Beijing 2008 will do nothing to make the Olympics appealing to those who hate the games
Early experience from Beijing suggests that if you are one of those people who avoids the Olympics like the plague, fed up with the corruption and the waste and the focus on a handful of telegenic sports, nothing is going to change for you. In fact, you'll probably be able to add all sorts of new reasons to be watching anything else on TV for those two weeks in 2008.
There are plenty of reasons not to watch the Olympics.
One reason is the lack of political punch. During the 70s and 80s, the Cold War was raging, and the Olympics were the battleground. Today, we have the war on terrorism, but unless suicide bombing becomes an event, Hezbollah and the Taliban are not likely to field teams. The Olympics seem politically irrelevant.
Or the attempts by networks to create personal drama. Those oh-so-dramatic bios of athletes and their uphill battle to Olympic gold. You know, you could actually transmit images of, well, sports in those breaks.
But then with the exclusive focus on women-friendly sports, why bother? In the Summer Olympics, lots of high-diving and gymnastics (especially the thing with that twirly ribbon), but weight-lifting? Not a chance. In the Winter Olympics -- never mind, the Winter Games were Borg-ified by figure skating ages ago. It's not even a sport. Not just because it has absolutely no objective measure of success, but because it lacks any true competition, the contests being fixed ahead of time. No wait -- they promised to clean it up after Salt Lake City. Well, if they said it's cleaned up, then it must be true.
Then there is the seediness and the corruption. The way in which third world kleptocracies have taken over the organization and turned it into a non-stop buffet for bribes and favours (everything from real estate to prostitutes) offered up by countries who inexplicably think landing the Olympics is a good thing (Canada included, I'm afraid). No wait -- they promised to clean it up after Salt Lake City. Well, if they said it's cleaned up, then it must be true.
Yet another reason is the sheer waste. Only the LA Olympics and the Salt Lake City Olympics turned a profit in recent history.
But now with the Beijing Olympics coming soon, we have all sorts of new reasons to add to the list:
Two years ahead of the opening ceremonies, Beijing tested its first Olympic venue yesterday with its usual micromanaged efficiency.
The fields were gleaming, the obedient crowds were prearranged, the hundreds of volunteers were polishing their English skills, and plenty of police were on hand in case anyone violated the strict ban on political or religious slogans.
Despite the decision by Olympic authorities to eliminate softball as an Olympic sport for the 2012 Games, Beijing went ahead with the construction of a $14-million softball complex in a southwestern suburb, including a main stadium of 13,000 seats and three smaller ball diamonds and training fields.
To make room for the softball complex, hundreds of low-income families in cheap housing were cleared away from the suburban site, and their homes were razed.
Hundreds of families cleared away for a sport that won't even be played after the Beijing Olympics. Well, maybe the locals like softball and so want a new stadium to last well after the Games are wrapped up. No. They don't even understand the game. Heck, the only reason they were there was because the government told them to be there. Losing face by having an half-empty stadium was not an option:
While the main stadium was packed with thousands of bused-in students, who had been ordered to attend, for the opening ceremony and the first game of the Chinese team yesterday, many Chinese fans admitted they were clueless about the rules of softball, even though the organizers handed out booklets explaining them. Few spectators could figure out the difference between a ball and a strike.
The fans weren't the only ones who demonstrated they were lacking in knowledge of the grand traditions of the sport. When foul balls were hacked into the stands, fans were not permitted to keep the balls as souvenirs. Instead, one of the 370 volunteers on site rushed to the spectator's seat to get the ball.
Not to mention the general cluelessness about watching a sporting event in a stadium:
But many fans complained of a litany of problems. Tickets were difficult to obtain. Seating arrangements were confused. Bans on smoking were ignored. No food, except for microwave popcorn, was available anywhere in the complex. And the spectators insisted on following the hallowed Chinese tradition of carrying umbrellas to protect themselves from the sun -- thereby blocking the view of fans behind them.
