Summer Olympics

So - I know many of my long time readers read my blog because I'm the funny guy who makes the fart jokes. And I know I have momentarily lapses and get kind of preachy sometimes when I get off on political or religious jags. And I know people don't like that.

I get it.

Seriously.

But sometimes I need to vent and other times I'm powerless to fight the urge to make this blog topical. I occasionally have moments of lucidity where I feel the need to transcend the fart and boob jokes, and use this space for a greater purpose; a purpose that is politically or socially conscious. Of course, I come back down eventually and it's right back to the scatological humor - - but deep down I feel kind of disappointed in myself that I'm not as socially active as I'd like to be.

That being said - this is one of those preachy, Dr.Z-wants-to-change-the-world kind of posts. Don't say I didn't warn you...

Anyway - China and the Olympics.

It is absolutely shameful that the Olympic Committee, the world governments, and the US have allowed China to get away as long as it has with its shenanigans.

That's right - I said shenanigans.

Yeah. We get that they have a billion ready and able soldiers that they can throw like so many grains of sand at the shores of any country they decide they want to invade. Yeah, we get that they've got nuclear weapons. Yeah, we get that they hold half of all our money in their coffers.

I get all that.

But why the fuck do we let them get away with it? President Bush talks about freedom, and democracy, and all kinds of other jingoistic slogans; but yet he turns a blind eye to the blatant and unremorseful human rights violations that China has perpetrated. Jumping Jeebus on a pogo stick! Not that Bush is any model of civil liberties or human rights... his "You're wit' us or you're agin' us" policy has eviscerated the Bill of Rights. But at least his dimwittedness is done out of a sense of moral responsbility, however misguided his version of that may be.

China - on the other hand - is a whole other level of evil.

They showed the Chinese Army running over peacful protestors with tanks, in Tiananmen Square, on motherfucking CNN. China has openly supported the perpetrators of genocide in Darfur. They've sold nuclear technology to rogue nations and bragged about it. They control the internet and put supporters of free speech in prisons that are infinitely worse than even the most horrific gulag the Russians ever dreamed of. They take these same political prisoners - who are often guilty of little more than saying, "Hey... maybe Democracy and letting people have a say in how they live isn't such a bad thing?" - and kill them to harvest their organs and sell them on the black market.

And we turn a blind eye because they make Nike's for a fraction of what Guatemalans or Mexicans would make them for.

And now we've got the Olympics in Beijing. And, in typical repressive regime fashion, they've clamped down on the internet EVEN MORE. They've killed Tibetan monks for daring to stand up to the government. Every day the news is worse about China's strong arming of the Olympic Committee. Unbelivably, they have Chinese soldiers guarding the Olympic torch. Meanwhile, these same brutish thugs are beating English, French, and American protestors in the same way they systematically beat protestors in China. And they're doing this outside of China!

Against this backdrop, we have President Bush, who is not sure if he'll attend the Olympic Games. His and many other world leaders' response to these blatant acts of totalitarian zealotry and affronts to national sovereignty is that "the Olympics aren't about politics".

To that I say, "Bullshit!"

Idealogically, it's true that the Olympics aren't about politics. But that lofty idealogical aspiration goes out the window when held up against the larger backdrop of human decency and human rights. The US boycotted the Berlin Olympics because we thought Hitler and the Nazi's were assholes. The Munich Olympics showed that ideology only goes as far as eleven bullets. And - in 1968 - two brave black athletes held up their hands in a "Black Power" salute and showed that Civil Rights was just as important on a world stage as it was here in the US (and they were banned from the Olympics for life as a result).

The world needs to stand up as one and say, with one voice, "We will not tolerate this!"

And, the United States, which has so much to gain from it, should lead the charge.

But that won't happen because, fundamentally, diplomacy is about being nice regardless of the consequences. No matter how egregious the affront to civility or common human decency, it is more important to be civil and look the other way.

And this is what's wrong with the world today. Nobody can say "Enough is enough." Especially here in America.

Sure we talk a good game, and we act all John Wayne when it's some backwards, medieval, Middle Eastern country with some dipshit leader. But when the big bully China steps out of line, nobody calls them on it. When it really matters, we're not there.

That's uncool.

So - what's my final take away here? Truthfully, I'm not sure. I just wish someone had the balls to stand up and do what's right for the world, the Chinese people, and especially Tibet.

But that's not going to happen and I'm going to have to listen to Mrs. Zombie bitch at me because I'll most likely not watch the Summer Olympics. And I know my watching it doesn't make a difference and is a symbolic, wasted effort at best. But I can't stand by while the rest of the world smiles and assiduously ignores the big white elephant in the room; namely, China and its history of human rights abuses.

Mark my word... we will go to war with China sometime in the next 50 - 75 years. And it won't be pretty because we were too busy being good international neighbors, as opposed to letting China know that we and the rest of the world will beat them like a dog that's decided to shit on the carpet if they continue to step out of line.

Mark my word...