It's sad to read the confused postings on this site. It reflects great confusion on the part of the posters. I think their confusion reflects their incomprehension of the horrors that have been perpetuated both globally and historically. I know it's hard to accept man's inhumanity to man, but we must try, if we are to retain our humanity.

Mr. Barker sounds fascist, with his take on "imperialist elitists" and their use of human rights to advance their agenda. Really, it has nothing to do with what's going on in China, and it does more to confuse the important issues than anything I've read elsewhere. The persecution of Falun gong is real; the vicious nature of the CCP is real and unchanging. The facts are not difficult to understand; but you must be willing to understand each to get a handle on the true nature of this evil situation. For this, I suggest you read the Falun Dafa Information Center's website (www.faluninfo.net). Another source on the true vicious history of the CCP is the "Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party." See ninecommentaries.com. First published in November 2004 by The Epoch Times, the Nine Commentaries is THE definitive book on the Chinese Communist Party. Since its publication, over 41 million Chinese people have renounced their various Communist associations. The truth in this major work is dissolving the Party, from within.

Mr. Douglas Chalmers is also very confused. He seems to be laboring under some false understanding of China, and some perverse love of the communists, which I don't understand. The Chinese Communists have caused the deaths of 60 to 80 million of their own people. They are incapable of change because they refuse to accept any authority other than their own. China will never truly be a democratic society with the CCP in power - the West is deluding itself on this point. While there may be some groups in the world operating with their own "racist agenda," Falun Gong does not concern itself with these things. The CCP may have some hidden association with unsavory groups, but only insofar as these groups can advance the CCP's own agenda. The Party is very utilitarian and will not think twice about using people for their own nefarious purposes.

I am Chinese-American. My family fled from China during WWII - before the Communists took over. Despite the fact that they have never lived under the spectre of the Chinese communists, my own relatives still don't understand the vicious nature of this persecution because the horrors of this persecution is beyond anyone's imagination - and that, after all the horrors we've seen in Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, the Communists in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia, and the more recent horrors of Darfur, the Sudan. In order to understand this persecution and how wrong it is, you have to understand the vicious nature of the Party. Comparing Palestine and Israel to China is pointless - apples and oranges. Even Chinese people would scratch their heads at that equation. Please don't get sidetracked by your own confused feelings of repulsion at horror in general. Try to think rationally and you will be able to see the truth of this situation.

That is - for the communists, "there is nothing to restrain their actions," except an informed public. With an informed public, the CCP can't fool anyone with its staged events and its hype and propaganda. People can see that the propaganda is hiding another darker reality. That's the first step in stopping the unbridled ambitions of the CCP. Not buying their hype. Another step is in not buying the hype of western corporations doing business with the CCP. Another step is in seeing beyond the western media's support of the CCP. There are business advantages for these media to support the CCP. So when you see favorable media coverage of the CCP, ask yourselves - "what are they getting from this deal?" The propaganda is multi-layered. The CCP has many influential supporters. An informed public will not buy into any of this. An informed public that is moved by a sense of right or wrong may even be moved to take some form of action - whether it's signing a petition on the Friends of Falun Gong website (www.fofg.org) or writing to their government officials about some of the things mentioned here. The attacks of practitioners, or the interference that the CCP causes in local communities. Or maybe it's in contacting corporations doing business in China that's bad for our communities - like the toxic imports that can kill. There are products made by slave labor in China - like Christmas lights - the lights on a string hung on Christmas trees. I read on a website recently how more people are choosing investments that are socially responsible - rejecting investments that support terrorist regimes. North Korea was listed, along with Sudan. I'm curious to know why China is not listed, since the CCP supports these regimes! An informed public knows to ask these questions.

"Douglas", it seems that you tolerate Chinese to speak for Falun Gong, and you don't like foreigners to speak for Falun Gong. I am quite sure you can find tons of reason from any foreigner's national backgroun to critisize if this person stand up to say Falun Gong is great. According to your mind set, you would find all foreigners who say Falun Gong is great should look inside other than request the Comunist Party to stop persecuting Falun Gong.
So , do you think I should blame you for mine being persecuted in China as a Falun Gong practitioner simply because you are Chinese? Do you think Tiananmen Mothers should blame you for their killed kids in China simply because you are Chinese?
Also, because you should be blamed, so you should look back China to try to help stop persecuting Falun Gong before you blame Leeshai.

Sarah

Quote M. Teri: "It is you who needs to acknowledge your ignorance in the face of irrefutable information about China and the Chinese..."

