Turn off Your TV: Why I Won’t Watch the Beijing Olympics
I clearly remember learning that Beijing would host the 2008 Olympics and Paralympics - how stunned, disgusted, and betrayed I felt. With that, any lingering illusions I had about the International Olympics Committee were stripped away. Giving the Olympics to China was the final admission of how political, corrupt, and morally bankrupt the IOC is.In 1980, the United States and Canada boycotted the Moscow Olympics because of the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Japan, West Germany, China, and a few other countries joined the boycott; other countries made protests statements but didn’t boycott.
A boycott of the Olympics because of an invasion. Seems kind of quaint now, doesn’t it?
No one wants to piss off China. No wants to risk losing that powerful trading partner and access to all those cheap goods. Doing business with China means “staying competitive” - that is, ignoring the labour, safety, consumer, and environmental standards your own country has built. And buying “Made In China” lets us all extend our standard of living. We buy artificially cheap products; we never count the true costs.
It’s easy to sell cheap when you dump untreated contaminants into the environment, have no worker safety or health standards, and no quality control.
So the western world, with its massive corporate and consumer power, doesn’t just stay out of China’s way. We reward China with the Olympics.
It’s wrong, and I don’t want to be part of it.
Here, in no particular order, here is why I won’t be watching the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Tibet: China’s continuing occupation of this sovereign, peaceful nation. This morning we were greeted by photos of the bleeding faces of Buddhist monks. Not much more to say about that.
Darfur: China is Sudan’s largest trading partner and the main foreign investor in its oil industry. Most Western oil companies, under pressure from human rights organizations, have withdrawn from Sudan. And although we know that economic isolation and divestment can have a very powerful, positive effect (think South Africa), China continues to do business with Sudan, enabling slavery and genocide.
China: The list of China’s abuses of its own people is long and shameful. China executes more of its citizens than the rest of the capital-punishment countries combined and doubled. While China has a much larger population than those other countries, its rate of execution is still disproportionate. China has more capital crimes, and is believed to have more hidden executions and political executions, than any other country in the world.
China jails (and also executes) thousands of activists, political dissidents, journalists, and ordinary citizens who attempt free expression. Reporters Without Borders is a good source for civil liberty and human rights abuses in China, as is Human Rights Watch.
China’s labour laws are a sad joke. Factory conditions sound like something out of Dickens or Upton Sinclair.
China pollutes water, air, and soil with impunity, poisoning and sickening its citizens for generations to come.
And this is the country that has been rewarded with the 2008 Olympic Games.
Some people say that the international attention brought by the Olympics can be used to leverage change. Do they really believe that?
In the entire history of the universe, has change ever been made, anywhere, by giving a reward before anything has changed?
It’s Psychology 101. If you want to teach your child, or your dog, or your partner, that they must change their behaviour, do you first hand them a huge reward, then ask them to change?
If the IOC wanted to use the Olympics to effect change, it would have told China: clean up your act, and we’ll consider you for future games. Here’s a list of specific changes we want to see. You might have gotten the Olympics, but we won’t reward you as long as you continue these crimes.
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An effective consumer boycott of Chinese products is virtually impossible. What’s more - as we learned in the pet food scandal - many products labelled Fabriqué au Canada and Made In USA only get their final assembly or processing in those countries, with parts and materials that originate in China. Unless China is forced to deal humanely and fairly with workers, the environment and consumers - or unless North American businesses are forced into a trade embargo - or both - Chinese products will always undersell those made in North America. And we want to buy everything as cheaply as possible, so we can buy, buy, buy, more, more, more.
There have been scattered calls for an organized international boycott of the Beijing Olympics, but they haven’t gained any traction. Not because it’s too late. Because every country wants to fuel their economic engines with cheap Chinese goods.
So I’m having my own boycott. I love outstanding athletic competition, and I usually watch as much of the Olympics and Paralympics as I can. This year my TV will stay off.
Laura Kaminker, a writer, moved from the United States to Canada for political reasons. She now works with the War Resisters Support Campaign in Toronto. She writes the blog we move to canada.
You could add China’s ruthless supression of the peaceful Falun Gong movement to your list. I’m not going to watch the Olympics because I tore the antennae cable out of my television five years ago and used it to hang my George Bush effigy.
Americans have no right to be upset or disturbed by human rights violations of China or any other country. Americans need to focus their outrage and resistance on their own government, which is by far the greatest threat on earth to universal human rights, to the welfare of the human race, and to our very survival.
Also, demonizing China plays right into the hands of the military industrial complex. A very unhealthy informal alliance has formed between Americans interested in human rights, the Tibetans, and the military industrial complex. I would think it advisable for Americans to resist what would normally be healthy impulses with regard to Chinese abuses. We need to remember who the most dangerous and powerful threat is.
Hell, we should boycott the Olympics! Mr. Peanut boycotted the Olympics for half as much!
Oh come off it. I’m sick and tired of politics being brought into sports. Jimmy Carter pulled that crap in 1980 because he was pissed off with the Soviets for bailing out their allies in Afghanistan. Let the games begin.
“Americans have no right to be upset or disturbed by human rights violations of China or any other country.”
Humans everywhere have a right to be disturbed by human rights violations anywhere. The US’s human rights violations do not somehow cancel out China’s.
Don’t condemn China unless you have lived there and have first- hand knowledge of the China government and people. I have 3 1/2 years recent experience living in China as a private citizen and not once did I observe any human rights abuse by the government.
“I have 3 1/2 years recent experience living in China as a private citizen and not once did I observe any human rights abuse by the government.”
I lived in the US for 42 years and never saw a human rights abuse with my own eyes. That doesn’t mean they didn’t happen. Private citizens often don’t observe what happens within their own country.
I’ll take the word of Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Reporters Without Borders and other respected international observers over the observations of one individual.
Yes, I almost agree with all of you. I agree Americans have no right to talk about human rights. I am a Puerto Rican activist against the American Empire in Puerto Rico. So I know first hand about human rights abuses by the FBI and CIA in Puerto Rico. The Americans have been in almost every conflict in the world since the big Lie of the USS Maine during the Spanish American war of 1898. And please do not forget before 1898, the Native American genocide and African slavery that was committed after the signing of the Declaration of Independence (which was written by slave owners by the way, but all men are created equal right?). Let’s get a couple of facts straight. Tibet has been a part of China for more than 700 years. Tibet’s rulers who used extreme Feudalism practices into a owner/slave system of rulers and surfs. They were brutal with their own people. Research the facts. The Dalai Lama was brutal among his people while he lived in luxury by their standards. They tortured and murdered their people on a regular basis according to their justice system. The USA wanted to destabilize China during that period of time. They supported the rulers of Tibet with financing and weapons. A practice popular within the US Government. China has problems, we know about their human rights abuses. But Tibet is no ideal country to worship. Research your Facts!!!!! I am pretty sure the USA is behind the riots in Tibet. Will they try to turn Tibet into a Kosovo? No, but they will surely try.
