In all seriousness, it seems out of character for you to be defending China the way you do. It doesn't appear to be consistent at all.
Just putting things in their proper perspective is all. Like I said elsewhere, Americans are currently engaged in ransacking two sovereign countries, whilst also blocking any attempt at peace in the Middle East. The U.S is also the worlds biggest polluter. And yet you jump at the chance to get on your moral high horse when it comes to China? Why is that?
What did I say about China? Not sure I jumped on any moral high horse.
However, if this is regarding EARTH DAY, both China and the US have a ways to go, but China is close to last place in this race. But that is why it also makes sense to have the concert there. But, because of it's political system, the effect of a concert like this is most likely going to be close to zero in China.
So maybe Pearl Jam shouldn't play anywhere, but just sit at home instead.
Still didn't answer it...this is getting tiresome. :?
Your question is irrelevant. The concert isn't being put on in order to support China's actions in Tibet. I expect it's something closer to the opposite. And this thread became tiresome as soon as you hopped on your moral high horse.
Moral high horse? Because I point out that China is hardly deserving of a global peace and environmental awareness concert? Whatev.
You still refuse to answer the question. Is the gov't you live under not allowing you to?
However, if this is regarding EARTH DAY, both China and the US have a ways to go, but China is close to last place in this race. But that is why it also makes sense to have the concert there.
But, because of it's political system, the effect of a concert like this is most likely going to be close to zero in China.
Possibly, although if they do broadcast it across the country - even after editing out any remarks about the CCP that they deem offensive/confrontational - then it should generate some interest in these issues, and may lead to some positive action. China is slowly but surely opening up to the world and to foreign influences and ideas, so IMO this can only be good for China and ultimately for the rest of the world.
I point out that China is hardly deserving of a global peace and environmental awareness concert?
And I point out that you should take your blinkers off when looking at China. The Chinese are not the bogeymen that you believe they are.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100113/en ... 0113165333 "My belief in music as a universal language is the reason I returned to Beijing to voice my support for the Show of Peace," said Page, who performed the Led Zeppelin classic "Whole Lotta Love" at the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics last year.
"This (concert) is a tribute to the power of music and its positive effect. Music has been one of the most powerful languages that speaks to the heart of the people around the world."
Sponsors include the Chinese People?s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, the China-based non-profit Joint-US China Collaboration on Clean Energy, the United Nations? NGO Pathways to Peace, and Ted Turner's Captain Planet Foundation...'
I point out that China is hardly deserving of a global peace and environmental awareness concert?
And I point out that you should take your blinkers off when looking at China. The Chinese are not the bogeymen that you believe they are.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100113/en ... 0113165333 "My belief in music as a universal language is the reason I returned to Beijing to voice my support for the Show of Peace," said Page, who performed the Led Zeppelin classic "Whole Lotta Love" at the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics last year.
"This (concert) is a tribute to the power of music and its positive effect. Music has been one of the most powerful languages that speaks to the heart of the people around the world."
Sponsors include the Chinese People?s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, the China-based non-profit Joint-US China Collaboration on Clean Energy, the United Nations? NGO Pathways to Peace, and Ted Turner's Captain Planet Foundation...'
Shame we can't all be this positive. :roll:
I don't believe China is a bunch of boogeymen (well except for the govt). Just to be fair, you weren't defending China, you were changing the subject, up to this point.
Like Cincy, I'm all for a free concert as well, but don't think it will do anything about spreading awareness throughout that region (as well as possible the rest of the world). Not to mention the whole event will need to be sanctioned.
There's also something very oxymoronic about these supposed "Let's go Green by flying in all these musicians with their planes full of equipment to one place and play for the world so they can go Green." How about a free Live Internet event, having musicians play from their respective home areas? Now that's being Green.
There's also something very oxymoronic about these supposed "Let's go Green by flying in all these musicians with their planes full of equipment to one place and play for the world so they can go Green." How about a free Live Internet event, having musicians play from their respective home areas? Now that's being Green.
True, but sometimes you gotta spend money to make money...if you know what I mean.
You wouldn't get the same attention from the general public from an internet concert.
There's also something very oxymoronic about these supposed "Let's go Green by flying in all these musicians with their planes full of equipment to one place and play for the world so they can go Green." How about a free Live Internet event, having musicians play from their respective home areas? Now that's being Green.
True, but sometimes you gotta spend money to make money...if you know what I mean.
You wouldn't get the same attention from the general public from an internet concert.
Not to mention that something of this sort has never occurred in China before, so, like the Olympics, the Chinese will go crazy for it.
The US is a big polluter, but is a big country. Per capita Australia is the biggest Carbon polluters. Europe as a whole is a much bigger polluter than the US and a much bigger population. China if they actually reported anything would BY FAR be the biggest polluter in the world.
The US is a big polluter, but is a big country. Per capita Australia is the biggest Carbon polluters. Europe as a whole is a much bigger polluter than the US and a much bigger population. China if they actually reported anything would BY FAR be the biggest polluter in the world.
Looks like you're right. Then what better place to hold an environment festival than China?
'China has now overtaken the United States as the world’s biggest polluter; its carbon emissions have more than doubled in a decade. However, US and China, world’s biggest polluters, promise to address global climate change at the Climate Change Summit at the UN General Assembly in New York, recently.
India, now the fourth biggest polluter, is also rapidly increasing its emissions, and is increasing its population of 1.15 billion people far faster than any other country; soon its human numbers will be on a par with China’s and its emissions following suit.
Australia has overtaken the USA and is now classified most at risk out of 185 countries, according to the CO2 Energy Emissions Index (CEEI), released by UK based, global risks analyst, Maplecroft.
Australians now emit 20.58 tons of CO2 per person annually, whereas American’s emit 19.78 tons, almost a 4% difference. Canada meanwhile emits 18.81 tons per person.
