LET'S ALL APOLOGIZE TO THE CHINESE DYNASTY

The eternal flame that is supposed to be the Olympic Torch touring the world seems to be getting extinguished a whole lot these past few weeks. It seems the world is pretty pissed off at the Chinese government for the way they are treating Tibet, a country they conquered and occupied in 1951 and has pretty much trampled underfoot ever since. No big deal, felt the Chinese government, that's what we do. That's what Chinese governments have pretty much always done, human rights and individual liberties never having been much of a priority for the various dynasties that have ruled China over the millennia, including the current Communist Dynasty, a raw kid in terms of Chinese Dynasties, dating back only to 1948.

The Communist Dynasty has, however distinguished itself pretty quickly for meeting the gold standard challenge established by Josef Stalin for murdering millions and millions of their own people. While not meeting the vast numbers of murdered Soviets under Stalin, the Chinese Communists have come in at a robust second place in the mass murder department, killing nearly 30 million of their own people. That's really showing initiative, even though the mass murder rate has slowed somewhat since the death of its main perpetrator, good old Chairman Mao himself. Mao wasn't only content with setting the Chinese Dynasty record for murdering Chinese people, he also insisted all his subjects dress like him in a drab grey suit and little cap, just to rub it in, one supposes. His successors lightened up on the dress code and have turned that admirable national energy towards industrialization and have broken all land speed records in creating the most polluted country on earth, no easy feat these days.

Once again, human rights are not a big priority, worker safety is a joke and worker poisoning is epidemic. Political dissent is now met with arrest and forced labor instead of a bullet to the brain, maybe figuring that all those murders they used to commit robbed them of able hands to work in their sweatshops. Organized political protests are still answered with armed force, and the severe beating of unarmed Tibetan monks has made a lot of headlines lately. Not exactly the kind of publicity the Communist Dynasty welcomes as they prepare to host the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. They spent billions to build stadiums, airport facilities, highways, railroads and hotels in an effort to showcase the "New China" to the world.

Unfortunately the pesky free press of much of the rest of the world keeps showcasing the same old repressive China that imprisons dissidents, attacks unarmed crowds and generally acts the way Chines Dynasties have always acted, that is to say, pretty badly. But their ace in the hole these days is that China now manufactures a lot of the world's consumer goods, having undercut the competition's prices with the ridiculously low wages that Chinese workers earn. So a panicked France dispatched three diplomats to smooth the Chinese Dynasty's feathers that were ruffled by all the Olympic Flame snuffing when the torch passed through France. They don't want to jeopardize he steady supply of all those black turtlenecks and berets made in China so they decided to apologize.

Maybe we should all apologize to the Communist Dynasty. In America the Olympic flame got doused a few times in San Francisco, and in countries all across the world as well. Where will Walmart get all the shoddy crap they sell us if China gets a hair stuck? Perhaps we'd all best look the other way at their history of murdering tens of millions and their present of keeping a billion and change decent people under their bootheel. Let them have their Olympics and let Bush the Younger fly there for opening ceremonies and get to meet some of his political idols, maybe swap stories with them about which human rights they were removing from their respective populations lately. Of course Bush the Younger has a harder row to hoe in that department since he's handicapped running a nation that has known nothing but freedom, but give the guy points for trying to repeal the Bill of Rights and exercise unilateral power like his Chine dictator counterparts.

They could compare notes on detaining suspects without benefit of a writ of habeus corpus, countries invaded and United Nations policies defied. They could discuss how they have managed to concentrate more than 90% of the incredible wealth generated in their two very powerful economies in the hands of a tiny ruling elite while the majority of their citizens' struggle to make ends meet. Bush could openly envy their strict control over their press and they could laud him for his administration's skilled manipulation of our press. The President could then pose for pictures with Dynasty Premier Wen Jiabao and President Hu Jintao in front of Drapchi Prison, China's Guantanamo in Tibet, where they can make Roach Motel jokes about how "dissidents check in, but they don't check out." Good laughs can be had by all. Let the games begin!