China campaigned for the 2008 Olympic Games with a promise to improve its sad record of human rights abuse and suppression of free speech. It promised world reporters "unfettered access" in the country and made a commitment to clean up the quality of the air in Beijing for the Olympic Games.

The fact is that Beijing has failed on every important promise it made to become the host city of the 2008 Olympic Games. Sure it spent the money to build world class Olympic venues. It even spent several billion dollars in a failed attempt to clean up its air. However, granting basic human rights, allowing free speech, and its effort to improve the quality of the air in Beijing have all turned out to be dismal government failures of Olympic proportions.

The result of all these failed promises is that China was allowed to win the 2008 Olympic Games as the host city under false pretenses. To disguise its sad failure, Beijing has taken a page out of the Nazi regime's playbook used during the Summer Games in Berlin, Germany in 1936. During those Olympics, Berlin tried to disguise its racist policies while welcoming the world as the host city of the Games. All anti-Jewish signs were temporarily removed and newspapers toned down racist rhetoric. The Olympic Games were used as a venue to present foreign spectators and journalists with a false image of a peaceful, tolerant Germany.

Seventy years later, China is attempting to disguise its dismal failure on improving human rights, free speech, and the environment as it always does, by controlling the message and the messenger. Like Germany in 1936, it is the totalitarian regime's message control that disguises the truth and promotes the big lie. Here is a quote from China's official newspaper, The People's Daily last month: "If at each Olympics people stood up and used politics to attack the host nation, where does that leave the Olympic spirit?"

There it is for all to see. The Chinese government's Olympic year initiative to disguise its failure. In effect the government's subtle message is that there is no Olympic Spirit in free speech. Therefore, to criticize China during the 2008 Games is against the Spirit of the Olympics. This quote comes after China's crackdown on internal dissidents over the last several months. (See Beijing 2008: Human Right Are A Propaganda Game on eworldvu.com). Many dissidents including Hu Jia, Wang Dejia, and others have been jailed in the country since late in 2007 for not exhibiting the proper "Olympic Spirit".

According to the London newspaper, The Mail, on Sunday February 10, 2008, China's attempt to control free speech has now extended into a compliant United Kingdom. The paper reports that British athletes competing at this year's Olympic Games in China are being asked to sign a contract that includes a pledge not to speak out on political or human rights issues. The Mail says a clause in the contract states that "athletes are not to comment on any politically sensitive issues." It reports that anyone who violates the contract will be sent home from Beijing.

Potentially the pledge in the contract means that a British athlete who witnesses someone being mistreated at any time in China is forbidden from even speaking to their colleagues about it. Competitors emailing home or writing blogs will also have to exercise self-censorship or face having their Olympic dreams ended.

The pledge (which is contained within a thirty two page document that is designed to be presented to all participants on the British Olympic team ) brings back memories of the order given to England's football team to give a Nazi salute in Berlin in 1936 which immediately created a large protest in Great Britain.

Further consider the fact that it has been reported that December 12, 2007 was the worst day in history for the measurement of air quality around the city of Beijing. Many of the world's athletes will risk health problems due to the filthy air especially on the long distance endurance events at this summer's Games. For this reason many teams are postponing their arrival in Beijing to just prior to the scheduled events. Years of being the world's biggest environmental polluter could not be corrected in time for the Olympic Games. However that has not stopped these Olympic Games in Beijing from being promoted as the environmentally friendly "Green Games".

The political reality of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing is the sad spectacle of China's ongoing human rights crackdowns on its internal dissidents. In addition, China continues to support some of the world's worst regimes in Tibet, Myanmar, and the Sudan. It has placed world class athletes from every country in the world at risk from exposure to its filthy, polluted air. It is clearly evident that China's commitments to the world that led it to become the host city for the 2008 Olympic Games have been broken.

Indeed, it is a record of failure of Olympic proportions; a record that China is attempting to disguise just as Nazi Germany disguised their real intentions as host of the Summer Olympics in Berlin in 1936.

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