The London Olympics are already achieving the number one aim of the politicians who brought them here, which is making our politicians feel very important indeed.
The media is quite frenetic in its efforts to make us all believe we should be terrifically proud of the fact we are hosting the Olympics, as though there were something unique in this achievement. If we can’t competently do something that Greece, Spain and China have done in recent years, that would be remarkable. Of course the Games will be on the whole well delivered, sufficient for the media and politicians to declare it an ecstatic success. Some of the sporting moments will be sublime, as ever.
But did it have to be in London? We won’t know the total cost of the Games for months, but it will cost the taxpayer at least £9 billion and I suspect a lot more. I also suspect the GDP figures will, in the event, show that the massive net fall in visitor numbers has hurt the already shrinking economy further.
But to take the most optimistic figure, holding the Olympics in London has cost every person in the country an average of £150 per head in extra taxes. That is £600 for a family of four. Actually it is in the end going to be well over £2,000, as of course the money has been borrowed on the never never, and taxpayers are going to be paying it off their whole lives, along with the sum ten times higher they are already paying direct into the pockets of the bankers through their taxes.
The very rich, of course, don’t pay much tax, so they are not worried.
But to take just the figure of £600 extra taxes for a family of four, the lowest possible amount, and not including the interest. Is having the Olympics here really worth paying out £600 for? If Tony Blair had approached the head of the family and said “We are going to have the Olympics in London, but it’s going to cost you £600, would the answer have been from most ordinary people: “Yes, great idea, this is that important to us”?
People are not disconcerted because they don’t see that they have to pay. There is no special Olympics tax, and they pay their taxes in a variety of ways, and individuals are not the sole source of taxation. But this is nonetheless real money taken from the people in pursuit of the hubris of politicians.
I love sport. I hate the corruption of the International Olympic Committee, Fifa and the rest; I hate the vicious corporatism and militarisation of our capital and absurd elitism of the transport lanes; the sport itself I love. But with the economy contracting, and the NHS being farmed out for profit, is it really worth £600 for a family – and many families are really struggling in a heartbreaking way – is it worth the money to have the Olympics here rather than in Paris?
Of course it isn’t. I think many of us will feel an extra pleasure watching the Opening ceremony because it is British. Patriotic pride will surge. It is not wrong to enjoy the spectacle tonight on TV. The corporate well connected and ruling classes will enjoy it in the stadium.
But after you have watched it on TV, ask yourself this question. How much more did you enjoy it than enjoy watching the Beijing ceremony, and was that margin of extra enjoyment something that everybody in the room would have paid out £150 for?
Because they just did.
And congratulations, too, to Jessica Ennis, what an amazing athlete she is! I’m sure her parents – see the picture in the link below – must be very proud of her! Usual prefix. Gosh, whatever we think of their provenance, execution and aftermath and the ‘circus’ hoodwink to which Craig rightly referred in the title of this post, these Olympic Games are proving a great success for British athletes. As with the parts of Danny Boyle’s Opening Ceremony which referred to ordinary people – which I’ve now seen – in the sporting events themselves the struggles of ordinary people shines through, exists in spite of, the dangerous corporatist nonsense.
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zimbio.com/pictures/aOTAuG5nW4m/13th+IAAF+World+Athletics+Championships+Daegu/oJtKaDxRLkW/Vinnie+Ennissa=X&ei=q7geUNXYCMql0QXm5oEI&ved=0CGoQsAQ&biw=1024&bih=579
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google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://i4.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article847606.ece/ALTERNATES/s615/Alison_Powell_2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/other-sports/athletics/london-2012-jessica-ennis-mother-847605&h=409&w=615&sz=28&tbnid=bC26Z7gEThwhUM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=135&zoom=1&usg=__TvM8bUcxsTFNB3W8TKadI_9SfLY=&docid=S3GxOi0sfdarsM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=5rkeUOHcBMLO0QW0roCABg&ved=0CG0Q9QEwBA&dur=409
Here’s an interesting essay [usual prefix]:
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bl.uk/sportandsociety/exploresocsci/sportsoc/sociology/articles/blackathletes.pdf
Somebody gushed thusly;
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“these Olympic Games are proving a great success for British athletes”
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But as someone said above somewhere amongst the navel gazing, the hosts are generally awarded pity medals. (I don’t want to be personal)
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There’s research to back the claim:
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http://www.udel.edu/udaily/2013/jul/olympic-medals-072512.html
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If you look at the betting on Betfair you’ll see that the lowest odds are indeed clustered around that 7.5% gold wins for Britain which the researchers predicted.
