Olympic Terrorism

All the while, we never seem to question the rather insidious facets of the Olympics, and its repercussions upon us as individuals, whether we live in a free society or not. It also reflects the immense infrastructure of corruption and villany which the entire enterprise of sports entertainment has brought to the world in which we live.

To briefly summarize: the Olymics are run by an exclusive cartel of old men. These old men arbitrarily decide where and when the events will take place, and have no accountability or legal precedents governing them, being a nongovernmental, non-national entity. The IOC is able to extract BILLIONS of dollars in donations and favors from local and national governments, not to mention the vast amounts of public moneys spent on the stadiums and their related infrastructure (which invariably go unused once the events are over). When corruption and conflicts of interest are revealed in Olympic back-room deals (eg, SLC 2002), it is always the negotiating governments or athletes who are blamed and censured - never the IOC (the cause and benefactor in all such cases). Finally, the virtues of nationalistic posturing are never questioned in regard to the Olympics, despite the fact that countries go to war over them every day.

People who couldn't care less about sports any other day are suckered in to being TV zombies by the Olymics, and I'm just a little peeved that I get ridiculed for not being interested when the Olympics (or any other sport entertainment) take over every conversation in which I'm present. I would get stares of disbelief if I blindly expected everyone I work with to be interested in the latest Creatures B-side I heard, but they don't even question my interest in their chosen leisure activity when they casually drum up the outcome of yesterday's game.

Basically, the institution of sports entertainment is one big ethical and economic black hole. It sucks our tax dollars away by the building of its monuments, it annihilates network TV profits (from the fact that the IOC/NFL/NBA can command any price for the privelige of broadcasting its events, and broadcasters flock lemming-like to it out of "pride", despite the fact that the advertising sold during them in no way makes up for it), it can interrupt our regularly scheduled broadcasts (have you ever seen them run the 10.00 news on time and play a taped game after it, rather than the other way around?), it creates false regional, national and racial rivalries, and severely corrupts our leaders.

The entire culture of sporting entertainment is chock-full of pork-barrelling and corruption. Those who accuse entities like big-box retailers of playing local and state governments for favors and priveliges should take a look at sport entertainment. Which endeavor is ultimately more profitable and productive were the corruption removed? Which one is more similar to troop mobilization than to real capitalistic trade? And which one results in the more fraud, taxpayer fleecing and social chaos: Wal-Mart or the NFL?