Home
Archive
Newsletters
Video
Blogs
Discuss
About
Search
Donate
Advertise
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
  • AlterNetYour turn

Support AlterNet
Do you value the information you're getting from AlterNet? Please show your support with a tax-deductible donation.


Feedback
Tell us how we're doing.

Advertisement
Advertisement

China Unveils Frightening Futuristic Police State at Olympics

By Naomi Klein, Huffington Post. Posted August 8, 2008.


The Olympics have opened up a backdoor for the regime to massively upgrade its systems of population control and repression.

Share and save this post:

      

      

Share on Facebook       

AlterNet Social Networks:
follow us on twitter
find us on Facebook

More stories by Naomi Klein

Advertisement
Upcoming AlterNet stories on Digg

So far, the Olympics have been an open invitation to China-bash, a bottomless excuse for Western journalists to go after the Commies on everything from internet censorship to Darfur. Through all the nasty news stories, however, the Chinese government has seemed amazingly unperturbed. That's because it is betting on this: when the opening ceremonies begin friday, you will instantly forget all that unpleasantness as your brain is zapped by the cultural/athletic/political extravaganza that is the Beijing Olympics.

Like it or not, you are about to be awed by China's sheer awesomeness.

The games have been billed as China's "coming out party" to the world. They are far more significant than that. These Olympics are the coming out party for a disturbingly efficient way of organizing society, one that China has perfected over the past three decades, and is finally ready to show off. It is a potent hybrid of the most powerful political tools of authoritarianism communism -- central planning, merciless repression, constant surveillance -- harnessed to advance the goals of global capitalism. Some call it "authoritarian capitalism," others "market Stalinism," personally I prefer "McCommunism."

The Beijing Olympics are themselves the perfect expression of this hybrid system. Through extraordinary feats of authoritarian governing, the Chinese state has built stunning new stadiums, highways and railways -- all in record time. It has razed whole neighborhoods, lined the streets with trees and flowers and, thanks to an "anti-spitting" campaign, cleaned the sidewalks of saliva. The Communist Party of China even tried to turn the muddy skies blue by ordering heavy industry to cease production for a month -- a sort of government-mandated general strike.

As for those Chinese citizens who might go off-message during the games -- Tibetan activists, human right campaigners, malcontent bloggers -- hundreds have been thrown in jail in recent months. Anyone still harboring protest plans will no doubt be caught on one of Beijing's 300,000 surveillance cameras and promptly nabbed by a security officer; there are reportedly 100,000 of them on Olympics duty.

The goal of all this central planning and spying is not to celebrate the glories of Communism, regardless of what China's governing party calls itself. It is to create the ultimate consumer cocoon for Visa cards, Adidas sneakers, China Mobile cell phones, McDonald's happy meals, Tsingtao beer, and UPS delivery -- to name just a few of the official Olympic sponsors. But the hottest new market of all is the surveillance itself. Unlike the police states of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, China has built a Police State 2.0, an entirely for-profit affair that is the latest frontier for the global Disaster Capitalism Complex.

Chinese corporations financed by U.S. hedge funds, as well as some of American's most powerful corporations -- Cisco, General Electric, Honeywell, Google -- have been working hand in glove with the Chinese government to make this moment possible: networking the closed circuit cameras that peer from every other lamp pole, building the "Great Firewall" that allows for remote internet monitoring, and designing those self-censoring search engines.

By next year, the Chinese internal security market is set to be worth $33-billion. Several of the larger Chinese players in the field have recently taken their stocks public on U.S. exchanges, hoping to cash in the fact that, in volatile times, security and defense stocks are seen as the safe bets. China Information Security Technology, for instance, is now listed on the NASDAQ and China Security and Surveillance is on the NYSE. A small clique of U.S. hedge funds has been floating these ventures, investing more than $150-million in the past two years. The returns have been striking. Between October 2006 and October 2007, China Security and Surveillance's stock went up 306 percent.

Much of the Chinese government's lavish spending on cameras and other surveillance gear has taken place under the banner of "Olympic Security." But how much is really needed to secure a sporting event? The price tag has been put at a staggering $12-billion -- to put that in perspective, Salt Lake City, which hosted the Winter Olympics just five months after September 11, spent $315 million to secure the games. Athens spent around $1.5-billion in 2004. Many human rights groups have pointed out that China's security upgrade is reaching far beyond Beijing: there are now 660 designated "safe cities" across the country, municipalities that have been singled out to receive new surveillance cameras and other spy gear. And of course all the equipment purchased in the name of Olympics safety -- iris scanners, "anti-riot robots" and facial recognition software -- will stay in China after the games are long gone, free to be directed at striking workers and rural protestors.


