The Olympics: Unveiling Police State 2.0

I plan to keep my TV tuned away from the Olympics -- wasn't China supposed to follow some guidelines to show they were more humane? The humane Chinese prepared for the Olympics by destroying certain homes in the way without proper reimbursement -- that on top of everything else....

The Olympics: Unveiling Police State 2.0
by Naomi Klein

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.”MORE

I posted on CommonDreams.org: Keep the television sets turned off of the Olympics for political reasons and ask others to do similarly. (And don’t go watching the events on YouTube.com or other such sites either.) To which rtdrury replied, "When the people learn to select all of their exchange/association for political reasons, the people will have full political power." Exercise some power, folks!