Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Tibet "News"

I talked to my friend in Chengdu again about the news from Tibet. She said she heard about the police lockdown in south and west Chengdu. She also said that they were told not to go out at night because they could be attacked or robbed by the local Tibetan population in Chengdu. I told her that was ridiculous but she seemed reluctant to talk more about it. The news out of Tibet has been portrayed as Tibetans rioting to destroy Chinese businesses and all Tibetans in China have been vilified. Of course, there's no mention of the police shooting monks/civilians nor any news about Tibetan deaths. Essentially it's the same lies that the Chinese government is telling everyone but since there's no other news source in China, the domestic population doesn't know otherwise.

I wonder how many people work for the propaganda department in the communist government. Are they all in on the lies? I assume they're all party members. What motivates them to do this day after day? Ideology? Power? Money? Fear?

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