Episode Three

 Hello, and welcome to the next edition of the Listening Tube! I’m your host, Bob Woodley. This week, we’ll take a look at an internet scam that never gets to the point, a brief history of trade between the US and China, and more of the ways China is the enemy of the world in what I’m going to call the China Edition, part two. Honestly, I could probably talk about China for a year, but I won’t. We’ll put the Listening Tube in reverse and back up to the decline of the Russian Empire. Plus, we’ll have a question for your ten-word answer! But first, not the headlines…

The New York Post reports the Associated Press is selling news stories. Apparently, the Associated Press has hired dozens of journalists to report solely on climate change. The hires come after climate change activists invested 8-million dollars with the AP to bring the issue more exposure. The AP admits that the funders weren’t just being generous. They had their own goals to achieve. The Associated Press defends their actions by saying that all reports will be labeled as the paid-for propaganda they are. Now, I’m not saying we shouldn’t be made aware of climate issues, as they effect all of us. And this isn’t the first time the Associated Press has received funding from non-profits to take a closer look at issues that may be important to the general public. But I think it’s important for that same public to know that the “news” their getting is paid for by some third party. By the way, the same article notes the Washington Post is planning to institute its own climate change bureau with about 20 reporters covering the beat. But for those of you who don’t know, the Associated Press feeds news stories to radio stations, television stations, newspapers and magazines around the world. I’ve worked at radio stations that subscribed to the AP service, back when there was a big machine in the hallway that almost constantly printed out news as it happened. Hourly updates, brief descriptions of world news, breaking news. Reams of paper were printed weekly at media outlets around the world. I would imagine it’s done digitally now, but those AP news service machines used a lot of paper, and made a lot of noise with their typewriter keys banging all the time. I loved those machines. When I was in Guam, I was able to keep up-to-date with what was happening back home on the continent. As I recall, there were less than ten of us working at the radio station there. A few DJ’s, an admin guy, an engineer and station manager. We were privileged to have access to news from the rest of the world before most other people on the island. I experienced my first earthquake in Guam, while I was playing a song on the radio. Luckily, it was on a tape and not a record. If it was a record, that record player needle would have skipped around a bit. But even though I just survived my first earthquake, I was even more excited when the story about the earthquake came over the AP wire an hour or so later. I was like, “I know! I’m right here!”

News was different in the 1980’s. We had a lot more faith in it.

Now, certain entities are taking advantage of the Covid 19 pandemic to change the way news is gathered. Of course, the pandemic did cause a lot of disruptions in our day-to-day lives, and many of us had to change the way we got our jobs done. That includes journalists. Especially sports reporters, who historically have had access to the players in the locker room after the game. Those locker room privileges were suspended during the pandemic, and the National Hockey League and Major League Baseball have indicated that they will, at some point, allow reporters back into the locker room. But according to an article written by Tom Jones for Pointer, the National Basketball Association is considering not inviting reporters back into the locker room ever! Jones quotes NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, when speaking to reporters during All-Star Weekend as saying, “I also think it’s a bit of an anachronism to have reporters in the actual room where players are dressing. … To me, there are two issues: There’s just the health and safety issues for the players and for all of you as well. Then there’s also — I’m not sure if we were designing a system from scratch today, we would say come stand next to the players at their lockers as they’re dressing, and that’s the appropriate forum to interview them.” 

