The Tibetan Liberation Army

None other than the US house speaker said "The situation in Tibet is a challenge to the conscience of the world." and having been to China I have to agree.
Another quote first and one I can't get accuracy over but it was from Al Swearengen regarding George Hurst in Deadwood 'I have no problem with him mining here but why's he got to run the place it don't make no fucking sense' or something.
And China is kind of like that. I have to now return to Pelerosi and take her seriously, because with the Beijing Olympics we are highlighting I think humanities extent of capabilities, we are being collectively as a global society shown up on what a cowering pack of pussies we amounted to be.
Because I have to think, how the fuck did a country like China end up with the Olympics? The peace games, where China shakes its fist at Taiwan and occupies Tibet, where it'll show up and spray a group of villagers with bullets just for appearing organised.
How did this country secure the peace games? money. There was I think a group of rationalists that thought, this will help improve things, we have the leverage now to make them change, because if they don't we'll take their games away.
And now a few countries are talking boycotts, while others have heroically gagged their athletes from saying anything incindiary.
Despite the games long being a political platform for people of good conscious.
Hence there is at the end of the games no 'the winner is...!' moment where they crown one country as superior to all others, because the games where never about that.
And now what will happen, caught in a chinese fingertrap of bad behaviour in Darfur and Tibet we can surely look forward to a bunch of Politicians and IOC spokespeople coming on television sets worldwide and muttering platitudes knowing that as much as China values the Olympic games, its unfortunate that we have this big 'cooperate' stick because we really don't want to use it.
What we'll see is 'But the stadium is already built' and 'don't the athletes deserve a chance' and all that bullshit.
And firmly for once and for all we have proved that the growth fetish, our belief that there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow of increased consumption is what it is all about.
It says something that democracies are more scared of the loss of economic concerns than the loss of lifestyles that allow a degree of freedom and security.
Because that I think is the horrifying part of it all, China represents that big piece of the pie, not just economic growth and capital gain for a greedy world but to legitimise the notion that all there is to life is breaking down roles into more and more meaningless efficiency to produce more and commodify the whole human race.
there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow though, and that everlasting trump card of 'limited resources' everyone forgets about will I think make that last statement a truism of sorts.
So why didn't the IOC simply say 'if you want the games you need a free press' and let the rest tumble into place? and now it is so close and too late for us seemingly to win the crisis of world conscious, because the economic loss runs so contrary to what should be done now and never allowed to happen in the first place and that is, take the games off China before it blows up in everyone's face.
But then how much money nike will lose, and Australia with its consulting expertise on how to have a great opening ceremony, no Olympics will really hurt Uncle Toby's and Speedo, and will deny the opportunity to thousands of athletes in sports like Archery, Swimming, High-jump, the 1500m, equestrian, shooting and so fourth that nobody normally cares about or watches unless they fall into the 'special-interest' category from there 1-2 days on the world platform that only crops up every 4 years.
Just reschedule it, give it back to my hated Sydney who at least have most of the facilities back intact still, or Athens or Atlanta or Barcelona. Whatever. Have the games be about what they are really about.
Its a prisoners dilemma at the end of the day though, until one true world leader says 'thats it we're boycotting the games' nobody will move, thinking about all those contracts their firms will lose, thinking 'the germans will leap all over billions of dollars in contracts the moment we take a political stance' and so on. I know Rudd will consign himself into the 'different but not that different' category and prove his religious devotion by saying 'the Olympics is one occasion where Australia really does a half decent job of convincing itself it isn't mediocre' when really Australia with its material wealth is in a good position to break the damn wall and boycott, because China is fucked without access to Australian minerals and fossil fuels, same with South America and Africa and the places the US hasn't lapped up already.
The games means so much to the Chinese public that it may really be a perfect way to pull things to a head, if there were a means by which China could lose the olympics and it be abundantly clear it was the CCPs fault, you would see some decent civil unrest I assume.
So I cast my vote, in the poll that doesn't happen, as an Australian member voting 'boycott' and as a human being saying 'pull the plug on Beijing 2008' until they really are ready. And that is when China has its own government, not some club of priveledged cult leaders having their own China.