Try to read this without laughing (or crying):
China, host of the summer Olympics, is an authoritarian nation that denies its people basic human rights and freedoms, harasses journalists and foreign aid workers and tortures prisoners, the United States charged Tuesday.
China is still among the world’s human rights abusers despite rapid economic growth that has transformed large parts of Chinese society, the State Department said in an annual accounting of human rights practices around the world.
Sheesh. Why are we being so judgmental? I mean, what if they were facing a ticking time-bomb scenario? I mean, there are people out there who want to kill the Chinese, so we should cut them some latitude.
/facepalm
Keith
Why didn’t we also accuse them of polluting the hell out of the environment? Or using too much of the world’s oil?
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
I think we should invade China. We know for a fact they have weapons of mass destruction, they’re not afraid to slaughter their own people, and we know they’re backing both the mullahs of Iran AND the genocidal Serbs against us.
I think the war would be a lot easier than most people would expect. This is a tyrannical regime, a regime backing two members of the Axis of Evil. When our tanks roll into the streets of Beijing, I think you can fully expect the Chinese people to greet us with flowers. We’ll be greeted as liberators, I should think.
Pb
Heh. Just wait ’till China comes out with their (counter-)report. Happens every year around this time. Here’s their 2006 report.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
And while it’s true that, currently, we don’t necessarily have any evidence that China has supported Al Qaeda, it’s important to bear in mind that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Would it be irresponsible to assume that Beijing supports Al Qaeda with finances and weapons? Frankly, I think it might be irresponsible not to! We don’t want the “smoking gun” to be a mushroom cloud.
Ben
Indeed. Once we get their lead-based toothpaste pumps back up and running the reconstruction will pay for itself. I can’t imagine the entire incursion costing much more than $1.9 billion.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
Once we’ve toppled the statues of Mao and Hu Jintao, I estimate we’ll be out of there in about 8 weeks or so. Mission accomplished!
jake
Next up: China will clear its throat and point to the big stack of bills marked “Pony Quest,” and Dr. Ricearooni will issue a hasty apology.
I don’t get why this is a head scratcher. What is the general population supposed to say to the authorities: “I’d love to let you drag me off and beat the shit out of me, but I’m feeling too prosperous.”
Jay B.
The United States, host of past summer Olympics, is an authoritarian nation that denies some of its people basic human rights and freedoms, harasses journalists and foreign aid workers and tortures prisoners, China charged Tuesday.
I changed four words.
JL
The USA seems quite willing to have China buy our debt.
tBone
The time frame is difficult to determine. I can’t tell you if the use of force in China today will last five days, five weeks or five months, but it won’t last any longer than that.
I think there’s been a certain amount of, frankly, Scruffy, a kind of pop sociology in America, that, you know, somehow the People’s Republic of China can’t get along with the Republic of China, or the Chinese in the People’s Republic just want to retake the island of Taiwan. There’s almost no evidence of that at all.
HyperIon
i heard today on NPR about a champion marathoner who is not going to run in china due the effect of the pollution on his asthma.
cbear
Mebbe so, but at least you can score a Happy Ending there without the government trying to throw you in the Big House.
Seriously though, I’ve lived in Asia off and on for many years (Thailand, Japan) and spent quite a bit of time in HK and China—and they are very enlightened regarding sex and sexuality. In other words, as in Europe and most of the civilized world, they just don’t finding it startling that people, including politicians, are inclined to fuck other people.
Of course, we here in the U.S. know how backwards the rest of the world is in comparison to our society.
USA!USA!USA!
Halteclere
Sunday I saw the headline that China is concerned about terrorists targeting the Olympics.
My first reaction was “Terrorists – not just an American thang”.
Then my immediate second reaction was “What a convenient excuse to crack down on government dissenters, harass opposing political groups, and an all-round excuse to get people to rally around flag and country”.
Darn Chinese think of the craziest things…
jake
In other news: Mississippi doesn’t count!
jrg
Looks like someone forgot to wear their Chairman Mao lapel pin today.
Did it ever occur to you that the Chinese are more American than we are, because they know they should just shut the fuck up and do whatever the government says? I’m guessing “no”, because at least in wartime, the Chinese know better than to hurt a war effort by questioning their government during a time of war, especially during a war on terror.
Hell, by comparing us to the Chinese, you are shooting our troops in the back. ‘course you would not understand any of this because you are a liberal commie who hates freedom and wars for democracy.
Long live freedom! Hang all the dissenters and gays!
rawshark
Happy Ending? I think I missed a meeting. What does that mean?
I think the problem is that we’re descendant of peoples who were trying to get the hell away from people like that which you describe.
NonyNony
Wikipedia answers all! (He’s referring to the last one in the bullet list.)
Speak for yourself – my ancestors were Irish. Also known as the brown menace of the 19th century. They were mainly trying to find food, work, and a lower British-to-Irishman ratio as far as I’ve been able to determine.
cbear
Rawshark,
Happy Ending = Orgasm.
It’s one of the most common phrases among Western tourists and ex-pats (and those who, er, interact with them) in Asia.
