CSN's John Patrick updates on China, media criticism

CSN's John Patrick updates
on China / media criticism

Re-hi from here,

At the China Support Network, our main issue--Chinese democracy--overlaps with a couple of non-Chinese issues, like global free trade (a bad thing) and news media censorship (in China and in the United States).

I know that this website serves the anti-globalization mobilization, and good causes like the 9/11 truth movement, and those that seek truth about U.S. elections in 2000 and 2004, and truth about Oklahoma City, TWA flight 800, etc.

Even for activists who seem "ahead of the game," or up the curve on other issues, the issue of China has seemed to be distant, foggy, or left to the China Support Network, which specializes in anti-communism and opposes the world's largest dictatorship along with the Tiananmen Square dissidents. It has seemed not to fly on IndyMedia, maybe because anti-communism seems "right wing," associated with Ronald Reagan or such.

Actually, it is mistaken to put the freedom / tyranny collision of another land into the prism of left / right American politics. Chinese democracy is an issue that puts both "wings" to shame--where was George Bush Senior, when Chinese troops used deadly force on thousands of unarmed college students? The world witnessed evil, and should recapture that outrage. China was only rewarded with Bill Clinton's PNTR WTO deal, and with 2008 Olympics. The matters of Tiananmen Square and Chinese democracy have been mishandled at the highest levels of our government. Where has George W. Bush been, throughout a crackdown against religion in China (and, the internet crackdown, the Olympic crackdown, etc., etc.)?

While the government bungled, what about the media? It is as if they speak the code of their language, Bungle++. I want to bring activists up to date, because we are leading up to a celebration and special invitations for related and associated activism. Without good U.S. press coverage, the Chinese community has continued to work the issue, and now has the achievement of causing 1,000,000 Chinese people to withdraw, quit, and resign from the Chinese Communist Party! It is an achievement in activism, most of which happened in Chinese, and now it reaches the English speakers (us round eye people, right?).

When we've reached the bottom of it, this announcement makes the Chinese activists look good, and it makes the U.S. mainstream news media (MSM) look bad. Or, perhaps, IndyMedia scoops the MSM, because corrections are coming, and continued erosion of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) adds up to eventually become noticeable.

Before I go to those details, a natural question can be, "What about these new China protests against Japan, that are seen in the news?" While it is true that China and Japan have issues going way back (Imperial Japan invaded that region), it was not very appropriate to raise these issues at this time (World War II is over, and democratic Japan is a different regime than the one responsible for the atrocities). It may have been inevitable since the CCP government encourages a virulent nationalism, hoping that people's patriotism will keep the government in power--while all faith in communism has collapsed. However, remember that they can't have a protest in China without government approval. There is a big difference between a CCP-approved protest (like the anti-Japan actions) on the one hand, versus something else--a CCP-disapproved protest, like the upcoming one I'm going to tell you about here (and, maybe you can join us for this anti-CCP protest).

The anti-Japan protests have heavy government manipulation. In the New York Times, it was said, "the police herded protesters into tight groups, let them take turns throwing rocks, then told them they had 'vented their anger' long enough and bused them back to campus." One protestor said he "felt like a puppet." Because of this, we should consider that there is a CCP / government propaganda value to what we see. Last week, they were barking at Taiwan; this week, they are barking at Japan; next week, they will be barking at America. Is this a dangerous dog? Is it going to bite? Well, it is a nuclear-armed, communist superpower, but not yet as confident as the Soviet Union. Chinese dissidents and the China Support Network assess it to be dangerous, but the danger is of command decisions at the highest level--not from street protestors, unless you own a Japanese noodle shop nearby (yes, some businesses have been trashed).

Let's return to the people's cause of Chinese freedom, democracy, and against persecution--the one where the China Support Network is active. (CSN began with Americans responding to Tiananmen Square, so there are American roots here.) It will be interesting to see if the MSM (news) gives equal time and prominence to our event, un-CCP approved. MSM has been dodging the anti-CCP protests, and now we see that they are happy to feature a Chinese protest when it is CCP-sponsored. While we are here on the topic, let me insert this photograph--

How cool is it that the AP has come into our ire? This banner
has been used at a vigil outside of AP (Associated Press) offices.

