Saturday, July 2, 2011

furniture village furniture

images From Furniture Village furniture village furniture. furniture assembley
  • furniture assembley


  • dealsnet
    01-08 10:56 AM
    If you don't got the greencard, good luck for that. Please don't discuss any religious things here. It make others furious. Concentrate on your carrer and family. Belief in God is enough. Organised Religion will give misery only. Man made the religion. God didn't created it.


    you have serious language comprehension issues.. I used bastards on palestinians not jews in a post where i was defending palestinians, so i was being sarcastic
    and in the other post you refer to, i was criticizing jews, cristians and muslims for taking the end of time scenarios too seriously and applying it now.. no ones knows we are the the end of times anyway.. and even if that in some way offends you, that doesn't make name-calling all egyptians any less racist




    wallpaper furniture assembley furniture village furniture. Bedroom Furniture
  • Bedroom Furniture


  • Ramba
    07-14 03:44 PM
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    It is very understandable the frustration of Eb3-I guys. The reason is very simple; supply Vs demand; nothing more nothing less. Both EB2 and EB3 gets about 40K visas per year. Since worldwide demand for EB3 is extremely very high, India gets abot 3000 visas per year. However, there is not much worldwide demand for EB2 visas, India and and China gets all spill over in EB2 catagory plus unused visas from EB1. This makes availability of visas in Eb2-for India and China is very much higher than EB3. I guess about 30 to 35K (out of 40K) visas goes to EB2 for both India and china. However in Eb3 both In and China gets 3K each. Just compare 30K vs 3k.

    Study the visa statistics for last 10 years at DOS website. http://travel.state.gov/visa/frvi/st...tics_1476.html
    Then, one can easily unserstand the demand for EB3 in worldwide. The reason is, unfortunatly EB3 has professionals and skilled workers catagory. There are thousands of skilled workers (who has just two years working experince with out much education) are in demand for EB3 numbers every year accross the world. This makes the availablity for India is just 3000. 1500 restarunt cooks with their dependents from India is sufficient to consume one year quota in Eb3. Thatswhy India stuck in 2001. It will be like that in future too. It will be in snail phase.

    So, it is not the DOS or CIS or DOL determines the movement of cutoff dates. It is the INA that contolls the allocation. DOS is just doing their job.

    The INA does not address how to give prefrence to a EB3 Indian guy with PD in 2001 with EB3-ROW guys with PD 2007. Every year EB3-ROW pours tons of new application. The demand from ROW will not dimnish, so India will get only 3000 by the virtue of increasing new demand by ROW form easch passing years. A ROW guy with PD 2007/2008/2009 will be in preference than a EB3 guy from India with PD 2002. Therefore there should be a mechanism to balance this effect. Unfortunatly there is no provision in INA. So, DOS may not help to overcome this, as DOS is a just a implementer of INA.




    furniture village furniture. tuscany furniture, tuscany
  • tuscany furniture, tuscany


  • DSJ
    05-17 02:43 PM
    Come on man don't preach here. Your so called paid *permanent job* is to do work at your office, not spend time in this forum to post lengthy text.
    Do you think what you are doing is legal or illegal to your company.

    Reality is, being a 'consultant' on the bench is illegal.




    2011 Bedroom Furniture furniture village furniture. powered stair-climber
  • powered stair-climber


  • ashkam
    04-15 02:59 PM
    Are people seriously arguing that a child will not be happier in a bigger home, everything else remaining constant? Seriously, is someone actually arguing this?

    And money can't buy happiness? Really? Are you saying everything else remaining constant if I gave you money it would make you sad? Seriously? Who is this person who would be sadder if I gave him money? I would like to meet him.

    You people need to stop reminiscing about your childhood days and how happy your childhood was even though you had no money. I have a feeling that your child doesn't really care. Sure, give your child lots of love, but for Christ's sake, if you can afford it, don't make him / her spend his / her childhood in a small cramped apartment just because you had to.



    more...

    furniture village furniture. Standard Furniture Village
  • Standard Furniture Village


  • kuhelica2000
    12-28 03:35 PM
    So Mr. Trained Reservist,
    Let's say the war is won in 15-20 days based on your expert knowledge, what is next? India occupies Pakistan? and acquires 160 million muslim population along with Talibans? You think that will end terrorism and riots in India?

