Life is complicated. Simplistic views, when they're expressed in isolation, can make some particular issue seem simple; but very few issues are really all that isolated.

I know there's almost nothing I can say about the war of words between CNN commentator Jack Cafferty and the government of the People's Republic of China that won't get myself into trouble with someone. If I sound too sympathetic toward China, people are going to questions my support for human rights, free speech, my patriotism as an American, and probably my parentage. If I blindly give CNN a good pat on the back and proclaim my sheer joy that someone was finally able to speak the truth about China, I come across as intellectually shallow - and maybe racist. What to do...

I could just say nothing. But one of the flaws in my personality is that saying nothing is hard for me.


© larryfishkorn

Blogging is my secret second life. And the truth is that I get up most mornings and go to work with children. At the school where I work I see kids as old as 11 at the moment, and as young as five.

We have rules. The kids know the rules by this point in the school year.

There are some rules that when you break them you get a warning. There are other rules that, if you break them, result in a form going home. It's called a behavior intervention form - a BIF. One of the things that you don't get a warning for is name calling. One strike and you're out. You get a BIF to take home to Mom and Dad.

I don't think goon or thug either one is a technical term. If Jack Cafferty was a third grader at my school, I'd send home a BIF. Of course, he's not the only one.

An editorial in the government's People's Daily not long ago said that if a poll were to be taken in China, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) would be voted "the most disgusting figure" because she met with the Dalai Lama. I'd say the editors at the People's Daily should get BIFs, too (although I'd have to think about whether that was name calling or fit better under the "taunting and teasing" category).

Then there's the Communist Party chief for Tibet who described the Dalai Lama, as a "jackal clad in Buddhist monk's robes and an evil spirit with a human face and the heart of a beast." Definitely name calling. Another BIF. (So far I think the Dalai Lama himself is free from name calling.)

Most kids get a BIF and they stop doing whatever you wrote them up for. Too bad it doesn't work that way with grown ups...

I didn't see Cafferty's segment when it aired but I have seen a transcript. Just for the sake of ticking people off, I thought I'd comment on some of his remarks.

"I think based on China's record in some of these places like Darfur and Tibet, that you can justify boycotting some of these opening ceremonies..."

Cafferty says "Darfur and Tibet" as though those two ideas had some parallel. Darfur, in the Sudan, is part of an independent country. Tibet, well...

I'm not prepared to enter a discussion on the rights on ethnic minorities to their own nation states. Perhaps one day there will be a free Kurdistan. Then we can consider a homeland for the Basques in Spain, the Pattani Malays of South Thailand, the Tamils in Sri Lanka, the Karen in Myanmar, the Chechens of Russia's Caucasus, the Abkhaz in Georgia, the Moros in the Philippines, India's Nagas and Mizos, the Achenese in Indonesia - I could go on. Somewhere in that mix, throw in Tibet. Then complicate the issue a little further by acknowledging that most Tibetans don't live in Tibet; over half of them live in Yunnan, Sichuan, or Qinghai provinces.

Cafferty's opening statement is akin to discussing US behavior in El Salvador and the Cherokee territories of Oklahoma. At least to the Chinese it is. To the Chinese, the only difference is time. And Cafferty's statements start out with an assumption that most Westerners probably missed and many in China would view as inflammatory.

"We're in hock with the Chinese up to our eyeballs because of the war in Iraq for one thing."

At the risk of calling my patriotism into question, whose fault is that? The Bush Administration has sold Treasury Bonds to finance the war because he didn't want to raise taxes and he didn't want to cut spending. So the Chinese are bad for buying our bonds? I think there's a problem in that logic.

"...we continue to import their junk with the lead paint on them and poisoned pet food..."

If Cafferty is saying that some of what we get from China is junk, fair enough. But it sounds more like a generalization to me - like he is suggesting that everything we get from China is junk. That's just not true. The best cookware I've every owned I bought at JC Penney's and it was made in China. It wasn't cheap. It isn't junk. But hyperbole and exaggeration make for great rhetoric when you're trying to whip up people's emotions. Cafferty did well at that.

"...and export jobs to places where you can pay workers less than a dollar a month to turn out the stuff we're buying from Walmart."

I'm not sure under the new employment laws that there are many people in China working for a dollar (seven yuan) a month. In Shanghai the minimum wage was just raised to 960 yuan (about $137) a month. Is that cheap labor? Sure. But it's not a dollar a month. And it's not as cheap as it was a year ago. And I'd bet money that Cafferty knows that.

"I think they're basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they've been for the last 50 years."

I thought there was some humor in a quip I found at this blog:

... Indeed, a New York Times investigation has found that only 1 percent of Chinese are goons and thugs - and all of them work for the government. Cafferty's words have upset many of them, according to Jin Yao, president of the National Association of Goons and Thugs. "He say we same goons and thugs for last 50 years," Yao said. "Is not true. We better goons and thugs than before. We take government course."

Make fun of their English (which is much better than my Chinese). Put words in their mouths. I don't think Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao or President Hu Jintao are the same thugs as Mao and the Gang of Four. Different thugs, maybe. But not the same thugs. And in a few years Wen and Hu will retire and a new set of leaders will emerge; whether they will be goons and thugs remains to be seen.

So what's the point?

First, Cafferty's statement isn't pure and unadulterated truth - even if you accept his opinion that the leaders of China are goons and thugs.

Second, the Olympics that Cafferty is suggesting we try and mar a little is seen by everyday Chinese citizens as symbolic of Chinese success much more than Chinese government success. Cafferty's suggestion of some form of boycott probably really is offensive to the average Chinese guy on the street.

Third, it's too bad that we have to leave elementary school as we grow up.

Fourth, confrontation and name calling doesn't really accomplish much in Chinese politics. If Cafferty's goal is real change in China, or if his motive is actual concern for Tibet, there are better approaches. If, on the other hand, his goal is to raise the profile (and ratings) of CNN, he said a marvelous thing...

I leave you with a few of the better blog posts on what history teachers will most likely one day call "The Cafferty Incident." Some I agree with, other I link to because they articulate stupid positions so well:

• Criticize China? Better Watch Your Back
  
  
• Jack Cafferty Speaks The Truth, China Demands An Apology>
  
  
• Can't stand the heat, get out of the world kitchen. 20th century's over.
  
  
• But I'm Showing My Support For Tibet
  
  
• Darn those brainwashed goons and thugs
  
  
• Chinese Government Expands Censorship to America