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If the left were to use science rather than navel gazing as their guide perhaps they may have been more successful.
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Marx had something to say about that too.
Herbie said:
“It’s hard to know which is more ironic. Murray’s win or that of the British Somali.
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I’m sure that at least one of these wins is deserved, proving once again that the Games are not totally fraudulent.”
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.Are you saying what i think you’re saying or have i misread your praise of sorts for heavy sarcasm and knowing something we common spectators might not?
Ah! If only i’d waited another minute!
Crab, regarding “no balance of nature”, the following could be relevant:
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/01/neogreens-science-business-save-planet
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Suhayl Saadi, Technicolour certainly was restricting expression, making it very clear that there are certain things you just can’t say here without being labelled as racist, and thus being discredited.
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The problem with Divide and Rule is it’s so versatile, we even do it spontaneously. The People’s Front of Judea can’t stand the Judean People’s Front. Splitters. So now we can split between those who are concerned about the immigration rate, and those who declare it irrelevant.
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It turns out there is quite a lot that “mustn’t” be discussed. Look at the reaction when I said it wasn’t wrong to be discomforted when in a group of people speaking a language one doesn’t know. Apparently, I’m supposed to learn their language, because it’s good for me! What an utterly illogical argument. Is every person supposed to become fluent in every language, and if so, shouldn’t it be the people who’ve moved country that use the local language? Maybe drivers from continental Europe should just keep driving on the right hand side when they visit Britain, and the locals should just adapt.
When i hear that people feel threatened by orangemen marching in fancy dress through their neighbourhoods on certain dates, i have to take it on board that they feel and perhaps are under threat. I have to take on board the idea that maybe for the sake of human nature, some freedom to do simply that should be curtailed. Maybe?
If i hear about people having any sort of trouble with ‘others’ i cant often just tell them they are wrong in their way of thinking of ‘others’
When i hear people saying they dont like how the cultural appearance of their home area has changed, or that they have difficulty mixing with certain groups or difficulty accepting new customs, im not just all about telling them to move with the times. I think there are factors of bigotry and racism which are natural and want assuaged/accomodated to some degree, better than disposed/repressed. But compromises are prohibited by the rightest and the wrongest.
I’m also concerned about the attitude to xenophobia. If I have agoraphobia or arachnophobia, it’s a matter for treatment and sympathy. But xenophobia is a form of evil. Why?
Hi Clark, by declaring that there is “no such thing as natural balance” Curtis seemed to me to be giving foundations to carefree GM experimentation and everything. He seemed to be fueling the recent pseudo-philosophical fad of deconstructing all meaning of concepts of ‘nature’ I wondered after watching that documentary whether the “power of nightmares” was really helpful in educating on the politics of the terrorist threat or whether it might have been a poisoned well. Bamboozled.
My own question has given me an idea. There is a difference between what is acceptable in individuals, and in companies, organisations, etc. If a proportion of people are scared of spiders, that’s a very different matter from a newspaper suggesting that spiders are deadly.
Clark, are you suggesting that people who are deemed to be xeonphobic be offered treatment? Surely not. It’s not an illness, or functional impairment, it’s an attitude and we’re not living in the USSR, thank goodness. The word, ‘phobia’ is used as its opposite, ‘-philia’ is used in, say, ‘Anglophilia’ (eg. for French people who love things English), but it doesn’t mean it’s describing the same process as, say, claustrophobia. Most people who might be described as having xenophobic attitudes do not experience hyperventilation, lightheadedness, palpitations and a sense of choking when they see foreigners – or if they do, then it might be because they fancy them :))
Xenophobia is not a form of evil. Evil is a religious term, xenophobia, a political one. Xenophobia is just an unfortunate attitude, something to do with social conditioning. We all have such tribal attitudes – me, too – it’s a case of being aware of them and analysing their provenance. It’s not a matter of good and evil.
