Well, that’s a good question. Honestly, I doubt it would have accomplished much, but anything? I think that it would have taken away a golden opportunity for prestige and propaganda from the Nazi, but Hitler was simply too powerful at that time and it wouldn’t have really hurt the Nazi party.
While there are parallels there, it’s also not the same situation as is currently happening in China…IMHO of course. I think the CCP is in a much more precarious position than many realize, and certainly than the Nazi and Hitler were in 1936, so I think the effect would be greater. Obviously, many disagree. That’s why I wanted to start this thread…to ask the question and see the responses. I always learn a lot in these threads, even if I disagree with basically everyone.
ETA: But the point I think I was making there (even I don’t know where I’m going when I post) is that, morally and in hindsight, we all probably WISH we would have, since we know all about the ethnic cleansing/genocide that was going on. And, I think that, morally, we will wish we had boycotted this thing down the road…or those that follow us, as we followed the generation in 1936 wish we had boycotted the Nazi games.
The Olympics are a scam that leaves the host cities worse off than they were. If you want to punish Beijing, we’re better off letting them have their games as planned. Boycotting just lets China ‘win’ the Olympics, call out the US as hypersensitive losers, and feeds their propaganda machine.
Personally I would like to see multiple countries host the Olympics. Instead of countries it could be continents. So the EU countries could host the Olympics one year. Asian countries the next. And so on.
p.s. I know we’re obsessed with China these days, but Russia is in a prime position to really inflict a lot of pain on the US-EU alliance and disrupt the world order as we know it. Pay attention to the rising energy prices - that’s the story right now, IMO.
The enduring image from the 1936 Olympics isn’t Hitler’s propaganda. It’s Jesse Owens sticking it to the Nazis. In the long run it worked out.
I was thinking the same thing, punish them by making them host and pay for it. That’s also not a bad idea to spread out the venues across a continent (won’t work out so well for Australia). No need to build new facilities that will largely be unused in the years to come. But then it’s the Olympics won’t have the big opening ceremonies with all the athletes together.
I’m against a boycott because it will only hurt the athletes. It’s hypocritical and at best symbolic. It’s a way for the country to wag its finger without actually doing anything meaningful.
Travel to Xinjiang is not anywhere near as hard as getting into Nazi occupied wartime Europe. I know a Mandarin speaking U.S. citizen who visited right before COVID (on a third country passport) and saw at least one heartbreaking scene. And I’m not saying he went into camps. But if there was Hitler/Mao/Stalin scale mass death, we would know.
I agree with Martin_Hyde that boycott would strengthen Xi. It also would strengthen those who want to conquer Taiwan.
Appeasement works more often than many think.
China’s government needs to be told that we have limits to our to our tolerance. But trying to humiliate them will backfire. Instead I praise them for, unlike the U.S., not having launched any substantial war since 1979.
I felt bad for the athletes that didn’t get to go to the Moscow Olympics in 1980. Politicians shouldn’t decide whether a kid’s dream gets shelved while nations play politics. Besides, I didn’t notice the Soviet Union saying “Oh my goodness, we’ve been so evil, we’re going to mend our ways!”
Let’s call China to accountability in the areas where they’re being evil, and will feel the consequences, and who knows, where they could hopefully someday say “We’re going to mend our ways…”
The way I see it is that using athletes without their input as pawns is totally wrong. If there is to be boycotting it has to be from the top down and frankly athletes are low hanging fruit when it comes to applying international pressure.
The United States is an ally of Saudi Arabia despite us knowing about the human rights abuses of the Saudi regime. We sell arms to Saudi Arabia and our leading corporations are in arms with Saudi business. If the United States were to be real on maintaining a consistent position on human rights then pressure should be on to boycott Saudi investment and legitimizing the regime. But that is not the case. It’s the total opposite.
Boycotting is good when it is led by direct action from those who have participation stakes to lose. The government initiating a boycott of athletes who have no position of authority while those who do are free to carry on as usual is wrong.
I hope this isn’t considered threadshitting, but I think the Olympics should go away, so I think we should boycott this, & every future Olympics, because…the Olympics, not because of the politics of the host nation.
The Olympics are something that’s run it’s course & should be put to bed.
There is corruption in the IOC.
The costs to build the venues & host is staggering to the host city & some/many of the venues frequently become unused white elephants after the games end.
The coverage, at least in the US, is very jingoistic; it’s rare for them to show finals where an American isn’t getting a medal. If the Olympics are about the best athletes, let us see the best athletes, not just the best American athletes.
The (now longtime) inclusion of pros in certain sports
The inclusion of some of the newer ‘activities’; just because something requires some athletic ability & technical skill doesn’t make it a sport; otherwise, ballroom dancing would be in the Olympics instead of a reality TV show with B/C list celebrities. Yeah, I’m looking at you, golf, & skateboarding. Sorry, but my rule is that there should be objective criteria to determine the winner; fastest, more points/goals, etc. if you’re judged, you’re not a sport. (Buh-bye figure skating & gymnastics!)
