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http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2009/9/28/209170.html
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Act of Defiance

Act of Defiance

In her new book, Denise Chong profiles one of the men who, 20 years ago, dared to lob eggs at a portrait of Mao. As Western businesses vie for access to Chinese markets, do such political gestures still matter?


Denise Chong has written what she calls “the biography of a gesture” to explore just what drove Lu Decheng to jeopardize his life for a cause he believes in.

Denise Chong has written what she calls “the biography of a gesture” to explore just what drove Lu Decheng to jeopardize his life for a cause he believes in.

 

It’s easy to miss the Tiananmen Memorial on Hart House Circle.

As a historical comment, this is all too appropriate. Twenty years after the crackdown on activists who gathered in Beijing’s vast open square, China has done its best to make us forget that brutal act – at least if the 2008 Summer Olympics is a dependable guide to the world’s snap judgments. Time may not heal all wounds, but a good spectacle can help you look the other way.

The Tiananmen Memorial tucked round the back of the Students’ Union building makes it just a little harder to evade the painful past and the responsibilities that come with remembering. This is not the place to relive the memories of Michael Phelps’ eight gold medals or the stunning opening ceremonies at the Bird’s Nest. Instead, you contemplate the bronzed image of a crushed bicycle, much like those ridden by the young democracy supporters in Tiananmen Square, and the overpowering imprint of the tank treads favoured by those determined to remain in power.

And it was at this memorial on June 4, 2006, during a vigil to mark the anniversary of the 1989 massacre, that a former Chinese prisoner of conscience and recently arrived refugee named Lu Decheng stood on the grassy mound and begged us all to stop appeasing the Chinese government.

“It is like drinking poisonous water to quench one’s thirst,” said the man who spent nine years in a Chinese prison for engaging in his homeland’s supreme act of vandalism – tossing paint-filled eggs at Tiananmen’s giant portrait of Mao Zedong, just days before the tanks rolled in.

“The normal way for people to argue human rights,” says Denise Chong, sipping tea in her Ottawa kitchen, “is through the voluminous treatment of cases. You catalogue the abuses, you list the interventions, you stack up all the documents until the table starts to wobble and overflow. And then, on the other half of the table, we’ve got economic progress, the boom, and we treat these as trade-offs. But I didn’t want to do that – I wanted to see if I could write a book on human rights without actually using the phrase until my story was well down the road. I wanted to go back and examine the small, accumulating indignities that lead a society to abuse human rights.”

The man who defaced the portrait in Tiananmen Square has now become the subject of that book, and the embodiment of Chong’s view that a human-rights story can resonate strongly through the history of an ordinary person – one who could never forget seeing his patriotic grandmother being bullied by Red Army members, who resisted the order to cry when Mao Zedong died, who wouldn’t let the population-control busybodies prevent him from pursuing love and family on his own terms, who saw his father pressured to turn on him while he was trapped in China’s Kafkaesque prison system. In the strikingly evocative Egg on Mao, Chong (who graduated from U of T in 1978 with a master’s in economics and public policy) has written what she calls “the biography of a gesture” to explore just what drives a 25-year-old mechanic from the Hunan hinterlands to jeopardize his life for a cause he believes in.

Lu Decheng rose to fame the moment he, accompanied by two hometown friends, lobbed the eggs that spattered the Great Helmsman’s likeness. The boldness of this defiance – and the worldwide publicity it generated – made it more difficult for his Chinese captors to dispose of him quietly.

By the time he found his way to Canada in 2006 – after a roundabout escape route on foot through the jungles of Burma and Thailand, ending in an 18-month stay in a Thai jail at the behest of the influential Chinese authorities – Lu was a legend in activist circles. His very arrival in Canada made the news, and within days Chong received a request from Craig Pyette, an editor at Random House Canada: would she consider writing about Lu Decheng?

There has been no shortage of books about China during its rapid modernization over the last three decades, but few would be shelved in the human-rights section. The protests in Tiananmen Square seem the relic of a different era when set beside the country’s economic miracle: China is open for business, and Western politicians look like Cirque du Soleil contortionists as they try to balance their support for human rights with their zeal to penetrate the Chinese market.

“The Chinese government has proved,” says Diana Lary, author of China’s Republic (Cambridge 2007) “that if China seems to be important enough in terms of trade, China can trump concerns for human rights. Canadians have had this idea of engagement with China as a way of raising our concerns about human rights, but the Chinese government will not tolerate dissidence or disobedience.”

Reading about Lu Decheng, Pyette recognized a different approach to modern China – hard-headed, uncompromising and fully Chinese. “I didn’t want to do another book that projected our judgments and was firmly ensconced in the Western point of view,” he says. “And with Mr. Lu, I felt Denise could capture the right perspective and tell his life story in a way that caught the human-rights aspect without being a political treatise.”

Chong’s own history must have made her seem like the perfect match for Lu Decheng. As the bestselling author of The Concubine’s Children (about the fractured family life of her grandmother and mother in British Columbia’s Chinatowns) and The Girl in the Picture (the story of the iconic Vietnamese napalm victim, Kim Phuc), she had proven herself skilled at placing a deeply personal story in its complex social context.

Trained as an economist (she continues to live a separate mandarin-level existence as a public policy specialist), Chong was recruited to the federal finance department in the 1970s, and caught the attention of Pierre Trudeau when she joined the Prime Minister’s Office in 1980.

“Trudeau believed in hiring women,” she says, “and though it wasn’t the word that was used then, he also believed in diversity. With him, it was your ideas that counted, regardless of your age or background. If you could give him as good as he gave, his respect only went up.”

At 56, Chong has the determined, persistent, fearless style of argument that delighted the hyperanalytical Trudeau, who got so involved in her life that he began critiquing her novice swimming technique with the same professorial rigour he brought to her briefing notes on economic issues. “Almost everything for him could be broken down, taught and learned,” she says. “He believed in that absolutely, and it was probably his rigour that shaped me more than anything else.”

Trudeau had first visited China in 1949 and had co-written a playful travel book titled Two Innocents in Red China years before he pushed for recognition of the then-ostracized People’s Republic. It was at Trudeau’s urging that Chong first went to China to join her boyfriend (and now husband), CTV correspondent Roger Smith, in 1985. Innocence was no longer an option for an expatriate Canadian: the democracy movement was stirring, and she took advantage of her Chinese features to help Smith smuggle tapes off the campus of Beijing University where the activist intellectuals congregated.

In a suspicious society, Chong passed for a local, which came as something of a shock to this second-generation Canadian who couldn’t speak more than a few words of the ancestral language and who recoiled when the Chinese ambassador in Ottawa greeted her with words she found chilling: “You are a lost daughter of the motherland.”

She wanted none of it: “God, I’m so through and through a defender of myself as Canadian, I’ve never been hyphenated.” Yet the two years she spent in Beijing undeniably forged a connection to the world her maternal grandmother left to start a new life as a teenage concubine in Canada. So when Chong tells Lu’s story, it’s with a sense of place and an understanding of the past that you don’t get in the urgent appeals put out by international human-rights groups.

Their cause is one she proudly believes in – she plans to advocate for human rights in China as a representative of PEN, the authors’ organization. “It’s quite clearcut, there are no grey areas here,” she says firmly. But as a writer transfixed by the richness and the power of ordinary life, she doesn’t find the standard human-rights narrative persuasive or complicated enough. “The victims start to blur into one, the senses get dulled when you read the reports because it seems like you’ve heard it all before. My idea was to push all that away and get back to the human in human rights.”

When Lu came to Toronto to make his plea behind the graceful old Students’ Union building on Hart House Circle, he also bonded with Chong in the backyard of democracy activist and filmmaker Cheuk Kwan. That began a series of marathon conversations, sometimes conducted through translators, in which Chong searched for the telling details in Lu’s past that could explain and justify his defiant act of affirmation in Tiananmen Square.

“It was a very Chinese act,” says Chong. “In the West, we would view something like this as quixotic and think how naive these men were. But in China, it’s your only gesture. Of course they were naive. But you have to balance the futility of the gesture against the weight of repression. And this shows you what a society like China’s has produced – that people are willing to make a futile gesture for the nobility of having acted.”

Lu wasn’t a university intellectual like many of the protesters in Tiananmen, and his willingness to bypass political negotiation and move straight to direct action (however harmless), frightened the student leadership: they compliantly turned him and his friends over to the authorities.

“The students were trying to show that they were law-abiding and peaceful, that they were willing to work within limits,” says Kwan, who has interviewed many Tiananmen veterans around the world. “They didn’t want the protest to degenerate into riots. They’re regretful now about turning Lu in, but at the time they felt they were doing the right thing.”

The students’ respect for authority is critical to understanding why a deprived and poorly educated provincial such as Lu came to represent the indomitability of the human spirit. His political coming-of-age was much more basic and visceral. In her heartbreakingly humane portrait, Chong focuses in particular on the way Lu and his young wife were hounded by the authorities for conceiving a child against the law and refusing to go through with the obligatory abortion. And even after the child died in infancy (the victim of a compromised health-care system, Lu believes), the vindictive family-planning police docked Lu’s monthly salary to make him pay “a social child-raising fee” as compensation for burdening China with an unauthorized child. That very year, such is the world’s peculiar understanding of human rights, the UN honoured China with its inaugural Population Award.

These haunting bureaucratic details are crucial for Chong’s almost novelistic storytelling, because Lu’s accumulated indignities come to explain Chinese dissent much more fully than what happened over a few weeks in Tiananmen Square 20 years ago.

“In the West, we felt all this enthusiasm for the student protest in Tiananmen Square, but there was so much of China we didn’t see,” says Chong. “The West was not able to perceive that democracy in China isn’t about the ballot box but about much more basic human rights, the freedom to choose all kinds of things that we take for granted.”

The human-rights protests that have erupted in China over the last few years, enabled by new technologies that undermine the state’s ability to control and repress, have come much more from ordinary citizens such as Lu than from the privileged university elites or the pampered middle class. Think of the parents who lost their children in the Olympic-year earthquake and drew on the power of their grief to defy the overbearing authorities.

They are the descendants of Lu’s act, Chong believes, and this is why his story still resonates at a time when the businesslike Chinese authorities seem to have the upper hand. “China is a state that makes absolutely sure of things – the Olympics were beautiful, a spectacle to behold, and is it any surprise?” she says. “We’ve bought into this at the economic level as well, to the extent that business with China will work the way we want it to work, that contracts will go as written and deliveries will be predictable. To express it in tough terms, we’re willing to be complicit in the indignities of society that represses human rights because we want cheap dishes in our cupboard.”

Chong pauses to let her dog out into the Ottawa sunshine. For a moment, a precious moment at that, the casual cruelties of Lu’s China seem a long way away. “We have to make a decision,” she says, returning to the table, as the dog barks merrily at his canine neighbour. “We have to recognize that economic well-being isn’t always first in line, that there are some things we should value even more fundamentally. If you’re going to give any meaning to human rights, then there has to be an understanding: The denial of rights in China diminishes us here.”

John Allemang (BA 1974 Trinity) is a feature writer for The Globe and Mail. He also writes the paper’s weekly “Poetic Justice” poem.

http://www.magazine.utoronto.ca/feature/denise-chong-book-chinese-political-prisoner-lu-decheng/

 

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Aprendiendo chino - Lección 39 · Cielo

Aprendiendo chino - Lección 39 · Cielo


Blog
    September 30

    Falun Gong Practitioner Dies from Psychiatric Torture in Southeast China

    Falun Gong Practitioner Dies from Psychiatric Torture in Southeast China

    30 Sep 2009

    New York—A 40-year-old female Falun Gong practitioner in Hunan province has died in custody, apparently due to psychiatric torture, the Falun Dafa Information Center recently learned. The woman had been detained in May 2008 in a local crackdown before the Olympic Torch passed through the province.

    Ms. Chen Chunjun (陈楚君), a former accountant at the local railroad company, was arrested on May 10, 2008 in Huaihua city by agents of the 610 Office, an extra-legal task force created in 1999 and charged with wiping out Falun Gong. (6-10 Office) She was walking to a bus stop on her way home when she was detained. Chen was one of dozens of Falun Gong practitioners arbitrarily detained that month in Hunan, as part of a crackdown by local officials ahead of the passage of the Olympic Torch relay through the province from June 1-3, 2008.

    Sources inside China recently discovered that Chen died in March 2009 at Huaihua Psychiatric Hospital (a.k.a. Huaihua No. 4 People’s Hospital).

    Since 1999, torture at psychiatric hospitals has been a well-documented feature of the Chinese Communist Party’s campaign to force Falun Gong practitioners to renounce their belief. It is an extension of a practice that has been used for decades against those who hold views that do not accord with those of the Party.

    In recent years, numerous reports have emerged of staff at Huaihua’s psychiatric hospital, under pressure from the local 610 Office, participating in persecuting Falun Gong practitioners, including injecting them with nerve-damaging drugs. Chen herself had been wrongfully injected with a psychotropic drug during a previous detention in the city. 

    “This innocent woman’s death is an abrupt reminder of the terrible toll that last year’s Olympics continue to take on ordinary Chinese, months after the games’ closing ceremonies,” said Falun Dafa Information Center spokesperson Gail Rachlin. “But perhaps the most tragic aspect of Ms. Chen’s death is that it could have been avoided given all of the warning signs that such practices occur at this hospital. For every day that passes without practical measures to stop this, more Falun Gong practitioners in Huaihua are at risk of the same fate.”

    “We therefore urge the international community to immediately investigate the circumstances surrounding Ms. Chen’s death and the broader history of abuse at this particular institution.”

    In May 2008, Chen was initially detained at Zhijiang County Detention Center, where other inmates—primarily drug offenders—beat her at the instigation of the guards, causing injuries to her head. She was subsequently transferred to Baimalong Women’s Forced Labor camp and then Huaihua City Brainwashing Center, where she was forced to undergo sessions at which authorities sought to force her to renounce her beliefs. She was then transferred to Huaihua Psychiatric hospital. It is a widely used practice for Chinese security forces to use psychiatric torture on practitioners who resist “transformation,” the psychological “reprogramming” aimed at forcing them to denounce Falun Gong.

    History of Psychiatric Torture

    Prior to her death, Chen had been imprisoned on multiple occasions over the past decade because of her faith – including being sent to Baimalong “re-education through labor” camp in 2001 and sentenced in an unfair trial to three years in Hunan Province Women’s Prison in 2002. According to sources familiar with her case, during those periods of detention, as Ms. Chen persisted in her faith, she was repeatedly subjected to torture including being shocked with electric batons, hung for long periods of time by her handcuffs, and force-fed. At certain points during these periods in custody, she was tortured to the point of being unable to see or walk.

    During her previous detention at Baimalong camp, Ms. Chen was injected with the psychotropic drug Thorazine, causing her to suffer severe cognitive dysfunction, a known effect of the drug, particularly when administered to those not suffering from psychological disorders.

    Psychotropic drugs are often administered to Falun Gong practitioners in labor camps as a form of torture. Such treatments have been known to cause traumatic hallucinations [See case of Li Heping, cited here: http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-faith-column/2008/08/falun-gong-practitioners-china], permanent damage to the nervous system, or death. Of the 103 individuals the Information Center documented to have died in 2007, 11 people—over 10 percent—had passed away after being injected with unidentified drugs during their detention in a hospital, labor camp, or prison.

    Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the World Psychiatric Association have documented the psychiatric abuse of Falun Gong practitioners, political dissidents, and local whistleblowers in recent years. Much groundbreaking work in exposing such abuses has been carried out by Robin Munro drawing on hospitals' own documentation of cases. In his 2006 book, China’s Psychiatric Inquisition: Dissent, Psychiatry and the Law in Post-1949 China, Munro dedicates a chapter to the issue of psychiatric persecution of the Falun Gong in China. [For more info see: http://www.faluninfo.net/topic/148/ ]

    Additional information:
    Huaihua Psychiatric Hospital
    Address: 65 South Hutian Road
    Phone: +86-745-2350362

    http://faluninfo.net/article/914/

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    Li Hongzhi vinner priset "Enastående andlige ledare"

    Li Hongzhi vinner priset "Enastående andlige ledare"

    Albert Roman, Epoch Times
    		30.09.2009 22:47

    Li Hongzhi är känd för sitt enastående andliga ledarskap och sitt fredliga bidrag att förbättra moralen och främja traditionell kinesisk kultur. (Foto: The Epoch Times)

    En uppmärksam publik på 2009-års Asia-Pacific Human Rights Foundations prisutdelningen i Baldwin Park, CA. (Foto: The Epoch Times)

    Till en fullsatt balsal kom över 200 försvarare och supportrar av mänskliga rättigheter för att delta i Asia-Pacific Human Rights Foundations prisutdelningsceremoni den 26 september för att erkänna nio personers insatser. Ceremonin hölls i Baldwin Park, i Los Angeles. Prismottagare kom ända från Kina för att hämta sina pris.


    Asia-Pacific Human Rights Foundation grundades i Nya Zeeland och flyttade till Los Angeles i juni 2008. Den har avdelningar i Hong Kong, Nya Zeeland, Australien, Japan och i flera europeiska länder.

    Åtta av priserna delades ut till enskilda personer för enastående arbete inom området mänskliga rättigheter. Bland mottagarna fanns prästen Eddie Romero, som greps i Kina 2008 under OS för att han protesterade mot den kinesiska regeringens brott mot mänskliga rättigheter, Chris Wu, president i Kinas övergångsregering, Wu Gan, en numera välkänd internetanvändare som hjälpt exponera kinesiska statstjänstemäns försök till våldtäkt av Deng Yujiao, och doktor Yang Jianli, 2005-års prismottagare som fortfarande befann sig i fängelse i Kina vid tiden för sitt pris. Yang Jianli är en medlem på universitetet i Harvard och han greps i Kina under 2002 för att han hjälpte fackföreningar att använda icke-våldsstrategier.

