Shock! & Surprise! at Chinese Censorship

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is just one more stupidly delusional international organization. Reporters aren't much better. Both groups are mad because the Chinese government has censored their internet access.

News Flash: China is a Communist country. They deny their people basic freedoms that we here in the free world take for granted, like criticizing the government and watching YouTube. Was the "We are the World" globalist crowd really so naive as to think that granting Red China the Olympics would transform them?

This is how international organizations and their fellow travelers in the press gain a reputation for naivety and stupidity. The IOC actually thought that the country that swallowed Tibet whole would grant total internet access to foreign reporters.

Another point: Notice how the world's progressives have no problem with China denying it's own people freedoms, but complain when China does the same to them? Anyway, here's quick survey of what the newspapers are saying:

Here's a quote from Reuters:

"This blatant media censorship adds one more broken promise that undermines the claim that the Games would help improve human rights in China," Amnesty East Asia researcher Mark Allison said.

The NY Times, a paper more sympathetic China's communist politburo than it is to the Bush Administration, blandly reported on the situation without a hint of criticism directed at China's dictatorial regime. The Toilet Paper of Record uttered not a peep as China cited terrorism concerns as an excuse for restricting freedoms. I guess the Times only gets upset at imaginary restrictions of freedom:

The restrictions, which closely resemble the blocks that China places on the Internet for its citizens, undermine sweeping claims by Jacques Rogge, the International Olympic Committee president, that China had agreed to provide full Web access for foreign news media during the Games. Mr. Rogge has long argued that one of the main benefits of awarding the Games to Beijing was that the event would make China more open.

“For the first time, foreign media will be able to report freely and publish their work freely in China. There will be no censorship on the Internet,” Mr. Rogge told Agence France-Presse just two weeks ago. (The commies lied. Imagine that! --Silverfiddle)

Timesonline of London had the best take:

The 2008 Games will be held under the slogan “One World, One Dream”. As was only to be expected, the world and the dream will be defined by China. Hopes that the Olympics would change the People's Republic have been shown up as an illusion, just as the idea that economic progress would bring multiparty democracy on Western lines to China has been exploded by reality. The International Olympic Committee probably calculates that it has no alternative but to go along with all this. Now, as the Games reflect broader issues in China, the question is whether the IOC stands as a mirror for foreign governments' dealings with Beijing.

Reminds me of an old saying: Lay down with dogs, wake up with fleas...