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So now what do we do? Boycott? Remember all the vitriol against Carter for that?

And let’s ignore, once again, that the whole Olympic Torch thing is a Nazi Party ritual, conjured up by Leni Riefenstahl for her 1936 propaganda film, “Olympiad.”

Quick! Who’s your favorite Olymic athlete this year? The anorexic gymnast or steroid-laced weightlifter?

Rage - what might have been even more impressive is that Owens assisted another athlete with the broad jump - a German. Seems the guy had his timimg off and Owens helped ’spot’ him. That must have REALLY infuriated the Fuhrer!

Econ101,

“Why now?” Because China now seeks greater integration into the world economy and global civil society–that’s why.

If Hu Jintao wants to play on a global stage, he doesn’t get to pick and choose what suits him from among the Rights of Man. Democracy and self-government are NOT merely “Western” values. They are part of a universal human birthright, and are NOT to be sacrificed on the altar of economic “progress.” The Chinese people know this, as do the Tibetans.

It really does surprise me, Econ101, to see you giving China a pass on this point.

I still love how Paul thinks taking a freshman economics class makes him an expert scientist. But then he pretends that because he ahs taken freshman econ he is the authority in that field - even though many others of us have taken economics as well as science.

Econ101,

I agree: China got a free ride in its invasion and occupation of Tibet. Which makes it all the more confusing as to why you don’t see this as a golden opportunity for political leverage.

Paul - on that we are in full agreement. IF China were to adopt new policies to rectify that situation I might give their past the same sort of pass we give the United States for its similar actions; however China’s recent actions preclude that.

China also has high lead, mercury and other heavy metal content, as well as high sulfur content, in its air.
The United States is far cleaner, in our own use of coal.

I think if China goes back to the old days, poor like african countries wait for aids, western will be happy.

The second part of this story concerns Chinese men trying to sneak infared cameras out of the country which have military uses:

http://www.knbc.com/news/15807039/detail.html

Read recently that Chinese espionage is a growing problem in the U.S.

Sorry, my “3:15″ p.m. post should have been on the Open Thread.

Paul - I would not be surprised at seeing a geologist or chemist flunk a NASD exam since we don’t study that. I doubt that you would fare well on the State of Kansas geology license exam either. The thing is, I do not pretend to be an expert at other fields nor do I equate other professions as “nuts” as you do.

As for economics I am willing to wager that an MBA requires a whole lot more econ/finance than a stock-selling license requires science.

Moving to US history - perhaps you should ask native Americans about how we were treated. the Europeans had no more claim to this continent than China did Tibet.

“China has always been brutal towards Tibet.” I suspect their Bureau of Tibetan Affairs has similarities to our Bureau of Indian Affairs, remember them - put Native Americans into concentration camps and called them reservations? Why is there a federal law prohibiting me from living east of the Mississippi?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Removal_Act

Hillary Clinton wants Pres. Bush to boycott the Olympics. So why is China having the games in the first place? There is no surprises with their rights attitude. Let the games go on. If it wasn’t Tibet, it would be another cause people will find to protest.

Truth be told. I’ve always been a person urging our government to have more open media and faster political reforms.

But I’m disillusioned today. For what? With a media as biased as the western one? I’d prefer a biased media which at least favors China’s national interests and the integrity of China.

Stupid western demonstrators are helping China government. Lots of moderate Chinese people have been turned to hardline nationalists in face of western animosity nowadays.

If that’s what you want to see, well, you succeed.

Carry on. This helps our people. It reminds us of Opium war. We are united today. We’ve long been a civilized power and we don’t need any western stamp of approval. Thousand of years ago, China was a melting pot already. Well, the U.S. still was a country with segregation merely years ago.

based on what I said above, I support you guys to boycott Olympics. Not only openning ceremony, but also the whole damn thing.

That will educate Chinese people about the west much better than China government’s propaganda. Believe me.

And accept my support.

By the way,

ROCK CHALK JAYHAWK chant was used by US Troops in CHINA during the Boxer Rebellion:

http://www.rockchalk.com/john/john/rock.html

Ben
Actually, what attracted me to the invesment business is much the same thing that attracted me to journalism.
In both: you must know a great deal about many diverse subjects, to be much good.

Every mutual fund company has a “technology” nerd, as a consultant or employee.

Every energy fund or utilities fund will have geologists and engineers, as consultants.

I at least have to know enough to read their reports!

