All the news that fits the narrative

What's worse than fiddling while Rome burns?

The answer is:

The major media's total preoccupation with Impeachment, Impeachment, Impeachment! – while Communism, before our eyes, is failing and falling on its wretched ass.

It is entirely possible to sit through news cycles all day and all night without the slightest awareness that the world's largest, most dangerous and most brutal dictatorship may be dissolving from within. There is no shortage of cutting-edge, up-to-the-instant reporting on phantom whistleblowers, charges and counter-charges of quid pro quo, and the usual Democrat-fueled histrionics. But where, oh where, is there decent coverage on the staggering news of the democracy movement in Hong Kong? What does it take to jar the American media into doing their job?

Apparently, the sight of American flags bedecking the streets of supposedly-Communist Hong Kong is considered an insufficient cattle prod to cover the most truly monumental story of the age, perhaps even of our lifetime. Just like their martyred elder brothers and sisters building papier mache Statues of Liberty in Tiananmen Square before the final slaughter, what do today's Hong Kong protesters get from our heroes of journalism today? Absolute even-handedness!

Our media, in the meager coverage they give us, mind you, are scrupulously even-handed. How's that for obeying their journalism professors? We are treated to even-handed coverage between the Communist Chinese dictatorship and the valiant resistance to that dictatorship.

Does anybody else remember the nastiest rumor at the time of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution? Word went out that President Eisenhower had contacted Soviet Ruler Nikita Krushchev, informing the Communist boss that whatever Moscow felt it had to do, it should do quickly, because "we are having a terrible time controlling Americans who are furious that nobody is coming to the aid of the Hungarian Freedom Fighters." Look how many decades it's taken me, but I'm actually beginning to believe that awful rumor of November 1956.

We're told that, instead of unleashing moral support for the baby brothers and sisters of Tiananmen Square, our foreign policy experts are trying to figure out how to give China's ruler Xi a "big win" (something along the lines of foreign trade, perhaps) so he might have more luck handling the passions freedom is famous for unleashing.

You can believe there's at least one Trump supporter who recognizes the sensitivity of the diplomatic high explosives the president is trying to handle, but wishes Trump could fill in the blanks in some other way than talking about what a "great relationship" he has with the ruler of Communist China.

Does anybody remember what brought Communism to power in China? During World War II, the two major military forces in China, Mao's Communist army and the Chinese nationalists under the leadership of Chiang Kai-Shek agreed to cooperate in the war against the Japanese invaders. But then the Civil
War resumed, and, with overwhelming Soviet support, Mao's forces prevailed and the thoroughly defeated nationalists fled the Chinese mainland.

Then something unusual happened. Instead of eventually surrendering to the Communist forces, or simply disappearing, the nationalists built an island fortress for themselves on Taiwan.

The American media's habit of downplaying or altogether ignoring anti-Communist successes is nothing new. The anti-Communist Chinese built a great new nation on Taiwan, featuring a strong democracy and an army capable of defending their island stronghold. But, as the Chinese Communists gradually discarded Communist economic doctrine and their standard of living subsequently rose, the American media were absolutely rhapsodic about the great new standard of living Chinese Communism gave to its people. The fact that Taiwan under capitalism was a staggering success that dwarfed any similar success on the Communist mainland was seldom or never mentioned in the American media. Not only was any praise for Taiwan's enviably high standard of living curiously absent, there was precious little mention that the citizens of Taiwan also enjoyed the blessings of democracy.

The history of Hong Kong is a bit different. It was a British Crown Colony since the Treaty of Nanking in 1842 and practiced capitalism to great success. But terms agreed to in 1898 called for Hong Kong to be handed back to mainland China's control 99 years later, in 1997. Since that handover, it's been a Special Administrative Region, enjoying economic and political autonomy while still ostensibly under Beijing's control. This was called the "One Country, Two Systems" policy and was supposed to continue until 2047. But Beijing, apparently growing impatient, has been whittling away at Hong Kong's freedoms, causing unrest and more and more vociferous and violent protests. Communist regimes don't like subjects who have been "spoiled" by tasting too much of the fruits of capitalism and democracy.

One has to find it puzzling why the Communist regime based in Beijing manufactures problems for itself in its dealings with Hong Kong, when it has plenty of problems already, like its large and increasingly restive and troublesome Muslim population, the Uighurs of Xinjiang Province in Western China, with whom Beijing is dealing in its characteristically heavy-handed fashion. (It's said that Beijing has over a million Uighurs in "re-education camps.")

All this reminds me of why I should never try to teach geography to Cousin Guerney. When I mentioned that Xinjiang's major city, Urumqi, has the distinction of being the city farthest away from any ocean, Cousin Guerney laconically remarked "Aha! I was wondering why it took so damned long to get to the beach!"