In sharp contrast the emerging markets of China and India, considered two of the world’s worst overall CO2 polluters, annually emit 4.5 and 1.16 tons per person respectively.
'China is the world's biggest polluter with 7.3 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions from fossil fuels in 2008. Rapid economic growth (averaging 10.0% annually over 2000-2008) and a large manufacturing sector have resulted in China overtaking the USA as the biggest polluter. In November 2009, China announced ahead of the UN summit that it would decrease its carbon intensity (carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP) by 40-45% by 2020 from 2005 levels;
The USA is the second largest polluter in the world with 5.9 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions from fossil fuels in 2008. The USA announced in November 2009 that it would reduce carbon emissions by 17% by 2020 from 2005 levels.
While emerging markets are catching up with developed markets in terms of total emissions (with Russia and India also amongst the top polluters), their per capita emissions are generally much lower than advanced economies leading to controversy of where responsibility lies for climate change. Many emerging markets argue that emissions targets will come at the expense of their development:
North America's per capita CO2 emissions from fossil fuels, for example, was 19,251 kg per capita in 2008 compared to 3,379 kg per capita in Asia Pacific;
Australia is the OECD's biggest polluter in per capita terms stemming from its large mining sector and reliance on coal at 20,619 kg per capita in 2008. In comparison, China had 5,508 kg per capita in the same year and Nigeria just 712 kg per capita.
President George Bush: 'Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter'
By Robert Winnett, Deputy Political Editor and Urmee Khan
09 Jul 2008
The American leader, who has been condemned throughout his presidency for failing to tackle climate change, ended a private meeting with the words: "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter."
He then punched the air while grinning widely, as the rest of those present including Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock.
Mr Bush, whose second and final term as President ends at the end of the year, then left the meeting at the Windsor Hotel in Hokkaido where the leaders of the world's richest nations had been discussing new targets to cut carbon emissions.
One official who witnessed the extraordinary scene said afterwards: "Everyone was very surprised that he was making a joke about America's record on pollution."
Mr Bush also faced criticism at the summit after Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, was described in the White House press pack given to journalists as one of the "most controversial leaders in the history of a country known for government corruption and vice".
The White House apologised for what it called "sloppy work" and said an official had simply lifted the characterisation from the internet without reading it.
Concluding the three-day event, leaders from the G8 and developing countries proclaimed a "shared vision" on climate change. However, they failed to bridge differences between rich and emerging nations on curbing emissions.'
Hell no.... They shouldn't even consider playing in china.
They are one of the biggest if not the biggest human rights violaters in the world besides N. Korea.
I realize that this has to do with the enviroment but human rights are just as important IMO
Hell they might Put PJ jail for doing this. I wouldn' put anything past these tyrants. http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Mj ... yZTg=#more
Google ‘Deadly Business’
A human-rights game changer.
By Kathryn Jean Lopez
EDITOR’S NOTE: This column is available exclusively through United Media. For permission to reprint or excerpt this copyrighted material, please contact Carmen Puello at <!-- e --><a href="mailto:cpuello@unitedmedia.com">cpuello@unitedmedia.com</a><!-- e -->.
Washington has been abuzz about a book with the title “Game Change,” in which two political reporters provide all kinds of hot details about the last presidential campaign. But a life-saving “game changer” may actually have presented itself online, on the book’s publication date. That’s the hope of New Jersey Republican congressman Christopher Smith, a longtime human-rights crusader who has been trying to bring attention to the plight of the prisoners in the Laogai, labor camps run by the tyrants in China. And the “game changer,” he says, is Google’s discovery that the e-mail accounts of dissidents in China on Gmail have been hacked by the Chinese government, putting the lives of some courageous people in peril.
Google, which has been in China since 2005, willingly censors its search engine — in compliance with Chinese law — and refuses to talk about what exactly it censors. But if you try Googling “Tiananmen Square” from an Internet café in Beijing, you will find picturesque images. If you Google “torture,” you will learn about the Japanese during World War II and, naturally, George W. Bush and Guantanamo Bay. Smith tried all this when he was in China shortly before the Beijing Olympics. The typical Chinese with some curiosity, who is not satisfied with the propaganda that the government is producing, is going to happen upon the same. Searches for democracy, human rights, or Tibet leave the curious Google searcher in China lacking a lot of important information. Meanwhile, the government will know what he searched for.
In response to the disclosure that dissidents’ e-mails had been hacked by the government, Google is now considering pulling out of China. This would be the responsible thing to do.
Congressman Smith doesn’t boast that he told them so — but he did tell them so. He doesn’t brag that he’s offered, and gotten cleared by committees in the House of Representatives, legislation that would keep American companies from making too many deals with the devils of dictatorships. He doesn’t see Google or other American companies’ doing business with China or any other country as the enemy; he even wants to help them — as he protects human lives.
In February 2006, Smith chaired the first congressional hearing on China’s abuse of the Internet with the willing collusion of American Internet companies. The hearing, which lasted eight hours, included representatives of Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Cisco, and Congressman Smith scolded them for a “sickening collaboration” with Beijing’s tyrants — accusing them of helping in “decapitating the voice of the dissidents.” It was a dramatic hearing, during which the late Tom Lantos, a Democrat from California who headed the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, told the Internet technology executives: “I do not understand how your corporate leadership sleeps at night.”
If Google didn’t believe the congressmen, they have evidence before them now that ought to change things. Right in their Gmail accounts.
The fruits of Smith’s tireless human-rights watchdogging was the introduction of the Global Online Freedom Act. Smith believes that “information technology can and should be used to open up commercial opportunities and provide people with access to vast amounts of honest information. It should be a means of personal freedom, exploration of knowledge and communication, not a weapon to oppress people.” He argues that dictatorships need two fundamental “pillars” to survive: propaganda and secret police. Misuse of the Internet supports both of these.
