The thing is, that the real scandal about the olympics in China is exactly this level of disengagement by ordinary people around the globe, this suspension of disbelief.
The willingness to subscribe to the idea that a corrupt, money grubbing, corporate-sponsored, drug-addled athletic event that deliberately aids and abets the suppression of millions of poor people, should be supported because it involves maybe 12,000 athletes who have worked hard.
The awarding of the games and the cheerleading thereof is, at best, an aquiescence towards the CCP in it's increasing suppression of freedoms in China and, worse, has given it a green light to continue with impunity.
And once the games are over, Melinda and yours and everyone elses attention has re-focussed on the next jamboree and you've all gone back to the rest of your lives .....
..... the MILLIONS of people dispossed of their homes with inadequate (say 10% of value) or NO compensation and the hundreds, maybe thousands rounded up before the games and gaoled by the police for three years - no court, no judge, no process, no nothing - for being SUSPECTED of, ummmmmm, well thinking or writing something and few if any of them advocating anything more than a bit more fairness and openness won't be going back to their normal lives.
And this was all done in the name of the olympics, specifically in order to "showcase" China's supposed maturity and the CCP's willingness to embrace a new era of freedoms in China.
IMO, the hypocrisy on the part of anyone that purports to support the basic freedoms that most of us take for granted and is then involved in any way with the cheering-on of this event, or those directly involved, is breathtaking.
I find it distasteful in the extreme that people are prepared to place the harsh subjugation of the freedoms of the people of China in secondary consideration to the glorification of a few thousand, hard working, athletes - and that's exactly what is happenning in reality.
On the ground, in reality, these games are responsible for creating a travesty of justice on an immense scale.
And no athletics contest can justify that.
