There are some issues that a majority of both political parties are in solid agreement on. Trade relations with China is one of them. President Bush granted China permanent normal trade status today. Bush caps the final act to the battles Clinton carried out that also divided the Democratic party. I feel Americans should be outraged over this deal - China is still a brutal dictatorship, a communist slave state that offers up ample minions for slave labor duty. No discourse, opposition, or free speech of any kind is tolerated. I'm just going to go point by point, and make the case against PNTR:

• Our trade deficit with China is the largest in the world - approaching 100 billion dollars per year. According to some economists, every $1 billion in our U.S. trade deficit equals the loss of 14,000 jobs. For American workers, PNTR is a disaster.
• China's record on human rights is deplorable. Presently there are 6 million to 8 million political, religious, ethnic and labor activists in Chinese forced labor camps. About 300,000 of them are held without trial.
• China's horrendous environmental record continues to threaten the well-being of the entire planet. Today, five of the world's ten most polluted cities are in China and an estimated two million people die each year there from air and water pollution. Water pollution is so severe that 80 percent of China's rivers have no fish remaining in them.
• PNTR has also not benefited U.S. security interests. China is steadily expanded its military arsenal - missles, aircraft, submarines, and destroyers. China recently purchased over 4,000 warplanes, four Kilo-class submarines and two Souvremenny-class destroyers that are a major worry for both Taiwan and the United States. Chinese workers have also been detected building a fiber-optic communications system linking Iraq's air defenses.

Capitalism at its worst - the sanctioning of state oppression by a republic that heralds its freedom. All for the abundant legions of cheap labor and the reduction in tariffs ...

And this travesty is another glaring example of the hypocrisy prevalent in the deeds of the current crop of conservatives in power. Aiding them, the media lords have been putting the good spin on China and working hard to portray China in a state of progressive transformation:

• GE has provided turbines for the Three Gorges Dam project, an undertaking that environmentalists have criticized vehmently.
• Disney/ABC is building a Disneyland in China.
• Viacom chief Sumner Redstone called on foreign journalists in China not to offend their hosts when he spoke at a business conference in Shanghai sponsored by AOL Time Warner's Fortune magazine.
• Rupert Murdoch has been one of the biggest apologists for the Chinese ruling party and one of their staunchest allies. Funny that the wingnuts on Fox News don't serve up any criticism of their grand wizard.