free tibet

[busy t]

anyone seen whats gone on within the past 2 days in china and tibet?

a group of monks from tibet stormed a press conference where chinese officials were speaking to some "selected" western reporters and started telling the cameras that the chinese government are lying about the tibet situation to the world.

i truely think that britain going to the olympics would be a big mistake, why fight to free iraq and then turn a blind eye to the tibet situation.

(just watched the news so feeling kinda irate about it, just thought i'd put it out there if it's not already)

[joe_heppy]

thats some deep shit bra, i mean wow

[nic&thekat]

busy t Wrote:why fight to free iraq and then turn a blind eye to the tibet situation.

Because they thought they could easily win in Iraq.

This whole issue is highly contentious and clear parallels can be drawn with the 1936 olympics in Germany. China has an awful record on human rights which appear totally at odds with the Olympic values, but here we are with them in pole position. People are starting to realise what is at stake here, but it is all too little far too late.

The global community naively thought that giving the games to China would help them wheel in the maverick superpower, but all it will do is allow China to display a sanitised version of the state which will just fuel their propoganda. If you just take the British olympic team for example, each member has had to sign up to a charter limiting their free speech at the games (this was instigated by the UK government not Chinese). The athletes are not allowed to give their thoughts on any non-sport related issues, again hugely naive and totally inappropriate.

It's a sad state of affairs and I know far too little to have a clear understanding, but it appears a gross mistake. The olympic community believe that there is a clear distinction between politics and sport, but fail to realise that awarding the games to China appears to sanction their current regime (which I have strong reservations about) and represents a massive coup for Chinese goverment.

We should build bridges with China and there's no reason why our relationships shouldn't improve, but the decision to award the games appears naive at best, negligent at worst.

Rant over. Sorry Erol, I guess this post will mean the forum being barrded from the web in China.

[epidemic27]

Still, at least the transport costs for Olympic merchandise will be virtually zero, eh?

No, seriously, I think it's appaling.

I think if China was as weak militarily as Iraq was, it'd have had the extended visit a long time ago.

I think the Human League did a song about this.... (Human, not Lebanon...)

[bellyscratch]

even if China did have a weak military we wouldnt invade it at all, It trades with us and helps our economy and thats all the goverment care about. I mean we havent invaded Saudi Arabia have we? no because they have lots of oil that they are willing to trade with us so we can carry on supporting their dictatorship that has an awful human rights record. The western countries supply all of its military too.

i better stop there, ill get myself going off on one

[benjomin]

bellyscratch Wrote:even if China did have a weak military we wouldnt invade it at all, It trades with us and helps our economy and thats all the goverment care about. I mean we havent invaded Saudi Arabia have we? no because they have lots of oil that they are willing to trade with us so we can carry on supporting their dictatorship that has an awful human rights record. The western countries supply all of its military too.

i better stop there, ill get myself going off on one

That said, one of the main reasons that Western powers invaded Iraq was probably for future oil reserves. Discuss.

[benjomin]

epidemic27 Wrote:I think if China was as weak militarily as Iraq was, it'd have had the extended visit a long time ago.

That isn't true though, look at zimbabwe; that is a country in ruins which, if the larger countries united, would be nowhere near strong enough to defend the regime. Yet no-one really seems to care.

[Le_Coop]

The oil stuff is well old now though and doesnt seem to change. We ourselves have made china worse by helping our large corporations over there to build factories again to help our economy and theirs. The counterfiet situation is now so bad that people are dieing because of using fake drugs they bought innocently to treat ilnesses

[benjomin]

Le_Coop Wrote:The oil stuff is well old now though and doesnt seem to change. We ourselves have made china worse by helping our large corporations over there to build factories again to help our economy and theirs. The counterfiet situation is now so bad that people are dieing because of using fake drugs they bought innocently to treat ilnesses

This brings us clearly to primark, exploitation of the workers! but no-one gives a s**t because it is exploitation of foreign workers.

[bellyscratch]

benjomin Wrote:

bellyscratch Wrote:even if China did have a weak military we wouldnt invade it at all, It trades with us and helps our economy and thats all the goverment care about. I mean we havent invaded Saudi Arabia have we? no because they have lots of oil that they are willing to trade with us so we can carry on supporting their dictatorship that has an awful human rights record. The western countries supply all of its military too.

i better stop there, ill get myself going off on one

That said, one of the main reasons that Western powers invaded Iraq was probably for future oil reserves. Discuss.

Oh yeh, oil supplies are running low and its making sure theres back for them to exploit.

