When is Marty Walsh and the public officials involved in this bid , who are being paid by public citizens release the Olympic bid they made to US Olympic committee?
Why is Marty Walsh keeping this bid private?
Please share widely!
Reality-based commentary on politics.
… if the bid is secret, why the opposition? If you don’t know what is in it, how can it be opposed? How can it be supported?
But, purportedly, much of the bid –although not all– will be made public tomorrow…
A basic rule of debate is that the proposing team has to make an affirmative case for why the proposed change is better than the status quo. You don’t win the debate simply by negating every point the opposition tries to make, or showing points where the opposition opposes itself as you keep putting it, particularly when the affirmative case has yet to be made.
The opposition doesn’t need to hear the affirmative case, since every Olympics held in the modern era has had significant cost overruns, left white elephants in host cities, and displaced people and remade neighborhoods. The case that only the Olympics can bring us good public transit, affordable housing, and a better city has also not been made. The argument that we can actually move forward on this things with the distractions of a bid is a fairly compelling one on it’s face and in light of recent history. This is evidence you have never tackled or grappled with.
I am still waiting for sabutai to talk about why Montreal was a success in his opinion. I am sincere when I say I am eager to read his paper and willing to hear his case.
I am willing to hear yours. Without resorting to a single attack against any individual opponent or the opposition, why should Boston host the Olympics?
Is that you think I’m merely negating your points because I’m a proponent of an Olympics bid… rather than the obvious fact that your points are easily negated and are, in fact, beneath you. If your points were not so easily negated I would not debate with you and, in fact, would join you in full throated opposition to the bid.
If I didn’t respect you, I’d either win the debate quickly and have done or ignore you altogether. But because I respect you I won’t let you get away with bogus arguments and lazy thinking. That’s what respect means.
Just because you post something and pat yourself on the back for it doesn’t mean that you have meaningfully countered his arguments. You have not.
For someone who is so quick to label other people with “lazy thinking”, you seem to be surprisingly likely to use “lazy” debating tactics.
That was both one of the smarmiest and least mature posts I’ve ever seen on BMG.
… but I’m your asshole.
How’s that for smarm?
The arguments of a three year old, then don’t get upset when someone calls you on it.
…the burden returns to the opposition to show that they are wrong or acting in bad faith.
You just post links back to the bid site which is as opaque and secretive as the bid itself.
Here are some basic questions that should have objective answers:
How much will it cost?
Who will pay for it?
What tangible benefits will the city get beyond bragging rights?
Are the Olympics the only way to get those benefits, or are there cheaper methods that don’t require doing business with a corrupt body like the IOC?
Come on, the bid committee has put together a website with a FAQ/myth vs. reality page with point addressing exactly the concerns you and others have raised. I’m sorry you are not willing to accept that, but it does show that they acknowledge and are sensitive to these concerns. Show they are wrong, but really you are generally not this obtuse and willfully ignoring of sources that have been handed to you on a platter!
The actual substance of it is in some fog. I look at hundreds of websites and FAQ pages each year and that one was a nothing sandwich.
It looked like something, but if you are willing to give all these ardent and far more fully informed opponents the benefit of the doubt, you can at least give their dissatisfaction a nod and move on.
There’s a lot more to this public accountability advocacy than a bunch of pat postures and positions.
I’m pretty psyched to see the initial civil liberties issues expressed by 2 presumably unrelated parties find fulfillment so quickly in this foolish gag order.
And the other structural concerns are comparably substantive.
Wow. That’s amazing!
Sign me up as a booster. With a website faq, who would need to look at the bid or have rigorous discussions based on those bid materials?
/sarcasm
I can’t believe we are in a time when aspiring civic leaders and would be activists are so weak at sorting style from substance or having the most basic grasp at evaluating the provenance of a web site.
No wonder voters avoid elections like a plague and no wonder the general public has such deeply ingrained contempt for those who stoop to clumsy manipulations.
If you’re going to con us, at least make it interesting.
They have taken the concerns and have explained how they are addressing them or why they will not be concerns this time. I’m really starting to feel like we are reading two different websites.
You’re confusing trying for obfuscating.
Trying would be releasing the bid to the public, along with all documents they signed and agreements they’ve made, which they can do at any time but have utterly refused.
…If it were up to you to pick the Olympics or not, I think that you would do a good job and I would stand behind whatever decision you might have made.
But that’s entirely different from trusting your assessment of those who ARE, actually, undertaking the process. Christopher asked you point blank if you can give them credit for trying. Your answer is no, you cannot. Not content to leave well enough alone, you doubled down and said that they were actually doing the opposite… in effect… accusing them, without evidence, of ‘obfuscating’, whatever it is you think that means, and thereby insulting Christopher by directly stating that he doesn’t know the difference and obliquely insinuating that he’s been gulled.
Can you, at the very least, acknowledge that Christopher is not an idiot for crediting Boston24 with A response, however imperfect or even inadequate you might think that response is, and not try to take even that from him?
breathtaking conclusions.
My whole Chicago piece based on an Olympic
Bid I actually worked on does this, it also has links to Sandersons papers, cost benefits analysis of the London games and a host if objective pieces critical of the IOC. I put a lot of work into that piece and even cleared it by other folks I worked with who were affiliated with the DC bid for 2024, just so they felt I wasn’t misrepresenting what we did or my role.
