Boycotting the Olympics

I’ve felt this way for a while. I never thought China deserved to be awarded an Olympic Games based on the human rights issues that go on in their country and the poverty that the majority of their citizens live in.

Unfortunately the IOC didn’t feel the same as myself, as they seemingly turned a blind eye on the atrocities that the Chinese government inflict on their own people and saw only the booming economy when awarding the 2008 summer games and not the veiled lies that the Chinese bid commitee promised.

At the time that the games were awarded the Chinese Olympic bid committee along with the Chinese government said that journalists would have unfettered internet (uncensored) access to work with reporting the games.

Now however, the Chinese government has backtracked on their promise to the media by saying that the media will not have full uncensored internet access but instead that they will have ‘sufficient’ access to the World Wide Web to report on the Games.

Internet pages containing the word Tibet will be blocked in the media village along with Amnesty International pages and any other page that the government doesn’t want their people and now apparently the world to know exist.

Here is my plea;

Boycott the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games completely.

Boycott NBC during the Olympics and boycott the Games sponsors and the Beijing 2008 partners during the course of the games if not longer.

That list includes Worldwide Olympic sponsors Coca Cola, General Electric (GE), Johnson & Johnson, Kodak, McDonald’s, Manulife, Omega, Panasonic, Samsung, VISA and Lenovo.

Beijing 2008 partners Adidas, Air China, Volkswagen, Bank of China, CNC, CNPC, Sinopec, PICC and State Grid.

Finally minor sponsors and suppliers UPS, Haier, Budweiser, sohu.com, Tsingtao, Yanjing Beer, BHPbilliton, Staples, TechnoGym, Great Wall, BEIFA, Price Waterhouse Cooper, Mengna, SCHENKER Logistics, YA DU and others that you can find here.

The ‘others’ I’m unsure of as they are written in a text that suspiciously resembles a Chinese dialect.

However if you do sympathize with the little guy and have the same views towards this issue as myself join with me in turning a cold shoulder to the games and her sponsors.

The athletes, they won’t care, in fact I beg that they’ll understand. They are there to win, exposure can come after they do that. And if you really want to catch some of the action, catch it on YouTube.

Some sponsors will be harder than others to boycott, I don’t remember the last time Kodak had anything to do with my life, or Air China for that matter but I’m a two can of Coke a day kinda guy and have a guilty pleasure in McDonald‘s. But I’m going to take a break for a few weeks if not longer.

The Games which are about human triumphs, being held in a country where the ‘people’ have no say says to me that the IOC is more interested in money than the plight of the oppressed. In my mind, that makes the IOC no better than the government hosting the 2008 Games.

Can one voice make a difference?

Here’s hoping it can.

Online petition can be found here