Protest of Champions

USA Today reports on protests at the Vancouver games:

Hundreds of protesters have converged on the Winter Olympics host city in search of a global stage for myriad causes — from opposition to the Olympic movement to a call for Canada's withdrawal from Afghanistan.

And while the tone of recent demonstrations have become more hard-edged than last week's community center laugh-fest — at least eight people were arrested and two police officers injured during weekend clashes — police are giving protesters some room to roam.

Vancouver's response offers a stark contrast to the harsh crackdown on dissenters that accompanied the Beijing Olympics, as documented by organizations like Amnesty International. As I've argued before, permitting dissent is the smart move for countries that support free speech -- but is suppressing it the best move for countries that don't?

Obviously the prohibition of free expression looks bad to any countries that support it, and as a fierce advocate of free speech and other UDHR values, I disapprove of it myself. But I'd still like to see some statistics on how much PR damage is done by suppression, versus the amount done by protesters. Like many aspects of public diplomacy, this one is difficult to measure, but there must be some evidence proving that curbing dissent is a bad policy move. Can anyone help?

Got snow?

Vancouver is, evidently, the only city in the northwest quadrant that's short on snow. But the Olympic Games are, as always, a perfect arena for international narratives to unfold.

Did the end of the Cold War take all the zest out of Olympic competitions? Stephen has a solution for engaging twenty-first century enemies in physical combat.

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And NBC opens the games with a montage of athletes grimacing, exulting and otherwise emoting while a sober voiceover lays out the characteristics of the U.S. team: ambitious, indomitable, passionate, graceful, speedy, charismatic, original, redeemable. Let those who doubt the private sector is capable of spinning a public diplomacy narrative take note...