Is anyone else boycotting the Olympics?

I am, but I also couldn’t care less about sports in general.

You can boycott all you want, where does that get you?

That’s good for you. The only reason you made this post was so you could tell people you are boycotting the Olympics. I hope it makes you feel really good about yourself.

I am…not watching it because of their human rights issues and Tibet. It’s a small thing, but it’s me being true to me! And when people ask me if I saw the Olympics, I get to say why I don’t and won’t…one small step…but at least I’m steppin’

The only way to truly boycott the Olympics is to not by any products from the sponsors, which would be pretty hard to do.

You know even if you dont watch the Olympics they are still gonna happen, and chances are not in china for awhile so does it really matter, and if you watched the opening ceromonies, which im asumming you didnt, they really focused on harnmony

wow. Some real dickhead answers in there. Anyway, boycotting the olympics was a personal decision for me, so the question was sincere as I didn’t really know if anyone else had made similar decisions. Now I know that some have, and that makes me really happy.

I know it’s a small thing, but it means a lot to me personally, and if enough others made enough small changes such as this, then yes, I do believe that it can result in change.

Answering TInyFaery and Aisyma—- I didn’t say boycotting watching the olympic games was the ONLY thing I was doing… I am doing all I can, but I just answered this question here. There are many other things one can do: Write sponsors and express disappointment…mention you are putting this disappointment with them in your blog, myspace, webpage and any newsletter you put out {I write several). Oh, and I made my own T-shirt saying these sponsors should be ashamed of themselves; since they aren’t, don’t buy from them during the games….that’s just a smidgen of what I’ve done besides NOT watching TV ;-)

You go Maverick!

I could give a rats ass about sports so I’m indifferent (with regards to the Olympics themselves, I mean). I do want to point out I too feel that some of the responses here are really “dickheaded”. The person is asking if you are boycotting the games, no need to get your erhu strings in a knot if you don’t like it.

Arent you missing the whole point of the olympics than? Putting worldly affairs aside for this short time and just focus on the sports? You know world unity and all that good stuff?

Maybe im mistaken.

I don’t know why you are boycotting it, the olympics has brought these issues to the surface for the entire world to see and put china under a microscope. If anything this is one of the best things that could of happened to china. And uberbatman is right, its about sportsmanship and trying to bridge the gap between countries rather than politics.

Haha thanks crunchaweezy; you said what we were all thinking!

What is it with all the “douche” stuff? Name-calling doesn’t amount to much. Can you articulate your position in a more constructive way?

Yes. It’s been described by LKidKyle above.

@ uber: are the Olympics really about the sports, or are they a political ego-waggling exposition and a vehicle for advertising and profit?

No, I’m not protesting. Sorry but I’m just not.

Everybody chill out. The guy asked a question to see if anyone agreed and if you don’t like it then don’t answer. Seriously, I thought the Fluther community was more mature than this. This is a shame.

@Dave depends how you look at it. I mean sure theres advertising there and all that BS but isnt there the same thing in the NFL. Do you watch for the adverts or for the Football? I just love seeing the best of the best competing against each other.

Well, it’s defiantly about the sports for all the athletes who work all there entire lives to get there.

It’s American, of course the big corporations are gonna make a ton of money off it.

@ uber: I don’t watch for either. :)

But typically, the hosts of NFL games aren’t brutal dictators torturing the illiterate slaves selling giant pretzels and overpriced beer water.

I don’t watch the Olympics to support the hosts. I watch it to support the athletes who have been dreaming of this moment for possibly most of their lives. It is exciting to watch and it makes me feel good so no…...I am NOT boycotting the Olympics. I do not however support China and feel strongly about the issues at hand. The way I see it is the competitors in the Olympics did not choose where they would be competing so sit back and enjoy….or not.

Boycotting Olympics, why not, but just look at your own country policy (I’m talking for American especially). Ok there is some human rights violations in China, and powerful lobbies of weapons selling, which killed approximately 30 000. Add this number to military killed in Irak, local population who lost everything in bombing and died, street fights victims, terrorism acts on their grounds, torture in some terrorists jail.

