The one where I write about the window on the world

The irony was not lost on me when my own copy of Fallout 3 arrived in the mail a few days ago with Chinese characters emblazoned across the case.  Last night while I was leading an ESL discussion in Second Life about immigration, I wanted the learners to see a video from Al Jezeera television, but our Chinese learners couldn't watch it.  China forbids its people to access YouTube.  Of course, YouTube is the main channel of the world's silly, fun-loving side, but it's also an important expression of the world's philosophies and education.  The Chinese prohibition reduces their people's view of the variety of thought and opinion, true, but it also takes away the humanity of the rest of the world.  If my travels have taught me anything, it's that people are the same no matter where you go.  In shielding its public from the extensive breadth of human thought and opinion, the Chinese government is also denying its people a very personal connection with the outside world.  When I was in Army basic training in Alabama, we practiced on targets made to resemble Soviet soldiers.  We were constantly reminded by the government's propaganda and the news media how oppressive and evil the Soviets were.  It made us consider them less than human and so easier to hate and kill, if necessary.  There are things on YouTube that I personally find unpalatable, but on the whole, YouTube offers mankind a grand window on human society.  It makes us realize that people in Buenos Aires, Argentina, are the same as people in Bay City, Michigan or Rouen, France as well as our own hometown.  We all laugh at the same things, cry at the same things, dance, sing, sleep, drink, and enjoy life the same all over the world.  Shutter this window, and you are left to wonder about the outsiders your government says are dangerous.  You distrust the outsiders because you have been told they are different, yet you have never seen them.  They are not like us, so you must be suspicious of them.  This is what makes war, and all killing, easier.  You can look upon your victim as different from you and consequently less than you, because you have never seen her holding her newborn son, or cringed at him dancing in his underwear at a party, or laughed with them trying to solve a Rubik's cube.  People are people, the same the world over, in spite of all attempts to dehumanize those who are not part of our tribe, our race, or our religion.  YouTube shows us who our neighbors are, and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

The one where I didn't mention that plastic U.S. flag

     There are things about Korea I don't understand, things I don't want to understand, and, believe it or not, things I actually do understand about Korea.  They are a "make do" kind of people.  The local store might reserve its parking space overnight with random pieces of concrete in some plastic buckets with a broom laid between them.   A car repair shop might create an entry to the street by laying some broken boards down for cars to rumble over the curb rather than refashioning the curb into a driveway.   The custodian of an apartment building might tape together pieces of cardboard to make a dust pan for a broom he made of a piece of scrap and some flexible twigs.
     You cannot have a conversation with a Korean national for long before the cost of something becomes the topic of choice.  The coat you're wearing, the coffee you're drinking, the vehicle you arrived in, the prices of all these things are fair subjects.  They're good at remembering the prices of things, and even though I am not wealthy, after I pay for something, the amount I paid is no longer relevant.  The deed is done, the money has passed from me to the seller and as far as it concerns me, it has been miraculously changed into a coat, a motorcycle, or a cup of coffee whose values to me may now differ wildly from that of the original seller, and money may no longer be the measure of value I use.
     So what of this national pastime of frugality?  I think it's because they are often attached to the money itself rather than what it can do to make the eye happier, the mouth and nose sweeter, the skin more joyful, the muscles and bones more contented in themselves or in others.  How people use their money tells me a lot about them. It tells me how much they value the things they use, the value they place on their work, and the worth of the people they spend time with.  
     When I was in the Army, I wasn't one of those soldiers who splurged on records, fancy clothes, or went bingeing on Saturday nights after pay day, and sometimes people would often joke when they saw a moth that "Michael must have opened his wallet."  However, none of the people who really knew me said that, because my friends know where my true values lie.  Just because my values are not the same as others does not mean I don't use money to show what I value, though money can sometimes be a poor measure of true value.  Have you never used the words "priceless" or "invaluable"?
     Money makes life better, that's true.  However, if we use money only for our own selfish interests, the world sees at a glance what we really value.  We are in this world together.  We all evolved from the same life that so precariously emerged from the countless ages of history.  We are all one life in the eyes of Nature.  We have reached the stage where we no longer have to fight and kill our competitors for food.  We have the ability to organize ourselves for the well-being of not just our species but all species. It depends on where our values lie, though.  Do we exert our energy accruing money simply for the sake of the money?  Have we made life in this 21st century so precarious still that people find money their only stable happiness?  If so, then shame on us.  Mammon is a fickle god to worship.

The one that doesn't count

Though trees are starting to bud, and there are some hardier flowers beginning to unfold, spring is still dominated by browns and drabs here in Gyeongju.  It was a beautiful day, however, for a bicycle ride to the lake.

I am reminded by the news that once again I do not count, literally, to the United States government.  Yesterday was census day, but for the last three censuses I have lived abroad and have not counted.  I don't know the last time I counted.  My mother died on census day in 1980, so it's unclear whether my parents actually had gotten around to mailing the form back in.  I'll just assume that 1970 was the last time I counted, as an eleven-year old Caucasian male in a two-parent family of modest means living on an unpaved city street in a four-bedroom, two-storey house with asbestos siding.  I was somebody back then!
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The flagrant sedition I have been watching unfold in the United States disturbs me.  During all the dark days when the Great Idiot was President and those overlapping years when the party of Big Business controlled all of Congress, I don't remember any liberals calling for the overthrow of the government, the compelled removal of legally elected officers of state, the destruction of private property, threats on the lives of elected officials, armed marches into the capital city of the Republic, or unabashed lying about... everything.  The seditionists have a barely remote chance of unraveling the established order of the American Constitution, but they may succeed in compelling the People to defend themselves, that is, the government may have to step in if chaos breaks out because of these wannabe revolutionaries.  That would be regrettable since the Radicals would see that as a sign the government wants to control us, when the fact is, We the People expect our leaders to maintain order for our own safety and prosperity.  Chaos benefits only those who have nothing to lose.

When considering a return to the United States to live, these are things that weigh on my mind.  Man can be a dangerous animal.  Our times are not shielded from danger any more than the times of the French Revolution, Kristallnacht, the Haymarket Massacre, or the segregated South.  However, responsible citizens do not cower in fear because evil men raise themselves up.  Evil men do not remain long when We the People stand firm in our resolve to defend the Republic against its enemies.  And lest some think I am a sappy sentimentalist, let me be clear.  I do not believe the government is the Republic.  The government is the servant of the Republic.  We the People are the Republic, and when it becomes clear that a minority wishes Us the People general ill, that minority must be contained and reformed at all costs for the well being and prosperity of All the People. 

What can an ageing, gray-haired liberal do to save his country from these wolves?  Alone, very little.  However, if that one stands shoulder to shoulder with two, and those two stand with more, both conservative and liberal, who do not want to see this Republic fail, then it will not fail.