Sunday, September 9, 2012

Kebangkitan Cina

Semua sudah tahu saat ini Cina sedang bangkit. Bukan cuma di bidang ekonomi saja naga raksasa bernama Cina menggeliat, di bidang militer, politik luar negeri, dll, Cina praktis sudah menjadi superpower baru. Bukan cuma di Asia Timur saja, Asia Tenggara, Afrika, dan Timur Tengahpun merasakan efek kebangkitan Cina ini.

Banyak pihak yang anti Barat (Baca: anti Amerika dan anti Israel) antusias menyambut kebangkitan ini. Kejutan besar, setelah 10 tahun bangkit semua orang mulai menyadari ... Barat itu tak terlalu jelek loh! Kita bisa mulai dari mana yah ... hmm ...

1) Sengketa di Laut Cina Selatan
Kepulauan Spratly, dan Paracel, diperebutkan oleh banyak negara. Salah 1nya adalah Cina dan hampir semua negara ASEAN. Apa yang Cina lakukan di pulau² tsb? Mereka menempatkan militernya, dan menunjuk pejabat² sipil untuk mengatur area itu. Cina memang secara ekonomi dan militer lebih kuat daripada negara ASEAN manapun, BAHKAN lebih kuat dari gabungan semua negara ASEAN. Namun, kejadian ini membuka mata negara² ASEAN: Hei, ternyata dominasi Amerika di daerah ini tak jelek!!

2) Sengketa Cina-Jepang
Bukan, saya tak bicara tentang sengketa pulau Diaoyu/Senkaku di tahun 2012 ini. Saya bicara tentang sengketa 2 tahun yang lalu ketika kapal² nelayan Cina memasuki perairan Jepang, bertabrakan dg kapal polisi pantai Jepang. Tentu saja Jepang menangkap nelayan² Cina itu.

Reaksi Cina adalah menghentikan pasokan rare earth mineralnya ke Jepang. Oh iya, mereka melakukan ini sambil berlagak pilon. Mereka TIDAK mengakui mereka melakukan embargo thd Jepang. Nope, mereka tak berhasil menipu siapapun.

Semua orangpun mencatat: "Diversifikasi pemasok rare earth mineral!" Catatan lainnya: "Pemerintah RRC AKAN memerasmu dengan monopoli rare earth mineralnya."

Baca artikelnya Paul Krugman untuk detilnya.

3) Myanmar
Saat ini Myanmar sedang membuka diri. Militernya mengundurkan diri dari politik, keran² kebebasan mulai dibuka. Ada apa sih? Begini intinya: junta militer Myanmar sudah eneg melihat negaranya dijadikan sapi perahan oleh RRC.

Salah satu contoh pemerasan tsb adalah bendungan Myitsone. Rakyat lokal membencinya karena bendungan tsb akan membuat rumah 10.000 orang berada di bawah air. Lingkungan sudah pasti rusak akibat pembangunan bendungan tsb. Dan yang memanfaatkan listrik yang dihasilkan oleh bendungan itu adalah ... RRC.

Setelah proses demokratisasi dimulai, proyek tsb langsung dihentikan oleh pemerintah pusat Myanmar.

4) Afrika
Ketika Cina mendekati Afrika, semua negara Afrika bersorak riang gembira. Ah, ini dia partner yang tidak menggurui, partner yg tidak menjajah Afrika. Dibaca: Cina tidak perduli dengan korupsi di kalangan pejabat Afrika.

Kita bisa belajar dari cara Cina mendekati Afrika, misalnya cara Cina membayar sumber daya alam Afrika adalah dengan proyek, bukan dengan uang tunai. Namun orang² Afrika sendiri sudah mengeluh. Proyek² tsb dibangun oleh perusahaan Cina, diawasi oleh perusahaan Cina, dinilai oleh perusahaan Cina, dan diaudit oleh perusahaan Cina. Hmm ... pernah dengar kata mark-up? Atau manipulasi catatan keuangan? 


Semua orang kini sudah terbangun dari mimpinya, Cina itu BUKAN negara ramah yang hendak menolong semua orang. Cina juga tak segan² mengancam, mengintimidasi, dan memeras negara lain seperti Inggris, Amerika Serikat, Rusia, dan negara² lainnya. Dan sebaliknya, banyak orang kini jadi bisa menghargai dominasi Barat. Hei, kita sering cuma bisa menghargai sesuatu ketika kita mulai kehilangan hal tsb yah!


Saturday, September 8, 2012

Amazing Quotes 9: Mark Twain

Mark Twain is one of the literary genius that come from the US. Naturally, he has a habit spouting cool quotes. You can see at the bottom of this blog, I already put Mark Twain's quote generator. Some of his bests are:

"When in doubt, do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest."

