An Olympic Boycott: would it have any effect at all?

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BoMac

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There have been calls to boycott the Olympics in recent days following the events in Tibet. There's been talk of heads of state and other officials boycotting the Opening Ceremonies, but the EU flatly rejected a full-scale boycott.

It's arguable what effect, if any, the 1980 and 1984 boycotts had on the host countries and I'm wondering if such an event would occur in 2008, would something positive come out of it? I doubt a boycott would ever happen, since many of the world's economies are intertwined with China's.

What do you guys think?
 
It would be highly hypocritical to boycott them now. It isn't as if we were not always aware of their disrespect for human rights. But we are okay with it so long as we can go to Walmart to buy pencil cases for 49 cents.
 
/\ could that be somebody that remembers 1980 and 1984


I do recall when Carter told those Soviets
if you don't leave Afghanistan by XYZ we will boycott Moscow 1980 Olympics

being a young lad that hated those Commies and loved the Afghan freedom fighters, I was all gung ho on that boycott.

well, guess what

it worked, the Soviets pulled right out of Afghanistan lickedy split.

Carter was re-elected
and the Communist behaved themselves everafter :up:
 
A_Wanderer said:


Because I find it so utterly frivilous.



i find it the least frivilous of all sporting events.

which might not be saying much.

but damned if i don't love it that some sports other than baseball, basketball, and football get some coverage in this country.

U-S-A! U-S-A!

and all that.
 
http://forum.interference.com/t185232.html

melon said:
I think we forget here that, to every nation in the world, China is not an official enemy, but, instead, a legal trading partner. Official boycotts against China are probably not in our economic interests currently, as we are too intertwined with them. In some cases, they have an upper hand too, in terms of being flush with cash and a heavy investor in certain cases.

So, sorry to say, our greed over a nation of cheap trinkets and even cheaper labor has made it very difficult for us to try and take the moral high road now.
 
All it does is screw the athletes over. I could understand the Carter boycott as the USSR was an enemy; like it or not China is not as Melon says.
 
CTU2fan said:
All it does is screw the athletes over.

That's how I feel too. Like others have said, it's pretty hypocritical to boycott based on the human rights thing when any other day we sit here doing nothing. It only hurts the athletes. I do NOT want a boycott for purely selfish reasons: Shawn Johnson from West Des Moines, Iowa has probably the BEST chance any American has ever had at taking the AA gold in women's gymnastics. Nastia Liukin is close behind her and will pick it up if Shawn makes one mistake. These kids train 8 hours a day, 6 days a week. They were training for the Olympics before they even knew where China is or what human rights means.
 
Irvine511 said:




i find it the least frivilous of all sporting events.

which might not be saying much.

but damned if i don't love it that some sports other than baseball, basketball, and football get some coverage in this country.

U-S-A! U-S-A!

and all that.

Come on Irvine, be honest, you just love it because of this:

michael_phelps.jpg



Kidding, any excuse to post something like that :wink:

Seriously though, I agree that at this point it would be hypocritical, and I love being exposed to sporting events that never get covered here.
 
vaz02 said:
Didnt 'the torpedo' retire ?



the Thorpedo did, yes. though i'm told Aussies just call him Thorpie. or some, like Angela, don't bother to call him at all.

but he did indeed retired. cited burnout and all that.

and then Phelps broke his 200 fr record in Melbourne last March.

it was beautiful. it was art.
 
so, to maybe inject a little bit of politics, what do we make of this article:



[q]Phelps should focus on more than swimming in Beijing
By: Ian Robinson, Daily Sports Editor
Posted: 3/5/08
Correction appended

In essence, the Olympics are about two ideas: peace and moral principles.

The Chinese government violates both. It represses human rights and supports the genocide-enabling government in Sudan.

Some have advocated a boycott of this summer's Beijing Games, but that won't happen.

That doesn't mean the world should stand idly by as the host government continues its violation of the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Olympics are the perfect platform to pressure China to abide by international standards.

One group that can force the Chinese government to listen and raise awareness is the athletes.

And Michigan men's swimming and diving volunteer assistant coach Michael Phelps is one of the most powerful members of that group.

As he aims for eight gold medals this summer, Phelps could be the most dominant athlete in the world.

But his performance in the pool shouldn't define his Olympics. Whether or not he uses his prominent position to challenge the Chinese government should.

If a Chinese citizen tried speak out against his or her government, that person would get jailed. If they organized a rally, they would - well, we've all seen pictures of Tiananmen Square.

If Phelps does something, he'll be heard.

He would not only be remembered as a great athlete, but also, more importantly, as a great human being.

Phelps would be the ideal athlete to launch this movement. The media will cover his every move in China.

