My Olympic viewpoint…
Over the past several weeks we have seen peaceful (and not so peaceful) protests regarding the Beijing Olympics. We, as Americans, have the right to protest, although I believe that a peaceful protest is more dignified and potent than attacking runners who carry the Olympic torch. They are, after all, engrossed in the Spirit of the Olympics. When we attack an innocent person, we ourselves are no less tactless that the ones we are protesting, right?
I have read many articles that call for an all-out boycott of the Olympics, circa 1980 in
Believe me I understand the dilemma here, a complete boycott would deprive some of the world’s top athletes the chance to compete on a global stage; but a partial boycott (say boycotting the opening ceremonies) would send a subtle yet unmistakable message to the world that we hear, we understand and we will not ignore.
I have always been a huge fan of the Olympics. I remember watching Carl Lewis and Michael Johnson break into super-sonic speed around the track. Greg Louganis coming back and winning gold after cracking his head in the diving platform and The Dream Team’s dominance over the world in 1992. I’ve never missed an opportunity to watch the Olympics, but this year I will Boycott. I will not watch any coverage of the Olympics. It sucks, but I think it’s the right thing for me to do. Will it make a difference? Maybe only to me.
To be honest I’ve never followed the plight of the Tibetan or Chinese people, but I feel like protesting (or Boycotting) the Olympics will bring to light the situation to educate people like me on the travesties that are occurring in
I hoped, although it was an empty hope, that our government would take a compassionate stance and stick up for the “little guy”, but needless to say our “leadership” has disappointed me. I really don’t think our President gets it. I read an interview that states he considers the Olympics only to be a sporting event….Really? Mr. President ever heard of Jesse Owens, Tommie Smith or John Carlos?
The Olympics are only a “sporting event” where the entire world is watching and what we do (or don’t) speaks volumes to our character as a nation.
Tags: Boycott, New World Order, Olympics
April 9th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Just the other day I was thinking about making a post about the olympics…only slightly different. First off, i’m not missing the coverage of this epic shit-storm. I really think some crazy shit is gonna go down at some point. People are already climbing bridges’n shit.
I really don’t agree with China hosting the Olympics in the first place. How could nobody see this coming?
April 9th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
It is very interesting everything that is going on leading up to the Olympics. I really want to know who was on the committee that thought it was a good idea to offer the Olympics to China in the first place. Some folks really dropped the ball here.
I applaud your protest. I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it. I really get into watching the Olympics but I guess it is like giving something up for Lent (sp?) if you don’t choose something you will miss what is the point of it right?
I would love to see the US outright boycott the entire event, but this close to the event it just seems it would not be fair to the athletes who have trained their lives for this chance. For some it may be their last shot. Maybe they are leaving their peak performance years and won’t be able to compete in 4 years.
It is sad. Again I blame the folks who let China hold the events. That should have never happened.
As always Bush is an Assclown. I’ve said it since 2000.
April 9th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
I lean more towards SoItGoes here and think that this is really the Olympic Committee’s fault for giving China the Olympics.
I don’t really get the whole Olympic Boycot thing. So what. It’s the Olympics. People have trained their whole lives to be really good as something, so now you want to take away their chance, or their exposure? It’s not like the Olympic athletes had the ability to choose where they were. Why should they get punished?
And the whole “let’s boycott China” thing is really making me feel like I did when people in South Carolina started wearing flanel shirts and jean shorts in the early 1990s when Seatle Grunge Music became popular. It’s all about the posers. Find the cause of the minute and jump for it. Here’s your latest hoop: Boycott China. Now jump, boy, jump!!
If you really wanted to make a statement…if you really wanted to hurt China…if you really wanted to see if people actually gave a durn about what China does and how willing they are to make a true sacrifice to send China a message about all of the crap they do….why not just Boycot Chinese Goods?
Wakeup call: according to USChina.org (who knows how reputable) (http://www.uschina.org/statistics/tradetable.html) the US is China’s #1 importer of goods. We imported approximately $232 BILLION of Chinese goods in 2007. That’s a whole lot of electronics, iron, steel, medical & optics equipment, and furniture.
So when you’re thinking about Boycoting the Olympics…why not go one step further. First, don’t watch the olympics. Second, throw your Chinese-made television and entertainment stand out the window! Third, go ahdead and purge yourself of everything that was either made in China, or is made of components that were made in China!