I certainly agree wih most of the posting on this Blog. But with that said, Lets take the log out of our own eyes first before we point the finger at China.
We live in a country that still torture other human biengs. Our prison population is larger than most countries around the world, We treat immigrants here like he subhuman biengs and etc.
Which countries have committed more atrocities and human rights violations than the United States, Great Britain, France, Russia & Germany? These countries are the number one violators of the United Nation Human Right Charter.They do it softly through GATTS, through Economic Sanctions and through thier transnational corporations. This kills and empoverishes more people in a single day than any atomic bomb can do at any magnitude
We need to take a look at ourselves first, then apply the same standards to other nation.
I am not by any means condoning anything China is currenly doing.
Lead01,
Good points. I also was somewhat aware of the Tibetan system. The Chinese brought health care and education and a much higher standard of living to the oppressed masses of Tibet. The Dalai Lama is chosen arbitrarily at birth by the monks using some sign from the heavens, e.g. a crow that surprisingly cawed three times was perched on the roof of a hut where a baby had just been born. And the monks used the “divine” nature of their oligarchy to minimize resistance. It was a primitive and brutal society but the US oligarchs can romanticize anything to achieve their propaganda goals.
L-girl,
The point is that Americans have enough on their plate at home, and the great majority of them really do not have enough information about China and Tibet to make a positive difference, as they face a persistent danger of falling into traps designed for them by the corporate media and the US military industrial complex.
It is so difficult for Americans to get their facts straight after they pass through the corporate media filter.
“It’s Psychology 101. If you want to teach your child, or your dog, or your partner, that they must change their behaviour, do you first hand them a huge reward, then ask them to change?”
Edward Said, Orientalism, anyone? So easy to lecture from your privileged position in a developed, wealthy nation, development & wealth that was and is borne on the back of the world’s poor. At least you left the US, but until more Americans take to the streets or stop paying taxes to fund wars, we have nothing to lecture others about. Typical puritanical hypocrisy–you can take an American out of America but….
For me, this whole concept and line of argument is completely dead wrong.
I was fortunate enough to live in Atlanta, GA during the 1996 Olympics. So yes, I saw first hand that the Olympics has flaws. Particularly the Atlanta games could be crassly commercial at times.
But, I also got to see, hear, feel and generally experience the magic of the Olympics. The beauty of the Olympics is that thousands and thousands of people from around the world come together. They generally come together in peace, and to witness, cheer and celebrate athletes.
The Olympic bosses go on about ‘the Olympic spirit’. And of course commercial marketing campaigns will steal that idea and use it for their own purposes. But it really does exist, and you can really feel it. You feel it when you are standing in line to get into an event, and there’s people from all around the world in line with you. And you are all there for a common purpose. And you see that in the eyse around you. You get a chance to talk with people from all around the world.
I can’t explain beyond this what an amazing thing the Olympics are. Sure, governments try to screw it up. In the US they try with too much profit and commercialization. And I’d imagine the Chinese government will try in its own way.
But regardless, if you believe in Peace, the best thing in the world that could happen in China is having the Olympics come to town. No matter what the government says or tries to do, the people in Beijing will get a chance to see, visit and talk to hundreds of thousands of people who come to town in a spirit of peace.
So, I don’t give a damn about the govt policies of China. Cancelling or boycotting the Olympics is a really bad and stupid idea. We should be celebrating the fact that people will be gathering in a peaceful celebration of sport. And we should be cheering the idea that thousands of people will get to see China for the first time and that the Chinese will get to meet thousands of people from around the world that visit their country in a spirit of peace.
If you like peace, you should be cheering. If you like conflict and being adversaries, then you scream and yell about boycotts and the like. Ignore them … cheer the fact that people are gathering in peace. That’s always a good thing.
Turn off your TV anyway. It’s just a brainwashing device.
Don’t confuse ‘Americans’ with the American government.
Many Americans have been working hard and struggling to promote human rights for all their lives. I came of age in Atlanta so I was fortunate enough to get to know what MLK’s human rights organization had become through some marches and events and working on political campaigns like Cynthia McKinneys.
So, don’t make silly snide remarks like saying Americans can’t say anything about human rights. That’s typical stupid thinking from someone silly enough to think you can paint 300,000,000 people with one broad brush.
Now, if the US State Dept is making announcements about human rights, or if the White House is making announcements about human rights, then I roll on the floor laughing at the audacity of that. But, don’t apply that brush to all Americans. A lot of Americans have been fighting hard for human rights for a long time.
Gawd, it must be stupid day or something.
So, this morning when I had my TV turned on to Democracy Now and was being moved by the hour-long set of videos from the recent Winter Soldier hearings, was I being brainwashed? Or if I’m watching Noam Chomsky or Howard Zinn?
Its just plain stupid to make broad comments like “Tv is just a brainwashing device.” Anyone with a brain can figure out that it depends on what you watch and what you use it for. Put it on the right channel and the right time and it can be an educational tool that allows you to learn about the world far beyond what you can see with your own eyes.
But hey, it seems to be the day to make broad stupid comments.
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So easy to lecture from your privileged position in a developed, wealthy nation … Typical puritanical hypocrisy …
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While the word “your” is in the headline, the subtitle and the ENTIRE TEXT OF THE ESSAY is one woman’s opinion of about why SHE will not be watching the Olympics.
There is nothing about what anyone else should do. She admits that formal protests and boycotts are useless.
Check it out: “I don’t want to be part of it. … I won’t be watching the 2008 Beijing Olympics. … I’m having my own boycott. … This year my TV will stay off.”
I … I … I … my own … my TV
See? No lecture, no hypocrisy. Just her opinion and her personal decision.
Reading comprehension is a lost art these days.
L-Girl
“I lived in the US for 42 years and never saw a human rights abuse with my own eyes. That doesn’t mean they didn’t happen. Private citizens often don’t observe what happens within their own country.”
I am a US “minority”, ex-Marine, computer analyst and retired American. Not to have seen human abuses here in the US, you must be a privileged, sheltered individual. Do I need to remind you of Kent State, Chicago conventions, etc. as well as the homeless epidemic of the ’80s until present?
