What do you hope to achieve by boycotting Diane? For the ordinary Chinese people and for international peace?

I personally hope to achieve nothing, Janet, because I would not have attended the Olympics, anyway. My blog will boycott the Olympics--that's the best I can do.

The idea that working with oppressive governments causes them to become less oppressive is, in my opinion, a myth. They continue to be oppressive. Right or wrong, I cannot support the vicious slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent creatures--most of them in front of their people (and many slaughtered by their people--out of fear), and the theft of badly needed water from the poorest farmers.

You and I will have to agree to disagree on this.

Diane, I feel as you do. I wouldn't attend any Olympic Games anyway. I just think there would be more harm done by boycotting them than by attending. Each event has its own international implications.
There are plenty of countries whose actions resulted in the death of helpless citizens and yet we continue to talk.

I understand, Janet. You and I are usually on the same page, even if we are not in the same sentence on that page.

Also, I should add, of the protest that has been put forth, none of it (in a mainstream, official way) has been about the treatment of non-human animals, so I feel I have to speak up, just to get people to notice.

[This message has been edited by Diane Dees (edited July 18, 2008).]

"If there is hope, it lies in the proles."

Good Heavens, Paul, of course Mugabe's a dictator. More to the point he is a mass murderer. He wishes to wipe out the tribe to which he does not belong. I've forgotten the names but there are basically two tribes in Zimbabwe and Mugabe belongs to the more numerous one. His government has expressed the opinion that the country would be better if the other lot were wiped out. All of them. And you have to say he has been doing his best. Five million. Six million. In other words we're talking Hitler here (a man he has said he admires). Stalin also held elections in which he was the only candidate. He gained 101% of the vote.

How does China differ from all the other places you've mentioned?


Lo, there are many paths that lead to a dictatorship or state-dictatorship. Some come by way of right-wing military juntas, and some via the Marxist route. In fact, a Marxist state inevitably becomes a dictatorship, as we see most recently in Zimbabwe.

Which is why I am in a constant state of shock to realize that the Arts departments of the Western democracies teach a theoretical perspective that has been proved to lead inevitably to totalitarian states.

Imagine if the theories of National Socialism were the guiding lights of art- and social-theory!

And yet both positions are totalitarian and equally destructive of human rights in the long run.

'Mazing!

But I won't be able to return to discuss this matter for the rest of the day, because there is a HUGE game on today here (Australian Rules Football) between the top two teams - my team - The Western Bulldogs, and Geelong.

Go Doggies!!!

I was in Pakistan, Spain, Portugal, Yugoslavia, South Africa and East Germany, when they had dictatorships, alright SA had apartheid, and in everyone of them the people were warm and friendly and made be feel they appreciated being visited and that ignoring them did no good whatsoever.

That's the rub Jim. In South Africa my audience would have been segregated. Actually there would never have been a "black" or "coloured" audience at all. It really mattered to have nothing to do with that.

John, I agree about Mugabe, but I also reckon Tony Blair, George Bush and John Howard are mass-murderers. Over a million Iraqi dead and four million refugees. That's a pretty high score. Torture? Abu Ghraib. Guantanamo Bay. Rigged elections? Florida 2000. My point is that we all live under some form or other of undemocratic government that does vile things. Certainly there are degrees of vileness, but let's not assume that we are cleanskins and they are shockers. Some countries have more of the crap than others, that's all. I can get arrested for expressing opinions about various subjects, for example, in most western 'democracies'. I can disappear for weeks without trial for expressing opinions in (post-)Blair Britain and (post-)Howard Oz and probably in PATRIOT Act USA for all I know. Ain't that what dictatorships are supposed to do? We're all in the hands of a ruling few. Tacitus knew.



[This message has been edited by Paul Stevens (edited July 19, 2008).]