Bevin Chu
October 14, 2004
Perennial China-basher Richard Gere is at it again. According to an October 5, 2004 Washington Times news article appropriately titled, "Stop Making Sense":
Richard Gere, actor and self-appointed ambassador to the East, weighed in on a burning question in Taiwan: Did the island's leader fake an assassination attempt to win sympathy votes? In an interview airing yesterday, Mr. Gere told Taiwan's TVBS news that he didn't believe President Chen Shui-bian staged the shooting that grazed his stomach during a campaign parade March 19 -- just one day before [election day]. "What I thought was kind of bizarre was that the opposition assumed that he had set it up, in some way had himself shot," Mr. Gere said, shaking his head with a slight laugh. "That doesn't sound right."
Richard Gere's spin control is hard to miss. He's callously attempting to discredit Taiwan's Pan Blue opposition by depicting them as lunatic fringe conspiracy theorists. It won't wash. Hard-working, level-headed, middle and upper middle-class Pan Blue supporters arrived at their conclusions about the March 19 shooting incident the same way as American forensics expert Henry Lee and British forensics expert Steven Vickers. They used their common sense.
When forensic experts struggle to make sense of physical evidence, they cannot avoid considering human motivation. As world famous forensics expert Dr. Henry Lee explained in an interview with Katherine Ramsland of Court TV's "Crime Library: Criminal Minds and Methods":
"I started my career as a police officer and investigator, and then I became a biochemist. The major area for me is putting the case together, how to reconstruct a crime. Laboratory tests are mostly mechanical; you follow the procedure, you get the result. But how you interpret that result becomes crucial. You have to fit it into the whole case scenario. "
How does one interpret Lee's reconstruction of the March 19 shooting incident, and how does one fit it into the whole case scenario?
Put simply, Chen's shooting hoax was a classic Chinese "ku rou ji," literally "bitter flesh strategy," in which an individual deliberately inflicts harm upon himself in order to cast his enemy as evil incarnate.
Chinese originated the term "ku rou ji," but they are certainly not the only people to practice it. We haven't forgotten Bill Clinton's "Wag the Dog" Balkans campaign, have we? As political scientist Michael Parenti noted:
"The Serbs were blamed for the infamous Sarajevo market massacre. But according to the report leaked out on French TV, Western intelligence knew that it was Muslim operatives who had bombed Bosnian civilians in the marketplace in order to induce NATO involvement. Even international negotiator David Owen, who worked with Cyrus Vance, admitted in his memoir that the NATO powers knew all along that it was a Muslim bomb."
What is really "kind of bizzare" is not universal skepticism about the March 19 shooting incident, but Richard Gere's sudden transformation into sob sister Mary Sunshine of the hit musical "Chicago." What really "doesn't sound right" is Gere's sudden attack of acute, possibly terminal, disingenuousness.
See:
Taiwan's Stolen Election Part IV, The Truth Behind Bulletgate
Richard Gere is Billy Flynn, Chen Shui-Bian is Roxie Hart
The movie poster for "Chicago" informs us that "RICHARD GERE is BILLY FLYNN."
The movie poster for "Chicago" further advises us that "IF YOU CAN'T BE FAMOUS, BE INFAMOUS."
Guess what? The movie poster is right, on both counts. Richard Gere is indeed Billy Flynn, and if you can't be famous, you might as well be infamous. In a classic case of life imitating art, the famous Richard Gere is demonstrating to the world that he really and truly is the infamous Billy Flynn.
Richard Gere is Billy Flynn
Chen Shui-bian is Roxie Hart
The lawless Chen regime has recruited Richard Gere to do for Chen what Johnny Cochran did for O.J. Simpson, and what Billy Flynn did for Roxie Hart -- "razzle dazzle 'em." Billy Flynn conned a Chicago jury into believing that murderess Roxie Hart and her murder victim "both reached for the gun." Richard Gere wants to con Republic of China voters into believing that Chen Shui-bian's laughably amateurish Wag the Dog "assassination attempt" is
"Understandable, understandable, yes it's perfectly understandable"
and that Chen's obviously self-incriminating behavior in the six months following his staged shooting hoax is:
"Comprehensible, comprehensible, not a bit reprehensible, it's so defensible!"
And why not? After all, as the tagline from "Chicago" reminds us:
"With the right song and dance, you can get away with murder."
Billy Flynn/Richard Gere to Roxie Hart/Chen Shui-bian: "With the right song and dance, you can get away with murder... I don't mean to toot my own horn, but if Jesus Christ lived in Chicago today, and he had come to me and he had five thousand dollars, let's just say things would have turned out differently."
Richard Gere/Billy Flynn's cynical song and dance number "Give 'Em the Old Razzle Dazzle," when applied to Chen's shooting hoax and election fraud, rings with remarkable, unexpected truth.
