Solid Block of Ise

Currently the world is in full Olympic Games-hysteria. Everywhere you look you see something about the games. It’s difficult to open a newspaper without seeing headlines about the athletes doing whatever it is they do. It’s impossible to turn on the boob-tube without seeing something about the current status of [whatever] game is currently in swing.

And I’m tired of this hysteria.

Now, before I go into full grouchy-cynic mode let me say that I admire what the games stand for. Unity, respect, health and understanding other people are just some of the things the Olympic Games supposedly promote. I like those things. I like them a lot.

But the Olympic Games have become a hollow shell of it’s own former self. Especially this year, when one of the most oppressive regimes in the world pay hosts to the spectacle. A lot of good things can be said about China, but equally many (or more) bad things can also be said about them. The complete disregard for human rights and free speech in China makes the games even more hollow.

I watched parts of the opening celebrations when they happened a few days ago, and I couldn’t stop thinking about how virtually every one of the performers in the spectacle essentially had a chinese gun to their heads. Either they performed perfectly so China could show their communist superiority to the decadent west. If you fell or were out of sync with the rest of the performers, then maybe some unspecified nastiness might occur to your person when the cameras stopped broadcasting.

Even if we manage to disregard the inhuman behaviour of china for a moment I still feel that the Olympics have forgotten it’s core values. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if at least 60% of the athletes are on steroids of some kind. The olympics haven’t been about sportsmanship for at least two decades - these days second place is the first loser, and provided you can get away with injecting yourself with whatever is at hand then you’ll be a winner.

Add to this all the stupid nonsense that media cooks up as tie-ins. I mean, what the hell does arranging Swedens largest flashmob have to do with the olympics? Not a single goddamn thing, but since it occurs right now they’ve found every single stupid excuse to make it a sportsfan-related event.

And every year the host have to outperform the previous host. This is most obvious in the opening ceremonies, but everything has to be more than last time. Bigger arenas, bigger this, bigger that. More this, more that. So forth and so on. It just bothers me that we can spend these resources while millions of people still can’t read or lack clean water.

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This work is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 Sweden License.