Persecution of Falun gong

[neutrino_cannon]

http://www.falun-co.org/

To begin, I find it incredibly scary that there's Falun Dafa within a sixty kilometer radius of me.

Oh, wait... it says Denver/Golden.

Good ole People's Republic of Golden.






Stupid hippies.

Anyway, the part concerning the persecution of Falun gong in China makes some very serious and frankly, graphic assertions concerning torture, rape, and genocide.

Now, I can't say that I like the chinese government, and I really wouldn't put it past them to commit very serious human rights violations, but please folks, tell me it isn't so. Surely Randi would have mentioned it!

I don't accept these claims without independant back up, since Falun Gong is a whacko cult, and i really don't believe anything they say. I have heard, however, of atrocious conditions in Chinese prisons and labor camps.

So, what's the chance that an everyday practitioner of Falun gong gets shipped off to a forced labor camp and tortured for eighteen years? Does this happen extensively in China?

The facts section scared me, but I'm disinclined to believe anything put out by Falun Gong labeled 'facts".

Have 800 people realley been killed by the Chinese government because of their (admitedly bizzare and dangerous) religious beliefs?

What's actually going on here?

[Mr Sagan]

[Edited for extreme content ~ Diezel]

[Quasi]

Xingxing reminds me of bling bling. Seriously, the text is humorous. It essentially allows for any failure, and tries its utmost to connect unrelated phenomena. They believe in acupuncture, and that masters and others can pull skyscrapers down with their gong. Hmmmm, a 9/11 connection maybe? Of course, no open demonstrations are ever given, because they state the masters keep them secret. They also state that not everyone can be clairvoyant/psychic. Hmmm heard that one too- actually anyone can learn cold reading, and you don't need FG! So they wrap their whole nonsense up in a circle, enough to confuse their victims er followers, and make a ton of money.

[SFB]

Originally posted by neutrino_cannon
http://www.falun-co.org/

Have 800 people realley been killed by the Chinese government because of their (admitedly bizzare and dangerous) religious beliefs?

What's actually going on here?

Hard to say whether 800 people have been killed. But I do know the Chinese government views FG as a threat to their hold on power.

[whitefork]

The Falun Gong is a bunch of nuts, but the Chinese government is a gang of murderous thugs who tolerate no dissent.

What possible threat would Falun Gong or the Dalai Lama pose to them if they did not insist on total control?

[Keneke]

Hey Diesel, what was that extreme content? :p

[Upchurch]

Originally posted by Keneke
Hey Diesel, what was that extreme content? :p cr@p, both figuratively and literally. lots and lots of cr@p.

[Keneke]

Wasn't even entertaining in its shock value?

[Upchurch]

Originally posted by Keneke
Wasn't even entertaining in its shock value? Ya know, it really wasn't. It was to the point that it was so insulting and so obscene that even the "excitement" of the attack wasn't a fun excitement.

Interestingly, not only am I not sorry that GP and his sockpuppets (be they actual sockpuppets or his friends, it amounts to the same thing) were banned, like Mr. Sagan had intended, but I'm sorry it wasn't done sooner.

If GP in any way, shape or form deserved something approaching an appology from Hal at one time, it was wiped clean by this childish display.

[T'ai Chi]

According to this article, it has some of the indicators, and lacks others.

http://www.time.com/time/asia/news/magazine/0,9754,165166,00.html

[SFB]

Originally posted by Kullervo
What possible threat would Falun Gong or the Dalai Lama pose to them if they did not insist on total control?


This article explains it fairly well:

http://www.time.com/time/asia/news/magazine/0,9754,165163,00.html

[whitefork]

Cult or not, the Chinese government since Mao has perpetrated more misery on its people than Falun Gong could even dream of, and they've just about destroyed the culture of Tibet.

And we're making money off of it. I'd like to hear from some of our capitalists on the morality of trade with the People's Republic.

added.

Thanks for the link. I like this quote:Afterward, students took turns facing their classmates to swear: "I do not believe in Falun Gong. I believe in science."That certainly makes me feel better.

[SFB]

Originally posted by Kullervo
Cult or not, the Chinese government since Mao has perpetrated more misery on its people than Falun Gong could even dream of, and they've just about destroyed the culture of Tibet.


Put that way, sure I agree.

I was just trying to explain the government's fear for FG.

[whitefork]

I understood you before, but I get quite agitated about the methods of the Chinese government and our implied support of it (as long as there's money to be made, we'll overlook just about anything). Their perception of Falun Gong as a threat to their power is something I can't quite fathom and the linked article doesn't really help there.

After all, David Koresh did have guns stockpiled - what do these poor sods have? feathers and bells? It's like seeing the student movement of the 60's here in the US played out in a funhouse mirror. All that's missing is a few million tabs of acid and the Merry Pranksters.

[SFB]

Originally posted by Kullervo
I understood you before, but I get quite agitated about the methods of the Chinese government and our implied support of it (as long as there's money to be made, we'll overlook just about anything). Their perception of Falun Gong as a threat to their power is something I can't quite fathom and the linked article doesn't really help there.

After all, David Koresh did have guns stockpiled - what do these poor sods have? feathers and bells? It's like seeing the student movement of the 60's here in the US played out in a funhouse mirror. All that's missing is a few million tabs of acid and the Merry Pranksters.

Yes, the article does not support what it states as true. I should have read it more closely.

I agree with your other points.

[Keneke]

Originally posted by Kullervo
And we're making money off of it. I'd like to hear from some of our capitalists on the morality of trade with the People's Republic.


If you drive alone you drive with HITLER!

If you use drugs you support terrorism.

If you shop at Wal-Mart you support the glass ceiling.

