Pajamas Media

41 Comments

kabud:

Support the Freedom: ignore the circus !

don’t turn your TV on the shameful channel, turn it off when you hear that next is Olympics of torture

don’t talk about games of blood and mass murder

advice your friends to ignore games in the land of 100 million victims of communism

condemn corrupted officials who travel there

despise commercial athletes who go there

mark the names of traitors

spread the word:

IGNORE THE BLOODSHED OLYMPICS

Aug 6, 2008 - 3:33 am RE:

Between the doping scandals, politics, commercialization, lame media coverage, and corruption I lost interest some time ago. It just seems like a bunch of meaningless, overdone hype.

I don’t plan on watching. I wonder how many others feel the same way.

Aug 6, 2008 - 5:07 am TomP:

Ditto….the whole thing is a bore.

Aug 6, 2008 - 5:39 am Sarah Rolph:

We will watch at my house. It doesn’t mean as much as it once did, and the hype can be annoying, but I still enjoy the spectacle of the opening ceremonies and the performances of the individual athletes. We watched some of the Olympic trials recently, and the US has some exciting record-setting swimmers.

I don’t think turning off my TV is going to help anyone in China. It is upsetting to see the positive spin provided or implied by a lot of the coverage, but on the other hand, the event is also creating an opportunity for a lot of the truth about China to be reported.

I do hope President Bush will make some strong public statements about human rights.

Aug 6, 2008 - 7:06 am mjk:

Not watching at my place either. I’m sick of the crass commercialism that has invaded this sporting event. And the China thing was the last nail in the coffin labeled “Interest in Olympics.”

Aug 6, 2008 - 8:07 am Silvera:

Growing up, the Olympics were about peace & the coming together of nations that often had massive differences to compete & interact with the world watching. And it was fun to plan our family’s schedule around the events we wanted to see. Now, watching the Olympics when we know that the scene being presented to the world is as artificial as any “Triumph of the Will” rally is just boring.
And an event thats whole point is peace, goodwill, etc. seems slightly counterproductive when its being held in one of the most totalitarian nations in the world.

On the upside, if the Chinese government’s anti-humanist behavior during the Olympics doesn’t shut the idiots up who say that Communism isn’t really harmful (I get that a lot at school), nothing will but I can still make them look like fools!

Also, I am already planning to skip the winter Olympics in Russia. Is the IOC trying to run the Olympics into irrelevance?

Aug 6, 2008 - 10:24 am kabud:

The polished exteriors of China’s ‘Re-education Through Labor’ (RTL) facilities belie the horrors within. Shown: Tuanhe RTL Camp (left); Gao Rongrong, a Falun Gong practitioner who was incarcerated in Masanjia and tortured to death (right)
TORTURE OUTSIDE THE OLYMPIC VILLAGE: A GUIDE TO CHINA’S LABOR CAMPS

TORTURE OUTSIDE THE OLYMPIC VILLAGE: A GUIDE TO CHINA’S LABOR CAMPS pdf

“When you come to the Olympic Games in Beijing, you will see skyscrapers, spacious streets, modern stadiums and enthusiastic people. You will see the truth, but not the whole truth…. You may not know that the flowers, smiles, harmony and prosperity are built on a base of grievances, tears, imprisonment, torture and blood.”–Open letter by prominent Chinese rights defenders Hu Jia and Teng Biao, September 2007.

It is a China of electric cattle prods, of 18 hour work days, of unspeakable torture and humiliation

Aug 6, 2008 - 11:14 am pch1013:

“the flowers, smiles, harmony and prosperity are built on a base of grievances, tears, imprisonment, torture and blood”

… and funded by American consumers like you and me.

Since the primary purpose of these Games, as far as the CCP is concerned, is sheer propaganda (look at us! we’re the best!), I can only hope that (1) there are frequent and serious glitches, (2) the air quality is shown in all long shots to be truly ghastly, and (3) the Chinese do not fulfill their goal of winning the most medals. Maybe I’m being a bit shallow, but to the extent the CCP will be humiliated if their factory-produced athletes don’t do well, I will be emotionally invested in these Games. Just a little.

