Boycotts of Convenience
To be fair to China, those are some beefy looking Tibetan monks protesting Chinese oppression - Chinese oppression which is nothing new to Chinese dissidents, I'm sure - so it's no wonder China is accusing the West of subterfuge.
And, I mean, c'mon - it's not like it hasn't been done before. Cripes, even Dudley DoRight Canada had Quebec police instigating unlawful behaviour in the midst of legitimate political protestors at the American Partnership for Prosperity and Security Summit in Montebello last year.
Look, let's face it, the U.S. (like us, too - no pun intended) is in debt to China - bigtime. And a boycott of the Beijing Olympics when China is out to prove it isn't just an oppressive communist dictatorship turned rapacious capitalist superpower, would be a much bigger snub, the old "haha! your country isn't up to Olympic hosting standards", than even the boycott of the Moscow Olympics was back in 1980.
Oh ironies of ironies, eh? Imagine boycotting an Olympic Games over an invasion of Afghanistan now. Of course, it'd just be the winter games and bye bye Vancouver 2010, so - it would be purely symbolic for most boycotting countries, anyway. And being the New Canada that we are we could just switch the name to the "New Canada Games", and invite only northern Christian democracies like us, New Canada, to participate.
But the U.S. is in debt to China in a way that should be sending chills down all our spines - free monk Tibet or just regular monk Tibet - and although any time is a good time for a boycott, I think, Olympic boycotts are pretty yesterday. And increasingly hard to justify when everybody's hands are so dirty between the coming together in the international spirit of sport and drug testing - and a lot of "young people fucking".
So, I propose, as punishment for its oppression of both Tibetan monks AND the Chinese workers who made the Olympics possible, China be forced to sign on to Kyoto or somesuch climate change agreement that will actually make IT - weather - the global concern that human rights would be if not for such threats to the West's freedoms that the Islamic Menace has presented to it over the past several years - threats that have necessitated torture and and an ongoing War on Terror.
Because, to be fair to the U.S. and any Olympics hosting country, it's always going to be something, isn't it, that makes having the Olympics in your country make everybody feel kind of hypocritical for attending - as good a reason as any for making one of those old timey days superpowers like Greece or Rome the permanent host country - and it's not like you can always prevent yourself from looking like the human rights bad guy when, really, you're just responding to provocation.
Take 9/11, for example. There wouldn't be a War on Terror if it wasn't for 9/11. I mean, it's not like Bush Inc. pulled the whole thing out of its ass. Still, with the acquittal of those marines accused in the Haditha massacre, it's not likely the War on Terror is going anywhere faster'n Tibet is - even though, like I say, 9/11 was hardly the fault of the U.S.
Anyway, since Kyoto is there and the U.S. hasn't signed on and isn't likely to, and we all know how China loves to save face in the same way that we in the West like to call a bluff (think JFK during the Cuban Missile Crisis where we almost got blown to bits except that Khrushchev turned out to be saner'n JFK who called his bluff but good) - why doesn't Canada step in as peacemaker (remember those days? me neither) and say, "Hey - sign this, China - and we'll call it even"?
That would make for two birds with one stone, really, too - because then China would have to slow 'er down to meet greenhouse gas emission targets OR pay through the nose for NOT meeting them, Ontario would get a much needed leg back up in the manufacturing sector - in spite of Jim Flaherty - the U.S. would get some breathing room (no pun intended ) to beef up its industrial output while China pays the piper, and everybody would get to go to the Beijing Olympics as scheduled a decade or so ago when they were so awarded by the I.O.C. before all the jockeying for the privilege of hosting the 2008 Summer Olympic Games even began. Three birds. Or four, even.
