the corner office

Half the worldly goods in our home probably have a 'Made in China' label or stamp on them. And I'm not particularly sporty, so I really don't care about the Olympics. So I may be a bit of a hypocrite, but I think that boycotting the Beijing Olympics is a good thing.

China's government is an oppressive regime. Any other country with the same dismal human rights record would be in line for boycotts, protests, and sanctions. Yet, as a nascent economic superpower, China gets special treatment. The West falls over backwards to do business with China. Gotta get into those markets before anyone else does.

It's pure hypocrisy. Hypocrisy and greed. Maybe I'm also a hypocrite for saying it, because I don't go out of my way to avoid Chinese products. But the Olympics are a big deal, the Beijing Olympics are an inordinately symbolic event, and the West's support of the event is equally symbolic, in that it amounts to tacit condonation of China's behaviour.

So if Tibet protesters disrupt the Olympics, then good. If athletes wear armbands and cause controversy, then good. If the media spends more time talking about censored Internet connectivity and heavy-handed policing than sports, then good. If people in the West wonder why the fsck they bother recycling their plastics when they see China choking to death in a miasma of smog and get angry about it, then good. If lots of people say 'screw you sponsors, we're not watching the Olympics and we're not buying your damned products', then good.

It won't make a jot of difference in the greater scheme of things, and it's hardly any effort on my end, but I'm not watching the Olympics and given a choice, I'll spend money on companies not sponsoring the Olympics.