt

Post by Zack Morris »

Interesting. Given that the villagers claim to be receiving food from nearby villages while also blocking off all access to government officials, I can't help but be skeptical about how this is being reported.
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monster_gardener
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Re: Wukan Revolt

Post by monster_gardener »

Thank you Very Much for your post, Enki/Tinker.

Believe I have heard of this on the John Bachelor Show earlier this month when the village was claimed to be under siege: nothing/no one in or out.

IIRC the guest, a Mr. Chang, claimed that this incident terrified the Chinese leadership for 2 reasons: 1. it showed that the Leadership had lost its peasant connection and now represented nothing but its corrupt self 2. The villagers in revolt were doing a better job of governing than the booted out officials.

This article has a different slant. Mentions how little the villagers knew what was going on and talked about the need to change incentives.

Its true that IMVVHO a lot of people here in the States too don't know what's going on: just busy working at 1 or more jobs if lucky enough to be working. Thank G_d for local talk radio..... Can work and keep informed at the same time..... Even have a chance to speak if you're brave enough..... can affect your job or business..........
What will change things is if you change the incentives by which make you make your money,” said Mr. Friedman, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Reminds me of a sermon at church about the horrible death rate of transportees to Australia until the incentives were changed to paying the ship captains only for prisoners alive on delivery rather than just the number of prisoners transported.......... Carbizene/Glowing Carp or Noddy may know about this............

Friedman wants to have the villagers own the land individually. He may be right but IIRC in transferring the commons to individuals often there are big incentives for the rich and to powerful to grab it all: enclosures in England, fall of the Soviet Union, transportation in Canada, parking meters in Chicago..........
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monster_gardener
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Re: Wukan Revolt

Post by monster_gardener »

Zack Morris wrote:Interesting. Given that the villagers claim to be receiving food from nearby villages while also blocking off all access to government officials, I can't help but be skeptical about how this is being reported.
Thank you Very Much for your post, Zack Morris.

Welcome to the Forum if you are a new member.

Welcome to the new forum, if you are a former Diegetics/Spengler board member here under a new name.
For the love of G_d, consider you & I may be mistaken.
Orion Must Rise: Killer Space Rocks Coming Our way
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Enki
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Re: Wukan Revolt

Post by Enki »

monster_gardener It speaks to my recent evangelism over being involved in politics. The responses to why people shouldn't or why they aren't involved in politics have been varied and interesting but they sit on a few fundamental premises that I have since come up with canned responses for.

Excuses:
1) I am too busy with work.
a. Valid reason, but also fundamentally places the individual in a subservient serf role.

2) I don't have time to be all over politics like you are.
b. You don't have to be involved with politics on a daily basis, but you should be able to at least once in a while shake the hands of your representatives and attend meetings once a month or so to see what they are up to. Also, you can meet the faces of the people who are involved on the day to day and they will help keep you informed.

3) It's all bought and paid for anyway, I don't have any influence.
c. How do you know? Have you ever tried to have influence?
d. Money doesn't run politics, attention does. Money purchases: volunteers, advertisements, all things that purchase attention. If you are already paying attention, your attention cannot be bought.

4) It's corrupt, anyone who wants to be a politician is already a corrupt scumbag. They are all the same.
e. This simply is not true. There is a reality that all politicians must compromise but not all are corrupt, selfish and greedy assholes.

5) The problem is the way the system is organized, it inevitably will end up how it is.
f. Part of the system as it is today depends upon your ignorance. Your average primary or mid-term election has a voter turnout of around 12-15% of the population. That means that the rank and file are from that percentage and then the elite are selected from within that percentage. If you aren't participating you are not impacting who gets selected. Corruption requires anonymity to thrive. The more eyeballs there are watching a representative the less easy it is for them to participate in corruption. So the more people are engaged as an electorate, the harder it is for the politicians to be corrupt.

So I certainly think the corruption stems directly from the political ignorance of the average citizen. Thus politics becomes collusive amongst those who participate in it and becomes a game played between and against those who are participating in it to the detriment of or at least without thought to the average person who doesn't participate.
Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.
-Alexander Hamilton
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monster_gardener
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Re: Wukan Revolt

Post by monster_gardener »

Enki wrote:monster_gardener It speaks to my recent evangelism over being involved in politics. The responses to why people shouldn't or why they aren't involved in politics have been varied and interesting but they sit on a few fundamental premises that I have since come up with canned responses for.

