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法轮功与西方左派结合是一大败笔（玫瑰花车）
Falungong's Self Sabotaging

每日一语：

生命真是那么可贵，和平真是那么甜蜜，以致于我非要用枷锁和奴役来换取？ -- 千万不能这样，全能的上帝啊！-- 我不知道别人会怎样选择，至于我，[size=18]不自由，毋宁死[/size]。 --- Patrick Henry (美国的国父之一）

Is life so dear, or peace to sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? --- Forbid it, Almighty God! --- I know not what course others may take, but, as for me, [size=18]give me liberty or give me death. [/size] --- Patrick Henry (one of the American founding fathers)


在玫瑰花车抗议行动中的失败应使许多人，包括法轮功人士和一些决意倒共的民运人士，重新反省与思考他们的动机与合作伙伴。 与西方左派的合作只能导致旧戏重演：请不要忘记许多前共产党人曾留学西方。 但他们学习到的只是那些西方左派们的反自由，反西方，反基督精神的理论与实践。 他们从一开始就在建立自己的非法性与自己的最终失败与灭亡。 你还要将这种恶性循环再转一次吗？ --- 陈凯

The failure of the protest against the Beijing float in the 2008 Rose Parade in Pasadena should wake up some people including some Falun Gong Practitioners and some anti-communist Democratic groups. They should rethink and reflect about their own motives and with whom they should coordinate in their fight against the Chinese communist regime. Please remember that many communists had studied in the West during 1920s before they returned to China. But what they had learned was not about Freedom, or Capitalism, or Christianity, or anything that makes the West a human success. What they had learned and brought back to China was from those Western leftists such as Karl Marx, with their anti-West, anti-Freedom, anti-Christianity theories and practices. With such a learning, they are sabotaging their own causes and they had built something that is anti-human and doomed from its very beginning. Do you want to repeat again this vicious cycle?? --- Kai Chen

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Quote (from an American leftist's email)：

Hi Everyone,

I am sure you have seen it. There is a scathing report on opposition to the China float in the Los Angeles Times, Valley Edition, California Section. It comes to the conclusion that much support for the opposition was lost because it became a mainly Falun Gong issue. In the same newspaper, on P. A3 in a much shorter article, there is an article about the arrest of Hu Jia, an activist who has blogged about AIDS and other issues. This is part of the sanitizing of China I believe, before the Olympic games.

We have truly failed when the focus becomes only the issue of the Falun Gong and not the massive human rights violations occurring in China daily. We have so little time left. I have said from the beginning, anytime one person is interviewed (many bragged about contacts with various press), we should have all been interviewed.It would have allowed the public to see a broad base of dissent. I don't what we can do at this late to pick up the pieces and do this correctly, but we must try. I believe people's perception is that one agenda may be more important than another. That is not true. We all hurt. A mother should never lose a son or see the terrible autopsy photos. I have another mother of a murdered foreigner in China ready to come forth. I never even got the opportunity to share that with the press.

Maxine

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Dear Visitors:

I forward this message to show you how the Dem groups and the Falongong failed to advance the cause of freedom in China, by blindly coordinating and cooperating with the American left. They are sabotaging themselves without even knowing it.

In today's LA Times, there is an article in which a leftist UCI professor even call the Falungong group a fringe group not tied to human rights in China overall, and she even went as far to brand Falungong a "voodoo stuff". The Los Angeles Fanlungong groups has not been healthy since the beginning in their coordination with the local leftist groups. The so called "human rights" groups are basically playing the games by the Chinese communists -- they demand an illegitimate regime to change its practice, as if to pretend that the communist retime is the only entity legitimate they can talk to. They are just like what they are -- crying babies yelling pathetically "You have promised!" Not only they will fail to shake the communist regime in China, they are subconsciously and unconsciously helping the communist regime by scratching its bores.

What a bunch of losers. So far overseas, only Falungong and Kai Chen"s (myself) Olympic Freedom Movement have denied the legitimacy of the Chinese communist regime. Yet some Falungong practitioners, such as those in LA, blindly follow the deceptive American leftists in sabotaging their own cause. Surely there are some from the American rights deny the legitimacy of Falungong. But on the issue such as religious freedom and anti-communism, what Falungong members should coordinate is the American right and the Chinese right such as Kai Chen. By approaching Christian groups for their support, they can gain momentum in addressing their own plight to the world.

All in all, by working with American left who has no interest in guarding rights to religious freedom (for they see religion much as what Marx sees religion - opium for the masses), who are only shallow-minded in separating issues into never-ending squabbles within themselves, the Chinese communist regime wins, (and they are laughing in their hearts with their mouths closed now).

Falungong groups must unite with the faith-based American right and the freedom-based Chinese individuals such as Kai Chen to achieve the basic goal -- toppling the illegitimate communist regime in China and advancing the cause of freedom for everyone in the world.

Think deeper and more about the issues and make your own choices.

Best. Kai Chen

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I will now paste the LA Times article today here for you to read:

Activists fail to stir opposition to China's float

Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times
ROLLING: Some activists who oppose China’s human rights practices plan to turn their backs as the float passes. Others say a protest is out of place at the parade
The Rose Parade entry is set to take its place in the procession, despite efforts to link it to human rights.



