Yes, the Olympics are still weeks away but I am already frightened by the pending propaganda that NBC will force down our throats as we attempt to watch the Olympics. The ads, promos, and bugs have already been splattered on NBC for wks now. It will be nonstop China all the time. Everyone wants to talk about China as the next big thing. All these American business analysts from CNBC to FOX are salivating for China to somehow surpass the US. I love that our own freedoms as a nation all us to hope that our own nation falters. It’s uplifting. I bet Francis Scott Key would have found this ideology down right inspiring! China is not a wonderland. (BTW, talking about China and India in business is SOOOOOOo 2005. If your business leader brings them up in a mtg, tell him/her to catch up on his/her media-communications readings.) China is an economic dynamo. Its economy has been exploding and will continue to explode. Why? It’s because they have a sh!tload of people and are willing to exploit as many of them as possible. I wonder if the poor in China are treated better than the poor in the USSR say in the 1950s. I know nothing about this but guess that the treatments are probably on par. China went from a communist nation-based ideology to a capitalistic consumption-based one today. That is what china is. In all those apocalyptic films about the world running out of resources and people just flat out wasting everything, or in other words, the type of American traits that actually led to the rise of Al Qaeda’s ideology (I’m happy to refer anyone to the BBC documentary that outlines this), China now best embodies that sheer gluttony and wastefulness. As I’ve been a proponent of the great documentary Up the Yangtze, i think that film does a great job of providing some commentary on just how f-ed up everything is over. The rising Chinese aristocracy is not good for the overall population there. Everything seems to be done in the name of pride, progress, and modernity. Oh, and the Chinese government decided to through any Westerner with a visa out of China from June until October to ensure that there are not many protests against the Olympics.
China’s a fun place to visit and it’s certainly got rich histories in most of the arts and sciences, but let’s not kid ourselves and pretend that what they’ve got going on over there is some sort of utopia. They will lead the world in some fields in the coming years. I have no doubt in that, but despite that there is a Disneyland in hong kong, China is no Disneyland. It’s not a dream world. The aristocracy and government over there is not working in the people’s best interests. Then again, ours probably is not either. If only more countries could be like Belgium and Switzerland!
So while NBC is certain to give us no coverage of any non-American events, forcing die-hard viewers to visit the NBC Sports website at 3 a.m. to watch men’s basketball or ladies tennis, I remind you all not to take any of their propagnistic remarks about China to heart. If you are interested in learning something about China (since i am an admitted neophyte), then please take the Olympics as a chance to learn more about the social and economic issues that are not only affecting China but ultimately have to some degree, an effect on your own bottom line.
