Undercover in China
I wrote this story that ran in Saturday's paper about a La Puente pastor and Mt. SAC professor that vandalized some hotel room walls in China then disappeared.
Edward Romero, or E. Perez Romero has he likes to be called according to his colleagues, painted anti-oppression slogans on two hotel room walls in Beijing as a way to speak out against oppression of the Chinese people.
It's all caught on tape, as seen here on his YouTube page. He calls him self the "Gadfly." Hmm....i've heard that term thrown around before.....
Romero plans to turn himself into authorities - that is, after the Olympics are over on Aug. 24. He says he doesn't want to disrupt the summer games. Until then, he's hiding out in China but providing sporadic insight into his whereabouts via the Internet. I've been tracking him on his Twitter page. I thought I'd provide some frequent updates on this blog as the story is quickly getting the attention of news outlets around the globe.
His latest Twitter entry: "Pray that tonight is an improvement over last nights thunderstorm -- not fun, quite miserable. Nevertheless GIG"
**GIG apparently means God is Good.
Not too smart for you to post his image on this page thought. You don't think he might stick out more now?
Good, I hope he is arrested. Why in the heck is he causing controversy in a foreign country? Let those people govern themselves!
Just another arrogant American who thinks he can solve someone else's problems. If he were really dedicated he should be at home in the states trying to solve all the problems our own nation is facing( i.e. homelessness, green house pollution, poverty)
I hope the Chinese people send him a clear message! Your going to jail and hopefully the "booty bandit" will get you!
Are the Chinese arrogant for thinking they should be solving Tibet's problems?
Are the Chinese arrongant for thinking they should solve Taiwan's probems?
Are the Chinese arrongant for having tried to solve Vietnam's problems back in the 1970's?
Are the Chinse arrogant for thinking that the government world has no right to call them on their support of the regime in Sudan?
Are we all supposed to plaster fake happy face smiles on our faces just so China and people who live vicariously through that nations "glories" don't get their little feelings hurt.
I'm sure the Olympics are source of pride for many Chinese and Chinse Americans as it should be. But this jingoistic "Great-China Chauvanism/Nationalism" that has been on the rise both in China and by Chinese living here in the United States has got to stop. If the US can be rightly criticized for its heavy footprint around the world so should China....and Russia to boot. China's human rights record is as much a world concern as Germany's human rights record was a concern in the 1930's and 1940's.
SORRY TO RAIN OR YOUR PARADE FOLKS but that is how LIBERAL DEMOCRACY WORKS. It's not about having the freedom to buy cool cell phones, hip clothes and big screen TV's. GET OVER IT.
These Olympics for all their dazzling spectacle and heart-warming personal stories have become symbolic in at least one sad sense: THE ABILITY OF CORRUPT GOVERNMENTS TO DISTRACT PEOPLE'S ATTENTION AWAY FROM INJUSTICE THROUGH POMP AND FIREWORKS. While the Olympics go on:
1. No one notices that the nation of Georgia is on the verge of being wiped off the map;
2. No one notices that today George Bush has weakened environmental laws that protect animals like the Bald Eagle by excluding scientific evaluation from the review process;
3. No one bothers to ask about the situation in Tibet or other prisoners of conscience in China or Chinese abysmal evnrionemtnal record which the Bush Administration seems earer to emulate; and
4. And as for those in Darfur who suffer - at least in part - because of China's happy support of the regime - forget it.
I guess it is true: give people spectacles and they will never bother to question your rule or what you are doing wrong.
Very sad.