I can understand not wanting to smell like flowers if your a dude . but when I get dry skin it itches. don't guys want to NOT ITCH. or are guys physiologically different somehow to where this isn't a problem for them.
Why don't guys use moisturizer?
Because We aren't Women.
Reply:Win. Report It
Reply:There is non-scented lotion. My boyfriend was talking about how his skin was getting dry while pumping out my way too expensive face moisturizer like it was nothing. I had to grab it away from him. Made me laugh though.
Reply:Because they want to be dry freaks!
Reply:Your kidding, right? To put on lotion requires some dedication and activity...all way to high maintenance for the average man.
...however they never figure out that scratching the itch takes more energy than putting on lotion...
Go figure.
Reply:Haha. When I first met my husband he never used moisturizer and used a bar of soap to wash his face. I showed him the difference! Now he uses Arbonne face wash and moisturizer he LOVES it and it has disminished his wrinkles! ;-)
Guys don't know that they are supposed to use it, they think its only for women!
They are totally wrong!!
Reply:You hit the nail right on the head!!! As a carpenter you need rough skin so that you constantly don't get splinters or get cuts easily!!!
Reply:haha my boyfriend has really bad callouses from playing basketball all the time and he just gave into my hand lotion!!
Reply:I'm a man, and i use lotion or moisturizers becuase who wants to be ashy all day? Not using lotion doesn't make you anymore manly and using lotion doesnt make you anymore of a girl
Reply:There are guys who use moisturizer. The hot, good-looking guys do at least.
Reply:they think its not manly
Reply:Some do use moisturizer but the many out there that don't, just don't want to be seen at the store buying moisturizer and plus using moisturizer will make some feel even a little less of a man.
Reply:They are afraid they will be judged as homosexual, which is pretty lame...maybe thats why homosexual guys look better than straight ones.
Reply:some guys do because they care about the way they look, personally i do and im 14. but some guys dont cuz they think they will be gay if they do use mosterizer.ur only gay if u think ur gay:)
Reply:I have finally gotten my husband to wear a bit of unscented but he should have started 10 years ago to prevent some of the wrinkles from starting! lol. It is a strange thing that they don't, but I think it may be because shaving cream might moisturize a bit...though not around their eyes! (I hope!)
Reply:Man Law states that only girls and gays use moisturizers
Real men clean their skin with sticks and stones.
Reply:I use non-scented lotion in the winter when my eczema starts acting up. And yes, my skin starts itching, too.
Reply:because they have too much pride to not be soft.
good question.
Reply:i think some guys are just self conscious.
my friends are guys and they use moisturizer all the time. :]
Reply:they dont moistureize when people are around so people dont think they're 'femine'. they probably do, though.
Reply:I use it when my hands get dry but I don't use scented ones
Reply:I don't use mositurizur and i never itch, babe.
Reply:if ur black u need 2
Reply:they think its gay to have good skin.
Reply:some do!! me but sssshhhhh
Reply:I use lotion. Also, most black guys use lotion because we like soft skin and ash shows up more prominantly on darker skin. If you are dark skinned and didn't use lotion people would be calling you "Ashy Larry"!
Reply:Well, I suppose it's because we associate lotion with "Spanking The Monkey". Most guys probably don't realize there are other uses for that stuff in the Lubriderm bottle.
Reply:50yo-I use EMU oil and love it. Smells muskie and my gal loves the way "all" my skin feels. Funny tho, when I was younger-I never did get flakie, and I never itched. That said, I was alway in the sun and used good tanning lotions and oils so that could be why I was never really itched and/or scaled.
Reply:I use lotion because I hate cracked and sandpaper-like skin. I don't see why men don't use it. It's kinda strange since men are all about the latest and greatest technology, but shun things that affect their appearance.
Reply:I use moisturizer's but not scented.
Reply:not everyone's skin itches when it dries. i wouldn't want my man to have soft hands anyway.
Reply:guys use glitter instead
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
China: From Death Camp to Civilization. Why very limited power to government is crucial? Mao unknown story?
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/chin...
A hysteria of sorts has been generated by reports that some of China's products lack quality control. Some cat food has been tainted. A few cell-phone batteries have blown up. Cough syrup contained stuff that makes you sick. And so on. In response, the Chinese government actually executed its regulatory head of food and product safety, Zheng Xiaoyu.
How very strange this last point is! In the West, we long ago gave up the idea that these people are actually supposed to carry out their jobs and should be personally responsible for their failure to do so.
What is most striking about these product criticisms is how historically insular they appear in light of the modern history of China. This is a subject that is deeply painful, horrifying in its detail, highly instructive in helping us understand politics – and also puts into perspective these reports of recent troubles in China. It's a scandal, in fact, that few Westerners are even aware, or, if they are aware, they are not conscious, of the bloody reality that prevailed in China between the years 1949 and 1976, the years of rule by Mao Zedong
How many died as a result of persecutions and the communist policies of Mao? Perhaps you care to guess? Many people over the years have attempted to guess. But they have always underestimated. As more data rolled in during the 1980s and 1990s, and specialists have devoted themselves to investigations and estimates, the figures have become ever more reliable. And yet they remain imprecise. What kind of error term are we talking about? It could be as low as 40 million. It could be as high as 100 million – or more. In the Great Leap Forward from 1959 to 1961 alone, figures range between 20 million to 75 million. In the period before, 20 million. In the period after, tens of millions more.
