Just Say No To A Boycott

I'm thinking about visiting Lake George, in upstate New York, this summer.  To do so, I will have to pass through the state capitol of Albany.  Home of the New York State Assembly which just rejected Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan for New York City.  It was a lousy, cowardly move on the legislature's part and they need to be held accountable.  

For my part, I intend to boycott the lunch counter of the Miss Albany Diner on my way through the city.  I'll pack a sandwich instead.  I was inspired to act by the growing clamor against participation in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, highlighted by Hillary Clinton's call yesterday for President Bush to boycott the opening ceremonies in protest of China's miserable record on human rights.  

The theory goes that, if China wants to be treated like a big-time, international power, they need to clean up their act and start respecting the rights of their own citizens, as well as Tibetans and Sudanese and anyone else they've dissed over the past six months.  In other words, they need to meet our human rights standards before we will legitimize their government with our presence at the party they're planning.

You've got to be kidding.  That deafening silence you hear coming out of the White House is Bush and his lackeys trying to come up with a response that won't bring down the house over at the United Nations.  Laugh?  It would be greeted like the stateroom scene from "Night At The Opera."  

America demanding respect for civil rights and calling for a government to take responsibility for it's actions?  America, with her history of supporting Somoza in Nicaragua, Mobutu in Zaire, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, who killed 1.5 million in Cambodia, Amin in Uganda, Batista in Cuba, Botha in South Africa, the Duvaliers, who slaughtered 40,000 in Haiti, Doe in Liberia, Franco in Spain, Diehm in South Vietnam, and King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, our best friend in the region despite his regime which hangs onto power through the use of torture, amputation and public hangings.  Who punishes female adultry with death by stoning.  That America?

America who financed Marcos in the Philippines, Pinochet in Chile, Trujillo, Suharto and the Shah of Iran?  Who greased the wheels for Ford, GM and Studebaker to sell trucks to Franco's Spain and ITT to provide the phone and radio systems for Nazi Germany?  That America?

The America that brought the world the images of Abu Ghraib, the stories of wrongful detention and torture in Guantanamo Bay and the secret prisons we've set up in Thailand, Afghanistan and Eastern Europe to deal with the really tough nuts to crack?  Well, not to deal with them so much as to disappear them.  

The America that stands with Iran and the Congo as countries who execute juveniles and the mentally ill?  That openly mocked the ideals set forth in her own Constitution by passing the Patriot Act, thereby giving the government the right to spy on its own citizens without demonstrating probable cause?  That responded ( with positively glacial alacrity) to Hurricane Katrina's ravaging of the citizens of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast with police brutality, racial profiling and discrimination?  

The America who showed her respect for the international community and her sense of responsibility for producing 36% of the world's greenhouse emissions while only representing 4.6% of the global population by opting out of the Kyoto Protocol immediately upon George Bush taking office?  Thereby proudly joining Kazakhstan as the only two nations not to ratify the treaty.  That America?

And finally, the America that invaded Iraq to exterminate a tinhorn dictator and settle a family debt and is still there, thousands of lives and millions of refugees and trillions in treasure later?  

Is that really the resume we're supposed to bring with us to the table when we sit down with the Chinese and lecture them on human rights?

George Bush probably doesn't think so.  Tough to sell, globally, that is.  We need to think smaller.  The Opening Ceremonies might be a little awkward.  There was a story in the Times Online a few weeks ago that just might fit the bill.  It seems the US athletes are planning to bring their own food to Beijing, rather than risk trusting the local cuisine.  The Chinese aren't pleased but they're finding it hard to defend their home-cooking, given all the recent public health scares they've endured.  

Yeah, that's right.  It's an Olympic food boycott, similar in many ways to the protest I've planned for my Albany visit.  I think Dana Perino needs to clip that article and trot it right into the Oval Office for the president to see.  Give him something to hang his cowboy hat on here.  

Because, for once, I'm with the administration.  We're in no position to make a big deal out of this human rights thing.