What Being Patriotic Means

"The wise and magnanimous patriot, by forecasting the distant but certain dangers of his country, affects himself in advance with a zeal and grief and desire, as ardent as those which duller souls can feel under the actual experience of the present calamity. It is this anticipative passion, kindled through the imagination, which nerves his soul to prepare, to watch, to strive, to bleed for his country's defense, while others are as yet unconcerned, and are perhaps accusing him of extravagance." - Robert L. Dabney, A.D. 1870

《翻譯如下》：
「睿智寬宏的愛國之人預見國家將來要面對的危險，這些危險雖仍在遠方，但必定要發生，因此愛國之人的心頭預先燃起熾烈的熱忱、憂傷和渴望；然而較為遲鈍之人是在真實經歷到眼前的災難時，才感受到同等熾烈的熱忱、憂傷和渴望。愛國之人對未來的預期使他心懷熱情，他的想像點燃這股熱情，這股熱情激動他的靈魂，使他為了捍衛國家而預備、守望、奮鬥甚至於流血，而這時別人還漠不關心，也許還指控愛國之人的行動過度激烈。」神學家Robert L. Dabney，一八七０年
(Translated into Mandarin by Melody Chen)

A Plea from Taiwan

"Taiwan is at the brink of being swallowed up by communist China. This is no exaggeration. Depending on how things continue to unfold, it is a sure possibility. My friends, please pray for my beloved Taiwan."

...

"We, the people of Taiwan, are protesting the current KMT administration for the illegal pushing through of a trade agreement with China without the promised deliberation of the agreement. 

Even under normal circumstances, a trade agreement with any nation should be carefully deliberated. But this is not a normal trade agreement. It is a monumental trade agreement made with China, the one nation which at this moment has 1600 missiles aimed at Taiwan. The same China which has constantly claimed that Taiwan belonged under its socialist rule. This non-reciprocating trade agreement would be a major stepping-stone to handing the economy of Taiwan to China rule and the eventual demise of Taiwan independence. 

For folks who talk favorably of ‘free trade’ between China and Taiwan, let me explain. There is no such thing as ‘free’ trade, especially when it comes to negotiations with communist China. Really, how do you negotiate with someone who is aiming missiles at you? We’re not talking export-import of merchandise. This trade agreement is opening up the investment of major industries in Taiwan to China investors. With unlimited money and government backing, it is only a matter of time before China’s investors would take over control of these major industries. Once China takes control over Taiwan industries, Taiwan’s livelihood will be dependent on China controlled companies. China already controls most of Taiwan’s media. Now it’s aiming to take over Taiwan’s economy. Is anyone still so naive as to insist that China will only concern itself with the financial sector of Taiwan? Speak to people from Hong Kong, Tibet, and other countries China is threatening to take over. Learn from their tragic stories. 

What we Taiwanese stand to lose is our very sovereignty as a nation. For those of us who have sacrificed so much for Taiwan’s democracy and independence, a lot is at stake. The people of Taiwan have repeatedly asked for the review and deliberation on this pact, and it was promised that deliberations would take place and votes taken item by item. On March 18, all promises were broken and the pact illegally pushed through without any deliberation. What it feels like is that the KMT administration has sold us to China.

On the evening of March 18, once catching wind that the pact had been illegally pushed through, hundreds of students took over the legislative building in civil disobedience to call its governing officials to account. The KMT has not responded. Outside the legislative building are over ten thousand gathering supporters. We supporters are only too grateful for the student protestors who have bravely stepped into the role of being Taiwan’s watchdog, taking desperate measures to ensure our freedom. 

US friends have asked about our safety. That is a hard question to answer. In one sense, we are fine. The student protestors are completely peaceful and very organized. They are sitting quietly in solidarity, and exhausted after a hundred hours of standing their ground. The only violence we might expect is if the KMT orders the police to forcibly remove the protestors. Amongst the gathering supporters are grandparents and parents with children. It has been reported that if a confrontation were to come about, parents plan to hold their babies and stand between the police and the students, so as to protect the students inside. That’s how much we all support their cause.

