I agree with Zydor, your long posts just show how commited you are to making sure everybody gets what you are saying (a problem I am plagued by). So keep those long post rolling  .

Ok, have gathered some material about my claims.

http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/7/992E9294-D81D-4093-A38B-20DC9642013B.html

Questions about Ahmadinejad's role in the U.S. Embassy occupation were raised in recent days after a photograph of a bearded hostage-taker leading a blindfolded American hostage was published on several websites.

Some believe the hostage-taker is Ahmadinejad, but others, including some of his aides, have dismissed the claim. Photos of Ahmadinejad from that time published on his website (http://www.mardomyar.com) show little resemblance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_surrounding_Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad

From the Asia Times: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GJ28Ak03.html

"Once, his eminency Imam [Ruhollah] Khomeini - leader of the 1979 Islamic revolution], stated that the illegal regime of the Pahlavis must go, and it happened. Then he said the Soviet empire would disappear, and it happened. He also said that this evil man Saddam [Hussein] must be punished, and we see that he is under trial in his country. His eminency also said that the occupation regime of Qods [Jerusalem, or Israel] must be wiped off from the map of the world, and with the help of the Almighty, we shall soon experience a world without America and Zionism, notwithstanding those who doubt."

Most of the other sources on the internet are just rehashes of the same thing.
Ghostwes, on the above two points I will say that it is still open to debate. I lean toward believing, you lean the other way. Until more information comes in either way I will not sit here and try to prove you wrong, for obvious reasons. There is doubt, and until it is cast in stone I will not criticize someone for disagreeing with my conclusions.

Now to address the most important part of what we were discussing, the reprehensible actions of the Canadian People toward The people of The United States. Specifically, you B**t**ds bombing THE BALDWIN FAMILY!

Read below

They claim to have invented hockey, but they suck at it. That and Canadian beer is rank as well. They're too nice and friendly to Americans, all other countries tell jokes, but Canada is to nice, too quiet, and they're right f*****g above us (quote from Dennis Leary)

I went back and saw where I goofed on my typing. I meant to say Even if they did send in people to kill the Baldwin’s, I really screwed up what I was saying as I was also thinking of another Canada/Baldwin remark I made on another post. No wonder I confused you, I managed to confuse myself. Anyway here is the source of my hostile remarks about Canada http://www.dvdactive.com/reviews/dvd/south-park-bigger-longer--uncut.html

Just in case you don't know who the baldwins are http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldwin_brothers

I would just like to thank you for posting some real information about China. My teacher is a major China fanatic, he goes there in the summer to teach English, and he is married to a Chinese woman, so both of them often tell us all about the small inter-goings of China. On my visit there last April, I learned quite a bit, and I like to share this new understanding with people. I would like to thank you for giving the 'real' Chinese spin on things, since although I do have a general idea of what I am talking about, it helps to have someone reinforce it. Thanks again.

An article from July 2005, ie. before most of these claims were refuted. Uh huh. Think we'll just dismiss that one out of hand and move on.



A wikipedia page showing that the controversy exists. Um OK. You realize this was already obvious to anyone reading this thread, including, I might add, from the post where I asked you to prove your assertions? How does this help your case, exactly?



Yes, see, when I first challenged you to back that particular claim, I even referred to this quote and how it had been discussed out of context ad nauseam. I gave you a link to a Virginia Tilley article (reply #61 from this thread: https://forums.galciv2.com/310166/page/3)... did you not read it? As you can plainly see, he did not threaten to "bring about the end of the world", as you claimed he did, nor did he threaten to destroy Israel. The article I provided you goes over this in some detail. I suggest you actually read it this time.



Well, let me know when you're ready to start debating it, then.



Yes, because you have no proof to back your assertions. So withdraw them, sir.

Why do you want to believe it is true so badly? What would it take to prove to you that it is not true? There is no evidence. Nada. The CIA disputes it, and even some of the hostages are saying that he wasn't one of the hostage-takers, but, hey, some guy named SpacePony on the internet has faith that it was him, so it must be true!

Thank you to the ppl who've pvt. msg. me and given me karma regarding my postings. I didn't think my words would be particularly interesting and I'm very grateful for your responses. Thank you for taking the time to write, to inquire and comment. In China, we sometimes get the feeling that people outside don't make enough effort to find out more about us - instead relying on Bill O'Reilly, Keith Oberman and Dan Rather as gospel. I think the rest of the world is pretty uninformed about China. I also think China does a terrible job of communicating in English about itself.