I haven’t seen any kind of similar rigor brought worth by you guys other than links back to these FAQs, which have falsifiable assertions and are not backed up by rigorous links.
I could go through each point and refute it, but I sorta feel like you made up your mind regardless, Sabutai feels the opposition is dogmatic rather than reality based and won’t engage, and petr already dismissed my own experience as irrelevant so it’s sort of a waste to engage with him.
I mean they cited St Louis as a smaller city that worked, that was 1904 for cross ales and a total clusterfuck of a games (in a rather amusing way, the Marathon was assaulted by drunkards, great precedent for Boston). It also cites Athens as another example of a smaller city where the Olympics worked which shows alarming ignorance or hubris.
It really is NOT the bid we want to be emulating. Not only is the example over 100 years old, it had drunk runners, a false Marathon winner, was four months over schedule to actually complete, and the IOC rewarded the bid at the last minute to St. Louis which stole it from Chicago but had no capacity to handle the crowd and events. Clearly cracked.com has a better fact checker than Boston 2024.
That is what you must do now. It is incumbent upon you to do exactly that.
Why?
Because you did not, ever, once, at all, or in any place, say what you are saying now. You did not refute any points. You did not engage with the arguments.
You flatly, unconditionally and definitively asserted that NO SUCH arguments existed and that there was NOTHING TO REFUTE
Every last concern that anyone here on BMG has ever had has been addressed. Maybe it wasn’t addressed to your liking… Maybe it wasn’t much more than acknowledgement of the concerns, but that’s not the UTTER LACK of refutability you’ve been claiming it to be.
I’m just saying that because I respect you. Otherwise I would just laugh.
I am willing to make a detailed rebuttal, but I have a feeling you would post the FAQs again and insist they speak for themselves and nobody has the right kind of experience or knowledge to rebut them, save for the Boston 2024 Bid Committee. That is the tautology you have chosen to embrace, which is fine. It is highly likely your preferred public policy will be the policy of the state, this is why Curtatone is correct to mitigate against the losses now and try to actually make sure the games deliver for the entire Commonwealth and all it’s people.
Considering my actual experience on an actual bid was deemed totally irrelevant by you, I am getting awfully close to quoting retired Congressmen Frank and comparing arguing with you to arguing with a table, albeit one with an adroit use of punctuation.
as the person who is almost always on the other side I have a considerable amount of experience.
Really? That’s your response?
You spent weeks dismissing it, painting yourself into a corner… and when confronted upon it your response is to require that I prove it’s something you shouldn’t dismiss.
I thought you were some sort of debating champ? That’s a solid F right there.
This is a complete and utter and comprehensively dishonest mischaracterization of my response to your experience.
Sorry, Petr but the linked comments are indeed dismissive of his actual experience, just as he states.
Boy, for someone who is willing to write paragraphs and paragraphs to complain about a downrate, you sure are quick to hand one out! 😉
I wonder if you can get anyone else to read those comments and agree with your characterization of them?
I know you’re mad at me and it’s clouding your judgement but there’s no possible way that you can honestly say that:
is “dismissive’ or in any way deems his experience “totally irrelevant:.
I repeat, I do not believe you are debating in earnest.
You are projecting that on me. I simply don’t feel anger over stuff like this. You are the one who appears to have the chip on the shoulder.
Really, I just feel that you were being unfair to jconway.
In the comment, that you snipped, you acknowledge his experience while at the same time dismissing it. That’s how I perceived it.
Your perception is simply wrong. The phrase, “that’s not nothing” (and others) is what I intentionally said because, as I’ve laid out above and in other places, jconway has a habit of making broad, and incorrect, assertions like this. I have a lot of experience going round and round with him and he’s done this sort of thing before. I was deliberate in my efforts to cast hist experience into a clear perspective: it’s valuable but not comprehensive… and I said exactly that in the comments to which I linked. Nowhere did I dismiss it wholesale or ever say it was, in any manner, irrelevant never mind “totally”. I took special pains NOT to do that because I believe exactly as I stated that his experience is valuable.
Now you, and he, are dismissive of me in asserting that I’m being dismissive. So meta it’s dizzying.
Far easier to call my experience into question and try to narrow the scope of my position than to actually articulate answers to the basic questions.
How much will it cost? Boston 2024 admitted today it won’t know, as Rye’s thread on the subject demonstrates.
Who will pay for it? The FAQs insist the private sector, but what if the costs overrun, as they did every other Olympics? What about Walsh saying two different things about public funding? What about Romney saying the feds would have to pay for security like Salt Lake? Do we know if Boehner’s house will give communist Taxachusetts a dime? Same group of folks who collectively said ‘fuck em’ when NY/NJ needed Sandy aid?
What do we get out of it? Still no details on long term infrastructure improvements, in fact the bid said we would be able to do the Olympics with the existing MBTA we already have. Guess the rest of us need to take three week vacations when that happens, pretty darn overcrowded and inefficient now isn’t it?
Can we get those things without the Olympics?