Disney promotes the acceptance of homosexuality.

etc.

[neutrino_cannon]

Stupid pwn... screwing up the most serious thread I've ever posted...

Anyway, I really want to know, has it been refuted or confirmed whether or not the Chinese government has commited genocide and related atrocities in trying to rid China of FLG?

Does anyone have any relevant liks?

And I would be much obliged if someone would PM and tell me exactly what pwn did here, I missed it.

Call it masochism I guess.

[whitefork]

Probably not genocide in the strict sense. The Chinese government's atrocities against its own citizens (Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, events leading up to and following Tiananmen Square and others) are well-documented and appear to be ongoing as a matter of official policy.

China doesn't seem to single out any one religion for particular harsh treatment. It's dissent per se that has to be crushed.

(did you get an answer on your pwn question?)

[SFB]

Originally posted by neutrino_cannon
Does anyone have any relevant liks?


You may want to look here:

http://www.amnesty.org/results/is/eng

If the link does not work go here:

http://www.amnesty.org/

and type "falun gong" in their search engine.

[neutrino_cannon]

(did you get an answer on your pwn question?) [/B]

No, I did not.

Thank you SFB.

[Aoidoi]

I have no way of determining the accuracy of either China or Falun Gong's claims. I just wanted to point out that the US trading with China is one of those things that will be argued endlessly. I've heard people complain about the hard line taken against Cuba and NK (trade sanctions, etc.), and here people are complaining that trading with China shows support for a genocidal regime.

Well, I'm kinda stumped on the right solution.

Theory 1 is that trade will expose China to western ideals and make them more democratic. May be working, but certainly hasn't completely eliminated totalitarian tendencies.

Theory 2 is that by isolating totalitarian regimes we can force change. Cuba and NK have been isolated politically and economically since the end of the cold war, doesn't seem to have made any progress so far. But maybe change will come all at once in a revolution there.

I dunno which theory will work better in the long run.

[T'ai Chi]

Originally posted by neutrino_cannon

To begin, I find it incredibly scary that there's Falun Dafa within a sixty kilometer radius of me.


Uh, why are you scared?

Have they done anything to you? To others? Or do you believe what has been said about them?

Hmm?

[T'ai Chi]

*bumpity*

[neutrino_cannon]

Sorry it took so long to respond mister Chi.

Having recently completed a modest essay on the group, I'm reasonably convinced by my primary source, The Mystery of China's Falun Gong by John Wong and William T. Liu from Singapore University Press, that the claims of the Chinese government about the group regarding what happens within the group, including suicides and self-mutilation, are true. To what extent they happen is debatable.

For most of the groups members, yes, Falun gong is probably and exercise group, not a suicide cult. The discrepancy in the level of involvement is probably also the reason for the discrepancy between the number of members reported by the Chinese government and the group (2 and 100 million in 1999 respectively).

To return to the core of the subject, yes, I think that Falun Gong members are potentially dangerous to themselves, but more frighteningly, I'm wondering why it's in Boulder, and I think that the conditions required to cultivate Falun Gong groups shouldn't exist in the United States.

Remember that Falun Gong was created in 1992. By 1999 the cult (I feel it is fair to call the group a cult, even at exercise club-level involvement) had tens of millions of members. That's the kind of ascent that would make L. Ron Hubbard dehydrate with drooling. Only in China were there conditions for that ascent.

Briefly, three elements were needed for Falun Gong's huge rise in popularity:
1) The general public was familiar with the terminology of the folk traditions and various other religions Falun Gong derives from.
2) The general public is disillusioned with the government, as well as the Western Science and medicine it espouses, likely because little is available (odd since Falun Gong is a mostly urban phenomenon, according to Wong)
3) There had to be an incredible spiritual vacuum, one that Falun Gong almost perfectly filled. Religion is hard to come by in China, and State funded institutions that fill the same roll like Maoism and other forms of fanatical nationalism are on the decline.

What scares me about Falun Gong in Boulder is that I don't see how these elements could be present in the US. Even in Boulder, I'm doubtful a large percent of the population would be familiar with enough of the terminology for an effective Falun Gong campaign to take place. More worryingly, I don't see how there could be disillusionment with science and medicine, even in somewhere like Boulder, which thinks it's still the sixties. Certainly too, there is no dearth of religions in the US.

I doubt that Falun Gong involvement in Boulder goes much beyond the exercise club stage, but it worries deeply me that Boulder has come to the point where some of it's inhabitants are willing to look into an international despised cult. And jeez, whatever happened to American cults? Most cults are harmless, and there are plenty of innocuous, American cults they could have hitched up with instead.

Is our pride of manufacturing so low we must import even our cults from China now too?

In short, Falun Gong in Boulder scares me because it indicates to me that the state of belief in the United States, and in parts of the United States within spitting distance of me, is unstable enough to produce such foreign oddities as Falun Gong.

I don't think Falun Gong in and of itself is a huge cause of worry. I don't know of their higher level members making concerted efforts to suppress detractors, like Scientology famously does, although rank and file members will probably chase out the odd debunker. On the contrary, Falun Gong has been remarkably well-behaved when it's in the spotlight, the protests against the government were very orderly, and it was noted that the Falun Gong members didn't even leave trash behind. It was the fact that there were protests at all that bothered the Chinese government, not their nature.

Similarly, I'm not concerned that anything bad will happen to me as a result of Falun Gong. The same goes for the rest of Boulder actually. I'm worried what it means when citizens of one of the (if not the most) prosperous and stable nations on the planet join a cult from a post-communist China.

[whitefork]

[Ancedote alert.]

Boulder is home to a lot of strange thinking. There's a strong anti-vaccination movement there for example: http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/09/allen_a.htm