And my point is that American involvement in 1936, in the form of Jesse Owens, showed the lie to the theory of the “master race” that was supposed to be showcased in Berlin. By showing up and competing, America lessened the propaganda value of the Berlin Olympics. I hope that the Beijing Olympics will suffer the same fate.
This is all completely EMPTY reasoning. Jesse Owens won a race. That lead to... what? I'll tell you what ... NOTHING.
The war STILL happened. Germany STILL killed millions and millions. The Jews STILL died by the millions. And Jessee, why he STILL didn't stop all that with his great running.
America playing to Hitler's Olympic tunes did N-O-T-H-I-N-G positive.Zip. Nada.
Your reasoning is specious. The olympics were not and are not designed to stop wars. In a political sense, they are simply propaganda stages.
I’m not certain what your real complaint is. The choice of venue is not an American decision, and is in just about every sense a political decision fraught with IOC corruptibility. If the point is that we should not participate whenever the olympics is held in a place we disapprove of, I must ask the question “Should we punish our athletes because of matters outside their control?”
Frankly, I ignore the television coverage of the olympics because of the “human interest” crap that the networks likes to push so hard. But that does not lessen my support for our athletes, who have worked their tails off to make it to the largest and most prestigious amateur athletic stage in the world.
I harbor no illusions that the olympic games can do anything to stop war or human suffering.