Similarly:
“We need affordable housing for all,” the group declares on its website. “We need adequately funded day care centers, schools, universities and social institutions. We need something better than the Olympics!”
What group is that – No Boston Olympics? Well, no, actually, it’s a group called “Das Anti Olympisches Komitee,” based in Hamburg, which is also in the running to host the 2024 games. And the quote that makes up the title of this post was spoken by Mehmet Yildiz, a member of the Hamburg state Parliament. The Globe story also collects quotes from Rome showing lots of unhappiness there as well about the possibility of hosting the Olympics. Rome of course has its own special problems:
The naysaying in Italy is being fueled by a scandal, dubbed Mafia Capital, that has revealed the long reach of organized crime into city contracts and the halls of political power in Rome.
“The Games have often proved to be a big waste, and we are a country that doesn’t have it in our blood to avoid trouble with big projects,” Giuseppe “Pippo” Civati, a member of the Italian Parliament, warned recently in La Repubblica, a leading Italian daily….
Giovanni Malagò, president of the Italian National Olympic Committee, speaking to the mayor of Rome in January, said … “[w]e have almost three years before the host city of the 2024 Olympics is chosen, and during this time we will need to find a way to show, once and for all, that Mafia Capital will not return,” he said.
So, it’s not just Bostonians being cranky. In every location where political dissent is tolerated, there are lots of people who don’t think hosting the Olympics is such a great idea.
John Hoberman, an Olympic historian at the University of Texas-Austin, said rising opposition to international sporting events is one reason more of them are being hosted by countries with authoritarian governments. China and Kazakhstan have emerged as the two candidates vying for the 2022 Winter Games.
“The bloom has come off the rose when it comes to these mega-sporting events, and the prestige argument just doesn’t work anymore,” he said. “The proof of that is the number of cities in democratic countries saying, ‘No, thank you. Not worth it.’ ”
Boston 2024 and the others who want to host the games here need to stop pushing the line that, by hosting the Olympics, Boston will somehow prove itself to be a “world class city.” First, nobody knows what that actually means. Second, as many have remarked already, we already have more than our share of the world’s greatest educational, cultural, and athletic institutions. And third, if having a lot of residents who don’t want the Olympics makes us not “world class,” then I guess Rome, Hamburg, and maybe Paris aren’t either.
There are more cities opposed to an Olympic bid than Boston. It seems that any city, not under the control of a totalitarian government, sees this for what it is, a boondoggle waiting to happen, and wants no part of it. The only ones who want it are the developers looking at fat building contracts, the misguided who only see through multicolored Olympic rings, and despots who want to use the Games to showcase their empires. The rest of us are saying no thanks.
who was a journalist from Hamburg here on an exchange program. She indicated in the interview that something like 60% of the people were behind it (though there was going to be a binding referendum), the committee had been transparent and there were signs up everywhere supporting it. She was surprised not to see any support signs in Boston. She also indicated that everyone understood there would be costs borne by the residents.
I’m not sure if it’s true, but that’s pretty much what she reported.
This seems to support one portion:
http://www.dw.de/poll-gives-hamburg-the-edge-in-olympic-race/a-18305858
No doubt that you could find an anti group in most cities pursuing an Olympic bid. The Boston 2024 could try to use that fact to attempt to diminish the significance of the anti Olympic groups here. In fact, I wondered when I saw the article in the Globe today whether they were subtly trying to undermine the impact of local opposition. It does seem like the Globe is trying to push the idea of the Olympics without being too obvious about their underlying editorial bias.
in German, I learn that the SPD and Greens who have run Hamburg’s government are pushing the Olympics. The CDP and FDP don’t object. The opposition seems to come from The Left alone. 64% support was indicated.
Aren’t SPD and Greens on the left side of the political spectrum?
There’s a party in Germany called Die Linke which includes some former communists from the east. The Social Democrats and Greens have been very wary of forming governments with them.
