Boycotting The Olympics Is An Ineffectual Waste Of Energy And Outrage

The most ridiculous thing about this outrage from Westerners is that they preach human rights and democracy, but their governments goes around engaging in regime change and supporting brutal dictators and kings who do their bidding. Despite living in democracies, Westerners have not been able to change their governments' destructive ways.

these comments I put under
Thomas C. Laird's article "The Beijing Olympics Are Like
Berlin in
1936 All Over Again"

will be helpful in seeing the hypocritical phony self-rightousness of the outraged.

http://www.jewcy.com/post/chinese_communist_party_propaganda#comment-21488

and

http://www.jewcy.com/post/chinese_communist_party_propaganda#comment-21500

If we really wanted an effective protest, we would have the US Olympic team carry Tibetan flags with the US flags during the opening ceremony. Of course that would trash US China relations for years to come.

It will be interesting to see whether any individuals try something like that.

Propaganda is a tool that is used too often for gain and should not be discounted. The PLO has managed to make Israel the Aggressor through successful propaganda. The NAZIs impressed many with its use including the American Firsters with Chas. Lindbergh. We as a nation will do the wrong thing and go to these beastly games and act as if the world is one, further allowing China to murder and commit a real genocide. We will do this because we are afraid to cut off China, who needs us as much as we need them. If we quit buying their cheap goods their country would fold (and yes it would hurt us for a little while). A real economic boycott from all of the West could force the fall of the ChiComs, but Human rights is something to be talked about and marched for, but nothing to actually sacrifice for, it would seem.

Jeffrey Weaver, wrote  "Propaganda is a tool that is used too often for gain and should not be
discounted. The PLO has managed to make Israel the Aggressor through
successful propaganda."

 IF this is true then can you tell me how many Senaters and Congressmen have criticized Isreal? How many of the Presidential candidates are criticizing Israel in their campaign?

I know Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have done it in the past, but they will no longer ever do this, especially if they want to become President.

Even local politicians, who have nothing to do with foreign policy, go out of their way to announce their unconditional support for Israel. 

Jon wrote, "If we really wanted an effective protest, we would have the US Olympic
team carry Tibetan flags with the US flags during the opening ceremony."

Are you serious? Do you know what the Untied States has done in Iraq? the Congo? Somalia? etc., etc., etc. 

The point of the Olympics is not some feel good game of international kickball.  There are 6 specific principals in the Olympic Charter including the importance and respect for culture (not to mention human rights).  We should boycott the Olympics in China first as a way of complying with the spirit of the Olympics.  Listening to IOC officials squirm and try to justify there decisions is a good reminder to them that the Olympics is more then a way to hock tack souveniers with a bunch of O's on them.  It is a movement and holding the Olympics in places that don't adhere to the spirit if not the letter of the charter is contrary to that spirit.

Regarding China, I hope that I never restrict my public denounciation of oppression merely becasue the oppressors won't listen to me.

-Matt 

From the Olympic Charter:

Principle 2  "Olympism is a philosopy of life, exalting, and combining in a balanced whole the qualties of body, will, and mind.  Blending sport with culture and education..."

 Principle 6 "Belonging to the Olympic movement requires compiance with the Olympic Charter and recognition by the IOC."

Randall, dear Randall. You do stay on point. Its all America's
Sins, All the time. You can learn to walk and chew gum at the same time. You
could think about what people tell you rather than just shouting back. You
remind me of American Communists in the 1930's and 1940's. So outraged at US
sins, that they tried to convince Americans that Stalin was a great guy. How
did that work out for them, or anyone else? You want to try to walk over that
burned bridge?

Are you serious? You want to support the largest mass murderer in human
history, or remain silent, because the US
government is not as good as it should be? Americans should be silent
about the Party’s crimes, we should stifle our free speech, because our
government is imperfect? Bush is an
idiot, not a monster.

Hello. Wake up. Read, Mao: A Life, by Phillip Short. Read the book about Mao written by his
personal physician--The Private Life of Chairman Mao--Then come back and
talk to me. The Party provided Mao a harem of virgin girls, fresh ones, every
night of the week. He butchered 30 million Chinese, Tibetans and others…. But
you don’t want to talk about that?

What, we got idiots in the White House, so we cannot work to stop monsters
in the world?

Jon, I suspect you are right, that there will protests, by European and
American athletes at the sports venues and/or on the medal platforms.