Such utter garbage, M. Teri, and looking back upon the false "higher moral authority" of those in power during Zheng He's time 600 years ago it is quite clear that they once "...re(wrote) Chinese history in order to legitimatize their rule..." by putting an end to China's expensive but significant sea voyages of exploration and trade.

The result was the appearance of the Europeans and their ruthless domination and exploitation of the Pacific until Japan fought back and the 100's of years of vicious oppressive colonial rule of the countries of Asia and the Americas. All that would have been very different if a bunch of stupid self-serving traditionalists in the Middle Kingdom hadn't been so short-sighted - and the world would already know China as a peaceful super-power.

So you want the same kind of return to the 'good old days' as the Tibetans with those in exile only too happy to re-impose their monarchy, their heirarchy and their impoverished slavery upon the populace? The CCP "...have spent 60 years..." trying to urgently change all that and they have belatedly succeeded in bringing China into the modern era and to the position it and its people deserve amongst nations.

That is despite the hegemonic Americans invading Korea and carving up that once great Han nation and then wanting to use nuclear murder weapons against every city in China in the 1950's http://www.geocities.com/lemaycurtis/ Likewise about their invasion of Vietnam after the French failure to re-occupy former colonial countries as did Britain and the Netherlands in SE Asia - all designed to pressure China with "shock and awe" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3evAtxHTNE

Douglas said "That is despite the hegemonic Americans invading Korea and carving up that once great Han nation and then wanting to use nuclear murder weapons against every city in China in the 1950's http://www.geocities.com/lemaycurtis/ "

Douglas where do you get this stuff? During the conflict in Korea a U.S. general was fired by President Truman for suggesting the use of nukes on Chinese cities. You may have noticed that no chinese cities were nuked. Had the Americans wanted to do so as you claim, the history might be alot different.

You said: "So you want the same kind of return to the 'good old days' as the Tibetans with those in exile only too happy to re-impose their monarchy, their heirarchy and their impoverished slavery upon the populace?"

No Douglas. The Tibetans prefer to be invaded and killed by the PLA and their religion perverted by communism. The Tibetans rejoiced when their spiritual leaders were murdered, imprisoned or exiled. Tibetans want to live as an underclass with the benificent communist Han Chinese as their business and political leaders. And they want to be imprisoned and tortured if they complain about it. Life under communism is a splendid awe inspiring gift. The CCP prohibits western media from going into Tibet to have a look because they would find such happiness and joy there that everyone in the world would want the communists to rule over them and make the world one big happy place.

Lets see Douglas, what other insightful points have you made here. Oh yes. Your ideas about FG being a tool of the Americans to attack China seems over the top. Possibly the product of paranoia (induced by a lifetime barrage of propaganda??). We have a difficult enough time in the U.S. getting anyone to even speak about the atrocities against FG. American leaders wish the issue would just go away; this is a failure of American leadership, not a tactic for attack. There is too much fear in the U.S. that raising the FG issue will agitate the communists who will then stop "cooperating" on other international issues and who knows what other bizarre reaction might occur. You are a good example of how mentioning FG causes agitation, followed by bizarre interpretations of history and the specious assertions that FG is 'evil" which is just plain nonsense.

It seems that anything goes when you have the contradictory tasks of simultaneously denying and justifying persecution.

Falun Dafa is good. Falun Dafa is freely practiced world over but persecuted in China by the CCP. The persecution of Falun Gong must stop. The world needs Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance.

Short and powerful.

Douglas, I hope the CCP is paying you for your efforts, because that's what they do to get people to promote their hype. They use either incentives or coercion, sometimes both together. That's why corruption is so rampant within the Party itself. The CCP pays Chinese citizens to inform on Falun Gong practitioners, and they pay the various security agencies, prisons and police stations incentives to persecute Falun Gong. We know this from some of the former Party members who have defected in the past 3 years. You can read about them at ET's website. It would be a shame that you put all this effort in helping to promote the CCP hype without getting something for your efforts.

Just thought some readers might be interested in a summary of some of the criticisms of Falun Gong that I recently published:

Michael Barker, "Waging Democracy On China: Human Rights and an Endowment for Democracy". Swans, July 28, 2008. http://www.swans.com/library/art14/barker03.html

I am also publishing a related article in the next thing weeks that delves further into the background of various Falun Gong groups, see my website for further details http://michaeljamesbarker.wordpress.com/

I find the kind of stuff I see on Michael Barker's website truly troubling. Is this advancing the cause of goodness?

There's a peaceful group of people who want to meditate and maintain a series of spiritual beliefs, and they do no harm to anyone.