Smith is encouraging Google to pull out. And he wants the Global Online Freedom Act to be brought to a vote. It’s passed the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the Judiciary Committee, and the Energy and Commerce Committee, but it’s never been to the House floor. Smith reintroduced the bill in 2009 and has now urged the Democratic House leadership to bring his bipartisan bill to the floor for a vote. “U.S. companies should have no role in political censorship,” he insists, and the U.S. Congress should make that the law.
Also pushing for the legislation is Wei Jingsheng, who knows Chinese prisons all too well. He also understands how unscrupulously manipulative the Chinese regime can be: He was released from prison (after 14 and a half years) in 1993, when China thought it might get the 2000 Olympics. When the Olympic bid failed, he was rearrested. He tells me he wants the Chinese people to be able to search the Internet because knowledge is, in fact, power. And, in case Google executives try to put the best spin on the Chinese government’s hacking, he says, make no mistake: “The purpose” of the government spying on these dissidents “is to destroy them.” Google is “causing more danger to the people in China,” Jingsheng says.
But, like Smith, he doesn’t mean to scold or otherwise sit in judgment. Really, he’s simply pleading, armed with this new evidence, the reality of dictatorships, and his own history with this one. Addressing Google and “the many other companies” in its position, he says: “You tried to accommodate” China. And so, “you compromised. But the more compromises you made, the more aggressive the Chinese government would become. You must not compromise anymore. You have to cut off that relationship.” He adds: “I really think the best way to protect those companies is to pass the legislation and this legislation would protect them from the violations of the Chinese government regime.”
Wei Jingsheng, now in the U.S., represents those back in his native land whom we cannot hear from — whom we may never hear from, if the regime there has its way. Congress can, and should, stand with them.
— Kathryn Jean Lopez is editor-at-large of National Review Online.
Copyright 2009, Kathryn Jean Lopez. Distributed by Newspaper Enterprise Assn.
Hell no.... They shouldn't even consider playing in china.
They are one of the biggest if not the biggest human rights violaters in the world besides N. Korea.
I realize that this has to do with the enviroment but human rights are just as important IMO
Hell they might Put PJ jail for doing this. I wouldn' put anything past these tyrants. http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Mj ... yZTg=#more
Google ‘Deadly Business’
A human-rights game changer.
By Kathryn Jean Lopez
EDITOR’S NOTE: This column is available exclusively through United Media. For permission to reprint or excerpt this copyrighted material, please contact Carmen Puello at <!-- e --><a href="mailto:cpuello@unitedmedia.com">cpuello@unitedmedia.com</a><!-- e -->.
Washington has been abuzz about a book with the title “Game Change,” in which two political reporters provide all kinds of hot details about the last presidential campaign. But a life-saving “game changer” may actually have presented itself online, on the book’s publication date. That’s the hope of New Jersey Republican congressman Christopher Smith, a longtime human-rights crusader who has been trying to bring attention to the plight of the prisoners in the Laogai, labor camps run by the tyrants in China. And the “game changer,” he says, is Google’s discovery that the e-mail accounts of dissidents in China on Gmail have been hacked by the Chinese government, putting the lives of some courageous people in peril.
Google, which has been in China since 2005, willingly censors its search engine — in compliance with Chinese law — and refuses to talk about what exactly it censors. But if you try Googling “Tiananmen Square” from an Internet café in Beijing, you will find picturesque images. If you Google “torture,” you will learn about the Japanese during World War II and, naturally, George W. Bush and Guantanamo Bay. Smith tried all this when he was in China shortly before the Beijing Olympics. The typical Chinese with some curiosity, who is not satisfied with the propaganda that the government is producing, is going to happen upon the same. Searches for democracy, human rights, or Tibet leave the curious Google searcher in China lacking a lot of important information. Meanwhile, the government will know what he searched for.
In response to the disclosure that dissidents’ e-mails had been hacked by the government, Google is now considering pulling out of China. This would be the responsible thing to do.
Congressman Smith doesn’t boast that he told them so — but he did tell them so. He doesn’t brag that he’s offered, and gotten cleared by committees in the House of Representatives, legislation that would keep American companies from making too many deals with the devils of dictatorships. He doesn’t see Google or other American companies’ doing business with China or any other country as the enemy; he even wants to help them — as he protects human lives.
In February 2006, Smith chaired the first congressional hearing on China’s abuse of the Internet with the willing collusion of American Internet companies. The hearing, which lasted eight hours, included representatives of Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Cisco, and Congressman Smith scolded them for a “sickening collaboration” with Beijing’s tyrants — accusing them of helping in “decapitating the voice of the dissidents.” It was a dramatic hearing, during which the late Tom Lantos, a Democrat from California who headed the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, told the Internet technology executives: “I do not understand how your corporate leadership sleeps at night.”
If Google didn’t believe the congressmen, they have evidence before them now that ought to change things. Right in their Gmail accounts.
The fruits of Smith’s tireless human-rights watchdogging was the introduction of the Global Online Freedom Act. Smith believes that “information technology can and should be used to open up commercial opportunities and provide people with access to vast amounts of honest information. It should be a means of personal freedom, exploration of knowledge and communication, not a weapon to oppress people.” He argues that dictatorships need two fundamental “pillars” to survive: propaganda and secret police. Misuse of the Internet supports both of these.
Smith is encouraging Google to pull out. And he wants the Global Online Freedom Act to be brought to a vote. It’s passed the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the Judiciary Committee, and the Energy and Commerce Committee, but it’s never been to the House floor. Smith reintroduced the bill in 2009 and has now urged the Democratic House leadership to bring his bipartisan bill to the floor for a vote. “U.S. companies should have no role in political censorship,” he insists, and the U.S. Congress should make that the law.
