British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will not attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics in August. So China, in a retaliatory strike, set his hair on fire. When confronted, Chinese officials apologized and said it was just force of habit.
“When we hear someone come out against us our instincts take over and things…you know…get messy,” said one Chinese official who asked to remain nameless.
On a slightly serious note, one thing I cannot understand is why is President Bush not boycotting at least the opening ceremonies. This is the President who speaks eloquently only about freedom and the spread of democracy. Yet now when a ghastly regime hosts the Olympics he is mute.
I’m not in favor of boycotting altogether and I understand that the President refusing to show up to the opening ceremonies is just a symbolic stand but I believe it should be done if only as a sign to the oppressed in China that America is on their side.
I half wonder if he’s not doing it just because Hillary Clinton suggested it.
April 10, 2008 at 1:54 am
“This is the President who speaks eloquently only about freedom and the spread of democracy. “
Eloquently? Forcefully I will give you, bit eloquently?
April 10, 2008 at 2:00 am
Bush-basher!
April 10, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Nay, Bush speaketh naught prettily.
But seriously, why do the anti-China crowd not have word one to say about forced sterilizations and forced abortions? Or no religious freedom?
Because most of the anti-China crowd agrees that China has the right to “control” its population and that China is right to suppress “fanatical” religious types, unless they happen to be Buddhist Tibetans.
God bless the Tibetans in their plight.
I just hope China is called to the carpet for the lion’s share of their human rights abuses.
April 10, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Lefties protesting an anti-religious,pro abortion, socialist regime?
Gets the tarps out ..heads are going to explode like a watermelon at a Gallagher comedy show,gonna be messy for those in the front row.
April 10, 2008 at 5:20 pm
I agree bnweid.
It’s funny whenever I agree with liberals on anything like China or the death penalty I find that I don’t agree with them on how they got there.
They don’t care a whit about forced abortions in China or the oppression of religion.
And on the death penalty, they don’t really care about human life being sacred they just think there’s too many black people on death row.
April 10, 2008 at 8:27 pm
It’s all about the cash, baby. That’s why we pal up to China and Saudia Arabia and then pretend the moral high ground by cold-shouldering Cuba.
Just blogged a great article that appeared in today’s Cincinnati paper detailing all the reasons why China needs more than just a few “Save Darfour” t-shirt wearing college kids to protest its evils. To modify the great Evangelical tag line on homosexuality, “love the Chinese, hate China.”
How do you say Viva la Revolucion in Mandarin?
April 10, 2008 at 8:45 pm
You hire a translator and tell him/her “Viva la Revolucion!”
April 10, 2008 at 9:37 pm
“I half wonder if he’s not doing it just because Hillary Clinton suggested it.”
I think this is so true of so many issues facing our country, whether it’s the Olympics in Beijing, or same sex “marriage”, or global warming, or whatever! The rhetoric is ratcheted up so high on each side that it’s near impossible to have a civilized conversation, let alone a debate…
People keep talking about a vast, moderate middle America, where common sense seems to reign…but it must not be so vast if people are still entrenched in their camps….and tied to their financing, or their career ladders, etc.
Somehow we have to be able to say (just for the sake of the discussion) things like “We don’t think that global warming/eco issues will be anything near serious for “x” number of years, but that’s no reason to waste/pollute/etc without impunity” without being called a “holocaust denier” or a “commie pinko tree hugger”.