On Feb 18, 2008, at 8:38 AM, John Gulick wrote:
Eric Sommer's parting words:
>Hi there, Thanks to those who put me in touch with Michael
>Lebowitz, my reason for joining the list. I'm now leaving the
>list and will carry on communication with Michael.
JG sez:
I for one am profoundly dismayed to witness such an exponent
of acute ideology critique and social scientific insight leave the
list.
Unlike what seems to be the sarcastic tone you employ, I am sincerely
sorry to see Eric Sommer leave.
Strange ('tho not so strange) how the guy properly cautioned
us against taking "Western" (sic) corporate press coverage of
all matters Chinese at face value, then proceeded to equate
CCP public pronouncements about various policy turns with
actual commitment to and successful implementation of said
policy turns.
Here is what Eric wrote:
Here's a telling example: The Chinese government 'Project
to build a new socialist countryside' is a key part of the
new five year plan for China, and is impacting the lives
of one billion Chinese farmers. It features new social
welfare protections, medical insurance, upgraded access to
medical care, free public school education for children,
greater economic opportunity, and generally upgraded
standards of living and life opportunities for farmers.
For those interested in trade unions, new labour laws
enacted this year have given our unions real muscle for
the first time and a massive unionizaation drive is taking
place throughout the country. The U.S.-China chamber of
commerce, and the multinationals have resisted but
unionizationis proceeding apace. One target is have all,
or nearly all, of the foreign companies unonized, for
which the unionization of wallmart here was a successful
test case. Our 200 million Migrant workers are also being
brought into unions as well as workers in ordinary Chinese
government and private companies.
On green china, hundreds of polluting and high-energy
wasting factories across China have been closed last year
and more are being closed down daily. New anti-pollution
regulations are in place. Large-scale investment in clean
energy technology and research is also taking place, and
much else is being done, including very large projects
involving construction - from the ground up - of the world's
first four eco-cities, with full recycling and super energy
efficiency planned in from the beginning.
Assuming the above is true, this is not an equating of CCP
pronouncements to actual commitment and implementation, but an example
of a pronouncement that is backed by and followed up with commitment
and implementation. If the example is factually untrue, we are still
awaiting a "scientific critique" of that.
Of course you do offer this "scientific" counter-argument:
In any event I recall reading something recently ...
--ravi