"They have all these umbrellas out, and you can't see anything," complained Mick Howren, the father of Tamra Howren, a catcher on the Canadian team.
They can have all the umbrellas they want, as far as I'm concerned. I'm not planning to watch.
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Comments
Calgary made millions from the Olympics right away, and continues to benefit to this day. And that was in "recent history."
Posted by: Sean at August 28, 2006 12:09 PM
...yeah, but we here in Montreal are just finishing paying up a 30 year debt. I never want to see another olympics in Canada.
Posted by: Montrealer at August 28, 2006 01:43 PM
Yes, Montrealer,
It took a long time to pay that debt but everyone knows that money paid for oh-so-much-more than the Olympics. Makes me wonder how much of that money was used to finance liberal election campaigns.
Posted by: Rob R at August 28, 2006 02:05 PM
Well, Montreal, maybe you would made some money from the Olympics if it wasn't for that expensive "white elephant" Stadium.
Posted by: Crazy Dan at August 28, 2006 03:44 PM
The number one reason to avoid the Beijing Olympics is that they are being held in Beijing, China - an oppressive totalitarian communist regime that violates and insults everything that the Olympic movement once stood for. Those people who actually enjoy the Olympics, should give this one a pass. The thought that North American and European T.V. networks will be spending huge amounts of money for the right to broadcast such a spectacle for the propaganda purpose of human rights violators is disgusting - but not more disgusting than considering this cynical farce to be sports, or entertainment, and I want no part of it. Now is the time to begin a "Boycot Beijing" movement - don't watch the games, and don't watch the t.v. commercials. If I want to find out how our Canadian athletes do, I'll read the results in the newspaper.
Posted by: Rudy at August 28, 2006 10:33 PM
What do you think is going to happen if the 2008 Olympic games are held in China ?
Talk around the globe is to boycott it until Human rights are cleaned up. Human life is an essential part of the creed and mandate of being an Olympian and hosting the Olympic Games. Yet the communist regime has no regards for human life. It has killed 80 million of its own people in its 56 years of rule of man and terror.
The IOC said this would help China clean up it human right records. Infact the opposite is true. How many people have lost their homes, livelihood and lives to make way for what the Chinese communist regime believes will be the greatest show (down) on earth.
A brutal crackdown is happening on all Lawyers and Human rights activists in China as we speak.
The 7 year Genocide of Falun Gong continues today and a crackdown to eliminate all Falun Gong practitioners before the Games has begun.
The corruption of the Communist regime is that they are selling Falun Gong organs to westerners at prices of up to US$180,000 per liver and kidneys, US$30,000 for corneas etc.
The organs are forcibly harvested while the Falun Gong practitioner is lightly drugged with potassium to stop their heart. Butcher doctors remove all available organs including the skin to sell to the faithless foreigners who have no idea that a healthy person has just been murdered so that they can live.
There are 450,000 organ transplants that cannot be accounted for according to evidence presented in a report released by David Matas and David Kilgour . The only identifiable source which can explain the skyrocketing transplants numbers is Falun Gong practitioners see report at http://organharvestinvestigation.net/
Boycott the Olympic Games…. Urge our athletes to make a stand that would make their country even prouder.
Posted by: Jana Shearer at August 28, 2006 10:51 PM
China's bloody harvest
Waiting times for organ transplants in China are a matter of days. Everywhere else waiting times are measured in years
David Matas National Post Wednesday, August 23, 2006
David Matas is a Winnipeg international human rights lawyer. The full report is available at http://organharvestinvestigation.net/
Is China harvesting organs of Falun Gong practitioners, killing them in the process? A Japanese television news agency reporter and the ex-wife of a surgeon in March made claims this was happening at Liaoning Hospital in SuJiaTun, China. Are those claims true?
The Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of the Falun Gong in China, an organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., in May asked former Minister of State for Asia and the Pacific David Kilgour and me to investigate these claims. We released a report in July which came to the conclusion, to our regret and horror, that the claims were indeed true.