From the Olympic Charter:

Principle 2  "Olympism is a philosopy of life, exalting, and combining
in a balanced whole the qualties of body, will, and mind.  Blending
sport with culture and education..."

 So should China follow the example of the United States' actions in Iraq and the Congo?

Thomas C Laird,

No where do I mention my support for the Communist Party. I just feel that if I am going to preach to somebody, I have to set the example.

Let me put a quote from someone's speech who was also being accused of being a Communist sympathizer:

"My third reason moves to an even deeper level of awareness, for it grows out of my
experience in the ghettoes of the North over the last three years -- especially the last
three summers. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have
told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change
comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they ask -- and rightly so --
what about Vietnam? They ask if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to
solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I
knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the
ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the
world today -- my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this
government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent."

This is a quote from Martin Luther King's "Beyond Vietnam - A time to Break Silence" You can read the complete speech at http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm

Calling Bush a fool, doesn't minimize the death and destruction the Untied States government has caused in the Middle East, Africa, South America, and Asia.

Boston, March 8, 2008. Initiatives for China (GongMinLiLiang or
"Citizen Power" in Chinese), the Boston based steering committee for
pro-democracy activists inside China and leading voice for a peaceful
transition to democracy, called today for conditional Olympic...

Explaining the call for conditional Olympic participation, Initiatives
for China president and Harvard scholar, Dr. Yang Jianli, announced
that the behavior of the Chinese government is that of a rogue state
and not worthy of a nation hosting the Olympics. He said that the time
has come for all world leaders, athletes, celebrities, and business
leaders to follow the lead of director, Steven Spielberg by following
their conscience. "Each of us must establish minimum standards the
Chinese government must meet in order to deserve our participation"
said Dr. Yang. "The Chinese government cannot be allowed to benefit
from Olympic gold, while it denies the benefits of human rights to its
citizens. We must send a clear message that democracy is not for sale".

http://www.initiativesforchina.org/default.asp?pid=66

You prove, sadly my point. Your ilk quote King and rip the US, but where are you when it is time to do something? You would rather throw bricks at this country and allow the slaughter of so many others. As for Iraq, you are speaking out your a--. We are not killing these people, we are trying to stop them from murdering each other, the same for Vietnam once upon a time. You are the type that speaks of unity but allows the murder of a fellow man out of spite for this country. I not only call you unpatriotic, I call you an accomplice to genocide.

Jeffrey Weaver,

You are just blowing a lot of hot air.

You still didn't answer my previous question: how many politicians (still in office ) have criticized Israel's treatment of the Palestinians?

Thomas C Laird,

You wrote, "Explaining the call for conditional Olympic participation, Initiatives
for China president and Harvard scholar, Dr. Yang Jianli, announced
that the behavior of the Chinese government is that of a rogue state
and not worthy of a nation hosting the Olympics."

This Dr. Yang Jianli, a Hardvard Scholar? If this means he lives in the United States, then his words ring hollow if he has nothing to say about the United States' actions in Iraq and the Congo.

Jeffrey Weaver,wrote "As for Iraq, you are speaking out your a--. We are not killing these
people, we are trying to stop them from murdering each other,..."

The United States, Britain, and their allies:

#1) bombed Iraq and destroyed its infrastructure
#2) rounds up thousands of Iraqis and jails them without justification
#3) makes decisions when elections are to take place and whether the results are valid
#4) benefit more from reconstruction projects than the Iraqis
#5)can break into jails to release prisoners against the Iraqi's governments wishes. (see http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20051015&articleId=1089
#6)
agent provocateurs are being used to fuel the violence amongst the
different religious and ethnic groups. (I don’t say the agent
provocateurs are all hired by Westerners, I don’t doubt Iran and Israel
are doing their part to fuel the violence.)

If the same thing was done to the Untied States by a foreign power, there would be race wars, religious wars, and ethnic wars where no man woman or child would be safe.

Daniel Koffler,

You bring up the Nazis. Check out his brief (about 3 mintes) clip form a National Geographic video that shows Nazis in 1939  visiting Tibet. The head Nazi praises the Tibetan aristocracy, saying it could be a role model in a political system for Germany.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMWT6CBaAtQ

Randall Jones keeps offering "additional information" about Tibet--without telling readers that one of the sources he recomends, Michael Parenti, also helped to organize the
defense of Slobodan Milosevic.

Milosevic was tried for crimes against humanity, and for organizing the first acts of
genocide in Europe since WWII. But Jones does not see fit to mention this when recommending that unwary readers might want to listen to Parenti.

