Thread before the Gardening Thread: October 5 [KT]

Well, it's been 70 years since the communists took over mainland China. Meanwhile, Greta Thunberg has singled out France and four other countries as evil threats to the future of the world. She seems to overlook China, the biggest emitter of carbon in the world.

Macron (!) said that the complaint filed by her group included "very radical stances" that could likely "antagonize our societies". He should know something about antagonizing societies. But back to China:

From the BBC:

On 1 October 1949, Mao Zedong - or Chairman Mao - announced the formation of the PRC, after communist forces won a bloody civil war.

Modern China has since developed at an extraordinary pace, but it has also one of the world's most restrictive states.

But the celebrations were overshadowed as thousands took to Hong Kong streets, with some violent clashes breaking out.

President Xi Jinping said "no force" could shake China as he oversaw a huge military parade in Tiananmen Square.

"No force can ever stop the Chinese people and nation from marching forward," said the Chinese leader in a brief opening address.

Brief timeline at the link could be useful. Not much detail on deaths produced by the revolution. There is also a video of the anniversary celebration.

Via Glenn Reynolds, How the CCP is attempting to create a Chinese ummah:

I watch with unease as the People's Republic of China turns 70 amid great fanfare about its growing economic and political heft, the longest-running nation state to ever fly a flag emblazoned with the hammer and sickle, surpassing even the former Soviet Union. Ever since it embarked on its modernization program, China has been subtly cultivating and influencing the Chinese diaspora to its cause. . .

The word 'Chinese' can refer to the citizenry of a country, a race, a language, and even a culture, ambiguities that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) exploits in order to appeal to the diaspora via the sentimental heartstrings of heritage via 'flesh and blood'. It exports and reinforces the concept that there is only one politically-correct way of being Chinese: loyalty to the party first and foremost, above all else. In effect, it's like the ummah, an Arabic term that describes the supra-national global community that unites all Muslims as one. Only this one is based not on religion but on ethnicity, where Tibetans, Uigher Muslims, Chinese dissenters, Hong Kong protesters, are excluded and marginalized like infidels.

Almost nothing embodies the scope of China's attempts at a global soft power offensive more as the Chinese government-funded Confucius Institutes, where there are 480 branches operating on six continents around the world.

H/T Bird Dog at Maggie's Farm, a Communist success story: China invents a camera that can pinpoint person in a crowd of thousands.

Follow the link for more information on China's social credit program. The ban on masks at Hong Kong protests also gets a link at the bottom of the page.

Music

Macron does not seem to be a likely successor to Napoleon. Today, how about some really different treatments of Bonaparte's Retreat?

Below, an old-time fiddle version, the one that inspired Copeland, after a waltz (Midnight on the Water). Bonaparte's Retreat is pretty upbeat in this version. Though it is played in "dead man's tuning". Starts at about 5:10. Though the waltz is nice, too.

Aly Bain and friends play a mournful version, perhaps inspired by the legend that the tune came from an Irish musician depressed that the English won at Waterloo. Though the scenery reminds me of Bonaparte's retreat from Russia.

Sue Thompson

Spree Street Stompers, Germany, 1961

Hope you have a good weekend.

posted by Open Blogger at 11:30 AM

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