Bissinger: Turn off The Olympic Lights

Suspect that this is going to be yet another in the ever-more-frequent series of cases where statesiders will thank God for the BBC, as our side rolls over.

 

Awesome. That is the greatest sentence that's been written in my time on the board.

 

Good point. Giving up and pulling the plug is a defeatist attitude, and not at all what I would have expected from someone like Fenian.

 

Leave to the UN to influence "the jerk" . It's not the purpose the Olympics was intended for.

The Olympics used to be a great athletic event now left in ruins by politics and network tv executives .

 

But, but, viewers only care about Americans! They don't care about those other athletes with the funny-sounding names! [NBC]

 

But I still don't see that as reason enough to pull the plug.

 

How is our subtle pressure for democratic change supposed to work again?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/16/world/asia/16cnn.html?ref=media

 

When you have a president willingly bending over in front of the Chinese government and asking for more, how is everyone else supposed to react?

 

If you are CNN, are you really all that dependent upon China? I say CNN should grow a spine and send out a big FU to the Chinese government that they stand by the commentary of their people, and more importantly, their right to say such things.

 

The same network that knuckled under to Saddam just so it could keep its access? Not likely.

 

They could follow Murdoch's lead and a) give the Chinese premier a huge book contract, and b) kill a critical book by the former governor general of Hong Kong, in return for Star TV in the Chinese market. CNN was trying to keep its correspondents alive.
Look, there's nothing "defeatist" in saying that the Olympics have always been rotten at their core with corruption, bigotry, and corrosive corporate greed and that the world would be infinitely better off without them.
And, no, they are not going to bring substantive change of any kind to the Chinese government. This is delusionary.
And twob'? If you're going to argue, argue honestly. I said the Olympics have been corrupt from their start, and, to demonstrate, I used as much material as I could summon up about that corruption from 1896 on. That's how amateurism and Brundage got mentioned, as part of a historical continuum, not as a reason today to eliminate the Games. You do know that, right? And the militaristic Japan I mentioned was in connection with the awarding of the 1940 Games to Tokyo, not the 1964 games.
Please do better.

 

From an acquaintance:

There is much greater danger to the rest of the world than to China if China becomes belligerent. Remember, the Chinese have a long view on history. 50 to 100 years is but a fly speck to them. Chinese mind set is one of endurance. If pushed too hard, China can undergo great privation while the rest of the world would scream for mercy from a Chinese induced world depression. The more pressure the West puts on China, the less chance of any negotiation with Tibet. If the moral imperative is greater than negotiation, the resultant internal firestorm will eat your time, soul, stomach, and age you before your time.