Saturday, July 10, 2010
主导中国政府的房地产思想：投机主义
据中国指数研究院数据信息中心监测显示，2010年上半年，全国103个城市累计供应住宅用地20335.8万平方米，仅完成了全年计划的11%。原先政府试图通过增加土地供应商来稳定或降低房价，但是又因为房地产市场信贷紧缩的实施，导致房地产开发商大幅减少了对土地的竞拍。
土地卖出大幅减少，直接导致的结果就是试图以大幅出让土地来稳定房价的政策的失败，其次是政府财政收入的减少，再就是影响GDP的增长。正因为这些可能的结果，政府着急了，有媒体报道，高层通过国资委给央企授意，让央企去拿地。纵观央企所拿的那些地皮的价格，地价还在继续涨。
6月29日，新政后广州首宗住宅用地出让现场，中国铁建旗下的中国铁建地产以近13亿元的价格拿下芳村高尔夫球场两块地，其中一块溢价率高达 123%。仅一天之后，中国铁建地产又在天津以总计40.323亿元的总价，将天津河北区金钟河大街北侧1号、3号、5号地块全部收入囊中。
最近，在土地市场已沉寂了三年的国企北辰实业也斩获北京顺义区一居住项目用地，折合楼面价9741元／平方米，创4月中旬新政以来北京土地市场地价新高。
7月1日，华侨城地产，则一鼓作气在天津斩获14幅地块，总地价为37亿元。首开股份、招商地产等老牌国字头房企在这一波“拿地热”中也都有所斩获。
地价继续涨，房价还能跌吗？拿地的多是央企，而少见民企，央企可以不恐惧，而民企必须恐惧。这就是中国的房地产市场，一个国家资本主义主导的市场。
地产业存在严重的泡沫，已经成为大众共识，但政府一直不承认，认为地产行业还在健康发展。而调控则只是限制房价上涨，让其稳定，并无意让其下降。政府原计划意图通过增大土地供应商来限制房价，而因为信贷问题，导致无人竞拍，这一政策也就失效了，此时又让央企来做。泡沫又继续了。
为什么说泡沫又继续了？因为地产泡沫还没挤破，政府就耐不住土地流拍带来的财政GDP下滑。政策调控下土地拍卖不出去，无人去竞拍土地，说明是制度有问题，房地产发展的前景有问题。政府不从制度与政策上来解决问题，而总试图通过制造泡沫般的GDP来忽悠全人类。这是严重的对经济现实的不负责。
在中国，整个房地产市场是畸形的，因为政府将民众“吃”、“穿”、“住”、“行”中最重要的、成本最高的“住”一方面给彻底商品化了，另一方又完全的以竞拍土地的方式将房价不断推高。加上地产商的贪婪，最终将房地产市场变成了投机主义的场所。这种投机主义在政府这边很明显，政府一直认为用房地产保GDP与财政收入的，拍卖土地、盖房子、涨房价，是最好最快的创造GDP增长的方式。而放弃了最基本的“勤劳致富”的价值观。可以说主导中国政府经济发展的思想是：投机主义的经济发展思想，而不是按劳分配的思想。一个与民生关系密切的产业竟然变成了投机主义产业最发达的市场。
政府的GDP发展是投机主义的，短视主义的。但它与社会上的投机主义不同，全社会的投机主义是因为政府推行国家资本主义、官资垄断，人对勤劳致富的方式失望、绝望，不得不投机。而中国政府则是主动投机，主动的将自己与金钱的累积挂钩，将自己与GDP的虚伪挂钩。
在房地产问题上，政府对人民大众是残酷的、冷漠的、无情的。那么多人买不起房子，那么多人无地方居住，那么多人被迫迁徙，那么多人成为房奴，承受着巨大的压力，但党政领导人们却从来没有为之说过一句话，没有为之表过任何一个决心。这就是中国的现实。一个叫做“中华人民共和国”的政府眼中：无有人民的利益。
Friday, July 9, 2010
未来二十年中国的民主：沉沦与变革
中华人民共和国已建国六十年，在一党执政下已六十年。中国的国名中没有民主二字，中国有带有民主字眼的政党，却无实至名归的民主党派。中国有专制的一党言论，却无光天化日之下的大众言论。中国有人大、有司法机关、有行政机构，但却没有监督与制衡，在国人眼中只有一个模糊的“政府”，不能区分出三者还有何差别。
过去六十年，世界发生了翻天覆地的变化，中国在经历痛苦之后，经过了三十年的快速发展，但只是经济层面的，中国的政治止步不前。
从1980年到2010年，中国经济经历了三十年的快速发展，中国社会发生了巨大转变。回首三十年的发展，对比今天的现实，我们不能单单用成功或失败两个字去衡量。为什么？因为我们的社会太多的让我们不值得用如此的指标去衡量的因素存在。我们的社会不民主，我们的社会不公正，我们的社会不公平，我们的社会存在着畸形的价值观，存在着体制性腐败，存在着普遍的资源浪费，存在着普遍的大跃进式的政治治理方式，存在着虚伪与做作，存在着贪婪与投机，存在着麻木与癫狂。
政治制度已经严重阻碍着中国社会与文明的进步。我们看到国家资本主义的鼎盛，也看到了数以万计民众的艰难挣扎；我们看到了政府财政收入的8万亿，看到了政府主导的高楼大厦，却不见民有房住，民轻松行天下；我们看到了国企的高福利、高待遇、高业绩，也看到了外资企业在中华大地上的高额利润，却不见解决了数亿万计打工者就业问题的民营企业的健康发展，却不见亿兆万名生活压力的减轻，幸福的增强。今天，一党独大，一政独大，一国家资本主义独大，一畸形的经济结构独大，这些使亿兆万民在艰辛中生存，在迷茫中行走，在无奈中麻木，在逃离中迷失。
中国的问题不是一人或一党的问题，问题是系统性的，是系统性的溃烂，期冀一系统自身溃烂的集团来通过自我改善，挽救历史发展的责任，绝无可能。
今天的中国迫切需要民主，需要政治改革。如果中国共产党不试图或自身不能改善中国现存的政治、经济问题，必须请其离开，然或许只能走向街头政治，走向彻底的政治革命。
今天，中国无民主，但我们在要求民主。未来二十年，我们应当要求民主的扩大，需要开报禁、开党禁，开放言论自由。
今年是2010年，再过二十年后就是2030年。
80年出生的的人过了2010年，就满30岁了。孔子有言：“三十而立”。80后将进入需要进一步直面人生与社会的人生阶段。
20年前的前一年，中国经历了近30年来最激烈的民主运动，其结果以失败而终止。那时80后的人大多还是小孩子，九十年代时80后的人都还在学习的路上。21世纪的前十年，有些人在继续学习，有些人已经在外打工，有些人毕业了进入社会，有些人开始为社会的专制与贪腐而愤愤不平，当然也有些人生活的很幸福。
按照即已成熟的模式，未来20年，中共或许只更换两代领导人，而中国亿兆万名的命运就要在这两代领导人中如以往一样度过？
二十年后的中国，还如今天一样？有着一党专制，无有言论自由，国家资本主义继续膨胀，官宦世袭体系更大庞大，无处维权，官官相互，社会价值被高度控制与限制，自由与思想被扼杀着，这是我们要的明天吗？
未来二十年，中国要么继续沉沦，要么变革亦或革命！
Sunday, March 7, 2010
两会言论选谈：绝对的言辞
两会言论选谈：绝对的言辞
张平（国家发改委主任）说，因此，我可以负责任地向大家表示，没有一分钱进入到刚才这位记者朋友所说的那一些领域。
不知道是气愤还是什么，张平同志竟然能说的这么绝对，真是佩服他的勇气与自信。
张平：“最后，我还想再说一个数字，我们去年社会消费品零售总额增长了15.5%，如果扣除物价因素，实际增长了16.9%。这是自1986年以来增幅最高的一年。社会消费品零售总额的大幅增长应该说是群众得到实惠、生活改善、收入提高的一个最有力的证明。”
张平同志在这里又用了一个不绝对的词汇“应该”，不那么绝对与肯定了。实际上稍微有头脑的人都可以想明白，社会消费品零售总额上涨并不绝对意味着群众收入改善，因为可能是部分高收入、高消费人群的收入增长而拉动了最终的社会消费品零售总额的增长，此外，纵使社会消费品零售总额增长了，也不能说明老百姓就得到了实惠、生活得到了改善。很多负贷买了房子（房子不是社会消费品统计范畴，但房子中家具家电等是）的人可能会比以前生活的更艰难。
潘石屹用微博播报“马局长比较恼火的是，统计部门有人说，目前的统计体系是完美的，数据是真实可靠的。”
这里又是一个讲话绝对的例子。行政官员的厥词大放啊，不知是义愤填膺下的话了还是忽悠领导的话，总之浸染了中国官场的习气。
全国政协委员、国家统计局原局长李德水昨日就日前备受争论的“去年大中型城市房价涨幅为1.5%”做出解释，称这是统计局“技术性问题”，而非“人品问题”。
李德水同志已经离开了统计局，成为了政协委员，但仍旧为中央政府的统计局说话，不知道李德水同志清不清楚他自己的身份与地位：李德水是来参加两会的，是政协委员，是给政府提意见的，不是替政府说好话的。
纵使李德水可以说，那么他说统计数字不是“人品问题”，是问中国是不是有句话叫做“事在人为”，中共是不是一直在强调一句话“以人为本”，统计出了问题，纵使是技术问题，更是人的问题。在当今世界，统计技术发展的应当很成熟，若存在技术难题，应当可以解决，纵使不能完全解决，也应当可以尽可能解决的贴近完美。而现在有技术性问题，这说明是人的问题，人于统计问题上不负责，人于统计问题上敷衍，不努力去完善统计制度与方法。这才是统计局存在的核心问题。
当记者再次向他（住建部部长姜伟新）询问未来房价是否能稳定时，他说：“能稳定，总理都说了，不稳定怎么行，肯定行！不行也得行！”
“下一步会有更为细化的遏制房价上涨的系列措施。”姜伟新说，“总理今天都讲了好几条，保障房这方面要加大建设力度，商品房那部分要加强管理，普通商品房要加大供给，另外还有土地等方面总理今天也都讲了。这都是各个方面共同起草，总理最后定的。”
住建部的部长今天放下狠话了：房价肯定能稳定。并且是“不行也得行”，似乎是要用强权去干预市场了，真是可喜可贺，言辞肯定而绝对。但是，我要问政府部门，为什么房价在高歌猛进得时候不遏止？为什么房价涨得一塌糊涂得时候，事情不得已了的时候遏止，且还仅仅遏止，保持稳定，这又让我们回到了一个执政的重要目的：维稳。政治上的维稳都跑到了房价上，数亿人所期待的房价下降在中共面前就不被当回事，仅用“不行也得行”的维稳思路来搪塞。房价已经高的使数亿人面对房子恐惧，而政府的这种“高价维稳”措施就是要让数亿人继续买不起房或继续买高价房？这就是中国政府。
在昨天下午举行的十一届全国人大三次会议分组审议中，全国人大代表、海南省委书记卫留成坦言现在房价确实有点高，自己的收入现在也买不起房，“像我们这种收入，书记省长一年工资也不少了，虽然在这里不好晒收入，但现在要想买套房子，我看也买不起。”
估计卫留成同志在海南住的很舒服，否则他也会为海南的高房价大喊大叫，真的是“不当家不知油盐贵”。卫留成不用自己的钱买房子但有房子住，所以虽然海南的房价近几个月飚高的很厉害，但卫留成不会对高房价有切身感觉，所以似乎并不直言房价之高。
这让我想起前不久温家宝同志所说自己以前也住过小房子，过过蜗居般的生活。但毕竟“苟富贵，勿相忘”只存在于书面中，不存在于现实中，虽然温总理过过蜗居般的生活，但温总理对于当前的高房价决计维持，只是不让其继续让，打算仍旧让中国的老百姓支付高额花费、承担巨大压力来生活，所以中国的普通大众们还是继续勒紧裤腰带生活吧。勿于政府过多期望。
两会言论选谈：绝对的言辞
两会言论选谈：绝对的言辞
张平（国家发改委主任）说，因此，我可以负责任地向大家表示，没有一分钱进入到刚才这位记者朋友所说的那一些领域。
不知道是气愤还是什么，张平同志竟然能说的这么绝对，真是佩服他的勇气与自信。
张平：“最后，我还想再说一个数字，我们去年社会消费品零售总额增长了15.5%，如果扣除物价因素，实际增长了16.9%。这是自1986年以来增幅最高的一年。社会消费品零售总额的大幅增长应该说是群众得到实惠、生活改善、收入提高的一个最有力的证明。”
张平同志在这里又用了一个不绝对的词汇“应该”，不那么绝对与肯定了。实际上稍微有头脑的人都可以想明白，社会消费品零售总额上涨并不绝对意味着群众收入改善，因为可能是部分高收入、高消费人群的收入增长而拉动了最终的社会消费品零售总额的增长，此外，纵使社会消费品零售总额增长了，也不能说明老百姓就得到了实惠、生活得到了改善。很多负贷买了房子（房子不是社会消费品统计范畴，但房子中家具家电等是）的人可能会比以前生活的更艰难。
潘石屹用微博播报“马局长比较恼火的是，统计部门有人说，目前的统计体系是完美的，数据是真实可靠的。”
这里又是一个讲话绝对的例子。行政官员的厥词大放啊，不知是义愤填膺下的话了还是忽悠领导的话，总之浸染了中国官场的习气。
全国政协委员、国家统计局原局长李德水昨日就日前备受争论的“去年大中型城市房价涨幅为1.5%”做出解释，称这是统计局“技术性问题”，而非“人品问题”。
李德水同志已经离开了统计局，成为了政协委员，但仍旧为中央政府的统计局说话，不知道李德水同志清不清楚他自己的身份与地位：李德水是来参加两会的，是政协委员，是给政府提意见的，不是替政府说好话的。
纵使李德水可以说，那么他说统计数字不是“人品问题”，是问中国是不是有句话叫做“事在人为”，中共是不是一直在强调一句话“以人为本”，统计出了问题，纵使是技术问题，更是人的问题。在当今世界，统计技术发展的应当很成熟，若存在技术难题，应当可以解决，纵使不能完全解决，也应当可以尽可能解决的贴近完美。而现在有技术性问题，这说明是人的问题，人于统计问题上不负责，人于统计问题上敷衍，不努力去完善统计制度与方法。这才是统计局存在的核心问题。
当记者再次向他（住建部部长姜伟新）询问未来房价是否能稳定时，他说：“能稳定，总理都说了，不稳定怎么行，肯定行！不行也得行！”
“下一步会有更为细化的遏制房价上涨的系列措施。”姜伟新说，“总理今天都讲了好几条，保障房这方面要加大建设力度，商品房那部分要加强管理，普通商品房要加大供给，另外还有土地等方面总理今天也都讲了。这都是各个方面共同起草，总理最后定的。”
住建部的部长今天放下狠话了：房价肯定能稳定。并且是“不行也得行”，似乎是要用强权去干预市场了，真是可喜可贺，言辞肯定而绝对。但是，我要问政府部门，为什么房价在高歌猛进得时候不遏止？为什么房价涨得一塌糊涂得时候，事情不得已了的时候遏止，且还仅仅遏止，保持稳定，这又让我们回到了一个执政的重要目的：维稳。政治上的维稳都跑到了房价上，数亿人所期待的房价下降在中共面前就不被当回事，仅用“不行也得行”的维稳思路来搪塞。房价已经高的使数亿人面对房子恐惧，而政府的这种“高价维稳”措施就是要让数亿人继续买不起房或继续买高价房？这就是中国政府。
在昨天下午举行的十一届全国人大三次会议分组审议中，全国人大代表、海南省委书记卫留成坦言现在房价确实有点高，自己的收入现在也买不起房，“像我们这种收入，书记省长一年工资也不少了，虽然在这里不好晒收入，但现在要想买套房子，我看也买不起。”
估计卫留成同志在海南住的很舒服，否则他也会为海南的高房价大喊大叫，真的是“不当家不知油盐贵”。卫留成不用自己的钱买房子但有房子住，所以虽然海南的房价近几个月飚高的很厉害，但卫留成不会对高房价有切身感觉，所以似乎并不直言房价之高。
这让我想起前不久温家宝同志所说自己以前也住过小房子，过过蜗居般的生活。但毕竟“苟富贵，勿相忘”只存在于书面中，不存在于现实中，虽然温总理过过蜗居般的生活，但温总理对于当前的高房价决计维持，只是不让其继续让，打算仍旧让中国的老百姓支付高额花费、承担巨大压力来生活，所以中国的普通大众们还是继续勒紧裤腰带生活吧。勿于政府过多期望。
Thursday, February 4, 2010
军售问题上的中共政权与台湾当局
军售问题上的中共政权与台湾当局
在这里，首先要说明的是“中国”是一个地缘、文化与历史范畴下的概念，不是中华人民共和国这个政权。在这个前提下，笔者认为台湾是中国不可分割的一部分。大陆与台湾虽然在政治体制上有根本差异，甚至根本的冲突。但都应当有对同属于中国的价值认同。在同根同文的历史与地缘境况下，和平应当是大陆与台湾之间的最高存在宗旨。
故无论如何，美国对台出售武器是对大陆与台湾之间和平大义的破坏。中共政权如若不能阻止美国对台出售武器，则意味着中共政权在追求两岸和平宗旨上的无能。台湾当局执意购买武器，则意味着对中共政权的不信任与对和平的无信心。
就目前情况来看，在军售问题上，中共政权对卖方美国政府态度强硬，威胁予以制裁，但对买方台湾当局却几无言辞。从事态发展而言，武器卖到台湾几乎已是铁板钉钉。美国强硬要卖，台湾当局很想买，也没有人阻碍它买。
从对军售问题的解决方法上，中共政权对台美武器交易问题奉行的方针政策基本是一以贯之。过去若干次军售发生时，基本上也是外交抗议、舆论打压，严重一些就是制裁。最终亦无取得任何效果，武器还是被卖。对象上，主要是针对美国。考虑到两岸经济交往等，很少对台湾进行如制裁之类的措施。就此次事件来看，由于马英九当政以来，两岸关系取得较好发展，经济交往更是深入，故中共政权对台湾当局几无进行什么施压之类的措施。但我们必须看到，如果继续以往的对美强硬政策，并不能取得阻止的效果。故有必要调整处理方式，对台湾当局进行必要的限制或制裁。或许有人会说如此方式，会破坏很大，但笔者认为如此做，还不至于导致伤筋动骨的层面。
如果大陆予以台湾强硬措施，台湾民众极有可能更加离心于中国。但是无论中共政权还是台湾当局都必须看到一个大义问题，即两岸的和平问题。无论大陆民众还是台湾民众，在目前的情况下，也都应当以和平为前提。中共所执政的中共政权未必就是代表中国的，台湾当局是台湾民众选举出来的。而拥有13亿国民的中共政权似乎更有必要将自己定位为中国的代表而去维护和平，更有必要确保自己存在的合理性与价值。
反之，台湾当局执意购买武器，主要的目的似乎只是防御性的，或说是面对中共执政的政权，是为了维护台湾的民主与价值。就如上文所提及，台湾当局对中共政权是存在不信任的，对和平也缺乏信心。面对中共政权对美国的强硬态度，台湾当局对中共政权似乎业务特别的言辞。台湾当局更试图维持两岸现状，而未有其它的进取心。而如果大陆的政权没有发生大的变化，台湾的这种不信任可能会一直存在下去。军售问题上的中美台摩擦必然每隔一段时间出现一次。
在这里，首先要说明的是“中国”是一个地缘、文化与历史范畴下的概念，不是中华人民共和国这个政权。在这个前提下，笔者认为台湾是中国不可分割的一部分。大陆与台湾虽然在政治体制上有根本差异，甚至根本的冲突。但都应当有对同属于中国的价值认同。在同根同文的历史与地缘境况下，和平应当是大陆与台湾之间的最高存在宗旨。
故无论如何，美国对台出售武器是对大陆与台湾之间和平大义的破坏。中共政权如若不能阻止美国对台出售武器，则意味着中共政权在追求两岸和平宗旨上的无能。台湾当局执意购买武器，则意味着对中共政权的不信任与对和平的无信心。
就目前情况来看，在军售问题上，中共政权对卖方美国政府态度强硬，威胁予以制裁，但对买方台湾当局却几无言辞。从事态发展而言，武器卖到台湾几乎已是铁板钉钉。美国强硬要卖，台湾当局很想买，也没有人阻碍它买。
从对军售问题的解决方法上，中共政权对台美武器交易问题奉行的方针政策基本是一以贯之。过去若干次军售发生时，基本上也是外交抗议、舆论打压，严重一些就是制裁。最终亦无取得任何效果，武器还是被卖。对象上，主要是针对美国。考虑到两岸经济交往等，很少对台湾进行如制裁之类的措施。就此次事件来看，由于马英九当政以来，两岸关系取得较好发展，经济交往更是深入，故中共政权对台湾当局几无进行什么施压之类的措施。但我们必须看到，如果继续以往的对美强硬政策，并不能取得阻止的效果。故有必要调整处理方式，对台湾当局进行必要的限制或制裁。或许有人会说如此方式，会破坏很大，但笔者认为如此做，还不至于导致伤筋动骨的层面。
如果大陆予以台湾强硬措施，台湾民众极有可能更加离心于中国。但是无论中共政权还是台湾当局都必须看到一个大义问题，即两岸的和平问题。无论大陆民众还是台湾民众，在目前的情况下，也都应当以和平为前提。中共所执政的中共政权未必就是代表中国的，台湾当局是台湾民众选举出来的。而拥有13亿国民的中共政权似乎更有必要将自己定位为中国的代表而去维护和平，更有必要确保自己存在的合理性与价值。
反之，台湾当局执意购买武器，主要的目的似乎只是防御性的，或说是面对中共执政的政权，是为了维护台湾的民主与价值。就如上文所提及，台湾当局对中共政权是存在不信任的，对和平也缺乏信心。面对中共政权对美国的强硬态度，台湾当局对中共政权似乎业务特别的言辞。台湾当局更试图维持两岸现状，而未有其它的进取心。而如果大陆的政权没有发生大的变化，台湾的这种不信任可能会一直存在下去。军售问题上的中美台摩擦必然每隔一段时间出现一次。
Friday, October 2, 2009
国庆时节中国的另一面：来自《远东经济评论》与《经济学家》的评论
The Next Chinese Revolution
by Daniel Lynch
Posted October 1, 2009
Today marks the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China. There will be massive military parades and many speeches by the leaders of the Communist Party. But no one will mention the very real possibility of political upheaval政治剧变 in the near future, or the economic inequality, job losses and slowdown in economic growth the country is currently experiencing.