As scholars in the area of mass death point out, most of us can't imagine 100 dead or 1000. Above that, we are just talking about statistics: they have no conceptual meaning for us. And there is only so much ghastly information that our brains can absorb, only so much blood we can imagine. And yet there is more to why China's communist experiment remains a hidden fact: it makes a decisive case against government power, one even more compelling than the cases of Russia or Germany in the 20th century.
The horror was foreshadowed in a bloody civil war following the Second World War. After some nine million people died, the communists emerged victorious in 1949, with Mao as the ruler. The land of Lao-Tzu (rhyme, rhythm, peace), Taoism (compassion, moderation, humility), and Confucianism (piety, social harmony, individual development) was seized by the strangest import to China ever: Marxism from Germany via Russia. It was an ideology that denied all logic, experience, economic law, property rights, and limits on the power of the state on grounds that these notions were merely bourgeois prejudices, and what we needed to transform society was a cadre with all power to transform all things.
It's bizarre to think about it, really: posters of Marx and Lenin in China, of all places, and rule by an ideology of robbery, dictatorship, and death. So spectacular has the transformation been in the last 25 years that one would hardly know that any of this ever happened, except that the Communist Party is still running the place while having tossed out the communist part.
The experiment began in the most bloody way possible following the Second World War, when all Western eyes were focused on matters at home and, to the extent there was any foreign focus, it was on Russia. The "good guys" had won the war in China, or so we were led to believe in times when communism was the fashion.
The communization of China took place in the usual three stages: purge, plan, and scapegoat. First there was the purge to bring about communism. There were guerillas to kill and land to nationalize. The churches had to be destroyed. The counterrevolutionaries had to be put down. The violence began in the country and spread later to the cities. All peasants were first divided into four classes that were considered politically acceptable: poor, semi-poor, average, and rich. Everyone else was considered a landowner and targeted for elimination. If no landowners could be found, the "rich" were often included in this group. The demonized class was ferreted out in a country-wide series of "bitterness meetings" in which people turned in their neighbors for owning property and being politically disloyal. Those who were so deemed were immediately executed along with those who sympathized with them.
The rule was that there had to be at least one person killed per village. The number killed is estimated to be between one and five million. In addition, another four to six million landowners were slaughtered for the crime of being capital owners. If anyone was suspected of hiding wealth, he or she was tortured with hot irons to confess. The families of the killed were then tortured and the graves of their ancestors looted and pillaged. What happened to the land? It was divided into tiny plots and distributed among the remaining peasants.
Then the campaign moved to the cities. The political motivations here were at the forefront, but there were also behavioral controls. Anyone who was suspected of involvement in prostitution, gambling, tax evasion, lying, fraud, opium dealing, or telling state secrets was executed as a "bandit." Official estimates put the number of dead at two million with another two million going to prison to die. Resident committees of political loyalists watched every move. A nighttime visit to another person was immediately reported and the parties involved jailed or killed. The cells in the prisons themselves grew ever smaller, with one person living in a space of about 14 inches. Some prisoners were worked to death, and anyone involved in a revolt was herded with collaborators and they were all burned.
There was industry in the cities, but those who owned and managed them were subjected to ever tighter restrictions: forced transparency, constant scrutinies, crippling taxes, and pressure to offer up their businesses for collectivization. There were many suicides among the owners of small and medium-sized businesses, who saw the writing on the wall. Joining the party provided only temporary respite, since in 1955 began the campaign against hidden counterrevolutionaries in the party itself. A principle here was that one in 10 party members was a secret traitor.
As the rivers of blood rose ever higher, Mao brought about the Hundred Flowers Campaign in two months of 1957, the legacy of which is the phrase we often hear: "let a hundred flowers bloom." People were encouraged to speak freely and give their point of view, an opportunity that was very tempting for intellectuals. The liberalization was short lived. In fact, it was a trick. All those who spoke out against what was happening to China were rounded up and imprisoned, perhaps between 400,000 and 700,000 people, including 10 percent of the well-educated classes. Others were branded as right-wingers and subjected to interrogation, reeducation, kicked out of their homes, and shunned.
But this was nothing compared with phase two, which was one of history’s great central-planning catastrophes. Following the collectivization of land, Mao decided to go further to dictate to the peasants what they would grow, how they would grow it, and where they would ship it, or whether they would grow anything at all as versus plunge into industry. This would become the Great Leap Forward that would generate history's most deadly famine. Peasants were grouped into groups of thousands and forced to share all things. All groups were to be economically self-sufficient. Production goals were raised ever higher.
People were moved by the hundreds of thousands from where production was high to where it was low, as a means of boosting production. They were moved too from agriculture to industry. There was a massive campaign to collect tools and transform them into industrial skill. As a means of showing hope for the future, collectives were encouraged to have huge banquets and eat everything, especially meat. This was a way of showing one's belief that the next year's harvest would be even more bountiful.
Mao had this idea that he knew how to grow grain. He proclaimed that "seeds are happiest when growing together" and so seeds were sown at five to ten times their usual density. Plants died, the soil dried out, and the salt rose to the surface. To keep birds from eating grain, sparrows were wiped out, which vastly increased the number of parasites. Erosion and flooding became endemic. Tea plantations were turned to rice fields, on grounds that tea was decadent and capitalistic. Hydraulic equipment built to service the new collective farms didn't work and lacked any replacement parts. This led Mao to put new emphasis on localized industry, which was forced to appear in the same areas as agriculture, leading to ever more chaos. Workers were drafted from one sector to another, and mandatory cuts in some sectors was balanced by mandatory high quotas in another.