Crab, regarding Orange parades; if those marchers know that their march scares or upsets the local population, if they had a decent conscience they’d perform their march elsewhere, like somewhere where it would be welcomed. Intent matters, and it’s often seemed as though some Orange marches were held precisely because they upset the locals.
As you know, Crab, Orangeism has a complex historical origin. Although originally it may have related to the end of the divine right of kings (1688 and all that), in C20th, in the West of Scotland (and since most of the marchers who go to the Northern Ireland parades are from the West of Scotland) also Northern Ireland, it has assumed the form of triumphalism by the majority community over the Roman Catholic minority. This went hand-in-hand with systemic discrimination against Catholics vis a vis jobs (eg. shipyards, in Glasgow and Northern Ireland) and much else. Skilled (Protestant) tradesmen wanted to keep Irish Catholics who migrated to Scotland from getting an economic foothold, they wanted to keep them down.
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Irish Catholics were/are right to be afraid of Orange Marches. They try to march through Catholic areas in a highly threatening manner. Maybe the Orange Order can reform itself, I hope so.
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But really, one cannot compare the fears of minority community Irish/Scottish Catholics of the supremacism of Orangeism and the violence it brings with the concerns by about immigration. Orangeism was partly the response of earlier waves of (Protestant Ulster Scots) immigrants in Scotland and other, pre-exiting Protestant skilled workers/petty bourgeoisie over the later migration of Irish Roman Catholics to Scotland. And as always, it was joyfully exploited and perpetuated by the ruling classes.
Suhayl: Xenophobia is just an unfortunate attitude, something to do with social conditioning.
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I’m not so sure. I’ve written here before that the political Left is partly a mass expression of the evolved human capacity for altruism, and the political Right a mass expression of evolved self-interest and respect for self-reliance.
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Similarly, as humans evolved, interaction outside one’s group will have offered both opportunities and risks, leading to xenophobic and xenophilic instinctive tendencies.
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I can feel both in myself, and sure, xenophobia can act as a functional impairment.
From the link Herbie gave:
“The research indicated that, overall, countries see an increase in their medal market share in the games after they are awarded host status, and then see another increase in medal market share in the games they host. At the games after, there is a decrease in the medal market share but it is at a level greater than before the nation was made aware that it would be a host.”
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Might this be simply because in the pre-bid stage and then the seven or so years a country builds-up to hosting an Olympics, a lot of money gets invested in sports facilities, training, publicity and so on, and because people are competing in the world’s top sporting event at home? Perhaps, though, there is something sinister and conspiratorial in it, I don’t know.
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As to navel-gazing, well, it may be navel-gazing to you, Herbie, but it has real consequences on the street. My downstairs (Pakistani Christian) neighbour had his shoulder fracture-dislocated by racist thugs last year as he closed-up his shop. Racism and xenophobia – or let’s say, the continuing scapegoating of ‘immigrants’ in the broadest sense of the term and the promotion of the propaganda narrative thereof in parts of the media-political circus have real impact on real people.
Suhayl, I’m really sorry about the violence against your neighbour.
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Xenophobia is a set of emotions. Racism is a set of behaviours. We all get all sorts of feelings. How we translate feelings into actions is what constitutes our morality.
I think the question as to “what one can say” is a complex one. Attitudes to multiculturalism operate on a sliding scale, and I don’t think anyone is saying here that there are no points on that scale one can call racism. We are +all+ agreed that racism exists, but we are struggling to define at what point such a suggestion is a fair call (given the complexity of the topic, and the history of this thread, I think we should agree to disagree for the time being 🙂 ).
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On that basis – and given that my reading of 660+ posts was speedy for moderation purposes – I felt that Technicolor was arguing from a No Platform perspective, which has plenty of provenance amongst a number of the smaller Left groups in the UK. In the same way as those parties have it that the BNP et al should not be afforded any exposure (given that in doing so racial tensions are automatically raised) so too do they believe that any negatively expressed view around racial mixing (multiculturalism) is a slippery slope that needs to be challenged early on.
