A March 24, 2006 Washington Times article cited the Chinese government's practice of harvesting and selling organs from those who were arrested for practicing Falun Gong. Now you might think this is half a world away, but remember China is a world super power that oppresses thought in its people, and apparently has done a pretty efficient job of snowing the members of congress and our administration. The American government has been investigating these human rights abuses for years, and continues to trade and grant the Chinese government "Favored Nation Trading Status." Our corporations sell out for that big Chinese market, too. Yahoo and Google and others recently agreed to eliminate links and dummy down their search engines in China so no one there could look up the enlightening thoughts about meditation and healthy exercise. Who knows what they took out of their US search engines for fear of Chinese government reprisal. Think I am making this up? Yahoo released emails to Chinese officials written by a Chinese journalist on a yahoo email account and that journalist is now being imprisoned for trying to describe the Chinese government's atrocities. Yahoo should be ashamed and owes the entire world an apology, and you should know that they did this. Google violated their own corporate intentions of always "do good" by blocking links to a Chinese government list of key words. I bet this blog will be blocked when they find it. Think China doesn't have some power in the US? Americans are being attacked and harassed in the US for their eastern philosophy beliefs. Too much to believe? I was with an American Falun Gong practitioner when he received taped messages every hour or so on his cell phone, all day. Those messages said there would be consequences for practicing Falun Gong. Where was I? I was in New York City at the time. Hey, maybe the CIA picked up some of those messages with their wiretapping efforts. Still think your religious practices and thoughts are safe?
Sometimes you have to say enough is enough. Pick your cause, Darfur, China's oppression, war in Iraq, whatever, but fight for it from where ever you are.
Speaking of winning fights -- Congratulations to my favorite janitors, those in Cincinnati that just got the right to organize and to have a living wage, benefits and maybe even a weekend and holiday sometime. HUG YOUR JANITOR today, or at least make sure you thank her for a job well done.