PRC今天举办六十年庆祝。共产党的领导人发表了重要讲话，以及大规模阅兵游行。但却没有人注意，在不久的未来政治剧变的真实可能性，或当前我们正经历着经济不平等、失业和缓慢的经济增长这样的困境。
【美国经济增长、货币供应量增加25％】Imagine that U.S. gross domestic product is growing at an annual rate of 4% when suddenly it drops to 2% because important trading partners are hit by a severe recession. An alarmed president pushes through Congress a $2 trillion fiscal stimulus package, while a frantic Federal Reserve dramatically expands credit and increases the money supply by a whopping 25%. Would a decline in the growth rate from 4% to 2% justify such extreme policy measures?
Most economists would say “no way” because heavy stimulation of a generally healthy economy could lead to an inflationary doomsday. Yet the Chinese Communist Party has implemented an equivalent level of stimulation in combating what it insists is a very mild economic downturn. Something isn’t right with this Chinese picture.
Beijing contends that China’s growth rate never fell into negative territory despite the fact that its exports plummeted by 20% to 25% last fall and winter and have not recovered. The only real pain China suffered, government officials maintain, was a mild decline in growth, from an average of 9% to 12% in 2005-2008 to 7.1% in the first half of 2009. Not to worry, the officials say.
【刺激计划】Nevertheless, the regime hurriedly implemented a $586 billion fiscal stimulus package, the equivalent of an astonishing 13% of GDP. It also ordered state-owned banks to flood the country with liquidity. If the official data are to be believed, the result has been only a mild uptick in growth back to the country’s 9% to 12% trend line.
【经济形势不稳定】But despite the claimed return to growth, an anxious-looking Premier Wen Jiabao warned in early September that “China’s economic rebound is unstable, unbalanced and not yet solid.” He said Beijing must continue its fiscal stimulus measures and “appropriately loose monetary policy” indefinitely — even though growth is now officially back up to around 10%.
【外国支持者】China’s foreign boosters — Wall Street analysts, journalists and investors — seem to find nothing strange in all this, which is odd, if not unfathomable. Wen’s call for sustained stimulus would be the equivalent of the president asking for even more stimulus after the measures outlined in our imaginary scenario hiked growth to 3%.
【中国崛起的神话】As the Chinese Communist Party celebrates the People’s Republic’s 60th anniversary, China’s economy is in trouble. Yet the leaders can’t afford to tell the truth because for many years they have been blowing a political bubble called “the Rise of China.” This has led some particularly optimistic Chinese to predict that their country will surpass the United States in “comprehensive national power” — military, economic and cultural — by the late 2020s. The bursting of this political bubble would frustrate the expectations of a newly prosperous, well-educated and wired segment of a nationalistic citizenry and potentially create a dangerous political problem for the authoritarian state. Nevertheless, China’s troubled economy may well be on the verge of throwing the country’s “rise” at least temporarily off the rails.
【GDP与能耗】Beijing’s insistence that GDP grew by 7.1 percent in the first half of 2009 is highly doubtful given that coal consumption by Chinese power plants fell 8.9 percent and usage of petroleum products (including gasoline) dropped 2.6 percent. In previous years, energy consumption consistently grew at a 7% to 9% rate.
【税收下跌】Equally remarkable, aggregate tax revenues fell 6% in the first half of 2009 after increasing by 17% to 31% in preceding years. The drop in tax receipts occurred at the same time as energy use fell.
Some analysts say there is nothing anomalous反常的 about these figures, because Beijing has for years encouraged energy efficiency, and it lowered tax rates at the end of last year to help stave off recession. But the coincidences are far too improbable for these explanations to hold water. Almost certainly, the Chinese economy contracted收缩了 after the recession began.
【中小企业】The sector hit the hardest would have been China’s privately owned small and medium enterprises. Often producing for export markets, these businesses had, by the mid-2000s, become the most productive and dynamic actors in the Chinese economy. In the years following China’s entry into the World Trade Organization, they absorbed two-thirds of all new entrants into the labor force and contributed nearly as much to the incremental increases in GDP.
The small and medium enterprises logged these accomplishments despite the fact that state-owned banks generally refuse to extend them credit because they regard state-owned enterprises as a surer bet. Today these banks are financing takeovers of troubled privately owned businesses by some state-owned enterprises. All of this spells deep difficulties ahead for China’s economic dynamism.
【不可思议的中国经济】There are other signs that the Chinese economy is not living up to its testimonials. For example, the explosion of credit and money has not been accompanied by inflation. M2 — currency in circulation plus savings deposits — is reported each month to be, on average, 25% higher than in the comparable month last year. And new bank loans doubled in the first half and continue to increase at high rates. Yet consumer prices are reportedly down 1% to 2% year-to-date, while producer prices are off 7% to 9%.
Economics 101 teaches that if prices fall when the money supply is rising, either production must be increasing at a higher rate than money supply or the velocity速率 of money changing hands must be falling. In China, the only market in which prices are consistently rising is the property market资本市场, now that the stock market seems to be “correcting.” Because no Chinese official claims that GDP is increasing by more than 25%, velocity must have plummeted, and a key reason would be socioeconomic inequality社会经济不平等. China’s wealthy have easy access to all the new credit, and some of them use the money to speculate on stocks and property. The middle classes and the poor can’t play this game because they cannot get credit. The very poor are barely treading water, given that 20 million to 40 million migrant workers (and surely many others) lost their jobs last winter. These people are unavoidably spending far less this year than last, while the well-off can only consume so much additional food and clothing. Consequently, prices stay steady or decline, and Chinese retailers report consistently disappointing revenues and profits.
The Communist Party hopes to keep the economy afloat by injecting huge amounts of money and credit into the economy while waiting for things to “get back to normal” in the United States and other export markets. One Chinese official recently said that he expects 10% GDP growth next year on the strength of surging exports and real property investment – not, tellingly, on a jump in domestic consumption. But how realistic is the government’s bet on a recovery in exports?
Most U.S. economists expect U.S. unemployment to continue rising into 2010 or 2011 and GDP growth to be tepid even if the economy technically exits recession. While consumer spending edged up slightly during the summer, it’s nowhere near its housing-boom highs, which fueled the growth in Chinese imports. Furthermore, American households are now slowly but steadily reducing their debt and saving more. During the summer, consumer credit outstanding fell at the highest rates in half a century.
China’s other major trading partners aren’t performing much better. Japan is mired in a deep recession and staring into the abyss of structural deflation. Europe is, at best, barely growing, while Taiwan and Southeast Asia are stuck in a deep trough. Only South Korea seems to be recovering modestly but that is chiefly because some Chinese firms are using stimulus money to buy Korean goods. As Beijing weans the Chinese economy off stimulus money, Korea could slide back into recession, particularly given that its major trading partners are the same as China’s.
【新的消费状态】All of this adds up to a new normal, one that, even in a best-case scenario, would mean slower GDP growth in China for many years to come. China has no choice but to adjust to this new world that will inevitably purchase significantly fewer Chinese goods. The adjustment will likely require wrenching changes in China’s economy and even in its cultural norms. It will be costly.
No matter what, China’s growth rate — and, by extension, its “rise” — must now slow. The only uncertainty is by how much and for how long. The crucial question is how Chinese elites, encouraged in recent years to expect imminent international glory for their country, will react to this new normal. If frustrated expectations cause them to become dissatisfied at the same time as economic malaise grips the general population, Chinese politics could become severely turbulent. China’s leaders might have to make concessions of a kind that they never would have imagined, let alone wished to see. They might have to contemplate liberalization.
Daniel Lynch, a professor of international relations at the University of Southern California and a member of USC’s US-China Institute, is the author of "Rising China and Asian Democratization." He is currently working on a book about elite Chinese expectations of China’s future.
China's other face
The red and the black
Oct 1st 2009 CHONGQING
From The Economist print edition
As the People’s Republic celebrates its 60th birthday, the gangsterism the communists boasted of vanquishing has staged a comeback
Getty Images
SHORTLY before the 60th anniversary of communist China’s founding on October 1st, police in the south-western city of Chongqing opened an unusual exhibition. On display, to invited guests only, were 65 luxury cars formerly owned by the bosses of the city’s crime gangs as well as an assortment of jewellery, guns and drugs. Chongqing, the wartime capital of China, had been a hub of organised crime in pre-communist days. Now the gangs are back, with roots in the party that almost wiped them out six decades ago.
In Beijing the huge military parade on October 1st, China’s first in ten years, was intended to show off a modern, powerful face. The country’s leaders had reason to flaunt their stuff this year. Not only has China made enormous economic and technological strides since 1999, but it has also weathered the global financial crisis with remarkable resilience. Officials had worried that widespread lay-offs in export businesses could lead to social unrest. But, apart from bloody rioting in the far-western region of Xinjiang in July, fuelled mainly by ethnic rivalry, the past few months have seen no obvious increase in the number or scale of protests.
As is evident in Chongqing, however, China has another face. Although central authority appears strong, at the local level public anger is boiling. Double-digit economic growth for much of this decade has highlighted how corrupt and dysfunctional local government has become. The campaign against organised crime launched by Chongqing in June demonstrated just how prone China remains, after all those years of Communist rule, to the age-old scourge of collusion between bureaucrats and gangland bosses. For many Chinese, life is vastly more affluent now than it was when the Communists came to power. Decent health care and education are far easier to get. But confidence in local government is threadbare.
Corruption, some Chinese officials argue, is an inevitable by-product of rapid economic growth. But the cumbersome structure of local government in China also helps it flourish. For centuries Chinese rulers have pondered how to extend power across such a vast country. In recent years many have debated whether part of the problem lies with there being too many tiers of government—China has five, compared with three in America. Some advocate cutting one or two layers. This adds to a sense that, after 60 years of rule, the party is still unsure how best to govern.
It has tried in the past decade to make local legislatures more representative by admitting members of the newly emerging business elite. But its half-baked moves—involving the same old system of patronage rather than anything resembling democracy—are now widely blamed for encouraging the spread of organised crime. Chongqing has become a celebrated, but by no means unique, example.
At village level, a cautious experiment with democracy in the 1990s led to frequent local power-grabs by gangsters or by party officials in collusion with them. This has been democracy only in name. Criticising the party is still never tolerated. The job of local governments is not made easier by a flawed mechanism for sharing tax revenues between the centre and sub-national governments. This leaves many local authorities with huge responsibilities for providing public services, but without the wherewithal to carry them out. In poorer parts of China, they often find it hard even to pay their own staff. Yet, in the absence of any proper public oversight, bureaucracies keep growing.
Chongqing’s mafia problems have come to light only thanks to the local government’s decision to give its crackdown on gangs a publicity splurge. (Details of the recent exhibition, however, are known only because a Chinese reporter sneaked in and spread the news in Time-Weekly, a newspaper published in the southern province of Guangdong.) But gangsterism is ubiquitous. Especially in the past decade, local governments have staged frequent anti-mafia campaigns. Thousands of gangsters are rounded up every year. The southern island-province of Hainan, for example, launched a year-long round-up in February. Streets there are festooned with slogans calling for gangs to be smashed and guns to be handed over.
Imaginechina
Justice being seen to be done
Chongqing’s latest campaign, however, has aroused particular attention because it has been directed, unusually, at the kind of people who count: the wealthy businessmen and powerful officials who control the gangs and enable them to flourish. Of some 2,000 people detained so far, several are senior officials, including Wen Qiang (pictured), the head of Chongqing’s justice bureau. Dozens are police officers. Some are prominent businessmen who served in legislative or advisory bodies. Press reports say that the campaign will be extended after the National Day holiday into Chongqing’s county towns, around the reservoir stretching 660km (410 miles) behind the Three Gorges Dam. Chongqing, though called a municipality, is in effect a province with a population of 30m covering an area the size of Scotland. Its capital is also named Chongqing.
The man behind Chongqing’s ambitious drive against the mafia is its party chief, Bo Xilai, who appears to enjoy enormous political confidence. Mr Bo, who sits on China’s ruling Politburo, is a charismatic member of a new generation of leaders who are due to assume power in Beijing in 2012. Without his clout, many residents believe that Chongqing would have found it far more difficult to wage war on the mob. Mr Bo took up the post two years ago, having previously served as China’s commerce minister and before that as the governor of the north-eastern province of Liaoning. Many wonder whether his clean-government drive is intended to burnish his credentials in a looming struggle for power. He is the son of Bo Yibo, one of China’s late revolutionary founders—hardly a handicap to his ambitions.
According to reports in state-controlled newspapers, Chongqing’s gangsters operated in a wide variety of businesses, from the wholesale seafood trade to nightclubs and moneylending. They controlled a private bus network, now taken over by the government, which in recent years had become a popular alternative to state-run transport. Then there is the usual fare of drugs and prostitution. These have been bad weeks for the city’s entertainment industry and night-shift taxi-drivers.
The crackdown has exposed how wealthy businessmen used their positions in local legislative and advisory bodies—people’s congresses and political consultative committees, as they are known—to boost their prestige and gain access to officials. A few years ago China’s entrepreneurial class was far more politically marginalised. Only in this decade have its members even been allowed to join the Communist Party. Chongqing is the biggest example to come to light of what is sometimes dubbed “red-black” (ie, communist-mafia) collusion since a huge round-up in 2000 of gangsters in Shenyang in the north-east. That resulted in the executions of a former legislator and businessman and of a deputy mayor. The city’s mayor, who was also implicated, is now serving a commuted death sentence.
But experts say much has changed since then. A recent book on organised crime, produced by a police-affiliated publishing house in Beijing, says that in the past decade underworld gangs have been evolving at an accelerating pace, with some beginning to operate internationally. The author, He Bingsong, writes that they have fuelled an “unprecedented” rate of growth in criminal activity in China since the turn of the century: “Some have even taken control of grassroots government, or treat government as their equal.”
Quis custodiet?
