Free Tibet, Free the Olympics and Kudos to YouTube

The Olympics in Beijing (pronounce) are of course being boycotted by this blog. Not only because they are in China, and China is annoying, but also because they are the Olympics, and the Olympics are Annoying. In particular, tie IOC (International Olympic Committee) is annoying.

The IOC is owned by the networks that are making piles of money on the Olympics, and the networks are using the IOC as a front to make sure nothing gets out of Beijing and on to places such as YouTube. So the world's amateur sports are owned by NBC, not the world. Of course, this is not working very well.

In the mean time, the Free Tibet people made a video with various imagery about freeing Tibet, including atrocities (warning: Video may contain disturbing imaged) and protests. The IOC, in a truly Orwellian and very disturbing moment, tried to take this video off of You Tube. Can you believe that? A protest video regarding a political issue, being forced off YouTube by the International Olympics Committee. Holly crap.

A complication is the fact that the video was titled "Olymics Opening Ceremonies" ... apparently to make the Olympics - China link, or to get more views, or whatever. But, the IOC, one would expect, would have actually watched the video they were trying to censor ... because censorship is serious shit, right? Or, perhaps they simply decided to shut down ANYTHING with the word Olympics on it ... which is worse. Maybe. Either way, the IOC = Evil = Chinese Government = NBC.

Here's the baned video:


And here's a summary of the events I'm referring to here.

The good news is that YouTube did not simply fold. They looked at the situation and told the IOC to go away. Yea for YouTube.

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Some countries prefer to ban YouTube for good, to deal with these problems. I guess someone is missing the point.

The music in the video is annoying too.

Oh, and I don't give a damn about Tibet independence. I don't see why being ruled by communists is worse then being ruled by a reincarnated priest. What I care about is that both Chinese and Tibetans should be free to elect their democratic government and have their human rights respected. Doesn't matter whether this happens with Tibet being part of China or separate country.

By Roman Werpachowski (not verified) on 17 Aug 2008 #permalink

What if the Tibetans want to be ruled by a priest?

If they elect him democratically as president, and guarantee freedom of speech to his opponents, and freedom of worship to those who don't worship this priest's deity, then fine with me.

By Roman Werpachowski (not verified) on 26 Aug 2008 #permalink