At the same time, it doesn't have to be Phelps. Whether he would be willing to take such a stand is unknown, since his media representative did not respond to a request for comment.

As much as people want to keep sports and society separate, they are inextricably linked.

Whether it be the Miracle on Ice or Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in Major League Baseball, separating the two is impossible.

A couple weeks ago, the British Olympic Association essentially placed a gag order on its athletes. Under pressure, it has since rescinded that rule. The United States Olympic Committee said that it wouldn't restrict its athletes beyond the IOC's ban on "(any) kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda" in Olympic venues.

But what Phelps could advocate goes beyond national politics. It's about humanity - about giving a voice to people whose government doesn't give them one.

Steven Spielberg heard these calls for protest and responded. He was supposed to be a creative consultant for the Games' opening ceremonies but pulled out because China has given financial support to the Sudanese government.

Phelps won't pull out of the Games. He has too much on the line. But that shouldn't stop him from making a difference.

In Beijing, Phelps has the opportunity to establish his legacy, and it will have nothing to do with how many world records he sets.

How he protests is unimportant - what matters is that his message is clear. The most remembered athletes are the ones with conviction for a cause.

Jesse Owens's career wasn't defined by the four gold medals he won in 1936. He's remembered for defying Hitler's claims of Aryan supremacy at the Berlin Games.

Tommie Smith and John Carlos are most known for their Black Power protest on the podium in the 1968 Olympics, not the medals they won.

Phelps won't be defined by his medal count. We should care about whether he decides to defend people who don't have anyone to stand up for them.[/q]
 
deep said:
/\ could that be somebody that remembers 1980 and 1984


I do recall when Carter told those Soviets
if you don't leave Afghanistan by XYZ we will boycott Moscow 1980 Olympics

being a young lad that hated those Commies and loved the Afghan freedom fighters, I was all gung ho on that boycott.

well, guess what

it worked, the Soviets pulled right out of Afghanistan lickedy split.

Carter was re-elected
and the Communist behaved themselves everafter :up:

Carter wasn't re-elected.
 
Irvine511 said:




the Thorpedo did, yes. though i'm told Aussies just call him Thorpie. or some, like Angela, don't bother to call him at all.

but he did indeed retired. cited burnout and all that.

and then Phelps broke his 200 fr record in Melbourne last March.

it was beautiful. it was art.

Ahh thanks for 30 second recap of modern swimming history :wink:
 
hrmmm, i feel that no athlete would be willing to make a total 'free tibet' h'uman rights!' challenge due to all their media and lucrative deals, lets not forget the real reason of the olympics is the almighty $$ In the end no gives a toss about the gold unless it rakes in a few million in endorsement deals, so to make something that really has taken most of its 'morals and peace' away and replaced it with capitalism, not the right forum to do it.

But China's gotta answer to something one day - lets just see how far they take it.
 
thinking about this all

It's not like the Tibet situation just happened and everyone's all :ohmy: . The people on the committee that gave China the Olympics weren't from a different planet, one without media. They knew what China was doing in Tibet. Hell, everyone knew. But now that people are dying on tape, rather then just in print, people have to face up to it and their complicity in it. :tsk:
 
dazzlingamy said:
hrmmm, i feel that no athlete would be willing to make a total 'free tibet' h'uman rights!' challenge due to all their media and lucrative deals, lets not forget the real reason of the olympics is the almighty $$ In the end no gives a toss about the gold unless it rakes in a few million in endorsement deals, so to make something that really has taken most of its 'morals and peace' away and replaced it with capitalism, not the right forum to do it.

Well, I only speak for gymnastics since that is "my" sport, but the athletes cannot compete at a collegiate level in the USA if they accept ANY money/endorsements, and most of them don't because only one or two actually succeed internationally. Most will put two decades of full time training to good use and get athletic scholarships for competing at the collegiate level. When the age limit got bumped up, a lot of women got more serious about college athletic careers, which was always the way the men went about it (competing in college first, then training for the Olympics). Shawn Johnson will win the AA gold this summer if she stays healthy and doesn't choke. She only just went "pro" recently, only b/c she wants to compete at the FIG Elite level for a long time, not the collegiate level. Even then, no pro gymnast can bring in enough endorsements without an Olympic gold to cover training costs. They are training 7-8 hours a day, 5-6 days a week, most of them have been since they were 10 years old. Honestly, if child labor laws applied to gymnastics, our sport would be in trouble! It costs hundreds of thousands each year to compete on that level. Winning 5K at the American cup wouldn't even cover travel costs for one season of competition.

