{"id":2108,"date":"2008-02-12T05:33:10","date_gmt":"2008-02-12T10:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=2108"},"modified":"2009-05-30T09:50:07","modified_gmt":"2009-05-30T14:50:07","slug":"not-worth-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=2108","title":{"rendered":"Not Worth It"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s not a new observation that the Olympics have become a joke; even when I was a kid, watching the ’72 games in Munich (before <\/em>the massacre), I remember hearing complaints about the doping, the commercialism, the professionalization of the Eastern Bloc athletes, the jingoism the games spawned, and on, and on, and on.<\/p>\n

But for anyone who thinks the Olympics’ shameful, politicized nature is a new thing, I present for your review this photo<\/a>:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

When the subject of the ’36 Berlin Olympics comes up, most Americans think Jesse Owens, the black runner who went toe to toe with the “master race” and said “you got no game, beeyotch” (or words to that effect).<\/p>\n

Not all of the games’ spectacles were so ennobling. The photo above is a shot of the British soccer team, giving the Nazi salute at an exhibition game in Berlin’s Olympiastadium in 1938, on the orders of one of Britain’s Foreign Office and “Football Association”, who wanted to mollify Hitler in the interest of lace-undie diplomatic nicety.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, it didn\u2019t work. David Mellor writes for the UK Daily Mail<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Was Hitler made more reasonable by that salute, or by the willingness of the world to offer him a massive propaganda boost two years earlier at the Berlin Olympics by turning up without a squeak of protest? Of course not, which leads to some interesting parallels with today.
\n<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In 1936, persecution of the Jews was stopped briefly, dissidents were rounded up and kept out of the way and Nazi Germany put on its best face for the Games.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Why bring it up today?<\/p>\n

Because it\u2019s happening again – this time in China<\/a>:<\/p>\n

British Olympic chiefs are to force athletes to sign a contract promising not to speak out about China\u2019s appalling human rights record \u2013 or face being banned from travelling to Beijing.<\/p>\n

The move \u2013 which raises the spectre of the order given to the England football team to give a Nazi salute in Berlin in 1938 \u2013 immediately provoked a storm of protest.<\/p>\n

The controversial clause has been inserted into athletes\u2019 contracts for the first time and forbids them from making any political comment about countries staging the Olympic Games.<\/p>\n

It is contained in a 32-page document that will be presented to all those who reach the qualifying standard and are chosen for the team\u2026The clause, in section 4 of the contract, simply states: \u201c[Athletes] are not to comment on any politically sensitive issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

It then refers competitors to Section 51 of the International Olympic Committee charter, which \u201cprovides for no kind of demonstration, or political, religious or racial propaganda in the Olympic sites, venues or other areas\u201d.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, Beijing is putting all Olympic athletes under a gag order.<\/p>\n

Oh – and for what it\u2019s worth, my opinion of Prince Charles just jumped from \u201cHold\u201d to \u201cBuy\u201d:<\/p>\n

Prince Charles has already let it be known that he will not be going to China, even if he is invited by Games organisers.<\/p>\n

His views on the Communist dictatorship are well known, after this newspaper revealed how he described China\u2019s leaders as \u201cappalling old waxworks\u201d in a journal written after he attended the handover of Hong Kong. The Prince is also a long-time supporter of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan leader.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Why is the US participating in this sham, which serves only to legitimize the brutal, lethal Beijing regime?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s not a new observation that the Olympics have become a joke; even when I was a kid, watching the ’72 games in Munich (before the massacre), I remember hearing complaints about the doping, the commercialism, the professionalization of the Eastern Bloc athletes, the jingoism the games spawned, and on, and on, and on. But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,77,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history-and-its-making","category-the-rare-sports-post","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2108\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}