Who is falun gong?

[J0E]

...and why are they such a thorn in the side of the Chinese Government?



I know prior to communist rule, China had numerous religious sects Mao wanted to wipe out.



Are they a holdover from pre-communist days that never went along with the Communists?

[J0E]

Anyways, I used to drive by Granville Street and 16th Ave in Vancouver, and I'd see all these people with signs up.



http://www.theepochtimes.com/news_images/2007-8-3-vancouver-24-hours-attack-1.jpg">



I later found out, it was the falun gong protesting in front of the Chinese consulate, making a statement.



The court later ordered Falun Gong to remove itself, any signage and structures from outside of the consulate.



Perhaps money talks when a nation such as China carries a Big Stick, then tells our politicians and courts what to do? I've often thought that China owns the BC Liberals & bankrolls them. Maybe that's why the sitting government never acknowledges runaway real estate speculation in Vancouver which is driving land prices through the roof.

[Anonymous]

...and why are they such a thorn in the side of the Chinese Government?



I know prior to communist rule, China had numerous religious sects Mao wanted to wipe out.



Are they a holdover from pre-communist days that never went along with the Communists?

They were once approved of by the CCP..



It was only when their numbers exceeded those of the communist party did China become very nervous.

[the shark hunter]

... yes, i remember seeing that protest display near city hall when I lived in van.  i remember hearing the city was unable to remove it until they got permission from the lawyers via a court case.  you really are under lawyer rule in vancouver ...

[Anonymous]

...and why are they such a thorn in the side of the Chinese Government?



I know prior to communist rule, China had numerous religious sects Mao wanted to wipe out.



Are they a holdover from pre-communist days that never went along with the Communists?

They were once approved of by the CCP..



It was only when their numbers exceeded those of the communist party did China become very nervous.

I have heard that. It's not what they believe in that scares the bejesus out of China. It's their size. They could easily represent a serious challenge to one party rule.

[J0E]

... yes, i remember seeing that protest display near city hall when I lived in van.  i remember hearing the city was unable to remove it until they got permission from the lawyers via a court case.  you really are under lawyer rule in vancouver ...

Nevermind Vancouver, Sharkie.



Our provincial government of Christy Clark is owned and bought by Communist China. Some examples:



Deny that there is a housing shortage and crisis of unaffordability in the City of Vancouver, even though the previous Prime Minister, a hard Right Winger, acknowledged that this was a problem.



Get falun gong the hell out of Granville and 16th. It's an embarassment to the Chinese government, so the protesters must go. and they got their wish. They are gone, and you don't see the protesters anymore. They were a 'nuisance' so they had to get rid of them. China issued the order, our courts were told to listen, and they carried out that order.



...but our Mayor Gregor Robertson is owned by these same interests too. The nouveau rich from China have 'itchy palms' and are greedily eyeing the lucrative lands on False Creek...so tear down the Georgia Viaduct, dammit!



....even though 71% of the local population thinks that re-development there will not solve the housing shortage, create severe traffic congestin, & that it's made for the filthy rich from Asia and our local and provincial governments are beholden to these interests.



....Put in a Skytrain from Commercial and Broadway to cover a span of 4 measely miles, all for a cost of just $3 billion (The Canada Line from downtown to the airport spans over 10 miles and cost just $2.7 billion). Even though the damn thing won't even make it out to UBC which means it won't solve a damn thing. We'll be as congested traffic wise in Vancouver as we've ever been. The only reason Gregor Robertson wants that line is to spur real estate development from Commercial through to Arbutus. But they don't want it in the rich neighborhoods of Point Grey, where the mayor has owned land. Yeah, it's a good idea, as long as it's not in the backyards of the filthy rich, again the wealthy Asian investors.



...starve the local schools, forcing them to close down all their schools, so they can sell all their lucrative land to real estate developers to build shiny new condos. Even though seniors would like centers built for them, and children would still like community centers and playgrounds on those lands. But of course, the real estate developers don't wnat anyone else to have access to them. They want to profit from these lands so only the dirty filthy rich can drag their money into Vancouver an snap them up.



Our local governments are bought and owned by China, Sharkie.



Even the Old money of ruling establishment is being supplanted by them.



...our provincial and local politicians are very corrupt here in British Columbia, and they don't care for people like you or me. Our politicians are beholden to offshore interests.

[Anonymous]

... yes, i remember seeing that protest display near city hall when I lived in van.  i remember hearing the city was unable to remove it until they got permission from the lawyers via a court case.  you really are under lawyer rule in vancouver ...