    Bland de nio utmärkelser gavs en särskild utmärkelse till Li Hongzhi, grundaren av Falun Dafa, för enastående andligt ledarskap och hans bidrag till att förbättra moral och främja traditionell kinesisk kultur.

    Falun Dafa, också kallad Falun Gong, är en typ av qigong som omfattar en serie av fyra övningar, meditation och en moralisk lära som bygger på principerna sanningsenlighet, medkänsla, tålamod. År 1999 uppskattade den kinesiska regeringen att 70 till 100 miljoner människor övade Falun Dafa vilket inte sågs med blida ögon av Jiang Zemin, Kinas före detta kommunistledare.

    I juli 1999 förbjöd den kinesiska regeringen Falun Dafa och Kinas statskontrollerade medier började en kampanj för att förtala metoden. Under de senaste 10 åren har organisationer för mänskliga rättigheter och experter konstaterat att Falun Dafa har varit den mest förföljda gruppen i Kina.

    Youfu Li, ordförande i den amerikanska västra Falun Dafa-föreningen, tog emot priset. 

    - Li Hongzhi undervisade om principerna ärlighet, medkänsla och tålamod runt om i världen. Han hjälpte förbättra människors moral. Under de senaste 10 åren har kommunistpartiet förföljt många människor. Under åren har Falun Gong-utövare med medkänsla avslöjat det kinesiska kommunistpartiet och räddat människors samveten, sade han. 

    Den kristna pastorn Eddie Romero hade följande att säga om Li Hongzhis pris: 
    - Ja, jag tycker det är underbart att vi är tillsammans på samma sida om samma fråga. Att kunna stå enad mot Folkrepubliken Kina för deras tyranniska sätt är enligt mitt tycke en stark sak. Jag är glad över att kunna stå här och även ta emot priset tillsammans med Falun Gong-ledaren eftersom vi står på samma sida i denna fråga. För mig är det viktigt att vi står skuldra vid skuldra i denna fråga och inte blir splittrade över det att jag inte är en Falun Gong-medlem och jag vet att han inte är kristen, men vi delar detta tillsammans eftersom vi är systrar och bröder oavsett om det gäller Falun Gong eller Huskristna.

    - Våra bröder och systrar lider på grund av Folkrepubliken Kina. Så jag är glad och stolt över att stå sida vid sida även om vi inte delar samma tro, men ändå har vi samma uppfattning om Folkrepubliken Kina och jag tror att vi båda vill se ett fritt Kina. 

    Yang Jianli, medlem vid universitetet i Harvard och VD för Initiativ för Kina, sade:
    - Jag är glad att Li Hongzhi har vunnit denna utmärkelse och jag tycker att han förtjänar denna utmärkelse. Under de senaste 10 åren har Falun Gong varit den mest förföljda gruppen i Kina. Allt sedan den kinesiska regeringen började förföljelsen mot Falun Gong-utövare, har utövare bl.a. arbetat så hårt för att bryta ner brandväggen som den kinesiska regeringen rest upp. De arbetar i nära samarbete med andra människorättsaktivister för att försöka föra vidare idéerna om mänskliga rättigheter och arbetar även med konkreta planer på hur man ändrar Kina tillbaka till Kina, vilket har spelat en mycket viktig roll under de senaste 10 åren i denna rörelse. I den meningen tycker jag att Li Hongzhi förtjänar denna utmärkelse.

    - Vi som ett folk i den fria världen bör också vara medvetna om det inflytande som den kinesiska regeringen har på andra länder. Den kinesiska regeringen står till exempel bakom Burma. Välj vilken som helst diktatur i världen och den kinesiska regeringen står bakom den. Därför är kinesiska problem inte bara det kinesiska folkets problem, de är ett problem för hela världen. Vi behöver därför alla engagera oss för att förändra situationen i Kina och göra Kina till en bättre plats och att göra hela världen till en bättre plats, sade Yang.

    - De senaste åren har Asia-Pacific Human Rights Foundation tilldelat priser till över 20 personer i Asien-Stillahavsområdet. Bland dessa människor finns Wei Jingsheng, som fick nominering till Nobels fredspris, Wang Bing Zhang och Hu Jia, som för närvarande är fängslade i Kina, sade William Mei, verkställande direktör för Asia-Pacific Human Rights Foundation.

    Förra året gav stiftelsen en utmärkelse till Dalai Lama liksom till den amerikanska kongressledamoten Dana Rohrabacher för hans engagemang för de mänskliga rättigheterna i Asien.

    - Under det senaste året har Asia-Pacific Human Rights Foundation deltagit i minst 31 evenemang där man stöttat mänskliga rättigheter i Asien-Stillahavsområdet. Dessa händelser har förbättrat situationen för mänskliga rättigheter i dessa länder. Särskilt efter mars, då vi etablerade relationer med olika amerikanska föreningar och fackförbund, sade Mei. 

    Enligt Mei deltog stiftelsen i sju evenemang som anordnats av den amerikanska kongressen och framgångsrikt motiverade den amerikanska regeringen att ta upp frågor om mänskliga rättigheter i samband med arbetet i asiatiska länder. Han hoppas att USA i framtiden kommer att knyta mänskliga rättigheter till handeln.

    Översatt från: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/23092/

     
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    Xu Xun, Hakim Teladan

    Xu Xun, Hakim Teladan
    Zhizhen, Pureinsight Kamis, 01 Oktober 2009

    Xu Xun

    Xu Xun

    Xu Xun adalah pengikut Tao yang terkenal selama Dinasti Jin (AD 265-420). Ia tinggal di kota Xu Chang di Propinsi Hunan. Kemudian, ia pindah ke kota Nanchang di propinsi Jiangxi. Ia adalah hakim daerah Jingyang. Ia seorang yang bijaksana, berkeinginan belajar, bersifat jujur, tidak mengejar ketenaran atau kekayaan. Ia adalah seorang sarjana sastra, astronomi, kedokteran, geografi, dan bahasa. Aktivitas sehari-harinya membantu mereka yang memerlukan dan memperkenalkan konsep-konsep moral kepada orang-orang. Karena reputasi baiknya, ia sungguh dihormati.

    Suatu hari Xu Xun membeli tatakan lampu besi dari seorang yang menjual barang-barangnya di sebuah pasar. Saat ia memoles tatakan lampu tersebut di rumah, ia menemukan bahwa di bawah cat itu adalah emas, bukan besi. Maka, ia kembali ke pasar, menemui si pemilik dan mengatakan kepada dia bahwa ia mau mengembalikannya, karena itu adalah barang seni yang sangat mahal. Penjual sangat berterima kasih kepadanya dan mengatakan kepadanya bahwa karena peperangan yang bertahun-tahun ia tidak bisa mencari uang dan harus menjual barang milik keluarga yang diwariskan turun temurun padanya oleh nenek moyangnya. Dasar Moral yang tinggi dipertahankan oleh Xu Xun yang sungguh terkenal di kota tersebut.

    Ketika Xu Xun menjadi hakim di daerah Jingyang, ia membuat daerah disana bersih dari korupsi. Ia juga memberikan remisi bagi orang yang mau bertobat, mengembangkan kebaikan, dan menggunakan orang-orang lurus sebagai teladan. Ketika ia memulai pekerjaannya sebagai hakim, kebun-kebun milik sebagian orang terkena banjir. Ia membiarkan orang-orang mengunakan lahan pemerintah untuk bertani agar mereka tetap produktif. Banjir tersebut juga menyebabkan wabah. Ia mampu menerapkan pengetahuannya sendiri tentang kedokteran untuk menyembuhkan penyakit. Orang-orang yang tinggal di daerah-daerah yang berdekatan mendengar tentang bagaimana kepeduliannya pada orang-orang di daerah Jingyang dan banyak yang pindah ke daerahnya.

    Xu Xun adalah penegak kebenaran dan ia mengajarkan kepada orang-orang untuk melakukan hal yang sama kapan pun ia mendapatkan kesempatan. Ia menulis sebuah buku, “Pemaparan 8 Prinsip” untuk mulai membantu masyarakat. Buku ini mengacu tentang perbaikan-perbaikan karakter di dalam delapan bidang: 1) jadilah orang yang jujur dalam berhubungan dengan masyarakat; 2) hindari tendensi pemberontakan; 3) melenyapkan ketamakan; 4) melakukan hal sehari-hari dengan penuh perhatian; 5) memelihara sebuah pikiran yang terbuka; 6) berbelas kasih; 7) menerima orang-orang apa adanya; dan, 8) bersikap toleran. Ia percaya dengan meningkatkan moralitas, orang akan menuju pada jati dirinya yang lurus. Karena perilaku-perilakunya yang positif, para penduduk di daerahnya tertarik menjadi warganegara yang baik. waktu itu, di bagian Timur dari Dinasti Jin terjadi peperangan. Kondisi kehidupan tidak baik di sana kecuali beberapa ratus mil disekitar Xu Xun tinggal. Dalam kenyataannya, ada kedamaian dan kemakmuran di daerahnya.

    Xu Xun mengembangkan belas kasih dan kebaikan. Dalam buku mengenai keabadian, ditulis ketika Xu Xun berusia tiga puluh enam tahun, dia dan seluruh keluarganya naik ke surga. Ia dan sebelas muridnya dikenal sebagai “Dua Belas Raja”. Nama daerahnya dirubah menjadi “Daerah Deyang” untuk mengenang Xu Xun yang menekankan berperilaku berbudi luhur, yang memimpin menuju kemakmuran semua warganegaranya. Sejak dulu, orang-orang dengan standar moral yang tinggi adalah pencari kebenaran dan juga merupakan guru spiritual. Mereka adalah pembela kebenaran dan keadilan. (Erabaru/snd)

    http://erabaru.net/featured-news/48-hot-update/5405-xu-xun-hakim-teladan

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    The story of Shen-nong-jia

    The story of Shen-nong-jia

    17/09/2009 11:24:00 Kanzhongguo
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    image (Web photo )

    Shen-nong-jia is a famous tourist  area ideep in the mountains of Chongqing.

    Shen-nong was a legend who apart from inventing farming technology, also invented the art of healing, developed a calendar, and created nine wells with connecting irrigation technology and many others.

    It was said that Shen-nong was born with a 'Crystal Belly', that was almost transparent, so that his entire organs could be seen, even the food he ate was visible. At tha time people often got sick or even died because they eat things randomly. Shennong decided to taste for all kinds of herbs - he put the right food in his left body bag, and introduced them to people to eat, and the food that could not be eaten to the right body bag to remind people not to eat them.

    5000 years ago, prior to the practice of agriculture, during the "hunter-gatherer era," grains and weeds and herbs grew jumbled together on the same piece of ground; beneficial herbs were mixed in with flowers. People could not distinguish between what is food and herbs. They lived by hunting; and as a result there were insufficient birds and animals. People were starving and suffering from all kinds of diseases, including boils. Unfortunately, they could not find any medicine or drugs to cure their illnesses. Many died; some survived in bad health.

    Shen-nong was pained when he saw how the people suffered. He sat in thought for three days and nights to find a way to ease the people’s pain and finally he came up with a solution.

    On the fourth day, he and a group of his subjects travelled from his hometown Suizhou to the North West Hills. They walked on and on without stopping, even though their legs were swollen. Having walked for forty nine days, they came to a place with mountain ranges and canyons.

    Strange and unusual plants and flowers grew everywhere in the mountains. They could smell the scent of flowers from a distance. As the group travelled on, a pack of wolves, panthers and tigers and reptiles surrounded them.

    Shen-nong immediately ordered his men to fight the beasts with magic whips. After one pack left, another one arrived. They fought for seven days and nights before the animals were beaten. The lashes of the whips left wounds on these animals that later turned their hide into zebra skins.

    His men said it was too dangerous to stay and advised Shen-nong to go back. Shen-nong shook his head and said, "I can’t go back. My people are hungry and sick. They need food and medicine to live; how can we go back without these things?" So he led them into the valley and came to the foot of another vast mountain.

    Clouds obscured half of the mountain and its sides were steep cliffs, hung with waterfalls and covered with moss. It was impossible to climb up "without a ladder leading to heaven."

    Shen-nong’s men once again advised him to forget it and go back as soon as possible. Shen-nong again shook his head.

    He stood in front of a small rocky outcrop. Facing it, he looked up and down, left and right, to find a way to climb up. This mountain was later called "agro-looking booth." Then they spotted some golden monkeys, climbing up old vines and deadwood, crossing the middle part of the cliffs. Inspired by this scene, Shen-nong immediately ordered his men to chop wood and cut vines to build ledges at the side of the cliffs, one row a day. They worked from spring to summer, from autumn to winter; no matter if the weather was good or bad, windy, rainy, snowy or sunny. After working hard for a year, they completed 360 level ledges/scaffolds to reach the mountain peak. Legend has it that people learned the skill of building scaffolding from Shen-nong's ideas.

    Shen-nong and his men climbed the scaffolding to the top. They were amazed to find that the mountain plateau was a wide world of flowers of various colours - red, green, white and yellow. Shennong was very happy. He asked his men to be alert to possible attacks from wild animals and insects. He picked the flowers and plants and tasted them. As he had to taste a hundred herbs to find food and medicine for his people, he ordered his men to plant a row of fir trees as a wall to deter wild beasts. Inside the wall they built him a cottage. The place where he lived was subsequently called the 'Wooden City.'

    During the day he led his men to the mountain to taste the herbs. At night by the light of the fire he recorded the nature of the herbs he had tasted in detail: which one is hard and which is hot, which is cold, which is edible and which is for treatment. The observations were clearly written. On one occasion, while tasting a specific grass he felt dizzy and then fell to the ground.  He was aware that he had been poisoned, but he was unable to speak.

    With effort, he pointed to red, glossy ganoderma lucidum grass and then pointed at his mouth. His men hurriedly fed him the "miracle grass." The grass was the antidote for the poison and neutralized it.

    Since then, people believe that ganoderma lucidum grass can revive people from death. His men were worried that it was dangerous for him to keep on tasting grasses.

    After he had tasted all the plants and flowers of one mountain, he went to another one. He climbed up each of the mountains by means of the wooden ledges his men had built. He tasted the herbs for forty-nine days. When he had visited all the mountains and tasted all the herbs, he figured out that wheat, rice, millet, and sorghum are edible. He told his men to bring the seeds back with them, so that his people could plant these for crops. These are now known as the ‘five grains.’

    He also tried out 365 kinds of herbal medicine. He listed all these in "Shen-nong's Herbal Root Classic" and instructed his men to take them home, in order to treat people’s sicknesses. He and his men were ready to descend the mountain. However, when they looked they could not find the wooden scaffolding. In fact, the wood and vines rooted deeply after all this time and had become a vast forest; Shennong did not know what to do.

    Suddenly he saw a group of cranes in the sky. They carried Shenong and his men to the celestial court. Since then, the mountains where he had been were filled with fragrance all year round. To commemorate Shen-nong "tasting a hundred herbs" and the benefits he brought to human beings, people named this piece of vast woodland "Shen-nong-jia." And the place where he and his men were carried to heaven is forever known as "Fragrant Remaining Wall."

    http://en.secretchina.com/culture_history/3340.html

     

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    Experts Review 60 Years of Red China [Enampuluh Tahun Kediktatoran Komunis China]

    Experts Review 60 Years of Red China [Enampuluh Tahun Kediktatoran Komunis China] 

    By Helena Zhu
    Epoch Times Staff     Sep 29, 2009

    Sheng Xue, a renowned author, news critic, and investigative journalist, speaks at the forum. (Helena Zhu/The Epoch Times)

    VANCOUVER, Canada—With the approach of the 60th anniversary of the Chinese regime on Oct. 1, China experts gathered on Sunday in a forum in Vancouver, Canada to dissect and review the reign of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its effect.

    Chinese Regime Twists Chinese People's Dignity

    “A spectacle is occurring in today’s world,” said Sheng Xue, a renowned Chinese-Canadian author, news critic, and journalist.

    “Chinese people find all kinds of ways—studying abroad, going on business trips, or visiting families and friends—to stay in countries such as United States, Canada, Australia, and Germany. Yet once they are in these countries, they again bolster the despotic Chinese regime.”

    Such an odd, but common phenomenon is a result of a twisted mindset implemented by the regime, said Sheng. After various political persecutions and movements incited by the CCP, a Chinese person has to be a victim, a perpetrator, or a witness.

    “Nobody has been left out in the 60 years of history,” said Sheng, a native of Beijing presently residing in Edmonton, Canada. “So these people today need to ask themselves, ‘After seeing all these persecutions, after witnessing my acquaintances being persecuted and harmed, how can I possibly smile, happily wave the red communist flag, and pay tribute to the regime that has persecuted me or those that I know?’”

    Sheng explained that it is an aftereffect of the CCP’s despotism: Chinese people have lost their ability to judge.

    Prior to the CCP era, Chinese people had values that shaped their actions and kept society upright, said Sheng, recipient of the Canadian Association of Journalists Award for Investigative Journalism and the National Magazine Award.

    “But after 1949, a fundamental change occurred, namely Chinese people no longer can protect their personal dignity. ... The series of political movements—the ‘Three Antis and Five Antis’ movement, the anti-rightist movement, and the Cultural Revolution—all target Chinese people’s dignity, self-respect, and spirit. After all these that have occurred, Chinese people were forced to give up their dignity in order to live.

    “It blocks every possibility of you becoming a good person. That’s why nowadays, you can just go on any Web sites that are not official to the Chinese regime, and you would see new reports of crimes, abductions, and murders almost every minute.

    “That is why I often say modern China has become the least suitable place for civilized people to live in human history,” said Sheng, who has been chosen as the PEN Canada City of Edmonton Writer in Exile for 2009–10.

    Sheng said that Chinese people also deserve to enjoy the values that everyone else in the world universally agrees upon, such as democracy, freedom, rule of law, and human rights.

    Regime Misleads Western Perception of China

    Attorney Clive Ansley, who has practiced law since 1983, said that Westerners need to recognize the success of the CCP and its “barbarian management” in order to prevent all of us from eventually living under the CCP.