Apparently DeLeo doesn’t think we can afford the Olympics, at least the penny pincher is consistent. So the idea that this would light a fire under his ass, the asses of state Republicans, the ass of Charlie ‘no new taxes we got a spending problem’ Baker or anyone else who defeated far more modest revenue proposals in the spring is becoming increasingly laughable.
But by all means provide answers to those questions.
…as a child were you regularly thrashed with the belt of subtlety? Is that why you refuse to make any finer distinctions than that? Is that why you seem so enamored of manichean frameworks?
Is that, also, why you refuse to do what you said you’d do:
The faq at boston2024 is something that you altogether dismissed out of hand. Now — gloriosky!– there are several hundred pages of bid documents waiting to be addressed by you. You’ve had since Wednesday night to look at them and make your assessment. You’ve not even said so much as acknowledging their existence.
Still, you refuse to even acknowledge that it is incumbent upon you, after so many days and weeks actively saying that no ‘affirmative case’ exists to actually look at the affirmative case and tangle with it.
the redacted bid? I am curious what you think about it.
… I have downloaded them and have gone over them, though I can’t say I’ve done any serious exegetical work on them.
I have not found anything yet to give me pause or change my thinking but I was hoping to block out several hours this weekend to address them with yet greater focus.
What is your view on them?
It’s fairly easy because so many pages are just razzle dazzle visuals.
The ‘meat’ is interesting. Homeless advocates wondering about Long Island will be pleased to know the rifle events are contemplated for the hazardous ruin zones of Fort Strong at the seaward tip of the island.
So there’s corporate welfare for real estate speculators in the mix. It may be an underlying reason for the bums rush last year.
Southie is in the crosshairs with high hopes for Castle Island. That’ll go over like a lead balloon.
The U Mass Harbor Campus is featured and is probably one of the more sensible options.
Assembly Square is the lucky winner for Velo stuff. The Hedge Fund that acts like a University, Harvard of course is throwing its stuff on the potlatch as are MIT and BU.
The walkabilty claim is ridiculous. The distance between U Mass Harbor and Harvard is more than 10 miles. And you get the sense that the planning swells do not use public transportation much as they are a bit blithe about all the connections and transfers you’d need to make.
You can skim the budget stuff fairly quickly as it’s mainly wishing and a hoping. It essentially tries to position itself as the natural beneficiary of all the transportation bond measures and other ongoing things that have been awash in acrimony and sandbagging.
You’ll really love the preposterous claims advanced about the T.
Generally I’d make a rough guess that only around 20% of the pages in the several documents involve text and reading and, of that the substantive parts are probably 10 to 20 pages maximum, unless you like reading pr gushing.
There’s probably enough ham handed stuff in there to antagonize several stuffy and well organized Neighborhood Associations, particularly the Back Bay over esplanade plans and the South End over the temporary stadium.
It’s easy to understand the secrecy as these are very glib and conceited plans to use other people’s stuff or encroach intensively on their neighborhoods.
And the location sets are so scattered that it is nearly incoherent. The security issues are likely to be much more of a handful than a convention or the Marathon, which we’ve had how many years of experience with?
People who ascribe to the notion that plans tend to fall apart upon contact with reality will find plenty to scorn as this is such a contraption with so many moving parts, unexamined assumptions and glib impositions that the potential for failures and screw ups is very good.
In a way, it reminds me of those intricate plans Haig and his chief of staff Lancelot Kiggell dreamed up for taking Passchendaele.
All in all the document set looks like grown ups playing a version of the Sims for a Boston Olympiad.
It would be fascinating, now that we know the targeted areas to make a set of radius circles equal to security cordon distances, assuming that they are known.
This gives a sense of the footprint. One could additionally convey the likely public transportation AND driving routes between these things.
I can understand why the boosters wouldn’t want to do this as it really highlights what a contraption it is.
Bid good, anti-bid bad.
I mentioned that I supported the Chicago bid until the Washington Park community spoke out against having a stadium in their backyard. You have repeatedly opposed votes, opposed transparency, and opposed any kind of community input-so right there we are operating on different plains. I fundamentally believe that a liberal government is one that derives it’s power from the consent of the governed-when it comes to the Olympic bid-you don’t.
I dismissed the FAQs out of hand because they are propaganda bits, I’ve alluded to why their examples don’t make sense, how they contradict Marty Walsh’s own promises and statements or Mitt Romney’s statements.
I can read the full bid proposal and show why it’s bullshit but
you already made up your mind so what is the point?
Sabutai wrote a paper on an Olympic bid he studied in depth, I worked on an Olympic bid for three months, maybe the two of us can have a substantive argument, all you do is spout sophistries and regurgitate agit prop from the bid committee and then challenge my intelligence since I haven’t had the decency to read 700 more pages of agit prop. You can say communism failed by looking at the Berlin Wall falling, you don’t need to read Das Kapital to arrive at that conclusion. You can say every single Olympics in the modern era has lost money, cause it has, has bankrupted cities, cause it has, and the burden falls on you to show how Boston is the exception.
Other than underpants gnomes promises that this time will be different, Boston hasn’t detailed the specific remedies through which it will keep costs down, get the Federal government to pick up the tab, and get the private sector to pick up the tab.
