Dave Balderstone wrote:

In article , TWS
wrote:


I agree completely. The fall of the iron curtain in Europe was
largely due to the access to uncensored information to its population.
This is a huge crack in China's wall...


Google cooperating with the communist regime in China is actually
subverting the communist regime in China?

Wow! Who knew?

Thanks for enlightening me! I will go forthwith and see if I can
participate with censorsing information in other repressive regimes so
I can subvert them while making fistfulls of cash!

Black is white.

War is peace.

I love Big Brother.


Sigh OK, so what is *your* answer to getting the repressive policies
of the Chinese abated. More cultural exchanges? Folk dancing? Asking
them "pretty please"? Cutting off trade?

We have two very good lab experiments going on in post-Communist
societies, Russia and China. In Russia, ideological "Freedom" was
declared by the stroke of a pen without regards to any of the other
economic, cultural, and historic realities. (Kind of like listening to a
speech by Ted Kennedy, actually.) In China, ideological Communism
remains the official position of the state, but Capitalism has been
allowed to flourish. Now, let's review what we've learned. Russia is
sliding back into the totalitarian abyss because it could not "afford"
its freedom. China is incrementally inching away from being a
totalitarian state towards something more closely resembling a
democracy. In the long haul, Communism in China is doomed as long as
they practice Capitalist economics. No middle-class person (of which
China has more and more with tons more on the way) can be oppressed
politically - they have too much to lose. The point is that political
freedom is a "luxury" that can only be enjoyed by people with sufficient
wealth, and wealth is produced by Capitalists.

Google's entre' into China involves an uncomfortable compromise, but to
the extent they can further Capitalism and a *more* free exchange of
information, they will effectively be accelerating the demise of the
totalitarian Communists. Is the pace fast enough? No. Would we all like
to see more human rights sensibilities. Of course. But the world
operates as it is, not as we wish it did. Incremental improvement is
better than *no* improvement.

P.S. If the West really wants to see democracy flourish in the
Middle East, one of the many pressures that ought to be brought
to bear there is an emphasis on free economics and an elimination
of the Thugocracies that keep the wealth all to themselves. One
of the noteable *failures* of the Bush administration has been to
not put massive pressure on the Saudis in this regard, for example.


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Tim Daneliuk
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