    Clive Ansley, who has studied China-Canada relations for 40 years, speaks at the forum. (Helena Zhu/The Epoch Times)

    “The Chinese Communist Party is extremely skilled in seducing influential Westerners,” said Ansley, who has studied China-Canada relations for 40 years and is fluent in speaking and reading Chinese.

    “Politicians are seduced by the Chinese government, invited on trips and tours, wined, and dined. The last two [Canadian] prime ministers, before this one, as you probably know, were totally owned by China.”

    Ansley, who opened the first foreigner’s law firm in China during his 14-year stay in Shanghai, said that the Chinese regime has established a relationship with the judicial council of Canada, resulting in some “very gullible” Canadian judges going on banquet tours to China.

    “They come home as wildly enthusiastic ambassadors for China, overflowing with misinformation and childish enthusiasm,” said Ansley.

    In one example of Western misconception, Ansley said that in a Trial Lawyers Association of British Columbia seminar that he attended two years ago, Dennis Schmidt, a provincial court judge, showed a slideshow of his two-week banquet tour in China.

    “He showed a beautiful courthouse building all made of white marble, and he said, ‘Just look at this magnificent court building, I never knew that there was that much white marble in the whole world. That shows how committed they are to the rule of law. ... The Chinese are just so far ahead of us that we’ll never catch up,’” said Ansley.

    Having dealt with 300 litigation cases in China, Ansley revealed that despite the beautiful outer appearance, in Chinese courts, judges controlled by secretaries of the CCP make the verdicts behind closed doors.

    “Judge Schmidt ended up by saying, ‘No matter what anybody says, there’s no harm in talking,’” said Ansley. “That seems fair enough, but I think it is harmful when the delegates we send are so gullible, uncritical, lacking in fundamental knowledge, [and bring misinformation to the rest of the world].”

    Particularly at a time when the CCP is “terrorizing, torturing, incarcerating, and jailing” Chinese human rights lawyers, lawyers outside of China should fight for their rights, rather than becoming “craving apologists” for the Chinese regime, said Ansley.

    Abduction of Chinese People

    With reports from the World Health Organization during the Beijing Olympics, people outside of China got a peek of the environmental contamination in modern China.

    Guo Guoting, an exiled human rights lawyer, speaks at the forum. (Helena Zhu/The Epoch Times)
    Renowned exiled human rights attorney Guo Guoting considers the severe water pollution in China as the CCP’s new way of abducting Chinese people, since these external factors have killed many, particularly in rural areas.

    Guo was the only graduate student of international environmental law in China in 1984 before he was refused education because he criticized Mao Zedong’s work. He continued his studies by himself and eventually became one of the 15 defense lawyers who dared to practice human rights law in China.

    According to the latest official figures, more than half of China’s lakes, rivers, and other water bodies have reached level five out of six in contamination.

    “If a water body reaches level five, nobody can use the water, whether farmers or animals,” said Guo.

    Along the Yangtze and Yellow rivers, 21,000 chemical factories have caused contamination severe enough to create about 100 “cancer villages,” said Guo.

    “And now ‘cancer towns’ and ‘cancer counties’ are even forming.”

    Just in 2005 alone, China’s Ministry of Health revealed that 7,500,000 died of cancer in China, among 60 percent of the deaths was due to environmental contamination. Guo suggested that the severe contamination in the past half a century is due to the CCP’s ignorance of the environment.

    Guo said that China has been able to produce cheap products and become the world’s factory because the CCP agrees to build countless factories without caring about the environment and Chinese people’s health.

    According to Trend Magazine in 2004, more than 1.2 million influential CCP officials and their families have settled in countries outside of China with large funds.

    “So why would they escape? Because they know that the CCP, this wrecked ship, is about to collapse. So they are ready to leave China and stay free of consequences,” said Guo.

    In 2005, Guo came to Canada after having his license confiscated for his defense of Falun Gong practitioners in China.
     
    Last Updated
    Sep 30, 2009
     
     
     
    Enampuluh Tahun Kediktatoran Komunis China
    Oleh: Helena Zhu Kamis, 01 Oktober 2009

    Guo Guoting, seorang pengacara HAM di pengasingan, saat berbicara dalam forum. (Helena Zhu/The Epoch Times)

    Vancouver - Menjelang peringatan 60 tahun kekuasaan rezim komunis China 1 Oktober, beberapa pakar China berkumpul, Minggu (27/9), dalam sebuah forum di Vancouver, Canada, untuk membedah dan meninjau ulang pemerintahan Partai Komunis China (PKC) dan pengaruhnya.

    Rezim China Telah Membelenggu Martabat Rakyat China "Kini sedang terjadi pertunjukkan besar di belahan bumi ini," ujar Sheng Xue, penulis, kritikus berita, dan jurnalis ternama China-Canada.

    "Rakyat China menemukan berbagai macam cara---belajar ke luar negeri, melakukan perjalanan bisnis, atau mengunjungi saudara dan sahabat---untuk tinggal di negara-negara seperti Amerika Serikat, Kanada, Australia, dan Jerman. Namun ketika mereka berada di negara-negara ini, mereka kembali mendukung kesewenang-wenangan rezim China."

    Sebuah keganjilan, namun fenomena umum yang terjadi merupakan akibat pola pikir menyimpang dari rezim, ujar Sheng. Setelah berbagai penganiayaan dan pergerakan politik yang dihasut PKC, rakyat China telah menjadi korban, pelaku maupun saksi.

    "Tidak ada yang tertinggal dalam sejarah 60 tahun ini," ujar Sheng, warga Beijing yang sekarang menetap di Edmonton, Kanada. "Kini, orang-orang seharusnya bertanya pada dirinya sendiri, 'Setelah menyaksikan penganiayaan ini, setelah menyaksikan kenalan-kenalan saya dianiaya dan dirugikan, bagaimana saya dapat tersenyum, dengan gembira mengibarkan bendera merah komunis dan memberikan penghargaan kepada rezim yang telah menganiaya saya maupun orang-orang yang saya kenal?'"

    Sheng menjelaskan bahwa itu merupakan akibat dari kesewenang-wenangan PKC: Rakyat China telah kehilangan kemampuan mereka membuat pertimbangan.

    Sebelum era-PKC, rakyat China telah mempertimbangkan segala tindakan mereka dan menjaga kehidupan masyarakat yang harmonis, ujar Sheng, penerima penghargaan Canadian Association of Journalists Award kategori Investigasi Jurnalisme dan National Magazine Award.

    "Namun setelah 1949, terjadi perubahan secara fundamental, rakyat China tidak lagi dapat melindungi martabat pribadi mereka sendiri....Serangkaian gerakan politik--- gerakan 'Tiga dan Lima Anti', gerakan anti kebenaran, dan Revolusi Kebudayaan---seluruhnya mentargetkan martabat, harga diri dan spirit rakyat China. Bagaimanapun juga, semua ini telah terjadi, rakyat China terpaksa menyerahkan martabat mereka demi hidup.

    "Hal itu menghalangi setiap kemungkinan anda menjadi orang baik. Oleh sebab itu, kini anda hanya dapat mengunjungi beberapa situs web yang bukan situs resmi rezim China, untuk menyaksikan beberapa laporan berita tentang kejahatan, penculikan serta pembunuhan yang hampir terjadi setiap menit.

    "Itulah sebabnya mengapa saya seringkali mengatakan China Modern telah menjadi tempat yang paling pantas bagi orang-orang beradab untuk hidup dalam sejarah manusia," ujar Sheng yang telah terpilih sebagai PEN Canada City of Edmonton Writer untuk 2009-2010.

    Sheng mengatakan rakyat China juga layak menikmati nilai-nilai yang semua orang sepakati secara universal, seperti demokrasi, kebebasan, kepastian hukum dan hak azasi manusia.

    Rezim Menyesatkan Barat Tentang Negeri China

    Pengacara Clive Ansley, yang telah praktek sejak 1983, mengatakan, Barat seharusnya mengenali lebih dalam keberhasilan PKC dan "manajemen biadab-nya" yang membawa kami semua hidup dalam cengkramannya.

    "Partai Komunis China sangat lihai dalam menggoda pengaruh Barat," ujar Ansley, yang telah meneliti hubungan China-Kanada selama 40 tahun dan telah fasih berbicara serta membaca Mandarin.

    "Para politisi yang tergoda pemerintah China, diundang jalan-jalan, makan malam dan minum anggur. Yang terakhir, dua perdana menteri [Kanada], sebelum sekarang, sebagaimana telah anda ketahui, secara total telah dikendalikan China.

    Ansley, orang asing pertama yang membuka kantor pengacara di China selama 14 tahun ia tinggal di Shanghai, mengatakan rezim China telah menjalin hubungan dengan dewan yudisial Kanada, sehingga beberapa hakim Kanada "sangat mudah tertipu" mengikuti perjamuan wisata ke China.

    "Mereka kembali sebagai duta semangat untuk China, penuh dengan informasi miring dan semangat kekanak-kanakan," ujar Ansley.

    Sebagai salah satu contoh kesalahpahaman Barat, Ansley mengatakan dalam sebuah seminar Asosiasi Penasehat Hukum Columbia-Inggris yang ia hadiri dua tahun lalu bahwa Dennis Schmidt, seorang hakim pengadilan tinggi, telah memperlihatkan cuplikan pertunjukkan dua minggu perjamuan wisata di China.

    "Ia menunjukkan sebuah gedung pengadilan yang indah terbuat dari pualam putih, dan ia mengatakan, 'Perhatikan saja gedung pengadilan yang sangat bagus ini, saya tidak pernah mengetahui bahwa ada begitu banyak pualam putih di seluruh dunia. Itu menunjukkan betapa mereka tunduk pada kepastian hukum. ...China begitu jauh dari hadapan kita yang tidak pernah kita jangkau lagi,'" ujra Ansley.

    Setelah menangani lebih dari 300 kasus di pengadilan China, Ansley mengungkapkan bahwa meskipun nampak indah dari luar, di dalam pengadilan China, hakim yang dikendalikan sekretaris PKC dapat membuat beberapa keputusan rahasia.

    "Hakim Schmidt akhirnya mengatakan, 'Tak peduli apapun yang orang katakan, tidak ada salahnya orang berbicara,' "ujar Ansley. "Itu cukup adil, namun saya kira ini berbahaya karena delegasi kami terlalu mudah ditipu, tidak kritis, tidak memiliki pengetahuan mendasar, [dan memberikan informasi salah ke seluruh dunia]."

    Terutama sekali pada saat PKC "melakukan teror, penyiksaan, mengisolasi dan memenjarakan" para pengacara hak azasi manusia. Para pengacara di luar China seharusnya memperjuangkan hak-hak mereka, ujar Ansley.

    Penculikan Terhadap Rakyat China

    Sheng Xue, penulis, kritikus berita,dan investigasi jurnalis ternama saat berbicara pada forum. (Helena Zhu/The Epoch Times)

    Lewat beberapa laporan dari Badan Kesehatan Dunia, selama Olimpiade Beijing, orang-orang dari luar China telah menyaksikan pencemaran lingkungan di China.

    Pengacara HAM ternama di pengasingan, Guo Guoting menganggap pencemaran air di China seperti cara baru PKC menculik rakyat China, sejak beberapa faktor luar ini telah banyak membunuh, khususnya di beberapa wilayah pedesaan.

    Guo merupakan satu-satunya mahasiswa pascasarjana hukum lingkungan hidup internasional di China pada 1984, sebelum ia menolak pendidikan karena ia mengkritik Mao Zedong. Ia melanjutkan pendidikannya sendiri dan akhirnya menjadi salah satu dari 15 pengacara yang berani membela hak azasi manusia di China.

    Menurut angka resmi terbaru, lebih dari setengah; danau, sungai dan saluran air besar lainnya telah mencapai tingkat lima dari enam tingkat kontaminasi.

    "Jika pencemaran air mencapai tingkat lima, tidak seorangpun dapat menggunakan air tersebut, baik untuk pertanian maupun hewan ternak," ujar Guo.

    Sepanjang sungai Yangtze dan sungai Kuning, 21.000 pabrik kimia telah menyebabkan pencemaran cukup parah serta mengakibatkan 100 desa terserang kanker," ujar Guo.

    "Dan kini, bahkan terbentuk beberapa 'kota kanker' dan 'wilayah kanker'"

    Pada 2005 sendiri, Kementerian Kesehatan China mengungkapkan bahwa 7.500.000 orang meninggal akibat kanker di China, 60 persen diantara yang meninggal karena pencemaran lingkungan. Guo memberi kesan bahwa pencemaran berat dalam setengah abad ini akibat kedunguan PKC terhadap lingkungan.

    Guo mengatakan China telah mampu menghasilkan produk murah dan menjadi pabrik dunia karena PKC menyetujui banyaknya pembangunan pabrik tanpa memperhatikan lingkungan dan kesehatan rakyat China

    Menurut majalah Trend, pada 2004, lebih dari 1,2 juta pejabat PKC yang berpengaruh serta keluarga mereka telah menetap di luar China dengan dana yang besar.

     "Mengapa mereka melarikan diri? Karena mereka tahu PKC akan hancur, ini kapal yang telah rusak, dan akan tenggelam. Maka mereka bersiap-siap meninggalkan China dan tinggal bebas dari konsekuensi, " ujar Guo.

    Pada tahun 2005, Guo datang ke Kanada setelah ijinnya dicabut karena ia membela para praktisi Falun Gong di China. (EpochTimes/sua)

     
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    An Ancient Cultivation Practice Falun Gong Improves Neutrophil Functions and Causes System-Level Gene Regulation [Falun Gong Xiulian Uygulaması Nötrofil Fonksiyonlarını Geliştirip Sistemin Gen Düzenlenmesine Sebep Olur]

    An Ancient Cultivation Practice Falun Gong Improves Neutrophil Functions and Causes System-Level Gene Regulation [Falun Gong Xiulian Uygulaması Nötrofil Fonksiyonlarını Geliştirip Sistemin Gen Düzenlenmesine Sebep Olur]

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    Author: 
    Quan-Zhen Li, Gabriela E. Garc

    [PureInsight.org]

    Abstract:
    Background: Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, was a very popular Qigong practice in China between 1992-1999 and now is known and practiced by nearly 100 million people throughout the world. Among all of the different Qigong practices that exhibit effects on improving one's health, Falun Gong had the fastest growth rate and the most far-reaching influence among the Chinese people. The effect of Falun Gong on health appears not to be dependent upon age, sex, or cultural background, as indicated by the large-scale health survey carried out in 1998 in China. To better understand the healing effects of Falun Gong, we carried out a series of studies on polymorphonuclear leukocytes (neutrophils; PMNs) of Falun Gong practitioners and compared them with PMNs from randomly chosen non-practitioners.

    Results: We here report the cellular and molecular changes in Falun Gong practitioners' PMNs that may attribute to enhanced immunity, alteration of apoptotic properties in favor of a rapid resolution of inflammation, as well as PMNs longevity based upon a much more economical balance of protein synthesis and degradation.

    Conclusions: Our studies suggest that Falun Gong practice alters immunity, cell death, and protein metabolic rate in a systemic fashion. Our findings further suggest that a new paradigm is urgently needed to understand the holistic link between human mind, body and spirit.

    Background:
    There has been increasing interest in the phenomena of mind-body relationships, a subject that has not been subjected to systematic scientific investigation due to its complex nature. However, there is ample evidence accumulated throughout history to support the powerful physical effects of practices that are directed towards the mind or spirit.

    Such practices include both religious and non-religious cultivation practices. In Western societies, faith-based religious practices are predominant while the Eastern culture emphasizes the practice of physical and mental disciplines, such as yoga, meditation, tai qi (tai ji quan), karate and most recently, an ancient cultivation practice, Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa ( www.falundafa.org). While the health benefits of yoga, meditation and prayer have been documented and partly recognized by the general public, the mechanisms that underlie such apparent effects are not well understood at the physiological level. Very little has been documented and systematically studied at the cellular or molecular level. On the other hand, major technological progress has been made in the area of biological research that now allows rapid and precise monitoring of many of the detailed molecular events inside of a single cell. Many diseases can now be traced to the level of individual molecular defects in cells. Thus, it is now feasible to tackle the phenomena that are consistently associated with spiritual practices by mapping the physical manifestations of the effects of these practices at the cellular and molecular level.

    There are several well-recognized difficulties in conducting research on mind-body subject. First, it is commonly observed that there is a wide range of variability among practitioners of the same practice. Second, there also has been the lack of a large number of practitioners who consistently practicing one type of practice. Because of these factors, the results of such studies are frequently questioned for not being generally representative or applicable. The practice of Falun Gong, however, exhibits unique features that allow more systematic studies of mind-body relationships. These features are:
    1) In comparison to many other practices, Falun Gong exhibits very dramatic and powerful effects on the practitioners. During 1998, five independent health surveys were conducted in Beijing, Wuhan, the region around the city of Dalian , and Guandong Province by local medical institutions. They are the most systematic and comprehensive health surveys done on Falun Dafa practitioners to date. The surveys concluded that Falun Gong had provided significant health and fitness benefits to more than 98% of its practitioners. A report on the survey of Beijing area practitioners is available online (http://www.pureinsight.org/pi/articles/2002/4/11/184.html).
    2) There are a large number of Falun Gong practitioners, currently already exceeding 100 million (www.faluninfo.net). Furthermore, the practice itself emphasizes the principal of "Do Not Follow Two Paths At the Same Time," so the practitioners are consistently only practicing Falun Gong.
    3) There is a wide range of practitioners, differing in gender, age, professions, and cultural or ethnic background. Despite such different backgrounds, the healing effects on different diseases are consistent. Thus the health effects from practicing Falun Gong appear not to be linked to many factors that have been considered to complicate the interpretations of studies of similar nature.