On the thing you said about Zimbabwe, i think its because they dont have anything that the western goverments can take advantage of trade wise eg oil resources. If the country is poor then we dont give a fuck about it.

[bellyscratch]

benjomin Wrote:

Le_Coop Wrote:The oil stuff is well old now though and doesnt seem to change. We ourselves have made china worse by helping our large corporations over there to build factories again to help our economy and theirs. The counterfiet situation is now so bad that people are dieing because of using fake drugs they bought innocently to treat ilnesses

This brings us clearly to primark, exploitation of the workers! but no-one gives a s**t because it is exploitation of foreign workers.

I HATE Primark. How people can shop there is beyond me. i know its the corporations who are to blame, but if people carry on shopping there and making these people alot of money they are still going to carry on exploiting workers. Dont forget we live in a capitalist system ie money is more important than people, FACT.

I know Primark arent the only one, but they are a very obvious example. they are one of many companies i boycott.

It always annoys me how people dont care about certiain awful situations that occur in none western countries. I know this thread has been started to show some concern about people in Tibet, but how many of you really think about the people involved in this or other similarly awful situations enough to actually do something about it? like the Israeali occupation of Palestine and the occupation of Iraq by the US, Britain and other western nations. Im not going to make any individual assumptions, but im guessing there is very little action.

Its Imperialism, however you look at it. Imposing power on other countries for your own political and/or economic gain

[benjomin]

bellyscratch Wrote:

benjomin Wrote:

Le_Coop Wrote:The oil stuff is well old now though and doesnt seem to change. We ourselves have made china worse by helping our large corporations over there to build factories again to help our economy and theirs. The counterfiet situation is now so bad that people are dieing because of using fake drugs they bought innocently to treat ilnesses

This brings us clearly to primark, exploitation of the workers! but no-one gives a s**t because it is exploitation of foreign workers.

I HATE Primark. How people can shop there is beyond me. i know its the corporations who are to blame, but if people carry on shopping there and making these people alot of money they are still going to carry on exploiting workers. Dont forget we live in a capitalist system ie money is more important than people, FACT.

I know Primark arent the only one, but they are a very obvious example. they are one of many companies i boycott.

It always annoys me how people dont care about certiain awful situations that occur in none western countries. I know this thread has been started to show some concern about people in Tibet, but how many of you really think about the people involved in this or other similarly awful situations enough to actually do something about it? like the Israeali occupation of Palestine and the occupation of Iraq by the US, Britain and other western nations. Im not going to make any individual assumptions, but im guessing there is very little action.

Its Imperialism, however you look at it. Imposing power on other countries for your own political and/or economic gain

Yeah, but coats... for

[bellyscratch]

[Le_Coop]

Topman/Topshop are now one of the worst. Not only are they well happy about their whole china production line (whilst paying a fortune for celeb sponsorship), but they actively copy more expensive designs encouraging people to buy even more counterfeight stuff.

Some of the largest companies in the world in the fashion industry meet not so long ago to discuss worldwide anti counterfeight stuff and the vast majority of these companis who are fighting against it will not speak out or speak negatively towards china because it would damage relations with them and may hinder their chances of getting virtually free slave labour

[luke_h]

Le_Coop Wrote:but they actively copy more expensive designs encouraging people to buy even more counterfeight stuff.

Or they nick it off people doing work placements, ie; my girlfreind last summer. Swiped this design off her.

http://www.topman.com/webapp/wcs/stores/...&langId=-1

[Le_Coop]

luke_h Wrote:

Le_Coop Wrote:but they actively copy more expensive designs encouraging people to buy even more counterfeight stuff.

Or they nick it off people doing work placements, ie; my girlfreind last summer. Swiped this design off her.

http://www.topman.com/webapp/wcs/stores/...&langId=-1

Disgusting really, and its such an obvious design.

I know most people on the board despise topman but some of their stuff now and again I do like, I just wont buy it out of principle

[benjomin]

Le_Coop Wrote:

luke_h Wrote:

Le_Coop Wrote:but they actively copy more expensive designs encouraging people to buy even more counterfeight stuff.

Or they nick it off people doing work placements, ie; my girlfreind last summer. Swiped this design off her.

http://www.topman.com/webapp/wcs/stores/...&langId=-1

Disgusting really, and its such an obvious design.

I know most people on the board despise topman but some of their stuff now and again I do like, I just wont buy it out of principle

The thing with buying from topman is, you have to prepare yourself for about 5 other people wearing the exact same clothes as you on a night out.

[bellyscratch]

Le_Coop Wrote:Topman/Topshop are now one of the worst. Not only are they well happy about their whole china production line (whilst paying a fortune for celeb sponsorship), but they actively copy more expensive designs encouraging people to buy even more counterfeight stuff.