Act23456, I can't claim to be the 'real' China, or a China expert - just one guy posting thoughts from a computer - and I hope my words are useful.

To share some thoughts that I've written in some of the pvt. messages:

Myth 1: If I write something on the internet which is disparaging about China, I will immediately be rounded up, shot and forcibly castrated.

I've seen this written so many times in western press, sometimes China should be renamed "The Matrix". I don't know whether the government devotes a bazillion secret agents to read emails, blogs and websites every second. But how's this (in bold to catch all the filters, firewalls and special agent programs)

Communism is not always the perfect government for society. There are some things that we should learn from Democracy. Within the Chinese Communist party, there are unfortunately some government officials who are corrupt, who embezzle, who are not looking after the common people's interests and we should make attempts to bring these people to light.

If you never hear from me again, then I've been eaten by a big Communist red guard Chairman Mao monster. OR, I will post another game to the Metaverse tomorrow and life will continue as normal.

Myth 2: Tian Men Square shows that even today, China is an oppressive backward regime in which human rights are abused.

You'll find few people who will say that the Tian Men Square event of 1989 was a good thing. Any time there is rioting, soliders shooting, students getting hurt and killed - it's TERRIBLE. And we accept it was a terrible thing and many people did many bad things.

And what do we do with our mistakes? We learn. We learn to deal better with problems - to engage solution finding before things come to a head. We do our very best to make sure such things never happen again.

The students of 1989 were largely from the top two universities in China. These universities are the feeders to the Communist Party and Chinese government. It is highly probable that the students of 1989 are now middle-ranking officials of the government. What better way to evolve and improve than have the very people caught up in that disaster to be leading the way forward in the future?

Also, accepting that 1989 was a terrible time, let's recognise that 1989 was not yesterday. Some other things that happened in 1989 in the US and around the world:

1. George Bush Senior took over from Ronald Reagan to become president of the USA.
2. Salman Rushdie publishes the Satanic Verses
3. The Soviet Union (which still existed then) pulled out of Afgahnistan
4. Time Inc. and Warner Brothers merge to form Time Warner.
5. Rain Man wins best picture at the Academy awards.
6. Hulk Hogan defeats Randy Savage at Wrestlemania to become WWF (as it was called then) champion.
7. The Simpsons premiers on FOX (I note there's a thread on Stardock talking about how long wil the Simpsons go. Do we remember when the Simpsons BEGAN???)

Today, if you talk about Simpsons premiering, Hulk Hogan or George Bush Snr. being in power, that's a lifetime ago. But Tian Men Square still happened yesterday. I've seen the 'tank guy'. The WORLD has seen the 'tank guy'. Every time China pops up on CNN or BBC, you'll see the Great Wall, Chairman Mao and the 'tank guy'. We know it was a bad bad time. And we have had a lot of good good times too. Today, Tian Men Square is where couples hold hands and kiss, young parents push strollers with their baby and school children celebrate world environment day. It's not quite as 'permanently stained with the blood of matyrs' as one might think.

I guess sometimes I feel frustrated in the way you might feel if everytime you see the US on the news, you saw pictures of Lakota indians being shot by cowboys or african american slaves picking cotton in plantations.

Myth 3. China likes producing low quality, dangerous, poor hygeine materials.

I agree that if you pay for low quality, you get low quality. China, in the past, has targetted the 'cheap is better' market. I read a report stating Chinese factories get paid about 0.0002 USD to make a barbie doll. That's 0.02 cents. Now to be upfront, I can't confirm the truth of that - and I'm sorry I can't provide a reference. I also don't know what barbies sell for in the US. But I do know that even if that's a lowball figure, let's say the real number is more like 2 cents a barbie, that doesn't leave a whole lot of profit margin to house a nice airconditioned factory, with health care, staff canteen etc.

In China, we know we need to improve our labour standards and quality. After all, WE are using those products too and these are OUR people! We don't want tainted medicine, barbies with lead or meat with steriods or our children working in dark mouldy caverns. And we also know that costs money. If our customers are not going to pay for that, we then struggle with how to improve standards at no additional expense. That goes for barbie or blood clot medicine or tyres or toothpaste.

The government is slowly implementing laws to improve working conditions. Spreading that over 1.3 billion people costs money and takes time. We've started improving things and they are better. By no means good...yes, we still have terrible sweat shops with awful conditions and employees not being properly paid... but it's better than it was yesterday.

