I’m back and I’m in a bad mood. But really, it’s not just me, has anyone examined the value-added for the billion dollar fascist spectacles that are the Olympics? “International goodwill”? How’s that working out for us?
Nineteen peoole murdered in Tibet–so far–for peaceful protests against Chinese rule and it’s attemt to exterminate Tibetan culture. Will they feature in the dimwit sappy “human interest” stories of the over-privileged Olympic athletes that TV considers “Olympic coverage”? How many more need to be killed before “carry on with the games” becomes an accessory to murder. How long must the Chinese government block attempts to curb genocide in Darfur before nations start to drop out.
And then I read on Breitbart today about the trials of two Chinese human rights advocates, one just concluded, one just begun, no verdicts yet, it suddenly dawned on me that it’s time to call for an Olympic boycott before the verdicts are handed down.
Because there’s always the danger the whole thing is a p.r. fraud: that putting them on trial and then “magnanimously” acquitting them would be the ultimate in trickery. The Chinese government will be able to say, see, we don’t persecute dissidents–as if putting dissidents on trial at all was legitimate. And the world will have its fig leaf for its naked enabling of an ugly torture and murder regime. Of course I want them acquitted,but make them do more than acquit these two, show them that Darfur, the Tibetan murders and the dissident trials have real consequence. Demonstrate the fallacy of the belief that the Olympics somehow promote “good behavior” in police state regimes. We don’t want to promote “good behavior” from police state regimes in the sense of giving them a seal of approval for slightly cleaned-up-for-the-Olympics behavior.
And please no sob stories about the poor spoiled juiced-up athletes who trained so hard for this corrupt spectacle. Boo-hoo. Tell them to thank their lucky stars they’re not in a Chinese jail and, if the “challenge of the sport itself”, really is so important to them, hold their meaningless contests elsewhere, without all the tv coverage.Frankly I douibt many would show up without the cameras.
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Really is a single medal worth a single soul who puts his or her life on the line for human rights. One commenter to my earlier Olympics post asked what could be done. One thing is to tell prospective advertisers (who will soon be announcing they’re “official dog food of the Oymmpics” etc) that you’ll boycott their products if they don’t boycott the broadcasts. Make the tv networks pay for enabling ignominious tyranny.
