工商法

At the Zenith, our Dead Dreams Awake

Rhodo Zeb — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 13:46:31 +0000

Good riddence to bad rubbish. A rotten end to a rotten year. The weather has been cold and rainy in Shanghai, rainy as it has been all year. And damn chilly.

Crates of secrets, pilling up by the day, trials and allegations notwithstanding. Cao. Leaders talking tough but reforming nothing. Torture on the menu across the board, more legitimized then ever.

Then again, torture has always been on the menu. Its just that we used to limit it to Latin and South America.

Funny how these things spread. One could write a book, so to speak.

That’s really about it. Hope 2010 will be better.

But Tyler Cowen says last year was a banner year for rule of law, so let’s analyze the next Tyler Cowen piece for additional clues to this trending issue. So that’s something.

Losing Ground – No Words

Rhodo Zeb — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 05:52:46 +0000

Well, I sort of missed out on the whole sum-up post to close out 09. It was an interesting year, that’s for sure.

What 2009 should be most remembered for, however, is quite simple: it was the year where the rule of law regressed and became more decadent and dishonest than ever before. And if you know anything about the history of for-profit incarceration (well, not to mention war) you may realize the serious fault-lines between public justice and private profit. At the most basic level, everyone knows there are people that can ‘lose your file’; the problem is how to build a system with lasting integrity.

2009 was a year where the crimes of the Bush Administration were swept under the rug, where Gonzo got screwed but torture-lover Yoo just went back to Berkeley to teach Admin law. Where we shouldn’t be ‘backward-looking’ much like the crooked cop doesn’t look back while his business partners are doing their work.

Millions of dollars got funneled around, millions in no bid contracts, millions lost and stolen and ‘mis-appropriated’. And somehow the ‘legal community’ is still back wrestling with the issue of criminal immunity for these contractors. Since when was the flexible, organic system I learned about in law school so incapable of calling a halt to honoring these mandatory arbitration clauses? Since when did a private contract trump criminal law?

We have to go back in the story, at least until Enron, to see how things have gone. There, massive fraud was carried out upon the government and individuals, and nothing was done about it. Couple people went to jail, and all those workers lost out on their pensions while shareholders got screwed, too.

Then of course we had our illegal president, whose people walked roughshod over legal principals and rule of law in favor of their plenary power concepts and fancy arguments. Unfortunately, they also had a good part of the judiciary as well, in the form of the Federalist Society, so there was little pushback…

Which concepts, of course, they abandoned the second they lost the executive branch, which is why usually we shouldn’t end up in this position unless we have a corroded system, because both parties are supposed to understand that they risk future abuse at the hands of the other party through the granting of such extraordinary power. Duh. Its not rocket science, some would even (irrationally, I might add) argue that such an outcome is impossible because it is too irrational, but anyway here we are.

The excessive abuses of the Bush Administration, while some may refrain from calling crimes, must be investigated fully, or Rule of Law will have been dealt a mortal blow by its most vocal supporter for decades.

How can US and international law be ignored, sneered at in fact, with no response?

Only a dead thing behaves this way…

In Death You Sing

Rhodo Zeb — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 16:39:59 +0000

The forces of tyranny simply do not understand. They will always overstep their bounds, again and again, until they destroy themselves. Such is the nature of their need for control, it must escalate until it consumes itself.

Ahmadinejad has lost his legitimacy, and the current leadership must bear the responsibility for these crimes as well, and so have effectively gutted their moral authority. These leaders will fall within a period of time, perhaps 18 months as a safe outer limit.

However the Iranian system of government need not, and may well not, be destroyed at the same time. The popular complaints that are leading people into the streets (and have been, now, for about half a year) do not seem to be religious in nature, and the tacit support of the mullahs will wane as the abuses of the power structure become myriad and well-known.

There are people, professional, serious people who are in the business of predicting the fall of foreign political systems, and they are wrong 99% of the time, and most of the stuff that comes out of their mouths is complete drivel. Even the popular protests we have seen in Iran do not mean the social structure will change enormously. Indeed, probably the normal way forward for a culture would be incremental change rather than upheaval, and that could still be possible.

The recent progress in Iran should be seen for what it is: a crumbling structure that has glommed onto the legitimate social system and is desperately trying to survive.

I actually conceived of this post and title when I read of one young man who was killed prior to the fighting in which 8 people were killed by security forces. The news report of this earlier incident mentioned that he was the son of a mullah of some seniority. And I thought that would be a good example of a margin analysis. Here, at least, is one family who can’t ignore the abuses of the government any longer.

You can see the character of an organization when they are under siege. What happened from the very beginning of the troubles? As soon as they started arresting people, there were reports of torture and brutality. The Basij seem to be almost uncontrolled in their abuses.

