One person's "cause" is another's curse

Just yesterday afternoon, Taiwan's High Court threw out a lawsuit filed by the pan-blues in an attempt to annul the March 20, 2004 presidential election. (The reaction by pan-blue supporters is still not "peaceful.") Among their various and sundry excuses for asking that the election be annulled was the referendum that was held simultaneously. The High Court said in their verdict that the Central Election Commission had done nothing illegal in holding the referendum and that "one cannot say a referendum held simultaneously with the election violated the principle of the secret ballot," giving a detailed explanation as to why. (Follow the link under "threw out" for more info.)

If it ain't one thing, it's another
Inadvertantly revealing how weak each and every one of their arguments against the validity of the election is, the pan-blues futilely pile this crap about the referendum atop their crackpot theory that the March 19, 2004 shooting of Chen Shui-bian and Annette Lu was "staged" and, therefore, the reason they lost.

Here's the content of page 10:

[LARGE HEADING:] Referendum Without a Cause

Throughout the campaign, the incumbent DPP party used divisive tactics by playing the "ethnicity card" to vilify China and alienate any individuals with relations to the Chinese Mainland. This was most notable in the strong handed way in which Chen used his executive powers to invoke an emergency clause in the newly minted Referendum Law (Article 17: When the country faces an external threat, so much so that national sovereignty may be altered, the President may, through a Cabinet resolution, put the matter of national security to a referendum) to call a referendum to be held on the day of the election. To the protests of the opposition, who felt Chen had abused his powers, and that the issues to be voted on were totally meaningless, Chen pushed ahead and used public funds to widely publicize his "Peace Referendum" and exhort his supporters to come out and create history by voting to show their patriotism.

This is just one example of many campaign tactics that have been labeled as "dirty," "immoral," and not even legal.

"Divisive tactics"
Go back to my post of March 1, 2004, and read about the "228 Hand-in-Hand Rally" promoted by Chen Shui-bian and the pan-greens, whose explicit purpose was to unite ethnic groups within Taiwan in solidarity against a common enemy. It was not against Chinese immigrants -- it was against the Chinese government, specifically because they have missiles all along the coast of China which are aimed at Taiwan. Many Chinese immigrants -- such as Hsieh Chih-wei, Ruan Ming, Chin Heng-wei, and Cao Changqing -- have accepted Taiwan as their new home and can identify with Taiwan much more strongly than Lien Chan can.

"Taiwanese identity" was indeed an issue during the runup to the election, but some people may need reminding about how the KMT government suppressed Taiwanese languages and culture for decades. The effects of that suppression still exist today. I recently found my wife's National Geography and History textbooks from when she was in junior high school. A very small percentage of each of these books covers Taiwan. The Geography textbook includes all of the PRC plus Tibet and Outer Mongolia in the territory they call "this country." These propagandistic aspects of Taiwan's education system are the vestiges of KMT rule which still affect the ability of many Taiwanese to understand their own identity. The KMT would prefer "blissful ignorance" amongst the population, but the truth pisses many people off on both sides of this issue.

Go back to my post of April 21, 2004 ("I've got your 'ethnic divisiveness' right here!") to learn more about how nonsensical this pan-blue claim is.

Ethnicity card stud
Who needs an "ethnicity card" to "vilify" the Chinese government, anyway? Just how does one "vilify" the objectively vile?

China is a foreign country that's pointing missiles at Taiwan and constantly threatening to "crush" Taiwan.

During the SARS crisis of 2003, China blocked assistance from the World Health Organization for a month and a half while hiding the effects of the disease within their own borders. They are currently considering an "anti-secession" (read: "unification") law with which to threaten Taiwan.

An IQ of 50 should be more than sufficient to see the difference between recognizing one's true enemies and "ethnic division."

Of mice and men
Is Chen Shui-bian really "strong handed"? He merely took advantage of the referendum law passed by the pan-blue dominated legislature.

What are they trying to say? "How dare he follow the law we wrote!"? Since when does that make a president "strong handed"? Are they saying that the Chinese missiles don't constitute enough of a threat to give the president the right to invoke the emergency clause? If so, what the fuck are they thinking?!

What is the meaning of this?!
If the referendum had "no meaning," as the pan-blues claim, what are they so upset about? Ah, I see! If they admit that it has meaning, theyre shooting themselves in the foot. What a conundrum, eh?

How to use public funds and power without "abusing" either
The pan-blues accuse Chen Shui-bian of "abus[ing] his power," yet their own instigation to get local governments to boycott and impede the referendum was illegal. Before the election, I received a pan-blue flyer in my mailbox which illegally discouraged voters from participating in the referendum. How's that for hypocritical?

By the way, by holding the referendum alongside the presidential election instead of separately, Chen actually saved public funds.

Look for the pan-blue label
The pan-blues would know about labels of "dirty," "immoral," and ["]not even legal["] -- these are obviously their own charges being repeated as if they were stated by someone else! This is at least the third time they've pulled this bullshit in "Bulletgate." (See Part 5 and Part 10 of this shootdown for more on this meaningless tactic.)

Oh, and Lien Chan -- the chairman of the organization that produced "Bulletgate" -- wouldn't know the meaning of "dirty" or "immoral" if they bit him on the ass, considering that he has made statements such as this: "Chen Shui-bian is a cheater president, and anyone can kill him." Does Lien sound like "presidential" material to you?

UNRELATED LINK:
* The full text of a December 10, 2004 interview of Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage by Charlie Rose on PBS, the implications of which were repeatedly distorted by media around the world by not providing the full question and answer about "Taiwan" being a "[landmine]."

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