Digg!    Share on facebook   submit to reddit    Bookmark on Delicious   Stumble This  

See more stories tagged with: china, olympics

Naomi Klein's latest book is The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »

Advertisement
Advertisement

 

Comments Turn comments off sitewide Give us feedback »
Comments closed.
The comments for this story have been closed. Thank you to everyone who participated.
View:
Protest the Beijing Olympics over the Internet
Posted by: HughScott on Aug 8, 2008 2:29 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Reporters Without Borders is organizing a cyber-demonstration today at this web address:
Protest Beijing Olympics.

Internet users around the world will be able to protest outside a virtual version of Beijing's Olympic Stadium, waving a placard with the slogan of their choice.

Asserted the Reporters Without Borders organization, "Chinese human rights activists are being detained, harassed or forced to leave Beijing, while their supporters abroad are being prevented from going to China. It is against this backdrop that the Chinese government and the International Olympic Committee are launching the 2008 Summer Olympics today."

The freedom of press organization added: "We cannot remain indifferent to the fate of the prisoners of conscience. These peaceful demonstrations will offer a response to the cynicism of those who will sit with their arms crossed inside the Beijing stadium on August 8."

Around 100 journalists, cyber-dissidents,and bloggers are currently imprisoned in Red China. Meanwhile, censorship is still ongoing in the press and online. The communist government has not kept its promise to improve respect for human rights that were made in 2001, when Beijing was chosen to host the 2008 Olympics.

-----------------------------------------------

PS to fellow AlterNetters.

While you're online today, please visit the Web site of Chinese activist Harry Wu's organization, Laogai.org.

Before buying another Chinese-made product, you owe it to yourself as a freedom-loving American to learn about "Laogais" (prison camps) in Red China.

Laogia means "reform through labor." Here is an example Laogai extracted from a Dunn & Bradstreet database:

"Location: #77 East Qiyi Rd., Baoding City Postal Code: 071000
Tel: 0312-5024903 (switchboard) 5923500 (printing works) Fax: 0312-5923509. Originally called "Province No. 1 Prison." Produces model AB-1 infrared alarm equipment, model JZJ-50 welders, electronic controllers, ceramic and machine tools."


A total of 314 separate entries can be found for Laogai camps in Dunn & Bradstreet databases. They represent 256 different Laogai camps or approximately 25% of the total known camps as of 2006. A total of 65 entries in the D&B databases contained the word "Prison" in the name.

In 2004, Red China's Laogia system was estimated to have as many as 6,000 prison camps with an inmate population ranging from 10 to 20 million. Prisoners work 15 hours a day, seven days a week. Think about that the next time you shop at Walmart.


Hugh E. Scott, Vietnam veteran [For the benefit of first-time AlterNet visitors]
Seven Reasons to Vote Against Unfit McCain

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Talk about nuking your own thesis!
Posted by: Bobsays on Aug 8, 2008 2:41 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Yes, remember Naomi believes that only catastrophes usher in radical economic and political changes. Yet, the Olympics, whatever you may think of this sporting spectical, can not be described as a disaster on the level of a war or the tsunami.

If you try to glean a positive politics from Naomi's writings, then you would probably come up with many of the policies of the UK Labour government. Yet, ironically, this government is the western world's leader in building a meddling, surveillance society.

Naomi's theories are a mess and upon reflection, are not a good lens for understanding what is unfolding in the world.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Hypocrisy, much?
Posted by: John Annis on Aug 8, 2008 3:40 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I love the way you bash other country's supposed failures whilst completely ignoring your own. Never heard of the Patriot Act? Never heard of i-Patriot, just waiting in the wings for 'another 9/11'? Just as the Patriot Act itself gathered dust until there was 'another Pearl Harbor'?

I'll tell you what: when the US can demonstrate that it is a democratic society and has none of the repressive apparatus you so decry, then I'll be the one at the side of the road clapping.

