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.
Are these pro oyl impics from the same source, or are they from differing sources?
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The in rush of; you must fall in line and enjoy the oyl impics is somewhat turning into an obligatory must celebrate sort of shit. Next are we all to get bussed somewhere, given a flag and told to wave at the nice “athletes” or “dear leader”s etc?
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The wake for NHS, by celebrating the NHS was a good idea, seeing as the last labour lot, and the current condem lot, and before these the Thatcherite lot have been steadily privatising the NHS, and there is not much of a “national” left in it and soon that too will join the history sort of a prophecy of sorts, in the great show on Earth, rip NHS then.
Good article on the London 2012 Olympics by ex-MI5 officer:
http://anniemachon.ch/
Mary: “£27m when there are children in this sceptre’d isle existing on 10 meals a week instead of 21.”
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Mary
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“Britain: Closure of hospital heart units will cost more children’s lives”
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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/jul2012/hear-j27.shtml
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“Global elite descend on East London for Olympics”
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{http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/jul2012/olym-j27.shtml}
SNP/G4S
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http://www.firmmagazine.com/news/2981/G4S_in_the_frame_to_take_privatised_prison_tagging_contract_.html
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Craig
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{http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/jul2012/scot-j28.shtml}
Thanks for the Annie Machon piece Suhayl. She is good and it’s heartening to know that she reads Craig’s blog.
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Also thanks for your comments on the previous post. I truly hope you are right on Libya. I will get round to your links tomorrow. Did you have a quiet spell between patients last night? If so, hope tonight goes the same way too. No bouncing on the beds Boyle style mind!
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http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/07/28/article-2180227-143FDFED000005DC-736_634x419.jpg
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I like the Americans’ puzzlement at the concept of free healthcare.
{http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2180227/London-2012-Olympics-Some-Americans-left-baffled-tribute-NHS-Mary-Poppins-Opening-Ceremony.html?ito=feeds-newsxml}
I didn’t see any of it, but received this from a friend today re Muhammed Ali which made me smile:
Back in 1967 he was matched against Ernie Terrell (brother, incidentally, of Motown singer Tammi Terrell). Prior to the fight, Terrell insisted on referring to Ali as Cassius Clay. Towards the end of the bout, with Terrell well beaten, several times Ali landed a punch, and followed each punch by shouting at Terrell, “What’s my name?” Well, last night, seeing him suffering from Parkinson’s, I doubt whether Ali could’ve answered that question himself. Further, I feel that had she been minded so to do, the Queen could’ve knocked him over herself. Now that would’ve made the ceremony truly memorable…..
Mary, thanks!!! Bouncing on beds indeed!!!
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Rose, yes, that fight against Terrell was not one of Ali’s finer moments – physically, it was, but not morally. He completely outclassed the (in other circumstances, excellent) opponent and beat up Terrell more than was necessary. Both Ali and his biographer make clear that it was not good and that Ali regretted it afterwards. He was also psychologically cruel to Joe Frazier. One has to look at the context though – not that it’s an excuse – throughout that period, Ali was fighting against more than just a man in a ring. He was fighting a war machine and white supremacy (that uses, damages and destroys black people).
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And furthermore, I’d have to say wrt your own comment, just above, that to revel in the distress or ill health of any person is not magnanimous or humane. Watching Ali light the torch in Atlanta some years ago was heartbreaking. He was a great man – not a perfect man – but a great man.
Suhayl Saadi
Damn good articulation of the points of importance. Ali was fighting more than the boxers in the ring, and the blows that he has taken during his fights, ought not be forgotten some of his opponents could punch with four to eight tones of force, that is enough to knock anyone’s block off, so to speak, fact that Ali was tougher and stood the beatings somehow goes missing in the winning context. Ali’s fights were never a one sided bout, Ali’s opponents were equally powerful boxers, and could punch a bull to the ground as easy as kicking a ball around.
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Anyone who has ever been involved in any kind of contact sport will attest: those poor guys earning their living as professionals are in fact getting paid to be beat the crap out of whilst fighting fatigue, pain, and exhaustion and stand the beating, all the while trying to get their opponents to give up or be knocked out, it is a two way fight, the punters are not fools and want to see a fight, not a one sided match that is fixed in one way or another.
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Finally Ali is a role example for most of the boys growing up in ghetto across the planet.
I was only 12 years old once.But i was possibly good at some things.THen someone else came along,different culture,possibly gender,different times.They kicked fuck out of me but by that time i was actually 86 and they were 24.