    These features of Falun Gong suggest that modern biological or biophysical technologies can be applied here to reach a deeper level of confirmation or understanding of the molecular manifestation of spiritual practice on our human body. Since the immune system has been previously shown to be highly sensitive to environmental and psychological changes, we carried out studies to examine the effect of Falun Gong practice on the polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMNs), which are relatively short-lived but are produced in large quantity during the immune responses and play critical roles in innate immunity. Studies at the cellular level reveal increased bactericidal activities of PMNs from Falun Gong practitioners. Furthermore, Falun Gong practitioners' PMNs exhibit increased life span in the absence of stimulation from agents such as bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS), but increased apoptosis upon LPS stimulation. Such changes in apoptotic responses of PMNs suggest an alteration of PMN functions in favor of a rapid resolution of inflammation.

    We also applied micro-array technology to examine changes in levels of gene expression in PMNs. Drastic system-level changes in gene expression were detected in PMNs of Falun Gong practitioners, while little changes were detected among non-practitioners, despite the differences in age and gender.

    Most interestingly, the genes that are regulated in a consensus fashion among the practitioners can be grouped into several functional clusters, which are directly linked to PMN functions in anti-viral immunity, apoptotic property and possibly longevity based upon a much more economical balance of protein synthesis and degradation.

    Figures: [Not received]

    Discussion:
    Biology is the study of life phenomena. The biological research in the last century has taken the approach of dissecting systems into parts, studying the parts in a defined setting with controlled parameters, gathering information about the parts in separate settings, identifying the functions of the parts in the defined settings following a defined hypothesis, and then drawing conclusions regarding the function and functional mechanisms of the parts in the defined system. These studies have now brought us face to face with an extremely complex picture of molecular interactions: a dynamic web of communication between different molecules inside of a cell and the extremely complex and dynamic regulation of the communication web by signals from outside the cell. For the human body, the complexity is further escalated to a uniquely new and high level. At the level of a human body, the communication between a human being and the environment takes a different form in our range of perception, which is something that we can no longer easily detect with physical means. The signals from outside are manifested at a finer or subtler manner. There are vehicles that mediate the exchange of these signals between different human beings. Language in different forms is one of the most well recognized vehicles. Many of the forms of artistic expression of the human spirit can be viewed as vehicles of for these signals: music, painting, sculpture. These human communication "signals" generate "readouts" on the physical body with names such as love, hatred, fear, anger, sad, happiness, which currently belong to the social, psychological and spiritual realms of studies. Such abstract signals in fact exert great impact on the biological systems of a human body, but are currently placed outside of the field of biology. This is primarily due to the fact that current biological research is based on in vitro systems or animal models and therefore cannot test these unique "signals" that are sensed only by the human body and mind. It is therefore important to recognize the limitations of our current knowledge in the field of biology, since it is derived from studies on non-human subjects and using artificial man-made systems. This then raises an important question about what approaches we should take to study the subject of human life phenomena, that is human biology, which is directly relevant to human medicine. The intrusive approaches biologists have been taking to study other organisms are not applicable to studying the human body. The unique mind-body characteristics of a human being cannot be mimicked by any animal models. A new paradigm needs to be established to study the biology of the human body in the least intrusive manner.

    Recognizing the unique communication signals that regulate the biology of a human body, we also need to find a way to combine the studies of these human signals, which belong to separate fields of the social sciences, with studies of human biology. In this sense, human biology is at a very unique position to unify many areas of modern sciences, which have been fragmented and considered un-related throughout history. While such studies were not possible due to limited knowledge of the basic components of the human body, we are, however, facing an important revolution in this area, due to the recent development in the areas of genomics, proteomics, nanotechnology and computational biology. These technologies will provide us the ability to make "snap shots" of the molecular communication patterns occurring inside of a cell in a living organism. It is based upon one such technology that we now observe how a spiritual practice can profoundly influence a genome-wide gene expression pattern and shift cell functions to a more economical state.

    A thorough verification and expansion of the studies of the impact of Falun Dafa to population health and to gene expression/cell function of human cells will provide a solid proof of concept in this new area of human biology and lay the foundation for future human system studies of a similar nature.

    From:http://www.thewholeelephant.net/

    Some surveys on health benefits of practicing Falun Gong:
    Beijing: http://www.pureinsight.org/pi/articles/2002/4/11/184.html

    Taiwan: http://www.pureinsight.org/pi/articles/2004/3/15/2099.html

    North America: http://www.pureinsight.org/pi/articles/2003/3/24/1533.html


    http://www.pureinsight.org/node/2573


     

    Yayım tarihi: Pazartesi 16 Şubat 2009      
    Falun Gong Xiulian Uygulaması Nötrofil Fonksiyonlarını Geliştirip Sistemin Gen Düzenlenmesine Sebep Olur
    Falun Dafa Uygulayanların bağışıklık sistemine ait hücrelerin yaşamlarının uzadığına ve güçlendiklerine dair bilimsel araştırma

    Quan-Zhen Li, Gabriela E.Garcia, Ping Li, Richard J. Johnson, Tongwen Wang ve Lili Feng tarafından

    Uygulama:

    Falun Dafa olarak bilnen uygulama, 1992 ile 1999 yılları arasında Çin'de çok popüler olmuş bir Qigong uygulamasıdır ve şimdi dünya üzerinde yaklaşık 100 milyon kişi tarafından uygulanmaktadır. Kişinin sağlığını düzenleyen bütün Qigong uygulamaları arasında Falun Gong çok hızlı bir iyileştirme oranına sahiptir ve bununla Çin'de çok fazla insanı etkilemiştir. 1998 yılında Çin'de yapılan çalışmada Falun Gong'un sağlık üzerindeki etkisinin kişilerin yaş, cinsiyet yada kültürel alt yapısına bağlı olmadığı görülmüştür. Falun Gong'un sağlık üzerindeki etkisini daha iyi anlayabilmek için polymorphonuclear leukocytes'ler üzerinde (neutrophils; PMNs-Bağışıklık Hücreleri-Lökositler yada Beyaz Kan Hücreleri) Falun Gong uygulayıcıları ile rasgele seçilmiş uygulama yapmayan kişiler arasında bir seri çalışma yaptık.

    Biz burada, Falun Gong uygulayıcılarındaki, güçlenen bağışıklık metabolizmasına, iltihabın çok süratli bir şekilde dağılmasını sağlayan apoptopik özelliklerine ve aynı zamanda protein sentezinin azalması ve çok daha ekonomik bir şekilde dengelenmesi sonucunda bağışıklık sistemi hücrelerinin yaşamlarının uzamasına neden olabilen beyaz kan hücrelerinin (PMNs) moleküler ve hücresel değişiklikleri rapor ediyoruz.

    Sonuçlar: Çalışmalarımız Falun Gong uygulamasının, sistemik bir şekilde metabolik protein oranını, hücre ölümünü ve bağışıklığı pozitif yönde değiştirdiğini göstermektedir.

    Bulgularımız insan zihni, vücudu ve ruhu arasındaki bütünsel bağlantıyı anlamak için acilen yeni bir bakış açısına ihtiyaç olduğunu kesinlikle tavsiye etmektedir.

    Altyapı:

    Zihin-vücut fenomenindeki ilişkilere giderek artan bir ilgi olmuştur, bu konu karmaşık yapısından dolayı sistematik bilimsel araştırmaların nesnesi olmamış bir konudur. Bununla beraber, tarih boyunca birikmiş, beyin veya ruhla yönlendirilen uygulamaların güçlü fiziksel etkilerini destekleyen bol miktarda kanıt bulunmaktadır.

    Böyle uygulamalar hem dinsel ve hem de dinsel olmayan pek çok xiulian uygulamalarını içerir. Batı toplumunda inanca bağlı dinlerin uygulamaları baskınken doğu kültüründe ise yoga, meditasyon, tai-qi, karete ve de en güncel olarak eski bir xiulian uygulaması olan Falun Gong gibi uygulamalar baskındır. Bu çalışmanın konusu olan Falun Dafa da fiziksel ve zihinsel disiplinlerin beraber uygulanmasına önem verilmektedir. İbadet etmenin, yoga ve meditasyonun sağlığa olan faydaları belgelenmekte ve bir dereceye kadar halkın geneli tarafından bilinmekteyken, mekanizmaların altında yatan ve açıkca ortada olan etkileri fizyolojik olarak çok iyi anlaşılamamaktadır. Bunların çok azı hücresel yada moleküler düzeyde sistematik olarak çalışılmış ve de belgelenmiştir. Diğer yandan, biyolojik araştırmalar alanında yapılmış önemli teknolojik ilerlemeler bize şimdi tek bir hücrenin içindeki moleküler olayları çok büyük titizlikle ve hızla gözlemleme olanağı vermektedir. Pek çok hastalık bugün hücrelerin içindeki bireysel moleküllerin kusurları düzeyinde izlenerek çözülebilmektedir. Böylece, bugün, sürekli olarak spiritüel uygulamalarla ilişkilendirilen doğa üstü olayları ve bu uygulamaların açıkca gösterilen fiziksel etkilerinin haritalarını hücresel ve moleküler düzeyde çıkartarak göstermek mümkündür.

    Zihin-vücut konusundaki araştırmaları yürütmedeki çeşitli güçlükler iyi anlaşılmaktadır. İlk olarak, çoğunlukla aynı uygulamayı yapan uygulayıcılar arasında genellikle geniş çaplı çeşitlilikler gözlemlenmiştir. İkinci olarak bir tek uygulamayı devamlı olarak sürdüren büyük miktarda uygulayıcı eksikliği vardır. Bu faktörler nedeniyle, çalışmaların sonuçları genellikle uygulanabilirliği yada temsil edilebilirliği bulunmadığı için sıklıkla sorgulanır. Bunun yanında Falun Gong uygulayıcıları vücutla beyin arasındaki ilişkilerin üzerinde sistematik olarak çalışma yapılmasına izin veren eşsiz bir birlik sergilerler. Yani Falun Dafa uygulayıcıları kesinlikle başka herhangi bir meditasyon - yoga uygulaması yapmamaktadır.

    Bu Özellikleri ile:

    1) Diğer uygulamalarla kıyaslandığında, Falun Gong, uygulayıcıları üzerindeki güçlü ve çarpıcı etkiler sergiler. Pekin, Whuan, Dalian ve Guandong şehirlerinde 1998 yılında bölgesel sağlık kuruluşları tarafından beş bağımsız sağlık araştırması yapılmıştır. Bu Falun Dafa uygulayıcıları arasında bugüne kadar yapılan en kapsamlı ve sistematik araştırma olma özelliği taşımaktadır. Falun Dafa, uygulayıcılarının sağlıklarına ve formlarına(fitness) %98'den daha fazla fayda sağladığı bilimsel olarak saptanmışdır. Pekin bölgesindeki uygulayıcılara dair yapılan araştırmanın raporunu http://www.pureinsight.org/adresinde bulabilirsiniz.

    2) Bugün sayıları yüzmilyonu aşan Falun Gong uygulayıcısı vardır (www.faluninfo.net). Ayrıca, Falun Gong uygulayıcıları "aynı zamanda iki uygulama yapılmaması" prensibi ile uygulama yapmaktadırlar.

    3) Falun Dafa uygulayıcıları cinsiyet, yaş, meslek, kültürel ve etnik kökenler açısından farklılıklar gösterir. Böylesine farklı altyapılarına rağmen farklı hastalıklar üzerindeki iyileşme etkileri tutarlıdır.

    Bu yüzden, Falun Gong uygulamasından ortaya çıkan sağlık etkileri, benzer yapıdaki çalışmaların yorumlarını karıştırdığı düşünülen birçok faktörlerle bağlantılı gözükmemektedir.

    Falun Gong'un bu özellikleri, burada ruhsal uygulamanın insan vücudu üzerindeki moleküler görünüşlerinin doğrulamasına veya anlayışına daha derin bir seviyede ulaşabilmek için modern biyolojik ve biyofiziksel teknolojilerin uygulanabilmesine olanak tanır. Ümmin sistemin daha önceden psikolojik ve çevresel değişikliklere aşırı duyarlı olduğu gösterildiği için, biz Falun Gong uygulamasının, bağışıklık tepkileri (ümmin sistem hastalığı oluştuğunda ortaya çıkan vücut tepkisi) sırasında üretilen ve ani bağışıklık üzerinde kritik bir rol oynayan, göreceli olarak kısa yaşayan ama büyük miktarda üretilen polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMNs)'lerin üzerindeki etkisini araştırmak için çalışmalar yürüttük. Hücresel düzeydeki çalışmalar Falun Gong uygulayıcılarında PMNs'nin bakteri aktivitesindeki artışı ortaya koymaktadır. Dahası, Falun Gong uygulayıcılarının PMNs hücrelerinin yaşam sürelerinin bakteriel lipopolisakkaritler(LPS) gibi ajanlarla uyarılmadıklarında arttığı sergilenirken, LPS'lerin uyarısı ile istenmeyen - yaşlı hücrelerin ölümlerinin (apoptosis) arttığı gözlemlenmiştir. PMNs'nin apoptotik yanıtlarındaki böylesi değişiklikler iltihapların çabuk çözülmesindeki PMNs'nin etkilerini akla getirmektedir.

    PMNs'deki gen ifadeleri düzeylerindeki değişiklikleri microarray cihazı ile ölçtük. Gen ifadesinde şiddetli sistem düzey değişikliklerini Falun Gong uygulayıcılarındaki PMNs'de saptarken, farklı yaş gurubu ve cinsiyete sahip olmalarına rağmen uygulama yapmayanlar arasında çok küçük değişiklikler saptandı.

    En ilginci, uygulayıcılar arasında, birarada düzenlenmiş olan genler, çok daha ekonomik bir protein sentezi dengesi ve düşüşü üzerine kurulu, anti-viral bağışıklık, apoptotik özellik ve olası-uzun ömürlülük PMNs fonksiyonları ile direk bağlantılı olarak, bir çok fonksiyonel kümelere gruplandırılabilir.

    Çevirmenin notu :

    Yani kısaca bu uygulamanın vücudun savunma mekanizmasını oluşturan hücrelerin ömrünü uzattığı, hastalıklara (iltihaba) olan cevabını hızlandırdığı ve gen yapısını olumlu yönde değiştirdiği bilimsel olarak ispatlanmıştır. Bu da bu internet sitesindeki öğrenci yazıları içerisinde yazılan hastalıkları iyileşen insanların, hastalıklarının nasıl iyileştiğinin bir anlamda bilimsel olarak ispatıdır. Falun Dafa ile iyileşen insanların sayılarının çokluğu böyle geniş çaplı bir bilimsel araştırmaya zorlamıştır. Hatta bu araştırmayı yapan gruptaki doktorlardan Gabriela E.Garcia'nın annesi Falun Dafa uygulaması yaparak modern tıbbın şu anda yapamadığı şeyi yapmış Şeker Hastalığından tamamen kurtulmuşdur. Modern tıp kendi gerçekliklerini ve tedavi yöntemlerini tekrar gözden geçirmeli ve kendisine yepyeni bir bakış açısı geliştirmek zorundadır.

    Hastalıkları iyileşen insanların hikayelerinin çok küçük bir kısmı Life and Hope Rewieved adlı kitapta derlenmiştir. Bu kitabı http://clearwisdom.net/adresinden ücretsiz olarak indirebilirsiniz.

    Bu Falun Dafa'nın hastalıklara nasıl iyi geldiği ile ilgili bilimsel bir çalışmadır. Bunun dışında Mr. Li Hongzhi'nın Zhuan Falun da açıkladığı evrenin gerçeklikleri ile ilgili pek çok çalışma yapılmıştır ve yapılmaktadır, bunları fırsat buldukça sizlere çevirmeye çalışmaktayız. Bütün bu bilimsel makalelerin orijinallerine bu sitenin ana sayfasındaki linkler kısmında yer alan internet sitelerinden de ulaşabilirsiniz.

    Kaynak: http://www.pureinsight.org/node/2573


    Clearharmony'de yayınlanan tüm makaleleri kopyalayabilir ya da çıktı alabilirsiniz, fakat lütfen kaynak belirtiniz.

    http://tr.clearharmony.net/articles/200902/5269.html

     

    12:01 PM | Add a comment | Permalink | Blog it

    国庆是谁的节日？ （组图）

    国庆是谁的节日？ （组图）
    序、 冰火两重天的和谐世界

    在没有民意的参与和制约、倾举国之力一手遮天的强大专制背景下，一场豪华的饕餮盛宴，正在紧锣密鼓的紧张筹备之中，繁华的北京城被一片花团锦簇欢声笑语的喜庆气氛包围着。

    另一方面，在东方广袤的国土上，在中国民众完全失去对社会监督权力的腐败体制下，关系民生疾苦的国有垄断行业的物价日益飞涨，通往北京求生存要公正的上访之路，在"联防联保"的武装和谐下遭到空前堵塞，虚拟网络这个可以让人们窥探到一丝世界的文明气息，唯一与外界保持联系的信息通道，在这个即将开始的饕餮大餐来临之际，再次遭到空前的封锁打压。

    中国政府试图通过六十年大庆营造和谐气象的这场豪华盛典，在社会麻木与愤怒的目光之下，正在上演着一幕幕令民众不安和惊疑的并不和谐的大戏：封网、堵路、涨价，哭诉无门，警笛声声，灯红酒绿......

