The boycott of sport in South Africa really had a big effect on the local population and led to the abandonment of aparteid. True it would be better still if business was not conducted with China.
The comparison with greece and China is poor - String has already mentioned the stupidity of the plane spotters - as the greeks weren't about to execute them. China has the highest rate of execution in the world and is currently occupying Tibet because it has lots of minerals. The occupation takes the form, in part, of moving in ethnic chinese and displacing the local populace - this is a policy that has been going on for decades.
BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Paris protests mar Olympic relay
Seems the French beat the UK at the Olympics - they managed to extinguish the torch 3 times today.
They had to carry it on a bus. The French mayor also cancelled a parade.
BBC had an article on what China TV showed of the last 2 days. The UK had a few pictures of the torch and some athletes inside a stadium and comments that it was universally welcomed everywhere and going smoothly. Not a mention of the real situation at all. Sadly that highlights perfectly how Chinese people have to live their lives - fed propaganda and sheltered from the real world for their entire lives.
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*Number of 2010 dives with a hog loop/primary donate:- 211. Number of strangulations:- 0, Number of student heads exploding with the complexity of seeing it:- 0*
Not true. Hitler was the first to do this in 1936.
"The idea of carrying a lit torch from the Temple of Hera in Greece was invented by Hitler in 1936 to suggest a link between the German people and fellow Aryans in southern Europe. It was revived as a political act by Sydney in 2000 with a regional tour symbolising Australia’s links with the Pacific rim of Asia. Athens staged a world tour in 2004 in honour of the Games returning to their original home." Source
It is very much to do with politics. There is some sport, but that takes second place. The "Olympics" is a 4-year event for the host country (if not much longer), only the actual games part takes 2 weeks.
I quite liked that article quoted above. I am particularly fond of the expression describing the IOC as: "a self-perpetuating mafia"
How long did that boycott take to work? I think we'll struggle to find any examples of truly effective boycotts.Originally Posted by Jay_Benson
Very, very good points.Originally Posted by NotDeadYet
EDIT: apologies to al kennedy who spotted the 1936 thing first.
Last edited by Lazlo; 07-04-08 at 03:49 PM.
Ian
“Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labor; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it” - Samuel Johnson
On the role model thing i cant find an online link but BBC news interviewed steve redgrave who said amongst other things it was a fantastic advert for democracy and the right thing to do. So he's not sitting on the fence like so many others.
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*Number of 2010 dives with a hog loop/primary donate:- 211. Number of strangulations:- 0, Number of student heads exploding with the complexity of seeing it:- 0*
Here. It's the sort of baloney that all supporters of the Olympic's have been peddling. That completely ignores the reality of the games - a politicised bun-fight. With China hosting the games i hardly think that is a fantastic advert for democracy.
Ian
“Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labor; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it” - Samuel Johnson
I find this quote from the BBC news piece on Paris very very ironic:
to that say that sport and politics should not be mixed is a position that everybody can support but is, in reality, an unreachable utopia. The Olympics is all about politics - it has to be - the monies, cachet etc of hosting it is just something that cannot be ignored by Government and is exploited by the IOC - a group of people with extremely low regard amongst Olympic Athletes. Having been on a project with close involvement with the IOC you have wonder if they think that 2 week period just gets in the way.He criticised the attempts to disrupt the torch relay, saying violent protests, "for whatever reason," are "not compatible with the values of the torch relay or the Olympic Games".
Let's face it, the Olympics has long been berefit of any real ethical, moral standard and been used to further the political carriers of more than 1 unsavoury world leader. All the nonsense about furthering Democracy blah blah blah, higher ideals (bleurgh) is just patent BS.
Let's face it, the obnoxious toadying of so many many people on the Olypmics makes Comical Ali's statements on the downfall of Iraq look like.....wel you get my drift. In fact, where is Comical Ali? He'd be an excellent addition to the IOC media team.