James Powderly planned to use a green laser to project a pro-Tibet message on the Bird's Nest Stadium during the Olympics. Before he could make the attempt, Chinese authorities locked him up for nearly a week.
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The biggest enemy Tibetans are facing today is not the heartless Chinese government - it's history. Histroy has shown that dominant human race would extinguish the minor human race. If we didn't do anything about Tibetans today, a few decades later, the only ways to learn about Tibetan heritage are through textbooks or musuems. This issue is not just segregated drinking fountain or woman voting issues, it's much more complicated that you have to use different strategy than just embarrassing people. Making your voice heard is okay, but you got to make sure the backlash will not make things worse.
There is a good article written by former BT Tony Blair on Wall Street journal on how to deal with China - so far i think it's the best way to deal with the communist government and it shows Tony really understand the whole situation.
For Powderly, I just hope he can emphaisze more on his ideals about Tibetans instead of his personal experience of setting up laster machine and being "tortured" by the Chinese. There are a lot of people who suffer more for their ideals and they are doing the right way, using the right strategy with right mindset (soldiers fighting in battlefield where they know they might lose their lives at any moment). They deserve a CNET headline space.
so far i have yet received any concrete evident that showed that non-tibetan chinese wrongly treated tibetan chinese. all my learning is that if a non-tibetan chinese did something similar, s/he would be applied to the same procedures. then we can talk about humane natural of those procedures. eventually we can come to relative objective conclusion.
when i first views the video clip by an australian on march violent riot in tibet, i was shocked to see that all western nations were all suddenly closing their usually sharp eyes to the basic facts, and instead, blaming chinese government for the crimes being committed by local tibetan chinese. it is horrific fact.
just like russia and georgia, where an aggressor became a victim and a defender became vilant.
http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html
Also, a pretty interesting article today (8/30 Saturday) in WSJ. Good reading, especially reference to the article in the above link.
This American man was there bravely (and maybe not so brilliantly) attempting to project a message of FREEDOM! Anyone who remembers what the USA was intended to stand for should understand this.
If you don't believe China is ******, whip out your Google and look up some info about what they do to Tibetans and Falun Gong members - people disappear, have organs harvested sans consent, etc. It is a truly horrible time in Chinese history.
He is just a simple-minded jackass.
According to the timeline, he had not actually performed any illegal action within China at the time he was detained. The laser he was planning on using is actually legal there- and it's not even legal here.
Blasting James for getting himself into a situation that was arguably un-winable is one thing (though if people don't push limits, nothing ever changes). But condemning James for using his skills and peaceful protest techniques to speak out against something he believes is wrong is completely myopic.
Good Job, James.
So, where in China are you blogging from, anebg? Are you Chinese Intelligence or Army?
His acts are not pure thought activities. He was planning to carry out an activity which, unfortunately, is consider illegal there -- protest without permit. What happen if you are planning to murder President Bush by buying a gun (legal in the US) even you have not got to the point of aiming at him? Granted, the level of crime is not the same, but the issue is similar: planning to carry out illegal activity (under that legal system,) it is many steps beyond just thinking to do that activity.
For me, i don't care much about this event. but I'm concerned that he's just trying to use this event to market his laser graffiti products. We have enough graffiti problems in our cities already.
http://tibetfreedom.wordpress.com/2008/03/18/photos-provide-the-real-picture-on-tibet-violence/
There's a lot of trash talk about China, but the rest of the world thinks the US is trying to take over the world helpless country at a time in the name of oil. We use up over 20% of the world's resources with 4% of the population. Our demand for cheaply manufactured Chinese goods are a big reason why the pollution over there is so bad. For example, did you know that the US rounds up its e-waste, ships it to China, and dumps it there to save money:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXzsqTFwV3Q
http://michaelzhao.net/eDump/
It goes both ways so personally I hesitate to judge what I might not understand.
Other than that, you do make some good points. However, keep in mind that morality is relative.
the western countries have "raped" africa for almost 500 years, if not 1000. please take a look at what they have done! the only better places left are those converted to islam. now they left poor and deprived africa for good, and all of sudden, they tried to be a nice guy. don't you think it hypocritic? it is astonishing that the only influence the west left in africa is the embargo mechanism to those parties or countries who disobey them. what ironic is that they said they do it for the sake of humanity!
i highly commend this group for their intentions, all nation states breed domination, repression and oppression of its individuals. this can be a test for all of us to create beautiful culture, even in our tests. if we truly intend to change history and reality towards something compassionate let all our works and actions comply. there is no need to play spy or cat and mouse. think of spanish and french resistance. the changes they made felt warm. the freemasons and cohorts communicate through popular culture (t.v.,movies,music,sports,ads), we can be equally creative. its just like blue apples, they look to us and can stop us if we are ignorant, but if we see the futility and create natural art (in all spectrum) there is a different mindset - mindfulness with heart. such fruitfulness (fruit fullness, OG, non-GMO) multiplies. when shown the light in addition to the dark and a few colors, all hues - and views - have value. breathe, breathe again. remember the wise examples of elves,gnomes,and fairies, and then blend,mix,sew, and sow the seeds of contention. the revolution will be broadcast on youtube and the like, why? its still not costing us more than what we make due for electricity. el pueblo unido jamas sera vencito. breathe and create.
