Why i love green / blue / orange

Politics Taiwan Politics
1

First, please excuse the simplistic nature of the poll/post…

I’m trying to gain an understanding of the politics and polticians in this country. Mostly, I rely on friends of mine who’ve lived in Taiwan their whole lives.

Unfortunately, I do not know anyone who has studied Political Science in Taiwan and so, most of the people I’ve talked to have difficulty giving me a balanced view of the people and parties that make up Taiwan’s political life.

Usually, the people I talk to like parties or politicians based on their ethnic heritage, or what part of Taiwan they are from. The media is so unreliable that I don’t even look at it as a valid source of information except on the factual events of the day. Networks having daily updates on the movements of a maid is one recent example of evident bias.

I thought I would ask on here because there seems to be a number of very educated Taiwanese and foreign participants who can articulate (and often provide links to supporting materials on) reasons for either embracing or rejecting the different parties.

Honestly, I have a bias. I tend to view the Green’s more favourably than the Blue’s. My reasons come mostly from reading Human Rights Watch articles, and local publications on the White Terror, 2/28 and the impression I have that the KMT has not attoned or made any real gesture to represent all of the people of Taiwan except for when elections come 'round.

I realise that as a group, politicians tend to be opportunistic and greedy. I doubt any politician is totally clean.

I’m asking any of you who feel so inclined to share some of your reasons for liking one party over the other. It’s vague and huge, but maybe, just maybe it will result in an exchange/clash of ideas that we’ll all learn something from. I’ve learned a lot from you already. For example, I thought it was a fact that Lee Tung Hui’s wife stole money. Someone on here set me straight. I accused the Green’s of race-baiting and someone wrote of the TSU’s being the most vocal race-baiters… I hope to learn more.

How about we don’t call each other names while we do it, ok?

Thanks!

rooftop

2

In terms of “human rights”, basically all the political parties are the same. I say this based on my experience of over ten years in working with local activist groups, which in turn coordinated with government personnel, legislators, city councilpeople, etc.

In other words, the political parties here have much common ground in that they maintain a somewhat developed sense of “Taiwanese rights” … but very little sense of human rights. (By “Taiwanese” of course I am referring to those persons who have local citizenship here in Taiwan … ) Moreover, there are members of some political parties who feel that the Mainlanders who came over in 1949 (or thereabouts) and their descendants should have special privileges … but anyway you look at it, none of the local political parties are stressing human rights across the board.

Of course, I realize that the political parties in Taiwan give much lip service to human rights. But I hardly think they practice what they preach.