    Oh BTW, there is another trained reservist in the history who claimed Iraq war would be won in two weeks. Do you know who he is? Hint: he became the worst president in the history of the US.

    As someone who comes from an army family and who has been trained as a reserve, I want to assure you guys who think that an Indo-Pak war will linger; that it will not. It will take Indian army 15-20 days to reach Islamabad if the full force is deployed and the army is in charge of the war and not our politicians.
    Pak has nukes, but their delivery mechanism is not sound and before Pak launches any nukes, US will disarm them and even if a few are launched India had a very good anti missile shield which will intercept and destroy all warheads before it enters Indian air.
    Now to actual strategies that India should follow-
    1. The civilian government in Pak is not at fault, previously they were responsible for terrorist attacks on India but now they are suffering at the hands of a monster of their own making. Terrorism and ISI.
    2. India should use air and missile power to strike out and wipe out a 500km radius around each terrorist camps while offering an olive branch to the Pak govt. What this does is it will kill with certainty all terrorists and will also wipe out surrounding villages.
    3. These are casualties of war and are a necessary evil, it will strike fear in the hearts of villagers and when ever a terrorist camp is set up; the surrounding villagers will chase them out in fear of India's wrath.
    4. India should send RAW analysts to assassinate all rouge ISI officers, if needed Mossad of Israel can help India.
    5. Finally the only way to deal with the problem of Pakistan longtime is to either socially cleanse Pakistan for the civilian government and bring in more modernism or carve out pakistan into several independent states. This is a long term goal which has to be thought about.

    If anyone is interested I can post the actual army strengths of India and Pak, its an interesting statistic and I am sure the Pak government knows about it in more detail than me. And it beats me that in spite of knowing the facts they are doing all this war posing. Just a tit bit from it, Indian army (only) is 1.3mil + 450K (reserves) strong. The combined Pak armed forces are 450K active + 500K reserves. India outnumbers Pak in almost every aspect 1:5 on an average. We have fought 4 wars and India has won all 4 times, why should the 5th time be any different? Lets finish this and move on, we have to become an economic superpower and we cannot be bothered by such trivial things like terrorism and pakistan. Lets take terror to the terrorists, like the song from the Hindi movie Arjun goes
    " Dushman ko yeh dikadho dushmani hai kya...":cool:




    furniture village furniture. To view the furniture
  • To view the furniture


  • pete
    04-09 10:29 AM
    Why should others suffer because of consulting firms?
    You get a job at company A you work for them. When you move to company B that company does your H1B.. if required again. Why should company A do your H1B than the individual work for somebody else as "consultant". This has been going on for too long affecting everybody especially scientists and doctors and academic community. These consultants are delaying GC for us. The bill takes care of that problem and I think its fair.

    Also if the new bill requires repeating labor certification every time we move so be it. You are "best and brightest" correct.. prove it!



    more...

    furniture village furniture. Available at Furniture Village
  • Available at Furniture Village


  • i4u
    09-20 08:11 AM
    How many believe that the vote on Tuesday will allow for the inclusion of Dream Act in the Defense Authorization Bill?
    How many believe that if it does get the votes on Tuesday, it will be passed on Wed or Thursday as some claim it?




    2010 tuscany furniture, tuscany furniture village furniture. From Furniture Village
  • From Furniture Village


  • gcisadawg
    12-27 01:44 AM
    Alisa,

    Thanks for your posts. I'm glad to have a decent exchange of thoughts with you. I agree with you partly that 'non-state' actors are responsible and not Zardari Govt.. But Who created the non-state actors in the first place? Instead of paying unemployment benefits, who offered them job portability to Kashmir? Their H1B shouldnt have been renewed at all after they came on bench. How can a parent not be responsible for the errant child? The world wants to neutralize the errant child....but for the parent a child is a child after all and that too the one that served its interests once. If this child is abandoned, can future child ( with same objective) be created with the same ease?

