Wednesday, April 9, 2008 — Tibetan Freedom Movement: Beware of Slimy Fellow-travelers

It has been won­der­ful to see the pub­lic protests against the 1936 Berlin Olympics soon to be held in Bei­jing. For once, an instinc­tive revul­sion against total­i­tar­i­an­ism is dri­ving a glob­al move­ment of protest. But every legit­i­mate protest move­ment attracts slimy ele­ments, who seek to cash in on a human rights issue to cov­er up their anti-human-rights agen­da. Both the Civ­il Rights move­ment and the Anti-War move­ments in the 1950s and 1960s were infil­trat­ed by total­i­tar­i­ans, seek­ing to exploit a just cause for their own nefar­i­ous purposes.

Today, the fifth col­umn is Con­ser­v­a­tive. I find it absolute­ly hilar­i­ous that many Con­ser­v­a­tive colum­nists in the Unit­ed States and Cana­da have been going through a cri­sis of con­science about the protests against repres­sion in Chi­na and Tibet. Their instincts, when­ev­er they see young pro­test­ers in the streets, oppos­ing big pow­er, is to call out the tanks and roll over them. But their own tra­di­tion­al rhetoric has paint­ed them into a cor­ner. Most of them have man­aged, by the most bizarre con­tor­tion, to blame the repres­sion prac­ticed by their Com­mu­nist bud­dies on “Lib­er­al­ism” !

Let’s look at the record:
It is Con­ser­v­a­tives who con­sis­tent­ly pro­mot­ed the doc­trine of “engage­ment” with the Com­mu­nist Par­ty in Bei­jing, start­ing with Richard M. Nixon kiss­ing Mao’s bum, and con­tin­u­ing through Rea­gan’s rush to clink cham­pagne glass­es with Deng after the Tien­an­men Square massacre.
It is Con­ser­v­a­tives who have uni­ver­sal­ly claimed that human rights and democ­ra­cy are of no impor­tance, as long as glob­al cor­po­ra­tions can make mon­ey off of slave labor.
It is Con­ser­v­a­tives who have con­sis­tent­ly pro­mot­ed the lie that Chi­na is “no longer Com­mu­nist”, vir­tu­al­ly wip­ing the term “Com­mu­nist Chi­na” out of exis­tence. It is non­sense. Bei­jing’s dic­ta­tor­ship is not one mol­e­cule less Com­mu­nist than it has ever been, But it is a hell of a lot richer.
It is Con­ser­v­a­tives who have con­sis­tent­ly done every­thing in their pow­er to pro­tect Com­mu­nist dic­ta­tor­ship in Chi­na, and keep its geron­toc­ra­cy of mass-mur­der­ers and slave-traders wealthy and happy.
It is Con­ser­v­a­tives who have con­sis­tent­ly aban­doned and betrayed the Cap­tive Nations con­quered by Bei­jing’s Com­mu­nist impe­ri­al­ism, and the reli­gious and eth­nic minori­ties who suf­fer persecution.
It is Con­ser­v­a­tives who have encour­aged Amer­i­can cor­po­ra­tions to col­lab­o­rate with the Com­mu­nist Par­ty in main­tain­ing an iron cur­tain of cen­sor­ship, keep­ing the Chi­nese peo­ple in help­less ignorance.
It is Con­ser­v­a­tives who have tried to rede­fine a “free mar­ket” so that free­dom plays no role in it, and it now means “any­thing the Com­mu­nist Par­ty does”.
It is Con­ser­v­a­tives who have done every­thing in their pow­er to hand over Amer­i­ca’s (and Canada’s) wealth to the Com­mu­nist Par­ty in Bei­jing, and to deflect atten­tion from the tremen­dous dan­ger this pos­es to free­dom every­where on the globe.
It is Con­ser­v­a­tives who have con­sis­tent­ly pro­mot­ed Com­mu­nist val­ues: ant-like con­for­mi­ty, state secre­cy, cen­sor­ship, oppres­sion of women, auto­crat­ic rule, per­se­cu­tion of gays; racism, mil­i­tary adven­tures, sex­u­al repres­sion, arbi­trary arrest and impris­on­ment, abo­li­tion of due process, con­cen­tra­tion camps, tor­ture, a con­tin­u­ous assault on indi­vid­ual free­dom. These are all essen­tial and innate ele­ments of Com­mu­nism, which is the most extreme form of ultra-con­ser­vatism. Con­ser­v­a­tives have con­sis­tent­ly advo­cat­ed these Com­mu­nist ideas. Guan­tanamo Bay and “water­board­ing” are Com­mu­nism in its purest form.

Now Con­ser­v­a­tives try to posi­tion them­selves as on the side of free­dom? Bullshit.

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