It used to be fun to watch the ‘minor’ sports like luge, biathlon, curling, that only got TV coverage every four years. Now, they’re relegated to the secondary or tertiary channel (sorry, NBCU, it’s not worth it for me, given how lousy your coverage has been in the past, I’m not paying for it) I watched < 1 hr of summer Olympics, & that’s only because we were trying out a new brewpub that had it on the TV. I doubt I’ll make any conscious effort to watch any of the winter ones, either, & this is from someone who both competes in some sports that are in the Olympics (although at a much lower level) & has friends who make their living from it, working for NBC. The Olympics are now more what Battle of the Network Stars used to be, a made-for-(TV)-viewing event rather than about the best athletic performances anymore, so yes, they should be boycotted until they go away for good.
I think the entire Olympics system as it is today should be razed to the ground and rebuilt as a non-profit, “gathering of the nations in friendly competition”, “free to watch for anyone”, but I think that’s for a different thread.
I also think human rights should play a bigger role when making decisions to participate in something, trade with someone etc. so I’m all for boycotting the Winter Olympics, but it does seem a bit like the right decision at the wrong time. If the national sports council in Norway said “We’ve come to the conclusion that we cannot in the future in good conscience participate in the Olympics if they are hosted by oppressive regimes, and will inform IOC of that in future selection processes so they can decide on hosts knowing whether their choice will allow us to participate or not.”, implying that they are participating in China because the decision was already made without outright saying “fuck China”, I’d be on board with that.
Has it ever been discussed just having a fixed, permanent Olympics facility (or maybe several for summer and winter games) that all countries pitch in money to support and maintain that is used every 4 years, with perhaps the option of using it for other events in the interim? That seems like it would be a viable solution, and would certainly cut down on the massive waste, let alone corruption that seems to permeate the current system. Just wondering if this is even a thing or has ever been seriously considered.
I’ve seen the idea suggested by various people, particularly over the past decade, but AFAIK, it’s not something that the IOC has, so far, shown any willingness to even consider.
I do not think individual countries can make any difference in selection of Olympic locations, nor on policy of the hosting nation. For example, in 1980 the US and a number of other countries boycotted the Moscow games in protest of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (which lasted another 9 years), and in 1984 the Soviet Union and a number of other countries boycotted the Los Angeles games in retaliation (which went on to be one of the most successful and financially profitable games in modern times). Olympic boycotts just are not effective at anything.
If anything, location should be determined by a fair, universal, and transparent set of criteria by a respected international body of governance (which we do not have today).
Boycotting would also have the perverse effect of helping the Chinese win more medals, boosting national pride and patriotism.
This is exactly what happened in 1984 when the Soviet bloc boycotted the LA summer games. US athletes won so many events that McDonalds, which ran a promotional giveaway based on US medals, had regional french fry shortages. (I personally had free lunches for two straight weeks. ) Mary Lou Retton and others became national heroes by winning events the Soviets might have won, and no one cared that the competition wasn’t up to snuff.
In fact, the 1984 LA Olympics may have been the peak of Reagan-era patriotism. Well-played, Moscow!
The goal of the Moscow boycott wasn’t to make the IOC change their policy though, it was a statement against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and no one was expecting it to make the CCCP withdraw their troops.
Yes. And if we were to boycott these Olympics it wouldn’t be to try and force China (well, the CCP) to change their policy either, since that wouldn’t work. It would be to protest their human rights abuses and genocide and state that we have a fundamental issue with those things. Obviously, we don’t, and we (and by this I mean the entire West) are pretty clearly saying that in a language that the CCP understands, even if we don’t catch the subtext or get the same meaning that they do out of our actions.
I was just reading the Wikipedia article on the Youth Olympic Games, which the IOC has only held since 2010 and the scale and budget is a lot more reasonable; original estimated cost of under $30 million (though the first games in Singapore cost about $300 million, no new facilities to be built, and the IOC is responsible for the travel costs for all of the participants. That sounds a lot like I imagine the regular Olympics were early in the last century.
I have no idea what generally accepted means but every cite I can find shows that Atlanta in '96 and Salt Lake in '02 both were profitable Olympics. In fact the US has never hosted an Olympics that didn’t make money.
The linked article really doesnt tell us much except that people are terrified. The author is in Xinjiang meaning he is there with the permission of the security services. The place he is visiting could be and likely is a Potemkin Village (Potemkin village - Wikipedia) and the reality on the ground is far worse.
A quote from the linked article:
Meanwhile another article tells us the new governor was a strong supporter of the brutal crackdown and the terror has moved to more permanent and hidden locations.
While tourism there lacks the people-to-people openness exemplified by Airbnb at its best, Western passport holders can visit all the cities and the great majority of villages. It’s just not true that outsiders can only go to a few staged selected locations.
) Mary Lou Retton and others became national heroes by winning events the Soviets might have won, and no one cared that the competition wasn’t up to snuff.