china?

I favor the games as such - I'm reminded of how Jesse Owens encouraged the Peanut Farmer not to boycott cuz of the reds, like Carter wasn't half a commie himself. I mean, we did play against the Nazis, and that went well.

I say, if their country is flourishing on a foundation of human rights abuses, then so be it.

As far as I'm concerned "freedom" is anarchy and doesn't allow humanity to focus its energy where its needed most, the continuation of our eternal exploration of our surroundings. Since we have quite effectively explored the vast majority of this planet we need to stabilize our population and energy usage so continued habitation of this planet is viable into the foreseeable future.

We have been lucky in the fact that our early evolution and continued existence hasn't been thwarted by any number of biological, planetary, solar or space born disasters that could quite easily have eradicated us already. In considering this humbling fact of our current existence we are now in a position that no other species (that we know of) has had the opportunity of obtaining. So what do we do? We shop and pander to global cartels that deal in currency devoted to making someone else wealthy while the lesser men toil and die over a car, a house, and serve no greater purpose, other then to perpetuate the flow of fake values that serve no one but the greedy.

Capitalism, Communism, Fascism are all denominations of the same societal construct. They all allow the emergence of greed and non productivity which is a byproduct from the way they are ruled. What we need is a new social model that maximizes efficiency of human and material resources and a leader that could unite humanity. We need to all align our thoughts. Religion, although a very useful ancient model in which to give primitive man direction, is now acting as a societal inhibitor, an inhibitor to what could be the great global realization that we, as a species, are the most amazing thing to ever rise from the rubble of our solar system and that we have the power to be even greater.

So I say, if their country is flourishing on a foundation of human rights abuses, then so be it, because its not like humanity is going to amount to **** anyway, were too divided by borders and beliefs, what a pity.

Humans could be great, but collectively, we are just as stupid as any other earth bound species, doomed to become extinct, blind by our apparent magnificence, satisfied that we're more advanced then the lesser species and apparently satisfied that we'll become no greater.



Maybe I need a coffee, yea that's it, sorry for the caffeine deprived rant...

Yes but chinese don't have the right to believe in what they want to, even the internet is filtered. Chinas a great country and all but the only reason they are great is because of their people and they must give a little something back to the people. The average chinese person may be far worse off than you and me??? but they don't complain for some reason.

China might have a poor human rights record, but so does the US of A...and they have had their Atlanta and Los Angeles.
Anyway, why make scapegoats out of the athletes who dedicate their lives for Olympic glory? Why should they suffer for the mistakes made by the political leadership?

I believe the PRC-Hegemon thing from 'Everything You Know Is Wrong', not only that, their whole way of life I consider to be antithetical to our own, and I worry about the fate of Taiwan and what it makes us if we let 'em go down like chumps. It's not in spite of that that I favor having the games there, it's because of it. I mean, the master-race were supposed to be taller and the Buckeye Bullet showed 'em what we're made of, now we've got little fellows to compete against! We're either about something or we ain't, culturally, economically, athletically, either way I say we have some transparency about it.

A friend of mine just returned from 2 years in China and things are not as bad as people say. He claimed he had plenty of freedom and everyone knew ways around the filters. China is full of human beings -- same as everywhere. I wish the athletes well!

I care a jot abou the commercial distortortion.
There are other problems to concentrate.

I think China's on the way up.
Anyway, what right have we got to comment really?
Whats the difference between the chinesse occupation of Tibet, and the US/UK occupation of Iraq?

The difference is, in Iraq hundreds of thousands have died.

The unfortunate thing about the Beijing Olympics is that China is the one who made these games political by refusing some athletes to compete. When I heard about the censorship by the Chinese government after they promised not to, I swore to boycott the games, and not watch it on tv. They have since backed off from total censorship, and the media people seems satisfied, so I guess that's okay.

Another issue about these olympics is that the Chinese work at their sports 24/7, while most athletes from other countries do it in less concentrated ways. Nobody is stopping other countries athletes from working at it 24/7, but that seems awfully imbalanced for a sports event that occurs every four years. Just MHO.

Why not? Everybody and his inbred cousin claims a right to comment on the U.S. Just why is china supposed to get a free pass.

only china could pull off an olympics as good as this...

i dont get why, (was it iran?) was banned from the games.


total hypocrisy. i hate hypocrisy, if iran got banned, then china should have been banned. It would be something to ban china from competing, but still let them hold the games. wouldnt it?


but its all about profit so i can understand why they would have double standards.

China is a horrible country, but just think how much of a hassle it would have been to have denied them the olympics. We should let them get on with it, but we should keep making a fuss. Nnobody should boycot the olympics; they should turn up and shout "bullshit!" from the sidelines. And when it's all over we should keep telling them what a load of bullshit it was. And next time you meet a Chinese patriot or apologist, you should grab him or her by the shoulders and say "bullshit!" over and over again until they start campaigning for an autonomous Tibet, a free media, and for the release of all those innocent Chinese prisoners who dared to criticise their own country.

The olympics should remain non-political, because if it were, many countries wouldn't qualify for what is essentially a sports event, and that would be unfortunate, because this is the only venue in which the world comes together to participate as equals.

why was a country banned from competing, then?

non political my ass...

Iraq was banned but reinstated. It's the correction that counts, not the original decision.

oh right on! i felt bad for their olympians..


being proved wrong is sometimes a good thing.

China has numerous numerous human rights violations. US has heaps too, only many are and were not so direct.