This is Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality—my attempt to make myself, and all of you out there in SubStackLand, smarter by writing where I have Value Above Replacement and shutting up where I do not… HOISTED FROM THE ARCHIVES: Unleash Chiang Kai-ShekFrom 2005-10-05: Jeb Bush’s “mystical warrior Chang” gag stems from a right‑wing Cold War slogan about “unleashing Chiang Kai‑shek,” which Bush family scions parroted without understanding how...
From 2005-10-05: Jeb Bush’s “mystical warrior Chang” gag stems from a right‑wing Cold War slogan about “unleashing Chiang Kai‑shek,” which Bush family scions parroted without understanding how their father had used at as an ironic, right wing-mocking joke while playing tennis <https://web.archive.org/web/20111023072237/http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2005/10/unleash_chiang_.html>…
Unleash Chiang Kai-ShekI’m sorry, but this is just too weird:
When George H. W. Bush in the 1970s and 1980s threatened to “unleash Chang” on his tennis opponents, he was referring to:
After the start of the Korean War, the American 7th Fleet protected Chiang (and Taiwan) from Mao’s People’s Liberation Army. Republican wingnuts, however, pretended that the 7th Fleet actually protected Mao’s Communists (who had, after all, won the Chinese Civil War) from Chiang’s Nationalists (who had, after all, lost it) by keeping Chiang Kaishek leashed. They periodically called for the U.S. to “unleash Chiang Kaishek”—so that Chiang, you see, could invade and conquer the Chinese mainland. When George H. W. Bush, playing tennis (and losing) in the 1970s and 1980s, would threaten to “unleash Chiang,” he was mocking the right-wing nuts of his generation. But George H. W. Bush’s sons—even the smart one, Jeb—never got the joke. They, you see, didn’t know enough about world history or even the history of the Republican Party to know who Chiang Kaishek was, or what “Unleash Chiang!” meant. Hence Jeb Bush’s explanation that twentieth-century Chinese nationalist, socialist, general, and dictator Chiang Kaishek was a “mystical warrior... who believes in conservative principles, believes in entrepreneurial capitalism, believes in moral values that underpin a free society.” To me, that level of uncuriosity is scary. Why is this family ruling us, again? If reading this gets you Value Above Replacement, then become a free subscriber to this newsletter. And forward it! And if your VAR from this newsletter is in the three digits or more each year, please become a paid subscriber! I am trying to make you readers—and myself—smarter. Please tell me if I succeed, or how I fail…##public-reason |
| ||||||||||
No comments:
Post a Comment