Genocide Games

Putting aside the International Olympic Committee (IOC), one of the more corrupt organizations in recent history, and the Chinese state, both one of the more corrupt and most repressive (corruption + army) nations in existence, we are presented with two arguments for the Genocide Olympics: that “the Games,” as the dopefest/nationalist frenzy/commercialized spectacle is called, shouldn’t be politicized; and that the athletes, the poor athletes, have spent their whole lives waiting for this moment and shouldn’t be denied.

Not politicized? The whole point is political; China’s hosting, as it’s so endlessly repeated, for its “coming out” party on the world stage. It’s a propaganda exercise for them, plain and simple. Not to speak of the rank nationalism, as every nation grasps for medals like the brokers in a scrum over the money thrown into the trading pit by Abbie Hoffman & Co. And speaking of money, with the billions in sponsorship and advertising, it’s all about the reactionary politics of international capitalism.

But what of the athletes? Isn’t the real question why should the rest of us care about them? When did a few thousand excellent specimens get to dictate world events and traduce human rights? Does their egoism have the remotest equivalence to the raped, tortured, and murdered in Tibet, Darfur, and Burma, not to speak of the prison camps and other manifestations of repression in the host nation? There was a piece on Genocide Games-bound BMX riders on NPR the other day: so rad, they’re stoked, dude! So’s NBC. Show ‘em the money; they’ll need it wash off the blood.