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| SFReader Forums > The Real World > World Events > Should we boycott the China Oylimpics? | Forum Quick Jump
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Jaqhama
Adventurer
      
Date Joined Oct 2007
Total Posts : 312
| Posted 3/22/2008 5:14 AM (GMT -4) |   | | Should we boycott the China Oylimpics?
The world I mean, not SF Forum folk in particular.
My GF Lin and I have decided we will not be watching the China Oylimpics on TV.
China picked a bad time to start enforcing their regimes rule in Tibet.
Not watching the events on TV is easily the best form of protest we can think of.
There's so much stuff made in China today it's kinda hard to say...Oh we just won't buy made in China goods.
Not buying china stuff is all but impossible in Oz. Just about all our clothes are made in China.
So our small protest will be ignoring the 2008 oylimpics.
Anyone else here been having similar thoughts?
Cheers: Jaq.
You can read some of my stories here:
Swamp Story. Down South. Florida Haze.Wild Justice...
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erazmus
Master
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 4464
| Posted 3/22/2008 12:46 PM (GMT -4) | | | | |
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nathan
Sage
Date Joined Mar 2006
Total Posts : 2111
| Posted 3/22/2008 4:03 PM (GMT -4) | | I get so frustrated by this issue, lol. It seems like both sides of left/right ideologies fail us to the extreme.
I'd like to see us boycott the China Olympics like we did Russia's back in the 80's. Of course we owe them a helluva of a lot of money. Clinton pushed hard to get most favored trade status including pretending to solve the N. Korea problem ("hey! They said they're going to be good now! Let's believe them!") then getting caught having Chinese funds funneled into his campaign coffers.
Bush has been no better, infact worse for encouraging strongly American business into China. While Clinton owns a lot of how the problem began Bush just made it worse, and gleefully.
Meanwhile you have people thinking you can't bring democracy at gunpoint to other countries. Rember Free Tibet? Richard Gere and a hundred bands singing songs and calling for this and calling for that?
Useless.
For Tibet to be free they must fight. Without outside intervention and support they have 0% chance of fighting a government as ruthless as China though they may suceed in getting their country to look like a mountainous version of the Palestine Occupied Territories which would give China a black eye. But there are many people who don't think this etherally concept of freedom is worth the death chaos and suffering that would follow.
So if the left isn't going to help them. If the right isn't going to help them and if the Dali Lama is going to quit if they the people start doing the only thing that will actually free them--then why boycott?
Why make apolitical atheletes bear the brunt of what governments and nations and the general world population won't do. Let the atheletes game--Tibet doesn't matter enough to anyone in the world to do what needs to be done to free it so leave the Olympians out of it.
Hmm. I guess I must feel more strongly than I thought I did when I started typing, lol.
VIEW IMAGE"Writing the wet dreams of teenage boys" - Lindsey Llyod, Tangent Reviews
Tarantino himself has been forward and unapologetic about his influences. In a 1994 interview with Empire magazine, he said, "I steal from every single movie ever made. If people don't like that, then tough tills, don't go and see it, all right? I steal from everything. Great artists steal, they don't do homages." | | Back to Top | | |
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erazmus
Master
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 4464
| Posted 3/23/2008 8:39 AM (GMT -4) | | | | |
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nathan
Sage
Date Joined Mar 2006
Total Posts : 2111
| Posted 3/23/2008 1:47 PM (GMT -4) | | "You're screwed anyway" is not a moral argument for competeing--your are exactly correct. It stinks as a mind set (and I hold it) and is at its roots wrong.
But since nothing is going to happen by the people who are suppossed to make things happen and since were going to be enjoying some of the benefits of having them help our economy I just don't see why the Olympians should suffer. They're the least culpable in the whole mess.
If go business as usually-pause-boycott--unpause and business as usual--what good does it do to make the atheletes suffer when no one else it willing to in business, politcs, or the general population?
But yeah, it's not a particularly moral position.
