XXlX Olympic Games Open!
The Olympics are a time for the world community to come together. Individual grievances between nations need to be set aside for a few days in order that something larger can be acknowledged. We are all citizens of planet Earth ... like it or not, that one fact brings a common denominator to us all, regardless of economic ideology, religion or race.
The ties that bind us together are actually stronger than the ties that would tear us apart. We are all human beings ... most of us seek to live our lives in peace and security. We are stronger than those who would deny this.
Postscript:
However, as I post this ... it appears that:
-Russia is invading Georgia
-Stephen Harper boycotts the Games in a petty show of divisive ideology
-Iran continues to struggle under a repressive fundamentalist government
-Starvation continues in Darfur - Ethiopia , etc etc
-Palestinians sit in refugee camps now for the 60th year (without a country)
-Taliban continue to kill for medieval religious purposes
-Massive profiteering by the oil companies continues every minute/day/year
-Nato refuses to acknowledge the insanity of the situation in Afghanistan
-Fred Phelps continues to spread hatred ... probably to hide his own homosexuality
Oh well ... if we don't ever dream of achieving something better, we are doomed to merely allow the lowest aspect of our human condition to continue unabated.
(sigh)
HAVE A NICE DAY!! :)
whats Canadas medal count so far? I have not had chance to watch any of it yet.
Posted by
huffb1 |
3:45 pm, August 08, 2008
Today, the only thing that has happened is the showcase opening ceremonies ... march of the athletes and some early preliminary events like cycling. The first medals will be in a day or two.
Posted by
leftdog |
5:11 pm, August 08, 2008
The Olympics are a time for the world community to come together.
This has pretty much never been true.
1) It was recreated as an institution essentially by Nazi Germany, as proof and encouragement of ideas of racial superiority, and racism in general. It is, and has always been a divisive institution.
2) More recently, the IOC has been using the court system in Canada and elsewhere to sue anyone they could get their technophobic hands on for so much as discussing them. They are founded on a centralized, monpolized media model that might have made sense in the 70's, but no longer makes sense in a world with ubiquitous freeflow information.
3) Each and every city(especially post 9/11) that has gotten it has installed a state-of-the-art surveillance system which decreases political freedom in that respective city
4) ...and established a generation-long chain of debt (which social services would have to be sacrificed for, in effect causing widespread problems for the poor). Just watch what happens to vancouver's homeless population in the next few years on this one. It's more or less a complete waste of money in times when there's a global food crisis, more than a dozen active genocide campaigns, and now war.
5) The fact that the US(just prior to committing some of their worst atrocities on it's post-native-american-ethnic-cleansing record) and now China(you've already mentioned darfur) have gotten the olympics should be all the proof necessary to show that it is nothing more than an attempt by despotic, murderous regimes to blind the world to their crimes.
Posted by
jeff cliff |
3:08 am, August 09, 2008