Aug 6, 2008 - 11:41 am kabud:

dont fund murderers

campaign for denial of diplomatic recognition and TOTAL trade embargo

I DO IT- YOU DO IT- WE DO IT- WE WIN

Aug 6, 2008 - 12:14 pm Gene Lalor:

THE OLYMPICS PART ONE: BACKGROUND

As we approach the August 8th opening of the 2008 Summer Olympics, the XXIX Games of the Olympiad in Beijing, People’s Republic of China, it seems fitting to try to understand exactly what these “games” are. Their history may be examined on various websites, one of the best being http://www.musarium.com/kodak/olympics/olympichistory/.

The Official Website of the Olympic Movement declares: “Olympism is a state of mind based on equality of sports which are international and democratic.
It is a philosophy of life, exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will and mind.
The goal of the Olympic Movement is to contribute to building a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport practised without discrimination or any kind, in a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fairplay.”

And thus spake the founder of the modern Olympic Games, Pierre de Coubertin, in 1919: ”All sports for all people. This is surely a phrase that people will consider foolishly utopian. That prospect troubles me not at all. I have pondered and studied it at length, and know that it is correct and possible.”

“The future,” commented the Official Website, “proved him right.” (http://www.olympic.org/uk/index_uk.asp)

Oh, really?

(For Parts Two and Three on the Olympics, please see http://genelalor.com/)

Aug 6, 2008 - 2:49 pm Joshua:

I’m with Sarah Rolph on this. Yes, the Olympics have seen their better days (to me they jumped the shark when pros were allowed to compete as a response to the Soviet sports machine, just in time for the Soviet Union’s collapse). And yes, Beijing was a dubious choice to host these particular Games. But the bottom line remains that the Olympics, for better or worse, are still the pinnacle of the sporting world. Boycotting the Olympics for any reason would be like a pro football fan boycotting the NFL.

Besides, if something does happen in these Games that causes great embarrassment to the People’s Republic, I definitely would like to see it.

Aug 6, 2008 - 4:11 pm Concerned Citizen:

Divine karmic retribution is coming to the members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). They have killed over 80 million people in their own country. Over 40 million people recently quit the party and more quit every day as the corruption and evil is exposed within China.

Sadly, the killing of innocent and completely peaceful Falun Gong adherents has ramped up almost every day in the past several months, it seems. Most are arrested at home. Their only crime — owning a book that teaches people how to improve themselves or doing qigong exercises and meditating. Their belief system focuses around Truth - Compassion - Tolerance, which is of course the exact opposite of the CCP.

The Chinese people are good, it’s the CCP that forced themselves onto the people and they are evil; this is all plain for everyone to see.

I’m watching the Olympics to see if any protesters make it on screen. They will expose the evil for the whole world to see, just like the brave student in Tiananmen Square stood in front of the tanks.

Aug 6, 2008 - 4:13 pm dougf:

All the people who are living in some ‘bubble’ in which they believe that the Chinese ‘People’ are just waiting to string up their evil ‘masters’ are to be blunt, IMAO, —- delusional.

There was a recent study(can’t verify the accuracy; just throwing it out there)that indicated that 80% of the people were quite happy with thee ’system’ in place.

The overwhelming feeling in China about these games seems to be one of National Pride. Pride that China has come so far from just a few short years ago and has something to show the World.

I frankly hope that the games go well and that the Chinese People finally cast aside the nasty little strain of chauvinistic isolationism that has long been a feature of certain sectors of the population. The greater the involvement of China in the World the better.

And as for security. The same type of ideology that the US is now fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan is present in the Muslim Area of China. Just last week 16 policeman were butchered in a terrorist attack in the frontier areas. Of course there is going to be increased security. The leadership would rather err on the side of caution. The LAST thing they want is some fanatic managing to kill off a bunch of tourists during the games.

We all have a real interest in China advancing its system in the future. The best way for that to happen is for China to have a vested interest in World Security and Harmony.

I for one don’t really care about the Olympics at all. BORING. But I hope the Chinese have a successful effort. It would be good for everyone.

