The Myth of the Olympics (2004)

- I think maybe we should actually just have a permanent location for the Olympics. I don't see why we let some ghost village get built somewhere every four years, it's super wasteful and not compatible with how we want to celebrate our humanity. So pick a place, maybe in Greece, but definitely somewhere near snow and water. Build facilities that can be a destination for elite sportspeople permanently. It grows its own culture and economy.

- The Olympics really is for rich people. Football is secondary. Running is legit open to poorer people, but most of the sports are only competitive for upper middle class people who even then need to struggle for funding, and need to spend a fair bit of their youth practicing. I just think of UK independent school students when I look at most of the sports, you need that level of opportunity in your life to have a chance. Then again I'm not against it if it's their own time and money that's spent, I just think of the Olympics as something other than a broad cut of the world's people taking part in an idealistic contest.

However, I think sport in general is not followed by the richest members of society even if, as you pointed out, the most muscular specimens selected by this organization might be. It's as if the richest people were putting on a show to glue the busybodies to a colored shiny screen so that they can be a bit distracted and less disappointed with either the cards they were dealt with or the choices they made in a fully free and equalitarian society.

At least, I come from a family like you describe, "middle class people", which may be a large and vague category of humans, and we've always found sport and especially the daily gossiping around it, quite beneath us (my direct ancestry line has PhDs all the way back to the 19th century, but we don't own vast rent-producing resources so I suppose we're not "upper class" by your categorization rules). While my friends of less wealthy families, quite independently of their education level, would proudly display their vast international knowledge of sport teams, match results and behind the door gossips and feel utter pity at my inability to follow or even listen for more than 5 minutes.

-> The Olympics really is BY rich people. But I really disagree it's FOR them.

-> I also liked you proposed Greece, I'd even propose Rome, who managed to refine the games (not olympics) as a political distraction to a degree well beyond what the politicians proposing their city host the Olympics would ever dream of. A noble goal to reach for them, I suppose. As long as they throw "rich people" to the lions this time, it may work even better.

In a flawed, private-property based economy, taxes can be one of two things. Either they're an expropriation to benefit a tiny elite (as in feudal regimes), or they're a wealth-redistribution mechanism to fund free healthcare, schooling, roads.. In a democracy, the latter is supposed to be true, although we all know it's a scam and money is redirected to the elite and to their watchdogs keeping their privileges safe (police/military).

Money concerns aside, poor people are those negatively affected by Olympics, so it's only fair they get a say. Whose housing and neighborhood green spaces are being torn down to make place for swimming pools and other useless pieces of junk? Poor people's! Whose rents are driving up like crazy because Olympics are a useful piece in the sick game of gentrification? Poor people's!

Fuck the Olympics. Let's just not do that. From Rio to Beijing to Athens to London, they've only made everything worse for most people, while allowing a corrupt elite to divert public money right into their pockets. How could anyone defend THIS?