This week, high ranking officials are welcoming Chinese diplomats to the states in order to undergo serious talks about the future relations between both countries. The matters at hand? China’s grip on trade with the United States and China’s apprehension over its consumption of American debts… matters that won’t be discussed? China’s affiliation with the Darfur atrocities, simple human rights defined under their constitution that are almost non-existent, and the crushing weight of the communist regime over its people. The American representatives (Treasury Sec. Timothy Geitner, Sec. of State Hillary Clinton, and President Obama himself) won’t be discussing any issues that may “embarass” the Chinese delegation, as usual. The question that we should all be asking is why our country allows China’s government to continue to support a second agenda throughout the world that in no way creates a better one? We should all be wondering what good will come out of these talks… it looks like China’s yearning to gain a more powerful seat on the international stage, but is the world ready for that kind of China?

You’ll hear on the news what happened with the “matters at hand”, so I’m going to cover the items that would embarass the Chinese government, sound good?

First:

The Chinese/Darfur connection… I’m hoping that you’ve heard of what’s going on in Darfur, Sudan; if not, it all started in early 2003 when two armed rebel groups began to wage war on the Sudanese government by targeting and killing government officials right along with civilians. The crisis has claimed an estimated 400k lives since it began, according to former U.N. Humanitarian Chief Jan Egeland… the Sudanese government has long been accused of supporting a rebel faction that is responsible for murdering thousands of civilians. It was reported by the BBC in 2008 that China was found to be aiding the Sudanese government by providing arms and military aircrafts… China’s weapons have provided the means for killing thousands of innocent civilians in this struggle, going against an arms embargo that was set on Sudan in 2005 by the U.N. The crisis has created one of the worst migration of refugees in modern history as well as the death and starvation of hundreds of thousands more… who’s to say that this wouldn’t be happening without the Chinese involvement? We’ll never know, because this conflict isn’t getting any better with their help in any aspect. Nice, right?

Second;

Simple human rights allowed under the PRC’s (People’s Republic of China) constitution are most commonly overturned by citing their “subversion of state power” clause… basically, freedom of speech exists as long as the people don’t speak out against the Chinese government, it’s officials, or express their feelings of mistreatment by the above. Yeah, other than that… they have freedom of speech. Other rights beign ignored are the rights of the Tibetan people, because the Chinese government had issued a mandate during the original communist installment under Mao that would remove all “old things” from Chinese society. The Tibetans are seen to be a sort of rebels because they continue to practice their ancient traditions, therefore their society has been pushed to the limits of absorbtion into communist rule… gay rights you say? The official stance on gay rights is… they don’t have a stance, because they don’t want to make a decision for, or against the gay community. That means that gay people are allowed to live freely, but they’ll have no type of protections in any fassets of their lives.

Third;

You may have heard about the recent uprising in China by the Uyghurs/”Weegers”, an Islamic minority ethnic group in China’s northwestern region a few weeks ago… the communist regime has initiated its own war on terrorism against the Uyghurs. This group of people are trying to create their own state seperate from China in order to live their lives free from Chinese oppressions against their faith-based views and lifestyles. Clashes between the Uyghurs minority and the Han majority ethnic group resulted in the death of over 190 people… protesters became violent after Chinese police responded against the group with a harsh physical response… The Chinese police took similar force against the Uyghurs that the Iranian forces took against the opposition party protesters, but no one said anything. China did it the right way though, because they shut down all internet connections and cellular communications in the region in order to prevent the story from reaching the outside world. Even better, right?

Lets sit around with the Chinese delegation and pat their backs for buying up our debt, while we turn a blind eye to their human rights abuses. No problem, right? You let me know… because this doesn’t seem right to me. It’s really too bad that China owns our country, because otherwise I’d suggest that we do something in response to these offenses, but it appears that blogging against them is all we’re going to get.

God bless America.