I just double-checked, but SPD allies with socialists and progressives and Green policies seem to be characterized as left rather than right. So as I said there is The Left with a capital L you are referring to, but on the spectrum they are left of the center. Right now SPD is in a grand coalition including the Christian Democrats, the main center-right party.
In German, they capitalize all their nouns, but when, The Left is referred to, the capitalize the definite article too.
…where the Olympics would only be hosted by cities that don’t permit dissent. As for corruption, was nothing done after the fiasco of Salt Lake City that Mitt Romney had to swoop in and fix?
There is a venerable aphorism in the high-tech world:
Similarly, I suspect that Mr. Romney’s contribution to the IOC process after Salt Lake City was to ensure that the corruption was legal. Perhaps he retained Harvard’s Safra Center to provide expert guidance on the matter.
these quotes by Boston 2024 insider Mitt Romney on why it is important for the U.S. to host the Olympics regularly. It’s a world class summing up of the “world class” obsession:
…why I couldn’t articulate my feelings better I have to admit I agree with Romney quoted above. He expressed my sentiments just about perfectly. In our particular case, just substitute “Boston” for “America” and “just once” for “every 10 or 20 years” and he’s pretty much nailed it. The last couple of sentences in the above quote are what I have been trying to get at. Since in any other context I am not a sports fan it has to be because this is way beyond sports.
I’m wondering why you and Romney think that the Olympics is “serving the world.” Frankly, I don’t have much use for the notion that sports “lifts us” or is a major part of human experience. It may have been a major part of his & your experience, but for many people, it is a minor, peripheral diversion. Certainly, it’s sometimes inspirational for some individuals, but at least as often, obsession with sports is damaging. Witness the brain damage suffered by football players at all levels, and the inequitable treatment of college athletes recently discussed here.
It’s hardly a part of my experience at all, but there is something to be said for the inspiration of the Games beyond the sports, the very same competitions that would get a huge yawn from me in non-Olympic contexts.
Why do you find the Olympics more inspiring than other exhibitions of the same sports? Is Olympic basketball somehow more inspiring than NBA basketball? Since many of the same players compete in both, what makes the O game special? Is it nationalism?
My daughter is a gymnast who trains in the same gym as Aly Raisman and Alicia Sacramone. She’s not in the Olympic-track program, but I see what girls and young women and their parents have to go through to progress in that program, and it’s pretty insane. An infinitesimal percentage of them get anywhere near the Olympic team, but they all make huge and progressively greater sacrifices along the way. Injuries are common. There is always at least one kid wearing a cast in the gym, trying to keep up with the parts of her training that don’t require that limb. The really good ones compete in college and national championships, but you say you’re not as inspired by those contests as by the Olympics. This strikes me as fundamentally wrong.
The daughter of very close family friend, now 18, has had her life wrecked by her mother’s obsession with Olympic swimming.
She is an intellectually gifted wunderkind who excels at everything she does. She is smart, articulate, beautiful, and brings astonishing talents.
She is also a superb swimmer. She began swimming at age 4, began swimming competitively by age 5 or 6 (as I recall), and was pushed — HARD — by her mother to stay on “the Olympic path”. We’re talking about a years and years of 5:00a practices, meets every weekend, week after week, month after month, and year after year.
She finally crashed and burned in September of her senior year in high school. She ended up burned out, clinically depressed, and unable to do anything for months. Instead of looking forward to choosing which Ivy League college she would attend (until her senior year she was a straight-A student), she finds herself unable to graduate with her peers and rejected by every school she applied to.
Her experience is a tragedy. The mania about sports and the Olympics was a MAJOR factor in destroying her. Yes, she will bounce back. Yes, she will perhaps do fine in the long run.
Nevertheless, her life is now MUCH more challenging than it would have been had she not been subjected to more than a decade of Olympic hysteria.
