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The Forum > Article Comments > Spinning the smoke and mirrors Olympic Games > Comments

Spinning the smoke and mirrors Olympic Games : Comments

By John E. Carey, published 13/7/2007

China is planning a surreal facade for the summer Olympic Games in Beijing 2008.

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I totally agree with this author although would go further.

I think it all comes down to ethics and how, fundamentally, non-western cultures have appalling ethics.

The Olympics in Beijiing should be boycotted by any nations of conscience, as should nations that practice apartheid like Iran and Saudi Arabia.

China is building its nation on the backs of 200 million slave labourers who are paid poorly, some even not paid.

'No Spitting' day, yes. Anyone who has lived in Cabramatta as I have will know that spitting is an Asian cultural trait.

Isn't it crazy that some here will label me a racist for pointing out that fact!

It just shows you how dumb such cultures are too, as they think they are smart by making dog food or cough medicine on the cheap, yet no one in the west will ever buy their products again!

Anything one has to put in their body, be it medicine, food, or anything, do NOT buy it if it says 'made in China'.

It's the ethics again, and it's the same with restaurants. Everyone knows the restaurants that always pop up on the news for shocking conditions are ALWAYS Asian - be it Indian, Chinese, or other.

It's the same with cockroach infested Asian breadshops.

Is it racism to point this out? No. If someone thinks so though, I'd be happy to listen to reasons why.

Perhaps the mice, roaches, and rats are racist too.

I can understand why some of them are confused though, given we say we are multicultural.

While we Australians may have been inventing fridges so that we wouldn't need to keep covering our off meat with strong spices (hence Indian cuisine) other cultures have poor ethics so they don't care.

Apu the Indian Quick-e-Mart owner in the Simpsons is a classic stereotype of this sentiment...
Posted by White Warlock, Friday, 13 July 2007 11:43:06 AM
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...How can we say we embrace other cultures unless we truly embrace them, warts and all?

This means getting food poisoning, possibly being hacked up by thirty Asians with swords at Eastwood train station (as has happened numerous times over the last few years) and so on.

This is why I believe we should accept no other cultures. I am yet to see an ethical system better than that of North-Western European cultures.

Anyone disagree? Before you do though, you have a hard task given even those from non-western cultures are flocking in the millions on boats to try to get into a western country.

So, even those from non-western cultures agree our ethics are the best.

This means they should be exported to the entire planet, by force if need be. We just need a good US President to get in who understands that the US military needs to be used as a force for good in the world.

Look at Vietnam, the US public sentiment forced them to pull out and now it's a Communist dump.

Look at North and South Korea, this example is really all that needs to be invoked.

Wherever the Americans go, it's better for it - unless...the people are so tribal, sectarian, racist, that they can't see the opportunity it presents.

Hence the problems in Iraq with Muslims killing each other.
Posted by White Warlock, Friday, 13 July 2007 11:45:45 AM
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I have to make a couple of comments. The smog in Beijing was something to behold back in 1995 so what it is like now, one can only guess. The traffic was bearable then but if you take away two million bicycles and replace them with the same number of cars, I can imagine chaos.

I can't agree about the queuing though. My impression was that the Chinese had invented queuing. They have also got rid of all the pigeons and stray cats and dogs, so that might account for the rats. They seem to have developed a tolerance for them, even out here.
Posted by VK3AUU, Friday, 13 July 2007 2:48:26 PM
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"Anything one has to put in their body, be it medicine, food, or anything, do NOT buy it if it says 'made in China'."

White Warlock, that's becoming harder and harder to do. I saw a program about fish farms in Vietnam and was immediately turned off packaged fish, especially the reconstituted rubbish that looks like giant fish-fingers, but I still enjoy a little tuna now and then. My problem is that a lot of what one buys from well known supermarkets is packaged in such a way as to make identity and source of fish, fish products and many other basic food items practically impossible. Common to many brands are the words.... "Produced in Australia from local and imported produce." Just what part was grown in Australia? What percentage of the contents originated from over-seas? And, most importantly, from which country did the imported ingredient originate?

I've become very skeptical about what I pick up in supermarkets these days. I grow a lot of my own, as our healthy grandparents did not so long ago. As a kid growing up, it was very rarely I ate bought vegetables. Everything was seasonal and came straight from dad's veggie patch. To date, I've never encountered a serious health problem and my dear old mum is well into her 90's and never sees a doctor.