Does this get thick? Yes, it does. (Thank you for sticking with me through thick and thin...)

The concerns of our cause are so mainstream that they have been growing in Congress. There have certainly been hearings about human rights violations, resolutions for religious freedom, hearings about China's military threat, currency manipulation, and one this week about the European (EU) arms embargo against China--a Tiananmen sanction that some want lifted, and we want kept in place. (Heck, Tiananmen sanctions didn't go far enough, and we would lower the boom on China far more.)

But, where have our TV people been? Far, far away from this issue. What planet are they reporting from, and what is their agenda? Lawyers have a principle called estoppel, which means that a story should be consistent. It is a vast violation of estoppel to suggest that a nuclear-armed, communist superpower is bad in one decade, and good in the next decade. Or that Soviet Communism was bad, while Chinese Communism is good. Or, to complain that trade with Cuba helps the regime, but not likewise with China. It is a vast violation of estoppel to espouse world-wide democracy, and then to overlook tyranny in the world's largest nation (by population)--China. It is a vast violation of estoppel to acknowledge the end of slavery in America, but then to be fine with Made in China products, produced with slave labor and crowding out American jobs. After the Cold War, our TV people turned back on many, many American fundamentals. We have had "America, in reverse gear."

We have seen the cynical use of human rights in television--they'll show gulags, or talk about rape rooms, if a nation makes it into the "axis of evil," but not otherwise. So, they'll show you abuses from Saddam, from Kim Jong Il, and from Iran, while the same abuses are happening in downtown Beijing! TV eventually discovered the genocide in Darfur, but have you heard of genocide in China or the Congo? Not on TV. It's happening, but it is inconvenient to the media's planetary agenda. (I'm still guessing at their agenda--maybe a quick switch of planets?) Why will TV show the Abu Ghraib photos, but not the Falun Gong photos?

If they were reporting from the same planet on which they are standing, we would know that China never got any better on human rights. The Falun Gong crackdown has killed as many people as the Tiananmen crackdown, but there's no dramatic video. --China continues to set the world's record in mass murder! (Within the past year, there has been another massacre in Hanyuan County, also big enough to rival the Tiananmen massacre, by some accounts.)

MSM has been dodging the anti-CCP crowd and the truth of China, but anti-CCP people have kept busy and do have news. What is being censored? What, really, should an "up-the-curve" activist know?

(1.) Well, Americans in a poll were against the China free trade deal. Against it by 4 to 1. That's 79% of Americans who still know that a nuclear-armed, communist superpower is a bad thing. (Unfortunately, we are governed by the other 21% of Americans!)

(2.) The Falun Gong suppression and persecution in China has amounted to genocide, and so there has been censorship of genocide, and censorship of the lawsuit stories. Former Chinese President Jiang Zemin and high officials of China have been sued for genocide and crimes against humanity, in many jurisdictions.

(3.) Besides the Falun Gong crackdown, there's an Olympic crackdown, an Internet crackdown, and crackdowns against Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, and another group, Zhong Gong. That's on top of political and journalism crackdowns. China has a crisis of domestic dissent, with labor, peasant, and appellant groups pushing back at the government for their rights.

(4.) All the work of the China Support Network is being censored. Similarly, there are many Chinese groups (dissidents), and the Falun Gong groups, and Tibetan groups, all angry at the communist regime -- all being downplayed in the press. Is China's most famous dissident said to be Wei Jingsheng? (Yes, he is something like Poland's Lech Walesa.) Well, even he is downplayed. Maybe because his recent statements warn about a war over Taiwan.

(5.) That's the other thing that's being downplayed. National security concerns, and the Taiwan Missile Crisis. In other words, the other misbehavior of China, like proliferating missiles to North Korea, Pakistan, Iran and Iraq. Laundering money for bin Laden. When U.S. troops went into Afghanistan, the news said that Chinese-made weapons were uncovered, but they didn't play it up any further. And, when U.S. troops were massing in Kuwait to enter Iraq, a missile landed in the middle of Kuwait City. The news noted that it was a Chinese-made Silkworm missile, but nobody said, "hey wait -- why a Chinese missile in the middle of Kuwait City? Communist China has been arming our enemies!"