Anyway, back to your MBA comment: I respect the designation. I would contend that many MBA’s have also flunked the Series 7 and the CFP boards, on first attempt.

Same problem: Arrogance!

Neither can be done without a great amount of prep work, even by the smartest people I know.

From the 12 century ’till 1915, Tibet was a province of China where political power lay in Peiking and spirital things run by the Dalia Lamas in charge of a theocracy. The Brits fomented an independence movement to further their own agenda in that part of the world at the expense of a diminished China, as they had done on the coast, as Tibet sank further into a priest ridden serfdom. China returned in 1950 and diminished the theocracy which had become even more ingrained, by building schools, hospitals roads and introducing commerce, all of which benefitted the average Tibetan. It was the monks who set fire to Chinese shops, injuring merchants and killing people, and in no way was the current contretemps started by the Chinese, in fact Chinese nationals have been the victims, not the Tibetans. The current Dalia Lama says he does not want an independent Tibet just more impact of religion by the monks in the everyday life of the Tibetans. Carter staying away from Moscow isolated and humilated Russia, prolonging their distrust of the west, it’s happening again for no good reason.

P.S. By thw way, that applies irrespective of what the United States–or any other country–does. Biased media is always better than the government’s official line.

JWINK

BULL!

US Treasury debt is NOT “callable” by any means shape or form.

China will have to wait, to be paid, in dollars, under the terms of that debt!

What China COULD do?
Well it would be mutally destructive:
China could dump all of its US securities on the market, at the same time.
Such an action would destroy the wealth of China, but would cause the United States some economic problems, as well.
However, the United States govenment would NOT be required to buy back those bonds.
They would be sold to the highest bidder, on the open market.

And even more important, the United States does not want anything bad to happen to China because we want to continue to sell them more of our increasing national debt each year.

I suppose I could google the figure but I presume we are paying China some $200 billion dollars per year interest on this loan.

“Who owns the debt really does not matter!”

The fact that we have this HUGE debt with no end in sight is the issue.

oh come on!
I never said that America did NO wrong, concerning Blacks or Native Americans.

I do demand, however, that everyone accept the fact that Africa and the American continent were brutal, tribal places long before the White Man ever stepped foot on either continent.

The “blame America First” mentality grates on many people, not just me.

Americans, in general, have promoted human rights and the worth of all human beings, more so than any other country on Earth, in all of history.

Human beings are not perfect.

America has developed the best society, on Earth, for keeping those imperfections in check, and protecting the weak and other minorities.

I will always make it a point to remind everyone that Native Americans, just like Native Africans, were as brutal to each other as the White Man was.

Sad but true.

Mankinds’s inhumanity to Mankind knows no racial boundaries.

It is our SYSTEM of government that makes us better, as a country.

As human beings?

We are not that much different, really, fron the human beings found in any other country.

Peter
You do not know what you are talking about.
The Mexican Government, through their legislature and President, clearly agreed to the current border.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Guadalupe_Hidalgo

Of course, the United States PURCHASED part of Arizona and New Mexico, from Mexico, in the Gadsden Purchase in 1853:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadsden_Purchase

Also, I am amazed that some liberals hold the contraditory position that America was “wrong” to take land from the Native Americans, but the Spanish and the Mexicans? — Well, that seems to be OK with you folks, huh?

So, America should be ashamed that we took land from Mexico? Who do we give that land back to? The Mexicans or the Native Americans?

Get over it!

The vast majority of international borders were set by force of arms.

JR
Hillary has been sucking down money from China for years.
Bill took money from China, as well.

I can’t say I have much sympathy for Tantric Buddhism as traditionally practiced in Tibet, but I do believe strongly in freedom of religion and freedom of speech, and China has persecuted people for both in Tibet and elsewhere in China. And let’s not forget the Tienanmen Square massacre either! If you really want to go to the Olympics this year, remember that every cent you spend there goes to support the perpetrators of murder and oppression.

Sorry to post again so soon, but the angle is different. The Olympics make a mistake when they award the games to a dictatorship - it was a mistake in 1936 in Berlin (did Jesse Owens really slow down the Nazi machine?), a mistake in 1980 in Moscow (did having the games prevent the Soviets’ Afghanistan invasion?)and a mistake now. Nobody is perfect, but having Democratic institutions in place should be a pre-requisite for hosting the world in such a high-profile forum. President Bush is rather damaged goods himself these days, but, yes, he should consider carefully the pluses and minuses of staying away from the opening ceremonies.

