I see that the Shanghaiist has linked to the youtube edition of a “documentary” on the Rape of Nanking, one of the most evil and depraved aberrations of the 20th Century. It happened, it was unforgivable and if my own family had been one of the victims, it would be a source of outrage my entire life, as the Holocaust is to me today.

This video, however, is nothing but a piece of embarrassingly obvious propaganda that, with the very first voiceover, betrays its agenda and prejudices. It is designed to incite a desired reaction, which of course it does – go the the comments to feel some of the love:

Gooddevil123 (21 hours ago)
apanese soldiers tear out the eyes of children, gang-rape women then set them on fire, bury people alive or use them for bayonet practice…beheading women, children, old men….and torturing people for fun…and then laughing hysterically as victims, who have been set on fire, run screaming through the night…

stsbchu (22 hours ago)
no jab has common sense so there is no commonsense in japan i knpw the reason japs are not human beings yes thier forfathers are devils you chinese guys plz dont expect for japs to be human beings

Plenty more where those came from. And yes, this is the same cynical video that created a bit of a firestorm here a few months ago. Before the usual suspects whine that I don’t understand China and hate them and don’t know how bad the Japanese were, read through the earlier thread. I know, I sympathize, I reject the revisionists in Japan who would rewrite the awful story, and I have read Iris Chang’s book. I know. I also hate propaganda and the manipulation of the masses with images and slogans designed to appeal to man’s basest instincts, and attempts to titillate and incite with a never-ending stream of graphic photos of dismembered women and children, clearly attempting to fan the flames so the hatred burns as intensely now as 60+ years ago. Tell the story of the Rape of Nanking and the Holocaust and show us the photos. Show us the videos of the innocents beheaded in Iraq. But do it in a manner that educates and informs, as opposed to titillating with vulgarity and lewdness.

One more link Shanghaiist provides takes us to another interesting look at the Nanjing Massacre that I think comes to a reasonable conclusion: both sides have shown a lot of irrationality and willingness to obfuscate when it comes to this topic, knowing they can appeal to people’s emotional rather than critical faculties and thus steer them in the desired direction. The video on youtube is a glowing example.

No reasonable discussion is possible, of course, because like abortion and Taiwan and Social Security this is a third-rail topic that turns normally sane people into shrieking, whining, bursting-with-outrage automatons basking in the full glory of victimhood, which is exactly where the CCP has traditionally wanted them to be, focused on Japan’s evil of 60+ years ago as opposed to its own more recent transgressions. That post from Japundit above may indicate the CCP is getting more mature about this – I hope so. But God knows they’ve used the victim card for years to keep many of its people foaming at the mouth and incapable of reason, which is just what any good dictator strives for – get the people to hate someone else with such intense blind rage they can’t see what’s happening right in front of their faces.

Bush is the master of this technique, as Muslims around the world are painfully aware. Check out some of the nutter sites like Hot Air and Michelle and LGF – there are some fascinating parallels with the youtube comments. Blind rage against the perceived enemy, and an automatic reaction to anyone who questions it: simply questioning Bush makes you one of the enemy. Simply questioning the rationale behind the bustling exploitation of the Nanjing Massacre for political gain make you as bad as the Japanese perpetrators.

If your father was the secretive dictator of a pariah state, where would you go? Well, first you might try Disneyland and if that doesn’t work….why not hang with your buddies in Macau? Tim Johnson at China Rises has a great account of Kim Jong-il’s son Kim Jong-nam as the latter parties in the Asian gambling mecca. Apparently the 35-year old Jong-nam is on the outs with the family Kim back in Pyongyang and has also had a little recent financial trouble with some Hong Kong banks. Seoul newspapers report that now Kim Jong-nam has “hooked up with Chinese ”princelings,’ or offspring of Communist Party bigwigs, namely former President Jiang Zemin, in business deals. The group is colloquially called Taizidang, or the ‘princeling’s’ clique.'” Now that’s a KTV party, pass the cognac and kimchi.

photo courtesy of xjohnpaulx in West Philly

This is my indirect response to Jeremiah’s recent post LAT: “Was 9/11 really that bad?”.

For those of you who don’t know, the following facts:

1) There is a cartoon show about, well, a talking Happy Meal living in New Jersey called Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
2) A guerrilla marketing firm was hired by Cartoon Network (Turner Broadcasting) to put little Lite-Brite style ads of one the characters (named “Err”, a “Mooninite”).
3) The Boston PD crapped their pants and even detonated one of the ads as a possible bomb threat.

