>>'Democracy', 'human rights', can you imagine that these words are here on the UT in the alarm filter?! In China they are! And Microsoft fully cooperates! Shame on them! Or not? Their standpoint is that it is better to be present in each country then to be banned from a country. They also say that they are obliged to follow the law of a country. So, where does this all lead to? I tell you: A corporation that submissively cooperates with undemocratic landlords and dictators will loose all remains of sympathy of citizens of democratic countries. That loss of sympathy will have big, HUGE, consequences for its existence. Microsoft is warned, they MUST stop this type of cooperation! Yes or no?
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>I'd like to think that you're right in your analysis about what will happen to MS because of this, but the truth is, I doubt it very much. If countries won't stop courting China in spite of China's horrible record of human rights abuses, then I'm sure corporations won't feel any such obligation. Money always wins, and China is willing to spend.

Nothing new there. Countries still court the U.S. in spite of our horrible record of human rights abuses. To the extent that China has learned the joys of untrammelled capitalism, which is a great extent, they learned it from us.

I hate to bitch endlessly about the current administration but it has done us harm it will take decades to undo. Kyoto? Nyet. Adherence to the Geneva Conventions? Nyet. (Public support in the Middle East for the U.S. occupation of Iraq plunged from around 60% to 9% after Abu Ghraib came to light). Adherence to the right to privacy accorded to American citizens in our own Constitution? Nyet. Right to representation and a speedy and fair trial? Nyet. Reconsideration of capital punishment, which the rest of the civilized world considers a medieval barbarism? Nyet. The beat goes on. Right down the line, we are on the wrong side of the angels. And it pisses me off, because none of this is what this country stands for. We can still be the greatest country in the world if we can take it back from vicious little jihadists like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Karl Rove, and their amiable figurehead, the frat boy.