In 1968, the same year Martin Luther King Jr. was shot in the throat while standing on a Memphis balcony, the Olympics were held in Mexico City, Mexico. Winning medals in the 200 meter dash that year were two black runners from San Jose State. As they stood on the podium, they put their fists in the air: a Black Power salute. One wore beads to represent black Americans that had been lynched. They were barefoot: most black Americans were poor.

The president of the International Olympics Committee responded by exiling the athletes from the remainder of the games. The IOC called their actions “a deliberate and violent breach of the Olympic spirit.’’

What, then, is the Olympic spirit? Under what ethic and morality does it exist? Then and today?

“Bodies in peak condition performing with everything they’ve got are an image of freedom,’’ writes Rebecca Solnit, who tells the above story in the July issue of Orion. “But the reality of freedom only exists when these phenomena aren’t deployed to cover up other bodies that are cringing, starving, bleeding, or dying, other places that are clearcut, strip-mined, and contaminated.’’

The Olympics are an illusion. Allowing China – one of the most egregious violators of human-rights and polluters of the environment – to host the Games immediately disqualifies these Olympics of their complete integrity and honor. As it always does, the mass media will whitewash its coverage, reporting as if it were covering an event at Disneyland. In response, this column will offer alternative coverage in hopes of drawing attention to the broken, not bronzed, bodies dying throughout this world.

This is Day One of the Olympics, and Year 46 of the Burmese Repression.

August 8, 1988, marks the first main Burmese Uprising against their violent and oppressive regime. A military junta effectively shut down all democratic efforts in the Asian state, and the dictatorship has remained in control with help from the Chinese government.

So, as it hosts the Olympic Games, China also works to shut down democracy in Burma, where human rights violations are commonplace, and Aung San Suu Kyi, the democratically elected leader, remains under house arrest. She is the only Nobel Peace Prize Winner to live in prison.

The Chinese government actively works against freedom, democracy and justice by supporting the violent repressive regime in Burma. Aung San Suu Kyi remains in prison, along with thousands of Buddhist monks there. And tonight, the Chinese government hosts the Olympics under the banner of One World.

Let us hope that again someone will raise a fist in the air.

(David Cook teaches American History at Girls Preparatory School and can be reached at dcook7@gmail

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Earth to David Cook, the Olympic Games lost their honor and integrity many years ago when they, like most other sports, became a television show instead of an athletic event. Now they are all about Big Money and Big Power.

However, I think it is not a bad idea to have the games hosted by countries such as China with oppressive policies. Most Americans will learn more about China in the next two weeks than they have their entire lifetime. NBC with their huge Olympic contract will obviously not point out the Human Rights abuses. However, other media sources will. As much as the Chinese will try to cover up these abuses, the huge glare of World Wide coverage will expose some of them. And, who knows, maybe this exposure will bring about some positive changes.

I have often wondered if we had TV coverage of Jesse Owens destroying Hitler's Aryan Superiority Myth at the Berlin Games in 1936 if it would have affected future world events.

Douglas Jones
Chattanooga

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Mr. Cook, this is probably one of the first times I have read an editorial of yours that I have agreed with. Just as in the 1936 Olympics, China is using the Olympics not to keep their friends close, but bring their 'enemies closer' to cover up their human rights abuses, and their obvious military preparations for war with Taiwan and the United States. They are helping put to sleep a very lethargic international community.

I am not as well educated about the issue of Burma as others, but I realize that this is just the tip of the iceberg. This is not to mention China's support for the genocide in Darfur, their support of terrorist organizations and rogue nations such as Iran and North Korea (If President Bush were to be consistent, China and Russia should be the top of the Axis of Evil), the pollution they allow, labor practices, their disdain for equal property rights for the poor, religious persecution, disdain for freedom of speech, and their growing power in the UN to halt peacekeeping processes, power manifested through the corrupt dictators they have supported in places such as South America and Africa who have more UN influence than they should.

Mr. Jones, the sad fact is that China has our media wrapped around its finger. Consider this: The American companies that benefit from China's unfair trade practices, and cheap labor, are the same companies that sponsor the media outlets. Our media cautiously follows the policy of "Don't bite the hand that feeds the hand that feeds you", so to speak. Information that is critical of China, or any information on the oppressed nations that China is helping to oppress, is hard to come by in the mainstream media. However, I will say that I was surprised that Bob Woodruff's documentary on China, this past Wednesday, was aired with information showing China's questionable influence in world affairs, particularly in the 3rd world. But as expected, they allowed Chinese rhetoric to reign supreme during the piece, full of propaganda that I could see through, but that I am afraid many could not.

The Olympics have already been used today by Russia (a close ally of China ever since the Cold War, their differences were faked in order to manipulate our country into economically supporting China), to invade the Republic of Georgia with tanks and bombs, with most of our media writing it off as irrelevant.

The power of the Olympic Games is greater than we imagine, and that power has been handed to an evil empire. May God help us.

Kyle Johnson
Age 18
Signal Mountain
sk.johnson00@gmail.com