At first, the Czar thought he missed the sarcastic image of a middle finger or a dead body. But no, the dude is serious.

Ranjit Goswami, of the Blogger News Network, writes an editorial titled “Saluting China”. In it, he pays courteous respect to Communist China.

The people of China, its policy-makers and the Communist Party that’s behind sort of everything in China deserve this salute. They have earned it against all odds. The peaceful rise of China is in everybody’s radar now although many took time to (deliberately) ignore it for a long time. China deserves the salute from the world for the unbelievable achievements they accomplished during the last half of these sixty years. And that benefited a vast majority of China’s nearly 1.3 billion people, and probably a significant number of the nearly 5.4 billion global non-Chinese as well. Until now.

That does in no way mean things happened in a ‘Hunky dory’ manner over the sixty years or over the last half of it. There were casualties – starting from environment to human rights to human beings. It is hard to imagine any country that today boasts of highest Internet users and usages with strict control on the ‘freedom of opinion’ – the gene of Internet. Surely the two could not have co-existed had it not been the People’s Republic of China.

And just like that, Goswami sweeps away more than 2 million murders, 1.5 million permanent injuries, a total of 36 million people imprisoned, brutalized, tortured, or raped, the pillaging of entire communities, destruction of untold architectural and artistic treasures, and abominations against religious institutions (Tibetan, Korean, Uighur, and Christian).

60 years of terror and violence, paranoia and poverty. Layers of fresh blood cake over ancient blood.People were starved to the point of cannibalism, forcibly relocated and effectively enslaved to do agricultural work in numbers that exceeded the total number of slaves ever held in the United States across centuries combined. Dissent and disobedience have been aggressively suppressed—not just anti-government demonstrations, but even people who practice quasi-religious beliefs that fail to acknowledge the supreme power of the Communist Party. Today, children are treated as cattle, with limitations on gender and breeding. Women are officially considered equals, but in reality are little more than servants who need to keep their mouths shut. Its lands and its waters are toxic, and result in millions being sickened or deformed.

This isn’t ancient history. Lots of Chinese would be able to explain in great detail the horrors they have personally seen, if only they were allowed.

Goswami has no doubt never been to China to ask them. His knowledge of it comes from National Geographic photo essays of swinging Shanghai nightclubs, tall high rises, and smiling parades in Beijing plazas. All Hollywood, with neon and Ferraris. Perhaps he has been to Hong Kong, where the standard of living is at Western standards of comfort and convenience. But he ignores the entire, bloody past of China and its sick effects in Mongolia, North Korea, and Vietnam, all of whom might take a slightly less supportive view of Maoism. Ask the Uighurs, Tibetans, and Yunnan how fond their recollections are. They would very much like to live in Goswami’s fictional China.

Today, China celebrates her 60th anniversary, and she retains blood on her hands from the first day right up until today. 60 years of terror and violence, paranoia and poverty. Layers of fresh blood cake over ancient blood.

Goswami sings how the Chinese have done so much good for their people—taking the predictable tone of “See how far they have come in 60 years!” Yes, the average Chinese person is better today than he was 60 years ago. But every open, Western democracy has brought her people further in much, much less time. Even stellar Hong Kong, the crown jewel of Communism, is the product of the West, not China. Goswami congratulates China for crossing the Social Improvement finish line, not realizing she is almost dead last. Even in China, that position is called “Loser.”

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.