This is a previous post I made elsewhere tying the Olympics protests to China and how pointless I thought they were.
Quote:
Let me state that I empathize with the Tibetans.
Let me then state that they will be conquered by the Chinese for decades and maybe even centuries to come.
No one cares. And by no one, I don't mean these people that were either brave enough or foolish enough to climb the Golden Gate Bridge to hang a "Free Tibet" banner or the people that extinguished the Olympic Flame in Paris. I mean no one with the power to ever actually affect change.
Let's look at the institution of the Olympics. It's a competition that masquerades as "pure sport" competed in by a wide range of athletes to "represent their country", when it is really nothing more than an advertising tool for a bunch of corporations. And who are these corporations? The bread and butter of American capitalism: the USOC's worldwide sponsors are Coca-Cola, Eastman Kodak, General Electric, John Hancock, Johnson & Johnson, Lenovo, McDonald's, Panasonic, Samsung, Visa.
By sponsoring an event, aren't these same corporations implicit in allowing China's crackdown on Tibet and human rights abuses by not saying anything about it? So are you going to not buy a Coke from now on cause they're sponsoring the games? Are you not going to watch Sunday Night Football this fall cause GE is showing the games on their networks? Are you going to not buy a Big Mac? How about your credit card, are you going to cancel it and go get an American Express or Mastercard? Are you going to trash your DVD player? Of course not. So the people that have a stake in China retaining their control over Tibet are going to have very minimal losses. The point of the Olympics is to make money, no different than any other sports competition in the world, include our World Cup. China has 20-25% of the world population, therefore corporations are willing to look the other way if it helps them make money in the long run.
All companies that then have business in China, which is a very large number, are complicit as well. Including the one I work for. But my company has to continue making money and it's not like I'm going to resign for some dumb-headed idealism that won't make a hill of beans' difference to how the world works.
Politicians. Does anyone think that the banner going up on the Golden Gate Bridge will actually "free Tibet"? Is George W. Bush going to turn on the evening news, look at that banner, and think "I'm going to assign troops to forcefully go free Tibet from China and stop this injustice."? How about the rest of the Republicans, are they going to threaten a nuclear holocaust by starting a war over Tibet? Ooh, the Democrats. Is Nancy Pelosi going to call for troops to go to Tibet? That'd be one heck of a role reversal.
Like I said, I empathize with Tibetans. But protests that are trying to say "shame on China" are just beyond pointless. Nothing is going to change. Why? Because no one gives a s*** about what normal people and typical middle-class or poor think. We are looked at by power brokers as surplus. They don't care about what you think and never will. If you can't accept that, start a revolution or start a war with the Chinese using your wallet. If you don't want to risk your life (which is why these injustices still stand), then do the limousine liberal protest and just don't watch the Olympics at all.
The same people that hung that banner on the Golden Gate Bridge, I'm willing to bet they also protested the Iraq War. Did the Iraq War protests do anything? No. So why should I think this protest will change anything when their first protest didn't have any effect on the realpolitik?
I don't delight in writing this, it's just the truth. And we'd all be better off admitting it, cause only then can we figure out what we think is best for the world's future.
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"But rj1, people can't do these protests in China."
No s***. But do these protests actually do anything toward allowing people in China to do these protests? Not just no, but f*** no.
You want to hurt China? Go in your 401(k). Pull out all your money that goes to companies that do business in China. Stop buying any good that has any Chinese-made component. Most all multinational companies, most of which are the bread and butter of American capitalism, are doing business in the land of communism. Why? Because they make money there. And the reason they do business there is cause there is cheap labor which is helped by the communist government keeping poverty widespread. So if you have a 401(k) with a single Fortune 500 company, you are part of the reason the communist government is still in power.
I'm not holding my breath on people pulling out of their 401(k)s or willingly paying more money for the same part. Cause I know far too many people that act like upstanding, righteous people that spout off what they think of the wrongs of the world, but when they get called upon to actually sacrifice something to correct those wrongs, they look down, shuffle their feet, and say nothing.
For the record, my company I work for is in China, and I've done engineering work for the Chinese plant, it alongside India was half of our revenue increase for the 2007 fiscal year. But I realize that protesting the Chinese government has about as much meaning and is as worthwhile as a bunch of Arabs protesting the American government, which is none, cause nothing will change.