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Should Communist China, with their abysmal human rights record, deserve the honour of hosting the 2008 Olympics?
How will the world react to the host of the 2008 Communist Olympics once the true corrupt nature of the CCP is truly revealed? The defectors have spoken , the Falun Gong , Tibetan supporters and activists are clarifying the facts. China’s rights defenders have started the Global Relay Hunger Strike last month. This worldwide effort is exposing the evil deeds of the Party and is opening a door to free speech. The Epoch Times’ Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party is going a step further with spreading the horrific uncensored history of the CCP--like a sweeping force throughout Mainland China it has triggered over 8 million Chinese to quit the wicked Party so far. What if the Party dissolves before the 2008 Beijing Olympics? Looking at the past China e-Lobby weighs the situation and comes up with a few creative alternatives.
China e-Lobby: 02 March 2006 - Now that the Winter Olympics of Turin (or Torino) have ended, the eyes of Olympic watchers are turning to the next Olympic host city, which for now is still Beijing, the capital of Communist China. Not content with the Hitler Olympics of 1936 and the Brezhnev Games of 1980, the International Olympic Committee chose to fete a dangerous, anti-freedom, and murderous dictatorship yet again. However, we can still show our determination not to let freedom be slighted by either the IOC or the Chinese Communist Party. The democratic world can demand that the 2008 Games be moved, and that if they are not moved we (the U.S., Canada, and the rest of the democratic world) should not let our athletes step foot in Communist China for the Games, but instead will conduct an alternate sporting event on our own.
Why am I raising the issue now? For starters, it would take time to move the Olympics, or to establish the alternate event. An alternate city must be chosen and made ready in either scenario. Additionally, the Communists will soon begin a two-year propaganda warm-up for the Beijing Olympiad, so it would be best to make the case against it sooner rather than later.
The reasons for moving or boycotting the Games are clear. No regime has more blood on its hand than the Chinese Communist Party. It has murdered over 60 million people in just over a half-century. Moreover, its murderous ways (contrary to popular belief) have not let up one iota, as shown in the persecution of Falun Gong and the Hanyuan County massacre.
Additionally, Communist China is a menace to the democratic world. The regime is the largest benefactor of terrorism on earth. To this day, it has propped up the Stalinist regime of Kim Jong-il, who has himself starved millions to death in northern Korea. Just recently, the regime granted itself permission to conquer the island democracy of Taiwan, and recent reports reveal that the Communists will do just that by 2012 at the latest. The fact that the upcoming Olympics are a critical part of the pre-war propaganda campaign should be reason enough to move the Games .
Of course, not everyone is looking to move or boycott the games. In part, this is due to historical amnesia on the Berlin Games of 1936. While in America that Olympiad is best known for Jesse Owens four gold medals, in Europe it was seen as a Nazi organizational triumph and geopolitical bonanza. Moscow was headed for the same glory with the 1980 Olympics until President Carter pulled the U.S. out of those Games (easily one of the most admirable acts of his entire political career).
Another fallacy used to defend the Communist Olympiad is the theory that the 1988 Olympic games somehow pushed South Korea toward democracy. Nothing could be further from the truth. The protests against the South Korean regime took place in 1987, not 1988. The pressure to democratize came not from the prospect of the 1988 Games, but from the Reagan Administration and the South Korean regime’s hand-picked choice for President, who adopted the democratic reforms of the opposition as his own platform and threatened to refuse the Presidency if said reforms weren't enacted. The grateful people of South Korea elected him President, democratically, six months before the Olympics even began.
No such circumstances exist in Communist China. The Communists do not rely on the U.S. for its protection (as South Korea did), but in fact see America as an enemy. The cadres are focused exclusively on justifying their regime’s survival to an increasingly restive people. The proper historical model is not Seoul, but the aforementioned Moscow or Berlin.
There is still time for the democratic world to take a stand for freedom. Both of Beijing's major competitors for the 2008 Games (Toronto and Paris) missed out on 2012. Either could serve as an alternate site; while Canada may be skittish about this, given the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, France might be willing to step forward once Jacques Chirac’s successor is elected next year.
Yours truly has been pushing for a Beijing boycott from the moment the Communist capital was awarded the Games in 2001. At this point, with so many athletes' plans already in full swing, an alternate event is the only fair outcome should the IOC not be convinced to move the Olympics. Still, a "Democracy Games," as it were, would be an excellent alternative to the Beijing Olympiad.
Whatever option is taken - boycott, relocation, or an alternative event - the athletes of the democratic world should not be turned in tools for Communist propaganda. If the IOC members will not stand for freedom, the U.S., Canada, and its fellow democracies must do it for them.
3 comments:
Nice Blog. It is needed. I've seen it all close up as an expatriate teacher in Taiwan. I worry for Taiwan.
I went to HK quite often staring in 1994 and lived for a year in 1998. I always asked ordinary people everywhere how are the changes. There is no doubt that the worst fears hare realized quite early.