Now, you might say, “What’s the big deal, Bob? Why can’t they just ask them the questions later?” Well, of course you can ask the questions later, but you might not get the same answer as you would have got in the locker room. The locker room is a very dynamic place. It can be melancholy after a loss or jubilant after a win. Emotions are still running high sometimes, other times the players are relaxed or just plain tired. The locker room is where sports reporters and athletes get to know each other. Those relationships are just as important to the athlete as they are to the journalist. Plus, the athletes are a little bit more vulnerable in the locker room. I had the privilege of covering the Oakland A’s for their first seven home games when they played them in Las Vegas in 1996. I did radio reports of the games for CBS Radio, and I had locker room access. The first thing I noticed was the nice spread of food the player had at their disposal. A catered variety comparable to a Las Vegas Buffet. But I was there to get the players voices on tape. Literally on a cassette tape, not a digital recording like can be done today. The series began against the Toronto Blue Jays, and their Center Fielder was veteran Otis Nixon. I’d been a fan of Otis from his time with the Atlanta Braves, and he had just lost to the Blue Jays in the previous world series. He’d had a pretty good day of hitting, as I recall, and I was interested in speaking with him. So I went into the Visitor’s locker room, and there he was, in the flesh. Otis Nixon. Now, when I say in the flesh, that’s exactly what I mean. He was totally naked. He must’ve just come out of the shower and dropped his towel to the floor to get dressed when I walked up and said, “Excuse me, Mr. Nixon. May I ask you a few questions?” I’ve never been trained in locker room etiquette, so I didn’t know if I was violating some unwritten rule, which as you know, baseball has many, but I think he was okay with it because I had a tape recorder and not a camera. So, I was able to talk to him about his outstanding performance during the game, all the while making sure I didn’t look down. That’s what you don’t get when an athlete is at a podium, after they’ve had time to reflect on what happened, or what you don’t get when the team is told privately in the locker room what the talking points will be and how to answer the questions that will follow. I’m not the only one who values time in the locker room with the players. Even more qualified voices than mine chimed in, like The Washington Post’s Michael Lee who tweeted, “It’s insulting & it’s lazy. The best stories are mined in the locker rooms. Otherwise, you wind up with a lot of gossip, rumors & distrust.” I think my story demonstrates that perfectly! Sadly, though, Adam Silver and the National Basketball Association in general, have learned, and continue to learn, how to control the narrative and stifle dissent. Keeping reporters out of the locker rooms after games from here on out is just another step in controlling what the players say, how the association is perceived, and what message is sent. The scary part is that the National Basketball Association doesn’t care what you think, but what their partners in China think. 

 Put the scam here….

Let’s dissect an internet meme about a request for prayers, but then gives you specific instructions about how to send said prayers, and if you don’t do it right, your prayer doesn’t count! It starts off innocently enough with “Please pray for me and my family as we deal with this difficult battle.” Despite the incorrect grammar, anybody who is willing to pray for a stranger on the internet is, I’m sure, chomping at the bit to get started. “I’m afraid I have some very personal reasons for this post,” it continues, “I’m sad to say it hits home.” Followed by a couple of what appear to be crying emojiis. Well, you already established it’s a personal family battle in your opening sentence, but go on...So the next sentence says, “It is in the most difficult moments of life you realize who your real family, friends or people ware that really have your back. Peoples true colors come out when the attention isn’t on them.” OK, so now it sounds like your plea for prayers for you and your family has turned into the possibility that your family and friends have abandoned you in your time of need. After a profanity emoji, the meme goes on to say, “Unfortunately, some friends are going to press like, but not really read it because it takes time to read this statement and when they see that it is long, they skip it.” I would like to point out right here that the person who wrote this, the person who solicited prayer from you, still hasn’t said why they need prayers! They have spent the entire meme up to this point making a case for you to not finish reading it, while they complain that you probably won’t finish reading it, and that the reason you probably won’t finish reading it is that it’s too long! Here’s where it starts a new paragraph and says, “Now I look a those who take the time to read this post until the end...(I think that I will discover that 5 maybe 6 will). So, now you have to wonder if prayers are really what this post is looking for. They still haven’t got to the point, and it seems they already know what to expect regarding participation, because they already anticipate a low rate, maybe 5 or 6. Finally, the writer gets to the point of why the prayers are needed, or at least you think so, when the next sentence starts with, “Cancer is very invasive and harmful, even after the end of treatment your body is still struggling to restore the damage caused by radiation/chemotherapy. It is a very long process (100% true). So far, the meme has asked for prayers, said it’s personal, questioned the loyalty of family and friends and suggested they don’t have the patients to read the entire story which was obviously made too long on purpose, and gave us a lesson about cancer which most of us already knew. Then tried to make sure we were convinced by saying it was 100% true. Then, despite the fact that they initially solicited your prayers by saying it was personal and for them and their ignorant family, the meme goes on to say, “Please, in honor of a family member who died, is still fighting cancer or even had a cancer but beat it, copy and paste (don’t just share) on your page. So now the prayers aren’t for the writer and his or her family, but for anyone. But the prayers aren’t the important part. The important part is that you follow the instructions you’ve been given: Don’t just share this, but copy and paste it onto your feed. The meme finishes by saying, “So I can find out who read it, please write done so we can see together the power of Unity!!!, then offers hugs for you and your family if you’ve been effected by cancer, which nearly everyone has. So this whole thing is a lie. It’s not about the writer or a family member who has cancer. It’s about seeing how many sheep they can get to slaughter. It leads you to believe that it wants prayers, but what it really wants is for you to follow the directions, i.e. don’t share, cut and paste, write “done” after you read to the end, then they make it laborious to read to the end because they never get to the point and then what you find is a bait and switch. Then they claim that they want to know how many read to the end so we can see together the power of unity! The problem is, we’re not seeing unity, or any power at all. What we’re seeing is who among us is willing to follow the directions, who among us is blindly empathetic. I don’t know exactly what the end-game here is, but I smell a rat. If you need someone to pray for, pray for the people who write these memes.