*****
I have 3 1/2 years recent experience living in China as a private citizen and not once did I observe any human rights abuse by the government.
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They call them “hidden executions” because they are not held for public viewing.
I’ve never seen an execution in the US — guess they don’t happen!
The US continually overthrows governments that dont give over with their wealth, be it cheap manpower or mineral wealth. It invades at will, when covert operations fail. Yet the L.A. Olympics were not boycotted. I did not here a call for them to be boycotted. It seems that only big bogeymen like Russia and China get boycotted.
“Not to have seen human abuses here in the US, you must be a privileged, sheltered individual. Do I need to remind you of Kent State, Chicago conventions, etc. as well as the homeless epidemic of the ’80s until present?”
You are correct that living in the US, I did see many abuses. But you are misreading my comment.
One doesn’t have to witness something with one’s own eyes to know they have taken place. The commenter DeLACrews says he lived in China and never saw a human rights abuse himself. That alone means very little.
I never saw a lynching, or an execution, or a whole host of other abuses, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t happen. We don’t exonerate government abuses because we didn’t personally witness them.
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In general, I think it is very sad that some people think Americans should not speak out against human rights abuses because the US itself does so much wrong. Must we be so parochial? Can’t all of us, everywhere, work for the greater good of all humans?
“It seems that only big bogeymen like Russia and China get boycotted.”
China is not being boycotted. That’s half the point of this essay.
I haven’t bothered to watch the Olympics since the East German Steroid team competed in the 1976 Games of Montreal. Screw politics, why bother watching a bunch of ‘amateurs’ (who earn lots of coin regardless) who’ve been pumped up on whatever new fangled steroid/ growth hormone/ blooddoping/ scientific cheating aid that’s available…
As for China hosting the Games, why not? After all Nazi Germany did, so too did some other countries that have unpleasant human rights records.
Just one question about boycotting the Beijing Olympics staged by a brutal communist dictatorship that has murdered more people that Hitler and Stalin combined. “Apart from allowing you a clear conscience, what good will it do?”
No American, or Canadian, for that matter, has the moral standing necessary to criticize China. Take care of your own country before trying to fix somebody else’s country. Take care of your own behavior before giving advice. So don’t watch the Olympics, who cares? The author’s boycott is a self-serving farce. How about a boycott of American products? After all, China hasn’t killed a million people recently, the US has, and is still at it. Wrong time to talk about China. The world will simply laugh, as I do when I see this self-serving article. It is the US, not China, that is a grave danger to the world. American athletes should be barred from the Olympics. They won’t be, because the two governments share similar attitudes.
L-girl: Want to work for peace? Support reverend Wright.
CoMarc: You can’t just do that. If some Americans are anti-war, that does not mean Americans are ok. A few do-gooders don’t count. The character of the population as a whole counts. America is a hyperreligious country, even though 5% of its population is atheists. America is a warring nation , even if a miniscule minority does not agree with this. Live with that.
I have been to the Olympics and I felt the magic. It comes from pageantry and the gathering of thousands of pêople. Humans respond to this with certain feelings. Get over it, it is a trite emotion.
I worked at the Olympics. When the flame went out we relit it with a lighter and nobody ever found out. It is just symbols, with no particular real value. But boy, do we ever take it seriously!
I unpluged my TV last year. It’s still gathering dust and I have rediscovered … books and gardening!
The economies of China and the US are merging.
Capitalist China is the Capitalist US; Capitalist US is Capitalist China.
To criticize Capitalist China is to criticize Capitalist US.
As Marx said, the political superstructure is a manifestation of the economic substructure.
The Chinese Capitalists throw aged Chinese pensioners out of their homes and onto the street to make way for property development projects financed by US Capital. It’s Capitalism vs. Labor; Not US vs China.
“The point is that Americans have enough on their plate at home,”
If millions of Americans boycotted the Beijing Olympics there would be some effects.
If millions of Americans boycotted American MSM the loss of advertising revenue would cripple media conglomerates.
Choose your battles wisely.
Then again, it’s like walking and chewing gum simultaneously.If you really work at it , it is possible .
Think of the two boycotts as walking and chewing gum
Give me a freakin break. The US military has bases all over the world and has engaged in almost continual warfare since ww2 while arming and supporting countless dictators and overthrowing democratically elected governments. Yet here you are condemning China. By your standard any Olympics in the US should be boycotted as well.
The IOC should resolve that, in future, games will only be hosted by democratic countries with good human rights records–which would currently exclude the US. Olympics aren’t profitable; the most that can be hoped is that they break even, but they do add prestige and give publicity to the host. If enough people decided to boycott, China would lose billions and suffer a public humiliation when its party fizzled. We can encourage people to boycott and notify sponsors that we will boycott their products as well. We can generate enough political pressure to force some concessions from the butchers and better the lives of the Tibetans, and the Chinese as well. Or we can apathetically, albeit indirectly, support the repressive regime.
“I have 3 1/2 years recent experience living in China as a private citizen and not once did I observe any human rights abuse by the government.”
Plenty of people lived in nazi Germany and never saw one jew gassed and rendered into soap. Your point is?
PS: just because the Chinese government represses it, does not necessarily mean that falun gong is a good thing. I imagine the Chinese government represses scientology, too.
“I was fortunate enough to live in Atlanta, GA during the 1996 Olympics. … I also got to see, hear, feel and generally experience the magic of the Olympics.”
Did you see the Atlanta police cleaning the streets of the homless, and herding them like cattle into enclosures?
America’s athletes should not be denied their right to participate in the Beijing Olympics, but the rest of our country can and should boycott it. There should be no official Olympic coverage by any U.S. media, and US corporate sponsorships should be curtailed as much as possible. All U.S. citizens should voluntarily boycott, and the U.S. government should participate in the minimum possible way.
I will not watch, and I will participate in any boycott actions of which I become aware.
with sincere aloha,
Kokuaguy
I’m boycotting the Chinese Olympics because the Americans are going to participate. America is waging illegal wars against sovereign nations and have overthrown democratically elected governments. America has committed genocide against the native peoples that once occupied the continent. Since I’m already boycotting the Olympics, I guess China will get the message.
To those who say that Tibet was apart of China that is not true. Tibet had a semiautonmous, suzerain-like relationship with the Mongols and various Chinese kingdoms for centuries, however they were not considered part of China until the 1950 Chinese invasion. Chinese soldiers never permenantly occupied Tibet until 1959. Furthermore, the Dalai Lamas and Panchen Lamas (who has been kidnapped by Chinese authorities) were considered to be religious leaders or guides to various Mongol and Chinese emperors! This demonstrates how Tibet was considered to more of a peaceful, non-threatening sister nation to China and Mongolia, than a fully powerless region within China kingdoms.