…then you really cannot fault the rest of us who are nothing more than messengers in this context for pointing out the information that is there. Now that the rest of the bid is out what about that? Have you had a chance to read it? If so is there still stuff that is either missing or in your mind inaccurate?
A more general question for you or anyone else who cares to answer it: Given what seem to be the requirements for the Games in terms of security and other logistics that could be antithetical to the American way, is it now your contention that not only Boston, but no city in the United States should ever bid for the Games?
And beating up on you is probably cruel and unusual as you are hilariously innocent of the function of an FAQ Page in website design.
It’s a basically a minor supplement to bolster an argument in case someone clueless shows up.
The autocratic arrogance expressed by the IOC in their behavior requirement to always greet them with a smile is borderline psychotic and has no place in the US.
The way they design requirements that serve no purpose other than to fluff their own infinite self importance is the stuff of petty tinhorn dictators.
And what, pray tell, even gives them the right to carry on like this? It’s not like they are doing anything heroic.
If they were risking their lives to treat Ebola patients in Sierra Leone or negotiating an end to sectarian strife in Syria then they might… might.. be worthy of this deference.
But the people who actually work on these two other problems don’t even seem to want it.
And just for shits, I pulled up some background on the 1936 Olympics.
I know it is poor form to drag out that particular regime and time, but still.
It was chilling and really speaks to the soul of this noxious self aggrandizement and what these pigs are willing to do to maintain it.
And we are talking about a bunch of bonobo cousins showing off athletic prowess in a supposedly international forum that stokes the worst facets of nationalism while running up debts and making messes.
An international spelling bee is probably a more appropriate expression forum for a brainy chimp with a basically weak body.
As a dedicated adherent of the Concord Curmudgeon, Thoreau, I basically think the whole thing should have been hauled out back and put out of its misery in 1937. But that’s just me.
And to fast forward to now, the glib and stupid way our hick oligarchs have “Krafted” this package tells me that they really are in some disconnected cocoon of wealthiness ditz and betray next to no sense of the details on the ground.
I had high hopes for Walsh but they are fading fast.
I now see them as a placeholder and think that since the bid documents have now been released, those should be the focus of the discussions.
I’ve been opposed to the orthodoxy on this site before on issues I would say of much greater significance, and have not been downrated and disrespected quite this much.
The party still remembers a guy in a wheelchair who railed against malefactors of great wealth and ran the thing longer than anyone until the job killed him.
And now it has turned into this????
Let’s apologize for a bunch of wealthy idiots who don’t even respect us enough to just lay it out from the start.
It would be expected if you were aiming for a shot in the local GOP chamber of commerce hierarchy… but this???
Of course people are going to bristle and they are going to be brutal… duuuh.
I’m hardly the only Dem rooting for the Olympics, but IMO one can and should always be civil regardless of the passion of disagreement.
“I know you are but what am I?” is only marginally better than your previous efforts… but still beneath you.
Wait…? What…? Up to this very moment your assertion was that I’ve not so much as presented my case! Now you completely reverse course and say I’m hopelessly cemented into a position I’ve supposedly not made…
How does that make ANY sense?
You have, actually, no evidence that I have done any such thing. I don’t, actually, see the point of coming here to attempt to change minds if I’m not willing to have my mind changed also. I expect you to be willing to change your mind when you have been shown to in the wrong and you have every right to expect the same from me. .
But even if I had absolutely made up my mind, the point is larger than me and, in this instance, is about you doing what you said that you would do. You should do it regardless of what affect, or not, you think it will have upon me. The point is the doing, not primarily the affect of doing it has upon me.
Not only are there others who might be willing to oppose an Olympics but have not been sold on that opposition by your efforts so far, but you specifically said that if an affirmative case came before you that you would address it So address it.
You seem to have a little bit of a problem accepting that.
It’s a relentless display of facile flailing fully enveloped in an almost endearing obliviousness to how one might be perceived…. almost.
And it’s all delivered with a chicken little urgency such that one can almost feel the back draft from the pieces of falling sky.
It’s like the Inchon landing of conceit clusters where almost every known variant is present with the volume set at 10 on a Marshall Stack.
I still figure it’s just some Harvard footsoldier out engaging the grubby unwashed as the culprit has boasted about Harvard affiliations in prior comments.
I’m aware that the Hedge Fund Posing As A University is a very diverse cornucopia of outlooks and opinions and there are also a few Harvard people here who oppose the thing.
But this has to be the most fierce tail wagging I’ve run into in a while even if it belongs to something emulating a Chihuahua in heat.
The burden falls on the opposition to make a case? An opposition that is being denied the facts?
It doesn’t belong with the organization trying to force this on the region? The one with the resources of tens of millions of dollars, paid staff and the access to the entire bid they could choose to distribute?
You’ve got that completely backwards, Christopher. The onus is always on the people making the claim to prove its case, then open its bid up to allow others to take a whack at it.
I have a magic proposal that will be much better for Boston than the Olympics, but I must keep it secret. Therefore you cannot possibly oppose it, right?
You have a difficult time grasping that, but it is not a new concept.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who watches the watchmen?
…that even with more transperancy you will find another excuse to oppose:(
So take your assumptions elsewhere.
What have I asked for during this process that isn’t fair? What?