Also pushing for the legislation is Wei Jingsheng, who knows Chinese prisons all too well. He also understands how unscrupulously manipulative the Chinese regime can be: He was released from prison (after 14 and a half years) in 1993, when China thought it might get the 2000 Olympics. When the Olympic bid failed, he was rearrested. He tells me he wants the Chinese people to be able to search the Internet because knowledge is, in fact, power. And, in case Google executives try to put the best spin on the Chinese government’s hacking, he says, make no mistake: “The purpose” of the government spying on these dissidents “is to destroy them.” Google is “causing more danger to the people in China,” Jingsheng says.
But, like Smith, he doesn’t mean to scold or otherwise sit in judgment. Really, he’s simply pleading, armed with this new evidence, the reality of dictatorships, and his own history with this one. Addressing Google and “the many other companies” in its position, he says: “You tried to accommodate” China. And so, “you compromised. But the more compromises you made, the more aggressive the Chinese government would become. You must not compromise anymore. You have to cut off that relationship.” He adds: “I really think the best way to protect those companies is to pass the legislation and this legislation would protect them from the violations of the Chinese government regime.”
Wei Jingsheng, now in the U.S., represents those back in his native land whom we cannot hear from — whom we may never hear from, if the regime there has its way. Congress can, and should, stand with them.
— Kathryn Jean Lopez is editor-at-large of National Review Online.
Copyright 2009, Kathryn Jean Lopez. Distributed by Newspaper Enterprise Assn.
Reminds me of Bush's illegal wire tapping of American citizens. Or is that something that you've chosen to flush down the Orwellian memory hole?
Hell no.... They shouldn't even consider playing in china.
They are one of the biggest if not the biggest human rights violaters in the world besides N. Korea.
I realize that this has to do with the enviroment but human rights are just as important IMO
Hell they might Put PJ jail for doing this. I wouldn' put anything past these tyrants. http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Mj ... yZTg=#more
Google ‘Deadly Business’
A human-rights game changer.
By Kathryn Jean Lopez
Reminds me of Bush's illegal wire tapping of American citizens. Or is that something that you've chosen to flush down the Orwellian memory hole?
Jesus, Byrnzie, why can't you discuss China's gov't without diverting the subject? Why is this so difficult? The article is about China's censorship of the internet, not America's. Care to talk about that?
Hell no.... They shouldn't even consider playing in china.
They are one of the biggest if not the biggest human rights violaters in the world besides N. Korea.
I realize that this has to do with the enviroment but human rights are just as important IMO
Hell they might Put PJ jail for doing this. I wouldn' put anything past these tyrants. http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Mj ... yZTg=#more
Google ‘Deadly Business’
A human-rights game changer.
By Kathryn Jean Lopez
Reminds me of Bush's illegal wire tapping of American citizens. Or is that something that you've chosen to flush down the Orwellian memory hole?
Jesus, Byrnzie, why can't you discuss China's gov't without diverting the subject? Why is this so difficult? The article is about China's censorship of the internet, not America's. Care to talk about that?
Jesus, Byrnzie, why can't you discuss China's gov't without diverting the subject? Why is this so difficult? The article is about China's censorship of the internet, not America's. Care to talk about that?
Jesus, Byrnzie, why can't you discuss China's gov't without diverting the subject? Why is this so difficult? The article is about China's censorship of the internet, not America's. Care to talk about that?
I haven't diverted the subject at all. You think you can judge and criticize China as an American without applying the same standards to yourself?
Jesus, Byrnzie, why can't you discuss China's gov't without diverting the subject? Why is this so difficult? The article is about China's censorship of the internet, not America's. Care to talk about that?
I haven't diverted the subject at all. You think you can judge and criticize China as an American without applying the same standards to yourself?
Works for you the other way around...living in China, criticizing the US...
And my post before...a joke...you need to lighten up a bit every now and then.
Hell no.... They shouldn't even consider playing in china.
They are one of the biggest if not the biggest human rights violaters in the world besides N. Korea.
I realize that this has to do with the enviroment but human rights are just as important IMO
Hell they might Put PJ jail for doing this. I wouldn' put anything past these tyrants. http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Mj ... yZTg=#more
Google ‘Deadly Business’
A human-rights game changer.
By Kathryn Jean Lopez
EDITOR’S NOTE: This column is available exclusively through United Media. For permission to reprint or excerpt this copyrighted material, please contact Carmen Puello at <!-- e --><a href="mailto:cpuello@unitedmedia.com">cpuello@unitedmedia.com</a><!-- e -->.
Washington has been abuzz about a book with the title “Game Change,” in which two political reporters provide all kinds of hot details about the last presidential campaign. But a life-saving “game changer” may actually have presented itself online, on the book’s publication date. That’s the hope of New Jersey Republican congressman Christopher Smith, a longtime human-rights crusader who has been trying to bring attention to the plight of the prisoners in the Laogai, labor camps run by the tyrants in China. And the “game changer,” he says, is Google’s discovery that the e-mail accounts of dissidents in China on Gmail have been hacked by the Chinese government, putting the lives of some courageous people in peril.
Google, which has been in China since 2005, willingly censors its search engine — in compliance with Chinese law — and refuses to talk about what exactly it censors. But if you try Googling “Tiananmen Square” from an Internet café in Beijing, you will find picturesque images. If you Google “torture,” you will learn about the Japanese during World War II and, naturally, George W. Bush and Guantanamo Bay. Smith tried all this when he was in China shortly before the Beijing Olympics. The typical Chinese with some curiosity, who is not satisfied with the propaganda that the government is producing, is going to happen upon the same. Searches for democracy, human rights, or Tibet leave the curious Google searcher in China lacking a lot of important information. Meanwhile, the government will know what he searched for.
In response to the disclosure that dissidents’ e-mails had been hacked by the government, Google is now considering pulling out of China. This would be the responsible thing to do.
