If you're a non-violent activist for human rights in China, you can expect to be abused, intimidated, harassed, placed under police surveillance, thrown in prison, or all of the above. Authorities have been known to force sterilizations and abortions on citizens. If you're a lawyer wishing to defend such citizens, expect to be imprisoned for years. Journalists who attempt to expose human rights abuses are also targeted.
A republi-con paradise!!
How many of these things does the U.S. have under Buschco? ROFLMAO!! It's us just varied by degrees of separation...and damn few degrees at that!
Posted by phidipides at July 31, 2008 02:51 PMOh, and if you have a picture of the Dalai Lama in your house? You're a terrorist.
Phid, we're close, but we're not there yet. The fact that this blog was posted is evidence of that.
I'm already sick of the Coke cans w/ the Chinese letters. Of course, Coke has a history of making sales to the worst people on earth at the worst possible time. Google Fanta Orange and Nazi.
And I don't know anybody who's interested in the Olympics. Except former Olympians or Olympic hopefulls.
And we're way too afraid of China to ever boycott something like this.
Posted by MaskedVigilante at July 31, 2008 03:11 PMI stopped watching years ago. Who cares? It's just something to create a market around and sell trinkets for. At least the sellers of cheap plastic shit will save a bundle on shipping costs!
And when Marion Jones gets jail time while fuckers like Roger Clemons skates, fuck 'em all!
Posted by iamcoyote at July 31, 2008 03:23 PMChina is powerful enough that the rest of the world has to kiss its ass. More frighteningly, there's an organically growing ultra-nationalist sentiment building over there. For all of the talk about Islamofascistjihadi bogeymen, China is going to be the big problem for the US down the road.
Posted by Geekesque at July 31, 2008 03:28 PMHow does the American Chinese checkers team look this year? Any career ending carpal injuries being reported?
Posted by TIKI AL at July 31, 2008 04:35 PMI'm against boycotting Olympics in general, but they shouldn't be given to countries with such blatant human rights abuses. Maybe if the IOC refused to give them to an American city for the same reason, that would get through to people that holding people indefinitely with no charges is not ok.
Posted by CG at July 31, 2008 04:53 PMI just watched a video yesterday called "the last hangman" set in Britain. The guy (who hanged 600some people from 1933 to 1955) came to the conclusion that capital punishment is all about revenge. Britain no longer carries it out. We do. Wonder if having a black man as a presidential candidate will reduce the number of blacks compared to whites that are on Death Row. I doubt it.
Posted by Sharon at July 31, 2008 04:57 PMYou know, if the Chinese government had thought about it, they would have set up the journalists data connections as an exception to the Great Data Wall. (Don't say that it couldn't work - anything is possible in data management with enough will and resources.) If the journalists had never seen a blocked page or barred document, this issue wouldn't exist - at least not to the journalists that matter, those morons from the States.
And the IOC and participating countries are certainly behaving as though they expectedthis to be the case. Talk about an un-mentioned gentlemen's agreement. "Don't censor us, and we'll not drag out descriptions of your normal state of affairs."
Talk about arrogant stupidity by all.
Posted by idiosynchronic at July 31, 2008 06:14 PMis it any better than playing the games in the United States..a country that blatantly tortures prisoners of "war" , that blatantly falsely invades a sovereign nation on false pretenses and slaughters tens of thousands of innocents and lays waste to the country? No, it is not.
Posted by T2 at July 31, 2008 06:30 PMI already voiced my opinion in the Open Thread.
Posted by Judith at July 31, 2008 06:37 PMA little of topic, but I jut wanted everyone to know that Billmon is back and has a tasty post on the Great Orange. Anyone who has not experienced the Whiskey Bar, of days long gone, will I think, enjoy reading his excoriation of the "Straight Talk Excressance".
This day, legends walk the Earth once more!
Posted by DeminNewJ at July 31, 2008 07:17 PMPhid, we're close, but we're not there yet. The fact that this blog was posted is evidence of that.
The fact that every post here is saved for future reference and scrutiny is evidence of just how close we are.
I stopped watching years ago.
Yep. Pro athletes were the final nail in the coffin for me. Ahhh. The joyous days when the East German womens athletes looked like Cro-Magnon man!
Posted by phidipides at July 31, 2008 07:34 PMWhen the banker on whose credit you depend throws a big party, you attend, smile and laigh at every joke. The idea you wouldn't attend because you don't really like the banker is not an option.
I've never watched 10 minutes of one of these inane sports circuses, and can't fathom the hysteria that grips countries that are "awarded" the "honor" of holding them. They cost a fortune, require you to deform your landscape and you are left with a loathsomely ugly "Olympic Village" to come up with a function for for several decades.
Flush the "games". And the atheletes need counselling about determining priorities in life.
Posted by euzoius at August 1, 2008 05:41 AMphiddy, you just don't understand what it is to be a star athlete.
Having been on the winning "Bicentennial Heavyweight Ropepull" team for Waukesha County, Wis, I have experienced the thrill of victory.
It is intoxicating, and we were intoxicated when we won it.
Posted by TIKI AL at August 1, 2008 09:00 AM