If the bid was released and it looked like a great idea, if they showed how this could be paid for without public funds, if they showed they could do this without significant use of eminent domain or the taking of parks, then yes, I could support it.
I shouldn’t have to gravel at the feet of anyone for a fucking open process and opportunity to look at the bid while it still fucking matters. It’s a process that will be tremendously disruptive to the public and potentially place a huge cost on generations of Bat State citizens. We have a right to know what the Masters of the Universe are planning.
To hell with a secret process or those who want one. If anyone’s so eager for that, perhaps you should move to Russia or The People’s Republic? This is America. We can do an Olympics under the cleansing lights of sunshine.
Secret processes rarely, if ever, end well where the public is concerned. I won’t ever support them for ANY big public projects. This is why we have open meeting laws – and Boston 2024 should be held to those standards.
As some of you know, I coach high school policy debate. Based on that weighty authority, I’ll vouch for JConway stating the burden correctly and Christopher correctly points out that the burden kind of shifts back and forth once the debate is on.
The Affirmative has the burden of making a case for a change in policy. That affirmative case, stated as a resolution, would be something like, “The Commonwealth of Massachusetts should host the Olympics in whenever the hell it’s proposed.” Petr’s burden would then be to make a prima facie case for the resolution. JConway’s job is to provide a case to the contrary. JConway has definitely made much of his case in previous posts and comments. I haven’t followed closely enough to know Petr’s case, but in a fair debate or conversation, it would be incumbent on him to make the case for the Olympics, not merely take shots at the negative side.
Either way, it’s really bad form to use expletives in subject lines. It’s mostly us diehards who read the comments, but the general public sees them as they scroll in the margin.
1. He’s so smart, jconway can suck it.
2. Boston 2024 should do everything in secret because otherwise people may oppose Boston 2024’s bad decisions.
Did I miss any?
I did parliamentary debate, not policy, but same principles. The affirmative case is the PMs speech, which we could argue is the bid itself or a yet unseen positive case from a BMGer. My thread on Chicago is an LO of leader of the opposition speech. Then petr can demolish that as an MG (member do government) speech that rebuts my rebuttals. And someone with more patience than I can feel free to do the MO (member of opposition) which was always the hardest speech to follow and flow for, and usually got the worst speakers points. I liked LO/MG myself.
Also go CRLS which is on it’s way to a nationals qualifying round!
…if more of the opposition followed your lead. I still don’t understand why and how the Olympics have become more emotional, especially from the no side, than a lot of discussions we have about contested primaries.
That would certainly be true for a debate upon the proposition “Olympics? Yes or No?”
That is not this debate. This debate is upon the proposition “Do you agree with the statement:Boston can not/will not/must not host the Olympics?”
I made an affirmative case for the Olympics in December of 2013 and that case was met with a response that was four-fold: It won’t happen because the IOC will never pick Boston: It can’t happen because Boston isno where near the cities London and LA are; it won’t happen because the IOC are bullies;and it must not happen because cost overuns are Inevitable. Later a fifth argument was tacked on: We cannot trust that Boston is sophisticated enough to focus on multiple tasks. But they are all cunning iterations of “it isn’t happening”. No single argent posited, to date, actually, admits that an affirmative case can even exist
For jconway to put the onus upon me to present the affirmative case for the Olympics is risible because the debate has never been about a straight up or down question: according to him the Olympics are a sheer impossibility… Accordingly, the affirmative case that I made over a year ago… and that I and others have made in the interum, simply cannot exist.
…for sophistry.
n/t
The broad argument is sophistic, the tactics are ad hominem, with straw man premises.
Sophistry, ad hominem and straw men strongly suggests you think I’m being false, either with you or with myself. You’ll have to be more specific. If you can prove it I’ll certainly apologize for it, but if you cannot prove it I fully expect a retraction and an apology from you.
Have I mischaracterized anything, either deliberately or accidentally? Have I twisted any facts whatsoever? What makes you think I am neither earnest nor honest in my efforts at debate?
I did not accuse you of being knowingly untruthful; I accuse you of attacking your opponents personally on the basis of facts not in evidence within your argument and (hopefully unknowingly) ignoring data to the contrary.
In the case of the term “ad hominem” the ignored data would include the term’s full meaning. Which brings us back to straw man arguments…
… was sophistry which would include a specie of falsity, whether knowing or unknowing, upon my part. Do you withdraw that charge?
You will have to point out the personal attack and describe the facts that are not in evidence.
From this thread #1:
I have no doubt that JConway has sleepless nights worrying about maintaining your respect.
From this thread #2
Has it not occurred to you that the mere fact that a bid involving the expenditure of billions of dollars (public and private) might in and of itself be a cause for concern? The facts not in evidence were the content and wording of the bid.
…because as fas as I know no BMGer is directly involved with the bid. That’s why I made the comparison elsewhere to debating Creationists and climate deniers. I feel at a disadvantage in these discussions because I am not personally involved with the bid just like I would be in those other debates because I am not a scientist. The other side just has to cast doubt and when we can’t answer at the level of detail they want due to not being on the bid committee or not being a scientist, they claim the debate victory for themselves.
have not been involved in an Olympic bid it does not disqualify any of us from offering information about specific points that will be part of a potential bid or opposition to one. I hope we hear from people who know about the state’s long term capital spending plan, the limits in our bonding capacity, traffic management and a host of other issues. None of us knows all of the details about the bid so some of us will add bits of information and some will ask questions.
