China as Borg: Resistance is Futile?

The opening of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing really was SPECTACULAR! I haven't been able to find full video and YouTube rumor has it it is being censored, probably so somebody can make lots of bucks on the DVD. But here are some good links. Also see, as long as they last on YouTube, this video and this slide show.

Plus a rant about the wonders of the Chinese people and coming back Chinese in my next life.


One thing I wondered for the first time, as I screamed at NBC for inserting advertisements in the middle of the spectacular show, was why these advertisements - in fact most of them - aren't just run on the bottom 10-15% of the screen, like the do on cable news shows. (Leaving enough regular advertising to allow for bathroom, and snack and walk the dog breaks, of course.)

As for my rant, while my lower primal brain may feel fear of "the other" - the Chinese Borg who will take over the planet - my higher brain that believes that reincarnation renders bigotry irrelevant can only express amazement at the immense leap forward of the Chinese people over the last 30 years, including as expressed in the opening of the Olympics. Dang, it was great! - even without a few hits of marijuana which our ALSO oppressive government makes illegal for recreational use.

Ex-druggie George Bush was the first American president to attend an Olympics in another country. Damn straight! China could destroy the dollar and the U.S. economy tomorrow if it wanted, considering how much U.S. currency and bonds it could dump on the market if it chose. Sure it would lose maybe 10% of its own networth, but it's worth it to keep the U.S. on an increasingly short leash - or is it to keep the U.S. frog in the pot where it's slowing boiling to death. (Don't get me started on paying off the debts by giving China all the unoccupied parts of Alaska. Just think, those 1.3 billion Chinese are squeezed into a country half the size of the U.S. and half of that is uninhabitable. Note: all statistics approximate.) To end: China, please stop funding U.S. Imperialism!

There were a couple of feeble American assertions of Imperial Power. When the Iraqi team entered and everyone cheered, Bush smirked, thinking they were cheering him for invading Iraq and killing Saddam Hussein.

No, Idiot! They were cheering because Iraq's government was recognized as one free of U.S. control and its team allowed to compete. You know the Iraq government, George, the one that wants the U.S. totally out as soon as it can manage it!

I'm sure George smirked too to see a Darfur refugee leading the U.S. delegation - big dildo up the Chinese butt, eh, George? After all George supports Darfur secession in order to grab Darfur oil away from the Chinese which have oil contracts with the government of Sudan. Bush backed Kosovo's secession, too, so the U.S. can keep that big U.S. military base there.

But South Ossetia leaving Georgia and reuniting with North Ossetia!?!? Never!! Bush gave Putin a good spanking about that. How dare those Russians think they can invade countries to protect their seceding nationals from violent unionists? Do they think they are Clinton bombing the hell out of Serbia to protect Kosovar rebels in 1999? Do they want a nuclear war??

Bush probably forgot about how Russian leaders threatened nuclear war if the U.S. invaded Serbia in 1999. But you can bet lots of Chinese did not forget how the U.S. "accidentally" bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during its bombing of Serbia.

Of course, the neoconservatives under "gook" hater McCain may use the U.S.'s "nuclear primacy" and initiate a first strike to take our China's military and political centers before it becomes too much of a threat. After all, their 400 odd 5 to 20 megaton nukes could hardly "knock us" - as one Republican staffer once told me.

Bush also is being hypocritical criticizing China's human rights record and not just because the U.S. has a higher proportion of its population in the prison system than China. Not just because the U.S. had more prisoners than China (which has four times the U.S. population). Not just because the U.S. has a quarter of the world's prisoners. Not just because the way the U.S. deals with the "threat" of black males becoming a social and political force through harsh repressive measures, but because George Bush himself has instituted every sort of law and regulation allowing him to control dissidents just as much or even more than China does. He just hasn't gotten around to fully using that power yet. Though he is practicing on Arabs and Muslims. Ask Dr. Sami Al-Arian who is still in prison despite a promise he'd be set free a year ago if he made a plea bargain and despite a judge's order he be freed!

Speaking of secession, when I saw those children representing the 56 nationalities of China I said, whoop de doo - radical decentralism here we come.

I remember in the 1970s and 1980s when billion person China was communist and poor, I worried they'd become greedy capitalist consumers and all want an automobile (which I don't own) and air-conditioning (which I just got). The stress on the environment, the competition for resources - not to mention all the American trees that already were being cut down for Chinese chopsticks.

Of course, I didn't grouse about China's growth coming through exporting cheap consumer items to the United States. I remember the 1970s and early 1980s when I couldn't afford an American table fan in the summer because it was the equivalent of $150 in today's money. Today you can get a great fan, made in China, for $15 to $30.

As the 2008 fireworks shortage demonstrated, the cost of Chinese labor is going up - and the willingness to work in the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs is going down - so China's largess to America via cheap wages will continue to decrease, even as the weaker dollar makes goods more expensive. Might as well produce them at home with more expensive (and heavily taxed and regulated) American resources and labor. So Americans will have to start facing the fact that our housing and energy and transport and medical and insurance and other important systems are over priced through special interest government regulations and subsidies or we won't be able to afford those American $150 table fans, or much else.

The Chinese - like Koreans and Japanese and many Asian cultures - are a very industrious people with strong family ties who put great stock in education and technology. Some of the biggest best selling books in China the last few years have been ones that study "Jewish" family and business practices so that Chinese can emulate what they consider a very amazing people. Of course, their very success also has made them hated in some quarters, as when Malaysia kicked Chinese-majority Singapore out of its nation in the 1960s because Chinese were dominating all of Malaysian culture. Singapore remains one of the most prosperous countries on the planet.

Anyway, to sum up, the theme of the Olympics was openness. The reiteration that the Chinese Borg will not remain contained in their tiny Borg alcoves any longer. They are out to spread their knowledge and influence around the globe, as they already are doing successfully by building partnerships in Africa, South America and elsewhere. See the huge Berlin Chinese Embassy below, and the entrance to the equally huge new one in Washington DC. (It dwarfs the Israeli Embassy across the street, as I reported a couple years back. I'll have to go take a photo and blog it soon.)
China does remain just another patriarchy, of course. With the special problem of 30 to 40 million surplus males (guang gun-er, or "bare branches") from the one child policy's "abort the girls" effect. China is looking at revolution of frustrated young males in the future, hopefully one towards even greater liberty. Or elderly and corrupt Chinese leaders may just start a ground war with India which also has a surplus male problem and both countries can relieve their burden through bloody hand-to-hand combat.

Eventually, if they're smart, China will be able to re-settle a few hundred million Chinese in areas were the carrying capacity isn't quite so challenged as it is in China today. And where there are lots of young women looking for good providers.

As a libertarian, I always say, if a 100 million Chinese want to move to this country, let them in! Of course, I might include the proviso, no Communist Party members or their children. We have too much of a Demopublican caste system in this country already, we don't need a Communist Party caste!

And then after they build their own dozens of Singapores in the mountains and on the prairies, and all over unihabited Alaska, they can secede and join the confederated communities of America... but that's another blog entry for another time.

To end, I hope to be surprised as to who I reincarnate as next. It probably will be male. However, I sure hope it isn't as a surplus Chinese - or any other surplus frustrated testerone-ensoddened male. Quick, stop aborting those females! Oh, well, there's always bisexuality.