Empire State Building lit for China, drawing ire

[lib2DaBone]

NEW YORK – Red and yellow lights shone from the top of the Empire State Building at dusk Wednesday, a tribute to communist China's 60th anniversary that protesters labeled "blatant approval" of totalitarianism and criticized as inappropriate for an icon in the land of the free.

The building is routinely lit with different colors to mark holidays and big events, but opponents questioned whether it's right to commemorate a sensitive political issue, particularly when China has such a poor human rights record.
Journalist and blogger Marc Masferrer questioned legitimizing a government that continues to repress its citizens' freedoms, including their access to media and the Internet.

"I don't think one of our great landmarks should be turned into a platform to honor a regime and a system responsible for as much tragedy and all the other things that come with a repressive system," he told The Associated Press.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091001/ap_on_re_us/us_empire_state_building_china
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..But they are our financial masters.. I'm surprised Wal-Mart didn't declare a National Holiday.

[pampango]

1. They'll have to light it up for Japan, too.

As of July we owed $800.5 billion to China and $724.5 billion to Japan. Third on the list is the UK at $220.2 billion, but they own so much less that they don't get any light displays on the Empire State Building. :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt#Foreign_ownership