"Ai Weiwei- Never Sorry"

I encourage everyone to learn about and follow the works of an amazing artist-activist in China. Ai Weiwei. On YouTube you can find a snippets of the documentary about him called, "Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry." To watch the whole thing you'll have to go to Netflix or some other movie house. It's a perfect example of the kind of action which is desperately needed here in the States!!! Here's a condensed bit of info plus shots from the movie. 

Ai Weiwei's parents were protesters, themselves. His father was a poet who earned himself and his wife more than a few years in a labor camp. Ai spent a few years there, as well. He became an artist which did not graduate from the 'acceptable' academy in China and so his art is known as outsider art. It's all inflammatory, all real, and always relevant. The Chinese government passionately hates him and his international stardom. Trying to rein him in only makes his retaliatory acts more daring.

In 2008 he designed "The Birdsnest" stadium structure for the Olympics. It all went downhill from there because he was finally woken up to what kind of protest was necessary to promote change in China. It's been a battle staying alive since then. 

This  picture below shows the installation art ("Remembering") he created entirely from 9,000 children's backpacks in the wake of the devastating 2008 earthquuake which killed so many thousands. The pictures Ai saw after the incident of backpacks strewn everywhere around these schools haunted him.

"She lived happily for seven years in this world," which was a quote from the parent of one of the victim's mother. This is what the Chinese characters spell out in the installation art. 

Ai and his company were protesting the fact that the Chinese government didn't have an accurate tally of dead and injured. They didn't seem to care at all. The majority of the children killed were in very shoddy government built schools when they collapsed on them. Any time people tried to do compilations of names in these towns the government officials harassed them; obviously something stinky was afoot.

As another form of protest he and his company compiled a list of every child they could find out about. By April of 2009 they had compiled a list totaling 5,385 verifiable names. After he posted their names online the government ripped his blog down. So he had other people post the names to get the word out!! 

Ai is an avid Twitter fanatic. His blog got ripped down a few times by the government so he gave up.  I went to the site and sure enough, it's just a blanket page with a link about the government suing him and a few links. But on Twitter he is a chatterbox.

Here he is eating outside a cafe with a dozen anonymous friends who sat down to eat with him. That act alone was defiance on their part. The police showed up and tried to harass him to leave. He didn't. Everyone finished their meals. The police could only watch and glare at them.

The Chinese government finally got tired of his antics and....

Ai was detained at Beijing airport by police when he was trying to board a plane to Hong Kong. Protests and rallies have helped spread the word of what Chinese officials have done.

They held Ai Weiwei for eighty-one days in an undisclosed location and interrogated him about his 'unlawful activities' within his art. They were interested in his publicity interviews and online activities. They detained him under the guise of investigating his company's finances. He was released after admitting to 'tax evasion(which he later lost in court but is refusing to pay out) and put on probation which prohibited him from speaking to reporters, blogging or tweeting, or leaving the city of Beijing.

The sign above is one which was at a protest rally in China at a police station. Sorry about the movie control area graying out a portion of it. It says, "China Set Them Free!" That is a list of the number of writers, lawyers, artists, teachers, and other intellectuals who were all systematically rounded up around the same time as Ai. 


The artist reappeared over two months later, shaken, and wouldn't talk to anyone for quite some time. He said that he was out on bail and couldn't access his Twitter account or talk about anything that happened. It didn't stop him for long, though. Within weeks he was back at it.

In 2011 the government demolished his art studio which had just been completed. Ai invited people to an outdoor barbecue to celebrate but he couldn't attend the party himself because he was placed on house arrest. Celebrate what, you ask? Friendship!!! Camaraderie! Harmony! The joy of being alive. Later that day the building they celebrated in was demolished by government workers. The party was the only act of defiance they could really make. 

One of his most notable recent works was a short film featuring Ai writing in Chinese characters on a white background and then several people coming to stand before they camera and saying, "Fuck you, motherland," in their native tongue and then walking away from the camera's view. Ai was last. The international art community, along with Human Rights Watch, collectively felt their jaws hit the floor. This was one of his most provocative works. No one could be sure what would happen to him now.

In April of 2012, Ai set up several cameras to monitor him at his house and linked the feed online. His reason was that the Chinese government already had a dozen cameras on him already, 24/7, so what's four more? Forty-six hours after his cameras went live the government demanded he removed them. They received over five million views before being disconnected.  

