Here is an article for your perusal; can you guess where it comes from? Hint, not the New Yolk Times, the LWLL paper I do not read. I am somewhat more of a "Mallard" than a "Doonesberry" if you get my drift.
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The Berlin, er Beijing Olympics
The Olympic Games are supposed to crown the civilized, not the barbaric. But the International Olympic Committee, long a stranger to the ethics and history, has chosen to garland the bad actors of Beijing with the 2008 Games.
Even the most casual student of history knows that the 1936 Berlin Olympics did nothing to arrest the ascent of Adolf Hitler and aid democracy; Indeed, it worked to his advantage. It conferred respect upon the" Nazi ruling class and normalized its presence on the world stage.
Beijing's pursuit of the Games sadly replays this ploy. This accounts for the gaiety in China on Friday. The leaders there set off fireworks, gave speeches and waived a banner that read, "Eternal Beijing Olympic Games, a century dream come, true."
Were they cheering their eventual demise? Of course not. They know the Games will not threaten their power, but enhance it. The IOC's choice gives them a shot of energy at the very moment their regime had begun to appear ill. One wonders what exactly a rogue regime would have to do to lose a bid for the Games. Shoot an IOC official?
China's human rights record -a catalog of forced abortions, infanticide, imprisoned monks and executed intellectuals ~ made Beijing an obvious nonstarter as the site for the Games. But the more its leaders acted badly -even taking Americans hostage ~ the more the IOC took their bid seriously. The. Chinese leaders knew that a little cynical posing would work to quell any IOC doubts. So they hosed down their capital, chased away the unseemly, released some token dissidents and rolled out the carpet for IOC brass, even promising them a memorial on the Great Wall. "We look upon the IOC as God, Their wish is our command," one Beijing official was quoted as saying. Even more cynically, they played on the IOC's politically correct ideology, pressing the claim that a denial of the Olympics to Beijing would insult more than a billion people.
The reverse, of course, is true. Awarding China the Games rewards it's corrupt regime for the oppression of 1.3 billion people. About the only good thing to be said for the lOC's choice is that it may give Taiwan a seven-year reprieve from the threat of invasion. In fact, we like Taiwan's immediate call for Beijing to renounce the use of force in reunifying the two Chinas. . Still, the IOC's choice is shameful and will only hasten the Games' slide into scandal. What began as an ideal is now just a cover for the corrupt. |
