Spin, intrigue, openness and a (lack of) protests

Just when we thought that the right to protest, a flickering flame tenuously linked to the hope of the Olympic dream and the dodgy old deal-making bastards at the IOC was over, a new wave of hope has poured petrol on the flame of Freedom Of Speech.

SANUR - The Chinese organizers of the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou said Monday protests would be allowed "in certain areas" during the event, but were
reluctant to provide details. They also indicated they would follow the policy China adopted for the Beijing Olympics in allowing foreign reporters greater freedoms to do their jobs, although the same rights do not extend to domestic journalists. "Yes, we will allow protests to take place in certain areas. We have planned for this," said Guangzhou government vice-secretary general Gu Shiyang. But Gu, speaking on behalf of the city's vice mayor Xu Ruisheng who had poor English, refused to elaborate when pressed by AFP, becoming increasingly irritated. "We are not so interested in this question, we are very busy with organizing the Games, not about protests," he said on the sidelines of the inaugural Asian Beach Games in Bali. "We are interested in hosting one of the best Games ever. We are not holding the Games for protesters, we are holding the Games for Asia."

And after the raging success of the Olympic protest model, in which the Chinese people displayed their incredibly rabid thirst for harmony by not staging a single protest, what better way for China to again prove to their ever decreasing band of doubters that China is a tolerant, peaceful nation, where peaceful protests are tolerated if they do not exist?

In a curious Orwellian twist, when I googled "China" news just before writing this post, the next entry that came up was:

China extends Olympic freedoms for foreign reporters
CHINA HAS extended rules introduced for the Olympic Games allowing foreign reporters to move and interview people freely throughout the country. The move, which came at the 11th hour, means that foreign journalists will still be able to interview people without seeking official permission and will be permitted to travel in areas outside of the cities in which they are accredited.

However, there are two important caveats:

1) The decision to extend the freedoms for foreign journalists is a sign of growing openness in China, but there were no breakthroughs on freedoms for domestic media.
2) Reporters will still have to get permission from local authorities to gain access to the sensitive Himalayan region of Tibet.

And possibly even more fascinating was this article, discussing the possible imminent political demise of Wen Jiabao:

CHINA'S most popular politician, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, has become a target for Communist Party hardliners and could be forced from office, according to an
influential magazine in Hong Kong.
Its report is a rare insight into the struggle over the future of China between political reformers and guardians of the police state. The Prime Minister's popularity rose this year as he comforted the victims of the earthquake in Sichuan province, visited people caught up in disastrous snowstorms and defended China's unyielding policy on Tibet. A 66-year-old known as "Grandpa", he has his own page on Facebook, the social networking website seen by millions. Rivalries inside the party have broken out behind the facade of unity erected for the Olympic Games, said Kaifang (Open), the monthly magazine known for its political sources inside China and its publication of information banned in the media.
It said hardliners in the party's propaganda department and at the People's Daily
newspaper had orchestrated a campaign of abuse directed at Mr Wen's supposed
support for universal values such as democracy and human rights. "China's ship of reform is on the rocks and risks sinking," Kaifang said in its analysis. "The party needs to find a scapegoat."
Last week, important land reforms were put on hold. Mr Wen had also been passed over for the job of heading a prestigious committee, the magazine said. It listed several press attacks, which, as is often the case in Chinese politics, did not identify their victim but left no doubt among those in the know as to who it was.
The most prominent critic was Chen Kuiyuan, vice-chairman of the Chinese People's
Political Consultative Conference, a rubber-stamp body whose title sums up everything it is not. "Some in China want to dance to the West's tune," Mr Chen wrote. The People's Daily of September 10 printed a column headlined "How to see through the theory of so-called universal values".
Today, the Prime Minister is seen by many ordinary Chinese as a friendly face at the apex of power. He has been compared to the veteran revolutionary Zhou Enlai, who is claimed to have moderated the worst crimes of Maoism.

I am quite interested to see the reaction from the people if he steps down, though I guess it will be accepted with little complaint.

A scary future

It's October 2009........

President McCain has been dead for two months. President Palin has declared war on Russia. And abortion. And moose. And green activists.

She has personally said she wants to "kill herself some non-believers." Under the umbrella of job creation and healthcare, that is.