In 1957, the disaster was everywhere. Workers were growing too weak even to harvest their meager crops, so they died watching the rice rot. Industry churned and churned but produced nothing of any use. The government responded by telling people that fat and proteins were unnecessary. But the famine couldn't be denied. The black-market price of rice rose 20 to 30 times. Because trade had been forbidden between collectives (self-sufficiency, you know), millions were left to starve. By 1960, the death rate soared from 15 percent to 68 percent, and the birth rate plummeted. Anyone caught hording grain was shot. Peasants found with the smallest amount were imprisoned. Fires were banned. Funerals were prohibited as wasteful.
Villagers who tried to flee from the countryside to the city were shot at the gates. Deaths from hunger reached 50 percent in some villages. Survivors boiled grass and bark to make soup and wandered the roads looking for food. Sometimes they banded together and raided houses looking for ground maize. Women were unable to conceive because of malnutrition. People in work camps were used for food experiments that led to sickness and death.
How bad did it get? 1968 an 18-year-old member of the Red Guard, Wei Jingsheng, took refuge with a family in a village of Anhui, and here he lived to write about what he saw: "We walked along beside the village…Before my eyes, among the weeds, rose up one of the scenes I had been told about, one of the banquets at which the families had swapped children in order to eat them. I could see the worried faces of the families as they chewed the flesh of other people's children. The children who were chasing butterflies in a nearby field seemed to be the reincarnation of the children devoured by their parents. I felt sorry for the children but not as sorry as I felt for their parents. What had made them swallow that human flesh, amidst the tears and grief of others – flesh that they would never have imagined tasting, even in their worst nightmares?" (The author of the passage was jailed as a traitor but his status protected him from death and he was finally released in 1997.)
How many people died in the famine of 1959–61? The low range is 20 million. The high range is 43 million. Finally in 1961, the government gave in and permitted food imports, but it was too little and too late. Some peasants were again allowed to grow crops on their own land. A few private workshops were opened. Some markets were permitted. Finally, the famine began to abate and production grew.
But then the third phase came: scapegoating. What had caused the calamity? The official reason was anything but communism, anything but Mao. And so the politically motivated round-up began again, and here we get to the very heart of the Cultural Revolution. Thousands of camps and detention centers were opened. People sent there died there. In prison, the slightest excuse was used to dispense with people – all to the good since the prisoners were a drain on the system, so far as those in charge were concerned. The largest penal system ever built was organized in a military fashion, with some camps holding as many as 50,000 people.
There was some sense in which everyone was in prison. Arrests were sweeping and indiscriminate. Everyone had to carry around a copy of Mao’s Little Red Book. To question the reason for arrest was itself evidence of disloyalty, since the state was infallible. Once arrested, the safest path was instant and frequent confession. This time, guards were forbidden from using overt violence, so interrogations would go on for hundreds of hours, and often the prisoner would die during this process. Those named in the confession were then hunted down and rounded up. Once you got through this process, you were sent to a labor camp, where you were graded according to how many hours you could work with little food. They were fed no meat nor given any sugar or oil. Labor prisoners were further controlled by the rationing of the little food they had.
The final phase of this incredible litany of criminality lasted from 1966 to 1976, and during this phase the number of killed fell dramatically to "only" one to three million. The government, now tired and in the first stages of demoralization, began to lose control, first within the labor camps and second in the countryside. And it was this weakening that led to the final and, in some ways the most vicious, of the communist periods in China's history.
The first stages of rebellion occurred in the only way permissible: people began to criticize the government for being too soft and too uncommitted to the communist goal. Ironically, this began to appear precisely as moderation became more overt in Russia. Neo-revolutionaries in the Red Guard began to criticize the Chinese communists as "Khrushchev-like reformers." As one writer put it, the guard "rose up against its own government in order to defend it."
During this period, the personality cult of Mao reached its height, with the Little Red Book achieving a mythic status. The Red Guards roamed the country in an attempt to purge the Four Old-Fashioned Things: ideas, culture, customs, and habits. The remaining temples were barricaded. Traditional opera was banned, with all costumes and sets in the Beijing Opera burned. Monks were expelled. The calendar was changed. All Christianity was banned. There were to be no pets such as cats and birds. Humiliation was the order of the day.
Thus was the Red Terror: in the capital city, there were 1,700 deaths and 84,000 people were run out. In other cities such as Shanghai, the figures were worse. A massive party purge began, with hundreds of thousands arrested and many murdered. Artists, writers, teachers, scientists, technicians: all were targets. Pogroms were visited on community after community, with Mao approving at every step as a means of eliminating every possible political rival. But underneath, the government was splintering and cracking, even as it became ever more brutal and totalist in its outlook.
Finally in 1976, Mao died. Within a few months, his closest advisers were all imprisoned. And the reform began slowly at first and then at breakneck speed. Civil liberties were restored (comparatively) and the rehabilitations began. Torturers were prosecuted. Economic controls were gradually relaxed. The economy, by virtue of human and private economic initiative, was transformed.
Having read the above, you are now in a tiny elite of people who know anything about the greatest death camp in the history of the world that China became between 1949 and 1976, an experiment in total control unlike anything other in history. Many more people today know more about China's exploding cell-phone batteries than the hundred million dead and the untold amount of suffering that occurred under communism.
When you hear about shoddy products coming from China or wheat poorly processed, imagine millions in famine, with parents swapping children to eat in order to stay alive. And what do China's critics today recommend? More control by the government. Don't tell me that we've learned anything from history. We don't even know enough about history to learn from it.
