Why do we feign outrage about China and the Olympics?

[NightWatcher]

Our human rights record here is better than China, but we still have some issues that need to be addressed.


Why do we act like we think that China should somehow be punished for what they do by boycotting the Olympics but then we drive to Walmart to buy all kinds of stupid, plastic shit that we dont really need that eventually ends up poisoning our kids or choking a sea turtle in the ocean.




If you are pissed off at China, please start showing it when you buy something. Stop supporting China at Walmart. If you must buy a trendy new "Free Tibet" shirt please dont buy one that was made in China- dumbass

[tekisui]

1. There is plenty of outrage for all human rights abuses.

I am with you on wanting more for what has been done in our name.

[TomInTib]

2. We beat our breasts, moan and wail...

and, tomorrow, go on about our way.

The Chinese don't give a damn, either way.

[MonkeyFunk]

3. Why is it feigned?

We have to be perfect before we can criticize anything that's worse?

China's record is abysmal, and I'm all for anything that exposes it.

[NightWatcher]

5. we dont have to be perfect but whining about the Olympics?

First, stop shopping at Walmart (I know many of us here already do that).

[EFerrari]

9. It's a mistake to pass up any public venue to air our issues. n/t

[Pithlet]

12. And the many of us here who already do that

are also disgusted that China is attempting to gain world acceptance via the Olympics, and support those who are protesting, if we aren't protesting ourselves. Makes perfect sense to me. I don't get why that's so puzzling to some. If an individual protester is caught walking out of a Wal Mart, then fine, give them hell. But, I don't get the blanket condemnation of DUers who are openly opposed to the Olympics in China.

[MonkeyFunk]

16. OK

I've never set foot in a Walmart. Don't have one here.

I've protested the war, I've protested Bush.

What's wrong with protesting China?

[Fumesucker]

7. How many dead in Iraq?

Since the invasion?

How many refugees?

What nation has the highest incarceration rate in the world, bar none?

[MonkeyFunk]

15. No matter how many

bad statistics you throw out, it doesn't change the basic fact that we should be protesting China.

If you think the US is equal to China in the area of human rights abuses, there's just nothing to discuss.

[spoony]

4. At whom exactly are you ranting?

No one here isn't pissed off about the things this government has done.

No one here hates the environment.

And no one here needs you telling us what we are sincere about and what we should object to in this world, in the US and outside of it.

[EFerrari]

6. I am just as outraged over the Chinese governement as I am over Bushco.

We can do both. If we're paying attention, we do both.

[NJSecularist]

8. It's absurd to compare our human right abuses to China's.

Absolutely absurd. It's not even close.

We are not saintly and pure, but we have a much better human rights record than China.

[EFerrari]

10. No, it's not absurd. We'd like to think it is but it's not.

You might want to take that up with the American women raped in Iraq and told to shut up or face the consequences.

They'd love to hear how much better our record is than China's.

[Zynx]

13. China's human rights record is consistently, over many decades, more appalling than ours.

Of that there is no question. They also are not exactly a peace loving country.

[EFerrari]

18. We've waged wars on innocent people practically since the inception

of this country.

You might want to look at this again.

[Zynx]

19. I don't recall where we've killed hundreds of thousands just for their political opinions.

[EFerrari]

21. So you've never heard of the Viet Nam police action? n/t

[bluerum]

14. It is absurd. Tibetan people are killed outright for flying their flag.

[EFerrari]

32. A couple of days ago. civilians in Iraq were killed for living on their block.

You decide.

[bluerum]

36. As mentioned elsewhere - what the US is doing in Tibet - China has been

doing to Tibet since the end of WWII.

Excuse me for being concerned about Tibet - but I am capable of considering the fate of Tibet, Iraq, New Orleans, Afghanistan, the US economy, climate change, and the presidential elections and many many other things - all within the same short time!

I am not saying that what the US is doing in Iraq is right or excusable. And please don't put those words in my mouth.

I am saying that turning a blind eye to the situation in Tibet, turning our heads as China slaughters a peaceful people, is just as criminal as killing people in Iraq. And happily participating in the Olympics without saying anything, as if nothing is going on is complicity.

[EFerrari]

37. We agree on that, completely. n/t

[NJSecularist]

17. How much of an occurence are incidents such as those?

It's not even close to the amount of human right abuses China commits daily.

There is no comparision.

[EFerrari]

20. Really? So when we bomb civilians in Iraq that doesen't count?

When we overturn lawfully elected governments that doesn't count?

When we wage proxy wars that result in tortures and executions that doesn't count?

