Boards
Is it too late to cancel the Olympics?
Let’s put aside the sheer incredulity at what a pea-brained clown you’d have to be to draw emotional satisfaction or pride from the fact that a stranger born on the same hunk of land as you can run faster or swim more synchronously than a stranger born on a different hunk of land than you.
Let’s instead focus on the fact that the governments of this country have shilled out the dignity of the ordinary people of East London to curry favour with the profiteering executives of international corporations for the exclusive right to smear their branded faeces on every wall. Or the fact that these corporations whose purpose is to inflict obesity on the population will enjoy privileged access to the VIP transport routes while ambulances carrying the victims of their capitalist success will be left to hope for the best in traffic jams. Physical health is clearly only for the elite.
Let’s also focus on the fact that the rest us are forced to live under a quasi-police state for the duration of this summer courtesy of special legislation, conveyed by an army of public and private security personnel with the power to prevent with disproportionate force any legitimate expression of protest. The largest military operation in the UK since world war 2, a United States police force contingent sufficient for several major US cities, and anti-aircraft rockets installed on the roof of residential housing. The fact that the government are desperately hyping the distracting spectacle of the Olympic and Jubilee `celebrations` and urging the country to bond together while simultaneously doing their utmost to disintegrate the shared fabric of society and entrench permanent social positions throughout generations tells you all you need to know about the function of these Games.
Any ideals or worth the Olympics possessed regarding the progress and splendour of individual human physical accomplishment are long gone. They have sold their integrity, and the government has squandered any opportunities for positive legacies from the event. Even the small local communities and businesses who it were proclaimed would benefit are forbidden from even being associated with the Olympics, upon threat of legal sanction for the crime of daring to use proscribed phrases such as ``2012`` or ``London games``. To update Orwell more than half a century on would only be necessary to scrawl over this year’s date. The Olympic Games is the empty husk of valour, and London 2012 is the triumphant nadir.