Bringing the world together in friendly competition and putting aside differences. An individual basketball game per se might not be much more exciting than an NBA game, but NBA games are routine. Boston has its own team I can see play whenever as long as it is in season. I also never said individuals who aren’t Olympians aren’t inspiring in their own ways. There’s just an inherent majesty to the Olympics that apparently I can no better explain in a fully rational way than a belief in God.
I didn’t want to say so, but through all these discussions, it’s seemed that your reverence for the Olympics was an article of faith, and not subject to rational debate. Now that you’ve confirmed that, I can stop trying to persuade you to doubt.
…and yes, there are some things I wish had been handled differently. I do think any claim that Boston is capable of hosting is rooted in reality, but there’s something to be said for abstract concepts of human unity that is greater than oneself.
I’ve seen rather the same on the other side.
“Sports”, for me, has been too often an occasion of boorish behavior hurtful to me, my friends, and my community.
I get the “thrill of competition”. I get the rush of being in a cheering crowd when the home team wins. I’ve had some marvelous experiences over the years. So I’m not saying it’s all bad.
For me, during high school, our “athletes” were bullies who used “school spirit” as an excuse to harass, beat up, and terrorize myself and my friends because we either didn’t cheer loudly enough or didn’t cheer at all. I escaped the physical abuse because I was big enough and smart enough to avoid it. I did not escape the emotional abuse. When I hear Mitt Romney talking about “lifting us”, it brings to mind Dr. Fred L. Dunn (the Principal of my high school) talking about our football team (the same maroons who walked the halls in their letter jackets shoving long-hairs like me against the lockers) “bringing honor to our school”.
I find the line between “aggressive” line play and plain old thuggery in football all too gray. Anybody who believes that such behavior and the attitude that produces it is limited to the football field is kidding themselves. Basketball and hockey are worse, in my opinion.
In my view, the primitive tribal urges of blood lust, mob energy, and the associated xenophobia and jingoism that drive “sports” in the way that Mitt Romney talks about the Olympics do far more harm than good. I think we should be managing, rather than encouraging, those primal urges. And yes, I think the behavior of Boston “fans” towards “the Yankees” is exhibit A.
I lived in Coolidge Corner for twelve years, close enough to Fenway Park to experience the ball game crowds going to and coming from home games. I’m not saying that every fan is obnoxious. I am saying that the groups of drunken idiots in Red Sox regalia cruising the neighborhoods, vandalizing cars with New York plates or “Yankee” bumper stickers, harassing residents, and generally being obnoxious do NOT have their counterparts when Symphony crowds stream home.
I’ve been in a crowded Green Line car after a Red Sox game. I’ve been in a crowded Green Line car after a Symphony concert. The former is an ordeal to be tolerated. The latter is a non-event.
I have no use for “sports” — especially the jingoistic nonsense that Mitt Romney spouts.
If I had to choose between channeling them into sports cheering or war I know which one I would take. That said, national pride does not always equal jingoism and xenophobia. You can root for the Americans against another country without hating that latter, but ultimately the fact that the Olympics brings almost every country together is a key part of the thrill and draw for me.
Sports fandom does not prevent, or even alleviate warmongering. In fact, an argument could be made that indoctrination in sports culture actually predisposes people to favor war as a viable, even a glorious activity.
Of course those impulses will always be there, they are part of being human.
I profoundly disagree with your premise that sports “channels them” in some way. I think sports panders to and strengthens them. I’m reminded of the “Passion plays” in pre-war Europe that fired up the participants to terrorize the Jews living in their communities — such impulses are not “channeled”. They are instead inflamed, and once inflamed tend to seek a target.
Humans have many impulses that we learn to control. We don’t “channel” lust by attending strip-shows, nor do we “channel” anger by some equally spurious activity. We instead learn to manage them. We learn to recognize them when they arise, we learn to identify situations and circumstances that bring them to our awareness, and most of us learn to avoid or manage those situations and circumstances.
Sports does just the opposite.