China’s press usually reports crime stories only when the police are ready to provide details, which is rarely until suspects are caught. Crime statistics are too vague to rely on. But anecdotal evidence lends weight to Mr He’s assertions. Journalists reporting in rural areas frequently find their attempts to investigate stories blocked by thugs, apparently acting on the orders of local officials. In the past few years reports of clashes between citizens and government-hired goons have been ever more frequent. Grumbling about “black society” has become part of everyday conversation.
Outside Chongqing’s lavish new police headquarters a dozen angry citizens crowded around your correspondent, showing him pictures of faces bloodied by people they alleged were gangsters hired by officials to force them from their homes to make way for a building project. The victims also showed the pictures to a policewoman in a reception room at the compound entrance, where Chongqing citizens have been invited to submit any complaints about gang activity. She told the petitioners to report the case to their local police station, ignoring their objection that the local police were themselves in cahoots with the criminals.
Mr He writes that gangs are infiltrating government at ever-higher levels, even into the senior reaches of provincial governments and central ministries. An obvious difference between modern gangsterism and its pre-revolutionary counterpart is that few gangs today are known by names—unlike the famous Green Gang, a powerful force in pre-communist Shanghai, or Chongqing’s Robed Brothers, who controlled the city’s opium trade and gambling. China before 1949 was a chaotic mix of competing political, military and criminal forces. In the far more monolithic political culture of today, home-grown gangs usually prefer not to give themselves names to avoid provoking the party. Named groups with their headquarters in Hong Kong and Taiwan, however, such as the Sun Yee On triad and the United Bamboo gang, also operate in China.
Throughout Chinese history, movements that have toppled dynasties have sometimes started as gangs and secret societies. So far, however, for Beijing, the “mafia-isation” of local government has not yet become a pressing nationwide problem. As long as it remains, in the public mind at least, a local issue, it does not feel threatened. Indeed it has benefited in recent years from a widespread perception among ordinary Chinese that the central party leadership is a benign force, and its valiant efforts to make China a just society are being subverted by local officials.
Fiscal reform in the countryside, culminating in the abolition of a centuries-old agricultural tax in 2006, helped boost the central government’s standing even as it drained the coffers of many local governments. The centre has also made political hay from the rapid rolling-out of a new, if far from perfect, rural health-insurance scheme since 2003, and the abolition of rural school fees in 2006 and 2007.
The centre is not afraid to push any problems back out to the provinces. An obvious one is the stream of petitioners who head to Beijing to visit government offices to seek redress for abuses of power in their hometowns, an imperial tradition that the Communist Party has, through gritted teeth, maintained. Very few justice-seekers get more than a cursory hearing. Many are rounded up in Beijing by police despatched from their hometowns, sometimes tipped off by central-government officials. They are often held for a few days in unofficial detention in guesthouses known as “black jails”, then sent back to their provinces. The centre appears to lose little by such high-handedness. Outside Beijing a bizarre belief persists: if only victims of official abuse can make their grievances known at the very highest level of the leadership, justice will prevail.
In the past couple of years central-government tolerance of whingers from the provinces has been strained almost to breaking point by its fears of instability during huge public events: the Olympic games in August 2008 and this year’s National Day celebrations. In the build-up to both, petitioners have been summarily packed off home.
In August the central government said it would send legal experts to the provinces to help sort out petitioners’ problems on their home turf. This is unlikely to help. There are already considerable incentives for local officials to keep them away from Beijing. Trends in the numbers of petitioners heading to the capital from a particular locality are used to judge the suitability of that place’s leaders for promotion. But this has not stemmed a growing tide. One of the disgruntled Chongqing citizens outside the city’s police headquarters was not afraid to shout that she would take her grievance to Beijing.
Hopes among some Chinese scholars and officials that an infusion of grassroots democracy might ease such tensions have largely been dashed. Li Fan of the World and China Institute, a private consultancy in Beijing, says that the experiment with village elections has “died” and the party’s talk of expanding democracy within its own ranks, a big agenda item for an annual meeting of its central committee in September, is “empty words”. The party, he says, now believes that eruptions of local discontent are best solved by a combination of force paying off demonstrators.
But some scholars see room for improvement at the local level, even without yet tackling the question of universal suffrage. With more resources and greater autonomy, some argue, China’s 2,800-odd counties, mafia hotbeds though some of them are, could play a much better role in defusing local anger.
This year the central government launched a new reform that requires provincial governments to take direct responsibility for financing county governments instead of leaving the job to the tier in-between, the prefecture. In the past prefectural administrations have often siphoned off money destined for their subordinate counties. They also enjoyed a veto over large-scale county investment projects.
Counties are now supposed to enjoy greater power to decide for themselves. But again these reforms have been criticised as half-baked. County chiefs remain at the mercy of their prefectural-level superiors, who retain a critical say in county appointments. Without oversight, giving counties greater autonomy could spread corruption further.
Yu Jianrong of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences says some political reform at the county level could be carried out without the need to change the national constitution, which allows only the indirect election of county leaders. County legislatures, for example, could be turned into full-time bodies, rather than convened, as at present, for occasional rubber-stamp duties. Legislators themselves could be chosen more democratically, instead of being installed by the ceremonial “election” of a party-selected list. If gangsters end up getting elected because of their vote-buying power, say some scholars, so be it. At least they will have to keep their electorate happy in order to hang on to their seats.
Getting it off your chest
The central leadership is not entirely deaf to public opinion. In response to growing complaints about corruption, the party this year launched a new rating system to gauge public satisfaction with official appointments. The first results, based on a survey of 80,000 people conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics, were made public in May. On a 100-point satisfaction scale, the party’s Organisation Department, which handles senior appointments, scored 66.84 points for tackling corruption and other wrongdoing in the appointments procedure, and 67.04 points for the people it chose.
Reuters
Whose party is it anyway?
According to the head of the Organisation Department, Li Yuanchao, these two numbers were the result of a year’s work personally supervised by President Hu Jintao and Vice-President Xi Jinping. They are about as close as the party has come to announcing how popular it is in a statistical fashion. Officials say that the ratings must be “conspicuously” improved by 2012, when Mr Hu is due to step down. Many believe Mr Xi is due to take over from him, though the September central-committee meeting ended without awarding him the new military title he was expected to collect on his climb to the top. Behind closed doors, some officials have expressed worries about the satisfaction ratings, fearing that the party could find itself embarrassed should the numbers drop. Mr Li has told Organisation Department officials, however, that without such pressure “it would be easy to get satisfied and lazy.”
As it is, though, party leaders show little interest in exposing even county-level leaders to the pressure of a vote, let alone themselves. One of the very few places where a flicker of political reform can still be detected is in Wenling, a city in the coastal province of Zhejiang. There officials have been experimenting with more open budgets, a departure from the normal practice of keeping these secret, with only bare outlines shown to legislators at the last minute before they are approved. But Wenling has been at it for several years now, with little sign of its boldness catching on elsewhere. At its annual meeting in March the national legislature did not even vote on the central government’s massive economic stimulus, announced the previous November.
Some Chinese wonder in private how different the party’s style of rule is from that of the Kuomintang (KMT), the party that ran much of China from the late 1920s until its overthrow by the Communists, and which maintained close links with gangsters. In Chongqing visitors to a reconstructed KMT prison on a hillside above the city delight in seeing slogans on the wall that recall the harangues of the party today. They suggest that hectoring sceptical citizens is part of a long tradition.
Earlier this year a lawyer in the southern city of Guangzhou was detained for several hours for sporting a T-shirt in public printed with the words “One-party rule is a disaster”. He had a good defence. The slogan came from the headline of a newspaper run by the Communist Party itself three years before it established the People’s Republic. After a mere three hours in custody and a warning that he had “made up rumours and disturbed social order”, Mr Liu was on his way home—in a police car, lest members of the public read the writing on the shirt.
by Daniel Lynch
Posted October 1, 2009
Today marks the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China. There will be massive military parades and many speeches by the leaders of the Communist Party. But no one will mention the very real possibility of political upheaval政治剧变 in the near future, or the economic inequality, job losses and slowdown in economic growth the country is currently experiencing.
PRC今天举办六十年庆祝。共产党的领导人发表了重要讲话，以及大规模阅兵游行。但却没有人注意，在不久的未来政治剧变的真实可能性，或当前我们正经历着经济不平等、失业和缓慢的经济增长这样的困境。
【美国经济增长、货币供应量增加25％】Imagine that U.S. gross domestic product is growing at an annual rate of 4% when suddenly it drops to 2% because important trading partners are hit by a severe recession. An alarmed president pushes through Congress a $2 trillion fiscal stimulus package, while a frantic Federal Reserve dramatically expands credit and increases the money supply by a whopping 25%. Would a decline in the growth rate from 4% to 2% justify such extreme policy measures?
Most economists would say “no way” because heavy stimulation of a generally healthy economy could lead to an inflationary doomsday. Yet the Chinese Communist Party has implemented an equivalent level of stimulation in combating what it insists is a very mild economic downturn. Something isn’t right with this Chinese picture.
Beijing contends that China’s growth rate never fell into negative territory despite the fact that its exports plummeted by 20% to 25% last fall and winter and have not recovered. The only real pain China suffered, government officials maintain, was a mild decline in growth, from an average of 9% to 12% in 2005-2008 to 7.1% in the first half of 2009. Not to worry, the officials say.
【刺激计划】Nevertheless, the regime hurriedly implemented a $586 billion fiscal stimulus package, the equivalent of an astonishing 13% of GDP. It also ordered state-owned banks to flood the country with liquidity. If the official data are to be believed, the result has been only a mild uptick in growth back to the country’s 9% to 12% trend line.
【经济形势不稳定】But despite the claimed return to growth, an anxious-looking Premier Wen Jiabao warned in early September that “China’s economic rebound is unstable, unbalanced and not yet solid.” He said Beijing must continue its fiscal stimulus measures and “appropriately loose monetary policy” indefinitely — even though growth is now officially back up to around 10%.
【外国支持者】China’s foreign boosters — Wall Street analysts, journalists and investors — seem to find nothing strange in all this, which is odd, if not unfathomable. Wen’s call for sustained stimulus would be the equivalent of the president asking for even more stimulus after the measures outlined in our imaginary scenario hiked growth to 3%.
【中国崛起的神话】As the Chinese Communist Party celebrates the People’s Republic’s 60th anniversary, China’s economy is in trouble. Yet the leaders can’t afford to tell the truth because for many years they have been blowing a political bubble called “the Rise of China.” This has led some particularly optimistic Chinese to predict that their country will surpass the United States in “comprehensive national power” — military, economic and cultural — by the late 2020s. The bursting of this political bubble would frustrate the expectations of a newly prosperous, well-educated and wired segment of a nationalistic citizenry and potentially create a dangerous political problem for the authoritarian state. Nevertheless, China’s troubled economy may well be on the verge of throwing the country’s “rise” at least temporarily off the rails.
【GDP与能耗】Beijing’s insistence that GDP grew by 7.1 percent in the first half of 2009 is highly doubtful given that coal consumption by Chinese power plants fell 8.9 percent and usage of petroleum products (including gasoline) dropped 2.6 percent. In previous years, energy consumption consistently grew at a 7% to 9% rate.
【税收下跌】Equally remarkable, aggregate tax revenues fell 6% in the first half of 2009 after increasing by 17% to 31% in preceding years. The drop in tax receipts occurred at the same time as energy use fell.
Some analysts say there is nothing anomalous反常的 about these figures, because Beijing has for years encouraged energy efficiency, and it lowered tax rates at the end of last year to help stave off recession. But the coincidences are far too improbable for these explanations to hold water. Almost certainly, the Chinese economy contracted收缩了 after the recession began.
【中小企业】The sector hit the hardest would have been China’s privately owned small and medium enterprises. Often producing for export markets, these businesses had, by the mid-2000s, become the most productive and dynamic actors in the Chinese economy. In the years following China’s entry into the World Trade Organization, they absorbed two-thirds of all new entrants into the labor force and contributed nearly as much to the incremental increases in GDP.
The small and medium enterprises logged these accomplishments despite the fact that state-owned banks generally refuse to extend them credit because they regard state-owned enterprises as a surer bet. Today these banks are financing takeovers of troubled privately owned businesses by some state-owned enterprises. All of this spells deep difficulties ahead for China’s economic dynamism.
【不可思议的中国经济】There are other signs that the Chinese economy is not living up to its testimonials. For example, the explosion of credit and money has not been accompanied by inflation. M2 — currency in circulation plus savings deposits — is reported each month to be, on average, 25% higher than in the comparable month last year. And new bank loans doubled in the first half and continue to increase at high rates. Yet consumer prices are reportedly down 1% to 2% year-to-date, while producer prices are off 7% to 9%.
Economics 101 teaches that if prices fall when the money supply is rising, either production must be increasing at a higher rate than money supply or the velocity速率 of money changing hands must be falling. In China, the only market in which prices are consistently rising is the property market资本市场, now that the stock market seems to be “correcting.” Because no Chinese official claims that GDP is increasing by more than 25%, velocity must have plummeted, and a key reason would be socioeconomic inequality社会经济不平等. China’s wealthy have easy access to all the new credit, and some of them use the money to speculate on stocks and property. The middle classes and the poor can’t play this game because they cannot get credit. The very poor are barely treading water, given that 20 million to 40 million migrant workers (and surely many others) lost their jobs last winter. These people are unavoidably spending far less this year than last, while the well-off can only consume so much additional food and clothing. Consequently, prices stay steady or decline, and Chinese retailers report consistently disappointing revenues and profits.
The Communist Party hopes to keep the economy afloat by injecting huge amounts of money and credit into the economy while waiting for things to “get back to normal” in the United States and other export markets. One Chinese official recently said that he expects 10% GDP growth next year on the strength of surging exports and real property investment – not, tellingly, on a jump in domestic consumption. But how realistic is the government’s bet on a recovery in exports?
Most U.S. economists expect U.S. unemployment to continue rising into 2010 or 2011 and GDP growth to be tepid even if the economy technically exits recession. While consumer spending edged up slightly during the summer, it’s nowhere near its housing-boom highs, which fueled the growth in Chinese imports. Furthermore, American households are now slowly but steadily reducing their debt and saving more. During the summer, consumer credit outstanding fell at the highest rates in half a century.
China’s other major trading partners aren’t performing much better. Japan is mired in a deep recession and staring into the abyss of structural deflation. Europe is, at best, barely growing, while Taiwan and Southeast Asia are stuck in a deep trough. Only South Korea seems to be recovering modestly but that is chiefly because some Chinese firms are using stimulus money to buy Korean goods. As Beijing weans the Chinese economy off stimulus money, Korea could slide back into recession, particularly given that its major trading partners are the same as China’s.
【新的消费状态】All of this adds up to a new normal, one that, even in a best-case scenario, would mean slower GDP growth in China for many years to come. China has no choice but to adjust to this new world that will inevitably purchase significantly fewer Chinese goods. The adjustment will likely require wrenching changes in China’s economy and even in its cultural norms. It will be costly.
No matter what, China’s growth rate — and, by extension, its “rise” — must now slow. The only uncertainty is by how much and for how long. The crucial question is how Chinese elites, encouraged in recent years to expect imminent international glory for their country, will react to this new normal. If frustrated expectations cause them to become dissatisfied at the same time as economic malaise grips the general population, Chinese politics could become severely turbulent. China’s leaders might have to make concessions of a kind that they never would have imagined, let alone wished to see. They might have to contemplate liberalization.
Daniel Lynch, a professor of international relations at the University of Southern California and a member of USC’s US-China Institute, is the author of "Rising China and Asian Democratization." He is currently working on a book about elite Chinese expectations of China’s future.
China's other face
The red and the black
Oct 1st 2009 CHONGQING
From The Economist print edition
As the People’s Republic celebrates its 60th birthday, the gangsterism the communists boasted of vanquishing has staged a comeback
Getty Images
SHORTLY before the 60th anniversary of communist China’s founding on October 1st, police in the south-western city of Chongqing opened an unusual exhibition. On display, to invited guests only, were 65 luxury cars formerly owned by the bosses of the city’s crime gangs as well as an assortment of jewellery, guns and drugs. Chongqing, the wartime capital of China, had been a hub of organised crime in pre-communist days. Now the gangs are back, with roots in the party that almost wiped them out six decades ago.
In Beijing the huge military parade on October 1st, China’s first in ten years, was intended to show off a modern, powerful face. The country’s leaders had reason to flaunt their stuff this year. Not only has China made enormous economic and technological strides since 1999, but it has also weathered the global financial crisis with remarkable resilience. Officials had worried that widespread lay-offs in export businesses could lead to social unrest. But, apart from bloody rioting in the far-western region of Xinjiang in July, fuelled mainly by ethnic rivalry, the past few months have seen no obvious increase in the number or scale of protests.
As is evident in Chongqing, however, China has another face. Although central authority appears strong, at the local level public anger is boiling. Double-digit economic growth for much of this decade has highlighted how corrupt and dysfunctional local government has become. The campaign against organised crime launched by Chongqing in June demonstrated just how prone China remains, after all those years of Communist rule, to the age-old scourge of collusion between bureaucrats and gangland bosses. For many Chinese, life is vastly more affluent now than it was when the Communists came to power. Decent health care and education are far easier to get. But confidence in local government is threadbare.
Corruption, some Chinese officials argue, is an inevitable by-product of rapid economic growth. But the cumbersome structure of local government in China also helps it flourish. For centuries Chinese rulers have pondered how to extend power across such a vast country. In recent years many have debated whether part of the problem lies with there being too many tiers of government—China has five, compared with three in America. Some advocate cutting one or two layers. This adds to a sense that, after 60 years of rule, the party is still unsure how best to govern.
It has tried in the past decade to make local legislatures more representative by admitting members of the newly emerging business elite. But its half-baked moves—involving the same old system of patronage rather than anything resembling democracy—are now widely blamed for encouraging the spread of organised crime. Chongqing has become a celebrated, but by no means unique, example.
At village level, a cautious experiment with democracy in the 1990s led to frequent local power-grabs by gangsters or by party officials in collusion with them. This has been democracy only in name. Criticising the party is still never tolerated. The job of local governments is not made easier by a flawed mechanism for sharing tax revenues between the centre and sub-national governments. This leaves many local authorities with huge responsibilities for providing public services, but without the wherewithal to carry them out. In poorer parts of China, they often find it hard even to pay their own staff. Yet, in the absence of any proper public oversight, bureaucracies keep growing.