The repressive and secretive nature of Chinese governance made it difficult for us to assess the claims. We were not allowed entry to China, though we tried. Organ harvesting is not done in public. If the claims are true, the participants are either victims who are killed and their bodies cremated or perpetrators who are guilty of crimes against humanity and unlikely to confess.
We examined every avenue of proof and disproof available to us, eighteen in all. They were:
- The Communist Party of China, for no apparent reason other than totalitarian paranoia, sees Falun Gong as an ideological threat to its existence. Yet, objectively, Falun Gong is just a set of exercises with a spiritual component.
- The threat the Communist Party perceives in the Falun Gong community has led to a policy of persecution. Persecution of the Falun Gong in China is officially decided and decreed.
- Falun Gong practitioners are victims of extreme vilification. The official Chinese position on Falun Gong is that it is "an evil cult."
- Falun Gong practitioners have been arrested in huge numbers. They are detained without trial or charge until they renounce Falun Gong beliefs.
- Falun Gong practitioners are victims of systematic torture and ill treatment. While the claims of organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners have been met with doubt, there is no doubt about this torture.
- Many Falun Gong practitioners have formally disappeared; they are the subject of formal disappearance complaints by family members. Many more practitioners, in an attempt to protect their families and communities, have not identified themselves once arrested. These unidentified are a particularly vulnerable population.
- Traditional sources of transplants -- executed prisoners, donors, the brain dead -- come nowhere near to accounting for the total number of transplants in China. The only other identified source which can explain the skyrocketing transplant numbers is Falun Gong practitioners.
- Falun Gong practitioners in prison are systematically blood tested and physically examined. Yet, because they are also systematically tortured, this testing can not be motivated by concerns over their health.
- In a few cases, between death and cremation, family members of Falun Gong practitioners were able to see the mutilated corpses of their loved ones. Organs had been removed.
- We interviewed the Japanese journalist and the ex-wife of the surgeon from Sujiatin. Their testimony was credible to us. In order to be cautious, we relied on this testimony only when it was independently corroborated.
- We had callers phoning hospitals throughout China posing as family members of persons who needed organ transplants. In a wide variety of locations, those who were called asserted that Falun Gong practitioners (reputedly healthy because of their exercise regime) were the source of the available organs. We have recordings and telephone bills for these calls.
- Waiting times for organ transplants in China are incredibly short, a matter of days. Everywhere else in the world, waiting times are measured in years.
- Chinese hospital Web sites host incriminating information advertising organs of all sorts on short notice.
- A Falun Gong practitioner who had been in prison in China told us that her Chinese jailers lost interest in her once they found out that her organs had been damaged.
- China is a systematic human rights violator. The overall pattern of violations makes it harder to dismiss any one claimed violation.
- There is huge money to be made in China from transplants. Prices charged to foreigners, also available on a Web site, range from US$30,000 for corneas to US$180,000 for a liver and kidney combination.
- Corruption in China is a major problem. The huge money to be made from transplants, the lack of state controls over corruption and the marginalization of the Falun Gong are a deadly trio.
- Until July 1 of this year, there was no law in China preventing the selling of organs and no law requiring consent for organ harvesting. China has a poor history of implementing laws designed to ensure respect for human rights.
It is easy to take each element in isolation, and say that this element or that does not prove the claim. But it is their combination which led us to the chilling conclusion to which we came.
We are reinforced in our conclusions by the feeble response of the Government of China. Despite all their resources and inside knowledge, they have not provided any information to counter our report. Instead, they have attacked us personally and, more worrisome, attacked the Falun Gong with the very sort of verbal abuse which we have identified as one of the reasons we believe these atrocities are occurring.
Our report has seventeen different recommendations. Virtually no precaution one can imagine to prevent the harvesting of organs of Falun Gong practitioners in China is currently being taken. All these precautions should be put in place.
But there is one basic recommendation we make which must be implemented immediately. Organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners in China must stop.
Posted by: Jana at August 30, 2006 10:15 PM
 
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