Excuses:
1) I am too busy with work.
a. Valid reason, but also fundamentally places the individual in a subservient serf role.

2) I don't have time to be all over politics like you are.
b. You don't have to be involved with politics on a daily basis, but you should be able to at least once in a while shake the hands of your representatives and attend meetings once a month or so to see what they are up to. Also, you can meet the faces of the people who are involved on the day to day and they will help keep you informed.

3) It's all bought and paid for anyway, I don't have any influence.
c. How do you know? Have you ever tried to have influence?
d. Money doesn't run politics, attention does. Money purchases: volunteers, advertisements, all things that purchase attention. If you are already paying attention, your attention cannot be bought.

4) It's corrupt, anyone who wants to be a politician is already a corrupt scumbag. They are all the same.
e. This simply is not true. There is a reality that all politicians must compromise but not all are corrupt, selfish and greedy assholes.

5) The problem is the way the system is organized, it inevitably will end up how it is.
f. Part of the system as it is today depends upon your ignorance. Your average primary or mid-term election has a voter turnout of around 12-15% of the population. That means that the rank and file are from that percentage and then the elite are selected from within that percentage. If you aren't participating you are not impacting who gets selected. Corruption requires anonymity to thrive. The more eyeballs there are watching a representative the less easy it is for them to participate in corruption. So the more people are engaged as an electorate, the harder it is for the politicians to be corrupt.

So I certainly think the corruption stems directly from the political ignorance of the average citizen. Thus politics becomes collusive amongst those who participate in it and becomes a game played between and against those who are participating in it to the detriment of or at least without thought to the average person who doesn't participate.
Thank you Very Much for your post, Friend Tinker/Enki

Very good points............

May be it is futile but at least, like the Norse Gods, we/US are going to try............
For the love of G_d, consider you & I may be mistaken.
Orion Must Rise: Killer Space Rocks Coming Our way
The Best Laid Plans of Men, Monkeys & Pigs Oft Go Awry
Woe to those who long for the Day of the Lord, for It is Darkness, Not Light
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Atmosphere
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Re: Wukan Revolt

Post by Atmosphere »

Enki wrote:Excuses:
1) I am too busy with work.
a. Valid reason, but also fundamentally places the individual in a subservient serf role.
This is a tough one to deal with for the individuals themselves. Work and family can be exhausting, especially in a bad economy where people have to overwork just to feel some security in their jobs. The best solution to this problem is probably for those who have the means and the background to make other's involvement in politics easier. As Monster Gardener said:
monster_gardener wrote:Thank G_d for local talk radio..... Can work and keep informed at the same time.....
And thank God also for the internet, and all of the history that is now available to anyone who wants to find it. Truly a treasure of our age.
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Enki
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Re: Wukan Revolt

Post by Enki »

Talk radio as often as not misinforms people. Talk radio that deals with local issues is superior to talk radio that deals with national issues.
Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.
-Alexander Hamilton
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Atmosphere
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Re: Wukan Revolt

Post by Atmosphere »

Well, I wouldn't say "as often as not." There is certainly bad radio, but if it's commercial it either doesn't last long or it stays local and on quiet time slots. The thing about talk radio is that it's a stream of pure information that goes on for hours, and after a while listener's BS detectors start to go off when there is any logical inconsistency. National shows like Bill O'Reilly and Beck crashed in flames after a few years because people started to pick up on the double-talk and pandering. Air America was almost totally illogical, and they couldn't keep advertisers. Eventually the bad shows die off, even if it takes a while.

A lot of local shows, as you say, are pretty good though. The ones around where I live do a good job with local and state politics, by aggregating from publications and interviewing politicians. That's useful when you're too busy to do it yourself.
Ibrahim
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Re: Wukan Revolt

Post by Ibrahim »

These types of local uprisings are common in China and have been going on since the 90's with regularity. They tend to be in rural areas, and the reason is that rural Chinese feel left out of the economic boom of the last 20 years. Are they building to anything? I honestly don't know, but I think the major urban centers would have to get in on it for anything to happen.


