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Question: What does the name “Google” translate in to Chinese? Answer: Weasel.
This Internet giant grew up with a free-spirit attitude and the ethical slogan of “Do No Evil” – but today it has sold out those values and become just another money-grubbing outfit, as proven by its craven effort to weasel into the Chinese market. To get in, Google is paying a price in human freedom… and its own integrity. Google’s big shots have agreed to collaborate with China’s repressive rulers to censor that country’s Internet users and to help the government silence dissidents. Google will block access, for example, to any pesky Internet sites that deal with such taboo topics as “democracy,” or “Tiananmen Square,” which the Chinese propaganda ministry considers “sensitive.”
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Chief Googlite Eric Schmidt says that the corporation simply must follow China’s repressive censorship laws, calling it a “principled decision.” Speaking recently in China, Schmidt grandly declared that, “I think it’s arrogant for us to walk into a country where we are just beginning operations and tell that country how to run itself.” Yeah, Eric, the U.S. corporations that did business with Hitler couldn’t have said it better.
Schmidt admits that Google did not even suggest that the Chinese regime loosen-up a bit on censorship, and that it had no intention to do so. “We had a choice to enter the country and follow the law,” says Schmidt, “or we had a choice not to enter the country.”
No, Eric, you had an obvious ethical choice to “Do No Evil” – to tell China’s rulers that Google would provide an essential service that they know they must offer to their people… but that you’d only provide it if the rulers loosen their repressive restrictions and allow the free flow of ideas.
This is Jim Hightower saying… To tell Google bosses to stand for their own espoused values and to stop their money-grubbing weaseling, call them: (650) 253-0000.
Sources:
“Google defends bowing before China censors,” Austin American-Statesman, April 13, 2006.
“Google Chief Rejects Putting Pressure on China,” The New York Times, April 13, 2006.