Be Careful What You Wish For

By David Glenn Cox

The Peoples Corporate Republic of China, the world’s largest slave labor plantation, have sought desperately to showcase to the world their Two Systems -One China policy by hosting the Olympic games.

So far the plan is working beyond their wildest expectations, but not in the way they anticipated. While many hosting countries have, in the past, feared not having Olympic venues ready in time for the visiting people, China’s problems are just the opposite. They must vet each visitor before allowing them into the facilities. Visas and travel permits are the order of the day. This bureaucracy has caused foreign visitors, many with Olympic tickets already in hand, to cancel, fearful they will not be allowed into the country because of a government that is afraid of them.

Not that the visitors have done anything or are considered a threat, but that’s just the way the system works. The government has got to have a good sniff up your backside and the paperwork must be filled out in triplicate. Hotels in China have started to reduce room rates for the foreigners scared off by the gun-toting bureaucracy. Having attended Olympic venues during the Atlanta games, paying $80.00 to see a preliminary volleyball match was a neat, one-time novelty. Now I can’t imagine the hassle of having to get visas and travel permits for the privilege. But hey, they are showcasing their systems.

Soldiers, men with guns, plain-clothes policemen watching the crowd for anti-party sentiment or illegal signage, nothing says Olympic games like soldiers with guns and secret police. The US State Department warns American Olympic travelers that "your rooms may be searched or bugged while in China." Chinese officials argue that it’s not so! You will be searched so thoroughly before you will be allowed into the country that there won’t be any need to search your room. Any and all unapproved books, CD’s or movies will be removed from you before crossing the threshold into the new China. Oh the indignity of irony. The world’s capital of pirated movies and CD’s is worried about what visitors will bring in!

The Chinese government has always been good at pageantry and that’s what this is, pageantry. A games to showcase a government rather than athleticism, not that that is a new phenomenon. Only with this government it is even more pronounced; all must appear well whether it is well or not. There will be no dissent, this will be the temple of a billion happinesses, or else!

But China wants to showcase the new China, strong, powerful and prosperous. Where once only mid-level Communist party officials could afford an apartment and an automobile, now in the new China mid-level corporate mangers can afford an apartment and an automobile. Under the old system the prophet was Mao. Now under the new system the prophet is profit! His new book must always be in the black, yet some of the old ways remain.

After the recent earthquakes in China, some had criticized the collapse of so many school buildings that killed so many young children. You would think that under the new China an investigation into building standards would begin. Instead the old ways persist; an investigation into those who complained about building standards was begun. Want to purchase their Olympic tickets? They probably won’t be able to make it to the games. This is a country with built-in schizophrenia, so can paranoia be far behind? Supposedly a communist worker’s paradise, where Red Army generals own the factories that produce goods for the Fortune 500. Where workers live in Dickensian dormitories and pay for the privilege.

A new feudal age, complete with overseers with full power over their charges. Where once a complaint might earn the complainers a sentence in a hard labor camp, now a complaint might earn you termination. Tossed out of the dormitory into the road, without any back wages owed. Most workers are miles from their homes, without any family in the area, and most are also young with little experience of being away from home. So the teenage girls work twelve-hour days, six days a week, on wooden benches, painting Dream Girl Barbie’s for Wal-Mart and earning only thirty dollars a month minus living expenses.

An Orwellian “Animal Farm,” where some are more equal than others, where the main resource of revenue for the Socialist state is the sweat of the proletariat brow. The corporate world rejoices, these are their games; this is their victory celebration. The victory of corporatism over humanity, of profit over working standards. Of corporate power over national power and of stock price over environmental cost. The burning Olympic flame represents the coal-fired power plants belching tons of CO2 into the atmosphere to manufacture the cheap goods for Wal-Mart’s shelves. The victory dance of the Global Gods over the workers and the environment, and the celebration will include all the major global players.

Nike, a world leader in athletic wear, manufactured by third world workers and marketed by millionaire athletes, will use the Olympic games as one grand advertising opportunity. Coca-Cola, whose empire was built on advertising, expresses a touching sentiment. “While it would be an inappropriate role for sponsors to comment on the political situation of individual nations, as the longest standing sponsor of the Olympic movement, we firmly believe that the Olympics are a force for good.”
– Quoted in The Washington Post, March 22, 2008

They left out publicity, I’m sure that’s what they meant, a force for good publicity.

GE, your friendly nuclear bomb store and propaganda supplier, says as follows about their support, “We’re proud to be a sponsor and our plans aren’t changing. Our position overall is that the Olympics are a force for good.”
– GE spokeswoman Deirdre Latour in a statement (quoted in Press & Sun Bulletin, April 6, 2008)

Gee, where have I heard that before? NBC will be televising this abortion of the athletic spirit live into American living rooms, while a 10-second tape delay will be used in China to prevent any unfortunate incidents. A grand pageant, a grand illusion, millionaire athletes performing for their corporate sponsors where police will patrol vending stands to catch any copyright infringements.

However, there is one variable that cannot be intimidated, that is immune to the guns and the threats. Uncaring of corporate sponsorship money or angry party officials, the weather threatens to put on a show that literally closes the corporate games. Air pollution levels that make it unsafe to sit in the stands and watch, let alone compete. An air pollution spectacular displaying to the world exactly what the new China is, a global sweatshop. An abomination of everything that is wrong with phony Capitalism and phony Socialism. Nothing new, just thugs with guns!

So now as the world prepares for the ultimate in propaganda extravaganza, the Peoples Republic of China will attempt to showcase to the world the advantages of a Capitalist system under the control of a one-party, authoritarian state. Rights will be respected, pollution curtailed and dog removed from the Beijing restaurant menus. All in an attempt to present to us this rosy picture of how sweet life can be if we just let those with the money run things and do as we are told by the men with the rifles.