CHINA

Last week during a concert in China, Bjork chanted, "Tibet! Tibet!" after a song called "Declare Independence." The Cinese government freaked out and banned Bjork from performing there again, saying that she had "hurt the feelings of the Chinese people." (Really? That's all it takes?) They went even further by then vowing to crack down on foreign artists performing in their country because the musicians might bring with them more scary Western ideas with which to upset the sensitive Chinese. The Chinese government claimed that no one in China believes Tibet to be a free state. Now, after days of Tibetan protests, and an absurd charge by the Chinese government that the Dali Lama is encouraging violence among his followers, I am completely baffled that our media continues to act as if this was all taking place on some planet far away. The Chinese government is oppressing its citizens on a scale comparable to the Russsian government, the North Korean government, and the Iranian government. Yet even our most outspoken critics of foreign tyranny are quietly looking the other way while we continue to be supplied with Chinese food imports and manufactured goods, as well as the big $3 trillion dollar loan that is funding our adventure in Iraq. Pundits, editors, and columnists alike are frighteningly mum on the subject of our big communist friend's long record of atrocious human rights violations, because hey, they are keeping our economy going. The Bush administration excluded China (and our other nice pal Saudi Arabia) from its version of the Axis of Evil and now Bush is saying that he still plans to attend the Beijing Olympics this summer because he "views it as a sporting event." Even fucking Stephen Spielberg had the balls to protest Chinese tyranny over Tibet when he pulled out of an Olympics-related directorial project. So apparently Bjork and Spielberg are more courageous than many of our fellow countrymen because I did not find one article or column condemning the reactions of the Chinese over the "Tibet" outburst. If anyone can find anything please let me know. But there are things that need to be said here and we need journalists to start saying them.