What Did You Expect?

Amid all the cheering for the athletes and the enjoyment of the games, we should never lose site of the reality that China is as driven home by an article on China's purported plan to allow protesters.

The applicants? 77 of them for various causes, not the obvious ones we might think of (Tibet, religious oppression), but things such as development projects displacing residents, homeless, welfare.

How many of these protests have been approved? Zero.

Rights groups and relatives have said some applicants were immediately taken away by security agents after applying to hold a rally...

Now that's sort of chilling with a I-can't-believe-this-happens-in-the-21st-Century sort of way. The Chinese government response? As Wang Wei, VP of China's Olympic organizing committee said,

"We think that you do not really understand China's reality. China has its own version and way of exercising our democracy."

Their own version apparently involves rubber hoses, black cars, and state run media. Democracy, freedom, or rights in China?

Not bloody likely in my lifetime.