I was recently having a discussion with one of my straight friends about politics, and I found out some interesting things that I didn’t know before…

I was over at his house and like I had mentioned, we were discussing politics, something that I find myself doing quite often with almost anyone that will have me. Well, we began discussing how I thought President Obama was doing in office, and I’ve said it before that it is our right to disagree with the president if something he’s doing doesn’t rub us the right way. We may disagree on a few key items like gay rights, full disclosure terms, as well as national security; however, I still know that he’s doing a better job than McCain/Palin would have done. I’m a Democrat through and through. That’s fine, we discussed why I had my opinions of the president, and we both went back and forth on the wars, what happened there, why we’re still there, and why Afghanistan is going to keep getting worse/whether or not our allies will support our mission in that country.

We share similar ideas about politics and how it should work for the people instead of against, because we also went into great detail over the new healthcare legislation that President Obama is trying to get passed. We both agreed that people should be allowed to keep what coverage they have now if they want, that small businesses shouldn’t be overburdoned with having to provide their employees with benefits (price tag for small business benefits shouldn’t bee too high if possible), and that we should increase the taxes on the wealthy in order to help fund this project… sounds good to me so far.

Then we moved into my favorite topic… gay rights, the grand daddy of them all. Here, I was a little taken back that we differed in our views somewhat. When I discuss gay rights, I tend to take the argument back to the civil rights era of the late 50’s, 60’s and early 70’s, because that’s when the women’s lib movement captivated the national arena, blacks took the stage and demanded equality and an end to discrimination, and the gays began to make their move for a piece of the same pie. I discussed how blacks and women were treated as being inferior to white males in their respective ways; I brought up some of the large organizations that represented each of the groups and why they either were or weren’t successful…

We were together all the way up to this point, and then things went askew…

I went into the fact that women’s place in society was that of a subservient housewife, and that blacks were seen as inferior, second class citizens to whites… then he chimed in; “I honestly don’t think that gays are being treated as if they’re inferior.”

I took that in for a second…

How could someone see the current state that our community’s in and not think that we’re being treated unfairly and less than equals to the heterosexual majority? Like I said, I took that in for a second before responding… I then asked him if he thought it was okay for blacks to be forced to sit at the back of the bus, I mean, they at least got to ride didn’t they? He responded with a confused tone, saying that it wasn’t the same thing… I didn’t get upset because anger only makes a situation like that hostile and can damage friendships, so then went into the larger cases and key points that the gay community was fighting for, marriage and the rights that go along with it, don’t ask don’t tell, and the social change that needs to be accomplished in order for all of those to come to fruition.

In my personal opinion, our community is fighting for our civil rights, to get the same rights that all other Americans get to enjoy, the same rights that other minorities had been denied in the past. Interracial marriage was against the law at one point, women weren’t offered protection in the workplace, nor were they allowed the same job opportunities as men throughout history and the early 20th century. I bring up the other civil rights movements because I feel that we have to put everything into context of the time that these events occured… revolt was imminent. There was a social upheaval of the status quo that made the stage right for the civil rights movement to swing into full effect. The context where we find ourselves now is pretty unique, because in the new millennia, we find the attempted upheaval of the status quo being bogged down by special interest groups that tell the people what to think, and when to think it. That’s why our community hasn’t been able to break through to the national arena as effectively as other movements have… but, we’re also in drastic times, with the worst economy since the Depression, international tensions focused solely on us, political cobwebs grinding down the infrastructure of our country’s principles, and on top of that… people deplore discrimination, unless it’s against gays.

My friend and I discussed this part of the issue for quite some time before we were able to meet at a common ground of sorts… what did he honestly expect me to say? “Yea, that’s cool… gays don’t mind missing out on some rights, not worries.” Or, “Who needs all their rights anyway?” Something along those lines I’m sure… it’s fine to differ on opinions as long as there is room for communication and debate. There weren’t too many counterpoints on his part, so I’m pretty sure that he has been enlightened by education. I talked about the social change that needs to occur before we make our move onto the national stage, and I meant it… my friend for quite some time didn’t see this argument my way, and that was news to me. Doesn’t he know that I’m gay? It kind of made me laugh, out of disbelief really… we need to get people educated to the fact that homophobia is wrong, inequality is wrong, and discrimination, above all else, is wrong. I think I won one over for our team, go me!

