Hi Alan :)
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>>Some decade back I would probably share your opinion (democracy was big bright ideal), but now any time I hear word 'democracy' and that very specific pitch of intense whining about supressed human rights, directed towards countries (that almost always coincide with some strategic western interests), I get urge to go to go to toilet <g>.
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>At what point did I use the word 'democracy'? All I said was that jailing people and stealing their homes is wrong. I find it unfortunate that you feel these things are tolerable in the name of hosting the olympics. I'm not a believer, like some others are, that we should be running around the world whipping our version of democracy on everybody whether they want it or not. But any government that has not even the vaguest concept of decency should be given the honor of hosting the olympics.
Who stole what ?
Expropriation of private property is not something new for communist nor other countries.
It happens all the time. But they do offer conpensation. Private property is far away from 'holly cow' in China so what might sound
outrageous to you, might be common in communist regimes especially when greater common interest is at stake.
More or less everything is considered public property. You did not expect expropriation protester leader to become TV star in China and sell story to their tabloids for few millions maybe ?
Authorities probably overused their power in this case, but nothing out of ordinary for such regime.
I of course disagree with that, but I would not give all new meaning to demonising China over it. They are who they are.
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>>It almost always ends with dissaster;
>>Wars, attrocities, sometime dessolution of entire countries (mine for instance), violence, etc. We were listening for years about Saddam's attrocities and it ended with invasion and total disasster for that country. Did we ever hear anything about Saudis, or Kuwaitees ? We are listening all the time about human rights in Iran and they are in imminent danger of being brutallised. How many things did we hear about Israel /Palestinian HRs ? (Care to google on this ?) If that is democracy in action, then I certainly
>>don't want to be part of it in any way.
>>
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>So, if I understand you, not giving the olympics to China would have resulted in war? After all, what else have I advocated here?
No, you missunderstood me. When that particular pitch of whining about human rights abuses increases to the point of constant (unbearable) media noise, as it is case with Iran now (and it was case with Iraq ) then I don't expect nothing god on the long run to come out of it. It is usualy part of ongoing political war with all ends open.
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>>As I said, I don't belive Olimpics should be politicised at all. I don't believe there is 'Olimpic law' that organiser
have to
>>make provisions for everybody who wishes to protest. For crying out loud, olimpics were designed as break from ongoing wars
>>why in earth Chineese should tollerate political war being waged right arround Olimpic coloseums ?
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>We have a saying over here. "Coulda, woulda, shoulda." You can want the olympics to be non-politicised till pigs fly, but at some point you have to accept the reality. The protest areas have been there for many years. China agreed to it. Locking up old people and having them 're-educated' through hard labour for daring to make an application goes way beyond anything that anybody should be polite about. You be polite about it. Not me.
What else is new about communist regime practices ? That is old news. Now if you want to get all excited in bashing bad
stuff happening to people, then there is all new dimension of it happening in last 10 years, and that 'fire' is much more dangerous
because it is very close to your own 'village' then China and their Olimpics.
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>>If there was genuine uphieval of Chineese people against their regime, you would probably see millions of them arround there
>>and there would be nobody able to stop them, but they are simply way to busy working and making money by seeling cheap stuff to us. <g>
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>They did that, remember? Tiananmen square? Ring a bell? For their efforts, they got tortured (except for the ones who got killed). Most people aren't fond of being tortured or killed, so no uprising. Uprisings were a different sort of thing back when the army didn't have automatic weapons.
Change from one social model to other is slow and painfull process. Very few countries had it nice & easy. I cried watching happening
of Tiananmen, but perhaps I am getting old and my sences are shuttered. I am no longer 100% sure that this revolution would have been sucessfull and good for Chineese people at that point in time. Slow but sure economical revolution that is happening now
turning them slowly into rich and powerfull country is perhaps much better for them. It will end up eventually as some sort of
democracy.
How good this is for west is another story all together. My nostrils tell me that it is exactly that success of China what
microvawed western 'care' about HR in China.