And, what of news media behavior? Did Chinese dissidents seem to vanish off the tube? In the five years after Tiananmen Square, they were media darlings. I recall organizing an event where Wu'er Kaixi was mobbed by women. Then, somehow, "political correctness" came to include "free trade," and TV networks made Chinese dissidents invisible, even when their issue was hot.

Their issue has been hot many times in recent years. Clinton's PNTR free trade deal was hot. Then, a mid-air collision created an international incident where China took time to release 24 American fliers (hot). China was awarded the 2008 Olympics (hot). China had SARS (hot), an attempt against freedom in Hong Kong (hot), and tensions with Taiwan (hot). Did the TV networks turn to the Chinese dissidents? No! The TV networks instead cut the dissidents out of their own issue. Yes! --As if any American professor can be a "China expert," but actual Chinese dissidents -- hardcore China experts -- are not allowed to go to the issue.

I feel the TV networks have cast a misleading impression that the movement went away, or that the dissidents retired or something. --That's malarkey, although two top dissidents--Chai Ling and Li Lu--went into business, and Wu'er Kaixi moved to Taiwan. That's three people. The cause has millions of people, but the news media only know how to pay attention to those three. (Perhaps, because their absence is convenient for the Media Planetary Agenda.)

Appeasement and cooperation with Beijing has been misguided policy, reflecting misplaced priorities, and U.S. newsrooms look "genocidally correct" for being so willing to toe the line of Clinton's god-forsaken free trade policy. Newsrooms have cheerfully output (1.) cheerleading and boosterism along the line, "gee, China is a business paradise;" (2.) no word of Chinese human rights abuses post-Clinton (as if Bill Clinton must have "solved" the Chinese human rights problem...gullible readers and viewers have been given that obvious inference); (3.) not a peep from the Chinese dissidents, China Support Network (CSN), or Falun Gong (FG).

In addition to toeing the line with (1.), (2.) and (3.), news outlets have also (4.) been very thin with concern about national security in light of China and its military modernization and buildup. A hard look at China has been absent, just like the anti-communist folks: dissidents, CSN, FG, et al. American TV news people seem more ready to let go of Taiwan (a democracy) than the U.S. Congress. (We can still guess about the Media Planetary Agenda, but it seems to include anything that damn well pleases Beijing.)

How different would things be if we had true / Jeffersonian Americans for news anchors? Without their vast violations of estoppel, a nuclear-armed, communist superpower would be seen for what it is: a bastion of evil, preying upon its own people and threatening its neighbors; and, no place to send American jobs or import dollars. We'd be asking hard questions about China's links with terrorists and proliferation of WMD--and missile--technology. (Maybe the Media Planetary Agenda is: "Trade trumps all, and we'll only run news that is suggested by glossy annual reports." For story ideas, they flip open an RJR/Nabisco annual report, even if 700 ballistic missiles have recently been pointed at Taiwan, as has actually happened.)

--Okay, well, was I leading up to better news than the silence of the news media? Yes.

The community of free Chinese around the world has established some independent media of its own. The Epoch Times serialized the publication of Nine Commentaries about the CCP, and opened a web site where Chinese can withdraw, resign, and quit from the Communist Party. This has created a wave of withdrawals, the "Jiuping phenomenon." Jiuping refers to the Nine Commentaries--writing that took a deep breath, and retold a sweeping, encompassing history of the CCP's evil against its own people in China. This included a cogent analysis of the ends and means used by the CCP, because the brutality is not (quite) random--so here, the writers exposed the "method to their madness."

The Jiuping became smuggled into China (since November, 2004), and there is an increasing rate of people, openly and publicly, resigning from the Chinese Communist Party. --After reading Jiuping, Chinese people with conscience and morality say, "I quit!" --We have recently been pleased to see the number of withdrawals pass 250,000, then 500,000, then 750,000. Some of these resignations have been from high level Communists. Some people are not just using the web site, but are posting their withdrawals on public bulletin boards....Different cities have reported sightings of these public notices. They have a word-of-mouth value, and increase demand for the Nine Commentaries.

We are closing in on 1,000,000 resignations, and this Saturday, we will have a parade to mark the 1 million number. This is specifically about a New York City parade, but if you're in a city with a Chinese embassy or consulate, there is likely to be some form of demonstration that commemorates this, at every Chinese consulate.

