Olympics being held in China

[bob300w]

Nothing has changed since 1936 has it? Why do we never learn?

 

http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/olympics1936/

[Maiden22]

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Edited January 12, 2009 by Maiden22

[lord_seagrave]

Totally wrong.

 

Just look at the state of those SMKs

 

LS

[JohnGalway]

I couldn't care less where the Olympics are to be held to be honest. There are a lot more pressing and important problems to be sorted out closer to home. As for wishy washy left wing pinko protestors, I'm sorely dissappointed the Paris Riot Police went so easy on them

[dustyfox]

I think it is sensable in a way China has a growing economy and should be allowed to show the world what they can do.

 

I believe many of the top athletes of the future is gonna come from this country. I know its not athletics but look at snooker with Ding. They may have put the prices of your cartridges up but they have bought down the price of clothes that you are probably wearing now.

 

What China does with its own people is nothing to do with us unless thousands of immigrants end up here. You wouldnt like China telling what our country should do so why should we tell them what to do.

 

Now this is my opinion, I am now expecting a load of people to go against me on this,

 

Dustyfox

Edited April 7, 2008 by dustyfox

[monkeyjaimz]

The chinese state and government are a complete disgrace to the modern civilised world.

They invaded tibet and forced the dalai lahma to live in exhile still to this day, they censor everything that goes on in their country and exploit the people that are unfortunate enough to be born there.

Perhaps even worse is the fact that it's western greed for cheap products etc that fuels the slave labour over there.

I went to look at a steel container a couple of months ago in a shipping yard, I asked the owner of the yard where all these massive containers come from. He told me that the chinese government manufactures those containers off their own back purely to get products and produce out of the country, the basic analogy he gave me was:

"think of it the same way as you do a carrier bag when you go to tescos" - scary thought

Another disgrace is companies like google agreeing to censor material on the web inside china to further line their pockets

As already said, I couldnt care less about the olympics to be honest, but I cant stand china.

So my answer would be a resounding NO!

[lurcherboy]

I was sort of going to post 'wrong' then I read this post;

 

 

 

I couldn't care less where the Olympics are to be held to be honest. There are a lot more pressing and important problems to be sorted out closer to home. As for wishy washy left wing pinko protestors, I'm sorely dissappointed the Paris Riot Police went so easy on them

 

 

But not with him over the Paris riots.

 

 

 

LB

Edited April 7, 2008 by lurcherboy

[Suffolk shooter]

It may be morally wrong, but as a few others have already stated, there are more pressing matters to be dealt with in this country before we start having double standards over issues in other countries. Education, Health, Immigration, Credit Crunch, pensions, un-employment.

 

At the end of the day its only the olympics, the atheletes have the choice to not go if they so choose and most of the track and field atheletes being openly religious you'd think that morally they wouldn't, but hey guess what money talks as do sponsers and the asian market is a big one so guess what not a lots going to be done.

 

Bit stupid the protesting. Violent scenes whilst protesting over the supposed violent regieme of China That makes sense. NOT!!!!

 

Are our armed forces not already fighting in countries where we have no real right to be at the moment in Iraq and Afghanistan, with posturing over Iran, North Vietnam and any other country that remotely looks like it might achieve something in the way of tecnology or financial gain. Do you think even the USA are stupid enough to go to war with a country of over a billion people, where alot of goods are made cheaper than cost and then exported globally, I think not.

 

Do we do anything about Pakistan and India fighting over the region of Kashmir or India with Sri lanka, Zimbabwe, certain central african or south american countries??? No, ask yourself why because they is nothing to be gained by doing so, no oil, gold or diamonds or any other oprecious or nuclear material.

 

SS

[funky]

Big bowl of wrong and we all have to have a spoon full

Edited April 7, 2008 by funky

[funky]

I have been inspired by my learned friend Suffolk Shooter.

I suppose my take on this is that if competing on a level playing field trying to be the best in your chosen sport, having the oppertunity to represent your home land, to have the chance to prove yourself no matter who you are or what place your from regardless of status creed or religion. this is what the Olympic games is about. China doing what they do with there human rights issues hardly can say that they play on the level. But i suppose we could look back at England past and see the same at some moment in time. either way it,s wrong we hopfully have moved on they haven not.

 

Freedom to be who you want to be, where you want to be. It not rocket sience, change your ways China

[Zapp]

Think how sport was used (very successfully) to reinforce the pariah status of South Africa, with boycotts and bans of sporting events to clearly show that civilised nations viewed apartheid with disgust.

 

Whilst I agree that giving the Olympics to China was a disgusting decision, I cannot have been completely alone in having thoroughly enjoyed the growing impotent fury of Chinese government officials in their statements each time the torch gets mobbed/put out/causes near riots simply by being there.

 

It is easy to dwell on the fact that the decision was so bad and forget that China's dreadful human rights record has never been so publicised, or it's government so comprehensively embarrassed, since Tiananmen Square. And it is not just Tibet, have a look at what the follwers of Falun Gong are going through (at your peril, it is truly awful).