Note on sources, all of which you should buy and read in detail: "China: A Long March into Night," by Jean-Louis Margolin in The Black Book of Communism, by Stephane Courtois et al. (Harvard, 1999), pp. 463–546; Death by Government, by R.J. Rummel (Transaction, 1996); Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine, by Jaspar Becker (Owl Books, 1998); and Mao: The Unknown Story, by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday (2006).
July 21, 2007
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. [send him mail] is president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, editor of LewRockwell.com, and author of Speaking of Liberty.
China: From Death Camp to Civilization. Why very limited power to government is crucial? Mao unknown story?
This is a great question! Except I don't really understand exactly what you're getting at. Can you refine your question a bit? I can tell you that limited power is important because it prevents overbearing governments from doing things like warrantless wiretaps upon its own citizens.
Best Wishes!
Reply:wtf?! thats ALOT OF WTIRING..HOLLY ****!! Report It
Reply:WHAT THE ****?????????????that word that has the"****" i the word for F..U..C..K..ok? in case your were wondering. Report It
mens leather boots
A hysteria of sorts has been generated by reports that some of China's products lack quality control. Some cat food has been tainted. A few cell-phone batteries have blown up. Cough syrup contained stuff that makes you sick. And so on. In response, the Chinese government actually executed its regulatory head of food and product safety, Zheng Xiaoyu.
How very strange this last point is! In the West, we long ago gave up the idea that these people are actually supposed to carry out their jobs and should be personally responsible for their failure to do so.
What is most striking about these product criticisms is how historically insular they appear in light of the modern history of China. This is a subject that is deeply painful, horrifying in its detail, highly instructive in helping us understand politics – and also puts into perspective these reports of recent troubles in China. It's a scandal, in fact, that few Westerners are even aware, or, if they are aware, they are not conscious, of the bloody reality that prevailed in China between the years 1949 and 1976, the years of rule by Mao Zedong
How many died as a result of persecutions and the communist policies of Mao? Perhaps you care to guess? Many people over the years have attempted to guess. But they have always underestimated. As more data rolled in during the 1980s and 1990s, and specialists have devoted themselves to investigations and estimates, the figures have become ever more reliable. And yet they remain imprecise. What kind of error term are we talking about? It could be as low as 40 million. It could be as high as 100 million – or more. In the Great Leap Forward from 1959 to 1961 alone, figures range between 20 million to 75 million. In the period before, 20 million. In the period after, tens of millions more.
As scholars in the area of mass death point out, most of us can't imagine 100 dead or 1000. Above that, we are just talking about statistics: they have no conceptual meaning for us. And there is only so much ghastly information that our brains can absorb, only so much blood we can imagine. And yet there is more to why China's communist experiment remains a hidden fact: it makes a decisive case against government power, one even more compelling than the cases of Russia or Germany in the 20th century.
The horror was foreshadowed in a bloody civil war following the Second World War. After some nine million people died, the communists emerged victorious in 1949, with Mao as the ruler. The land of Lao-Tzu (rhyme, rhythm, peace), Taoism (compassion, moderation, humility), and Confucianism (piety, social harmony, individual development) was seized by the strangest import to China ever: Marxism from Germany via Russia. It was an ideology that denied all logic, experience, economic law, property rights, and limits on the power of the state on grounds that these notions were merely bourgeois prejudices, and what we needed to transform society was a cadre with all power to transform all things.
It's bizarre to think about it, really: posters of Marx and Lenin in China, of all places, and rule by an ideology of robbery, dictatorship, and death. So spectacular has the transformation been in the last 25 years that one would hardly know that any of this ever happened, except that the Communist Party is still running the place while having tossed out the communist part.
The experiment began in the most bloody way possible following the Second World War, when all Western eyes were focused on matters at home and, to the extent there was any foreign focus, it was on Russia. The "good guys" had won the war in China, or so we were led to believe in times when communism was the fashion.
The communization of China took place in the usual three stages: purge, plan, and scapegoat. First there was the purge to bring about communism. There were guerillas to kill and land to nationalize. The churches had to be destroyed. The counterrevolutionaries had to be put down. The violence began in the country and spread later to the cities. All peasants were first divided into four classes that were considered politically acceptable: poor, semi-poor, average, and rich. Everyone else was considered a landowner and targeted for elimination. If no landowners could be found, the "rich" were often included in this group. The demonized class was ferreted out in a country-wide series of "bitterness meetings" in which people turned in their neighbors for owning property and being politically disloyal. Those who were so deemed were immediately executed along with those who sympathized with them.
The rule was that there had to be at least one person killed per village. The number killed is estimated to be between one and five million. In addition, another four to six million landowners were slaughtered for the crime of being capital owners. If anyone was suspected of hiding wealth, he or she was tortured with hot irons to confess. The families of the killed were then tortured and the graves of their ancestors looted and pillaged. What happened to the land? It was divided into tiny plots and distributed among the remaining peasants.
Then the campaign moved to the cities. The political motivations here were at the forefront, but there were also behavioral controls. Anyone who was suspected of involvement in prostitution, gambling, tax evasion, lying, fraud, opium dealing, or telling state secrets was executed as a "bandit." Official estimates put the number of dead at two million with another two million going to prison to die. Resident committees of political loyalists watched every move. A nighttime visit to another person was immediately reported and the parties involved jailed or killed. The cells in the prisons themselves grew ever smaller, with one person living in a space of about 14 inches. Some prisoners were worked to death, and anyone involved in a revolt was herded with collaborators and they were all burned.