BILLY FLYNN
Roxie, you got nothing to worry about. It's all a circus, kid. A three ring circus. These trials, the whole world, all show business. But kid, you're working with a star, the biggest!
(singing)
Give 'em the old razzle dazzle, razzle dazzle 'em
Give 'em an act with lots of flash in it,
and the reaction will be passionate
Give 'em the old hocus pocus, bead and feather 'em
How can they see with sequins in their eyes?
What if your hinges all are rusting?
What if in fact you're just disgusting?
Razzle dazzle 'em, and they'll never catch wise!
Give 'em the old razzle dazzle, razzle dazzle 'em
Give 'em a show that's so splendiferous,
row after row will crow vociferous
Give 'em the old flim flam flummox, fool and fracture 'em
How can they hear the truth above the roar?
Throw 'em a fake and a finagle,
they'll never know you're just a bagel
Razzle dazzle 'em, and they'll beg you for more!
Give 'em the old double whammy, daze and dizzy 'em
Back since the days of old Methuselah,
everyone loves the big bamboozler
Give 'em the old three ring circus, stun and stagger 'em
When you're in trouble, go into your dance
Though you are stiffer than a girder,
they'll let you get away with murder
Razzle dazzle 'em, and you've got a romance
Give 'em the old razzle dazzle, razzle dazzle 'em
Show 'em the first rate sorceror that you are
Long as you keep 'em way off balance,
how can they spot you've got no talent
Razzle Dazzle 'em
Razzle Dazzle 'em
Razzle Dazzle 'em
And they'll make you a star!
Richard Gere/Billy Flynn - Bringing Happiness and Kindness to Other People
"Well you know certainly my studies in Buddhism have made my understanding of emotions much deeper, much more precise. I think a little bit of wisdom has come... Does it make you a better person, yes... anyone who takes their practice seriously cares less about career and more about what kind of happiness and kindness they can bring to other people, which is the most important thing.
-- Richard Gere to World Tibet Network News, March 14, 1999
Or, as Billy Flynn shouted from the rooftops, "All I care about is love!"
Richard Gere/Billy Flynn: "All I care about is love!"
BILLY FLYNN
(singing)
I don't care about expensive things,
cashmere coats, or diamond rings
Don't mean a thing
All I care about is love
That's what I'm here for
I don't care for wearin' silk cravats,
ruby studs, satin spats
Don't mean a thing
All I care about is love
All he cares about is love
Give me two eyes of blue,
softly saying "I need you"
Let me see her standin' there
and honest, mister, I'm a millionaire
I don't care for any fine attire
Vanderbilt might admire
No, no, not me
All I care about is love
All he cares about is love
All he cares about is love
Show me long raven hair
flowin' down, about to there
When I 've seen
her runnin' free
Keep your money,
that's enough for me
I don't care for drivin' Packard cars
or smoking long buck cigars
No, no, not me
All I care about is
doin' the guy in
who's pickin' on you,
twistin' the wrist
that's turnin' the screw
All I care about is love!
Citizens of the Republic of China want to thank Richard Gere/Billy Flynn. They are mightily reassured knowing that for Richard Gere, "what kind of happiness and kindness [he] can bring to other people is the most important thing," and that for Billy Flynn, "All I care about is doin' the guy in who's pickin' on you, twistin' the wrist that's turnin' the screw. All I care about is love!"
Richard Gere/Billy Flynn - Reversing the Roles of Victims and Victimizers
"So the U.S. major media and much of the minor media are not free and independent, as they claim, they are not the watchdog of democracy but the lapdog of the national security state. They help reverse the roles of victims and victimizers, warmongers and peacekeepers, reactionaries and reformers. The first atrocity, the first war crime committed in any war of aggression by the aggressors is against the truth."
-- Michael Parenti, political scientist
What Michael Parenti said about the US major media applies to the motion picture industry as well, to Hollywood celebrities with political axes to grind.
On election day, March 20, 2004, TVBS, the same cable television network that interviewed Gere, in conjunction with Mitofsky International, the internationally-respected American polling organization, conducted an historic first ever exit poll on Taiwan. The TVBS/Mitofsky International Exit Poll confirmed the nearly unanimous projections of local Taiwan polling organizations.
Chen Shui-bian lost to Lien Chan, 47% to 53%, by a 6% margin.
How trustworthy is the TVBS/Mitofsky Exit Poll? David W. Moore, managing editor of the rival Gallup Poll, testifies in his book "The Super Pollsters" that "[Warren Mitofsky's] caution in projecting winners is a Mitofsky trademark, one which has served him well."
