Yes

Oui


No

No


So, what's your take? Should we boycott the Beijing Olympics?

Damn right we should, what they are doing is wrong, China has no right being in Tibet,

Does boycotting something actually do anything though?
I am not defending them, hell His Holiness has spent his life trying to free tibet from chinese tyranny, but I am just saying, if the only people that boycotting hurts is the athletes then....whats the point?
And i agree, China has no right being in Tibet, but look at western history, we are not exactly squeaky clean in the pinching other peoples land idea are we!

This post has been edited by Dundee: Mar 23 2008, 07:01 AM

The olympics is a waste of resources anyway, so yes. Think of the carbon emissions!

I was shocked when Beijing was awarded the Olympics in the first place..

Vet posts: I was shocked when Beijing was awarded the Olympics in the first place..
==================
Makes me wonder who is really pulling the strings on the World scene… ~rore

Since the Chinese crackdown started in Tibet, I think that the international community as a whole has had a cowardly attitude in this matter.

Sure, the athletes will be punished somehow if the Games were to be boycotted.

But the guilt must rest on the Chinese government. We must twist Beijing’s arm, because the Tibet is just the tip of the iceberg.

There are thousands of capital executions, no political freedom, heavy censorship, complicity with the Burmese Junta, and complicity with the Sudanese authorities in Darfur.

Absolutely. China has oppressed peoples too long and it's time we the people show them who is in charge.

Thanks Alison, but I doubt china gives a dam about what the rest of the world thinks, the only way china will change is if it is changed from the inside. And as far as "we the people show them who's in charge" heh, I think that is a little nieve. China is one country that should be taken seriously.

I'm for boycotting the Olympics as well. But I agree with Dundee, I do not see this helping matters for the Tibetian people.
China leaders are arrogent, human rights there is bad among other things.
What can really get their attention enough to listen, short of an embargo?
With the money coming and going from China, the properties being bought by China companies and investors, I do not see anything like that ever happening. It is sad, but the world bows to money, oil and anything that means power.
I have been upset over what has happened to Tibet, but how can it honestly be changed by us?

Sooner or later, all the old people running the country will die, the younger generation will eventually come to power, having grown up in different times they will have different values. The system will change on its own, it will just take time is all. I guess the question is, how much damage will be done while the current system is in place. And can the world afford to wait for change.

The contrast with the general negative opinion concerning the 1936 Olympics is interesting. But when they gave the Olympics to Germany in 1936, the democratically-elected Nazis had not, at that stage, committed any crimes.

This is in stark contrast to the award of the Olympics to the tyrannical, unelected mass-murderers running the Chinese Communist slave-empire.

Apart from their invasion and violation of Tibet, and the issues mentioned by allison1597 (Darfur, denial of democracy and basic freedoms, the execution of thousands annually for trivial crimes) there's these issues:

the on-going repression of all other minorities (Uighurs, Mongols, Yi etc), their on-going campaign against all religion, the selling of executed prisoner's body parts, the running of a slave-labor camp system, the use of prisoner-slaves to manufacture products for Western capitalism, the deliberate selling of poisoned and contaminated produce, the complete exploitation and devastation of their own environment for profit, and, last but not least: the murder of over thirty five million of their own citizens since the Communist takeover. The number of victims of the Chinese Communist Party divides up like this:

8,427,000 victims: the Totalization Period
7,474,000 victims: Collectivization and "The Great Leap Forward"
10,729,000 victims: The Great Famine and Retrenchment Period
7,731,000 victims: The "Cultural Revolution"
874,000 victims: Liberalization

= 35,235,000

China's Bloody Century

Laogai Camp System Info(=Chinese Gulag)

The West has totally lost its moral compass (not that it had much to start with). The overthrow and destruction of the Chinese Communist party is inevitable anyway - and those who support it and invest in China or go to this Olympics now will pay for their greed and stupidity.

The Olympics should be scrapped or returned to Greece permanently so we don't give criminal regimes run by mass-murderers the opportunity for self-aggrandizement.

Look back on Rosa Parks.

Boycotting the Olympics will only have a very small effect. However, boycotting Chinese goods would have a much greater effect. But then how does one do that? It is difficult not to buy anything made in China. Also, to most it is probably an acceptable consequence of having all of these cheap goods that China carries on doing the things that it does.

This post has been edited by Andrew: Mar 30 2008, 10:58 AM

Thats a good point almost everything is made in China these days......

More Neo Nazi propaganda brought to you by Hapax. The Nazis had commited no crimes by 1936?? Well.. sure, because they were the government. We can just as easily say the Chinese arent breaking any laws.. their laws allow them to do what they are doing. The Nazis had passed the Enabling Act in 1933, had formed its first concentration camp (Dachau) in 1934, Night of the Long Knives was also in 1934, the Reichstag Fire was in 1933, and the Gestapo was formed that year.. torture was SOP of the Gestapo.

I came back from a week in China today (work). Ive been there a lot and it was very different this time. I had my bag searched just entering Tianenmen Square.. and for the first time ever I had problems getting OUT of the country at passport control. Aside from the political issues, the Olympics should not be held in Beijing.. its just barely a developed country and the air quality is every bit as bad as they say ..not just pollution the yellow sand as well. Yesterday there was basically a sand storm.

Why won't the International Olympic Committee and the World Governments condemn China for their continued occupation of Tibet? It is obvious that China has nothing but contempt for the whole idea of civil liberties and the people of Tibet. Why are the Chinese even in Tibet, it's certainly not for the protection of the people of Tibet.
The Olympic Games should be taken from China until such time that they begin to behave in a responsible and humane manner.
Does anybody really cares what is happening in the World today?

The running of the torch has been turned into a complete farce, largely on behalf of pro-Tibetan protestors, so at least some people care. It was a truly laughable display, both in London yesterday and in France earlier today. The IOC is pretty much toothless. Its granting the games to Beijing was conditional on many changes in Chinese society. China ignored those conditions, but what can the IOC do? It could refuse to sanction the games, perhaps, but it goes against their own self-interest to do so, because all their work put in to this year's games then goes to waste.

Dear Olympic Boycott Desk:
As the current Interplanetary Tiddley-Winks Champion I have decided to only play tiddlywinks with Tibetan Lamas (be they Sakya, Kagyu, Ningma or Golupa schools) and only during out of body meditations offplanet in undisclosed locations. Place your bets ladies and germs.

no