OFF TOPIC - The IOC sucks.

[Marty Ward]

From a sports standpoint having China host the games is long overdue. The country contains about 1/6th of the worlds population. They are competitive in most events and dominate some. It's about time they had "the home field advantage".

The Olympics are not suppose to be about politics they are suppose to be about sport. Why we insist on making it political is beyond me but as far as I can tell it's mostly western countries who start the debate.

[CaptSpoogy]

CW - Don't assume ALL the west is moulding China into an enemy. Personally being from Toronto, with one of the largest ethnic Chinese communities in the world - I have met and work with a lot of Chinese people who have shared with me their experiences in China - and why they choose to come to Canada.

[quote]While I agree that China could make use of a better government system, it seems rather strange that people not even living in the country is pushing for a change harder than the Chinese themselves.[quote]

Perhaps it's because they get mowed down by tanks or just plain disappear when they do...

I sympathize with the people living in China and I wish them to enjoy the freedoms that I have. In some ways I'm glad they got the olympics - but it worries me that the people who control China will use it as a propaganda display saying there's no problem with their country during those 16 days...

I'm not saying that China should become like the west (not just the US). I think in this day and age that should be moving towards democracy a lot faster than they are. If the majority of Chinese know what the west was really like (as oppossed to the propaganda fed to them) - what lifestyle would they choose?

Lucanos - Please be careful not to heap in Canada in the same pile as the US. Just because we're on the same continent and share a lot of things does not mean we practice the same politics or culture. I've lived in both countries - and find that Canadian politics have a lot more in common with European countries.

Also with the US, it varies from region to region. The Northwest for example is suprisingly different from the south and so on. I'm sure the Americans on this board will agree. Sure they messed up a lot of things, but they're really not that bad - plus without them you guys in Europe might still be living in a Nazi regime...



------------------
Visit the Spoogy Federation at:
http://spoogyfederation.tripod.com

[CaptSpoogy]

I know the Olympics are supposed to be about sports and not politics. But the current view is that Beijing got the Olympics as a result of politics and coporate push. Those multi-national corporations just can't wait to get their hands on such a big market you know.

If it was just about sport, then why didn't they choose Toronto? The world's must diverse multi-cultural city? Geez, then everyone could have cheered for their native countries (instead of just the Chinese cheering the Chinese to dominate over everyone else)...it seems it could have been a more global thing doesn't it?

Oh well. I hope Toronto bids again for 2012. Although I'll probably be living in Vancouver by then - rats - but then again they're up for the 2010 Winter games - alright Olympic Hockey!

------------------
Visit the Spoogy Federation at:
http://spoogyfederation.tripod.com

[capnq]

quote:

---

definitely not helped by your local Press. Bad things always got colourfully exaggerated many times over and put on the front page, good things rarely if ever got mentioned. Beware that what you see on the news might not be the whole picture.

---

This description fits most of the media outlets that I know of. The weaker a radio or TV station's news Ratings, or the lower a newspaper or magazines' circulation, the more sensationalized their coverage becomes. "If it bleeds, it leads." I believe this is a worldwide problem; the rest of the world's perception of the U.S. is no more accurate than the U.S.' view of their respective nations.

------------------
Cap'n Q

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

[Marty Ward]

Capt.,
Toronto didn't get it because the US wants the 2012 games held in Baltimore/Washington. Unfortunately the political games overshadow the real games.

Luc,
You're right the US is not a Democracy, we are a Republic and the election was held properly according to the laws in effect at the time of the election.

You must have spent a lot of time in our country. I've lived here over 50 years and haven't seen any country side that looks like a poor South American country. Maybe I've just been lucky.

PS-Europeans may think Bush is a moron but he was smart enough to get elected President of the most powerful country in the world. Would he have been smarter if he were elected Prime Minister of Sweden?

[Zarix]

I think everyone here has forgotten that things work differently in different cultures.

Here is an example:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marty Ward:
PS-Europeans may think Bush is a moron but he was smart enough to get elected President of the most powerful country in the world. Would he have been smarter if he were elected Prime Minister of Sweden?

