We bomb Iraq and send our jobs to these thugs

The Guardian has published a most disturbing piece in their Monday edition.  I think it's fair to speculate that, if the Chinese authorities would  so brazenly murder a dissident, rural activist Lu Banglie, in front of a Western reporter, they must be killing many more outside the feeble light of the world's attention.

 More below.

The men outside shouted among themselves and those in uniform suddenly left. Those remaining started pushing on the car, screaming at us to get out. They pointed flashlights at us, and when the light hit Mr Lu's face, it was as if a bomb had gone off. They completely lost it. They pulled him out and bashed him to the ground, kicked him, pulverised him, stomped on his head over and over again. The beating was loud, like the crack of a wooden board, and he was unconscious within 30 seconds.

They continued for 10 minutes. The body of this skinny little man turned to putty between the kicking legs of the rancorous men. This was not about teaching a man a lesson, about scaring me, about preventing access to the village; this was about vengeance - retribution for teaching villagers their legal rights, for agitating, for daring to hide.

Not only have they countenanced the export of good manufacturing jobs to China, but at least three US presidents have turned a blind eye to the mortgaging of our future to this brutal regime.  And who, pray, will benefit most richly from our blundering in the Middle East?  How many yuans will a barrel of oil be going for in 20 years?

But for now a moment of silence for a brave man.

Mr Lu was a very soft-spoken man, one of those skinny guys who looked like he might start tearing at any moment. Born as a peasant in Baoyuesi village of Bailizhou town in Zhijiang city in Hubei province, he was a people's representative and had been in the village of Taishi since the start of a democratic movement in the area.

That movement, deeply unpopular with the local authorities, has come to be seen as a weather vane for China's tentative steps toward a more representative society. It has led to beatings and mass arrests among its population as well as for observers who ventured into its environs.

•  Tips appreciated n/t

  by chuckvw on Sun Oct 09, 2005 at 08:54:28 PM PDT

•  The US somehow does not seem to view China

  as a threat.  We view them as a market.  Though for WHAT? I wonder since we do not make very much here anymore - KFC perhaps?  Coca-Cola?  US companies look on them as cheap labor - and cheap manufacturing - unconstrained by nasty problems like environmental regulations, worker safety laws or much of anything else that's developed in the industrialized West over the past century.

  But China isn't as dumb as we are.  THEY are focused on education and technology.  They WANT to make things - they seek and develop technology.

  China in in things for the long run.  

  WE are Rome. Corrupt and lazy.  They are the far more numerous "barbarians" biding their time, learning what they can knowing that their time will come..... though they view US as the barbarians - THEY are reclaiming their civilized heritage.

  China doesn't want to work FOR us, they want to BE us.  ANd they are smarter than the Soviets.  They aren't selling us the rope that we'll hang us with. They are becoming so indispensibel to the West that it will be unable to exist without them.....  it'll be some wake-up call when the West realizes that they can't stand up to China.  It'll NEVER match them in manpower and we are losing our edge in "technology" - the only leverage we have.  Hell, we're tripping over ourselves to help them....

  by xrepub on Sun Oct 09, 2005 at 09:12:37 PM PDT

  •  and it's about time

    all non-western societies reclaim there heritage after almost getting fucking obliterated by the west.

    the upcoming age will be the "Age of Payback".

    by MetaProphet on Mon Oct 10, 2005 at 12:47:19 AM PDT

•  Notice all the right gas bags

  no longer write about Communist China? Now that we have access to cheap labor over there it isn't so important anymore.

  by SteveLCo on Sun Oct 09, 2005 at 09:20:57 PM PDT

•  We should be on this

  It exposes the hypocricy of the Republicans clearly. They talk about human rights and freedom, when all they're out for is a buck. What would it cost us to stand up for the Republic of China like Truman did?

  We're bringing democracy to Iraq? We may be interested in democracy, but Republicans aren't.

  by Danjuma on Mon Oct 10, 2005 at 02:03:03 AM PDT

•  4 times our market size

  As China emerges as a world player, we must realize that their market is four times our size. Where the market is, so goes the manufacturing. Currently, it is my understanding that most cell phones are manufactured there because most cell phones are being bought there. As the manufacturing moves, so does the development of new technologies; all technologies including those which are used in weapons.

  Think about that.

  I don't want us to be the planet's "war lords," but I sure as hell don't want the top dogs to be in China.

  The bushes, and I'm sorry to say Clinton, did nothing strategically to counter this move. In fact, it is quite the opposite. China has been given "free reign" over trade policies with no constraints regarding human rights, and the environment. Why is that? Why do the DC crowd natter on and on about Castro's communism, but remain silent on the world's largest repressive mess? Show me the money!

  Everyday we borrow nearly $2,000,000,000, a third of that from China. Much of that debt results from tax cuts that we are told  will be used to promote investment in the US. Except that is not what is happening, is it?

  China will emerge, and only the Chinese people will determine what will happen (although from the article, they may not have much say,) but we need a plan for our own future. A plan that does not include  a war to make everyone hate us. A plan that keeps us on the cutting-edge of new technologies with more friends and fewer enemies.

  Someday Iraq will be over; things will change. No matter when, no matter how it ends, our lives will go on. What will not change is how our lives will be influenced by foreign policy which is now domestic policy. You can't change poverty in America, you can't pay for better education and healthcare, unless people have jobs that generate tax revenue.

  That is what the Democratic seems to missing--maybe by design--every time they decide that getting back to domestic affairs will "win" the next election. This is about more than the next election, this is about the world we want to live in. So why do we let ourselves be manipulated by the DC insiders club? I honestly don't get it.

  by Donna Z on Mon Oct 10, 2005 at 08:08:58 AM PDT

  •  China is not 4 times our market size

    they are 4 times our population size. Markets are defined in terms of $$$$$. Ours is the biggest for the time being, then the Japanese, or the EU if they are a market. They did used to be called the Common Market.

    I don't want to imply I disagree with your message here. You're right if you say their market will be bigger than ours, and that if they continue with the Communist Party oligarchy it could be seriously bad for humanity. I just wanted to raise a technical economic issue.

    by Danjuma on Tue Oct 11, 2005 at 06:17:11 AM PDT

•  A happy update to my diary

  Activist found alive after beating by mob

  Lu Banglie is injured but recovering after treatment. Human rights lawyers promise legal action.

  by chuckvw on Mon Oct 10, 2005 at 11:25:58 PM PDT