seriously what is the world coming to.

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akinaspeedstar

akinaspeedstar

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080407/ap_on_re_eu/olympic_torch

people are attacking the Olympic torch. one kid was in a friggen wheel chair! to protest china's human rights something or other and Tibet.

OK yeah i can see you'd want to protest that. but with the friggen torch?? seriously. way to attack a sign of peace idiots. kinda like the Israeli kids that got shot in the 80's.

i think they are so caught up in fighting that they lost track of what they were fighting for.

 
It got your attention didn't it? ;D

I didn't read anything about any of the protesters trying to harm the torch bearer just people trying to put the torch out. Actually the only mention of anything remotely violent is the police using tear gas on a sit-in protest. I'm pretty sure worse human right violations are going on each second in the wonderful peoples republic of china. Seems these protesters are toeing the line of going too far to be heard, but haven't quite reached abortion clinic bombing levels yet.

 
do some homework on that China is doing in Tibet.

let's say that some large foreign country invaded Maine.

they they declared all Maine churches illegal, tore down all the historic structures and ran the priests and reverends out of town (those they didn't kill, anyway) .

then anybody who tried to protest, they threw them in jail too (if they weren't kkilled first). if you wore Maine-style clothes, you got thrown in jail. eating lobster was declared illegal and a sign of protest against the 'benevolent' new gov't. so clambakes would land you in jail or get you killed, too.

they didn't like the look of picture-postcard Maine villages, so they tore them down and replaced em with hi-rise apartment buildings in Camden, Bar Harbor, Boothbay, Port Clyde, Greenville, etc.

Oh, and then they tried to tell the rest of the world that Maine has ALWAYS been part of their country, and Maine never DID belong to Mainers

Then these same ppl sponsored the Olympics, and tried to use the games to reinforce the story that Maine never was part of the US (and kept opressing/killing Mainers and tearing apart the cultural history of the state in the meantime)

wouldn't you want to hassle the torch bearers wherever you could?

 
see im not debating what china is doing. it's wrong. theres no way around it.

what im saying is these protests are misguided.

imagine you worked your ass off, to be the best athlete you could be you finally made it to the Olympics. you were also chosen to run with the torch for one of the legs those are both one hell of an honer!! now all these people are trying to put the torch out, block your way booing you and all this. is this punishing china at all? no it's punishing the athletes who worked hard to get there.

to use your example. say the invading country used a different kind of fishing boat and people from other country's starting burning and sinking them in thier country's to protest the invasion of maine. does that help maine? does it hurt the invading country? no it hurts the fisherman who have to use those boats.

im not saying china is right. im saying that the way the protesters are protesting isn't right. instead why not refuse to buy products from china? *edit* sorry cold medicine is getting to me apparently .

 
imagine you worked your ass off, to be the best athlete you could be you finally made it to the Olympics.
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There are those that would argue that if the athletes took the plight of the oppressed seriously, they'd boycott the Olympics.

Already some are dropping out, but under claims of "air quality" issues (which doesn't surprise me - it's supposed to be freakin' HORRIBLE to do any sort of aerobic activity over there).

 
its unfortunate with the torch and the olympic being disrespected this way.

however its 100 times more shameful the olympics being held in china as horrible a place it is politacally. i have a huge respect for its people and national heretage, however having the olympics there is right up on par with holding them in nazi germany in 36

my $0.02

 
The goal isn't to punish anyone it's to create awareness. And it does in fact seem to be doing that. My guess is the protesters hope it's blindness to the issue opposed to indifference that is responsible for the lack of public outcry. They are probably hoping their actions will help people see what is going on and demand change. If I was an athlete I would be pissed at those in charge for letting the Olympics to be held in a glorified 3rd world country and would refuse to attend. Everything I have heard about china these days ranges from ridiculous to barbaric and I have no clue why anyone would want to go there.*

And I don't know how boycotting Japanese goods would hurt china.
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*I don't research china at depth so my perception could be horribly skewed due to what info is readily available via standard media

 
Free Tibet is the war cry of the coffee shop mac user trend jumper on-er.

Things weren't all smiles and ice cream when Tibet was under the rule of the Dahli Lama. It was a very exploitive society where the ruling class (priests) lived in lasvish tamples and the common citizen was dirt poor. These citizens were also subjected to painful torture as the result of law breaking. Tibeten priest also condone human slavery.

When China took over they introduced secular education, running water and electricity all things that were not present under the Dahli Lama.

Granted Chinese rule is rought with flaws such a communism, no free speach and they did put lots of Tibetians into labor camps.

So of course the Dahli Lama wants to get back into power so he can live the life of leader of the ruling class.

So don't buy these trite lines of peace and non-violence that he spews out and the empty heads lap up. Niether side is the best option for the people of Tibet. I guess its a case of the lesser of two evils.

 
you could start on your learned dissertation of "how bad things were in Tibet before the Chinese invaded" by spelling the Dalai Lama's name correctly.

next, realize that Tibet has been invaded by China every few hundred years since before Christ was a babe in the manger, and the Tibetans have outlasted every attempt to subjugate them...by peaceful nonviolent action. Example: construction in Tibet is an infuriating process for ignorant Westerners...for reasons like the workers will quit digging a ditch after they find an angleworm until somebody picks up the worm and puts it down someplace safe. Tibetans have outlasted 2000 years of Chinese invaders through reverence for family and ancestors and their own unique culture. The current Dalai Lama is the 140th in an uninterruped line of Tibetan spriitual leaders. Ignorant Westerners might actually learn a thing or 3 if they'd just put down their starbucks and maybe gave a raisin about somebody else for once.