    一、封锁

    封网了。

    中国网络开始遭遇有史以来更加严厉的封锁控制。

    9月中旬开始，由上海安达通资讯安全科技公司研发的蓝坝软件，被要求强制安装到网络服务提供商（ISP）及其资料中心的所有服务器上。

    来自2009年7月2日中国商业电讯《"蓝坝"系统拟研制性能将超"绿坝"20倍》一文消息，这个"建立在安达通所倡导的全网行为管理系统基础上，软-硬联动型的性能可能超过"绿坝"系统20倍"，"包括图形过滤系统、网间加速系统、网络过滤系统、主机管理系统、上网行为管理系统、VPN客户端等，以全网行为管理理念为核心"构建的网络防护体系，不但具有强大的过滤和管控功能，更能够"引导、规范用户的上网行为"的管控系统，在吸取了此前强制安装绿坝而遭到国内外舆论强烈谴责的被动教训以后，正以悄无声息却又不容置疑的政策性强制，悄然绕开公众视线，或者更准确地说，是强硬地撇开强大的社会反抗声浪，孤注一掷地对网络信息实行严厉的全面控制。

    9 月20日前后，自由门、无界、花园网等几乎所有破网软件，一一遭到严密封锁，
    "认识"、思想、舆论被高度"统一"而只能蔽塞于国门一隅的中国民众，唯一一点通过信息通道便捷了解世界信息的网络曙光，在挟持了举国资源的强大政权一手遮天的强暴之下，顿时陷入一片与世界信息隔绝的黑暗之中。

    美国之音、德国之声、BBC、观察、独立中文笔会、德赛公园、牛博网等等，所有这些理性媒体客观公正的信息和声音，被成功拦截在国门之外，似乎要和中国公众做永久的隔绝。

    占世界四分之一人口的东方人类，在科技文明已经发展到可以借助信息技术打破时空阻隔，在地球村内进行零距离远程交往的信息化时代，中国社会的民众却在一个自称为伟大光荣正确的党，所控制的政府统治之下，遭到获取世界领域范围的信息，或更多关于中国社会客观、真实、完整信息的无耻封锁与打压。

    号称代表最广大人民根本利益的中国共产党政府，借助科技进步的成果，干着剥夺民众获取信息的天然权利，切割民众对世界和本国社会真实、完整、客观信息的知情权利，试图将社会大众囚禁在一个封闭、蒙昧的被动环境中，永远驯服地接受这群"先进代表"们的愚弄与压迫。

    科技的力量在中国社会，在中国共产党手里已经沦为控制民众的凶器；中国的社会大众在这种封锁切割中，被强制陷入到一片封闭、孤立、寒冷、恐怖的黑暗中，看不见外面的世界，看不清自己的方位，曙光被遮盖，声音被消失......

    路堵了。

    唯一寄予希望的去往北京的上访之路，在"护城河"的"联保"下被完全封死。

    新华网北京9月6日消息，在七省区市"护城河工程"工作会议上，北京、天津、河北、内蒙古、辽宁、山西、山东七省区市，决定启动新中国成立60周年首都国庆安保工作"护城河工程"，携手共同构筑国庆安全屏障。建立省区市间警务协作，有效遏制跨区域犯罪；落实流动人口服务管理措施，实现对可能危及国庆安全的人员的有效掌控；加大危险物品监管检查和涉危案件的查处力度，严防危险物品流入北京；加大公共安全管理力度，确保公共危机事件得到迅速处置。

    中央综治委副主任、中央政法委副秘书长、中央综治办主任陈冀平指出，现在距离国庆还有不到一个月的时间，七省区市要加强协作，密切配合，按照中央要求，高标准、高质量地完成国庆安保任务。

    新华网石家庄９月２２日消息，中共中央政治局常委、中央政法委书记周永康和国务委员、公安部部长孟建柱２２日一同在北京、河北检查国庆安保环京"护城河"工程。

    "在河北省环京‘护城河'指挥部，周永康通过视频指挥系统调度了河北基层和北京、天津、辽宁、山东、山西、内蒙古的安保工作情况，并与河北省、北京市负责同志进行了座谈。他强调，维护首都稳定、确保国庆活动安全顺利，是当前压倒一切的政治任务。他希望各地再接再厉，把安检措施落实到每台车、每件物、每个过往人员，把安保责任落实到每个地方、每个单位、每个执法人员，坚决打赢国庆安保这场硬仗，让党和人民满意。"

    二、掠夺

    一双为庆典制作宫灯的手

    涨价之风大有疾卷之势。国有垄断行业的物价，在国家机器的强力保护下，正成倍飞涨：水在涨，汽在涨，电在涨，成品油在涨......似乎只有"呼吸税"因为缺乏认证尚处在研讨之中。

    7月23日，国家发改委、建设部联合下发了《关于做好城市供水价格管理工作有关问题的通知》，虽不是明确号令统一涨价，却以加强规范的形式，为水价集体上涨的保驾护航提供了政策性暗示。

    据《每日经济新闻》消息，有关专家表示，目前的水价上涨，增加的是资源水价和污水处理费，这属于政府行政收费......如果不从体制上解决问题，多轮水价上涨仍在预期和设想酝酿中。

    在9月19日的水电可持续发展高层论坛上，国家发改委副主任、国家能源局局长张国宝发表演讲时表示，水电和火电同价试点工作将于近期展开，提价后的利润中，要拿出一部分用于补贴移民。

    9月21日第一财经报消息，"水电和火电同价以后，以2008年水力发电量来计算，水电将提高500多亿元的利润。"中国水利水电科学研究院副院长贾金生说，"不过，目前的水电价格，已经足够维持水电开发企业的利润......"

    而成品油的一次次涨价，虽然一再引发社会的广泛不满，但无奈之下，早已是社会司空见惯了的不平现实。

    土地被政府征收了，房价居高不下，而且据说公开了的房价"成本"，比售房价格还要高，皇帝的新装就这样一直堂而皇之地披挂着。

    三、喜庆

    与种种不和谐景象形成鲜明对比的，是首都北京正在全力筹办国庆的繁忙喜庆气象。

    为庆祝这次盛况空前的国庆，给这一为六十年专制政治而举行的狂欢庆典营造和谐气氛，至少在半年前，中国政府就开始了劳民伤财的大规模准备工作。

    所谓准备，无非是大笔挥霍用纳税人心血和汗水奉上的银子，动用大量的人力物力警力，展现典庆的庞大、挥霍的潇洒与气势的豪华。

    天气准备。

    新华网太原9月22日消息，为保证国庆60周年的天气环境，空军18架经过改装的运输机、48台消雾车和260馀名工作人员已做好准备，将尽最大努力实施人工影响天气，消除减轻云、雨、雾对阅兵的影响。

    用电保障。

    新华网北京９月２２日电（记者郑晓奕）随着８省电力公司３５０名增援人员近日陆续抵达北京，由国家电网公司专业技术人员，武警、公安干警和群众组成的三级保电万人队伍已全部到位，全力投入首都国庆６０周年庆典活动电力保障工作。

    "为确保国庆６０周年庆典活动电力供应万无一失"，电力部门准备的７２套保电方案详细而完备，安排了８１７人专责保障天安门广场，准备了
    １．３万人看护输电线路，组建了２６０人的安全用电服务队，２４０支应急保障队伍随时抢险。

    文艺、游行规模庞大。

    8月30日新京报消息，灯火辉煌的天安门广场上，来自社会各界的约10万群众和60辆模拟彩车，分为35个群众游行方阵和6节行进式文艺表演依次通过广场中心区。约5000人组成的军乐团、民乐团、合唱团进行伴奏伴唱；

    庆典当日，将有北京各大院校学生组成的2500人的合唱队、1000多人的军乐团、200人的民族打击乐团与联合军乐团一起，完成群众游行音乐的演奏演唱任务，将以极具震撼力的视听效果，成为国庆庆典活动的重要亮点。已经动用5.7万人演练国庆联欢晚会，并预演了绚丽的烟火燃放。

    规模空前的排场、设施与气派和提前十个月的准备。

    无论从那个方面，北京国庆节都将是一个举世豪华、阵容强大的宏大庆典。

    早在去年12月11日腾讯网就有报道，北京市各区早在2008年11月中旬就已通过街道办事处贴出告示，招收年龄在17至25岁，身高1.63米至1.75
    米的女民兵，经过集中进行初步训练后参加区里的甄选，过五关斩六将后的胜出者，将在接受10个月的专训后参加六十年阅兵大典。

    北京晚报6月16日报道，国庆北京市将有10万馀名中小学生参加庆典活动，他们将参与游行、翻字牌等工作。目前学生训练工作已经开始。

    新京报本月22日消息，21日下午，北京军区某机械化师经过三个多月艰苦训练的4000多名官兵，在通州区演出训练基地演练光立方节目。4028名官兵、
    487万个动作、865幅组合画卷、占地面积9000平方米，根据不同的主题、在不同时段配合焰火和群众联欢表演，变换不同图案和色彩......"十一"夜晚，北京军区某机械化师官兵，将用4028棵发光树，完成国庆晚会100分钟的"光立方"表演。

    安装监控雷达、使用专家监管天气气象、搭建临时观礼台、从9月12日起就开始封闭的天安门城楼，要持续到国庆以后才能开放、在长安街沿线布置22处立体花坛，在长安街两侧绿地内布置地栽花卉10万馀平米，330多万株等等，这些安排都显示出这个节日的空前豪华与气势。

    在这次六十周年盛大庆典准备工作中，仅环卫工作动用的力量也是令人叹为观止的。据报道，9月12日晚的国庆联欢晚会和烟花燃放演练在天安门广场结束后，北京环卫集团安排了10辆小型吸扫车、5辆中型吸扫车、5辆大型清扫车，仅环卫工人就有150名保洁员参与无缝隙撒网式作业。

    四、威严

    强大的武装力量展示，誓死保卫的威严阵容。

    新华网北京9月21日消息，国庆60周年阅兵，空中所有12个受阅梯队上百架飞机，21日上午按国庆当天受阅程序，成功进行了阅兵前唯一一次天安门上空全编队预演。各梯队威武雄壮"米秒不差"地飞越天安门上空。

    铁流滚滚的坦克车队沿着1989年的血路再次开进京城

    上百架飞机当日按计划从北京周边7个军用机场起飞后编队飞行；空军组成的1个预警机、1个加受油机梯队、1个轰炸机梯队，海军组成的1个歼击轰炸机梯队，空军组成的3个歼击机，陆、空军组成的1个搜救、运输直升机梯队，陆航组成的1个侦察直升机和1个武装直升机梯队依次通过天安门广场；中国首批女战斗机飞行员驾机组成教练机梯队，拉着彩烟按时飞越天安门广场。

    新华网北京9月1日消息，武警部队国庆60周年安全保卫暨维稳工作誓师动员大会，9
    月1日同时在北京、上海和新疆、西藏等地举行，标志着武警部队国庆安保任务进入临战准备阶段。誓师大会上，担负国庆安保、上海世博会安保，以及新疆、涉藏维稳任务的北京、上海、新疆、西藏总队及相关机动师等8支部队官兵，通过武警部队指挥网络视频系统依次列队宣誓。

    武警总部要求，驻守天津、河北、山西、内蒙古、辽宁以及山东等地武警部队，要发挥好"护城河"作用，筑牢拱卫首都的安全屏障。

    在六十年庆典上，武警部队不仅将担负军乐伴奏、升国旗仪式、鸣放礼炮等重要任务，还将担负大型活动现场人员安全检查、安全警卫，处置突发事件和恐怖事件等五大类共22项重大任务，直接担负任务的部队，涉及北京等5个总队、3个机动师，以及直属部队、相关院校等11个单位的数万名官兵。截至目前，担负维稳等任务部队一线执勤总兵力达几十万人。

    五、并不和谐的社会形势

    2009年9月17日，北京天安门附近发生严重的持刀伤人血案，市长郭金龙等人亲赴现场视察情况。第二天已是北京十一活动的最后一次综合彩排预演日子，由于前一天的血案，北京地区高度戒严，气氛紧张，天安门广场周边从早上9点就开始戒严，街上布满持抢的武警、特警，甚至还出动装甲车、坦克。

    据调查，9月17日的血案，是下海经商失败、人生不顺的吉林市民张健飞，在北京大栅栏附近酒店醉酒后所为。醉酒的张健飞杀死两名保安，杀伤14名市民后被警方抓获。但据说这个张健飞行踪神秘到不为当地人所知，"几年没有找到他"，但人"绝对聪明"。突爆的血案给北京充满喜气的演练增添几分紧张。

    9月19日，著名的北京烤鸭餐厅全聚德附近，一名法国女游客被人用刀割伤，警方当场被捕一名41岁男子当场被警方抓获，这名来自江西南昌的袭击者，在被捕时高喊说："上访四年没有结果"。

    血案使这个看起来表面无比强大的政权高度紧张，北京市的各大商店被严禁出售刀具一类可以造成伤害的物品。

    接连发生的血案，使这个极权政府极力营造的和谐局面，在繁忙喜庆的外表下，暴露出另一重并不和谐的血腥面目。尤其是上访者以身试法的抗议，让当局数月前就一直在试图努力掩盖的民众上访矛盾，在通往北京的路径被完全封锁的情况下，以蓄意制造的伤害性血案赫然展示出来，不仅是民众的人生悲剧，更是这个政府在社会治理上低能无耻的宣示。

    今年6月，以和平立宪改良社会的民主人士刘晓波博士，在推动08宪章被秘密关押半年多后，遭到中国共产党政府的正式逮捕；

    7月17日，北京公益性法律援助组织公盟被以偷税的名义遭到取缔，负责人许志永博士在8月13日遭到正式逮捕；

    8月7日，南京师范大学博士郭泉教授，因为明确主张和推动共产党中央进行政治改革，被以颠复国家政权罪遭到逮捕后，在安徽宿迁市中级人民法院第八审判厅遭到审讯；

    8
    月12日。四川谭作人在5.12地震后对灾区死难学生数目及校舍垮塌原因先后进行了23次、50馀天的现场调查，掌握了大量的第一手材料。在大量第一手资料的基础上，谭作人认为震区多所学校的垮塌，都属"豆腐渣工程"导致的脆性倒塌，因此呼吁四川政府彻查校舍垮塌原因、追究相关人士法律责任，并指出天灾不能成为掩盖人祸的托辞。但结果，四川政府借口谭作人为8964事件进行过批评的理由，逮捕了谭作人，并以煽动颠复国家政权罪对其提起刑事诉讼。

    还有无数在政府的强制意志下，遭到打压的下岗职工、破产业主、灾民、访民、维权人士在和谐的假象下，进行着他们无奈的悲苦生存与抗争。

    数千万在国企改革中遭到残酷剥夺，一夜之间沦为赤贫"贱民"的下岗职工；缺乏社会救济体系，在国际金融危机影响下倒闭的民营企业主；特别是在中国没有破产救济法保护的悲惨环境下，那些受融资环境压迫而破产，导致债台高筑陷入人生黑暗的民营企业主；因法律环境欠缺而长盛不衰的商业欺诈项目下，无数上当受骗的个体投资者；上千万受金融危机连累失业回乡的农民工；

    毒奶粉事件中的无数受害维权人士，汶川大地震中为豆腐渣工程哭诉的灾民，被"精神障碍"的邓玉娇，被"诽谤罪"的吴保全，传言严晓玲被多名警匪奸杀一案中的曝光人士游精右、邓燕琼，在大批武装力量监控下恐怖生存的西藏、新疆民众；还有大批在六四民主风潮后被追杀、拦截在国门之外，乡土难回的无数仁人志士们的处境、苦难、生存现实。。。。

    另一方面，对这个社会有着深刻认识的一部分社会精英和有钱人，在上演着他们远走他国的逃离之旅，在这个数目壮观的移民队伍里面，不乏"光荣正确"的政府官员。

    中新网8月14日电
    据美国《侨报》报道，美国国安部13日公布2008年移民报告。2008年加入美国国籍的新移民中中国大陆人士有接近5万，占全球移民到美国人口总数的3.8%。

    如此气势恢宏的国家，有条件的民众却在纷纷逃离国门，将自己的户籍卷到"腐朽的资本主义社会"，并不和谐的现实暴露无遗。

    六、国庆日的本意与现实矛盾的质询

    国庆日是通过一个全民共庆的欢庆形式，表现社会团结、民众友爱的节日，它承载的主要意义，应该是展示国家和民族坚固的凝聚力。特别是阅兵仪式的设立，更清楚地说明，国庆节作为一种展现民族自强形象和力量、展现国家威严的节日，所具有的增强国民信心、发挥对民众号召力的本源意义。

    1949年
    10月2日，中国政府通过《关于中华人民共和国国庆日的决议》，规定每年10月1日为国庆日，并以这一天作为宣告中华人民共和国成立的日子。中国的国庆节，多以大型的游园联欢活动、唱国歌和在天安门前举行盛大的集会为主要庆典形式，阅兵和游行举行的相对则要少些。

    阅兵是展现武装力量建设成就，树立民族自信心和自豪感的一种形式。从1949年开国大典至1999年建国五十周年，中国共举行了十三次国庆阅兵。1945 年至1959年建国十周年，共举行了十一次国庆阅兵。此后，出于节俭方面的考虑，连续二十四年没有举行国庆阅兵。1984年根据邓小平的提议，恢复了阅兵，并在国庆三十五周年时举行了大型阅兵式。1999年国庆50周年，中国政府举行了20世纪最后一次盛大的国庆阅兵和群众游行庆典。

    中国政府对六十周年庆典大事张扬，费用铺排方面场面宏大不说，除了准备全面展示国家武装的强大力量之外，还对民意和社会舆论采取了空前严厉的管控措施，甚至在通往北京的附近七省区设立联防联保区域，在全国开展统一行动的治安检查与整治行动，花费浩大和场面的壮观不仅是建国以来的最高水平，在世界上也是令人叹为观止的一场景观。

    一个本来应该是举国欢庆的节日，在这种举世瞩目的张扬与喜庆中，无论是对舆论的封锁，还是对上访之路的封堵，更不说对不同言论的审讯判刑，特别是武装力量为保卫这次国庆所进行的誓师宣示，分明已经将一个国家的喜庆盛典，变成了一场如临大敌的社会对恃性的"硬仗"。

    国家威严应该体现为对公共利益的保护，但在这种如临大敌的阵势下，不能不让人产生疑惑，这种世界上第一流的阵势和庞大的武装力量展示，它的动机是什么？民众的欢乐在哪里？民众有心情和有理由参与这种空前的庆典与狂欢吗？如果让民众来投票决定他们的纳税银子用途，他们会承认这笔开支或者同意举行这种与他们的生活和命运不相关，却是举世无双劳民伤财的豪华庆典吗？中国社会这次名为六十周年的喜庆盛典，与中国社会无数被消失了声音，被封锁了言路，被堵塞了上访出路的民众生活有什么关系呢？