Until then the words 'mote', 'beam' and 'eye' will continue to be relevant. And all this is pretty rich, don't you think, when the US is the country which has contributed the most to the 'Chinese economic miracle'? Better not make too much fuss in case the PRC wants to be paid in real money, not a virtually defunct currency.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

» No kidding! Posted by: PaulC
» She is Canadian Posted by: chaoslegs
» Ridiculous statement Posted by: Tombo
» RE: Ridiculous statement Posted by: John Annis
» RE: idiculous statement Posted by: countingdaisies
» RE: Hypocrisy, much? Posted by: jingles
» U.S. is not THAT much better Posted by: lycheelady
» RE: Hypocrisy, much? Posted by: lycheelady
» RE: Hypocrisy, much? Posted by: pomes
The same dog with a different collar
Posted by: aida guzmna on Aug 8, 2008 4:12 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Patriot Act anyone? This is the same dog with a different collar. The same abuse, the same surveillance, the same human and civil rights abuse lived daily here in the US (home of the "free") . What are you talking about?

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Alternet unveils frighteningly hypocritical nationalist stance...
Posted by: loxias on Aug 8, 2008 5:44 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
More armchair racist, exclusionist, dogma I have never seen than what has been spewed from the orifice of every MSM and alternate media outlet for weeks even months now. You should be ashamed. You are exploiting the Olympic Games for your own profit, while sewing cultural hatred and misunderstanding, for which you should be ignored but probably won't. The body was completely hypocritical of the thesis, so it was poor writing on top of being crude and somewhat cruel. The point? Fix your own house first. As for the hedge fund comment, if your mom rented your old room when you went off to college, would you write nasty articles about the tenant? Talk about your head in the sand...

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Does anyone remember the BIG BROTHER ACT OF 2001 and its sequel in late 2003?
Posted by: jwverez on Aug 8, 2008 6:15 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The BIG BROTHER ACT OF 2001 (aka "Patriot" Act) and its stealthy sequel in 2003 while the media distracted the public with Saddam's capture, is already damaging enough.

And to top it off, America is borrowing billions from China to pay for wars and tax cuts for the uber-wealthy.

At some point, China and the other nations from whom America is borrowing from will have to FORECLOSE America. It's just a ticking timebomb ready to explode !

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

The man in the mirror
Posted by: QCao009 on Aug 8, 2008 6:20 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
How is this much different from our cleaning up the streets in LA, Salt Lake City and Atlanta and putting on the best face for the world? And that was done before the Bushies started reving up their totalitarian incarceration program.

China will just take our example up a notch because they can NOW. It's sad to see George's mug in Bangkok feigning criticism and then showing up with his tail between his legs the next day in Beijing.

By the way the sign over the nandicapped WC "Deformed Man Lavatory" is perfectly appropriate for our President. Would someone show it to him before he walks into the closet again? Dude's brain has been missing since that last puff up his nose.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

can there be more police state than britain and USa?
Posted by: avatar_singh on Aug 8, 2008 6:38 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
and where is the protest and mass movement against these two police states/
way back in early 90s was telephone suvillance and wire tapping common in britian and usa.
as some one wrote rightly--see this.

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts08072008.html

"Do You Feel Safe Now?

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

Now that military officers selected by the Bush Pentagon have reached a split verdict convicting Salim Hamdan, a onetime driver for Osama bin Laden, of supporting terrorism, but innocent of terrorist conspiracy, do you feel safe?

Or are we superpower Americans still at risk until we capture bin Laden’s dentist, barber, and the person who installed the carpet in his living room?

The Bush Regime with its comic huffings and puffings is unaware that it has made itself the laughing stock of the world, a comedy version of the Third Reich.

Hamdan was not defended by the slick lawyers that got O.J. Simpson off, and he most certainly did not have a jury of his peers. Hamdan was defended by a Pentagon appointed US Navy officer, and his jurors were all Pentagon appointed US military officers with an eye on their careers. Even in this Kangaroo Court, Hamdan was cleared of the main charge.

The US Navy officer who was Hamdan’s appointed attorney is certainly no terrorist sympathizer. Yet even this United States officer said that the rules Bush designed for the military tribunals were designed to achieve convictions. He also said that the judge allowed evidence that would not have been admitted by any civilian or military US court. He said that the interrogations of Hamdan, which comprised the basis of the Bush Regime’s case, were tainted by coercive tactics, including sleep deprivation and solitary confinement.

Does this make you a proud American?

Do you think you are made more safe when you stand there while “your” government implements its own version of Joseph Stalin’s show trials?

The trial and conviction of Hamdan has made every American very unsafe.

The one certain fact about US law is that it is expanded until it applies to everyone. Consider RICO, for example, the asset freeze law that was intended only in criminal cases involving the Mafia; it wasn’t long before RICO found its way into civil divorce proceedings.

