Are Mainland Chinese becoming anti-Semitic?
The question arises because one of the hottest books in China is Song Hongbing’s Currency Wars. According to Song, the owners of international capital create financial crises, start wars, degrade the environment, and control the world. These financiers are responsible for the defeat of Napoleon, the deaths of half a dozen American presidents, the rise of Hitler, and the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997. All of this, Song contends, is ultimately tied back to the Rothschilds. Worrying theory, no?
“The Chinese people think that the Jews are smart and rich, so we should learn from them,” says the American-educated Song. “Even me, I think they are really smart, maybe the smartest people on earth.” That perception helps explain why there are an estimated 200,000 copies of the book, published by a commercial arm of the Chinese government, and another 400,000 pirated versions floating around the Mainland today. Worse, senior leaders in Beijing are lapping up Song’s theories.
China’s Communist Party has long persecuted the few Jews in the Mainland, but that was part of a broader effort to eradicate religion. Today, Christians and the Buddhist-inspired Falun Gong bear the brunt of Beijing’s wrath. Most analysts note the lack of an anti-Semitic tradition in Chinese history and a strong admiration for Jewish culture and accomplishment, as Song’s own words reveal. Shalom Salomon Wald, author of China and the Jewish People, believes that the Chinese find common cause with the Jews, as both of them were the subject of persecution. Moreover, most sons and daughters of the Yellow Emperor admire other peoples with old cultures, and many Chinese perceive that the two oldest belong to them and the descendants of Abraham.
Even with these mitigating factors taken into account, Song’s book (which manages to be zany and offensive at the same time) is a manifestation of a worrying trend. Many Chinese at this moment perceive that others are conspiring to contain their nation’s rise. Song, after all, has written a self-help manual to deal with American efforts to force a revaluation of the renminbi, the Chinese currency. Chinese nationalism has turned especially ugly in recent years, and any conspiracy theory—even ones not grounded in malice—could be used to justify the most reprehensible conduct.
“The Chinese believe the Jews are a big people. It makes no sense to tell them we’re not,” says Wald. “It also doesn’t help to tell them this is anti-Semitic.” He may be correct, but it is perfectly logical to tell the Chinese that they shouldn’t adopt crank theories of history—and they should stop blaming other peoples, including ones they may otherwise admire.
But according to Andrew “The Sarah Palin Vagina Monologues” Sullivan, Panetta is not stained with the shame of being a Bushian war criminal, or those Democratic Quislings that let Bush get away with those crimes…
Oops, Panetta was part of the Clinton administration that insituted extraordinary rendition to bastions of civil rights like Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Make a space under the bus, Bill Richardson, might need room for the next one. Where is Ralph Cramdon when we need him
A gamble that augurs nothing for Obama, but to satisfy the extreme left wing of this country. This can be the pick that really comes back to haunt Obama in the event that an attack occurs on America. Remember, in economic distress the American people run to their mommy the Democrats for confort, but in national security distress, the American people will go back to their daddy the Republicans for protection.
I don’t think Panetta can be considered a creature of the left. And anyhow the CIA, like any entrenched bureaucracy, runs itself as it sees fit, regardless of who the director is. It should be taken apart and rebuilt from the ground up. Whatever emerged would be more competent than the existing mess.
Now we will get to see just how wise the Loony Left are. Their concern for terrorists over the safety of American lives is sickening; we’ll see if this sycophantism transfers to the CIA.
#4, yeah right Panetta is not a creature of the Left. Someone who moves from the GOP to Democratic Party during the 70s because they feel the GOP was becoming too far right is exactly someone who is a creature of the Left. And good luck trying to reform the CIA in the middle of fighting two wars, a resurgent Russia, a belligerent Iran, a savvy China, a bellicose Venezuela, and a hardheaded North Korea (and let’s not forget the not-yet-dead threat of Islamic terrorism).
It doesn’t really matter who is in charge: the CIA is irredeemably broken, an utterly dysfunctional institution that not only can’t but has forgotten how to perform its primary mission of collecting and evaluating intelligence on the actual and potential enemies of the United States. It would be better to simply abolish the Agency and start over, or, if that is not politically palatable, to form a new, parallel organization (small, more streamlined, less risk averse, more mission-oriented) to do the job right.
The CIA may be irredeemably broken (it most certainly is full of fools and knaves with agendas), but that’s rather beside the point. What this appointment suggests to me is that Obama has more concern for his own back than he does for the nation’s.
Well, Sukie, Napoleon once said it was better to have one bad general in charge than two good ones. There can be only once voice in foreign policy, and it ought to be the President’s, whether you agree with his policies or not. At present, both the CIA and the Department of State believe that they have the mandate to formulate United States foreign policy, and they will do whatever they must to undermine all who disagree with their respective positions–including each other, as well as the man in the Oval Office. Bush’s presidency was seriously compromised by disloyalty and double-dealing both in Langley and Foggy Bottom, and it was a major leadership failure on his part that he was incapable of cleaning house, even if that meant firing everybody from the top down until he found people both willing and capable of carrying out his policies.
Having benefited so materially from Bush’s failure in this regard, I am sure Obama will not make the same mistake, and the appointment of three hard asses like Rahm Emmanuel, Leon Panetta and Hillary Clinton to three key offices is a shot across the bow of the permanent civil servants who believe they have an hereditary right to run their agencies according to their own agendas.
We need Jack Bauer, not Leon Penetta