OT...Boycotting the Olympics???

[wiccanpony]

First I will say this is not an April Fools Joke..... now read on

I was watching the news this morning and the subject of the USA boycotting the Olympic Games in China came up. What are your opinions?

China already has a poor track record.....
Tibet, contamination of food items.... I even understand that our Olympic Committee will have to import all food and water for the athletes & animals due to the high levels of metals & hormones in the local foods.

If I had the money and was interested in the games, I personally would boycott.......but........ I wouldn’t forbid anyone one from not going and yes it would be highly unlikely that Bush would go for it.
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[airhead]

I understand the political move to boycot, but all that really get punished are our athletes - they get denied the chance to do what they have trained and strained to reach.

Yes, we have to bring a shipping container of food and water to keep them from doctoring up what they feed our people.

China does not have a great track record on much of anything involving human rights - and that goes way back.

 

[fieldarchy]

but you also have to take into consideration airhead that some athletes have already withdrawn from the games due to pollution. There was a track athlete who pulled out because the air pollution is so bad it will hinder him.

 

[supervike]

Actually, instead of having to boycott the Olympics, why don\'t the boneheads in charge of selecting the thing make sure that a country meets certain \'threshholds\' before they are selected?

Is this this first time we\'ve heard of China\'s attitude towards its own people?

Boycotting after the fact is childish at best (unless \'new developments\' cause something to happen). I say censoring offending countries from hosting is a much more prudent measure.

 

[Gearhead]

I agree completely: It\'s not as if this is anything new. The Chinese government\'s been behaving like this for decades. I thought the IOC\'s choice of Beijing was one of the dumbest things in recent memory (and that\'s a pretty impressive list!)

I mean, what did they expect?!??

Personally, I don\'t know about a boycott...unless a BUNCH of countries decided to do it. It might be better for everyone to show up and experience for themselves how big a load of crap China is right now: party officials everywhere, mass censorship, crazy pollution, restrictions on movement, quelling of protests in subjugated countries who are sick of your rule, the works. They\'ll do their best to make everyone see clear skies and happy days, but enough reality ought to make it through.

 

[wiccanpony]

??? I always had the feeling that the World Olympic Committee had to award the Games to China or else.......what the “or else” would be is anyone\'s guess.


China still doesn’t understand why the US got so hot under the collar over a bunch of dead pets.

 

[lizcam]

Ok I\'m going to say this but keep in mind this is in no way a reflection of the people of China but it\'s government.

China has no regard for life at all. None. The earth be damned and everyone on it be damned if the people in power can increase their power base they will do everything they can, walk on everything they can to achieve it.

That being said I always thought boycotting the Olympics was a bit silly. Each athlete should make their choice and if we can\'t field a team then that\'s one thing. But let\'s not punish those athletes thatmay only have this one chance to shine. Boycotting the Olympics will do no good at all and actually the bad publicity that China has gotten may do some good.

 

[Ritual]

I\'d say boycott it! They\'ve more or less deported people from their homes to get the land to build arenas on for the events and lots of workers have died during the construction work due to poor working conditions. And that\'s just a couple of reasons that are directly linked to the olympic event itself...

 

[darklord]

now i agree whole heartedly with whats been said, china has appaling human rights issues and i believe it was only awarded the games to keep the west in its favour as a new superpower, but playing devils advocate the saying those in glass houses springs to mind. plenty of countries have removed people from their homes to build the games, and thats before we get to things such as imprisonment and torture (guantanamo bay, rendition flights) pollution etc etc. Is it perhaps easier to look at others rather than our selves (i mean goverment not you personally!) maybe our countries are more discreet how they do things or maybe our goverments want china to look bad so they look good?
As i said at the top i agree these games are a sham and prove that the olympics is just a money making scheme these days just like the football worldcup (usa94!!) so please remember that before slamming me as a member of the communist party of china!!)

they do make great takeaways though

 

[mrrocknroll]

I don\'t really watch the Athletics much now days, since a few of the UK team\'s been caught cheating one\'s mind wonders who else cheats and gets away with it, I know it probably happens in most sports.
As for the Boycott, I understand that the French President isn\'t going to attend the opening, and Meg the Athlete who\'s already dropped out to pollution was the Ethiopian runner, I can\'t remember the name, but I think he\'s the current champion of some long distance race. But if I watch it or not, well that depends on when the Euro Championship is on.

 

[Ritual]

Originally posted by darklord
they do make great takeaways though

Yeah, but that\'s the Chinese people, not its government.

 

[darklord]

thats true ritual! i love that the goverment is freely elected yet there is only one party, sounds like the free elections in zimbabwe and other such dictat...i mean democracy\'s.
as for the pollution the ioc does have a stnadrd for air pollution which the chinese have solved by banning cars from bejing on the olympics days. that so called standard is i believe 3 times above what the EU would class as above acceptable. and we havent even got onto the hair and blood sales

did you know 75% of the worlds socks are made in one city in china

 

[mrrocknroll]

thats true ritual! i love that the goverment is freely elected yet there is only one party, sounds like the free elections in zimbabwe and other such dictat...i mean democracy\'s.

I\'m sure you didn\'t mean it like this. China doesn\'t use democracy, I believe them and a few others surrounding countries are Communist. As for the Zimbabwe thing, that\'s just corrupted politics, Kinda like how Gordon Brown got to be our PM.

