Failed Attempt To Use Aard For Anti-Cult Propaganda

I don't like Falun Gong, which I regard as a crazy manipulative cult. And I don't like the Chinese government, which I regard as a repressive capitalist dictatorship. These two organisations, in turn, hate each other. And it looks like someone in the Chinese government is trying to use me to disseminate anti-FG propaganda.

This morning I received two letters from people claiming to be FG members trying to convert me. Neither letter is very long. Both contain loudly racist statements about black people and "mix-blood". It is a matter of public record that my wife is Chinese and that we have a child. So I guess the gamble here was that I'd be angered by the racism and publish an anti-FG screed quoting the letters.

FG's prophet actually has made some racist statements, but they are peripheral ideas in the movement and certainly not something a FG proselytiser would shove in someone's face when making a first contact. They're religiously deluded, but that doesn't mean that they're stupid.

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Crude. BTW FG is hostile to LGBT people, but so is the Chinese government.

Three years ago I found an article from Canada stating that there was a substantial mismatch between the number of transplant organs available in China throgh "legal" means (including executions of the "donors") and the number of organ transplants actually performed, indicating a "black" source of thousands of organs.
The article quoted testimonies that Falun Gong activists in prison were "harvested" to death for organs in a lucrative trade involving Chinese authorities and private transplant clinics. It is difficult for me to verify the claims, but considering the many and varied other atrocities the Party has performed since 1949, I think they are quite capable of anything...

Also, Swedish and German readers may be familiar with the book by Xiao Rundcrantz, a former member of the prosecutor's office in China. She testified about systematic corruption and civil rights abuse in China.

"a repressive capitalist dictatorship"
Yep. They have dropped the pretence of social justice, leaving the state in charge of building autostradas and making trains go on time (re-inventing a 1920s ideology from the ruins of communism).
Or, to quote Goebbels: "Why socialise the companies? We will socialise the people instead!"

By Birger Johansson (not verified) on 23 Jun 2011 #permalink

On the topic of ridding society from troublesome religious minorities:
"Jewish bodies found in medieval well in Norwich" http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13855238 Archaeology as a tool for uncovering crimes.

By Birger Johansson (not verified) on 23 Jun 2011 #permalink

Why is Falun Gong manipulative? How? Where? Please provide some evidence for this claim. It seems like something that the author simply made up.

Interesting -- thank you for letting us all know about this. I know nothing about Falun Gong, I have to say. But it is interesting that the state apparatus is active in this way. What else is it doing, I wonder?

By Roger Pearse (not verified) on 23 Jun 2011 #permalink

How annoying being used like that, and being taken for an idiot that won't see through it...

By Johan Levin (not verified) on 24 Jun 2011 #permalink

Or maybe the letters were sent by really smart Falun Gong devotees who hoped I would denounce Falun Gong and then they could criticise me for poor source criticism. (-;

I think some of the people commenting didn't really understand what you wrote. It was a nice read and pretty good journalism.

Even though FG might be "crazy and manipulative" (I personally don't share this view), no person or group deserves the treatment they face in changed.