Let’s go back through the listening tube….

It was in 1856 that Russia lost the Crimean war against a coalition of four powers, including France and the Ottoman Empire. This was a turning point in the history of the Russian Empire. They were depleted militarily and economically. Their influence over Europe was waning.

It was this week in 1861 that Russian troops fired on a crowd in Warsaw protesting against Russian rule over Poland, killing five protesters. According to wikipedia, the protesters were led by educated youth who were also forming covert resistance groups against Russian rule. Ironically, the protest was being held to also commemorate the anniversary of a battle the Polish army won against the Russian army back in 1831, 30 years earlier!

1918

Germany, Austria and Russia sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk ending Russia’s involvement in World War I, and leading to the independence of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.

1940

Members of Soviet politburo sign an order for the execution of 25,700 Polish intelligentsia, including 14,700 Polish POWs, known also as the Katyn massacre. Those massacres were carried out in April and May by the Soviet Union’s NKVD. Josef Stalin is the Soviet Premier. The Soviets were in Poland again following the Nazi raid of Poland on September 1st, 1939, starting World War II.

1944

World War II: The Red Army begins the Uman–Botoşani Offensive in western Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. During which the Russians drove Nazi forces out of the southwestern part of Ukraine. 

In 1953, Josef Stalin suffers a stroke and collapses. He dies four days later. He’ll be succeeded by Georgy Maksimilianovich Malenkov.

1946

Winston Churchill uses the phrase “Iron Curtain” in his speech at Westminster College, Missouri. The Iron Curtain was a description of the Soviet Union and the border around it. It became the dividing line between the NATO and neutral countries in western Europe and the countries of the Warsaw Pact, which included the Soviet Union and the satellite countries it controlled on its western flank. This division lasted until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the subsequent dissolving of the Soviet Union in 1991. 

This week in 1967, Josef Stalin’s daughter Svetlana defects to the United States.

1991

In concurrent referenda, 74% of the population of Latvia votes for independence from the Soviet Union, and 83% in Estonia.

In case you haven’t noticed yet, I’m addressing the elephant in the room. Russia has invaded Ukraine. Unprovoked, and without reason, Vladimir Putin is testing the waters and the west’s resolve. It seems Putin got bored being an authoritarian leader for so long that he had too much time to think. Apparently, what he thought about was the history of his homeland, and how the borders of it had changed over the decades. He decided to reclaim some of the land that once belonged to the former Soviet Union, maybe even the former Russian Empire, which was at one time the third-largest empire in history. So, in 2014, Russia takes control of Crimea, the place where the Russian Empire began to lose it’s luster in 1856. Check. Now let’s take the rest of Ukraine, since it’s the most valuable parcel of land in the area, and we already know how to win there because we just drove out the Nazis in World War II. Check. Updates pending. Let’s face it, Vladimir Putin has only seen his country fall apart over his lifetime. So now that he’s consolidated his power, he feels he owes it to his countrymen to put it back together again. In the memory of Josef Stalin.