    Those are the questions that are haunting many Indians on the forums.

    But I salute you and other folks for keeping this conversation civil.

    Kudos,
    GCisaDawg



    more...

    furniture village furniture. bed, furniture village
  • bed, furniture village


  • Sakthisagar
    07-28 03:27 PM
    Frankly he has a lot more serious problems to worry about than our issues. from the backlog, we are around 0.25 million and you have 300 million people in this country and 10% of them unemployed. So yeah, blame him all you want but any sane politician in his position would do the same.

    Let's consider this for example. Imagine you were in India and you had a few 100,000 decently skilled immigrants from some other country, who were waiting for their green card. Now you are the PM and you have to choose your focus between fighting terrorism, fighting inflation, high budget deficits with healthcare costs, high unemployment rate or giving green cards to these 100,000 people. I would think there would be a lot of pissed off countrymen in India who would scream at you when you are ignoring real issues and focussing instead on giving green cards to foreigners especially when you already have a sky high unemployment rate. Wouldn't be a great political strategy, would it? But maybe you would still do it, perhaps if you have a vested interest in getting it done.

    Still, next year you can bet that he'll do something on immigration since the states have started legislating on their own now and they can't afford this to continue.


    hahaha If one is a PM of India??? woooooh that will be funny, any PM will ask the permission of Madam the congress president What to do? and whatever uneducated madam says that will be done., dont ever ever dare to compare India and USA. dont compare apple with oranges.

    And the President should never wait for Illegal immigrants to pass Legal Immigration. In USA immigration means it is Legal. not illegal. He is playing politics with every one. Please understand that. The US unemployment on Tech sector is only around 3 % that is not a big issue. They can very well give EB immigrants green card. If you are fascinated or halloweened by The Presidents personality no one can help you. Like in India people blindly worship their party leaders or PM or Madam for that matter.




    hair powered stair-climber furniture village furniture. from furniture village
  • from furniture village


  • Macaca
    05-18 05:29 PM
    Why Ai Weiwei's case matters for the future of China on the world stage (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peterfoster/100088312/why-ai-weiweis-case-matters-for-the-future-of-china-on-the-world-stage/) By Peter Foster | Telegraph

    There’s a perception in Britain that human rights issues in China are really just a hobby-horse of the liberal left, an issue that only bothers people who pay an annual subscription to Amnesty International.

    That’s a big mistake, because human rights – or more broadly, political reforms and good governance – are the fundamental key to China emerging this century as a developed and stable nation. Everyone has an interest in making that happen.

    A recent report from France’s INSEAD business school picked up by the Wall Street Journal traces the clear correlation between good governance (rule of law, property rights etc) and prosperity.

    Economically oligarchies and authoritarian states stall when they hit per-capital income levels of about USD$15,000 a per head. China is predicted to reach USD$8,300 this year, which means the time when these issues are starting to press is fast approaching.

    “Without reform, growth is not sustainable,” says Antonio Fatas, an economist at INSEAD and co-author of the study, “This has clear implications for China and other countries.”

    That’s why Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs, on a visit to China last week, said that his biggest worry for China was not near-term inflation, or asset bubbles or bad debts but the Communist Party’s long-term ability to adapt politically to a new world.

    Asked about risks to the ongoing China story, Mr O’Neill (the man who coined the BRICs acronym) cited inflation and rising protectionism in Washington as “small” risks, before sounding his note of real caution.

    “The third thing [risk to China], that’s much longer term; as Chinese people get wealthier, the Chinese central party machine has to adapt more and more to keep in synch with what Chinese people want, and that might be a real challenge,” he warned.

    That’s why Ai Weiwei’s case matters – not just as an individual human being (though he does) but also because his case is symptomatic of the failure of China’s ruling Communist Party to create credible political institutions in which the rest of the world can have faith.

