Beijing 2008

Certain events have already begun, and the Opening Ceremony will be on tomorrow night. That is, the portions of the Opening Ceremony which the "People's Republic" doesn't delay or block broadcast of due to protesters.

It is a joke that they are hosting the Olympics there, maybe not as bad as 1936 Berlin or 1980 USSR, but still a joke. As least the Berlin Olympics were awarded before the Nazi's were elected, and the Soviet Olympics awarded before the invasion of Afghanistan.

The Olympics are obviously not simply sporting events. They are an international political statement. And this is the world saying that we can make so much freaking money off Chinese sweatshops that we will ignore

1- the human rights abuses

2- the fact that Bibles are prohibitted from being brought in by foreigners for the Olympics

3- the fact that foreigners are being notified they have no search and seizure protections in their hotel rooms

4- The ongoing travesty of Tibet and exile of the 14th Dalai Lama

5- The Falun Gong persecutions

6- North Korea, their chosen "bad cop" on the world stage

7- Darfur, China's own grandoise move to be the new imperialist, as has been written about

The torch run turned into an embarrassment, appropriately.

Some Eastern European leaders are purposely not attending ceremonies, especially those who grew up under communism decades ago.
I had a good friend try to have a China-free Christmas last year. It was not easy, he said.