Expressing Opinions

Why does the global community continue to support the Olympics and the International Olympic Committee? How much is the Chinese government paying the IOC for the privilege to host the 2008 Beijing Olympics? Here is a report on more violence against the unarmed monks and citizens of Tibet.

The Associated Press is reporting Police Fire on Tibetan Protesters; 8 Die:

BEIJING (AP) — Police fired on hundreds of protesters in a Tibetan area of western China, killing eight people, overseas activist groups said. State media reported one government official was seriously injured in what it called a riot.

“We should strengthen patriotic education so as to guide the masses of monks to continuously display the patriotic tradition and uphold the banner of patriotism,” the paper quoted Hao Peng, Tibet’s deputy Communist Party Chief, as saying.

Thursday’s violence in Sichuan province came when the government attempted to enforce “patriotic education” at the Garze monastery, according to the activist groups.

With no access by outside reporters I am sure this only very small amount of the violence which is being perpetrated by armed government thugs against the people of Tibet.

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You do not need to tune into the news for long and you will hear of Chinese soldiers killing unarmed civilians, the Chinese government is controlling the news by not allowing outside press to report on the ongoing violent treatment of civilians. In the rest of the worlds press media there has been talk about boycotting the Beijing Olympics because of the China’s repressive treatment of it’s population. But there is more than China’s repressive and murderous treatment of it’s citizens to consider.

The U.S. State Department has issued this warning about traveling to Beijing. On the U.S. State Departments web site they state:

PRIVACY & SAFETY: All visitors should be aware that they have no reasonable expectation of privacy in public or private locations. All hotel rooms and offices are considered to be subject to on-site or remote technical monitoring at all times. Hotel rooms, residences and offices may be accessed at any time without the occupant’s consent or knowledge.

Then there is a recent visit from Adm. Timothy J. Keating, commander of the United States Pacific Command. He recently visited China and he and his entire staff left ALL of their electronic devices home. Why? Because of security concerns the Navy has over China hacking into the devices, thus being able to spy on the U.S. Navy and our government. If the U.S. Navy and the U.S. State Department have concerns over privacy shouldn’t we? And if the Chinese government is willing to kill it’s own citizens shouldn’t we be concerned for our safety too?

Many Olympic athletes train for years for a one time shot on the world stage of competition. The sacrifices these athletes and many times their families make over the years are nothing short of extraordinary. The athletes already know about the poor air quality and less than prefect conditions to compete. Now they are hearing about more violence of the Chinese government towards it’s people. It puts an athlete in a tough spot to choose over a sport and possibly teammates they have trained and sacrificed for over many years or possibly boycott the games.

Maybe the world should let the athletes decide to attend or boycott the games, after all they are the ones who worked so hard to get the honor and privilege to compete on the world’s stage. And the rest of us can boycott the games by staying home, but still support our athletes by watching their performances on television and cheering them on with emails and web postings.

To the Chinese it is all about the money and we can boycott them financially. Thank you for visiting Expressing Opinions.

Continuing with my previous posting Awareness Falling, do you think there are forces at play in the news you receive?

Your news awareness may be skewed because of the propaganda model. The propaganda model is a theory advanced by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky that alleges systemic biases in the mass media.

A Wikipedia article on the propaganda model states:

Herman and Chomsky argue that since mainstream media outlets are either large corporations or part of conglomerates (e.g. Westinghouse or General Electric), the information presented to the public will be biased with respect to these interests. Such conglomerates frequently extend beyond traditional media fields, and thus have extensive financial interests that may be endangered when certain information is widely publicized. According to this reasoning, news items that most endanger the corporate financial interests of those who own the media will face the greatest bias and censorship.

It then follows that if to maximize profit means sacrificing news objectivity, then the news sources that ultimately survive must be fundamentally biased, with regard to news in which they have a conflict of interest.

I am inclined to agree with Herman and Chomsky. With news being a business and operated as such, I support the propaganda model. You only need to tune in to see it in action. A perfect example of this is the lack of reporting on the war in Iraq. In July the reporting of the war averaged 15% of the news reporting time, but by February it was down to just 3%. Why is this? Could it be that neither Republican or Democratic parties want the war to be a major part of the election because neither party has a good solution for bringing our troops home? You know if someone had a good plan for withdraw they would be spinning it to the public. So instead the spin doctors of each party spin “other” news stories to the media.

We need to look outside the so-called U.S. free press to learn the whole story and then it do it with caution, knowing you will still encounter the forces of money and power manipulating the facts.

It is only with the recent power of the Internet and the ability of people to post fresh information, does it assist in keeping the media somewhat honest. And that is no where near enough. If you would like to learn more about this topic I suggest you explore the following:

• The Propaganda Model: A Retrospective by Edward S. Herman
• Has the Internet Changed the Propaganda Model?
• Edward S. Herman - links to his many Internet sources.
• chomsky.info: the Noam Chomsky website

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