Gee whiz. I thought that giving a brutal, totalitarian government the Olympics would help improve conditions for its people. That idea certainly worked for Germany in 1936, didn't it?

Letting the Chinese host the Olympics has had about as much ameliorative effect on its society as establishing free trade with China has had in bringing that country democracy.

Maybe someday, most people will start to see the visionary pronouncements of corporate leaders for exactly what they are: bullshit.

jj

By far the greatest abuser of human rights in the world today is the USA, not just through the current horrific acts in Iraq and in prisons under its control where torture is used, and not just through the IMF, World Bank, and WTO forcing other nations to open themselves to corporate predators, but by consistent threats, directed towards all the non-wealthy nations of the world, of invasion and obliteration if governments try to prevent enslavement of their people and exploitation of their resources by the world corporate order headquartered in the USA.

I cannot trust Amnesty International or any human rights organization that so infrequently challenges the USA.

I can not understand why the Olympic Committee was so stupid as to ever select China...

I thought this piece was about Iraq. Had to recheck the headline.

China may very well be the death of us all..sorry..but it's true..

I am not a jingoist..not a racist..I am ANTI-Fascist...and that is one of my problems with China...of course their beligerent....almost ARROGANT race to destruction is...also something I am...frustrated...by.

China..will suffocate in it's own Feces...that may be our only hope..otherwise, I fear, China will be the model for the end of Humanity...a SOUL KILLING level of corruption, environmental destruction..flat out EVIL..a very strange Eastern form of EVIL..a kind of..BUILT IN slave mentality..thousands of years of "philial piety" etc..has indoctrinated the Chinese to "OBEY"..and thusly..thy have become the first TRUE "CORPORATE FASCIST NATION". You are "free" to Work, Consume..and Die!..and your consumerism is strictly regulated under penalty of DEATH to only the MOST crass onsumer "goods"..plastic..NOT ideas..Styrofoam..NOT books..etc..etc..etc..

China..where the Water is "black as ink" and in just 30 years..where you have a population of "non-persons"..Chinese by birth..but because the "parents" could not or would not "do the paperwork"..or could not afford the Bribes...associated with reproductive "license" they have begun to create a GENERATION of people that have EVEN LESS "RIGHTS" as if that were possible..in other words..a SLAVE CLASS FOR SLAVES...WOW!

And..weirdly..even the names are reflecting the corruption..with children having the number of thir BRIBE added to thier names.."Lieu Chen 20,000" for example...so..uhh..well..yeah..CHINA...the SPIRITUAL DEATH..

Whatever..talk amongst yourselves...do what you will..

jcrumb,

How much time have you spent in China? It seems, your opinions have been fashioned by the US corporate propagandists. I have traveled widely in China and from what I have seen China's pollution problems are roughly equivalent to those in the USA in the 1960s before the EPA, the Clean Water Act, and the Clean Air Act. And China is much less of a police state than the USA. And China is working much more towards energy efficiency than the USA. It is just that the Chinese recognized that if they did not catch up industrially with the West, that they would be subjugated again as they were following the Opium Wars and up until the Communist Revolution in 1949, and so to avoid that fate they are willing to tolerate more pollution for now than rich Westerners would accept.

As for the Chinese being slavelike, that sounds overtly racist. The Chinese are much more civilized than Americans, and put much greater emphasis on social harmony. I think that approach is absolutely essential if the human race is to survive this century.

It is the USA that is the threat to human survival, not China. The corporate oligarchs that run the USA appear determined to give humanity two choices -- enslavement of the many by the few (with the many controlled by a totalitarian worldwide police state) or extinction.

It would appear that the IOC's greed has gotten the better of them and they are stuck with an Olympiad that has the potential to be as embarrassing as the 1936 Berlin Olympics (though it should be pointed out that the games were awarded to Berlin before Hitler came to power). That Jacques Rogge & Co. knew full well whom they were dealing with only increases the amount of rotten egg on their collective faces.

Since when have the Olympics EVER been more than an excuse to exploit amateur athletes to legitimatize removing undesirables, driving up property values, taking over large urban areas for "redevelopment" .. and generally furthering the Corporate agenda?

It is hopelessly naive and hypocritical to expect the Chinese to behave any differently than any of the other cities and countries that have hosted the Olympics.

The Olympics should be discontinued for the sake of humanity.

Something rather similar occurred in Atlanta prior to the 1996 Olympics.

The only difference is that the 'undesireables' were the homeless and not the human rights activists in town.

But here in the good ol USA, we did pretty much the same rounding of 'undesirables' and making sure they weren't in town to spoil the Potemkin village image we wanted to present to the world.

And the silence of any and all elected and non-elected officeholders(starting with Bush) is absolutely deafening.