What ARE you counting?

[NJSecularist]

22. Saddam Hussein's government was a lawfully elected government?

Last time I checked, it was a brutal dictatorship.

[EFerrari]

31. A brutal dictatorship that WE imposed on the Iraqi people. n/t

[readmoreoften]

33. Yes, ours abuses are possibly more widespread and committed by trained proxies.

* The School of Americans in Fort Benning, Georgia trains Latin American military and right-wing paramilitary leaders to rape, murder, and assassinate. A declassified handbook from the SOA, showed that there was a section on how to use rape as a tool for to break prisoners. Women, it said, should be forced to undress themselves before rape--participation in the act will make them feel complicit. Men should be undressed by others as heightens their feeling of powerlessness.

* SOA graduates have killed nuns and priests in Latin America for being adherents of Liberation Theology.

* SOA graduates have high level positions in the Mexican military. The United States trained those who organized the right wing paramilitary Paz y Justicia that killed 45 women and children involved in a pacifist movement called Las Abejas in Acteal, Mexico in 1997. The police ordered a stand down as the militia raped and murdered the women and children. A pregnant woman had her fetus torn from her body. The massacre started in a church.

* The US military still backs the low-intensity warfare in Chiapas in order to protect the agri-businesses who stole the homes and land our from under millions of poor Mexicans. Bombings and murder still occur infrequently. Women live in constant fear of rape from the soldiers.

* In the 1950s, the CIA overthrew the democratically elected Arbenz in Guatemala on behalf of the United Fruit Company, which desired the farms of Latin America. For four decades we sent SOA grads to train and arm the right-wing paramilitaries. Public torture displays kept the people in line: breasts cut off, legs injected with poison to make them swell to unrecognizable proportions. One elderly woman's son was returned to her in brown paper bags. Later they beat her and cut holes in her skin so that flies would lay eggs inside her flesh and she would die a slow, torturous death.

*Kissinger and the Chicago boys, along with ITT and Ford, backed Pinochet in Chile because he was willing to turn the country into a free-market experiment. They rounded up people in football fields and had neighbors point out who were leftists sympathizers. Those who were pointed out were thrown alive out of airplanes.

And that's just in the Southern Cone. That's not even including Timor, Cambodia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and so on, and so forth...

http://www.coha.org/2006/06/08/torture-is-un-american-the-soa-and-its-devastating-legacy/

[EFerrari]

34. We seem to have some kind of filter that tosses out

what our governement actually does. That, all by itself, should alarm us.

[bluerum]

11. You are right. But do we just let Tibets incredibly rich culture and heritage slowly die?

Some one outside their country has to speak up for them. When they speak out they are brutally repressed.

If you think that we have it bad here - think again.

What the Bush regime is doing in Iraq, China has been doing to Tibet since the end of WWII.

[Karenina]

28. But do we just let NOLA's incredibly rich culture and heritage quickly die?

Some one INside their country has to speak up for them. When they speak out they are brutally repressed.

[bluerum]

35. Come on. Completely different scale and issues at stake. Very false argument.

I don't respect that comparison and I can't believe that any right thinking person could think that the NOLA an Tibet are suffering the same fate.

[stillcool]

23. Because we owe them a lot of money...

it's an economic sanction...the only kind that matters.

[OnceUponTimeOnTheNet]

24. Anything that wakes up the sheep for awhile,

Is good from my point of view. No matter what the issue is. All three Candidates will be on American Idol tonight. Maybe I'll finally watch this stupid program, perhaps I've been missing some very fine programing.

HA!

[Sheets of Easter]

25. Sorry. I forgot that I only have a one-track outrage.

Thank you for adjusting it for me.

[TexasObserver]

26. Our nation's misconduct in human rights does not negate that of China.

I agree with the premise that a country which invades and occupies for no good reason another country should not be wagging its finger at others in the world for their human rights infractions. But that is on the STATE level.

As individuals, we should deplore both the violations of China and of our own country. Our renditions, our torturing prisoners, our refusal to follow our own constitutional laws or international treaties all warrant our objection and disdain.

China is engaged in the wholesale maltreatment of well over a billion people, as well as the oppression of Tibet. We should object to that, and lend support to those who do.

[Warpy]

27. The outrage isn't feigned. The crackdown on Tibet is horrible

however, there is plenty of outrage to go around and we have absolutely no moral standing to demand a boycott of the Chinese Olympics.

None.

[madrchsod]

29. we are free to protest and they are not

[flvegan]

30. Put the issue on the world stage.

Done.