    As Markus Loning, Germany’s human rights commissioner, said this week in Beijing. “It is not about a single case, but the rule of law. If we want to have development, it is important for people to claim that they are protected [by the law].”


    The world must speak up over the detention of Ai Weiwei (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/borisjohnson/8515705/The-world-must-speak-up-over-the-detention-of-Ai-Weiwei.html) By Boris Johnson | Telegraph


    Australia's multilateralism fetish (http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2011/05/18/Multilateralism-Time-to-rip-off-the-band-aid.aspx) By Michael Wesley | The Interpreter
    Will violence in Mexico impact immigrant pool in US? (http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/Latin-America-Monitor/2011/0517/Will-violence-in-Mexico-impact-immigrant-pool-in-US) By Sara Miller Llana | The Christian Science Monitor
    Let us deport the bad guys
    Critics are wrong: The Secure Communities program works. (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-baca-immigration-20110517,0,7647155.story)
    By Lee Baca | Los Angeles Times
    Hispanic Growth Shapes 2012 Race (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704281504576327200008543470.html) By GERALD F. SEIB | Wall Street Journal
    E-2 visa helps many non-U.S. citizens start small firms (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-smallbiz-visa-20110516,0,7260673.story) By Cyndia Zwahlen | Los Angeles Times



    more...

    furniture village furniture. Furniture Village.
  • Furniture Village.


  • delax
    07-13 01:27 PM
    I like that splitting the overflow across EB2-EB3 idea. That does make it a lot more fair to a lot of people. Its not right that people with 2001 PD still dont have an approval (I have a 2006 PD, but have been here for ~8 years, so I know how frustrating it is to wait so long on temporary status)

    At the outset, I am not against EB3, but lets think about this for a moment. Any logic that we use to break up spillover between EB2 and EB3 can also easily be applied to EB1 and EB2. I'll repeat an earlier post of mine. "How can EB1 of 2008 get the GC immediately when EB2-I (in my case) has to wait for more than 4 years - clearly preference is at play here".

    Any split will artificially retrogress EB2 more than what it otherwise would have. Similarly one can always argue to artificially retrogress EB1 to give more visas to EB2 just because someone from EB2 is waiting for 4 years.
    Isnt that against the law. Any break up of spill over visas invalidates the category preference as per current law.

    Please also note that any unfavorable change to the EB1 category based on a hypothetical approval of an EB2/EB3 break up will invite the attention of Fortune 500 companies and prestigious research/educational institutions (who use EB1 the most) with all their political and financial resources at their disposal. That could put a halt to everything.

    Irrational passion calls for dispassionate rationality.




    hot Standard Furniture Village furniture village furniture. Furniture Village
  • Furniture Village


  • pthoko
    07-11 07:25 AM
    bump



    more...

    house Hanoi , Dai Nghiep furniture furniture village furniture. 2 Sofas from Furniture Village
  • 2 Sofas from Furniture Village


  • mariner5555
    03-24 11:13 PM
    This is total BS.
    Bashing Illegal immigrants for housing market crash and accusing entire race of being theives is nothing new among right wing anti-immigrant "Hatriots"
    But there really isn't co-relation between illegal migration and housing crash.. if anything, migrants are also first time buyers and they support prices towards to lower end market and stop entire lower-middle class neighbourhoods from becoming what Detroit or Youngstown have become..
    So no need to parrot hateful propoganda here.. lets stick to the point..
    o.k. ..I had copied comments from other readers and I have removed the unnecessary remarks ..The only reason I am keeping the remaining portion is to show how many of the first time buyers (I guess Americans) feel. so if lot of people think like the above then housing will take longer to stabilize. (BTW I agree there is no relation between immi and housing crash - nor is it implied in the comments I had pasted). I guess sometimes it makes sense to read what other readers / natives feel about certain situations. a final thought (unless I have to respond to someone else's post) - everywhere I look (articles and in real life) - things are real bad in terms of real estate. will things improve - definitely but it may take long time for things to stabilize and hence it makes sense to do extra research before taking a plunge. for e.g at present I am staying in a rented town home - and I got the deal for $850 - the town homes are inside an apt complex in a good neighborhood. (you need to show income of atleast 3 times the rent to get a place here and many tenants are high tech guys). the same town home during boom time had rent of $1250 ..in other words - there are tons of deals due to excessive supply everywhere. one other important point was made by another person - this winter was harsh and hence people did everything to keep a roof above their head - wait till summer and you will see people literally walking away from their homes ...when u read posts like the above ..it makes sense to wait for some more time esp on H1 / EAD.




