>That's a little short of a ringing endorsement:
>"Read Mao! He's no stupider than Bill Clinton!"
>
>I would urge higher standards for texts which
>purport to liberate the world's people.
>
>Can you seriously deny that, under a Maoist
>regime, you, me and Louis would be working
>shoulder to shoulder in one of Liu's
>"reeducation" camps?
Look Max, I'm no Maoist. The Chinese CP has done a lot of brutal things in its reign. But this harping on the alleged childishness or whatever of their prose style is pretty childish in itself. It's not easy to run a poor country of 1 billion people surrounded by hostile foreign powers. We can sit here all we like and pontificate about their crimes and blunders, but that's really easy for us to do here in Imperialism Central. For all the crimes and blunders, I think the Chinese revolution was a good thing, and I think the same aboout the Russian revolution. India may be more pleasing to those of us spoiled by bourgeois democracy, but China's social achievements are pretty extraordinary. They reduce Nicholas Eberstat to tortured explanations of the relation between health & GDP.
Doug