Oil is at $300 a barrel. Although they can't afford to fly, Americans are leaving en masse. The Canadian army (ha) is desperately trying to stem the flow of refugees across the border. Boatloads of Americans are attempting to cross the Atlantic in huddled masses, desperate for a new life in the New World of the European Union. Others are turning up in Vietnam, China and Australia (where they are sent to prison camps in the desert.)

Thankfully it looks less and less like this is actually going to happen. According to this article:

A GROWING proportion of US voters question Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's readiness for the job, according to a national opinion poll reported by The Washington Post.The poll results came as the Alaska governor prepared to face Democrat Joe Biden in the only vice presidential debate before the November 4 election.
About half of all voters surveyed said they were uncomfortable with the idea of Republican presidential nominee John McCain taking office at age 72, and 85 per cent of those voters said Governor Palin does not have the experience needed to be president, according to The Washington Post/ABC News poll.

Praise the lord!

Is this the end for Kim Jong-Il?

In the marvellous documentary "Team America," investigative journalists Matt Stone and Trey Parker go undercover into North Korea and gain unprecedented access to one of the most fascinating political figures of our time. Long derided in the biased western media as a "despot" "tyrant" and "jackass," the real Kim Jong-Il reveals himself as a deeply complex, and touchingly flawed figure. In one scene, he sings revealingly to the camera of the tortured poignance of his existence. Here's a flashback:

I'm so Ronery / So ronery / So ronery and sadry arone / There's no one / Just me onry / Sitting on my rittle throne / I work very hard to be number one guy / but, stiwr there's no one to right up my rife / Seems rike no one takes me serirousry / And so, I'm ronery / A rittle ronery / Poor rittle me / There's no one I can rerate to / Feewr rike a biwd in a cage / It's kinda siwry / but, not reawry / because, it's fiwring my body with rage / I'm the smartest, most crever, most physicawry fit / but, none of the women seem to give a shit / Maybe someday, they'wr awr notice me / And untiwr then, I'wr be ronery / Yeah, a rittle ronery / Poor rittle me...

I think we'll all agree this kind of stuff can really tug at the heart strings. But rather than eliciting sympathy from the axis of countries bent on the destruction of North Korea, the western press continues to spread falsehoods and falsity about the dear leader, using such awful puns as "Is Kim Jong Ill?" This from the Australian newspaper The Australian (newspaper).

NORTH Korea's No.2 has denied reports that leader Kim Jong-il is ill, which a Pyongyang diplomat called a Western "conspiracy"."There are no problems," Kim yong-Nam, the regime's de facto head of state, told Kyodo news agency in Pyongyang. He confirmed that Kim Jong-il, 66, did not show up at a major parade yesterday marking North Korea's 60th anniversary. "While we wanted to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the country with General Secretary Kim Jong-il, we celebrated on our own," Kim yong-Nam was quoted as saying. A US intelligence official said yesterday that Kim had apparently suffered a "health setback", possibly a stroke. "We see such reports as not only worthless, but rather as a conspiracy plot," Song il-Ho, North Korea's ambassador handling relations with Japan, told Kyodo separately. "I believe the aim is to form a public opinion on something that is not true," Mr Song was quoted as saying. "Western media have reported falsehood before."

Not content with just spreading rumours about Kim Jong's ill-health, some propaganda outlets, I mean western newspapers, have gone so far as to claim the Dear Leader is dead.

IS Kim Jong-il for real?
The question has baffled foreign intelligence agencies for years but now a veteran Japanese expert on North Korea says the "dear leader" is actually dead - and his role is played by a double.The expert says Kim died of diabetes in 2003 and world leaders, including Vladimir Putin of Russia and Hu Jintao of China, have been negotiating with an impostor.

Well I have one question for these punks. Answer me this. If Kim Jong-Il died in 2003, then how on earth could he have appeared in Team America in 2004?! Fuck yeah!

Is this man for real?