Chongqing’s mafia problems have come to light only thanks to the local government’s decision to give its crackdown on gangs a publicity splurge. (Details of the recent exhibition, however, are known only because a Chinese reporter sneaked in and spread the news in Time-Weekly, a newspaper published in the southern province of Guangdong.) But gangsterism is ubiquitous. Especially in the past decade, local governments have staged frequent anti-mafia campaigns. Thousands of gangsters are rounded up every year. The southern island-province of Hainan, for example, launched a year-long round-up in February. Streets there are festooned with slogans calling for gangs to be smashed and guns to be handed over.
Imaginechina
Justice being seen to be done
Chongqing’s latest campaign, however, has aroused particular attention because it has been directed, unusually, at the kind of people who count: the wealthy businessmen and powerful officials who control the gangs and enable them to flourish. Of some 2,000 people detained so far, several are senior officials, including Wen Qiang (pictured), the head of Chongqing’s justice bureau. Dozens are police officers. Some are prominent businessmen who served in legislative or advisory bodies. Press reports say that the campaign will be extended after the National Day holiday into Chongqing’s county towns, around the reservoir stretching 660km (410 miles) behind the Three Gorges Dam. Chongqing, though called a municipality, is in effect a province with a population of 30m covering an area the size of Scotland. Its capital is also named Chongqing.
The man behind Chongqing’s ambitious drive against the mafia is its party chief, Bo Xilai, who appears to enjoy enormous political confidence. Mr Bo, who sits on China’s ruling Politburo, is a charismatic member of a new generation of leaders who are due to assume power in Beijing in 2012. Without his clout, many residents believe that Chongqing would have found it far more difficult to wage war on the mob. Mr Bo took up the post two years ago, having previously served as China’s commerce minister and before that as the governor of the north-eastern province of Liaoning. Many wonder whether his clean-government drive is intended to burnish his credentials in a looming struggle for power. He is the son of Bo Yibo, one of China’s late revolutionary founders—hardly a handicap to his ambitions.
According to reports in state-controlled newspapers, Chongqing’s gangsters operated in a wide variety of businesses, from the wholesale seafood trade to nightclubs and moneylending. They controlled a private bus network, now taken over by the government, which in recent years had become a popular alternative to state-run transport. Then there is the usual fare of drugs and prostitution. These have been bad weeks for the city’s entertainment industry and night-shift taxi-drivers.
The crackdown has exposed how wealthy businessmen used their positions in local legislative and advisory bodies—people’s congresses and political consultative committees, as they are known—to boost their prestige and gain access to officials. A few years ago China’s entrepreneurial class was far more politically marginalised. Only in this decade have its members even been allowed to join the Communist Party. Chongqing is the biggest example to come to light of what is sometimes dubbed “red-black” (ie, communist-mafia) collusion since a huge round-up in 2000 of gangsters in Shenyang in the north-east. That resulted in the executions of a former legislator and businessman and of a deputy mayor. The city’s mayor, who was also implicated, is now serving a commuted death sentence.
But experts say much has changed since then. A recent book on organised crime, produced by a police-affiliated publishing house in Beijing, says that in the past decade underworld gangs have been evolving at an accelerating pace, with some beginning to operate internationally. The author, He Bingsong, writes that they have fuelled an “unprecedented” rate of growth in criminal activity in China since the turn of the century: “Some have even taken control of grassroots government, or treat government as their equal.”
Quis custodiet?
China’s press usually reports crime stories only when the police are ready to provide details, which is rarely until suspects are caught. Crime statistics are too vague to rely on. But anecdotal evidence lends weight to Mr He’s assertions. Journalists reporting in rural areas frequently find their attempts to investigate stories blocked by thugs, apparently acting on the orders of local officials. In the past few years reports of clashes between citizens and government-hired goons have been ever more frequent. Grumbling about “black society” has become part of everyday conversation.
Outside Chongqing’s lavish new police headquarters a dozen angry citizens crowded around your correspondent, showing him pictures of faces bloodied by people they alleged were gangsters hired by officials to force them from their homes to make way for a building project. The victims also showed the pictures to a policewoman in a reception room at the compound entrance, where Chongqing citizens have been invited to submit any complaints about gang activity. She told the petitioners to report the case to their local police station, ignoring their objection that the local police were themselves in cahoots with the criminals.
Mr He writes that gangs are infiltrating government at ever-higher levels, even into the senior reaches of provincial governments and central ministries. An obvious difference between modern gangsterism and its pre-revolutionary counterpart is that few gangs today are known by names—unlike the famous Green Gang, a powerful force in pre-communist Shanghai, or Chongqing’s Robed Brothers, who controlled the city’s opium trade and gambling. China before 1949 was a chaotic mix of competing political, military and criminal forces. In the far more monolithic political culture of today, home-grown gangs usually prefer not to give themselves names to avoid provoking the party. Named groups with their headquarters in Hong Kong and Taiwan, however, such as the Sun Yee On triad and the United Bamboo gang, also operate in China.
Throughout Chinese history, movements that have toppled dynasties have sometimes started as gangs and secret societies. So far, however, for Beijing, the “mafia-isation” of local government has not yet become a pressing nationwide problem. As long as it remains, in the public mind at least, a local issue, it does not feel threatened. Indeed it has benefited in recent years from a widespread perception among ordinary Chinese that the central party leadership is a benign force, and its valiant efforts to make China a just society are being subverted by local officials.
Fiscal reform in the countryside, culminating in the abolition of a centuries-old agricultural tax in 2006, helped boost the central government’s standing even as it drained the coffers of many local governments. The centre has also made political hay from the rapid rolling-out of a new, if far from perfect, rural health-insurance scheme since 2003, and the abolition of rural school fees in 2006 and 2007.
The centre is not afraid to push any problems back out to the provinces. An obvious one is the stream of petitioners who head to Beijing to visit government offices to seek redress for abuses of power in their hometowns, an imperial tradition that the Communist Party has, through gritted teeth, maintained. Very few justice-seekers get more than a cursory hearing. Many are rounded up in Beijing by police despatched from their hometowns, sometimes tipped off by central-government officials. They are often held for a few days in unofficial detention in guesthouses known as “black jails”, then sent back to their provinces. The centre appears to lose little by such high-handedness. Outside Beijing a bizarre belief persists: if only victims of official abuse can make their grievances known at the very highest level of the leadership, justice will prevail.
In the past couple of years central-government tolerance of whingers from the provinces has been strained almost to breaking point by its fears of instability during huge public events: the Olympic games in August 2008 and this year’s National Day celebrations. In the build-up to both, petitioners have been summarily packed off home.
In August the central government said it would send legal experts to the provinces to help sort out petitioners’ problems on their home turf. This is unlikely to help. There are already considerable incentives for local officials to keep them away from Beijing. Trends in the numbers of petitioners heading to the capital from a particular locality are used to judge the suitability of that place’s leaders for promotion. But this has not stemmed a growing tide. One of the disgruntled Chongqing citizens outside the city’s police headquarters was not afraid to shout that she would take her grievance to Beijing.
Hopes among some Chinese scholars and officials that an infusion of grassroots democracy might ease such tensions have largely been dashed. Li Fan of the World and China Institute, a private consultancy in Beijing, says that the experiment with village elections has “died” and the party’s talk of expanding democracy within its own ranks, a big agenda item for an annual meeting of its central committee in September, is “empty words”. The party, he says, now believes that eruptions of local discontent are best solved by a combination of force paying off demonstrators.
But some scholars see room for improvement at the local level, even without yet tackling the question of universal suffrage. With more resources and greater autonomy, some argue, China’s 2,800-odd counties, mafia hotbeds though some of them are, could play a much better role in defusing local anger.
This year the central government launched a new reform that requires provincial governments to take direct responsibility for financing county governments instead of leaving the job to the tier in-between, the prefecture. In the past prefectural administrations have often siphoned off money destined for their subordinate counties. They also enjoyed a veto over large-scale county investment projects.
Counties are now supposed to enjoy greater power to decide for themselves. But again these reforms have been criticised as half-baked. County chiefs remain at the mercy of their prefectural-level superiors, who retain a critical say in county appointments. Without oversight, giving counties greater autonomy could spread corruption further.
Yu Jianrong of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences says some political reform at the county level could be carried out without the need to change the national constitution, which allows only the indirect election of county leaders. County legislatures, for example, could be turned into full-time bodies, rather than convened, as at present, for occasional rubber-stamp duties. Legislators themselves could be chosen more democratically, instead of being installed by the ceremonial “election” of a party-selected list. If gangsters end up getting elected because of their vote-buying power, say some scholars, so be it. At least they will have to keep their electorate happy in order to hang on to their seats.
Getting it off your chest
The central leadership is not entirely deaf to public opinion. In response to growing complaints about corruption, the party this year launched a new rating system to gauge public satisfaction with official appointments. The first results, based on a survey of 80,000 people conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics, were made public in May. On a 100-point satisfaction scale, the party’s Organisation Department, which handles senior appointments, scored 66.84 points for tackling corruption and other wrongdoing in the appointments procedure, and 67.04 points for the people it chose.
Reuters
Whose party is it anyway?
According to the head of the Organisation Department, Li Yuanchao, these two numbers were the result of a year’s work personally supervised by President Hu Jintao and Vice-President Xi Jinping. They are about as close as the party has come to announcing how popular it is in a statistical fashion. Officials say that the ratings must be “conspicuously” improved by 2012, when Mr Hu is due to step down. Many believe Mr Xi is due to take over from him, though the September central-committee meeting ended without awarding him the new military title he was expected to collect on his climb to the top. Behind closed doors, some officials have expressed worries about the satisfaction ratings, fearing that the party could find itself embarrassed should the numbers drop. Mr Li has told Organisation Department officials, however, that without such pressure “it would be easy to get satisfied and lazy.”
As it is, though, party leaders show little interest in exposing even county-level leaders to the pressure of a vote, let alone themselves. One of the very few places where a flicker of political reform can still be detected is in Wenling, a city in the coastal province of Zhejiang. There officials have been experimenting with more open budgets, a departure from the normal practice of keeping these secret, with only bare outlines shown to legislators at the last minute before they are approved. But Wenling has been at it for several years now, with little sign of its boldness catching on elsewhere. At its annual meeting in March the national legislature did not even vote on the central government’s massive economic stimulus, announced the previous November.
Some Chinese wonder in private how different the party’s style of rule is from that of the Kuomintang (KMT), the party that ran much of China from the late 1920s until its overthrow by the Communists, and which maintained close links with gangsters. In Chongqing visitors to a reconstructed KMT prison on a hillside above the city delight in seeing slogans on the wall that recall the harangues of the party today. They suggest that hectoring sceptical citizens is part of a long tradition.
Earlier this year a lawyer in the southern city of Guangzhou was detained for several hours for sporting a T-shirt in public printed with the words “One-party rule is a disaster”. He had a good defence. The slogan came from the headline of a newspaper run by the Communist Party itself three years before it established the People’s Republic. After a mere three hours in custody and a warning that he had “made up rumours and disturbed social order”, Mr Liu was on his way home—in a police car, lest members of the public read the writing on the shirt.
Friday, August 7, 2009
The year 1968
What the Beatles Gave Science
Their visit popularized the notion that the spiritual East has something to teach the rational West.
他们的到访使精神性的东方有一些东西可以教给理性的西方的这种观念受到很大欢迎。
Nov 19, 2007 Issue
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Like millions of others who believed there must be more to life than the libertine exuberance of the '60s, the Beatles hoped that the Hindu teacher Mahesh Yogi—known as the Maharishi, or "great saint"—would help them "fill some kind of hole," as Paul McCartney put it years later.
像数以百万计的人一样，披头士们相信对于生活肯定存在着比60年代的放荡不羁更多的东西，披头士们希望印度导师Mahesh Yogi——称作Maharishi,或“伟大的圣人”——能够帮助他们“填补一些空洞。，正如Paul McCartney在几年后说的。
So in the spring of 1968, the Fab Four traveled to the Maharishi's ashram overlooking the Ganges River in northern India, where they meditated（宗教上）沉思冥想 for hours each day in search of enlightenment, as Bob Spitz recounts in his exhaustive详尽 2005 biography, "The Beatles."
The high-profile visit still echoes 40 years later—in, of all places, science, for the trip popularized the notion that the spiritual East has something to teach the rational West.
Soon the Maharishi was on Time magazine next to the line "Meditation: The Answer to All Your Problems?"
It wasn't. But in the late 1960s a few intrepid scientists began dipping their toes into the exotic异国 new waters to study the effects of Transcendental Meditation超在禅定派 (TM), which the Maharishi developed, and other forms of mental training.
Most of that early research "was just not of high caliber,质量不高的" says B. Alan Wallace, president of the Santa Barbara Institute of Consciousness Studies. "Reputable scientists were told, 'We can't study that; we'll be tarred and feathered'."
But just as meditation has become as mainstream as aerobics, research on it has achieved a respectability that astonishes those who remember the early floundering辗转、踌躇、挣扎.
With neuroscientists at the University of California, Davis, Wallace is leading a $1.4 million study of the effects of intensive meditation on attention, cognitive function and emotion regulation.
Prestigious有声望的 institutions such as the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center conduct studies on how Tibetan yoga improves sleep in patients with lymphoma, and top journals publish research on the brain waves of Buddhist monks. Studies of meditation are more than mainstream. They're expanding beyond the predictable—I mean, how surprising is it that meditating lowers stress?—into uncharted terrain, such as how different forms of meditation alter brain circuits in an enduring持久的、不朽的 way.
In large part, that research is making headway because it's much more rigorous than in the early days.
Then, few studies accounted for the annoying讨厌的 little fact that meditators' low levels of stress might reflect self-selection (maybe only mellow people chose to meditate and stuck with it) rather than the practice itself.
然而，一些研究表明出一令人讨厌的小事实，沉思的低水平压力可能反映的是自我选择（可能仅有那些沉稳的人去选择沉思并执着于它）而非实践本身。
Nor did they consider that the reduction in stress, blood pressure, heart rate and other measures between the beginning and the end of a meditation course might reflect the placebo effect: you expect something good to happen, and it does.
他们没考虑在压力、血压、心跳和其它一个沉思开始与结束之间的情况，所反映的安慰效应：你可能期望一些好的事情发生，但它已经发生了。
"You can't really control for that," says Robert Schneider of Marahishi University in Iowa, a center of research on TM, "but new studies come close."
Although relaxation techniques and TM both lower blood pressure, for instance, the effect of TM is twice as big.
Top hospitals from Stanford to Duke are convinced: they have instituted meditation programs for patients suffering chronic pain and other ailments.
Afraid to sully their reputations, it took three decades for scientists to ask the obvious: does meditation change the brain? But in the 1990s British psychiatrist John Teasdale became intrigued with mindfulness meditation, a Buddhist practice in which you sit quietly and observe whatever thoughts and perceptions arise in your consciousness, but without judging them. He and colleagues showed that mindfulness training halves the rate at which people treated for depression relapse.
That set the stage of studies showing that mere纯粹的 thought can alter brain activity in a long-lasting way that benefits other forms of mental illness.
Neuropsychologist Richard Davidson of the University of Wisconsin had practiced meditation since the 1970s but didn't dare study it. Only in the 1990s did he "come out of the closet," he says.
Now Buddhist monks and yogis trek to his lab to have their brains scanned.
They look different from the brains of undergraduates (but then另一个方面, whose doesn't?), having stronger electrical waves of the kind that knit together disparate全异的 thoughts into the grand enterprise of consciousness.
现在佛教僧侣和瑜珈修行者艰难的参与了它的实验，并让他获得了他们的脑部扫描。
他们看上去不同于研究生的大脑（另一个方面，谁的不是了？），他们拥有较强的脑电波，这种脑电波编织起全异的思想，使其成为伟大的有意识的进取心。
Even in novices, meditation leaves its mark.
An eight-week course in compassion meditation, in which volunteers focus on the wish that all beings be free from suffering, shifted brain activity from the right prefrontal cortex to the left, a pattern associated with a greater sense of well-being.
即使对于初学者，冥想也会留下它的印记。
一个在同情上的冥想，志愿者需要集中在所有的生物都免于痛苦的愿望上，他们的脑活动从右前额皮层转到左前额皮层，这一方式是与一个幸福的较大感知相关的。
And three months of intensive training (10 to 12 hours a day) in mindfulness meditation had a remarkable effect on attention.
Usually, when something attracts your attention—in this study, a number interrupting a stream of letters on a screen—it takes the brain's attention machinery time to reset.
If two numbers flash less than 0.5 seconds apart, most people don't see the second one.
But after mindfulness meditation, with its focus on sharpening attention, volunteers detected many more numbers, Davidson's team reported this year.
What happened was that the meditators used fewer attention circuits to perceive the first number and therefore had enough left over to detect the second.
Meditation is still not "the answer to all your problems," but it's having a good run unveiling the brain's secrets.
沉思仍旧不是“你所有问题的答案”，但它很好的揭示了大脑的秘密。
© Newsweek, Inc.
CULTURE
A Century of Destiny
It is not just 1968—many years are jostling for starring roles in history.
不止1968年——历史上，有许多年就如天空中堆满的星星。
By Jerry Adler | NEWSWEEK
Nov 19, 2007 Issue
It was 1908, a year whose importance was certified at the very stroke of midnight, when, for the first time ever, a ball covered with light bulbs descended降下 a flagpole in Times Square, an event that would eventually give rise to Dick Clark.
Exactly 12 months later, Wilbur Wright astonished the world by flying an airplane for two hours and 20 minutes. This was America's year of destiny, although, of course, they almost all were.
In "America 1908," the journalist Jim Rasenberger assembles from a jumble of events—the sensational trial for the murder of the architect Stanford White,
the race to reach the North Pole,
the introduction of the Ford Model T—a grand and inspiring panoply that almost disguises the fact that these things have absolutely nothing to do with each other.
Like other narrative forms, history must have its stars and supporting players. Some years need no introduction, like 1492 or 1776.
The War of 1812, even if most Americans have forgotten why it was fought, nevertheless然而 guarantees immortality to its namesake year.
Amid the drab procession of centuries constituting the Middle Ages, 1066 stands out for the Norman conquest of England, an event that combines the two star qualities of consequentiality and contingency.