I just want to make it clear that I’m not meaning to be mean to Mindbomb. I get where he’s coming from and it’s everyone’s choice to do what they want….but all of the talk of an Olympic Boycot just seems like the easy and cop out way of saying that you believe in something and want to do something, when we all know that 90% of the people that would be involved or affected by something like this aren’t really willing to do much of anything to change the situation. They like to do what’s convenient. What’s easy. Which also happens to be completely ineffective. That’s why it’s easy and convenient.
April 9th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
zzzzzzzzz………what?…oh yeah, they got the Olympics becuase of international economics. Everyone is somewhat in debt to China. They were owed and paid with the games.
April 9th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
you have a point, there. Where do you think that nice little goverment wellfare check … oops! I mean to say government “economic stimulus rebate” check is coming from? Yup, from borrowed funds from China.
April 9th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Great Post Mindbomb. I think there are good arguments on both sides.
However, I would be dissapointed to see a boycott. The whole point of the Olympics (when it was first started) was to demonstrate which country was dominant from an athletic standpoint.
Now here we are….in 2008.
We are talking about turning our shoulders to one of the biggest competitions the planet has ever seen. A tradition that has shown time and time again that there is one place where we can all come together and compete on a fair playing field.
I don’t know what the right thing to do is here. I do know that I was really surprised when I first saw that this stuff was happening.
I’ll boycott buying anything from Wal-Mart. I think most of their shit is probably from China right? That way I’ll kill two birds with one stone….support small business and boycott china. Hows that. I say we pass it around.
April 9th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Works for me….just don’t make me tell my wife that we have to boycott either Target or Ikea.
April 9th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
I never called for a complete Boycott of the games, I’m personally not watching the games. I suggested (as many others have) possibly skipping the Opening Ceremonies. I agree with you all that it would be a tragedy for the athletes to miss this opportunity.
Possibly skipping, protesting, boycotting (call it what you will) the opening ceremonies might bring to light some of the social issues that are happening in China. Yes I understand our economic ties/dependency to China, but just as you might criticize a friend who’s being an ass, (I feel) it’s the world’s responsibility as a hole to do the same to China..
April 9th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
No shit, if I had to Boycott IKEA my house would look like crap..although I sure they have “contraband” there as well…
April 9th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
I agree with Bush. This is ultimately a sporting event that is meant to focus on the greatness of friendly competition. China’s government is not a democracy, so you can not blame the people.
The olympics is meant to represent the people of the world and China represents a shit ton of people, so it is only fair that they get to represent the olympics as a nation.
You should feel just as sorry for the oppressed people in China as in Tibet. Olympics is for the PEOPLE and SPORTS… leave the FUCKING politics out of it. Sorry Mindomb, but I disagree with you on this one.
April 9th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
I think that many people in the world are very indifferent & mostly unaware to what tragedies happen in china because of a lack of information on what really goes on there. The Chinese government does not want folks to know hence we are not always aware of what happens.
You can say by doing something small like just not watching the olympics you are doing something “easy” and convenient that really won’t make a difference.
I would challenge that by saying the opposite side of that coin to consider is with most items that you want to change you start off doing the little things.
With China one could argue one of the small things that needs to be done is to raise awareness of these tragedies. They are just as bad as what happened in Iraq……
So if everyone did something small in protest it would start to raise awareness. Maybe someone reading this has no clue what the tragedies are so they read what mindbomb is willing to do and they do research and then the are educated. Protest raise awareness. I think that is one of the biggest points of a protest. Maybe people start talking more and politicians start paying attention. Politicians can make an attempt to change things, but they don’t care because us as voters don’t raise our voice about the tragic way of life in China due to indifference.
So one could say it is useless to do something on a small scale like mindbomb has suggested, but what is really useless is doing nothing at all. Change won’t come if everyone does nothing.
You can’t champion every cause. You can’t carry every torch (
) but sometimes something moves you to do something small in an effort to help some. If everyone did something small every day for someone else or something the world would be better.
Compassion is a great human trait.
I think Mindbomb agrees that it is not right to punish the athletes of the Sport, but there are other things that can be done by the US like skipping the opening ceremony etc.
I think people see this as a great stage to make a statement. As Mindbomb mentioned it would not be unprecedented Everyone remembers Tommie Smith and John Carlos.
Will this change China? Not at all. Could peaceful legitimate protest by many start a small snowball effect towards change? Possibly.
I am no gambler but I like the chances of possibly more then none.