There was industry in the cities, but those who owned and managed them were subjected to ever tighter restrictions: forced transparency, constant scrutinies, crippling taxes, and pressure to offer up their businesses for collectivization. There were many suicides among the owners of small and medium-sized businesses, who saw the writing on the wall. Joining the party provided only temporary respite, since in 1955 began the campaign against hidden counterrevolutionaries in the party itself. A principle here was that one in 10 party members was a secret traitor.
As the rivers of blood rose ever higher, Mao brought about the Hundred Flowers Campaign in two months of 1957, the legacy of which is the phrase we often hear: "let a hundred flowers bloom." People were encouraged to speak freely and give their point of view, an opportunity that was very tempting for intellectuals. The liberalization was short lived. In fact, it was a trick. All those who spoke out against what was happening to China were rounded up and imprisoned, perhaps between 400,000 and 700,000 people, including 10 percent of the well-educated classes. Others were branded as right-wingers and subjected to interrogation, reeducation, kicked out of their homes, and shunned.
But this was nothing compared with phase two, which was one of history’s great central-planning catastrophes. Following the collectivization of land, Mao decided to go further to dictate to the peasants what they would grow, how they would grow it, and where they would ship it, or whether they would grow anything at all as versus plunge into industry. This would become the Great Leap Forward that would generate history's most deadly famine. Peasants were grouped into groups of thousands and forced to share all things. All groups were to be economically self-sufficient. Production goals were raised ever higher.
People were moved by the hundreds of thousands from where production was high to where it was low, as a means of boosting production. They were moved too from agriculture to industry. There was a massive campaign to collect tools and transform them into industrial skill. As a means of showing hope for the future, collectives were encouraged to have huge banquets and eat everything, especially meat. This was a way of showing one's belief that the next year's harvest would be even more bountiful.
Mao had this idea that he knew how to grow grain. He proclaimed that "seeds are happiest when growing together" and so seeds were sown at five to ten times their usual density. Plants died, the soil dried out, and the salt rose to the surface. To keep birds from eating grain, sparrows were wiped out, which vastly increased the number of parasites. Erosion and flooding became endemic. Tea plantations were turned to rice fields, on grounds that tea was decadent and capitalistic. Hydraulic equipment built to service the new collective farms didn't work and lacked any replacement parts. This led Mao to put new emphasis on localized industry, which was forced to appear in the same areas as agriculture, leading to ever more chaos. Workers were drafted from one sector to another, and mandatory cuts in some sectors was balanced by mandatory high quotas in another.
In 1957, the disaster was everywhere. Workers were growing too weak even to harvest their meager crops, so they died watching the rice rot. Industry churned and churned but produced nothing of any use. The government responded by telling people that fat and proteins were unnecessary. But the famine couldn't be denied. The black-market price of rice rose 20 to 30 times. Because trade had been forbidden between collectives (self-sufficiency, you know), millions were left to starve. By 1960, the death rate soared from 15 percent to 68 percent, and the birth rate plummeted. Anyone caught hording grain was shot. Peasants found with the smallest amount were imprisoned. Fires were banned. Funerals were prohibited as wasteful.
Villagers who tried to flee from the countryside to the city were shot at the gates. Deaths from hunger reached 50 percent in some villages. Survivors boiled grass and bark to make soup and wandered the roads looking for food. Sometimes they banded together and raided houses looking for ground maize. Women were unable to conceive because of malnutrition. People in work camps were used for food experiments that led to sickness and death.
How bad did it get? 1968 an 18-year-old member of the Red Guard, Wei Jingsheng, took refuge with a family in a village of Anhui, and here he lived to write about what he saw: "We walked along beside the village…Before my eyes, among the weeds, rose up one of the scenes I had been told about, one of the banquets at which the families had swapped children in order to eat them. I could see the worried faces of the families as they chewed the flesh of other people's children. The children who were chasing butterflies in a nearby field seemed to be the reincarnation of the children devoured by their parents. I felt sorry for the children but not as sorry as I felt for their parents. What had made them swallow that human flesh, amidst the tears and grief of others – flesh that they would never have imagined tasting, even in their worst nightmares?" (The author of the passage was jailed as a traitor but his status protected him from death and he was finally released in 1997.)
How many people died in the famine of 1959–61? The low range is 20 million. The high range is 43 million. Finally in 1961, the government gave in and permitted food imports, but it was too little and too late. Some peasants were again allowed to grow crops on their own land. A few private workshops were opened. Some markets were permitted. Finally, the famine began to abate and production grew.
But then the third phase came: scapegoating. What had caused the calamity? The official reason was anything but communism, anything but Mao. And so the politically motivated round-up began again, and here we get to the very heart of the Cultural Revolution. Thousands of camps and detention centers were opened. People sent there died there. In prison, the slightest excuse was used to dispense with people – all to the good since the prisoners were a drain on the system, so far as those in charge were concerned. The largest penal system ever built was organized in a military fashion, with some camps holding as many as 50,000 people.
There was some sense in which everyone was in prison. Arrests were sweeping and indiscriminate. Everyone had to carry around a copy of Mao’s Little Red Book. To question the reason for arrest was itself evidence of disloyalty, since the state was infallible. Once arrested, the safest path was instant and frequent confession. This time, guards were forbidden from using overt violence, so interrogations would go on for hundreds of hours, and often the prisoner would die during this process. Those named in the confession were then hunted down and rounded up. Once you got through this process, you were sent to a labor camp, where you were graded according to how many hours you could work with little food. They were fed no meat nor given any sugar or oil. Labor prisoners were further controlled by the rationing of the little food they had.
