2008 Olympics -- Bill Moyers
I'm still choking on a full article about the Olympics, which I'll probably never finish, but until then it feels like I should at least post some required viewing. Anyone who has spent any time out with me drinking, during or since the opening ceremonies of the Olympics knows that I have less than total respect for the games, or the West's passive approval of growing fascism and slave labour; that may go a ways in explaining why I'm having so much trouble trying to get a couple coherent sentences together without dissolving into a frothy mess of disconnected cursing.
At a minimum, I think it's safe to say that our standard cowardice, hypocrisy and criminal neglect for the principles we claim to hold dear is nothing short of breathtaking. But don't worry about all that, Michael Phelps broke several world records, including the most gold medals won in a single Olympics for ... swimming really, really fast. No, I mean really fast. In an enclosure of water he can get from one end of the enclosure to the other really, really fast.
I'm assuming that if he's still alive Ji Sizun will join us in our pathetic cheering as soon as the Chinese police stop torturing him.
BILL MOYERS: With a small group of media was in tow as protection, Ji went to police headquarters to file his request [for a permit to protest]. One of his friends had come here just days before to seek permission and he vanished.
Right away, Ji was treated as a suspect. For three hours, he was interrogated in a closed room. He emerged defiant and frustrated.
JI SIZUN: We had a heated discussion. They won't approve anything. They won't even accept my application.
BILL MOYERS: As Ji left, plainclothes police kept him under surveillance.
This is one of three parks in Beijing that the government set aside for demonstrations. We didn't see a banner, picket sign or protester in sight. In fact, all these days into the Olympics, the government has yet to permit a single demonstration in any of the official protest zones. Except for strollers, the park was empty, because China claims that only 77 applications were filed, and all but three were withdrawn, says the government, because the petitioners had their complaints satisfied. Those other three? "Oh", says China, "turned down on technicalities." Nothing is as it seems.
Two days later, Ji went back to the police station to ask about his missing friend. Witnesses said Ji was led by plainclothes policemen into a dark sedan, then gone...disappeared.
-- Aaron Cameron
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