    1894年，清末的慈禧太后在计划花费3000万两银子，庆祝自己六十大寿时辩解说，给自己做寿是为了国家的面子，为了体现腐败的清朝政府河清海晏的中兴气象，否则"就会出事儿，祖宗的基业就会毁于一旦！"慈禧庆寿的理由对于中国的六十年大庆，也许是一个默契性的共识。

    六十年国庆的前半月左右，网易、凤凰等网络媒体上，一些原本有民意支持与反对指数的记录功能，遭到全部取消的命运。已经习惯通过网络参与社会事务，并发表时事看法的网络民意，在这些被禁锢了的所谓主流媒体上，只能看到一边倒的赞歌丽词，却被剥夺宪法规定的言论权利，民意的和谐是可以这样来实现的吗？

    一面是网封、堵路和武力展示，一面却是政府垄断行业物价水平的飞涨。在强大的国家机器控制下，在威严壮观的武装力量面前，中国的国庆已经不再具有关乎民众疾苦，并借以凝集民族力量的本源意义，却显示出通过武力宣示与恫吓，剥夺民众的自由和权利，疯狂积聚政权的财富实力的暴政面目，中国政府对于民众利益的蔑视与掠夺，已经宣示其政权缺失社会正义性的严峻现实。

    一个标榜为"代表广大人民最根本利益"的政党，一个宪法制约下的人民政府，已经陷入依靠武力向自己的民众行使权力的悲哀绝望之中，这很自然让人记起中华人民共和国国歌《义勇军进行曲》的歌词："中华民族到了最危险的时候"！

    在民众被完全剥夺了对政府公权力应有监督的社会现实中，在官民冲突日益加剧，社会矛盾异常惨烈的中国社会，一曲义勇军进行曲已经在明白地向人们发出社会空前危机的严重警告：起来！不愿做奴隶的人们！

    把我们的血肉、筑成我们新的长城！

    中华民族到了最危险的时候、

    每个人被迫着发出最后的吼声。

    2009-9-27 05：20完稿
     
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    September 29

    头版图片惊现法轮功标语 锦州晚报被停刊(图)

    头版图片惊现法轮功标语 锦州晚报被停刊(图)
    (博讯北京时间2009年9月30日 转载)    来源：加拿大华人网讯
        
        头版图片惊现法轮功标语 锦州晚报被停刊
        
        头版图片惊现法轮功标语 锦州晚报被停刊


        
        
        反动口号清晰可见
        
        十一国庆前夕，辽宁省锦州市的《锦州晚报》头版图片惊现法轮功标语字样。翌日，当局以图片「违反广告法」为由，下令该报停刊整顿，目前有关部门已进驻报社。
        
        国庆图片出事　反动口号出街
        
        《锦州晚报》是锦州市委机关报《锦州日报》的下属报纸。据悉，周日（27日）出版的该报头版刊出一张大的国庆图片，展示辽西小商品市场外国旗飘飘，国庆气氛浓烈。
        
        但网民放大该图片后发现，左下方的栏杆上赫然出现一条的手写标语。该句标语是法轮功常用口号。
        
        《锦州晚报》一名广告代理昨日证实，由于上述图片问题，该报在28日已被有关部门停刊整顿，29日市面已无该报出售：「因为27日头版那张图片，违反了广告法」，暂时未知该报何时才能复刊。 (博讯记者：鲍伯) (博讯 boxun.com)

    http://www.peacehall.com/news/gb/china/2009/09/200909300834.shtml

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    Parade Perayaan Falun Dafa

    Parade Perayaan Falun Dafa
    Oleh: Maureen Zebian Rabu, 30 September 2009

    Para praktisi dan pendukung Falun Gong berbaris melewati daerah pecinan Chicago, menceritakan tentang latihan itu dan penganiayaan oleh rezim komunis China. (Gary Du/The Epoch Times)

    Chicago - Ratusan penonton berbaris di jalan-jalan di pecinan Chicago untuk menyaksikan sebuah parade yang menyoroti keyakinan spiritual Falun Gong, yang juga disebut Falun Dafa, dan fakta akan penindasan di China.

    Menurut Sen Yang, Presiden Asosiasi Falun Dafa Midwest AS, "Kami ingin menunjukkan kepada orang-orang Amerika dan China apa sebenarnya Falun Dafa ini. Banyak orang di Amerika tidak mengetahui tentang latihan damai ini dan beberapa mungkin memiliki pandangan yang salah tentang Falun Dafa dikarenakan oleh propaganda Partai Komunis China (PKC)."

    Sekitar 200 praktisi dari 12 negara bagian Midwest bergabung dalam parade ini. Suara irama genderang tradisional China sangat kontras dengan sekelompok wanita berpakaian putih-putih, yang dengan khidmat membawa foto-foto praktisi yang disiksa sampai meninggal atau dibunuh oleh pihak berwenang di China, semata-mata hanya karena mereka berlatih Falun Dafa.

    "Orang-orang di seluruh dunia harus menikmati kebebasan beragama dan berkumpul," kata Yang. "Orang-orang mendapatkan kebebasan itu disini, di Amerika Serikata, tapi sebagai praktisi Falun Dafa kita sepenuhnya sadar akan tragedi-tragedi yang mengikuti ketika kebebasan dilarang. Kami tidak hanya berjuang untuk hak-hak kami sendiri, tetapi juga untuk hak-hak orang di seluruh dunia untuk mendapatkan kebebasan disini."

    MENGENANG KORBAN PEMBUNUHAN: Seorang praktisi cilik Falun Dafa membawa bingkai foto dari seorang praktisi yang terbunuh di China karena berlatih Falun Gong. (Maureen Zebian/The Epoch Times)

    Banyak praktisi yang berpartisipasi dalam parade mengenakan pakaian sutra kuning dan membawa spanduk yang mengutuk PKC atas kejahatan mereka terhadap kemanusiaan. Mereka juga membawa spanduk warna-warni yang menyatakan, "Sejati-Baik-Sabar" - prinsip-prinsip utama dari latihan itu.

    Ada puluhan juta orang di seluruh dunia berlatih Falun Dafa, sebuah sistim kultivasi tradisional China yang telah terbukti meningkatkan kesehatan mental dan fisik melalui serangkaian latihan, meditasi dan pengembangan karakter moral.

    Pemain genderang tradisional China memberikan ritme yang indah dalam parade. (Gary Du/The Epoch Times)

    "Kami ingin dukungan, bukan uang, tapi dukungan untuk mengutuk penganiayaan PKC," seru Yang. "Orang-orang dapat melakukan ini dengan menghubungi perwakilan Kongres mereka, Sekarang penganiayaan telah berlangsung selama 10 tahun dengan lebih dari 3.000 praktisi dinyatakan tewas karena siksaan yang brutal, tetapi jumlah tersebut tidak benar-benar mengungkapkan gambaran angka sebenarnya dari situasi."

    "Banyak praktisi yang hilang dan tidak pernah terlihat atau terdengar lagi selama bertahun-tahun. Kita tahu PKC mengambil paksa organ-organ praktisi dan menjualnya di pasar terbuka. Jadi hanya dengan berakhirnya penganiayaan ini, tragedi sebenarnya bisa terungkap." (EpochTimes/khl)

    http://erabaru.net/top-news/36-news1/5368-parade-perayaan-falun-dafa

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    The Dalai Lama on Martin Luther King Jr.

    The Dalai Lama on Martin Luther King Jr.

    Posted by Bhuchung K. Tsering in Recent Posts on Tuesday, September 29, 2009 | no responses

    The Dalai Lama looked cursorily at the images that were on the wall as he was led through the exhibits of the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis on September 23, 2009. It was my sense that to him the images were secondary to the verbal explanations that were being given to him by two staffers on their relevance. Even the large recognizable image of President Lincoln, the emancipator of the slaves, only got a quick glimpse from him, not to speak of the different individuals who played crucial roles in changing the American society, but who are not much known to the general public.

    But the Dalai Lama was listening very attentively to the explanation of the historical evolution of the civil rights movement in the United States. As he strolled along the different sections of the exhibits, he posed occasional questions to the museum staff, the nature of which indicated that he was trying to put the movement in perspective and to see what sense it made today. At one stage, he asked the young African American man who was doing the explanation then as to what the total population of the slaves was during that stage. At another stage he wondered whether there were any non-African American slaves in the United States then. “Any Asian?” he asked. In addition to the staffer’s response, Dr. Benjamin Hooks, a civil rights leader, who was accompanying His Holiness intervened many times to provide a more wholesome answer to the Dalai Lama’s questions.

    Discriminatory policies were a constant theme of the exhibit. One section had a replica of restaurant with some characters occupying some chairs with others being empty. His Holiness was informed that the African Americans had to pay for their food to the restaurant staff at the table but then had to procure their food in the kitchen. They could not sit at the table. He was informed about the movement started by an activist just to sit at the table and order for food that was not provided. The movement expanded with more and more people joining the individual. As he absorbed this, the Dalai Lama turned to Thupten Jinpa la, his interpreter, and spoke in Tibetan, “Didn’t Mahatma Gandhi do something similar in South Africa?”

    A poignant moment came when the Dalai Lama was taken to the balcony site where Dr. Martin Luther King was standing when he was shot. As Dr. Hooks and Dr. Kyles (who was with Dr. King that fateful day in 1968) were describing the situation to him, I could see His Holiness observing some moments of silence. This balcony was on the second floor  and there were a horde of media people gathered below who were recording everything. I wondered what His Holiness must be thinking then.

    The answer came as we moved to his next schedule, which was addressing the media in the Museum’s auditorium. In the past whenever I had the occasion to be at such meetings with the press by His Holiness, I would either find him just making some cursory remarks or throwing the ball to the media by saying something like, “I have nothing to say, questions.”

    But this time, he sort of poured his heart out, giving a very immediate and personal reflection of what he had just seen. He also dwelt on this as he addressed the luncheon crowd who had gathered to see him receive the International Freedom Award, as well as during his public talk in the afternoon. In the process, it seemed to me, His Holiness was putting Dr. Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement in context and determining why their experience mattered even today. He spoke of being both sad and inspired by what he saw and heard at the Museum.

    His Holiness empathized with Dr. King’s experience and was saddened to learn of the trials and tribulations he and others had to undergo in the process of seeking respect and dignity. He indicated that even though the civil rights movement had success, there were still many social problems afflicting a country as rich as the United States. He talked about the gap between the rich and the poor as a case in point. He was conveying the message that Dr. Martin Luther King’s movement mattered even to today’s situation and that people need to remember this.

    A very strong message that His Holiness conveyed was that it was not enough to be merely saddened by the experience. Instead, one needed to look at this as an inspiration to tackle the problems afflicting the society of the day. He took the message that despite all the hurdles and obstacles, Dr. King was able to challenge them and turn them into strengths that ultimately led to the success of his movement. His Holiness referred to Dr. King and Gandhi as “great masters” and said that we should emulate their consistent reliance on non-violence as the means to find resolution of their problems. Secondly, His Holiness conveyed the important and positive role that spiritualism played in the lives of these leaders. Dr. King got his strength from his Christian faith, His Holiness told one gathering.

    I thought His Holiness did a good segue by reminding the people that while the dreamers have passed on, their dreams still remained. He said in the quest of making the world more compassionate and a better place, we need to study biological and natural developments in order to get the best out of our society in the realization of our dreams. Calling himself a “feminist” he indirectly challenged the womenfolk to take a leadership role in turning the world into a compassionate society. He drew attention to how mothers, whether human beings or animals, were better at taking care of their children and said that they were better placed in the transformation of the society as a whole, too.

    It was clear that this maiden visit of the Dalai Lama to Memphis and, specifically to the Civil Rights Museum, had made an impact on the people there and created a special bond between the two communities who could find common ground in their similar experiences.

    Photo Caption: The Dalai Lama prays on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2009, in Memphis, Tenn., where Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968. With him are Rev. Billy Kyles, center, and Rev. Benjamin Hooks, right. Kyles was on the balcony with King when King was killed. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

    http://weblog.savetibet.org/2009/09/29/the-dalai-lama-on-why-martin-luther-king-matters/

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    60 years in the PRC: From Mao to now, the corruption of power

    » 09/29/2009 10:47
    CHINA

    60 years in the PRC: From Mao to now, the corruption of power
    by Bernardo Cervellera
    The history of Communism in China is one of the most horrible. Amidst ideological purges, famines, repression, democracy was never given a voice (the fifth modernization). Deng Xiaoping made the supremacy of the Party the ideal to which all of society had to sacrifice itself, unleashing an avalanche of abuse and corruption. The 100 thousand "mass incidents" in a year show that the people want to count. Civil society is the only hope for stability in China. Second part of a dossier dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.

    Rome (AsiaNews) – The big and powerful China that wants to celebrate his 60th birthday on October 1 refuses to come to terms with its history. Many would like to verify whether the ideals of '49 have been achieved, or betrayed.

    Zhu Houze, who before his release was a member of the underground Communist Party in Guiyang, in an interview with the South China Morning Post (22/09/2009) recalls the founding of the Republic hailed by the speech of Mao Zedong in Tiananmen Square: "We thought we would be immediately liberated and start to build a new, free, democratic and prosperous country”. In the '80s Zhu was also minister of the propaganda department of the Central Committee, but now is one of those "disappointed" by developments in the party. It is worth retracing some stages of the "successes" but also of the "failures" of these 60 years.

    If we take into account the economic and political aspects alone, then we could say that in the early years, the party won the respect of the population: no corruption or divisions as in the days of Chiang Kai-shek; low inflation; heavy industry was rebuilt (on the Soviet model); agriculture flourished. But the stubbornness of Mao and his economic incompetence lead to the Great Leap Forward (1958-1961) that caused death by starvation of about 50 million people. The stories of people talk about describe farmers in desperate search for food, with people dying on the sides of roads, the hungry feeding on the meat of the dead. To stop party criticism against him (who wanted to take power away), Mao launched the Cultural Revolution in '66, which lasted until his death in 1976. The Cultural Revolution, which is still remembered as a period of "chaos", divided society, destroyed families, killed millions of people, divided the party between "young" and "old" guard, army and Red Guards, parents and children.

    The openings of Deng Xiaoping, in the late '70s, considered the bright ideals of the "reformer" were in fact a necessity. To save China from hunger and raise the fortunes of a destroyed economy, Deng Xiaoping opened the country to foreign investment and began the economic reforms that have brought China to its current splendour.

    The problem is that Deng's modernization (Army, science, agriculture and industry) lack a fifth element: democracy. Because of this, the country currently enjoys an enviable status in economic terms (in general), but remains an outcast from the perspective of human rights. Even after 30 years since his reforms, the country does not enjoy freedom of press, association, expression, religion, while the powers of the executive, judiciary and legislature are all under the control of the CCP.

    Chinese society sacrificed to the Party

    Bao Tong is a former party leader, who fell into disgrace when he sympathized with the young people in Tiananmen Square in '89. He has suffered 7 years in prison and still lives under house arrest. In a long conversation on the modernization of Deng (with Radio Free Asia, 5/1/2009), he points out that Deng Xiaoping was in fact responsible for a more radical change compared to Mao. Even with all his imperial emphasis, the Great Helmsman had "socialism" at heart as the ideal of the party and the country. Instead Deng maintained that everything in China had to serve to "maintain the leadership of the Party". Defending the party became the most important thing, defending the rights of citizens became a secondary issue. In this way - Bao Tong says - the very existence of the CCP became the ideal to which all of Chinese society had to sacrifice itself.

    The China of Hu Jintao continues to promote and improve the economy in a surprising way: Beijing seems to have surpassed all even before the great economic crisis (unless you count the 60 million unemployed). But the stability of society and the hegemony of the party remain milestones for the fourth generation of leadership.    

    Failures and Corruption

    Within the party there are demands for more democracy and political reform. The same Zhu Houze, now 78 years-old, along with other retired members wrote several times to leadership criticizing the lack of control of the Party’s power, which generates the scourge of corruption, demanding democracy and a free press. But he never received any response. "We have to overcome - says Zhu - the limited perception of only economic development of the market and the maintenance of a single party. We must begin reforming the political system".

    The last plenum of the Central Committee (15-18 September 2009) was due to discuss the fight against corruption and internal democracy in the CCP. But no specific indication has emerged. In contrast, in one of many meetings to celebrate the 60 years, Hu Jintao preached on his favourite slogan: "harmony between different ethnic and religious groups," "strengthening solidarity", "resolving contradictions," "pursuit of democracy”. But he quickly made clear that it is not a case of “copying Western models”, but of implementing a system with "Chinese characteristics ", whereby the "supremacy of the Communist Party" always comes first.

    The great successes of China are obvious to the eyes of all, but also the great failures of China: a society where the state controls more than 70% of the economy, curbing creativity and handing out promotions and favours to those without any merit, rampant corruption results in up to 3% of gross domestic product being stolen from the state, lack of social support for the poor, pensioners, unemployed, a lack of access to health and education facilities for a fall, parents who sell their organs to pay for college for children, pollution, harassment, seizures of land and houses by members of the party. Because of this, now the party is seen as synonymous with "corruption."

    Un fatto citato da Asia Times (23 settembre 2009) racconta che una bambina di 6 anni a Guangzhou, rispondendo alla domanda “Cosa vuoi fare da grande?” ha detto: “Voglio diventare un funzionario corrotto. La mamma dice sempre che un funzionario corrotto può avere molte, molte cose a casa sua”.

    A fact cited by Asia Times (23 September 2009) tells of how a girl of 6 years of age in Guangzhou, answering the question "What do you want to be when you grow up?” responded, "I want to become a corrupt official. My Mum always says that corrupt officials can have many, many things at home”.