Nevermind Vancouver, Sharkie.



Our provincial government of Christy Clark is owned and bought by Communist China. Some examples:



Deny that there is a housing shortage and crisis of unaffordability in the City of Vancouver, even though the previous Prime Minister, a hard Right Winger, acknowledged that this was a problem.



Get falun gong the hell out of Granville and 16th. It's an embarassment to the Chinese government, so the protesters must go. and they got their wish. They are gone, and you don't see the protesters anymore. They were a 'nuisance' so they had to get rid of them. China issued the order, our courts were told to listen, and they carried out that order.



...but our Mayor Gregor Robertson is owned by these same interests too. The nouveau rich from China have 'itchy palms' and are greedily eyeing the lucrative lands on False Creek...so tear down the Georgia Viaduct, dammit!



....even though 71% of the local population thinks that re-development there will not solve the housing shortage, create severe traffic congestin, & that it's made for the filthy rich from Asia and our local and provincial governments are beholden to these interests.



....Put in a Skytrain from Commercial and Broadway to cover a span of 4 measely miles, all for a cost of just $3 billion (The Canada Line from downtown to the airport spans over 10 miles and cost just $2.7 billion). Even though the damn thing won't even make it out to UBC which means it won't solve a damn thing. We'll be as congested traffic wise in Vancouver as we've ever been. The only reason Gregor Robertson wants that line is to spur real estate development from Commercial through to Arbutus. But they don't want it in the rich neighborhoods of Point Grey, where the mayor has owned land. Yeah, it's a good idea, as long as it's not in the backyards of the filthy rich, again the wealthy Asian investors.



...starve the local schools, forcing them to close down all their schools, so they can sell all their lucrative land to real estate developers to build shiny new condos. Even though seniors would like centers built for them, and children would still like community centers and playgrounds on those lands. But of course, the real estate developers don't wnat anyone else to have access to them. They want to profit from these lands so only the dirty filthy rich can drag their money into Vancouver an snap them up.



Our local governments are bought and owned by China, Sharkie.



Even the Old money of ruling establishment is being supplanted by them.



...our provincial and local politicians are very corrupt here in British Columbia, and they don't care for people like you or me. Our politicians are beholden to offshore interests.

 

[the shark hunter]

Our local governments are bought and owned by China, Sharkie.



Even the Old money of ruling establishment is being supplanted by them.



...our provincial and local politicians are very corrupt here in British Columbia, and they don't care for people like you or me. Our politicians are beholden to offshore interests.

... i think there might be some truth to what you say in the sense that i've even noticed in my own town that some large establishments, including a hotel, have been purchased by the chinese.  i do see this as a sign of major change taking place ...



... however, i don't see the chinese as inherently bad as it seems you do.  i've got nothing against them and have never been hurt by them.  but i have been badly hurt by the courts in this province, and you know what?  i didn't see any chinese people around while i was getting financially raped -- only LAWYERS!  the lawyers are the problem, not some ethnic group ...

[J0E]

... however, i don't see the chinese as inherently bad as it seems you do.  i've got nothing against them and have never been hurt by them.  but i have been badly hurt by the courts in this province, and you know what?  i didn't see any chinese people around while i was getting financially raped -- only LAWYERS!  the lawyers are the problem, not some ethnic group ...

....I'm not saying the Chinese are inherently bad, but of course when you give anyone, be it a foreign investor, a government, whatever a blank cheque to do whatever they want, of course they're gonna run rampantly over the local citizens. The situation would be no different if we allowed White Americans who speak English just like us to do the same. Do you grant your best friend unrestricted access to your assets and to buy you out? Or your girlfriend or ex? Of course not.



There are virtually no restrictions upon foreigners, be it Chinese whomever, from coming into Canada and buying the prime real estate, then jacking up the rents and the prices of land.

And it's not what the market will bear either. A lot of those homes aren't even occupied. The buyer comes in, buys the land, and then goes back home. Or buys the land under fraudulent circumstances by putting the title into next of kin/relative. It's essentially money laundering. While our politicians (Christy Clark/Gregory Robertson) play dumb,



http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/b-c-premier-christy-clark-opposed-to-taxing-foreign-homeowners-1.3072443">http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-c ... -1.3072443">http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/b-c-premier-christy-clark-opposed-to-taxing-foreign-homeowners-1.3072443

B.C. Premier Christy Clark is ruling out a tax increase for foreigners buying homes in Metro Vancouver, as an online petition calling for a restriction on foreign investment gathers nearly 18,000 signatures.

other respectable publications outside of Canada such as the Financial Times have remarked on the rampant  speculation here.



