Chapter 538 The Star-Spangled Banner Protects Those Who Burned It

There is an English proverb that says nothing disturbs your heart more than your friend or neighbor getting rich. Seeing someone you know get rich is the most enviable and jealous thing.

In the crazy vortex of "herd mentality", less than one in 100,000 people in the world can hold back.

If you could go back to fifteen years ago and ask those Japanese who played music every night and spent a lot of money, ten out of ten would tell you that the Japanese bubble economy was due to the Plaza Accord and the appreciation of the yen.

But when you ask it what happened after the appreciation of the yen, most people will not be able to answer.

The real economy often affects jobs. Hanwa Kogyo was originally a very honest steel company. However, after the signing of the Plaza Accord, the president began to play foreign exchange and became one of the six ghosts in Tokyo.

The Plaza Accord was signed, and the yen was set to rise. In this case, why not speculate in foreign exchange?

The large inflow of foreign capital has made the dollar appreciate continuously, and the competitiveness of US exports has declined, which has expanded to a crisis of foreign trade deficit. Under the pressure of this economic crisis, the United States hopes to strengthen the foreign competitiveness of American products by depreciating the dollar so as to reduce the trade deficit.

At that time, Caterpillar's biggest competitor was Komatsu. Lee Morgan, the president at the time, used the trade surplus between Japan and the former Federal Republic of Germany as an excuse to verbally intervene in the foreign exchange market, hoping to stimulate US exports through the depreciation of the US dollar and reduce US exports. trade deficit.

"As long as the dollar depreciates by 20%, I can drive an excavator to the capital of Japan."

His speech led to a frantic sell-off of the dollar by investors, which depreciated sharply against the currencies of major industrial countries.

Japanese companies all have the idea of ​​speculating on the financial market, but they have no idea, and no one takes the initiative. At this time, the success of "Sakawa" played a very, very bad role in Japan's crazy speculation and hype.

Companies large and small in Japan, seeing the scenery of "Sakawa", have all embarked on the same road. What kind of real economy is there, what kind of steel is still being smelted, what kind of cars are still being built, and what kind of machine tools are still being used. Forex speculation, learn from "Sakawa", and the small goal of earning 100 million a day can be easily achieved.

On May 29, 1987, under the pressure of the United States on the one hand, and the wrong decision of the Japanese government on the other hand, Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone launched a "financial atomic bomb" on the Japanese archipelago.

Yasuhiro Nakasone delivered a televised speech to the people of Japan, announcing a major "economic countermeasure" of the Japanese government

The main contents of the countermeasures are as follows: 1. Tax cuts for residents of no less than 1 trillion yen; 2. Government investment of no less than 5 trillion yen.

Originally, it would have been fine if the enterprises were still working diligently, but after the financial atomic bomb came down, many small and medium-sized enterprises in Japan stopped doing business, because Japan began to enter a "deflationary spiral", and then an "industrial hollow" occurred. The industry is becoming more and more difficult. Next, the example of Hanwa has greatly stimulated other Japanese companies, and has caused a wave of speculation in foreign exchange and stocks in Japanese society.

Under these two backgrounds, the original meaning of the Japanese government’s bombardment of 6 trillion yuan is that I will give you tax cuts and then give you money. I hope that residents will buy more domestic products to stimulate domestic demand, and that companies will invest more to activate the economy.

As a result, all the money invested by the government was used to speculate in foreign exchange.

Under irrational behavior, any persuasion is useless. The root cause of the bubble economy is human herd mentality.

Originally, you were a normal person, but when you saw your friend making a fortune, you also rushed in. Your "success" made your friend jealous, and then he also rushed in, and so on, the bubble grew bigger and bigger. Making money is as easy as snapping your fingers, putting your money in the financial markets and watching it appreciate.

Therefore, the Plaza Accord was only the cause of the collapse of the Japanese economy. The real reason was the wrong policy launched by the Japanese government at the wrong time and the greedy desire of Japanese companies.

What is the American Dream for most people?

Is it a towering skyscraper? Or are you a fan of luxury and money, and you can shop at will with a credit card?

