Hillary Calls for Bush to Boycott Olympic Opening Ceremonies?

dont expect obama to make a stand on this issue. he always like to make a safe play. he'll be in the middle of this.

 

No, actually if you are just standing there, you are most often apprehended, not shot.

 

When I say propaganda machine, I don't mean US media is state-run-and-controlled machine to deliver the same message. No doubt it's much more open than their Chinese counterpart. That's why you see broad coverage of all kinds of domestic news, and interest-driven is much more reliable than empty ideology or government controlled. However, when it comes to international affairs coverage, especially those one not directly associated with US, where are the funds coming from? People in US aren't exactly interested in what happened outside. I would assume government funding and lobbyist financing play a big role, to help news outlets to conduct studies of foreign countries, sending people out, it requires huge funds. They are not forced to, but they carry this pre-fixed view to report incidents. That's why you see most of Israel related news are somewhat positive towards them, and most Cuban related news are in favor of those exiles.

I used to think that check and balance, and capitalism competition will reveal every single truth. But then I realized that's not the case. It helps to a great extend, but what if the major players of that system are of same interest and same view, and what if those major competitors are of same position? Everyone is somewhat biased, including you and me. Then, who's going to balance their biased views when they won't do among themselves? I guess the end result is pretty clear.

On newspaper and TV, even just yesterday, you see bits and pieces of the "Free Tibet" crowd trying to stop the torch run in London and Paris. But do you get to see the pro-China crowd, at least of 5 times more crowd waiving national flags and singing national hymn and shouting "liars" to news reporters? I guess you don't. Which news source in Western media is going to provide that alternate view of the same incident happening at the same time and same location? To me, when news sources are reporting news selectively, with a pre-set bias, it becomes propaganda machine, no matter whether it's state-funded or not. Thanks to Internet and YouTube, we can see the other side of the story.

That's why I am not so worried about Chinese government trying as hard as they can to block information, which is very outdated and not smart strategy. However, you can't just shutdown Internet, and information will get circled quickly. Eventually, it will open up like the market. 40 years ago, most Chinese people believed 2/3 US people were suffering under vicious capitalists. 20 years ago, most Chinese people believe most US people are enjoying life greatly due to great democracy. In recent years, a more realistic and close to reality picture sits in. But when Chinese learned the attitude some major Western media having towards them, they felt hurt, because that's not what they expected from democratic countries.

 

It comes to down to choose the least of three evils. Pretty pathetic when you think this is what a more than 200-year old *mature democracy* hands to you.

 

one more thing to add, it is exactly this simple linear way of thinking that have gotten us into this Iraq mess.

Saddam is bad, Iraq doesn't have democracy
====>> everything they do must be bad, anyone against them must be good
====>every problem can be solved by throw out Saddam and install democracy
=====> result? total chaos, country fall into civil war, lost of millions lives.

ppl, grow up, learn your lesson, world is a lot more complicated than (black vs white, good vs bad, democracy vs non-democracy )

 

I agree.
I personally think that the reports will be more balanced if the PRC opens up the media control. The reports from James Miles who were in tibet during the time were fairly balanced.

But at the same time, Beijing does have a legit concern. For the few times that they did allow western reports into tibet, the vast majority of them only wanted to focus on the negative reports.

it's kinda of the egg/chicken thing, eventually they will have to open up, but this is not the excuse for western media to be so heavily biased. Hey, if you want to use reports from the free-tibet camp, at least also use some information from the official chinese news agency, that can at least balance it out a bit.

 

It's not bias. It's the truth. That's what THE EAST is in denial of.

 

it only takes one good team from the east to win the title. that's what i'm predicting.

 

It goes both ways. I've been called a traitor and said I would never be welcome in China for my views on Tibet and Taiwan.

 

It does. I actually support self determination, and I've been called a dog, ungrateful whatever, and a traitor for it. But the hypocritical holier than thou attitude isn't lost on me. I just find the methods some of these members are using goes against the espoused American principles that we supposedly want China to have.

This issue isn't going away anytime soon, and for Chinese Americans straddled on both sides there's a lot to be disturbed about.

 

I've seen this line of argument before and it is biased as much as anything you are criticizing the western media for. The Dalai Lama has specifically said that he doesn't want to see a return to the theocracy and has even said that it was a good thing that PRC has opened up Tibet and Tibetans to the outside world. Given all of the attention on the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan movement it would be impossible for them to return to a theocractic state even if they had the opportunity and wanted to.

