NBC's Hidden Olympics
by Spencer Warren
Issue 114 - August 20, 2008

NBC’s television coverage of the Beijing Olympics naturally highlights the extraganza, the contests, the winners - even the losers. It is great fun and millions of Americans enjoy it.

But amidst the ocean of sporting images and flashing medals flooding a large portion of the living rooms of our country for these two weeks, let us not forget the "hidden olympics" of what is really going on behind the scenes in China..

Let us remain ever mindful of the tortured political dissenters and the Christians, including bishops and other clergy, who are imprisoned only because they seek to practice their faith outside of the State-controlled churches. Let us not forget all the censorship, including control of the Internet with the assistance of computer technology purchased from Bill Gates and Yahoo. Let us not forget the forced abortions and the fetuses aborted at nine months because they have Down's Syndrome or other diseases. All this, and more, while the athletes compete for their medals.

These all give quite a different view of China than the one being broadcast by NBC.

The Chinese regime does not even spare its helpless animals. Millions of dogs and cats in China are tortured or killed with the knowledge or support of its government. Many readers may be generally aware that dogs and cats are eaten in parts of the country. Few know that many or most are tortured to death in the belief they “taste” better the more they suffer.

Thus, dogs are slowly bludgeoned to death with pipes and hammers in China (scroll down to second China entry in left-hand column to see photo of a bludgeoned little rabbit at http://www.tegendierenleed.nl/Foto's/index.htm). Thousands are butchered and bled dogs to death while fully conscious, or, with cats, boil them alive. (Graphic photos and description at www.aapn.org./xichang.html, also read this page’s link to Food Dogs. For photos of a Chinese street-side cat “restaurant,” including a kitty being bled to death on the curb, scroll down to first China entry at: http://www.tegendierenleed.nl/Foto's/index.htm.)

Dogs also are skinned alive for their fur, which is surreptitiously mis-labeled and sold on garments in Western countries. The much loved St. Bernard rescue dogs are imported into China because, cross-bred, they make a good “food dog” which can be slaughtered at four months of age. Among other horrors, dogs have been observed tied in nets being dumped from trucks, crying as their feet are broken, then flung with tongs into fenced areas where laughing men bludgeon them just for kicks.

All this while the athletes compete for their medals on NBC.

Some will say that’s the “culture” of this region. Well, dogs, cats and other animals have a different view of such “multiculturalism.” First, no animal should be tortured. Second, dogs and cats are uniquely loyal and affectionate as human companions; dogs in particular serve as eyes for the blind, they are employed in therapy for disabled patients, and they are often seen saving our lives, as one last year rescued his human family’s baby, himself absorbing the attacking rattlesnake’s bites. Third, anyone who knows dogs and cats recognizes that, like all animals, they are a challenge to human vanity: our moral conscience requires that we understand how they express themselves on their own terms, as sentient creatures who know pain and joy as we do.

“A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal.” Proverbs 12:10. And in words particularly applicable to the subject of this article, St. Francis of Assisi said: “If you have men who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow man.”

It is all well and good to celebrate the Olympics. But it is also well to remember the many abuses that are carefully hidden by the Chineese regime. As Francis reminds us, what is really important is dealing well with our fellow man and the policies and actions that lead men and women closer or further from that goal. Sports can lead positively in that direction but oppression of people and animals cannot. Americans need to hear both sides of the story.

But where is NBC and the rest of the world’s press?

Spencer Warren is Conservative Battle Line’s media critic as well as president of Abner, Daisy and Snow’s League for Animal Protection.