"Since when have the Olympics EVER been more than an excuse to exploit amateur athletes to "

Well, its at least been a very long time since there were any 'amateur athletes' in the Olympics. That's one exploitation that's been ended. But the others you list are still pretty much on target. Maybe add just funneling big buckets of construction money to well connected friends of politicians as another big purpose of the games.

-----------------
In general, I completely disagree with the idea of discontinuing the Olympics. That's because I've had the good fortune to be in Atlanta during those games.

Yes, there is a great deal wrong about the lead up to the games. They are overly commercialized. There are always issues around construction and who gets relocated and whether the money to build these arenas could be better spent.

But, after all that is wrong. There really still is an Olympic spirit. It comes from the people who come from all around the world to see the game and cheer on their athletes. It is truly amazing to walk around an Olympic city and meet all the people. And everyone is friendly. And everyone there generally believes in peace.

I remember standing in line to watch track and field the day after our local white, Republican, right-wing extremist had tried to kill people in the Olympic park the night before. To be standing in that line was to see the whole world come together to reject such violence.

Yes, there's a lot of bull from the promoters and the sponsers. But its still not a bad thing to bring lots of people from around the world together in a place and spirit of peace.

Actually, I don't think the Chinese know what they are about to see. At least not their government. The people around Beijing and the other Olympic sites are about to get an amazing glimpse of the world and its peaceful people the Chinese government can't control.

No, just cancelling the Olympics is a horrible idea. Anyone who's ever been to an Olympics could tell you that. I guess it can only seem that way to someone who just watches in on TV.

I really wish I could go to Beijing to go see this. Not for the corporations. But to experience that wonderful feeling of seeing the world come together.

china needs a pretext for crackdowns? oh, i get it.. kinda like the usa's pretext that 12 towelheads on camels somewhere in the desert 6000 miles away is the reason for spying on americans and turning this country into a facist police state controlled by privatized armies.

it makes sense that any non-democratic government would use a pretext for crushing freedom. i mean, its just reasonable to have promotional media spin instead of just crushing people without a pretext, like china used to do (see falung gong). but NOW china is a rising country, modern enough to copy the more sophisticated ways our americanpoliticians crush freedom here and abroad: pretext. it works!

"I cannot trust Amnesty International or any human rights organization that so infrequently challenges the USA."

I take it you've seen the many AI campaigns against torture both abroad and in US prisons. Here's one ...

http://www.amnestyusa.org/torture/get-involved/page.do?id=1031009&n1=3&n2=38&n3=1053

Yeah, Amnesty takes on the US government pretty regularly. The problem is really that you'd have to go out of your way to find it; the US media does not report it when Amnesty does a report on The US role in the worldwide arms trade or something like that. You have to go to the BBC.

Samson,

I am aware that Amnesty International has been critical of the USA with regard to Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and a host of other issues, but not nearly to the degree it should. The USA should be the main focus of AI efforts, and that could help shift the opinion of USA citizens, which might or might not make a difference in the controlled political environment we live in. I get the impression that AI has an approach (similar to the one of the corporate media with regard to Democrats and Republicans) to provide equal grief to every perpetrator, regardless of whether the crimes are equal, so AI will not be accused of bias, even though that reduces its legitimacy and effectiveness.

And Defenestrator's point is a good one. The corporate media rarely reports on AI criticisms of the USA, but always reports on criticisms of China and other "competitors" or "enemies," and that makes it even more problematic for AI to use an artifically "even-handed" approach.

Kivals, the world's number one polluter/rogue nation is in bad shape and deserved much criticism but let's not let China off the hook either. I think you are painting too rosy a picture. They have thousands of show trials/executions, massive corruption, and rule by a small super-rich elite that makes up the law as they go along. In short China is what the present day leaders in America aspire to create for themselves.

This is great news if "undesirable" includes the Communist Party

jlocke123,

I know China has its faults, and it should receive some criticism. However, consider that China's executions are primarily of corrupt officials caught with their hands in the cookie jar, and also of those involved in some form of organized crime. In the US, the main crime is being born poor, or black, or especially poor and black. Because of the insane practice of doling out severe punishments to those involved in victimless crimes, the US leads the world in the incarceration rate.

And China does have significant corruption, as virtually every developing nation does, but the US is so deep in corruption that it has legalized it. I am sure most of those at CD recognize that our political campaign system is legalized corruption. Here, we outlawed virtually every activity the poor might engage in that might have some negative effect on society, but we legalized the actions of the elite to warp society for their benefit, no matter how much harm it caused to others or the future of the nation.

We in the US live in an ethical cesspool, and it is difficult to see it sometimes unless we view it from afar. What percentage of the income of the US government goes for the common good? Not much from what I have seen. Our so-called "representative democracy" apparently has no value in that it does not ensure that the government is responsive to the people's needs or desires.