Over the years Warren Mitofsky has conducted 3,000 exit polls. He has been wrong only six times. Are the 53% majority of Republic of China voters who voted for Lien/Soong supposed to believe that on March 20, 2004 Mitofsky was wrong for the seventh time, and that he was off by 6%?
[Update: It turns out Mitofsky Exit Polls have never been wrong. The six times Mitofsky was wrong, were live votes, not exit polls. Hardly the same thing.]
You would never know it listening to Richard Gere/Billy Flynn, but two facts are clear.
One: Lien Chan is legally the president of the Republic of China.
Two: Chen Shui-bian is a former president who insists on maintaining the pretense that he was re-elected to a second term, and who is illegally refusing to vacate the Presidential Palace.
Richard Gere/Billy Flynn: "I didn't ask you if she's guilty. I didn't ask if she's innocent. I didn't ask you if she's a drunk, or a doper. No! All I said was, do you have five thousand dollars?"
According to an October 8, 2004 Agence France-Presse news article, "Gere Caught in Center of Political Spat":
The actor has been asked by the government to attend December's Golden Horse movie festival. But the plan has angered opposition parties who say the "Pretty Woman" star would give the government an unfair advantage ahead of parliamentary elections. An aide to Government Information Office (GIO) head Lin Chia-lung, the official who invited Gere, said it was not clear if he would come but "if he is busy at that moment, he is welcome to visit Taiwan any other time." However Hung Hsiu-chu, a parliamentarian from the Kuomintang, said it was "not proper for (Gere) to come in December as the parliamentary election approaches." She said the Democratic Progressive Party government could "use Gere to boost their profile in the campaigning as he has a lot of fans here." Hung said that Gere "was a good actor but not familiar with Taiwan's politics."
Hung, an eloquent and fiery Pan Blue spokesperson not known for mincing her words, was being exceedingly courteous to a foreign guest clearly abusing his celebrity status. Hung would have been well within her rights to blast Gere for attempting to undermine another nation's electoral process.
In case it isn't abundantly obvious by now, Richard Gere/Billy Flynn's real motive for interjecting himself into Chen's Wag the Dog "assassination attempt" has little to do with championing democracy, and everything to do with demonizing China.
Anyone who abets China's Balkanization by neocolonialist, neo-imperialist forces, Richard Gere/Billy Flynn extolls as a champion of democracy, including an unelected feudal "God-King" named Tenzing Gyatso, and a Made in Taiwan Hitler knock-off named Chen Shui-bian.
Anyone who resists China's Balkanization on the other hand, Richard Gere/Billy Flynn belittles as an enemy of democracy, even the hapless, disenfranchised democratic majority on Taiwan, whose candidate Lien Chan actually won the 2004 presidential election, but who were cheated out an electoral victory they won fair and square.
Rather than right the historic wrongs inflicted by the US government upon aboriginal peoples at home within America's own borders, Richard Gere and other wealthy Hollywood liberals seek absolution on the cheap. They project their liberal guilt as far as possible from home, to the opposite side of the planet, onto a foreign nation, a non-white nation, onto the ever convenient Chinese whipping boy.
Rather than demand that the US government restore the political independence of American Indian tribes, the Kingdom of Hawaii, Alaskan Natives, and retrocede vast territories annexed by naked force from Mexico, Richard Gere and other wealthy Hollywood liberals demand that China, impoverished by a century and a half of struggle against western and Japanese colonial predation, whose geographical boundaries reflect conquest by others rather than conquest of others, meekly submit to demands that it implode like the former Yugoslavia.
At the 53rd Berlin Film Festival Richard Gere told reporters "The Bush administration's plans for war are a bizarre bad dream... I have a feeling that something hidden is at work here that will someday see the light of day... so it's absurd for Bush to say that it's all in the best interest of the Iraqi people."
Richard Gere's observations about Bush were dead on the mark. Gere's observations however, apply equally to Bush puppet Chen Shui-bian and to Gere himself. Chen's plans for a War of Taiwan Independence by 2008 and Bush's promise to "do whatever it took" to back Chen's warmongering are a bizarre bad dream. Behind Chen's rigged "re-election" something hidden is at work that will someday see the light of day. It's absurd for Gere to say that sweeping the damning evidence of Chen's shooting hoax and election fraud under the rug is all in the best interest of the Chinese people on Taiwan.
See:
Hollywood's Tibet
Andrew O'Hehir's scathing review of "Red Corner"
Toward a doctrine of American Indian independence, Indian Country Today, July 21, 2003
The Overthrow of the Monarchy, by Pat Pitzer, Spirit of Aloha, May 1994, the in-flight magazine of Aloha Airlines
PBS, American Experience, Ulysses S. Grant, People and Events, The Mexican American War, 1846-1848
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