Congressman Smith doesn’t boast that he told them so — but he did tell them so. He doesn’t brag that he’s offered, and gotten cleared by committees in the House of Representatives, legislation that would keep American companies from making too many deals with the devils of dictatorships. He doesn’t see Google or other American companies’ doing business with China or any other country as the enemy; he even wants to help them — as he protects human lives.
In February 2006, Smith chaired the first congressional hearing on China’s abuse of the Internet with the willing collusion of American Internet companies. The hearing, which lasted eight hours, included representatives of Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Cisco, and Congressman Smith scolded them for a “sickening collaboration” with Beijing’s tyrants — accusing them of helping in “decapitating the voice of the dissidents.” It was a dramatic hearing, during which the late Tom Lantos, a Democrat from California who headed the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, told the Internet technology executives: “I do not understand how your corporate leadership sleeps at night.”
If Google didn’t believe the congressmen, they have evidence before them now that ought to change things. Right in their Gmail accounts.
The fruits of Smith’s tireless human-rights watchdogging was the introduction of the Global Online Freedom Act. Smith believes that “information technology can and should be used to open up commercial opportunities and provide people with access to vast amounts of honest information. It should be a means of personal freedom, exploration of knowledge and communication, not a weapon to oppress people.” He argues that dictatorships need two fundamental “pillars” to survive: propaganda and secret police. Misuse of the Internet supports both of these.
Smith is encouraging Google to pull out. And he wants the Global Online Freedom Act to be brought to a vote. It’s passed the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the Judiciary Committee, and the Energy and Commerce Committee, but it’s never been to the House floor. Smith reintroduced the bill in 2009 and has now urged the Democratic House leadership to bring his bipartisan bill to the floor for a vote. “U.S. companies should have no role in political censorship,” he insists, and the U.S. Congress should make that the law.
Also pushing for the legislation is Wei Jingsheng, who knows Chinese prisons all too well. He also understands how unscrupulously manipulative the Chinese regime can be: He was released from prison (after 14 and a half years) in 1993, when China thought it might get the 2000 Olympics. When the Olympic bid failed, he was rearrested. He tells me he wants the Chinese people to be able to search the Internet because knowledge is, in fact, power. And, in case Google executives try to put the best spin on the Chinese government’s hacking, he says, make no mistake: “The purpose” of the government spying on these dissidents “is to destroy them.” Google is “causing more danger to the people in China,” Jingsheng says.
But, like Smith, he doesn’t mean to scold or otherwise sit in judgment. Really, he’s simply pleading, armed with this new evidence, the reality of dictatorships, and his own history with this one. Addressing Google and “the many other companies” in its position, he says: “You tried to accommodate” China. And so, “you compromised. But the more compromises you made, the more aggressive the Chinese government would become. You must not compromise anymore. You have to cut off that relationship.” He adds: “I really think the best way to protect those companies is to pass the legislation and this legislation would protect them from the violations of the Chinese government regime.”
Wei Jingsheng, now in the U.S., represents those back in his native land whom we cannot hear from — whom we may never hear from, if the regime there has its way. Congress can, and should, stand with them.
— Kathryn Jean Lopez is editor-at-large of National Review Online.
Copyright 2009, Kathryn Jean Lopez. Distributed by Newspaper Enterprise Assn.
Reminds me of Bush's illegal wire tapping of American citizens. Or is that something that you've chosen to flush down the Orwellian memory hole?
:roll: Yeah ok. Not even close pal.... At least the Bush administration was trying to keep it's citizens safe. Our Government doesn't throw it's citizens into work camps for dissent. At least we can have more than one child if we want to, and what about the harvesting of prisoners organs ? Do you want me to keep going?
Hell no.... They shouldn't even consider playing in china.
They are one of the biggest if not the biggest human rights violaters in the world besides N. Korea.
I realize that this has to do with the enviroment but human rights are just as important IMO
Hell they might Put PJ jail for doing this. I wouldn' put anything past these tyrants. http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Mj ... yZTg=#more
Google ‘Deadly Business’
A human-rights game changer.
By Kathryn Jean Lopez
EDITOR’S NOTE: This column is available exclusively through United Media. For permission to reprint or excerpt this copyrighted material, please contact Carmen Puello at <!-- e --><a href="mailto:cpuello@unitedmedia.com">cpuello@unitedmedia.com</a><!-- e -->.
Washington has been abuzz about a book with the title “Game Change,” in which two political reporters provide all kinds of hot details about the last presidential campaign. But a life-saving “game changer” may actually have presented itself online, on the book’s publication date. That’s the hope of New Jersey Republican congressman Christopher Smith, a longtime human-rights crusader who has been trying to bring attention to the plight of the prisoners in the Laogai, labor camps run by the tyrants in China. And the “game changer,” he says, is Google’s discovery that the e-mail accounts of dissidents in China on Gmail have been hacked by the Chinese government, putting the lives of some courageous people in peril.
Google, which has been in China since 2005, willingly censors its search engine — in compliance with Chinese law — and refuses to talk about what exactly it censors. But if you try Googling “Tiananmen Square” from an Internet café in Beijing, you will find picturesque images. If you Google “torture,” you will learn about the Japanese during World War II and, naturally, George W. Bush and Guantanamo Bay. Smith tried all this when he was in China shortly before the Beijing Olympics. The typical Chinese with some curiosity, who is not satisfied with the propaganda that the government is producing, is going to happen upon the same. Searches for democracy, human rights, or Tibet leave the curious Google searcher in China lacking a lot of important information. Meanwhile, the government will know what he searched for.
In response to the disclosure that dissidents’ e-mails had been hacked by the government, Google is now considering pulling out of China. This would be the responsible thing to do.