Bush’s multi-year, multi-billion dollar “war on terror” has been reduced to railroading a low level employee, a driver, for “terrorism.”

One would hope that the Hamdan verdict would be enough shame and ridicule for the US in one day. But no, Bush didn’t stop there. On his way to the Beijing Olympics, President Bush expressed “deep concerns” for the state of human rights in China.

But not in Guantanamo, nor in Abu Ghraib, nor in the CIA’s torture dungeons used for “renditions,” nor in Iraq and Afghanistan where the US is expert at bombing weddings, funerals, children’s soccer games, and every assortment of civilians imaginable.

As the good book says, clean the beam from your own eye before pointing to the mote in your brother’s eye.

But Americans, the salt of the earth, have neither beams nor motes. We are the virtuous few, ordained by God to impose our hegemony on the world. It is written, or so say the neocons.

What would President Bush say if, heaven forbid, the Chinese were as rude as he is and asked Mr. Superpower why the land of “freedom and democracy” has one million names on a watch list. China with a population four times as large doesn’t have a watch list with one million names.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

uber-capitalism meets communist totalitarianism
Posted by: zooeyhall on Aug 8, 2008 7:22 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
As someone who grew up during the Cold War, it is mind-boggling to me how this has come to pass. When I was a kid, I was raised on lurid stories about the evils of Communism and Reader's Digest scrawgs about the horrors of life in China--and how the great 'merican capitalist system was a shining beacon protecting us from these evils. Now in retrospect, it is the perfect marriage: methods of mass indoctrination and oppression- honed to a fine art with the assistance of the most state-of-the-art technology--under totalitarian communisim, and ruthless dog-eat-dog bottom-line capitalism.

I can just see how the light bulb went-off in the heads of the wealth holding class in this country: "oh hey...THIS is the way to handle all those pesky unions!"

I have always believed that human progress was inevitable, that despite some setbacks things always get better. Now I'm not so sure.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Good Article
Posted by: Gravitas on Aug 8, 2008 7:39 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I don't see it as hypocracy at all. It would be different if they ONLY picked on China while ignoring what is happening in the U.S. But that is hardly the case. Alternet and other alternative media have run many, many articles on our loss of civil rights. Obviously the Olympics are a topical!!! Furthermore, this article is serving as a warning of what could happen to us. Personally, I am trying to reduce my consumption of Chinese goods as much as possible. I hate what their government is doing and it has nothing to do with being "racist" against the Chinese people.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

This way then that way
Posted by: Ptah on Aug 8, 2008 8:16 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
As usual Naomi's incisive research and writing hit the point head on. Having been to China and Tibet 3 times I know how the Chinese state and its hardworking but utterly naive people operate. Chinese pragmatism always covers several bases at one time within the realms of the social, economic and political. Chinese pragmatism tries to cover all bases, always. But to do so they are constantly recalibrating their odds and policies and carrying the "evangelized" masses along with them to execute their aims. And old Tibetan, about 30 years ago, replied to my naive statement that despite the abuses of the Chinese people by the Chinese leadership they were at least beginning to live better, he said: "China one day this way, the next day that way." What he meant was that they made one policy and imposed it only to reverse themselves when expediency demanded it. It might be good for the Chinese state but bad for the quality of life. We mustn't forget Mao's call for letting 100 flowers bloom, when critiques of the regime were solicited. But when the ideas were proffered the people who voiced them were arrested. That was a primitive kind of surveillance society in comparison to modern China's techno way of surveillance. But what remains the same is China's utter disregard for listening and disdain or worse for those who speak up. Good luck world.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

That photo to the upper left
Posted by: fanny666 on Aug 8, 2008 8:47 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I don't know if everybody else sees the same photo that I do... that picture of a Chinese woman in blue being held by a Chinese soldier under the heading "Human Rights Are Not A Game" ... The background of that picture is that she had just been sentenced to death on a drug charge- that's the immediate reaction on her face, accompanied by a sad howl.

It makes me sad that we really don't even have the moral right be be criticizing China on anything at all.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

wrong frog
Posted by: siamdave on Aug 8, 2008 10:04 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Undoubtedly of some interest, but we ought not get so engrossed in what is happening elsewhere that we forget the heat is getting ever higher in our own pot - They're Building a Box - and You're In It - if we aspire to save other cooking frogs, we'd better save ourselves first.
First we take back our own minds, then we take back our countries. Then we look outwards, with a true flag of hope.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Police State 2.0 will be ready for export
Posted by: madmax427 on Aug 8, 2008 10:51 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I sincerely think the importance of 'police State 2.0 will be ready for export' was NOT stressed enough! The United States is WELL on it's way to the same thing! No wonder Bush is so happy to be in China!