The “service” is usually offered at the end of a massage.
Personally I prefer the more colloquial term “Back Slap and a Bean Snap”.
Reverend Spooner
That goes a long way toward explaining why this once-great nation has been overrun with tens of millions of tater-gobbling Hibernian locusts. Once you let in a single Irish family, you’ll find yourself infested by thousands within a fortnight!
Would that a decent President might eject these Papist brutes from our shores, if only we could find some other nation willing to accept the surly, whiskey-swilling louts!
Davis X. Machina
Would that be wood ears, oyster or straw mushrooms?
Dennis - SGMM
As one of many with Irish ancestors, I’d add that An Gorta Mór (The Bad Life, in Gaelic) also known as the Great Potato Famine, played a part in the Irish’ desire to emigrate. Of course, a 25% decline in your population due to starvation and disease will do that. The origin of the potato famine was a lowly bacterium and British mismanagement of Ireland. So, if there’s suddenly a rice famine, due to over-reliance on one crop and mismanagement, look out! Say hello to your new Chinese friends.
Studly Pantload
I just heard Pat Buchanan on the Sybil network, MSNBC, on what is, I believe, Obama’s fifth win in the deep South.
Shorter Racist Old Coot:
“This is terrible news!! For Obama!!!” (Hat tip to the posting machine known as “idiotic” on the TPM boards.)
Studly Pantload
Dang code stepped on my line, turning my three exclamation points into either a little red X, or a representation of one eye of a very drunk person.
Dennis - SGMM
Yeah, Obama will have trouble in the Deep South – as if any other Dem wouldn’t.
That would be the same Pat Buchanan who, during his Quixotic run for president in 1992, showed up for a speech to Detroit autoworkers in a Mercedes Benz. Pat had, at that point, tons of experience but his judgment was for shit.
Reverend Spooner
All we need is for that nice Three Gorges Dam to collapse and wipe out Shanghai. The corrupt Commie bastards were nice enough to build it on silt, on a fault line. It’s really only a matter of time.
Rex
The United States does not harass foreign aid workers!!
Yay economic growth!
Dennis - SGMM
You dam the Yang Tze with the dam you have, not the dam you wish you had.
Studly Pantload
Kinda sad to reflect on how with Rumsfeld and Gonzales out, the Comedy Gold days of the Bush administration are behind us. Yeah, we still got the Goofus in Chief working hard to tapdance his way into our hearts, but it’s as if Moe had decided to try and go on without Curly and Larry; a sorta hollow feeling, y’know?
cbear
Wilbur without Mr. Ed?
Philip the Equal Opportunity Cynic
Would it be irresponsible to assume that Beijing supports Al Qaeda with finances and weapons? Frankly, I think it might be irresponsible not to! We don’t want the “smoking gun” to be a mushroom cloud.
Under the 1% doctrine, I think we’d have to assume that China is supporting our enemies until conclusively proven otherwise. In fact, I think it’s time for the Army to start recruiting heterosexual four-year-olds so that we can have the necessary manpower to invade every country that could conceivably pose a threat to us.
Birdzilla
Remember when the greens wanted us to pull out of the olmpics when they held them in NORWAY becuase NORWAY was hunting for MINKIE WHALES? we told them to TAKE A HIKE and the wahles told then to GET A LIFE
TenguPhule
Hypocrisy is next to Godliness.
So says the Republican Bible.
AnneLaurie
Why didn’t we also accuse them of polluting the hell out of the environment? Or using too much of the world’s oil?
Silly lie-brul! That’s where “rapid economic development” comes from, and all Good Citizens(tm) appreciate that RED is the highest moral value of all!
Joe Max
I’m wondering what they mean by “foreign aid workers” – it sounds like a code phrase, like “family values”. Do proselytizing evangelicals count as foreign aid workers?
myiq2xu
I guess “Happy Meal” speaks for itself.
Svensker
Is it just me? Even with the Pie Filter on, this makes no sense.
Prospero
This has to be some sort of code… Maybe if we read first letters of all words that are in all caps:
NNMWTAHGAL
TAHGAL could be “Tough Girl”. Hillary? But what is NNMW? I’m out of ideas.
Seanly
Fixed for the next Prez once China decides to call in all the money we owe them.
Cyrus
Well, not to derail the conversation, but isn’t a big part of that “enlightenment” simply sexism of a more extreme, straightforward nature? Not that our way of doing things is great, but there’s a huge difference between “cheap sex with no legal penalties” and “sexually egalitarian society.”
SGEW
Agreed. Two words, re: Chinese sexual liberation – Arranged Marriages.
Roket
“More than 2.1 million people are in jail in the US at any one time.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4858580.stm
“China ranks second with 1.5 million prisoners”
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1209-01.htm
China – Pop. 1,322,970,000 (via Wikipedia)
US – Pop. 303,605,941 (via Wikipedia)
0.692% of our Democracies pop is in prison
0.113% of Communist China’s pop is in prison
What’s wrong with this picture?