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60 Years After Revolution, Mao's Popularity Surges in China
Fox News ^ | Dana Lewis | Monday, October 05, 2009

Posted on 10/05/2009 3:40:44 PM PDT by nickcarraway

It was once Chairman Mao Zedong's very famous, very wide family limousine. Oddly enough, the car is now owned by American Laurence Brahm — lawyer, author, and collector of all things related to Mao.

"It's not easy to brake history and it's not easy to brake a Red Flag limousine either," Brahm jokes as he navigates the rusty car through a narrow Beijing street.

Mao, the leader of China from the Chinese Revolutoon in 1949 until his death in 1976, has made a comeback in recent years. And it's not only in Laurence Brahm's trendy Beijing restaurant, the Red Capital Club.

Ironically, Mao — who railed against capitalism — is now so popular that he has become a source of immense capital income across China. Mao's face is ever-present among souvenir vendors; he's on T-shirts, matches, even a revolutionary Mao alarm clock. And now, he's on the big screen.

Click here for video.

Mao's status as the founder of modern day China is celebrated in a new state-sponsored film starring 200 of the country's biggest actors. In the film, Mao is depicted as the caring father of the nation, a leader who loves his soldiers and citizens. The filmmakers make few references to Mao's brutality, glossing over policies and political purges that resulted in the deaths of 40 to 70 million of his people.

"I think every culture, every people wants to have an icon and a hero. And very often they're kind of you know, the dirt of history gets covered over by the romanticism of an era," Brahm told FOX News.

And Mao has certainly taken on the role of icon with many in subsequent generations — the former leader's literature remains widely popular 60 years after his ascension to power.

(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Political Humor/Cartoons
KEYWORDS: anniversary; china; communism; mao; maozedong; redchina
War can only be abolished through war, and in order to get rid of the gun it is necessary to take up the gun.
Mao Zedong

Every Communist must grasp the truth 'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun'.
Mao Zedong

Liberalism is extremely harmful in a revolutionary collective. It is a corrosive which eats away unity, undermines cohesion, causes apathy and creates dissension. It robs the revolutionary ranks of compact organization and strict discipline, prevents policies from being carried through and alienates the Party organizations from the masses which the Party leads. It is an extremely bad tendency.
Mao Zedong

1 posted on 10/05/2009 3:40:45 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway

Well, hey, an expanding manufacturing base will do that.


2 posted on 10/05/2009 3:42:36 PM PDT by Wolfie
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To: nickcarraway
Sounds like someone should get this translated into Chinese and smuggle it in there:


3 posted on 10/05/2009 3:44:40 PM PDT by Petronski (In Germany they came first for the Communists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist...)
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To: nickcarraway
I once worked with a Chinese woman who was a little "off" and tended to laugh at inappropriate times. Anyway, at one point, she mentioned that she liked Halloween because all of the pumpkins made her think of home. I was surprised and said, "I didn't know they grew pumpkins in China." She laughed and said, "Oh, yes! My grandfather -- in his village, he grew more pumpkins than anybody!" Then she paused a little bit and said, "I think that is why they killed him."

And then she laughed and laughed. A very strange woman, but I think she came from a very damaging background.

4 posted on 10/05/2009 3:47:31 PM PDT by ClearCase_guy (Play the Race Card -- lose the game.)
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To: nickcarraway

Mao is simply the greatest mass murderer in the history of the world.


5 posted on 10/05/2009 3:48:33 PM PDT by NativeNewYorker (Freepin' Jew Boy)
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To: nickcarraway

China - They’re economically capitalistic but politically communist.
I think Russia may be moving in the same direction... encouraging investment while cracking down on citizens’ civil liberties.


6 posted on 10/05/2009 3:49:02 PM PDT by SMCC1
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To: ClearCase_guy

Orientals tend to laugh when confronting fear or trauma or stress. It’s their form of an emotional release. Being of that background myself, I have not only seen it firsthand, I, too, sometimes catch myself suppressing laughter at inappropriate times. Hearing someone laugh when they are, in fact, in great emotional distress always has a haunting aspect to it.