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

We should have known . . .
Posted by: 6399 on Aug 8, 2008 10:59 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
That a smattering of hypocritical Brits and other, presumably, eternally self-flagellating types would come in here with this one:

"Yeah, but the US __________"

*NOW PAY ATTENTION HERE*
As someone has already astutely pointed out, drawing attention to the highly despotic tendencies of the Chinese leadership does not preclude being critical of our own perfidious government at the same time.

This seems to be a recurring theme here on Alternet. The US has apparently managed to monopolize all forms of vile, loathsome behavior so everyone else, including an authoritarian regime that torturers and executes people with little provocation, should be exempted. Grow up!

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

China's not that different than us......
Posted by: jeffrey7 on Aug 8, 2008 11:33 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Back in the late 80's when China had pro-democracy protests CBS wasted a lot of air time showing us China's on the street cameras and telling us they were used to spy on their people and how America was better because we did'nt do that shit,at that time anyway. Now we have cameras everywhere,our gov't has been spying on us since the Nixon era,in fact we have two officer level CIA agents in EVERY COUNTY in the country. Why? To spy on Americans!! I guess that's why they could'nt get the 9/11 Terrorists before they struck,too busy watching ,supposedly FREE,Americans.
Politically motivated arrests and convictions don't make the news in this country because they want tp preserve the illusion of a free society. China shows political arrests as a means of control by fear. We use a different style. We have gunmen go nuts on the playground,school shootings,roving rapists and crooked cops to do that for us.
If you'd like to test just how 'free' we are, take a walk around the block in your underware. My guess is you won't get far.
Instead of bitching about China's human rights abuses,we'd better clean up our own act first and get back our Freedom and Liberty.
Unless you like living in a police-state run by corrput fools sucking the appendage of big business.
WRITE IN Jeffrey7 for Prez '08

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Why should I care about Chinas police state,
Posted by: donl51 on Aug 8, 2008 2:36 PM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
When we're working on an optimum one right here in Amerika!..Lots of you out there right now know its happening,and those who don't will hear it's for their safety and a lot of those braindeads will believe it until it affects their family....I see other country's gearing up to defend themselves against what we are becoming,and we have names for them!!Chavez is a bad man? really I suppose then Bush is a good man right!??....we critisize then we become!....I love it !Bush asking Putin to pull away from fighting Georgia,gotta love the hypocracy in this....

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Naomi can't even figure out that China is now capitalist!
Posted by: logansafi on Aug 8, 2008 2:48 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
First she refers to the Chinese communists and then she talks about the Chinese as being run by capitalists! Get it straight one way or the other, Naomi!

It is really quite simple and is nothing more than the fact that for some time now, China has been directed by the Communist Party toward a counterrevolution that has reinstalled capitalism in the country. It was done differently than was the case in the exSoviet Union, but it was never-the-less done, and done by what the Left Libertarians often call the 'coordinator class', though the Trotskyists always called them more correctly a Stalinist bureaucracy sitting on top of the workers.

Many counter revolutions occur in bodies of organization that formerly might have initiated revolutionary change. The Chinese Communist Party did kick out foreign imperialists like the British, Japanese, Portuguese, US, etc. from having direct control over Chinese national affairs. But capitalism is an international system and simply was allowed to come back in, and in fact was encouraged to by those who considered themselves the 'leading Marxists' of the CCP.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

» Facile Generalizations Posted by: pdxjoe
This is all a Crock
Posted by: dayahka on Aug 8, 2008 3:57 PM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
China is a far freer society than the US. If you want to, you can just change every reference to China here to US or UK and the commentary will be accurate. The idea that somehow China is a repressive society is nonsense; that there are no civil rights is bunk. You need to acquaint yourself with the differences between the individualism of the West and the collectivism of China. Relationships, harmony, and stability are among China's values, and for the Olympics to go well, they need stability. If you think a small group of people can control and repress 1.4 billion people, you're dreaming. The Chinese people are mostly together, happy, productive, totally unlike the sullen, direction-less punks roaming the streets of "free" America, where you are always free to get shot, free to get attacked by dangerous dogs, free to get your life wrecked by a totally corrupt government.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

» Speaking of crocks Posted by: 6399
» RE: This is all a Crock Posted by: jingles
Disgusting
Posted by: vivachavez on Aug 8, 2008 5:13 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
NBC, which does not want to piss off China or all of the large U.S. corporations advertising on its networks, is shamelessly passing over the most pernicious aspects of Chinese authoritarianism and its allies in the U.S.

