Monday, March 19, 2007

Red Ants Turn on the Queen

Taiwan News reports that Shih Ming-te's supporters are suffering from a bad case of buyer's remorse:

The campaign supporters, better known as the "red shirt brigade," said at yesterday's press conference that the brigade will cut ties with Shih, and demanded Shih explain thoroughly the entire expenditure during the campaign activities which lasted for several months last year.

"Come out, Shih. Do not always hide yourself," the supporters said, adding that "Shih should never use the name of 'campaign leader' to issue news or make announcements any more."

The supporters said they did not take a penny when participating in the anti-corruption activities, but the headquarters listed NT$4 million in monthly payments for rally participants.

They demanded Shih to hand over the rest of the donation, or NT$20 million, and they will safeguard the money.

....

Supporters of the campaign last month staged a protest against Shih, doubting that Shih had not used the donation money to pay for his trip to the U.S. to deal with a liver problem.

Shih nearly redeemed himself in my eyes with this insightful crack:

They also requested Shih not to call them "jobless people who fool around."

Jobless people who fool around. Priceless. Thus all the earmarks of the typical Shih experience -- great publicity ending in accusations about money and attacks on erstwhile allies.


2 comments:

Unknown said...

Shih's cult status must be among the shortest-lived ever. Sure, that little patch of hair on his chin and his long hair kind of looked cool in a 60s acid-dropping kids kind-of-way.

Forget a Nazi Party. Taiwan really needs a Black Panther Party. How about another student group, one who worships Malcom X as its spiritual founder. It's actually more relevant than a Nazi Party, with no kids getting hurt in the process. Seeing kids dress up as Hitler and Hess is just plain wrong and weird. Seeing kids dress up as Malcolm, Huey, and Stokeley is too funny and cool to pass up!

Anonymous said...

Hahaha.... A fitting end to the 'anti-corruption' campaign. While all the blue faced red shirts run their mouth about how A-Bian is the one to polarize Taiwan society it was actually that campaign that polarized it more than anything. I nearly got in fistfights with people I had known for years when they found out I didn't support the notion of forcing the president from office by street protests.