在由数世纪单调的进程中，1066年因为对英国的诺曼底征服而特别，这个事件整合了必然与偶然两种闪耀的性质。
The history of Europe down to the present day would look very different if the Battle of Hastings had gone the other way, as it might have.
如果Hastings战争以另外一种方式发生，它是有可能发生的，那么欧洲走向如今的历史就看起来不通了。
Battles and, even more so, assassinations represent the ne plus ultra至高点 of contingency.
One misfire and Lincoln lives;
a second, and Archduke Ferdinand survives and the first world war never happens.
The course of history swerved unpredictably in 1968;
replay the tape and jostle Sirhan Sirhan at just the right moment and see what happens then. The mind reels.
战斗、以及尤其像暗杀这些，代表了偶然的极端。
Some years demand a little more effort from the historian to justify a place in the spotlight.
多年来要求历史学家努力去确定这些事件的意义。但出版业已经从事于这一挑战了。
But the publishing industry is up to从事于 the challenge.
Authors have detected significant turning points in 1919 ("Savage Peace: Hope and Fear in America," by Ann Hagedorn), 1920 ("The Year of the Six Presidents," by David Pietrusza), 1929 ("America Before the Crash," by Warren Sloat) and 1941 ("A Nation at the Crossroads," by Ross Gregory).
We're not even counting 1900 ("1900," by Edward Tannenbaum), on the ground（在地上、当场、在决斗） that finding significance in a year that marks the turn of a century is like shooting fish in a barrel.
And what a mighty freight of history those years carry!
In the very year that the Allies hammered out苦心推出 the Treaty of Versailles, setting the stage for the rise of Hitler and the second world war, Jackie Robinson was born, dial telephones went into service and F. Scott Fitzgerald finished "This Side of Paradise."
The 9/11 attacks had a predecessor前辈 in the Wall Street terror bombing of 1920, one of the events that triggered the war against "radicals" that would dominate American politics for a generation.
Momentous events were bearing down on冲向 America in 1929 and 1941, unforeseen except by a prescient few, in light of which even the most inane snatch of dialogue from an "Amos 'n Andy" show can be invested with as much portent征兆 as "The Waste Land."
许多重大事件在1929年和1941年冲向了美国，这些除了一些可预知的之外，都是无法预料的。在这些可预知的事情中，来自于“Amos’n Andy”的极具空洞性的预言显示了如”The Waste Land”一样所具有的大多征兆。
Certain themes come up again and again as writers survey that eventful century. Baseball, for one（作为其中之一、或举例）, as a mirror of society in all its corruption, or purity, as the case may be.
You can't talk about 1908 without evoking Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance, or 1919 without the "Black Sox" scandal, or leave Joe DiMaggio's hitting streak out of a book about 1941.
More somberly阴暗地, the state of race relations makes for a continuing, dirgeful theme throughout the century: blacks who failed to keep the place to which society consigned them, particularly around white women, were being lynched in 1908, and again in 1919 (when soldiers who had fought in the world war rebelled at returning to a country that treated them as second-class citizens).
We are living in the world they made, for better and worse, these jitterbugging, gin-swilling, spats-wearing ancestors of ours, blundering浮躁笨拙 their way through a century whose worst horrors still lay before them.
作者的态度是轻视、否定它们这些先辈的行为的。
They looked up at the sky at an airplane (or, more likely, read about one in a magazine) and saw a machine that, as Scientific American wrote, would put an end to international aggression by making it impossible to launch a surprise attack without being observed.
它们仰望天空中的飞机，看到的是一台机器，就如科学美国所写到的，但它会在他们没有遵守的情况下用来发起奇袭去进行国际侵略是不可能的。
Or, in a New York Times editorial quoted by Rasenberger—and we looked it up ourselves, because we couldn't believe it, either—they looked at the automobile and saw a machine destined to be used for many purposes, including warfare, "if, as we hope, the wars of the world have not all been fought." That was just about a hundred years ago, and we know now that the Times' wish was granted many times over.
或者，就如纽约时报编辑Rasenberger所引用的——我们自己查证了它，因为我们也不相信——他们看着汽车，看到的是一台机器，注定要被用来为了许多目的，包括战争，“如果，正如我们希望的，世界战争一直没有打起来。”那仅是100年前的事情，而现在我们知道时报的希望是被同意了许多次了。
The lesson is that we just can't stop ourselves from making history. Even when it might be a good idea.
© Newsweek, Inc.
It’s Ms. America To You
They did not burn their bras, but feminists ignited点燃 a global movement.
Courtesy谦恭礼貌 of Robin Morgan
Liberation解放: Activist Robin Morgan (center) protesting at the 1968 Miss America Pageant
By Barbara Kantrowitz | NEWSWEEK
Nov 19, 2007 Issue
In a tumultuous喧嚣的 year, a demonstration by 100 women on the boardwalk in Atlantic City seemed relatively tame沉闷乏味.
There were no riots. Some of those protesting the Miss America pageant美国小姐游行 were briefly arrested for spraying a "noxious liquid," which was actually Toni hair spray喷雾 (a sponsor of the pageant), but they were free before morning. 这些反对美国小姐盛典人中的一些因为喷洒有害液体而被捕，实际上是Toni头发喷雾，但它们在第二天早上之前就给放了。
[作者引用这一实例要说明：美国女权运动解放后，女性自我解放发展迅速，但仍然还有一些人反对女性的如此开放。这之间形成了一个差别、对比（下文comparisons）。即美国女权运动发生几十年了，可如今，并非全部人都接受这些思想。这是一个事例。从一些行为而言，女权解放者：将压抑女性的象征物品入腰带等扔进了自由垃圾桶。乳罩也是，但却没有什么东西是被烧掉的。]
The women dumped symbols of female oppression压抑—girdles, steno pads, stilettos—into a "freedom trash can."
Bras went in, too, but none were burned.[ Burned 和dumped 是相对而言的。故用了but]
That myth began when [同位语]a sympathetic female New York Post reporter thought that a juicy first line conjuring up想象、追忆 comparisons to burning draft cards might get more attention for the event.
当一个同情女性的纽约邮报记者认为一个有趣的富有想象首要草图相比烧掉那些卡片草样可能会获得更多的对事件的注意力时，神话就开始了。
As the organizers headed home, they had few expectations.
当那些组织者回到家的时候，它们就很少有期望了。
How could they know then that their little bit of guerrilla theater helped kick-start a revolution?
之后，它们怎能知道它们的带有一点点游击式的戏剧是否会引发一个革命？
Every time Robin Morgan that hears the Miss America protests get credit for 获得好评taking the women's liberation movement mainstream, she smiles because she remembers how it started so modestly.
每一次，robin morgan在听到美国小姐的反对者因将妇女解放运动视为主流而获得好评的时候，她就笑了，因为她记起了女权运动时如何谨慎开始的。
Morgan was part of a group called New York Radical Women that had been meeting for what would later be called "consciousness raising."
Someone came up with the idea of picketing the pageant, which was held over the Labor Day weekend.
"I immediately got fired up," says Morgan, an activist and writer.
"It seemed to be the perfect coming together in terms of so many things." Miss America was always white and spent the year selling sponsors' products and entertaining the troops, which made her a perfect symbol of racism, capitalism and militarism.
And there was what Morgan calls "the ridiculous objectification of women女性可笑的行为." (As for bra burning, Morgan scoffs: "We were radicals, but we were very elegant," she says. "Burning rubber smells dreadful!")
In 2007, Miss America might seem a paltry target, but back then it was a very big deal. "She represented the pinnacle of beauty outside of the movies她代表了电影活动之外选美事件的顶尖," says novelist Alix Kates Shulman, also part of New York Radical Women.
The fact that the pageant was televised live made it particularly appealing. Shulman, who would later write the feminist classic "Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen," paid $70 for the tickets that allowed about a dozen women inside the convention center.
The nation was watching as they unfurled a bedsheet proclaiming WOMEN'S LIBERATION shortly before Miss Illinois, 18-year-old Judith Ford, was crowned Miss America. 伊利诺斯小姐，18岁的judith ford被戴上美国小姐桂冠前短暂时刻，她们展开一个传单上面打着女性解放，而此时全国观众都在收看。
Now Judi Ford Nash, she has no clear memory of that pivotal关键的 moment. "When the spotlight is on you," she says, "you can't see."
At the next meeting of New York Radical Women, hundreds showed up instead of the usual few dozen.
Women's liberation groups sprang up in big cities and small towns across America. Once-secure bastions of male power and privilege were forced to open their doors to women—first Yale and Princeton, then medical and law schools, the astronaut corps and the Supreme Court.
Some issues have remained disturbingly contentious.
Winning the right to choose an abortion was a major goal of the women's movement, but almost from the moment of the 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade, anti-abortion activists have been fighting ferociously[表明了作者的态度]to get at least portions of it rolled back击退.
赢得权力去选择堕胎时女权运动的一个主要目标，但几乎自从1973年roe v. wade案件裁决事件之后，反堕胎分子就一直激烈战斗，试图去获得击退该法案的机会。
Lesbian and gay rights, already on the agenda in 1968, are still the subject of emotional[表明了作者的态度] debate.
And although rigid beauty standards were a major target of the Miss America pageant, more and more women resort to injecting poison into their foreheads or boosting their bra sizes to make themselves more appealing.
虽然美国小姐选举将苛刻的选美标准作为一个主要目标，但越来越多的妇女还是采取注射药物她们的胸部或增大她们的乳房尺寸以使她们自己更加吸引人。
But back to Atlantic City for a moment. The young woman in the spotlight that night never expected to find a crown on her head. She thought of herself as "kind of a tomboy," the only woman on the men's trampoline team at the University of Southwestern Louisiana and the first woman to win a varsity letter there.
Miss Illinois officials had told her that her chances of winning were slim because at 18, she was too young and a blonde in a contest dominated by brunettes. Even worse, she says, her talent, the trampoline, was "a little too athletic, a little too masculine because Miss America is not supposed to sweat."
Today, Nash, an elementary-school physical-education teacher, is grateful for the Miss America scholarship money as well as the opportunities the pageant gave her to travel and meet all kinds of people.
She is especially proud of entertaining the troops in Vietnam.
But she also understands the goals of the women on the boardwalk. As a recently divorced single mother in 1987, she struggled to get a credit card in her own name. She has always worked, just as her mother did.
"I think the feminist movement has done a lot for women," she says. "We wouldn't be where we are if it hadn't started out that way." Crowned or uncrowned, sisterhood姐妹 is powerful.
“我想女权运动已经为妇女做了很多了，”她说，“如果它没有开启那种方式，我们不会在我们现在所处的位置。”夺冠或没夺冠，姐妹之谊是伟大的。
© Newsweek, Inc.
1968: The Year That Changed Everything
The 1968 election is four decades old, and yet we're still rehashing that moment—that era—in the 2008 contest. Why do we come back to it? And why won't it leave us alone?
By Jonathan Darman | NEWSWEEK
Nov 19, 2007 Issue
Barack Obama was born in the 1960s but is not of them.
Such is the constant promise of his presidential campaign. Announcing his candidacy last January, he vowed to lead a "new generation" unencumbered by the divisive struggles of the past.
By last week, when a Fox News reporter asked him to define the difference between him and the Democratic front runner, Hillary Clinton, he had grown more pointed.
"Senator Clinton and others have been fighting some of the same fights since the '60s," Obama replied. "It makes it very difficult for them to bring the country together to get things done."
Obama's promise—I am not the'60s—is heartfelt真心真意, but ultimately hard to believe.
Just look at the gray-haired '60s idealists inside the senator's own brain trust 只智囊团who see him as the fulfillment of 40 years' worth of hard work.
Or look at the throbbing crowds that mob the young senator, reminiscent in so many ways of the crowds that mobbed Bobby Kennedy 40 years ago.
或看看那些骚动的支持年轻参议员的人群，让人回忆起40年前人们以多种方式用户bobby kennedy的情景。
Or look at the Secret Service detail that trails Obama, a reminder of the old '60s lesson that assassination is a real threat. Obama is the '60s, whether he likes it or not.
或看看特务机关跟踪保护obama的情况，很容易提醒人们想起60年代的事件，足以让人记住即使在目前暗杀还是一个真正的威胁。Obama是六十年代的，不敢他是否喜欢。
John McCain is also the '60s. A former naval aviator who spent the latter part of the decade in a North Vietnamese POW camp, McCain uttered the best line of the 2008 presidential campaign last month in a Republican primary debate.
"A few days ago, Senator Clinton tried to spend $1 million on the Woodstock Concert Museum," McCain announced. "Now, my friends, I wasn't there … I was tied up at the time." The Republican room erupted, not in laughter, but in applause. His campaign quickly took the debate clip and cut a television ad.
共和党人爆发了，不是在笑声种，而是在欢呼声中。它的竞选迅速的缩减了辩论降低了电视广告费。
McCain knows what Obama should have learned by now: the '60s are impossible to escape.
They will define the 2008 presidential election, just as they have defined American politics, and American culture, for the past 40 years.
她们将定义2008年总统选举，正象他们定义40年来美国的政治、美国的文化
It is fashionable to see the boomers' '60s obsession as a reflection of their own narcissism, their inability to get over themselves.
将他们自己的自恋、他们难以克服自己的不足看作新人的对60年代的困惑是很普遍的。
But this does not do justice to a truly traumatic decade. In the midst of adolescence, an entire generation was presented with repeated reminders of its own mortality: the Cuban missile crisis; the assassinations of Jack Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.; the violence in the cities; the 58,193 Vietnam War dead.
但是这个不能公平对待一个真正有创伤的10年。在年轻人中间，一整代人始终重复回想着那个时代的价值：古巴导弹危机；jack kennedy、robert kennedy Martin Luther king Jr的暗杀；城市中的暴力；58,193名越战阵亡军人。
So much death and killing, too much to simply put aside.如此多的死亡与被杀，很难简单的放到一边去。
But what about the rest of us? Nearly 162 million Americans were born after Dec. 31, 1969. More than half the country, then, knows the decade only through mythology (peace, love and liberation) or through marketing (tie-dyed T shirts at tourist shops, the Rolling Stones on oldies radio, Dennis Hopper in Ameriprise Financial ads).
They rightly question what makes the '60s so special: What, after all, did the baby boomers really achieve 40 years ago? Why does NEWSWEEK commemorate 1968 instead of 1918 or 1941?
The answer:
because all of us, young and old, are stuck in the '60s, hostages to a decade we define ourselves as for or against. 因为，我们所有人、年轻的、老的，都陷入了60年代，成为了我们定义我们自己时要关涉的或反对的那个时代的人质，
As the pages that follow demonstrate, the '60s were not necessarily, as some baby boomers would have it, America's defining moment. 就如下面几页所要描述的，六十年代，就如婴儿潮那时一样，必要地来说，不是美国所谓的瞬间。
But they were an era when a generation held sustained argument over the things that have always mattered most: How should America show its power in the world? What rights were owed to African-Americans, to women, to gays? What is America and what does it want to be?
但他们是一个纪元，那时候一代人都在对那些事情进行持久的争论，涉及的这些事情主要有：美国应当怎样在世界上展示自己的力量？什么权利应当给予非裔美国人、妇女、同性恋者？美国是什么以及他想成为什么样？
These were noble questions. The debate they brought on was not. Rather, it was personal, hysterical and often terrifying. Father fought with son, black fought with white, the young fought with the old. By the end of the decade, consensus was clearly not possible, and simply restoring civilization became the goal. Subsequent generations would have to answer those essential questions.
And so the cycle has repeated itself, almost every four years. "America is back," Ronald Reagan promised in the 1980s.
Blessed with the can-do attitude of the Greatest Generation and a congenital optimism, Reagan was well positioned to move the country beyond the '60s.
Ronald Reagan带着最伟大一代人的祝福，以及天生乐观的热诚态度，很好的将自己定位在要使这个国家超越60年代。
But baby boomers saw only the Reagan who served as California governor in the 1960s, hated by young liberals, worshiped by young conservatives.
Reagan and his successor as president, George H.W. Bush, ended the cold war, making the '60s dream of a peaceful world seem, for a moment, possible.
But the vernacular of the 1992 presidential race, the first election after the fall of the Iron Curtain铁幕, was vintage '60s: marijuana, draft dodgers逃兵役者, trips to the Kremlin, San Francisco gays.
但1992年本国的总统选举，铁幕落下后的第一次选举，却是过时的60年代的东西：大麻、逃兵役者、去克里姆林宫、San Francisco的同性恋。
Assuming the presidency from Bush, the last of the World War II presidents, Bill Clinton promised that a "new generation" was ready for "new responsibilities." His message: the strife of the '60s was over, the decade's promises finally could be fulfilled.
But it（60年代） wasn't and they（希望） weren't.
For the next eight years, Clinton and a cast of conservative boomer antagonists ensured that the first child of the '60s in the White House would be remembered as a '60s caricature（拙劣的模仿）: ambivalent矛盾的 toward the military, sexually promiscuous, wrapped up in himself.
In George W. Bush, Republicans found their own boomer ideal: a reactionary child of Yale in the '60s who despised轻视 that decade's elites.
But he, too, promised a new way forward—a compassionate domestic policy that sought conservative means to achieve some of the '60s idealists' goals.
Abroad, he promised a foreign policy that learned the lessons of Vietnam. Instead, he has delivered only divisive cultural conflict at home and a war in Iraq that miraculously奇迹、不可思议地 managed to make every Vietnam mistake over again.
然而，他在国内仅阐述将多样性的文化冲突，在伊拉克则不可思议地使越战地错误得以避免。
Already, the old '60s fault lines are emerging in the 2008 campaign. Earlier this fall, Mitt Romney released a Web advertisement starring the candidate's wife, talking about the trials she faced as a stay-at-home mother to five sons. "Sometimes I'd be home with those five boys, and it was rough," Ann Romney says in the ad. "He'd call home and remind me that what I was doing was much more important than what he was doing." The ad was meant to introduce Republican primary voters to Romney's family, but it shows what could be a compelling narrative for a general election campaign: family values versus free love, the order and comfort of the '50s versus the trauma损伤 and extremism of the '60s.
This old choice will not be hard for Republicans to revive if the Democratic candidate is Hillary Clinton.
