Friday, February 10, 2006

'Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose'

...and what I ask is what do we have to lose here? With the recent upheaval going on over blasphemous cartoons that have everyone’s panties in a bunch and Yahoo agreeing and Google (possibly) having to acquiesce to China’s censorship demands – I thought I’d say a few things – not that they matter – not that anyone really cares….but that’s not why I do things anyway…

First of all the censorship being practiced by Chinese authorities towards their citizenry has actually impacted me personally (hard to believe – frankly if we all want to get right down to it – globally it impacts us all ).

You see I am a huge Margaret Atwood Fan – I own just about everything she’s ever written give or take a couple of things – I adore her – worship her – I think her writing is as close as one can get to perfect (my opinion) – whenever I read her I feel like I am drowning in her words and to me that is like bliss.

So obviously I have links on my blog and I belong to a Yahoo group of her readers – however the group has been removed and here’s the e-mail I got from the group owner:

“Because of Yahoo's betrayal of Chinese journalist Shi Tao to the
Chinese government which resulted in his being imprisoned for ten
years, i have decided to delete all Yahoo groups i host, including the
Margaret Atwood Readers group, and cease all my interactions with
Yahoo. (Shi Tao's crime was anonymously posting the truth about the
Chinese government.) In addition Yahoo along with AOL and Microsoft
have also all decided to provide information illegally requested by
the U.S. government on searches conducted in the U.S. by U.S.
citizens. Google is fighting this action right now in court.

Please let me know what you think about this. (If this feels
threatening i understand. Please do not respond in that case.) If
there is enough interest i will find an alterative site to host this
group. I shall not delete this group for at least a week, no sooner
than February 4th.

You can get more information about Yahoo's betrayals, and other
betrayals here:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/27/1451247


My apologies to all readers of this group, including the Chinese
readers here. I have considered the options, and have decided i can
no longer support Yahoo in any way.”


I of course wrote him a letter of support and I am sad to see the group disperse. I will tell you while I was happy to be a member of this group I was not what you called a rabid member – I did participate and I enjoyed reading the other members comments and discussions – but me being as busy as I am, I could not always participate and I of course can not offer to take over moderation of the group. So I suppose I will have to find another way to discuss her books – perhaps here on my blog.

So even though it’s in a very small way, this issue has impacted me and I of course am perturbed by the deeper ramifications of what the Chinese government is trying to do to their own people. However I have a question for you all and this has to do not just with the Chinese Government but with the recent events surrounding the printing of comics depicting Mohammed in the Danish press and all of our posturing as a supposedly ‘free’ country:

WHAT THE HELL DO YOU PEOPLE EXPECT??????????????

Seriously. Think about it – this boils down to freedom of expression – but it also has to do with how a government or a religious faction runs their shows in their own countries. We take freedom for granted in this country (well we always have which is why I get so incensed when people DON’T VOTE – but perhaps with our government now being able to just spy on us without warrants or a really good reason perhaps those of you out there who are true freedom-fighters will see that our own freedoms are slowly being stripped away all in the name of protecting us against ‘perceived’ terrorists – not to mention their torture (yes I said torture) of the people in Guantanamo, in Abu Ghraib as well as in other ‘secret’ prisons – in a way what I am trying to say here is how is our own government really any different?)...

So now the US and Europe are facing the dilemma of what to do in a situation where you have a free society dealing with a society where there is no freedom of speech or expression – what to do? What to do?

What can we do? We can’t exactly force China and/or members of Islamic nations to do what we do in our own countries. They have STATE SPONSORED news/TV/radio etc – I mean c’mon, again what do we expect. It’s kind of like the dangerous game we are playing with Iran – again – do we have a right to mandate whether or not another country has a right to use nuclear power or even nuclear weapons? I mean I understand that letting an insane person run a country is a dangerous thing – but it happens every day – and a lot of times in the past the US has been responsible for putting those regimes into place – we again do this to ourselves all the time and then a new President steps up to the plate and we’ve got him trying to settle some vendetta for his daddy...and for what???

And has it occurred to any of you that in a way in this country we too have censorship going on - do you REALLY feel you are allowed to REALLY speak out – do you really feel your government is giving you every single fucking fact or piece of knowledge that they have in their possession (ya think? Really?) – how many of you out there feel there is REAL freedom in this country? Now perhaps in Europe it’s different – I don’t know – but conspiracy theory aside I DO know I don’t trust my *own* government. And I don’t feel they are being honest about oh gee just about everything these days – I mean c’mon look at all the scandals of this administration.

So are we ourselves really free? Oh sure the KKK is allowed to have their own marches and TV shows but yet Gays aren’t allowed to be recognized as legal co-partners – I have to say I am a little more worried about the KKK or white supremacists marching on a town than I am of gay people getting married. Some of you might think it’s apples to oranges but it’s not – rights are rights are rights. If we are going to claim to live in a totally free society then not only do we have to allow our citizens the rights to do as they please (without harming others – and again I want to say here that I think the KKK has harmed more people than any gay group I am aware of – not to pick on the KKK or anything it’s just something about those blasted church burnings – ooops sorry)- but not only do we have to allow our citizens those freedoms and rights – we have also be willing to step aside and allow other countries to govern themselves - I mean sure if ALL the countries in Europe are going to back up EVERYTHING we believe in that's one thing, but there are enough Chinese to overthrow their own government aren’t there? AREN’T THERE? Shouldn’t we let them do that on their own? And the same holds true of Islamic regimes - if learned, sane people get sick enough about what’s happening they will affect change – but that’s for THEM to decide – all we can try to do is be proactive – protect ourselves from harm as best we can (within reason) and let the chips fall where they may. While I’d like to say that I am going to completely boycott Yahoo – it’s a hard thing to do – I could switch everything over to G-mail but then what about Google??? I mean it’s tainting everything – it’s kind of hard to completely cut yourself off from the information age just to make a point that probably will go unnoticed – will I sleep better at night knowing I made a stand against tyranny – doubtful since I am not sure how to make a stance against it on my own soil...but I can try – I can certainly try – and how I try – is by writing what I just wrote – by ranting on this blog – by ‘screaming into a vacuum’ as C2 puts it – does it make any difference – I’d like to hope so – but in the end all we can do is what we can do.

I do know this much – if we are going to point our Uncle Sam fingers at other countries then we’d better make sure our own record is as clean as the driven snow and while this has nothing to do with my rant here – charity people, begins at home – all the money we are spending on and in other countries to keep them ‘democratic’ and assured that they are on ‘our side’ and able to enjoy apple pie and truth, justice and the AMERICAN WAY – could be well spent on the homeless and on our children’s education...

1 Comments:

Blogger rmacapobre said...

i feel sad for the guy. i havent even heard about it until i read this article from your blog. is there something we can do to help him?

6:49 PM  

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