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I’m +not+ taking a view on that myself here, and nor am I challenging any contributors on their anti-racism; hopefully the debate itself has died down now, so we can have an interesting post-mortem on the range of perspectives expressed. I’m sympathetic to the idea that people can express intelligent opposition to immigration without being racist, but one needs to tread carefully for obvious reasons. (Without succumbing to Godwin’s Law, I recall we had a similar dilemma on whether honest research into the number of the Holocaust dead was anti-Jewish, again a very troubled topic).
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For what it’s worth, I felt Tech was arguing in good faith, and that her focus on the plight of detainees in British immigration centres was in tune with the broad thrust of liberal ideas here.
I didn’t find the least good faith in the way Technicolour argued. Quite the opposite.
Hey Clark. I respect your view, and don’t at all wish to frustrate you with mine – just want to ensure that long-standing posters feel welcome (at least as much as possible, given how “robust” things can get!).
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Anyway, dinner calls; spent too long fixing my bike today! Will be back either later today, or tomorrow. Night all.
Goodnight, Jon – thanks again for your sagacity.
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“Xenophobia is a set of emotions. Racism is a set of behaviours. We all get all sorts of feelings. How we translate feelings into actions is what constitutes our morality.” Clark.
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I agree – and thanks, Clark, for your words about my neighbour.
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Clark, for what it’s worth, I’m really very sorry that you and Technicolour appear to have fallen out over this, as I like, respect and am very grateful to you both for your help over many things. I think you’re both wonderful human beings. I know you’ll know that I mean this most sincerely (as Hughie Green was supposed to have said – but maybe never did say – on ‘Opportunity Knocks’!). No, but I do. I’m saddened, man.
Suhayl, I’m saddened too. I’d hoped that Technicolour would discuss with me in good faith based upon good faith in the past, but I was shown to be wrong. I’m now altogether suspicious of Technicolour’s motives, and I have a whole list of reasons for that. Emotionally, I’d like to ignore those reasons, but that would be foolish.
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All in all, it’s just another brick in the wall.
“Has there ever been a Middle Eastern war of such hypocrisy? A war of such cowardice and such mean morality, of such false rhetoric and such public humiliation? I’m not talking about the physical victims of the Syrian tragedy. I’m referring to the utter lies and mendacity of our masters and our own public opinion – eastern as well as western – in response to the slaughter, a vicious pantomime more worthy of Swiftian satire than Tolstoy or Shakespeare.”
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Robert Fisk
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http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-syrian-war-of-lies-and-hypocrisy-7985012.html
Sorry to post under you MarkG, i take your threads in always, thanks for posting your news and good work.
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I quite like Technicolors posts overall. Presently its no fair Clark to continue your suspicions in the thread, the disagreement could be quite possibly not about bad faith, just an artifact. You have left clear charges for him to trouble fixing, it wouldn’t be fair to do ‘as mod’. im sure he’ll post again and things will be different all round.
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Here i go now! derp derp even.
Well I.. have been excluded in person and by in someways decent activists who would have my respect, but for trying to relate my impression that orangemen are essentially little more than silly old traditional christians. I see a lot of hate for these old geezers and their grandsons scrapping sometimes with the other bloody tough kids in poor wee towns. basically. many people dont see it like that.
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It was my late mother recalled to me that in her youth, before the NI troubles were reignited, few people felt threatened by the marching. She said before bloody sunday everyone (prods&caths) used to sit out (in front of the terrace house) and make fun of them a bit for being dressed up old men parading the street. Her experience was not from being closeted by class, she was downtown belfast working class and had hitch-hiked plenty of ni collecting unwritten folk songs from old men, which the troubles stopped. One of her close friends in time became a big sein fein man, and some others fighters, which is all by way of convincing she was totally ‘integrated’ then.