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Luckily i didnt attempt to calibrate varying unknowable ratios,meanings and absurd calibrations.
Suhayl Saadi
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Great post about Ali, I agree with every word. I always thought it amazing that a man with very little education found the moral courage to refuse the draft and remain steadfast in the face of near total vilification. I understand, too, that a lot of those who vilified him later came to admit that he was right.
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I was very disappointed, though, to learn that my favourite quote of the 20th Century, namely, ‘No Viet Cong ever called me nigger’, was apocryphal.
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I really wish he had said it.
Guest. Thanks. I should have written ‘sceptr’d’ and not ‘sceptre’d’.
Those links you gave illustrate how phony an impression of the NHS was given by Boyle as its privatisation is under way. I suppose the theatrical impact of groups of private equity teams and members of think tanks strolling around hospitals and clinics, making notes and assessments and speaking their silken words at the lobby meetings with the COnDems, would have been nil. It would not have had the same impact as the happy bouncing on the giant beds which gave the impression that the NHS is now a totally happy organisation. As the cuts go deeper, staff morale falls, stress is greater and hence the service is adversely affected.
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NHS in Olympic ceremony angers UK conservatives, vexes US media
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/329524
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PS There is a reference to the sad case of Kane Gorny in the piece. ,,,’about a young man named Kane Gorny, who died of thirst in an NHS hospital after staff failed to simply give him a glass of water…’ The case was much more complicated than just the lack of a g;ass of water.
Suhayl – quite right – not nice; I stand rebuked.
Great link to Anne Machon, Suhayl, thanks, anybody who sees Ali is witnessing the combined forces of heavyweight boxing on brain tissue. His psychological box of tricks was immense and getting hit and shrugging it off was one of them.
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The rumble in the jungle fight was a tremendous battering for his body, despite Foreman’s bout of illness and I’m not surprised he is a gibbering wreck of a role model.
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The best for a boxer is not to get hit, the techniques Nasim Hamed and Herol Graham used, i.e moving fast out of the way and relying on hard counter punches, are sadly not applicable when both boxers are at their best,fast and furious, in that case you have to be able to take a few punches, ideally not on your weak spots. Because the moment you let your opponent know your hit and are suffering, by whatever small reaction, you’re toast, you can’t afford to let him have the psychological edge.
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Ali was the master of psychological games and he started weeks before a fight to niggle at his opponents, usually something personal.
This rather reflects my thoughts:
They made us dance, but not to their tune. In the middle of this corporate putsch, under the humiliating yoke of the brand police, with crime-less protestors arrested, jailed, threatened and exiled in pre-emptive strikes which further mocked our freedom – in the middle of it all, in the Olympic stadium itself, London succeeded in sticking a giant two fingers up at the warmongering sociopaths and the marketeers; the global emperors of blandness and death.
We gave them an immense CND symbol. We accused them with the Sex Pistols. We played them Enola Gay, the murderers; we charged them with the rage of Born Slippy. We celebrated with our NHS, and everyone knew who the monsters were. We mocked them and guyed them and sang at them and defied them. This was the warning, we were saying. We, who got rid of a king, replaced him by a dictator, and then got another, more fun, king back in again, know a thing or two about rebellion. Remember.
Check out RT for the article on the Indian girl in red that gate crashed the team Inida parade around the Olympic Stadium.
Unfortunately the 20,000 troops, missile batteries and warships couldn’t prevent this could’ve been Terrorist from slipping through security. Luckily the conflict was only of colour.
#DailyMail #Olympics #racism nailed—despite feeble cosmetic backtrack attempt http://bit.ly/P1PuiL @DannyBoyleFilm #LOCOG
Empty seats? Visible proof that LOCOG’s most important Olympic venues are standing-room only:
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http://t.co/eJ28HW2t
” I always thought it amazing that a man with very little education found the moral courage to refuse the draft and remain steadfast in the face of near total vilification. I understand, too, that a lot of those who vilified him later came to admit that he was right….”
At risk of being a bore: black men in the Jim Crow south were recipients of a the finest political education available. By the time Ali was 18 he knew more about America than any Ivy League professor ever could do. And every day what he knew was underlined.
What we call education is designed to make us doubt that which is most evident. The moral courage, which is natural to all, is the first casualty of indoctrination. If it were not we would stand up for the poor and the victimised, and we would not countenance the evil our governments do, ‘on our behalf’,abroad.
