Insurgency discussion

With all the talk about the Tea Party, the Hutarees and militia groups, I'd thought it would be fun to speculate on how an actual Second American Revolution may proceed.

Today, on NPR a member of a New Jersey "self-defense" group was the guest and there were a few angry callers. Perhaps they were angry that their welfare check is threatened. Perhaps they are angry that someone dares to question the transfer of money from the productive to the non-productive. The feeling of futility when all the voting and demonstrating and threat of riot and arson will not be enough to keep the government check coming.

Another caller admits to the futility of resistance, citing that Cobra gunships and M-1 tanks will be employed to blow up the homes of any resistors, that the revolution will not last a day. That is assuming all the gloves are off and the military and police are authorized to commit atrocities and ignore civilian casualties. Otherwise, pacification of the resistance will involve endless cordon-and-search operations, night raids, checkpoints and patrols that will become increasingly unpopular in the red and blue states alike. As the guerrilla warfare maxim goes: the government loses by not winning and the guerrilla wins by not losing.

For an idea of how an actual militia resistance will pan out, look no further than the insurgents of Iraq and Afghanistan. Federal law enforcement and military forces will be faced with roadside bombs and snipers. The perpetrators will melt into a sympathetic population. There are approximately 300 million firearms in this country with vast areas of rural and urban concealment. If the federal government decides to keep a facade of legitimacy, then it will leave the media open. If federal government feels it can weather public outrage, it can establish full martial law and close down the media.

In order to fight a guerrilla war, the federal government will need to win the hearts and minds of the areas where the militia is operating. If the military is mandated by the federal government to enforce federal policies, it will make the counter-insurgency task much more difficult because of a cultural barrier. The federal government can deploy units from more politcally reliable states but risk alienation of the natives who are already wary of outsiders. Or the federal government can deploy units constituted from residents from the same operational area but that would risk cultural solidarity and even collaboration with the guerrillas.

Closing abortion clinics, prohibiting homosexual marriage, exemption from federal taxes, even re-segregation is on the table. We have thousands of soldiers and contractors and drones and MRAPs on the ground in Afghanistan but we are still in no position to change Pashtun culture. If field commanders, intelligence analysts and policy makers come to a consensus that some compromise has to be made to advance the counter-insurgency effort, the militias will have effectively achieved its cultural goals and legitimized itself among their sympathizers.

The industrial and agricultural businesses in the area desire only a stable environment to maintain operational continuity. They can spend billions to hire their own security and continue to pay their corporate taxes to the federal government (which may decide it needs to increase anyway to pay for the war). The shareholders and the board of directors of these companies may decide that the most cost effective security measure, the optimal decision is a political solution. There may be back channels opened between the insurgents and the military to work out temporary cease-fires, POW exchanges and such. The talks could be as simple as less attacks in return for lower taxes, perhaps not an end in itself, but an opening gesture to continue future dialogues.

It is even feasible that global capital may support the militias to diminish Washington's influence in world affairs and to gain leverage over bilateral trade. In such a scenario, the states with minerals and intact agricultural operations will experience a variation of "Dutch disease" where corporations that can bring in investment solidify their influence to become "resource barons." Global capital will have no qualms with letting the militias "restore traditional family values" as a condition of a stable security situation.

With inflation, secular values and non-local personnel, the military will have great difficulty convincing the local population that they are there to help. For every single guerrilla, there will be a thousand defectors-in-place, informants that feed intel to the militias. The final stage of an insurgency may not be the "Restoration of the Constitutional Republic" but a stalemate between the resource-rich states and Washington DC. The counterinsurgency effort will attempt at every opportunity to play one militia group against the other, declaring some militias "moderate" and others "extremist."

Capitulation to the "red" states by Washington DC will delegitimize federal authority in the eyes of their urban, coastal electorate of the "blue" states. Generals and cabinet members will be "retired" and a new administration will have to live side by side with the militias. The new regime will appoint more "native" commanders, perhaps those with culturally-aligned sympathies, or a neutral third-nation "proconsul" to arbitrate disputes and agreements between the military and the militias.

International pressure from the UN and governments will demand war crimes tribunals for militia members, but with the international business community's demand for raw materials and food exports, the military may simply sit by and watch as the militias expel or exterminate whomever they deem undesirable. Washington DC will offer the obligatory condemnation but they know that intervention is more costly than bearing the brunt of public outrage. Remember that the indignant critics of federal docility and impassiveness do not have the means to impose their will, because they do not believe in firearms ownership.

The cities, with populations of dependents suddenly cut off from payments will explode into rioting. The federal government will have to choose between saving the cities by re-taxing the red states or let the cities burn. In the modern age, cities produce paper assets with rural states produce physical assets and resources. Who do you think the federal government will favor if its back is to the wall? Cities of howling masses or the installations critical to military operational continuity?