First Neda. Now this nameless boy is forgotten to time, subsumed within the better-connected young man killed a day or so later. How much farther can you soldier on, having committed so many crimes. When will the crimes rise to the level of past regimes?

Back then I wrote:

What I noticed as I dug into the Iranian situation was how many from within the power structure had already been arrested, even prior to the election. Every article mentioned a cleric or former high government official as being arrested or otherwise marginalized. Might I suggest this is not a pleasant environment?

Oh, did you think I was concerned about the lack of legal protections for the people in the streets? No, no, the real problem is that there are no legal restrictions preventing the government from arresting anyone they want, including former Prime Ministers and the like, their children, and pretty much anyone else they want. That is a real problem, and leads to a very unstable system.

No independent legal structure at all leads, inevitably, to the brutality we have at present. The pressure continues to mount. Can they just put everyone into jail and be done with it?

[Update] The Curv is on the case while The Man is slacking. Typical:

A US doctor and a development consultant visited Iran in May to study a primary healthcare system that has cut infant mortality by more than two-thirds since the Islamic revolution in 1979.

Then, in October, five top Iranian doctors, including a senior official at the health ministry in Tehran, were quietly brought to Mississippi to advise on how the system could be implemented there.

Its a system which is, in many ways, working. Even though a strong case could be made for total organizational failure within the mullahocracy, I doubt that Iranians feel that strongly.

The upheavals at present are going to make many predict massive change, and they will be wrong.

[Updated Update]

And the baritone Professorship comes in from the wings:

Nearly 90 professors at Tehran University have told Iran’s supreme leader that ongoing violence against protesters shows the weakness of the country’s leadership, a pro-reform Web site reported Monday, reflecting a growing willingness to risk careers and studies to challenge the ruling clerics.
…
The letter signed by the 88 instructors was issued as university students around Iran staged acts of defiance — including hunger strikes and exam boycotts — to protest reported arrests and intimidation by hard-line forces, according to witnesses and reformist Web sites.
…
The letter by the Tehran University professors — posted on the Greenroad Web site — called the attacks on opposition protesters a sign of weakness in the ruling system. It also urged Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to order arrests over the hard-line crackdown, which intensified after protesters began chanting slogans against the supreme leader.

Ergo Space Pig

Rhodo Zeb — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 10:51:56 +0000

Shanghai can be fun sometimes.

Recently I was on the subway at a very light time of the day. Nearby were two tourists or business-folk, Shandong perhaps, with a nice, clean Northern accent. Not far away, in different directions, were two young men, each on their mobiles.

Of course, being Shanghai, both of these young guys were talking loudly into their phones. That’s almost a given.

I like to listen to the accents I hear outside, so I listened to each of them for a bit.

One was speaking his local language, but it was a somewhat recognizable dialect. It was probably not related to Shanghai language at all, but it was within the gambit of the language amalgamation that exists within the center city, that you might come across in some transaction or other. He could have been understandable, if it were necessary, without a doubt, although to say he could speak Mandarin or Shanghaihua proper was unclear. I probably could have a one in four chance of guessing the general area he was from (Subei and Anhui, of course, then Henan and Jiangxi I suppose).

The other guy was speaking something that sounded like it came from the top of a mountain. Nothing he said was the least bit recognizable. It was not Mandarin nor anything else 99% of people in China could understand.

And the one Northerner turned to the other and said, ‘Wow, these Shanghai people sure talk funny, don’t they?’

Buddy, you have no idea.

I’m a Flash, I’m a Fake

Rhodo Zeb — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 05:36:53 +0000

I was asked by Dan Harris through email to remove a comment on the most recent CDE post, informing me that it was spoofed.

This makes me wonder whether the original email supposedly from CDE to me was spoofed as well. For this reason, I think the CDE bashing is about over. Anyone who does any due diligence will find enough to concern them. I am assuming organizations like the US Chamber of Commerce have cut ties with this guy already.

Any more emails sent to me purporting to be from CDE or his minions will certainly not be posted here. Its become tedious.

On Any Human Sanitation Day

Rhodo Zeb — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 19:15:55 +0000

Your Web Content

From:
“Chris Devonshire Ellis”
To:
“rhodozeb@yahoo.com”
Cc:
“Andy Scott” (andy.scott@china-briefing.com), “Richard Hoffmann” (richard.Hoffmann@dezshira.com)

Dear Mr. Zeb;

I have noticed your comment on your website here:

http://www.gongshangfa.com/2009/03/20/chris-devonshire-ellis-fake-lawyer-fake-quitter-just-fake/http://www.gongshangfa.com/2009/03/20/chris-devonshire-ellis-fake-lawyer-fake-quitter-just-fake/

I would like to point out to you that the story you have run is inaccurate, was not clarified concerning content by you with me, and is libelous. Accordingly, I request that you kindly remove the content in its entirety. I regret that failure to do so within the next seven days will result in me taking the matter further, including with the following organizations:

Legal Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce in China ;

Your pertinent bar association in the United States ;

Legal action for redress and financial compensation for damages as may be necessary, either in Shanghai or in the United States .

