Similar “Oily” Interests

February 24, 2010

China’s hunger for oil is not equal to America’s gluttony but it is getting there. Meanwhile, America and its allies blame China for the stalemate over stopping Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

This is my confession. I’m seeking God’s forgiveness for my sins. Every American who drives a car is an accessory to a crime—9/11.  The more oil, gas or diesel consumed, the more guilt.

There are two parts to this sin.

The first stage for this crime took place during America’s Cold War with Communism. If you haven’t seen Charlie Wilson’s War, rent it.  Americans were the mad scientists who created the Frankenstein, the metamorphosis of the wolf men—the demons we call al-Qaida.

The Taliban, who supported al-Qaida’s goal to eliminate all Western Cultures and create a Caliphate—a throwback to another era, learned their Islamic Fundamentalism from Saudi Arabia’s dominant faith, Wahhabism. Oil money paid for the Wahabi schools that Saudi Arabia built around the world.  These schools teach fundamentalist Islamic principles that grow future terrorists recruited by al-Qaida and the Taliban.

Saudi Oil Wells

And who feeds Saudi oil to their SUVs, cars, trucks, eighteen-wheelers and coast to coast freight trains and jet planes?

When China blocks action against Iran’s nuclear ambitions, because the Chinese people love American food and buy GM, Ford, Volkswagen and Toyota, isn’t their hunger the same?

See America Doing Business in China

1 Comment | America, business, China, economy, environment, government, media, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Roughed Up

February 23, 2010

“The police arrived, the guards apologized, and the reporter left without filing charges. Then the policeman told the reporter, ‘You’re free to do what you want, but this is Foxconn and they have a special status here. Please understand.'” So wrote Michael Grothaus for an RSS feed in a piece about “A Reuters employee who was investigating Apple’s legendary secrecy visited Foxconn’s walled city-like facility in Guanlan, China, and was reportedly roughed up by security.”

iPod

Well, yea. The competition is fierce in China for lucrative contracts.  If Foxconn has a contract with Apple and that company loses the contract amounting to millions if not billions of American dollars, it makes sense that their security would be tough on any suspected industrial, high-tech spy. Their jobs even with low pay and long hours are better than no job and poverty. Why put up with a snoop?

If the Foxconn security didn’t take the job seriously, Apple might take their business to another country. How many people would have lost their jobs if that happened?

holding a cup of hot coffee

Consider that China has one lawyer for every 13,000 people compared to the United States, The Litigation Nation, with more lawyers than any other country—one for every two-hundred and sixty-five people and spilling hot coffee on yourself is grounds for going to court.

See Doing Business in China

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

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1 Comment | America, American culture, business, China, Chinese Culture, economy, media | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Innocent Until Proven Guilty

February 21, 2010

An American friend who taught English and lived in China for several years once said that it was possible to get around the government censors and reach sites that have been blocked.  It just takes time.  With that in mind, pointing fingers, as Google and Secretary of State Clinton did over the Google hacking episode, was a blunder and an insult to the Chinese people and their government.

Catching clever, cyber criminals on the Internet is not easy—especially if those criminals are Geeks getting thrills hacking into protected Websites. From what I’ve learned, organized Internet criminals are worse and harder to catch.

Shadow Land, the post before this one, is a case in point.

To understand more, I suggest you read How Prisoners Are Using Facebook to Harass Their Victims , and remember, next time you decide to blame the Chinese government for everything that happens in China, hold your tongue with forceps until the evidence—not opinions—proves guilt.

Consider that China has 1.3 billion people and only seventy million belong to the Communist party that rules the country. And regardless of popular Western opinions, the Chinese government does not control everything the Chinese people do with their daily lives and they never will.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Shadow Land

February 21, 2010

It seems that students in China may be modeling themselves after a Jackie Chan movie and playing catch-me if you can.  Harking back to a piece I wrote about Google being hacked, more evidence has been revealed that the real perpetrators may be high school students.

Now, the New York Times says, “the attacks came from China but not necessarily from the Chinese government, or even from Chinese sources.”

The NSA traced some of the attacks to servers in Taiwan.  Then a United States military contractor that faced the same attacks as Google has also led investigators to suspect a link to a specific computer science class, taught by a Ukrainian professor at a vocational school in east China’s Shandong Province. Last week, in another hacking incident, the trail led through China to Germany where that other attack originated.

What is most disturbing is the knee jerk reaction that took place when shortly after Google went public with its accusations against China without evidence, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton challenged the Chinese in a speech on Internet censors, suggesting China’s efforts to control open access to the Internet were in effect an information-age Berlin Wall.

This is not the way to build trust with other governments. The wise thing to do would have been to wait until all the evidence was in before deciding who was guilty. It’s also interesting to know that this vocational school is operated by a company with close ties to Baidu, the dominant search engine in China and Google’s competitor.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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3 Comments | America, China, education, government, media, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

An American Shadow Over the Philippines

February 16, 2010

After the Spanish American War, America took possession of the Philippine islands and waged war against the native people killing more than two hundred thousand. This went on until World War II.

An American flag flying over Fort Santiago in Manila, Phillippines-c1920s

In fact, the treatment of American Indians hasn’t changed much.  The United States government might not wage brutal war against Native American Indians today as they did in the past, but in recent times billions of dollars slated to support Native American Indian tribes on reservations went missing, and no one seems to know where all that money went or care, except the Indians. It would appear that the era of lies and broken treaties has not ended.

If you want to learn more about American Indians, I suggest you read what the New York Times said about the work written by Vine Deloria Jr., and check out Native American Literature worth reading. It’s best to stay away from Hollywood if you want to get closer to the truth.

It is always good to have the facts before passing judgment, and history does count.

Discover In a Dark Mirror Without Reflection

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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5 Comments | America, American culture, China, Chinese Culture, Christianity, government, media, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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