Tibet under Lama rule had some serious problems which the Dalai Lama himself has said and which he has disavowed, which he isn't responsible for anyway since he didn't ascend to the throne until Tibet had already been occupied by the PRC.

To bring up stuff like this to demonize the Dalai Lama is as fair as bringing up the attrocities of the Cultural Revolution or the brutality of Chinese Emperors to criticize the current leadership of the PRC.

 

I hear ya there.

 

We are not "down" with brutal communist regimes. Get over it or get out.

 

An opinion piece written by Chinese-American actress Joan Chen ( 陈冲 ) in Washington Post today:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/08/AR2008040802907_pf.html

Let the Games Go On

By Joan Chen
Wednesday, April 9, 2008; A19

I was born in Shanghai in 1961 and grew up during the Cultural Revolution. During my childhood, I saw my family lose our house. My grandfather, who studied medicine in England, committed suicide after he was wrongly accused of being a counterrevolutionary and a foreign spy.

Those were the worst of times.

Since the Cultural Revolution ended in the late 1970s, however, I have witnessed unimaginable progress in China. Changes that few ever thought possible have occurred in a single generation. A communist government that had no ties to the West has evolved into a more open government eager to join the international community.

A state-controlled economy has morphed into a market economy, greatly raising people's standard of living. It's clear that the majority of the Chinese people enjoy much fuller, more abundant lives today than 30 years ago. Though much remains to be done, the Chinese government has made rapid progress in opening up and trying to be part of the international community.

Last month I went to China and spent four weeks visiting Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong and Chengdu. The people I met and spoke with are proud and excited about the Beijing Games. They believe that the Olympics are a wonderful opportunity to showcase modern China to the rest of the world. Like many Americans, most Chinese people are disturbed by the recent events in Tibet. But after watching the scenes of violence and arson by the rioters, the Chinese believe that the government is doing the right thing in cracking down to restore order.

The Olympic torch is in California and is to be carried through San Francisco today. In a resolution criticizing China, Chris Daly, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, said that demonstrating against the torch relay would "provide the people of San Francisco with a lifetime opportunity to help 1.3 billion Chinese people gain more freedom and rights." To his credit, Mayor Gavin Newsom did not sign Daly's resolution.

This statement could not be further from reality. For one thing, the Chinese are a proud people. They want freedom and greater rights, but they know they must fight for them from within. They know that no one can grant them freedom and rights from afar. The stigma of Western imperialism and the Opium Wars also remains a strong reminder of the past, and Chinese people do not want their domestic policies to be dictated by outside powers. They also do not want the United States to boycott the opening ceremonies of the Games. The U.S. boycott of the 1980 Games in Moscow and the Soviet boycott of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles accomplished nothing. A U.S. boycott of the opening ceremonies in Beijing would be counterproductive for relations between the two countries.

For decades, anti-China human rights groups in Washington have spent millions of dollars denouncing China. To many Chinese, it seems that this lobby is the only voice that's acceptable or newsworthy in the U.S. media and to the U.S. government. But times are changing. We need to be open-minded and farsighted. We need to make more friends than enemies. Remember what a little ping-pong game did for Sino-U.S. relations in the 1970s? Let's celebrate the Olympics for what the Games are meant to be -- a bridge for friendship, not a playground for politics.

The writer is an actress and director. She became a U.S. citizen in 1989.

 

i read something about the congress passing something against china. the vote was everyone except 1. and that one person was Ron Paul. why the hell did he vote "for China"? weird.

 

Bless your heart, you funny little man.

 

Protest against constant smear effort from Western biased medias at Edmonton.











How do ppl explain about these protest against western medias happening in North America? Why no news report about these protests? How come these people who actually watch the same CNN and Fox News have opposite opinion? Proofs that all these CCP propaganda theory is just BS from people who blindly hate China.

 

I just saw a mention in an article about IOC head Jacques Rogge that Barack Obama is also supporting a boycott of the Opening Ceremonies by Bush. I haven't seen another independent verification about this so don't know how valid it is.

http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/24043923/site/21683474/

From the AP
[rquoter]
U.S. Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton have called on President Bush to boycott the ceremony. [/rquoter]

It wouldn't surprise me though if Obama is taking this stance.

 

So now it's a good thing .

For what its worth....I think Bush should attend. There has to be a better way to affect change then these petty symbolic protests.