I have always hoped that someone with some money would start a new olympics that has no drug testing. Think of how entertaining that freak show would be. Also, actually seeing an olympic event requires huge money. I tried to get a ticket to see a hockey game during the Salt Lake games and it was like four hundred dollars to watch Latvia play Kazahkstan. Just for the ticket! Brutal.

Naughty, naughty, China. They just don't know how to accomodate human rights like us. Maybe we go there with our military and bomb and kill them into accepting the right way of doing things.

The only difference between China and the US is a matter of timing. China is a little more overt in their oppression. We are still in a slide toward a police state. It's only a matter of time. We still have guns.

Here we go again! This is to laugh!

Generally agree with Kivals and what Samson says about it being done before in Atlanta re homeless etc.

The rest, in their railings against China, clearly have never been to China. They foolishly and wholeheartedly accept what their media tells them about China - the same media they don't believe when it comes to Iraq etc. Like I say, It is to laugh!

Come 2010, Vancouver will be doing the same especially against the indigenous peoples. And, of course, in London in 2012, the British will be doing the same against any Muslim or person with a funny sounding name.

I eagerly await news that China is responsible for Obesity in the west. Ohhh, these dastardly Chinese!!!!!

Hahaha. China puts more emphasis on social harmony...yeah, at the tip of a sword.

Discussions like these blatantly expose those who genuinely care about human rights...and those who simply hate America.

Maybe China will collect a few more "volunteers" for the "Bodies" exhibit. I hear it's a real money maker.

AUMRJ,

My wife is from China, and I have been many times and, though I cannot say I speak Mandarin, I have gotten to know many Chinese with my wife as translator. The common, everyday Chinese that I have gotten to know mostly do believe in social harmony. The social harmony one finds in China is not just the result of a repressive government, but an entire mindset that developed over thousands of years of civilization. One cannot completely separate the Chinese government from the Chinese culture and civilization, as it all flows together, just as the predatory behavior of the US government and corporations fits in with a history of genocide of the natives and enslavement of Africans.

Related to that, and relating to an earlier point by jcrumb (12:05 pm), barbarians always are quick to call the more civilized "slavelike" and "docile" to make them feel superior and secure, just as unruly adolescents have similar pejorative terms for their well-educated and polished elders. That is the way of the world.

By the way, it would only make sense to compare China's human rights record with that of other developing countries, past and present, and I am not sure that is done with any seriousness.

"...China Using Olympics As 'Pretext' For Crackdown..."

Naw! No way!!! C'mon!! You're effing kidding me, right?

Pahlease.

One more report, ok? One more study, to add to the documentation of dehumanization, destruction, exploitation, extraction, and "De-MOCK-ratization" of the world; one more thing to stop us from stopping them.

I just had a brief talk w/ a friend I ran into serendipitously, who asked me how the fight against "wetern civ is going." I told him there's not a wit of difference between "eastern and western" civilization. It's all bull__it.

There's the world, and there's this crap. The world doesn't need this crap anymore.

"I eagerly await news that China is responsible for Obesity in the west. Ohhh, these dastardly Chinese!!!!!"

Dang right. I have always been certain that its somebody's fault other than my own. :)

At some point recently I saw where the Chinese are adapting the American model of technilogical survelience of citizens. Lots of cameras going up. It struck me when I read that just how similar our societies are in some ways.

Certainly neither is very revolutionary these days, even though both have their roots in revolutions that promised so much more than this.

Let us not forget that Bush is complicit in the abuse of human rights in China by attendig the opening ceremonies and thus lending the PRC the blessing of the USA. Why am I not surprised?

What bullshit! Like Obama, who probably doesn't know where China is, the yahoos are jumping on the dump on China bandwagon. Let's take a good look at the American prison system, or maybe . . . ah, what's the use. The whole thing is just another racist scam. The same day we indict a senator, we talk about corruption in China. Ahem.

TO ANYONE american WHO POINTS HIS FINGER AT CHINA. WAKE THE HELL UP PLEASE. america /israel are the worst in the whole world but you have the nerve to stand on your Common Dreams soap box and piont. It you don't have the guts or nuts to correct your own government then please shut the F up.

I'm sick of leftists apologizing for China. As much as the American left might be in shambles, China has no left wing or progressive movement. Many Chinese know nothing about Tieneman square. When a book that decried Westernization became popular it was banned because the government was afraid of activism.

China is destroying the Tibetan culture, supporting genocide in Dafur and is in the middle of a colonial rape of Africa.

We hate when our government does this stuff, why should we be more lenient on China?

I consider myself to be a libertarian socialist and couldn't imagine a country further from that ideal than China-- a statist-authoritarian country.

AUMRJ July 29th, 2008 4:32 pm

Discussions like these blatantly expose those who genuinely care about human rights…and those who simply hate America.

