BASN BLACKBOX
Masking The Olympics It's No Fun Beijing
By
Jul 22, 2008

MASKING
THE OLYMPICS

IT'S NO FUN
BEIJING



NEW PROTEST MASK

Isn't his delicious

the CUNNING Chinese

Dictators thought they had

everything under CONTROL

most of all PREVENTING

Athlete PROTESTS

And then something as non-threatening as a surgical type MASK to keep Athlete's  healthy in the face of the horrendous destructible POLLUTION that  envelopes almost ALL of China most especially the largest urban  settings like Beijing may have thrown the Dictators ability to CONTROL  the Olympics into disarray.

AND GET  THIS. The Bush OPPRESSION loving Administration bending over as far as  they can to keep the Chinese Communist "leaders" HAPPY may be  responsible for triggering what may prove the most original and imaginative if simple protest method in Olympic history.

The U.S. Olympic Committee as a Top SECRET project has designed a pollution mask  that U.S. athletes can wear in Beijing to keep them healthy enough to  win the Gold. These are NOT masks to be worn during competition but at  any and all other times. Get this some other countries notably  Australia have designed MASKS that can be worn during competition it is  reported.

HERE IS THE REAL ISSUE. It will be virtually impossible for the Chinese control  agents to ban health masks during the Games so that Athletes will have  the right and the ability to wear the MASKS anytime they feel the "need."

 Even if the  "real purpose" any athletes wear the MASKS is to protect their lungs  the very image of athletes wearing MASKS is not the feel good  manufactured image the Chinese Communists want the World to see. Visitors choking on the massive pollution engulfing China.

THE FAR LARGER ISSUE is that the simple gesture of wearing these MASKS has a  far far deeper and stronger meaning. In an Olympics where Chinese and their "partners" the equally suspect International Olympic Committee  with their Rule 51 banning any and all Athlete protests no matter how  symbolic - these health MASKS are their Ultimate Nightmare.

PICTURE THIS  whether or not the Athletes ultimately have the BACKBONE to stand up  for HUMAN rights in China and around the world. IMAGINE THE OPENING  CEREMONIES and the Parade of Nations and Athletes with hundreds of athletes on worldwide television all wearing MASKS as they pass in  front of the Chinese Dictators. Yes it may prove a FANTASY the idea  that Athletes especially AFRICAN American Olympic Athletes will ever do something as simple and logical as wearing health MASKS to the Ceremonies to deliver a STRONG message.

Which brings us to a new article in Foreign Policy magazine getting quite a lot of attention titled THINK AGAIN : THE OLYMPICS by Jon Hoberman who in a  stinging article again makes the case that the Olympics have basically  become a SHAM here in the 21st century even more so than in the past.  Read this delicious paragraph from the article ....

" When the IOC awarded the games to China in 2001, it  assured the world  that it was “not naive.” There would eventually be “discussions” about  China's human rights policies, the IOC promised. It was apparently the  committee's hope that the games would catalyze some sort of political  opening. By the spring of 2008, as Chinese troops stormed into Lhasa, the IOC was claiming that the games had “advanced the agenda of human  rights” by putting China's human rights record on the front pages of newspapers around the world. That the committee would have much  preferred to be spared this attention was wisely left unsaid. Nor has  the IOC been willing to demand better behavior from China's rulers. IOC  president Rogge prefers to condemn “violence from whatever side.”

and how about this ....

" But what separates the Beijing Games from earlier  controversies is the sheer clout of China within the geopolitical system. The Nazi regime of  1936 had nothing comparable to China’s global reach today, and the  Soviet economy in 1980 was a dead man walking. What we can say for sure  is the world’s emotional investment in the entertainment and  inspiration provided by the Olympic Games guarantees an uproar if the  political forces that rage outside the stadiums threaten the  spectacle—which means the most heated controversies surrounding Beijing  probably have yet to unfold."

further into the article maybe even better ....

" The real genius of the committee is its ability to  create and sustain  the myth that it promotes peace. In reality, the Olympic “movement” is a racket that has provided the IOC’s ruling elite with small luxuries  and a fleeting celebrity very few of them could have achieved on their own. The IOC has served as a home for a long procession of shady and  self-serving people. Many recruited themselves into national and  international sports federations in order to ride the bureaucratic  escalator into the Olympic elite."

So the view from here

in the Box is go ahead

watch the Con-lympics

Opening Ceremonies and

ALL of it but most of all

in the hope you will see

those Olympic protest

MASKS everywhere

PRAY it happens

" SUCKERS "