A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day....08-12-03...Cheap Chinese Goods are too Expensive

Billie; FreeTheHostages | FreeTheHostages

[Billie]

A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day

Free Republic made its debut in September, 1996, and the forum was added in early 1997.   Over 100,000 people have registered for posting privileges on Free Republic, and the forum is read daily by tens of thousands of concerned citizens and patriots from all around the country and the world.

A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day was introduced on June 24, 2002. It's only a small room in JimRob's house where we can get to know one another a little better; salute and support our military and our leaders; pray for those in need; and congratulate those deserving. We strive to keep our threads entertaining, fun, and pleasing to look at, and often have guest writers contribute an essay, or a profile of another FReeper.

On Mondays please visit us to see photos of A FEW OF FR'S VETERANS AND ACTIVE MILITARY

If you have a suggestion, or an idea, or if there's a FReeper you would like to see featured, please drop one of us a note in FR mail.

We're having fun and hope you are!
~ Billie, Mama_Bear, dansangel, dutchess, Aquamarine ~

by FreeTheHostages
Design by Billie

HighRoadToChina has been maintaining a very good Communist China ping list here at Free Republic since July 2002. He is a soft-spoken, deliberate, and thoughtful person. He has hard-won insight into this Communist dictatorship, having been born in Shanghai. He's attended several Free Iraq Freeps, mostly on the West Coast where he lives, but also once attended one of DC Freeps! At a San Francisco Freep, he was there, one of 65 pro-US people facing a throng of 65,000 anti-war protestors. So he does more than just maintain a ping list: he puts his money where his mouth is.

HighRoadToChina's Freeper name comes from a great movie starring Tom Selleck. Like Tom Selleck in the movie, HighRoadToChina is a classy guy and he knows stuff. So let's walk a ways with him.

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Do you really know what you think about China?

Here's a little test for you:

• Is it capitalism when a Communist government lets an American business in and that American company knows it doesn't have to play by free enterprise rules and it has to let the Communists get a big slice of the pie?
  
  
• Is it capitalism when money gets funneled back to the very small, very powerful, and very rich Communists and the Chinese government insists that 50% of every foreign business be owned by the Chinese?
  
  
• Is it capitalism when the Communist Chinese favor the first-arrived American business to keep the company under its control, knowing that it won't speak up and complain about human rights and lose its gravy train, a share of the cheap labor profits?

How'd you do on the test?

HighRoadToChina is grading this test and he's here to tell you that you didn't do very well if you lent an ear to easy solutions to what ails China: the Chinese Communist government.

How long have we heard pie-in-the-sky stories about the 1.2 billion consumer class and how capitalism is going to bring democracy to China? It's not happening. Nixon went to China over 30 years ago. And still it's very much a communist country: 80 percent rural, very poor, with women treated as second-class citizens, a nuclear power founded on a slave economy that literally works young women to death. Sure, in Shanghai and Beijing you can see "progress," many skyscrapers. But you could have seen economic progress in Nazi Germany in the late 1930s too. That was not capitalism either.

Why buy goods from an organized criminal communist society that enslaves its own people, terrorizes neighboring countries, and has long-range plans to rule Asia if not the world? We have to all get educated, the way the good people of Taiwan are educated:

Taiwan represents an example and a spiritual force for the people on the mainland who are suffering. The Taiwanese are Chinese, they're free, they've elected the first democratically-elected president in 5000 years of Chinese history. Just as America is the hope for the world, Taiwan is the hope for the Chinese people.

Let's be the hope for freedom-loving Chinese people.

Why Maintain a China ping list?

Why the ping list? Because HighRoadToChina cares deeply and, well, 'cause frankly a lot of us Americans aren't doing very well on that test!

What I read about China today is very alarming. I feel that people in America don't really comprehend what's going on there. To me, it's like what happened in Pearl Harbor, but this time we could be faced with nuclear weapons.

HighRoadToChina makes a riveting historical comparison:

He notes that in the late 1930s Americans *got it* -- even before we joined World War II, we understood that the Nazi war machine wanted to make slaves of the countries it conquered. Why do we think that when the Chinese Communists undertake the same plan of genocide and slave labor and state control that it's nascent capitalism? If Americans knew not to buy German goods in the late 30's, why don't we stop buying "Made in China" at Walmart today?

Freedom in China: are you buying it? Americans stopped the Germans and Japanese in World War II at great costs. HighRoadToChina would have us safeguard our freedoms now: stop buying cheap, slave labor goods from Communist China.

Just to seal the deal, here's a hopefully memorable photograph of HighRoadToChina with his lovely wife to think of next time you are tempted to buy something with a "Made in China " label!

What did Tibet and pre-war Iraq have in common?

Next time someone tells you that trade with China is leading to great progress, have them consider the facts:

• More than a million Tibetans have been killed under the Chinese occupation as a result of torture, starvation, and execution, according to the Tibetan Government in Exile.
  
  
• More than 6,000 monasteries and their contents, irreplaceable jewels of Tibetan culture, have been destroyed.
  
  
• Tibetans are routinely imprisoned and tortured for non-violently expressing their views. Freedom of religion is severely curtailed.
  
  
• Nuns are brutally raped in Chinese prisons.
  
  
• Population control is routinely practiced on Tibetan women even though there is absolutely no Tibetan population problem.
  
  
• China is encouraging the large-scale settlement of Chinese people into Tibet which is overwhelming the Tibetan population in many areas.

China's trying to finish off Tibet right in front of the world community. We should be ashamed for allowing them to do this. Never again. And that's why HighRoadToChina got active on the Free Iraq rallies to support President Bush's war against Saddam Hussein: it's all about freedom.

