Things are happening so fast, stuff is shooting out over the internet like kernels exploding from a popcorn popper someone forgot to cover. I've rounded up some more stuff for your amusement and edification.First, today's big news: Ma "Saruman" Ying-jeou is refiling the lawsuit against Wang Jin-pyng to get him dropped from the KMT. Note that Ma, instead of trying to look more statesmanlike than Wang, something he could do very easily since he has the advantage of actually being the President, ups the viciousness ante. This also means that he will never rest until the protest leaders are behind bars. This viciousness is also extended to the simple matter of paying for the alleged damage to the LY, where the government is trying to restrict who can pay (many people have offered to pay on the kids' behalf) and to try and make donations illegal. As many have noted, nothing happened to the Red Shirts for collecting donations. If only for the sake of those kids, we need a DPP President in 2016.
Ma took another blow when the US representative office in Taiwan, AIT, said that the TPP and the services pact are not related and failure to sign the latter won't affect the former. And all along he's been saying that Taiwan will be locked out of other agreements if it doesn't get this one.
Ben has the latest poll from the pro-KMT TVBS. The details are in his post, but basically the people tell Ma he can go pound sand.
Taiwanese songs and language in the protests from CPI blog.
William Pesek rocks Bloomberg with another hard-hitting piece noting how little Taiwan has for cozying up to China. The idea that Taiwan is doomed without the services pact is ridiculous.
International academics with an open letter on the Sunflower Movement.
J Michael contends the Sunflower Movement has sparked a necessary debate on democracy
Tkacik at Chinafile: Why the protesters stuck it out.
BBC reports on the the bamboo industry's recovery.
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9 comments:
"nothing happened to the Red Shirts for collecting donations"
I can already imagine some idiot claiming this was an example of the lawless state Taiwan was in thanks to Chen. Ma is just enforcing the law right?
Turton wrote: "This also means that he will never rest until the protest leaders are behind bars."
You betcha! Last night immediately after the students evacuated from the Legislative Chamber (LC), the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB, 刑事局) rushed in to seal and bar entries of the LC, collect fingerprints and bag "evidences", treating the LC as a crime scene ...just an appetizer for what's coming.
On April 1, 2014, when meeting with former AIT chairman Richard Bush, Ma Ying-Jeou said that the Sunflower student leaders would be dealt with for their "crime of forcibly occupying public properties", which in Ma's original wording in Mandarin was "強占公署罪."
"強占公署罪" is a "crime" based on "The Act for the Control and Punishment of Banditry (懲治盜匪條例)".
1. The "crime", if convicted, carries a mandatory death sentence, no leniency ("唯一死刑", as it stood in the book).
2. Fortunately for the students, the Act (懲治盜匪條例) was a relic of the martial law era and was abolished 22 years ago, in 1992.
It is telling that Ma, who carries a PhD in law study and had been minister of justice in the past, would cite an abolished law to threaten the students.
It is even more telling that Ma was readying a lethal legal tool for the student leaders (Though, he got rebutted by legal experts the next day with the note that the lethal legal tool was destroyed 22 years ago.)
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(A) See the following link for the report on the Bush-Ma meeting, note the last paragraph:
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2014/04/02/2003587095
(B) The following report (in Chinese) provides Ma's original wording of "強占公署罪":
http://news.ltn.com.tw/news/politics/breakingnews/980419
How long before the protests reduce the demands to just one, that Matong step down?
The next step should be student strikes and general strikes. The schools can threaten all they want, but the last thing they want is a statistical reduction in their graduation rates, enrollment or GPA-- the numbers that really matter to the schools.
Walk outs and strikes could force quicker and more sincere action.
Let's be fair, the protesters did break the law by occupying the legislative. Yes, KMT protesters have done far worse and got away with it. But two wrongs don't make a right.
That said I think that jail time is extremely excessive. I would also suggest it may not even be in the public interest to prosecute in this case, especially since the students left peacefully and have offered to pay for the damage.
If the government tries to get the protesters jailed, it will only help their cause and damage the government. I don't want them thrown in jail, but it's amazing that Ma & co don't understand how counter-productive even bringing them to trial would be.
Thanks SY, insightful comment.
Yep Les, I see this coming too. Ma's approval has to be close to ZERO.
Even the deep bluetards hate the guy.
I'm still waiting for Ma to say that Chen Shui-bian was the mastermind behind all this. We are, after all, coming into elections
"Let's be fair, the protesters did break the law by occupying the legislative... But two wrongs don't make a right."
Morality is ontologically prior to legislation, so the ipso facto claim that it is wrong to break a given law just because it is a law must be dismissed.
Michael,
i like very much how you always point out how vicious and vengeful Ma is.
i always think that such weak and miserable people not only fail in their professional lives - neither do they deliver in their relationships for the very same reasons.
his wife is probably an unfulfilled and sad woman, his daughters might miss a father figure
loser all the way
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