Making China Great Again

First, there was Forrest Gump with his seemingly profound observations like "life's like a box of chocolates."  Which perhaps drove you crazy enough, when you also (mis)heard him say "shit happens."

Now, we have another one:

life is like a shirt with buttons where you have to get the first few right or all the rest will be wrong

Who knew, eh!

If I had said that about life being like a shirt, you would have laughed at me, and decided that I have finally snapped after the months and months of yelling at the fascist.

Relax.  I did not say that.

It was the world's most powerful leader who said that.  No, not the fascist. But, a real authoritarian--China's Xi Jinping.

Keep in mind that despite all the sucking up that Mark Zuckerberg has done, Facebook has no presence in China.  The great security firewall prevents Facebook from tapping into the 1.4 billion, whom Zuckerberg wants to desperately sell Russian fake news!  You don't mess around with Xi.

Where was I?  Oh yea, with China's politburo meeting coming up, finally even the American press is waking up to what this guy already has written up.

This piece in the NY Times caught my attention.  And then I looked at the byline: Reuters.  The NY Times does not have its own people to cover the big political event?

The Economist reviews Xi's domestic and international presence.  And then concludes:

Mr Xi may think that concentrating more or less unchecked power over 1.4bn Chinese in the hands of one man is, to borrow one of his favourite terms, the “new normal” of Chinese politics. But it is not normal; it is dangerous. No one should have that much power. One-man rule is ultimately a recipe for instability in China, as it has been in the past—think of Mao and his Cultural Revolution. It is also a recipe for arbitrary behaviour abroad, which is especially worrying at a time when Mr Trump’s America is pulling back and creating a power vacuum. The world does not want an isolationist United States or a dictatorship in China. Alas, it may get both.

All the power with Xi.
Here, the madman has the nuclear codes.
The warhead in North Korea is ready to go ballistic.
Vlad the impaler quietly goes around killing people.
Can somebody make the world great again, please?