Empire State Building: A monument to ignorance about China, and history (UPDATED)

For the update, scroll down.

The struggle to educate the American public about the reality of Castro's Cuba is made more difficult by the general ignorance of history by too many Americans — like those in charge of the Empire State Building in New York.

I am not talking about American history or even Cuban history  — although the void of knowledge is an ever-deepening abyss — but of the history of how totalitarians around the world grabbed their power and use whatever cruel means necessary to keep it. That history is ignored or even unlearned, so we act like the massacres and the imprisonments and the overall oppression and repression never happened.

Instead, we get all wrapped up in debates about "embargoes" and how "unfair" they are. And how "cool" and "dynamic" the dictators are, and why we are willing to do business with one set of tyrants, but not another. And about how much American debt they are holding.

We forget about the Cubans and the Vietnamese and the Chinese and the other peoples around the world who have to live with our ignorance.

But we remember our anniversaries, even as we forget the blood spilled to get us to this point.

The Empire State Building this week will be turned into a memorial honoring one of history's greatest blood-curdling and blood-sucking regimes, the communists of the People's Republic of China.

The Empire State is regularly lighted up in different colors to recognize a particular historical or cultural milestone. But I doubt it ever has been used to honor a band of mass murderers like the Chinese communists. (I'd hate to see what the Empire State might have done if they had realized that Sept. 23 last week was Saudi Arabia's National Day; after all, the World Trade Center wasn't available.)

The ChiComms, who operate what probably is the largest gulag currently on the planet, do not deserve acclaim, but continued scorn for what they do their own people.

The censorship. The repression of any dissident. The absence of liberty.

Capitalism might have made many Chinese rich, but at the cost of their freedom, which is too high a price to pay.

As it celebrates the tragedy of 60 years of communist rule in China, the Empire State Building also will be honoring one of history's saddest traditions — the ignorance without which tyrants cannot survive.

UPDATED, Oct. 1, 2009

At Uncommon Sense, we sometimes get letters. This was signed, but I am omitting the name, which was obviously Chinese. It came in after this story appeared.

Mr. Masferrer,

I appreciate your efforts to raise the issue of human rights in China. But I think it is highly insensitive and ignorant to relate the lighting on Empire state building to the communist regime. Admitting it or not, the current Chinese government is accepted by most people in the world and the majority Chinese people believe the nation building of China started 60 years ago by the communist government. It might be an oppressive regime by western standard (which is constantly improving by the way), but it is the first time for China to be united as a modern country after suffering immensely at the hands of the colonial countries from the west and Japan. In a way, I think your ignorance of Chinese history is typical of most Americans. You tend judge the world only from principles you’ve learned from your backyard. Just look at the mess you’ve made in the mid east

After reading this and comments attached, the history lessons obviously must continue.