Jim Craven wrote: >What social systems engineering is all about is creating a new "status quo" that turns a whole society into an appendage of an imperial system. They use "social scientists", "journalists", missionaries, trade unions (AFL-CIA), "educational exchanges", spies, military exchanges/"maneuvers", proxy armies, media, publishing houses (e.g. the old Praeger Publishing etc), ... etc etc to fish in troubled waters, create troubled waters and push hot buttons and levers of power to manipulate, destabilize, put under seige, isoolate, embargo etc to over throw one status quo and create another one. The intent is to create conditions to "prove" the caricatures that have been created for imperial purposes.< I misinterpreted what you said: I thought you were talking about a CIA-engineered revolution in China, whereas it seems you are talking more of a CIA-engineered reform there. Though the effect would be "to create conditions to 'prove' the caricatures that have been created for imperial purposes," I think that the _intent_ is more mundane: the US, US-based TNCs, and their allies aim to influence China to fit their goals, i.e., "more open trade," more obedience to free-market ideology, more protection of "intellectual property," more acceptance of US foreign-policy initiatives (as against Serbia), etc. BTW, I think it's important to remember that China is a very large country and even with all its resources, the CIA would have a hard time manipulating Chinese politics except marginally. >I don't know much about this Falun Gong group but from what I have seen, in terms of basic "theology", rituals, mysticism, hierarchies, methods, class backgrounds of typical adherents etc there appear to be strong parallels between this group and its leadership and that of the Moonies, La Rouchites and yes even the Mormons all of which are insulated cults that have had/do have provable CIA ties. Whether or not the CIA has been covertly funding this group I have no idea but if not now, I'm sure the funding will be forthcoming; I mean with all the supposed "suppressions" of "religious groups" all over the world, why this one gets special mention by those "freedom-loving/human-rights-promoting" organisms in the US Establishment? It is like getting a lecture on women's rights from Ted Bundy.< We have to look at not only the _demand_ for loony religions (here, from the CIA) but also the supply of them. The Mormons obviously started and grew without CIA help; in fact, they (like the Falun Gong) were the object of official persecution. (They were _chased_ to Utah.) In the last century, they became well established and part of the strategy of becoming well-established was to abandon such nonsense as polygamy and to embrace establishmentarianism with a vengeance. The Mormons found that by being extremely conservative, more conservative than the conservatives, they could insulate themselves from attacks on what mainstream Christians think of as nutso (e.g., the fact that the Mormons aren't Christian, despite the official name of their church). (Besides, the Mormons provide their faithful with welfare-state-type programs, so why should they pay for others to benefit from that kind of thing from the government? In other words, they don't want to tithe twice, once to the government.) Part of being so establishmentarian was the Mormons' linking up with the FBI and the CIA (especially since other religious groups became increasingly leery of these agencies in the 1960s and early 1970s). I think the Mormons sought out the FBI/CIA on their own, just as the FBI & CIA looked to them for loyal allies (and tried to manipulate them). My point was simply that it's really hard to explain such a large movement simply by referring to CIA demand for such. I'm sure that the CIA would like to manipulate Falung Gong so that it fits with US foreign-policy goals, etc. In fact, they're probably trying to do so as we speak. But we shouldn't dismiss Falung Gong as simply a creation of the CIA. We can't dismiss them as simply being loony (though they sure seem to be that way), since such mass looniness probably reflects problems in China's society. The bourgeois media, I am sure, dedicate lots of ink to Falung Gong because it represents a failure of a US semi-ally that can be used to pressure that country to enter further into the US orbit. Besides, we have to recognize that there are stresses and strains within the ruling elite: some (usually the winners in policy debates) think that "free trade," free flow of investment, etc. are the cat's meow and should be imposed on everyone, so that they're willing to put up with _anything_ that China does as long as it's willing to trade with the US, protect intellectual property, accept US investment (and the repatriation of profits), etc.; others (usually the losers) put forth the image of the US as the moral center of the universe, so that US-determined "human rights" standards (which exclude such things as the right to food, a job, etc.) are to be imposed everywhere. Put another way, some members of the ruling elite take US human rights propaganda seriously, probably because of