I remembered some general thoughts about the ridiculous demands of the NFL and the Vikings but not the details about the Minneapolis Super Bowl plans so I googled the subject. I wish I had sought out the John Oliver piece on HBO about the Olympics because I think they both say a lot about the industrialization of sports events and are relevant to the debate here. See
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrKf-fAekds
The discussion gets bad when somebody writes the same generic opinions without referencing any facts or throws a temper tantrum like one we saw here today.
You aren’t a top Boston exec, lobbyist, university official or other top insider.
Of course you’re not involved, nor is anyone else who doesn’t fit these descriptions.
Not one representative of a neighborhood group has been invited inside the Boston 2024 Cone of Silence. Not one regular person who isn’t tied to a top exec or politician has been invited behind those closed doors. Not one person in the media, from a community group or an activist network has even been allowed to read the bid.
By design.
By design. Again, that’s by design. You and I are not allowed to know the key details. We are not a member of the most rarefied of Greater Boston elites.
You and I will never be told the full details to make an honest assessment, at least when there’s a chance to stop it, unless we cause such a ruckus that the elites have no choice but to divulge.
All by design.
I’m hoping this is sinking in — and I’m hoping you see why people like me are so upset about this process, and so fired up to change the status quo to at least let some sunshine in so people get a full and complete airing of all the details. The people deserve to know.
…though honestly if more were out there I don’t know that I personally would pore over the details. To continue the metaphor as with science I’m not that interested, and also as with scientists not being one I trust those who are. Likewise, not being someone who has prepared the bid I trust those who have done so.
That’s not the point.
The point is people should have the right to look over the bid in full, along with any agreements made with the IOC, USOC and others.
It could be summed up as.. “It’s my world and you all just live in it.”
It doesn’t seem like a useful attribute for an aspiring politician. That job wants a capacity for empathy and imagining how unlike minds might think.
In some ways, it’s almost an animate caricature of the party hacks that Howie the Blowhard loves to lambaste in his hairoil columns and radio rants.
The funniest part is the presumption that anyone else is likely to follow this ‘lead’.
I was just pointing it out. I agree the more the better in terms of letting people see what is going on. I’m just saying that I’m not interested enough to do so. You gave that line a lot more weight than I intended.
Petr, if you’re arguing that Boston could hold the Olympics, it seems you won that one.
But this question is pretty broad, “Do you agree with the statement: Boston can not/will not/must not host the Olympics?” I think people objected to your first comment, which doesn’t pertain to any of these questions.
…in what you mean by “object to your first comment“? I’m not challenging you, I’m just not clear.
On the question of ‘pretty broad’. Guilty, I guess, but by reason of the breadth and width of the arguments mustered against the possibility of the Olympics: ‘can not’, ‘will not’ and ‘must not’ are not arguments that speak to the choice of whether or not to do Olympics but are themselves broadly declarative statements denying that the choice exists.
I may be wrong, but that seems to have started the vitriol. It’s a clever statement, but that might be considered sophistry.
Well… That was glib, no doubt, and maybe I should have expanded upon it at the time.
My only thought was to challenge the notion that secrecy envelopes everything about the bid, even to the assertion that no affirmative case has been made or could be made. Is that ‘sophistry’?
It’s not secret that Boston2024 wants to do an Olympics in Boston. They’ve been pretty open about that. They’ve also used a lot of things that look and sound suspiciously like words to describe their intentions and their proposed actions. But because they’ve been mum about aspects of the bid, the entirety of the bid is treated as though shrouded in silence. Those words used to describe their intentions and their proposals are forbidden to have any meaning, and silence –in fact deliberate withholding — only excluding their very broadest intentions to actually host the Olympics, is the accusation. All else is suddenly suspect. Is it ‘sophistry’ to challenge that conjured para-silence?
…there are any number of reasons one might oppose ANY bid on the general grounds that an Olympics in Boston is a bad idea in that person’s opinion. For that kind of opposition it really isn’t necessary to know the details of the bid.
my words, Hamlet.
… under the impression that they were, Horatio. Just interested in your take on them.
I’m glad you know the play well though.
I don’t think it’s sophistry to challenge anything. Sophistry is empty logic. And in defense of your first comment, you were responding to a rather cryptic diary. Two sentences is enough to raise an issue, but not enough to fully develop it.
What I think other commenters are objecting to is probably based on your previous comments. You write and think very well, but in my opinion, your logic, which is typically clever, doesn’t always clarify your thesis and sometimes comes across as offensive (not to me) but apparently to others.
He’s a man of the people and he’ll do the right thing.
That was sarcasm, right?
I get why you don’t trust my guys but he is one of yours totally.
I didn’t vote for him, and won a close election and he has only been in office for one year so has not yet earned the trust of the Boston voters.
The way he has run the city to date does not lead me to automatically conclude he will “do the right thing”. Quite the contrary.
I don’t see that.