"The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out, the conservative adopts them."

"A man is accepted into church for what he believes and turned out for what he knows."

"If there is a God, he is a malign thug."

"It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand."

"Blasphemy? No, it is not blasphemy. If God is as vast as that, he is above blasphemy; if He is as little as that, He is beneath it."

"What an organ is human speech when it is employed by a master!"
-- Speaking about Robert Green Ingersoll

Friday, September 7, 2012

Bullshit Building 13: The Vatican

From FlickR
St Peter's Basilica
"If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possession, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven."
-- Jesus of Nazareth in Matthew 19:21, New International Version translation

Seriously, I don't get it. Jesus Christ himself said those words, YES, THAT JESUS CHRIST! The dude who are believed to be God by the Christians, who died on a crucifix, and resurrected after spending 3 days in a grave! That dude order his followers to be modest, to sold their belongings in order to help the poor! 

Then why the hell the largest Christian organization, the Catholic church, is so ... extravagant? They already built thousands of spectacular cathedrals and basilicas all over the world, but NO, that is not enough!! They need to put their supreme leader on a golden throne! Do they really READ their own holy script?

Oh yeah, the supreme leader also even had THE NERVE to ask Christians to look beyond "the superficial glitters" of Christmas! Holy hell, what's next, Josef Stalin ask Hitler not to shoot Russian soldiers?

Tell you what, let's conduct a small internet experiment.

1) Search in wikipedia, which countries has Catholic majority!
Got it!
From wikipedia
Okay, now we got the map where the Catholic church has real power on the field, where the voice of the church are definitely heard by its people, where the people definitely donate some of their money every Sunday to the Catholic church.

2) Let's see ... are all dark blue countries all developed/rich countries?
Of course not. Let's pick some poor Catholic countries like ... CONGO!! Yeah, let's pick Congo, it is located in the middle of the map!

3) Search in google image "Congo children" ...
From this blog
From this site
Let's see what's we got ... the first 2 images are those 2 pictures on the left and right. Holy Christ!! Some of those children even armed to the teeth!! Those poor souls not only depraved of money and playtime, they even don't have their innocence anymore! When OUR children complained about maths homework, those children in Congo complained about the lack of ammos!

And even more depressing, other images are more or less similar with those 2 ...

Surely the Catholic church could help, at least show some solidarity by selling all of their Cathedrals, Basilicas, and golden throne to finance a relief program for those poor souls. No? They can't do that or don't want to do that?

Okay, okay, maybe the church could argue Congo is a war-torn country, Vatican is not a country famous for its military capability, so military intervention to secure the relief projects are somehow out of the scope of the church. Never mind the fact that their money could be used to finance peacekeeping operation there. So let's pick another country like ... err .. Mexico? And let's focus to the poverty, not to the children.

From this site
From this blog
3) Search in google image "Mexican poor" ...
Okay ... who wants to live in these kind of housings? Anyone?


And those photos are underrepresentation of the contrast. Really. You have to remember, the Catholic church already existed for more than 1 millennium. You also have to remember that they financed and built HUNDREDS or even THOUSANDS of cathedrals, and basilicas while the poor shaking in cold and hunger. 

Even more amazing is, they built their spectacular St Peter's Basilica even when they didn't have the money!

How I know they didn't even have the money? Simple, because they were forced to sell the literal "tickets to heaven" to finance it. That's right, they asked their followers to finance their vanity project. The poor and pennyless included. But nooo, that was not the best part! The best part was, some people were extremely pissed by this. One of them named Martin Luther. He nailed his protest on the door of Castle Church of Wittenberg. The rest is history. 

So, in essence, the Vatican build spectacular buildings DESPITE existing poverty, DESPITE the fact that they didn't own any money so they were shameless enough to ask money from the poor, and in the end they lost millions of souls due to the reformation?

Nice job burying yourself under your own bullshit! I know they were and are not the brightest bulb, but this ... this is still one big holy shit ...


Previous bullshit building: Suramadu Bridge
Next bullshit building: Vaux-le-Vicomte 

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Amazing Quotes 8: George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw was one of the most productive man in terms of spouting awesome one-liner. Or sometimes 2-or-3 liners ...

Just check some of his sayings:


“A man never tells you anything until you contradict him.“

“Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.“

“All censorships exist to prevent any one from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently the first condition of progress is the removal of censorships.“

“All great truths begin as blasphemies.“

“Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.“

“Disobedience, the rarest and most courageous of the virtues, is seldom distinguished from neglect, the laziest and commonest of the vices.“

“Hatred is the coward's revenge for being intimidated."

“Martyrdom: The only way a man can become famous without ability.“

“No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means.“

“Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.“

“Why should we take advice on sex from the pope? If he knows anything about it, he shouldn't!“