On Sat, 11 Feb 2006 20:45:50 GMT, "Doug Kanter"
wrote:

[...]

I think it's handy to be able to discount what a lousy place China is in
terms of human rights, because it enables people to pretend everything's
fine. Then, they can get back to doing whatever it is they prefer to
thinking. Nose picking, watching Oprah, etc.

[...]

Hah! Well said!

What's REALLY interesting is how mainline American churches,
Presbyterian, Episcopalian, maybe others by now, vote to boycott
trading with Israel because of what they perceive as its human rights
violations [1]. One of their targets is the Caterpillar Corporation.

The Church of England, a state religion, also just jumped on the
"boycott Israel" bandwagon.

Not a peep out of these chuches China, the world's major human
rights violator, nor the 22 Arab countries, all dictatorships, all
repressive regimes that consistently violate human rights.

[1] Awful stuff! Keeping murders from infiltrating their borders
and blowing up innocent civilians! Tracking and arresting where
possible, killing where not possible, the instigators of the so-called
"suicide bombers", who hide behind civilians, including young
children. Poor naive Israel, maintaining in the face of daily
horrors, an open society where Israeli Arabs have the same civil
rights as the Jews; where newspapers, radio and TV can and do sharply
criticize the government; where Arab children, e.g. get kidney
transplants in the excellent Israeli hospitals in the same ratio as
Jews. The Israelis are just not as sophisticated as the Arab world
in terms of spinning and propaganda. They actually think that the
truth will prevail.

Sounds like what the U.S. used to be like before the Bushies
started suppressing dissent.

Persephone


--

The unexamined life is not worth living.

Socrates

On Sat, 11 Feb 2006 00:32:02 -0800, "presley"
wrote:

If you had ever read an economics textbook, James, you'd realize that "a
rising tide lifts all boats" is a myth. Bush claimed that returning taxes to
the wealthy in this country would have that effect here - instead,
statistics show that the middle class and lower classes in the US have seen
a substantial decline in wages relative to inflation in the past 5 years,
while the wealth of the upper class here has skyrocketed in that period,
Interestingly, you cite no evidence for your claim that all citizens of
China has benefitted from its economic growth - because such evidence
doesn't exist. China has a rapidly expanding upper class, whose standard of
living is beginning to match its counterparts in the West - but it has a
tiny middle class. In the long term, only countries in which the middle
class is the largest class can be said to have healthy economies. The
majority of people in China remain desperately poor. Many factories are run
as sweat shops with wages held down because government officials forbid
unionization attempts. How many thousands of Chinese die every year in coal
mining accidents? True unemployment is estimated by many China experts at
15% or higher (in other words, equal to the entire workforce of the United
States). Rural people leave their farm villages to try to find work in the
big cities, but usually fail and live in shantytowns on the outskirts,
surviving by begging and picking through garbage.
The only way this situation would ever change (and I'm not optimistic) would
be if the developed world insisted on fair labor standards and wages before
it would do business with China. But most of us prefer to hide our heads in
the sand, because we're able to buy some sort of advertised junk for $10
cheaper if we don't rock the boat too much.

You got that right, man. Village China has changed hardly at all.
A year or so ago, I was on a trip through China, and in front of our
fairly nice Western-style hotel, I saw homeless men sleeping behind
the hotel sign. This would never have been seen -- or permitted --
under the Old Regime.

And I saw much, much other evidence of the enormous divide between the
glitzy entrepreneurial class of, say, Shanghai, and the poor people
you mention above.

I had a very interesting talk with our guide, who was a well-educated
woman open to answering my many questions. I asked her if the
new rich class in China "gave back" to the community in the way
that is traditional here in America for those who have "made it".
She said the very concept does not yet exist in China.

IMHO, it will take several generations for the Chinese to liberate
themselves from the dead hand of totalitarianism. Just allowing
a "greed is good" ethos now permitted by the (chuckle!) Communist
Party hierarchy to prevail does not cut it.

Let's hope that by then they haven't totally destroyed their
environment. You'd think they would observe what the West is
doing to the Earth and mend their ways accordingly. But
corruption is so endemic, it's me, me, me, and screw the Earth.