The myriad resignations from the Chinese Communist Party almost make one want to say, "God bless America," but America's not the driver of this story. The China Support Network is America's component of this cause. Now could be an interesting time to come out and show your support for the cause, and that is in fact my invitation for interested Americans this Saturday, April 23. These Chinese people are reaching for freedom, and they are deserving of our support! --And, this is far healthier than throwing rocks at the consulate of Japan, a democratic American ally! Think of that CCP-approved news as a distraction. The communists would love to talk about anything else, rather than the Jiuping phenomenon! We'll give you the CCP-unapproved news. (Fair and balanced media would run both.)

The invitation at this time says--

Fifteen years after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, a huge wave of withdrawals from the Chinese Communist Party is taking place in Mainland China and shaking the world. It is a magnificent act of the Chinese people from all walks of life to withdraw from the CCP and strive for democracy and freedom. To support them, a number of overseas Chinese organizations, democracy advocacy groups, and The Epoch Times have jointly initiated a "Support a Million Withdrawals and Promote Freedom and Democracy" rally.

[The resignations inspire] all of the Chinese men and women who have suffered and whose families have suffered for so many years at the hands of the CCP.

The Chinese people have long sought freedom and democracy. Today, they finally see hope. This awakening will bury the tyranny of the CCP and inspire greatness in a new era.

The organizers together will hold a large-scale rally at 11:00 a.m. on April 23, 2005, in New York at Foley Square (Worth St. and Center St.) to support the Chinese people to shake their fear, flee the tyranny, break free from the CCP, and hail an ever more glorious wave of withdrawals from the CCP. People from all walks of life will celebrate the awakening of the great Chinese people and call on all to defeat the CCP, end its evil reign, and rebuild China. Brave warriors in the struggle to establish democracy, we cordially invite you to share this grand occasion with us, and together to turn this page of history.

[Rally] participants will come from over 20 countries and regions including North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. Invited guests include US Congressional representatives, Canadian Members of Parliament, intellectuals, representatives from UN organizations, democracy advocacy groups, human rights groups, religious groups and overseas Chinese associations. There will be a large-scale rally, a grand parade through Manhattan's Chinatown, street art and music performances.

--The China Support Network is co-sponsoring this, and we are calling Americans to gather at our banner! How the news media plays this is their problem. --I simply invite you to come out and help bury the Chinese Communist Party!

/s./ John Patrick, April 16, 2005
Director emeritus, China Support Network
Consultant, advisor, or booster, Chinese Republican Party
Chinese Democratic Party World Union
World Chinese Federation
Free China Movement
Alliance Against Persecution
Zhong Gong
China Shadow Government
Guest author, Epoch Times
Association for Asian Research
Guest speaker, IFCSS (Independent Federation of Chinese Students and Scholars)
Global Coalition Against Article 23
Member, Boycott Made in China Coalition
Global Coalition to Bring Jiang to Justice
Goodbye CCP Coalition

P.S. - The way MSM has been, this post to IndyMedia may still be the best way to reach actual, genuine Americans. --If you can forward this to your Internet friends, I'd be thankful. If you're incensed at China's outrageous treatment of civilians, another good idea is: come to Washington, DC's Chinese embassy for the anniversary of the June 4 massacre--June 4, 2005. The event begins in the late afternoon, an hour before dusk (rally and speeches begin before a candle light vigil that starts at sundown). (2300 Connecticut Ave NW) That day has demonstrations at other Chinese consulates. And, rediscover www.chinasupport.net.

P.P.S. - For many years, MSM have misreported the June 4 massacre itself. An estimated 3,000 - 7,000 lives were lost in Beijing that day. How many times have MSM said, "hundreds killed?" At first, AP gave a higher number, and in the days after the massacre, AP "climbed down" to "hundreds." (The Chinese Red Cross said 2,600+ dead, and then "climbed down" likewise.) Recently, Reuters says, "massive loss of life," which is better than the insult / parroted propaganda from the AP. --Sixteen years of misreporting this means that Chinese democracy has an extensive trove of examples of censorship, distortion, and bias. (They've understated Falun Gong deaths too; etc.; etc.)