(Clearwisdom.net)
Part 1:
Homer, a legendary ancient Greek poet, was best known for his epic poems, The Iliad and The Odyssey. The former poem describes the Trojan War and the latter one, follows Odysseus on his voyage home after a heroic role in the Trojan War. Odysseus was a resourceful and sagacious warrior-king. In fact, he devised the Trojan Horse, the famous stratagem, and defeated Troy. No Greek hero in literature has suffered more tribulations and disasters than Odysseus. It took Odysseus twenty years after the end of the Trojan War to return to his kingdom of Ithaca.
One of the major tribulations Odysseus had to overcome was the enchanting singing from the Sirens (or the sea nymphs.) The Sirens lived on an island called Sirenum scopuli which was surrounded by cliffs and rocks. Approaching sailors were drawn to them by their enchanting singing, causing them to sail onto the rocks and drown. Almost all the sailors lost their lives when they approached the area. Odysseus escaped the sirens by having all his sailors plug their ears with beeswax and tie him to the mast. He was curious as to what the Sirens sounded like. When he heard their beautiful song, he ordered the sailors to untie him but they ignored him. When they had passed out of earshot, Odysseus stopped thrashing about and calmed down. Only then did his sailors untie him. Odysseus survived the Sirens and eventually returned to his homeland safely.
The moral of the story is: not everything pleasing to our ears or eyes is good for us. It is important for us to be able to tell right from wrong.
Part 2:
I thought of the story after I heard that the Chinese Communist regime is planning to have a series of concerts in North America featuring, "The Same Song."
Some might ask, "They are no more than pop music concerts. What is the big deal?"
The key is not in the song itself, but in its application and goal.
The Sirens' songs were pleasing to the ears of sailors and heroes, but the purpose of the songs was to lead the sailors to their deaths.
What on earth is the purpose of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for going through so much trouble to promote "The Same Song?"
Part 3:
It is necessary to review some of the history of the CCP in order to fully address the question.
Since the CCP was established and took over the country, it has never loosened its control over the minds of the people in China. From "Apartment" to "A Silver-Haired Woman", the CCP continued to search for raw materials and fabricate stories for the purpose of using them for its brainwashing work all over China. The CCP was so good at its work that the gullible audiences were actually moved to tears by the performances.
The brainwashing work was proven fruitful. During the Land Reform Period, the CCP successfully used those pieces of "brainwashing literature" to instigate the Chinese people's hatred towards landowners. Countless landowners were beheaded or slaughtered, leaving their daughters and wives behind to be raped. During the "Three Anti-Movement" and "Five Anti-Movement," countless capitalists in China were forced to commit suicide, but no one cared. During the "Great Leap Forward," the CCP caused a great famine in China, which starved millions of people to death, but no one had the courage to doubt anything the CCP had said. Instead, they found weak consolation in the CCP's deceitful explanation that the famine was caused by natural disasters, which, in reality, did not occur at all during that period of time. There are many other examples such as the Great Cultural Revolution, the Tiananmen Square Massacre, its suppression by violence and the killing of people trying to appeal at the Appeals Office and its ruthless persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. After having committed so many horrific crimes, the CCP is still capable of making the Chinese people submit to its rule. Apparently the CCP is indeed the master of deceit and propaganda.
During the past few years, the truth behind "Apartment" and "A Silver Haired Woman" came to the surface. After several decades, today's Chinese people now look at those songs and movies of revolution with ridicule and sneers. The rock-and-roll version of "An International Song" was a reflection of the Chinese people's sentiments towards those songs and movies. After the Tiananmen Square Massacre, the CCP added a year of mandatory military education to the curriculum of the renowned Beijing University and Fudan University to further brainwash the students. But it was eventually withdrawn from the curriculum in a few years. It is another sign of the change of the Chinese people's attitude towards such issues.
Under the circumstances, the CCP has to become increasingly subtle in its mind control. It skillfully infused patriotism with praises for the CCP in songs. As a result, the Chinese people now have no idea that they are praising the CCP when they praise China. "The Same Song" is the most obvious example of the CCP's strategy.
Since CCTV started a TV program with the same title, "The Same Song" has become one of the most powerful weapons for the CCP's political education and mind control. The song is so enchanting that people forget about the CCP's murderous nature or the fact that the CCP has persecuted over half of the population in China and caused the death of 60 to 80 million Chinese people since it took power in 1949. The number of death caused by the CCP is more than that in WWI and WWII together.
Part 4:
Exactly like The Epoch Times' "The Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party" has described, the CCP will keep on changing its lies in order to maintain its survival and to reinforce its rule, but it will never change its deceitful nature. During the SARS epidemic, the CCP desperately covered the truth about the spread of SARS in China until it could not hide it any longer. Not long ago, the CCP opened fire and slaughtered the innocent villagers at Shanwei Village who had lost their land without getting proper compensation due to the CCP's forced land collection for a new business development project, but the CCP shamefully refused to acknowledge its crimes. These are iron proofs of the CCP's deceitful nature.