Congressman Smith doesn’t boast that he told them so — but he did tell them so. He doesn’t brag that he’s offered, and gotten cleared by committees in the House of Representatives, legislation that would keep American companies from making too many deals with the devils of dictatorships. He doesn’t see Google or other American companies’ doing business with China or any other country as the enemy; he even wants to help them — as he protects human lives.
In February 2006, Smith chaired the first congressional hearing on China’s abuse of the Internet with the willing collusion of American Internet companies. The hearing, which lasted eight hours, included representatives of Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Cisco, and Congressman Smith scolded them for a “sickening collaboration” with Beijing’s tyrants — accusing them of helping in “decapitating the voice of the dissidents.” It was a dramatic hearing, during which the late Tom Lantos, a Democrat from California who headed the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, told the Internet technology executives: “I do not understand how your corporate leadership sleeps at night.”
If Google didn’t believe the congressmen, they have evidence before them now that ought to change things. Right in their Gmail accounts.
The fruits of Smith’s tireless human-rights watchdogging was the introduction of the Global Online Freedom Act. Smith believes that “information technology can and should be used to open up commercial opportunities and provide people with access to vast amounts of honest information. It should be a means of personal freedom, exploration of knowledge and communication, not a weapon to oppress people.” He argues that dictatorships need two fundamental “pillars” to survive: propaganda and secret police. Misuse of the Internet supports both of these.
Smith is encouraging Google to pull out. And he wants the Global Online Freedom Act to be brought to a vote. It’s passed the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the Judiciary Committee, and the Energy and Commerce Committee, but it’s never been to the House floor. Smith reintroduced the bill in 2009 and has now urged the Democratic House leadership to bring his bipartisan bill to the floor for a vote. “U.S. companies should have no role in political censorship,” he insists, and the U.S. Congress should make that the law.
Also pushing for the legislation is Wei Jingsheng, who knows Chinese prisons all too well. He also understands how unscrupulously manipulative the Chinese regime can be: He was released from prison (after 14 and a half years) in 1993, when China thought it might get the 2000 Olympics. When the Olympic bid failed, he was rearrested. He tells me he wants the Chinese people to be able to search the Internet because knowledge is, in fact, power. And, in case Google executives try to put the best spin on the Chinese government’s hacking, he says, make no mistake: “The purpose” of the government spying on these dissidents “is to destroy them.” Google is “causing more danger to the people in China,” Jingsheng says.
But, like Smith, he doesn’t mean to scold or otherwise sit in judgment. Really, he’s simply pleading, armed with this new evidence, the reality of dictatorships, and his own history with this one. Addressing Google and “the many other companies” in its position, he says: “You tried to accommodate” China. And so, “you compromised. But the more compromises you made, the more aggressive the Chinese government would become. You must not compromise anymore. You have to cut off that relationship.” He adds: “I really think the best way to protect those companies is to pass the legislation and this legislation would protect them from the violations of the Chinese government regime.”
Wei Jingsheng, now in the U.S., represents those back in his native land whom we cannot hear from — whom we may never hear from, if the regime there has its way. Congress can, and should, stand with them.
— Kathryn Jean Lopez is editor-at-large of National Review Online.
Copyright 2009, Kathryn Jean Lopez. Distributed by Newspaper Enterprise Assn.
Reminds me of Bush's illegal wire tapping of American citizens. Or is that something that you've chosen to flush down the Orwellian memory hole?
:roll: Yeah ok. Not even close pal.... At least the Bush administration was trying to keep it's citizens safe. Our Government doesn't throw it's citizens into work camps for dissent. At least we can have more than one child if we want to. Do you want me to keep going?
FREEEEEEDOOOOOOMMMM!!
seriously, it does not matter if bush was trying to keep me safe. he stole some of my freedoms and i will never forgive him for it. you shouldn't either...its funny how you can freely criticize china while seeing nothing wrong at all with your own country...
gst27 shakes head and exits the debate in awe....
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
Ok, this is probably the corniest thing I've read on any forum. Why do people type this stuff?
No personal offense, I've seen it a bunch.
thats the first time i've done it. there are no emoticons to express the level of frustration and awe i was feeling as i logged out...i've seen you do plenty of "corney" things on here, i just never called you on it...next time i just may...
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
Jesus, Byrnzie, why can't you discuss China's gov't without diverting the subject? Why is this so difficult? The article is about China's censorship of the internet, not America's. Care to talk about that?
I haven't diverted the subject at all. You think you can judge and criticize China as an American without applying the same standards to yourself?
Do you really need me to repost everything you've previously wrote in trying to change the subject to the U.S.? Come on now. The subject of this thread is CHINA, not the U.S.
Jesus, Byrnzie, why can't you discuss China's gov't without diverting the subject? Why is this so difficult? The article is about China's censorship of the internet, not America's. Care to talk about that?
I haven't diverted the subject at all. You think you can judge and criticize China as an American without applying the same standards to yourself?
Do you really need me to repost everything you've previously wrote in trying to change the subject to the U.S.? Come on now. The subject of this thread is CHINA, not the U.S.
Have you ever heard the phrase 'Like the pot calling the kettle black'?
Comments
What did I say about China? Not sure I jumped on any moral high horse.
However, if this is regarding EARTH DAY, both China and the US have a ways to go, but China is close to last place in this race. But that is why it also makes sense to have the concert there. But, because of it's political system, the effect of a concert like this is most likely going to be close to zero in China.
Moral high horse? Because I point out that China is hardly deserving of a global peace and environmental awareness concert? Whatev.
You still refuse to answer the question. Is the gov't you live under not allowing you to?
+1
Possibly, although if they do broadcast it across the country - even after editing out any remarks about the CCP that they deem offensive/confrontational - then it should generate some interest in these issues, and may lead to some positive action. China is slowly but surely opening up to the world and to foreign influences and ideas, so IMO this can only be good for China and ultimately for the rest of the world.
