Before they were awarded the Olympic games the Chinese government promised to relax their ever vigilant censorship and allow foreign journalist to truly report on how things are in China. The nearer the games have come the less willing the Chinese have been to allow reporters free reign. Journalists are being shut down by threats of imprisonment or banishment.
The truth as far as we can tell from outside is that China is one of the most polluted and intolerant regimes on earth. The Darfur genocide has been in large part supported by China in an effort to help secure one of their most important supplies of foreign oil (and yes I understand that Americans have essentially no moral superiority when it comes to foreign oil discussions, but at least we are attempting to improve things in other countries and making zero attempts to confiscate or loot their oil supplies), and while many athletes from the NBA have participated in attempts to educate the public about the Darfur situation they are forbidden from making any statements of a political nature during the Olympics. This is because the Olympics are supposedly non-political. Which is why at awards ceremonies the gold medal winners have their national anthem played, berths are awarded by country rather then by inviting the best athletes regardless of country and medal counts are given by country. Luckily the IOC is probably the most corrupt international organization outside of the UN. The idea that the games are non-political is ridiculous.
When the Olympics begin in a few days I will be watching (particularly the hoops), and ignoring the facts that surround the games in the forms of doping, biased judges and dirty politics. The athletes efforts often make it easy to forget the surrounding corruption.
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