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NO SIDESHOW IN SF
L. Ling-chi Wang urges restraint when the Olympic torch visits San Francisco:
Even if the protesters succeed in using the Olympics to score political points, they will be setting a precedent and run the risk of turning this honored event into a special-issues sideshow - where promoters of every pet issue will seize the opportunity for exposure of their cause. Interest in the goals and spirit of the Olympics will fade, and the international community will be the poorer for it.
Ling-chi Wang is a professor emeritus of ethnic studies at UC Berkeley.
(Via Joseph L.)
Some ethnicities are more ethnic than others.
Posted by Mystery Meat on 2008 03 31 at 11:26 AM • permalinkBut how big is the carbon footprint? And did the Cental Committee buy the offsets?
Posted by Deborah Leigh on 2008 03 31 at 12:09 PM • permalinkFunny how these ‘tards change their tune when their own ox is being gored.
Posted by Tex Lovera on 2008 03 31 at 12:12 PM • permalinkThe good Professor needs to check out some of the photo essays at Zombietime.....he might have an epiphany.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2008 03 31 at 12:30 PM • permalinkOh, and by the way.....the Olympics turned into a special-issues sideshow when Beijing was selected as the host city.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2008 03 31 at 12:33 PM • permalinkIt’ll be interesting to see if this raises a Code Pink Alert.
But perhaps they’re too busy with their sleep-over at Nancy Pelosi’s place…
Posted by JJM Ballantyne on 2008 03 31 at 01:19 PM • permalinkBut remember, we’re post-racial unless it suits us to be all about race.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2008 03 31 at 02:45 PM • permalinkInterest in the goals and spirit of the Olympics will fade, and the international community will be the poorer for it.
You mean the bankrupt ideology, political opportunism and blatant hypocrisy?
Posted by Jay Santos on 2008 03 31 at 03:27 PM • permalinkABC’s Fran Kelly is right now talking with Olympic swimmer Kieran Perkins about ‘maintaining their high standards as role models’ and punishing thuggish behaviour ‘because of the reputation of Australian sport’.
He thinks we must draw a strong line and ban a swimmer who is accused of a physical attack.
Kelly [as fully expected] failed to see the huge irony of sending the whole Olympic team to China which is right now engaged in killings and thuggish behaviour against Tibetans..
Our reputation counts, but the Tibetans’ lot doesn’t register with Fran…I can now add that the ABC notes that ‘all tabloids’ call for banning from China the accused swimmer who’s been ‘disgraced
for a serious assault’ [but only charges at this stage.]Has Olympic Host China also been disgraced for far worse alleged assaults?
Nah, it’s routine stuff…
Still no irony meter at the ABC.
I will open myself to the scorn of the other posters but a. I like the Olympics. I may be deluded but I think that underneath all the Nazis, drug cheats, pimps and whores there is a core of young athletes who every four years give their all to compete.
b. I like China. I know it has an appalling human rights record but some time ago a read Mao, the untold story by Jung Jiang. The recent history of China is one of catastrophe and the improvement to what exists today is fantastic.I recently returned from 3 weeks in China and the people I met from all walks of life are tremendously proud of being able to host the Olympics and for my money, good on them.
I am not not trying to cosmetise the warts of China but I am sick to death of the protesting class and my unrealistic wish is that they would just give it a rest for once and let me and the people of China enjoy an event that has nothing whatever to do with their cause.
#21
The olympics are a joke.
It’s now become a huge money/kudos making machine for the IOC members and other hangers-on.
There are sports I like to watch which don’t rate a mention in Australian coverage because there’s no Aussies in them. And you find that if there’s a sport you like and the Aussies are knocked out quite often that’s the end of the coverage - or in many cases you only se the top few compete as “highlights”. I don’t bother trying.The olympics should put China in the spotlight for human rights abuses. Nothing’s going to change there, it’s another place where life is cheap (or worthless, depending on how you look at it).
And as long as I work with 35 year olds who are unaware of the China/Tibet siutation the Olympics should be used to outline these human rights breeches.
Re #21:
Allan, there was a time when I enjoyed watching the Olympics as well. But I lost that pleasure over the years as the Olympics became less and less competition between athletes and more and more posturing for political gain. Used to be that athletes trained on their own, and with some few donations. These days, it’s big business, with cities competing more for the influx of cash than the prestige.
The same pattern can be seen in some professional sports, where players are more concerned about lucrative contracts than they are about the competition and winning.
Certainly China has made great strides since WWII, but it’s not like they did so without running over students with tanks. Or harvesting human organs for sale from prisoners. Or run coal mines that are death traps. Or selling poisoned pet food to the United States. Or conquering Tibet. Or ruining their environment through their progress. Or other abuses that rightly put them in the international spotlight.
A lot of the pre-game preparations in Beijing have been less than ideal, I think. Much of it has been sweeping the dirt under the rug. Taken in the context of their past problems, it’s reasonable that some people are cynical with China as suitable host for the Olympics.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2008 03 31 at 09:12 PM • permalink#21 My China-born friend laughs at China today. The mess created will never be cleaned up he says.
Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 03 31 at 09:35 PM • permalinkIn the perfect world, there would be an international naming convention for academic chairs, with strict ‘truth in advertising’ criteria.
Hence the Columbia Arts Faculty would host the Edward Said Chair in Applied Anti-Semitism.
And Emeritus Professor L. Ling-chi Wang would hold the Tom Grunfeld Chair in Moral Incapacitation.
Pet issues ... like getting out from under a dictatorship?
Or, you know, stuff that isn’t important to Berkeley professors.
Posted by Rittenhouse on 2008 03 31 at 09:52 PM • permalink"Allan, there was a time when I enjoyed watching the Olympics as well. But I lost that pleasure over the years..."
I’ll second that. I was the biggest Olympics watcher ever, at one point. An Olympics year was a very special year. But now I’m completely over it. I haven’t seen an Olympics since about 1996.
While I respect the athletes and know most of them are in it for the purest of motives, and have trained long and hard to get there, the IOC is such a corrupt, arrogant, and self-serving organization that I simply don’t want to have anything to do with them any more. As someone above said, they are the UN in sports clothing. Or perhaps worse. My interest has long since faded.*
* Which is not to say I don’t still like ski jumping, high jumping, gymnastics, and many other “Olympic” sports. Just not in that venue.
I am not a fan of Olympic posturing and preening, nor of the PRC, but we really can’t risk untoward incidents on US territory. Therefore I suggest the torch be escorted, if not actually carried, by a squad of US Marines.
Posted by Steve Skubinna on 2008 04 02 at 07:37 PM • permalink
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I’d be willing to bet that the professional activist class will still be arguing over whose “critical” issue is to be in the forefront after the torch has passed by.