Olympics - does anyone actually care anymore?

[sledger]

Ah what an amazing moment that was

Haha it must have been ten years ago or so by now

I think I still have the screenshot somewhere

 

[Shady Slim]

Shady go to bed

man this would have been good advice to take at the time

 

[Shady Slim]

to wrap the matter up in a nice little bow and have the final say: if i take the posts of my detractors at their highest, the subtext about me is that i'm tired enough and jaded enough to realise the west is evil and bad and both commits and backs the commission of atrocities around the globe and hides them, or denies them, but conversely not bright enough to realise that this doesn't mean "any party that calls out western propaganda and hypocrisy about what they do = nice". now, that is, i concede, unequivocally true i expect lol.

great thing about truth though is that more than one thing can be true at the same time so long as they aren't mutually exclusive, and while the above statement is definitely true, it is also true that you can criticise regimes that do things you don't like, but do so in a way that is fair and reasonable, that is not just race bait for the worst people in the country, that is not flagrantly hypocritical and that doesn't encourage domestic racism against the diasporate populations, and that's what the australian government simply has not done.

 

[GotSpin]

Are you still hanging on about race bait

 

[Spark]

we're talking about a few governments not sending diplomats to the Olympic Games. it's literally about as anodyne, as insubstantial and frankly as vapid a statement of protest as you can get at a official level. if that is beyond the pale with regards to"encouraging racism" then literally everything is beyond the pale and no official criticism of Chinese human rights is at all possible.

meanwhile we have vague references to "evil atrocities" whilst an ethnic minority, literally millions of people, are being held in concentration camps (by the Chinese government's own admission!) and forcibly sterilised and/or being forced into ***ual slavery. this is rank false equivalence, to put it very mildly. what does "fair and reasonable" criticism of this obviously genocidal policy look like if all we're going to hear is "but America" every single time?

 

[Spark]

like I'm happy to hear concrete criticism of American/Five Eyes foreign policy and their approach to the Asia-Pacific, and Australian diplomacy (especially Dutton) has been daft of late. But those criticising have to actually engage at a concrete level with the actual events that are going on; vagueness is the enemy of honesty in these discussions.

 

[GotSpin]

Sounds like you’re encouraging trickle down racism tbh

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

like I'm happy to hear concrete criticism of American/Five Eyes foreign policy and their approach to the Asia-Pacific, and Australian diplomacy (especially Dutton) has been daft of late. But those criticising have to actually engage at a concrete level with the actual events that are going on; vagueness is the enemy of honesty in these discussions.

Yeah it's usually less warmongering and more of dumb **** like this:

NanoEngineering: Statement

 

[SillyCowCorner1]

 

[Son Of Coco]

'The Front Bar' is a pretty entertaining sideshow to the Winter Olympics over here in Oz. Has some very funny moments.

 

[Shady Slim]

Yeah it's usually less warmongering and more of dumb **** like this:

NanoEngineering: Statement

oh yeah the china initiative is ****ing horrible, modern mccarthyism at it's highest

 

[Shady Slim]

we're talking about a few governments not sending diplomats to the Olympic Games. it's literally about as anodyne, as insubstantial and frankly as vapid a statement of protest as you can get at a official level. if that is beyond the pale with regards to"encouraging racism" then literally everything is beyond the pale and no official criticism of Chinese human rights is at all possible.

meanwhile we have vague references to "evil atrocities" whilst an ethnic minority, literally millions of people, are being held in concentration camps (by the Chinese government's own admission!) and forcibly sterilised and/or being forced into ***ual slavery. this is rank false equivalence, to put it very mildly. what does "fair and reasonable" criticism of this obviously genocidal policy look like if all we're going to hear is "but America" every single time?

if you take it in isolation sure, it's anodyne, but it's not in isolation is it man, you're missing the bigger picture - it's but a two of clubs in a much greater game of poker see, that being the entire australian foreign policy attitude towards countries such as china including things like the commentaries coming from peter dutton, which as you (correctly!) say are very daft (and that's a mad understatement but i know we're just talking shop so i'm not going to try to suggest you meant it was merely "daft" lol)

one of the terrible parts of the boycott naturally is that sport is a great arena to foster diplomacy, and doing the boycott ensures things stay frosty, but that's a personal gripe with the method and not relevant to our current discussion here and now - pretty obvious what has to be done for the criticism levelled by a country like australia to be credible, and that's to simply stop backing apartheid states and states who do ethnic cleansing! you'd think this is an incredibly low bar to clear lmao

