Partners In Grime

[tannybogus]

You only have to breathe the air to understand that these Olympics aren't about sport. They're about corporate profit, a propaganda stage for the Chinese government, and the moral collapse of the Olympic movement, but the very last thing they're about is excellence or the well-being of the athletes. The real interests, the real priorities, are in the air.

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Athletes are threatening to skip the Opening Ceremonies because they're afraid the environment of the host city will sicken them or compromise their medal chances, and distance runner Haile Gebrselassie dropped out of the marathon because the fumes are too heavy for him to run that distance. The Chinese government has labored for years to clear the air in Beijing, with some success. But in the meantime the Games themselves have become polluted. No governing body truly interested in peak physical performance, in helping athletes to be swifter, higher or stronger, would have awarded the Games to a venue in which you can see the poisons in the air. According to Greenpeace's local director, Lo Sze Ping: "Beijing's air quality is not up to what the world is expecting from an Olympic host city. The sports teams have reason to be concerned."

So what is this Olympics really about? It's about 12 major corporations and their panting ambitions to tap into China's 1.3 billion consumers, the world's third-largest economy. Understand this: The International Olympic Committee is nothing more than a puppet for its corporate "partners," without whom there would be no Games. These major sponsors pay the IOC's bills for staging the Olympics to the tune of $7 billion per cycle. Without them, and their designs on the China market, Beijing probably would not have won the right to host the Summer Games.

Seven years ago, in controversially awarding the Games to the Chinese regime, the IOC assured us that a Beijing Games would be both beneficial and benevolent, and promote a more open society. Chinese officials, too, vowed that the Games would not only foster their economy but "enhance all social conditions, including education, health and human rights."
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Most disgraceful of all is the fact that six of the 12 worldwide Olympic partners are American companies. This has to heart-sicken any patriot. These companies will reap the full exposure of the Summer Games, swathing themselves in the flag, and rationalizing that their business is helping uplift the Chinese people. Don't buy it -- or them. You should know exactly who they are: General Electric (which owns NBC), Coca-Cola, Visa, McDonald's, Kodak, and Johnson & Johnson. (The others are Canadian-based Manulife Financial; Lenovo, the Chinese personal computer maker; the French information technology services company Atos Origin; the Swiss watch manufacturer Omega; Panasonic; and Samsung.) When these acquiesced to the Chinese government's crackdown, and effectively accepted the censorship of the press during these Games, they fell into a special category of profiteers that Franklin Delano Roosevelt described in his "Four Freedoms" speech.

"We must especially beware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American eagle in order to feather their own nests," Roosevelt said.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/04/AR2008080401942.html?hpid=artslot

I want to see how our athletes do, but I get sick and angry when I think about who is hosting these games.

I wish the hell somebody will protest, although the Chinese might toss them in jail. I'm sure they'd be stripped of any medals

and sent home. I'd salute them.