VIEW IMAGE
"Writing the wet dreams of teenage boys" - Lindsey Llyod, Tangent Reviews
Tarantino himself has been forward and unapologetic about his influences. In a 1994 interview with Empire magazine, he said, "I steal from every single movie ever made. If people don't like that, then tough tills, don't go and see it, all right? I steal from everything. Great artists steal, they don't do homages." | | Back to Top | | |
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tchernabyelo
Acolyte
Date Joined Oct 2006
Total Posts : 394
| Posted 3/25/2008 9:19 AM (GMT -4) | | While I am no fan of, or apologist for, the Chinese regime, Tibet's right to "independence" is a question that has merit on both sides - just as any other ethnoic/religious grouping of people who find themselves subject to the rule of "outsiders" (in what way are the Tibetans different from Kurds, Chechens, Basques, French Canadians, Lakota Native Americans, San Bushmen, and so on and so forth?).
China's human rights record is poor, but then so are those of many other regimes that the Western world regards as "allies" (Saudi Arabia being the most obvious current example).
The economic power of China (in particular the US trade deficit and the capability of the Chinese government to forcce the dollar into a plunge that would guarantee a US recession) is such that you will hear only lip service from the US (and thus the rest of the West) in support of Tibet, and even that will be heavily qualified.
Brian Dolton
Yi Qin stories:
"The Box Of Beautiful Things" - IGMS#3
"The Man Who Was Never Afraid" - Abyss and Apex #20
"At Blue Crane Falls" - Abyss and Apex #25 "Where No Wind Blows" - Staffs & Starships #2
"What The Sea Refuses" - Black Gate (forthcoming)
"What The Heart Bears" - Black Gate (forthcoming)
"Above The Clouds" - Paper Blossoms, Sharpened Steel (forthcoming)
Other Land Of Wind And Ghosts stories:
"The Dragon Path" - Fictitious Force (forthcoming)
"Three Out Of Four" - Sorcerous Signals Feb-Apr 08
Stories in other settings:
"The Unicorn Hunter" - OG's Speculative Fiction #8
"Call Centre" - Necrotic Tissue #1
"When Winter Came" - ASIM #32
"Cold Fire" - Flashing Swords #9
"St. Saviour And The Devil's Dandy" - Flashing Swords (forthcoming) | | Back to Top | | |
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peadarog
Acolyte
Date Joined Oct 2005
Total Posts : 292
| Posted 3/25/2008 12:26 PM (GMT -4) | | "While I am no fan of, or apologist for, the Chinese regime, Tibet's right to "independence" is a question that has merit on both sides - just as any other ethnoic/religious grouping of people who find themselves subject to the rule of "outsiders" (in what way are the Tibetans different from Kurds, Chechens, Basques, French Canadians, Lakota Native Americans, San Bushmen, and so on and so forth?)."
I'm a big fan for allowing all of these peoples to have self-determination if they want it. Why should people who want a divorce be forced to stay in an unhappy marriage? In the case of Tibet, it was already an independent, very peaceful country until China invaded it.
Peadar O Guilin
Available now:
"The Mourning Trees" in Black Gate #5
"Fairy Fort" in A Walk on the Darkside
"Hair" in www.feralfiction.com
"Hurdy-Gurdy" in Dark Arts
"The Drain" in Weird Tales
"Where Beauty Lies in Wait" in Black Gate.
Coming Soon:
"The Evil-Eater" in Black Gate.
"The Dowry" in Black Gate
The Inferior from David Fickling Books. Eat or be eaten.
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Gustavo
Sage
Date Joined Aug 2007
Total Posts : 1067
| Posted 3/25/2008 2:25 PM (GMT -4) | | Intersting question. I'm not in favor of boycotting the Olympics, and I really believe that tyranny in China will fall the same way it did behind the Iron Curtain: as a greater number of Chinese become educated and globalized (China tries to censor the internet, but it's a pretty empty gesture), and as commercial pressures mount, totalitarianism will either collapse or adapt. Either will be good for human rights.
