[Vision2020] Tibetan Fight for Freedom

[Garrett Clevenger]

Perhaps Chas is right and China will be the next
"super-power," but nothing is written in stone.  The
political world is dynamic and China may exceed it's
ability to become a superpower due to it
over-population and environmental degradation.  It's
possible the world can't sustain human impacts
indefinitely, anyways, particularly if China reaches
the US standard of living.

In the meantime, the US has interfered with world
affairs for almost 100 years, intensively for the last
50. Currently we influence more countries than any
other country and it doesn't seem like we will be
stopping any time soon.

China has gained tremendous wealth with the help of
Walmart and other exports to the US.  What once was
our "communist" enemy now seems to be our main
supplier of cheap goods, something we as a country
have knowingly condoned, perhaps to our own detriment.
 It's ironic that in our desire to reach out to China
to access their cheap labor and markets we may have
created our greatest competitor that now supports our
addiction to stuff by lending us hundreds of billions
of dollars

Serving China and owing them lots of money is not in
our best interest.  We are only empowering them by
letting them get away with their abuse, not only of
Tibetans and other folks in China, but with selling us
poisoned products.  What better way for them to
destroy their enemy then to sell us cheap crap that is
unhealthy for us while gaining hundreds of billions of
dollars a year selling that same stuff?  It's a
brilliant scam and we are letting it happen today.

I believe we are better off standing up for our
principles then bowing down to another country in fear
that they may harbor resentment against us and take it
out on us if they someday become the next superpower. 
We will have little sympathy from the world if we are
seen as hypocritical and corrupt.  We are better off
unifying the world through strengthening our ideals
amongst all people, as that seems like the best
long-term strategy to insure stability.

The Bush admin is complicit in the downfall of our
country on multiple fronts.  But to know Bush will be
kissing Chinese ass to appease them due to the fact
that China may be the next superpower is traitorous
and another reason this admin has been a complete
failure for America.

I don't consider myself racist or particularly
nationalistic, but I am humanist and believe every
person deserves to live in a tolerant, open and
democratic society, not just Americans. We should have
leaders that stand up for American ideals, not the
corporate bottom line.  Freedom loving people should
boycott the Olympics and all Chinese made products
(which, unfortunately, is probably impossible
considering it seems everything is "Made in China"
these days, thanks to our insatiable appetite for
cheap goods)

Garrett

--- Chasuk <chasuk at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm not a historian, so I apologize if I make myself
> look like an
> idiot here.  However, you mentioned that Tibet
> managed to stay
> independent of the European powers, if not
> necessarily from China.  As
> Tibet sits essentially within China's borders, isn't
> that as it should
> be?  If Tibet had produced gold or oil, or something
> else that
> attracted Europeans, wouldn't China's proprietorial
> interest have been
> logical, considering where Tibet is situated?  What
> interests could
> Europe have had, other than avaricious?
> 
> >  The Tibetans don't share a genetic heritage,
> language, culture,
> >  religion, or cuisine with the Chinese. They're in
> no way the same
> >  people.
> 
> China doesn't share a genetic heritage, language,
> culture,  religion,
> or cuisine with itself.  There are 55 official
> minority nationalities
> in China, and 235 living languages (according to
> ethnologue.com).
> These are not like dialects in the US, where
> Bostonians understand
> Californians who understand Southerners, if with
> some difficulty.
> These dialects are so different that they are
> _literally_ mutually
> unintelligible.
> 
> There are many places in the world where bad things
> happen every day,
> but no one has empowered us as global policeman,
> despite what our
> hubris and self-deceit sometimes lead us to pretend.
>  I don't condone
> atrocities, wherever they may occur, but neither do
> I condone
> interfering in the affairs of sovereign nations.  It
> doesn't seem,
> ultimately, to be a very healthy thing to do.
>