sdelmonte | Chinese Accuse Dalai Lama of "Olympic Sabotage Plan"

Yes, that dastardly defier of all that is good and right in China is planning to ruin the Olympics!

Which is to say, we can look forward to the Chinese government cracking down again on Tibet as part of the run-up to the Olympics.

I barely care about the Olympics these days. But the decision to give the games to a totalitarian and corrupt regime that oppresses its own people and enables other oppressors, among other myriad crimes, was a terrible idea, and I really feel like calling on everyone I know not to watch them as a way of telling NBC we wish they weren't doing business with scoundrels. I doubt it would make a difference, and I won't deny that we ALL have to do business with China if we want to buy any consumer goods. But I think that the Olympics, as co-opted by the corporate world as they have been till now, are about to become little more than propaganda for thugs, and that no one should spend one second watching them.

(Ideally, I'd love to see the US not send its athletes, but the 1980 boycott of the Moscow games hurt no one but the athletes themselves. I suppose it's far too much to hope that the US team comes home and spends two months telling everyone how bad things are, isn't it?)