So do not believe any China-controlled media which are calling these students ‘violent’. They are not. They are thoughtful students issuing thoughtful statements, statements which would make any democracy-supporter proud. 

... We do not fear any physical danger. But I am very concerned for the safety of our freedom. If the KMT succeeds in selling Taiwan to China, then we are in grave danger indeed."

- Judy Linton

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Read more: Update 1

台灣獨立建國聯盟聲明

台灣獨立建國聯盟聲明
3-16-2014

台灣獨立建國聯盟針對[公投護台灣聯盟] 於今年(2014) 2月22日扳倒在湯德章紀念公園內的孫文銅像事件，發表聲明如下：

該銅像多年失修，基座不穩，搖搖欲墜，有危害民眾安全之虞，眾人皆知。據公投護台灣聯盟秘書長李述儒說：原來捐贈該銅像的國際獅仔會曾向台南市府聲請拆除。南市府去年8月原研擬拆除。是固拉倒銅像，仍符合台南市民的願望和要求，維護公共安全，其實無可厚非。再則，該銅像是外來政權國民黨所謂的國父；而國民黨的馬政權近年來施政無能、賣國有方，引發的民怨。拉倒銅像是對馬政權的正當反抗。

湯德章於1947年228 事件爆發後，遭到 憲警特務闖入住所而被捕。因他堅持不透露台南工學院(今之成大)學生隊名冊，使得台南一些參與政治活動的人士倖免於難。壯烈犧牲的事蹟人人稱頌。之前，湯德章紀念公園內卻只見孫文銅像，湯德章小銅像則被置在公園一角，實在值得令人省思。

南市警察局與檢察官事後立即採取行動，著手調查。諷刺的是，當年殺害湯德章以及所有228烈士的原兇至今仍舊逍遙法外，享盡榮華富貴，轉型正義仍是遙遙無期。我們呼籲國人關注此事，期待藉此建立台灣成為一個公平正義的社會。

臺灣獨立建國聯盟以建立自由、民主、平等、福祉、公義之台灣共和國為宗旨；反對國民黨外來政權，在台灣歪曲歷史，實施愚民政策，略奪台灣資源。孫文銅像扳倒事件乃是台灣人民對國民黨外來政權不滿的正當反撲，理所當然。臺灣獨立建國聯盟對 [公投護台灣聯盟] 的行動，符合本盟之宗旨而予與肯定和支持。

Good links for the events of last night:

http://michaelturton.blogspot.tw/2014/03/service-pact-stuff.html

http://fareasternpotato.blogspot.tw/2014/03/lhomme-revolte.html

關於服貿，大家了解一下，因為這真的很重要。 服貿詳情： http://homepage.ntu.edu.tw/~ntuperc/conference-1-files/20130725_3_1.pdf 立院裡的學生辛苦了，我們在外面支持著你們。

Post by Jessie Chen.

Good points on the strategic value (even for the KMT) that Taiwanese have a Taiwanese identity

...

The potential hazards of a hostile occupation—Taiwanese protesters dying under PLA fire, freedom fighters waging guerrilla campaigns from house to house, and the international backlash that these images would set off—would very likely restrain Beijing from moving its threats beyond words. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) derided the foreign adventurism that landed the U.S. in Iraq, gleefully denoting the event as a milestone on America’s decline. It is unlikely to risk its own quagmire, especially while development and stability at home remains fragile.