Unfortunately war trumped games a couple of times in the 20th century, but the theory has always been that conflict should pause for the games. This is the ideal the Games represents. The US surprise hockey victory over the USSR in Lake Placid was a moment of Cold War pride, but did not lead to war between us.
Sometimes things like Passion Plays are used for propaganda and sometimes they are just Passion Plays. Hitler tried using the Olympics for propaganda until Jesse Owens had other ideas. In both cases they might be excuses for those predisposed to hate, but they are not the cause of either the emotion or other action.
The hydraulic theory of human motivation, whereby bad things like anger, aggression, and the like, can be released like steam from a pressure cooker just doesn’t hold. There’s been a whole parade of studies showing that “blowing off steam”, or “channeling”, and the like simply constitutes practicing anger or aggression and gives us more of it not less.
As the hydraulic model was (and remains) such a common, popular model of psychology, its refutation was surprising and hence well studied.
in the Roman Empire: nam qui dabat olim imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat, panem et circenses.
–Juvenal, Satire 10
we probably ALL have done it from time to time. I certainly have.
…but I still see nothing wrong with a bit of rooting for your side just because some people can’t control themselves. Many of you seem to be doing a good job confirming liberal stereotypes as elitists who can’t just have a little fun.
One cannot be tolerant of intolerance, it leads to a logical conundrum (and provides a ready excuse for racism, sexism, and so on). Similarly, even a “tiny” logical flaw in a mathematical proof (such as dividing by zero) invalidates the entire proof. It seems to me that you are yourself promoting a conservative canard, committing a logical blunder while doing so, and then proclaiming that we who object are “confirming” a liberal stereotype.
The conservative canard is “The Olympics are good for people, good for America, and good for the world. People who oppose them are anti-American”. It is not coincidental that Mitt Romney’s words were used here. Mitt Romney is not known for his commitment to intellectual integrity, even by his supporters. This is a canard because it appeals to empty and false stereotypes likes “American”, “anti-American”, “patriotism”, and of course the root assumption that cheering for an American sports team is somehow “patriotic”.
The logical blunder is that you are not advocating “a bit of rooting for your side” or “a little fun”. You are instead advocating an expenditure of many billions of dollars and major investments in public infrastructure that will change the region for decades to come. That is not “a bit” of anything, and whether “fun” or not is well more than “a little”. It is, in fact, disingenuous to use such language in connection with the contemplated Olympic bid.
Rather than throw right-wing stereotypes at those of us who attempt to take your arguments seriously and face value, perhaps you might rethink those arguments.
I’ll raise you a slippery slope argument. Pride and patriotism do not have to lead to xenophobia.
You describe a proposed commitment of billions of dollars using language like “a bit of rooting” and “a little fun”. In so doing, you are either being disingenuous or inconsistent.
If you want a celebration of pride and patriotism, then spend an order of magnitude less money and arrange a stirring parade with martial music, lots of soldiers, and lots of flags. Pay for the Blue Angels to do some flyovers. Tie it to Fourth of July, and close Boylston Street for the day.
Whatever it is that is being promoted by the Olympics, “pride” and “patriotism” has little to do with it.
…is suggesting a little pride and patriotism has to lead to the worst manifestations of nationalism, jingoism, and xenophobia. The Olympics is both national and global, and no, that’s not a contradiction. There is national (in this case local) pride in hosting and in doing well in an event that rightfully brings people from almost every nation. Remember though, I’m just a cheerleader yet you are challenging me as if I am part of Boston 2024. I am not a public official so the only vote I get to cast is my own in a non-representative context if we get a referendum. I don’t really have to justify myself to anyone as one person with an opinion since as the saying goes there is no accounting for taste.
From what little I’ve seen, Olympic broadcasts have taken over the machinery of reality television with all the emphasis on the personal aspects of the competitors followed by post-mortem interviews chock full of the questions of the “how did you feel when” sort.