It is time that the world let this rouge nation of China know that we are not pleased with their human and political rights record. Our so-called “leaders” like Bush might not care but we do. Everywhere that torch goes, it should be extingushed just like China does the lives and freedoms of its citizens who wish to be free.

“I do demand, however, that everyone accept the fact that Africa and the American continent were brutal, tribal places long before the White Man ever stepped foot on either continent”

NO. Paul, my people had settlements, agriculture, and a peaceful existence before the brutal, tribal Europeans brough their tribalism here. The attitude that “the only good Indian is a dead Indian” is just as bad as “the only good Tibetan is a dead Tibetan”

According to China, Tibet was a “brutal tribal” place before the Chinese went there to civilize it. That too is purs BS.

Ben: There is much to agree about Tibet being a brutal place by reason of the absolute theoacry that held Tibetans as serfs whose only place was to service the monastaries. The Papal estates had much the same place in history and it took a blood war to incoroprate the various Papal holdings into what is now Italy. Of course the uniters, like Garabaldi were considered heretics. China is not close to western standards but in this case they did improve the lot of Tibetans when they returned in 1950. The monks won’t let go of their priviledged place in Tibetan society and this nonsense about the torch relay simply proves that the monks and their supporters are not intersted in the Olympic spirit, but will use it to further their own ends. The Green Party is behind the organization of the worldwide protest.

Ben
I never said that the brutality of Native Americans or the Brutality of Native Africans justified European brutality.
I never said that the Europeans were superior, in a moral sense, did I?
Also, I never said that EVERY tribe was brutal.
However, the Carribs, and several Gulf of Mexico tribes were cannibals.
The Mayans practices human sacrifices, at the time of Cortez.
Humans can be very brutal beasts.
All humans, not any specific race.
It is our system of government that makes us different, not the humans that live here!
(Though I do believe that our system tends to bring out the best in people.)

“However, the Carribs, and several Gulf of Mexico tribes were cannibals.”

And in many towns in Europe and New England they bae-b-qued women for sport.

sursum, assuming your take on Tibet is accurate, today is not 1950, and enlightenment rarely flows from the barrel of a gun.

As for humiliating the Chinese, well, when the government controls what they are allowed to know, it’s a tad difficult to have an honest dialogue with the Chinese people, don’t you think? The “good” news: I rather doubt the Beijing regime, throughly financially entwined with the U.S., will pick up its marbles and go home.

The notion that the 1980 boycott “humiliated” the Soviets (the world’s only other superpower–humiliated?? are you joking?) is simply a claim, and an interestingly unsupported one. What tangible effects occured from it? I notice it didn’t stop the original signatories from disbanding the U.S.S.R, a little over a decade later.

That would not at all surprise me Paul. The use of ‘agent provacatuer’ is well known and can be quite effective.

I just heard a Chinese propagandist claim that the Dalai Lama wants to ‘return Tibet to the darkness of serfdom.’ That sounds like a similar arguement above “Africa and the American continent were brutal, tribal places long before the White Man ever stepped foot on either continent” and so Christian Eoropeans had to civilize us.

I reject BOTH claims.

. . . and still no registration!

Ben,
The theocracy which governed Tibet for centuries was just as brutal as every other theocracy in history (including Marxism, which became as much a theocracy as any other, proving that God is not neccesary to theocracy).
Next time you are in Kansas City, go to the Nelson Gallery and visit the Tantric Buddhist room, and ask yourself if you really believe that all those religious artifacts carved from human bones could have come from people who died natural deaths.
That said, my hope is that Tibet, once freed from Chinese rule, will not return to theocracy under the Dalai Lama, but will build a democracy that includes its Buddhist heritage but is not dominated by it.

GMC - I was hardly shilling for the Chinese.

Not at all; I never assumed you were. I’d assign that title to our paid-for friends sursam, NN, and Chinese Chinese.

You don’t know that, GMC. Sursum, FYI, wasn’t hit-and-run; there have been previous posts under that name, and they’ve always been thoughtful.

And honestly: don’t you want to hear a different point of view? I found “Chinese Chinese” interesting, if not particularly eloquent. In some respects, the awkward Engiish (harder to fake than you might think) made me wonder if this wasn’t just some regular Chinese Joe or Josephine, posting randomly.

Sursum was right: controlling a billion people ain’t easy. Therein lies hope–for everyone.