Yes, Tibet was not perfect and did have a feudal land ownership system, however they were far from being a torturous nation needing saving from the Communists Chinese and their Cultural Revolution.
Who has killed and tortured the most Tibetans in the 20th and 21st century? The Chinese! And we are talking hundreds of thousands of murdered Tibetans since 1959.
I’m sorry to disappoint those on this board who seem to believe so wholeheartedly in China’s actions in Tibet but please respect the truth and do not spout propaganda as though you were Chinese government agents.
Finally, if anyone wishes to boycott the Olympics because of any reason, be it because of China’s mistreatment of Tibetans, the Uighurs, the Falun Gong, and its own people, or the West’s cynical use of China’s labor system and international trade system, or the megalomanical George Bush’s Iraq Invasion, or for environmental justice and as a protest against the phony, money-hungry, Olympic “spirit”, then all the power to that person is what I say.
Peace.
If the U.S were to stage the Olympics in 2008 ( or 2004!) I’m sure the rest of the world would be calling for a boycott of America (instead of China) due to the illegal invasion of Iraq, the death of 1.2 million Iraqi’s (and counting), more than 2 million displaced and a country bombed into the stone age under false pretneses (weaponms of Mass destruction, links to Osama, the need for a model of Middle Eastern democracy, etc.). Combine that with the White House stated intention of permanently stationing American troops there (despite the fact that over 90% of Iraqis want the U.S. to leave YESTERDAY!) and the world would have a stronger reason to stay at home than they do now.
Ahh, the Olympics. I’m not quite sure how I feel about the Olympics this year. I think China’s efforts to make everything so perfect is going to fail miserably, since the intense spotlight of media attention will melt any facade they try to put up. Watching it for that possibility alone would be worth it. I’ve advocated that individual athletes should make the decision to participate or boycott with no penalty from their national Olympic Committees. This way, athletes can act according to their consciences.
Don’t forget too how very much the coverage on NBC sucks. It’s horribly padded, especially in primetime, with too many commercials, too many saccharine athlete profiles, and too little actual competition. Surprisingly, the coverage on NBC Universal’s cable networks is better: since the advertising goes for much less, there’s incentive to keep production costs down, and therefore there’s more competition coverage, with less padding. (Since the IOC charges huge, huge fees for broadcast rights, most broadcast media try to keep costs down by using international pool video.)
Plus, we have to consider that athletes going to the games, winning a medal, and then using the opportunity to advocate for better human rights in China will get under Beijing’s skin far more effectively than a boycott would. It’d be chipping away at that facade they’ve spent so much effort putting up. They couldn’t censor it - it’d go out instantly. They’d spin, sure, but the words would be out there.
There are good things about the Olympics. Despite all the sponsorship, the actual competitions are very noncommercial - not a single advertisement in sight. Companies do not brand the Olympics - they brand themselves with the Olympic rings. Whether this is right or wrong is one thing, but it is refreshing to not see advertising polluting the competition.
Finally, don’t worry - the Salt Lake scandal will insure that it’ll be decades before any city in the USA gets awarded the Olympics again. After the 1932 summer games in Los Angeles, the US didn’t get any sort of Olympics again for 28 years, and no Summer Olympics for 52 years.
Well so much venom for so little logic. You Americans are so incapable of any meaningful introspection; just today President Bush still says it is worth it to hang good ole Saddam, and for that pleasure you Americans have spent US$ 3 trillion and quite apart from the pleasure of hanging good ole Saddam, you have slaughtered 1 million Iraqi dead, 2,5 million Iraqis gone into self imposed exile, another 2.5 displaced Iraqis in their own homeland and another 2.5 million Iraqis lost their homes. No safe drinking water; not enough electricity for most Iraqis and no food for most Iraqis. All these dire privation and mayhem and yet your President says it was worht it merely to hang ONE MAN.
Coming to the point, what do you mean when you say Americans will boycott the Beijing Olympics ? Who is to do the boycotting ? I think the average bid for TV rights to telecast the Olympics must run into the hundreds millions like for example US$750 million for CNN and then you have Foxtel, ABC etc and etc and they all involve in the hundreds of millions. Those of you who posts on this website are your ordinary “JOE BLOW”, and please you do not count. Do you for a moment think that a MURDOCK, OR A Packer or a Silvio Balascony will give you joe blow 5 seconds of his time to you. Do you mean that they will say yes China is a real bad bastard because China has tibet in a dath grip and if we boycott the games they will give Tibet back to the Dalai Lama.
Yalk of Darfur, it is the USA that has supplied all the arms to the Erithea militias and it is they who perpetrated this genocide in Darfur, not China. You Americans just cannot stand it anymore because China is so well received by all African nations; and it is China and not the USA that holds superpower sway in the Sudan and that part of the world.
Coming back to my first question, HOW DO YOU BOYCOTT THE OLYMPIC GAMES ?” Do you mean that you will not travel to China for the games, that I am sure from the way you spit venom, you are not one of those who will go to China, so that question is irrelevant ! Then maybe you will not want to watch it on the TV, WELL IF YOU DO NOT WATCH THE GAMES ON THE TV,it really hurts China very much after all China has spent about US$ 50 billion to make it the perfect Olympics. If we knew that you people in the USA will turn off your TV in BOYCOTT of the games, IT REALLY HURTS US.
Or do you mean the athletes will boycott the games like some of them boycott the Moscow games. These athletes have trained for most of their lives and now for to protest the Chinese hold on to Tibet these atheletes will boycott the games and not participate in the games; GIVE UP 15 YEARS OF THEIR TRAINING AND SCARIFICE IN PROTEST ? Hey ! you numb skull, are you guys for real ?
I think I have made my point and there is no way that any thinking atheletes will boycott the games just to make a point. As for the Murdocks and the Packers profits are profits. To those of you who posts on this issue, you are the small with nothing in your pockets and hence nothing to loose. Boycott the Beijing Games ? Only for those who got nothing to loose and have nothing in their pockets. Talk nonsense !
We must focus on our own country. There are bad situations everywhere, but our nation’s militarism and environmental destruction are the most destructive, and key supports in most of the other situations.
If you google the word protest, protests in Tibet predominate in the results. Yet many protests against the Iraq war that took place this week are not reported in the press. Let us not help the media to bury and suppress news of American resistance.
It is difficult to figure out what to boycott since so much is wrong here, but I would like more ideas… here are a few.
1. Telecomm companies that collude with the government in spying on us? Change your credit card and phone to Working Assets, perhaps.