In a sense, professional sports are just a TV series and the Olympics and just a TV special. Being that they’re just TV and not much more than that, they are a substitute for life rather than the actual living of it.
I’ve felt for many cycles that NBC leaves a lot to be desired and wondering how they keep getting the contract. I’d prefer what I call C-SPAN style coverage – just turn on the mics and cameras and let us watch.
$4.4 billion, that’s how.
Referring again to how Chinese TV presents the Olympics, it appears that authoritarian governments are not only more easily able to host the Games, they can do a far better job of televising them. Every event, complete. Not just the ones where Chinese athletes have a chance to medal, or where some quirky Chinese makes for an interesting story.
NBC does a truly execrable job of presenting the Olympics, but because they can buy a monopoly, they have absolutely no incentive to do anything differently.
If I were they I would be looking to see if another network could do a better job. I’m sure ABC and CBS have the resources to competitively bid with NBC.
Where do you get the idea that ABC or CBS would be any different from NBC? We dismantled the “fairness doctrine” decades ago. We long ago removed the prohibitions that attempted to preserve even a semblance of competitiveness in mainstream networks. The clinical term is “oligopoly”, and mainstream media is a case study in the phenomenon.
If ABC or CBS “competitively bid” against NBC for the Olympic contracts, the outcome would be the same.
…if ABC or CBS wanted to take the Olympics away from NBC they could propose covering it better as a way to sweetening the deal.
The IOC could insist on a better TV presentation. Look at all the requirements for a successful hosting bid. That they do not is clear indication that all they care about WRT the TV presentation is the money.
Presumably their style of presenting the Olympics generates the most ad revenue. If not, they’re doing it wrong.
One might imagine a better world in which one could watch the Olympics either in human interest and elite authoritarian style because there wasn’t a monopoly and thus room for broadcasters to go after different market slices.
…about how this method seems to violate both free press and free market, but I figured they could claim it’s a private event so they can issue or not credentials just as they please. I don’t like it for other sports events either.
ABC (Aussie), CBC no. If all someone knows about the Olympics is NBC, they’d have much reason to dislike them.
Maybe they will have better luck suckering some city into hosting it. Just a thought.
did they stop having them every four years? Did I miss something?
The Summer games are every four years, and the Winter games are spaced two years from them. The numbering is somewhat screwy — the Summer Games mark the beginning of a four-year Olympiad (we’re currently in the XXX Olympiad), and the Winter Games are two years later. The Summer Games are identified by their Olympiad, while the Winter Games are enumerated sequentially. Last year’s Winter Games were the XXII Winter Games.
1994 Lillehammer (noted in the US as the Harding/Kerrigan year in figure skating) was the first Winter Games between Summer Games. Prior to that both were held the same year. The last Winter Games in the same year were 1992 Albertville. You still need the same number of host cities since it’s not like the same location hosted both Games so I don’t know that the spacing makes much difference in terms of finding hosts.
It’s a few days old, but has everyone seen the Guardian’s article on Denver’s rejection of the 1976 Olympics? If you haven’t, it’s worth reading, in part for the eerie familiarity of the story.
Many cities have had campaigns against them. How many people they represent, is unclear.
I remember when Toronto was bidding for 2008. The press loved them. Repeated most of their press releases. The NO group had an “Event” to watch and celebrate Toronto’s loss of the bid, and maybe 20 people were there. Over 2,000 hoping to win were at a similar rally elsewhere.
The NO side in Boston is clearly loud and clearly determined. They’ve spooked the bidders, but overeager seizing at any fact or possible ally isn’t going to do them well in the long run. I haven’t seen much to trust either side at this point. Bleah.
is that if you trust the pro-Olympic side you risk billions of dollars of tax payer and charitable money, misdirected infrastructure priorities and ill-conceived development projects. If you trust the anti-Olympic side, you just get exactly what we already have.
The burden of proof really needs to be on the pro side.