Reply With Quote
Nice photoshop of W. there too.
USA!! USA!! USA!!
The Olympics: Unveiling Police State 2.0
by Naomi Klein
Common Dreams...
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.”
...
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.
...
There is a bitter irony here. When Beijing was awarded the games seven years ago, the theory was that international scrutiny would force China’s government to grant more rights and freedom to its people. Instead, the Olympics have opened up a backdoor for the regime to massively upgrade its systems of population control and repression. 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.
Nice photoshop of W. there too.
Pretty lousy photoshop, IMO.
*
Last edited by Tully365; 08-16-2008 at 07:24 PM.
Are the Olympics a trap?
How did you all like the computer generated sky and fireworks during the opening ceremonies? There skies are so polluted, that our USA broadcast was faked.
Don't believe me? Just wait about what we hear when the athletes come back.
Do China's cameras talk to discourage "anti-social behavior"?
Gotta give it to the Chinese, they've learned a lot from their American M$M counter-parts....
'Ethnic' children at Beijing opening ceremony were fakes
Last updated at 10:11am on 15.08.08
LinkyFake fireworks, a fake singer and now fake children at the Olympics opening ceremony.
Organisers of the Beijing Games admitted today that the children dressed in various ethnic costumes from around China who carried out the Chinese flag at the August 8 opening ceremony were not actually from those ethnic groups.
This is the third faking incident to emerge from the ceremony after it was revealed an angelic 9-year-old girl lip-synched the song "Ode to the Motherland" as the real singer
was not pretty enough, and some "live" fireworks were pre-recorded.
Fakes: The 'ethnic' children wave after carrying the Chinese flag in to the Bird's Nest during the Opening Ceremonies
Games Vice President Wang Wei played down the latest incident, saying he did not know exactly where these children were from as they were performers representing China's 56 minority groups.
"It is typical for Chinese performers to wear different apparel from different ethnic groups. There is nothing special about it," Wang told reporters.
"They will wear different apparel to signify people are friendly and happy together."
The children were reportedly from the Galaxy Children's Art Troupe, which involves young actors and actresses mainly from the dominant Han minority which makes up about 92 per cent of China's 1.3 billion population.
But the programme for the nearly five-hour ceremony had said the children were from these groups.
"Fifty-six children from 56 Chinese ethnic groups cluster around the Chinese national flag, representing the 56 ethnic groups," read the media guide for the opening ceremony.
The fill-ins came as China struggles to keep conflicts with its ethnic groups out of the spotlight during the Olympics.
Human rights groups have tried to use the world's focus on the Olympics to highlight what they say is repression of Tibetans and Muslim Uighurs of Xinjiang by China's government.
Nice?
It is obviously done by an amateur. Rather poor job I think.
So the Chinese govenrment is oppressive and authoritarian?
Who knew?
Thank God we have the internets!
Looks like one of those Magic Marker flags that guys in the middle east make up to burn in front of a camera.
Looks like the Padres are getting in on the Olympic action tonight..
Kinda scary when you think about it.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