Controlling the land that produces oil, coal and nuclear power will be more important than controlling a city that produces more lawsuits, convicts, addicts and welfare applications than the taxpayers can support. Cities that want to resume the trucks and train cars full of food and materials simply have to recognize the legitimacy of the resource barons and militia groups. When enough cities accept the de facto autonomy of militia-controlled areas, global finance will return with investment capital (which will not necessarily be denominated in dollars, by the way) and lobby Washington DC to "tone it down" otherwise, Uncle Sam will have to offer much much higher interest rates on its T-bills/IOUs/etc in order to borrow the Euros and Renmenbi to pay for his Social Securty/Defense/Medicare bill. Or Social Security/Medicare/Defense may even disappear if the IMF deems it necessary as part of an American "Structural Adjustment Program" or "Austerity Measure." Replaced by an egalitarian, proletarian, utopian FEMA-ville.

I have no illusion that a post-balkanized Washington will back down out of some renewed, born-again sense of Constitutional Republicanism. Washington DC will only back off after
1. it has tried and failed to pacify the resistance
2. it can absorb criticism and public outrage of the payee public
3. it abandons the need to save face in front of its voters, most of whom are non-producers
4. it deems reconciliation as the most cost-effective and optimal choice

Militia groups aren't anarchists but the hard part will be running an above-ground government if and when Washington DC capitulates. Militia groups will also come to understand the same reality that organized crime and drug cartels face; governments cannot be completely overthrown because nations are needed to recognize currency and property laws which is the basis of modern capital and wealth. Militia groups will quickly lose legitimacy if it cannot provide basic government functions as outlined in the Constitution. The resource barons and the militias will have to re-learn the hard lessons that bureaucracies of the last 500 years had to deal with.

If the revolutionary movement has a hard-line ideology like Christian fundamentalism AND adapts the modern techniques of insurgency like al Qaeda or the Taliban, they may succeed at driving back the Feds, but will not be able to administer their territory. The moment the non-fundamentalist citizens raise a stink about the failure of getting the power back on and other civil services, the militias may devolve into Jacobin terror, denouncing complainant-citizens as anti-revolutionary.

So now we come full circle back to the core of any counter-insurgency operation. Wherever the militia fails to provide certain services, the federal government's psy-ops/propaganda apparatus will say, "We told you so." to the citizens who sympathized with and supported the militias. The counter-insurgents will secretly sabotage whatever projects or public works the militias have built to reinforce their message that the militias are incompetent at administering a stable government.

In Afghanistan, hearts-and-minds gestures like donating a power generator or giving out cash is easy but leaves the population vulnerable to robbery and intimidation. This is why the coalition is building roads, schools and conducting medical visits because the Taliban cannot steal a road or building or vaccination. Militias cannot expect everyone in their state to live like snake-eating survivalists. A large portion of every state, blue or red, is on some form of public assistance. They will have the most to lose if the militias succeed and the most to gain if the federal government, who signs the checks, prevail.

The citizenry expect electricity, utilities and store-shelves full of fresh groceries. If the militia drives out the authorities, who will provide public safety? Sure, truck drivers, utility repairmen and pizza-delivery guys can arm themselves, but why would they want to do business in an area where there's no 911, no court to resolve disputes and no one to deliver the mail. Who's going to do those tasks? How are they going to be paid?

A Malthusian defense of Marxism?

Let's for a moment set aside accepted norms of polite conversation to discuss the realities of public policy for the next fifty years, when we are well into the age of global squalor.

Marxists generally supported unchecked population growth as it provided the manpower for a future proletarian army. Industrialists generally supported population growth as a source of cheap labor and future markets for its products. Theocrats supported population growth as a continual supply of faithful tithers. It is primarily overpopulation and its humanitarian enablers that has led to our modern ills.

Every attempt at partial privatization of the Social Security pyramid scheme has failed. Even an attempt at a slow-down of the rate of Medicare expenditures fell in defeat. The runaway train of entitlement spending is on its way off a cliff, a spectacle we will see in our lifetimes. Perhaps there is a perverse logic behind the promotion of tobacco, alcohol, narcotics and red meat; the sooner thy neighbor drops dead, the safer my Social Security check. Who says individual interest is subsumed in collectivist societies? But one cannot depend on the population's ability to self-destruct and remove itself from the entitlement payee pool.

Mass collectivism as manifested in the 20th century was the most efficient decimator of souls. If one accepts the Malthusian argument of exponential population growth, then one accepts population reduction an ideal. What better way to quickly bring population levels down to a more sustainable carrying capacity than to precipitate the famines which Marxism has caused? I am not offering a defense of Marx for what he wrote, I'm offering the logical and historically proven OUTCOME of Marxist policy as a tool of planetary depopulation. My main concern with such a scenario is that there is no mechanism for the survival of the desirable elements of society; the self-organizing communities of vigilant citizens who retain a culture of free thought and civil government. Spencerian Darwinism, that the good will always triumph over evil, is naive at best. Any community of survivalists will be looked upon jealousy by the starving and desperate masses. Those who desire to preserve their culture must include protocols of self-defense or perish at the hands of neighbors who have fallen from civilized behavior into a "state of nature." The meme of freedom and reason necessitates overwhelming firepower to counter the meme of looting and anarchy.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. It is apparent that democracy has proved corrosive of private property, constitutional republicanism and other aspects of Anglo-American Enlightenment statecraft. The PEOPLE have spoken and the PEOPLE want their neighbor's paycheck.