Such plots often appear in some books and movies. A loser who once lived at the bottom of society has lived a "decent life" through his own efforts. These people include rugby players, well-known bodybuilders, Politicians at war, as well as housewives, police officers, academics, taxi drivers, etc., and even Wall Street traders.

All kinds of people in the book have one thing in common, they are very inspirational and motivated people. Instead of talking about the American dream, they are constantly pursuing and practicing it. The overall story is very inspiring and quite real.

However, the fact is that if inspiration is really useful, 80% of social wealth will not be controlled by 20% of people.

Those stories are very inspirational, very thematic, and very real and touching, but it is very difficult for people at the bottom to squeeze into the upper class. Even if you graduate from an Ivy League school, the elite education in the United States leads the best talents to the financial and legal industries. Not natural science.

A mathematician who used to serve physics transferred to Wall Street, worked for stock exchanges and insurance companies, and studied some "products" that were full of formulas. I guarantee you can't understand what he wrote.

There are more professional vocabulary in the financial industry. Customers only have two options: "pay if you are obedient" and "miss the opportunity if you are not obedient". People with high IQs can only operate hedge funds. Like alien languages, the American democratic political system is full of unconcealable "golden power" influence, which determines that the loudest discourse power of the upper class in the United States comes from the business and legal circles. Even well-known scientists are "tattoos" in American politics light".

The "Qian Xuesen case" more than half a century ago is considered by the Chinese to be an honor for the country, but it is another matter in the United States. The core information will no longer be accessible to the Chinese.

Asians, especially Chinese new immigrant children, are well-known for their intense academic performance, which creates strong psychological pressure on white students and parents. Many people move to another school to prevent their children from being overwhelmed by Chinese students at school.

Americans who have children choose housing, unless they are willing to pay for private schools, the primary consideration is the quality of education in the school district. From this perspective, most Americans move with a strong "educational immigrant" component, and often buy expensive houses in order to enter excellent school districts.

Under the "quality education", there are also many Americans with a lower education level. Everyone has the desire to pursue a better life, but the income level of these people cannot afford the increasing housing prices. These people who borrow to buy houses are potential inferior Victims of the mortgage crisis, even the poor, can buy a comfortable house with a swimming pool and a kitchen.

The house price that only rises but never falls also makes the rich who are greedy for profit continue to speculate, and finally forms an extremely inflated bubble. Once the crisis breaks out and loses their jobs with high loans, the bank can take back the mortgaged house and sue them. The court is useless, it is stipulated in the contract.

It is equivalent to saying that an ordinary-income family who originally lived in a caravan slept for a period of time in a house with a garden and a swimming pool, dreamed for a period of time, and then was beaten back to the prototype and continued to live in the caravan.

The cost of dreaming in a house during this period is high, more than going out to travel and staying in a hotel. The garden with a swimming pool is gone, but you can use plastic bottles to grow some fruits and vegetables to subsidize the family. Every month is very tight , When you have a house, you can have outdoor BBQ and beer. After losing your house, you can only eat cheap food. The hormones left in the meat will make you very obese, and the risk of cardiovascular disease will increase. Sadly, you have no medical treatment. Insurance, if you don't dream, you can at least stay slim and healthy. After dreaming, you can only be like this over-inflated economy, so fat and ugly that you spend the rest of your life with alcohol.

Patriotism is an emotion common to ordinary people, and it exists in all countries in the world, but it is expressed in different forms. Some countries use passionate slogans, some countries use massive rallies and parades, and some countries fly their national flags spontaneously. In the United States, every July 4th Independence Day or other important occasions, many families will plant national flags at their gates to express celebration and unity. In America, no other symbol is more important and emotional than the flag.

The national flag symbolizes the splendor and glory of the American nation, and represents the unity and greatness of the country. For this reason, 48 of the 50 states in the United States have passed laws to protect the national flag from defilement. Because Americans regard the national flag as a sacred symbol, people in the world who oppose the United States often take pleasure in burning the American flag to express their dissatisfaction and anger with the US foreign policy and way of life.