There is an authoritarian regime who regularly jails and tortures people to maintain its grip on power, and an enormous body of evidence that the spiritual believers are targets.

Choose your side.

"...these teachings remind us to ‘look inside’ and find our own shortcomings instead of blaming others..."

Look, Lemish, you started this series with a good description of Falun Gong as a belief system. That is no longer what you are on about and one can't help but be aware that the timing of your agenda on all of this is significant as regards attacking China.

I am thus left with a sickening feeling that there’s no way you can ever do their stories justice. Some are known to be false or at least embellished but there is more to your own story than meets the eye, too. As an American Israeli, you are concealing the atrocities perpetrated by both countries.

That your Israeli comrades are currently oppressing fellow Palestinians and have forced millions to flee over the past 60 years is one thing but what you are on about happened a decade ago and China has learnt from its mistakes. Your people have not and neither have the Americans who continue to invade and oppress countries in West Asia (the so-called Middle East).

In other words, you have set out with a series of pretty lies to deceive people into accepting your main agenda of blame-shifting. Typical of the once-colonialist West and especially so of the settler society of the USA (and also of Israel) is the wanton desire to deny any wrongdoing on their own part despite their own inglorous history of centuries of evil repression.

If there is ever one thing that the West must learn, it is to "sweep their own doorstep" first before criticizing others. Instead, you so hypocritically parrot LiHongZi's supposed teachings (actually age-old Buddhist and Daoist truths) and then indulge in the very same dishonest viciousness that you and your self-righteous people always did.

Thompson, I have answered Leeshai Lemish on that page also http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-faith-column/2008/08/falun-gong-pr...

Its a pity that yours and his history of China only conveniently starts around the 1940's - 1960's. That nicely ignores all of the vicious harassment, the opium inavsions and gunboat diplomacy carried out by Western powers (especially Britain and the USA) in the 1800's and early 1900's.

For your information, though, my people are Scots Celtic, not Chinese. They also have long memories..... about the English, uhh.

What no-one seems to ask here (and I have not read the back issues of this blog) is why China is so afraid of the Falun Gong?

One theory I heard is that it is because it is a resurgence of the traditional pre-communist belief systems, of taoism etc...

Since the beliefs of Falun Gong practitioners correspond fairly well with very widely held folk beliefs in China that have been suppressed to a large extent, the regime in Beijing thus fears its spread.

The irony is, of course, that Beijing has largely abandoned communist ideology, and is running a sort of corporatist totalitarian capitalism.

It is instructive to note that such a form of authoritarian militarist materialism (which is not so very far from where we are all headed in the war on terror) is terrified of the resurgence of less materialistic belief systems.

And this to me shows how fragile this kind of authoritarian materialism is: As soon as enough people start to prioritise other things, the lure of mass consumption diminishes.

This applies not only to China (whom the US in many ways now seem to be following in terms of ramping up their own police state) but also to the rest of the world.

Sarahsarah:
I applaud your compassionate appeal to "Douglas" but I believe it was in vain. "Douglas" might not be a human being!

can any one stop these atrocities going on in china.the world is nearly totally silent on sikiang or zinziang province.there were some flutter at at the time of the bejing olypics n in the onward jourbt of the olypic torch.but all is silent on that front.human rights is the biggest joke now.what has happend n is happening in iraq n afghanistan besides israel occupied palestinian lands.who bothers about these happenings.just a few days they r in the headlines then are consigned to the dust of forgetfulness.why blame only china.all the countries in te world where the trumpet of secularism n democracy is blown there r so many hidden skeletons in the cupboard.torture, humiliation n open contempt for other human beings is being practised in the name of investigation n justice.who has the power to stop them.who can forget la mai or abugharib,sabra,shatila n americans bombing marriage parties in afghanistan, besides killing innocent citizens n refusing rather lying to the world that it did never happen.when putin invaded chechnya in the wake of moscow apartment bombings-- a work of russian intelligence in tandem with the rulers-- the west only made some noises about too much use of power.what that country has become now how many of us know or bother to know.in my own beloved country those involved in the bombay nee mombay blasts were punished;but the srikrihna commission report about the massacre loot arson n plunder in bombay which was the cause of those blasts is gathering dust in the corridors of power n decision making. no use giving more examples though there are many.in our neighbourig terorrities fellow citizens are being killed in the name of war on terror.is more terror the answer to terror.i have witnessed the happenings in the whole world with awe n shock.there is no end to it. the whole world is being converted into a theatre of violence.who cares.i only pray to god in a god forsaking world have mercy on all human beings armannajmi india