Clinton's '60s baggage包袱 is all around her—her 1969 Wellesley commencement speech, the pictures of big glasses and love beads, the libertine husband, the daughter they named after a Joni Mitchell song.
Fifteen years in the national spotlight has taught Clinton to be wary of提防 invoking the '60s, lest唯恐 she seem like the feminist agitator her critics have made her out to be.
But when provoked, she, too, falls back on '60s vernacular俗语习惯 as she demonstrated earlier this month, when she called presidential politics an "all-boys club" after a weak performance in a Democratic debate.
So how do we finally escape the '60s in time for the election of the next president, 40 years after 1968?
Not, as Obama would have it, by simply declaring the '60s done. Too many politicians have tried that before, only to be proved wrong, either by the boomer electorate选民 or their own lingering '60s souls.
The real way to move beyond the '60s is to have political leaders who are finally willing to do an honest accounting of what that fateful decade was truly about. If the civil-rights movement truly transformed America, why are our cities still segregated?
If women were liberated by the '60s, why do working mothers still feel so chained down?
If Vietnam taught us how to be a humble superpower, why are we still bogged down in Iraq?
These will all be vital questions facing the next president.
The story of 1968 demonstrates that the truly brave presidential candidate will be he, or she, who finally acknowledges the '60s have everything, not nothing, to do with us.
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1968 Ripping:FRANCE
In May 1968, students ripped up the cobblestones along the rue Gay-Lussac in Paris to build barricades and, in the process, exposed the sand foundation that lay under them.
It was one episode in an orgy of confrontation with stolid authority that started out partly as protesting, partly as partying, and grew into a chaotic nationwide strike that shut down France.
They were heady times. Fractious left-wing ideologues filled the air with strident declamations—Marxist, Trotskyite, Maoist, anarchist, situationist and more.
But the reigning sentiment was simple enough: strip away the edifices of established order.
Get to a better—and above all, a fairer—future. Of the slogans shouted by the barricade builders on Left Bank streets that May, those best remembered almost 40 years on are "It is forbidden to forbid" and the weirdly frivolous but expressive, "Beneath the cobblestones, the beach!"
争取一个更好的——并且首要的是，一个更公平的——未来。在左案的街道上，“五月”，那些设置路障的人喊出那些可以记忆近达40年之久的标语“去禁止是被禁止的了”以及古怪琐碎但有表达力的，“鹅卵石之下的海滩。”
What happened in France that spring was inspired by, and inspired, a global season of rude awakenings that resounds still, even if it comes back to us now summed up in the singular date "1968."
在法国，那个被一个全球的猛然性所惊醒的，即使它现在回到我们身边，听起来也是寂静的春天，可以用单一的“1968”这个日期来总结。
America's Vietnam War rumbled as a raging undercurrent, prompting the first protests of the French uprising.
美国的越战那时正轰轰烈烈，而它成为了一股潜流，激起了法国的第一波起义。
But in Czechoslovakia, the "Prague Spring" that began in March 1968 pushed aside the Iron Curtain铁幕—until Moscow sent troops to crush the opposition. Ghettos burned and assassinations changed the political landscape of the United States.
But at the end of the year, a triumph of American technology unexpectedly created environmental awareness: images of Earth taken from Apollo 8 showed just how vulnerable the Blue Planet looked in what astronaut Jim Lovell called the "vast loneliness" of space.
People who did not come of age then (which is to say the vast majority of the world's population today) may tire of hearing how epochal it all was.
French conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy, only 13 when the barricades went up in the Latin Quarter, ran his victorious presidential campaign this year against those "sixty-eighters" who still had an odor of irrational left-wing romanticism clinging to them.
Yet Paul Berman, a New York University historian, and author of "Power and the Idealists," argues that in Europe today, and especially in Sarkozy's administration, the '68 generation is perhaps more influential than ever.
He says there are two very different legacies: the cliche sloganeering associated with what he calls "antique" 19th-century ideologies, which mostly died of their own irrelevance, and the core sentiment that ruled the streets in Paris, a visceral hostility to ruthless authority, continued, says Berman, as a legacy of "anti-totalitarianism and human rights."
他说，有两种不同的遗产：那些与他称做“古董”的大多已经死于它们自己的枝节问题的19世纪意识形态相关的陈腐标语，还有就是那关键的主宰了巴黎街道的情绪，即发自内心深处的对残忍权力的敌视，这是一“反极权主义和人权的”遗产，berman继续说道。
In this, the European and American experiences were very different. Overt colonialism and violent, overwhelming fascism were living memories in Europe, and not, as in the United States, mere words in overheated left-wing rhetoric.
The European protests and the government responses, moreover, while violent, were rarely deadly.
Thousands of people were arrested and injured, but not a single person was killed in France's May uprising. In the United States the leaders of the civil-rights movement, if they survived, endured, matured and became influential inside and outside of government. In Europe, a handful of well-known student leaders would do the same, holding on to the idealism that marked 1968, but adapting to the demands of realpolitik实力政策, including "the use of Western power against extreme repression."
One of the leading '68ers is Joschka Fischer, foreign minister of Germany from 1998 to 2005, representing the Green Party, but a street-fighting leftist radical in the early 1970s.
When pictures of him hitting a cop during a 1973 protest appeared in 2001, they provoked outrage. The photographs came from the daughter of Germany's most notorious woman terrorist, whom Fischer had admired. Not only was he pilloried, but, by extension, 1968 was put on trial使经受考验. Yet Berman portrays Fischer as the man who "ushered the Germans into the actual modernized world by making them active participants in NATO, first in the Kosovo war, and now in Afghanistan."
In France, Bernard Kouchner epitomizes the flamboyant style and the moral imperatives命令需要 of 1968, as well as the rejection of its antique ideologies. Once a communist, he cofounded the humanitarian organization M?decins sans Fronti?res in 1971 to defy Third World dictators and help people in need.
His experiences trying to rescue "boat people" fleeing Vietnam after the fall of Saigon dispelled whatever illusions he might have had about Hanoi's tyranny.
He went on to work with Afghans fighting the Soviets, and with Kurds fighting Saddam Hussein.
In 2003, Kouchner was one of the few prominent French politicians to support the idea of liberating Iraq, but, from the start, had serious reservations about the way the Americans planned to do it.
Last June, Sarkozy picked Kouchner as his foreign minister, and they've built warm ties to the United States, which they talk about, sincerely, as a land of liberty.
And they've been tougher on Iran than any other European government. These policies are the natural outgrowth of the spirit of '68. If some of their old slogans seemed playful to the point of nonsense, others still make sense when applied to governments, like Iran's, which maintain power by stifling抑制 freedom. "It is forbidden to forbid," they used to say on rue Gay-Lussac. One day crowds may say the same thing in Tehran. They might even discover the beach beneath the stones.
© Newsweek, Inc.
Their visit popularized the notion that the spiritual East has something to teach the rational West.
他们的到访使精神性的东方有一些东西可以教给理性的西方的这种观念受到很大欢迎。
Nov 19, 2007 Issue
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Like millions of others who believed there must be more to life than the libertine exuberance of the '60s, the Beatles hoped that the Hindu teacher Mahesh Yogi—known as the Maharishi, or "great saint"—would help them "fill some kind of hole," as Paul McCartney put it years later.
像数以百万计的人一样，披头士们相信对于生活肯定存在着比60年代的放荡不羁更多的东西，披头士们希望印度导师Mahesh Yogi——称作Maharishi,或“伟大的圣人”——能够帮助他们“填补一些空洞。，正如Paul McCartney在几年后说的。
So in the spring of 1968, the Fab Four traveled to the Maharishi's ashram overlooking the Ganges River in northern India, where they meditated（宗教上）沉思冥想 for hours each day in search of enlightenment, as Bob Spitz recounts in his exhaustive详尽 2005 biography, "The Beatles."
The high-profile visit still echoes 40 years later—in, of all places, science, for the trip popularized the notion that the spiritual East has something to teach the rational West.
Soon the Maharishi was on Time magazine next to the line "Meditation: The Answer to All Your Problems?"
It wasn't. But in the late 1960s a few intrepid scientists began dipping their toes into the exotic异国 new waters to study the effects of Transcendental Meditation超在禅定派 (TM), which the Maharishi developed, and other forms of mental training.
Most of that early research "was just not of high caliber,质量不高的" says B. Alan Wallace, president of the Santa Barbara Institute of Consciousness Studies. "Reputable scientists were told, 'We can't study that; we'll be tarred and feathered'."
But just as meditation has become as mainstream as aerobics, research on it has achieved a respectability that astonishes those who remember the early floundering辗转、踌躇、挣扎.
With neuroscientists at the University of California, Davis, Wallace is leading a $1.4 million study of the effects of intensive meditation on attention, cognitive function and emotion regulation.
Prestigious有声望的 institutions such as the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center conduct studies on how Tibetan yoga improves sleep in patients with lymphoma, and top journals publish research on the brain waves of Buddhist monks. Studies of meditation are more than mainstream. They're expanding beyond the predictable—I mean, how surprising is it that meditating lowers stress?—into uncharted terrain, such as how different forms of meditation alter brain circuits in an enduring持久的、不朽的 way.
In large part, that research is making headway because it's much more rigorous than in the early days.
Then, few studies accounted for the annoying讨厌的 little fact that meditators' low levels of stress might reflect self-selection (maybe only mellow people chose to meditate and stuck with it) rather than the practice itself.
然而，一些研究表明出一令人讨厌的小事实，沉思的低水平压力可能反映的是自我选择（可能仅有那些沉稳的人去选择沉思并执着于它）而非实践本身。
Nor did they consider that the reduction in stress, blood pressure, heart rate and other measures between the beginning and the end of a meditation course might reflect the placebo effect: you expect something good to happen, and it does.
他们没考虑在压力、血压、心跳和其它一个沉思开始与结束之间的情况，所反映的安慰效应：你可能期望一些好的事情发生，但它已经发生了。
"You can't really control for that," says Robert Schneider of Marahishi University in Iowa, a center of research on TM, "but new studies come close."
Although relaxation techniques and TM both lower blood pressure, for instance, the effect of TM is twice as big.
Top hospitals from Stanford to Duke are convinced: they have instituted meditation programs for patients suffering chronic pain and other ailments.
Afraid to sully their reputations, it took three decades for scientists to ask the obvious: does meditation change the brain? But in the 1990s British psychiatrist John Teasdale became intrigued with mindfulness meditation, a Buddhist practice in which you sit quietly and observe whatever thoughts and perceptions arise in your consciousness, but without judging them. He and colleagues showed that mindfulness training halves the rate at which people treated for depression relapse.
That set the stage of studies showing that mere纯粹的 thought can alter brain activity in a long-lasting way that benefits other forms of mental illness.
Neuropsychologist Richard Davidson of the University of Wisconsin had practiced meditation since the 1970s but didn't dare study it. Only in the 1990s did he "come out of the closet," he says.
Now Buddhist monks and yogis trek to his lab to have their brains scanned.
They look different from the brains of undergraduates (but then另一个方面, whose doesn't?), having stronger electrical waves of the kind that knit together disparate全异的 thoughts into the grand enterprise of consciousness.
现在佛教僧侣和瑜珈修行者艰难的参与了它的实验，并让他获得了他们的脑部扫描。
他们看上去不同于研究生的大脑（另一个方面，谁的不是了？），他们拥有较强的脑电波，这种脑电波编织起全异的思想，使其成为伟大的有意识的进取心。
Even in novices, meditation leaves its mark.
An eight-week course in compassion meditation, in which volunteers focus on the wish that all beings be free from suffering, shifted brain activity from the right prefrontal cortex to the left, a pattern associated with a greater sense of well-being.
即使对于初学者，冥想也会留下它的印记。
一个在同情上的冥想，志愿者需要集中在所有的生物都免于痛苦的愿望上，他们的脑活动从右前额皮层转到左前额皮层，这一方式是与一个幸福的较大感知相关的。
And three months of intensive training (10 to 12 hours a day) in mindfulness meditation had a remarkable effect on attention.
Usually, when something attracts your attention—in this study, a number interrupting a stream of letters on a screen—it takes the brain's attention machinery time to reset.
If two numbers flash less than 0.5 seconds apart, most people don't see the second one.
But after mindfulness meditation, with its focus on sharpening attention, volunteers detected many more numbers, Davidson's team reported this year.
What happened was that the meditators used fewer attention circuits to perceive the first number and therefore had enough left over to detect the second.
Meditation is still not "the answer to all your problems," but it's having a good run unveiling the brain's secrets.
沉思仍旧不是“你所有问题的答案”，但它很好的揭示了大脑的秘密。
© Newsweek, Inc.
CULTURE
A Century of Destiny
It is not just 1968—many years are jostling for starring roles in history.
不止1968年——历史上，有许多年就如天空中堆满的星星。
By Jerry Adler | NEWSWEEK
Nov 19, 2007 Issue
It was 1908, a year whose importance was certified at the very stroke of midnight, when, for the first time ever, a ball covered with light bulbs descended降下 a flagpole in Times Square, an event that would eventually give rise to Dick Clark.
Exactly 12 months later, Wilbur Wright astonished the world by flying an airplane for two hours and 20 minutes. This was America's year of destiny, although, of course, they almost all were.
In "America 1908," the journalist Jim Rasenberger assembles from a jumble of events—the sensational trial for the murder of the architect Stanford White,
the race to reach the North Pole,
the introduction of the Ford Model T—a grand and inspiring panoply that almost disguises the fact that these things have absolutely nothing to do with each other.
Like other narrative forms, history must have its stars and supporting players. Some years need no introduction, like 1492 or 1776.
The War of 1812, even if most Americans have forgotten why it was fought, nevertheless然而 guarantees immortality to its namesake year.
Amid the drab procession of centuries constituting the Middle Ages, 1066 stands out for the Norman conquest of England, an event that combines the two star qualities of consequentiality and contingency.
在由数世纪单调的进程中，1066年因为对英国的诺曼底征服而特别，这个事件整合了必然与偶然两种闪耀的性质。
The history of Europe down to the present day would look very different if the Battle of Hastings had gone the other way, as it might have.
如果Hastings战争以另外一种方式发生，它是有可能发生的，那么欧洲走向如今的历史就看起来不通了。
Battles and, even more so, assassinations represent the ne plus ultra至高点 of contingency.
One misfire and Lincoln lives;
a second, and Archduke Ferdinand survives and the first world war never happens.
The course of history swerved unpredictably in 1968;
replay the tape and jostle Sirhan Sirhan at just the right moment and see what happens then. The mind reels.
战斗、以及尤其像暗杀这些，代表了偶然的极端。
Some years demand a little more effort from the historian to justify a place in the spotlight.
多年来要求历史学家努力去确定这些事件的意义。但出版业已经从事于这一挑战了。
But the publishing industry is up to从事于 the challenge.
Authors have detected significant turning points in 1919 ("Savage Peace: Hope and Fear in America," by Ann Hagedorn), 1920 ("The Year of the Six Presidents," by David Pietrusza), 1929 ("America Before the Crash," by Warren Sloat) and 1941 ("A Nation at the Crossroads," by Ross Gregory).
We're not even counting 1900 ("1900," by Edward Tannenbaum), on the ground（在地上、当场、在决斗） that finding significance in a year that marks the turn of a century is like shooting fish in a barrel.
And what a mighty freight of history those years carry!
In the very year that the Allies hammered out苦心推出 the Treaty of Versailles, setting the stage for the rise of Hitler and the second world war, Jackie Robinson was born, dial telephones went into service and F. Scott Fitzgerald finished "This Side of Paradise."
The 9/11 attacks had a predecessor前辈 in the Wall Street terror bombing of 1920, one of the events that triggered the war against "radicals" that would dominate American politics for a generation.
Momentous events were bearing down on冲向 America in 1929 and 1941, unforeseen except by a prescient few, in light of which even the most inane snatch of dialogue from an "Amos 'n Andy" show can be invested with as much portent征兆 as "The Waste Land."
许多重大事件在1929年和1941年冲向了美国，这些除了一些可预知的之外，都是无法预料的。在这些可预知的事情中，来自于“Amos’n Andy”的极具空洞性的预言显示了如”The Waste Land”一样所具有的大多征兆。
Certain themes come up again and again as writers survey that eventful century. Baseball, for one（作为其中之一、或举例）, as a mirror of society in all its corruption, or purity, as the case may be.
You can't talk about 1908 without evoking Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance, or 1919 without the "Black Sox" scandal, or leave Joe DiMaggio's hitting streak out of a book about 1941.
More somberly阴暗地, the state of race relations makes for a continuing, dirgeful theme throughout the century: blacks who failed to keep the place to which society consigned them, particularly around white women, were being lynched in 1908, and again in 1919 (when soldiers who had fought in the world war rebelled at returning to a country that treated them as second-class citizens).
We are living in the world they made, for better and worse, these jitterbugging, gin-swilling, spats-wearing ancestors of ours, blundering浮躁笨拙 their way through a century whose worst horrors still lay before them.
作者的态度是轻视、否定它们这些先辈的行为的。
They looked up at the sky at an airplane (or, more likely, read about one in a magazine) and saw a machine that, as Scientific American wrote, would put an end to international aggression by making it impossible to launch a surprise attack without being observed.
它们仰望天空中的飞机，看到的是一台机器，就如科学美国所写到的，但它会在他们没有遵守的情况下用来发起奇袭去进行国际侵略是不可能的。
Or, in a New York Times editorial quoted by Rasenberger—and we looked it up ourselves, because we couldn't believe it, either—they looked at the automobile and saw a machine destined to be used for many purposes, including warfare, "if, as we hope, the wars of the world have not all been fought." That was just about a hundred years ago, and we know now that the Times' wish was granted many times over.
或者，就如纽约时报编辑Rasenberger所引用的——我们自己查证了它，因为我们也不相信——他们看着汽车，看到的是一台机器，注定要被用来为了许多目的，包括战争，“如果，正如我们希望的，世界战争一直没有打起来。”那仅是100年前的事情，而现在我们知道时报的希望是被同意了许多次了。
The lesson is that we just can't stop ourselves from making history. Even when it might be a good idea.
© Newsweek, Inc.
It’s Ms. America To You
They did not burn their bras, but feminists ignited点燃 a global movement.