Persephone




"James" wrote in message You are mistaken. All of
China is benefiting significantly from their
growing economy, including factory workers. You have to look at the big
picture rather than some poor schmuck who got a bad deal of the cards. I
suggest an economics book.




--

Those who cannot remember the past
are condemned to relive it.

Santayana

"James" wrote in message
China can take care of their own social structure without any help but the
west still pushes for better human rights as they should. The fact that it
is changing at all can only be good for them IMO. The government will
change
in time but don't look for any classless society. Socialism has
demonstrated
that it's no utopian system.

Did I say anywhere that I hoped for a classless society? I said that only
societies in which the middle class representated the majority of the people
could be termed healthy societies, since, as the majority, they can then
begin to wield some political power. ANYTHING else goes by another term -
oligarchy. (I'm not sure that word appears in your economic textbook, but it
means "rule by a favored few"). Often it takes the form of plutocracy "Rule
by the rich". It seems to me that EVERY single action, political and
economic, by the Chinese government, is dedicated towards creating and
sustaining an oligarchy.
I'm fascinated by the sentence above: "China can take care of their own
social structure without any help". Well, by golly, Tianamen Square proved
that correct, didn't it? Since when did authoritarian crackdown on all
dissent, and using government forces to prevent people from agitating for
higher wages and better work standards (referencing my coal mining accident
sentence which so discombobulated you) translate into "taking care of their
own social structure"? I would translate those actions as "dictating their
own social strucure".
Did the millions of people displaced by the building of the three gorges dam
benefit from it? Does the building of a railroad to service slave-wage
factories somewhere benefit the workers? You made a sweeping pie-in-the-sky
statement about how improved trade benefits every Chinese person. Where's
your evidence?
I don't deny that it COULD....I'm just saying that pretty definitively,
it's NOT.

Persephone wrote in message ...
On Sat, 11 Feb 2006 20:45:50 GMT, "Doug Kanter"
wrote:

[...]

I think it's handy to be able to discount what a lousy place China is in
terms of human rights, because it enables people to pretend
everything's
fine. Then, they can get back to doing whatever it is they prefer to
thinking. Nose picking, watching Oprah, etc.

[...]

Hah! Well said!

What's REALLY interesting is how mainline American churches,
Presbyterian, Episcopalian, maybe others by now, vote to boycott
trading with Israel because of what they perceive as its human rights
violations [1]. One of their targets is the Caterpillar Corporation.

The Church of England, a state religion, also just jumped on the
"boycott Israel" bandwagon.

Not a peep out of these chuches China, the world's major human
rights violator, nor the 22 Arab countries, all dictatorships, all
repressive regimes that consistently violate human rights.

[1] Awful stuff! Keeping murders from infiltrating their borders
and blowing up innocent civilians! Tracking and arresting where
possible, killing where not possible, the instigators of the so-called
"suicide bombers", who hide behind civilians, including young
children. Poor naive Israel, maintaining in the face of daily
horrors, an open society where Israeli Arabs have the same civil
rights as the Jews; where newspapers, radio and TV can and do sharply
criticize the government; where Arab children, e.g. get kidney
transplants in the excellent Israeli hospitals in the same ratio as
Jews. The Israelis are just not as sophisticated as the Arab world
in terms of spinning and propaganda. They actually think that the
truth will prevail.

Sounds like what the U.S. used to be like before the Bushies
started suppressing dissent.

Persephone


--

The unexamined life is not worth living.

Socrates

I find the discussion being completely off topic and very sophomoric. If you
feel it's your lot in life to point out the ills of the world with some well
worn phrases on the inhumanity of others, then you have issues that can't be
solved here.

"presley" wrote in message
...

"James" wrote in message
China can take care of their own social structure without any help but
the
west still pushes for better human rights as they should. The fact that
it
is changing at all can only be good for them IMO. The government will
change
in time but don't look for any classless society. Socialism has
demonstrated
that it's no utopian system.