I'm not actually certain that democracy would WORK in China (I'm from Argenitna, the country that proves that democracy gives the people the government they deserve, in our current case the rule of imbeciles over imbeciles) and a failed government in China could mean millions or tens of millions dead. It's a tough problem, but I think, in the end, globalization will absorb the Chinese, too.
Interesting thing about Basque separatists... As Europe strives to tear down more and more borders, do ethnic groups even need to have a specific territory?
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tchernabyelo
Acolyte
Date Joined Oct 2006
Total Posts : 394
| Posted 3/26/2008 6:40 AM (GMT -4) | | It's interesting to note that, as Europe "tears down" borders in terms of the movement of people, many countries are making it much, much harder to gain citizenship, and are moving towards a real two-tier society - those who can visit and stay and work for a certain length of time but have very limited rights in areas such as healthcare and pension provision, against those who are "full citizens". I find it a rather worrying trend.
Brian Dolton
Yi Qin stories:
"The Box Of Beautiful Things" - IGMS#3
"The Man Who Was Never Afraid" - Abyss and Apex #20
"At Blue Crane Falls" - Abyss and Apex #25 "Where No Wind Blows" - Staffs & Starships #2
"What The Sea Refuses" - Black Gate (forthcoming)
"What The Heart Bears" - Black Gate (forthcoming)
"Above The Clouds" - Paper Blossoms, Sharpened Steel (forthcoming)
Other Land Of Wind And Ghosts stories:
"The Dragon Path" - Fictitious Force (forthcoming)
"Three Out Of Four" - Sorcerous Signals Feb-Apr 08
Stories in other settings:
"The Unicorn Hunter" - OG's Speculative Fiction #8
"Call Centre" - Necrotic Tissue #1
"When Winter Came" - ASIM #32
"Cold Fire" - Flashing Swords #9
"St. Saviour And The Devil's Dandy" - Flashing Swords (forthcoming) | | Back to Top | | |
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Jaqhama
Adventurer
Date Joined Oct 2007
Total Posts : 312
| Posted 4/4/2008 6:26 AM (GMT -4) | | | | |
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Steven the Git
Neophyte
Date Joined Nov 2007
Total Posts : 186
| Posted 4/6/2008 3:16 PM (GMT -4) | | Have to say from a british viewpoint it is a hard one to call. If we didn't send our athletes, well, first, would anyone notice?!
But seeing as we have the next Olympics, and also as we have forces in two countries, if we boycott, then others could boycott us for valid reasons. Mind you, in saying that, it could happen anyway.
I do think if major nations did boycott China would be very embarassed and they do want to appear better in world views, if for nothing more than money as well. I think it would have meaning, but would it work? I guess sometimes that isn't the question. You sometimes should say it is worth trying.
To be honest, I doubt I'll watch the games as there is nothing in there I truly respect or enjoy. So I could well boycott for different reasons - ie. it's crap.
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DAWaverly
Quirky Weirdness
Date Joined Jul 2006
Total Posts : 190
| Posted 4/6/2008 7:54 PM (GMT -4) | | Steven the Git said...
But seeing as we have the next Olympics, and also as we have forces in two countries, if we boycott, then others could boycott us for valid reasons. Mind you, in saying that, it could happen anyway.
I thought about mentioning in this thread that my nation, US of A, is currently occupying two nations, and that a boycott could be seen as hypocritical by some. I decided not to. I did however obsess about my statement earlier in the thread...
DAWaverly said...
For many of us (and I do include myself) it is easy for us to spout off about some injustice on a forum or blog and then feel good about ourselves. But have we really done anything?
... and ended up kicking out an experimental bit of fiction that, even if it doesn't sell, at least has me being more aware that I personally need to take more action instead of just talking or blogging about it.
- Deven
Blogtide Rising
published
"The Journey" at Every Day Fiction
forthcoming
"An Awakening of Shadows" in The Infinity Swords anthology from Carnivah House
"All That Glitters" at Every Day Fiction | | Back to Top | | |
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erazmus
Master
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 4464
| Posted 4/8/2008 11:24 AM (GMT -4) | | | | |
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