Global Voices’ Oiwan Lam highlights a recent thread on Sina Weibo, which began with user Zhang Nong’s illustrated outburst against the 50 Cent Party (see CDT’s Grass Mud Horse Lexicon):
[Can we call this patriotic?] When society is flooded with corruption, you don’t criticize; when the rich and powerful are out of control, you don’t feel angry; you also make no comment on the burden of education; you don’t share our pain in the lack of health care; you don’t see the suffering of peasants; you don’t hear the sorrow of the unemployed; you place no blame on authoritarian rule… However, whenever I criticize all the above problems, you become agitated and call your friends to attack me. This is how you love your country, 50 Cent Gang?
Lam translates a number of responses to Zhang’s post, expressing attitudes towards 50 Centers ranging from hostile to defensive via dismissive.
I我相信：The 50 Cent Party is the product of Chinese society. They are born because the rich and the powerful need them to justify crony capitalism and exploit ordinary people. In the past, I also cursed the 50-centers, but now I find such reaction too naive; they are just the by-product of the corrupted social system. We can’t blame them.
林岳芳: [People really betray their country like this?] You don’t praise the large number of high-rise buildings; You don’t boast about the wide concrete roads; you care nothing about the progress of our technology; you don’t see the beauty of the cities; you don’t see the happiness of the farmers; you don’t hear the laugher of the people; you don’t criticize the dark side of human mind… whenever a tiny problem occurs in this heavenly land, you don’t care about the truth, instead only focus on just one incident to attack the whole country. You jump up and down and call your friends to curse and attack. Western slaves, is this how you sell out your country?
