Woman Charged For Protesting President Hu... In America!

[Rex-Imperator]

Woman Charged for Protesting the Chinese President... In America

Tough break huh? Even in the so-called "Land of Freedom" a 47 year old woman can't even protest the human rights abuses commited by the Chinese Government to the followers of Falun Gong to the face of the Chinese President Hu Jintao.

Goddamm the Chinese KGB are GOOD!

[Al Dante]

a 47 year old woman can't even protest... to the face of the Chinese President...

Rex, I hope your "Tough break huh?" comment was meant as sarcasm. Just in case it's not, though, let me point out:

Sure she can. And in fact she did.

Was she shot or clubbed when she began to speak? No.

Was she immediately silenced to prevent Hu any embarrassment? No, apparently she kept speaking for "several minutes" before being forcibly removed.

Was she beaten up by police while being removed, or afterward? Apparently not.

Was she taken away to be dealt with in secret? No, dozens of supporters were present when she was arraigned.

Is she rotting away in prison now? No, she was released almost immediately.

Does she face severe punishment if eventually convicted? No, the maximum possible sentence would be six months in prison and a $5,000 fine, and that's unlikely. Not to mention that the charges against her no doubt generated more publicity for her cause, which is what she wants (with good reason; her cause deserves attention).

So what's the beef here? That she wasn't permitted to shout at Hu for as long as she wanted to? How practical would it be to permit that? That there were criminal charges? What future for our political process and tradition of public discourse if every public speaker must be subject to heckling from opponents, at the hecklers' whim, without penalties?

The U.S. Government has done some inexcusable things in the past few years, unjustly abridging sacred rights and bringing shame on itself and its passively-consenting citizens. But this is not such a case. Getting all indignant about an incident that was actually, from all appearances, handled appropriately and came off fairly well for the protestor, will not help improve the situation.

- unsympatheticAL

[LibraLabRat]

People cannot seem to understand that "freedom of speech" is not the same thing as "freedom to be a screaming retard any time you want."

[Rex-Imperator]

People cannot seem to understand that "freedom of speech" is not the same thing as "freedom to be a screaming retard any time you want."

And what would you suggest? Remain silent while China gets away with mass murder?

[teripie]

And what would you suggest? Remain silent while China gets away with mass murder?

No. Run on down to Wal-Mart or K-Mart or whatever 'mart' you prefer and buy some more of those fine "Made in China" goods. Then rest content that for every buck you spend on that stuff, a nice portion of it goes directly into the Chinese military. Of course if you look around for the same goods made in America you'll go blind most likely before finding any. Thanks to NAFTA and other nifty trade agreements.

Seriously, I wonder how many Americans realize how much of their money goes directly toward China's military build up? Not many I bet. We are gonna happily "entertain" ourselves to death. When Tom and Katie's baby is more newsworthy than what's going on in our government we are in deep doo-doo.

[LibraLabRat]

LIsten up Rex:

I have BEEN TO SOUTH KOREA. I HAVE SET FOOT IN NORTH KOREA.

I HAVE BEEN TO HAITI, SAUDI ARABIA, KUWAIT, QU'TAR, AND SOME OTHER PLACES.

You want to make a difference? Peachy.

Being a squealing little protestor has accomplished what, exactly?

Why dont you ask PETA? Or ALF? OR VPC, or any of these other rich, white, sappy useless protest organizations.


We have problems here in the USA.

You wanna know how I feel about China?


F**K CHINA.


If you havent noticed, we are losing soldiers every day in a useless and pointless war. But I guess us soldiers have it coming, since we arent all rich protestor kids with a cause, or poor chinese sweat shop workers.

Protest something worthwhile.

[Rex-Imperator]

LIsten up Rex:

I have BEEN TO SOUTH KOREA. I HAVE SET FOOT IN NORTH KOREA.

I HAVE BEEN TO HAITI, SAUDI ARABIA, KUWAIT, QU'TAR, AND SOME OTHER PLACES.

You want to make a difference? Peachy.

Being a squealing little protestor has accomplished what, exactly?

Why dont you ask PETA? Or ALF? OR VPC, or any of these other rich, white, sappy useless protest organizations.


We have problems here in the USA.

You wanna know how I feel about China?


F**K CHINA.


If you havent noticed, we are losing soldiers every day in a useless and pointless war. But I guess us soldiers have it coming, since we arent all rich protestor kids with a cause, or poor chinese sweat shop workers.

Protest something worthwhile.

As long as Bush is President the War in Iraq will not end.

It's that simple.

And until the year 2008 rolls around we are going to have to watch our boys be killed every single day for one simple reason.

We Want Iraq's Oil.

This is what the Iraq War is all about, not WMD, not freeing the Iraqi People, not Fighting Terrorism. It's about OIL.

And don't you DARE talk to me about not protesting the Iraq War because I was one of the few people dead set AGAINST this war way back in 2003 during the lead up to the invasion.

Iraq is our Vietnam and just like Vietnam the only way out is to cut and run.

[ECQuaker]

Being a squealing little protestor has accomplished what, exactly?

Why dont you ask PETA? Or ALF? OR VPC, or any of these other rich, white, sappy useless protest organizations.

Ghandi was a squealing little protester, look at what he did.

I don't know much about the other groups, but I know that PETA has done some very beneficial things. Yes, I think they've gone way too far now and pouring red paint on old ladies does nothing to prevent people from buying and wearing fur (in fact, it only encourages people to get more fur, because their first mink coat was ruined with red paint). I support laws that make animal cruelty a felony (I define cruelty as microwaving cats, not legally hunting game), and PETA has helped push a lot of these laws.

