Monthly Archives: August 2022

The Difference between the BLM Uprisings & the Jan 6 Insurrection

Posted on by
Reply

What is the distinction between the Black Lives Matter riots and the January 6 Insurrection? The difference is as clear as it is simple: Black Lives Matter as well as the Occupy Movement before it rose up to demand long-overdue justice and accountability. They did not seek nor attempt to overthrow and replace the United States government with a new regime. Instead they sought to reform the current government and demanded the government at all levels from local to state to federal pay attention and listen to their grievances and cries for justice and reform. The Jan 6 Insurrection, however, sought to overturn a free and fair democratic election, overthrow federal and even some state governments, and kidnap and even murder major government leaders from the Vice-President to the Governor of Michigan. There were attempts to take over state governments as far away from Washington, DC as Salem, Oregon. Records show the Jan 6 Insurrection started well before the 6th of January 2021 and continued past it. Some argue it’s still simmering. Perhaps it’s more resembles Hitler’s failed Beer Hall Putsch before the Nazi’s ultimately successful takeover. Continue reading →

Beyond Country over Party

Posted on by
Reply

During times of strife and division, we often hear others and sometimes ourselves responding emotionally to events seemingly beyond our control. We may remind ourselves and others to remember our priorities. We say and write slogans such as, “country over party.” Or, perhaps, we may feel events have gone so far we must put party over country “to save” the nation. Or that the working class or the ruling class, depending on where you put yourself if not in the middle, transcend politics and thus our country. Or the Goddess, God, or whatever entity you consider as the Divine must rule over country and planet. All of these perspectives, save for country over party, are destructive, self-destructive, and inevitably result in violence and loss of freedom. Here we look briefly at country over party and go beyond that slogan.  Continue reading →

Taiwan can only secede from itself

Posted on by
Reply

Few seem to realize the only government Taiwan can secede from is itself, the Republic of China. The new US-Sino Taiwan Straight Crisis is rooted in misperceptions of history and anchored in anger, shame, and fear. The irony is the Republic of China, currently ruling only Taiwan and a few nearby islands, has existed since 1912 after the Chinese Revolution of 1911, long before the Chinese Communist Party declared the People’s Republic of China in 1949 during the civil war. The ROC had retreated to Taiwan and neighboring islands, was a semifascist military dictatorship under the Kuomintang, but only became a democracy in fairly recent years. The ROC’s transition from autocracy to democracy on Taiwan took place across the 1980s and 90s.

If Taiwan were to actually declare independence, ironically, it would be from itself, the ROC, not the PRC as the latter has never governed Taiwan. As the Republic of China has existed long before the People’s Republic of China, then it boggles the mind the PRC views the ROC as a “breakaway province” of the PRC. Each government still considers itself The One China. Perhaps it’s time to retire such an anachronistic mindset, altho the ultranationalistic on all sides froth with madness over such a progressive and liberating shift of perspective.

Like it or not, Taiwan is already its own country as the ROC. It is not and never was a province of the PRC. It is not an imperial outpost of the old Japanese or British empires. It was taken back from the Japanese by the ROC Kuomintang Party at the end of the Second World War. Taiwan was never governed or administered in any way by the CCP before and after the Communists declared their People’s Republic in 1949 as the civil war ended. Taiwan and it’s neighboring islands elect and run their own ROC government, collect taxes, maintain diplomatic relations, maintain complex business relationships abroad, operates its own military and intelligence forces, and acts upon the world stage as a small but robust middle power. Taiwan therefore has no need whatsoever to declare independence as it already exists as its own country. It flourishes under the national government of the Republic of China, a regime in existence for decades before the PRC. The country even transitioned from a brutalist military dictatorship into a constitutional democracy with a robust capitalist economy. It could, however, raise a bloody ruckus by changing its name and retiring the ROC label to better reflect geopolitical reality. Continue reading →