2. Big ass cars, unless you coach a little league.
3. All spectator sports. Participate instead, especially with a kid.
4. Violent video games
5. Military recruiters in schools
6. High fructose corn syrup - a product of industrial farming and very bad for you.
7. Refuse to buy anything advertised on Fox News and the Military channel, for instance.
I’ll be 51 on March 25th. So far, throughout my entire life, I’ve viewed a total of perhaps an hour of Olympics; maybe a little more than an hour. Little more can be said of professional sports, which are big racket business and bunch of players, in U.S. pro. sports anyway, paid big money for what? VERY LITTLE.
But, between viewing Olympics in the U.S. vs China, there is NO just basis for being prejudiced against it when it’s occuring in China. NONE! The U.S. is the greater human rights abuser and war criminal, between these two countries. And most westerners think they know a lot about China, while really knowing LITTLE and never having been there at all; nor anywhere near it.
TIBET? It seems that I’ve perhaps chosen to check this article in a timely manner, for globalresearch.ca has two articles about Tibet posted and as of March 20th, 2008.
“Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth
by Dr. Michael Parenti
Global Research, November 18, 2007
Michael Parenti Politcal Archive - 2007-01-02
Expanded and Updated Version”
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7355
“”Democratic Imperialism”: Tibet, China, and the National Endowment for Democracy
by Michael Barker
Global Research, August 13, 2007″
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6530
Quoting a little from Parenti’s article:
“Along with the blood drenched landscape of religious conflict there is the experience of inner peace and solace that every religion promises, none more so than Buddhism. Standing in marked contrast to the intolerant savagery of other religions, Buddhism is neither fanatical nor dogmatic–so say its adherents. …
A glance at history, however, reveals that not all the many and widely varying forms of Buddhism have been free of doctrinal fanaticism, nor free of the violent and exploitative pursuits so characteristic of other religions. …
…
But what of Tibetan Buddhism? Is it not an exception to this sort of strife? And what of the society it helped to create? Many Buddhists maintain that, before the Chinese crackdown in 1959, old Tibet was a spiritually oriented kingdom free from the egotistical lifestyles, empty materialism, and corrupting vices that beset modern industrialized society. …
A reading of Tibet’s history suggests a somewhat different picture. “Religious conflict was commonplace in old Tibet,” writes one western Buddhist practitioner. “History belies the Shangri-La image of Tibetan lamas and their followers living together in mutual tolerance and nonviolent goodwill. Indeed, the situation was quite different. Old Tibet was much more like Europe during the religious wars of the Counterreformation.” 5 In the thirteenth century, Emperor Kublai Khan created the first Grand Lama, who was to preside over all the other lamas as might a pope over his bishops. … Here is a historical irony: the first Dalai Lama was installed by a Chinese army.
His two previous lama “incarnations” were then retroactively recognized as his predecessors, thereby transforming the 1st Dalai Lama into the 3rd Dalai Lama. This 1st (or 3rd) Dalai Lama seized monasteries that did not belong to his sect, and is believed to have destroyed Buddhist writings that conflicted with his claim to divinity. … Within 170 years, despite their recognized divine status, five Dalai Lamas were killed by their high priests or other courtiers. 6
For hundreds of years competing Tibetan Buddhist sects engaged in bitterly violent clashes and summary executions. …
…
Religions have had a close relationship not only with violence but with economic exploitation. Indeed, it is often the economic exploitation that necessitates the violence. Such was the case with the Tibetan theocracy. …
…
Over the centuries the Tibetan lords and lamas had seen Chinese come and go, and had enjoyed good relations with Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek and his reactionary Kuomintang rule in China.26 … When the current 14th Dalai Lama was first installed in Lhasa, it was with an armed escort of Chinese troops and an attending Chinese minister, in accordance with centuries-old tradition. What upset the Tibetan lords and lamas in the early 1950s was that these latest Chinese were Communists. … It would be only a matter of time, they feared, before the Communists started imposing their collectivist egalitarian schemes upon Tibet.
The issue was joined in 1956-57, when armed Tibetan bands ambushed convoys of the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army. The uprising received extensive assistance from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), including military training, support camps in Nepal, and numerous airlifts.27 Meanwhile in the United States, the American Society for a Free Asia, a CIA-financed front, energetically publicized the cause of Tibetan resistance, with the Dalai Lama’s eldest brother, Thubtan Norbu, playing an active role in that organization. The Dalai Lama’s second-eldest brother, Gyalo Thondup, established an intelligence operation with the CIA as early as 1951. He later upgraded it into a CIA-trained guerrilla unit whose recruits parachuted back into Tibet.28
Many Tibetan commandos and agents whom the CIA dropped into the country were chiefs of aristocratic clans or the sons of chiefs. …
…”
BARKER’s ARTICLE is copyrighted GlobalResearch.ca, which forbids quoting or excerpting, only allowing full copying, so I won’t quote from his article. It’s not long, but still is too long for posting in a comment like this. Parenti’s article has his own copyright.
However, Barker’s article is primarily about the Tibetan ties with the U.S. N.E.D., National Endowment for Democracy (something the U.S. itself is enemy of), and the CIA; neither organization being of a kind that Tibetans should have anything to do with in terms of Tibetan cause.
If you check the Wikipedia page on Tibet, then you’ll find that China is offering considerably fairness, including provincial self-governance, just not siding with allowing Tibet to become a totally separate, independent state. And TAIWAN sides with mainland China, the People’s Republic of China, on this; therefore, people faulting China, while not Taiwan, and while additionally pretending that Taiwan is great, whatever, are either ignorant, or else hypocrites; imo.
Furthermore, and I haven’t gotten around to fully reading the article yet, but it’s recent, posted over the past week or so, this piece refers to UN or international law in a way that it sides with China’s ruling (and Taiwan’s agreement with China). It’s a law that stipulates that when part of an established country’s national security may be at risk if this portion separates and becomes an independent state, then it is prohibited; the international law prioritising national security. It’s a law of this sort of nature anyway.
Also in those wikipedia pages, it is said that part of Tibet as it’s known today is in India, but I don’t recall if the related page on the Tibetan sovereignty issue or question says anything about India, as is said of the PRC and the RC, or RoC, Republic of China, i.e, Taiwan. However, I doubt that India’s govt would particularly want to side with Tibet becoming an independent state.
Now, recently, Feb. 17th I believe is the date, the U.S. and NATO forced Kosovo into becoming an independent state, having criminally transgressed the national sovereignty and security of Serbia. Peculiarly, I haven’t seen any respect paid to this crime here at CD, besides the few times I’ve mentioned it in some of my posts here.