The inescapable trend towards confiscatory rates of taxation will lead to an ever-diminishing pool of private industry. The ever-growing public sector, whose less-efficient units do not bear the same risks as the private producers who subsidize their salaries, will become naturally entrenched in rent-seeking machinery fully focused on maintaining their job security. None of the transfer payment recipients will care that someone else has to pay for their meal. None will care about the multitude of interconnected steps and investments and processes, bound by economic transactions and relationships that go into their distribution of unearned income.

Greece is a case in point. Corrupt officials, a bloated public sector, the brain drain, heavy industry outsourced long ago. It is a tragedy that the cradle of Western civilization is now on the verge of fiscal meltdown. But the cold hard fact is that the rent-seekers up and down the chain in that nation have brought this upon themselves. All the protests and demonstrations won't be able to magically make their economy productive and investment-friendly again. The Modern World has only one question for every society, regardless of their quaintness, or heritage or culture: What can you produce at a comparative advantage? At a competitive price? At optimal efficiency?

No answer is necessary. The answer speaks for itself in the stifling socialism of comfortable bureaucrats. Removing the risk of failure, guarantees the certainty of collapse. How can one cherish life without the threat of death? Now can one excel in industry without the risk of bankruptcy?

The benefactors of the entitlement programs will also become entrenched in whatever internal dynamic the capital government operates under in order to ensure a steady market for their services. Public debt will explode and each successive administration and legislative session will pass the problem to the next generation. The last desperate measure of the modern world will be currency devaluation. A downward spiral of unstable commerce brings productive activity to a grinding halt. Police and soldiers, whose paychecks are unable to catch up with skyrocketing prices, simply abandon the streets to the gangs and predators. The dialetic materialist will not be able to explain why someone won't get out of bed in the morning to complete a productive task (much less manage a massive enterprise).

Perhaps because he isn't compensated for his labor. The materialists won't be able to explain why the lumpenproletariat can't produce doctors or engineers, much less competent leaders and managers to make their systems "go." Every rationalization will be offered to justify mass conscription in the name of freedom from want. The spirit of gainful commerce will be murdered and everyone will live only to leech off of his neighbor. All the enlightened progressive pundits and commentators run out of people to blame.

Since the problem is unsolvable by lawful means, the only way to get out from under the tangle of regulation is to let the system collapse under its own weight. The problem is if the universal suffrage system survives the upheaval, the mass dislocation of the most dependent will mark capitalism as an evil and elevate collectivism for ten centuries, leading to endless cycles of famine. Few will care that their comfort was an artificial bubble to begin with. What matters is restoring order to keep the government checks coming and therefore any brutal despot that can demonstrate that ability will be preferable to any futile call for a return to a distant past of ballots and inaugurations. The masses will get nor deserve democracy.

Perhaps this cynical outlook will make the culling of the wretched masses more palatable or even invoke schadenfreude. But then, a collectivist outcome would not by definition, be a complete civilizational collapse. The paradox is that if enough of the desirable aspects of civilization survive, will the collectivist, sentimentalist memes be carried into the next epoch with the survivors? A complete collapse would not guarantee the preservation of the desirable elements, which defeats the purpose of our speculation in the first place. A collapse may throw out the baby with the bathwater if even the hardened subcultures can't hold the walls from the looter-horde. And even if the masses are held back by sheer firepower, the survivors will no longer be "innocent" in their worldview, having had to lose precious warrior/intellects and inflict mass death upon their former neighbors.

Civilizations evolve and devolve in cycles (Toynbee, Gibbons, Spengler, Huntington). The pioneers and founders bravely forge the new state. The second generation builds up the inheritance of their forefathers to staggering heights. The third generation, comfortable and lacksidaisical, ignorant of the struggles of the previous generations will squander their inheritance through "enlightened" policies or drug-induced apathy. Once the last generation enters such nihilism and despair, they will be surpassed by another milieu that is ignorant or undeterred by the fact that they arrived that the party in time for the last dance. With the debt bubble, peak oil, etc. no answers will be found in the history books on how to manage unprecedented crowding in an unprecedented technological era of toxic memetic amplification.

The organizations that survive into this brave new world will be the ones that are already self-sustaining and can weather lawless conditions, the military and the gangs, will be only semblence of goverment and they won't care about who didn't get their Social Security check. Once again, there will be two types of people in the world: Those with guns and those that don't.

