China has gone all out to create a brand new image of itself for the world to see, but for all the bling and glitter, China is still China. China is still a dictatorship under the guise of communism, still expansionist, and still rules with disregard for the suffering it causes.

There does look to be more individual freedom than perhaps most of us had thought, but we should remember that this is tempered by an absolute taboo on dissent of any kind. The people are free to adhere strictly to absolute loyalty to their government, and within that framework they may engage in business, become wealthy, have parties and wear anything that does not offend their owners. They are owned. Chinese citizens are still the property of their overlords.

They can be relocated and their towns turned into lakes because of dam projects. They can be sent to Tibet to fill that hapless little country with so many Chinese that Tibetan culture is forever lost.

They can be imprisoned for life and Big Brother Brainwashed for yearning for true democracy and true freedom. Their women can have their “extra”, “unlawful” babies cut from their wombs and killed, they can have their water supplies horribly contaminated with heavy metals and other poisons, that cause great sickness and death, and have no power to stop this “progress”.

Freedom in China is rigidly controlled and what we’re seeing during the Olympic Games is carefully manipulated propaganda, including the winning of all those medals by them. Some of their gold-medalling gymnasts are under the age limit, many of their medalists were obviously given scores exceeding the quality of their performances. The Chinese government has gone to enormous pains to ensure that their athletes did better in the competitions than any other nation, entirely in order to make China look superior.

The Olympic Games are supposed to be non-political but these Games come off looking fixed. All those excessive scores for Chinese athletes look a lot like bribery of judges and those under-age little girls that were utterly ignored by the IOC look like deals made under the table as well.

Next door to China, we have Russia, also expansionist and becoming much more threatening lately with their takeover of little Georgia and blaring threats against any other free bordering nation. Such as Poland, where the U.S. will soon be installing an anti-missile system 100 miles from Russias border. This has the Russians positively frothing at the mouth.

No one is going to do anything much about Georgia, partly because they practically invited Russia to invade them by attacking South Ossetia but mostly because Russia is Europes primary supplier of oil and natural gas. However, knowing from long experience how the Russians behave like crude thugs, - and Putin is no different - they will undoubtedly use their clout as primary energy suppliers to attempt the actual physical takeover of Europe, nation by nation. There’s nothing subtle in the way the Russians do things.

This can only lead to violent conflict, something the Russians seem to enjoy anyway. They have a mindset similar to the Muslims in this regard, so it will be interesting when they try to take over more Islamic territory, which they will. Look what happened in Afghanistan when they tried to dominate there.

If they become involved in a serious conflict in Europe, I can easily see the Chinese taking full advantage of it by invading and occupying their best oil and gas producing areas with hundreds of thousands of troops, and the Russians choosing to nuke those areas rather than let the Chinese have them, since they won’t have the troops to divert to repel the Chinese and they certainly would not allow China to annex part of Russia. If they bomb their own real estate and not China, would the Chinese refrain from replying with nukes? The Russians would think so but the bottom line is that they wouldn’t give a damn either way.

When you have two huge and competing dictatorships run by arrogant men with superior attitudes, history has clearly shown that, without exception, there will always be war. This is how far we have come from hairy primates beating our chests at each other. It’s just bigger tribes now with fancier clubs. Not much else has changed including human nature, which plainly has changed the least.

War is the normal human condition. The purpose of periods of peace is to regroup and rebuild in preparation for the continuation of war. If this isn’t true, then will someone explain to me why it is that millions of people will follow one man into war and certain death? Knowing that few will survive, knowing that their families, their children, their entire society and culture may be destroyed?

In between our now massive conflagrations, we do know how to have a good time, in an aggressive sort of way. For instance, we have the Olympic Games.