There are currently 5 responses to “Tape-Delayed Blogging the Opening Ceremonies”

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1. 1 On August 8th, 2008, The MediaBlog said:

   Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

   I hoped I wasn’t the only one who thought Comrade Joshua was doing agitprop for the ChiComs.

   As spectacular as some of this is visually, the whole time I’m watching it all I can really think is just how much you can accomplish when you’ve got $40 billion and a police state.

2. 2 On August 9th, 2008, joe in oklahoma said:

   it is really misleading to refer to the current chinese government as communist.
   they combine totalitarian government control and surveillance with corporate power and market hegemony.
   that is fascism, pure and simple, by definition.
   Mao appropriated Confucian thought after the failure of the cultural revolution, and yes, harmony, an important concept in most eastern thought, is coopted by the current leadership as well, to induce compliance and to justify repression.
   but there is nothing marxist about the current government in China.

3. 3 On August 10th, 2008, Marko NYC said:

   What a bitter and angry article. I have one word for you: SINOPHOBIA. It’s very sad that you and so many Americans feels this intense fear as they are starting to realize the return of China to the top of the world (if you knew anything about history at all). China does have an astonishing history to which the existence of the U.S. is literally a split second. So the best you can do is embrace the inevitable. No need to worry about and fear the Chinese. The sooner you accept this or any other reality, the sooner your internal conflicts will resolve.

4. 4 On August 10th, 2008, Charles J. Brown said:

   Hate to break the news to you Marko NYC, but criticism is not the same as fear. I happen to think the rise of China is a great thing. I just wish the ChiComs and their apologists understood that it doesn’t/didn’t have to happen through repression, torture, and other human rights violations.

   Certainly the United States had its share of issues as it rose to power — particularly racism. But it created a system that has largely allowed it to fix those problems. I continue to believe that also will be true of the misdeeds of the Bush Administration.

   In contrast, the Chinese Communist Party has yet to acknowledge any of its sins: the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, Tibet, or the Tiananmen Square massacre. When I see some sort of acknowledgment of those events, I’ll start believing China is a mature power.

   And just to be clear, that doesn’t have to happen in the opening ceremonies of an Olympic games. But it has to happen somewhere: in government statements, in history books, on monuments to the fallen.

   And of course, another sign of a mature power is to be honest about all its history, not merely its greatness.

5. 5 On August 11th, 2008, Marko NYC said:

   No you don’t hate breaking anything to me, but thanks for trying. So let’s say that China is indeed doing those things you mention in your response (torture, repression etc). But do you ever wonder why America is so obsessed with China in particular and not Darfur or many other African countries where absolute human catastrophes are taking place. It is plain and simple: this is the war of the titans, and America is terrified at the possibility of getting wiped off the throne after it’s short Golden Age, in which we happen to live.
   It is interesting you suggest that U.S. HAD it’s share of problems ‘as it rose to power’. And now it’s just plain simple sailing and pure perfection? The U.S. is committing crimes against humanity on a daily basis, currently in Iraq, as well as in countless places in the past, all against the international law and the approval of the U.N.
   And before I get carried away too much, when I see first hand what Christian extremists are doing here in their own country, where you can hardly breathe without these freaks handing you brochures and all kinds of promotional materials promising you to go to ‘heaven’, it makes perfect sense that China does not want to deal with this problem on their own turf. Americans have been trained and conditioned since birth to hate any other system other than what they call ‘democracy’, but what they often forget is that it is not their job to go and make the rest of the world as they like it, but to accept the differences amongst the 6 billion+ inhabitants of this planet.
   But of course the U.S. government knows this, they are after ruling the world after all, but of course, they don’t want the average CNN-watching folks to know this.
   Now I really hate to break it to you, but the 1.3 billion Chinese, together with a few more billion in other parts of the world which aren’t brain washed by the CNN and the likes, aren’t buying any of this, and as their power and influence increases over time, there will be less and less room for the U.S. manufactured side of the story. So your fear and obsession with something that is not your business, is perfectly understandable in the end.

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