So what’s next for the history of the Russian Empire? Will Ukraine again become a satellite country? And will Putin want a larger cushion? Time will tell. But his problem is that any next step will almost have to involve a country that has become a part of NATO since the Iron Curtain came down in 1991. Will Putin’s longing to rebuild the Russian Empire lead to another world war? And if so, what will we call it? But if Putin’s willing to take that chance, and China backs him up, Poland will be next. Then China will take Taiwan, and eventually, mapmakers will have a hard time keeping up with how quickly the lines on the maps will be changing.

Unfinished Business liner

During the last episode, I spent a good part of forty minutes talking about the atrocities and mismanagement and expansionist goals of the Chinese Communist Party. I literally ran out of time to cover all of it, so I’ll pick up here where I left off in part two of the Listening Tube (liner) China Edition (gong). 

The Chinese Communist Party opened the door to their previously closed society shortly after President Nixon visited in 1972. American businesses saw this as a great opportunity to have access to more than a billion new customers! If you could sell a pet rock to just ten percent of them, you’d be a millionaire! So businesses were anxious to enter the Chinese market. The problem was, the Chinese Communist Party has the final say on everything, and the free market doesn’t get a vote. So while Americans were willing to buy Chinese products, the Chinese people weren’t being offered American products. The trade balance began to tilt, and it’s never come back to even. I won’t get into all of the trade policies that have transpired between the American and Chinese governments, mostly because I don’t know about them or understand them, but it’s obvious that over the last half-century, the Chinese Communist Party has had the upper hand in our trade negotiations. China’s abundance of population provides cheap labor. So much so that China can not only produce their own products, but also produce products for companies from around the world, thus controlling many supply-chain issues from the ground up. China’s willingness to allow the pirating of intellectual property means they can make money from stealing other people’s ideas. Plus, the Chinese Communist Party has rules in place restricting access to its markets, so that it can keep out companies that compete with Chinese companies. In fact, many of America’s most successful companies have failed to expand into China, including Ebay, Amazon, Yahoo, Best Buy, Home Depot, Google, Forever 21, Groupon, Uber, Macy’s and LinkedIn. According to sources cited by Visual Capitalist, Amazon couldn’t compete with Chinese company Alibaba. Despite investing a billion dollars in Alibaba in 2005, Yahoo pulled out of China last year, blaming an increasingly challenging business and legal environment. In other words, they were forced out by the Chinese Communist Party. Google lasted only 50 months in China, plagued by censorship disputes and a Chinese government hack of their platform. Forever 21 is in it’s third attempt at gaining a foothold in China. The first two attempts lasted a total of 100 months. Uber had a terrible time in China, investing billions, including satisfying China’s demand that all of their data be stored on servers in the country of China. Plus, Uber would need both provincial and national regulatory approvals to do business. It’s like requiring the permission of every municipality you drive through. The Chinese Communist Party did everything they could to prevent Uber from doing business in China. They sold out to a Chinese company and now own nearly 19 percent of it.

Despite these challenges, businesses still see China’s population as a marketing target. China is expected to have one-fourth of the world’s middle class by the year 2027. That’s why they don’t care what anybody thinks about what they do about the Uyghurs. And the business people who they’re courting don’t care either.

And while we’re on the issue of courting, the National Basketball Association, the NBA, should be called the Never-ending Balancing Act for how they prioritize their relationship with the Chinese Communist Party over the human rights of an ethnic minority in China. An ethnic minority that’s being slowly extinguished by force. According to a story in the National Review, a minority owner of the Golden State Warriors stated outright that he doesn’t care about what the Chinese Communist Party is doing to the Uyghurs. In fact, he said NOBODY cares! The owner of the Dallas Mavericks said he’s ok doing business with China because we have to pick our battles. Both of these NBA owners reflect any questions about China with questions about human rights here in America. Let’s focus on domestic issues, they say. America is just as bad as China, they say. The way they’ve been trained by China to say the right things and not upset the status quo would indicate they should move to China! They obviously have learned to succumb to the party, and the money they make is enough to live on, so why stay in the United States, where human rights are so out of control? 