Myth 4: Chinese people don't like sex

Every time there's a sex survey by FHM, Playboy or Penthouse, the usual canon is that Italians and French are orgasmic walking sex-bombs, Americans Canadians and Australians are slightly above average and Chinese people need road maps to know what goes where.

There are 1.3 billion of us. We didn't grow out of a cabbage patch or get delivered by a stork. We were in fact having so much sex that we would soon run out of land and food!

Oh... but Chinese people have sex purely for procreation, not pleasure - because they are conservative and it is their tradition. Where does this come from? What planet are we Chinese from if we, all 1.3 billion of us, engage in sex purely to breed? Why is this belief that we don't like sex so accepted as truth?

Just my perspective

I wish i was born 5 billion years later, so i could see humanity stretched across the universe.

@Goobi i have no idea what you're talking about.

Greeks and other European nations are at the top as sex bombs, but Americans are pitifully low on the scale. The only people who are lower are Japanese, who are set to start losing population in the next 20 years.

lol @ goobi

china didnt get so much ppl without having sex.........

Why are you trying so hard to "prove" it is not true? I will not withdraw my position that it the claim has merit. I will not withdraw that i beleave the current president of Iran is a dangerous person. what proof do you have to back your asscrtions that he is not a dagerus peorson, can you prove that the Iranian government is not backing Hamass? that it is not tranning insurgents in Iraq? That it is not involved in terrorit activities around the globe?

Umm sounds like your talking about the republicans



I saw him just this morning, oh wait, that was our vice president Dick Cheney, disregard..




We do, its al Sharpton and his ilk crying for fourty acres and a mule





I have never heard a better reason spoken as to why we in america should thank labor unions for what they did for us! It was they (the unions) that brought about the positive changes.




Ok, I am going to have to come visit you in China so that you can line upa few women and disprove this one for me! for this one I MUST have first hand evidence in order to refute it!  

Spacepony - you got me with the Al Sharpton reference. I try to keep abreast of international politics and figures, but had not heard of Rev. Sharpton before and had to Google him. I take it he is very famous in the US - we have not heard of him here in China. Well, I haven't anyway.

Regarding labour unions, it is a beginning movement here in China. Our unions are not strong - and we are constantly criticised by the international companies here when we attempt to unionize who see it as an attempt at protectionism. Some of the greatest opponents to labour unions here are Kentucky Fried Chicken, McDonalds, WalMart and Carrefour who say that unions are just the Chinese government's way of secretly taxing international corporations.

Regarding China and sex, I learned a new word the other day which might be appropriate - I believe the term is 'pimp'? As in, 'someone who can help you engage in scientific research about China's attitude towards sex'?

@goobi... are you sure your not an Ameircan passing as Chinese?   You can pimp ya, bring on the hoes....

Back in the 30's many american workers were murdered by the hired thugs of many a company for fighting for the right to unionize. companies do not like unions cause they are very very effective when it comes to workers. Now and days unions are looked down upon due to a great deal of corruption that is in the labor movement. That is however another story.

I own my company, it is not union (I have no employees outside my family, you can read that as slave labor, they do). I do however support unionized work places for any company that has over fifty people working in it.

Trying to link this post to the original poster's topic, China's success and rise (especially in comparison with the US) is often contrasted with how bad we are at human rights. Recently, Tibet has been the shining example of how evil we are. Even in Stardock, there's another thread in the forums about China, Tibet and the Olympics - with the general idea that China is evil (sort of Korath + Drengin + Yor + worse). I've intentionally stayed out of that thread - there's many comments there that I strongly disagree with (I recently engaged in a forum putting forward my views about Tibet and ended up being hounded out as a "brainwashed son of Mao" and "commie bastard" - so the scars have not healed... though I am grateful for being educated on the word 'commie', I had not heard it before and dictionaries were less than useful).

Chinese people have reacted extremely passionately to what we perceived as unfair and unjustified attacks against us regarding Tibet and the Olympics. What we have not been so good at is understanding why we are so vilified. I've been trying to read as much as I can about western press. As I understand, Tibet is Good. China is Bad. When Bad attacks Good, then we should help Good and attack Bad back.

If things really were that clear cut and that was the ONLY thing I knew, I would probably think China is bad too and criticise China. More and more, I don't think it's what Americans or French or English are like, it's more what you are told.