With the above facts in mind, "The Same Song" is merely one of the CCP's many means to appease and beguile the Chinese people.
This is not the first propaganda campaign in human history. It has happened in Germany in the 30's during the rule of Hitler.
In 1935, Leni Riefenstahl from Germany directed Triumph of the Will (Triumph des Willens), an infamous propaganda documentary of the Third Reich's 1934 Nuremberg Party Rally featuring a cast of thousands as well as, of course, Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels, Hess, Goering and other top party officials. In 1938, Leni Riefenstahl directed two other propaganda films, Olympia Part Two: Festival of Beauty (Olympia 2. Teil - Fest der Schönheit) and Olympia Part One: Festival of the Nations (Olympia 1. Teil - Fest der Völker.) Riefenstahl shot a documentary that celebrates the human body by combining the poetry of bodies in motion with close-ups of athletes in the heat of competition, including the marathon, men's diving, and American track star Jesse Owen's sprint races at the 1936 Olympic games. The production tends to glorify the young male body and, some say, expresses the Nazi attitude toward athletic prowess. Although those propaganda films are highly artistic, they served as accomplices to Hitler's crimes of genocide. Hitler's tyranny rule eventually disintegrated and Leni Riefenstahl was forever condemned in history. The world has never forgiven her for what she did.
Part 5:
Because of the CCP's nature of deceit, evil and strife, it fears Falun Gong practitioners because the principle Falun Gong practitioners believe in, "Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance," is opposite to what the CCP stands for. While the CCP has been "defaming Falun Gong practitioners' reputations, bankrupting them financially, destroying them physically," it has never stopped using psychological anesthesia as one of the means to persecute Falun Gong practitioners.
Ms. Wang Huimin is a Falun Gong practitioner who was rescued out of China in 2005. According to Ms. Wang, it sent chills to her bones when she saw the poster of "The Same Song" concert in New York City's Chinatown because this familiar song reminded her of the nightmare she went through in a forced labor camp in China.
Ms. Wang Huimin used to be an editor of the Huacheng Publishing House in Guangzhou. On December 31, 2001, Ms. Wang Huimin went to Beijing to appeal to the Chinese Communist regime for the end of its persecution of Falun Gong. As a result, she was sentenced to one year in the Cuotou Forced Labor Camp in Guangzhou. During the illegal detention, she was subjected to brainwashing and other forms of torture including being handcuffed and shackled for long periods and being beaten repeatedly with wooden clubs. As one of the brainwashing measures, the forced labor camp forced Falun Gong practitioners to sing "The Same Song" and "There is No New China without the Chinese Communist Party." Because Ms. Wang refused to sing, she was locked in an isolation cell where she was deprived of sleep and forced to sit on a small bench continuously for many days until her buttocks became rotten. Because of the incessant physical and mental torments, Ms. Wang Huimin nearly collapsed. The most unbearable thing to her was when the sound of the singing of "The Same Song" traveled into her cell in the midst of the hellish torture. Tragically, the singing came from those Falun Gong practitioners that had already been "transformed" or forced to give up their spiritual beliefs and consciences. When she heard the singing, it made her feel as though each second were as long as a year. In the hell of the forced labor camp, acceptance of a human being's most fundamental essence of kindness and dignity was completely destroyed.
Mr. Chen Gang is a Falun Gong practitioner who also has been rescued from China after being subjected to the most savage torture in Tuanhe Forced Labor Camp in Beijing, China. Mr. Chen Gang was illegally imprisoned for practicing Falun Gong. In order to force him to give up his belief in Falun Gong, the prison police and several inmates under the police's order tied Mr. Chen's hands behind his back, tied up his legs and tied his torso to his legs. Next they stuffed him under the bed and had several inmates sit on the bed, pressing down Mr. Chen's body. Mr. Chen succumbed to the terrible agony and renounced Falun Gong in writing. Because of the torture, Mr. Chen was injured all over his body, especially his lower back. When he was paralyzed in bed, feeling better off dead, he heard singing of "The Same Song" by the prison police that were celebrating the fact they had "transformed" him.
According to the investigation report published by World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG) on January 12, 2006, since the CCP started nationwide persecution of Falun Gong in July 1999, "The Same Song" has played an important role in the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, as well as having become a symbol of accomplishment and celebration by CCP officials and police in the brutal brainwashing and "transformation" of Falun Gong practitioners. According to information provided by practitioners who have suffered brainwashing in forced labor camps, in addition to the testimony from practitioners who have left Mainland China, this song was an indispensable part both in the process and completion of the brainwashing to force practitioners into renouncing their belief. The statement from the CCP propaganda office flaunting the effectiveness of brainwashing has validated the affidavits of the victims. Part of the lyrics from "The Same Song" was used at the end of a special program produced by CCTV on reforming Falun Gong practitioners by Bao Kun, a Lugouqiao community deputy from the Fengtai District of Beijing. In videotape archived at the Beijing Bureau of Reeducation-Through-Labor Administration, there was footage of prison guards and practitioners singing that song together during a brainwashing session [8]. As part of the brainwashing process, on March 8, 2002, International Women's Day, the All-China Women's Federation organized "March 8 Red Flag Holders" (that is, model female workers) from all over the country to pay a tribute to the police at the Xin-an Forced Labor Camp under the Beijing Bureau of Reeducation-through-labor Administration. One of the programs was "The Same Song" sung by detained practitioners along with those "March 8 Red Flag Holders." On January 22, 2001, in a forced labor camp in Daxing County, Beijing, more than one hundred Falun Gong practitioners, who were forcibly detained for brainwashing and transformation, were gathered to perform "The Same Song" together.