Some of the largest companies in the world in the fashion industry meet not so long ago to discuss worldwide anti counterfeight stuff and the vast majority of these companis who are fighting against it will not speak out or speak negatively towards china because it would damage relations with them and may hinder their chances of getting virtually free slave labour

Well, i dont think you can just stop making products in these countries otherwise there would just be no jobs there and everyone would suffer even more probably. Realistically the only way that these people can improve conditions is try to organise themselves and strike to put pressure on the bosses. This is extremely hard though as there is usually anti-trade union laws and so on stopping them from doing this.

The ONLY way that there can actually be substantial change if there is a massive f**k up in a major economy and with economic experts predicting another wall street crash in the US it could happen soon. Because of globalisation this would cause a sort of domino effect and basically revolutions could break out in a number of countries starting in the worst affected i.e. the countries that US relies on to exploit. If this happened it could rise up to more dominant nations including our own, because our economy relies on exploiting these nations.

I know alot of you will think that im some crazy communist or something now, but i think this is very possible.

I think im getting too radical for the erol forum so i will stop there and get back to revleft :)

[Le_Coop]

benjomin Wrote:

Le_Coop Wrote:

luke_h Wrote:Or they nick it off people doing work placements, ie; my girlfreind last summer. Swiped this design off her.

http://www.topman.com/webapp/wcs/stores/...&langId=-1

Disgusting really, and its such an obvious design.

I know most people on the board despise topman but some of their stuff now and again I do like, I just wont buy it out of principle

The thing with buying from topman is, you have to prepare yourself for about 5 other people wearing the exact same clothes as you on a night out.

Thats the main reason it gets stick, not for the ethical side of stuff.

[bellyscratch]

Le_Coop Wrote:

benjomin Wrote:

Le_Coop Wrote:Disgusting really, and its such an obvious design.

I know most people on the board despise topman but some of their stuff now and again I do like, I just wont buy it out of principle

The thing with buying from topman is, you have to prepare yourself for about 5 other people wearing the exact same clothes as you on a night out.

Thats the main reason it gets stick, not for the ethical side of stuff.

Realistically people dont think about the ethics, they just want cheap clothes. Who can blame them really? You want to be able to live a comfortable life and you dont want to shell out loads of money on clothes when you have bills to pay and mouths to feed

[Le_Coop]

Yeah. And the media have helped the cheap ethos along the way. Its now acceptable to brag to mates how cheap you managed to buy something. Prob more so with girls but the whole expensive clothing thing is dieing and they now feel good about letting their girls know how much of a bargain theyve found.

[bellyscratch]

Le_Coop Wrote:Yeah. And the media have helped the cheap ethos along the way. Its now acceptable to brag to mates how cheap you managed to buy something. Prob more so with girls but the whole expensive clothing thing is dieing and they now feel good about letting their girls know how much of a bargain theyve found.

They should introduce the prodcut labelling that they do on cigarettes, so instead of 'smoking gives you lung cancer' it should be 'the person who made this works 19 hours a day and gets paid below a living wage' or something like that anyway. Im guessing loads of people still wouldnt care if it was shoved in their face.

[nic&thekat]

bellyscratch Wrote:On the thing you said about Zimbabwe, i think its because they dont have anything that the western goverments can take advantage of trade wise eg oil resources. If the country is poor then we dont give a fuck about it.

No way man, Zimbabwe is a whole other kettle of fish. The two reasons that the governement has to be careful there is firstly the fact it is a former British colony, but secondly (and more importantly) is the African Nations. None of the surrounding countries have the balls to condemn the existing regime and until South Africa changes their stance nothing will change. Fingers crssed that democracy will sort out the Zimbabwe situation.

[bellyscratch]

nic&thekat Wrote:

bellyscratch Wrote:On the thing you said about Zimbabwe, i think its because they dont have anything that the western goverments can take advantage of trade wise eg oil resources. If the country is poor then we dont give a fuck about it.

No way man, Zimbabwe is a whole other kettle of fish. The two reasons that the governement has to be careful there is firstly the fact it is a former British colony, but secondly (and more importantly) is the African Nations. None of the surrounding countries have the balls to condemn the existing regime and until South Africa changes their stance nothing will change. Fingers crssed that democracy will sort out the Zimbabwe situation.

Careful? the goverment didnt seem careful when it kicked out all of the white farmers.

[nic&thekat]

I wasn't clear there fella, I meant our government has to be careful. Their governement with their agrarian reform, slum clearances and 100,000% inflation aren't too prudent.