Best thing USA’ns can do is to ‘MIND THEIR OWN F*CKING BUSINESS’, imho. Those who are [very] well, expertly informed can correctly speak or write on the Tibetan issue or matter, but these people represent not even 1% of people of the west; probably not even 0.5% or 0.25%, if even .01%.
In the west, people better work on getting the worst criminal and rogue state of the world to stop its hellbent crimes ALL OVER THIS PLANET, including nationally, the USA. And that in turn means also Israel, given it’s the hellbent rogue state that it is only because of the USA. Sure, some European countries also support Israel, but that’s only because of the USA being Big Protector of and provider for Israel. As soon as the USA starts to act as it both legally and morally needs to do, these European countries will follow suit; as usual, although too rare.
AS FOR THE FALUN GONG, MOST westerners again don’t know enough about what they’re talking about. WE NEED TO be quite or quasi-expertly informed about these topics before pretending that we can legitimately express any views, particularly critical ones. I can certainly say that I want human rights and dignity to be respected [everywhere] and by [everyone], and that we can be certain that the NED and CIA, very corrupt, criminally so, organisations, are also involved with the FG.
BEWARE to never permit ignorance to be leader.
A question for yap.chongyee: where do you currently reside and earn your living from…China, the US, some other Western country? Tibet perhaps?
Laura,
Do not be a hypocrite? Weep over the crimes of your own country ( I suppose you are an American) for buchering thousands of thousands of innocent people. I do not know whether you have read the comments made by some of the heads of African nations about their trade relationship with China. They expressed that China is a better trading partner than the US and the European nations. You know the state of African nations after centuries of plundering of African natural resources by these criminal countries.
Coming to boycotting Olympics, will you promote boycotting Soccer World Cup that is going to be held in England, for invading Iraq and butchering innocent Iraqis? The other thing is: will you oppose any international sports being conducted in the US, for its criminal record and also for legalising torture?
Weep for your country? Weep for the innocent lives that your terrorist country is taking, to satisfy its blood-thirst.
The U.S. agenda is to WEAKEN China as much as possible, as an adversary anyway, and while it’s that only because of the West. You can safely bet every penny you possess that the U.S. elites will continue to conduct covert operations for this purpose. The NED, CIA, USA, as well as the State Dept and perhaps if not probably other parts of the U.S. “Establishment” are regularly or always involved; not always all at the same time or in the same cases, but all serving these types of purposes. And they dominate when it comes to western news media, to do all they can to keep the masses of SHEEP misinformed, etc.
Oh, my, egalitarianism is such an evil concept, isn’t it?! Egal is French for Equal, btw. Still against it, are you?
I doubt it. So, how about ceasing ignorance being the leading way, so that we can cease being hypocrites.
It’s not to say that China doesn’t abuse human rights, but then MOST countries in the world also do. Also, it’s a very large country and from an article I read last year or the year before, some, if not many, of the human rights abuses in China aren’t committed by the Chinese govt, but by organised crime groups, and China doesn’t have enough police forces to be able to provide adequate security ALL OVER the country.
There still are other issues there, and western corporations definitely want [in] in China. China’s minimum wage law, and according to what I read again over the past year or so, is a meager 31 cents an hour, but western corporations force manufacturers there to push this DOWN, down, down even further, and they get away with this; while westerners are buying up these manufactured products EN MASSE.
ETC.
As Jesus of Nazareth reality-based said and very much prophecied, “ALL HUMAN INSTITUTIONS WILL FAIL”; and I know of NONE that have and do not.
The failures vary from extreme to [endurable], but are still wrong and failures. We have the lesser extremes, such as, and f.e., when a woman working for McGill U. several years ago, if not back in the latter part of the 1990s, applied the school’s entrance policy requiring that people applying to enroll had to have some level of grades, scores, or else their applications would be rejected, turned down. Ooops, she made a boo-boo; she went and correctly turned away an applicant, but the person was of an elitist Canadian family. Ooops; she adhered to the school’s stated entrance requirements with the “wrong” “candidate”, while Canadians who are qualified according to this policy, but who are not of any elitist family can and occasionally does get turned away. “Of course.”
“ALL HUMAN INSTITUTIONS WILL FAIL”!
China’s human rights report for 2007 and published some days after the USA’s human rights report for 2007, which downplayed China’s human rights offences, condemned the USA for its human rights abuses, including wars of aggression, but also more; including nationally. And China was wholly accurate in this.
China has “room” for improvement, alright; but it’s not the worst criminal govt in the world, certainly not.
Japan also commits grave human rights abuses. F.e., if you do not know of Minamata Disease, then look it up. It involves extreme criminality of the Japanese govt towards the population of Minamata, Japan. And the same thing happened in Canada, also due to chemical industry dumping mercury into waters people used for obtaining food; a LOT of mercurcy, a toxic metal that is extremely debilitating and sometimes fatally so. The two govts maintained criminal cover-up for a very long time.
Canadian govt also “treated” fishermen from the U.S. to this “snack”.
The Canadian and U.S. govts are extremely criminal against the indigenous populations here.
I think we westerners have a whole lot of self-criticism to do before pretending that we can preach to China. Yes, call on the Chinese govt to PLEASE respect human rights and dignity, and to do all it can to help its extremely impoverished population, that portion of it anyway; but don’t pretend that we have any moral grounds that permit us to point our fingers at China, while we continue to support our own govts’ extreme crimes.
That’s just speaking of our govts. Meanwhile, we have a lot of finger-pointing to do at our populations in general, too. After all, where is the massive movement there should be here, for the defence of the human rights and dignity of the indigenous here?!! Canada has CFAR, Canadians For Aboriginal Rights, and great it is; but it’s evidently not representative of most Canadians, or else most are simply not members or supporters of CFAR.
What about Leonard Peltier, who’s serving his over 30th year of imprisonment, while the U.S. govt has never had any hard evidence for convicting him to begin with? Huh, what about this; and the other North American indigenous individuals treated very much like him? The US is still trying to do the same with another Canadian First Nations individual, man, and people can read of his case at the following website.
http://www.grahamdefense.org
Oh, and BTW, Ca has three war criminal PMs in a row now, including the present one; and that’s besides their other crimes. The Cdn govt has been criminally, despotically, … wanting to refuse refugee status to U.S. soldiers who came here on the basis of conscientious objection, and surely much enough can be read about this at resisters.ca, the organisation the author of the article this page is for is member of here.