But if you must complain about something how about complaining about the corrupt weasels who are in charge of the Olympic Movement itself. They likely make the Chinese leadership appear squeaky clean in comparison.

Aug 6, 2008 - 6:18 pm cedarford:

Good post by Dougf!

This is the games that also mark the return of China to the ranks of the great nations in the world, soon to have the largest GNP and already with more scientists and engineers than any other nation. It is a time when 80% of Chinese are intensely proud of their nation and how by hard work and dedication to study and advancement - they have overcome many of China’s most awful challenges.

It is not a time for siding with sanctimonious human rights activists which wish to spit on the average Chinese citizens and humiliate them and take away their face. This is China’s coming out and not the time to lecture them on the many serious trade and rights problems. Or their threat to wildlife populations. Or their severe polltion problems. Or their necessary, but ugly, “One Child Policy”. Or their inferiority complex to the Japanese and the overdwelling on long ago “Great Humiliations” and resistance to revisit ChiCom mass butchery.

There is a place for that. Other times and other venues. Not showing up as a skunk at their garden party. It shows a lack of respect and ill-grace akin to starting a family dispute at Thanksgiving dinner and wrecking the occasion for everyone.

We come as guests, and if any people deserve great respect, it is the the People of the Dragon - who have surpassed the feats of the economic miracle of the Meiji restoration or the US in WWII.

Now, of course, the Chinese could overplay their authoritarian hand and muck up their big moment all on their own…But I don’t want their moment ruined and all efforts at reform in China blocked for years, decades to come because critics used the Olympics to get a cheap thrill rubbing 1 billion intensely nationalistic and proud noses in shit.

Aug 6, 2008 - 6:54 pm ddc:

Who’s bright idea was it to have China host the Olympics and more importantly by what means?

Where next? North Korea?

As much as I’d like to support the US athletes I want to not support the networks/advertisers/host country, by watching.

Aug 6, 2008 - 8:50 pm GAronda:

How the Chinese people react in the final days to the Olympics — whether they show the world enthusiasm, boredom, or defiance — will say much about how Chinese society will change once the Olympic flame is doused and the athletes and tourists go home.

Oh please. The Chinese people will react like they always have: blind unswaying obeisance to whatever their elite leaders dictate. As if they have any choice, and even if they did, as if they would have the courage to exercise it.

There will be no Chinese reaction beyond the official channels. Whatever the Party Organ spews, that’s the truth.

Aug 6, 2008 - 10:41 pm LYNNDH:

We took a tour group trip to China in Ap/May this year. The people were very friendly and we were surprised at the openness we found there. At that time no overt police presence anywhere, including Bejing. Our tour guide spoke openly of Mao and the toubles. I am not saying that the gov’t isn’t in control, but we saw a lot of young people that were very “western”. I do not think that the gov’t understands the youngster. They are riding a tiger.

Aug 7, 2008 - 12:56 am Mike:

The murder of innocent dissidents, organ harvesting from political prisoners, support for N Korea, supplying Syria and Iran with advanced ballistic missles, the cheap goods dumped in America to destroy our economy, etc: all these things point to an aggressive and dangerous nation that is pointing to a new war of conquest in the Pacific. I refuse to support this renegade nation in any way. And, no, mainstream media, China doesn’t point the way to the peoples paradise dreamed about by you in your pot induced fantasies against ” the Man “. Screw China.

Aug 7, 2008 - 5:08 am Bob O.:

I always look at the Olympics as just another excuse for another Robby Benson movie.

Aug 7, 2008 - 7:01 am I can has Olympics?:

“Oh please. The Chinese people will react like they always have: blind unswaying obeisance to whatever their elite leaders dictate. As if they have any choice, and even if they did, as if they would have the courage to exercise it.”

Stereotype much? Ignorant of Tiananmen much? Not all China critics are racist, but some are. You know who you are.

“The murder of innocent dissidents, organ harvesting from political prisoners, support for N Korea, supplying Syria and Iran with advanced ballistic missles, the cheap goods dumped in America to destroy our economy, etc: all these things point to an aggressive and dangerous nation that is pointing to a new war of conquest in the Pacific.”