Thanks, Technicolour.
I’m fascinated by your analysis.
I see the IOC have suspended (Uzbek) Luiza Galiulina whose only crime seems to be to have taken medication.
The IOC are “not comfortably satisfied, … the absence of an intent to enhance sport performance or mask the use of a performance-enhancing substance”.
I myself do “not (feel) comfortably satisfied” about the sordid, corrupt and dubious practices of the IOC. The hypocrisy makes me feel quite nauseous.
Mary @ 8.51 you must have missed the end of the NHS sequence – after the celebration of our health service big scary monsters came running on, and, as Technicolor quoted, ‘ we all knew what that meant’.
To me the opening ceremony wasn’t just a jolly run through our British history, as some of the contributors here and in the media seem to suggest, but was full of allegories.
An example was when Mr Bean (Rowan Atkinson) joined a group of runners on a beach. Falling behind, he first hit some of the runners and when that failed jumped in a car to get there first. The runners just kept going and Mr Bean failed to beat them.
The dramatic final of the opening ceremony had me in tears with the solo singing of ‘Abide with Me’. As the singer got to the stanza ‘death and decay in all around I see’ one of the dancers in the darkened arena led a young boy (the future) towards the dance group and they enfolded him in their midst, protecting him. A bit cheesy maybe but I got the message.
No wonder Aidan Burley, MP was upset !
Mary – the BBC can be subversive sometimes. As they reported his remarks they put up a photo of ‘Mr Burley seen here at a Nazi-themed party’.
“He was a great man – not a perfect man – but a great man.”
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He IS a great man – not a perfect man – but a great man.
“As the singer got to the stanza ‘death and decay in all around I see’ one of the dancers in the darkened arena led a young boy (the future) towards the dance group and they enfolded him in their midst, protecting him.”
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werent they (the dancers) wearing Guantanomo orange?
See the soldiers are being put to good use ! Filling up seats so as the ticket fiasco doesnt look so bad.Gone from defending Queen and country to defending Lord Coes reputation.
Meanwhile not content with sitting atop the medals table China steams into the Med with 3 warships, joining Russia s 10.It is quite a statement to give Mad. Clinton.
Isn’t it amazing how wars can suddenly be page 2 news as the circus takes over ?
And as the result of non nonplussed Bullington bullies failure to regulate the offshore activities, ever more millionares are trying to divert their gains past the tax authorities using London’s unregulated boombustbailout and have another go banks as go betweens.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/swiss-private-bank-uses-tax-loopholes-to-win-german-customers-a-846170.html
Rose – thank you so much for your graciousness and ‘bigness’; it takes a lot to do what you did. Don’t worry, I too – we all, I think – have written posts which afterwards I/we have wished I/we hadn’t!
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Wendy – yes, you’re so right. I hesitated before using the past tense wrt Ali, then I used it to enhance the sense of melancholic loss, you know?
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Technicolour – stonkingly brilliant post. !Wham Bam! Indeed, remember, and tremble, ye kings.
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Chris2 – key point, man.
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Nevermind – my pleasure, and wrt boxing, yes, absolutely.
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In short, people, we are awake, we, the people, are awake!!
Wendy @ 6.59
In the subdued lighting their clothes looked brown to me but I’m afraid I missed their dance and only came in at the end.Guantanamo orange clothing, I agree brings with it a much more sinister meaning than the one I gave them !
“At risk of being a bore: black men in the Jim Crow south were recipients of a the finest political education available.”
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So why did so many of them go and fight in Vietnam?
Remember that Muhammed Ali was “distrusted” by a lot of “liberal” Americans because he was approaching Civil Rights from a Muslim perspective (although many followers of Islam would not recognise his form of Islam if Michael X’s description of it as reported in Alex (“Roots”) Haley’s biography is correct.) People like Jackie Robinson queued up to condemn Ali on TV. If it had not been for his lack of support from the Christian wing of the Civil Rights wing, it would have been much harder for the USA to strip Ali of his world boxing title.
It was a mark of the greatness of Martin Luther King that he supported Ali in public at this time.
In passing, his statement that “Charlie (GI slang for Viet-Cong) never called me n****r” may be apocryphal, but it was certainly being repeated in the late 1960’s
@ Cassius Clay,
You meant – Malcolm X – didn’t you?
“… his form of Islam if Michael X’s description of it as reported in Alex (“Roots”) Haley’s”