when we practice to kiss up to murderous regimes with tantalizingly large but ephemeral markets. Yes, I’m talkin’ ’bout China.

Now, Hillary is calling for W to boycott the opening ceremonies. She is right, of course, but I think she would have mo…

If we want to send a message to China, how about removing their most favored nation trading status? Don’t they still have that?

TX Mom on April 7, 2008 at 8:36 PM

In a perfect world (or at least one where the clown in the White House had a pair along with a moral compass), that’s EXACTLY what ought to happen.

Associate with swine, wake up with fleas and lice.

knat on April 7, 2008 at 8:32 PM

It takes some nerve and thick skin for those folks to go out and train. I was best man at a wedding last summer whose bride and groom both are competing in the walks at the Olympic Trials.

Glad you took my comment in the fun spirit intended.

Yea I know. Kinda freaky the way they move their hips. I don’t think I could do that.

Don’t ya love how the Left are so passionate
and caring about peace,but they sure love to
start up Wars they can’t finish!

Again,the world is coming down on China,for
the US its a distraction,this has all the feel
and look of 1937-1939 Nazi Germany!

If for anything,if the world wants to come down
on China,China will loose face and be backed into
a corner,on this one in particular let Richard Gere
speak on behalf of the world!

I don’t want to see the United States take the blame
for what the Liberals have started,and then cower in
the corner and blame the Republicans as usual!

All this talk about boycotts…..who is this “we” everyone here is commenting about? YOU can feel free to boycott all you want by not watching the games or not visiting China. Are y’all talking about forcing the athletes to “boycott”? Or what exactly are you referring to? What is the real question here?

I personally won’t watch a bit of it and will personally boycott it altogether. But I (nor you or anyone) has the right to force privately funded organizations to fit YOUR political preferences. Or am I missing something?

I dare you to run a couple of miles at the pace at which these guys walk 12.2 :)

mikeyboss on April 7, 2008 at 6:57 PM

12.4, I mean.

Granted, you’d be killing the dreams of a few hundred American Olympians by going the latter route, but if you’re serious about protesting human rights abuses, that’s a small price to pay. Vote it out!

That’s more than a small price.

Absolutely no boycott. We walk they win, on the podium and on the international scene. Put the spotlight on China and beat them in their own house.

We have a men’s swim team that could crush any team ever put together.

This pic should say it all:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1a/JesseOwens_1936Olympics.jpg

Regardless of what we boycott, the real effect on China will be negligible (or so I suspect).

No significant harm is done (to the U.S.) by boycotting the Opening ceremonies; but the full boycott would have larger effects, many borne by the U.S.

Why take the painful route for no noticeable gain? Unless you really like doing pointless and painful things, the full boycott seems iffy.

If you plan on getting me fired for a cause, I’d like some idea that its going to be a worthwhile sacrifice. I suspect the athletes who have trained for a decade to compete feel in a similar manner.

Throwing away their effort for no gain? Questionable.

Now if you really believe that this gesture would be useful, sufficient, or significant in the goal of changing China’s Human Rights abuses; then promoting the full boycott would be rational.

I can’t see that being likely, but perhaps you feel differently.

However, if you think (as I do) that it would be more of a symbolic gesture that in and of itself won’t help change anything; then taking the painful route seems questionable.

20km walk- Come on now, does that sound Athletic to you?

knat on April 7, 2008 at 5:15 PM

I dare you to run a couple of miles at the pace at which these guys walk 12.2 :)

Just tell China that if they want the world’s eyes on them for the Olympics, those eyes are also looking at Tibet.

rbj on April 7, 2008 at 4:57 PM

Agree.

A partial boycott is near the same.

You really want to make a point? Participate in the opening ceremonies and give the U.S. delegation the option of wearing a Tibetan flag armband. Just sit back and watch a couple billion butts collectively pucker.

but you disagree. We’ll just have to agree to disagree.

amerpundit on April 7, 2008 at 6:03 PM

GMTA! :-)

You’re right. But thanks for the discussion anyway.

My point is: I don’t care how “pointless” it might or mightn’t be (again: if it’s all that pointless and insignificant, I don’t really see where this horrid “crisis” would come from), there are limits to what I want to be associated with, and mass murderers responsible for the wholesale slaughter of millions are way past that limit.

If Hu wants his ChiCom version of “Triumph des Willens” and he’s dug up a Chinese Leni Riefenstahl, then so be it. I just don’t want us starring in it.

(And, by the way, I voted for boycotting the Olympics altogether for that very reason. Just boycotting the opening dictator adulations is a half-measure. Still better than a NO-measure, but a half-measure nonetheless).

As to “dire consequences”, I do believe that you’re overestimating them quite a bit. The ChiComs need US way more than we need THEM. If they were to disappear from the planet, we’d still be here. If WE were to disappear from the planet, they’d be starving to death.

In the dark.

Misha I on April 7, 2008 at 5:47 PM

Uh, the nuclear intelligence is kind of important in keeping track of their developments and knowing when we’d have to intervene. But why continue that when we can not appear at the Opening Ceremonies, which will have no impact except to strain our shaky relations?

Boycotting the opening ceremonies won’t help the oppressed Chinese. All it does is potentially compromise the intelligence sharing they’ve been doing and relations we’ve established.

Losing all of this is a disaster compared to providing the murderers with a nice, flashy propaganda event.

Potentially losing a vital information source on the developments of a rogue Islamic regime’s nuclear weapons program would kind of bad, so yeah. And do you think simply boycotting the opening ceremonies will significiantly damage China’s propaganda force? I doubt it. The U.S. team is still there, many most other Western nations will attend, and China will just decide not to mention whether or not the U.S. attended.

First of all, China has been alerting us to nuclear activities by North Korea. Second of all, China has been handing over intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program.

amerpundit on April 7, 2008 at 5:38 PM

And both of them were still, last I checked, busy going right ahead with whatever they want to be doing regardless. I agree. It’d be the end of the world if the Butchers in Beijing didn’t continue to pass on useless information about programs that we already know about and intend to do nothing about (because doing anything would “create a foreign policy disaster that we cannot afford right now.” Or ever)

Heck, if it weren’t for the Extermination Camp Commandants of China, we would probably not even know that the NorKs and the Mullahs were trying to build nukes!

I see what you’re getting at now. Losing all of this is a disaster compared to providing the murderers with a nice, flashy propaganda event. Not that anybody care about a few million Tibetans and Chinese anyways. They’re just gooks, right?