I'd like everyone reading this to pause for a moment to consider the implications here. The government can watch your every move and it's ok. But if you hook up a live feed to the internet and allow the rest of the world to watch you-- it's NOT ok?  

I know at this point it's not just an act of defiance on his part, it's for his own personal safety.  Still, it is an artist's statement which deserves to be analyzed on a global scale. What would happen if you tried to do the same thing??

And so now we watch and wait to see what happens to this brave man. 

Here is a link to his Twitter account. It's in Chinese.  Does anyone know how I can translate that whole page to English??  

Distracting The Public From Real News: Boobs

The front page of Yahoo News today was positively shocking!!! I have never been so appalled in my life. The nerve of those reporters....  just tasteless and tacky if you ask me.

Hey. I learned something today. Wanna know what? 

Yahoo!, MSN, and AOL need more boob pictures to further 

distract the public from the real issues which we should be discussing!   

What? You don't like boobs? You don't think they should be on the front page of every major news source online or in paper format? Well, I disagree with you. We should be working with human nature and not against it. So the next time a reporter, publisher, or wise neighbor has something really profound to say and they want to get your attention they need to flash them if they've got them and if they don't(hairy cave-man chests aren't sexy, sorry) then they need to find a picture of some and paste it next to the title! Hell, use little boobie icon pictures like commas and semi-colons.

Of course GirlsGoneWild's profits my take a plunge once pubescent teenagers become desensitized but... I think that's just something they're going to have to suck up and take for the team called Humanity Cares.

Because we do care. But with all the hustle and bustle and politically cherry picked stories of the day, we really don't get a chance to see the truth for what it is. The truth isn't always pretty and a lot of times the cleavage isn't punctuated with perky bits- it's scarred and pocked with indecency; but not from the indecency from being what it naturally is- indecency from what it's become because of us. A rock is just a rock but once you throw it then it becomes a weapon.

Let's make love not war. Let's not make it a cliche, let's make it a real thing by daring to get up and show just how much we love our freedom.

Let's use breasts as weapons. The next time you see an article which is obviously a frivolous page filler to distract you from what matters spam the crap out of the comments area with "WE NEED TO SEE MORE BREASTS! Why are you depriving us of the necessity of seeing breasts?! We demand to see them now!" or some other such inane nonsense that you can think of on the fly. Doesn't really matter because they're feeding us shit so let's let them know that we know they're feeding us shit and hand it right back to them. Call them out on their asshat behavior.

Haven't you noticed that rarely, if ever, a news story exists for more than six hours in the public domain before the audience members turn on one another, nit picking, splitting hairs, spitting insults, calling every fifth person a filthy atheist who is going to aych-ee-double toothpicks, and after everyone is aware that Suzy12q3w5 can't spell worth a shit and failed every spelling test she ever took, the mob then finally turns to the real culprit because everyone knows what it's all REALLY about-- whether our current president was born in Hawaii or Kenya. Or, "Bush did it!" 

Grow up. Grow a pair. Then wave those suckers around and yell, "I let it happen!" because ultimately that is what happened. We all let it happen. We were in a daydream. So what are we going to do about it?

Me? I blog. I spread the word to every family member and friend who will still talk to me about politics and/or religion.

Do you know that when I moved to Florida I missed being able to vote in the last presidential election by only a week? I changed over my driver's license a week too late. Shucks. But now, looking back, I don't feel so bad. I would have felt like an even bigger douche bag for voting the way I would have. Not like we're being given much of a choice, though. I guess we're just lucky that we didn't have any more pregnant chads showing up this time around. We would have had to throw welfare money at them for daring to show their promiscuous selves.

I'm not voting this November.  I'm not even going to the voting booth. I'd be tempted to flash my own breasts with a red-white-and-blue finger painted sign saying, "WMD for Peace." So yes, let us use breasts for peace.

Want to join in the good fight for freedom for all those who want to breast feed in public, don't want to have to worry about what third-world country our country is currently plundering, and/or just plain hates the unemployment rate? Here are a few logos you can slap on your own website.

 
Canada: Squarely in the Red stands for the 'in the red'(DEBT!) status of the country itself and it's pissed off students who were recently told that it was now illegal (Law 78) to protest at all. That's a good Canuck. Just roll over and play dead.... no. They're not taking it and neither should we. So show your support and spread the word. They're out there banging pots, painting body parts, and screaming at the very police officers who are told to enforce an illegal mandate from the Canadian court system. Let's show our neighbors to the north that their fight is our fight too!