I am puzzled about Jones' motivation. Why offer Parenti as a source about Tibet's
social structure when there are dozens of books that are accepted as being
historically accurate—from people who speak Tibetan. Why offer evidence about Tibet from such a tainted source? Has Parenti been to Tibet? Does he speak Tibetan?

Or is Parenti qualified to speak about Tibet because he is one of the very few US academics who has devotedly supported Marxist thought for decades?

Randall, you claim to be offering 'additional' information, and then you coyly source it from genocide defenders? And you want to talk about hypocrisy?

Thomas C Laird wrote, “Why offer Parenti as a source about Tibet's
social structure when there are dozens of books that are accepted as being
historically accurate—from people who speak Tibetan. Why offer evidence about Tibet from such
a tainted source? Has Parenti been to Tibet? Does he speak Tibetan?”

I don’t know if Parenti has been to Tibet or speaks
Tibetan, but did you see all the references he lists at the end of his article?

http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html

Regarding Slobodan Milosevic, I know that Parenti says that
the media exaggerated his crimes and the United States and taken unnecessarily
harsh military actions against the Serbians. I really don’t much about this
situation.

But I know that when much of the mainstream media was reporting
on Saddam Hussein’s crimes, they always left out how the United States had helped Saddam
Hussein into power and supported him, strategically and financially, when he
was committing his worst atrocities.

I fail to understand people who want to go around preaching
to other countries about their wrong doings, yet have done nothing about their
own country's wrong doings, even though they live in democracies.

I can name quite a few. Obama did until he decided he needed Liberal Jewish money and support to run. Barbara Lee, Jim Moran, Wes Clark, Cynthia McKinney, Fritz Hollings, Robert Byrd, Willie Brown, Jesse Jackson , Al Sharpton...  I could go on, but the point is that there are a plethora of anti-Jew/Israel Democrats.

Your list of "crimes" says one thing - We are at war. Now your list is the very vilest of charges one makes as a matter of treason, when treason was something that existed (it is now called patriotism by the left). Lord Haw Haw was hung for similiar statements...

Now before you ask, no I am not questioning your patriotism. I am stating that you lack patriotism and the proof is your vile list of supposed crimes. 

"I fail to understand people who want to go around preaching
to other countries about their wrong doings, yet have done nothing about their
own country's wrong doings, even though they live in democracies."

So, if you were the US President in the 1930s and 1940s, would you say we should not critize the german treatment of jews or japanese treatment of chinese because we had not yet solved discrimination against those groups inside the US? 

Jon,

I am talking about the present. Activists from Western countries are preaching to China about Tibet and Darfur, in the meantime the U.S. and its allies are doing the same (or worse?) in Iraq and the Congo. This would be like if a person was preaching against drugs, yet at the same time was snorting lines of cocaine. The protesters lack credibility in this sort of situation.

Jeffrey Weaver wrote, “ Obama did until he decided he needed
Liberal Jewish money and support to run.”

But I thought Liberal Jews were “fooled” by Palestinian
propaganda and were pro-Palestinians. If
I said some Republican was pro-Israel because he was getting money from Jews,
you’d be calling me anti-Semitic.

Wes Clark and Al Sharpton, Jessie Jackson are not elected politicians.

Cynthia McKinney is no longer in office. You forgot to
mention Jimmy Carter. But I would like to point out that many of those who
bring up the Palestinians' plight, take a middle-of-the-road approach. They acknowledge the
wrongs of both sides, but they say the grievances of both sides must be heard. In
the meanwhile, pro-Israeli politicians say every problem is the Palestinians’
fault and we should not deal with them.

I’m not going to discuss every person you listed. Some of
the people you mention have said
anti-Semitic things, but being anti-Semitic does not mean you are
pro-Palestinian. Anti-semitism has existed long before the Palestinian-Israeli conflict came about.

Jeffrey Weaver wrote, “Your list of ‘crimes’ says one thing
- We are at war. Now your list is the very vilest of charges one makes as a
matter of treason, when treason was something that existed (it is now called
patriotism by the left). Lord Haw Haw was hung for similiar statements...”

Former U.S.
attorney general, Ramsey Clark has made a longer list of U.S. war crimes.
See http://deoxy.org/wc/wc-index.htm

He isn’t being tried for treason.

He’s looking to impeach President G.W. and others working in
his Administration. See

http://www.gpln.com/impeacharticles.htm

By the way, do you think people who have dual citizenship are patriotic?