My personal opinion is that Australian food packaging information is woefully inadequate.
Posted by Aime, Friday, 13 July 2007 3:05:12 PM
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I agree also, but would go further:
1. "an illegal trade in "harvested" human organs ... unscrupulous doctors and businessmen ... atrocity ..." This wording obscures the fact that the thugs who rule the Chinese Communist Party use their official organs, eg. their military hospitals, to perpetrate these ongoing atrocities. [Kilgour & Matas report].
2. Such atrocities and murder for financial gain are suffered by innocent prisoners of conscience and practitioners of Falun Gong.
3. Our complicity in this enormity will be likened to failures to oppose Hitler's holocaust, but without any mitigating distractions, like wars of national peril.
Posted by Gerry of Mentone, Friday, 13 July 2007 8:57:16 PM
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Perhaps things are looking up.

"Zheng Xiaoyu, former director of the Chinese State Food and Drug Administration, was executed yesterday for approving untested medicines in exchange for cash." Associated Press
Posted by VK3AUU, Friday, 13 July 2007 9:22:25 PM
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VK3AUU, Zeng was arrested when the first reports from America re dog-food came in. China launched its own investigation into what happened during his term of office and discovered these other incidents.

There has been nothing secretive or hidden about the whole process of his incarceration, trial or public and Government outrage - details of which have been been readily available. His death sentence was passed down at trial some months ago and was also reported in detail both in local and world press.

Each of the incidents mentioned by this author as though they were all seperate events were reported throughout the trial.

As for the toothpaste with anti freeze: it had a "component" which is also used in anti-freeze and other products and which has been an additive in toothpaste in many countries until its recent banning both overseas and in China.

It appears to me that it is this author's reporting which employs smoke and mirrors - as I have had occasion to point out in another of his highly coloured accounts.

Eg: the "threats" to official boil down to the fact that those who don't do their job properly won't get promoted - a policy in effect in most countries of the world. The slavery incident was reported to the government by both villagers and officials who uncovered the perpetrators and brought them to justice, rehabilitating and counselling the children. And as to the "obedient and terrified" city workers who "weren't taking any chances" (of what? that they'd miss their bus? be late for work?)- emotive twaddle!

Stopping the spitting - common throughout all Asia? Periodically campaigns to eliminate this habit are undertaken. One would imagine that if the inhabitants were so terrified and obedient their saliva glands would have dried up by now.

I'm not Sinophile but I am strongly against the exaggerated, deftly twisted and misleading reports from this racist writer. He takes advantage of the fact that not many Americans (or Australians) have first hand knowledge of modern China and spins tales that skirt the outer edges of the truth.
Posted by Romany, Saturday, 14 July 2007 1:12:10 AM
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Thank Christ for our stringer John E. Carey who emails from America to protect us colonials here.

We Australians are but lost with without this American cousin - who hates the Yellow Peril, Muslims and all but busty blue eyed blond Babes (who also vote Republican).

Pete
Posted by plantagenet, Saturday, 14 July 2007 1:56:46 AM
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I was in Beijing in 1999 when they made the city so pretty for their communist celebration.

In the central area they closed everything down for rehersals, soldiers on every street corner and even we tourists were told to STAY inside.
We Australians of course wandered out and were challenged in no time and with all the shops closed and tourist spots closed we spent the rest of the day in our hotel rooms. Quite scarey and spooky to see a dead city center.

So much for it being a 'Peoples Republic'
I want to say to the lovely Chinese citizens..if you all stand up together at the same time you can get rid of the evil CCP.
www.cipfg.org
Posted by Margie, Saturday, 14 July 2007 12:05:41 PM
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Romany, my "first hand knowledge of modern China" comes from meeting Chinese people who now live in Australia. They have been granted refugee status because they have the physical scar to prove that they had been severely tortured in their treasured homeland, the Middle Kingdom. Their "crime" is practising a traditional Chinese exercise called Falun Gong, a type of qigong practice (aka Falun Dafa) for their health and mind. Falun Gong also embraces the basic universal principles of "truthfulness, compassion and tolerance". I don't know where your perception of modern China comes from but please try reading www.theepochtimes.com.au.
Posted by Monty, Sunday, 15 July 2007 12:50:17 AM
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Monty - are you the author of this piece? If so my point is illustrated when you say your information comes second-hand.

My perception comes from the fact that I live in China and teach at a University therefore dealing with both the current generation - the students - and those who lived in other regimes - parents and educators.

Of course I am aware of the FG movement and the consequences thereof. Implicit in the statement that I was not a Sinophile was the understanding that I do not regard China - or any nation for that matter - as Utopia.

However, dealing only with people who have been affected adversely by a regime can lead to a bias that colours one's outlook. Have you read any of the posts on the current discussion in OLO on Whistleblowers? Anyone from a different regime whose only experience of Australia was the stories of what these people have gone through would probably have an equally biased and coloured view of life in Australia.

