Hillary Clinton is urging President Bush to boycott the Olympic Games’ opening ceremonies to protest China’s invasion of Tibet and human rights abuses. Bush has left open the possibility that he might not attend. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown already have made that decision (though Brown’s office says he’ll attend the closing ceremony).
Though there’s a significant difference between a president skipping an Olympics ceremony and a country boycotting an entire Games, boycotts should be viewed with skepticism generally. Why make the Games the place to take a stand on human rights?
President Jimmy Carter’s boycott of the 1980 games in the Soviet Union was grossly unfair to the hundreds of U.S. athletes who had trained for years for the event. And it didn’t have much of an impact, beyond punishing our athletes and encouraging a tit-for-tat response (the Soviets boycotted the 1984 Los Angeles games).
There are better ways to call attention to a country’s human rights record and hold its leaders accountable, through economic sanctions and other tools.
25 Comments
“There are better ways to call attention to a country’s human rights record and hold its leaders accountable, through economic sanctions and other tools.”
Yeah there are. Like revoking the most favored nation trading status that the idiot bush bestowed on them. We SHOULD do that AND boycott the Olympics.
I do not recall which pundit that said it, but we can not get too outraged at China, They may stop loaning us money and call in the loans they already have. Stop buying our T-bills and bring the economy to a halt. Such was the lessons of Faust and deals with the Devil.
Why should we cast staones at China? Under the Republicans and Bush human rights have become passe’.
Raping and killing Iraqi women and children is no different than what China does.
For a change I think Randy is correct on this issue. Say what you will, but I think all who protest on the Olympics, may be professional protesters and there is no cause that they won’t protest for or against.
Isn’t that interesting? As a nation we’ve degenerated to the point where we don’t have the moral standing to cast aspersions on anybody.
There was a time when we were a beacon of hope when it came to human rights. Who’s to blame? the brigands who led us to this sorry state of affairs, or is it us who didn’t stand up for what we know is right?
it’s us.
There are better ways to call attention to a country’s human rights record and hold its leaders accountable, through economic sanctions and other tools.
By Randy
By “other tools” I suppose Randy means invading a country and then occupying it for 100 years as in Iraq.
The Olympics have always been political. It was a political decision for China to want to host them – to raise their standing and position in the world.
I really don’t care whether Bush attends or not. More appropriate would be every athelete, after winning, making statements to the media about Tibet. Holding up signs during medal ceremonies. Let’s show China what a free society really looks like.
China may soon discover, as did Russia, that economic liberalism and political dictatorship are difficult bedfellows to hold together; the first inevitably, sooner or later, leads to the collapse of the second. Given China’s cultural history, it will likely be later rather than sooner, but it’s inevitable nonetheless. We can just nudge it along.
I completely and totally disagree with Randy, we should boycott the entire Olympics. Look at how many across the world are going to boycott. Perhaps we should make a subsitute, and then those countries can compete in that instead. It’ll be for a good cause.
Remember that our atheletes are targets and they deserve to compete in a country that we can fully trust everything will be done to protect them. We can’t trust China to do the right thing with anything.
I also agree, we’ve now got no moral authority. I’ll bet Bush is envious that he can’t torture more.
GMC is right. Politics is always involved. But the Olympics are about is having the young athletes of the world come together every four years to compete on a world stage. Some have spent the majority of their lives preparing. No one should take that from them because the host country misbehaves.
I think I’m pretty much with GMC on this one. Granted, athletes shouldn’t be coerced into doing anything (that would rather be counter to purpose)–they will have to want to do it.
If the Beijing authorities have any issue with too much free speech, that will make the point well enough.
P.S. I don’t China will stop funding our government, any more than the U.S. will stop buying Chinese goods. At this point, either action would be like hitting the brakes at 70 mph, and doing one would inevitably provoke the other. It just ain’t happening!
Having said that, I think it’s long past time we stopped deliberately running our government on borrowed money, though that, too, will not happen overnight. :-(
“China may soon discover, as did Russia, that economic liberalism and political dictatorship are difficult bedfellows to hold together; the first inevitably, sooner or later, leads to the collapse of the second. Given China’s cultural history, it will likely be later rather than sooner, but it’s inevitable nonetheless. We can just nudge it along.” — GMC 70
And what happened in Russia after a few years of relative freedom. Fascism and capitalism are natural bedfellows.