And you call this a responsible country, diving countries and not afraid to send tons of military for oil control ? SO maybe you should take care of your own situation before judging other countries on their inner policy.

As a french, I’m was really afraid of the new “president” we were given by voting, and now he is the most unpopular one since polls exists, what a dumb.

Yup.

Irak lol

Yeh. Others are. I don’t watch much TV as it is (online or on the TV itself) so I’m probably not going to take time out to watch it specifically. I did watch the opening ceromony though and it was pretty awesome to say the least. I loved it.

The Olympics unite people and countries. Not supporting them is like saying I am not playing with you because you are ____ . You don’t fix problems by alienation you fix them by bringing others to your table.

@Maverick—I’m with you on this one. And I applaud your stance, while other’s do nothing and remain part of the problem, and they even attack you as you attempt to take a stand against Fascism, the outsourcing of our jobs, and human rights and civil liberties.
You know, Americans are among the most ignorant folks in the developing world. 40+ years of TV programming and high fructose corn syrup have softened our collective brain and fixated the masses somewhere back in the playground—i.e., name calling, personal attacks, mindless politics—don’t point out the obvious, that the emperor has no cloths, ‘cause if you do they you will be turned on you like a winged-rodent at an Ozzie Osborn concert.
Our citizens don’t want to protest China, as we have become more like them, and have forsaken our principals in exchange for cheap crap from Walmart——like selling one’s birthright for a bowl of lentils.
But what ever you do, DO NOT BRING THIS TO THE ATTENTION OF FELLOW CITIZENS! At best you will be ostracized, at worst you will be turned in the Homeland Security and Renditioned to Syria or Egypt to be boiled in oil until you recant.
Be a good American, become obese on trans fat and corn syrup and ecoli contaminated ground beef, and passively accept what the TV God tells you, and donate money to Crazy John McCain!

Bless you Maverick for taking a stand and being a patriot, when being a patriot is unpopular….the masses are usually wrong anyway!

@aliengreen

Good thing trans fat is illegal in some states and most food doesn’t even contain it.

And not everything is perfect, it can’t all be perfect.

@ladytmerie——you nailed it. “been dreaming of this moment for possibly most of their lives. It is exciting to watch and it makes me feel good ”
how to live vicariously through the TV, and escape the mindless minutia of our consumerist existence…

I’d like to see athletes have to actually produce something, contribute to a nation at war, a Nation whose economy has precipitously overshot it’s mark, Like Wile E. Coyote, 10 ft past the edge of the precipitous, realizing the Road Runner has deceived it once again.

Why don’t these super-hero athletes go to Iraq and Afganistan and direct their energies there——OH NO, GOD DAM ME FOR SUGGESTING SUCH A THING. Only poor people need go to war and become fodder…..

@crunch——eat a twinkie——trans fats just became illegal this year, and just because we cannot see our own backsides’ does not mean they are not still “behind us.” (i.e., hanging our our enormous asses)

I don’t know about you, but I don’t have twinkies hanging out of my ass.

You’d like the athletes do something? What do you produce or contribute to a nation at war? I want to see you go into the Olympics and come out with a gold medal, PLEASE ?

@cruch——just the 4th grade response I expected. It is amazing how the simple amongst us are fascinated by shiny objects.

Also, excess weight does not usually protrude from one’s rectum, but rather increases the overall size of the gluteus maximus region.

My brother is in Iraq, and my family had to equip him with armor ect that the government does not provide. Take your meddle and shov…..

rude.

Mulot, you’ll get no argument from me, yes an American, we have done much wrong, especially in the last decade. I’m doing all I can to change our own Human-Rights violations in this country also.

I think you know you are hitting a nerve when someone attacks you personally for a personal belief.