And I point out that you should take your blinkers off when looking at China. The Chinese are not the bogeymen that you believe they are.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100113/en ... 0113165333
"My belief in music as a universal language is the reason I returned to Beijing to voice my support for the Show of Peace," said Page, who performed the Led Zeppelin classic "Whole Lotta Love" at the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics last year.
"This (concert) is a tribute to the power of music and its positive effect. Music has been one of the most powerful languages that speaks to the heart of the people around the world."
Sponsors include the Chinese People?s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, the China-based non-profit Joint-US China Collaboration on Clean Energy, the United Nations? NGO Pathways to Peace, and Ted Turner's Captain Planet Foundation...'
Shame we can't all be this positive. :roll:
I don't believe China is a bunch of boogeymen (well except for the govt). Just to be fair, you weren't defending China, you were changing the subject, up to this point.
Like Cincy, I'm all for a free concert as well, but don't think it will do anything about spreading awareness throughout that region (as well as possible the rest of the world). Not to mention the whole event will need to be sanctioned.
There's also something very oxymoronic about these supposed "Let's go Green by flying in all these musicians with their planes full of equipment to one place and play for the world so they can go Green." How about a free Live Internet event, having musicians play from their respective home areas? Now that's being Green.
True, but sometimes you gotta spend money to make money...if you know what I mean.
You wouldn't get the same attention from the general public from an internet concert.
Not to mention that something of this sort has never occurred in China before, so, like the Olympics, the Chinese will go crazy for it.
Looks like you're right. Then what better place to hold an environment festival than China?
http://www.thenewecologist.com/2009/10/ ... polluters/
'China has now overtaken the United States as the world’s biggest polluter; its carbon emissions have more than doubled in a decade. However, US and China, world’s biggest polluters, promise to address global climate change at the Climate Change Summit at the UN General Assembly in New York, recently.
India, now the fourth biggest polluter, is also rapidly increasing its emissions, and is increasing its population of 1.15 billion people far faster than any other country; soon its human numbers will be on a par with China’s and its emissions following suit.
Australia has overtaken the USA and is now classified most at risk out of 185 countries, according to the CO2 Energy Emissions Index (CEEI), released by UK based, global risks analyst, Maplecroft.
Australians now emit 20.58 tons of CO2 per person annually, whereas American’s emit 19.78 tons, almost a 4% difference. Canada meanwhile emits 18.81 tons per person.
In sharp contrast the emerging markets of China and India, considered two of the world’s worst overall CO2 polluters, annually emit 4.5 and 1.16 tons per person respectively.
http://www.euromonitor.com/Mapping_glob ... _polluters
'China is the world's biggest polluter with 7.3 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions from fossil fuels in 2008. Rapid economic growth (averaging 10.0% annually over 2000-2008) and a large manufacturing sector have resulted in China overtaking the USA as the biggest polluter. In November 2009, China announced ahead of the UN summit that it would decrease its carbon intensity (carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP) by 40-45% by 2020 from 2005 levels;
The USA is the second largest polluter in the world with 5.9 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions from fossil fuels in 2008. The USA announced in November 2009 that it would reduce carbon emissions by 17% by 2020 from 2005 levels.
While emerging markets are catching up with developed markets in terms of total emissions (with Russia and India also amongst the top polluters), their per capita emissions are generally much lower than advanced economies leading to controversy of where responsibility lies for climate change. Many emerging markets argue that emissions targets will come at the expense of their development:
North America's per capita CO2 emissions from fossil fuels, for example, was 19,251 kg per capita in 2008 compared to 3,379 kg per capita in Asia Pacific;
Australia is the OECD's biggest polluter in per capita terms stemming from its large mining sector and reliance on coal at 20,619 kg per capita in 2008. In comparison, China had 5,508 kg per capita in the same year and Nigeria just 712 kg per capita.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... luter.html
President George Bush: 'Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter'
By Robert Winnett, Deputy Political Editor and Urmee Khan
09 Jul 2008
The American leader, who has been condemned throughout his presidency for failing to tackle climate change, ended a private meeting with the words: "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter."
He then punched the air while grinning widely, as the rest of those present including Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock.
Mr Bush, whose second and final term as President ends at the end of the year, then left the meeting at the Windsor Hotel in Hokkaido where the leaders of the world's richest nations had been discussing new targets to cut carbon emissions.
One official who witnessed the extraordinary scene said afterwards: "Everyone was very surprised that he was making a joke about America's record on pollution."
Mr Bush also faced criticism at the summit after Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, was described in the White House press pack given to journalists as one of the "most controversial leaders in the history of a country known for government corruption and vice".
The White House apologised for what it called "sloppy work" and said an official had simply lifted the characterisation from the internet without reading it.
Concluding the three-day event, leaders from the G8 and developing countries proclaimed a "shared vision" on climate change. However, they failed to bridge differences between rich and emerging nations on curbing emissions.'
They are one of the biggest if not the biggest human rights violaters in the world besides N. Korea.
I realize that this has to do with the enviroment but human rights are just as important IMO
Hell they might Put PJ jail for doing this. I wouldn' put anything past these tyrants.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Mj ... yZTg=#more
Google ‘Deadly Business’
A human-rights game changer.
By Kathryn Jean Lopez
EDITOR’S NOTE: This column is available exclusively through United Media. For permission to reprint or excerpt this copyrighted material, please contact Carmen Puello at <!-- e --><a href="mailto:cpuello@unitedmedia.com">cpuello@unitedmedia.com</a><!-- e -->.