As I read your press, there was once a utopian hamlet in the middle of Paradise called Tibet. The fields were green, the sky was blue. The benevolent Saint Dalai Lama planted daffodils every day in his herb garden whilst gentle monks rubbed prayer beads and prayed to Buddha. Then... one day... EVIL VICIOUS COMMUNIST MAO STORM TROOPERS CAME IN AND SHOT EVERYONE!!! DIE DIE ALL YOUR BASE BELONG TO US AND FEEL THE WRATH OF CHINA!!!!

or something like that...

Living in China, we have a healthy skepticism for all media. We don't believe it all when our media tells us China has made Tibet heaven. But I don't understand why you believe it all when your media tells you China has made Tibet hell.

I'm not going to say Tibet is perfect and China's government of Tibet is wonderful. But I would like to share some things that I wish our government would say:

i) The One Child Policy does not apply to Tibetans. As part of trying to protect the Tibetan culture from dying out, anyone with Tibetan blood is exempt from the OCP. Furthermore, Tibetans receive bonus subsidies from the government for every child beyond the first to encourage procreation.

ii) Tibetans get special bonuses regarding health care, tax and social security.

iii) Most major tertiary education institutions in China apply affirmitive action quotas for Tibetans i.e. If you are Tibetan and you score lower in your entrance exam than a non-Tibetan, you will still be accepted into University above the non-Tibetan.

I am a Han. As a Han, assuming no other special considerations, I'm only allowed one child, I pay more tax, I pay more to see the doctor and my son might miss out on going to Uni because a Tibetan gets his place.

And I also think Tibetans are really nice people. Han, Mongol, Tibetan... we're all Chinese. We contribute, we assist, we fight, we get over it... and we grow.

I hope that provides a little different view on China and Tibet.

First I wanted to say it's good to hear an intelligent voice which represents, at least in the United States, the "other side" of the issue.

It almost seems to me(and this analogy is certainly flawed) that the situation is something like what existed just before the American Revolution: colonists had significantly more privileges, and less taxes, than those in Great Britain, but got hung up on their limited rights.

But we do seem to be missing a piece of information. The Western media seems totally blind and, typically, unable to look deeply into anything. I couldn't tell you why Tibet is made into paradise (I think Westerners have a thing with mountains ). The information coming out of China also seems to be mostly the same (perfectly reasonable) point. What I really want to know is: what is the "average" Tibetan's take on the situation? That seems to be one of the most important, and least expressed, views.

Actually, I'm not doing that; I'm only trying to get you to think logically about what you are saying, and to stop stating things as fact that are not.



The claim has no merit, as I have demonstrated to you. Did you read that article yet? No, I didn't think so.

If you want to keep on believing these things, I guess that's your right, but please try not to let your country invade or otherwise attack Iran based on these silly ideas of yours.



Well, great, but that's not what you said. What you actually said was that he threatened to "bring about the end of the world", which he has not done.

You also stated--again, as a fact--that he was one of the embassy hostage-takers. As far as anyone can tell, there is no evidence of this and the experts, including the CIA and even the hostages themselves don't think he was. But you still feel comfortable stating this as a fact.

You are welcome to your opinions, even if they're silly ones, but I would ask that you not state things as facts that are not facts. Not only does it make you look stupid, which I don't think you are, it's contributing to this anti-Iranian hysteria which is only going to culminate in something awful, and get a lot of innocent people killed... for nothing. Just like in Iraq.



I don't have any proof. I don't need any proof. That is not my assertion. Stop it with the straw man arguments, ok?



You want me to prove a negative, do you? How about you do this for me, then: can you prove that you didn't beat your wife last night? Can you prove to me that Iraq doesn't have weapons of mass destruction? Can you prove that Iraq wasn't involved in 911? Oh, too late, they didn't and they weren't, but you destroyed their country and murdered and displaced millions of Iraqis anyway. Need I go on?

Besides, I didn't claim that they weren't backing Hamas. As far as I know, all of the Arab governments and peoples back Hamas. So does most of Europe. And why shouldn't they? They're the legitimate elected government of the Palestinian people.



There is no proof of this. Just yesterday one of the high-ups in the Iraqi government (ie. the one your government installed) stated that there was no proof of this. But, I guess you know more about that than he would, just like you know more than the CIA does.



Most countries are, as far as I am concerned. In fact, your country is right now backing terrorists within Iran. Like these guys, for one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKO

Tell me why it's ok for the US to train these guys, and not ok for Iran to train insurgents in Iraq (assuming they even are). Note that I am not condoning either... I just want you to help me understand why this isn't a blatant hypocrisy.

Will America "always" be a super power? No.

We are a young country and no country as history continues is able to stay a "super power" forever.... simply impossible.