 
i apologize for this thread. i didn't mean for it to get into a political debate over Tibet. and as i have no informed information on that subject i won't try to discuss anything on it.

my main point was about the protesters. this is really like people protesting the noble prize winner just cause he was Chinese. the Olympics are about peace. just having them in China will open a lot of eyes to the plight of people there. i agree with what these people are trying to do. just not how they are trying to do it.

 
you could start on your learned dissertation of "how bad things were in Tibet before the Chinese invaded" by spelling the Dalai Lama's name correctly.

next, realize that Tibet has been invaded by China every few hundred years since before Christ was a babe in the manger, and the Tibetans have outlasted every attempt to subjugate them...by peaceful nonviolent action. Example: construction in Tibet is an infuriating process for ignorant Westerners...for reasons like the workers will quit digging a ditch after they find an angleworm until somebody picks up the worm and puts it down someplace safe. Tibetans have outlasted 2000 years of Chinese invaders through reverence for family and ancestors and their own unique culture. The current Dalai Lama is the 140th in an uninterruped line of Tibetan spriitual leaders. Ignorant Westerners might actually learn a thing or 3 if they'd just put down their starbucks and maybe gave a raisin about somebody else for once.
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Ha you got me with the spelling.

By workers do you mean slaves because these workers were kep in chains and starved. It was an aristocrate society based on midevil fuedlism. After the Mongolian dynasty ended the Yaun dynasty formed which was based on Mongolian principals but soon was influenced by Chinese culture. After that came the Ming dynasty which inherited the rights to Tibet. The ming dynasty was a less militarist dynasty so they were more lax and let localization of government. So there were more of a self-governingstate than a coutry. They also contributed funds to the Chinese government every year int he form of taxes. Next came the Qing dynsasty which was very weak and was controlled by the Manchurians. The Republic of China followed next which had local Warlords controlling certain areas due to weak central governemnt. At this time the Tibetains were controlled in a fuedal system and treated as slaves.

So Tibet was never technically "free" it was part of China's dynasties. it was controlled by Warlords who treated tibetians worse than modern day China, as evidenced by countless photos of starved slaved and cruel torture practices.

After WW2 Tibet one one of the last providences of China to be rid of it's ruling warlord. In 1951 China invaded Tibet to rid the Warlord and abolish the slavery. Also in 1951 the Dalai lama went to Bejing to mnake a peacful treay with Tibet and China. During the rule of the Warlord the aristocrates and the Dalai Lama had grown very wealthy and owned many slaves. They didn't want to give up this this position. Meanwhile the CIA had been training Tibetains to revolt for 8 years. In 1959 they revolted against the Chinese Government. IOn 1959 this revolt was crushed at the cost of many lives on bith sides. The Dalai Lama fled Tibet at this point when he was a teenager. He has not been back since. The Dalai Lama still gets funded by the CIA to fuel his speratist movement.

Since Tibet was rid of the ruling class of the priests the standard of living has improved dramaticly. Tibetians are now allowed to seek education of a nonsecular nature. They have as much freedom as the average Chinese citizen.

But im out of Starbucks so I gotta run.
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They have as much freedom as the average Chinese citizen.
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...who has just about as much freedom than my housecat. Less, actually, for I don't care what news my housecat cares to read/watch/listen to.

 
aaah, politics. STM needs an OT for this kind of stuff!
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tibetan citizens may be 'better off' under the chinese, but tibetan culture has been flushed down the toilet and bulldozed wholesale in the past 10 years. more destruction of monasteries, unique buildings and ancient art since about 1995 than in thousands of years before that.

for a glimpse of how life was when Dalai Lama was a teenager, read "Seven Years In Tibet" by Heinrich Harrer. Harrer was a germain mountaineer who bailed off an expedition in the Himalayas at the outbreak of WWII insted of getting jailed in an Indian POW camp. He and a climbing buddy struck off across country on foot into Tibet when Westerners were hardly ever seen there. What a tale of amazing adventure.

 
Yeah China isn't exaclty the Cat's meow when it comes to leadership. But my whole point of this long winded rant.history lesson. Its that this whole "free" Tibet clustfuck is based on lies and false assumptions.
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Understood. (edited from 'gotcha', which might have been misinterpreted as 'I just scored a point')

And, while this conversation was going on, looky what's been happening:

http://www.nbc11.com/newsarchive/15814884/detail.html

 
The Tibbet debacle involves enough lies and false assumptions on both sides to go from Lewiston to Outer Mongolia and back several times.

the whole place is so foreign and so far away, it's hard to determine exactly what is happening, who's doing what to who, vice versa back n forth, etc etc.

it's just one of those things where "what happens over there matters over here."

in the next 25 years, Americans are going to have to learn more about China than any of us ever dreamed would be necessary. Progress!!! demands it, or else we might end up like Tibetans.

 
Right and if we have learned anything from the Iraq war it's that is best to have all our ducks in a row before we go blindly into another volitile situation under the guise of helping.
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and precisely which events or policies coming out of Washington give you the impression that anybody there has actually learned this??!!
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your quote would be a really good outgrowth of the Iraq mess...if only it was true.

 
OK.. I am hereby locking this via STM rule number eleventeen: No political talk.

it only leads to hurt feelings and anxiety.

PM's are great for this.

Cheers!

Pedro

 
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