The power of the Chinese Communist Party was clearly on display in 2019, when then Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey crossed them by supporting pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. According to an article by Jessie Yeung of CNN Business, the NBA’s China partners suspended all ties, halted all broadcasts and the Chinese government said the NBA needed to show “mutual respect.” Morey deleted the statement, apologized. The NBA said his comments were “regrettable.” Really? Regrettable? For supporting democracy? Here’s a kicker: NBA star Lebron James said Darly Morey was misinformed and not educated. For supporting democracy! Well, he’s certainly educated now! Educated in the power of the Chinese Communist Party over what Americans in the United States of America say with their own mouths in a country that guarantees the right to free speech. Another country is dictating to our citizens what they can and cannot say, and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and star player Lebron James are okay with it. Lebron James has exposed himself as a huge hypocrite, pretending to be a champion of human rights, social justice, equality, equity, whatever words are fashionable, while ignoring the atrocities that are taking place in the country that makes his shoes. Why? Because China makes up about ten percent of the NBA’s revenue of 8 Billion dollars annually, and expect that level to increase to twenty percent by 2030. That’s why Americans are being told to keep their mouths shut. And that’s why Americans are doing it. China has more power than you might think. Want more proof? How about China’s demands of censorship on American television and films?

A story by Reuters revealed not only censoring, but also mistranslations of episodes of the television program “Friends” on Chinese television and streaming services. Even after the unedited versions had already been seen in China through bootleg DVDs. As in the United States, the show has a huge following in China, so it’s preposterous to expect that nobody in China would notice the changes. References to gay people were edited out, and dialogue was changed to remove talk about issues and subjects the Chinese Communist Party finds to be in contrast with its doctrine. Movies aren’t immune, either. Back to the Future is banned in China because it’s about time travel. Ben-Hur is banned in China for spreading propaganda of superstitious beliefs, namely Christianity. Lara Croft, Tomb Raider: Cradle of Live was banned because it portrayed the Chinese government in a bad light and suggested the country was controlled by secret societies. Sometimes you just have to change a few things. In the film Iron Man 2, the words Russia and Russian were left untranslated, and sound was muffled. In the movie Bohemian Rhapsody, a minute of it was cut to eliminate drug use and men kissing other men.

China is making the rules, and American companies and organizations are capitulating. Sure, Russia can invade the Ukraine and impose unwelcome constraints upon its people. Change the course of history overnight. China doesn’t work that way. The Chinese Communist Party imposes their will on us more subtly. For now, they have restrictions on what it takes to get a film released in China. How soon will it be until all films are made to be released in China? How soon will it be until the rules of the Chinese Communist Party are the rules that we must follow here in America? 

If that’s the case, then we can look forward to being told to delete photographs from our phones, like the Finnish Olympian was when she shared photos of a water leak in her room at the Beijing Olympic Village. She shared photos of water puddles and exposed electrical equipment. Then she shared a message she got telling her to delete the photos. She shot back at the Chinese authorities that the couldn’t treat her the same as they treat Chinese citizens. Good for her. She shared not only a picture of water running out of the light fixtures in the ceiling, but also of Chinese workers cleaning up the mess. Fair and balanced sharing wasn’t enough for the Chinese government. 

Well, I think I’ve opined enough about the Chinese Communist Party over the last two weeks, but I’m seriously thinking about a recurring segment for the program about the outrageous things the Chinese government is up to. Surely, there’s plenty of material there. I’ll have to get my voice lady to record an opening for it. Did you know that all the snow at the Beijing Winter Olympics was man-made? No offense, ladies.

Ten-word Answer liner

Okay, here’s the question you’ve all been waiting for: How do you view China? You can mean the people of China, the government, the environment. Whatever. When you think of China, what do you think? Call area code 570-601-1101 and follow the prompt to leave your Ten-word answer. You only get ten words, so choose them wisely! If you want more than ten words, get your own program! That number again is 570-601-1101 for your Ten-word answer to the question: How do you view China?

Copyright 2022. The Listening Tube is written and produced by yours truly. Thank you for being a part of the Listening Tube. I’m your host, Bob Woodley. For thou ad infinitum.