Whether one understands the ruling on FG or not the fact is that it is an illegal movement. Those who belong to it therefore are breaking the laws of the land. Once again I state this objectively and am not about to enter into any discussion of whether this law is unreasonable or not. Therefore the people with whom you speak are those who have broken the law. (Please remember this is an OBJECTIVE statement).

Thus to compare their lives to the lives of the majority of people living in China who are not part of an illegal organisation does not give an accurate picture.

My protest concerning this and similar articles is that it gives a wholly inaccurate picture of the life millions of people lead in China which is actually comparative to life in any other country.
Posted by Romany, Sunday, 15 July 2007 12:55:09 PM
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Romany, let me therefore make an objective comment.

If you look at the lives of the average person in a country as for example Australia, you will find that the average person lives a very comfortable life with freedoms to do most of the things which they may desire and stay out of trouble with the law.

However, there are also many people who are poor and needy who live lives of which the average person has no knowledge, their housing is poor, they are subject to daily abuse from drunken family members, they are frequently in trouble with police because they are perceived to be trouble makers, the list of their tribulations goes on.

It is quite conceivable that in a country such as China that such a group of underprivileged people also exists. Their tribulations may be different, but they will exist for certain, and the writer of the article has probably summed them up fairly well. I suspect that your associations are with the more privileged group who conform to the laws to stay out of trouble.

David
Posted by VK3AUU, Sunday, 15 July 2007 1:32:34 PM
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Thank you, VK3AUU,

Yes, that is my point. I spent the last 7 years of my life living amongst the category of people whom you describe in your second para. Had I not had different experiences beforehand perhaps talking to students and friends here about Australia would make it appear that this country was a hell-hole?

As I stated in my first post, it is this writer's way of painting a picture of widespread terror, lack of choice and government bullying that I object to. The way the truth is twisted by the use of subjective adjectives leads to misconceptions.

Demonising others leads to racism and chauvinism. It contributes to the reason many close their eyes to the horror and sheer waste of wars. Regarding others as Dirty Commies, Towelheads, Foreign Devils; and our own group as righteous, would perhaps not be so easy if we could evaluate others without bias.
Posted by Romany, Sunday, 15 July 2007 8:25:34 PM
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May I respectfuly suggest that:
1. What may be technically legal or illegal in the PRC is irrelevant in principle (and practice), because the "rule of law" is always subservient to the rule of the communist party, in theory and practice in a communist state, and that one-party rule is required to be a dictatorship.The "rule of law" is a fiction in the PRC.
2. The errors of racism etc are dangers, but the atrocities of forced organ harvesting, including the killing of prisoners of conscience, are the prime responsibility of the persons who control the CCP. The citizens of the PRC deserve our whole-hearted support in their time of terror at the hands of those controlling state agencies. http://organharvestinvestigation.net refers.
Posted by Gerry of Mentone, Sunday, 15 July 2007 11:21:19 PM
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Romany, please allow me to apologise for my long absence. I have just returned from New York. Please also allow me to state that I have to change my "birth" passport to Australian passport when I had to go and work in Beijing, China. You see at that time, China wasn't quite that "opened" to the democratic world yet and you were probably still in nappies. That is why I don't termed my first hand experience with the mainland Chinese as under "modern China". It was even prior the Tiananmen Square Massacre. I wonder what justifications you have got regarding the deaths of thousands of young innocent students. Another fact is that, the Communist Regime has gone against its own constitution by outlawing Falun Gong. Hence those Chinese people that believes in truthfulness, compassion and tolerance has technically not broken any Chinese law. Please also allow me to state that the people in China are my ancestral people. As they say, "blood is thicker than water". Are you blood or water in this regard?
Posted by Monty, Friday, 10 August 2007 10:21:20 PM
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A lot of valid points made acrossed here, u guys have surely made it hard to believe that they are worthy of their Olympic title. And with the reports of harmful chemicals in chinese made toys raises quite a few questions as well.
Posted by chindia, Friday, 24 August 2007 3:56:16 PM
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Romany, I have just been re-reading your comments about the anti-freeze in toothpaste.

The substance used in toothpaste is glycerine, a trihydric alcohol, whereas the material which caused the problem was ethylene glycol, a dihydric alcohol which unfortunately isn't very good for you. It appears that the latter was labeled as the former and because they are of similar appearance, no one got around to checking. Incidentally, pharmaceutical grade glycerine is a byproduct of biofuel made from palm oil etc. and there seems to be glut of it on the world market these days.
Posted by VK3AUU, Friday, 24 August 2007 4:34:26 PM
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