On-site execution of illegal racers: Discussion and concept of operation

This morning, two sports cars were racing each other in and out of traffic on the Belt Parkway, recklessly endangering every single law-abiding, productive, tax-paying motorist on the road. I've seen illegal races like this before on Youtube but it didn't inspire the homicidal proposal that I'm about to lay out like a Leviathan: Any illegal drag racer that survives an accident on a public road is to be executed on the spot. If the sport of illegal highway racing is so exciting, imagine the adrenaline rush for the driver and all his passengers when they risk certain death at the hands of a quasi-legal proxy of larger society.

The psychology of public street racers:
There is the narcissistic and solipsistic impulse to enhance their reputation (or "cred) among the subculture of street racers and if their activities are recorded by its participants, to their exploits on the Internet. Street racers may not want to participate in legitimate racing organizations or on dedicated racing facilities. Perhaps the thrill of illegality or putting others in danger is the primary motivator. The purpose of on-site summary execution is not only to exact swift and appropriate justice, but to support the mission of the state's public affairs apparatus.

I willingly omit the deterrence value of summary execution as that would imply that street racers are rational actors who are subject to any risk vs. reward calculus imposed by society. The assumption by the authorities and of the public should be that this uncontrollable, irredeemable subculture of street racers are not responsive to deterrence, in other words, it is in their nature to put others in harm's way. This acceptance in the mind of the audience of street-racing subculture's disregard for the public is key in justifying the public termination of the perpetrators' lives.

Alternative:
In fairness I will offer a more humane alternative. A possible technological solution to illegal racing is to standardize remotely-operated deceleration systems on all motor vehicles, much like the OnStar stolen car recovery system as demonstrated in their television commercial. Perhaps a server running a traffic-safety algorithm can detect two or more rapidly accelerating vehicles in close proximity and remotely engage their brakes or disconnect the electrical system. Such a measure would certainly be more acceptable on a case-by-case basis than what I am about to propose. This blog entry is of course a speculative essay where I omit the Western standards of due process and rule of law that exists as of the early 21st century.

I do admit that if an accident occurs where an innocent third party was injured or killed, I would want the street racer should be promptly and aggressively subjected to a certain level of brutality and cruelty in order satisfy my own deep visceral instinct to vengeance. This connection between the innocent victim and the death squad's response against the street racer must be maintained.

Use of public execution:
The execution must be documented on video and the executioners must appear to exercise due restraint and impartiality in carrying out their mission, to demonstrate to the taxpaying public that there exists a standardized procedure in its brutality. Thus the shock is aimed at the subculture of racing while reassuring the general public that the executioners are neither excessive nor out of control.

Moral basis of the policy:
The life of a racer is less valuable than that of the average motorist. The average motorist is the parent, the college student, or the working man and woman who were simply going about their business, wishing to harm no one. The tragedy is when a productive, law-abiding taxpayer's life is taken by a degenerate, rootless, impulsive, unemployable racer who is not only of worthless value to society but imposes costs on all of us. The death of an innocent motorist orphans children, makes widows and denies society future doctors, teachers and guardians of the public order. The presentation of the execution whether on television or the web, should also be accompanied by brief biographies of the innocent victims of the accident. The victim is humanized with childhood photos and aspirations while the street racer is portrayed as defiant, sociopathic or smug. The best footage is the street racer blaming the innocent victim for getting in his way, or simply being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Once the public sees that the suspect even fails to understand the consequences of his actions, the tax-payers will crave to see that smirk wiped off his face. The executioner's hand will be the hand of the public, who will feel that they have gotten their money's worth in tax dollars.

The rationale behind executing the racer's passengers too: The panic of impending execution, of shattered dreams and their life flashing before their eyes, further alienates that community. Early in the program, the public may react negatively to the racer's friends and family paying the price too. The regime must frame the passengers as deserving of execution too. The racer's passengers should ideally start blaming their driver for getting them into this mess. No one will want to hang out with the street racers because they risk getting dragged into an incident involving a death squad. This isolates the true sociopaths from the half-hearted posers within the street racer subculture.

Evolution of execution policy and public views over time:
The first time such an execution is released, it will constitute a viral memetic blast wave across the public psyche, much like the first Iraqi insurgent beheading videos or the beating of Rodney King by the LAPD. The public will wonder if there is a new policy being implemented and look for clues in the appearance of the executioners that would reveal more of their affiliation and role within the regime.

A potential development that threatens such a policy is if the executed driver or passenger elicits sympathy from the public. If the driver or passenger appears vulnerable while being executed, it may elevate them to martyr status and may result in calls from the public for a more humane approach like auto deceleration fail safes. The public outcry may even result in the removal of the execution component, which defeats the shock value and social utility of the program.

Procedure for first responders:

1. Identify indicators that incident involved drag racing:
GPS data indicate excessive speed
Wireless LBS monitoring triggers multiple speeder alert
Decals indicating racing hobby
Modified dashboards and parts

2. Notify designated special response office to dispatch an execution team. Teams will operate in unmarked vehicles and maintain equipment with video recording and body transport. Local police will be ordered to provide perimeter security but not to become involved in the process.

