On 1 October 1949, Mao Zedong - on his way to becoming one of the 20th century's big three mass murderers - proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China. In several days the current crop of ruling thugs will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the PRC with a big military parade featuring lots of peace loving soldiers, tanks and missiles. Ordinary people - allegedly the "People" in PRC - living along the parade route have been ordered to close their curtains and watch the parade on TV. No, I am not making that up. In any case, the country's leaders will use this joyous occasion to trumpet their many successes. These include most prominently their ability to coin terrific sounding slogans - "harmonious society", "people at the center", "scientific development", "new socialist countryside", etc - which have only the vaguest connection with reality in the PRC. They will also trumpet their skill at preserving domestic stability, a polite way to talk about the systematic campaign of repression, murder and cultural genocide against Tibetans, Uighurs and other ethnic minorities in western China. These three women and thousands of other "volunteers", security guards, uniformed police, plain clothes police, SWAT teams with automatic weapons and armored vehicles, and People's Armed Police are blanketing Beijing to make sure we don't forget to have the proper attitude towards the celebration. And to make sure we keep our curtains closed...