Washington has been abuzz about a book with the title “Game Change,” in which two political reporters provide all kinds of hot details about the last presidential campaign. But a life-saving “game changer” may actually have presented itself online, on the book’s publication date. That’s the hope of New Jersey Republican congressman Christopher Smith, a longtime human-rights crusader who has been trying to bring attention to the plight of the prisoners in the Laogai, labor camps run by the tyrants in China. And the “game changer,” he says, is Google’s discovery that the e-mail accounts of dissidents in China on Gmail have been hacked by the Chinese government, putting the lives of some courageous people in peril.
Google, which has been in China since 2005, willingly censors its search engine — in compliance with Chinese law — and refuses to talk about what exactly it censors. But if you try Googling “Tiananmen Square” from an Internet café in Beijing, you will find picturesque images. If you Google “torture,” you will learn about the Japanese during World War II and, naturally, George W. Bush and Guantanamo Bay. Smith tried all this when he was in China shortly before the Beijing Olympics. The typical Chinese with some curiosity, who is not satisfied with the propaganda that the government is producing, is going to happen upon the same. Searches for democracy, human rights, or Tibet leave the curious Google searcher in China lacking a lot of important information. Meanwhile, the government will know what he searched for.
In response to the disclosure that dissidents’ e-mails had been hacked by the government, Google is now considering pulling out of China. This would be the responsible thing to do.
Congressman Smith doesn’t boast that he told them so — but he did tell them so. He doesn’t brag that he’s offered, and gotten cleared by committees in the House of Representatives, legislation that would keep American companies from making too many deals with the devils of dictatorships. He doesn’t see Google or other American companies’ doing business with China or any other country as the enemy; he even wants to help them — as he protects human lives.
In February 2006, Smith chaired the first congressional hearing on China’s abuse of the Internet with the willing collusion of American Internet companies. The hearing, which lasted eight hours, included representatives of Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Cisco, and Congressman Smith scolded them for a “sickening collaboration” with Beijing’s tyrants — accusing them of helping in “decapitating the voice of the dissidents.” It was a dramatic hearing, during which the late Tom Lantos, a Democrat from California who headed the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, told the Internet technology executives: “I do not understand how your corporate leadership sleeps at night.”
If Google didn’t believe the congressmen, they have evidence before them now that ought to change things. Right in their Gmail accounts.
The fruits of Smith’s tireless human-rights watchdogging was the introduction of the Global Online Freedom Act. Smith believes that “information technology can and should be used to open up commercial opportunities and provide people with access to vast amounts of honest information. It should be a means of personal freedom, exploration of knowledge and communication, not a weapon to oppress people.” He argues that dictatorships need two fundamental “pillars” to survive: propaganda and secret police. Misuse of the Internet supports both of these.
Smith is encouraging Google to pull out. And he wants the Global Online Freedom Act to be brought to a vote. It’s passed the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the Judiciary Committee, and the Energy and Commerce Committee, but it’s never been to the House floor. Smith reintroduced the bill in 2009 and has now urged the Democratic House leadership to bring his bipartisan bill to the floor for a vote. “U.S. companies should have no role in political censorship,” he insists, and the U.S. Congress should make that the law.
Also pushing for the legislation is Wei Jingsheng, who knows Chinese prisons all too well. He also understands how unscrupulously manipulative the Chinese regime can be: He was released from prison (after 14 and a half years) in 1993, when China thought it might get the 2000 Olympics. When the Olympic bid failed, he was rearrested. He tells me he wants the Chinese people to be able to search the Internet because knowledge is, in fact, power. And, in case Google executives try to put the best spin on the Chinese government’s hacking, he says, make no mistake: “The purpose” of the government spying on these dissidents “is to destroy them.” Google is “causing more danger to the people in China,” Jingsheng says.
But, like Smith, he doesn’t mean to scold or otherwise sit in judgment. Really, he’s simply pleading, armed with this new evidence, the reality of dictatorships, and his own history with this one. Addressing Google and “the many other companies” in its position, he says: “You tried to accommodate” China. And so, “you compromised. But the more compromises you made, the more aggressive the Chinese government would become. You must not compromise anymore. You have to cut off that relationship.” He adds: “I really think the best way to protect those companies is to pass the legislation and this legislation would protect them from the violations of the Chinese government regime.”
Wei Jingsheng, now in the U.S., represents those back in his native land whom we cannot hear from — whom we may never hear from, if the regime there has its way. Congress can, and should, stand with them.
— Kathryn Jean Lopez is editor-at-large of National Review Online.
Copyright 2009, Kathryn Jean Lopez. Distributed by Newspaper Enterprise Assn.
Reminds me of Bush's illegal wire tapping of American citizens. Or is that something that you've chosen to flush down the Orwellian memory hole?
He can't, he's being censored.
No I'm not.
I haven't diverted the subject at all. You think you can judge and criticize China as an American without applying the same standards to yourself?
Works for you the other way around...living in China, criticizing the US...
And my post before...a joke...you need to lighten up a bit every now and then.
O.k, how's this?:
:roll: Yeah ok. Not even close pal.... At least the Bush administration was trying to keep it's citizens safe. Our Government doesn't throw it's citizens into work camps for dissent. At least we can have more than one child if we want to, and what about the harvesting of prisoners organs ? Do you want me to keep going?
seriously, it does not matter if bush was trying to keep me safe. he stole some of my freedoms and i will never forgive him for it. you shouldn't either...its funny how you can freely criticize china while seeing nothing wrong at all with your own country...
gst27 shakes head and exits the debate in awe....
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
The Bush Administrations top advisers predicted that attacking Afghanistan and Iraq would increase terrorism
Perfect! :shock:
Ok, this is probably the corniest thing I've read on any forum. Why do people type this stuff?
No personal offense, I've seen it a bunch.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Do you really need me to repost everything you've previously wrote in trying to change the subject to the U.S.? Come on now. The subject of this thread is CHINA, not the U.S.
Have you ever heard the phrase 'Like the pot calling the kettle black'?
Think about it.