March 14, 2008: China and Tibet: Will Athletes Desert the Olympics

Watching the coverage of the Beijing smog, which makes LA look like Lapland, on cable news in the run-up to the Olympics, I kept wondering how the athletes could want to compete in this stuff. Now I wonder if they will:

BEIJING - Protests led by Buddhist monks against Chinese rule in Tibet turned violent Friday, bathing Lhasa in smoke from tear gas, bonfires and burned shops, and posing a challenge to China on whether its image can withstand a harsh crackdown ahead of the Beijing Olympics.

At least 10 people were burned to death in the violence, according to a state media report.

You don't have to be Richard Gere to feel queasy about all this. But if the Beijing Olympics come a cropper, the smoke coming out of China may be more lethal than any of us predicted.

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The Chinese no doubt want the Olympics to be a showcase that boosts their global prestige, but I think it could become a fiasco.

All the Olympics might accomplish for China is to let the world see what an ecological, political, and humanitarian nightmare their nation has become.

Posted by: srlucado at March 15, 2008 3:58 AM

Although I agree with srlucado, Nazi Germany wasn't impeded one iota by hosting the games. Yes Jesse Owens (who I once met; very nice person) provided a feelgood moment that ended up being nothing more than that.

The games are a total sham that never live up to the ridiculous hype. That the Berlin games went on after the palis murdered the Israeli athletes tells you all you need to know about the underlying integrity of them. The way they bankrupt countries, the IOC should be a branch of the World Bank. The only smart thing Carter did in four years was refuse to participate in the Moscow games; Bush should do likewise but he won't. Too bad.

Posted by: Captain Hate at March 15, 2008 7:00 AM

The Olympics in general have become something of a joke in the last few decades - with the doping and bribing scandals, etc. It might be time to discontinue them once again until a later, more appreciative era. Major world events may take care of that anyway - not that I'm hoping for it, but it feels more like 1939 out there every day.

Maybe Pres. Bush should have boycotted, maybe not - I know I wouldn't have objected. Seems he has bigger fish to fry anyway.

In a time of climate change hysteria it is fitting that the Games are being held in a place absolutely choked with pollution. Maybe the enviro-zealots can focus on China for a while and admit that the U.S. is actually doing pretty well. Yeah, right. Right after they congratulate us for restoring the marsh that Saddam drained in Iraq - not to mention thereby preserving a culture that would have disappeared along with the wildlife. That was two for the price of one on the progressive feel-good scale - yet the last time I checked Bush was still the Devil, and America, you guessed it: still sucks.

Posted by: Lightnin' Hopkins at March 15, 2008 7:45 AM

PR China has so much blood on its hands and it amazes me how oblivious and or quiet the western progressives are about this. There are big simularities between what's happened in Tibet and what went down last summer in Burma (which everyone has forgotten about). The difference is that in Tibet PR China is directly involved not acting through a proxy. \

A Burmese friend of mine noted with some bitterness that now people may boycott the Olympics where they wouldn't do it for Burmese blood. (The Burmese blame the Communist Chinese for supporting the Junta and putting the original "revolutionaries" in place)

Meanwhile people protest "Bushilter" and so forth. Bizarre.

Posted by: ldt at March 17, 2008 10:01 PM

The Olympics are just entertainment. If you want to influence China, hit them in their pocketbook and stop buying Chinese goods. Please explain to me why anyone voluntarily gives their money to the Chinese?

The list of wrongs they're involved in is endless: communism, Darfur, slave labor, thousands executed each year, political prisoners, Tibet, catastrophic pollution, organ harvesting, Burma, tainted exports...

Posted by: Consumeripedia at March 18, 2008 11:44 AM

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