"I don't object to you using the pictures per se. However, you used them as a means of moral blackmail as if to say "There you are, that proves we should boycott the Olympics". It is this I object to."

Best not put words into my mouth - how can you 'prove' we must boycott the olympics? We certainly do have a difference of opinion on this subject. Moral blackmail? Moral integrity is all I'm interested in, I'm not blackmailing you but I am trying to debate with you and I will support my argument as I see fit. But, back to the original discussion . .

Communisim exists only in name in China. It has become a consumer society, with an increrasingly free market economy and the system bears no relation to the ideals it purports to represent. This is not Communism as defined my Marx and Engels, which is concerened with the establishment of a society based on equality and communal effort for the greater good without profit and for the benefit of everyone within that society. So forget Communism in China - it simply doesn't exist in any meaningful form.

Boycotting the Olympics would not be counterproductive because it will be a way of highlighting to the world the brutalities of the Chinese regime. The world will focus on the olympics and if the major players don't go every time a race is held with them in there will be a reminder of the atrocities China continues to commit.

As Peace says, with an Olympic boycott in place The Chinese leadership will certainly be reminded the world is still watching and hasn't forgotten their outrages - a fact they need to remember.

Even as I sit here typing this news China is demand Bush cancels a meeting with HH The Dalai Lama. If Bush were to cancel (which I deeply hope he won't) this meeting then consider the last vestiges of hope for Tibet gone. I suspect hope for Tibet is gone actually - we've all sat on our hands to long for there to be a happy ending for the people of that country.

Tashi Delek