Clive Palmer's China-US confusion-ism

Paul Malone

The film footage of tanks rolling down the streets of Beijing 15 years ago may well have been in Clive Palmer's mind last Monday as he talked of the Chinese government killing its own people.

But what was actually on our television screens as he spoke were images of flash grenades, tear gas and large armoured vehicles, with tripod-mounted weapons, rolling down the streets of Ferguson, USA.

Observing the situation in Ferguson, one commentator remarked that the military vehicle presence was "un-American."  

Clive Palmer obviously thinks it's more Chinese. But nothing could be further from the truth.

Look at the two countries' responses to natural disasters, for example. Contrast what has happened in China, with what happened in the United States during and after Hurricane Katrina.

As James Ridgeway reported in Mother Jones, what took place in New Orleans was no less than a war, in which victims whose only crimes were poverty and blackness were treated as enemies of the state.

Immediately after the storm and flood hit, private security forces moved in to protect the property of wealthy residents. When National Guard troops descended on the city, the Army Times described their role as fighting "the insurgency in the city." Brigadier Gen. Gary Jones, who commanded the Louisiana National Guard's Joint Task Force, said "This place is going to look like Little Somalia. We're going to go out and take this city back. This will be a combat operation to get this city under control."

Ten days after the storm, the New York Times reported that hundreds of security guards hired by businesses and wealthy individuals openly carried M-16s and assault rifles. (These can fire over 700 rounds per minute, a useful tool when dealing with your own citizens.)

Now what do we see in China where natural disasters are a frequent occurrence? Thousands of troops, but unarmed, helping citizens build flood barriers, or clearing away rubble form earthquakes.

Sadly the United States has a long history of over-reaction and military-like domestic operations.

You could start with the numerous well documented incidents of attacks on native tribes.

Then add actions against strikers and unionists such as the Ludlow Massacre of 1914 where the Colorado National Guard and mining company officers opened fire on a tent city of miners and their families killing about 20, including two women and 11 children. 

Ancient history you might say.

But then what of the regular incidents of the type in Ferguson?  There are far too many such recent incidents to list in a column of this length.

Here is small sample. In July 1964 a 15-year-old African American, James Powell, was shot and killed in front of his friends and about a dozen other witnesses by a policeman who fired three shots. Rioting followed resulting in one killed, 118 injured, and 465 arrested. 

In the same year, in Rochester, riots broke out after rumours of police brutality, resulting in more deaths; 350 injured and 1000 arrested.

The following year, the Los Angeles Watts riots broke out, resulting in 34 deaths, 1032 injuries and 3438 arrests. In the same city, in 1992, we had the Rodney King riots, which followed the acquittal of police officers who had been videotaped beating up King.

Now I haven't forgotten the 1989 Tiananmen Square killings, nor the suppression of Muslim Uighurs, or Tibetans in China.

I am also well aware that the strongest and most authoritative criticism of what is going on in the United States can be found in the United States itself, where people of the highest integrity in the media, in academic circles and in politics openly expose and discuss the issues.

No such open debate occurs in China.

But this does not excuse the militarisation of the United States and its police.

Not least among those wanting a re-examination of what is going on is President Obama himself, who, in calling for a review of how local law enforcement used grant dollars, said there was a big difference between the military and local law enforcement and "we don't want those lines blurred".

The issues go beyond the mere supply of surplus military equipment to the police.

American laws and police training and operations also require an overhaul.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People points out that the US has 5 per cent of the world's population but 25 per cent of its prisoners.

Combining the number of people in prison and jail with those under parole, 3.2 percent of the US population is under some form of correctional control.

African Americans make up nearly one million of the total 2.3 million in jail and are incarcerated at nearly six times the white rate.

The St Louis Post-Dispatch points out that Ferguson has 21,000 residents, two-thirds of whom are black, and a police force of 53 commissioned officers, 90 per cent of whom are white. The Atlantic noted that, in 2013, the Ferguson Police Department made 5384 stops and 611 searches, of which 86 per cent of the stops and 92 per cent of the searches were of black people.

….

The most stunning claim coming out of the Palmer United Party anti-Chinese outbursts last week was not from the leader himself.

His statements were merely rude, unwise and damaging to business, including his own.

The real shock came from an interview Tasmanian PUP Senator Jacqui Lambie gave to the ABC's Rafael Epstein in Melbourne after her statement that the Communist Chinese military threat to the western world was at an unprecedented and historical high and we should prepare for a Chinese Communist invasion.  

Asked if there was a think tank to back up her views she said she had recently undertaken a US briefing and a serving US general had told her this was so.

If that's true, if there is such as US general, then Dr Strangelove lives and that's frightening.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/clive-palmers-chinaus-confusionism-20140820-106fb8.html#ixzz3BHyRDsn3