They refuse to acknowledge the real reasons for Bush's timid criticism of China's human rights abuses- he does not want to jeopardize the ability of U.S. corporations to make loads of money off of Chinese cheap labor and suppression or the ability of the U.S. government to mount up even greater debt, which is bought up by China.

Spare me the crap about celebrating China's emergence- that was done through massive environmental destruction, the prevention of worker organization, and stringent media manipulation to convey a desired international view of the country, especially dueing these Olympics.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

It's Not An Either/Or Proposition, That's Bush Logic
Posted by: sofla100 on Aug 8, 2008 8:41 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
We don't need to see this as an "either-or" proposition. That's Bush logic, remember his famous, " you are either with us or against us."
Bottom line, China is an authoritarian, repressive country, where workers have little or no rights. It's also true that the USA is going in China's direction and is already in cahoots with them. That's why Bush won't criticize China to their faces (in China), but just does some photo-op speeches in other countries to state his disingenuous "human rights concerns." America needs China to keep buying her dollars to keep the federal budget deficit going. The deficit that funds tax cuts for the rich and the wars. As for American repression, the Patriot Act is the first step in overturning the 1st and 4th Ammendments of the US Constitution. We only need to look at China to see where Bush wants to lead us all.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

little things
Posted by: richholland on Aug 9, 2008 2:48 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
every day in Northern Thailand Chinese refuges are coming in from i.e.province Yunnan ..

These people are hungry, telling about hard work and bad pay and: Less protection by the social system then BEFORE.

If the american ruling class brainwashed all the american schoolkids that communisme is evil how you dare to buy chinese products???
Could it be advisible to think about values and to check on Wikipedia.
Capitalisme can make profit out of wars.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

itnt that a bit rich...?
Posted by: denk on Aug 9, 2008 9:37 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
hey yanks,

lets see.......

so you encircle china with bases, publicly collar japan and india to join in the anti chinese bandwagon, send your gunboats to patrol the tw straits, spy planes to harass china's air defence, conduct war games with india, japan , right at china's doorstep.........after all these, you cry foul when the chinese try to upgrade their antique military ?

you ochestrated uprising, sabotages and unrest in tianamen, tibet, mounted terrorists attacks in xinjiang, sponsored rebellions by cults like the flg, openly recruit spies to operate in china ......then you whine that china is beefing up security for the olympics ?

you mount a disinfo campaign to demonise china, twisitng facts in the recent tibet riots, even framed ccp as the instigator of the violence against their own citizens, then you bleat about china's censorship of western media ?

if you seriously whish to see a more open and humane china, thats a rather pervert way of doing it eh ?

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Next stop USA
Posted by: Jersey Devil on Aug 9, 2008 11:28 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Very interesting article is this what the Bush/McCain war against terror has in store for American citizens. Will we be the next to be protected by Olympic Security - as prototyped demonstrated in China?

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

what we are seeing
Posted by: truecascadian on Aug 10, 2008 5:23 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
"And remember when Western companies used to claim that by doing business in China, they were actually spreading freedom and democracy? We are now seeing the reverse: investment in surveillance and censorship gear is helping Beijing to actively repress a new generation of activists before it has the chance to network into a mass movement."

'We' are? Who is 'we'? Are you not overly simplifying the paradox of increasingly sophisticated information technologies? Yes, it is true that with these tools there are new ways to track and trace, but there are also new ways to connect and communicate. There are no ideas that are out of reach to the Chinese people now..no pictures, no words. Every book can be read, every movie can be seen, every issue (save for a few) can be discussed. How many Chinese BBS forums have you checked? How many Chinese websites have you seen? Are there not more with every passing day? And if you are concerned about the lack of grassroots activity in China, a study of how these technologies enabled efforts during and after the Wenchuan earthquake might be instructive--or will you just give it a snappy label like "Disaster Communism" and leave it at that? Surely you know that no government, no matter how sophisticated can track the thoughts and words of 1.3 billion people, the best it can do is make examples of a few and hope that keeps the rest in line. Don't be fooled by this trick. There is much that you cannot see.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]