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In covering the games, the first thing one realizes is the magnitude of the event. The games last 17 days and the world's best athletes train relentlessly for four years for that one, brief shot at immortality.
NBC has the broadcast rights to the 36th Olympiad. Expect the peacocks to focus on the competition and not the politics of China, which hover over the games like the shroud of smog that engulfs Beijing. NBC has the sponsors lined up to pay millions per spot. Many of those advertisers have invested billions in the Chinese economy-and don't want NBC to stray into coverage of the abuses of the country's Communist government. Of course, these same companies bear their fair share of responsibility, with the U. S. Government, for the thousands of American jobs lost to the Chinese over the last few years. And the U. S. is now borrowing millions of dollars a month from the Bank of China to pay off the interest on our national debt.
The Chinese government spent $40 billion on this “coming out” party. They are hoping the rest of the world will turn a blind eye at their horrendous record on human rights, global warming, you name it.
China wants it both ways. They built magnificent stadiums in an attempt to show the world they are now a player. But at the same time, they were cracking down on independence in Tibet, supporting the Sudanese government's genocide in Darfur, and arresting any perceived dissidents in the motherland. The government's paranoia makes Guantanamo look like Disney World.
Kevin Wamsley, former director of the International Center for Olympic Studies at the University of Western Ontario, noted the difference in the security for the Salt Lake City winter games, the first Olympics after 9-11, and Beijing.
“The security in Salt Lake City was more of a lockdown of Olympic facilities,” Wamsley said. “In Beijing the whole city is very, very deeply under scrutiny. It's more of a Big Brother situation.”
Ye Guozhu was a Beijing businessman. His home and restaurant were razed in 2004 to make way for new venues. Ye applied for a permit to protest. When he did so, he was charged with “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble.”
Ye has been jailed for four years. His sentence was to be completed last Saturday. But police took him from prison to another location. His family was told he would be “detained” until Oct. 1 for the benefit of the country.”
New Jersey native Meg Stivison, 27, and her boyfriend have been teachers in China for the past two years. The government routinely extended her boyfriend's visa during this period-but not now. “I cried on the way to the airport,” Stivison said. “It didn't occur to me that China would throw out two people who love China.”
In Zhejiang province, about 700 miles south of Beijing, café owner Joanna Wu said the government ordered her to report any “Muslim, Indian, Middle Eastern, or black people,” who come into her shop, which is a popular place for foreigners. Is the Gestapo still alive?
As for the International Olympic Committee (IOC,) they could care less. After all, these are the fattest of the cats who awarded the games to a bunch of thugs. Like the U. S.-based corporations who sold their souls for 20 pieces of silver, the IOC merely sold the games to the highest bidder.
When former Franco regime-meister and IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch of Spain purposely insulted the USA at the closing ceremony in Atlanta, America should have told the IOC members where they could rewind their Rolexes. In the dozen years since those “most excellent” (and most-profitable) games, nothing has changed. The IOC is interested in money. Gotta maintain those “lifestyles of the rich and famous,” you know.
Separating sports from politics at the Olympics is folly, particularly in a place like China.
“We must give full play to the superiority of the socialist system and mobilize the great masses to wage a people's war for the protection of Olympic Games security,” said Zhou Yongkang, security chief of the communist party.
The last time the world expressed this much disdain for the host country was in 1936 when Hitler's Germany hosted the games. Hitler hoped the games would be a showcase for his ill-conceived “master race.” That notion failed miserably. The Chinese are hoping their coming out party will accomplish the same thing for their brand of Communism. It won't. It's too bad the USA doesn't possess the moral capital to tell the Chinese how out of touch they are with the rest of the modern world. Starting a war with a sovereign nation forfeits that right. And having the perceived leader of the free world show up for this Communist coronation gives the impression the world is validating this “most repressive” regime.
Enjoy the games.
Calum MacLeod and Jeff Schultz contributed to this story.
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