Chinese Government soft on smack

If you are a recovering junkie looking to kick a jumbo-sized habit, and feel like a free rehabilitation program on sunny Hainan island, I suggest you get on a plane to China now. This from the NY Times:

An elephant that became addicted to heroin at the hands of illegal traders will return home after three years of rehabilitation, the Chinese state media said Thursday. The elephant, Xiguang, a 4-year-old male, became addicted after the traders captured him on the China-Myanmar border in March 2005. They fed him bananas laced with heroin as bait and to pacify him, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. When he was found two months later in southwest China, he was suffering from withdrawal. He received methadone at a center on Hainan Island and recovered, Xinhua said

I find this article especially fascinating for several reasons. 1) Traders fed an elephant bananas laced with heroin. Besides the fact I thought tranquilisers were all the rage these days, where did these traders get their hands on heroin? Is there a corruption angle there? 2) Since when did the NY Times uncritically reprint a story about somebody "undergoing treatment" with the blessing of the CCP? 3) Where is the political angle? Was the elephant "re-educated" for his political views? Did he "write a letter of self-criticism," in the manner of the Chinese soccer players who went to have a bath in a hotel room with several prostitutes, girlfriends, and groupies because the water in their team hotel was cold? Was the elephant under house arrest? Were his rights violated? Did he have suspected links to the Dalai Lama?

As Alice in Wonderland observed after her own mind-altering experiences, this just gets curiouser and curiouser. There is a big, juicy story under all that Xinhua spin. Slopppy journalism, NYT, sloppy journalism....

Journo says it as it is

Qu: What has the power to turn a bunch of rabid China-bashers into frolicking panda huggers?
A: The soothing capitalist sweetness of M&Ms.

I don't think I'm the only one who has noted with a little surprise the changing of the tune in the western press over the last couple of weeks when it comes to reporting on China. It was as if all the armchair critics who had been firing journalistic missiles at everything Middle Kingdom-related for the last eight months had suddenly become complimentary, if not downright fawning, at the way the event was handled - and by extension the dastardly commie government that ran the show wasn't so bad after all. It was only two weeks ago that the sinister foreign media were making totally unreasonable claims about internet access, yet today it's all about how extraordinarily efficient the whole shebang was. I was delighted to find a refreshingly candid article in the Irish Times explaining this weird phenomenon.

More than at any other Olympic celebration , we were aware of being tranquillised - we lived in a theme park, not China, writes Tom Humphries

THE MAIN transportation area at the Olympic press centre is a grid several football pitches in area with buses going hither and thither from designated stops. To get to the shuttle that whisks us nightly to our plush seven-star hotel suite, we must go past the stop that whisks other people to the Beijing Foreign Experts Institute. We can't help but feel a pang of envy.

All of us here, after all, are foreign experts, unblushing about painting an overall picture of China after a couple of weeks spent within the Disney on steroids environment that the Olympics provides.

In truth we are the least-qualified people on earth to comment on China and the games. We can only compare and contrast these Beijing games as seen from within the bubble with the experience of being within other bubbles.

First the bubble. You know it is there but the Chinese, in a masterstroke of overstaffing, have solved the security problems that can occasionally make the Olympic experience (or lately just working in Croke Park) so oppressive, intimidating and so involving of queue.

Exposure to the Salt Lake City winter games and to the Athens Olympics left a trace impression of a security world gone mad. Nightclub bouncers and men with machine guns had inherited the earth. Long, long queues formed to get into any arena or press centre. There were no words better guaranteed to sink the hearts of hacks at the back of an epic security queue than the demand that all cameras and laptops be removed from bags for inspection.

The Chinese have solved it all. We come down to the hotel lobby, scan our danglers in (sounds more exciting than it is: our danglers are our accreditation cards, which dangle from our necks like cowbells). Once that is done (10 seconds max), including wild cheery hellos and good days and thank yous and you're welcomes, we step on to a bus and drive down a special Olympic highway and become part of the Olympic family in the pristine Olympic green.

And we can go from venue to venue on our dedicated Olympic highways without ever leaving the Olympic bubble or needing to be searched again. Our meals, our banking, our technology, our haircuts, our massage requirements, our visits to McDonalds - all these things are provided within the bubble. Sometimes we come out and it has been raining. Other times we come out and the government has been oppressing. Of the two conditions, rain makes more impact on us. We berate the athletes for not making an articulate expression of political concern like Smith and Carlos in 1968, but in the bubble we are just as soothed and self-absorbed.

In terms of being hermetically sealed off from the host community, these games feel qualitatively different from their recent counterparts. The Olympic venues don't groan under the weight of merchants' tables flogging mountain ranges of licensed souvenir gear. In parts of Beijing, the Olympics are practically invisible.

Perhaps because the Chinese people are so overwhelmingly decent and friendly without ever being cloying about it, we find ourselves within our Truman Show compound trying to re-educate ourselves and to help things along for China by maintaining a sunny Olympic spirit.

