Showing posts with label Dousing Olympic Flame. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dousing Olympic Flame. Show all posts

06 April 2008

Protesters try to douse Olympic Flame in London

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Protesters angry over China's human rights record and its recent actions in Tibet scuffled with police and made attempts to grab the Olympic torch and douse it with a fire extinguisher on Sunday.

art.protest.desai.irpt.jpg

Reema Desai of Orlando, Florida, captured this image of the protests at the torch relay.

Here in the United States of America, we should be outraged. We stand for Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, and yet we are the primary source of income for China. We are the ones that are putting the guns, hardware and technology into the hands of the Chinese to continue their repressive rule. Yes, it would hurt our economy to impose sanctions on the Chinese, but how else would they learn? The worst part is, the world community has even given them the Olympics!

After Tienanmen Square, we should have imposed sanctions until basic human rights issues had been resolved. Back then it would have been a relatively painless exercise, because we didn't rely on China for all that much in terms of Goods and Services. Now however with China importing almost a Trillion a year, and exporting over 1.2 Trillion a year, of which almost 233 Billion of that trade hitting U.S. Shore's the economic impact of an embargo today would be near catastrophic. Since Europe's Bi-Lateral trade with China exceeds 300 Billion, they're even more defendant on the cheap goods they provide, so of course, they won't do anything about it either. Unfortunately, this is one of those situations where only time will tell what the impact of our inaction becomes. Given China's 5000 year history of subduing their enemies, I don't think the outcome will be a good one.

Our Sponsors