The final phase of this incredible litany of criminality lasted from 1966 to 1976, and during this phase the number of killed fell dramatically to "only" one to three million. The government, now tired and in the first stages of demoralization, began to lose control, first within the labor camps and second in the countryside. And it was this weakening that led to the final and, in some ways the most vicious, of the communist periods in China's history.
The first stages of rebellion occurred in the only way permissible: people began to criticize the government for being too soft and too uncommitted to the communist goal. Ironically, this began to appear precisely as moderation became more overt in Russia. Neo-revolutionaries in the Red Guard began to criticize the Chinese communists as "Khrushchev-like reformers." As one writer put it, the guard "rose up against its own government in order to defend it."
During this period, the personality cult of Mao reached its height, with the Little Red Book achieving a mythic status. The Red Guards roamed the country in an attempt to purge the Four Old-Fashioned Things: ideas, culture, customs, and habits. The remaining temples were barricaded. Traditional opera was banned, with all costumes and sets in the Beijing Opera burned. Monks were expelled. The calendar was changed. All Christianity was banned. There were to be no pets such as cats and birds. Humiliation was the order of the day.
Thus was the Red Terror: in the capital city, there were 1,700 deaths and 84,000 people were run out. In other cities such as Shanghai, the figures were worse. A massive party purge began, with hundreds of thousands arrested and many murdered. Artists, writers, teachers, scientists, technicians: all were targets. Pogroms were visited on community after community, with Mao approving at every step as a means of eliminating every possible political rival. But underneath, the government was splintering and cracking, even as it became ever more brutal and totalist in its outlook.
Finally in 1976, Mao died. Within a few months, his closest advisers were all imprisoned. And the reform began slowly at first and then at breakneck speed. Civil liberties were restored (comparatively) and the rehabilitations began. Torturers were prosecuted. Economic controls were gradually relaxed. The economy, by virtue of human and private economic initiative, was transformed.
Having read the above, you are now in a tiny elite of people who know anything about the greatest death camp in the history of the world that China became between 1949 and 1976, an experiment in total control unlike anything other in history. Many more people today know more about China's exploding cell-phone batteries than the hundred million dead and the untold amount of suffering that occurred under communism.
When you hear about shoddy products coming from China or wheat poorly processed, imagine millions in famine, with parents swapping children to eat in order to stay alive. And what do China's critics today recommend? More control by the government. Don't tell me that we've learned anything from history. We don't even know enough about history to learn from it.
Note on sources, all of which you should buy and read in detail: "China: A Long March into Night," by Jean-Louis Margolin in The Black Book of Communism, by Stephane Courtois et al. (Harvard, 1999), pp. 463–546; Death by Government, by R.J. Rummel (Transaction, 1996); Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine, by Jaspar Becker (Owl Books, 1998); and Mao: The Unknown Story, by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday (2006).
July 21, 2007
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. [send him mail] is president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, editor of LewRockwell.com, and author of Speaking of Liberty.
China: From Death Camp to Civilization. Why very limited power to government is crucial? Mao unknown story?
This is a great question! Except I don't really understand exactly what you're getting at. Can you refine your question a bit? I can tell you that limited power is important because it prevents overbearing governments from doing things like warrantless wiretaps upon its own citizens.
Best Wishes!
Reply:wtf?! thats ALOT OF WTIRING..HOLLY ****!! Report It
Reply:WHAT THE ****?????????????that word that has the"****" i the word for F..U..C..K..ok? in case your were wondering. Report It
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Why should a school cost 90million dollars to build, isn't that a lot of money for a school?
I am told a public building only laststs 20 or so years and 90million sounds outrageous. I went to school in a one room school of wood seven grades and one teacher, I was not deprived!
We read out loud in front of all seven grades it was fun. Some of us sneeked out the bathroom window and went home or into the woods for wild flowers. One time in the winter we walked cross lots home in the sleet, our clothes were froze and we had ice on our eye lashes, I still remember now I am old and I do not understand
The expence of todays foolishness. We had a crank teliphone we burned wood in the funace to keep warm. We had a pot bellied stove in school to keep us all warm the boys stoked it. We dried mittens on it. Toasted sandwiches on it
burned home work in it. We prayed in school we said the Our Father, the 23rd Psalm and the pledge to the flag after one of the apointed boys put it up the pole. the flag was put up and taken down every day. People were kind and good we lived a simple life.
Why should a school cost 90million dollars to build, isn't that a lot of money for a school?
I miss those days too, life was more simple, meaningful and fulfilling. To answer your original question, no amount of money is too much for a school. These days a slice of pizza is about $4-$, and back then, about 28 cents.
I like the prayer idea too, I'm not religious, but hearing those words but the "Our Father, Pledge of Allegiance- (I don't know the 23rd Psalm)- I will look it up now. Hearing such comforting and sensible words makes for better living and thought.
Reply:i beg to differ the statement you are not depreived
for example, why are you posting this on the
jokes and riddles section of yahoo answers
Reply:Where is the Joke? Where is the Riddle... I don't know but hey play the fiddle... Wrong catergory there a buddy
Reply:that is a lot of money
We read out loud in front of all seven grades it was fun. Some of us sneeked out the bathroom window and went home or into the woods for wild flowers. One time in the winter we walked cross lots home in the sleet, our clothes were froze and we had ice on our eye lashes, I still remember now I am old and I do not understand
The expence of todays foolishness. We had a crank teliphone we burned wood in the funace to keep warm. We had a pot bellied stove in school to keep us all warm the boys stoked it. We dried mittens on it. Toasted sandwiches on it
burned home work in it. We prayed in school we said the Our Father, the 23rd Psalm and the pledge to the flag after one of the apointed boys put it up the pole. the flag was put up and taken down every day. People were kind and good we lived a simple life.