However, even on the territory of the United States, there are also a group of Americans who are dissatisfied with their own government. They use the burning of the national flag as a way of expressing their ideas to criticize and protest some practices of the US government. They know the law and break the law in order to safeguard the "freedom of expression" they believe is protected by the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution.

In August 1984, the Republican Party held a national convention in Dallas, Texas, and re-elected the conservative incumbent President Reagon as the Republican presidential candidate for re-election. During its first term in office, Reagon internally implemented the fiscal and tax policy of "killing the poor and helping the rich", expanded its military externally and prepared for war, and started a new cold war with the Soviet Union. These domestic and foreign policies of his have been severely criticized by some leftists.

For leftists, the Republican convention is also a great opportunity for them to express their dissatisfaction and anger and attract the attention of the public and the media. A group of Hundred Tens, a group known as the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade, led by its leader, Gregory Lee Johnson, marched noisily through downtown Dallas to protest the Republican Party's favor of big business.

While chanting anti-Republican and anti-Reagon slogans, they sprayed graffiti on government agency buildings along the road, and from time to time destroyed lawns and green trees to vent their anger. One of them pulled down a flag in front of a bank and gave it to Johnson.

The flag was originally flown to celebrate the Republican convention. When they arrived at City Hall, Johnson poured a bottle of kerosene on the flag and his partner lit it with a lighter. While burning, these demonstrators happily cheered and sang: "America, red, white, and blue, we spit on you." Word.

A plainclothes policeman witnessed the whole process and reported to police headquarters by walkie-talkie. Police later arrested Johnson and charged him with violating a Texas state law. The law prohibits the desecration of solemn objects, which include not only the American flag, but also the Texas flag, public monuments and cemeteries.

The law defines it as: an actor who knows that his acts of vandalism will seriously offend those who see and discover what he has done, and still insist on doing it his own way.

The crux of the case, therefore, is that someone has to testify that Johnson hurt them by burning the flag. Prosecutors easily found witnesses such as Walker, who made it clear that the burning of the flag was a serious offense to their feelings, for which they were heartbroken. Johnson was immediately found guilty and sentenced to one year in prison and a $2,000 fine.

In court, Johnson was plausible about what he did: "I burned the flag when Reagon was nominated for president. Whether you agree with it or not, there is no other symbolic statement at the time that can express our views more powerfully than burning the flag." .It's all a gesture. We have a new patriotism, not without patriotism."

To the surprise of the Dallas District Attorney, the appeals court not only overturned the conviction, but accepted the view of the defense attorneys that what Johnson had done was a symbolic statement and, therefore, subject to First Amendment speech Protection of Liberal Terms. What violates the U.S. Constitution is not Johnson burning the flag, but the Texas law that prohibits and punishes the destruction of the flag!

Freedom of speech is absolute, and burning the national flag is not a crime. In the eyes of the local prosecutors and ordinary people, this verdict is simply confusing right and wrong and playing the role of a tiger. But the justices are eloquent, citing a 41-year-old Supreme Court decision in which it ruled that saluting the flag was a form of expression protected by the Constitution's First Amendment's free speech clause , so the government is violating "free speech" by forcing students in public schools to salute the flag. In the same way, burning the national flag is also an expression, which should naturally be protected by the Constitution.

The lessons of history tell people that patriotism often goes mad. I think that the German Communist Party and the Japanese Communist Party were born out of strong patriotism and nationalist passion; countless crimes and atrocities were also carried out in the fanaticism of patriotism and national supremacy. Therefore, when it comes to burning the national flag, calmness and rationality should be higher than passion and fanaticism.

The decision of the Supreme Court means that the laws protecting the national flag of 48 states and the District of Columbia in the United States are invalid. The judge argued that punishing desecration does not sanctify the flag because to do so would dilute the freedom expressed by this revered symbol.

But these words were not enough to calm the anger of American flag patriots. Not since the Positional Prayer case in the 1960s has a decision aroused such intense public outrage. Thousands of letters of criticism from the masses were published in the newspapers. The newly elected president, another World War II veteran, proposed to overturn the decision of the Supreme Court through a constitutional amendment. When the House of Representatives passed a motion condemning the decision of the Supreme Court, no one voted against it; A bipartisan bill condemning the Supreme Court decision was passed in the Senate, also by party, with only three dissenting.