That is the fate that would await Taiwan.
Do you see any indication that the mainland grip is breaking? I have seen myself the spectacular economic changes and even use of cell phones and computers, but I not seen of any movement for change. People generally are so brainwashed there, not just brainwashed politically but have learned such a mean and hard way of living and doing business based on emulating the Party. Also, the CCP plays the nationalism card so well.
Do you really see any hope for the future?
Are there more rebellions now or is it just "repression as usual"?
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Between Heaven and Earth". I always feel like this should be a saying, like a sentence to complete.
Some one messed up my mind a long time ago when they commented on an athletic performance. They said "You know the Chinese have a saying..Bewtween heaven and earth" ..then he trailed off and looked up thinking.. he never finished.. I can never find an end to that sentence relevant to judging physical performance. I think perhaps he really didn't have a saying in mind and couldn't actualize his conception into words
I have long been trying to find or make up and expression to complete that sentence starting "Between Heaven and Earth ... " (humankind bridges the gap)? Well I have failed.
I even researched long to find a good sentence but can never find one. Yes, I learned that there is a trilogy Earth, heaven and people and people are bridging the gap between the two others.
Do you know any definitions or references on the web that make full sentences describing this ancient Chinese thought?
This is one off those things that when you search you find a million references in which people USE the phrase, but no one talks about the meaning of the phrase or it's deviation.
Hi Max,
One thing I know for sure about China's dictators is that they always do the opposite of what they say they are going to do. The game they play with Taiwan is just that--a game. At least that's how I see it. So the dictators created this diversion purposely to hide behind the Taiwan issue so that the rest of the world would not look further beyond that issue. Have hope and patience--the Party is due to collapse anytime!
ps - about the meaning of Between Heaven and Earth...to me this represents the journey. Did you check Tian Ren San Ce (Three ways to Harmonize Humans with Heaven)written by Dong Zhongshu during the Hang Dynasty. He was a Confucius thinker. He said: "if heaven remains, the Tao does not change."
Hi!
I was looking very specifically for a historical sentence that expresses a complete thought using the words "between heaven and earth". .
"Between Heaven and Earth is just a phrase. As a stand alone phrase it can have many associative meanings.
I'd like to find a sentence in any language that expresses a complete thought using these words "between heaven and earth."
The example you gave used the word "heaven but not the phrase "between heaven and earth."
Perhaps that essay may have enough information to compose a complete sentence or perhaps not. I could create or compose some sentences myself based on further information, but I'd also like to see if anyone else has composed a complete sentence indicating a complete thought using these words.
It's one of those strange things where you can find many, many people borrowing the phrase for something else or just using it as a title but no one making an explicit sentence with it or making an expository sentence.
An expository senetence would be in the form of explaining it as in:
"Between heaven and earth" = (is) ??
eg. The Universe is all and everything.
eg. A human is a form of a featherless biped.
eg. The CCP is a murderous and totalitarian political organization..
"IS" is a way of defining something.
..
Another example of this kind of thing is "Seminal paper". I searched and searched the internet and found no site where anyone was brave enough or smart enough to actually define the words "seminal paper".
However there were about 1.3 billion usages of it on the internet.
Go figure.
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There are many many examples of concepts and words people use without ever examining their basics or making basic definitions.
This is like not seeing the tree for the forest or an inabilty to describe from without.
This can be illlustrated by some aspects of old chinese culture in unsophisticated regions.
eg. In some places and cities the question:
Where do you live?
Is only answered by something like :
"Over there", or "on the corner".
The concept of defining "where do you live ?" from an outsiders perspective is not in the person's world model. They, in fact have no street addresses and do not use them.
They know where they live , their mother does , their family does, even the local postman does, so there is no reason to define it externally. There is a further prohibion in China which is to define it externally makes it "official" draws attention (no one ever wants to draw "attention in CCP chinese society), and even costs money to register the address (in China everything costs money and anything official costs even more). So the mind veers totally away form any such concept of address as "troublesome". (An example of how totalitarianism reduces cultural intelligence).
This is similar to the thinking of even educated Westerners where basic definitions feel "troublesome", there is some penalty attached to being expository perhaps such as no longer being intellectually comfortable.
It seems that always examing the simple and obvious with human psychology leads to what is not simple and not obvious at all.
..
I don't know where to find that article in Chinese or English on the net or otherwise.
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I would think that "Between heaven and earth" would seem simply to refer to "people" or more specifically the "people of China."
But perhaps it means more than just "people" as people are an actualization of conciousness in the inanimate (non-sentient world). Thus the phrase puts the emphasis on human conduct in their manipulations of inanimate reality.
That could mean their spirit and art in physical performance or their spitituality adn morality in conduct and organganization of society.
So it is a spiritiual concept, with the concept that people are more than just stones and actions have more meaning than functionality.
So "the journey" or "spiritual development" could be another way of expressing thisphrase. It is good for the title of a blog that is more than just about people as physical objects.
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