Why should a school cost 90million dollars to build, isn't that a lot of money for a school?
I miss those days too, life was more simple, meaningful and fulfilling. To answer your original question, no amount of money is too much for a school. These days a slice of pizza is about $4-$, and back then, about 28 cents.
I like the prayer idea too, I'm not religious, but hearing those words but the "Our Father, Pledge of Allegiance- (I don't know the 23rd Psalm)- I will look it up now. Hearing such comforting and sensible words makes for better living and thought.
Reply:i beg to differ the statement you are not depreived
for example, why are you posting this on the
jokes and riddles section of yahoo answers
Reply:Where is the Joke? Where is the Riddle... I don't know but hey play the fiddle... Wrong catergory there a buddy
Reply:that is a lot of money
Drying Roses?
My boyfriend just gave me 48 beautiful red roses. I want to dry them and use them for the flower girl at our wedding. What is the best way to do this? Please give as detailed instructions as possible.
Drying Roses?
Hang them upside down. When dry I spray mine with canned hair spray so they don't break as much.
MarriedGoddess is a hateful snot, ignore her. I think it's a lovely idea with lots of sentiment behind it.
Reply:Hang them upside down in a dry area. After about 2 days spray them with aerosol hairspray. Not too much but enough to coat them. Spray every other day till they are completely dry. It will take about 2 weeks for them to be right. The hairspray helps to preserve them.
Reply:Hang them upside down to dry. Once they are dry you can pluck the petals out.
Reply:Teddy's right. Tie a ribbon around the base of the stems and hang them to dry in a dry room (not the bathroom, kitchen or outside.) Take them out of the water and start drying them before the petals start to wilt and die.
Reply:The best way to dry the roses is to tie them together, not tight, and hang them upside down someplace that is warm. You need the warmth to help dry the flowers faster. I have done this with all of the flowers that my fiance has given me. It usually takes a couple days depending on how many you hang together in a bundle and how warm of a place you decide to hang them. I hope this help.
Reply:The first two answers are one way to dry flowers.
Another way is to put them in clean cat litter in a
micro-safe pan and gently cover them with more cat
litter. Then put the pan in the microwave and heat them
for about 20 minutes at a time until completely dry.
You can go to www.duncancrafts.com for more
ideas.
Reply:Keep them tied together, upside-down...they will wilt and eventually dry out. Then you can put the petals into a plastic bag so tehy don't get everywhere. Make sure they don't get too brittle before you pick them off or else they will crumble. I would also suggest keeping them in the fridge (in the baggie of course) so they don't get too brittle.
Reply:Silica Gel is a granular material ideal for drying flowers because it draws moisture from the flower, drying it quickly therefore reducing the loss of colour and size. The end result is dried flowers which look almost as if they have been freshly picked.
Check with your local craft store.
Reply:Just tie the stems together and hang them upside down in a cool, dry place. It will take a while, but they will dry out and still maintain their shape. As far as having your flower girl use them at your wedding - probably not a good idea. Only because they are delicate once they are dried.
Reply:Gross! Why can't the flower girl get fresh, beautiful flowers? Dead, dry flowers are a HORRIBLE sign of BAD luck - I would not advise you to use them for your wedding day. Don't be cheap - just get nice fresh flowers instead.
Reply:i am a florist and you might want to check with the place of your ceremony and see what the policy is for flowerpetals, dried can make a heck of a mess (being ground into the carpets etc)
you can also pick the petals off and dry them in a low shallow box mixing them around (that is if you only want the petals) if you want them whole you can hang them iwth an elastic ( which will shrink as the stems dry) and hang them in a cool dry place
good luck
Reply:Hang them up side down to dry. This well keep the shape of the rose and it will dry
Reply:How do you want to use them for the flower girl? Do you want her to toss the petals? They will be dry, brittle and turn to dust.
Not a good idea in my opinion.
Good Luck
Drying Roses?
Hang them upside down. When dry I spray mine with canned hair spray so they don't break as much.
MarriedGoddess is a hateful snot, ignore her. I think it's a lovely idea with lots of sentiment behind it.
Reply:Hang them upside down in a dry area. After about 2 days spray them with aerosol hairspray. Not too much but enough to coat them. Spray every other day till they are completely dry. It will take about 2 weeks for them to be right. The hairspray helps to preserve them.
Reply:Hang them upside down to dry. Once they are dry you can pluck the petals out.
Reply:Teddy's right. Tie a ribbon around the base of the stems and hang them to dry in a dry room (not the bathroom, kitchen or outside.) Take them out of the water and start drying them before the petals start to wilt and die.
Reply:The best way to dry the roses is to tie them together, not tight, and hang them upside down someplace that is warm. You need the warmth to help dry the flowers faster. I have done this with all of the flowers that my fiance has given me. It usually takes a couple days depending on how many you hang together in a bundle and how warm of a place you decide to hang them. I hope this help.
Reply:The first two answers are one way to dry flowers.
Another way is to put them in clean cat litter in a
micro-safe pan and gently cover them with more cat
litter. Then put the pan in the microwave and heat them
for about 20 minutes at a time until completely dry.
You can go to www.duncancrafts.com for more
ideas.