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Anyway, the troubles kicked off and a traditional very unsecret society became bad guys. Well they end up a colourful icon of division and target and defender, but i beleive they were mostly the old guys ‘Good Living’ simple christian types who could often hardly personally hurt a flee, i have met a few. The leaders as ever, may or may not be relatively powerful business people. The youths are tough as they need to be to live through conflict. But I believe the orange order is or should be, as quaint an old traditional society as any other.
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The troubles – the killings, injuries and threats – would activate the groups ‘supremicism’ (if it is as reported here) the same as it ignites their traditional foes ‘bitterness’ .
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So I say to the orange order “i think its not your fault but i think for peace you should reroute until the day that people dont mind again.” And I think more than a handful of them have done that iirc.
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If you see supremecists i see spirited old coggers mainly, facing old age all with jesus in their books, some even in their hearts! Look they dont have many mansions (if any), they arent aristocracy or anything -like you keep all over Scotland hehe.
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Obviously i could be wrong about all this, so might we convince also those who are ‘wrong’ and cant believe in our ‘right’ – of our solutions more than blame? we do already. cool just checking.
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..¸.·^·.¸.·´`·.¸.·^·.¸.
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I left a big bottle of apple and elderflower juice for a week after opening and it turned into the finest dry sparkling wine ive tasted! if i can replicate it ill have discovered cheeap luxury cupboard cava its amazing.
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Im pink noise. I am going to lurk under people! It takes me way too long to even half follow and reply to this board so just good on ye and let it flow from all especially the QUIET and the CONCERNED! peace
Jon is fascinatingly informed:
“In the same way as those parties have it that the BNP et al should not be afforded any exposure (given that in doing so racial tensions are automatically raised) so too do they believe that any negatively expressed view around racial mixing (multiculturalism) is a slippery slope that needs to be challenged early on.”
I might support this in ‘policy’ but not in discussion ta.
maybe should we keep it in a previous tail away from the olympics and syria and financial and everything..coming up next
Or keep things like an open discussion channel in a nomads land of hard world news 😀
put recurrent swidgey topics in the previous thread hmmm? It could reduce the page load for the leading messages.
No dis-respect y’all but this thread is in danger of eating itself..
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New post please Craig :.)
Agree Jives !
C’mon Craig, get yir finger oot.
A little relief. Louise Mensch is standing down as an MP and is moving to AmeriKa, in particular New York, for the sake of her family life. Wonder what she will do there? Work for Murdoch perhaps?
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Her majority at Corby when she was Louise Bagshawe was 1,951 over Labour. Should be interesting. Perhaps they could shoe Bliar in! He was on radio and TV yesterday taking credit for getting the Olympics and boasting of his Sports Foundation. He was looking distinctly gaunt.
On Boris and Murdoch and their cosy relationship.
http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/08/04/boris-johnson-rupert-murdoch-and-the-arrogance-in-the-mayors-choice-of-guest/
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‘Equally distasteful is the fact that today marks the one year anniversary of the beginning of the London riots, riots which as they happened were not enough to immediately draw Mr Johnson away from his holiday. Johnson inviting Murdoch as a guest of honour at the Olympics is an insult. To do so on the back of the anniversary of riots which permanently scarred one of London’s poorest boroughs adds insult to injury. What’s worse is that we continue to accept this as the norm. When will we demand more from elected representatives in all aspects of political life?’
At the weekend on Radio 4 Profile there was this puff for Boris. ‘Will he become the Conservative leader?’ stuff.
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With his trademark blonde hair and a reputation for colourful antics, Boris Johnson has had a seemingly unstoppable rise through the ranks of UK politics. After seizing a second term as London mayor earlier this year and thanks to the Olympic games coming to London, he’s become firmly associated with the city on the world stage.
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But alongside his various careers as mayor, journalist, author and quiz show panellist, it seems his political prospects within the ranks of the Tory party also remain strong. Recent polls suggest a groundswell of support for him as a potential future leader of the party. James Silver charts the rise and rise of a unique politician.
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{http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01ldg65#synopsis}
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PS England riots one year on: Culprits jailed for 1,800 years {http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-19111720#}
I see no equivalent sentencing of bankers and the rest who have gone off with the real loot over recent years nor of politicians who have committed war crimes.