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Postmaster General
Military Professional
Join Date: 08-20-03
Country: 
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I agree that none will recognise Taiwan.
The world has been grabbed by the gonads by China.
It is the apple of everyone's eyes and even Readers' Digest does not publish those ever so heart wrenching stories about the 'torture', 'brutality' or 'disappearances' and the 'unrest' behind that colourful epithet, "The Bamboo Curtain"!
The Taiwanese are 'unrecognised' people who live and breathe but are 'non existent' to the world!
They are like that person who was the central character in the book. "Man without a Country".
Quote:
(The protagonist of the story is a (fictional) young United States Army lieutenant named Philip Nolan, who developed a friendship with the visiting Aaron Burr. When Burr is tried for treason (as he actually was in 1807), Nolan was tried as an accomplice. During his testimony, Nolan bitterly renounced his nation, angrily shouting "D--n the United States! I wish I may never hear of the United States again!" (When the novel was first published, the word "damn" was considered too obscene for publication.) Upon conviction, the judge icily granted Nolan his wish: he was to spend the rest of his life on warships of the United States Navy, in exile, with no right to ever again set foot on U.S. soil, and with no mention ever again made to him about his country.
The sentence is carried out to the letter. None of those in whose custody Nolan remains will speak to him about the U.S., and his newspapers are censored. Nolan is unrepentant at first, but over the years becomes sadder and wiser, and desperate for news. One day he says to a young officer as they are being rowed back to the ship on which he is being held,
..."For your country, boy," and the words rattled in his throat, "and for that flag," and he pointed to the ship, "never dream a dream but of serving her as she bids you, though the service carry you through a thousand hells. No matter what happens to you, no matter who flatters you or abuses you, never look at another flag, never let a night pass but you pray God to bless that flag. Remember, boy, that behind all these men..., behind officers and government, and people even, there is the Country Herself, your Country, and that you belong to her as you belong to your own mother. Stand by her, boy, as you would stand by your mother...!" I was frightened to death by his calm, hard passion; but I blundered out that I would, by all that was holy, and that I had never thought of doing anything else. He hardly seemed to hear me; but he did, almost in a whisper, say, "Oh, if anybody had said so to me when I was your age!"
Deprived of a homeland, Nolan slowly and painfully learned the true worth of his country. He missed it more than his friends or family, more than art or music or love or nature. Without it, he was nothing. Dying, he shows his room to an officer named Danforth; it is "a little shrine" of patriotism. The Stars and Stripes are draped around a picture of George Washington. Over his bed, Nolan had painted an eagle, with lightning "blazing from his beak" and his claw grasping the globe. At the foot of his bed was a dated map of the old territories. Nolan smiled. "Here, you see, I have a country!"
Nolan dies content after Danforth finally tells him all that has happened to the U.S. since his sentence was imposed.)
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__________________
"Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."
I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.
HAKUNA MATATA
Last edited by Ray : 09-16-2007 at 01:29 AM.
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