From: mattb@ctron.com (Matt Brown)
Newsgroups: rec.music.gdead
Subject: Re: Throwing Stones
Date: 14 Sep 92 15:42:08 GMT
Reply-To: mattb@olympus.ctron.com (Matt Brown)
Organization: Cabletron Systems INc.

(Bill Moore) writes:
>(Trish Turliuk) writes:
>>everything! :-) I'm curious if anyone out there knows the added lyrics
>>to Throwing Stones...was it just a verse?
>Isn't it just a coupla lines, due to the "fall of communism"?
>Money green and proletarian grey
>becomes
>Money green is the only way

>Comitsars and pinstripe forces roll the dice
                         ^^^^^^ bosses?
>becomes something like
>Now the pinstripe forces own the dice
                   ^^^^^^ bosses?
>and maybe one more

Now, this is not an accusation or a flame, but...

It's too bad that lots of people, in the euphoria over the events in Europe,
forget the fact that the most populous country in the world is still _very_
communist, at least ideologically. Economically, they are in better shape
than the former communist states in the West, but in many respects they are
more repressive. They are stronger now than ever, because they are applying
more market economy principles without loosening the chains around the Chinese
people, and because they no longer have a massive superpower on their border
and an ideological struggle with that neighbor over the future of communism.

Unfortunately, the Bush administration has not been very tough with the        
Chinese communists, and in fact seems to have done very little to remind people
that communism is alive and very well in Asia. Our increased trade and favored
nation status has strengthened rather than weakened the rule of the Chinese
communists. Instead, our companies are profiting from the cheap, if not slave,
labor of the chinese people (gee, maybe the lyrics change _is_ on the money). 

My own opinion is that because the Chinese never had as strong a nuclear
arsenal as the Russians, few Americans saw them as the chief adversary. Our
concern was not for the freedom of the people of the world, but for our own
hides (understandable, but it gives a different slant to "making the world
safe for democracy" doesn't it?).

My other opinion is that we are very nicely set up to be shocked by renewed
Chinese aggression toward eastern Russia, the Asian XSoviet Republics, India,
or other Asian countries. We may not be in a very good position to respond
(we meaning the UN, not the US unilaterally) if something like this happens,
if we couldn't resolve the Iraq problems or the Yugoslavia problems.

This isn't intended as some diatribe, just as a reminder that things aren't
as simple as the pols and the media portray them; this world still has
problems other than capitalism, and greed is a human vice, not an American
one. This isn't intended as anti-Chinese, either. At least China isn't an
economic basket case for the world to bail out, and a China in as bad a shape
as Eastern Europe is a scary prospect, so I'm glad we didn't try to bankrupt
Chinese communism by bankrupting the Chinese. But more could be done to support
democracy in China without going to extremes. 

Matt
ODC: The Dead never did play the Great Wall, did they?
ODC2: The song is still on target, even with the lyric changes, because it
looks to the future consequences of our actions on our planet, and regardless
of ideology, we are still acting as nations of people rather than a people
of nations. 
Newsgroups: rec.music.gdead