    The "mass incidents" and civil society

    Several analysts are wondering whether such a China, a giant in economic performance, but lame in political reform, can keep going, or if sooner or later it will be so vulnerable as to succumb.

    Already, signs of anxiety increased in step with the apparent economic performance.

    In the latest estimates reported by Chinese press, last year there were over 100 thousand "mass incidents" (at least one every 4-5 minutes), or protests of hundreds or thousands of people seeking justice for the abuses, or unpaid wages, or poisoning or seizures of land. The figure is 16% higher in cases officially registered by the Ministry for Public Security in 2006 (87 thousand accidents). These "incidents" have also led to party and police headquarters being set on fire, gun battles between police and demonstrators, to deaths on both sides.

    The Party continues to preach "stability before all" and is ready - as in the days preceding celebrations for the 60th anniversary - to arrest people (about 6500), deploy tanks, spies and police.

    To save its supremacy, the Party continues to kill people, the very "people" who belong to the "Republic of China" that was founded 60 years ago.

    But time does not pass in vain. The most surprising fact is that in all these decades, a civil society ever more attentive to their rights has emerged "among the people". It includes activists, journalists, lawyers, consumers, mothers, employees, contractors, bureaucrats. In a strictly non violent way they denounce the misdeeds of the party cadres, they appeal for the health of their poisoned children (as in the case of melamine in milk), defend their land and property rights, maintain the right to religious freedom, they ask for the right to vote to express their preference for one or the other leader.

    According to Bao Tong, the reform of Chinese society will be accomplished by this "movement for civil rights." "If people can defend their rights and if they are given what they deserve, if the State bows to public opinion and officials serve them, and if people can see the work of bureaucrats who discard the their so-called 'divine right' to rule, then there is hope for China ... hopes for China are based on a peaceful, ready, persistent civil rights movement, who will use activism to implement the Constitution and save this nation and its people". (End of second part).

    http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=16445&size=A

     
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    JohnLiu unfit for Comptroller

     

    I believe there some facts you need to know about John Liu.

    Whoever wins the Comptroller position for NYC will oversee its budget and be the steward for $80 billion of pension and retirement funds.

    John Liu has been consistently deceiving New Yorkers and is hiding his connections to the Chinese Communist regime.

    Protect democracy and freedom of belief. Please thoroughly examine the media reports that you can access with the links below.

    News or Interview Links:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crU63T...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPEGZE...

    The Epoch Times:
    http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/conte...
    http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/conte...
    http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/conte...

    The Daily News:
    http://www.nydailynews.com/news/elect...

    The New York Post:
    http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/...

    9:23 PM | Add a comment | Permalink | Blog it

    Empire State Building Turns a Disgusting Hue

    Tuesday, September 29, 2009

    Empire State Building Turns a Disgusting Hue

    The Empire State Building, a New York City and American icon, will turn red-yellow on Wednesday and Thursday in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China.

    Seems simple enough. The Olympics was in China, they make all our toys and Walmart merchandise, and they’ve even been buying all our debt up. Why not?

    Here’s why not: imagine the empire state building turning the colors of the Third Reich, the Ku Klux Klan, al-Qaeda, or maybe just shooting out all of its liquid waste in high pressurized bursts out onto the crowds of tourists on 34th Street. Well, they might as well, the Chinese Communist Party that has raped China for the last 60 years is no better than any of those—and is arguably worse.

    The communist regime put the “People’s Republic” in the People’s Republic of China, as part of outdated Marxist-Leninist propaganda. Today, the very same propaganda mouthpieces that helped create the communist regime in China in 1949 are at work helping in the oppression and killing of innocent people who disagree with the regime over its policies on religion, politics, ethnicity, the rule of law (which it claims to have), media, human rights, and so on and so forth.

    Worse still, the world’s media and communication capabilities are a hundred times better now than they were when the Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan were in their hay day. Now, its been internationally recognized by the US government, the United Nations, the European Union, Amnesty International, Freedom House, and countless other organizations and media outlets that the Communist regime is rotten to its warped and disgusting core.

    How could the Empire State Building make such a stupid choice to honor the largest and most naked example of inhumanity known in the history of man? A couple possible motives (though I don’t claim to have any evidence) could be the promise of an even larger number of Chinese tourists—or maybe just cash up front from the Chinese consulate.

    Just consider that Chinese consul Peng Keyu will take part in the lighting ceremony on Wednesday. This is the same guy who was recorded (on a verified recording) encouraging Mainland Chinese people in Flushing, Queens to intimidate and malign practitioners of the peaceful Falun Gong spiritual practice there. (background info)

    The terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 that destroyed the two World Trade Center towers in lower Manhattan were heinous acts. The attacks on that day fortified America’s resolve that, despite criticism of its economics and culture, it is a moral nation with underlying integrity and an unconquerable spirit.

    Yet, why are we letting a nation whose government has no morality or integrity conquer one of our most prized buildings (I hope no one shoots a plane through it too).
    9:17 PM | Add a comment | Permalink | Blog it

    十一前中共风雨飘摇 胡锦涛起程访美


    9月19日北京天安门人民大会堂前的坦克车群（AFP/Getty Images）
     
    十一前中共风雨飘摇 胡锦涛起程访美

    【大纪元9月21日讯】（大纪元记者吴伟林报导）北京时间9月21日上午，中共国家主席胡锦涛启程前往美国，并将在本周参加四个国际性峰会。由于此时中共面临巨大的危机：新疆事件延烧、四中全会“王储”难产、中美贸易战点燃，特别是超过6000万中国民众觉醒的退党大潮席卷中国，胡此行将面对的各种困局，成为外界格外关注的焦点。

    在21日至25日访美期间，胡锦涛将在美国纽约参加联合国气候变化峰会、第64届联合国大会、安理会核不扩散和核裁军问题峰会，随后他还将前往匹兹堡参加20国集团的第三次金融峰会。

    美国东部时间21日下午，胡锦涛一行将赶赴纽约联合国大厦参加应对金融危机的国际峰会。据悉，中共领馆将如以往一样，花民脂民膏“雇”亲共侨团的人去营造欢迎场面。同时，新疆、西藏、民运等团体将有相当规模的抗议。

    此外，今年是中共残酷迫害法轮功的第十个年头，法轮功学员及社会人士、支持者将在纽约联合国广场联合举办反迫害，声援6千万勇士退出中共大集会。此前中共黑势力涉入美国纽约市公职选举、中共代言人刘醇逸媚共、竞选违法丑闻曝光，纽约民众和媒体开始关注，并出现唾弃中共的呼声。

    这次金融峰会，正值中共建政60周年前夕，美国宣布对中国输美轮胎征收惩罚性关税，中国则回报以强硬的反击，中美之间贸易战似乎一触即发，这也给胡访美蒙上一层阴影。中共官员抱怨美国在“不合适的时机，针对不合适的产品，采取了不合适的做法”。

    胡此番美国之行，正值中共处于风雨飘摇的时刻，中共官员的“三个不适合”，正好勾画出了胡锦涛这次访美内外交困的国际国内大环境。

    四中全会“王储”受阻

    在刚刚结束的中共十七届四中全会上，中国国家副主席、“王储”习近平并没有依照中共“惯例”增补为中央军委副主席、顺利按轨道接班。

    18日晚，中共喉舌新华社发表官方公报，并未按照10年前十五届四中全会的“胡锦涛模式”，同步发布习近平增补军委副主席这项重要人事，亦无提及其他人事安排，使得这项人事安排成为悬念。这在中共近30年来的中全会还是头一次。

    这一极具政治指标的人事布局的难产，引起了各界关注和猜测。有港媒引述学者观点认为，这意味习近平接班在党内受阻；也有学者解读为，事件反映中共党内斗争激烈，中共内部已经四分五裂。


    高精度图片
    十一临近，中共如临大敌。图为9月18日，北京市中心某立交桥上，装甲车巡逻，警察与保安巡视，摄像机高架。（AFP/Getty Images）

    度十一北京风声鹤唳

    与此同时，为了庆祝中共建政60周年，标榜自己的“辉煌”，中共在时隔10年之后将在天安门广场再次举行阅兵，实施空前警戒，搞得草木皆兵，民怨很大。

    据外电报导，除普通警察之外，中共不仅追加了数十万人的武装警察，还动员了140万市民作为治安“志愿者”，“人海战术”超过去年北京奥运时期。甚至鸽子和风筝也纳入了禁飞范围。

    由于中国大陆官民对立的群体事件此起彼伏，7月以来以新疆维、汉民众抗击中共最为严重，7月8日，胡锦涛因此创下了中共党魁中断访外、突然回国处理国内事件的先例。

    自9月以来，北京市内启动7000武警夜间巡逻。9月15日开始，收紧出入境限制，乘坐列车或长途汽车等进入北京时必须出示身份证，否则不得进入。

    而且，北京当局还下令，部份大型超市禁止出售刀具，包括菜刀、水果刀、西瓜刀等刀类商品要全部下架；也有部份商家表示，顾客购买时必须要登记详细个人信息。

    与此同时，中共加强了对网络的疯狂封锁，以及对异议人士的监控。尽管如此，在被封锁得像铁桶一样的北京城最近接连发生流血和暴力事件，使人心惶惶、当局更加恐慌。中共在北京的一系列举动令市民深表不满，“真是草木皆兵”，抱怨中共暴政。

    中美爆发贸易保护战 中共再增持142亿美国国债
    　　
    在中美贸易方面，中国人大委员长吴邦国9月6日开始对美国进行为时6天的访问，这一、二十年来中国人大委员长首次出访美国，与美国签署了124亿美元的贸易大单。然而，吴邦国刚走，中美“轮胎特保案”爆发。
    　　
    应美国工会要求，美国总统奥巴马9月11日宣布，同意国会对从中国进口的所有小轿车和轻型卡车轮胎征收为期三年的惩罚性关税。此项法案将于9月26日生效。白宫发言人罗伯特·吉布斯表示，“基于对该案的事实与法律的考虑，总统决定救援陷入困境的美国轮胎工业。”
    　　
    在奥巴马的决定宣布几小时后，中共就做出了强硬的反击表态，回报以启动对美国部份汽车产品以及肉鸡的反倾销和反补贴调查程序。专家预测，贸易保护主义问题将成为匹兹堡峰会的最热议题之一。
    　　
    另据刚刚出炉的9月份美国财政部国际资本流动报告（TIC）显示，7月份中国又重新增持241亿美元美国国债，总持有额度再度超过8000亿美元。
    　　
    而在一个月前，中国自去年9月金融危机爆发以来第二次减持美国国债、创下历史最大减持额的251亿美国国债之后，中国媒体一片叫好。《中国青年报》曾刊文《中国减持美国国债是明智之举》表示，“中国必须做出选择，是自欺欺人式地继续大笔购入美国国债，坐看外储长期贬值，还是主动调整外储的投资配比，找寻突破口。目前来看，中国很明智地选择了第二条路。”
    　　
    然而，9月17日TIC报告让中方感到忧虑。美国国债社科院研究报告表明，从2000年-2009年初，中国外储购买力已缩水50%，“为外储寻求保值增值出路已迫在眉睫”。
    　　
    而且，中国经济刺激方案，使得大量的资金再次涌入股市和房市，加深了外界对中国经济泡沫的担忧。中国经济的何去何从，构成了当前中共最大的经济难题之一。

    尽管美元持续贬值，中共仍在继续增持美国债券。早些时候中共方面曾以抛售美国债券相威胁，但有专家指出，中共也被大量的美国国债牢牢套住。胡和奥巴马在轮胎问题的谈判中到底有多少可以出的牌，以摆脱贸易保护给经济带来的困境，是外界关注的另一大焦点。


    高精度图片
    《九评共产党》引发的退党大潮，到目前为止已经达到六千万民众退出中共及其相关组织。（大纪元）

    民众将举行反迫害声援退党大集会
    　　
    从 1999年7月开始，中共对法轮功的打压已经持续了十年多。据海外媒体报导，中共迫害法轮功动用了全国四分之一以上的经济资源，包括在全国范围内设立 610办公室、建立洗脑班、监控法轮功学员、制作诋毁法轮功的宣传资料，以及派遣大量中国特工到海外监控、干扰、诋毁法轮功，收集黑名单等。
    　　
    尽管中共迫害法轮功从未停止过，手段更加精致、隐秘和残忍，然而，法轮功学员坚持真理，不屈不挠的反迫害、和平理性讲真相，让国际社会和大陆社会各阶层都了解法轮功，以及中共迫害法轮功真相，在中国大陆更出现众多律师公开为法轮功做无罪辩护，令中共深感不安。
    　　
    中共迫害法轮功不仅让中国在经济上陷入泥潭，而且因迫害造成的社会道德下滑、人心背向更是中共无心也无力解决。2004年11月《九评共产党》的问世，让中国民众从新认识了中共，退党大潮席卷中华大地，至今，已有超过6000万中国民众公开声明退出中共党团队组织，拒绝中共，唾弃中共，不惧中共，令中共感到前所未有的恐慌。
    　　
    近日，全球退出中共服务中心与纽约法轮大法佛学会发出联合通告，拟在胡锦涛访美、参加联合国首脑峰会期间，在纽约联合国广场联合举办反迫害，声援6千万勇士退出中共大集会。
    　　
    通告指出，上世纪九十年代初，貌似强大的苏联与东欧共产阵营相继在一瞬间土崩瓦解，迄今已历十余年。如今中共气数已尽，败像频生，崩溃覆亡在即。“一场神灭中共的天谴的历史大戏正在上演。有识之士已看清，只有摆脱中共邪灵的桎梏，中华民族与中华儿女方能得救。”

    美东时间: 2009-09-21 09:17:47 AM  【万年历】
    本文网址：http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/9/9/21/n2664224.htm

     

    Hu Jintao’s Untimely Visit to the U.S.

    By Wu Weilin
    Epoch Times Staff     Sep 25, 2009

    Hu Jintao at U.N.
    Chinese regime leader Hu Jintao addresses the United Nations General Assembly at the U.N. headquarters on Wednesday in New York City. (Rick Gershon/Getty Images)

    China’s leader Hu Jintao’s visit to the U.S. comes at a time when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is facing challenges both domestically and internationally.

    During his five-day stop in the United States, Hu has attended the U.N. summit on climate change and the G20 summit in Pittsburgh, focused on the global financial crisis.

    At the same time, unresolved Chinese domestic and international issues are still bubbling away. Calm has not yet been restored to Xinjiang since the riots in July, the announcement of Hu Jintao’s heir during last Tuesday’s Fourth Plenary Session was postponed, and the recent Sino-America trade dispute over increased U.S. tariffs on Chinese-made tires is unresolved.

    Regime leaders generally use overseas trips to boost their political credentials. An examination of the challenges that Hu is facing, however, would indicate that his recent visit comes at an inconvenient time.

    Heir apparent fails to win in party plenum

    The failure of Hu Jintao’s heir apparent, Xi Jinping, to gain promotion in last Tuesday’s Party strategy meeting has brought widespread speculation.

    Current second-in-command Xi Jinping was widely anticipated to be promoted to the position of deputy chairman of the Central Military Commission during the meeting, and the move would have assured his smooth ascension to the future Party leadership.

    That Xi was ultimately not promoted raised questions among commentators about power succession in China. Some China observers in Hong Kong commented that the incident reflects intense internal political struggles.

    Tank convoy rehearses in front of the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square in Beijing on Sept. 19. (STR/AFP/Getty Images)

    A truly ‘Forbidden City’ ahead of national day

    Meanwhile, the regime will hold a robust military parade on Oct. 1 to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the its rule. The last military parade for a National Day celebration took place 10 years ago. This time, in an undertaking of expense and magnitude that rivals last year’s Beijing Olympics preparations, the regime is even more determined to showcase itself.

    Since early September, over 7,000 armed police have patrolled Beijing through the night, and passengers who enter the city via train or bus have been made to show identity cards. The regime has also mobilized a vast network of over one million “volunteers” to participate in security work.

    Red armbands, reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution, are also being distributed to restaurateurs, barbers, and shopkeepers, according to official propaganda. “The sea of red armbands will frighten the potential attackers,” an official Beijing Web site quoted an official as saying, without identifying who the attackers might be.

    The heightened security reflects the vast pressure the regime is experiencing from China’s current climate of social unrest. The ruling CCP regards failure to suppress dissent as equivalent to its own demise.

    As a sign of the extremes in security measures, carrier pigeons and kites are prohibited from the capital. Dissidents and appellants are banned from Beijing, too.

    Fruit and cooking knives were also temporarily banned from sale after two stabbing incidents in the city.

    Beijing has been turned into a truly forbidden city, at a time when a communist totalitarian regime has gained its enormous wealth by practicing capitalism.

    Trade war?

    The Sino-America trade dispute over increased duties on imported Chinese-made tires began right after the chairman of China's National People's Congress, Wu Bangguo, finished his goodwill visit to the U.S. on Sept. 10. He had signed contracts worth US$12.4 billion.

    According to a White House statement on Sept. 11, “The President decided to remedy the clear disruption to the U.S. tire industry based on the facts and the law in this case.” Punitive duties were imposed on imports of passenger vehicles and light truck tires for three years to correct market disruptions caused by a surge in imported tires, set to take effect on Sept. 26.

    Beijing responded immediately by announcing an investigation into alleged dumping and subsidizing of U.S. poultry and automotive exports.

    The possibility of a trade war between the two nations loomed just before Hu's U.S. trip. A Chinese Ministry of Commerce official told China's National Business Daily that the U.S. government had “adopted an inappropriate measure for an inappropriate product at an inappropriate time.”

    The Treasury International Capital September Report shows that in July China again started to increase its holdings of U.S. treasury bills by US$24.1 billion. Its total holdings again exceeded US$800 billion.

    However, just one month ago, Chinese media had widely praised the regime's decision to reduce its holdings of U.S. treasury bills by US$25.1 billion (from US$801.5 billion in May to US$776.4 in June).