The 99% is, as 99% of the world probably knows by now, the formal slogan for Occupy. Occupy Wallstreet, Occupy your local government offices, Occupy around the lake with the swans and ducks... we actually did that here. It was a nice turnout. Just Occupy. Occupy your own spiritual and physical space and ask the big bold questions: "Where would my children work tomorrow if they had to put a roof over their head and while they're working there could they hold their head up high or would it be lowered in shame from the immoral things they're being told to do on a daily or weekly basis? Can my child feel like they are part of something decent and humane or something which should be broken apart and never seen the likes of again?"

Falun Gong: A Positive Update

We finally have a reason to smile for our gnostic friends in the East. According to an article by the Epoch Times Chinese citizens are standing up against the brutal religious oppression of the peaceful gnostics who call themselves the Falun Gong. I'd written a bit about them in the past but at that point it looked pretty grim.

My prayers go out to them and all those who are sheltering and supporting them in this dangerous time.

Chinese Lawyers Support Falun Gong in 'Brave 300' Case

By Rona Rui,  Epoch Times Staff

5/28/12

Chinese lawyers and the public are increasingly more willing to oppose cases of Falun Gong practitioners being persecuted by authorities, after an incident in Hebei Province where 300 villagers signed their names on a public petition calling for the release of a detained fellow villager.

Wang Xiaodong, a teacher in Zhouguantun village near Butou city, Hebei province, was arrested in late February by plainclothes police after they discovered in his home compact discs with information about Falun Gong and its persecution. They also took 20,000 yuan (US$3,200) from him. His elderly mother and 7-year-old son were left to fend for themselves.

Following the arrest, 300 villagers signed their names and put their fingerprints on a petition for Wang’s release. But shortly thereafter the villagers were ordered to retract their statements and became the objects of repression by authorities, reportedly on direct orders from the powerful Political and Legislative Affairs Committee.

Guangdong lawyer Tang Jingling told The Epoch Times on the telephone that the incident is “a fight between good and evil. Using political or legal terms, it’s about the establishment of freedom and democracy,” he said.

People must stand up and raise a united righteous voice against the regime, Tang said.

Shaming Officials

According to Tang and other lawyers, the Chinese public is increasingly more willing to stand up against human rights abuses, particularly those targeting the Falun Gong mediation practice, also known as Falun Dafa, whose adherents espouse the values of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. Falun Gong practitioners have been persecuted in China since July 1999.

A Beijing lawyer, who wished not to be named, told The Epoch Times on Friday that he would be willing to accept Wang’s case if it were presented to him.

He said, aside from the villagers publicly standing up for him, Wang Xiaodong’s case is not unique. Numerous Falun Gong practitioners have been illegally sentenced, with the prosecution and judges designing charges that have previously never existed, or have questionable legal standing; in other cases evidence is apparently fabricated by police. Most of the time the legal system is bypassed, with practitioners instead directly sent to brainwashing centers or labor camps.

The lawyer added that there have been positive developments in Wang’s case because the villagers’ petition has shed unfavorable light on local Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials. He also knows of reports stating that the upper echelons of the CCP, including Politburo members, have questioned the reasoning behind the political campaign against Falun Gong.

Meanwhile, the lawyer said the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, the highest legal office in China, has handed the case back to the local Butou police bureau because of lack of evidence.

Liu Yan, a local government official, verified in a phone call on Saturday that the case had indeed been sent back to the police bureau for lack of evidence.

For Wang and his family, this could be a favorable development, the Beijing lawyer said, because his family can then request that he be released on bail. The lawyer added that there is a good likelihood that Wang might be released because it is an opportunity for officials with the police station to save face in light of public scrutiny.

Wang could also be cleared of all charges, but this is a more difficult feat to accomplish, the lawyer said.

The Epoch Times called the government in Butou, and local officials said they would consider the villagers’ petition.

But according to a number of local people The Epoch Times talked to, the government has been harassing villagers who signed the petition.

When Chongqing’s former top cop, Wang Lijun, fled for his life to the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu on Feb. 6, he set in motion a political storm that has not subsided. The battle behind the scenes turns on what stance officials take toward the persecution of Falun Gong. The faction with bloody hands—the officials promoted by former CCP head Jiang Zemin in order to carry out the persecution—is seeking to avoid accountability for their crimes and to continue the campaign. Other officials are refusing any longer to participate in the persecution. Events present a clear choice to the officials and citizens of China, as well as people around the world: either support or oppose the persecution of Falun Gong. History will record the choice each person makes.

