Empire State Building comes over all Communist...

[belfastuniguy 18]

Empire State Building Goes Red for Communist China, Sparking Protest

NEW YORK —  New York is seeing red over the decision to turn the city's highest beacon — and one of America's symbols for free enterprise — into a shining monument honoring China's communist revolution Wednesday night.

The Empire State Building is set to be illuminated in red and yellow lights to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the bloody communist takeover.

The tower is lit in white most nights, but nearly every week gets splashed with color to honor holidays and heroes — red, white and blue for Independence Day, green for St. Patrick's Day, true blue for New York's Finest.

The building's managers say they have honored a host of countries, including Canada, India and Australia, but as of Wednesday that list of honorees now includes one of the world's last great authoritarian regimes.

Tourists were squirming as the city's 102-story landmark — which gained a special significance for New Yorker's after 9/11, when it again became Manhattan's tallest building — was being converted into a shining red beacon for Chinese communism.

 

"I think it's a bad idea," said Dick Paasch, 69, from Billings, Montana. "The Chinese Revolution ... in the years 1958-1960, there were something like 26 million people starved to death. Why would we want to celebrate something like that?

"I think the Chinese have come a long way since then, but I certainly wouldn't celebrate the revolution," he said.

Representatives for the building say it won't incur any extra costs to use the colored floodlights, so taxpayers won't have to pay a dime. But tourists thought it would have been better if the building would have stayed white this Wednesday.

"It seems a little out of place in New York City, an American city, having communist colors," said Cathy Crismore of Lancaster, California. "That doesn't seem right."

New York politicians have paid notice as well, and say they are let down by the light-up. Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., said it was a mistake to pay tribute to what he called "a nation with a shameful history on human rights."

Historians of the revolution noted the unimaginable — and often forgotten — toll of the revolution and China's communist rule, which has taken tens of millions of lives through years of war, famine, reeducation and wholesale slaughter.

"China gets treatment that other dictatorships can only dream of — a free pass on human rights," said Arthur Waldron, a history professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

The revolution and its aftermath may have been deadlier than any world war: though estimates vary, research from the historian Chang Jung shows that as many as 72 million people died as a result.

During one five-year period alone, the Great Famine of 1958-1962, 36 million Chinese are believed to have starved as a result of Mao's Great Leap Forward, a government policy meant to industrialize the nation.

During those years of ruin, peasants ate bark, maggots, bird droppings, human flesh — anything to survive — as government storehouses stood full with grain and other cereals, neither the first nor last in China's troubled line of violations of human rights.

"China remains strongly oppressive — but we make a lot of money, and we have a tendency to romanticize the country, confusing her brilliant cultural heritage with the current communist regime," said Waldron. "Will we light it in honor of Tibet?"

About 40 protesters massed outside the Empire State Building Wednesday morning as China's New York consul attended a ceremony the building's managers said was to honor "the 1.3 billion Chinese people and the 60th anniversary of their country."

"Because the Empire State Building is such a cultural icon ... this touches a chord close to home for people," said Lhadon Tethong, a leader of the demonstrators from Students for a Free Tibet.

Tethong said that the lights on the building "are a symbol of support for the Chinese state — for a totalitarian state," which ignores the country's "abominable record on human rights, on liberty."

Waldron, of the University of Pennsylvania, said he thought there would be an outcry if another brutal regime were so honored by the tower.

"Would we have lit the Empire State Building for the USSR knowing what we do about the Gulag?quote>

 

[threeswept 12]

Ummm...right. So, let's celebrate all other atrocities with celebratory lighting. I liked this comment, though: "China gets treatment that other dictatorships can only dream of - a free pass on human rights," said Arthur Waldron, a history professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

[Barbarossa 51]

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  Edited September 8, 2012 by Barbarossa  

[Orchid22 1]

it goes red for China, but it refuses to go green for the Iranian protests...something isn't right here!!!

[blade2k5 1,523]

Originally posted by: Barbarossa

I find this horribly ridiculous.

Barbarossaquote>

That makes two of us.

[Duke87 1,070]

I think this merits a good "lolwut".

On the one hand, choosing to honor the anniversary of the Chinese revolution is stupid.

On the other hand, so is getting all worked up about someone choosing to do so.

I mean, it is a privately owned building. They're entitled to make what statement they please with it, regardless of what the general public thinks.

It would be an entirely different story if this was getting done with, say, city hall -  there the public's opinion would be important because it's a public building.

[UltraGIR XL 3]

I think this wouldn't be as controversial as it is if it weren't so current.

I mean, if people want to argue the atrocities that occurred during and as a result of the Chinese Revolution, why aren't those of the Caribbean Islands up in arms over the fact that it changes colors for Columbus Day?

It's nothing too big to get all excited about. To me this is just another part of the western preoccupation with the up and coming/arrived nation of China.

Let's not forget, though, that this is the same building that went red a week ago to celebrate the 70th anniversary of "The Wizard of Oz." They don't seem to care what they light up for, just as long as they get an excuse to do it.

[Kryptowhite 9]

In theory, the red lighting is a good idea,

in practice...not so much.