    tattoo To view the furniture furniture village furniture. Furniture Village high quality
  • Furniture Village high quality


  • SunnySurya
    08-05 01:49 PM
    I think he knows quite a bit about the immigration rules. He raised a point that it is merely a guidance. What it means that it can be contested and challenged...unlike if it were a law.

    With all due respect, I totaly disagree with original poster. probably, he needs to know more about immigration rules..



    more...

    pictures Available at Furniture Village furniture village furniture. Furniture Village high quality
  • Furniture Village high quality


  • looivy
    07-13 07:40 PM
    One of the qualifying criteria for EB2 is 5 years of experience. Right????

    If your I-485 application is stuck since July 2003 or prior, you are automatically EB2 by that rule. Are you not? You have been working for 5 years atleast.

    The revised rule should be

    EB2 eligibile = Anybody with experience on labor > 5 years (this would not impact current EB2 folks) or whose labor is older than 5 years (this will make EB3 folks happier).

    Peace.




    dresses Furniture Village furniture village furniture. Furniture Village
  • Furniture Village


  • mariner5555
    04-14 02:16 PM
    I cannot agree more. I have been trying to drill this into some peoples brain but they are so adamant on renting and has made this thread into a rent vs buy argument. I finally gave up. I am not saying that this is the right time to buy. Fast forward 2 or 2+ years, lets assume the market is good. Then when it comes to rent vs buy I advocate buying a house.

    Let�s say you have a small kid and you are living in an apartment, after 10 years you save enough money to buy a big house and you then eventually you buy it. Then you ask the your kid �do you like the house?�. He will reply �it�s very nice dad, but can you give you give my childhood now?.�. Go figure out guys. If you are not planning on going back for a very long time then at-least get a life in the country you reside and when the housing market is good.
    wow you come back to the same argument again ..and you tell others. maybe you should ask your child ..would you prefer that I spend more time with you or is it o.k if I see you only on weekends.
    you are saying the others are not understanding your point ..but at the same time you are not understanding the other side of argument.
    basically you are equating a bigger house means better childhood ..which is plain wrong. maybe your case or for few lucky people that maybe the case ..but I suspect for 99 percent of people ..maintaining and buying homes means they have to slog harder and that means less time for kids !!



    more...

    makeup bed, furniture village furniture village furniture. Hanoi , Dai Nghiep furniture
  • Hanoi , Dai Nghiep furniture


  • nk2006
    03-24 12:53 PM
    Do you guys look around at all of immigration.

    EB people are generally the only non immigrant to immigratn class of people who are allowed to stay in USA while they wait for greencard.

    Almost all others have to wait outside USA for many years and cannot take benefit of what this country has to offer.
    You are wrong - many other categories are allowed to be adjusted to the status while being in the country. For example look into latest CSR report - you will know that in year 2007, USCIS adjusted 621,047 foreign nationals to LPR status among this number EB's are only around 160K remaining or in other statuses.


    You could be a phillipino brother/sister of US citizen and wait 23 years to get your number called.

    You could be here from Liberia as temporary resident for the last 20 years and have to keep getting extensions for temporary status and one day it gets taken away from you.

    Sorry to tell you but the way you guys define pain is not pain when it comes to most immigration matters when compares overall.