3. Execution team leader will gather facts, assess situation and determine if suspect is culpable for the accident. A video conference with an independent judge and field commander with be held. If all agree, each of the designated shooters will be ordered to fire a single shot into convicted's head, with one of the shooter's rounds being a full-powered blank, chosen at random.

4. Video footage and report will be filed. The body will be disposed of in a way to remand custody to local authorities without exposing the death squad to local law enforcement.

5. Public affairs will be tasked with post-production and public release.

Cometh the Storm

O wayward flower of wanton seed
Bold are thy hands and zeal for life
How generous our trough that spawneth thee
To drink thy fill from us with fist and knife
And yet we toil and sweat for the ten-forty
And still we bear the torment of your wicked strife.

Though none shall see our designs as yet
When the Nine decree our chains unbound
The Taxed now armed shall bringeth Death
What spine we lost, we now have found
Evil thoughts shall the evil regret,
At the moment of impact of the JHP round.

What bedlam, O Storm, shall visit this land?
What lightning and wind, shall strike and toss?
By a thousand swords in a thousand hands,
A thousand paths they won't dare cross.
All torn asunder, their murderous plans
Their worthless lives were for nothing lost.

The Age of States has long since past.
The Faithful still cower and whimper song.
Into this jungle we have been cast
Only We the Living, can avenge these wrongs.
Though the Rule of Law has seen its last
The Will to Power, has been with us all along.

Kill all pedophiles

NBC's "To Catch a Predator" should get a Medal of Honor. If I were a billionaire, I'd operate these molester traps all over the world, luring these fuckers in and feeding them feet first into wood-chippers. And they'd run day and night, year round, on eight channels. Live HD channels.

I have been thinking about the design of massive "black site" concentration camps for pedophiles. I would chip them with listening devices so all their conversations can be recorded by a massive data center for analysis. When one brags about an abduction or assault that the authorities don't know about, he will be plucked out at night and processed to an interrorgation facility where polygraphs, pharmaceuticals, sensory deprivation, hippocamus brain scanning, etc. can be used to extract details and close missing persons cases.

Another concern is the possibility of the facility being compromised by natural disaster or outside attack by the families of the pedophiles. I would implant remote-kill switches in all the prisoners and that moment there is a chance of prison break or rescue attempt, pushing a red button would drop all of them. All this would be secret of course because it would make uncaptured molesters adapt their tactics to evade detection. I do not believe revealing such a program would be of much deterrence value against molesters anyway based on the assumption that they cannot be cured in the first place. All the tax-paying public needs to know is that their benevolent Leviathan is honoring the Social Contract.

NY Times: Avatar

There's probably about 10 bootleg copies of Avatar for every man, woman and child in China by now. Good luck trying to censor it. The Confucius movie will introduce a Western concept to Eastern theater owners: BOX OFFICE POISON. Chinese kids will pack the theaters to see Confucius like American kids will flock to see John Locke: His Life and Times...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/movies/20avatar.html

January 20, 2010
You Saw What in ‘Avatar’? Pass Those Glasses!
By DAVE ITZKOFF

If you thought that “Avatar” was just a high-tech movie about a big-hearted tough guy saving the beguiling natives of a distant moon, you might want to check the prescription on your 3-D glasses.

Since its release in December, James Cameron’s science-fiction epic has broken box office records and grabbed two Golden Globe awards for best director and best dramatic motion picture. But it has also found itself under fire from a growing list of interest groups, schools of thought and entire nations that have protested its message (as they see it), its morals (as they interpret them) and its philosophy (assuming it has one).

Over the last month, it has been criticized by social and political conservatives who bristle at its depictions of religion and the use of military force; feminists who feel that the male avatar bodies are stronger and more muscular than their female counterparts; antismoking advocates who object to a character who lights up cigarettes; not to mention fans of Soviet-era Russian science fiction; the Chinese; and the Vatican. This week the authorities in China announced that the 2-D version of the film would be pulled from most theaters there to make way for a biography of Confucius.

That so many groups have projected their issues onto “Avatar” suggests that it has burrowed into the cultural consciousness in a way that even its immodest director could not have anticipated. Its detractors agree that it is more than a humans-in-space odyssey — even if they do not agree on why that is so.

“Some of the ways people are reading it are significant of Cameron’s intent, and some are just by-products of what people are thinking about,” said Rebecca Keegan, the author of “The Futurist: The Life and Films of James Cameron.” “It’s really become this Rorschach test for your personal interests and anxieties.”

The “Avatar” camp isn’t endorsing any particular interpretation, but is happy to let others read the ink blots. “Movies that work are movies that have themes that are bigger than their genre,” Jon Landau, a producer of the film, said in a telephone interview. “The theme is what you leave with and you leave the plot at the theater.”