Waterboarding, Guantanamo, biggest arms supplier in the world, supplying Iraq with weapons for a decade, MacDonalds dumped in other countries and the junkifying of world cultures, etc: all these thing point to an aggressive and dangerous nation that is pointing to a new war of conquest in the Middle East.

Really. Listen to yourself and your alarmism. The right wing version of left wing idiocy.

Aug 7, 2008 - 7:25 am I can has Olympics?:

dougf has it right. You’ll find both strains of idiocy — Iraq defeatism and China fear-mongering — in one person in the U.S. House of Representatives: Nancy Pelosi. That tells you everything you need to know about the policy position of incessant fear of China, which is nothing more than an exaggerated repeat of the 80s fear of the Japanese.

Aug 7, 2008 - 7:31 am The Anti Jihadist:

MacDonalds? Looks like this thread’s leftist troll hails from the future Islamic Republic now called ‘Britain’.

Aug 7, 2008 - 7:49 am Merry:

yup, I’m with dougf and the, erm, “leftist troll” on this one - maybe it’s because I’ve lived in China and have seen for myself how useless stereotypes are for describing that country. There’s a lot that’s good and bad about it, and more than anything, it is complicated.

Personally, I’m hoping, for the sake of the Chinese people and the future of Chinese engagement with the world and cooperation with the US, that it is a rip-roaring success. I plan on watching the opening and closing ceremonies and a few key events (c’mon, China is playing Taiwan in baseball! It’s a whole new take on cross-straits competition!). But above all, I hope that everyone stays safe and has a great time.

Aug 7, 2008 - 8:23 am OLDPUPPYMAX:

I’ll probably watch a bit of the opening ceremony, mainly to see if something explodes, someone gets shot or a Muslim nut blows himself up in protest of God knows what. Of course, Americans really should pay close attention if only for a preview of coming events should the Obamessiah be elected…virtual martial law exercised against an entire nation, but only for everyone’s own good!

Aug 7, 2008 - 8:33 am kabud:

There was also beginning to emerge an embryonic form of ‘political opposition’
- ‘dissident movements’ - complete with a Chinese version of Sakharov. Then came the demonstration which indicated the emergence of a student pro-democracy movement. The emergence of this movement reflected China’s national specifics.
These specifics are that China is a predominantly peasant country in which the students have an old revolutionary tradition as the initiators of political move merits and political change. The Chinese Communist Party itself started as a student movement. It is logical, therefore, that the Party strategists should have chosen to follow
this tradition and should have attempted to introduce ‘democracy’ in China through the active participation of their students.
The more important arguments which support this analysis are as follows:
(1) The initiators and the core of the student pro-democracy demonstration
were the children of Communist Party officials - in fact the generation from which
the future leaders of Communist China will be drawn.
(2) According to some reports, the movement was initiated in the Research
Institute for Social Change.
(3) The students are said to have had supporters in the ruling Party elite, socalled
‘reformers’ like Zhao who was allegedly the catalyst of the movement.
(4) The demonstrators were not calling for a rejection of the socialist system or
for the overthrow of the Government. Banners were observed which read: ‘We
firmly support the correct leadership of the Communist Party’.
The demonstrators’ demands were rather modest: an end to corrupt practices
and ‘a meaningful dialogue’ with the country’s leaders.
(5) During the first period of the demonstration there was toleration of, if not
cooperation with, the demonstrators by the Party and its officials. There was no army
interference with, or repression of, the students.
(6) The Party’s toleration of the demonstration was evident in the shape of its
cooperative attitude towards Western television coverage of the events, which were
shown in detail on Western TV networks.
(7) The orderliness of the demonstration and the singing of the Party song,
the ‘Internationale’, contrasted sharply with the violent and hostile demonstrations of
South Korean students which had been taking place in Seoul.
(8) The uninterrupted stream of rumours about an alleged struggle between
‘liberal reformers’ and ‘hardliners’ reflected a familiar disinformation technique
designed to confuse the West about the true nature of the developments.
It is a fact that these rumours were fed to Western observers by Communist officials themselves. It appears that both the ‘liberals’ and the ‘hardliners’ were using these rumours to manipulate the responses and attitudes of the West, especially the Americans and the Japanese, in the interests of their deception strategy.
Then, suddenly, Western television coverage was cut off and the student prodemocracy
demonstration was suppressed.