---

I don't know about Sweden but in Finland getting voted to president doesn't mean you have to be very smart. Usually the person doesn't matter much but the persons party matters. If the person would matter I'd bet that the Finnish president wouldn't be divorced single parent and a woman.

Edit: I just remembered that she remarried some time ago.

[This message has been edited by Zarix (edited 15 July 2001).]

[Puke]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lucanos:
Human rights? What's with vietnam? Was that a humane thing to do?

---

i donno, ask the French. they were there first.

As for the US being a free country, I think we have less restricting laws on firearms than just about anywhere else in the world. I think we have some opressive laws on drug use and pornography. I think the oppressive laws we do have, and the choices we lack, are by far made up by in the vast increase in standard of living that we have over other first world countries. for example, the price of comodities like petrol, the wide varities and availability of luxury items at grocery stores, such as scented quilted paper to wipe our butts with. comparativey, we are a nation of hedonists.

I think our race riots are not any worse than the race riots in the UK, and are certainly better than the **** that goes on in places like Israel and Serbia.

I think our poor are in general better off than most peoples poor. People like to poo-poo on the US, and on our forign policies, and our domestic situation. all in all, i think its pretty danm good. I think we do more good in the international community than would be done if we were not there doing it. And I dont really care that our election system is screwed up. there are enough political extremists around here, on every side of an issue, that things tend to work them selves out without more moderate people having to worry about it. We can sit back and rest assured that there are enough rabble-roUsers out there to fight the good fight for us.

man, I cant even start thinking about how good we have it, without getting all warm and fuzzy inside.

------------------
"...the green, sticky spawn of the stars"
(with apologies to H.P.L.)

[Baron Munchausen]

Well, this thread has taken an interesting twist. First, yes the IOC sucks. That's what the scandal of the past few years was about. Just because open bribery has been sort of 'cleaned up' we should not assume that they are beyond improper influence. I don't doubt that all the nations involved in this year's competition were using various "behind the scenes" influences. China just happened to have the most effective methods this year.

The political discussion that has grown out of this initial point is quite fascinating. It is of course a joke that the industrialized nations of Europe/North America are called the 'free world'. Nothing is 'free' in the capitalized world, especially political opinion. They just suppress dissent by cleverer means than the ham-handed 'communists' and similar dictators. It's a bit hard to get your political opinion into the mass media if it doesn't have the support of either the Democratic or Republican parties in the US, for example. We had FIVE qualified national candidates in the Last Presidential election. How many were in the "Presidential Debates"? Two. The two representing the parties with hundreds of millions of dollars to spend. Keep on rockin' in the 'free world'!

The United States is a Republic by formal definition but in practice it's some sort of Plutocracy or Oligarchy. You cannot get into political life without huge amounts of wealth. If you're not born into it -- which both of the 'recognized' candidates in the Last Presidential election were, btw -- you have to get 'sponsors' among the money-classes. Thus the profession of "politician" is actually 'fund-raiser' most of the time. Yet, in the most bizarre twist of all, most of the 'white middle-class' population think they live in a democracy! The European nations are somewhat better because they tend to have 'proportional' representation and public funding of political parties. But they are still largely ruled by their corporate classes, just less severely.

Marty Ward:

How much of the Southern United States have you seen? If you travel very far outside of a city in Alabama, Mississippi, or Louisiana you'll see some very 'third world' countryside. It's the classic 'vicious circle' that you see in Africa or South America. The people are poor and uneducated, so no one will locate any serious industry nearby to give them jobs. So they have no money and cannot get education/training to get decent jobs. The programmer's Deadly Embrace in social conditions. It's quite real but most of the victims are the Wrong Color to attract interest from the 'liberal' mass media, so it goes unreported. Then there are the "Indian Reservations" where those inconvenient ORIGINAL inhabitants of this continent are housed. They "weren't using the land" say the propoganda manuals^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Htext books in the public schools. Text books carefully supervised by the government and the huge corporations who own all mass publishing channels. Not using it? What is 'not using it'? Not chopping down all the trees and damming all the rivers and raping the land for minerals? Well, this is a nifty principle. If someone is "not using" their property in a way that I think they should, I have the right to take it??? So, the descendants of the rightful owners of this entire continent a now forced to live in abject poverty in deserts that aren't useful to the media-industrial complex. But they don't count either. Then there's Appalachia, where there are actually white people living in poverty. But that's too scary to be dealt with, so they have to be dismissed with a good label like 'white trash'. Obviously if you're white and not comfortably middle-class there's something wrong with you and you're 'white trash'... Yep, if you don't count people who aren't already middle-class there's no poverty in the US!

Besides, it would not look good to have real poverty in the US while we are haranguing all those 'third world' nations to join our trade treaties so they can become 'prosperous' like we are ...and lock their economic subordination into a legal structure. They might realize that "capitalism" does not automatically make everyone wealthy. They must not be allowed to realize that until it's too late or they might not sign the treaties. Thus the silence.


[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 15 July 2001).]

[Phoenix-D]

quote:

---

Yet, in the most bizarre twist of all, most of the 'white middle-class' population think they live in a democracy!

---

That would be because most are idiots and/or do not care about the political system. Never was set up as a democracy. Democracy, like communism, appears to be one of those systems that might work in small communities but falls flat on it's face in large ones.

Lucanos

quote:

---

The difference between the chinese and you, in this sense, is that they know they live in a dictatorship.

You don't!

You think your country is "the free world", don't you?

I'm sorry to tell you that EU propaganda against the US is saying something else. Most Swedish and Danish citizens I know think that the US is alot WORSE than sovietunion ever was. You US citizens (as I refuse to call you "Americans") have no idea.

On the other hand, I can't say I blame you for beliving that your country is a free one. The propaganda in the US is so intense.

Whenever I see the newspaper here in Sweden or in the UK - G. W. Bush looks like a moron. They prefer to publish pictures where he's got stupid expressions.

When I came to the US (A couple of months ago - I have cousins there) the pictures of Bush in the newspapers where totaly different, he looked alot smarter and somewhat cool in his trenchcoat and hat.

Human rights? What's with vietnam? Was that a humane thing to do?

---

First, Vietnam. Happened in the 1960s, early 70s. If you can bring that up, I can bring up France executing people right up to 1977.

Second, the death penalty. China excecutes a lot more people than the US does, and for lesser crimes. Not all US states allow the death penalty, and McVeigh was the first one to be federally exceucted in quite a while, I think.

Third, the papers- I'm curious, where was this? Local papers here gennerally do not show ANYTHING in a good light in their editorial comics. Heck, today's was a Chinese-looking guy in a suit with IOC on it, saying "We have no political repression, we merely outlaw unauthorized "issues advocacy"

That's actually a dig at the IOC AND a local Senator, John McCain, who constantly tries for "campaign finance reform", which appears to be mostly making lots of complicted rules so you need to pay lawyers just to campaign.

I'm also trying to figure out why a lot of people seem to think their local news is the only word. You called the EU news propaganda along with the US news, but then you go on to take their viewpoint!

Phoenix-D

[This message has been edited by Phoenix-D (edited 15 July 2001).]

[Marty Ward]

Baron,

I've seen a small portion of our country, mostly the seaports and chemical production areas. Lots of visits to Tx., La., Ala. and Miss. Grew up in Maryland and have seen quite a lot of West Va, generally considered the poorest state in the nation.

Spent ~15 years in the merchant marine and have seen my fair share of third world nations.

I have never seen anything approaching the poorer areas of third world nations in the US. We have people who are poor in our country, that is not disputed. What we don't have are third world conditions. Go visit Somalia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, or Brazil if you doubt me.

I just hate to see such slanted and generalized statements made about my country.

We had 5 qualified canidates? You give them to much credit

[This message has been edited by Marty Ward (edited 15 July 2001).]