Mr. Cameron might have opened the door to multiple readings with his declaration that “Avatar” was an environmental parable. In a news conference in London in December, he said he saw the movie “as a broader metaphor, not so intensely politicized as some would make it, but rather that’s how we treat the natural world as well.”

In a column for the Christian entertainment Web site movieguide.org, David Outten wrote that “Avatar” maligned capitalism, promoted animism over monotheism and overdramatized the possibility of environmental catastrophe on earth. At another site that offers a conservative critique of the entertainment industry, bighollywood.breitbart.com, John Nolte wrote that the film was “a thinly disguised, heavy-handed and simplistic sci-fi fantasy/allegory critical of America from our founding straight through to the Iraq War.”

Not surprisingly, the religious overtones of “Avatar” were of interest in Vatican City, where the film was reviewed by Gaetano Vallini, a cultural critic for L’Osservatore Romano, the daily newspaper of the Holy See.

In his review, Mr. Vallini wrote that for all of the “stupefying, enchanting technology” in the film, it “gets bogged down by a spiritualism linked to the worship of nature.”

In a telephone interview, Mr. Vallini said his widely reported review might have been overemphasized because of the publication it appeared in. His assignment to write about “Avatar” was not an attempt to advance a particular agenda, he said, but rather “a compulsory choice” given the anticipation surrounding the film.

Ultimately, Mr. Vallini said, “the movie doesn’t provoke many emotions,” and its observations about militarism, imperialism and the environment “are just sketched out as themes.”

“It is Cameron’s narrative choice,” he continued, “as he is aware of the fact that the visual aspect widely compensates for this lack.”

Other viewers say that issues of imperialism are central to the film. In a post on the science-fiction Web site io9.com, Annalee Newitz, the site’s editor in chief, wrote that “Avatar” depicted “the essence of the white guilt fantasy, laid bare,” a dimension she said it shared with movies from “The Last Samurai” to “District 9.” (Critics have also said that “Avatar” copied story elements from the movies “Dances With Wolves,” “Pocahontas” and “Ferngully: The Last Rainforest”; the Poul Anderson novella “Call Me Joe”; and the “Noon Universe” book series by the Russian authors Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.)

In movies like “Avatar,” Ms. Newitz wrote, “humans are the cause of alien oppression and distress,” until a white man “switches sides at the last minute, assimilating into the alien culture and becoming its savior.”

Ms. Newitz said in an interview that since publishing that post, she had heard from readers around the world who disagreed with her interpretation, which she appreciated. “Just the idea of whiteness is a local phenomenon,” she said. “It’s certainly not in parts of the world where white people are not dominant.”

In China, for example, the film’s imperialist themes have upset audiences who believe that the plight of the aliens, the Na’vi, who are forced from their home by human industrialists, is a parable for Chinese people whose dwellings have been forcibly razed by local governments to make way for new construction. As one pseudonymous commenter quoted on Chinasmack.com wrote: “China’s demolition crews must go sue Old Cameron, sue him for piracy/copyright infringement.”

There is, at least, consensus among “Avatar” critics that good science fiction operates on an allegorical level. In novels like “Dune,” films like “Star Wars” or television series like the recent “Battlestar Galactica,” Ms. Newitz said the fantastical elements of these works offer a place of “narrative safety” to contemplate real-life issues like environmental decay, totalitarianism and torture.

“There’s something very satisfying about being able to think through those issues without feeling you’re actually taking a political position,” she said. “Because you’re not – you’re just talking about stories.”

Over the breadth of Mr. Cameron’s career, he has been attracted to outsize themes. Ms. Keegan said that it was possible to read “The Terminator,” his breakthrough 1984 movie, as an anti-technology polemic, an anti-war film or a modern gloss on the birth of Jesus.

“Or,” she said, “ you could just watch it as a movie where Arnold Schwarzenegger stomps around like a robot.”

Paradoxically, the pileup of arguments surrounding “Avatar” might have made a sympathetic figure out of the outspoken Mr. Cameron, who now finds himself in the underdog position of having to account for every possible message in his ostensible popcorn film.

“Often to his detriment, he says exactly what he thinks,” Ms. Keegan said. “All of that makes him seem outside the Hollywood bubble, even though on paper he couldn’t be more of an insider.”

Ms. Newitz, however, was not sympathetic to Mr. Cameron, who wanted to make a singularly ambitious film, and may have gotten his wish. “It’s like, do you feel bad for Obama?” she said. “He’s the president — he kind of asked for it.”

China’s Changing Views on Race

The inherent racism of 99% of the mainland Chinese will be humbled when ROC's US-built weapons send half a million young men of the PLA, the flower of Han youth, to the bottom of the Taiwan Strait.

http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/chinas-changing-views-on-race

December 13, 2009, 8:00 pm

China’s Changing Views on Race
By THE EDITORS

With trade and commerce drawing ever larger numbers of foreigners to China’s cities, tensions have become more common in a country of little racial diversity. This summer, African immigrants, mostly traders and merchants, who make up a growing enclave in the city of Guangzhou, protested police harassment. And in a well-publicized cultural moment, a 20-year-old Shanghainese contestant named Lou Jing, who appeared on the Chinese “Idol”-like talent show, caused a national debate (and drew racist attacks on the Internet) about what it means to be Chinese. Lou, the daughter of a Chinese woman and an African-American man, whom she has not met, considers herself completely Chinese.