Reply:Keep them tied together, upside-down...they will wilt and eventually dry out. Then you can put the petals into a plastic bag so tehy don't get everywhere. Make sure they don't get too brittle before you pick them off or else they will crumble. I would also suggest keeping them in the fridge (in the baggie of course) so they don't get too brittle.
Reply:Silica Gel is a granular material ideal for drying flowers because it draws moisture from the flower, drying it quickly therefore reducing the loss of colour and size. The end result is dried flowers which look almost as if they have been freshly picked.
Check with your local craft store.
Reply:Just tie the stems together and hang them upside down in a cool, dry place. It will take a while, but they will dry out and still maintain their shape. As far as having your flower girl use them at your wedding - probably not a good idea. Only because they are delicate once they are dried.
Reply:Gross! Why can't the flower girl get fresh, beautiful flowers? Dead, dry flowers are a HORRIBLE sign of BAD luck - I would not advise you to use them for your wedding day. Don't be cheap - just get nice fresh flowers instead.
Reply:i am a florist and you might want to check with the place of your ceremony and see what the policy is for flowerpetals, dried can make a heck of a mess (being ground into the carpets etc)
you can also pick the petals off and dry them in a low shallow box mixing them around (that is if you only want the petals) if you want them whole you can hang them iwth an elastic ( which will shrink as the stems dry) and hang them in a cool dry place
good luck
Reply:Hang them up side down to dry. This well keep the shape of the rose and it will dry
Reply:How do you want to use them for the flower girl? Do you want her to toss the petals? They will be dry, brittle and turn to dust.
Not a good idea in my opinion.
Good Luck
After repotting and fertilizing a gardenia plant the leaves are drying out and dying, how do i save it?
For 2 months I had waterted the plant once a week and had several flowers bloom. In the last few weeks the plant was dropping flower buds so researched and thought I may need to improve the acidity and drainage of the soil. I tried feeding it acidic plant food according to the package directions. The plant leaves began drooping the next day. I then repotted it into more acidic soil and better drainage. That was a week ago. The leaves have lost all their glossiness and have dried out. Is there anything I can do to bring the plant back to health?
After repotting and fertilizing a gardenia plant the leaves are drying out and dying, how do i save it?
I hope this is not too late. You have to repot your gardenia your soil is too acidic which inhibits the growth of new roots.After repotting spray your plant with a rootgrowth hormone. You can use any vitamine B complex disolved in water. Goodluck!
Reply:My reference( see below) says Gardenias are very temperamental, requiring a 60 - 65'F night temperature for buds to form and the day temperature should be 10'F higher. A even temperature and careful watering are required to prevent the buds falling and soft water must be used to prevent the foliage turning yellow. If your are in a hard-water area, use rain-water, but in all cases, leave it to stand for a few hours before use, so it does not give the plant a chill. Draughts are also something to be avoided as well as direct midday sun in summer, and mist the leaves frequently.
Only needs to be repotted every two years or so.
After repotting and fertilizing a gardenia plant the leaves are drying out and dying, how do i save it?
I hope this is not too late. You have to repot your gardenia your soil is too acidic which inhibits the growth of new roots.After repotting spray your plant with a rootgrowth hormone. You can use any vitamine B complex disolved in water. Goodluck!
Reply:My reference( see below) says Gardenias are very temperamental, requiring a 60 - 65'F night temperature for buds to form and the day temperature should be 10'F higher. A even temperature and careful watering are required to prevent the buds falling and soft water must be used to prevent the foliage turning yellow. If your are in a hard-water area, use rain-water, but in all cases, leave it to stand for a few hours before use, so it does not give the plant a chill. Draughts are also something to be avoided as well as direct midday sun in summer, and mist the leaves frequently.
Only needs to be repotted every two years or so.
Wildflower Project?
I am doing a wildflower project, and I have to collect 10 flowers. I have collected them and they are drying right now. Where should I put them after for showing when I turn it in? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Wildflower Project?
You can make a "herbarium": You mount your specimen on paper and label them.
Here you find several more or less illustrated hints. The first one explains it in an easy way, the others give more details:
http://www.rbg.ca/cbcn/en/cbcn4kids/kid_...
http://www.hometrainingtools.com/article...
http://www.funsci.com/fun3_en/herb/herb....
coach fur boots
Wildflower Project?
You can make a "herbarium": You mount your specimen on paper and label them.
Here you find several more or less illustrated hints. The first one explains it in an easy way, the others give more details:
http://www.rbg.ca/cbcn/en/cbcn4kids/kid_...
http://www.hometrainingtools.com/article...
http://www.funsci.com/fun3_en/herb/herb....
coach fur boots
I'm looking for the name of the artist, the name of the song, and the name of the album that it's on.?
I know some of the lyrics to be: "In the dry dusty desert, a wild flower grows" I think the artist was Jerry Wallace but I'm not certain, I would like to add this song to my music library, but I need all the information I can find about it, especially The name, the artist, and the album. This song was popular on the country charts in the early to mid 70's
I'm looking for the name of the artist, the name of the song, and the name of the album that it's on.?
If You Leave Me Tonight I'll Cry
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg...
Reply:Wrong answer, that wasn't it. Report It
Reply:You have enough info to google this. Try it. You might like it. Unless you just like having someone else do it for you, of course. Good luck with that.
I'm looking for the name of the artist, the name of the song, and the name of the album that it's on.?
If You Leave Me Tonight I'll Cry
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg...
Reply:Wrong answer, that wasn't it. Report It
Reply:You have enough info to google this. Try it. You might like it. Unless you just like having someone else do it for you, of course. Good luck with that.
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