 

[Spark]

one of the terrible parts of the boycott naturally is that sport is a great arena to foster diplomacy, and doing the boycott ensures things stay frosty, but that's a personal gripe with the method and not relevant to our current discussion here and now - pretty obvious what has to be done for the criticism levelled by a country like australia to be credible, and that's to simply stop backing apartheid states and states who do ethnic cleansing! you'd think this is an incredibly low bar to clear lmao

That is literally the opposite of what you’ve been suggesting throughout these discussions though. You haven’t said “criticism of China is fine, but they should apply that to Saudi Arabia or the UAE or Egypt” etc etc, you’ve just said they should basically stop criticising China because it axiomatically leads to racism.

The point about credibility goes right back to my earlier point about hypocrisy. If “credibility” is being cited as a reason to hold back on lodging tame official protests at genocide then credibility is more trouble than it’s actually worth.

Like, they aren’t going to be more likely to criticise and pressure nominally pro-Western Middle Eastern autocratic regimes (most of which have, side notes, been moving towards Russia and China because they feel that the US in particular is starting to get pushy about their human rights records) because they’ve held off on criticising China. That’s just totally backwards; they should hold the line on China and then carry over the same attitude to everyone else.

 

[Shady Slim]

That is literally the opposite of what you’ve been suggesting throughout these discussions though. You haven’t said “criticism of China is fine, but they should apply that to Saudi Arabia or the UAE or Egypt” etc etc, you’ve just said they should basically stop criticising China because it axiomatically leads to racism.

The point about credibility goes right back to my earlier point about hypocrisy. If “credibility” is being cited as a reason to hold back on lodging tame official protests at genocide then credibility is more trouble than it’s actually worth.

Like, they aren’t going to be more likely to criticise and pressure nominally pro-Western Middle Eastern autocratic regimes (most of which have, side notes, been moving towards Russia and China because they feel that the US in particular is starting to get pushy about their human rights records) because they’ve held off on criticising China. That’s just totally backwards; they should hold the line on China and then carry over the same attitude to everyone else.

i feel you've misunderstood what i'm trying to say then, but i'll take the blame for that because i generally play my words pretty fast and loose when posting so there's always room for misinterpretation lol

the criticisms of china ring hollow because the government is happy to back israel, saudi araba and so on. further, the way in which the government's gone about their criticism of china has empowered and emboldened racists

 

[Shady Slim]

great thing about truth though is that more than one thing can be true at the same time so long as they aren't mutually exclusive, and while the above statement is definitely true, it is also true that you can criticise regimes that do things you don't like, but do so in a way that is fair and reasonable, that is not just race bait for the worst people in the country, that is not flagrantly hypocritical and that doesn't encourage domestic racism against the diasporate populations, and that's what the australian government simply has not done.

i reiterate and repeat this, which sums my position nicely and directly goes against what you've accused my point of being lol

 

[Spark]

i reiterate and repeat this, which sums my position nicely and directly goes against what you've accused my point of being lol

yes which is why i asked what this “fair and reasonable” standard is practice when it comes to acceptable ways to protest genocide. we’re not talking about a messy trade dispute or broken procurement contract or what have you.

like as far as i’m concerned, a fair and reasonable standard to take to genocidaires is a cruise missile to the face. quite fortunately, this is not actually what is done or should be done. but it does mean that complaints about proportionality ring quite hollow.

 

[Shady Slim]

yes which is why i asked what this “fair and reasonable” standard is practice when it comes to acceptable ways to protest genocide. we’re not talking about a messy trade dispute or broken procurement contract or what have you.

like as far as i’m concerned, a fair and reasonable standard to take to genocidaires is a cruise missile to the face. quite fortunately, this is not actually what is done or should be done. but it does mean that complaints about proportionality ring quite hollow.

i feel i've already said what i think ought to be done but we're sort of talking in circles now if that's where we're at

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Think I will only watch Curling this time as we haven't got the speed skater Christie to laugh at when she messes up again as she retired a few months ago.

 

[Fuller Pilch]

Zoi Sadowski-Synnott has just won NZ's 1st ever Winter Olympic Gold. This was in snowboarding.

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

That last run was awesome.