As China expands economic ties with the rest of the world — including Africa, where it has considerable investments — how might increased immigration alter Chinese perceptions of race? How has the society historically dealt with ethnic differences?

Millennia of Multiethnic Contradictions
Yan Sun, a professor of political science at the City University of New York, is the author of “A Sichuan Family and Tibet’s Future” and “My Han Relatives’ Views from Xinjiang.” She is co-writing a book about ethnic relations in contemporary China.

When it comes to ethnic relations and perceptions, China is a paragon of contradictions: its majority ethnic group, the Hans, are non-racist in the sense that most are not aware of their own multiethnic background and care little about it.

The surname of the Chinese leader Hu Jingtao is multiethnic in origin, meaning “foreign, barbarian.”
But they hold prejudices, not only about China’s minorities and foreigners but also about members of their own group, in that those deemed more “developed” receive deference, while those deemed “backward” are looked down upon. If Western racism is about genetic dispositions, Chinese prejudices and racism are more about achievements and standing in the world as applied to individuals or groups.

Unlike Korea and Japan, China has long been a melting pot. The Han people, now the largest ethnic group on Earth, originated from the central plains of East Asia and was expanded by nomadic invaders from the steppes of inner, central and Western Asia. Driven by their hunger for the wealth of the settled villages and aided by mounted archery, the nomads periodically toppled the Chinese states and controlled them, becoming in the process fused and assimilated with the agrarian people.

Tibetan and Uighur diasporas may wonder nowadays if China could ever have an ethnic minority like Barack Obama as its top leader? The answer is simple: there have been many. Of China’s two dozen imperial dynasties, most founding rulers were non-Han or only partly Han.

The Shatuo Turks, related to the Uighurs, founded three post-Tang dynasties. The Xiongnu, Xianbei, Khitan, Jurchen, and Qiang groups founded major dynasties in the North and the West. And twice, under the Mongols and Manchus respectively, the nomads conquered and ruled the whole of China. The China we know today is a product of their conquests: to prevent nomadic rivals rising on their flank, the Mongols and Manchus ruthlessly brought all of China’s surrounding prairies and plateaus under their rule, including Tibet.

The Northern people of present-day China are tall and lighter-skinned, thanks to fusion with the steppe peoples. The southern Chinese are descended from people from the central plains (pushed south by nomadic invasions) and southern tribal groups. In an ironic twist, the coastal areas of the South and East –- once inhabited by the so-called Southern and Eastern “barbarians,” and the Northern cities around Beijing –- once the hub of Northern “barbarians” –- are now considered the most “advanced.” The central plains of China, the birthplace of the agrarian people, are among the least developed among Han regions.

Most Chinese would be surprised that Hu, the surname of the Chinese leader Hu Jingtao, is multiethnic in origin. Hu, meaning “foreign, barbarian,” used to designate the nomads east of the Xiongnus (Huns). Some assimilated groups came to adopt “Hu” as a surname, although this is one of its several origins.

My mother’s last name, Ma (meaning “horse”) is another multiethnic surname. “Of ten Mas,” so goes a Chinese saying, “nine are Muslims” (this Ma is derived from Muhammad). But most of my mother’s relatives think it silly to trace the exact origin of their Ma. While this ability to blend made China’s melting pot possible, it can also be a barrier to ethnic sensitivities.

As market and globalizing forces cause the Chinese to interact more with minorities at home and foreigners from abroad, conflict will be inevitable but so is progress. A Liberian singer won second place in the CCTV’s Star Walk (a variant of the American Idol) in 2006. A Sierra Leonese won fourth place in 2007. Both are beloved by the Chinese audience and recently, both appeared as judges on the show.

Chauvinism and Nationalism
Ho-fung Hung is a historical sociologist and a senior associate of the Research Center for Chinese Business and Politics at Indiana University. He is the editor of “China and the Transformation of Global Capitalism,” and the forthcoming “Protest with Chinese Characteristics.”

Today’s racialist self-perception of Han Chinese can be traced back to the rise of Chinese nationalism amidst the chaotic collapse of the Qing empire in 1911. The Qing empire was multi-ethnic and ruled by the Manchus.

Rising chauvinism is a menace to China’s internal stability and its cooperation with other countries.
Many Han Chinese revolutionaries, influenced by racial Darwinism from the West, advocated the expulsion of the “barbaric” Tartars (a vague racial category referring to the Manchus and other Central Eurasian peoples) and the restoration of “superior” Han rule as a path to China’s resurgence. Han nationalists justified the subordination of non-Han peoples in modern China by their “backwardness” and need to modernize under Han’s tutelage.

