Pubdate: Mon, 16 Jul 2001
Source: WorldNetDaily (US Web)
Copyright: 2001 WorldNetDaily.com, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.worldnetdaily.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/65
Author:  Joel Miller

BAD SPORTS IN BEIJING

Since China finally finagled the Olympic games for 2008, the New 
Republic is again recommending the torch be thrust into a pile of 
dung.

Echoing a similar call the magazine made last year when the torch 
went out in Sydney, TNR wrote Friday, "Defenders of Beijing's bid 
maintain that the Olympics will open Chinese society and give its 
leaders a reason to protect civil rights."

Mind repeating that? Sports will push Beijing to protect civil rights?

Are these guys bucking for Chris Rock's job?

People have absurdly short, selective and underdeveloped memories. 
Only last month the world found out what a peculiar understanding of 
sports China possesses.

The U.N. annually sponsors the International Day against Drug Abuse 
and Illicit Drug Trafficking. "Every year," according to U.N., "a 
theme for the day is established and thousands of people around the 
world are mobilized - to celebrate the day." This year, on June 26, 
the theme was sports.

Vienna celebrated with "basketball and soccer clinics and 'test your 
skills' competitions." Colombia played much the same way: "Planned 
activities include soccer, basketball and volleyball matches." In 
Thailand it was tennis. In Pakistan, badminton. Afghanistan went all 
Taliban with "An organized knock-out football competition for youth." 
China, however, in recognition of the "Sports, not Drugs" theme 
played an entirely different game.

It just lined folks up and shot them.

Knock-out football of far more permanent nature.

After mass trials in stadiums, packed with onlookers, convicted drug 
offenders were taken away and shot. Not forthcoming with the death 
tally, conservative estimates pin the toll from China's "Sports, not 
Drugs" day between 50 and 60. No appeals, no nothing. Just the 
sentences and the executions.

Bang.

Sports sure have a funny effect on China's civil rights. Tell me if 
I'm mistaken, but they seem to get worse, not better.

Do you remember when the International Olympic Committee decided last 
year to strip Romanian gymnast Andreea Raducan's gold medal for the 
women's all-around? The 16-year-old tested positive for 
pseudoephedrine, the same ingredient found in Sudafed. Andreea better 
hope if she makes it to the 2008 games she doesn't develop a case of 
the sniffles. It'll be straight off the balance beam and outside for 
a fatal injection of lead.

Other athletes would be well advised to play helmeted and get fitted 
for flak jackets before serious competition begins.

"Promoted to foster 'friendship, peace, and solidarity,'" wrote TNR 
editors, "the games now subvert the ideals of freedom and human 
rights on which any meaningful international solidarity must be 
based."

Far less about competition and much more a saccharin suck-up to 
globalists, the Olympics don't represent anything the U.S. should be 
involved in anyway, and now we're playing in China because somehow 
pole-vaulting and volleyball will make the Pooh-Bahs in Beijing less 
likely to brutalize their citizens. If that doesn't float past your 
bull filter, you're not alone.

China is much further away from democracy and liberty than a 100-yard 
dash. If you want to have the games there, fine, but don't pretty it 
up like some sort of cure for the crushing tyranny endured by the 
Chinese people. As WND columnist Geoff Metcalf would say, that dog 
won't hunt. It won't even get up after a few swift kicks.

The New Republic may be right: "For its endorsement of a dictatorship 
- - the Olympics ought to be abolished."

Even if we don't officially shove that torch where the sun don't 
shine, the U.S. should think more than twice about fielding athletes. 
Taking part in this sham is less than becoming of what I hope is 
still a great nation.

Joel Miller is the commentary editor of WorldNetDaily. His publishing 
company, MenschWerks,recently published "God Gave Wine" by Kenneth L. 
Gentry Jr.

Due to time constraints, he cannot get back to every reader's e-mail, 
but he does enjoy receiving feedback -- both pro and con -- and 
swears that's what keeps the joy in it.
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MAP posted-by: Kirk