John Hoberman is a professor and chair of Germanic studies at the University of Texas at Austin and author of “The Olympic Crisis: Sport, Politics and the Moral Order".

The Olympic Games were founded to bridge cultural divides and promote peace. Instead, they often mask human rights abuses, do little to spur political change, and lend legitimacy to unsavory governments.

It is common knowledge among those of us who have investigated the track record of previous Olympic Games that the headline hype about the games 'boost for tourism' is an empty daydream.

The grandest totalitarian spectacle of sport since the Nazi version in Berlin in 1936 is over. Like that one this version prominently featured the 'sacred' flame and the collusion of the IOC and the media.

Let the Bejing Olympics of Global Re-branding and Marketing begin!

.: Li Changchun (C), member of the Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee Political Bureau, attends a evening party for the up-coming 2008 Beijing Olympic Games in Beijing, capital of China, on July 29, 2008. (Xinhua Photo/Li Tao)

From: Reporters Without Borders

Waterlogged Allotments at Marsh Lane Fields. Feb 2008 © Martin Slavin