WHAT relevance has Old Blind Joe’s latest propaganda promoting the Chinese Communist Party to Toodyay?
I had hoped that after he was exposed over Australia’s defence budget, which he grossly inflated and claimed was directed at attacking our “friends and allies” China, he would in future stick with his usual tedious pseudo-intellectual diatribes.
Even if part of what he claims about the Tiananmen Square massacre is true, the two commentators whose views he promotes differ from the rest of the world’s media which he suggests colluded in an anti-Chinese conspiracy.
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The facts haven’t changed. On 20 May 1989 martial law was declared and 250,000 armed troops entered Beijing.
At 1am on 4 June 1989 Chinese soldiers and police stormed protestors in Tiananmen Square firing live rounds into the crowd leaving hundreds dead. Many more died on the surrounding streets.
No doubt some protestors did attack their tormentors but why wouldn’t they? Leaders worldwide condemned the action, and Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev who was in Beijing at the time was scathing in his criticism.
Rewriting history is a common ploy by those seeking to undermine society and Stirling Hamilton’s motives for massaging 30-year old history are questionable.
The Toodyay Herald, by affording Stirling Hamilton a vehicle to promote his jaundiced and questionable political views, is doing the community a disservice and it could be accused of endorsing Mr Hamilton’s extremely unpatriotic views.
China is no longer a friend. Before President Xi Jinping’s rule, China was a communist dictatorship; but it was a functioning institution, had limited terms for its leader and it allowed policies to be contested internally and we all knew where we stood.
It is now staring down the rest of the world and is isolated with a despotic leader whose every thought, wish and suggestion must be followed without question. Its leadership is isolated and surrounded by an oligarchy with a singular imperative – to please President Xi by confirming the infallibility of his every decision and statement and demonstrating total aggression in the service of the leader’s ideology.
President Xi has decided that Australia is irredeemably part of the US-led alliance system and at the same time an important regional nation in its own right. He wants therefore not just to punish Australia but to permanently damage us and reduce our power. It is not something we should be defending in our local paper.
Geoff Appleby
Toodyay
(The Toodyay Herald supports free speech – comments in this letter and by others have been noted – Ed.)
