Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch
We know the law is tremendously bad from an outside of Russia perspective. From doing a bit of reading it sounds like it is a fairly popular law inside of Russia. Our government has spoken out about the anti-gay laws in Russia and in African nations. Outside of a Boycott there isn't much more you can do except for things like trade sanctions, the old bringing the ambassador home for consultation, outright shutting down the embassy, there isn't much there. We can also and our government has done it is look at how gay persecution is treated under refugee acts. In otherwords if you come from those countries and you are gay you can claim governmental persecution.
Sure, but I guess what we have to ask is would we want to do a boycott hitting on multiple reasons. The anti-gay laws, The Russian actions in Syria etc? I personally think that while its great that the focus is hard on the anti-gay platform, why aren't people talking about the direct hand that the Russian's are taking in the support of the Syrian government that's slaughtering their people while they effectively block any type of UN action?
Why would the Russian's care, first and foremost they've got all of the money now, they were paid for the T.V. rights, anyone who's going as a tourist has already booked tickets and hotel rooms and its doubtful that there are going to be refunds.
Also as I mentioned before the law is not unpopular in Russia, and Russian's are highly focuses around internal politics as a precursor to their foreign affairs under this government.
Plus and lets say that there is a boycott, American and Russian and Canadian and Russian relations have cooled significantly over the last few years. The Russian's have moved away from the beggar in the street Perestroika and Glasnost Russian's at the end of the cold war, where they wanted to rejoin the international community and be friends and have access to money, to the more Communist style of government that was a surly bear super power. While I would argue that a Iron Curtain has not gone up, there is a curtain there.
All a boycott would do would be to lead to diplomatic retaliation by the Russian's where they oppose everything for the simple reason that it pisses people off.
And this might make me sound cold and incorrect, but a boycott or massive slap in the face might burn political goodwill that is needed in a later date when there is a real crisis and we potentially need Russian help, or negotiation.
Agreed, but its up to the individual athlete in this sense on whether they would want to no show or not.
I would think there are athletes out there that aren't focused about the anti-gay movements and they would be resentful at the unfairness of a blanket boycott.
As I mentioned above, there are limited options that you can take. It used to be that America and Canada provided Russia with most of its wheat, I don't believe that's the case anymore, other then that their oil is a mixture of home drilled or from the Middle East so we have very little leverage there. We could kill off some of the technology agreements they have, but that would hurt Canadian and American countries.
I think that the best solution if a boycott doesn't come down is the refugee thing. Open up the refugee process to gay people fleeing an unfair law.
The only other thing I could see would be to boot the Russian's out of the G8 meetings, but that would have dire diplomatic consequences.
I really don't believe there are those pressure points. The IOC won't pull the games at this point, it just won't happen, though the lawsuit would be interesting. It would also put a pretty hard blow to the International Olympic movement as I doubt you would see the Russian's attending the games ever again.
Russia is not going to change their internal laws for the international community, the day and age where we had that kind of leverage and the American's had that leverage are long gone. The Russian's basically told Obama to f off and mind their own knitting on the Syrian thing. On one of the last meetings Putin basically "Mat Damoned" our Prime Minster. (BTW good for our Prime Minster for fighting back on a obvious snub by Putin)
That's a choice, but I think that Hockey Canada and the NHL who both depend on the Olympics for dollars and fundraising would raise a stink.
|