“The sportive, knightly battle awakens the best human characteristics. It doesn’t separate, but unites the combatants in understanding and respect. He also helps to connect the countries in the spirit of peace. That’s why the Olympic Flame should never die.”

MITCHELL BLATT

The “spirit of the Olympics” died a long time ago, but it was still worth pretending it existed. Until now.

I’m all for understanding and tolerance, but there’s just something I can’t tolerate about a country that puts middle-school age students to work for sweatshop wages to support the government, censors their own and foreign media, censors the internet, even blocking words like “equality,” supports the Burmese massacres, pollutes the enviornment worse than any other country, and , oh yeah, tried to cover up the death of six of their workers on 2008 Olympic projects.

The Associated Press reported:

A Chinese official said Monday that six workers have died over the last five years working on venues for the Beijing Olympics.

Ding Zhenkuan, deputy chief of Beijing’s Municipal Bureau of Work Safety, said two of those deaths took place in 2006 and 2007 at the 91,000-seat National Stadium. He did not specify where the other deaths took place.

He also said there was one injury that required hospitalization and three that did not.

Known as the “Bird’s Nest,” the National Stadium will host the opening and closing ceremonies for the games and is sure to become the architectural symbol of the Aug. 8-24 Olympics.

Earlier this month, The Times newspaper of London reported that at least 10 workers had died working on the venue.

“China has systematically covered up the accidental deaths” since construction began on the project in 2003, the newspaper said.

So we have anywhere from 6 to 10 people dying just so we can have the Olympics in a city that looks like this?

How do you think it would feel competing in that smog? The International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge was resassuring, saying “Sports with short durations would not be a problem.”

He acknoleged that, “Sports like cycling are examples of competitions that might be postponed or delayed.”

Air pollution in Beijing is estimated by some reports to be three times the safe limits specified by the World Health Organization.

In fact, the pollution is so bad, that athletes will have to wear special face masks before competing. Now, we have athletes who look like this:

Even the masks, allowed only during warm-ups, won’t be enough for many endurance athletes. At a test mountain-biking run last September, only 8 of the 50 competitors were able to finish the event.

But enough about China’s pollution, crisis, a crisis that has caused one-third of their rural population to have no access to safe drinking water with 70% of their waterways being deemed polluted. A more disturbing fact might be their blatant human rights violations.

Chinese citizens might not be able to read this article because of their government’s internet censorship. The top search rankings on Google for terms such as “Tibet,” “equality,” “democracy China,” and “revolution” are all blocked. Nothing bad happens if no one knows about it, I guess.

Nothing bad happening in Burma either, a country to the south of China, where the military government has been massacring civilians with weapons provided by China. The start of the 2008 Olympics on August 8 will also mark the 20th aniversary of the 1988 Burmese pro-democracy protests that resulted in 3,000 people killed. Since then, China has provided the Burmese government with more weapons to aid in their oppression.

(Rambo IV is set in Burma, if you’re interested. The script sucked, but the violence was more gory than any of his past movies.)

Supporters of the “Olypmic ideal” say that hosting the Olympics will help China change and reform their policies. They can only hope so. We all remember how Jesse Owens’ victory over Hitler’s “perfect race” changed Hitlers mind.

Popularity: 14% [?]