 

I for one am very glad that the one good thing to come of the China Olmpics may be that Beijing has, through it's own vanity and lack of awareness, been exposed to (and powerless to stop) the kind of protest and popular fury it crushes so well within its own borders.

 

To have denied China the Olympics would have been a headline for a day perhaps, now the world (by which I mean the people, not the governments) has been handed a rare opportunity to leave a brutal tyranny with egg on it's face.

 

ZB

[jonno 357]

A big YES from moi

 

Jonno

[Jimbo57]

Don't know enough about China to comment (and it is obvious that many others who have responded are equally ignorant). Just because they are different from us does not mean that they are less worthy to host sporting events.

 

But what we can say with certainty is that the decision to allow London to host the 2012 Olympics is VERY VERY BAD.

 

Just look at the civil rights breaches in the UK.

 

We can no longer own or use handguns.

We can no longer hunt and kill foxes or hares with hounds.

British people are thrown out of work to make room for immigrants.

Gordon Brown is an ****hole.

We illegally invaded Iraq and have caused hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians to be killed. Just because Blair was a poodle of Thicko George (Bush).

There are more Chinese restaurants in London than there are English ones in Peking.

 

Lets face it. The British people could not care less about China. The protests when the Olympic Torch was in London was just the usual rent-a-mob thugs who will turn out for any excuse to be vile and violent. Exactly the same thugs to rented themselves out as hunt saboteurs and who disrupt shoots every Saturday during the season.

 

Just my opinion of course.

 

Jim

[Zapp]

Don't know enough about China to comment

 

Then go and learn about it before comparing it to the comparitively rather piffling examples you give of our lack of civil rights, namely;

 

Just look at the civil rights breaches in the UK.

 

We can no longer own or use handguns.

We can no longer hunt and kill foxes or hares with hounds.

 

Seriously, I know which I'd rather have to deal with on a day to day basis. Having said this, I am not happy about the above either. I am however happy that expressing that fact wont get me tortured or killed.

 

ZB

Edited April 13, 2008 by Zapp Brannigan

[jonno 357]

Will fried rice taste the same again I wonder. Yummy

 

Jonno

[Mungler]

Just look at the civil rights breaches in the UK.

 

We can no longer own or use handguns.

We can no longer hunt and kill foxes or hares with hounds.

British people are thrown out of work to make room for immigrants.

Gordon Brown is an ****hole.

We illegally invaded Iraq and have caused hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians to be killed. Just because Blair was a poodle of Thicko George (Bush).

There are more Chinese restaurants in London than there are English ones in Peking.

 

 

That made me laugh for all the wrong reasons.

 

A very interesting perspective and comparative on the Chinese human rights issue.

[Bagsy]

There are more Chinese restaurants in London than there are English ones in Peking.

 

Can you provide some evidence please?

 

[ME]

There are more Chinese restaurants in London than there are English ones in Peking.

 

Can you provide some evidence please?

 

 

Surely they would be "Engrish" restaurants anyway ?...

Edited April 13, 2008 by LV

[bullterrier]

Not sure about this, after all it`s a sporting event not the presidency of Amnesty International.

I personally believe that no one would be complaining if it hadn`t kicked off in Tibet a couple of weeks ago. If people were that bothered they could have started an anti campaign 4 or more years ago. The only thing that has annoyed me is Chinese special police being allowed to escort the torch through London, I bet the the Met wouldn`t be allowed to do that in Beijing.

Some would say our human rights have been eroded by the Labour socialist government in this country over the last 10 years who haven`t exactly covered us in glory.

[Zapp]

I personally believe that no one would be complaining if it hadn`t kicked off in Tibet a couple of weeks ago. If people were that bothered they could have started an anti campaign 4 or more years ago.

 

Not so, anti china/tibet protests have been going on for years (I walked right into the middle of one in London in the late 90s), they just have never had anything to make them so attractive to the press as the upcoming olympics. The reason the protests kicked of was timed to coincide with the torch relay for maximum effect, these people arent stupid. People laugh at the notion of press control in this country, but it really is true.

 

I am waiting with interest to see if the Taiwanese use the olympics to declare, or at least start beating the drums for (full) independance from China, or whether the continuation of Hong Kong's affluence and apparent autonomy has lulled them into a sense of security about the whole thing. Let's face it, with the eyes of the whole world on China and it's human rights record, what better time is there for Taiwan to go for it and try to get a bit of protectionism from it's main textile etc customers (ie the US, UK etc)

 

ZB

[Evil Elvis]

Who cares? No-one watches them anyway!

[Chard]

Who cares? No-one watches them anyway!

 

 

I'm sure you're glued to the synchronised swimming

[Dunkield]

Beach volleyball, was very good last time round

[bullterrier]

Zapp Brannigan I don`t disagree with the fact that people have been having demos about Tibet for years but the hypocrisy of the press and populace in the west is unreal, this sort of thing has been happening for decades in Tibet & nobody gave a monkeys before. We should keep our noses out unless it effects our foreign policy & stop being hypocrites.

[bob300w]

Beach volleyball, was very good last time round