Courtesy谦恭礼貌 of Robin Morgan
Liberation解放: Activist Robin Morgan (center) protesting at the 1968 Miss America Pageant
By Barbara Kantrowitz | NEWSWEEK
Nov 19, 2007 Issue
In a tumultuous喧嚣的 year, a demonstration by 100 women on the boardwalk in Atlantic City seemed relatively tame沉闷乏味.
There were no riots. Some of those protesting the Miss America pageant美国小姐游行 were briefly arrested for spraying a "noxious liquid," which was actually Toni hair spray喷雾 (a sponsor of the pageant), but they were free before morning. 这些反对美国小姐盛典人中的一些因为喷洒有害液体而被捕，实际上是Toni头发喷雾，但它们在第二天早上之前就给放了。
[作者引用这一实例要说明：美国女权运动解放后，女性自我解放发展迅速，但仍然还有一些人反对女性的如此开放。这之间形成了一个差别、对比（下文comparisons）。即美国女权运动发生几十年了，可如今，并非全部人都接受这些思想。这是一个事例。从一些行为而言，女权解放者：将压抑女性的象征物品入腰带等扔进了自由垃圾桶。乳罩也是，但却没有什么东西是被烧掉的。]
The women dumped symbols of female oppression压抑—girdles, steno pads, stilettos—into a "freedom trash can."
Bras went in, too, but none were burned.[ Burned 和dumped 是相对而言的。故用了but]
That myth began when [同位语]a sympathetic female New York Post reporter thought that a juicy first line conjuring up想象、追忆 comparisons to burning draft cards might get more attention for the event.
当一个同情女性的纽约邮报记者认为一个有趣的富有想象首要草图相比烧掉那些卡片草样可能会获得更多的对事件的注意力时，神话就开始了。
As the organizers headed home, they had few expectations.
当那些组织者回到家的时候，它们就很少有期望了。
How could they know then that their little bit of guerrilla theater helped kick-start a revolution?
之后，它们怎能知道它们的带有一点点游击式的戏剧是否会引发一个革命？
Every time Robin Morgan that hears the Miss America protests get credit for 获得好评taking the women's liberation movement mainstream, she smiles because she remembers how it started so modestly.
每一次，robin morgan在听到美国小姐的反对者因将妇女解放运动视为主流而获得好评的时候，她就笑了，因为她记起了女权运动时如何谨慎开始的。
Morgan was part of a group called New York Radical Women that had been meeting for what would later be called "consciousness raising."
Someone came up with the idea of picketing the pageant, which was held over the Labor Day weekend.
"I immediately got fired up," says Morgan, an activist and writer.
"It seemed to be the perfect coming together in terms of so many things." Miss America was always white and spent the year selling sponsors' products and entertaining the troops, which made her a perfect symbol of racism, capitalism and militarism.
And there was what Morgan calls "the ridiculous objectification of women女性可笑的行为." (As for bra burning, Morgan scoffs: "We were radicals, but we were very elegant," she says. "Burning rubber smells dreadful!")
In 2007, Miss America might seem a paltry target, but back then it was a very big deal. "She represented the pinnacle of beauty outside of the movies她代表了电影活动之外选美事件的顶尖," says novelist Alix Kates Shulman, also part of New York Radical Women.
The fact that the pageant was televised live made it particularly appealing. Shulman, who would later write the feminist classic "Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen," paid $70 for the tickets that allowed about a dozen women inside the convention center.
The nation was watching as they unfurled a bedsheet proclaiming WOMEN'S LIBERATION shortly before Miss Illinois, 18-year-old Judith Ford, was crowned Miss America. 伊利诺斯小姐，18岁的judith ford被戴上美国小姐桂冠前短暂时刻，她们展开一个传单上面打着女性解放，而此时全国观众都在收看。
Now Judi Ford Nash, she has no clear memory of that pivotal关键的 moment. "When the spotlight is on you," she says, "you can't see."
At the next meeting of New York Radical Women, hundreds showed up instead of the usual few dozen.
Women's liberation groups sprang up in big cities and small towns across America. Once-secure bastions of male power and privilege were forced to open their doors to women—first Yale and Princeton, then medical and law schools, the astronaut corps and the Supreme Court.
Some issues have remained disturbingly contentious.
Winning the right to choose an abortion was a major goal of the women's movement, but almost from the moment of the 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade, anti-abortion activists have been fighting ferociously[表明了作者的态度]to get at least portions of it rolled back击退.
赢得权力去选择堕胎时女权运动的一个主要目标，但几乎自从1973年roe v. wade案件裁决事件之后，反堕胎分子就一直激烈战斗，试图去获得击退该法案的机会。
Lesbian and gay rights, already on the agenda in 1968, are still the subject of emotional[表明了作者的态度] debate.
And although rigid beauty standards were a major target of the Miss America pageant, more and more women resort to injecting poison into their foreheads or boosting their bra sizes to make themselves more appealing.
虽然美国小姐选举将苛刻的选美标准作为一个主要目标，但越来越多的妇女还是采取注射药物她们的胸部或增大她们的乳房尺寸以使她们自己更加吸引人。
But back to Atlantic City for a moment. The young woman in the spotlight that night never expected to find a crown on her head. She thought of herself as "kind of a tomboy," the only woman on the men's trampoline team at the University of Southwestern Louisiana and the first woman to win a varsity letter there.
Miss Illinois officials had told her that her chances of winning were slim because at 18, she was too young and a blonde in a contest dominated by brunettes. Even worse, she says, her talent, the trampoline, was "a little too athletic, a little too masculine because Miss America is not supposed to sweat."
Today, Nash, an elementary-school physical-education teacher, is grateful for the Miss America scholarship money as well as the opportunities the pageant gave her to travel and meet all kinds of people.
She is especially proud of entertaining the troops in Vietnam.
But she also understands the goals of the women on the boardwalk. As a recently divorced single mother in 1987, she struggled to get a credit card in her own name. She has always worked, just as her mother did.
"I think the feminist movement has done a lot for women," she says. "We wouldn't be where we are if it hadn't started out that way." Crowned or uncrowned, sisterhood姐妹 is powerful.
“我想女权运动已经为妇女做了很多了，”她说，“如果它没有开启那种方式，我们不会在我们现在所处的位置。”夺冠或没夺冠，姐妹之谊是伟大的。
© Newsweek, Inc.
1968: The Year That Changed Everything
The 1968 election is four decades old, and yet we're still rehashing that moment—that era—in the 2008 contest. Why do we come back to it? And why won't it leave us alone?
By Jonathan Darman | NEWSWEEK
Nov 19, 2007 Issue
Barack Obama was born in the 1960s but is not of them.
Such is the constant promise of his presidential campaign. Announcing his candidacy last January, he vowed to lead a "new generation" unencumbered by the divisive struggles of the past.
By last week, when a Fox News reporter asked him to define the difference between him and the Democratic front runner, Hillary Clinton, he had grown more pointed.
"Senator Clinton and others have been fighting some of the same fights since the '60s," Obama replied. "It makes it very difficult for them to bring the country together to get things done."
Obama's promise—I am not the'60s—is heartfelt真心真意, but ultimately hard to believe.
Just look at the gray-haired '60s idealists inside the senator's own brain trust 只智囊团who see him as the fulfillment of 40 years' worth of hard work.
Or look at the throbbing crowds that mob the young senator, reminiscent in so many ways of the crowds that mobbed Bobby Kennedy 40 years ago.
或看看那些骚动的支持年轻参议员的人群，让人回忆起40年前人们以多种方式用户bobby kennedy的情景。
Or look at the Secret Service detail that trails Obama, a reminder of the old '60s lesson that assassination is a real threat. Obama is the '60s, whether he likes it or not.
或看看特务机关跟踪保护obama的情况，很容易提醒人们想起60年代的事件，足以让人记住即使在目前暗杀还是一个真正的威胁。Obama是六十年代的，不敢他是否喜欢。
John McCain is also the '60s. A former naval aviator who spent the latter part of the decade in a North Vietnamese POW camp, McCain uttered the best line of the 2008 presidential campaign last month in a Republican primary debate.
"A few days ago, Senator Clinton tried to spend $1 million on the Woodstock Concert Museum," McCain announced. "Now, my friends, I wasn't there … I was tied up at the time." The Republican room erupted, not in laughter, but in applause. His campaign quickly took the debate clip and cut a television ad.
共和党人爆发了，不是在笑声种，而是在欢呼声中。它的竞选迅速的缩减了辩论降低了电视广告费。
McCain knows what Obama should have learned by now: the '60s are impossible to escape.
They will define the 2008 presidential election, just as they have defined American politics, and American culture, for the past 40 years.
她们将定义2008年总统选举，正象他们定义40年来美国的政治、美国的文化
It is fashionable to see the boomers' '60s obsession as a reflection of their own narcissism, their inability to get over themselves.
将他们自己的自恋、他们难以克服自己的不足看作新人的对60年代的困惑是很普遍的。
But this does not do justice to a truly traumatic decade. In the midst of adolescence, an entire generation was presented with repeated reminders of its own mortality: the Cuban missile crisis; the assassinations of Jack Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.; the violence in the cities; the 58,193 Vietnam War dead.
但是这个不能公平对待一个真正有创伤的10年。在年轻人中间，一整代人始终重复回想着那个时代的价值：古巴导弹危机；jack kennedy、robert kennedy Martin Luther king Jr的暗杀；城市中的暴力；58,193名越战阵亡军人。
So much death and killing, too much to simply put aside.如此多的死亡与被杀，很难简单的放到一边去。
But what about the rest of us? Nearly 162 million Americans were born after Dec. 31, 1969. More than half the country, then, knows the decade only through mythology (peace, love and liberation) or through marketing (tie-dyed T shirts at tourist shops, the Rolling Stones on oldies radio, Dennis Hopper in Ameriprise Financial ads).
They rightly question what makes the '60s so special: What, after all, did the baby boomers really achieve 40 years ago? Why does NEWSWEEK commemorate 1968 instead of 1918 or 1941?
The answer:
because all of us, young and old, are stuck in the '60s, hostages to a decade we define ourselves as for or against. 因为，我们所有人、年轻的、老的，都陷入了60年代，成为了我们定义我们自己时要关涉的或反对的那个时代的人质，
As the pages that follow demonstrate, the '60s were not necessarily, as some baby boomers would have it, America's defining moment. 就如下面几页所要描述的，六十年代，就如婴儿潮那时一样，必要地来说，不是美国所谓的瞬间。
But they were an era when a generation held sustained argument over the things that have always mattered most: How should America show its power in the world? What rights were owed to African-Americans, to women, to gays? What is America and what does it want to be?
但他们是一个纪元，那时候一代人都在对那些事情进行持久的争论，涉及的这些事情主要有：美国应当怎样在世界上展示自己的力量？什么权利应当给予非裔美国人、妇女、同性恋者？美国是什么以及他想成为什么样？
These were noble questions. The debate they brought on was not. Rather, it was personal, hysterical and often terrifying. Father fought with son, black fought with white, the young fought with the old. By the end of the decade, consensus was clearly not possible, and simply restoring civilization became the goal. Subsequent generations would have to answer those essential questions.
And so the cycle has repeated itself, almost every four years. "America is back," Ronald Reagan promised in the 1980s.
Blessed with the can-do attitude of the Greatest Generation and a congenital optimism, Reagan was well positioned to move the country beyond the '60s.
Ronald Reagan带着最伟大一代人的祝福，以及天生乐观的热诚态度，很好的将自己定位在要使这个国家超越60年代。
But baby boomers saw only the Reagan who served as California governor in the 1960s, hated by young liberals, worshiped by young conservatives.
Reagan and his successor as president, George H.W. Bush, ended the cold war, making the '60s dream of a peaceful world seem, for a moment, possible.
But the vernacular of the 1992 presidential race, the first election after the fall of the Iron Curtain铁幕, was vintage '60s: marijuana, draft dodgers逃兵役者, trips to the Kremlin, San Francisco gays.
但1992年本国的总统选举，铁幕落下后的第一次选举，却是过时的60年代的东西：大麻、逃兵役者、去克里姆林宫、San Francisco的同性恋。
Assuming the presidency from Bush, the last of the World War II presidents, Bill Clinton promised that a "new generation" was ready for "new responsibilities." His message: the strife of the '60s was over, the decade's promises finally could be fulfilled.
But it（60年代） wasn't and they（希望） weren't.
For the next eight years, Clinton and a cast of conservative boomer antagonists ensured that the first child of the '60s in the White House would be remembered as a '60s caricature（拙劣的模仿）: ambivalent矛盾的 toward the military, sexually promiscuous, wrapped up in himself.
In George W. Bush, Republicans found their own boomer ideal: a reactionary child of Yale in the '60s who despised轻视 that decade's elites.
But he, too, promised a new way forward—a compassionate domestic policy that sought conservative means to achieve some of the '60s idealists' goals.
Abroad, he promised a foreign policy that learned the lessons of Vietnam. Instead, he has delivered only divisive cultural conflict at home and a war in Iraq that miraculously奇迹、不可思议地 managed to make every Vietnam mistake over again.
然而，他在国内仅阐述将多样性的文化冲突，在伊拉克则不可思议地使越战地错误得以避免。
Already, the old '60s fault lines are emerging in the 2008 campaign. Earlier this fall, Mitt Romney released a Web advertisement starring the candidate's wife, talking about the trials she faced as a stay-at-home mother to five sons. "Sometimes I'd be home with those five boys, and it was rough," Ann Romney says in the ad. "He'd call home and remind me that what I was doing was much more important than what he was doing." The ad was meant to introduce Republican primary voters to Romney's family, but it shows what could be a compelling narrative for a general election campaign: family values versus free love, the order and comfort of the '50s versus the trauma损伤 and extremism of the '60s.
This old choice will not be hard for Republicans to revive if the Democratic candidate is Hillary Clinton.
Clinton's '60s baggage包袱 is all around her—her 1969 Wellesley commencement speech, the pictures of big glasses and love beads, the libertine husband, the daughter they named after a Joni Mitchell song.
Fifteen years in the national spotlight has taught Clinton to be wary of提防 invoking the '60s, lest唯恐 she seem like the feminist agitator her critics have made her out to be.
But when provoked, she, too, falls back on '60s vernacular俗语习惯 as she demonstrated earlier this month, when she called presidential politics an "all-boys club" after a weak performance in a Democratic debate.
So how do we finally escape the '60s in time for the election of the next president, 40 years after 1968?
Not, as Obama would have it, by simply declaring the '60s done. Too many politicians have tried that before, only to be proved wrong, either by the boomer electorate选民 or their own lingering '60s souls.
The real way to move beyond the '60s is to have political leaders who are finally willing to do an honest accounting of what that fateful decade was truly about. If the civil-rights movement truly transformed America, why are our cities still segregated?
If women were liberated by the '60s, why do working mothers still feel so chained down?
If Vietnam taught us how to be a humble superpower, why are we still bogged down in Iraq?
These will all be vital questions facing the next president.
The story of 1968 demonstrates that the truly brave presidential candidate will be he, or she, who finally acknowledges the '60s have everything, not nothing, to do with us.
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© Newsweek, Inc.
1968 Ripping:FRANCE
In May 1968, students ripped up the cobblestones along the rue Gay-Lussac in Paris to build barricades and, in the process, exposed the sand foundation that lay under them.
It was one episode in an orgy of confrontation with stolid authority that started out partly as protesting, partly as partying, and grew into a chaotic nationwide strike that shut down France.
They were heady times. Fractious left-wing ideologues filled the air with strident declamations—Marxist, Trotskyite, Maoist, anarchist, situationist and more.
But the reigning sentiment was simple enough: strip away the edifices of established order.
Get to a better—and above all, a fairer—future. Of the slogans shouted by the barricade builders on Left Bank streets that May, those best remembered almost 40 years on are "It is forbidden to forbid" and the weirdly frivolous but expressive, "Beneath the cobblestones, the beach!"
争取一个更好的——并且首要的是，一个更公平的——未来。在左案的街道上，“五月”，那些设置路障的人喊出那些可以记忆近达40年之久的标语“去禁止是被禁止的了”以及古怪琐碎但有表达力的，“鹅卵石之下的海滩。”
What happened in France that spring was inspired by, and inspired, a global season of rude awakenings that resounds still, even if it comes back to us now summed up in the singular date "1968."
在法国，那个被一个全球的猛然性所惊醒的，即使它现在回到我们身边，听起来也是寂静的春天，可以用单一的“1968”这个日期来总结。
America's Vietnam War rumbled as a raging undercurrent, prompting the first protests of the French uprising.
美国的越战那时正轰轰烈烈，而它成为了一股潜流，激起了法国的第一波起义。
But in Czechoslovakia, the "Prague Spring" that began in March 1968 pushed aside the Iron Curtain铁幕—until Moscow sent troops to crush the opposition. Ghettos burned and assassinations changed the political landscape of the United States.
But at the end of the year, a triumph of American technology unexpectedly created environmental awareness: images of Earth taken from Apollo 8 showed just how vulnerable the Blue Planet looked in what astronaut Jim Lovell called the "vast loneliness" of space.
People who did not come of age then (which is to say the vast majority of the world's population today) may tire of hearing how epochal it all was.
French conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy, only 13 when the barricades went up in the Latin Quarter, ran his victorious presidential campaign this year against those "sixty-eighters" who still had an odor of irrational left-wing romanticism clinging to them.
Yet Paul Berman, a New York University historian, and author of "Power and the Idealists," argues that in Europe today, and especially in Sarkozy's administration, the '68 generation is perhaps more influential than ever.
He says there are two very different legacies: the cliche sloganeering associated with what he calls "antique" 19th-century ideologies, which mostly died of their own irrelevance, and the core sentiment that ruled the streets in Paris, a visceral hostility to ruthless authority, continued, says Berman, as a legacy of "anti-totalitarianism and human rights."
他说，有两种不同的遗产：那些与他称做“古董”的大多已经死于它们自己的枝节问题的19世纪意识形态相关的陈腐标语，还有就是那关键的主宰了巴黎街道的情绪，即发自内心深处的对残忍权力的敌视，这是一“反极权主义和人权的”遗产，berman继续说道。
In this, the European and American experiences were very different. Overt colonialism and violent, overwhelming fascism were living memories in Europe, and not, as in the United States, mere words in overheated left-wing rhetoric.
The European protests and the government responses, moreover, while violent, were rarely deadly.
