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This weekend, I awakened to coverage on CNN of “violence in Tibet”.  The reporters breathlessly informed me that China has a history of censorship, that CNN was intrepidly on the case, and that citizens inside China were “probably” being prevented from seeing the footage.  The reporter gravely remarked, “but a picture is worth a thousand words”.

Indeed it is.  The footage they are running is clearly stamped CCTV4, and could easily be seen by tuning in to Chinese state-run media.  Furthermore, the pictures show a bunch of “peaceful” monks torching ethnic Chinese shopkeepers’ buildings and perpetrating violence.  While CNN, MSNBC, and all the other Western media recklessly implied that Chinese thugs were committing genocide on poor, peaceful monks, they were unable to produce a single photograph or film supporting such a baseless claim.

So why were they unable to show any film of Chinese violence against the “peaceful” monks?  Tibet is brimming with Canadians and San Franciscans; no doubt they would have captured any such violence.

The lack of actual evidence doesn’t stop the western media from making allegations, though.  Today they are running a story about China blocking YouTube — the clear accusation being that there is something incriminating on YouTube, which China doesn’t want citizens to see.  What a load of crap.  If there is incriminating footage on YouTube, why are the western media not showing it?  It’s true that there are hundreds of anti-China propaganda pieces created by people in western countries, but not a single piece of actual footage from Tibet that could be remotely construed a “smoking gun” with respects to the current violence being perpetrated by the monks.

So far, the IOC has stated that it doesn’t intend to withdraw it’s endorsement of China for the 2008 Olympics.  Gee, how gracious!  I hope that the next time the muslims in Malaysia riot and slaughter Chinese shopkeepers (a regular occurrence), the IOC is also so gracious!  Next time Chinese shopkeepers are slaughtered in Xinjian province, or some remote part of Indonesia or Philippines, will we have enough compassion in our hearts to still let them host the Olympics?  Clearly every instance of monks murdering shopkeepers is reason for DEEP distrust of the central Chinese government!

It’s crazy, really.  None of the western media are asking why it’s OK for “peaceful” monks to murder innocent Chinese shopkeepers.  The Dalai Lama has spoken out and has essentially said that “it’s OK to murder Chinese shopkeepers because they are making all the money and controlling the local economy”.  He calls it “cultural genocide”.  I guess the actual murder of shopkeepers is morally equivalent to theoretical ”cultural” genocide.  Why does the West keep giving this guy a pass?  He ran one of the world’s last remaining religious dictatorships, practiced slavery, and now refuses to denounce outright murder by his army of terrorist thugs.  And we allow addle-brained morons like Richard Gere to funnel him money and attempt to reinstall him as supreme dictator?

Now, I have no major beef with the practitioners of this modern mishmash of religion.  But for heaven’s sake keep it in the temple.  When monks start murdering civilians, preaching civil war and revolution, and attempting to install religious dictatorships, they shouldn’t be surprised when the rest of the world starts treating them as troublemakers.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 16th, 2008 at 7:10 pm and is filed under China. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.