Persistent prejudice against ethnic minorities caused Mao repeatedly to warn of the danger “Han chauvinism” posed to the unity of the newborn People’s Republic in the 1950s. The Communists, however, failed to eradicate such prejudices, but hid them under the language of class struggle, conveniently denouncing all minorities’ quests for cultural autonomy as reactionary demands for resurrecting backward social systems (like Tibet’s “slavery”).

State propaganda glorified Chinese solidarity with dark-skinned foreigners as comrades in the struggle against Western imperialism, repressing whatever racial prejudices that ordinary Chinese might have against these peoples. These prejudices resurfaced in the post-Mao years, unleashing the protests and racial violence against African students in many universities on the eve of the 1989 student movement. They also contribute to the xenophobic interpretation of Tibetans’ and Uighurs’ resentments as pure fabrications by “hostile foreign forces.”

China’s economic success, the government’s promotion of nationalism, and large-scale internal and international migrations have increased Han interaction and frictions with other ethnic or racial groups and intensified Han chauvinism in recent years. This chauvinism, as a menace to China’s internal stability and its cooperation with other countries, is a twin of the century-old Han-centric Chinese nationalism. It needs to be transformed into a more cosmopolitan form based on values and cultures rather than ethnic identity.

Inclusion and Rapid Change
Zai Liang is a professor of sociology and director of the Urban China Research Network at the University at Albany, SUNY.

China’s encounter with foreigners is not new. This is especially true for Chinese who live in the coastal region. What distinguishes today’s Chinese experience is the unprecedented scale and diverse number of countries and regions involved.

The language barrier is a huge obstacle for understanding between Chinese people and new migrants, but that can change.
In today’s world, this encounter is a two-way street, with many Chinese migrating to other countries and citizens of other countries moving to China for economic or educational opportunities.

Race matters in China, as it does in the U.S., with foreigners and immigrants of darker skin often treated poorly. This is true despite the warm relationship between China and African countries during the Mao era.

Another factor for tension is the language barrier, which is complicated by the fact that many local people speak regional dialects rather than Mandarin. This has created a huge obstacle for understanding between Chinese people and those who don’t speak Chinese.

As a result some businesses transactions — and even some rental contracts — are done in English. A good command of Chinese language would go a long way in resolving issues such as disputes with neighbors or dealings with law enforcement agencies.

One of the challenges that China faces now is the rise in undocumented migrants or visa over-stayers. We have already seen this play out in the case of Africans in Guangzhou and this is likely to become a bigger issue as China’s growth attracts more people from abroad.

At a fundamental level, I do not expect overwhelming difficulties of integrating foreigners into the Chinese society. China is a huge country with a long history of interacting with other groups within its borders and beyond, and it includes over 50 minority groups with different languages and religions. The past 30-year history of opening up shows that Chinese culture can be inclusive.

Learning From the West
Dongyan Blachford, associate professor of Chinese studies, is associate dean in the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research at the University of Regina, Canada.

Growing up in Beijing, as a member of the Han majority, I did not see China as a country which exhibited racial discrimination; after all, the mission of the Chinese revolution was to build a class-free and egalitarian society.

As a result of living abroad, many Chinese returnees have developed new perspectives on minority rights.
However, after having lived outside China for over 20 years, and having experienced and witnessed discrimination in various forms, I now realize that many in China are simply unaware of the racism and prejudice that exists.

Among the Han Chinese themselves a judgment is often made in a split second based on people’s looks, places of residence, types of employment, parents’ titles, or who their relatives are. As for foreigners, they may also be subject to hasty judgment; blacks are often associated with backwardness and poverty, whites with money, advanced technology and even beauty. The attitude towards China’s non-Han ethnic groups is more complex: they are often viewed as inferior, but they are still considered insiders.

There have been efforts to integrate and at times assimilate the 55 ethnic groups labeled as Chinese National Minorities — 104 million people (less than 10 percent of China’s population), mostly resident in autonomous regions, which cover 62 percent of the country’s total land areas, and over 90 percent of whom live along China’s border regions, where many of the country’s natural resources are located.

The prevailing Han perception is that these minorities have been treated generously, with numerous preferential policies, such as allowance for more than one child, lower scores to enter secondary education institutions, quotas for employment and promotion, millions of dollars in direct government support, plus the sacrifices made by Han migrants and government workers with superior brains and skilled hands. However, many minorities do not agree with this view; nor does an increasing number of Han Chinese who are returning to China from abroad.

Many of these Han Chinese have developed new perspectives as a result of living in places such as Canada, where minority rights, aboriginal issues, anti-racism, and multiculturalism are more prominent in public discourse. They begin to admit that prejudice widely exists in the Chinese society. Since most returnees are now occupying important positions in sectors such as education, government and business, the hope for change is realistic. After all, the United States has elected an African-American president.