A strong Taiwanese identity thus allows the country’s leadership to call China’s bluff. It is an electoral leaven—an insurance policy, if you will—against China’s inevitable military and economic dominance, one that will also strengthen Taiwan’s hand at the bargaining table. Political scientist Robert Putnam famously argued states involved in international negotiations play a “two-level game,” whereby they must simultaneously negotiate with international partners and domestic constituencies. Here democratically elected leaders have the notable advantage of being able to use domestic constraints to extract international concessions. That is, they can creditably claim at the negotiation table that “their hands are tied”—and have poll data to back it up—helping them win concessions where they otherwise could not. A fickle electorate, like an independent-minded Taiwanese public, thus can yield important benefits.

To be sure, a few textbook revisions and an ode to the Yellow Emperor will not reverse the Taiwanese public’s already strong sense of nationhood. But the KMT’s effort to chip away at Taiwan’s vibrant independent identity is much like throwing away your best cards.

Of course the KMT is not acting according to strategic sensibility, rather it is acting out of political paranoia. For it rightfully fears that its ability to mobilize the electorate towards its pro-business agenda of rapprochement through economic and trade cooperation is quickly slipping away. Indeed, President Ma Ying-jeou, whose approval rating lingers in the single-digits these day, is reeling from voter backlash over signature cross-straight engagement from his first term and stalled progress on future plans. One recent surveyindicates more than half of the public feels recent bilateral agreements with the mainland are unequally benefiting China.

The economic woes that have accumulated over the years—stagnant unemployment and rising income inequality—are surely fueling voters’ ire, but at its core is a signal distrust of relinquishing the type of agency that allows a country to determine its future. Sixty years as an independent polity has had the predictable effect of creating an independent sense of shared destiny. Soon nearly all of the Taiwanese public will have been born on the island, and with the exception of Taiwanese businessmen who shuttle to and fro none will share an immediate connections to the mainland. This is the natural trajectory of most overseas settler colonies—a lineage that includes the United States during the 18th century and the Latin American republics during the 19th, and of which Taiwan is merely a peculiar 21st century case.

Without reinventing itself, the KMT’s only option is to contrive and propagate to the public a renewed sense of common belonging with the mainland. It will not likely succeed—though it may very well drone the public into submission. Unlike previous breakaway republics, Taiwan’s former imperial homeland looms near and will powerfully shape Taiwan’s future by sheer force of its size. How Taiwan manages relations with the mainland will be central to the island’s future. The KMT’s strategy of priming the population for reintegration is one approach. But if the KMT does succeed in neutralizing the island’s independent spirit, it will also surrender Taiwan’s most valuable bargaining chip.

Lorand C. Laskai is a freelance writer and recent graduate of Swarthmore College. He lives in Tainan, Taiwan. READ MORE at The Diplomat

Stay away from Made in China -- particularly food:

POLLUTION IN CHINA'S FARMLAND TRIGGERS FOOD SHORTAGE CONCERNS

by FRANCES MARTEL 4 Jan 2014, 10:36 AM PDT 

The horrifying statistics from the Chinese government's latest ecological survey find that a land area the size of Belgium is now too polluted to grow crops in and 28,000 of the country's rivers have disappeared since 1990. With China's population on the rise, pollution and nutritional demand could create a perfect storm for famine.

According to Bloomberg, more than 2% of China's land is no longer usable due to pollution deposits from many government-owned industrial projects. It had been previously revealed that around 15% of the land is polluted in some capacity. The pollution consists mostly of toxic metals, many of which have been found in rice and other crops in land previously believed to be arable. Even when the land is found usable in some form, farmers have unknowingly watered crops with contaminated water or used seeds from other parts of the country more susceptible to pollutants. 

Since only 10% of China's total land is available to grow crops on to begin with (much of China is either mountain or desert, and the remaining area too urban for farming), losing 2% of it significantly diminishes the amount of available land for growing. The announcement was made by Vice Minister of Land and Resources Wang Shiyuan, but with little more information, as most of the state-sponsored study conducted between 1996 and 2014 was a "state secret" and unavailable to the public. Shiyuan did promise, however, that "tens of billions of yuan" will be poured into solving the problem.

