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 Communist China has Acquired some of the Worst of Capitalistic Traits
I turned on the TV tonight and saw what I thought was a jumbled mess. I heard the word China, and assumed it was a picture from the recent earthquake there. As I continued to watch, to my dismay I discovered that jumbled mass of steel was the Beijing Olympic Stadium, called lovingly the Bird's Nest, because of it's resemblance to, well, a bird's nest, a messy one at that! Gee, I thought, I have to catch up on these Beijing Olympics, which start this weekend. So I did a random search on the internet and found some interesting information, even if from some pretty mainstream media, such as the Wall Street Journal and the Miami Herald, in addition to the old PBS special which was filmed last year about the Chinese plans for hosting the event. The hypocrisy jumped out at me as I watched the program describing the stadium, all 22 miles of steel that are woven together in every which direction. Ironically, surrounding the stadium in Beijing (as well as all around the city and its environs) is the "murky sky" of the city. I was told a few weeks ago that the main contributor to the conditions that caused much of the pollution was a huge factory that made, guess what? Steel. So we will see a crazy looking $500 million stadium made of steel while athletes risk their health trying to break records running amidst poisoned air. In all, according to The Wall Street Journal, the inside track to capitalism, China is spending some $42 billion on the Olympics. (Compare that to 2004 Olympics in Athens which cost $15 Billion, and Greece is still trying to pay off its debts.) China gets a good amount of help in meeting its costs from its corporate sponsors like Kodak, General Electric, Coca Cola, VISA, UPS, Johnson & Johnson, Staples, McDonalds, Panasonic, Samsung, Adidas, Volkswagen and NBC (alone paying $894 million just to have the exclusive broadcasting rights). All this money going into a huge lovefest of sports, corporations, national pride and glamour, as only the capitalist and powerful know how to do! The Kentucky Derby, the Super Bowl, the Master's, the Indy 500, the Final Four, and the World Series all packed into a fashionable two-week escape for the rich and influential. Meanwhile....or shortly before....thousands of Chinese students were killed in Sichuan Province's "shoddily constructed" schools from the recent earthquake. Meanwhile....Burmese protesters were squelched...while Tibetans continued to cry for freedom, ....while millions of former residents have been removed from their homes and businesses to make room for the Olympics, for a new huge dam, and for more and more factories that continue to pollute more air and more rivers, some of which many scientists wonder if they can ever be cleaned up. As a matter of fact, Mia Farrow also has a website calling this year's Summer Olympics the Genecide Olympics. According to Anita Chang of the The Miami Herald, Ye Guozhu, one resident who tried to organize a protest among his neighbors when they found out that they were going to be removed from their homes which was planned to become a new road from the airport to the stadium, was punished with four years of imprisonment. As of early August, the prisoner was still being detained. Ai Weiwei, a consultant for the Bird's Nest, and an avant-garde artist, has disassociated himself from his design because it has become "a fake smile to hide Chinese social and political problems." One blogger, who lives 3.5 hours away from Beijing complained recently that he'll be glad when the Olympics are over because his neighborhood stall where he buys pancakes on Saturdays has to be closed by 8:30 AM because such remnants of Chinese culture are "unsightly," and who knows, there may be some Olympic tourists up that way three and a half hours away from the games! Surprisingly, the Chinese government has approved the rights of people to protest at the event, but they will have to protest miles away from where the games take place. And the Chinese themselves have been told that protesting is okay, but such actions can't harm the "national, social and collective" interests of the country. Hmm....how much freedom is that? It translates for me to say something like, "protest if you want to be jailed." I salute China in many ways because the people rose up to overthrow an abusive government nearly a century ago. The people worked very hard so that eventually all could have enough food to survive. They lived by a principle of foregoing immediate satisfaction in order to bring about a society where all would benefit, and not just a few. But the allure of money persuaded the country to find solutions to their problems by adopting the capitalistic form of government without the democracy that often goes with it. That was a shame! And now the government is going after immediate gratification for the privileged few to the detriment of many many more who have to bear the burdens so the Olympics can put on a Pretty Face for the World.
 Rachael Bliss, after working for 10 years in creative services and community affairs at a local broadcasting station, moved into the nonprofit world with her first job with the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, AL. From there she advocated for the hungry, children and the environment as an organizer and director. Articles by Rachael Bliss at MWC News http://mwcnews.net/RachaelBliss |
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