Why did the Chinese leaders ‘change’ their line, why the retreat?

Probably, the most important reason was that the original Party-organised demonstration brought out on to the streets genuine spontaneous elements, and the situation threatened to run out of control as the ‘Prague spring’ of 1968 had done in Czechoslovakia.

Was there a real massacre in Tienanmen Square?

Many Western reporters covered the event from their hotel rooms. They heard the sound of firing and the movement of the tanks. How many actually saw the massacre? Published reports on the subject are conflicting.

On 12 June 1989 “The New York Times’ published an account, previously published in Hong Kong and San Francisco, of troops attacking students in Tienanmen Square before dawn on 4 June.

SELECTIVE KILLING OF THE UNORGANISED ELEMENTS IN TIENANMEN SQUARE

On 13 June 1989, ‘The New York Times’ published a report by Nicholas D. Kristof, its Peking correspondent, disputing the report published on 12 June and asserting that, while troops were shooting and killing victims in the area around the square, there was no firm evidence that students were killed in the middle of the square itself.

If Kristof’s version is correct, it would support the suggestion that the crackdown was aimed, not at the original pro-democracy demonstrators who, by Kristof s account, left the square together singing the ‘Internationale’, and who had been carrying placards supporting the Communist Party, but at the unorganised elements who sought to join them or otherwise to take advantage of the demonstration.

source, pdf

Aug 7, 2008 - 8:34 am Pundit Joe:

This maybe sad, but I really haven’t had an interest in the Olympics since the end of the Cold War. I’m not a sports fan in general, but the peaceful competition with our adversaries was a bit fun.

Aug 7, 2008 - 8:45 am ben:

I hope the IOC does NOT award the Olympics to Chicago in 2016. I don’t want Mayor Daley’s storm troopers doing the same thing as the Chinese police. I don’t want billions of dollars of my taxpayer money wasted and have Chicago ruined by the corrupt and inept IOC and Chicago government.

Aug 7, 2008 - 8:53 am John Samford:

I won’t be watching. My nephew, who will be, is making me a list of advertisers sponsoring the Olympics. I will boycott those corporations that support the Chinese Olympics and the Chinese government. For at least the next year. I will explain why to those corporations, as well as asking other to boycott them also.
Enough people do this and we will bring the whole corrupt mess to a screeching halt.

Aug 7, 2008 - 11:08 am Bill Lever:

One thing I do expect to see — Reports of shortages at Wal-Mart because Beijing had to shut down its polluting industries during the Olympics.

The reports might be typical, MSM apocryphal stories to fit an agenda (A child crying about a sold out doll, therefore Wal-Mart is bad) but I don’t expect the reporting to dig as deep as the underlying concept - that outsourcing of American jobs actually increases pollution.

(Nigerian oil drilling is certainly less eco-friendly than Texan oil drilling, etc.)

But the good news — when the Olympics are done and Beijing pollution is no longer a concern — the shelves at Wal-Mart will be full again. And certainly in time for Christmas!

Aug 7, 2008 - 11:20 am John Samford:

“I don’t think turning off my TV is going to help anyone in China.”

Sarah, the first 3 words are correct, after that it drops off rapidly.
The facts are, you aren’t willing to give up a small amount of pleasure to do a great amount of good. You are more concerned with your own gratification then the misery of a few hundred million Chinese.
As an American you have a right to be a mean and selfish person. As you exercise that right, you will increase the enmity and selfishness you receive in return. Maybe one day you will figure it out. Then again, maybe not.

Just to be snide, the person most helped by turning off your TV will be you. Go for a walk instead.

