(Sigh)

You can try a boycott for all it’s worth but don’t expect much. Remember this has been tried many times before (Moscow ‘80 and LA ‘84 most prominently) and The Show Has Always just Gone On — sometimes (see LA) to great and profitable effect. Boycotters don’t give themselves much of a chance to respond.

That being said, and given that the modern Olympics have degenerated into a giant marketing fest where professional athletes pull on patriotic clothing to compete for Wheaties box placement, I don’t see much of a downside for bowing out. The larger debate in my view is why anyone cares for this insipid charade anymore.

(BTW, Captain Hate: second your vitriol against the IOC, but the Israelis murdered in ‘72 were in Munich, not Berlin.)

Boojum, the IOC is the most worthless bunch of amoral crooks this side of the UN. They didn’t stop the games after the Israeli athletes were murdered by the palis in Berlin. They sell (at a very high price) this faux purity of amateur athletics that has always been a sham. The only thing I like about the Chicoms hosting this is that it comes at a major pricetag which, unfortunately, will be ultimately borne on the backs of the citizens. While I’m not supporting a boycott per se if any athletes want to participate in this, they should pay their own way.

And yes, the ‘36 olympics provided a feel-good moment when Jesse Owens excelled, but it didn’t impede Germany one iota. And it didn’t make the world a better place.

I’m sure you mean the ‘36 Olympics. By 1939, the Germans had of course moved on to other athletic events–you know, like securing the gold medals for Jew-bashing and invading neutral countries.

Posted by: srlucado at March 25, 2008 11:40 AM

Ooops. My fault. Correction noted, and thank you for pointing the error out.

I certainly support Tibet’s right to independence. And the Chinese people’s right to freedom.

I also support freedom from the dictatorships of southwest Asia, both for the sake of the people there, and for our own security here. As always, a “one adversary at a time” approach is best.

Consider also that many of the people who have loudly embraced Tibet as their cause du jour are the same people who wear Che t-shirts. They were apologists for communism yesterday, and they’ll be apologists for communism tomorrow. The kind of long-term, strategic opposition that a challenge like China requires is totally foreign to them. Diplomacy, to them, is the game of making tangible concessions in military, political and economic spheres, while grandstanding on symbolic gestures. I’d rather do much the opposite.

Opposition to China requires firm strategic alliances in central, south and east Asia. It requires balancing behavior to play emerging threat Russia against them. It requires a military that is equipped to contain them. And an economy freed to compete with them. Eastern Europe wasn’t freed with soundbites and symbolism, and China won’t be, either.

Against that, a couple athletes, more or less, makes no difference whatsoever. A principled “who cares” from PJM to the Olympic boycott debaters on both sides will signal that the committment to a free Chinese people — including the Tibetans — requires something more than media events and symbolism, on a longer term than the 24 hour news cycle.

I support sustained, tangible action. Anything short of that is dishonest, counterproductive, and foolish.