the olympic flag shows all colors but still relflects the falacies of the ancient residents.
chaos is returned when the patterns we create do not pollute, as with nature our efforts and actions are moving in a neutral direction, this is natural and worthy of action.
te echero de manos, enjoy great peace,love,and harmony!
dandelion day
These Olympic stunts, although well meant would not have achieved much beyond seriously pissing off everday Chinese people. Although it would have been real cool to see it work out, nobody outside the stadium would have seen anything as all TV feeds for Olympics were provided by CCTV. The folks trying this were by quite amateurish and are lucky to get off so lightly.
I look forward to seeing you at Gitmo some day... Just because you are an apologist and a "good" party member doesn't mean you won't be hauled in to fill a quota.
Have fun explaining to the people that come for you that you agree with everything they do to you.
I have always thought of china as the toilet bowl of the world. companies take advantage of a poor environmental protection and the rest of the world gets near slave labor.
OOOOO... i almost forgot that some companies in china copy off other peoples idea such as the iphone clone and lets not forget the US had to abandon a bunch of server tech because the cisco chips were fakes from china that could have contained a backdoor.
That said, old Tibet was not a humane society - it was a harsh, autocratic, top-down theocracy. The monks had a hierarchy of power, and the "peasants" were basically slaves. Fortunately, the current Dalai Lama does not continue that heritage.
Still, I'm glad to see people try (at great personal risk) to prick some holes in the Chinese authoritarian government. That government itself has no humaneness (perhaps following the lead of Mao). They will lie, cheat and steal - they'll hire thugs to beat up people who complain about their land being stolen from them by local bureaucrats, etc.
I wouldn't do what these activists did, but I applaud them for trying through non-violent means to shed light on injustice (and not injustice against them personally, but injustice against others who have no means to have their stories told). Using speech and artistic demonstrations is a good thing.
did you learn who are going to feed those monks? if majority of tibetan are monks, someone has to provide food/services etc to them. if gov. does not want to do, then i would think they have to limit the number of people who can be a monk. does this make any sense to you?
when you talked about the thugs of chinese, it seems to me that your example, land being "stolen", sounds like the incident among non-tibetan chinese, as i don't think the land in lhasa worth much.
by the way, have you noticed any differences how chinese gov treated between tibetan chinese and non-tibetan chinese?
- by kenright60660 August 31, 2008 7:45 PM PDT
- i find it funny that there are many people talking about him offending china's people and ignoring there beliefs and such nonsense, but he didn't exactly do anything. What he did was buy some equipment and display the message "free beer" on the side of a house, he didn't exactly commit the act of offending china... he was detained before he could. SPIED on. I'm sorry, but it is rather odd that they had that many people tailing foreigners. Secret police? Media coverage? Tailing a U.S. Citizen? That's taking it a step in the "whoa nelly" direction.
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- by anakin2006 August 31, 2008 10:27 PM PDT
- kenright60660,
- Like this
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Showing 2 of 3 pages (74 Comments)I don't really care that much about the U.S., but China= Dependent on the U.S., i know i'm going to get blasted by every chinese patriot now, but considering that our decadent, corrupt, consumer economy is buying pretty much everything your country makes, economic sanctions might just be an issue.
Interrogation? Sure. Do it in legal ways, charge them with a crime, do something to prove that they are going to be a threat to your nation's security, don't throw them into an SUV, not say a word and not even deport them. Thats bound to raise some sort of issue with foreign governments.
I agree with his message, and I believe he had a relatively good plan, he didn't exactly think through the last bits, but whatever. China is not exactly the most friendly nation in the world. Human rights violations are generally looked down upon, even by people who benefit from it. Americans (for the most part) were outraged about Guantanamo Bay and waterboarding. These olympic ceremonies, and the things that have happened there, have proved one thing, China is not ready to be a civilized country which recognizes the rights of all, it is overly concerned about it's image, but does not understand why people look down upon it. The opening ceremonies did not show off china's power, it showed off it's desperation to impress everyone else. This story is rather frightening, especially because of the fact that China did not even think of the reprecussions of violating the rights of foreign citizens.
do you know hemingway? the famous writer. he was one of hundred of thousand spies recruited by our government. if your grand parents can talk about some thing nicer to communist in 1940-50s, they might have been in prison already.
china is one of the most friendly countries in this world with 4k years of history. when it established the first civil government, the western countries were still in dark middle ages. when a peasant's son can become a high rank government official based on his ability 10th century, the western countries were still in infant feudal serf framework.
why a foreigner is different from a local chinese? chinese gov. shall treat the same way to foreigner as to its own people. if you complain, why bother going there?
it is foolish to think china trying to appease and impress one else. why do you think this way? please don't be so pathetic, would you?