To pass a constitutional amendment in the United States, it not only requires a two-thirds majority of both houses of Congress to pass, the "Flag Protection Act" is a contest between the people and the elite, a balance between democracy and the rule of law, and the most ordinary Americans are very serious. It is also very simple to divide affairs into good and bad, right and wrong. Therefore, in the composition list of the Flag Guard, there is hardly a group of intellectuals and professionals, and it is basically some traditional organizations of veterans, labor, immigrants and women.

Among the people surveyed, 86% of those with a high school education or below support the revision of the constitution to protect the flag, while 60% of those with a college degree oppose it.

Opponents of the Flag Guardians are staunch supporters of free speech, and while they do not see flag burning as an appropriate practice, they believe in the supremacy of the principle of free expression and respect the enlightened decisions of the Supreme Court. These people are precisely the elites of American society, especially those intellectuals who create ideas, create culture, control public opinion, and lead trends.

In order to safeguard their personal freedom of expression, they rationally accept the fact that the national flag has been trampled and defaced, and bear the emotional price they have to pay.

If a simple referendum is used to decide whether to amend the constitution to protect the flag, the flag-guard faction will surely win a big victory. But the ingenuity of American constitutionalism is that it not only guarantees the authority of democracy institutionally, but also limits the arbitrariness of the majority and protects the rights and interests of the minority. The American constitutional system carefully designed by the sages of the constitution is not only aimed at preventing the dictatorship of individuals, but also the tyranny of the majority (the impact of Socrates' death).

Taking the Constitutional Amendment as an example, it must first be passed by a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress, and secondly, it must be approved by three-quarters of the states within the specified time. The masses win by "quantity", but the elite win by " "Quality" is good. Although it is difficult for the elite to obtain the support of a three-quarters majority in the states, they can easily obtain the upper hand with a one-third minority in the case of protecting the flag. However, Congress can still pass federal laws to take a stand.

After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that burning the flag is legal, many people speculated that the American flag must have suffered bad luck, and the stores selling the Stars and Stripes must have made a fortune.

But after the judgment of this case, the incidents of flag burning in the United States have almost disappeared. If it is even legal to burn the national flag, what's the point of burning it?

In the United States, there is no patriotism, only freedom without borders, especially those elites in American society, they can use "freedom of speech" to brainwash the vast majority of "fools" and instill their distorted values ​​into the "fools" in mind.

These "smart people" seem to be sure that ordinary people dare not raise their guns to shoot Lexington again. After all, the button of the nuclear bomb is in their hands. continue to live.

Dreams have sweet dreams and nightmares. People who are selfish and care about their health tend to live a long life. They create a hell for the poor and a paradise for the rich every day.

American public education used to be a model of the world's education system, but today's students rank at the bottom of developed countries in terms of natural science and reading ability. The simple logic of teaching and educating people has been thoroughly politicized and complicated.

The first scene of the godfather, a Sicilian funeral home, he used American thinking to educate his daughter to abide by the law and pursue freedom, but after he was murdered, the American legal system he taught his daughter did not give him justice, and the wicked went unpunished. In the end, he was forced to seek help from the underground forces that he had been deliberately avoiding.

"I believe in America."

Compared with some "people", the mafia is more humane. It is by no means a carefree paradise on earth, with the democratic legal system and the great "American dream" that politicians call, but an out-and-out intrigue adventure home paradise. There are traps, open guns, and hidden arrows everywhere here, and everyone is at risk. Peel off those hypocritical superficial layers, there is no real freedom, equality and fraternity at all.

Even wizards in America don't want to make contact with Muggles. Which country will accept refugees from their country?

Those ordinary civilians living on the streets reminded Pomona of the Muggle and half-blood wizards who were excluded during Voldemort's rule.

It was really a disaster, although it had nothing to do with natural disasters, it was entirely caused by man-made disasters.