Should We Be Watching These Olympics?

This post submitted by Parker, who sometimes writes about politics for TNG.

There's a funny scene in the movie "But I'm A Cheerleader" where all of the kids in the ex-gay camp talk about their "root," the thing in their past that made them gay. I don't know if it's really possible for an incident in someone's childhood to make them a gay man or a lesbian. If it is, my "root" was the summer Olympics. There was nothing I liked better as a kid or a closeted young adult than watching swimmers in speedos or staring at gymnasts' muscular limbs as they held onto the rings and straddled pommel horses. It was way more satisfying then sneaking peeks at the underwear ads in the JC Penney catalog. During recent Olympics, I've even attended get-togethers with other gay guys that have been all about ogling Olympian man meat.

I must say that this Olympics has not been a disappointment. The swimmers have been delicious, even with those silly full-body suits they wear these days. And it was hot watching Jonathon Horton from the American men's gymnastic team talk trash in his cute Texas accent. Plus, this year I discovered the magic of men's synchronized swimming. Televised group showers anyone? I've even found myself rooting openly for the Americans for the first time.

Before all of the hotness and nationalism won me over, though, I was prepared to sit out this Olympics. I didn't want to be a part of things this time around because I saw every Olympic-watching party and every "Beijing 2008" Coke can as an endorsement of China and the way the Chinese government treats its own people and conducts itself in the world. I'm not going to go into all the details here because we've all been beaten over the heads over the past year or so with all of the talk about how awful China is. But I think it's important to point out that the people who are putting on these games deny their citizens the right to worship as they choose and to elect and criticize their leaders. They execute thousands of people every year, often immediately after trial with a bullet to the head. They are occupying Tibet and Xinjinag against the wishes of the people who live there. And in the run up to these games, they kicked people out of their homes to make way for Olympic construction, they violently put down protests by Buddhist monks in Tibet, and they continued their support for the genocidal government in Sudan. They even attempted to sell weapons to a Zimbabwean government that was in the process of beating and killing opposition supporters.

There was a story on ESPN yesterday about how American basketball palyers Kobe Bryant and LeBron James - perhaps the best-known atheletes participating in the Olympics this time around - had promised to speak out against China's human rights record when they got to Beijing. They have been silent so far, arguing that the Olympics are not about politics. Of course they're not. They're about competition and sportsmanship and all kinds of good stuff, I guess. (They're also about a lot of people making a lot of money). But, as you're watching Jonathon Horton's (hopefully shirtless) exhibition performance later on, don't be like Kobe and LeBron. Remember the people that China's leaders oppress and kill. I will. I just wish that our government - post-Iraq, post-Guantanamo, post-waterboarding, post-warrantless wiretapping - had the moral authority to speak up in the way that we all can and call out China's leaders as the bastards and murderers that they are.