An analysis of Gov. Richardson's idea to consider Boycott of 2008 Olympics re: Darfur, and China's destruction of Tibet

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I am very glad that more and more people seem to recognize the importance of Richardson's breakthrough regarding the Bush Adminstration’s abjectly failed Iraq policy. These failures have impacted almost every phase of American foreign policy, which has based more on military power than traditional diplomacy for the past six years. Richardson’s effectiveness is even clearer now, with Lieberman threatening to use nuclear weapons on Iran. I find this posturing and blustering to be totally absurd and even dangerous; because of my extensive studies of the horrendous effects of nuclear weapons on the health of the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, called “hibakusha” in Japanese.

I strongly agree with Richardson’s overall focus on diplomacy, and putting economic sanctions on Iran. I agree especially his innovative idea put forth during the New Hampshire debates. There has been a general silence among nations vis-à-vis China’s ghastly atrocities in the human rights realm, and not just about China and Darfur, but especially toward Tibetans. China has constructed in Tibet dozens of prisons which, for Tibetans, are exactly like Auschwitz and Dachau.

I posited the same idea in 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006, in correspondence to His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, and to many heads-of-state, that the moral indignation of the nations in the Olympics in Beijing in 2008 could be harnessed into at least the threat of a boycott. To be effective, this could be perhaps worded more diplomatically. During the debate, both Senator Edwards and Senator Biden clearly agreed with this point by Richardson.

Make no mistake: this is probably the last chance in human history to do anything constructive about Tibet, to prevent henceforth the genocidal treatment of Tibetans remaining in Tibet, which has since 1959 seen 1.2 million Tibetans killed. This totals, roughly 20% of the entire population of Tibet. American political powers could decline to put to use what little remains of our powers of moral suasion in the world at large, and we could to once again docilely capitulate to dim-witted politicians who say that the Olympics are only about sport, and not about politics, and such claptrap as “a boycott would unfairly punish the athletes.” Then we would be no better than the many nations who were oblivious to the growing obviousness of the genocide of Jews in Europe before and during World War II.

Actually, the USA was for many years totally oblivious in this regard, whether you blame Roosevelt or anti-Semitics in the State Department, all of which is thoroughly documented in Arthur Morse’s book, While Six Million Died. In that light, we think Richardson is on the right track! The case is even stronger, when you consider the dead pets and the poisoned cold medicines and toothpaste from China. Those considerations are just not “about politics”: that was life and death for many, including at least 100 dead, mostly children, in Panama!

News: In what may be its most audacious Olympic act yet, China’s Ministry of Public Security has issued an incredible directive that lists 43 categories of “unwanteds” who are to be investigated and barred from the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Pariah groups include: - eerily vague “key individuals in ideological fields” - “overseas hostile forces” - “counterrevolutionary”
figures - the Dalai Lama and all affiliates - members of “religious entities not sanctioned by the state” (e.g., Roman Catholics) - “individuals who instigate discontentment toward the Chinese Communist Party through the Internet,” - and even certain types of “disabled” persons. Members of the Falun Gong would be barred, as would be “family members of deceased persons” killed in “riots” — a euphemism for events such as the Tiananmen Massacre — and Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang province, which the regime brands “national separatists.” Only at the very bottom of the directive does it identify “violent terrorists” and members of “illegal organizations” as targets for investigation and possible barring.

Authors Website: https://www.facebook.com/groups/592985284186083/

Authors Bio:

Early in the 2016 Primary campaign, I started a Facebook group: Bernie Sanders: Advice and Strategies to Help Him Win! As the primary season advanced, we shifted the focus to advancing Bernie's legislation in the Senate, particularly the most critical one, to protect Oak Flat, sacred to the San Carlos Apaches, in the Tonto National Forest, from John McCain's efforts to privatize this national forest and turn it over to Rio Tinto Mining, an Australian mining company whose record by comparison makes Monsanto look like altar boys, to be developed as North America's largest copper mine. This is monstrous and despicable, and yet only Bernie's Save Oak Flat Act (S2242) stands in the way of this diabolical plan.

We added "2020" to the title.


I am an art gallery owner in Santa Fe since 1980 selling Native American painting and NM landscapes, specializing in modern Native Ledger Art.


I have always been intensely involved in politics, going back to the mid's 1970's, being a volunteer lobbyist in the US Senate for the Secretary General of the United Nations, then a "snowball-in-hell" campaign for US Senate in NM in the late 70's, and for the past 20 years have worked extensively to pressure the FDA to rescind its approval for aspartame, the neurotoxic artificial sweetener metabolized as formaldehyde. This may be becoming a reality to an extent in California, which, under Proposition 65, is considering requiring a mandatory Carcinogen label on all aspartame products, although all bureaucracies seem to stall under any kind of corporate pressure.


Bills to ban aspartame were in the State Senates of New Mexico and Hawaii, but were shut down by corporate lobbyists (particularly Monsanto lobbyists in Hawaii and Coca Cola lobbyists in New Mexico).


For several years, I was the editor of New Mexico Sun News, and my letters to the editor and op/eds in 2016 have appeared in NM, California, Wisconsin, New York, Maryland, the Christian Science Monitor, USA Today, and many international papers, on the subject of consumer protection. Our best issue was 10 days before Obama won in 2008, when we published a special early edition of the paper declaring that Obama Wins! This was the top story on CNN for many hours, way back then....


My highest accomplishments thus far are

1. a plan to create a UN Secretary General's Pandemic Board of Inquiry, a plan that is in the works and might be achieved even before the 75th UN General Assembly in September 2020.


2. Now history until the needs becomes clear to the powers who run the United Nations: a UN Resolution to create a new Undersecretary General for Nutrition and Consumer Protection, strongly supported ten years ago by India and 53 cosponsoring nations, but shut down by the US Mission to the UN in 2008. To read it, google UNITED NATIONS UNDERSECRETARY GENERAL FOR NUTRITION, please.


These are not easy battles, any of them, and they require a great deal of political and journalistic focus. OpEdNews is the perfect place for those who have a lot to say, so much that they exceed the limiting capacities of their local and regional newspapers. Trying to go beyond the regional papers seems to require some kind of "inside" credentials, as if you had to be in a club of corporate-accepted writers, and if not, you are "from somewhere else," a sad state of corporate induced xenophobia that should have no place in America in 2020!

This should be a goal for every author with something current to say: breaking through yet another glass ceiling, and get your say said in editorial pages all over America. Certainly, this was a tool that was essentially ignored in 2016, and cannot be ignored in the big elections of 2020.


In my capacity as Editor of the Santa Fe Sun News, Fox interviewed Mikhail Gorbachev: http://www.prlog.org/10064349-mikhail-gorbachev