7 posted on 10/05/2009 3:54:21 PM PDT by tanuki (The only color of a leader that should matter is the color of his spine.)
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To: nickcarraway

And here in the USA...we have the MaoPhiles....the ones that support Free Trade with Communist China. Enriching Commies every day since 1979


8 posted on 10/05/2009 3:58:37 PM PDT by UCFRoadWarrior (The Return of America)
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To: NativeNewYorker
Reminds me of the line from Drake in Blade III:

kill one you're a murderer,
kill a million a king,
kill them all a God.

9 posted on 10/05/2009 4:00:11 PM PDT by randomhero97 ("First you want to kill me, now you want to kiss me. Blow!" - Ash)
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To: tanuki

Thanks.


10 posted on 10/05/2009 4:00:14 PM PDT by ClearCase_guy (Play the Race Card -- lose the game.)
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To: SMCC1
The Wall St Journal, maybe 5 years ago, had an editorial which indicated that if Fascism had not been destroyed in WWII, and if Hitler's Third Reich had survived and lasted 5 or 6 decades, that what the result looked like would be pretty much China circa. 2000.

Private ownership, good capital markets, powerful industries -- all under the watchful control of government bureaucrats who will intervene if the interests of the state are threatened. And not much freedom for citizens -- step out of line, and there's someone at the door.

I believe they called it Mature Fascism or something like that. It's where I think the US is going.

11 posted on 10/05/2009 4:05:39 PM PDT by ClearCase_guy (Play the Race Card -- lose the game.)
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To: tanuki

It’s that or complete insanity. Like joking while facing trouble. To show fear is to lose face. If you can’t fight back there’s little to really help, laughter is the last thing you have left.


12 posted on 10/05/2009 4:12:45 PM PDT by Niuhuru (The Internet is the digital AIDS; adapting and successfully destroying the MSM host.)
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To: nickcarraway
Mao's status as the founder of modern day China is celebrated in a new state-sponsored film starring 200 of the country's biggest actors.

Should place those celebrators in the jet for a few hours or maybe just frog march them for a few miles. That'll give em a real feeling for the old killer.

13 posted on 10/05/2009 4:16:32 PM PDT by Nuc1 (NUC1 Sub pusher SSN 668 (Liberals Aren't Patriots))
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To: nickcarraway
Obey the Kittie:


14 posted on 10/05/2009 4:29:25 PM PDT by BunnySlippers (I LOVE BULL MARKETS . . .)
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To: nickcarraway

That’s because 30 some odd years after his death, very few of the people there had to see or smell his disgusting teeth, or have their young post pubescent daughters taken to him for his pleasure.

Of course, few of them remember relatives being carted off to re-education camps, many never to be seen again.

But hey...that Little Red Book is the bomb!


15 posted on 10/05/2009 4:31:17 PM PDT by rlmorel (Obama, The Flatulence of One Thousand Black Dogs After Eating Boiled Eggs Be Upon Him...)
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To: nickcarraway

Mao TseTung was one of the most evil men ever to live. His very name should be a curse word on every human being’s lips. His corpse should be dug up, hung, buried again, dug up, hung, lather, rinse, repeat. I hope he’s Satan’s personal boy toy. The Chinese are INSANE to have any affection for that monster.


16 posted on 10/05/2009 5:12:12 PM PDT by Hardastarboard (Maureen Dowd is right. I DON'T like our President's color. He's a Red.)
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To: Niuhuru

True. Absolutely true.


17 posted on 10/05/2009 5:34:25 PM PDT by tanuki (The only color of a leader that should matter is the color of his spine.)
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To: Petronski

Excellent book. I read it a few years ago. It should be required reading in all schools.


18 posted on 10/05/2009 5:57:38 PM PDT by mrmeyer ("When brute force is on the march, compromise is the red carpet." Ayn Rand)
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To: Petronski
"'The Black Book of Communism,'; a scholarly accounting of communism’s crimes, counts about 94 million murdered by the supposed champions of the common man (20 million for the Soviets alone), and some say that number is too low."

Forgetting the Evils of Communism: The amnesia bites a little deeper
By Jonah Goldberg, August 2008:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZmY0MjI1MDgyYjg1M2UwNDMzMTk2Mjk5YTk0ZTdlMWE=

19 posted on 10/05/2009 7:09:52 PM PDT by ETL (ALL (most?) of the Obama-commie connections at my FR Home page: http://www.freerepublic.com/~etl/)
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