Mickey Mouse & Co. just launched their very first Communist-based theme park in Hong Kong and there seemed to be much rejoicing–Mousillini would have been proud. Guess who was the chief investor? You guessed it comrades and comradettes, Communist China. They’re hoping to bring in 5 million tourists this year and a whopping 19 billion dollars over forty years. Michael Eisner and Bob Iger flashed big smiles during the ribbon cutting ceremony.
Speaking of cross-economic politics, did you hear about Shi Tao? It seems as though he shared with the world an email in which the Chinese government “encouraged” reporters against reminiscing about the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. You know, the one where tanks rolled over students who wanted democracy? In a grand gesture to the Chinese government, Yahoo officials in China turned over the IP address that linked Tao to the post and now he’s facing ten years of jail time for “divulging state secrets.” Reporters Without Borders, press freedom advocate group puts is bluntly: “We already knew that Yahoo ! collaborates enthusiastically with the Chinese regime in questions of censorship, and now we know it is a Chinese police informant as well.”
Does this play-nice-with-the-bad-guys mentality disturb anyone else? You cringe when I say it because “bad guys” sounds so… so… Cold War-ish. Please don’t be naive. Allowing people to ride the teacups does not make you a political good guy. Allowing people to speak and vote their conscience does. But I’ll let Natan Sharansky have the word on democracy.
What really bothers me, almost as much as the facist, elitist mentality of Communist China is the pragmatic, amoral mentality of Capitalist USA. If you read any articles of defense by these large companies it will go something like Yahoo’s shoulder-shrug response: “I don’t like the outcome of what happened with this thing, we get a lot of these orders, but we have to comply with the law and that’s what we need to do.”
Ooh, ooh. Let me try it: “Gee, Mom, I dunno. I saw Wally beatin’ the kid’s head in with a wrench, but he said you told him he could, so I just figured…” How did I do?
Somewhere along the line, and I’m not sure the number or size, but somewhere up the ladder of capitalistic success a company loses its sense of moral responsibility. (ie, Enron, WorldCom, Jim Baker, etc.) If this were Mom & Pop’s Hardware and the Reds were leaning up the counter asking for a name, you can bet your socket wrench they’d be out on their beatsticks faster than you can say ‘zip-a-dee-do-da”. But a sharp dressed Communist with a commanding presence demands an IP address and the CFO’s wilt like a flower with no roots. And that’s just exactly what they are.
Rootless moneymakers who are grounded in nothing but cash.