The contrast with Western protest movements, or the armed revolutions in the Middle East, is sharp. In those examples the action was all in the major urban centers, and the rural communities were mostly clucking their tongues or wondering what was going on.
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Zack Morris
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Re: Wukan Revolt

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Ibrahim wrote:These types of local uprisings are common in China and have been going on since the 90's with regularity. They tend to be in rural areas, and the reason is that rural Chinese feel left out of the economic boom of the last 20 years. Are they building to anything? I honestly don't know, but I think the major urban centers would have to get in on it for anything to happen.


The contrast with Western protest movements, or the armed revolutions in the Middle East, is sharp. In those examples the action was all in the major urban centers, and the rural communities were mostly clucking their tongues or wondering what was going on.
That's a very good point.

I can't imagine any sort of mass uprising in China in the foreseeable future. China has to be the easiest country in the world to manage.
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Re: Wukan Revolt

Post by Ibrahim »

Zack Morris wrote:
Ibrahim wrote:These types of local uprisings are common in China and have been going on since the 90's with regularity. They tend to be in rural areas, and the reason is that rural Chinese feel left out of the economic boom of the last 20 years. Are they building to anything? I honestly don't know, but I think the major urban centers would have to get in on it for anything to happen.


The contrast with Western protest movements, or the armed revolutions in the Middle East, is sharp. In those examples the action was all in the major urban centers, and the rural communities were mostly clucking their tongues or wondering what was going on.
That's a very good point.

I can't imagine any sort of mass uprising in China in the foreseeable future. China has to be the easiest country in the world to manage.
I think it must be a huge headache of constant local crises, ethnic tensions, and natural disasters, but in terms of preventing a massive revolt the government has delivered steady improvement to the urban working classes, and that will keep them happy for the time being.
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Re: Wukan Revolt

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Ibrahim wrote: I think it must be a huge headache of constant local crises, ethnic tensions, and natural disasters, but in terms of preventing a massive revolt the government has delivered steady improvement to the urban working classes, and that will keep them happy for the time being.
I think the local crises are overplayed. The local governments deal with that and if they can't, then a show of phony concern and force from the central authorities is enough to placate the people. If you ask me, I think their top leadership is a bunch of uninspired, corrupt boobs who are able to cling to power only because the Chinese seem to value opacity and aloofness in their leaders. They see the secret decision-making process and the inscrutably vague proclamations of their leaders as proper behavior. They seem to be easily impressed by such things, in my experience.
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Re: Wukan Revolt

Post by Ibrahim »

Zack Morris wrote:
Ibrahim wrote: I think it must be a huge headache of constant local crises, ethnic tensions, and natural disasters, but in terms of preventing a massive revolt the government has delivered steady improvement to the urban working classes, and that will keep them happy for the time being.
I think the local crises are overplayed. The local governments deal with that and if they can't, then a show of phony concern and force from the central authorities is enough to placate the people. If you ask me, I think their top leadership is a bunch of uninspired, corrupt boobs who are able to cling to power only because the Chinese seem to value opacity and aloofness in their leaders. They see the secret decision-making process and the inscrutably vague proclamations of their leaders as proper behavior. They seem to be easily impressed by such things, in my experience.
I was thinking more in terms of thing on the order major drought that the interior has suffered for a couple of years, but yes in general internal Chinese problems are overplayed. According to some, every little thing is a sign of their imminent collapse.

My argument has always been that the Chinese favor stability, and the present arrangements allow both economic growth for the urban population and political stability. Corruption of public officials exists, but not to the immediately post-Soviet or constant African levels of kleptocracy because that would upset the gravy train. They've found a good balance. I also think the senior leadership really does have the best interests of the nation in mind. Local bureaucrats are much more about feathering their nest.


But to get back to the local revolts, they are usually over something reasonable and correctable. If the regime could bend a little more without being afraid of "appearing weak" everybody could probably go home happy.
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Enki
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Re: Wukan Revolt

Post by Enki »

Investing locals in a form of Democratic control of their township would bring stability.
Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.
-Alexander Hamilton
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