Human rights abuses by govts? Yeah, and ALL OVER THIS PLANET; and many of them “pals” of the U.S. govt. Like Mexico towards the Zapatistas, Colombia against the indigenous of that country, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Nonetheless, boycott the Olympics. I welcome the idea; just that I welcome it to the point of thinking that we could entirely do away with this racket business altogether.
Now I’ve taken time to read the whole article and all posts prior to mine, and overall find this interesting, while not always agreeing.
As for the article basically promoting Reporters Without Borders and HRW, however, they do good, but not only good. RWB did some BAD reporting in Haiti after the hellish act-of-war coup d’etat by the US, Canada and France against the democratically elected and GOOD govt of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, for one example. I’m not sure, but HRW may have also done some bad reporting in this case too.
Amnesty Intl’s Africa rep. recently enough called on the USA, NATO, and UN to act with respect to Darfur, but based on NON-msm sources I’ve read from, this was an extremely wrongful thing to call for; and it’d play right into the GREEDY hands of the west’s elites again. There is NO genocide there, not based on what I’ve read anyway; it’s the USA, this extreme criminal govt, that claimed that there’s genocide in Darfur, while omitting to mention the OIL there. But there is violence alright; just that it’s not as western sources, most of them, surely including Democracy Now!, claim. It’s not genocide.
HRW is an organisation that I’ve found to be good many enough times, but which I’ve also found to report quite bogusly now and then. Maybe it happens more often than I’ve been led to believe, based on HRW-related articles I’ve read, which don’t number in the hundreds; therefore, I cannot say if it’s more often good, or not. I only know that it’s not always right.
The USA was the cause of the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, is very guilty in the genocide in Congo, a case which has been ongoing since 1996. It’s guilty of genocide in Iraq and Afghanistan, while what’s been done now in Haiti might possibly be also genocide; genocide against the poor there, certainly not the well-to-do elites.
How good are RWB and HRW, etc., in terms of Colombia, the Zapatistas, the poor Haitians, Africans of plenty of African countries, etc., etc.
As for China’s human rights abuses, what about India? It sure is NOT any saintly country in terms of its govt and elites.
It does not end. As said in my above post, human rights abuses by govts are ALL OVER THIS PLANET, in early every country; and many, if not all, of the worst are “pals” of the U.S. govt and its real, but very hidden ruling elites.
Calling for human rights and dignity to be respected everyone and by everyone, however, sure, we can all make these calls. As for how much time we can dedicate to each case, however, now this is a very different matter. We can’t possibly be equally active in all cases, so we need to give prioritisation to some. And those should be the extreme crimes of the govts of the West.
Whatever the true history of Tibetans is, I posted links to two articles further above, and will count on these for now. We can definitely be certain that the CIA and NED are definitely and very covertly involved though, and whenever this is going on, then we can definitely know that it’s for NO GOOD; it’s for western imperialists’ agendas AGAIN, as [always].
After all, they do NOT respect democracy even in the USA. Even Canada is very corrupt.
USA knew it became world superpower with WWII, and it’s been after China at least since then. We can be very confident about this part of history being true. USA corrupted the League of Nations, which was established by criminal elites to begin with. It’s been doing the same thing with the UN ever since it was established. And this is not only with covert operations, but much has been conducted in this manner, and it continues.
As for it being sensational to attend the Olympics, as COMarc described, it’s really all it is’ sensationalism. Another person who commented on that used the term ‘emotions’ or ‘emotional’, while I employ the term of ’sensationalism’. The same happens whenever attending any event with many people present for the apparently same purpose. It does not at all indicate the morals of the people attending; they could be very criminal in much of their lives. They could be brutal torturers the rest of the time. And as for working for Cynthia McKinney’s campaign, it’s a good choice, but certainly is NOT representative of the U.S. population in general. Consider how little support she’s received.
Dalai Lama says G. W. Bush is a good man, personable, likable, etc., only disagreeing with [some] of his foreign policies, while of course agreeing when it’s in agreement with what the Dalai Lama is seeking; [of course]. He’s no genius, the Dalai Lama; and he’s no model of virtue. He’s a very ordinary individual; it’s others who pretend that he’s more than this. I’ve read an excellent Buddhist who’s clearly rooted in [reality] say as much, only worded differently. He’s not a Buddhist who has any special respect for the Dalai Lama at all; instead being a Buddhist with real intelligence and [individual conscience], strongly capable of doing his own [thinking].
Anyone who can say that G.W. Bush is a good man, not evil, hence not wicked, is a very questionable, say, character. That person evidently isn’t talking about [reality]. Bush is a pathological liar, to say the least, and he’s of ‘blood cult’ alright, just like former Pope JP II said about him.
Someone like that being the public figure leading the Tibetan “cause” is not particularly favourable for the other Tibetans, but that’s only for those of us with this critical view that I’m expressing. Plenty of people in the USA supported war on Iraq when it was obvious that this could never be justified, too.
Plenty of so-called Nobel Peace Prize winners hellishly supported war of aggression in Kosovo by the Clinton administration-led “program”; too.
What respectable reporting have RWB and HRW provided about the situation in Kosovo and the criminally forced independence of this province of Serbia, which the 1999 UNSC resolution called upon to only respect the right of Kosovo to self-govern, while NOT supporting independence? What about the Dalits in India, and etcetera, etcetera, etcetera; oh, and the indigenous peoples of North America?
That RWB did BAD reporting in Haiti is a strong negative about RWB; and I’m sure that this isn’t the only negative it should be known and denounced for.
DWB, Doctors Without Borders, may be very or wholly good, but RWB is news media, so ….
Mike Corbeil
That was very good. I printed the article - Friendly Feudalism for future reference. Thanks
COMarc, an American evidently, wants to escape censure for what Americans have done to the world the last 8 years. Won’t work, my friend. Democracy necessitates collective responsibility. Under democratic rules Americans TWICE elected the criminal gang that’s running the country now. You may not have voted for Bush, COMarc, but it is Bush who runs America’s show. Saddam Hussein had his enemies in Iraq; did America spare them when it invaded? Citizens were targeted by the Americans as being Iraqis, not a Saddam Hussein supporters. Now that the criminal Bush is planning to bomb Iran, are their special bombs that will spare the mullahs’ enemies? Nope. People around the world now detest Americans. Sorry, but that includes you.
Mike Corbeil ! Thank you for your research and to throw some light on the real Tibetan issue. Freedom of speech in the USA is to freely desiminate MIS-INFORMATION.
China does not need defending; we only need the truth be told. In Mr Mike Corbeil we at least have a man of integrity and balance. First time in my life I find a man of honesty !