You give little things a pass. You can't get Amnesty sites or the Huffington Post on the web within the press centres, but we are busy anyway. That little girl miming because she was cuter than the girl who was actually singing well - The Irish Times often uses other people's photo-bylines on my pieces for the same reason.

Even the charmingly Kafkaesque idea that there would be three special areas reserved in Beijing for people who wanted to protest about things, but that those people would have to apply to the local authorities for permission to protest (no permissions were granted among the 77 applications), almost became darkly humorous with the news that several applicants for the right to protest had been arrested, among them two old ladies.

If we are to be frank, the human rights violation we fret about the most is that the shop in the main press centre stocks no other type of chocolate except Snickers bars and M&Ms - and they disappear quickly once word gets around that a new consignment has arrived.

We live in a big theme park, not in China. Those of us who came to this country to work at the games don't even have visas. Our danglers identify us as special at the airport - Olympic family. More than at any other Olympic celebration we are aware of being tranquillised and we are gulled by the experience, soothed and made passive.

China has planned and constructed these games to soothe us. It exposes us to the friendliest, most helpful security people in the world, the warmest citizens and their touching innocent pride. They smile hugely when they throw Snickers bars at us! And our reservations and protest plans feel like bad manners.

We roam the huge Olympic green like contented buffalo. Past the wonderful red glow of the Bird's Nest and the gloopy blue Water Cube, and the quiet thrilling efficiency of everything, and we are not in China but China is selling a version of itself to us.

We remember all the promises made in Moscow seven years ago and realise that China has delivered over and over again in terms of the infrastructure of these games and, rather cynically, hasn't blinked on much else. But we can see nothing and hear nothing, so while we are here, we do nothing and hope those who hope for more understand. We were queuing for M&Ms. Okay?

And thus the bias of the western press has been proved. If you feed them enough M&Ms, they will definitely turn a blind eye to assaults on a few of their colleagues.

Actually, this should come as no surprise. The psychoactive powers of chocolate have been well-documented scientifically. Chocolate contains around 380 chemicals, some of which act as cannaboid mimics and latch onto receptors in the brain, triggering a reaction not unlike that of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). The relevant lipid, Anandamide, is perhaps the cause of this unprecedented wave of panda-hugging engulfing the western media.

Your blogger would suggest that in admitting his and his colleague's journalistic laziness, Tom Humphries has in fact stumbled upon a great TRUTH - that the Chinese Government deliberately packed the international media centre full of opiate-inducing snack machines IN ORDER TO STOP ANY JOURNALISTIC INVESTIGATION OUTSIDE OF THE INTERNATIONAL MEDIA CENTER.

And in terms of their objectives - you can't but help admire the vile cunning of the Chinese Communist Party. Of all the choices of brain-affecting substances available, they chose the most inane, yet effective. They could have packed their vending machines with cocaine, ecstasy, or heroin, but these drugs are just so democratic. Nobody would believe you can get better dope in Beijing than the great cities of Berlin, London or New York. Opium was a possibility - but it's just so god-damn imperialistic. And caffeine - well that's been known to give journalists energy instead of put them to sleep. Energy that could be spent on chasing down a story.

Now that Guerrilla Snorefare has uncovered this slimy sweet-toothed scandal, the question must be posed: Just where will the Chinese Government stop?

It must be said though, that there may be more than one factor at play. Perhaps part of the reason the English press, at least, is so complimentary is because they are packing their dacks* at the prospect of being humiliated by the efficiency of the Beijing organisers. As was noted by The Independent following the closing ceremony:

It was hard not to feel a shiver of sympathy for Boris Johnson as he was handed maybe the heaviest baton ever passed on in the history of organised sport. Implicit in the eight-minute handover sequence was that if London was to succeed it would do so on its own terms – and its vastly inferior budget.

Roll on 2012.

*This Australian slang refers to defecating in your pants out of a heightened sense of fear.

Diabolical Chinese performance-enhancing plot exposed

In a stunningly devious display of satanic.... deviousness, China has hijacked the colour red in order to gain a statistical advantage over their Olympic opponents. (The world)

Yes folks, this is what is has come down to. A century of planning to get the Games to China, a communist revolution sixty years ago to ensure that red would be the color of the flag when it finally happened, and 5000 years of history have all crystallized into this one event.