    The family based immigration is important and can be very painful for some cases - like spouses and sons/daughters - and that is why congress has correctly amended laws to make these cases as exceptions (there are no numerical limits and also no country quotas). That was a correct thing to do and any wait in those relationships is much more painful. But for other categories in the family based immigration - like the cases you gave as examples (like brother and sister of a US citizen) - I dont really consider them as more painful than ours actually I dont even consider them as even comparable to ours. I dont know your case, but I came to US in late nineties with couple graduage degrees and acquired one more here - started my career here and justifiably feel that I considerably contributed to success of atleast one company which grew to 200+ people at one point. I emotionally and careerwise invested here. Now after 10+ years still no greencard and know how many career moves I had to let go becuase of this. While the decision to pursue the greencard is mine and I am not trying to blame anyone here, I dont think that our pain is less than someone who is "waiting" because his brother or sister sponsored him/her doesnt make sense (note: well I do have brother and sister and cherish those relationships but expecting a lifelong/career move based on their location of living is not there; and even if there is an expectation I wont consider that even comparable to someone living there and letting go many opportunities despite of talent just because of administrative issues).

    You are right - things are getting worse - there may not be any congressional activity on this issue for sometime and if USCIS try to screw us in other ways - then its going to be a rough ride. But the EB community activism (congressional or otherwise) will actually help in at least staying things more fair towards us.




    girlfriend Furniture Village high quality furniture village furniture. BED from Furniture Village
  • BED from Furniture Village


  • shantanup
    03-25 08:55 AM
    The main reason that I can't get behind lifting of the country quota is exactly this reason. You have a lot of companies run by the same nationality who will only recruit their own people. The staffing companies don't advertise in Indonesia, Germany, Brazil, etc. They only go after their own people. The whole monopolization of visas was used to prevent this type of behaviour.

    Did you not think of the would be immigrants of Indian origin not part of this "system" when you came to this conclusion? I am one such. Think how disadvantaged my position is.




    hairstyles Furniture Village. furniture village furniture. 2 Furniture Village Price
  • 2 Furniture Village Price


  • ThinkTwice
    09-26 02:20 PM
    The kind of delay in the GC process, the uncertainity involved and now added to this is the possibility of the Obama administration if elected making it difficult for EB GC applicants.
    We have already anticipated this and had applied for the UK Highly Skilled Migrant Program (HSMP). We will most likely move to UK soon.. as soon as the elections are over.. a matter of few weeks. Unfortunate that after staying in this country for 12 years, having graduated from one of the best schools and having worked and having been a part of this great nation this is where it may all end for us. Whats even worse is that our son who is a US citizen will grow up in some other nation.
    Well.. time to move on.




    ImmInd
    08-05 10:59 AM
    My Friend 'Rolling_Flood':

    Please remember that EB2 is better than EB3. As someone mentioned, people always want to move up in all activities (work, life, anything).

    And, please remember what will happen if you (iff you are in EB2 now) fall down due to some issues in EB2 case documents or filing, etc ? You may start with EB3 again and we will not tell you at that time saying ' you are EB3 guy and low skilled category'. We still feel bad for you.

    I have Masters, more then 5 yrs exp (at that time of filing) and EB2 Title - but, my employer has some restrictions which limits them to not file in EB2. I ended up in EB3 :)

    I do not intend to attack - but, we are trying to just explain... Again, I am not affended !!! Please read and think before you post something like this...




    Macaca
    12-30 06:57 PM
    A Bridge to a Love for Democracy (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/30/us/30iht-letter30.html) By RICHARD BERNSTEIN | New York Times

    I write this, my last �Letter from America,� looking out my window at my snowy Brooklyn neighborhood. It�s midmorning Wednesday, three days after our Christmas weekend blizzard, and my street has yet to receive the benefit of a snowplow.

    Cars, as the prize-winning novelist Saul Bellow once put it, are impounded by the drifts. The city is still partly paralyzed, pleasantly, in a way. There�s nothing like a heavy snowfall to give one a bit of a respite, to turn the ordinary, like walking to the corner store, into a little adventure. And there�s the countrylike stillness of this city block filled with snow, absent the usual traffic.

    It seems a good moment, in other words, to pause and reflect. My thoughts turn to a very unsnowy moment in 1972 in a village called Lowu, which was the last village in the Crown Colony of Hong Kong just before the border with China. I was a graduate student in Chinese history and a stringer for The Washington Post going to the territory of Chairman Mao for the first time in my life.