Precisely! Some folks on the left only want to point out America's hypocrisy. I don't deny it exists-- but I'm against repression & exploitation wherever it's found not just in America and Israel.

jcrumb -- "China..will suffocate in it's own Feces…that may be our only hope."

What a racist prick. I have no problems with criticizing China for its neo-fascist or state-cpitalist society but dont bring your personal racist prejudices into it. Besides we in the U.S. with 5% of the worlds population and contributing to more than 30% of carbon emissions should be the last people on earth bringing China's environmental sins into such sharp focus.

Kivals, are you claiming that the US is barbaric in comparison to China?

Since the 60's I've been active against US militarism. But meditation groups aren't attacked by the US government and their heads chopped off and their organs harvested for organs for rich sick people. After the recent trouble in Tibet but before the Burmese government attack on peacefully demonstrating Buddhist monks I dreamed of the clouds clearing over the US but dark heavy clouds forming over Asia. The Chinese government has helped the devilish government of Burma harm a very spiritual culture. The most evil form of Fascism is the kind that suppresses the spiritual path of meditation. Hitler did this, it was join the Occult department of the Gestapo or die for the psychics and mystics of Europe. The Chinese government is a great spiritual danger to the whole world. May this dark Chinese leaderships' karma lead to their downfall. Yes there is a dark elite in the West too but its tyranny doesn't go as far into destruction of the spiritual potential of the species as that of the Chinese leadership.

China bashing. Exactly what the Neocons want to see.

Cut China some slack: The article says they are Repressing Lawyers.

Could they come to DC?

leftk: It is spelled Tianamin Square.

The fancy sounding 'Agence France Presse' has never once to my knowledge said that US is using 'liberation' for illegal occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Dang right. I have always been certain that its somebody's fault other than my own. :)"

Hahahahaha! The next time I'm late for work I'll blame China. I'm pretty sure my boss will accept that without question...!!!!! Sighhhh...

http://www.thomascrampton.com/china/beijing-olympics-advice-from-ex-cnn-journalist/

All these "human rights" groups have criticized Bush for attending the Olympics opening ceremony in Beijing. Yet, not a single one of these groups have urged China not to allow Bush, the world's greatest war criminal, to attend the ceremony. Why the double standard?

The original purpose of these so-called "human rights" groups was to establish the West as the moral center of the universe. These groups allowed the West alone to pass judgement on the non-white peoples of the world, who were then trying to overthrow the shackles of centruries of Western oppression. "Human rights" just became another weapon in the arsonal of the imperialists, a stick to beat down any third world country who dared to pursue an independent path.

I agree with martingale's comment that China should be urged to uninvite Bush, because of his war crimes.

therealwood said "Also, actually seeing an olympic event requires huge money. I tried to get a ticket to see a hockey game during the Salt Lake games and it was like four hundred dollars to watch Latvia play Kazahkstan. Just for the ticket! Brutal."

Here's what it is like for 2008 here in Hong Kong. I bought a couple of tickets for the Olympic equestrian events which are being held in Hong Kong. One ticket was about $20 and the other about $60.

As for the Chinese mentality, I think such comments sound like stereotypes nurtured by the MSM. Regardless if any or all of the earlier comments on this subject are true, this is an additional fact to consider: There are far more protests in China, on a regular basis, than in the USA. These protests are commonly against various levels of government, police, landlords and policies. What does that say about the USA mentality?

It is very funny reading a bunch of people who don't know China, don't understand Chinese, have never read Chinese history, probably never visited or lived in China, understand even less about human rights, talk with so much ocnviction on the problems of human rights in China, as if Amnesty International and America have some special rights to use and interpret that term for the rest of the world. I would like to hear Amnesty International say something more about human rights abuses of Israel on Palestinians in illegally occupied lands. How come all the silence? Whenever someone put on a big banner and say they represent democracy, equality, or human rights, I become very suspicious.

jesusofjonesboro, would you please be quiet? Giving China preferred trade status allows western capitalists to exploit its production slaves. Giving China the Olympics allows western capitalists to exploit its consumption slaves. Ethics are what we do at church, not at work. If only you would jump on the gravy train we wouldn't need to have this discussion.

http://www.danwei.org/the_thomas_crampton_channel/chinas_50cent_twitter_censors.php

kvals: 'The corporate media rarely reports on AI criticisms of the USA, but always reports on criticisms of China and other "competitors" or "enemies,"'

Amnesty International could include US violations in its reports on "enemy" violations, providing useful comparisons while also preventing US media from exploiting the reports. Why isn't AI doing this?

America and friends if you are guilty of a crime you can't point your fingers at others doing the same.

If you want to understand some of the comments here on CD, please view the youtube video linked to below. Thanks.

http://www.danwei.org/the_thomas_crampton_channel/chinas_50cent_twitter_censors.php