Thousands of people were arrested and injured, but not a single person was killed in France's May uprising. In the United States the leaders of the civil-rights movement, if they survived, endured, matured and became influential inside and outside of government. In Europe, a handful of well-known student leaders would do the same, holding on to the idealism that marked 1968, but adapting to the demands of realpolitik实力政策, including "the use of Western power against extreme repression."
One of the leading '68ers is Joschka Fischer, foreign minister of Germany from 1998 to 2005, representing the Green Party, but a street-fighting leftist radical in the early 1970s.
When pictures of him hitting a cop during a 1973 protest appeared in 2001, they provoked outrage. The photographs came from the daughter of Germany's most notorious woman terrorist, whom Fischer had admired. Not only was he pilloried, but, by extension, 1968 was put on trial使经受考验. Yet Berman portrays Fischer as the man who "ushered the Germans into the actual modernized world by making them active participants in NATO, first in the Kosovo war, and now in Afghanistan."
In France, Bernard Kouchner epitomizes the flamboyant style and the moral imperatives命令需要 of 1968, as well as the rejection of its antique ideologies. Once a communist, he cofounded the humanitarian organization M?decins sans Fronti?res in 1971 to defy Third World dictators and help people in need.
His experiences trying to rescue "boat people" fleeing Vietnam after the fall of Saigon dispelled whatever illusions he might have had about Hanoi's tyranny.
He went on to work with Afghans fighting the Soviets, and with Kurds fighting Saddam Hussein.
In 2003, Kouchner was one of the few prominent French politicians to support the idea of liberating Iraq, but, from the start, had serious reservations about the way the Americans planned to do it.
Last June, Sarkozy picked Kouchner as his foreign minister, and they've built warm ties to the United States, which they talk about, sincerely, as a land of liberty.
And they've been tougher on Iran than any other European government. These policies are the natural outgrowth of the spirit of '68. If some of their old slogans seemed playful to the point of nonsense, others still make sense when applied to governments, like Iran's, which maintain power by stifling抑制 freedom. "It is forbidden to forbid," they used to say on rue Gay-Lussac. One day crowds may say the same thing in Tehran. They might even discover the beach beneath the stones.
© Newsweek, Inc.
1969年美国Woodstock摇滚音乐节回顾——纪念Woodstock40周年
1969年美国Woodstock摇滚音乐节回顾
还记得Woodstock摇滚音乐节吗，在
1999年，或许是以纪念伍德斯托克30周年的名义，或许是以其他名义，Woodstock音乐节再次举行。怀旧的冲动需要精力与热情来支撑，所以“Woodstock
WOODSTOCK音乐节，全称“Woodstock Rock Festival“，是目前世界上最著名的系列性摇滚音乐节。最早举行于1969年，主题是“和平、反战、博爱、平等”。规模与阵容史无前例，而且这也是历来少见铜臭味儿的一次音乐节，标榜“音乐与艺术的结合”。之后举办的无数次音乐节大部分是想实践Woodstock精神，积极筹办公益性演唱会，同时抒发年轻人对音乐的狂热。Woodstock的出现与当时的时代背景有很大关系，60年代中晚期，战后的思潮很激烈，年轻人有足够的见解却不被重视，挫折感与避世感顿生，他们渴望一种与世无争、和平、平等的世界，消除贫富差距、反建制，于是Woodstock应运而生，而它的超前成功又使青年人重拾信心，在Woodstock精神中加入一条积极上进的因素。
三十年前，最后一批满身泥垢的年轻人撤离了马克思·雅斯格泥泞的牧场，它宣告了一个历史上最不同寻常的音乐节的结束。同时，对于其具有何种历史意义的争论也就此开始。真诚的“信徒”称其为一个时代的顶峰，认为它对人类思想的解放作出了巨大的贡献；而“挑剔者”则将它视为一个天真无邪的时代的滑稽收场。
1969年举办WOODSTOCK MUSIC AND ART FAIR吸引了四十五万观众。三天的时间里，他们在苏利文县的牧场缔造了一个嬉皮士的独立王国。在这里，人类的感知世界被彻底地打开，吸食毒品是合法的，性爱是自由的。音乐节于当年八月十五日下午五点零七分正式开始，持续至八月十八日上午结束。它引发了纽约州有史以来最严重的交通堵塞，通向纽约州的高速公路被迫关闭。美国相当多的州县在此之后立法以禁止类似活动的再次举行。
在为期三天的音乐会期间，共有5162件治疗病历备录在案，其中包括797件属于滥用毒品引发的病症。尽管没有婴儿出生的记录，但当时在现场的阿布鲁医生透露至少有八例流产的情况。在这份记录中，有两人因吸毒过量而死亡，还有一位被拖拉机误碾的比扎。当年秋天，苏立文县大陪审团宣布，拖拉机司机因为没有足够的证据无法确认，被免于指控。另一件由州律师办公室开展的调查持续至1970年初，结果是音乐节组织者必须向12000至18000人退还票款，这一万多人买了票，但因当时交通严重堵塞而没能到达现场。和其它为数不多的历史事件一样，“伍德斯托克”已成为某类文化现象的代名词。正如“水门”（WATERGATE）暗示着公众信任危机，“滑铁卢”（WATERLOO）代表惨烈的失败，“伍德斯托克”指向的是弥漫于六十年代的纵欲及享乐主义。
伍德斯托克由此而成为象征反叛精神的摇滚乐的圣地，尽管1994年和1999年纯粹为商业目的而举办的后两届音乐节已完全丧失了“60年代精神”，但无数反叛的青年还是能从摇滚乐中找到他们永远的诉求。
1969年，到至今已经有30多年的时间了，而且给人类（或者是美国人）留下2个深刻的记忆。当时在冷战的情况下战胜前苏联，并有一个叫Armstrong人在人类史上第一次登陆月球，而在月球上无法看到的名叫Woodstock地方在`3 Days of Peace & Music 口号下举行了盛大的音乐节。人类在为越来越进步的科技而欢呼之时，另一方面有很多人为音乐而欢呼，是一个非常有趣的一年。在Woodstock音乐节之前美国已经举行过很多摇滚音乐节，但提起足球就能让人想起世界杯一样，一谈到摇滚音乐节那大家肯定会说到Woodstock音乐节。为什么呢？1969年美国内外社会矛盾非常多，人权问题、针对参加越南战争而出现的反战争示威等等，所以当时美国社会非常混乱。60年代初的年轻一代反叛精神比较弱，二战以后出生的baby boom时代人参加所谓 Flower Movement，而且之后被人们称之为hippie族。他们整天喊着反战、爱情、和平，但他的真正意义并不是积极参加到社会，而是回避者、追求梦幻世界的消极阶层。虽然是这样的背景，但4个年轻人自己出钱并策划举办了
Jimi Hendrix因唱了类似嘲笑美国的音乐，所以得到了观众的欢呼，而Janis Joplin的热情歌唱也给观众留下深刻的印象。大家能听到Crosby, Stills & Nash和Neil Young的美妙合音和folk女王Joan Baez的豪爽的歌声，而且现场音响中还传出黑人fokl的醇厚的歌喉。演出中有美国人非常喜欢的Grateful Dead初期柔软的迷幻般的歌曲，还有Jefferson Airplane的初期出道歌曲。Melanie也不能不说，而且从英国专程来参加的Ten Years After和The Who在演出之后更加出名了。之后以3张LP销售的演出实况专辑（CD是2张）感觉像是Joe Cocker以完全自我形式歌唱Beatles的`With a little help from my friend，一起与观众共呼吸并直接反映了Woodstock音乐节的气氛，而且把Mountain,CCR,Canned Heat, Santana, Iron Butterfly, Sly & The Family Stone等所有风格的摇滚音乐加入到一起。但是提出音乐和和平的短暂3天过去以后，随之大家慢慢就回到了从前的生活，这可能也是Woodstock音乐节所留下的遗憾。虽然在当时的年代里很多人都认为此演出很无聊，但给那一代和下一代人们留下了神话般的记忆，这可能是因为举办者的单纯目的得到了大家的共鸣。没有商业性的目的，而且在急进的世界观中展开，所以在3天的时间里大家感受到了最纯洁摇滚的自由世界。 今天Woodstock上方的天空一片晴朗，观众还在不断的赶来。贝索草原外围的铁丝网早以失去了功用——摇滚乐是没有高墙的。香烟、啤酒和LSD被不断的运进会场。舞台周边全是hippie。那时的摇迷没有太奇怪的打扮、没有令人惊奇的装束更没有自虐的倾向。他们的脸上只有笑而没有环更没有孔。今天第一个上台的是Ritchie Havens。当时Ritchie Havens没有什么名气，只是在一些白人统治的民谣俱乐部里唱歌。但是当Ritchie Havens弹响第一个音符的时候，一个伟大的时代又有了一个伟大的歌手。
Freedom
这无疑是70年代的一个最强的泛音，直接唱出了hippie的渴望。接着Ritchie Havens还翻唱了Beatles的Hey Judy和Strawberry Fields。值得一提的是Ritchie Havens的吉他演奏。他把自己的吉他调成了open D，也就是所有的空弦音是一个D和弦，这种调琴的方法在滑棒吉他里很常见。随便加个横按就可以得到一个和弦。可是Ritchie Havens没有用食指去横按，而是用了自己那超长的大拇指。1969年的Woodstock上，Ritchie Havens一举成名，他的这首Freedom也被奉为经典。以至于在后来，只要Ritchie Havens一出台，下面的观众都会要求他演唱这首Freedom。接下来上场的是Sweetwater和Bert Sommer，这两支乐队是美国东岸的乐队，但是没有太浓重的迷幻色彩。观众的热情很高，那些baby boom时代出生的人聚在一起，似乎不是为了追求理想，而是在逃避现实。在LSD中，这些人才有自己的理想。所谓的Flower Movement只是很形式的东西，他们整天喊着反战、爱情、和平，但他的真正意义并不是积极参加到社会，而是回避者、追求梦幻世界的消极阶层。
到了晚上，气温很低，观众们开始靠在一起取暖。不从社会的意义上来看这些hippie的话，他们还是很可爱的。他们起码很纯真。
晚上最后一个上台的歌手是有“民谣女王”之称的Joan Baez。她演唱了这首著名的Joe Hill。
Joan Baez的演唱是完全没有经过修饰的，用的是很纯粹的人声。她唱的是70年代人心的虚无和对生死茫然。观众很安静，因为真正的民谣是需要用心去思考的。Joe Hill这首歌是很Joan Baez的，她干净的声音的清唱的确是摇滚音乐节史上的绝无仅有的一次“创举”。反观今天各式各样的音乐节，无一不用超大功率的音箱和乱七八糟的效果器、合成器。还有Joan Baez这样纯粹而干净的音乐么？ 今天上场的有Country Joe McDonald。他们的音乐模仿Beatles的痕迹很重。不过作为第二天的暖场乐队，他们够大牌了。在Woodstock上，他们演唱了Rockin All Around The World，和Flyin High All Over The World等一些他们的代表曲目。他的反战色彩很重，一上台就高叫“Fuck！Fuck！”然后又用歌曲讽刺了美国当时的越南战争What we are fighting forI don’t give a damn!So pick up your guns and throw out your booksGo to Vietnam!
1969年，美国正在越南战争的泥潭里费劲挣扎，这首歌无疑是一个巨大的讽刺。观众也被Country Joe McDonald给带动了起来，他们一起高喊Fuck。当然这其中也有人在频频摇头。不知道他们是听不惯Fuck还是支持战争，还是对这场战争感到彻底的失望。
接着上来的是大名鼎鼎的John B. Sebastian。John B. Sebastian也是民谣界的一个代表。他的歌没有太多的批判性，和Bob Dylan比起来，他是很温和的一位歌手。他的演出进行到一半时，突然有个电话找他，他回来后非常激动。因为他的妻子刚刚给他生了个孩子。John B. Sebastian站在台上，抑制不住心中的狂喜，临时演唱了这首Younger Generation。他几次在歌曲中哽咽。下面的观众没有起哄、没有吹口哨更没有喊脏话。这很令人感动。这首歌的最后一句歌词是But what′s the matter Daddy, how come you′re looking mean?Can it be that you can′t live up to your dreams?John B. Sebastian在后面加了一句，“No, of cause not. Because we are doing it！I love you!”
这是一首经典歌曲，John B. Sebastian很用感情的唱着。在Woodstock1969的DVD里，这一段精心配上了演出场地上的孩子的录像，他们随意的在场地里来回跑动，随意的拨弄着吉他，玩耍着鼓锤。可以看到，那一年的Woodstock是一届真正的Love & Peace之旅。要是在今天把蹒跚学步的孩子带进会场，他不被别人Pogo死也要被大麻的烟熏死。
John B. Sebastian下台之后，就刮起了大风、下起了大雨。主办方不得不临时停止演出，将舞台遮上。这届的Woodstock以后的每一届音乐节都要下一次大雨。而大雨之后的贝索草原必定有最好天气。玩泥巴、打泥仗、洗泥澡，也成了Woodstock的保留节目。最近几年的Woodstock多了一个游戏节目，就是把泥块往舞台上砸，以表示对乐队的不满。99年的Woodstock上，Green Day遭到了最隆重的泥块的礼遇，最后不得不中途下场。晚上，来了几个重量级的乐队。Santana、Grateful Dead、The Who和Jefferson Airplane。1969年的时候这几个乐队的名气没有今天这么大，他们还不是格莱美的常客。
Santana演唱了Soul Sacrifice，这首歌在当年的录音里长达12分钟。是Santana早期的经典的现场之一。69年时，Santana的风格就已经定形了，拉美风情十足的音乐，Santana大叔出神入化的吉他，热情、性感的墨西哥女郎……这些全是日后Santana音乐的雏形。到了90年代，Santana在国际上的地位已经无法动摇了，他的专辑Super Natural在格莱美上大放异彩，一举拿下了八项大奖，是当年格莱美最大的赢家。
Grateful Dead是新兴起的迷幻摇滚乐队，是当年洛山矶之声的代表。他们演唱了Mama Tried、Dark Star、High Time、Turn On Your Love light等著名歌曲。Woodstock结束后，Grateful Dead于1971年发行了他们最为著名的一张专辑——Anthem of the sun。Grateful Dead当年和他们后期的风格几乎一样，只是当年主唱的声线很软，很是迷幻。后期的Grateful Dead叫喊的简直像是punk。晚上的最大高潮无疑是The Who和Jefferson Airplane带来的重摇滚。
The Who的舞台风格在当时很是激情，单是主唱玩话筒的花样就够观众嚎叫一阵子了。The Who在这届Woodstock上表现十分抢眼，他们演唱了很多歌曲。其中有I Cant Explain、Amazing Journey、Acid Queen和See Me Feel Me等一些演唱至今的经典歌曲。The Who的吉他手在演出结束后，砸掉了那把红色的Fender，直接扔给了台下的观众。在观众的尖叫和争夺中结束了自己的Woodstock之旅。1969年，这样的举动是个很令人吃惊的行为。Jefferson Airplane有点金属的感觉，他们演唱的是他们刚出道的曲目，这些曲目在今天就是经典。但是比起在他们前面出场的The Who，Jefferson Airplane有点保守，观众也有点冷场。但是不管怎么样，Jefferson Airplane在Woodstock的这次亮相，早以成了经典。 辉煌过后渐褪色
在整个音乐节举办的过程中，没有任何暴力事件发生，只有两个人死亡(一个撞车，另一个吸毒过量)，这就是关于一个40多万人参加的音乐节的一些统计数字。显然，对于如此庞大的群众聚会来说，3天之内的犯罪率等于零简直是不可思议的事情。但他们共同追求的目标让奇迹出现了，每一个曾在那里呆过的人都永远不会忘记。
但是，在随后的10年里，伍德斯托克音乐节逐渐在历史的记忆里褪色。直到1984年，才有一名电焊工在原址上树立一座纪念碑。在1994年的25周年纪念日上，音乐节尽管提出了“和平”的口号，但同时也是一次商业操作。1999年的伍德斯托克音乐节虽然也吸引了约25万人参加，但最后却演变成一场骚乱，纵火、抢劫、性骚扰以及故意伤害等犯罪行为都在音乐的狂热中发生。现在与1969年相比，伍德斯托克音乐节所处的背景有一点是相似的，那就是战争。1969年，越南战争在如火如荼地进行当中；2004年，伊拉克战争结束，但美国仍陷入一场旷日持久的游击战和反恐战争中。这种相同的背景使人们对伍德斯托克音乐节的精神的复苏多了一份热切的期待，但更多的可能是失望。
反战文化难以延续
伍德斯托克音乐节可以继续下去，但35年前的精神无法恢复。如果拿上个世纪60年代末的那一场反战文化和现在的相比较，可以明显看出它们之间存在的差别：前者是正在兴起的反战文化，后者是正在走向衰落的反战文化。
伍德斯托克音乐节之所以无法恢复它的精神，其原因是它失去了生存的基础。上世纪60年代美国正处于一种“反主流文化”的时期，在人们心目中更多的是自由主义和理想主义，音乐成为人们宣泄心中不满的工具。但是从上世纪80年代开始，现实主义逐步取代理想主义。美国部分民众意识到：如果战争能为国家和个人带来利益，为什么要去反对呢？
越南战争中，5万多名美国士兵命丧他乡，美国民众没有理由不反对战争；而无论是海湾战争，还是伊拉克战争，美军的伤亡人数都是区区数百。美国通过这两次战争，以较小的代价，换来对石油和一个在中东地缘政治上非常重要的国家的控制，何乐而不为？上世纪90年代的一系列战争表明，美国显示了它超强的军事实力，国内民众因此基本上消除了对战争的恐惧感。不过，美国在世界各地的“反恐战”面临着巨大的挑战，随着伤亡人数的不断增加，美国民众对政府的信心也随之动摇。也许，伍德斯托克音乐节的沉寂将预示着另一次文化大爆发的来临。
世界主要音乐节：
奥地利萨尔斯堡(Salzburg)
音乐节英国爱丁堡(Edinburgh)
音乐节美国坦格勒伍德(Tanglewood)
音乐节奥地利莫扎特(Mozart)音乐周
美国林肯中心(Lincoln Center)
音乐节美国阿斯本(Aspen)音乐节
捷克布拉格之春(Prague Spring)
音乐节英国BBC亨利－伍德(Henry Wood)
夏日音乐节英国巴赫(Bach)音乐节
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