This started out as a comment on Steven D’s fine front paged diary The Future of Blitzkrieg is Now: US is “Global Strike” Capable, about the latest press release from BushCo’s pet generals regarding our ability to destroy the world yet ANOTHER twenty times over.
This is NEWS???
Are we supposed to feel protected by these madmen?
Anyway…it brought back to me a piece I once read that was part of a series of interviews that Mao tse Tung had with leaders of opposition groups from South America, Central America and the Caribbean way back in 1956. The one where he coined the phrase “Paper Tiger” to describe the U.S.
Read on if you are interested…
Now I am no Marxist…OR Maoist, as Booman so gently accused me of being a week or two ago…because I have seen firsthand the generalized failure of Communism on my travels around the world as a musician. Its failure as far as I am concerned, anyway. Societal and cultural failure. But Mao tse Tung had his points, both as a strategist and as a tactician. He saw things in at the very least an effective way, considering the unparalleled success that he had as a leader of resistance movements.
And here is what he had to say.
In 1956.
The United States owes debts everywhere. It owes debts not only to the countries of Latin America, Asia and Africa, but also to the countries of Europe and Oceania. The whole world, Britain included dislikes the United States. The masses of the people dislike it. Japan dislikes the United States because it oppresses her. None of the countries in the East is free from U.S. aggression. The United States has invaded our Taiwan Province. Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam and Pakistan all suffer from U.S. aggression, although some of them are allies of the United States. The people are dissatisfied and in some countries so are the authorities.
All oppressed nations want independence.
Sound somehow…familiar? Except for perhaps the Japan part. Many of whose people STILL largely dislike us, only now it’s because we are bad for business.
THEIR business.
More.
—snip—
Only when imperialism is eliminated can peace prevail. The day will come when the paper tigers will be wiped out. But they won’t become extinct of their own accord, they need to be battered by the wind and the rain.
When we say U.S. imperialism is a paper tiger, we are speaking in terms of strategy. Regarding it as a whole, we must despise it. But regarding each part, we must take it seriously. It has claws and fangs. We have to destroy it piecemeal. For instance, if it has ten fangs, knock off one the first time, and there will be nine left, knock off another, and there will be eight left. When all the fangs are gone, it will still have claws. If we deal with it step by step and in earnest, we will certainly succeed in the end.
Strategically, we must utterly despise U.S. imperialism. Tactically, we must take it seriously. In struggling against it, we must take each battle, each encounter, seriously. At present, the United States is powerful, but when looked at in a broader perspective, as a whole and from a long-term viewpoint, it has no popular support, its policies are disliked by the people, because it oppresses and exploits them. For this reason, the tiger is doomed. Therefore, it is nothing to be afraid of and can be despised. But today the United States still has strength, turning out more than 100 million tons of steel a year and hitting out everywhere. That is why we must continue to wage struggles against it, fight it with all our might and wrest one position after another from it. And that takes time.
It seems that the countries of the Americas, Asia and Africa will have to go on quarrelling with the United States till the very end, till the paper tiger is destroyed by the wind and the rain.
Like I said…sound familiar? (Except of course for the “100 million tons of steel a year” part. Whoops, there goes another tooth!!!)
Now the current incarnation of the resistance to American power has no use whatsoever for “Communism”. It is a fundamentalist religious movement in its strongest parts….the antithesis of the idea of Communism as it evolved in both Russia and in China.
But its leaders have read Mao. AND Metternich AND Machiavelli AND Sun Tzu AND that great general and tactician Mohammed as well. (He won, didn’t he?)
More from Mao in ’56.
—snip—
History as a whole, the history of class society for thousands of years, has proved this point: the strong must give way to the weak.
Mao knew his I Ching.
Bet on it.
The Book of Changes.
Everything changes except change itself.
Or was he a “The meek shall inherit the earth” Christian?
Or is the truth of the matter expressed in EVERY great work of moral teaching?
Hmmm…
Nevermind.
Recent evidence suggests that the colossus “U.S.S.R” was a paper tiger during the cold war. That they couldn’t even make a reliable automobile, let ALONE mount a real attack into Europe. That they were all bluster and corruption.
A gigantic con game ruled by a totally kleptocratic autocracy.
Sound familiar?
“VROOM VROOM!!!”
Read what is happening to GM and Ford recently?
Yup.
The Revered and Holy Prophet and Martyr John Lennon…may God’s Peace be upon him…pinned it almost thirty years ago.
Well the Ukraine girls really knock me out
They leave the west behind
And Moscow girls make me sing and shout
That Georgia’s always on my mind.
I’m back in the U.S.S.R
You don’t know how lucky you are boys
Back in the U.S.S.R
Yeah.
WE’VE got Star Wars weapons.
Right.
“The U.S. Strategic Command announced yesterday it had achieved an operational capability for rapidly striking targets around the globe using nuclear or conventional weapons, after last month testing its capacity for nuclear war against a fictional country believed to represent North Korea. “
Sheeit!!!
We can’t even deal with fundamentalist militia in clapped out Toyota pickup trucks.
Paper tiger time.
Once again.
Just as it always was.
Back in the U.S.S.R.
Or…we CAN take the whole show out while our paper tiger burns.
Now THERE’S a good idea!!!
Eh, President Cheney???
William Blake once asked the question:
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
Our answer?
Today?
THIS tiger was framed by DisneyCorp.
Bet on it.
Fasten your seat belts.
It’s going to be a bumpy ride…
Old junky joke.
Two strung out junkies leaning against the wall in an alleyway.
Junky 1-“HEY man…that light over there. Is that the sun or the moon?”
Junky 2-“I dunno…this ain’t my neighborhood.”
Well…
Q-“That light over there…is that the sun or is our tail on fire?”
A-“Dunno, man. This ain’t my neighborhood anymore. BushCo bought it.”
Got a match?
To miss New Orleans
And miss it each night and day?
I know I’m not wrong… this feeling’s gettin’ stronger
The longer I stay away.
(As sung by ANOTHER prophet. Louis Armstrong.)
It’s only a Paper Tiger.
Up and down the line.
And It’s only a Paper Moon, too.
Sailing over a cardboard sea
But it wouldn’t be make-believe
If you believed in me
Yes, it’s only a canvas sky
Hanging over a muslin tree
But it wouldn’t be make-believe
If you believed in me
Without your love
It’s a honky-tonk parade
Without your love
It’s a melody played in a penny arcade
It’s a Barnum and Bailey world
Just as phony as it can be
But it wouldn’t be make-believe
If you believed in me
(Harold Arlen + Yip Harburg-1933)
Ya think?
AG
