Why the Chinese support the Communist party Interviews with four elderly Chinese. Among the answers: "We used to live in a tiny house, over ten people all together, just a place of over ten square metres. Now I often say to my husband that life has been totally different for our grandchildren, not only from ours, but from their parents too. They have nothing to worry about, no need to worry about food, clothes."
posted by shetterly on Oct 4, 2009 - 52 comments

Meet Adolf Hitler. Godwin! Look right into Stalin's eyes. 350 people from the dictator's country, Photoshopped together to create eerily alive photographs. (via kottke, via conscientious) [more inside]
posted by WCityMike on Aug 1, 2008 - 41 comments

Nomic, as introduced by inventor Peter Suber (homepage): a game of self-modification—every move is an attempt to alter the rules governing how the game is played. Further from wikipedia. [A great deal more within.]
posted by cortex on Aug 27, 2007 - 59 comments

Ahmadinejad is no Hitler (Los Angeles Times) If you think Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad makes outlandish comments, consider what Mao Tse-tung said to a visiting head of state in 1954: "If someone else can drop an atomic bomb, then I can too. The death of 10 or 20 million people is nothing to be afraid of."

Nonetheless, 15 years later, a nuclear-armed China was not only contained by the world, it opted for normalization of relations with its archenemy, the United States. Today, it is fashionable to equate Ahmadinejad with Hitler, yet the lesson of the 20th century is that rash leaders can, in fact, be deterred. And Iran's president will prove no exception.
posted by hoder on Mar 13, 2007 - 77 comments

Kehinde Wiley : painter and sculptor . "The subjects, anonymous men in T-shirts and jeans that Wiley approaches on the street, are given the mantle of authority and grandiosity bestowed on figures such as Napoleon in Jacques-Louis David's famous depiction with a rearing steed or the holiness of saints." (via)
posted by desjardins on Mar 7, 2007 - 7 comments

The true history of General Tso/Gau/Zuo's Chicken involves Henry Kissinger and the food of Hunan province, which was the home of two opposing eaters: Chairman Mao and the nationalist Chef Peng who invented the dish, along with other now-classics of Hunanese cuisine, after fleeing the Revolution. Thus ends a long search for the origins of the dish, as covered previously.
posted by blahblahblah on Feb 3, 2007 - 14 comments

Taking Tiger Mountain (by Strategy), the cover version.
Two San Francisco musicians cover all of Brian Eno's pre-ambient album - the one loosely inspired by a Maoist opera. Eno likes it.
posted by thatwhichfalls on Dec 12, 2006 - 22 comments

Mao who?
posted by mr_crash_davis on Sep 1, 2006 - 36 comments

Furor over Fuhrer Food But it's not the only Hitler-themed restaurant. Taipei had the Prison restaurant with Concentration Camp murals, and Korea had the infamous 1939 Hitler Bar.

Not that the U.S. was spared. Colorado had a Mao-themed eatery.
posted by FeldBum on Aug 21, 2006 - 69 comments

World Leaders Were Kids Once Too
Photos of a whole bunch of world leaders as kids up through adulthood. Hey, Reagan was Teh Buff! And proof that Joe Stalin was NOT born with that mustache!
posted by fenriq on Jul 22, 2006 - 83 comments

What unites hardliners like Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, and Rush Limbaugh -- their uncompromisingly conservative take on politics? In a provocative blog post titled Do Bush followers have a political ideology?, Glenn Greenwald persuasively argues otherwise. He believes that the conservative movement -- traditionally against big government, excessive spending, and federal intrusion into the private lives of Americans -- has been hijacked by something much more dangerous: an authoritarian cult of personality, or as Greenwald puts it, "a form of highly emotional mass theater masquerading as political debate."
posted by digaman on Feb 12, 2006 - 136 comments

[TotalitarianismFilter] Don't be asking your college librarian for a copy of that Little Red Book to do a class assignment, or your parents might get a visit from the good folks at the Department of Homeland Security. More evidence that the Bush administration cannot restrain itself when granted enhanced surveillance powers.
posted by digaman on Dec 17, 2005 - 97 comments

The only rule I can tell you is this one. In the vein of self-modifying games such as Nomic, 1000 Blank White Cards, Fluxx, and Cosmic Encounter, comes Mao: the game where the only way to learn the rules is by banging your head against them. Repeatedly.
posted by Ironwolf on Apr 24, 2005 - 32 comments

Mo' MAO. "If you stare at a red shape for a long time, when you turn away, your retina will hold the image but you will see a green version of the same shape. In the same way, when I lived in China, I saw the positive image of Mao so many times that my mind now holds a negative image of Mao. In my art I am transferring this psychological feeling to a physical object." --Zhang Hongtu
posted by gimonca on Mar 23, 2005 - 15 comments

Comrade, is Piglet revisionism getting you down? Don't be an enemy of the people. Brush up on your Maoist theory with the Mao of Poo.
posted by alidarbac on Feb 8, 2004 - 5 comments

Chinese Pop Posters. More :- Guangzhou's racing track, patrolling despair, Cuba, under New York, Bombay bazaar, and Chinese rural architecture. All from the excellent Atlas magazine - more here.
posted by plep on Jul 21, 2003 - 10 comments

Scrapbook of the Revolution: Interpreting the Mao Era
posted by hama7 on Mar 29, 2003 - 10 comments

The Chairman Smiles ......Mao......Fidel.....Stalin .....Che........Nostalgia for the evil ones of our past. I wonder how many of us would trade today's War on Terrorism for the Cold War.
posted by Voyageman on Nov 4, 2001 - 91 comments