So far, the Beijing Olympics is by far the best Olympics in a long while, and it hasn’t even started yet! China seems to be a little shell shocked at the real consequences of being in the world spot light. You guys wanted it. You got it. They didn’t seem to account for the fact that the world doesn’t content itself with just the fine table settings and expensive furniture you bought just for the occasion. Nope, the Olympics brings the sort of crowd that will go through your dirty laundry to look at your knickers and checks the attic for the deformed little family secret sitting crouched over a bucket of fish heads.

These guys also need to work on their PR, they’ve gotten for to used to a domestic audience with no other sources of information and that have been trained to obedience for generations. The campaign to paint the Chinese as the victims of Tibetan brutality was ridiculous and not taken seriously by even the ill informed outside of China.

This sloppy, ham fisted stuff that flies at home doesn’t really work in a world that is largely based on the battle between conflicting ideas and perspectives. I mean, we have to choose between Coke and Pepsi, and do you think that’s easy? We can’t even have a drink without their being some grueling psychological struggle involved. Its taken our advertisers and PR firms trillions of dollars to keep ahead of public media savvy. Our brains have been hard fought for. You guys just lock everyone in a room and won’t share the remote. In China putting up with that might make you loyal but pull it on the rest of the world and we just tend to think your a jerk.

Speaking of being a jerk China has to sort out this Tibet stuff. They should have resolved it before but they’re learning that lesson the hard way. China has to figure out that negotiating is not deciding how you want things to be and then having the other person agree with you, and if they don’t agree then they’re the one that is not negotiating. Seeing the Chinese diplomat to Canada on the National was embarrassing, as he spent the interview merely repeating that China is right and reality is wrong. Sure buddy.

On the flip side, what makes China my Hero is their almost complete disregard for copyright law. Bootlegs, pirating, imitations, designer counterfeiting, of these China is King. Sure, they have some negative effects too but to look at in terms of the Olympics I admire China’s thus far hands off approach to Olympic counterfeiting. Instead of all the money from all the sales of all things Olympic going to the top few, this allows people at all levels of the economy to benefit directly from the Olympics. Many counterfeiters are poor people hand making dolls or memorabilia for a few extra dollars. Enough of this trickle down shit, in an event like this everyone should benefit directly, not just those lucky enough to own hotels.

Here China is WAY ahead of Vancouver, with our own impending Olympics. Here the Olympic committee is suing Olympic Pizza to remove the rings from its awning even though it has been there for decades. I understand trying to have some control over the Olympic Brand and stopping everything in the city from becoming Olympic themed but at least grandfather those that have been around for awhile. Don’t be a douche bag. Besides, you guys are doing a fine job of tarnishing the Olympic brand yourselves. The flame, the rings, the word Olympics used to mean something. It is an ideal we strive for. An ideal of justice, of fairness, of nations competing peacefully even in the face of conflict.

Now, I don’t think their should be a boycott but the angle you guys are pushing it from is kind of sick. By repeating that it is just a sporting event and therefore apolitical, that it would cause irreversible emotional harm to athletes, and giving the impression that a boycott would shrink your profit margins, you undermine the whole idea of the Olympics. It is not merchandise or medals or record times or any of that shit. If these are the only reasons you can come up with then I really want nothing to do with your Olympics.

People love the Olympics because it brings the human race together. You should be avoiding a boycott by emphasising that through it China is opening up to the world. That having thousands of foreign peoples and journalists and atheletes wandering around talking to the Chinese people will allow outside influences, will break the state monopoly on reality, will help China deal with its multitude of problems and hardships. China needs this, the world needs this, and to reduce this whole wonderful process to “it’s just a sporting event” is blasphamy.

So you IOC guys better watch it with your spiritual gutting of the Olympics. Even more powerful then a political boycotte of the Games would be a peoples Boycott. If your Olympics is nothing more then a sporting event with cute plush toys for sale, such a thing wouldn’t bother me at all.