Chinese hosts continue misdeeds at Olympics

As expected, the conduct of Chinese officials during the Olympics was predictable.

They cheated in the presentation of the overall spectacle in shameful manner. A little Chinese girl singing a maudlin song at the onset of the games turned out to be a lip-syncer who the totalitarians decided presented better than the real singer. Why? Because the original signer wasn’t pretty enough.

Part of the stunning fireworks at the opening of the games proved to be a fraud, concocted by software artists and presented as real when it was just a computer-generated illusion.

Meanwhile, in the competitions themselves, it turns out that the eligibility of some Chinese athletes  is questionable. Their ages, and hence, their size, appears to be falsified. This couldn’t be without the complicity of the communist government, which must issue false passports to these ineligible competitors beforehand.

Is this important? Well, yes. Smaller competitors, for one thing, are smaller and can overcome gravity more easily than their larger opponents.

One can only imagine the exploitative regimen necessary to get young children — talented for sure — to competition at the Olympics level.

What have Olympics organizers done to challenge the Chinese bullies in the aftermath just these misdeeds. Zero, as far as anyone can see.

Now, today, we’re watching news of Western journalists not only being denied access to covering Olympics-related activities, but actually being arresed and detained in those efforts.

These reporters and photographers were trying to cover a group of people protesting the Chinese government’s illegal occupation of Tibet. Sure, they were released, dirtied and bruised after their altercation with Chinese police, but the fact that there is no honoring of promises made earlier not to hamper foreign news coverage is a chilling reminder that this is an Olympic games that never should have been allowed to happen in this country.

The Chinese government promised time and again that the foreign media would be allowed to tell the story of the games and life surrounding it in an unfettered and uncensored manner. No one would have believed that fairy tale possible; no one should have. And now it has not happened.

There’s no solving the situation now. It’s just a matter of letting this shebang run on and run down. But there should be a clear warning to the rest of the world that this Chinese regime — no matter how capitalistic (read ravenously greedy) it appears, it’s really just a very ugly and sinister creature wrapped under a smiling mask.

To hell with the Olympics

Just a few days until the beginning of the Olympic Games in Beijing. I wish I could get excited. After all, these are usually happy moments where friends, foes and others around the world gather to supposedly shed their political problems amid the purity of athletic competition.

But that’s just bullshit, of course, and never more so than as the curtain readies to rise within this panorama of totalitarianism and propaganda.

First of all, China made a number of promises in order to be considered and then to be approved to host the games. In essence the country’s tyrannical dictators promised to let up for the duration of the games and at least let a modicum of information flow within and out of the country.

But they’ve done none of that. Quite the contrary. Chinese citizens haven’t a clue about where they are or who they are in the world, what their country is about or how this impending series of international games is just a huge political sham. Journalists visiting the country are finding their efforts throttled wherever and whenever the dictatorial government can figure out a way to impose their malignant will.

Just a couple of examples: Ability to access the Internet, a basic element of communications in this fast-paced era is compromised by a government hell-bent on restricting the flow of information in and out of China. And how about a South Korean journalist’s scoop in filming the audition of the Chinese opening ceremony only to find the totalitarians had intervened and gotten their dirty asses kissed by YouTube and others who withdrew the film from circulation? That’s pure crap.

We can only imagine the doublethink to come and we’ll probably never know how coverage of the games will be portrayed to the Chinese people themselves. Obviously, Chinese athletes will not ‘lose’ in any event; they’ll just compete very successfully. And is it a silly question to ask if Tibet will field a team at all?

While we on the topic of who’s in and who’s out, there is the issue of the Iraq team originally being disqualified. If there ever was a time for exceptions to bureaucratic and arbitrary rulings, this would be it. No one would see Iraq as a contender in anything, but it will be healthy to see divided sides in that mess coming together for a moment of athletic competition. Shame on the International Olympic Committee for their initial decisions on Iraq..

Anyway, for my part, I’m going to impose my own censorship on the whole damned thing. Since we can’t get unbiased coverage out of China I don’t plan to tune in at all. At the end of the day, it’s a joke; it’s like an Olympics being publicized by Disney. Why should anyone really give a damn who supposedly wins or loses any events. It’s all just a fantasy.