This link has been bookmarked by 2 people . It was first bookmarked on 15 Apr 2008, by Bruce Berglund.
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17 Apr 08
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he Chinese government, in its insecure and bullying fashion, keeps pushing its luck with acts like the army-saturated torch welcoming ceremony
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endless torch relay with its unprecedented scale of 85,000 miles and 20,000 torchbearers
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adding their goon squad of "flame attendants"
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Beijing has made it abundantly clear that this is not about the Olympic spirit, but about power, Chinese power.
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we should do it eyes open, aware not only of Chinese culpability for the current mess, but also of our own.
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headline "Who's Hu?
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not surprising that the current Tibet crackdown appears cleaner than the first: well rehearsed,
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Europe has already begun to pick sides
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how comprehensive a boycott we are looking at probably lies in the United States
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Tibetan monks and activists are essentially terrorists,
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first Chinese argument
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second defense,
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who desperately need Chinese modernization for their own good.
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hird Chinese argument is rarely stated openly.
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You are hypocrites. You knew the human rights situation in China when we made our bid. Your journalists only give human rights sporadic, selective coverage anyway. So why are you complaining at this late date? And here, as the context of the original bid and the tragic history of Falun Gong fully demonstrate, the Chinese are dead right.
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Beijing's was always a blackmail bid
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It was whispered that the Beijing Olympics would buy peace in the Taiwan Strait for eight years, ensure continued economic liberalization, mollify runaway Chinese nationalism (by bolstering Chinese self-esteem), permit journalists to operate in a slightly more plausible working environment, and inhibit the Chinese leadership from overtly slaughtering its citizens.
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ensure social stability was to neutralize the "five poisons"--Tibetan separatists, democracy activists, Taiwan independence supporters, Xinjiang freedom fighters, and Falun Gong practitioners.
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The blackmail bid took place in clear sight of the mindbending persecution of Falun Gong,
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documentation that thousands had been murdered and over 100,000 had been thrown into labor camps, and finally in 2006 when credible reports of systematic organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners
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describe physical exams aimed at determining the health of their internal organs, along with close examination of corneas.
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Falun Gong has three strikes against it.
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took them by surprise
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Second,
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First,
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depend on the party's minimal cooperation for access and accreditation.
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news stories had to be suppressed directly
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Stories about persecution and torture could bring retaliation-
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third
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Beijing-based journalists have gone slightly native
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looked like an enemy of the New China that journalists actually like:
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Oversight in Washington of this sort of activity lagged because politicians absorbed the distorted perception pumped out of China by many journalists and succumbed to the lobbying pressures of businessmen eager to cut deals with Chinese officials.
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Cisco
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The record suggests an informal pact with the Chinese government to trade away mention of Falun Gong in exchange for minor concessions
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We are assisting in the construction of a simulacrum of an independent, modern society, while the reality is actually quite fascist in nature.
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Let's admit that we screwed up,
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15 Apr 08
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