* Lie
* Cheat
* Steal
* Kill

Recent history
Friday evening, fellow pro-Taiwan democracy blogger Michael Turton wrote about how someone had hijacked his identity and dishonestly added his name to a list of "signatures" allegedly showing support for a group of so-called "pan-green academics" who gave a press conference last Saturday afternoon asking Taiwan's president Chen Shui-bian to "seriously consider stepping down" because of a supposed "moral crisis."

I immediately doubted whether this group was pan-green at all, especially when the totally unobjective media present at their press conference seemed to provide the applause for their own microphones to record. (I heard it myself as I saw the press conference being broadcast live on TV.) At about the same time, anonymous comments similar to this one began appearing on Michael's blog urging him to "support democracy" by signing the petition at twcivilsociety.org.

Soon thereafter, Michael's name (in Chinese) appeared on the list -- twice. Somebody with a non-democratic agenda had put it there without his consent.

An amazing coincidence?
Less than two weeks ago, a similar thing happened to me. Without my consent, my commentary from another blog fraudulently appeared on the blog of one Bevin Chu, the son of a late KMT diplomat and unabashed democracy-hater. When I submitted a real comment pointing out that I hadn't posted the first one bearing my name, I was ignored.

After I sent Chu one more comment (displayed in full in my earlier post), he responded by shutting down the public comments on his blog entirely while currently only allowing "team members" to continue posting comments.

Despite his blog's comments supposedly being "moderated" (at that time) and the fact that he chose to ignore my real comments completely, he made the excuse that he didn't have the time to deal with "Taiwan independence trollers, on a one to one basis" [sic]. Since I could no longer submit comments or even send him an e-mail, I posted all the info on my blog for the world to see.

Chu obviously had no trouble "allowing" that one fake comment, because he used it as a "straw man" to attack me for something in which I had no part. What kind of person would do something like that? Well, Bevin Chu and whoever unscrupulously posted a comment in my name on his blog, that's who.

A lie told one million times is still a lie
or...
The more he says it, the less I believe it
In an even more recent post, Chu tells us a whopping 18 times that the people petitioning President Chen to step down are "Deep Green academics." 18 times -- in a post where Chu calls Chen their "Fuhrer"!

Both Mao Zedong and Joseph Goebbels would have been proud.

You decide
What makes some of these people "green"? Some are members of the DPP's "New Tide" faction. Some were involved in the Formosa Incident of 1979. But to call some of those people "green" is like calling Sisy Chen, Hsu Hsin-liang, or Cheng Li-wen (all former DPP members) "green." Their own actions paint them otherwise.

As deep blue as some of the aforementioned figures are, it's hard to believe there were ever "green" to begin with.

If these academics and their plan were truly of a "Deep Green" nature, why would the pan-blue media applaud them so loudly? Why would such "Deep Greens" be "dancing to pro-Blue tunes", as Michael says? Why would anonymous opponents of pro-Taiwan democracy bloggers support these academics? Why would these supposed guardians of "morals" hijack our identities and try to make us appear to "support" causes which we do NOT?

More importantly, why are they obsessed with asking Chen Shui-bian and the DPP to uphold "high moral standards"? They would do better to start by asking such things of these people instead:



2'24" YouTube video: "Out of control"
Click "Play" at lower left to load the video here.
Click on the screen to open the video in a new browser window.
(It's loud. I suggest lowering the volume and hitting "Pause"
until the video loads fully.)

Somebody get these guys a mirror
Chi Wan-sheng is one of the academics involved in the 1979 Formosa Incident who went on the run when the others were arrested. He called in to the TVBS show 2100 on the night of July 17, 2006 alleging that President Chen's son-in-law Chao Chien-ming had illegally obtained 10,000 shares of stock in Waterland Holdings Company. Chi said in his call that he would produce the evidence the next day.

Can you guess what happened?

I thought that you could. No evidence was produced. It "wasn't the right time," he said, because this would divide the public's attention.

An opinion piece in Thursday's Liberty Times criticizes the media's behavior surrounding Chi's claim. Instead of asking the prosecutors' office, someone at the stock exchange, or Chi himself to provide the actual evidence, reporters did what lazy reporters usually do -- they went to truck-riding KMT legislator and habitual liar Chiu Yi for his thoughts instead. Chiu, you should note, was judged [CORRECTION] indicted by the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office to be the loser Friday in 4 out of 7 cases about damaging the reputations of other political figures, one doctor, and 3 people employed in the media. (In the other 3 cases, no judgment of guilt was determined.)

These people who make accusations without evidence, who hijack the identity of others and distort their positions, and call for revolution when their party loses a democratic election -- these people are worried about the "morals" of others? Give me a fucking break!

For what it's worth...
Johnny Neihu (who fell out of favor recently with me because of some idiocy about saying "So what?" to the opposition's libel) attempts to redeem himself (slightly) today. He tells us about several other obviously fake "signatories" to the aforementioned petition [Emphasis in original]:

No wonder, then, that their online petition asking Chen to fall on his sword received support from Chen himself, as well as first lady Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍); Annette Lu; former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝); US President George W. Bush; the very dead Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙) and Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石); and the unholy trilogy of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), former KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜). Oh, and Chen Shui-bian's dear old mother, too.

Hey guys, I know it's summer and getting pretty hot out there, but couldn't you have shed the egghead stereotype and hauled your lazy asses from your air-conditioned offices and out onto the street to collect signatures and addresses from real people?

Johnny veers off the path again with a screed that's full of innuendo before finally showing a bit more sense with these remarks:

Anyone who thinks a president should resign when he has committed no crime and is fulfilling whatever tasks are left after a hostile legislature has had its way is a sworn political enemy, a dunce, or both.

[...]

Finally, dear reader, remember this: the Great Jogger Ma Ying-jeou himself has welcomed the idea of an interim Lu presidency.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

You see? Those guys are so "green," KMT chairman Ma Ying-jeou wants the very same thing.

Don't miss the part of the above article where Johnny, echoing what I said in my earlier post about Bevin Chu, reminds people that Internet polling does not equal democracy. Despite his recent failings, I can't help but like that part. Still, he needs to get back on the ball.

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A broad spectrum of moral standards: Taiwan, Taiwanese identity, democracy, Chen Shui-bian, Chao Chien-ming, Kuomintang, KMT, Ma Ying-jeou, Bevin Chu, Chiu Yi, libel, pan-blues, Taiwan Independence, Taidu, Johnny Neihu, Michael Turton