Did I say anywhere that I hoped for a classless society? I said that only
societies in which the middle class representated the majority of the
people
could be termed healthy societies, since, as the majority, they can then
begin to wield some political power. ANYTHING else goes by another term -
oligarchy. (I'm not sure that word appears in your economic textbook, but
it
means "rule by a favored few"). Often it takes the form of plutocracy
"Rule
by the rich". It seems to me that EVERY single action, political and
economic, by the Chinese government, is dedicated towards creating and
sustaining an oligarchy.
I'm fascinated by the sentence above: "China can take care of their
own
social structure without any help". Well, by golly, Tianamen Square
proved
that correct, didn't it? Since when did authoritarian crackdown on all
dissent, and using government forces to prevent people from agitating for
higher wages and better work standards (referencing my coal mining
accident
sentence which so discombobulated you) translate into "taking care of
their
own social structure"? I would translate those actions as "dictating their
own social strucure".
Did the millions of people displaced by the building of the three gorges
dam
benefit from it? Does the building of a railroad to service slave-wage
factories somewhere benefit the workers? You made a sweeping
pie-in-the-sky
statement about how improved trade benefits every Chinese person. Where's
your evidence?
I don't deny that it COULD....I'm just saying that pretty
definitively,
it's NOT.


See above reply to Persephone. You should take your thoughts to a political
newsgroup.

"James" wrote in message
...

Persephone wrote in message ...
On Sat, 11 Feb 2006 20:45:50 GMT, "Doug Kanter"
wrote:

[...]

I think it's handy to be able to discount what a lousy place China is in
terms of human rights, because it enables people to pretend
everything's
fine. Then, they can get back to doing whatever it is they prefer to
thinking. Nose picking, watching Oprah, etc.

[...]

Hah! Well said!

What's REALLY interesting is how mainline American churches,
Presbyterian, Episcopalian, maybe others by now, vote to boycott
trading with Israel because of what they perceive as its human rights
violations [1]. One of their targets is the Caterpillar Corporation.

The Church of England, a state religion, also just jumped on the
"boycott Israel" bandwagon.

Not a peep out of these chuches China, the world's major human
rights violator, nor the 22 Arab countries, all dictatorships, all
repressive regimes that consistently violate human rights.

[1] Awful stuff! Keeping murders from infiltrating their borders
and blowing up innocent civilians! Tracking and arresting where
possible, killing where not possible, the instigators of the so-called
"suicide bombers", who hide behind civilians, including young
children. Poor naive Israel, maintaining in the face of daily
horrors, an open society where Israeli Arabs have the same civil
rights as the Jews; where newspapers, radio and TV can and do sharply
criticize the government; where Arab children, e.g. get kidney
transplants in the excellent Israeli hospitals in the same ratio as
Jews. The Israelis are just not as sophisticated as the Arab world
in terms of spinning and propaganda. They actually think that the
truth will prevail.

Sounds like what the U.S. used to be like before the Bushies
started suppressing dissent.

Persephone


--

The unexamined life is not worth living.

Socrates

I find the discussion being completely off topic and very sophomoric. If
you
feel it's your lot in life to point out the ills of the world with some
well
worn phrases on the inhumanity of others, then you have issues that can't
be
solved here.

James, I think you owe it to yourself and your children to have some grownup
newspapers delivered to the house at least once a week. You made a comment
earlier: "The NY Times and some of the other media love these "misery"
stories and present them much like they did from the ghetto misery stories
of 40 years
ago". The fact is that nasty things happen. You can't stick your head in the
sand and pretend they don't. More important, you can't pretend that your
dollars are not directly funding evil.

"James" wrote in message
...


China can take care of their own social structure without any help but the
west still pushes for better human rights as they should.

Here's another example of China taking care of its own social structu

An article we can read here, about our political system. You could google
for it, or go directly to the web site.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/12/po...gewanted=print

Small chunk of article - get all the way past it:
Photograph Shows Lobbyist at Bush Meeting With Legislators
By PHILIP SHENON and LOWELL BERGMAN
WASHINGTON, Feb. 11 - After weeks in which the White House has declined to
release pictures of President Bush with Jack Abramoff, the disgraced
lobbyist, the first photograph to be published of the two men shows a small,
partly obscured image of Mr. Abramoff looking on from the background as Mr.
Bush greets a Texas Indian chief in May 2001.

