Constitutional Federal Communism

I was thinking about China today. THe thoughts were inspired by recent stories of China blocking iTunes.

I know so very little about their manner of government. As best I know, they have a one-party ruling system. Still I wonder how much variation is tolerated in policy ideals within the party. They certainly wouldn't be as bad as during the Cultural Revolution. Of course, that doesn't say much about the state relative to Western-style democracies.

Anyway, I wondered if they have hard-line Mao followers conflicting with the more modern communists seeking out a relationship with Western businesses. In a lot of ways, this may end up with the same sorts of situations we find in U.S. two-party systems.

This thought leads to the idea of China having two (or more) Communist parties vying for power. So that two parties with different visions of communism try to convince the People of China to vote for them. However, I am so clueless on the politics of China that I don't even know if they vote for their leaders.

To get to the main point though. If the Communist party in China were to split into two groups, could the people successfully agitate for a more egalitarian form of government. Now, some of the urban Chinese have been making at least a little noise about having more autonomy as their quality of life and wealth rise. The rural Chinese have built up a fair amount of animosity though for what I've read. (sources later). If this division in party and people could be exploited, perhaps some people in China could successfully get a new social contract formed. Perhaps a system that allows for a far less centralized Communist structure, hence the title, Constitutional Federal Communism.

In theory, this would allow much more personal freedom and create a much more vigorous political culture in China. Still, this idea needs much more fleshing out and a lot more information. This idea could sound much more harebrained after research and deeper thought.

Tortured Definitions

From Andrew Sullivan:

In all the discussion of John McCain's recently recovered memory of a religious epiphany in Vietnam, one thing has been missing. The torture that was deployed against McCain emerges in all the various accounts. It involved sleep deprivation, the withholding of medical treatment, stress positions, long-time standing, and beating. Sound familiar?

According to the Bush administration's definition of torture, McCain was therefore not tortured.

I am not sure that I like this argument. It certainly has teeth but it has the same feel of the "Swift Boat" ads. Trivializing torture feels fundamentally wrong. However, Sullivan isn't so much questioning the suffering of McCain as he is pointing out the crazy situation the country has landed in.

Of course, this argument will be presented by the Right as proof of how fundamentally anti-American McCain's critics are. These same people who wore Purple Heart Band-Aids.

Really though, the best result would be for this question to spark a serious discussion. Perhaps this will help people stop and think "How did we get here?".

A thousand words?

From Balloon Juice a silly photo:

While I agree that declining to support the president for this reason is silly, it does bring up an interesting point.

The flag is correctly displayed from Bush's point of view, but tellingly he seems to have neglected to consider any other point of view.