I have deployed a US based specialist internet abuse legal team in New York to track down the protagonists of the online campaign against me and to seek prosecution and closure of offending sites. This includes your commentary. I trust it will not be necessary for me to involve them in this matter and that we can put the issue behind us as a matter of enthusiastic, yet ill informed gossip. Your cooperation in removing your content would be appreciated.

Yours sincerely;

Chris Devonshire-Ellis

Founding Partner

Dezan Shira & Associates

I love it. “US based specialist internet abuse legal team”?? How many pints do you need to have in you before you write that? Let me see:

US-based, specialist, internet-abuse legal team? No.

US based specialist internet-abuse legal-team? No.

It just doesn’t scan. The gift that keeps on giving, this one. I bet he has put the New York Law Firm on retainer to handle this matter and close offending sites.

Anyway, this was sent five days ago. My posts on this fraud are staying up.

The CCP seeks total control of the Internet

FOARP — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 05:10:43 +0000

[Cross posted at FOARP]

Such is my conclusion after reading China Digital Times’ translation of notes taken at a SCIO (State Council Information Office) training session attended by Peng Bo , Deputy Chief of the State Council Information Office Internet Affairs Bureau. Let’s do a run down:

1) Government-driven discrimination against foreign companies out of fear of foreign influence -

Commercial websites must understand that it is the government that protects the development of domestic websites. If the Chinese internet didn’t have Xinlang, then Yahoo would have free rein; if there was no Baidu, then Google would have free rein; if there was no QQ, then MSN would have free rein. All of this is because the government is intentionally fostering domestic enterprises.

2) Attempts by the Chinese government to censor and control the effect of Obama’s visit -

Criticize Sina for not thinking politically; when reporting on Obama’s visit to China, they played without authorization a video of Obama speaking in Shanghai.

The most important part of Obama’s visit to China was his speech in Shanghai. The format of this speech was different than the speech format used by past U.S. presidents when visiting China. It was specially designed by the U.S. government to enlarge Obama’s personal influence.

Before Obama visited China, America and China negotiated that websites and television stations would broadcast the event. China accepted their request; however, live television coverage was to be limited to Shanghai area television stations.

These measures were implemented to accord with the central government’s desire that people become enthused about China-U.S. relations rather than be enthused about Obama.

Providing a video of Obama’s speech without authorization was done for Sina’s commercial interest and was not done for the nation’s interest. In order to gain a little, a lot was lost.

3) Government censorship of overseas news reports felt not to be ‘correct’ (i.e., not negative) -

Criticize Netease for going after sensational stories and not doing a good job of directing public opinion. [Neatease's] international news headlines are always things like “New York Mayor Bloomberg Receives Annual Salary of $1”, “Black American Becomes Mayor”, “American Youth Becomes Mayor”. These headlines are sensationalist and cast aspersions [on the Chinese government]. [Netease] has set the wrong direction for public opinion and has not properly fulfilled its role as a guide [of public opinion]

Note the fact that positive foreign news is felt to be critical of the Chinese government. This was reinforced by Li Wufeng, Bureau Chief of the State Council Information Office Internet Affairs Bureau, in his talk at the same training session:

2. Currently, the online republishing of news stories has the following major problems:

2.1 Republishing articles from small papers and publications, even republishing articles from the foreign press.

2.2 The online news phenomenon of “news laundering” [i.e., getting a domestic publication to print news from a banned source and then quoting it] is still serious. Sometimes standard news sources do not even carry the story [that the republishing source claimed the standard news source published].

2.3 Intentionally posting unpermitted content on interactive interfaces (forums, blogs).

2.4 Small newspapers and websites republish each others’ stories, creating media hype. For example, the Deng Yujiao [official killed by waitress defending herself against rape] incident and the Hangzhou street race [well connected young man uses influence to escape serious charges related to hit-and-run killing] case.

Assuming these notes accurately reflect what was said at the training session, this is pure dynamite. It shows that the government’s influencing, censorship and ‘net nannying’ of the Chinese internet is pervasive, and driven by a paranoid view of the media, both foreign and domestic. I ‘m looking forward to reading the translated notes from the other official’s talks.