中国的光荣与梦想

刚开始看《光荣与梦想(The Glory and the Dream)》,头几页,就想到了中国曾经经历和正在经历的野蛮和混沌。

1932年夏天,大约2.5万名世界大战退伍兵,携家带口,身无分文地来到华盛顿,要求政府立即发给他们“补偿金”。…… 后来,时任陆军总参谋长的道格拉斯·麦克阿瑟在违抗胡佛总统不许冲击抗议者营地命令的前提下,率领艾森豪威尔少校及巴顿少校等对现役军人血腥镇压,照成了数百人伤亡。

由于20年代经济开发过度,农民把大批长满草木的广阔地带开发成农田,雨季过后,没什么可以阻止大草原的风暴侵蚀农田。到了1934年,美国中西部地区15万平方英里的农田变成了沙漠,远在千里之外的首都也常常受到“黑色风暴”的侵袭。后来,罗斯福敦促成立了土壤保护署,致力于植树和耕种,到1940年,这种状况才有所改观。

之前和父亲闲聊社会现象,他说“美国也经历过中国的贪污腐败这些问题。社会的发展和进步需要时间。中国也会像美国一样,越来越好”。我想到了看《伟大的博弈》时也有这种设想。这种设想虽然美好,但并不可靠。中国和美国的基础完全不一样。美国独立之初就建立了(我觉得是天赐的)法制和民主的基础,中国没有。而美国正是靠着这样的基础,才保证了经济和社会的发展没有与广大人民相悖。

丘吉尔说“当你战胜了苦难时,它就是你的财富;可当苦难战胜了你时,它就是你的屈辱”。我们何时也能骄傲地回顾中国这么多年来人性与文明经历的苦难,并称之为我们的“光荣与梦想”呢?

Twitter, Flickr, Bing, Live – All Blocked In China

Starting from yesterday night (June 2nd, Beijing time), Twitter became unavailable.  Didn’t think much about it, because, you know, Twitter has been infamous about that.  This morning, looking at the calendar, I suddenly realized what the reason might be – the Tiananmen Square anniversary on June 4th.  Checking popular sites for people to get / share information, I found Twitter, Flickr, Bing, Live had all been unaccessible, at least for me, from Beijing.  Surprisingly, Wikipedia, even the Chinese version, is still on, but if you tried to reach some sensitive page, you would be blocked from the whole site for about 1 min.

It’s funny that even early morning yesterday, people were still cheering on Twitter that Bing can return sensitive search results, including even images and videos.  The new baby of Microsoft is obviously not prepared for the nasty Internet environment in China.