Monday, January 19, 2009

Happy Civil Rights Day


Here is a poster from the Chinese Cultural Revolution. According to Wikipedia, it is captioned " "Smash the old world / Establish a new world." The worker is crushing a crucifix, Buddha and classical Chinese texts with his hammer.

As you may know, the Cultural Revolution was one of the cruelest of the 20th century despotic "purges." I happen to have worked with and been friends with survivors and the children of survivors. Those that had different opinions, belonged to the wrong social group, or were suspected of either agreeing with, or being in politically incorrect groups were targeted for persecution, and in some cases death.

It seems to be a fitting image for many family rights challenges this nation is currently facing. State agencies employ their workers to destroy those things that are most precious to politically incorrect groups. I hope that in the future civil liberties will be extended to families of those persecuted by the United States and Canadian governments.

2 comments:

Nonickname said...

As you have stated that you are a parent and interested in parenting issues, consider reading "The Red Scarf Girl" by, Ji Li Jing with your kids if they are older than about age seven.

karateka said...

Thanks for the tip. I've noticed that the book has shown up on various reading lists for middle school and home schooling.

It seems to me that the bigotry and prejudice exhibited in the Cultural Revolution was carried out with the same fervor as the raid on the FLDS compound, and other CPS-style raids. The government automatically assumes guilt, even when it has zero factual evidence. It then attempts to break up the families and isolate the children. Standard law, such as the 14 day hearings, are broken by the government.

Fortunately, there is at least some token adherence to the constitution. Many posters in the blogosphere specifically threatened the FLDS with violence, torture, and vigilante action. Fortunately, an incident such as happened at Beaumont in 1943 was not repeated.