God, do you think someday the world will boycott the olympics hel in America because so many countries in the world recognize gay marriage and the US does not?
Hey, a girl can dream. Spain, Portugal, Canada, South Africa, Netherlands, etc. The list of countries with a better record of human rights than the US.
And, China’s oppression of Tibet is not new. Did the world not know about it until now? China promised to do better before the games? WTF, why did they ever AWARD the games to China?
Having said all that, boycotting the opening ceremony is a lot different than boycotting the games. Boycott the ceremony but not the games.
And… as long as microsoft and yahoo and such cow-tow to China’s suppression of information, boycotting the olympics is a mighty hollow gesture.
Hell, we’d have to boycott the american telecom companies to be consistant… And bushco and the republicans in congress want to give them unlimited immunity forward and backward.
People who live in glass houses really shouldnt throw stones.
Yeah, I know why the games were awarded to China. Economics and greed.
I wonder how many toy pandas are being manufactured in China about now…
You know I thought about this all day long, and the more I think about it the more I’m certain that Olympics is supposed to be about Goodwill, its not about our athelets. I mean hell, if we can sacrifice American lives in the name of what is good and just when it turns out to be based on nothing, we can surely ask our athelets to sacrifice the Olympics. Oh they trained, sure but we can do something different. Their sacrifice for what is right wont’ be anything compared to the soldiers.
China does not deserve our support. We need to get back on track on supporting human rights and denouncing violators.
God, do you think someday the world will boycott the olympics hel in America because so many countries in the world recognize gay marriage and the US does not?
They should, or least protest it. But after W.’s tenure, and fundamental contempt for human rights and international law, that would hardly be the only issue they’d have to cite.
P.S. Contrary to sursum’s previous claim, I at least would be no more embarrassed than I am now, and not humiliated at all.
What’s this? We are concerned about one country invading another? Both countries far from the US and where is our national interest?
What’s Hillary’s next step? She going to cut off economic trade with China? If that doesn’t work, will she threaten war with China over Tibet?
Saber rattling?
All of Africa boycotted the 1968 Games opening and closing ceremonies in Montreal because South Africa, with it’s apartheid policies, was participating. Been there, done that, got a headline. Lets, move on.
GMC70: About medal ceremony protests, what did you feel about the black American atheletes who held up their clenched fists during the medal presentations in Mexico? Was it the right thing to do, protesting domestic policies such as the continum of black problems on the podium, in all that glare of the media? Raining on someones elses’ parade just makes people wet, not proactive.
GMC70: Help, there is a terrible thing going on right now in China. The US women’s hockey team is scheduled to play for the Gold Medal of the World Championship in Harbrin, China to-day. How did this happen with all the hype about boycotts. We gotta get those girls off the ice….now!
My last post on this thread. The American girls beat their nemisis to-day, Canada, to win the gold. It was nail biter 4-3. I wonder how they’d feel to-day if we had made them pass up the title shot?
Writerdog
There is no way that China can “call in” any loans.
China is free to sell any bonds it holds, to anyone who will buy those bonds.
However, China can not force the United States to take back those bonds.
There is no “call” provisions on U.S. debt.
3 Trackbacks
[...] bobbyw24 wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptHillary Clinton is urging President Bush to boycott the Olympic Games’ opening ceremonies to protest China’s invasion of Tibet and human rights abuses. Bush has left open the possibility that he might not attend. … Read the rest of this great post here [...]
[...] WE Blog | The Wichita Eagle Editorial Department Blog wrote an interesting post today on Not another Olympics boycottHere’s a quick excerptNot another Olympics boycott Posted6:02 a.m. Hillary Clinton is urging President Bush to boycott the Olympic Games’ opening ceremonies to protest China’s invasion of Tibet and human rights abuses. Bush has left open the possibility that he might not attend. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown already have made that decision (though Brown’s office says he’ll attend the closing ceremony). Though there’s a significant difference between a president skipping an [...]
[...] WE Blog | The Wichita Eagle Editorial Department Blog wrote an interesting post today on Not another Olympics boycottHere’s a quick excerptNot another Olympics boycott Posted6:02 a.m. Hillary Clinton is urging President Bush to boycott the Olympic Games’ opening ceremonies to protest China’s invasion of Tibet and human rights abuses. Bush has left open the possibility that he might not attend. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown already have made that decision (though Brown’s office says he’ll attend the closing ceremony). Though there’s a significant difference between a president skipping an [...]