What I Did On My Summer Vacation: The Confession of a Flip-flopper

I started the month of August with a plan.

Boycott the Olympics in China.

This was going to be tough for me, since the Olympics have always been a favorite of mine. Still, I have never gotten over Tiananmen Square. I have never been able to accept that George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton deliberately and openly gave the Chinese totalitarian government the keys to our economy.

All of our bluster about human rights is just that, wind blowing through the tree tops. It finally occured to me what Paddy Chayefsky was talking about:

"You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations; there are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There is no third world. There is no west. There is only one holistic system of systems; one vast interwoven, interacting, multivariate multinational dominion of dollars. Petrodollars, electrodollars, reichmarks, rubles, rin, pounds and shekels. It is the international system of currency that determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today."

And while my nuclear family marveled at the opening ceremonies, I sat in another room fueling my anger by immersing myself in the latest Martin Cruz Smith/Arkady Renko novel. Renko would agree with me. We would share some vodka and shake our heads comfortable in our righteousness.

Then the first race began.

For the next 20 days, I watched everything. It was great. The races, the contests of strength, of speed, of agility. It was a great Olympics, and I was thrilled to watch.

Then near the end, the men's marathon was run and in the middle of the race the runners passed Tiananmen Square. The NBC annoucer gave all the history: all the facts and figures about its size, both ancient Chinese as well as Communist names for the buildings. But not a word about 1989.

I waited. "Say something!" Would the Chinese cut the transmission? Had NBC agreed not to mention the event? Did no one remember? As the commentator told us how many football fields would fit into the square, I got sick to my stomach.


I was a sell out. I was the bluster.

I know that this is a temporary dip into self loathing. But I feel guilty.

Maybe the guilt is a good sign.


Before, I felt like Dr. Miles J. Bennell, screaming at the world, unable to get anyone to listen. Then I went to sleep and woke up just like everybody else. "Supporting the athletes," forgetting about all the realities behind the hypocrisy.

Then the marathon and the guilt.

Still, if no one cared about the Chinese, then no one cares about the guilt either.