But actually, the scheme goes much deeper than that. Several thousand years ago, the Chinese built a wall to keep meddlesome outsiders away so they could develop their sporting skills uninterrupted. Then they invented sophisticated farming techniques and started to breed like rabbits, waiting for the time they could claim a full 20% of the world's population to launch a serious medal assault. Cunningly, they created gunpowder and exported it, knowing full well that barbarians would use it to kill each other and keep their reproduction rates down. They established ping-pong training centres at Shaolin Si and Leshan where super warrior-paddlers honed their lethal speed by smashing needles through plates of glass. They practiced their gymnastics skills by flying through the air and running along walls. Then, in a brilliant twist of psychoanalytical mastery, China created the worst soccer (football, if you will) team in the world. Embarrassment, humiliation, and loss followed. The anger of the people knew no bounds. Defeat after defeat stoked the nationalistic hunger for victory. The red flag burned like a raging fire in the hearts of the people, desperate to be quenched.

After 5 thousand years of history, I mean training, the gold campaign was almost ready. But something was missing. Victory seemed inevitable. The people were becoming too complacent. They lacked a certain....focus. Deep in Zhongnanhai, an ancient sage counseled the Central Committee. Although he was in failing health, he had one last edict to issue. "To give the people the drive they lack," he said, "You must find them a common enemy. Look no further than the western media." With these final words, the ancient one went to take his afternoon nap.

Bemused by the old man's words, the Central Committee carefully considered the problem. After a few rounds of ping-pong and some baijiu, Hu Jintao snapped his fingers. "I've got it!" he said. "We'll let some of the Lhasans off the leash for a while. Then we'll clear out the foreign media. Then we'll make our torch relay go all around the world, and express our complete surprise at the protests that follow. We'll also send some goons and thugs to protect it! The western media is sure to go ape, and when they do, we'll claim it's all a plot against China!"

The other members were shocked at the audacity of the plan. "Jintao, you old bastard" said Wen Jiabao,"If the people knew how brilliant you were, I'd lose my Facebook status as China's favourite politician."

The rest, as they say, is history. Except in China, of course, where it's 5000 years of history. And if you had any doubts, I feel I need to hardly point out to you the incredible effectiveness of this wily scheming. Just check out the medal table. Here is my prediction, at the end of Day Three. The US may win most medals, but China will top the gold medal count.

Chinese Government announces tough new anti-terrified crackdown in Tibet

This just in from the Guardian:

China seeks "absolute monotony" for Olympics

In the wake of a few hundred Tibetans terrifying 1 billion Han Chinese in March, the Chinese Government has called for stronger international support in the face of these superhuman fiends of terror.

"We're absolutely terrified," said a government spokesman. "So our solution is to terrorize the terrorists. Then we'll be less terrified, and the terrorists will be too terrified to terrorize, and we'll be able to ensure a terrific terror-free Olympics. Pretty clever, eh?"

"But to do this, we need the help of the rest of the world."

When it was suggested to him that the Dalai Lama actually does not seek independence for Tibet, the spokesman was unmoved.

"It is a well known fact that the Dalai Lama has the sole of a god," he said. "We can barely control Tibet as it is. If the Dalai Lama, with his god-sole comes back to China, the s%*& is really going to hit the fan."

Prez dishes out some Olympic love

This just in from Xinhua.

Chinese president warns against politicizing Olympics

BEIJING -- Chinese President Hu Jintao on Friday warned that politicizing the Olympics runs counter to the Olympic spirit and will not work.

"As proof that we would never politicize the Games, we locked up a number of political dissidents," he said. "We also shipped out large numbers of the working proletariat, who are known for their tendency to form left wing political parties and stage revolutions. That kind of anti-revolutionary revolutionary thinking is clearly not in the Chinese spirit of harmony."

He went on to shrug off suggestions that the international media may not adhere to the noble journalistic principal of reporting everything exactly the way the CCP wants it to be heard.

"No problem," he said. "The Chinese people have a magical wand that can wave all political criticism away," he said. "And we'll gosh-darn use it."

He hastily assured everyone, however, that China would ensure that guests would be warmly welcomed and the Games would be enjoyable for all.

"China has always opened its door to the outside world, apart from most of its history" Hu said . "But if you're black, a Russian female, from Xinjiang, Tibet or want a visa for the Olympics, you better be careful."