By David Pierson, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
December 30, 2007

The shell of the Rose Parade float celebrating the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games sits in a sprawling warehouse complex in Azusa.

In a matter of hours, it will be adorned with thousands of carnations and roses, outfitted with fireworks and accompanied by 124 costumed Beijing opera singers, acrobats, traditional dancers and plate spinners down Colorado Boulevard.

Critics of China's communist government hoped to use the elaborate float and its worldwide stage at the Rose Parade on Tuesday as a rallying point for protests about the nation's human rights record.

But despite months of news conferences and protests, China foes have done little to change the parade's plans and have generated little support -- or interest -- from Southern California's large Chinese American community.

The lukewarm response underscores the increasingly close relationship Southern California shares with China. There may be no other time in which China has commanded as much influence and interest as it does today.

The San Gabriel Valley is home to one of the largest Chinese American communities in the nation and a growing business class that has made Southern California the chief trading region with China in the United States. To many, the 12-hour or longer flight to Beijing, Shanghai or Guangzhou is more of a commute than a voyage.

Business ties between the two countries forge quickly, and though many here believe China needs to improve its approach to human rights, more attention is paid to fueling the economy to improve the lot of ordinary Chinese.

"We haven't talked about it," said Cat Chao, host of a popular Mandarin-language talk show on KAZN-AM (1300), about the Olympics float. "The majority of Chinese think the Olympics is bigger than human rights and that human rights are already improving. They'd rather see China improve on issues like pollution."

Philip Young, president of the local Chinese American Citizens Alliance, said he planned to attend the Rose Parade. But he'll be there to cheer his teenage son and daughter in the Arcadia High School marching band, not to applaud or dismiss the Beijing float.

"China needs to improve its human rights record like any country, but to pick the Rose Parade as the forum is inappropriate," Young said.

"I'm really turned off. As a Chinese American, I'm proud China is having the Olympics. It's their coming-out party. After 20, 30 years of economic improvement, it's sad that some still see China as a threat and not an opportunity," he said.

Even local supporters of independence for Taiwan -- who rarely miss a chance to condemn China's government -- have largely stayed out of the parade debate.

Some Taiwan activists will hand out fliers at the parade. But after much debate among community leaders, they decided it was too risky to criticize the float because it had such broad backing among local Chinese, some of whom they rely on for support.

"If we come out and protest this float in public, we may anger many Chinese people in L.A.," said a leading local Taiwanese activist who wanted to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the internal debate. "They consider the Beijing Olympics a point of pride. We don't want a war between the Chinese and Taiwanese in L.A."

At the heart of the issue is a float celebrating China's first Olympic Games -- apropos, tournament officials say, because the upcoming parade's theme is "Passport to the World's Celebrations." Backers say China's government had no role in building the float, and that it was paid for by Pasadena-based label maker Avery Dennison Corp. and a coalition of Chinese American business people and philanthropists.

Many of the donors, including Avery Dennison, have significant business interests in China, but through representatives they have denied that those relationships played a role in their decision to fund the float.

A disparate group of activists banded together to block the float but failed. The Pasadena City Council dismissed the recommendations of its own human relations commission to issue critical remarks on China's human rights record.

And after weeks of negotiations, activists failed to reach an agreement with Pasadena police to allow an event on or near the parade route to counter the Olympics float.

Left with no other option, protesters have pledged to turn their backs on the float when it passes them along the parade route on New Year's Day.

The activists acknowledged that they have struggled to generate widespread support in the Chinese American community. But they believe their failure comes less from support of the float than out of fear.

"Most Chinese don't dare to speak out against the Chinese Communist Party," said John Li, president of the Caltech Falun Gong Club, one of the original critics of the float. "They worry their business [with China] can be influenced if America puts pressure on China's human rights record."

Li said he's tried to persuade fellow Chinese on the Caltech campus to join him, but he said the fear of government retribution drives them to silence.

"I ask them if they want their children to be persecuted for having different beliefs" when they return to China, Li said. "Our job is to wake them up. I feel more and more are waking up. For example, in the past the Chinese media kept silent reporting on human rights. But now I see more and more of them coming here."

Part of the problem may be who's delivering the message. Though the protesters represent a variety of interests -- including those for Tibetan independence and critics of China's hand in Myanmar, also known as Burma -- no group has had a more polarizing effect than the Falun Gong, which has been the chief instigator behind the opposition in Pasadena.

The group, which is loosely bonded by a belief in Chinese breathing exercises, is outlawed in China as a spiritual cult.

Adherents have been imprisoned and tortured by Chinese authorities who deem the group a threat to their ideological hegemony.

Despite evidence of their mistreatment, they have failed to generate lasting sympathy from the Chinese American community at large, where some label the Falun Gong as a fringe group.

"They're visible because they have devoted members, but they don't have a large following," said Yong Chen, who teaches history and Asian American studies at UC Irvine. "The perception among many people is that the Falun Gong is not equivalent to human rights."