By itself, the picture hardly seems worthy of the White House's efforts to
keep it out of the public eye. Mr. Abramoff, a leading Republican
fund-raiser who pleaded guilty last month to conspiring to corrupt public
officials, is little more than a blurry, bearded figure in the background at
a gathering of about two dozen people.

But it provides a window, albeit an opaque one, into Mr. Abramoff's efforts
to sell himself to Indian tribes as a man of influence who could open the
most secure doors in Washington to them. And it leaves unanswered questions
about how Mr. Abramoff and the tribal leader, whom he was trying to sign as
a client, gained access to a meeting with the president on the White House
grounds that was ostensibly for a group of state legislators who were
supporting Mr. Bush's 2001 tax cut plan.

================

And, here's how China "manages" its social structure - by censorship:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/12/we...gewanted=print



So Long, Dalai Lama: Google Adapts to China
By JOSEPH KAHN
BEIJING

SO what does the Dalai Lama look like, anyway?

Chinese Tibetans or other Buddhists who might be curious could try finding
images of the spiritual leader on Google.cn, a new search engine that Google
tailored for China and is now, two weeks after its unveiling, on full
display to local Web users.

Is he that guy with puffy cheeks wearing a Western suit? No, that's Liu
Jianchao, China's foreign ministry spokesman, demanding that the Dalai Lama
stop trying to split the motherland. What about that balding man leading a
big delegation? No, that's Chen Yi, a late Chinese vice prime minister,
offering grain to the Tibetan people.

Only one of the 161 images produced by searching in Chinese for the Dalai
Lama on Google.cn shows the 14th Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet
since 1940. He is pictured as a young man meeting senior Chinese officials.
That was before 1959, when China's People's Liberation Army invaded Tibet
and the Dalai Lama fled into exile.

For people outside China, or Chinese who can circumvent the Internet
firewall, the 2,030 images on unfiltered Google.com favor the Dalai Lama of
today. He is the genial-looking guy in the burgundy and saffron robe, here
meeting President Bush, there speaking to 40,000 people in New Jersey.

Several of the biggest media and technology companies have come under attack
for helping the Chinese government police the Web. Yahoo provided
information about its users' e-mail accounts that helped the authorities
convict dissidents in 2003 and 2005, Chinese lawyers say. Microsoft closed a
popular blog it hosted that offended Chinese censors. Cisco has sold
equipment that helps Beijing restrict access to Web sites it considers
subversive.

On Sat, 11 Feb 2006 14:28:43 -0800, Persephone wrote:

On Sat, 11 Feb 2006 20:45:50 GMT, "Doug Kanter"
wrote:

[...]

I think it's handy to be able to discount what a lousy place China is in
terms of human rights, because it enables people to pretend everything's
fine. Then, they can get back to doing whatever it is they prefer to
thinking. Nose picking, watching Oprah, etc.

[...]

Hah! Well said!

What's REALLY interesting is how mainline American churches,
Presbyterian, Episcopalian, maybe others by now, vote to boycott
trading with Israel because of what they perceive as its human rights
violations [1]. One of their targets is the Caterpillar Corporation.

The Church of England, a state religion, also just jumped on the
"boycott Israel" bandwagon.

Not a peep out of these chuches China, the world's major human
rights violator, nor the 22 Arab countries, all dictatorships, all
repressive regimes that consistently violate human rights.

[1] Awful stuff! Keeping murders from infiltrating their borders
and blowing up innocent civilians! Tracking and arresting where
possible, killing where not possible, the instigators of the so-called
"suicide bombers", who hide behind civilians, including young
children. Poor naive Israel, maintaining in the face of daily
horrors, an open society where Israeli Arabs have the same civil
rights as the Jews; where newspapers, radio and TV can and do sharply
criticize the government; where Arab children, e.g. get kidney
transplants in the excellent Israeli hospitals in the same ratio as
Jews. The Israelis are just not as sophisticated as the Arab world
in terms of spinning and propaganda. They actually think that the
truth will prevail.

Sounds like what the U.S. used to be like before the Bushies
started suppressing dissent.

Persephone
Are you feeling suppressed, Persephone?

Swyck