Falun Gong

Falun Gong is a spiritual sect begun in mainland China. Gnostics. And they are being tortured, murdered, and even harvested for organs.

Wiki says:

"Falun Gong (alternatively Falun Dafa) is a system of beliefs and practices founded in China by Li Hongzhi in 1992. The practice emerged at the end of China's "qigong boom" as a form of qigong practice. Falun Gong differs from competing qigong schools through its absence of daily rituals of worship, its self-consciousness about outside critics,^[1] its greater emphasis on morality and the purported theological nature of its teachings.^[2][3] There is on-going debate about Falun Gong's classification as a religion, a new religious movement (NRM), or a "cult", term used by the Chinese government to describe the movement.^[4] Its teachings are derived^[5] from qigong, Buddhist and Daoist concepts.^[6][7][8]

In April 1999, over ten thousand Falun Gong practitioners gathered at Communist Party of ChinaZhongnanhai, in a silent protest following an incident in Tianjin.^[9][10][11] Two months later the Chinese government banned the practice through a crackdown and began a large propaganda campaign.^[12][5][13] Since 1999, Falun Gong practitioners in China have been reportedly subject to torture,^[14] illegal imprisonment,^[15] beatings, forced labor, organ harvesting, and psychiatric abuses.^[16][17] Falun Gong has responded with their own media campaign, and have emerged as a notable voice of dissent against the Communist Party of China, by founding organizations such as the Epoch Times, NTDTV and the Shen Yun Performing Arts to publicize their cause.^[18] headquarters,

The number of Falun Gong practitioners is unknown, and the group has no organized membership system. In 1998, the Chinese government published a figure of 70 million practitioners in China.^[19] Falun Gong asserts over 100 million practitioners of Falun Dafa in "114 countries and regions around the world".^[20]

Falun Gong was introduced to the public by Li Hongzhi(李洪志) in Changchun, China, in 1992. Its teachings cover spiritual, religious, mystical and metaphysical topics. Falun Gong is an introductory book that discusses qigong, which introduces the principles and provides illustrations and explanations of the exercises involved in Falun Gong practice.

The main body of teachings is articulated in the core book Zhuan Falun (轉法輪),^[21] published in late 1994. According to the texts, Falun Gong (or Falun Dafa) is a "complete system of mind-body cultivation practice" (修煉).^[22] 'Truthfulness' (眞), 'Compassion' (善), and 'Forbearance' (忍) are regarded as the fundamental characteristics of the cosmos—an omnipresent nature that permeates and encompasses everything. In the process of cultivation, the practitioner is supposed to assimilate himself or herself to these qualities by letting go of "attachments and notions," thus returning to the "original, true self." In Zhuan Falun, Li Hongzhi said that "As a practitioner, if you assimilate yourself to this characteristic, you are one that has attained the Tao."

Falun Gong draws on Oriental mysticism and traditional Chinese medicine, criticizes self-imposed limits of modern science, and views traditional Chinese science as an entirely different, yet equally valid knowledge system, according to Yuezhi Zhao, professor in the University of California. Concomitantly, it borrows the language of modern science in representing its cosmic laws. Zhao says: "Falun gong is not conceptualized as a religious faith; on the contrary, its practitioners, which include doctorate holders from prestigious American universities, see it as 'a new form of science.'"^[23]

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The Ban

On 20 July 1999, the Chinese government declared the Research Society of Falun Dafa and the Falun Gong organization under its control to be illegal for having been "engaged in illegal activities, advocating superstition and spreading fallacies, hoodwinking people, inciting and creating disturbances, and jeopardizing social stability."^[47] Xinhua further declared that Falun Gong was a highly organised political group "opposed to the Communist Party of China and the central government, [that] preaches idealism, theism and feudal superstition."^[48] Xinhua also affirmed that "the so-called 'truth, kindness and forbearance' principle preached by Li has nothing in common with the socialist ethical and cultural progress we are striving to achieve."^[49] In response, Li Hongzhi declared that Falun Gong did not have any particular organization, nor any political objectives.^[50]