HighRoadToChina with a famous radio personality,
Melanie Morgan, at a Free Iraq rally.

You should hear the truth, pride and humanity in his voice as he expresses his delight that the Iraqi people – and he has friends who are Iraqis and he knows their horror stories – earned some measure of freedom. And then he adds with a bit of sadness that Iraq is like Tibet was in 1950. Back then, the Tibetans were crying to the world for help. Nobody came to their help. Over one-fourth of the Tibetan population have since been killed by the Communist Chinese.

Wow, I pretty much shuddered when he uttered that thought. Tibet was so preventable. There are millions of people in China now, yearning for the freedom of Taiwan's way of life. Those cheap goods come at too dear a price. Thanks very much for the reminder and helping us take the high road, HighRoad.

Here's to a great pinglist-keeper, a brave activist, and a very thoughtful advocate for freedom: HighRoadToChina.

THIS WEEK'S THREADS 08-11-03 Military Monday

Opinions by our own 'King of Ping' The guy's good, folks!

Thanks, Mixer!

1) Click on the graphic to open the Calendar.
2) Once there you can click on any month and even click to the right to go into next year. Once you are in the month that you joined FR you will need to click on the number in the calendar and then an add item screen will come up.
3) In the next box enter your name in the "Calendar Text" field and then click on submit.
4) If any of the screens fail to load simply click on refresh in your browser and that will usually fix it.
5) If all else fails or simply if you want me to do this for you send me a FReepmail and I will gladly do it for you. ~Mixer

[lonestar]

You win!

Weinie

_____________________

LOL!!!

lonestar

[Calpernia]

You are exactly right HRTC. We should only be trading with China if the money is benefiting the citizens of China. That was the entire point of Globalization. But it was abused.

Have you read Treason yet by Ann Coulter? Please do. There is alot broken in the USA system. It is on the road to be fixed. Hopefully, the outside powers won't stop it.

[Calpernia]

I thought you would like that one!

[Calpernia]

That will make a beautiful postcard!!!

Have you seen the postcard paper from Avery? I printed out a bunch with a picture of Bush infront of Mount Rushmore. That was posted here too.

[Calpernia]

I knew you were replacing me!!!!

Me Me Me!!! I can do it for sure I can! All Weinie's oppononts will be going in circles they will, they will.

I hear you!

Weinie

[Calpernia]

Ping to post 129. do you know about the thesis paper?

[Calpernia]

Were you able to come by this post at all? I know you have alot to read. Did you see post 139 in HRTC's thread?

[Calpernia]

>>>>Now his company has sent him to South Africa--perhaps the China miracle lost its gloss.

Would you mind expanding on this? My own IT partner was sent to Africa too. However, I'm just threading the political implications as of recent.

[Temple Owl]

Good night Billie. Sleep tight.

[MeekOneGOP]

Howdy ! How's the 'puter doing now ??? ...

[MeekOneGOP]

Uh ... uh-oh !

[Mama_Bear]

It's FReeperPet Wednesday.......
and we are over HERE

[Calpernia]

OH MY GOD!!! That is the funniest thing I've seen over the past few days!

I must saw Meekie, you got quite the unflattering shot of me though!

[MeekOneGOP]

hehe ! I think over time, we've all been there or WILL be there with our 'puters !

I know I ALREADY have, and more than once !!

[dixie sass]

Excellent article FTH! My daddy was stationed in China during WWII. He was in Kuming and Shanghai. Although he loved the country and the majority of the people he met, he also came into contact with persons who had communistic leanings.

One thing he said over and over was not to trust China. He said that the oriental mindset was entirely different from ours and that we needed to learn to think like them. He wasn't talking about the ordinary, everyday person who was just trying to eke out a living, most of whom at that time were not educated. He was speaking of the ones that ruled/governed the people.

I wish that he were still alive so that I could get him to dictate to me what he saw and heard while there. I can never convey adequately his love for somethings in the China and his distain for the rest. Only he could do that.

Over the centuries, all cultures have benefited greatly from the Chinese and for that we should be grateful. Their civilization was old when ours was young.

[FreeTheHostages]

Dixie Sass: "oriental mindset"??! You mean "communist mindset," don't you?

The Chinese Communist rulers have a totalitarian mindset because they're communist rules, for goodness sakes. We should agree on that.

[Libertina]

Congratulations of being on of FR's FINEST! KUDOS to my friend, HighRoadToChina, for your tireless efforts and activism. I apologize for getting to this thread late - online meeting last night and then candidate election work today. People are still in awe over the wonderful PowerPoint presentation you created featuring our beloved country and brave citizens. Thanks for everything you do, HRTC. As a person who loves Free China, I can't thank you enough for what you contribute as you fight for them. YOU ROCK! (Excellent choice for FR's Finest Freethehostages, & very nice design Billie :)

[FreeTheHostages]

Thank you Libertina. You west coast freepers rock too!! I'm jealous that HighRoad's on your side of flyover country!

[dixie sass]

Actually, no. Daddy meant Oriental. I asked him almost verbatim, the same question. He said that it is not that the Chinese were two-faced, it was that they showed the world one-side and only one-side and that was the side that they wanted people to see.

Daddy said one reason that we have failed with the Orientals/Asians was because we could not understand that they don't think or act like us. We tried to place Western values on a culture that philosophically wouldn't and couldn't expect those values.

Although the Chinese overthrew the caste system at the beginning of the last century, they still have the same type of government and caste sytem. If you are born into it, that is where you remain. They went from one supreme ruler to another supreme ruler, just different names.

[FreeTheHostages]

I disagree. People everywhere want freedom. The Asian is no less disposed to claim his or her natural birthright.