Nations with similar standards of living, laws restrict foreign ownership of their best  lands & putting them out of the reach of their native born citizens. Australia for example. Mexico another. Even the United States, the land of freewheeling capitalism, monitors foreign land purchases and restricts the entry of foreigners buying up their lands]It continues to impress me how so many Canadian and B.C. politicians, real estate developers and journalists seem to think it would be really hard, and would require a "spy network," to track the extent to which foreigners have bought Canadian properties.



They don't realize even in the U.S., the world's champion of free trade, it's commonplace to keep track of and publicly release data on foreign purchases of property.



It's not controversial in the U.S. It's a no-brainer.[/quote]

What I'm saying is nothing new. Many locals are now pressuring this government to hold an inquiry and begin restricting foreign land ownership.

[the shark hunter]

... uh, Frank, who do you think is PROCESSING all of these land sales you disapprove of?  they all get ratified by LAWYERS!  try doing a real estate transaction without a lawyer and you won't get far!

[J0E]

... uh, Frank, who do you think is PROCESSING all of these land sales you disapprove of?  they all get ratified by LAWYERS!  try doing a real estate transaction without a lawyer and you won't get far!

True, but the foreign buyers do not face the same number of restrictions on land ownership that they do in other nations.

That is in large part why land prices keep skyrocketing there.

Investors in Asia, who were burned by their own financial meltdown have shoved their cash in to local real estate as a safe haven at the expense of locals, which our provincial government condones.



Surely you must admit this is a problem.



Where I live, rents keep going up and up. $1600 a month or more for a small 1 BR apartment in Vancouver.

Evictions are increasing at an alarming rate and unscrupulous landlords are throwing local tenants out onto the street under false pretences.

Meanwhile the easy money keeps getting raked into the pockets of foreign land investors.



Christy Crank does nothing to help tenants in Vancouver and elsewhere. She's letting foreigners walk over and step on Canadian-born citizens.

What kind of government is that? She and Gregor Robertson are bought by foreigners and they do nothing for us.

[the shark hunter]

... like most other government issues, until you get the support of the lawyers you won't get change.  and do you think the lawyers are going to allow ANY changes to something as lucrative as their real estate transactions field?



... real estate sales must be taken away from the stranglehold the bar has on them ...

[cc]

"Obvious Joe" starts  a thread asking "Who is falun gong?" ..... which appropriately could / should have been placed in the Miss Canada thread that brings up  falun gong



But he didn't  want an answer. It was a mere ploy



He just wanted to create an opportunity to post his usual attention whoring wannabe know-it-all  rants (see several above lengthy "Joe rants")

[J0E]

"Obvious Joe" starts  a thread asking "Who is falun gong?" ..... which appropriately could / should have been placed in the Miss Canada thread that brings up  falun gong



But he didn't  want an answer. It was a mere ploy



He just wanted to create an opportunity to post his usual attention whoring wannabe know-it-all  rants (see several above lengthy "Joe rants")

...well, there's another angle and way of looking at it, cc other than through the eyes of a beauty contestant.



I feel that our government is increasingly being controlled by offshore interests such as Communist China.



So when a falun gong protest site gets taken down outside the Chinese consulate in Vancouver, and the protesters are ordered removed from the area, it comes across as a suppression of free speech. And it reeks of a sitting government which is doing anything and everything possible to retain huge Chinese real estate investment in the province, primarily Vancouver and is afraid of offending them. It's also notable that the BC Liberal government finally ended the teachers' strike last year when Chinese parents who were paying big tuition fees for their children, overseas students, raised a stink. Christy Clark didn't give a hoot about the concerns of Canadian parents who implored the government to do something, for months but just sat on its hands. Everything about this provincial government is bought and owned by China Inc.



Why does our provincial government go out of its way to suppress falun gong protesters? They're not violent, and from what I saw, they didn't create a disturbance.



They were just trying to make a statement and pointed out the reality of living in China - that it's a one party totalitarian state which does not permit political dissent and any viable opposition.



Now that I look back, I'm quite glad that falun gong made their protest and the outside world  aware of the human rights abuses which are going in China. Perhaps this is the real truth about their economic miracle too. Impoverished millions driven by fear, who work for meagre wages toiling excessive work hours, but too afraid to speak up about the situation.

[cc]

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