Namaste’

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/08/but-he-gave-up.html

Honestly, you people are crazy. You think not turning on the television is going to change the world. Or even a country? You think writting to sponsers of the olympics telling them you are not buying their product for the duration of the olympics is going to make them blink? You accuse all of us of just sitting on our ass while this is going on, yet you are doing basically the same thing. Except you go out of your way to write letters or write in a thread about it. If you guys were so dedicated to the human rights campaign, why don’t you go over there and do something about it. The world would start looking if enough people like you went over there and started saying something about it. But I guess you wouldn’t want to risk your life for something you really believe in.

LkidKyle, why are we crazy for acting on our personal beliefs? We are being true to ourselves.

I haven’t said anything about you and what you do.

I do all I can here. I have volunteered overseas, not China though. Yet…..;-)

@SeekerSeeking: maybe you should read back through your responses and re-evaluate saying anything about the people who don’t act they way you do.

ladytmerie, I went back and read the responses I wrote…what did I say that offends you?

@Kyle: I don’t think it’s going to change the world, I’m just not interested and the Chinese dog & pony show disgusts me.

And the world wouldn’t know if we went over there and protested, we’d conveniently “disappear.”

@allengreen
Why don’t you go boycott Sydney or Athens then? And in a few years go boycott London too. ”boycotting” these Olympics has no effect what so ever.

Those gold medals aren’t just shiny objects, they represent the athletes accomplishments. Why are you putting it on the athletes? The host country isn’t going to change it’s doings just because you said so.

Monday, August 4, 2008

China’s Olympic Challenge – Pomp and Propaganda
Peter Navarro

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Regrettably, the Beijing Olympic Games will provide strong validation to China’s own particularly virulent brand of Maoist totalitarianism. It was not supposed to be this way.

The International Olympic Committee awarded the 1988 games to South Korea, which promised to clean up its totalitarian act. South Korea’s brutal authoritarian regime did indeed call for direct elections. The result has been a textbook democratic transformation.

Naively thinking it could make democratic lightening strike twice, the IOC awarded China the 2008 Games after China promised a more open system. Regrettably, all we have seen is an even more ruthless repression.

Tibet is just the tip of the Chinese jackboot. Muslims in the western Xinjiang Autonomous Region are routinely brutalized, as are practitioners of Falun Gong. And millions of people at the bottom of the social scale have been roughly evicted from Beijing to make way for the Games.

Beyond its borders, China also regularly uses its U.N. veto power to support everything from genocide in Darfur and Burma and nuclear proliferation in Iran to the looting of Zimbabwe by its ruling elites – all for China’s access to oil and natural resources.

As the Games begin amidst a tsunami of pomp and propaganda, it is essential to remember the broader political context under which they will be conducted.

Peter Navarro is a business professor at the UC Irvine

Why is it that you instantly assume some one is obese, have ADD and play video games? I’m thinking you’re jealous of us fit people.

Ohhhh, that’s cute you posted an article here rather than linking us to it! Thinking everyones lazy…

statistics show that 40% of men under 36 yr spend 6 hours plus playing video games…..and statistically the majority of American are overweight, and even obese—do your own research and find the studies yourself—and I don’t think everyone is lazy, just the trolls that were beating down Maverick, like you?

“us fit people”? WTF are you talking about? (Your profile is very fit and sexy)

Where do I start.

Statistics, yeah that gets thrown around a lot, you can count me OUT of those statistics.

Majority is the keyword here. I can do my own research by looking at myself.

And your abilities to place people into categories according to their interests astounds me!

[Fluther Moderator]: This thread is about boycotting the olympics, not obesity/videogames/ADD etc. Please stay on topic, thank you.

Did any countries boycott the Olympics?

Canada’s Prime Minister did not attend the opening ceremonies, but I’m not aware of other country’s actions.

@Maverick, it is highly unlikely that he did it as a boycott. He’s a conservative PM who is only critical of China rhetorically much like all the other western heads of state. I think the official line is that he had “something else to do”.

yeah, they pussy-footed around it, because the Harper government is spineless like that, it but it was still a clear message from one of China’s more important trading partners, and it was received as such – even as they downplayed it.

I never seen a post get so American in such a hurry. Good job pulling together team. Awesomeness. Lets make change by fighting.