Now I can see how mysterious electronic devices around bridges and tunnels could be alarming to the police. But consider these statements:

Prosecutor Grossman explained the reason Boston reacted as it did is because bomb cops are trained to examine foreign objects for a power source and a circuit board and both were present in the Sullivan Square Mooninite, as well as duct tape attached to a red wire.
“They believed it was very possibly a bomb,” Grossman said, adding that an obscene cartoon leering back at them did little to throw them off.
“Someone with a nefarious intent would do that on top of a bomb,” he said.

Yes, I clearly remember the giant middle finger the 9-11 hijackers graffitied across United 93. Perhaps this is related to that old Bert – Bin Laden connection?

This reminds me of how a recent US cyber wargaming exercise, Cyberstorm, targeted the Birkenstock crowd. Not, oh, I don’t know, um… terrorists. Something has gone horribly wrong, hasn’t it?

Over the course of several hours yesterday, police also dismantled Mooninites at Fenway Park [map], the Boston University Bridge, Downtown Crossing and in the Theater District. The Mooninites have reportedly been up for weeks.

Shouldn’t this be a more important issue than wanting to throw the book at some
dreadlocked, unemployed pranking Dirty White Boy? Weeks?!?

Our man Assistant AG Grossman continues:

”It’s clear the intent was to get attention by causing fear and unrest that there was a bomb in that location,” Assistant Attorney General John Grossman said at their arraignment.

This is ridiculous. It’s a cartoon show. In those weeks that these devices were hanging (and still hanging in West Philly, apparently) around Boston, law enforcement did nothing to examine these “suspicious devices”. And moreover, it’s not the pranksters fault that anyone can put an electronic device on a bridge, nor is it their fault that the whole thing will cost Masschusetts well over a million dollars. It’s the fault of a fear-baiting, incompetent government. One that appears to think “duct tape + red wire” equals bomb, and now feels a need to deploy CYA measures. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you another thrilling episode of Security Theater.

Meanwhile, Bush flat out lied in his SOTU. The Congressional Budget Office concludes we’re really sending 48,000, not 21,000 more troops to Iraq and it’ll cost as much as 5 times as much as Bush said a mere three weeks ago.

But that’s nothing compared to the power of Ignignokt’s Foreigner Belt. Remember the true menace is on the Moon. (so that’s why Bush wanted to go there!)

Thanks to the Shanghaiist for posting about a disturbing photo essay documenting child labor in Guangdong province that was first published in the Nanfang Daily:

The person that appears in several of the photographs is Xiao Liao (Liao is his surname), and he, like many others, left their homes behind and started working in Dongguan’s factories at the age of 15.

The captions are brief, but interesting: the picture with the finger says that Liao can no longer completely bend or straighten out his finger, and that at the time, he was more concerned about not damaging the machine he was working on, rather than the injuries sustained to his finger.

Another picture shows them eating. They are only given vegetable dishes, no meat. In the last picture, we find out the Liao is going to become a father, and that because of this, he feels like he’s grown up and now has to shoulder some real responsibility.

The captions are in Chinese, but the photos are a must-see.

From the “I’ll believe it when I see it” desk here at TPD:

The China Daily and Xinhua report today that Beijing city officials have set an August, 2007 deadline to revise and standardize amusing, misleading, and just plain wrong translations on English language signs around the city.

Toilet will replace W.C. (or water closet) and “Exit” signs will stop “Export”-ing people or showing them their “Way Out”.

These are just a few of the inappropriate and embarrassing signs in English that will be changed to make life more convenient for foreigners in Beijing, especially those expected for the 2008 Olympics Games.

The city has embarked on a eight-month journey to rectify all misleading, and at times funny, signs in public places so that they are in place about a year before the Olympics.

Plus, it will ensure that all signs on roads and public places are in two languages, and the English translations follow a standard pattern. The municipal government’s guide to standard English, published last December, will be used as reference.

“The guide is the first to set a local standard for English in China, and has translations for public signs,” city vice-mayor Ji Lin said at a conference yesterday.

Gourmands will also be pleased to learn that, as part of this process, the city is standardizing the translations for the names of typical Chinese dishes. (Good luck with 麻婆豆腐 ma po doufu)