timeimmortal

China says foils terrorist plot…yikes. Several English teachers I have known would be able to bite through steel after reading that. Just pitiful.

Here’s a screenshot, just in case someone gets wise and edits the article later.

And yes, I realize I make typos on this blog every now and again. But then, I’m not an international news organization.

That’s Steve Janke’s (Angry’s) suggestion - send Canada’s Secretary of State for multiculturalism and Canadian Identity, Jason Kenney, to represent Canada at the Olympic Games in Beijing, since Canada does not plan to boycott the Games.

It would be a subtle yet effective way to poke China in the eye, given how very often Jason Kenney has embroiled himself in actions taken by the Canadian government that have annoyed or infuriated the Chinese government. And as a bonus, he’s usually not afraid to speak his mind.

Vox Day weighs in.

I hate everything about the Olympics. Its smarmy one-worldism, its long tradition of glorifying dictatorships, its pseudo-religious aura, its fake amateurism, and the ever-present corruption which begins with the host city bids and ends with the athletes. I hope the Beijing Olympics are the debacle that spells the beginning of the end for this long-running, obnoxious charade.

Don’t get me wrong, I still get passionate about what sport does actually occur at the Olympic Games, when said sports are not marred by drug scandals, doping scandals, or judges taking bribes. And I think most people feel the same way — most of us are drawn to sporting events, and revel in the successes of athletes.

The question, I think, is what price we are willing to pay to partake of sport, and what price we are willing to impose on others in our desire to revel thusly. How much corruption are we willing to permit? How many brutal crackdowns and other human rights abuses are we willing to turn a blind eye to? How many steroid-ridden sprinters are we willing to tolerate? How much legitimacy are we prepared to offer to nations that deserve nothing of the sort?

What is watching Canada take gold really worth to the average Canadian citizen? What should it be worth?

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

So says Canadian Olympic Committee president Michael Chambers, responding to various local and international pressures for Canada (among other Western nations) to boycott the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

Evidently, the fact that China has a piss-poor human rights record doesn’t matter to Michael Chambers. Perhaps, then, it should be the athletes themselves who stand up and say “we will not go.”

Protests against the Summer Olympics have been large and numerous. In Britain, attempts were made to douse the Olympic Torch as it was paraded through the streets. In France, the Torch was successfully doused. And in Tibet, Chinese authorities have already killed and arrested hundreds of people in an effort to secure the path that the Torch will be taken along as it is paraded toward Beijing.

Michael Chambers thinks this will all just go away in a few weeks, it seems. Personally, I don’t think this will be the only torch-dousing we’ll see. And I think the clamour for boycotts will grow.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

There is no reason why any Western nation should grant China the legitimacy and respect that is attached to being a host nation for the Olympic Games. Canada, especially, if she truly values human rights (rather than being committed only to the farce of human rights commissions and their regime of Censorship), should withdraw herself from the list of nations who will be participating in Beijing this summer.

The NOlympia blog contains links to articles in support of a non-violent boycott of the 2008 Olympics (of course it would be a non-violent boycott; we’re not thugs over here, unlike the Chinese government). I encourage the Reader to give it a look.

With his characteristic prosaic style and grace, David Warren examines the brutal repression and massacre of Tibetans that China has been carrying out of late, all to ensure that the Olympic Torch passes smoothly through that small and much-persecuted region of the world. God forbid that the rest of the world catch even so much as a glimpse of atheistic Red China slaughtering a conquered people, and God forbid that said conquered people ever get even so much as the slightest opportunity to voice their despair.

And in the midst of his analysis, Mr. Warren suggests a most excellent thing: Canada should boycott the Olympic Games this year. To attend would only give legitimacy to the Chinese regime, and to abstain from participation would be a bold statement against oppression that continues even to this day.

In the latest National Geographic issue, a letter-writer bemoans the fact that even to this day, people still kill in the name of Religion (specifically in reference to the violence in the Holy Land). And he is right to point out that sad reality. But people also kill over far less important things, and such murders — especially when perpetrated by a godless empire — seem too often to get whitewashed. Hardly anyone bemoans the fact that in Tibet, especially, the murderers are not the religious people, but the atheists who seek to stamp out the deeper beauties of Tibetan religion.

One is tempted to say that in the particular case of China, the lack of good coverage of the massacres is due to the extremely tight clamp that the Chinese have placed on outbound information. Sadly, this has not been the case in the past, and has not been the case here, and those who have fled Tibet tell the tale of what horrors have been done. It is sad that the international community, in the process now of patting itself on the back in anticipation of the latest Olympic Games, is not so keen to hear them out.

Update: Welcome, Steynians and Nolympians!