[0608] Shih's possible armed insurgency?

Shih's possible armed insurgency?

Recently DPP's ex-president Shih Ming-Te had a journelist conference, asking Taiwanese to pay him (total 100 million New Taiwan dollars) for anti-bian movement. This is very weird. First of all, recalling of a president is a given right for Taiwanese. Why the hell do people need to pay Shih in order to exercise the right that they already have ?

Secondly, Shih opened personal accounts and receive so much money, but he never mentioned how he is gonna use that money. Besides the sitting-in, he simply said he has it all planned. What does he really have in mind?

Thirdly, suppose that he is gonna organize huge demonstration. But, in his anti-bian website (*), he said to the public clearly:

# We don't want any flag (national flags, party flags, campaign flags, school flags, faction flags)
# We don't welcome any campaign props and ads (campaign jackets, party jackets...)
# 我們不要任何其他旗幟：國旗、黨旗、競選旗、校旗、派系旗，都不要。
# 我們不歡迎任何競選道具和廣告；競選背心、助選背心、政黨背心，都不要。

He said it out loud that he is not gonna invest the donated money on things that are usually needed for a political demonstration.

Then ... besides a demonstration, what else can he do, with that whole chunk of money ?

Suddenly I was hit by an old memory. In Shih's teenage, he determined to enter the army school. In Taiwan, the popular perception is that only whoever fails the entrance exam to normal schools would consider entering an army school. So very very few Taiwanese would devote his/her career to the army. Shih did that, and from the documents disclosed later, we know that he did that because he wanted to learn how to organize people for an armed coup to overthrow the KMT government. It seems to reveal his characteristics: whatever he doesn't agree, he wouldn't hesitate going extreme with violence.

Other than the inborn nature, it would need a combination of many other factors for one to choose a violent means. For example, when one is in a high position in government, is very rich, is well-respected in the society ... etc, considering a violent means might turn a wonderful life into jail time or even death and thus lose all feasts, it's less likely that he would do so.

Judging Shih's life in recent years -- being discarded by Taiwanese (failed a campaign of legislator miserably), being kept distant by DPP members and pan-green supporters (he is going closer and closer to the pan-blue side), has to rely on KMT's support to live (according to his ex-wife Linda)... he is in the brim of total collapse, in terms of almost all sides of life (position, reputation, wealth ...). Comparing to his life ten years ago, at that time he was well respected as a hero in the Taiwan's democratic history, the combination of all those abjection courses could cast a higher chance for him to 'light a fire' in the late age of his life, which would fit his teenager dream perfectly.


* Shih's anti-bian web: http://www.newtaiwan.org.tw/
$ This article in manderinhttp://echotaiwan.blogspot.com/2006/08/blog-post.html
! This article in "anti-media" http://www.anti-media.tw/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=15221