Beijing 08 watch: Where are all the Leaders gone?

This will lead inevitably to another unpopular essay by tohm. But reading this age article kind of just starts to get me, well furious. Like really frustrated. I can think of only one thing that provokes this reaction in me and that is when people with sheer bloody mindedness pursue a stupid course of action despite being warned.

this is the article that whilst is a sing that momentum continues also makes me furious about the other two aspects of fury in my life A) Australia if it was a person would be a snivelling little brown-noser that never achieves anything, one of those fish you put in a tank to eat shit and B) so often in democracy the real choice is no choice.

Leaders getting out and tut-tutting a boycott as ineffective and counter productive. And Grant Hackett, captain of the Australian swimming team placed for once in his life in a rare position to make a difference, a real, significant difference, one that might spark public debate, one that might get Australians thinking 'do we want to be the worlds biggest Nauru to China? as Nauru is to us? or do we want to be a modern state?' what does Grant have to say 'a boycott is counterproductive, it hasn't worked in the past' now Grant should know that probably many times in his life he has been in a race and jumped into the pool after the starters pistol, kicked and stroked his arms and in the past it hasn't worked.
And then sometimes it has. You have to get back on that mother fucking horse Grant.
And what is this oft repeated line 'counterproductive' and furthermore if you read the article 'the Olympics is about sport and only sport' and 'its about the athletes' and 'athletes should not be denied the chance to compete' what does it really say?
Well how is this for a tagline 'fuck the tibetans, go for that gold medal son!'
Which is in effect what they are saying, say we established this as a norm, then it should be fine for the world to pour tourist dollars and construction contracts, and send political leaders and every other perk that comes with hosting the olympics to anyone, because its just about sport and the athletes right? so if you had a country that beats children to death for stepping on the shadow and or anything else being offensive to whatever the superior race in that country was it would also be fine? fine for us to send our best and finest their to shake hands with and recieve medals from their officials?
The more I think about it, the more I think that China isn't a winner. I just can't concieve of anyway that China will work out well for anybody. The infrastructure big and impressive as they are building it, wont go anywhere near to satisfying their actual desired state of living exhibit A - beijing freeways, they are 9 lanes in both directions in some instances and still bumper to bumper, with new shiny 9 story glass panelled buildings lining them, removing all possibility of expansion as new rich Chinese citizens add 1400 cars per day to the system.
Then you have the government, whilst not perfect how the government runs is a fairly good microcosm of how the businesses, organisations and individuals will run themselves, as usually governments promote themselves, their operations and standards as the best particularly in a country not as free as China. As such I defy anyone to take a plane to China and get out of it and say honestly 'I sure want these guys running the place!'
Then theres the environment, in the rush for growth, China built damns that wiped out the last of the worlds only fresh water river dolphins. That has cities where you cant easily breath and workers who boil old computer chips with no protection to try and salvage all the metals theirin.
Yes with investment it will get better, but is the time to do this before or after the current regime collapses? I don't know, maybe the investment and olympics is causing its demise while we speak, but on the other hand I get nervous about the idea of the government surviving modernisation and the market power it commands. but I do know I would never want CCTV9 sticking a camera in my face with a voiceover (in english, despite me speaking english) telling the viewer 'tohm took the opportunity to reinforce his support of the one china policy'
So I say fucken boycott them, I mean if we suffer, it should be for letting it get this far, and yet again I hate sitting and watching the French be rational and smart and take the moral highground, WHICH IS SO MOTHERFUCKING OBVIOUS, and us again following good old 'private interests' policies of UK and America.
I mean I'm just tired of so called 'leaders' cowering in the face of anything that might hurt business.
Australia this issue should polarise especially, because the businesses we are talking about are the mining and resources sector, there is heaps of technology and r&d involved in these fields, but it is still dumb compared to say becoming a world power in renewable energies, mobile phones, communications, stem cell manufacture etc. things it would be really cool to drive the economy, instead of uninspired commodities.
Seriously, when I get back I'm going to punch the first politician I see.