 

[Dragon Forge Design]

My feelings are at the moment those who live in glass houses shouldnt throw stones..

NO to boycotting the Olympics after all it should be about the athletes and not politics.

 

[BarstoolProphet]

While, in the end, it doesn\'t amount to anything, I have been boycotting the Olympics ever since they started allowing professional athletes to compete in them.

To me, this was counter-productive in giving the up-and-coming amateur athletes their real chance.

It used to be that doing well in the Olympics got some athletes that \'big shot\' to go professional (particularly with hockey). Now, if the event has a professional level, those players, runners, or whatever, get picked, sometimes without even a tryout event for others to get in on.

This isn\'t the case in every country, obviously, but it seems totally wrong, to me.

As to China and boycotting there -- I\'m already boycotting, so they won\'t miss me at all. I have better things to do than watch sports, anyway.

The Olympics are out-moded, anyway. Once upon a time, they were events to showcase warriors and their prowess.

Discus throwing, javelin, hammer throw, running, hurdling, pole vaulting, long jump, fencing. All war related for those ancients that began the events. Modern Olympiads, if they were to keep with the original theme, should involve a lot more shooting, tank driving, and pushing buttons to make rockets launch.

What I wonder is, if the U.S. boycotts the Olympics, are they still going to be televised on all the channels? Or will I actually get to keep watching the shows I enjoy through those dates, without them being pre-empted?

 

[wiccanpony]

ahhhhh........ the Ancient Greek Olympics, showcase of all that is manly, sweaty naked men with their bits bouncing around. :twisted:

Of course only virgins :innocent: could watch the games ( a little husband shopping)......any of us impure women got tossed off a cliff if we got caught peeking. <oh pardon is my sarcasm showing>lollol

 

[Dragonsreach]

Originally posted by wiccanpony
any of us impure women got tossed off a cliff if we got caught peeking. lollol

CLIFF Always thought him to be a bit of a tosser but.........

Bad Dragonsreach, Bad Dragonsreach.

Back on Topic (for a change) Boycotting Olympics doesn\'t work..look at the Moscow Fiasco back in the 80\'s.
Plus if you are going to boycott China because of it\'s record on (Take your pick of issues) we need to stop the companies in our various countries using cheap if not sweatshop labour...Like GW, Winsor & Newton, Levi Strauss, Hewlett Packard to name a few off the top of my head.

 

[darklord]

i agree dragonsreach, people are quick to give china disapproval but dont mind exploiting the workforce their so they can have cheaper clothes in the supermarkets or save on a new t.v.
the situation in china draws parallels with a lot of other countries histories, the industrial revolution in britain for one, the slavery trade etc. the chinese goverment certainly dont help themselves but is a lot of the problem down to it being communist and not democratic? many people still have a fear of communism going back to the cold war. So its easier to paint china as bad because of that, and rightly so for the way it treats its people but if it was say the Uk doing it would people be as outraged or is it partly fear of a different culture propagated by goverments that are worried bout the new world order

 

[Dragonsreach]

Originally posted by darklord
........ but is a lot of the problem down to it being communist and not democratic?

I don\'t think it\'s as easy an example as that.
Remember that up until the Communist takeover China was an economy totally dependant on rural production not industrial.
Now China\'s huge development (for good or ill) has changed over to being an industrial economy supported by external trade and internal agriculture.
I doubt that the infrastructure to generate the industrial growth could have been carried out in a \"Free Trade \" environment, only a central authoritarian government could have weilded the authority to make the changes without opposition.
Whatever the flavour of dictatorship/un-democratic rule doesn\'t matter, Fascism was equally effective in forcing change and industy.

In todays Information Equality/Human Rights/ \"Green Concern\" environment, Industrial Revolutions on the scale seen in the UK, changing from our then rural economy, would not be possible in the near democratic model which is our current society.

Our \"fear\" of communism has been \'drummed\' into us by the dire example of both main Communist states in regard to their track records on Human Rights and denial of democratic principles.

Communism in itself is a great ideology, however it fails in one basic premise, Humans are not all the same and you can\'t make sheep into wolves, nor wolves into sheep.

 

[MPJ]

1) It is the government\'s responsibility to protect it\'s own, therefore if the US government feels it\'s athletes to be in danger (poisoned air, bad food, whatever) then it certainly is appropriate for them to take action and boycott. If one of theirs went over there and contracted some strange bird flu from bad water that could have been prevented the \'people\' would be all over the government.

2) Being Communist and Democratic are not mutually exclusive things. Democracy is a form of government while Communism is an economic policy. It is certainly possible to have a democratically elected government with a communistic economic policy, in fact were communism truly the perfect economic policy for the people then a lot more (maybe all) democratic countries would have governments that followed communist policies (and that\'s why I won\'t agree with people who say \"Communism works in theory\").

3) North America, and I suspect most of Europe, has placed likely the highest value on human life of anywhere in the world and we tend to do extreme things to express that value (things like risking the lives of many to save one). We do tend to impose our views on other countries that do not value human life as much but often draw the line when that imposing would then lower our quality of life, IE banning the purchase of cheaper Chinese products. It\'s really a value call. If individuals feel that strongly then they shouldn\'t buy Chinese products, if enough did that then we would be sending them the appropriate message without governments interfering, since I\'m not a big fan of government involvement then I kinda like this idea.