[hamsterTK 93]

How about for the anniversary of when Deng Xiaopeng took over and ended the Maoist era? Or the date Nixon went to make peace on behalf of the US?

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

What revolution wasn't bloody?  Don't I remember something happening in the last half of the 1770's.  Was it a bloodless coup or was Washington's army using real firearms, knives and swords?

China is now a member of the world community.  Take your cold war and play with the Polar Bears.

[Airtime&Gravity 0]

Originally posted by: Orchid22

it goes red for China, but it refuses to go green for the Iranian protests...something isn't right here!!!quote>

While, I agree that it should have gone green for the Iranian protests, I'm just going to make the asumption that some people would still have complained (if they didn't).  Some people just like to complain...especially if it is a country that America doesn't have the best relationship with regardless of the cause.  I'm pretty sure that some crazy conservatives with an axe to grind with Islam complained about the tower going green for Eid, so it probably wasn't done to support the protests just to avoid the negative media attention.

*Why can't we just all hold hands and sing kumbaya?*

I personally don't have a problem with it though.  So it is remembering something that would lead to some terrible events, it is not like the owners are condoning what happened.  They are simply remembering an event in history.

[panthersimcity4 162]

It's times like these when you can only think.. What the hell were they thinking??!

*I mean, it seems unfair that they would rather focus on the bloody Chinese revolution instead of a domestic event of violence like say... the Salem Witch Trials*

*Sarcasm

[curiousmatt2u 0]

I agree I find it amazing how Americans can so easily forget our own bloody history besides, isn't America suppose to be the country that welcomes all people of different cultures and races, and says you are free to celebrate any cultural & historic traditions/holiday without that being feigned on, or is that another lie I was taught in grade school.

[sneakeypete 16]

Originally posted by: curiousmatt2u

 besides, isn't America suppose to be the country that welcomes all people of different cultures and races, and says you are free to celebrate any cultural & historic traditions/holiday without that being feigned on, or is that another lie I was taught in grade school.quote>

That's correct... unless your an evil communist!

Seriously though, you guys did have some rather bad anti communist things goign on back in the the cold war.

[your_adress_here 11]

Haha, this is amazing.

[Barbarossa 51]

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  Edited September 8, 2012 by Barbarossa  

[panthersimcity4 162]

Yeah, let's be honest... no matter what country you're from, there's been some act of injustice or violence in the past.

[flyatl 4]

This also might be a way to get China to lend us more money. I feel this is totally un-American.

[panthersimcity4 162]

Originally posted by: flydelta

This also might be a way to get China to lend us more money. I feel this is totally un-American.quote>

lol Well that explains it, some people will literally do anything for money.

[redura 0]

Do you honestly think that lighting the Empire State building red would convince the Chinese government to lend the United States more money? I find it absurd that a government could be swayed into such an action by the mere flick of switch (yeah, there is probably more to it, I know). Oh wait...it might be a way...I see.

But I would have to disagree with you on how un-American this is. While China may not be the model country for human rights, and that commemorating the birth of such a regime may seem to some as condoning its actions, what is American about this whole controversy is that the Empire State building could do such a thing. And in addition to this, people could get on to a site like Simtropolis and protest, and no one could lock them in a prison cell or harm in any way for doing so. That is, in my eyes, American. We don't have to agree with China, we don't even have to like China, but we cannot deny that one of the fundemental rights we try to uphold is the freedom of expression is truly being proven from this discourse.

I really have to learn how to italicize...

[krbe 193]

Originally posted by: curiousmatt2u

or is that another lie I was taught in grade school.quote>

Yes, if they used the word "all" then you were lied to.

Originally posted by: Orchid22

it goes red for China, but it refuses to go green for the Iranian protests...something isn't right here!!!quote>

More money to be made if you stick to Mahmoud Ahma-something and the Chinese, so it makes perfect sense.

 

[Barbarossa 51]

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  Edited September 8, 2012 by Barbarossa  

[blade2k5 1,523]

Originally posted by: Barbarossa

It is pronouced "My Mood : I'm a Dinner Jacket".

Barbarossaquote>

 

[Liberater444 11]

Originally posted by: sneakeypete

Originally posted by: curiousmatt2u

 besides, isn't America suppose to be the country that welcomes all people of different cultures and races, and says you are free to celebrate any cultural & historic traditions/holiday without that being feigned on, or is that another lie I was taught in grade school.quote>

That's correct... unless your an evil communist!

Seriously though, you guys did have some rather bad anti communist things goign on back in the the cold war.

quote>

yeah. see what i dont understand is why can't we trade with them and befriend other countries? instead we make enemies of countries based on their choice of government. As an American, i honestly don't understand why other americans and the government are so ignorant and can't just stay out of the drama. As long as countries don't have open threats against other countries, I don't have a problem with them.

George Washington once said for "Countries to base their friendships off trade instead of military or politics."

Liberater444

[thepokemaniac 18]

Ummm, I'm not exactly sure what to say about this, but its just a bit ridiculous, as most would agree.

[Patricius Maximus 236]

This is a slap in the face to the Iranian Opposition.