Chao was more blunt. "A lot of Chinese think it's voodoo stuff," she said.

Adherents admit their toughest skeptics are fellow Chinese. But winning them over isn't necessarily crucial. Latching on to an event as widely viewed as the Rose Parade has already proved beneficial, they say.

"All the human rights activists know the first and most difficult step in stopping persecution is to get exposure," said Shizhong Chen, a Falun Gong practitioner heavily involved in the opposition campaign. "What happens in Pasadena adds to the exposure. Leading up to the Olympics, such opportunities will [arise] more and more . . . This serves as a kickoff event for human rights causes."

Reporters Without Borders recently unveiled a billboard on the corner of Arroyo Parkway and Del Mar Boulevard in Pasadena that depicts the Olympic interlocking rings made of handcuffs. Underneath, it reads "Beijing 2008."

At one point, a caravan of supporters protested outside the house of Pasadena Mayor Bill Bogaard, who has been accused of engineering the idea for a Beijing Olympics float and led the City Council's refusal to issue a resolution expressing concern over China's human rights record.

Since the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown on student demonstrators, human rights groups have accused China of mistreating those who oppose the ruling Communist Party. They charge Beijing with a litany of abuses, including imprisonment without proper trial, torture and the harvesting of organs from executed prisoners.

Earlier this year, Amnesty International released a report saying China had failed to live up to its promises to improve human rights in the lead-up to the Olympics by detaining activists, stifling domestic journalism and clearing the streets of Beijing of petty criminals and vagrants in preparation for the Summer Games.

But defenders of the float have argued that the entry represents the athletic spirit of the Olympic Games, not China's government.

Riding several entries behind the Olympic float in a 1911 Pope-Hartford touring car will be the mayor, who hopes the float will bring greater mutual understanding between the United States and China.

"Relations between the U.S. and China are so numerous and so substantial that people find it difficult to engage in daily life -- where every other product in your hand is made in China -- and at the same time suggest that there should be total condemnation of China and the Chinese government," he said.

"We all recognize that China is a player on the world scene."

david.pierson@latimes.com

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Article in today's LA Times about Hu Jia's arrest:

Hu Jia with our Olympic Freedom T-shirt:



China arrests prominent dissident

CRACKDOWN: Activist Hu Jia has blogged about issues such as the treatment of AIDS patients and the Tibetan antelope.
The Internet activist and his wife were already under house arrest for criticizing the government online. As the Olympics approach, such detentions are on the rise.

By Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
December 30, 2007

BEIJING -- In what human rights activists are calling a pre-Olympics crackdown on criticism, a leading dissident has been arrested here on charges of "subverting state authority."

The 34-year-old activist, Hu Jia, is among the best known in a new generation of Chinese online dissidents, blogging about issues such as the treatment of AIDS patients and the Tibetan antelope.

Hu Jia



His relentless activism has landed him in jail many times, but this latest arrest is likely to provoke a greater outcry because of the spotlight on Beijing in the run-up to the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Hu and his wife, 24-year-old fellow blogger Zhen Jinyan, were already under house arrest when police barged into their Beijing home Thursday afternoon. Activists say the police disconnected the couple's telephones and Internet lines and seized a computer, memory sticks and documents. Zhen, who gave birth six weeks ago to a daughter, was not taken into custody.

Hu joins a number of other activists, many of them similarly plying their criticism over the Internet, who have been arrested in recent months.

In a statement released late Friday, Paris-based Reporters Without Borders called Hu "one of the foremost representatives of the peaceful struggle for free expression in China." The advocacy group, which this month had given Hu and Zhen an award for their activism, urged the international community "to rally to Hu's defense so that he does not become another victim of China's pre-Olympics repression."

Despite having been under house arrest since May, Hu and Zhen remained as active as ever, using the Internet to compensate for their lack of mobility. Hu testified by Web camera at a European parliamentary hearing Nov. 26 in Brussels, at one point calling the Olympics a "human rights disaster."

Beijing has made it clear that it will not allow domestic critics to spoil what is being touted as the ultimate "coming out party," celebrating China's emergence as an economic power.

"We are against anyone politicizing the Olympic movement and the Olympic Games," said Jiang Xiaoyu, executive vice president of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, during a talk Friday with journalists. "If anyone is to try to violate the Olympic spirit, they will not succeed."

The Chinese government made no statement over the weekend about Hu's arrest, which was first reported by fellow activists.

From Beijing to Athens, where the Olympic torch is to be lighted in March, protests are being organized to publicize grievances against China on dozens of issues, such as its policies in Sudan and the treatment of North Korean refugees.

Trying to forestall the inevitable protests, China began rounding up suspected troublemakers in the days and weeks before another important event, the 17th Communist Party Congress, in October. Lawyer Gao Zhisheng was arrested in late September after writing an open letter to the U.S. Congress referring to the Games as the "handcuff Olympics."

Online commentator Wang Dejia was arrested in the southern Chinese city of Guilin, in Guangxi province, this month after complaining that excess spending for the Olympics would force ordinary people to "live like pigs and dogs."

barbara.demick@latimes.com