Well okay, I may not take it as far as to say I'm going to boycott the Olympics this year as Ralph Peters will be doing. Although, you may not catch me watching any of it. Well okay, maybe just snipits, just to keep up with who's winning. Both the Summer and Winter Olympics are afterall my very favorite sport. Which is a real shame really, for me anyway. Because I can't in good conscience bring myself to sit through the pomp and circumstance of the opening and closing ceremonies. Not with all that has been exposed of the abuse and human indignity by the Chinese government. It would be hard for me to sit through the beauty and extravaganza of this splendid celebration, knowing what's going on behind closed doors when the lights go out. The treatment of the Chinese people is just unnacceptable.
Not this year. I'm staging my own private boycott. Anyway, I'm more interested in what's going to happen outside of the sports facilities.
...President Hu Jintao and his cadres can keep a lid on most bad news at home - but all their censorship, denied visas, hotel-room-monitoring, dissident detentions, monstrous pollution and general police-state tactics won't be enough to fool the rest of the world.
...Spare me the "Olympic spirit" piety. Tell that to the raped and dead of Darfur, to the tortured of Tibet and to all the mom-and-pop stall owners in Africa put out of business by ruthless Chinese exploitation (I've been there: The Chinese are hated with a purple passion).
Nope. Not gonna do it.
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