Global capitalism at work.
2008 Olympics Opening Ceremony
I missed watching this since I don’t have access to television here in Ann Arbor at the moment. If you’re in the same boat as me—or not—check out these stunning pictures. (Via Bitch Ph.D..)
Stalinism Meets Global Capitalism
Naomi Klein on the Olympics:
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….
(Via Mike Soron.)
China’s Valley of Tears
Slavoj Zizek writing for In These Times:
Last year, the Chinese government strengthened some of its oppressive apparatuses—including forming special units of riot police to crush popular unrest. These police are the actual social expression of what, in ideology, appears as a revival of Marxism. In 1905, Trotsky characterized tsarist Russia as “the vicious combination of the Asian knout [whip] and the European stock market.” Doesn’t this characterization still hold for modern-day China?
But what if the promised democratic second act that follows the authoritarian valley of tears never arrives? That is what is so unsettling about today’s China: Its authoritarian capitalism may not be merely a remainder of our past but a portent of our future.