“The other thing is: will you oppose any international sports being conducted in the US, for its criminal record and also for legalising torture?”
Of course I will be.
I left the entire country, left my job, my friends and my family, uprooted my life, moved to a country where I had no job and knew no one, to get out of the US. I don’t want anything to do with it, in any way possible.
But that still doesn’t mean China is doing the right thing.
Martin Luther King said “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” I agree with that.
If we had to come from a place that was 100% good and pure in order to fight injustice, no one could ever fight anything. We would just all give in without a moment’s resistance. That might work for many people here. It doesn’t work for me.
Who among us has 100% integrity?
There’s a very easy quiz game on Chinese TV, called “What’s That Smell?”
Contestants are blindfolded, taken to an undisclosed location in Beijing, and asked “What’s that smell?”
The answer is always the same: “Urine.”
Except in the wet markets, where the answer is “blood.”
China should never have been given the opportunity to host the Olympics, simply on the basis of air quality. I see all these headlines about the athletes health possibly being jeopardized because of the pollution.
Ya think???
Well said!!!
However, the reality is “this kind” of articles appear only when an international event is held either in Russia or in China.
So, it is good to have a reality-check.
I am no “fan” of China. But I am against western hypocricy. The very language in this article (”So the western world…we reward China with Olympics) reflects arrogance and “pharasaical” attitude.
It is helpful to remember the pre-Olympic repression ithat has happened in the US just after “this moral police” boycotted the Moscow Olympics on ETHICAL GROUNDS.
In 1984, Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates oversaw the jailing of thousands of young black men in the infamous Olympic Gang Sweeps. The 1996 Atlanta games demonstrated a similar phenomenon, as public housing was razed to make way for the construction of Olympic venues, homeless people were chased off the streets and perceived trouble-makers were arrested. Atlanta officials “had six ordinances that made all kinds of things illegal, including lying down. Lots of people were shipped out, and lots of people were put in jail. [The Olympic Planning Committee] actually built the city jail. Activists there called it the first Olympic project completed on time.”
As Vancouver, BC, prepares for the Winter Olympics in 2010, another city poised to crack down on crime, drugs and homelessness.
yap.chongyee -
You have still not addressed my question: where do you currently reside and earn your living from…China, the US, or elsewhere? If you do not reside in China, then why not (?), since you support the Chinese gov’t policies so strongly.
Whew! Mike Corbeil, you should write an article about China/Tibet and submit it to Commondreams or whatever news outlet there is out there in the west. I’ll bet none of them will want to print it. Perhaps not even Commondreams…
Great stuff! Great research! Soldier on, dude…!
To all those who counter any argument for boycotting the Olympics due to China’s treatment of Tibetans with fallacious reasoning such as ad hominem or personal attacks on Americans or the US governments invasion of Iraq, please STOP!
First, you assume everyone is American.
Second, you assume those who may be Americans support what their government is doing in Iraq.
Third, the issue of Tibet has nothing to do with Iraq.
Fourth, just because the Chinese government and its supporters of its Tibet policy say that Tibet is an internal issue does not make it so!
Fifth, it is a right of all humans anywhere to speak out against injustice and to protest nonviolently against it.
By telling everyone they have no right to protest what China does in Tibet it sounds as though you think Chinese law applies to the rest of the world. Well IT DOES NOT!
Jaberwocky, thank you! Very well said.
I’ve been amazed that so many supposedly progressive people can only say “well, the US does it too!”, as if that is an adequate response to violations of human rights.
Some activists deserve to be locked up.
China has made it very clear it will jail people who express political views considered offensive by the communist party. Those who go there to protest and get locked up deserve it. People who practise Falun Gong after being advised not to and get locked up deserve it. Western people, like someone I know, who go to China specifically to provoke customs officials in the airport by declaring that they are Falun Gong practitioners when they hand over their passport are stupid and deserve to be locked up.
China sets its own labour laws just like other countries. This is not illegal. It uses energy and water and emits carbon just like other countries. This is not illegal. It sets its own laws for crime and punishment which includes the death penalty. This is not illegal. Sometimes these laws get broken. But laws get broken all over the world. This is nothing new.
Chinese products will not always undersell North American products. Currencies fluctuate, China’s will one day.
Tibet is a sovereign issue, just like the ongoing war between the Sinhalese and Tamils and the Israelis and Palestinians. It is no more a breach of human rights than those conflicts. The best solution is to let the locals sort out their own problems.
Stop whining when other countries do things you don’t like because other countries are probably saying that about your country.
And lastly, enjoy the Olympics. It’s about the human spirit. Hopefully, that’s something we can all relate to.
“China has made it very clear it will jail people who express political views considered offensive by the communist party. …
And lastly, enjoy the Olympics. It’s about the human spirit. Hopefully, that’s something we can all relate to.”
Yeah, it sounds like you really care about the human spirit. Locking up protestors who disagree with the government, now that’s real human spirit for ya!
“Stop whining when other countries do things you don’t like because other countries are probably saying that about your country.”
As well they should. Everyone should speak out about injustice everywhere. It’s our duty as humans.
This thread has been very eye-opening for me. It has helped me to decide not to make a personal boycott of the Olympics, because clearly, we in the West may have rightly taken over as the world’s top human rights abusers. Thanks to those who have pointed out that one person does not a nation make, and we are all somewhat responsible for our nation’s actions, even if we didn’t vote for the guy on top. Or if we live in Canada (like me) pointing the plastic finger is total BS. I may follow whatfools advice and bury my tv, that might give me the most inner peace.
L-girl:
When you enter someone’s house, you must abide by their rules. Protesting is a right by freedom of speech in most Western countries, but those who do it in China do so at their own peril as the rules are clearly stated. Locking up protesters is the law of the land in China and protesters who end up on the wrong side of it shouldn’t whine about it by appealing to the laws of their own country (which have no jurisdiction) or human rights (which are not laws).
One man’s justice is another man’s persecution. In China, locking up protesters is seen as justice. Not every country locks up their protesters. But in every country there are idiots. Some of them end up in Chinese jails.
Agree…and I believe the most effective alternative is for all potential viewers to switch off…this is more a statement of disapproval of the Chinese Government rather than the athletes or the Chinese people.
Is there a global movement to support such a viewers boycott? If not, should we not launch iy?
matata11:
Boycotting isn’t the answer.
If you want to make a difference, join the civil service of your country, then work your way up to foreign affairs and perhaps the United Nations where there can be ways to influence. But this game of symbolic sulking - ‘I won’t watch your games unless you behave yourself’ is immature. And stupid. But it’s a free country (where you are, I assume).