Again, I don't really pay attention to any other sports or athletes, but your statement is absolutely false and pretty insulting as it pertains to gymnastics, which for a long time was the most watched sport of the summer Olympics (still could be, I'm not sure).
 
China lays out conspiracy claims against Dalai Lama

By Chris Buckley
Reuters, April 1


BEIJING -- China accused Tibetan groups on Tuesday of planning suicide attacks following last month's riots and protests but did not answer key questions about its evidence for such allegations.

A spokesman told a news conference in Beijing that police had seized guns, bullets and explosives in some Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and repeated the accusation that the Dalai Lama was linked to Tibetan groups that had organised the recent unrest. An aide to the Dalai Lama immediately denied what he called "baseless" allegations, and the US State Department said the Dalai Lama was a man of peace who wanted only to talk to China.


...The Dalai Lama's representatives in India, where he has lived in exile since 1959, have denied Beijing's charges of his complicity in deadly riots that swept Tibet's regional capital on March 14 and urged Beijing to allow an international probe. But China's Ministry of Public Security said it had arrested "key members" of an underground network in Lhasa working in concert with overseas pro-Tibet independence groups to spark a "Tibet People's Uprising Movement". "We now have sufficient evidence to prove that the Lhasa incident is part of the Tibetan People's Uprising Movement organised by the Dalai clique. Its purpose is to create crisis in China by staging coordinated sabotage activities," ministry spokesman Wu Heping told the news conference. "To our knowledge, the next plan of the Tibet independence forces is to organise suicide squads to launch violent attacks." Wu linked the recent unrest with gatherings of Tibetan rights groups last year and in January, saying that the Tibetan Youth Congress and other participants set down a blueprint to disrupt the Olympics and stir insurrection in Tibetan areas. "They reached agreement after consulting with high-level leaders in the Dalai clique," Wu said.

Pressed to give the names of arrested suspects, or to say whether China wants to extradite and try the exiled Dalai Lama--winner of a Nobel Peace Prize--for the alleged crimes, spokesman Wu backed off into generalities about "rule of law". He also would not give details of the supposed plans for suicide attacks, instead referring to his claims of weapons seizures in monasteries.

The United States rejected the allegations that the Dalai Lama was involved in plotting any kind of violence. "The Dalai Lama is a man of peace. There is absolutely no indication that he wants to do anything other than have a dialogue with China to discuss how to deal with some of the serious issues there," said State Department spokesman Tom Casey, when asked about China's claims. He reiterated a U.S. call for China to engage in a dialogue with the Dalai Lama. "We continue to urge the Chinese government to exercise restraint in terms of dealing with any protests that are out there," Casey added.

...Some foreign leaders, including US President George W. Bush, have urged China to talk to the Dalai Lama to resolve the crisis, but China has been pressing foreign governments to avoid contact with him. The Dalai Lama will make a brief stopover in Japan en route to the United States from India next week, upsetting China. "We have all along opposed him using any excuse or in any capacity going to any country to engage in separatist activities," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said. In India, where the Dalai Lama and many of his followers have lived since 1959 when they fled China, Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee urged the Dalai Lama not to indulge in political activities that hurt its ties with China. On Sunday, China's most senior foreign policy official, Dai Bingguo, called Indian National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan to explain China's position on the anti-government unrest.
New York Times, April 1

SHANGHAI — The Chinese president, Hu Jintao, has ordered his nation’s security forces to place a top priority on the Olympic Games in August, saying that China’s international reputation is at stake.

...“Security must take priority,” Mr. Hu was quoted as saying in the People’s Armed Police News, published by China’s paramilitary police force. “Without security guarantees there cannot be a successful Olympic Games, and without security guarantees the national image will be lost.”

...The People’s Armed Police News said a “political mobilization order” had gone out to security forces telling them to prepare for an arduous time ensuring order and control before and during the Games. “The drums of war are sounding, a decisive battle is at hand,” the newspaper said. “For the sake of the Chinese nation’s image and for the honor of the People’s Armed Police, let us never forget our duty.”
With press like that, you have to wonder what effects this might have on attendance, organized boycott or not.
 
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The only thing that may have some kind of effect (without being hypocrisy) is the athletes boycotting.

It wouldn't be the first time Olympics got politically abused.
 
It might hurt them if our $$$ and advertising are pulled out. China should be boycotted in every way for their terrible human and animal rights policies, the way they are beating stray animals to death with poles in the streets and of course Tibet. The sad thing is, a boycott would hurt the athletes more than it would hurt China. We can make a political statement without keeping those young atheles from their chance of a lifetime that may not come again.
 
What if the people of Tibet asked the atheltes or nations to boycott, would it be a different kettle of fish then ?
 
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