    The state-run Beijing Youth Daily published an article on Aug. 19 titled “A Wise Move for China to Reduce Its Holdings of U.S. Treasury Bills,” which says: “China must make a choice—to continue fooling ourselves as well as others by purchasing U.S. treasury bills in large volumes and watching its depreciation, or to look for breakthroughs by actively adjusting the foreign reserve investment structure.”

    A 2000–2009 report from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences states that China's ability to purchase foreign reserves has shrunk 50 percent. “It is especially important to look for ways to increase the value or maintain the value of the foreign reserves,” according to the Beijing Youth Daily report.

    Besides, Beijing's economic stimulus package has only opened the gate for speculation in the Chinese stock market and housing market, deepening the worry over fueling a bubble economy. Where the Chinese economy is heading has become one of the regime's biggest preoccupations.

    Beijing's ability to threaten the U.S. by reducing U.S. treasury bill holdings is questionable. What’s next is to see how Hu Jintao will avoid the mire of trade protectionism in negotiations with Obama.

    Read the original Chinese article.

    Last Updated
    Sep 25, 2009
     
     
    7:03 PM | Add a comment | Permalink | Blog it

    John Liu Supports Communist Persecution and Violence

     

    A man like John Liu is definitely not suitable for NYC comptroller. Please read description:

    In May 2008, here in Flushing, multiple mobs formed attacking falungong(a spiritual practice) practitioners in the streets of Flushing, New York. These events were gigantic and brutal, right in the middle of Main Street.

    The police arrested many mobs from these events. What was startling to me however, was that after the events, was what John Liu (flushing district counselman at the time) did.

    INSTEAD of comforting the falungong victims, he appraised and comforted the MOB MEMBERS, and even shook their hands!

    Many of these flushing events I have witnessed first hand. It was later reported by the NY Post reported that the violence in Flushing was supported by the Consel General of Communist China.

    John Liu and the Communist China have very close political ties.

    This video was made to show some clips of the violence in Flushing (some never shown in public news), and to remind us that John Liu will not serve the interest and values of Americans.

    News or Interview Links:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crU63T...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPEGZE...

    The Epoch Times:
    http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/conte...
    http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/conte...
    http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/conte...

    The Daily News:
    http://www.nydailynews.com/news/elect...

    The New York Post:
    http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/...

    4:44 PM | Add a comment | Permalink | Blog it
     

    外国警察的泪水和中国警察的赞叹


    文／云帆
     
      打印版本

    【明慧网二零零九年九月二十八日】二零零九年九月二十四日，法轮功学员借二十国经济峰会在美国宾州匹茨堡市举行的机会，再次向国际社会揭露中共对法轮功的非人迫害，并要求立即制止迫害，法办迫害元凶江泽民、罗干、周永康和刘京。

    当日早上八点，中、西方法轮功学员在邻近匹茨堡市国际会议中心——峰会会场外的广场上静坐炼功。他们打出：“立即停止迫害法轮功”、“法办江泽民、罗干、周永康、刘京”、“法轮大法好”和“世界需要真、善、忍”等中英文横幅，同时还展出了中国法轮功学员受酷刑折磨的展板，揭露中共对法轮功学员的暴行，吸引众多媒体前来采访。

    来到匹茨堡的，除了参加此次峰会的二十个国家的领导人、代表团外，还有约三千名来自世界各地的媒体工作者，也有各国的人权组织和团体。这些人权团体在峰会会场外为了各自的目的进行各种抗议活动，其中也有若干针对中共迫害人权进行的抗议。

    当被媒体记者问到，为何法轮功学员抗议的地点较其他团体更接近峰会会场时，法轮功学员代表、经济分析师简先生表示：“中共对法轮功学员的迫害如此残酷，在我们把学员受酷刑迫害的照片展示给警察，并解释我们一贯的和平抗议方式后，警察都流下了眼泪，并说，制止这样的迫害本来是警察的责任，所以法轮功学员绝对有权利要求立即停止迫害，所以我们获得了最接近峰会会场的抗议场地。”

    令笔者感动的是这个外国警察明白真相后流下了眼泪。这样能分清善恶、明辨是非的警察才是真正的警察，他感动于中国法轮功修炼者所承受的非人的折磨，他做了他力所能及的事情帮助这些法轮功修炼者。

    其实在我们中国大陆像这位警察一样能明辨善恶的警察也有很多，只是由于中共的高压政策使他们还不能公开的为法轮功做自己应该做的而已。

    一九九九年四月二十五日，法轮功学员万人大上访时，学员们都根据警察的要求站在中南海的围墙外。那么多的人静静的站在那里，有老人，有孩子，还有孕妇，也有警察和国家公务员。一万多人啊，竟然不需要警察维持秩序。临走时把地上的纸片和警察吸的烟头都捡走了。一个警察很是感动，叫过来其他警察，指着干干净净的地面说：“看，什么是德？这就是德！”

    是啊，看人的德行，不就看人的表现吗？这样一群不争名利的人，他们用自己的言行感动了警察，这还不足以说明问题吗？

    然而，不同的人看问题就有不同的角度，善者看到了人的美德，恶者则因为人的美德而心生妒嫉。一意孤行的江泽民就因为看到了大法弟子如此的善行而心生妒嫉，竟然将大法弟子们这样高境界的行为称作是“有背后高手指使”并以此为借口开始了长达十年至今还未停止的残酷迫害。

    我不知道那些曾对大法弟子的美德赞不绝口的中国警察，是不是在中共对法轮功的灭绝式迫害中被裹挟着参与了对大法弟子的迫害。我真心希望他们能坚持住自己亲眼见证的事实，保持住自己的良知。这么多年过去了，哪个知道此事的大法弟子不希望他们有一个美好的未来呢？

    但愿外国警察的眼泪能促使中国的警察看清这场迫害的邪恶。这个外国警察说：“制止这样的迫害本来是警察的责任。”那么，中国的警察啊，您在这场对法轮功修炼者的迫害中做了什么？您不应该尽一下自己的责任吗？

    成文：2009年09月27日  发稿：2009年09月28日  更新：2009年09月28日 00:31:11
    明慧网版权所有 © 1999-2009 MINGHUI.ORG

     

    这不是睁眼睛说瞎话吗
     
      打印版本

    【明慧网二零零九年九月二十六日】“谎言”就是瞎说的话。而最低级无耻的谎言，就是睁着眼睛说瞎话了。这样的事在我们身边还不少，您不妨留心看一看，想一想。

    取消农业税

    中共的电视报纸曾大力宣传：共产党多“进步”，农业税不收了，种地还给补贴。

    事实是：世界上收农业税的国家只有两个——中国和越南。德国、法国、英国对农业人口的补贴，甚至超过中国普通农户的收入。

    “围攻中南海”？

    中共称，法轮功学员一九九九年四月二十五日“围攻中南海”，导致被镇压。

    事实：一九九九年四月二十五日，上万法轮功群众陆续汇集在北京“府右街”和“西安门大街”附近，与中南海相邻的“西安门大街”，是当时国务院信访局的所在地。上万名群众直接来到国家最高的信访部门上访，这在中国历史上还是第一次。尽管人数众多，人群却出奇的安静，并且秩序井然，维持治安的警察这时候也觉得没什么事可做而闲聊。法轮功学员既没有“围”，更没有“攻”。

    中共从九六年《光明日报》的舆论攻击开始，就有预谋地系统实施对法轮功的打压了。从禁止出版法轮功书籍，到中共江泽民、罗干一伙扣押人大委员长乔石、国务院总理朱镕基对法轮功的正面肯定和批示；从九八年七月公安部内定法轮功为“×教”，四处派特务收集“罪证”未果，再到动用公安强行驱散炼功群众、非法抄家……三年中，打压不断升级。最后终于由警察殴打及非法抓捕法轮功学员的“天津事件”，引发了“四•二五”万人和平上访。

    塑料瓶子烧不破？

    零一年一月，央视播出的“天安门自焚”画面上，装汽油的塑料瓶在大火中不着火、不变形……。

    事实：“天安门自焚”假戏漏洞百出。国际教育发展组织（IED）二零零一年八月十四日在联合国会议上，就天安门自焚事件，强烈谴责中共的“国家恐怖主义行为”。声明说: 从录像分析表明, 整个事件是“政府一手导演的”。中国代表团面对确凿的证据，没有辩辞。该声明已被联合国备案。

    不敢说的第六个字

    我的一个朋友指着“藏字石”风景区门票，呵呵直乐：“明明上面是六个大字（‘中国共产党亡’），共产党的媒体却不敢提第六个字，导游也说只有五个字。睁着眼睛说瞎话啊！”

    其实老百姓心里都有杆秤，只要多听多看真相，就不会被蒙骗。中共窃国六十年，造成八千万人非正常死亡，今天又残酷迫害修心向善的法轮功学员，它的罪行使得天怒人怨，使它逃不过“天灭中共”的天意。中国人从小就被迫宣誓：时刻准备着为它献身。今天已有6000多万人摆脱了它的欺骗，顺应天意，声明退出中共党、团、队，废除了毒誓，为自己选择了美好的未来。◇

    （选自《明慧周报》大陆-乡里乡亲版）

    成文：2009年09月25日  发稿：2009年09月26日  更新：2009年09月26日 02:37:32
    明慧网版权所有 © 1999-2009 MINGHUI.ORG


    http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2009/9/26/209011.html

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    临近中共建政60周年，北京一些大型超市不让卖菜刀了。甚至连水果刀、裁纸刀、扦脚刀等刀具也难寻踪迹。 （网络图片）

    赵静芝：极权制度的幽默：不让卖菜刀

    作者：赵静芝

     
    【正体版】  【打印机版】  【字号】大  中  小

    【大纪元9月26日讯】极权制度带给老百姓的不仅仅是恐惧和磨难，还时常带点荒诞和幽默。最新的版本是临近中共建政60周年，北京一些大型超市不让卖菜刀了。甚至连水果刀、裁纸刀、扦脚刀等刀具也难寻踪迹。还好卷笔刀、指甲刀尚不在被禁之列，不然，北京要打造世界上第一个“无刀城”，继而再创一个新的吉尼斯纪录了。

    极权者的思维是，刀不让卖了，看行凶者上哪里找凶器去。这智商我真怀疑他们在加速返祖中。天下太平靠的是不卖菜刀吗？靠的是人心啊！大超市里不卖菜刀，歹徒们多跑几家到小巷子的杂货店去，杂货店买不到就到郊县的马路小铺去，如果那里都买不到还可以上废品收购店去碰碰运气。想搞破坏还怕这点困难吗？再说，谁家里没几把菜刀，还用得着满世界找家伙？掂上自家的，一来操作比较顺手，二来还经济实惠，上大超市买刀不是多此一举吗？

    话再说回来，都什么年代了，菜刀这玩意还有多少杀伤力啊。与现在日新月异的新型武器相比，菜刀还算什么凶器吗？无非是刀口有点锋利，可以用来切、砍、 剁、飞、磨、借、藏、剪、比、剥、开、劈、拍、断、剃、宰、削、割、捅、刺、扎、铡……当然也可以用来杀。但拿着菜刀滋事的一般都是小混混，要是没有杨佳先生的老到手法，致人迅速毙命的概率不高。无非是制造点小状况，让当局头痛。

    大陆有关部门不让卖菜刀，我看还是过度夸大了菜刀的杀伤力。中共当权者有点“菜刀情结”，因为有个流传甚广的笑话，说中共里面有个叫贺龙的土老包靠的就是“两把菜刀闹革命”后来从土匪头子变成元帅的。1917年12月，据说贺龙与另外一名青年手持两把菜刀，袭击了护送县长的卫兵，夺得两把汉阳造的步枪，以后又重新组织起武装。后来，贺龙在中共“七大”前填写履历表时写道：1917年底曾用两把菜刀，发展到百余人的队伍，任援鄂军第一路总司令所属之游击司令。后来，老毛到处宣传贺龙两把菜刀的事情，久而久之，人们把菜刀和暴动紧紧联系在一起，以至在近一百年后的今天，洲际导弹都不足为奇的情况下，还死死认为菜刀的效用不止于家用。稍有疏忽，就会被亡命之徒用来“颠覆”什么或者给个“说法”啥的，反正这菜刀横看竖看都是要让人滴血的。

    不让卖菜刀，让真正要用刀的老百姓苦了。这年头，虽然家用电器发展很快， 但菜刀还是生活必须。杀个鸡鸭、劈个猪头、炖个牛尾，哪里离得开菜刀啊，菜刀买不到，又不想问邻居借，就只能吃素了。吃素也是需要菜刀的，不能整棵青菜往嘴里送，人吃饭又不是牛吃草。其次，卖菜刀的商店和做菜刀的“王麻子”们也栽了。至少半个月没什么大的进账，明着是肯定不能卖了，私底下就当“武器、毒品”卖吧，反正也没地方说理。

    极权制度下的幽默通常是含泪的幽默。中共建政60年来，这种黑色幽默非但没有让人怡情却常常让人遍体鳞伤。五十年代的全民打麻雀、跑步实现共产主义，六十年的三忠于四无限，七十年代的深挖洞广积粮、八十年代的批精神污染、九十年的三个代表，直至今天的不让放风筝不让卖菜刀。中国的百姓在这种“幽默”中渐渐成长，当他们发现这是一种制度性的“幽默”后，才蓦然发现，这种幽默只能愉悦极权者们的神情，对于老百姓来说，永远只是一种煎熬。

    每一个国家都会有国庆都会有嘉年华，但如果为了这个庆典就可以彻底颠覆整个城市的生活，就可以置基本常识于不顾，那就是一种权力的放纵。今天的北京，恨不得把城市都装进铁桶里。军队、警察、武警、保安和140万志愿者五大力量形成合力，反恐精锐之师的雪豹突击队、身怀绝技的蓝剑突击队将延续奥运的特殊使命，战斗在第一线。北京警方按照“逢车必检”、“逢人必查”、“逢疑必录”的原则，在200多个进京主要路口和治安检查站，对进京所有车辆实行24小时安检。这个如果还说得过去，接下来就完全扯淡了：北京一名家住朝阳区富华家园的市民，日前放飞养鸽，结果大批公安临门，鸽主被刑事拘留多日。有个姓查的“异议人士”想去国家大剧院看京剧《赤壁》，被堵在家里，搞得人哭笑不得。放个鸽子，看出京戏，碍六十年的庆典啥手脚了，你搞得全民皆兵继而全民皆病，害的可是国家的形象啊。国庆本是百姓自发自愿参与的多元形式的狂欢节日了，如今成了专制制度和他的既得利益者们在武装力量保护下合谋的一场闹剧。我想，他们也知道这样做不能改变结局，只能延续情节。

    在香港的警匪片中，最耐看最惊险的不是汽车追逐、码头肉搏，而是黑帮老大私家花园里举办的派对。表面上杯盏交错、八面来朝，其实暗潮滚滚、刀光剑影。 那个顾盼自雄、油头粉面、踌躇满志的黑帮老大，其实早已风声鹤唳、杯弓蛇影，自知来日无多，尽管唤使家丁马仔使出吃奶力气到处堵截防卫，但仍然难逃致命一劫，正如《无间道》中的那句名言：出得黎行，预咗要还！（在江湖上混的，都得有这个心理准备啊！）。◇

    大纪元首发，转载请注明出处
    本文只代表作者的观点和陈述

    美东时间: 2009-09-26 01:48:47 AM  【看万年历】
    本文网址：http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/9/9/26/n2669444.htm

    La Gran Época
    		28.09.2009 22:13


    (El idiograma cielo)

    El carácter chino tian “天” tiene varios significados, y todos importantes: puede referirse al cielo, al día, al clima e incluso a los Cielos.

    En la antigüedad, “天”, tian, originalmente se refería a la cabeza humana, que consiste de “一” (yi, uno) y “大” (da, grande). En su forma antigua, tian se escribía como una persona de gran cabeza con los brazos extendidos.

    En la escritura del oráculo de hueso durante la dinastía Shang (1600 – 1046 a.C.), la cabeza en el carácter era cuadrada, y en los caracteres de la Edad de Bronce pasó a ser un punto redondo. Así que tian originalmente se refería a la cabeza de una persona. Más tarde la parte de la cabeza pasó a escribirse con un trazo horizontal, “一”, y la parte inferior siguió asemejándose a una persona de pie y con las piernas y los brazos abiertos.

    El carácter “大”, da, que significa “grande”, originalmente también era “人”, “persona”, y asemeja a una persona de pie. Encima de “人” o “大” está el inmenso firmamento, así que los antiguos también lo llamaban “天”, “cielo”. ¿Y quién está a cargo del Sol, la Luna y todas las estrellas? ¿Quién está a cargo de todos los asuntos humanos?

    Los antiguos chinos unieron estos conceptos bajo el nombre de Tian Zi, hijo del Cielo, para referirse al Emperador. Para ellos, “el cielo es enorme, la Tierra es enorme, y el ser humano también es enorme”, así que el carácter “大”, se asemeja a persona pero generalmente se utiliza con el significado de “grande”.

    El cielo, la Tierra y el ser humano son todos “grandes”, pero el hombre “人” es el más grande de todos, ya que se ubica entre el cielo y la Tierra, con “天”, el cielo, encima y “地”, la Tierra, debajo. Por eso, el carácter “立”, “de pie” se escribe como “天” Cielo, al revés. “天”, entonces, consiste de “大”, una persona, de pie sobre “一”, la tierra.

    En base al significado principal de cielo o cabeza, en el chino moderno “tian” tiene varias connotaciones. Por ejemplo, “charlar” se dice “tantian”. Pero aquí “天” no se refiere al cielo, sino que debido a que el cielo es tan vasto que abarca todo, “tantian” implica una charla extensa en la que se habla de varios temas.

    El dicho chino “tantian shuodi” (談天說地) significa charlar sobre tantos temas que se podría decir que se habla de todo; aquí, “地”, di, tierra, significa lo mismo que 天, tian, e implica algo amplio e ilimitado.

    http://www.lagranepoca.com/articles/2009/09/28/3679.html

     

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