Naomi Klein: "I think this is an incredibly efficient, actually, a scarily efficient way of organizing society that's actually being celebrated here, which is a hybrid of some of the worst elements of authoritarian communism—mass surveillance of the population, total lack of civil liberties, lack of a free press, lack of democratic rights, authoritarian central planning, all harnessed not to advance the goals of social justice, even in name, although there may be some lip service still paid to that, but to advance the goals of global capitalism. So it is Stalinism meets global capitalism.... There are 100,000 security officers just on Olympic duty. And to put that into perspective, the stadium itself, the Bird's Nest Stadium holds 90,000. So there's 90,000 spectators and 100,000 secret police keeping control of things in Beijing. So this is an incredible operation. But when you hear people like Lou Dobbs and other commentators talking about the problems in China, it's always red China, communist China, or the Chi-coms. And it's really this blast from the past of—you know, it's almost as if the Cold War never ended."
Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist, syndicated columnist and author of the international and New York Times bestseller The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Klein's previous book No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies was also an international bestseller. Klein is a former Miliband Fellow at the London School of Economics and holds an honorary Doctor of Civil Laws from the University of King’s College, Nova Scotia.
Part 2 at: http://current.com/items/89188034_china_new_disaster_capitalism_trough
Part 3 at: http://current.com/items/89190670_china_security_tech_supplied_by_us_companies
Part 4 at: http://current.com/items/89203000_china_s_authoritarian_capitalism_a_global_tren...
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- Vierotchka
- added this
- added August 09, 2008
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Many of the so called democracy's around the world are drooling on how the Chinese version of facism has worked so well. I fear America is watching a little too close for my comfort.
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- kennymotown
- 11 months ago
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Klein is absolutely correct.
The last time a fascist nation parthnered with exploiters of slave labor to put on a sports show was in 1936 when Adolph Hitler hoped to divert the world with sports. Hitler was embarassed by Jesse Owens, of course, but that only pointed up the vast hypocrisy that was otherwise on display.
In this case, Klein has correctly pointed out that many would-be Olympic sponsors have refused to help a fascist regime underwite its PR campaign. That leaves China with like-minded deniers of human rights. Remember Tiananmen Square. What has changed that we should forgive a regime that has never given a crap about Democracy, human rights, labor, or the environment?
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We may not agree with their capitalistic communism, but we are intermingled in big ways now with China... The machine grows...