“Seeing a murder on television… can help work off one’s antagonisms. And if you haven’t any antagonisms, the commercials will give you some.”
Alfred Hitchcock
British movie director (1899 - 1980)

“It [The television] is an invention that permits you to be entertained in your living room by people you wouldn’t have in your home.”
David Frost

“The great thing about television is that if something important happens anywhere in the world, day or night, you can always change the channel.”
From “Taxi”

Aug 7, 2008 - 11:30 am kabud:

John Samford:

MUCH RESPECT!

Aug 7, 2008 - 1:48 pm pch1013:

I still reserve the right to watch any events in which American or other non-Chinese athletes are expected to do well, just for the sheer pleasure of watching the Chinese lose.

“outsourcing of American jobs actually increases pollution.”

Indeed. And some of that pollution ends up right back here in the USA. Some of the smog we see here on the West Coast originates in the Pearl River Delta and elsewhere in China, all so we can feed our addiction to going into debt so we can buy cheap crap at Wal-Mart.

Aug 7, 2008 - 2:25 pm Xixi:

I doubt the Chinese will embarrass themselves as much as the Democrats will embarrass themselves in Denver. I’m saving my popcorn for that.

Aug 7, 2008 - 4:43 pm Kirk:

I am not so pickled in ideology that watching or not watching TV is non-violent social protest. I enjoy the Olympics, except for the nauseating, didactic personal stories by NBC. Athletes have been training for this all their life; I honor that.

What you should protest is all the other pap on TV. TV is a vast smorgasbord for the dumb masses.

Aug 7, 2008 - 5:27 pm kabud:

the war in Georgia already started

vice speaker of Russian Duma already accused Saakashvili of been Hitler

russian propaganda already accused USA to be behind Saakashvili `aggression`

So YOU, TV VIEWERS will wait until the will hit YOU right between your buttocks to realize it?

Or when your children will start dieing from BUBONIC PLAQUE that russian-china union developed for you?

very well…

but why others hgave to suffer from USEFUL IDIOTS?

Aug 7, 2008 - 7:06 pm I can has Olympics?:

“MacDonalds? Looks like this thread’s leftist troll hails from the future Islamic Republic now called ‘Britain’.”

Wrong and wrong. It was an innocuous misspelling, nothing more. I’m about as leftist as George W. Bush, and about as British as Peking duck. But then facts were never your strong suit — anyone who disagrees with your anti-China prejudice is a “leftist troll” by definition. Ha!

As I said: the right wing idiocy on China is as idiotic as the left wing idiocy on Guantanamo, the War on Terror, etc. Both the left and the right have their strategic blind spots, borne of ignorance, and this is one of them (a blind spot notably shared by many on the left — including the vile Pelosi). Thankfully Bush knows the score and refuses to pander to the raving loons frenzying over the bogeyman that is China.

Aug 7, 2008 - 7:56 pm newly:

Jeepers. It’s a bit late to turn off the TV.
Perhaps if the IOC didn’t award the games to a totalitarian police state in the first place the Chinese government wouldn’t be able to use them to promote nationalistic fervour domestically, while window dressing their repressive policies for the western media.
When the games are over expect the Chinese Communists to revert to type, while claiming greater legitimacy for its political system as a recognized international entity.
The games are meant to go to a city, not a nation.

Aug 7, 2008 - 8:03 pm Fred:

“If Kristof’s version is correct, it would support the suggestion that the crackdown was aimed, … at the unorganised elements who sought to join them or otherwise to take advantage of the demonstration.”

Well. That makes it all ok then doesn’t it?

Aug 9, 2008 - 8:53 am Sarah Rolph:

As it happens, Mr. Samford, I am not much of a watcher of television, beyond special events and nature shows. In general I am with you on the topic of going for a walk.

But I honestly don’t understand your implication about the actual point here.

What good do you think it would do for me to not watch the Olympics? They are shown on broadcast television, which doesn’t cost me anything, so I’m not giving money to any of the sponsors or to the Chinese government by watching the show.

Where are you writing from, Mr. Samford? You seem to have quite a disdain for Americans.

Aug 10, 2008 - 7:47 am

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