Our move for equal rights has to take on a grass roots strategy as well as a large scaled one that works within the system… if regular people don’t change their minds about giving us equality, what’s going to make the government change its mind on the issue?

Talk to people that you care about first, and try to get them to see our side of the debate if possible; there aren’t any winners or losers, just people that are willing to share their points of view, regardless if they’re the same or not.

God bless America.

So today, the popular tv program, America’s got talent, aired one of their most successful broadcasts this season… it’s a fun show that I peronally enjoy watching! Also today, President Obama made his best Billy Mays sales pitch for the healthcare plan that he’d like to see happen. Which one was everyone watching? Most likely… America’s got talent, or another show like it. There are many other bills that are affecting our community as well as our state that should be getting attention… I’m not saying that healthcare isn’t important, because it most certainly is. I’m just saying that Washington has a way of pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes in order to take the nation’s attention off of the issues that really matter.

Once again, our community gets pushed to the back of the bus… DODT and DOMA related concerns are nowhere on the senate/house legislative websites, or at least none that I have seen. These are things that affect everyone, not just our community. At a time where we need the most qualified soldiers that we can get, this President is sitting by while they are being cast out and dismissed in shame from service… it doesn’t seem right, does it? Healthcare is a very tricky measure that has conspiracy theories all over it, what with some of the key politicians receiving up to almost half of their campaign financing from large health insurance agencies and their lobbyists… that’s not what we’re talking about here, we’re talking about the fact that healthcare should be passed with a group of intelligent people in charge. Not necessarily politicians… the President pointed out the hospital system in Cleveland and others as good standards for what he wants done; we should find the best systems that work around country, and try to implement their principles on the grander national scale.

I’m sure the gays can wait for their equal rights for another year, right? I mean… we’ve waited this long, what’s another term? Hey, we’re patient, make it two! There are organizations making their stealthy moves around Washington on our behalfs, but it’s everyone else’s job to start making noise about what we want. I’ve said it on my blog, and I’ll say it here… email your representatives and make them represent you, it’s quite the clever concept, but I hear they used to actually do that at some point in the past. What ever happened to no taxation without representation? I don’t feel represented… should we also have a tea party? It’ll probably/hopefully be a little more glamorous than the ones the elephants/conservatives had last year.

Maybe I’m just beating a dead horse, and you’re probably right… however, this is a dead horse that should get the crap beat out of it until congress does something about it. It’s about our civil rights; Although, they’d probably vote on and pass an animal right’s bill that would prohibit me from beating the dead horse before they passed legislation that would give us what we deserve… Maybe I’m crazy, just maybe.

God bless America.

Hi Qmunnity!

My name’s Leo Murrieta and my blog is called Citizenzero, and it’s a great privilige to offer the GLBT community my services. First things first, this is going to be the new QBlog for QVegas, but some of you might be asking yourselves what a blog really is, fear not because I’ll walk us all through it. Basically, I’m going to be updating this blog whenever I come across a political issue that I feel affects our community directly, or when I feel that we should all know about other current events important to us as regular people (and what fabulous “regular” people we all make, might I add). My favorite part about blogging is the feedback that I receive from my readers, so please, if there’s something that you feel is important and you’d like to see it on here just send me an email and I’ll check it out and blog accordingly. This blog is about everyone getting “in the know” about what’s going on in our community, so don’t hesitate to get involved, both here and through other QVegas outlets.

Simple right?

Don’t worry, it’s a learning process for all of us, but I’m pretty sure that we’ll all be alright…

You can email me at leo@citizenzero.us with any ideas or comments.

Thanks for allowing me to give back what I can to our community/Qmunnity.