In light of this news story, I think my email was not over the top.
China announce stability drive
From the article:
"The Beijing Olympics are approaching and properly carrying out petition and stability work, protecting social harmony and stability, and ensuring the Beijing Olympics go safely and smoothly has become a tough battle that every department at every level must win," said one report of a nationwide video conference on a stability drive that was held on Saturday.
"Now we are entering a state of war," said the report on a local government website in the eastern province of Zhejiang (http://www.dqnews.com.cn)...
... "Our most fundamental demand that is that zero go to Beijing, zero go to the province capital and there are zero mass petitions and mass incidents," a county official in the southwest province of Sichuan said, according to a local official website (http://www.scpc.gov.cn).
That "war" is on citizens who dare protest governmental abuses and corrupti
on.I love how what the world would call a "despotic crackdown", China calls a "stability drive". Kinda like a blood drive, except instead of helping accident victims, it's running in the streets.
Someone has to say something.
I like The Old Schoolhouse. Every Friday they send out Freebie Fridays, usually a buy one- get one kind of deal. I've even featured a few of the better ones here, including the reading program on my sidebar.
This week they offer an "awesome Summer 2008 Olympic Lapbook/Unit Study!" It "even includes a Bible verse to consider."
This made me a little testy, and I dashed off a too-quick email to the publisher:
I am very disappointed to see you offering an Olympics lapbook, an obvious tie-in to the Chinese Olympics.
China kills babies and forbids Christianity. They still drag people off in the middle of the night and took 2 million people's homes and businesses in order to built their Olympic stadium. Those people were left on the street with nothing. They execute prisoners without fair trials, and sell their body parts.
My children will not be watching the glorification of Beijing under the banner of "sports". I can't even imagine what Bible verse is being pushed to justify this kind of "fun homeschool tie-in".
Shame on you for promoting the Chinese Olympics!
Perhaps I should have cooled off a bit before hitting send... did I go to far? I have had no response.