I don’t think trust enters into it. The way city politics are structured effective opposition to a sitting mayor is almost impossible.
I did vote for him, although I have to say that neither one of them excited me all that much.
But we will just have to see what happens in a couple of years.
I am not willing to just throw up my hands and agree with the premise that we are inherently screwed because we live in a city or that mayors can magically manipulate the voters without any regard to how they do their job.
nt
But he is starting to seem a little in over his head on this bid. He and de Blasio were elected by similar constituencies, at similar times, and have both struggled for dissimilar reasons. De Blasio by picking stupid fights over horses and underestimating police opposition, and Walsh by refusing to pick fights and move along with the corporate consensus at BRA and now with Boston 2024.
I think a big problem is that being a Mayor is a lot about being an urban mechanic, and has less potential for ‘the vision thing’ as Bush I called it. And the Olympics, for Walsh as it was for Daley II, is an albatross of a legacy that looks visionary but is full of pitfalls.
I get there are R’s and D’s in this state, and the D’s have a super majority. D’s run all the cities. The D’s are split roughly into two factions.
Martin Walsh is a D clearly in the faction most closely related to the tone of this board.
You have to have a little faith in your leaders that they aren’t total idiots. It’s not like Baker or DeLeo are leading the charge here.
PS What is your alternative? Raise a hullabaloo? Walsh will be mayor as long as he wants- that’s the way urban politics work. The unions want this. Most of the rest of MA will say “hey if they want to do it 10 years from now- whatever.”
You all might as well just relax and let things play out.
Some folks are ideologically opposed to the Olympics because it’s a three week party for the 1%. I share some of that ideological opposition, but largely feel that the project stinks on it’s own merits. Every single Olympic bid has lost money for the host city, every single Olympic bid has left white elephants and debt that many host cities are still paying off, and few of them have done anything constructive for long term issues of housing and affordability.
Curtatone had a great proposal to steer the Olympic bid towards a more sustainable future with greater transit options and more affordable housing, but designing the bid with those goals as the end game will directly conflict with the demands the IOC places, and is already placing, on host cities and even potential host cities. So it’s a lot more complicated than most boosters or opponents are conceding, a lot of moving parts. What is clear is that Walsh has little idea what he is talking about in his public statements on the bid so far. They have been self-contradicting and illusory.
They will buy the “this time it will be different” line.
The powers that be want this and this includes politicians, businesses and unions.
Who is going to compete against that coalition?
You just need to find this firm in Mountain View CA called Google and let them know that you, beyond all other humans, have special clairvoyance when it comes to knowing what this “average person’ critter wants.
They’ll be able to lay off whole departments devoted to data sifting and just park you there instead.
It could even lead to a bidding war with Face Book. Are your bags packed yet? The future beckons!
And don’t worry about us, we’ll soldier on without the benefit of these very special insights.
Perhaps it will work out that way, but it is way too early to make that call. It took several elections before people were willing to say that about Menino,
While he does have the support of the Fire and Police unions, I don’t think that makes him an automatic shoo-in, especially since many of those aren’t even voting residents. Tom Menino did not get along with those unions and he did fine.
The city workers will be his organization going forward. No one else will ever have a chance. What player is going to donate to an opposing candidate? No one who wants to do business in the city going forward.
Even against the hugely popular Menino, and they will continue to do so in the future.
It is not at all clear that Walsh is popular across all city workers, although it would be fair to assume that the Fire and Police union members would probably look favorably to him. Other city workers have not gotten quite as sweet a deal from the mayor and he is not going to be able to simply hand out raises to everyone without cutting services or raising property taxes.
Yet surely you’ve lived among Dems long enough to recognize there’s about 50 types of us and we lack anything like unity or message discipline. Democrats are the absolute worst at being a monolith, fully willing to be our own opposition party. Dems don’t trust leadership, doesn’t matter if it’s technically one of us.
This notion that the nominal person in charge makes a decision and the rest of us fall in line is quaint and adorable and I’m sure it has some currency in Republican cities/states, but it’s not particularly operable with the herd of cats that is MA.
Deval Patrick wants casinos, and you get them.
Martin Walsh wants the Olympics, and you’ll get it.
And from my perspective the rest of you do fall in line. Maybe some complaining like on BMG, but in the end is it’s always the same.
You see a new City Hall in Boston? Because Tom Menino wanted that something fierce. Patrick spent eight years bear wrestling a Legislature controlled by his own party with a veto-proof majority. Only signed the final agreements for the Green Line extension on his last day in office despite wanting it from day one. Took him eight years to convince Dems to build trains. You Republicans sweating each other over tax cuts or privatization? Dems are flinging lawsuits and indictments around over the Everett casino.
It’s sweet that you try force the world around you through a filter that doesn’t apply, but Walsh can’t afford a widespread mutiny if he wants an Olympics. Might get one.
Those are dissimilar examples you’ve given. Not sure where you’re going with the smarmy adjectives.
Menino’s City Hall project never got off the ground (and who knows, if he hadn’t got sick, maybe it would have) and Deval’s nonstarter plans all involved raising taxes. Much different. Maybe I should have said “Deval and DeLeo” for casinos. Walsh doesn’t need the legislature just yet, but once this get rolling they’ll be on board. Baker too, because he’s got nowhere to go either.