political pressure from the human-rights movement. (This wing of the elite says: "since we're on top of the world, we can afford to look to capital's long-term interests and legitimation, rather than simply worshipping at the altar of short-term profitability.") >As for content among the Chinese People, well the Chinese People are no more homogenous than the US People. Even under socialism, the weeds of capitalism (old ideas, interests, aspirations, class relations, myths, traditions, practices etc) survive for long periods (especially in an increasingly globalized world economy run on capitalist principles, methods and interests--"logic") and those weeds continually pop up to threaten a new garden. I have no doubt there are sections of the Chinese People who yearn to go back to the old Landlord/Feudal System and others who yearn for Capitalism; that is not surprising especially when they are being given aid and comfort and gree-light signals by all sorts of outside forces intent on turning China into what China once was: a kind of turkey to be carved up and exploited by extra-territorial imperial and neo-colonial powers.< Falung Gong doesn't sound like a pro-capitalist movement, but it could be turned into that. It sounds more like a pro-tradition/pro-Confucian movement, especially since it is being repressed by a government that is generally pro-capitalist (though probably not pro-capitalist enough to be totally acceptable to the US/IMF/World Bank). Also, we also have to pay attention to Chinese attitudes toward their own government. Given the large number of what Henry Liu calls "mistakes" on the part of that government, the impression I get from reading (and from people who've visited China) is that many Chinese are extremely cynical about their own government, perhaps because they have little or no control over that government. (Gee, this sounds like here, in the US.) Efforts to democratize the government from below -- from trade unions to Tienanmen square -- have been shoved aside. The government is emphasizing the market more and more, which typically gets support from the young, but the middle-aged often don't want that, since they don't like insecurity. Many, I guess, are like many Russians who want to go back to the "good old days" of Stalin. But many can't accept that and look to religion, however loony. (A few years ago, a lot of folks in the US were excited by Ross Perot, even though he's a loony. Could Falung Gong be similar?) Actually, I'm getting pretty far beyond the scope of my knowledge here. Is there anyone on pen-l who knows what the societal bases of Falung Gong are? Louis, can you find a serious article on this subject on Lexis/Nexis? >But I cannot believe that the present "status quo" in China, whether one agrees with the policies of the Government of China or not, would be beneficial to US imperial interests.< You don't think that China's movement from statism toward market orientation fits with what the US wants? they probably prefer that China not follow the S.Korea/Taiwan model of state-guided capitalism (with an effort to fight & win the battle of international trade), but the US elite has always looked kindly on the "pragmatic" trend of recent Chinese leaderships. >Also, imagine if some group set up a Cult in the US and recruited all sorts of US scientists and pronounced China as the new centre from which the new Messiah would emerge and rule and urged all its members to turn all their wealth--including any scientific work or discoveries--over to the Government of China so that China could prosper and act as the home and new system from which the new Messiah would rule. I wonder how much the US Government would be promoting "freedom of religious expression". This is analogous to what this group appears to be doing in my opinion.< Probably the US government would repress it (as with Germany vs. Scientology), though they'd figure out some way to say that they weren't repressing a religion _per se_. That's something they share with China's elite. >In any case under socialism, the "freedom" to destroy socialism is not considered any kind of "freedom" (the "freedom" to take a society back to a situation in which basic freedoms and human rights do not exist including the "freedom" to take that society to somewhere else); that is what dictatorship of the proletariat is supposed to mean. It is sort of like "freedom of speech" for nazis in the particular so that they can construct the kind of system in which there will be no freedom of speech in general and especially for those who argued for the "freedom of speech" for the nazis in the first place.< In that case, we have to get back to the discussion of _what kind_ of socialism are we talking about? are we talking about a socialism where the state elite imposes its will on the people "in the name of the proletariat"? or are talking about a socialism where the people control the state? do they people of China want to suppress unions, reformists at Tienanmen Square, and religious loonies? or are these policies of the governmental/party elite? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/jdevine.html
