Interesting Take on the Bejing Games

[ZOA NOM]

From Sally Jenkins' Washington Post Column:

• “You only have to breathe the air to understand that these Olympics aren't about sport. They're about corporate profit, a propaganda stage for the Chinese government, and the moral collapse of the Olympic movement, but the very last thing they're about is excellence or the well-being of the athletes. The real interests, the real priorities, are in the air … Beijing has its splendors: ambrosial pear juice and duck skin in coarse sugar, ancient gnarled cypresses, bending willow trees, palaces with concealed courts, and sprawling districts in which nationalities blend into a worldly sauntering crowd. But the air is not one of those splendors. In fact, depending on which way the wind blows, it can seem as if the countryside is burning, or as if you are standing behind the tailpipe of a bus.”

• “So what is this Olympics really about? It's about 12 major corporations and their panting ambitions to tap into China's 1.3 billion consumers, the world's third-largest economy. Understand this: The International Olympic Committee is nothing more than a puppet for its corporate ‘partners,’ without whom there would be no Games. These major sponsors pay the IOC's bills for staging the Olympics to the tune of $7 billion per cycle. Without them, and their designs on the China market, Beijing probably would not have won the right to host the Summer Games … Anyone who believed the Chinese government would use the Olympics as an opportunity to become a human rights beacon and environmental model was either softheaded, or lying. Capitalism is not the same thing as democracy. China's interest then and now was the consolidation of state power via economics. The government is merely behaving as it always has.”

• “But the bad air here has shown the IOC and its commercial sponsors in an especially ugly and damning light. They have been conspicuous cowards in dealing with Chinese officials, and maybe even outright collaborators, on every issue from human rights to the environment to censorship. The silence of IOC President Jacques Rogge in the face of the continuing dissident sweeps amounts to complicity. ‘In view of my responsibilities, I have lost some of my freedom of speech,’ he said last week. Rogge's idea of a solution to the thorny problems of these Games is to hope ‘the magic’ will take over once they begin.”

• “Most disgraceful of all is the fact that six of the 12 worldwide Olympic partners are American companies. This has to heart-sicken any patriot. These companies will reap the full exposure of the Summer Games, swathing themselves in the flag, and rationalizing that their business is helping uplift the Chinese people. Don't buy it – or them. You should know exactly who they are: General Electric (which owns NBC), Coca-Cola, Visa, McDonald's, Kodak, and Johnson & Johnson … When these acquiesced to the Chinese government's crackdown, and effectively accepted the censorship of the press during these Games, they fell into a special category of profiteers that Franklin Delano Roosevelt described in his ‘Four Freedoms’ speech.

"’We must especially beware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American eagle in order to feather their own nests,’ Roosevelt said.”

I am torn about the political implications of these games, and wonder if they will serve to nudge China to improve its environmental and human rights policies, or simply stand as proof positive that China is so big and powerful that it cannot and will not be moved. I fear the latter, and believe that the political and news coverage during the next two weeks may end being far more interesting than the games themselves.


Between this angle and the 'roids, I think I'll be in the garage working on the race car during these games.

[Rick Lee]

Originally Posted by ZOANAS

I am torn about the political implications of these games, and wonder if they will serve to nudge China to improve its environmental and human rights policies, or simply stand as proof positive that China is so big and powerful that it cannot and will not be moved. I fear the latter, and believe that the political and news coverage during the next two weeks may end being far more interesting than the games themselves.

I'm not not torn at all. I wish the Olympics to be about sports and competition and have nothing whatsoever to do with politics. These games should have no political effect on China at all. They might, but they shouldn't. It should be about the games and the athletes and nothing else.

[imcarthur]

Sport? Oh, you mean the fill in between the commercials & oh-so sincere network commentators?

Ian

[sammyg2]

The Washington Post is owned by a corporation and is making money off of coverage of the Olympics. It also sux. That reporter is getting paid to exploit the Olympics, which makes her a freaking hypocrite.

[ZOA NOM]

Good point, Sammy.

Would anyone here stand on principles and boycott the Olympics based on China's refusal to address their human rights issues? Would you have the courage to do it as an Olympic athlete, potentially missing an opportunity to compete? Should the human rights issue be separated from the Olympics? I don't know if I could stand on a podium in China to receive a medal while people were suffering at the hands of the official handing it to me.

I agree with another poster in another thread that it's fun watching the Chinese leadership squirm. They have to be petrified that their true colors will be displayed for the whole world to see. I'll be skipping it, however.

[Rick Lee]

[QUOTE=ZOANAS;4109817]
Would anyone here stand on principles and boycott the Olympics based on China's refusal to address their human rights issues?

I wouldn't. If everyone did this, there'd be no Olympics. Did the manufactured athletes from the old eastern bloc countries get barred competing? Haven't the Soviet Union and China always competed? If we had the 2008 games in the U.S., don't you think there'd be as much int'l. protest against the U.S. as there is now against China? These games should be completely apolitical. If you want to start banning athletes from countries based on politics, half of them wouldn't be there. Did our boycott of the 1980 games make one iota of difference to anyone sitting in a Soviet gulag? No, it punished our own athletes and no one else and didn't help anyone else.

[ZOA NOM]

I guess it's an individual thing. I don't like the hypocrisy of it. To each his own. I'll pass on the Olympics this time around. Give me a call when they go somewhere with less baggage.

[Rick Lee]

Originally Posted by ZOANAS

I guess it's an individual thing. I don't like the hypocrisy of it. To each his own. I'll pass on the Olympics this time around. Give me a call when they go somewhere with less baggage.

That's pretty much admitting you care more about the politics than the actual games. I don't. Actually, I don't care about the games either. But if I was into watching sports on tv, just as I don't want to hear the commentators' personal politics in the middle of the game, I don't care about the politics of the country hosting the games when I'm watching the games.

I guarantee you the U.S. would get every bit as much protest if we were hosting the games this time around. It would be for different reasons and I wouldn't agree with any of them. But every whiner/do-gooder group out there tries to use the Olympics to further their message and I would never dignify them or insult the athletes by paying attention to anything other than the actual games.

[ZOA NOM]

Point taken, but my conscience wouldn't allow me to participate. I guess it's an easy position to take, since I'm nowhere near an Olympic athlete, so I'll never be faced with the dilemma, but I know I'll be avoiding the games and the products of the major American companies involved.