Part 6:
The CCTV has used Ms. Wang Bo and her parents, Mr. Wang Xinzhong and Ms. Liu Shuqin, in its program, Focus Interview, for the CCP's propaganda against Falun Gong. After the three of them were released, they each revealed the truth in writing.
With respect to the past several years when she was deceived, brainwashed and used for the CCP's propaganda against Falun Gong, Ms. Wang Bo wrote, "It is not until now that I realize that the CCP is most vicious when they lie to you with a smile. I would have been able to identify them as bad guys if they are mean and violent to me. But they were always smiling at me when they played dirty schemes. They would design plots based on my weaknesses and my fears. If they see that you worry about your father, they will exploit it to attain their vicious goal."
"One generation of Chinese died deceived and another generation continues to be cheated. This is the biggest sorrow of the Chinese people, the most unfortunate aspect of the Chinese nation." (From "Part 1: On What the Communist Party Is" in "The Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party.)
Part 7:
Nowadays more and more Chinese people are beginning to see through the CCP's nature and have decided to withdraw from the CCP. In fact, more than 7 million people had overcome the CCP's Internet and information blockade and published a statement at The Epoch Times to withdraw from the CCP and its affiliated organizations by the end of 2005. As a result of the increasingly popular trend to withdraw from the CCP, the CCP is using many different ways to deceive and appease the Chinese people. The fact that they are trying to promote "The Same Song" outside of China fully reveals its intention.
More and more people have become clearheaded about the CCP. Whoever chooses to be on the CCP's side is dancing with a wolf. The CCP wolf may be wearing a sheep's skin or even a flower wreath on its head, but no one can save you when it reveals its true face and takes a real bite of you.
Hans Christian Andersen wrote a famous fairytale, The Red Shoes, in 1845. There was a poor little girl, Karen, whose mother had died. At her funeral Karen wore red shoes for they were the only ones she had. A kind old lady saw Karen and took her in, buying her new clothes and shoes. But Karen grew up vain. She defied the old lady's words and wore red shoes to church, which was very inappropriate. One day the lady became ill and needed Karen to care for her. But Karen neglected the old lady and attended the ball in her red shoes. She started to dance, but when she tried to go left, the shoes went right. When she tried to go right, the shoes went left. Horrified, she tried to pull off the shoes, but they were stuck. And they continued to dance, through fields and meadows, rain or shine, night and day. An angel came to Karen and told her, 'Dance you must, till you grow cold and pale. You must dance from door to door wherever there are proud and vain children, knocking on their doors so that they hear you and fear you. Dance." Karen was in such agony that she eventually begged an executioner to chop off her feet.
If you should continue to dance in the CCP's shoes of deceit, evil and strife, what will become of you in the future?
Part 8:
With the help of many deities, Odysseus returned home safely only to find his home was occupied by a large number of suitors that have been spending his money and trying to take over his wife. In the company of the suitors, Odysseus is challenged to a fight by a wandering beggar. Much to the delight and entertainment of the crowd, Odysseus beats the brash beggar to within an inch of his life. Amphinomus, one of the many suitors, congratulates Odysseus-as-vagabond, and offers him some food. In repayment for this charity, Odysseus warns the suitor that he should leave the property before something terrible befalls the house. Odysseus said, "[...] take heed to what I am saying. Man is the vainest of all creatures that have their being upon earth. As long as heaven vouchsafes him health and strength, he thinks that he shall come to no harm hereafter, and even when the blessed gods bring sorrow upon him, he bears it as he needs must, and makes the best of it; for God Almighty gives men their daily minds day by day. I know all about it, for I was a rich man once, and did much wrong in the stubbornness of my pride, and in the confidence that my father and my brothers would support me; therefore let a man fear God in all things always, and take the good that heaven may see fit to send him without vain glory. Consider the infamy of what these suitors are doing; see how they are wasting the estate, and doing dishonor to the wife of one who is certain to return some day, and that, too, not long hence. Nay, he will be here soon; may heaven send you home quietly first that you may not meet with him in the day of his coming, for once he is here the suitors and he will not part bloodlessly." However, Amphinomus ignores this counsel and later dies with the rest of the suitors.
The law of Heaven always prevails. The question is: when Heaven annihilates the CCP because of its numerous crimes, are we still being beguiled by its intoxicating lies?