As for the river situation, Vice notes that the Yangtze and Pearl River deltas are the most polluted because of the amount of industrial work taking place there. It also notes tens of thousands of smaller rivers have since evaporated or otherwise been destroyed. 

Reports of toxic food have not been uncovered alone without damage, however. The New York Times notes that many farmers in inland China have reported an uptick in cancer cases and strange illnesses. The cancer threat is so worrisome to some poorer farmers that one woman told the Times she and her husband deliberately refuse to go to the doctor for check-ups, because cancer is "only a burden on the children" and they would rather die while saving the money any attempt at fighting cancer would require.

The pollution problems surface at a time when Beijing has been unable to hide other kinds of pollution-- most notably, smog so thick that it has grounded flights and sickened enough people to require specialized smog clinics to open in some regions. Unlike the air pollution, however, this underground threat hurts China's ability to be independent from food exports to feed its massive population. That population is expected to grow over the 

Read more... 

KMT Dictatorship Era Propaganda Continues to Fester in Academic Publications

In an A.D. 2000  publication, Language Planning in Nepal, Taiwan and Sweden, edited by Richard B. Baldauf, Jr. and Robert B. Kaplan, the writer of the section on Taiwan, Feng-fu Tsao, weaves into his narrative lies and propaganda of the KMT Dictatorship Era. Perhaps he, himself is ignorant of the truth. For a linguist like Dr. Tsao who seems to advocate preserving non-Mandarin languages, he should realize that the first step to doing so is helping language speakers have an accurate understanding of their own history. It is regrettable that the editors did not do more fact checking. Following is a review written on Google Books.

We would like to ask the readers of the blog that whenever you come across propaganda like that, please write a review correcting it. If we keep hammering the factual inaccuracies, perhaps academics will finally get the message.

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REVIEW:

This book contains many errors regarding Taiwan's history, particularly concerning the post-Japanese era.  It shows a bias towards the propaganda promulgated during the dictatorship era of the Chinese Nationalist Party.

The writer claims that the Chinese Nationalists from China were more educated than the Taiwanese;  to the contrary, the Taiwanese were vastly more educated having studied in the Japanese imperial university -- doctors, lawyers, societal leaders.  Think: the Chinese Nationalists had been fighting wars for years in China while Taiwan was at peace under an advanced colonial administration where Taiwanese had formed political parties and had a thriving written culture, recording arts, etc. I have heard personal accounts that for example, the Chinese Nationalist officers in the army were so ignorant that they did not know about plumbing.  In one case, a Chinese Nationalist Party officer was amazed how water came out of spigots and so he went to a local shop and bought many and started putting them into the walls.  He got angry because no water came out of the spigots and assumed that the Taiwanese supplier had cheated him.

Further, while the writers claim that the 228 Massacre was supposedly "put down troops from the Mainland," the troops from China were the ones who actually perpetrated the massacre.  Chen Yi's handling of Taiwan was not one of ethnic or linguistic misunderstanding but rather a systematic corrupt policy of stripping the wealth of the Taiwanese people and putting it into the hands of corrupt Chinese Nationalist Party officials.  Declaring monopolies on products, seizing businesses and assets, and rampant inflation of the currency caused the Taiwanese people to rise up against the oppressors.  Committees of citizens ran out the corrupt officials in each town and formed negotiating committees to demand political reforms from Chen Yi.  While he pretended to negotiate, he sent telegrams to China for Chiang Kai-shek to send troops.  They arrived in Keelung and then marched throughout Taiwan killing Taiwanese.  All of the Taiwanese leaders of each town whom Chen Yi had information about were arrested and executed.  It is estimated that 20,000 Taiwanese were murdered in 1947.  To save bullets, Taiwanese who were rounded up were tied together; then one was shot in the head and fell into the river dragging the other two with him so that they drowned.

For a factual record of the 228 Massacre, we recommend starting with reading Formosa Betrayed by George H. Kerr, who provides eye witness accounts of that event.