    There was a short trestle bridge at Lowu. I�ve often wondered if it�s still there. The Union Jack flew at one side, the red flag of the People�s Republic of China at the other. The border town on the other side was a little fishing and farming village called Shenzhen, now a modern city of skyscrapers and shopping malls, an emblem of China�s amazing economic development.

    I was favorably disposed toward China as I strode across the bridge, ready to experience the radical egalitarianism of the Maoist revolution, which was generally viewed with favor among American graduate students specializing in China. I was a member of a group, moreover, that partook of a certain leftist orthodoxy. We had learned the �Internationale� so we could sing it for our revolutionary hosts. We were supposed to return to America and report the truth about China, which was, essentially, that it was the future and it worked.

    But it took only about 24 hours on that first journey to China for me utterly to change my mind and, indeed, to become a lifelong anti-Communist and devotee of liberal democracy, to find great wisdom in Winston Churchill�s dictum about its being the worst of all systems except for all the others.

    The noxious cult of personality around Mao was the first thing that effected my political transformation. But deeper than that was the pervasive odor of orthodoxy, the uniformity of it all, the mandatory pious declarations, which, if they were believed, were ridiculous, and, if they were forced, illustrated the terror of it all.

    Many of my American fellow travelers felt very differently about this. In my intense discomfort, I found myself in a sort of Menshevik minority, criticized by the majority for what I remember one person calling my �Darkness at Noon� mentality.

    Still, that discomfort, and the unwillingness of most of the others to experience it, has informed my work as a journalist ever since. I have to admit it: When I went to China as a correspondent for Time magazine seven years after that first trip, my impulse was not so much to look with fresh and impartial eyes on a country that had just opened up to a degree of foreign inspection as it was to expose what I felt many Americans were missing in those rhapsodic days. Namely, that the country under Mao and after belonged to the 20th-century totalitarian mainstream � that it was a poverty-stricken police state and not a viable alternative to Western ways.

    There was a degree of bias in this view, and it led me into some mistakes. On China, in particular, I was perhaps focused too single-mindedly on its totalitarian elements so that I underplayed other elements, notably the speed of change in China, and perhaps even the unsuitableness of many Western democratic ways for a country so essentially backward.

    And perhaps, too, I extrapolated a bit too much from the China experience when it came to other places and other times. When I covered academic life in the United States, for example, I tended to see vicious Maoist Red Guards in the phenomenon of what came to be called political correctness, and, while I don�t think this was entirely wrong, it was an exaggeration.

    And yet, it seems appropriate in this final column to say, as well, that my nearly 40 years in the journalism game haven�t shaken me from the essential belief that formed during that first, memorable visit to China.

    Ever since, despite all our infuriating faults, our wastefulness, our occasional self-satisfied sluggishness, our proneness to demagogy and other forms of anti-intellectualism, our crumbling infrastructure, the Fox News channel, the cult of Sarah Palin, the narcissistic self-indulgence of our urban elites, the detention center in Guant�namo Bay and our crisis-creating greed and shortsightedness � despite all that � I continue to believe that, not to put too fine a point on it, we�re better than they are.

    This doesn�t mean that I think we�re perfect, or that our impulse toward a kind of benevolent imperialism has always had benevolent results. But I have stuck for 40 years to a belief that, yes, our ways are superior � and by our ways I mean such things often taken for granted as a free press, strong civil institutions, an independent judiciary and, perhaps above all, the belief that the powers of the state need to be restrained, and that the institutions of government exist to serve the individual, not the other way around.

    The essential difference with China, even the much-changed China of today, and most of the other non-Western political cultures, is the absence of this sense of restraint, and the primacy of the collective over the individual.

    That�s the idea that I was actually groping toward when I crossed the bridge at Lowu. It�s the idea that I want to end with here on this snowy day in New York in my final sentence on this page. Goodbye.



    No comments:

    Post a Comment