Be Careful Who You Blindly Follow

 

Wall Street Journal

The Cultural Revolution Comes to North America

‘Call-out’ mobs aim not to persuade or debate, but to humiliate the target and intimidate others.

By Anastasia Lin

April 7, 2019

“In China, people in my father’s generation—he was born in 1957—learned to keep their heads down and to watch what they said, even to their closest friends, for fear of being accused of thought crimes. Privacy and Trust were dissolved, and informants were everywhere”.

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If you want to read all about it and you have a WSJ Subscription, click here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-cultural-revolution-comes-to-north-america-11554661623?mod=article_inline

If you don’t have a WSJ Subscription, this will give you the gist of the story: https://www.lifezette.com/2020/06/chinese-cultural-revolution-comes-to-the-u-s/

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The Chinese Cultural Revolution was Amazing in that so many people Jumped On Board and were completely devoted to its precepts but it was also Frightening because so many people had no choice but to Jump On Board and be (or give the impression that they were) completely devoted to its precepts.

The above is sort of an introduction to the real reason for this Blog Posting. If you did or did not read the above links, that’s OK because the best is yet to come. Actually I could insert a new Subject right here...

Be Careful Who or What You Blindly Follow

I got this blog all ready to send and I got cold feet. I thought this is crazy. These numbers are too large to be believed. So I went back to the Internet and searched on “Mao's war on pests”. If you do the same you will find a humongous number of articles on this subject.

A big part of the Chinese Cultural Revolution concerned Small Things like Sparrows.

Get ready to be amazed...

Mao Zedong (1893-1976) disliked pests. Among those creatures that Mao labeled as pests were Sparrows. The result of his War on Sparrows was one of the biggest ecological disasters in human history.

As part of his “Great Leap Forward” program, Mao introduced the “Four Pests” campaign in 1958. His intent was to promote hygiene, reduce disease, and encourage greater crop production through the eradication of Rats, Mosquitoes, Flies, and Sparrows.

His obsession with sparrows may surprise you. The particular sparrow that earned his wrath was the Eurasian Tree Sparrow. Granted, it was responsible for consuming a substantial portion of China’s crops, but so did many other birds. The sparrow, however, was declared to be “public animals of capitalism.” Citizens were encouraged to take the battle to the birds, and they responded with gusto.

The people of China went after the sparrows with a multi-faceted battle plan. Some set traps for the birds. Others went on a hunt for their nests, destroying the habitat, eggs, and chicks. Professional hunters went out with guns, shooting the birds by the droves. Others chased after the birds with pots and pans, driving them to exhaustion until the sparrows fell dead to the ground.

A 16-year-old boy named Yang She-mun was considered a national hero for personally killing 20,000 sparrows by identifying their nests during the day and then strangling them at night with his bare hands.

The battle against the birds was so intense that some sparrows sought political asylum. When some sparrows took up shelter in Poland’s embassy in Beijing, China requested permission to enter the embassy grounds to scare away the birds. The request was denied. Consequently, a large gathering of Chinese citizens surrounded the embassy with drums and made enough noise that after two days the sparrows decided to throw caution to the wind and leave their sanctuary. Those that remained were so stressed and exhausted by the ordeal that embassy personnel had to clear away the bodies of the dead sparrows with shovels.

The Four Pests campaign was wildly successful in its initial objectives. An estimated 1.5 billion rats, 100 million kilograms of flies, and 11 million kilograms of mosquitoes were wiped out. As for the sparrows, the casualties were similarly impressive. As many as 1 billion sparrows met their demise, driving the species to near-extinction within China.

Unfortunately, the war against sparrows had other consequences. As pesky as the sparrow can be, it also serves an important role in reducing other pests. With the sparrow population all but eliminated, many of the birds’ prey enjoyed an unchallenged population explosion. It wasn’t long before the Chinese fields were decimated, not by sparrows, but by locusts and other devouring insects.

Within 2 years of beginning the war against sparrows, Mao ordered a ceasefire. In April 1960, the fourth pest of the Four Pests campaign became the Bed Bug, officially giving the sparrow a reprieve.

By this point, however, it was too late. The damage had been done. The resultant crop loss from the unchallenged insect invasion decimated the rice harvest, triggering a mass famine throughout the country. Some estimates place the human cost of the war on sparrows at 20-45 million people who starved between 1958 and 1962.

Eventually, the Chinese government even went to the lengths of importing 250,000 sparrows from the Soviet Union to help restart the population within its borders. Too late, the Chinese government learned a painful lesson: When you mess with Mother Nature, she has a tendency to get even.

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.