The organization originally came into existance because of Marlow's psychology experiments with monkeys. He did a number of experiments involving raising infant monkeys with surrogate "mothers", who were robots that, once the monkey hit a certain age, would begin to stab the baby, spray cold water on it, and do whatever else it could to try and break the bond the baby had for it's "mother." Another one of his experiments involved inducing depression/hysteria/emotional breakdowns in monkeys in order to see if he could cure it.

After hearing about those circumstances, who wouldn't try and stop it? PETA and similar groups have lobbied for laws that have lead to much better standards for experiments involving animals.

I don't agree with trying to stop all animal research, which is the next hurdle they are trying to jump, because I realize how important it is. I also understand the fact that generally the animals who are tested are either genetically engineered and bred specifically for the experiment, or they are strays who were about to be put to sleep in a pound, and will essentially die from a similar overdose of drugs, except that in the mean time, a researcher could learn just a little bit more about the workings of the heart.

LLR, I know how you despise PETA because of the restrictions they try to impose on hunters, but not every law they've ever fought for serves the sole purpose of annoying southerners. Some of the laws that have come out of their constant lobbying have been very beneficial.

[teripie]

Martin Luther King was also a whiney protestor and I believe he accomplished a lot. Suffragettes protested for the vote....and got it. The protestors against the war in Viet Nam managed to finally get the American public to open their eyes and pay attention, thus leading, eventually, to complete withdrawal. I'm sure there are many other very good examples of protesting paying off. Evidently the right to protest is so sacred the founding fathers included it in the Constitution. They must have felt it a pretty important right, as well as a power for the people.

[ECQuaker]

exactly!

My town has an anti-war rally every year on the anniversary of going to the Iraq war. My boyfriend didn't see any point in going to it last month. He said something "it's not like George Bush is going to be swayed by a few protesters in Arkansas."

His mom apparently thought there was a point, and I scored some MAJOR cool points with her that day.

[Griffin]

In case nobody noticed, China pretty well owns the national debt here....

The visit and the incident were reported on the news here in the UK and the point made that China owns the US national debt.

The writing's been on the wall for many years yet the world seems to just be drifitng into China being the leading World economy. It is totally inevitable given cheap labour etc. (with its concomitent human rights issues) while other major economies play at selective removal of dictators and so on (without any seeming difference for why one but not another - leaving aside oil) as if it's a board game and they can only see one bit of the board. I am always stunned by the attention given to one country's human rights issues whiile exactly similar ones in another country are totally ignored. It's always totally obvious there's another agenda. It'll all be academic anyway since we are also drifting into major climate change which will ultimately have more effect on the world than trade or wars. Feeling tired and cynical.

[yodaman23]

Nutty relgious groups run wild all over the world. We gave her alittle protest while she could but liek othere have said there is only so much you can interupt a speak with mindless yelling before you infringe on the rights of the people around you and the person making the speech. Granted she shouldn't get any jail time for protesting in a non-violent way but removing her after she spoke what she needed to is not a violation of free speech. Once you remove her directly after she starts talking, and jail her or worse then its really bad. Oh and I agree with LLR's PETA hate but that is a different story, I know things about them that would spin your head.

[LibraLabRat]

LEt me backtrack:

MLK and the Freedom Riders protested something worthwhile and important. Civil rights.

The Vietnam war protestors did something worthwhile, but didnt get anything accomplished because they mixed in drugs, sex, and a whole "screw you" counter cultural attitude.

Ghandi protested British Imperial rule nonviolently. Him and his followers were KILLED yet did not fight back.

PETA? Sorry, I am against animal cruelty. However, on top of being a hunter, I also work in a medical laboratory. Most animal testing is legitmate. Cosmetics? No. Drug efficacy and disease studies? Yes.

Finally, we are seeing dangerous trends in our country involving protesting.

Several states are removing the "buffer zones" around abortion clinics to allow the fundamentalist pro-lifers to stand right in front of the doors if they want to, while Bush has "Free Speech Zones" legally set up for stuff like the WMF conference in Seattle.

There are plenty of worthwhile things to protest.

Oh, and Rex: Waiting for our "boys" to continue to die until 2008 is not acceptable. And you dont have to lecture me about Iraq and Afghanistan. I am an active duty soldier.[/b]

[nose]

So your saying because worse things are happening, we shouldnt worry about the smaller mass murderings? In that case, the Iraq war isnt even in the top ten things we should be protesting. Everyone judges conflicts in different ways. Some belive that 2 million dying in Darfur is less important than 3,000 dying in Iraq. It all depends on what hits you at home.

For Rat, your a soldier, you have witnessed what hell war is, and most of us have no idea what your trying to say because we couldnt. Maybe for Rex restriction of Freedom is a big deal, and thats fine. It doesnt matter which is more important, but we shouldnt stop protesting things.

And also, I fail to see the distinction.

MLK and the Freedom Riders protested something worthwhile and important. Civil rights.

I belive that is what this woman is protesting also. Except, maybe, in her case, her people are getting murdered more. Im not sure what she was doing, but I dont belive she was protesting this one organization and saying "let the other free speech group burn". There all fighting towards Civil Rights and things like it.

Thats not to put this woman at the same level as MLK, because last time I checked he wasnt yelling at President Johnson. This woman did 1 obnoxious act, and if you want to compare her to MLK she needs to be organized, form protests, and prove that she is dedicated and willing to die for her cause. Otherwise, she is a whiny, but maybe effective, protestor.

[teripie]

How did this thread morpf from human rights protest to PETA-is-the-devil?

One good thing about the arrest of this woman is at least she got to make some noise. This indicates that the Shrub Gang is growing more tolerant. At one point all you had to do was wear a T-shirt that advertised a politcal view the pres dissagreed with and ya landed under arrest.
Progress.