My point is that everyone is all about one party rule until it turns against them and they have no recourse. I believe in two party rule because it provides balance. I realize that’s an unpopular opinion around here.
I read the entirety of the bid document and was surprised at how many times they claimed to have things like positive discussions, support and strong support from various state and local agencies. If they are telling the truth, Deval let these guys lay claim o running a large part of the development of the metro-Boston area. The bid was submitted before Baker was elected so we don’t know how cooperative he will be.
They are extraordinary claims because there are repeated references to filing “omnibus” legislation that they would write to let them bypass existing state and local laws while grabbing billions of dollars in tax money to pay for Olympic sport facilities, media centers, the Village and control both ground and mass transit.
And I believe you point most succinctly could be stated as “You folks suck.”
I am all for two parties. Please let me know when someone starts another one that isn’t a joke.
Why should anyone expect transparency- it’s not the way things are done in this state. Can’t blame Republicans. Oh and free speech- just ask a dissenting Democratic legislator what happens to them. This is how the game is played here.
Yet of course all Republicans are racist socially intolerant Tea Partiers. Shows some real understanding.
Regardless I am the one enjoying myself as this bitch session goes on and on. You are powerless. Enjoy.
I don’t think I characterized why I think the Republican party in this state is a joke. If you think that all Republicans are racist, that is strictly your opinion.
I dislike the Republican party because it aligns itself ideologically against many of my beliefs, it contains many, many members who are willing to blatantly lie about basic facts and ignore well established science. A party that governs through propaganda is not the one to turn to if you don’t think that Democratic politicians are being straight with you.
Is it the mendacious corporatists who rig the game to maximize resource hogging?
Is it the Jesus taliban faction that drags Christ through hate mud?
Maybe it’s the flailing small business idiots who stew about imaginary moochers conjured by Mittins rather than facing the facts of their own limitations and dumb decisions.
The poorly masked racism in both overt and latent flavors might be a good vileness contender.
The hair trigger media screech routine that functions like squid ink with yipping and yapping about BENGHAZI!!!! EBOLA!!! or whatever the option du jour, is a kind of comedic vileness.
The stealth attempts at undermining governance with weasel privatization schemes for corporate welfare is structural vileness.
I’m sure there are others and I’m barely scratching the surface.
It’s its own big stinking tent jammed with craven malcontents steeped in social autism and avarice so acrid it could peel paint.
And the funny part now is how it is having its own factional upheavals.
nt
nt
Cause Weld really stopped Bulger didn’t he? Did he clean up the graft and corruption from the big dig or cash in his chips? Hey, who’s that red head hanging out with Steve Wynn all the time, wasn’t he a Governor somewhere at some point? Might it have been here?
Richard Ross (R-Wrentham) was the earliest proponents of legalized gambling I can recall, he handed out ‘Start with Slots’ pins to all of us kids on Student Government Day in 2004. You’re minority leader Bradley Jones used his speech to praise DeLeo for his “strong fiscal conservative leadership” and reluctance to raise taxes.
There hasn’t been two competitive parties in MA since the 1960’s.
It should be remembered that the 2013 Mayoral race was a base election with extremely low turnout (38.17% Citywide).
The constituency dynamics were different from those in NYC. Simply put, the least incompetent campaign won.
In the 2014 State Election, Walsh’s organization was conspicuous in its inability to do effective GOTV. Citywide turnout was 49.99%. In fairness, this inability was systemic within State Democratic politics and wasn’t Walsh’s fault in isolation. It should be noted that the City’s turnout was considerably higher than the Statewide rate of 36.4%. However, the absence of a proactive grassroots political culture has consequences.
Given the political vacuum on the ground, the default position of City government seems not unlike an episode of The Simpsons.
It’s important to note Marge asked about fixing Main street, improving infrastructure before buying a shiny project from a suspect salesman. She was ignored and poor Homer almost paid with his life. And this time there won’t be a Leonard Nimoy to save us!
2014 Boston turnout was 41.9%
My bad.
Norway withdrew its 2022 Winter Olympics bid when it realized that the public would not support the public financing of the bid. The IOC then trash talked Norway calling its politicians dishonest for asking questions about the bid. One media outlet reported on some of the demands required in the 7000 page filing, ones that had not received previous public attention, including:
Car and drivers for all IOC members.
Diverted and prioritized Olympic traffic
Dedicated Olympic traffic lanes, not to be used by regular people
“IOC members will be received with a smile on arrival at hotel”
Hotel bars must be open “extra late” and can only serve Coca-Cola products
All conference rooms must be kept at exactly 68 degrees
“All furniture should be OL-shaped and have Olympic Appearance”
Finally, the IOC “proposes the closure of schools, and the local people are encouraged to take vacations.”
Or you can just watch the John Oliver piece on it (Last Week, Tonight on HBO)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrKf-fAekds
is either a direct quote or very close to it.
They actually use the language “regular people.” They can’t even help themselves from their contemptible sneering over people who can’t afford to sip champagne on their private jets.
And you gotta wonder how many smiles greeted them in Sochi as Russians tend to think excessive smiling is the sign of a vapid idiot and only do so when they mean it.