The Chinese authorities branded Falun Gong, along with some other practices, movements or organizations xiejiao (Chinese: 邪教),^[51] it used the English word "cult" or "evil cult", and introduced a barrage of media material criticizing Falun Gong.^[48][52] A nationwide crackdown ensued with the exception of the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau. In October 1999, four months after the ban, legislation was created to outlaw "heterodox religions" and applied to Falun Gong retroactively.^[15] Leung remarked that the effort was driven by large-scale propaganda through television, newspapers, radio and internet.^[15] According to Johnson, the campaign against Falun Gong extended to many aspects of society, including the media apparatus, police force, military, education system, and workplaces.^[13] An extra-constitutional body, the "6-10 Office" was created, charged with monitoring and taking action against various religious groups.^[53] Human Rights Watch (2002) noted that families and workplaces were urged to cooperate with the government's position on Falun Gong, while practitioners themselves were subject to severe coercive measures to have them recant.^[54]

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"Severe coercive measures to have them recant"... hmm... Doesn't that sound like TORTURE to you?

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Due to its ban in mainland China, Falun Gong practitioners have taken to their cause internationally, especially in Australia, Canada, the United States, New Zealand, and Britain. Since the ban in China, Falun Gong has alleged that its practitioners in China were subject to torture.^{[citation needed]} Falun Gong related cases comprise 66% of all reported torture cases in China, according to the Special Rapporteur on torture,^[63] and at least half of the labour camp population.^[64] Amnesty International urged the government to "take seriously its commitment to prevent torture and take action immediately."^[65][66] The United Nations asked the Chinese government to respond to the various allegations by Falun Gong and human rights groups.^[14] Falun Gong practitioners in the United States routinely file cases in U.S. federal courts against Chinese leaders once they step upon foreign soil. According to International Advocates for Justice, Falun Gong has filed the largest number of human rights lawsuits in the 21st century and the charges are among the most severe international crimes defined by international criminal laws.^[67][68]

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So Amnesty International is involved. GREAT! Not that they've been able to do much of anything about the torture going on except spread the word about it and be appalled by it. Be outraged all you want. But what are you doing about it?

The Epoch Times is an international and multi-lingual publication by the Falun Gong. This is what they are doing about the abuse:

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The paper has been in publication since May 2000.

The newspaper was founded by practitioners of the Falun Gong spiritual discipline, after the government of the People's Republic of China banned the movement in 1999.^[1][2] Its stated focus is coverage of China and human rights issues, but much of its content is general-interest.^[3][4][5] Its editorial stance is heavily critical of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and sympathetic to dissidents. The Chinese government blocks those in mainland China from accessing the Epoch Times website.^[6]

Headquartered in New York City, the newspaper has local bureau and a network of local reporters throughout the world. It is sold and also distributed free-of-charge in roughly 30 countries worldwide, and maintains editions in English, Chinese, nine other languages in print, and 17 on the web.

On the paper's integrity:

"- the journal's credibility as media professionals has been damaged by Wang Wenyi,^[18] who used her Epoch Times journalist pass to gain access to a White House lawn press briefing where she hurled insults at Chinese President Hu Jintao.^[44] President George W. Bush apologized to the Chinese for the incident.^[45] In turn, The Epoch Times apologized to the U.S. President,^[46] whilst denying any direct ties to, or funding from, Falun Gong.<sup>[18]

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So let me get this straight. You've got a pissed off Chinese woman who voices her opinion and all of a sudden the credibility of her newspaper is on the line??! Yes, the publication is anti-communist. Yes, they are fighting for the right to survive. And if the Epoch Times hadn't denied ties to, or funding from, Falun Gong there would have been an international incident. They've had to ... shall we say... retract/redact/backslide on their original theme of being a publication completely about the Falun Gong spiritual sect. They've had to slip in some other types of stories with their original rants. It's too dangerous to do otherwise. Even though they're still being hunted down and killed. Because of course Falun Gong is outlawed in China. The US would be seen as harboring criminals from China. Do you see the delicate dance in motion here?</sup>

• ^{Falun Gong: We know we're being hunted.}
• ^{Amnesty International: We know you're being hunted, tortured, killed, and your basic human rights are being ignored and even outlawed. Even if you had pictures it wouldn't do any good.}
  
• ^{China: DIE all you religious people! Communism will prevail!}
• ^{The US: We know what's going on but we can't do shit about it because we need the products China makes for us. We'd go bankrupt otherwise.}

Last I checked yoga and qigong never taught violence; it teaches passive resistance. So the only thing China's pissed about is that Falun Gong's followers don't want to be under the communist regime any longer.

Here is a link to the Epoch Time's official website: http://www.theepochtimes.com/ You can select your language at the very top of the page.