Today, the spirit of the Olympics, a flame lit at Mount Olympus last week as it was two thousand years ago,
I saw a few pictures of the flame lighting ceremony. The one thing it reminisced was fascists rituals. Pseudo-ancient costumes, actresses with very regular looks, love for the torch and fire concepts... Only thing missing was the pseudo-medieval music.
You're saying the olympics defend the "personal struggle in pursuit of achievement" ? There's nothing personal about being the selected product of a very collective sporting association with a total control over the sportsmen and women lives.
That the olympics are about fair play ? As in artistic ice skating ? As in disciplines chosen to please this or that IOC apparatchik ?
That the olympics are about peace ? In Greece the olympics didn't stop wars, they merely interrupt wars, only pause them. Now they don't even achieve that purpose. And it will not the first time repression is needed by a dictature to make the games possible. (Did you note that Reporters Sans Frontière wasn't protesting specifically for Tibet, but for general press freedom ?). The Olympics are about fairy-tales stories of peace, but doesn't care to do anything about it - indeed, the IOC hierarchy comes quite often from despotic administrations ; remember Samaranch. If the IOC claims it defends peace, it has to prove it.
The IOC cares more about profits than about any "olympic spirit". Less media-loved sports see their athletes quota so strongly cut that they have to give up quite important disciplines (as Track cycling had to do) ; in many sports, the hard part is qualifying for the Olympics as national competition is the hard part, and thanks to that absurd nationalism, ceaselessly promoted by the IOC, Olympic competitions aren't between individuals, but between nations. And of course, sports have to make themselves over to please NBC. Basketball timeouts were already annoying enough, but the skimpy clothes volley balls women are supposed to wear are just absurd.
Of course, let's not get in how the Olympic ideal, with its elitist bent, means that sports associations now only care about the elites, dropping the concept of mass sport participation altogether - among the good thing the PCF did in its départements was actually giving more money to mass events rather than elite events ; something the Olympic games constantly udermine.
The IOC wants pictures of its torch acclaimed by people of the world as it is flying around. Well, that only work for actually popular organisations, but the IOC is holding hostage whatever ideals elite sports carry - to the point that it is very intent in depriving athletes of their freedom of speech. Or those actual people who are supposed to applaud - the amount of cops surrounding the torch speaks more of fascists regimes than peace promotion and in itself was calling for protests.
Oh, and there was a time when communists understood the meaning "Le droit des peuples à disposer d'eux mêmes". Is that available only when the bad imperialists are also capitalists, or when their chosen independence party is of the proper communist bent ? The need for Kurdish autonomy/independence is not suppressed by their admiration for Stalinist totalitarianism ; neither is Tibet's despite its theocratic leader. Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
That is the fair comparison. Not the US. "C'est un scandale !"
It's really pretty obvious though, at least to me. Give all everyone seems to know hereabouts on Tibet threads on this site, it should be pretty clear that economic development patterns in the PRC are, shall we say, a bit different than in the neo-liberal EU... "C'est un scandale !"
Back again to my original point, the trend is of a skyrocketing Gini Index, growing faster than in the neoliberal US or EU, which means the growth of a miniature elite and a small middle-class at the expense of peasants (who are also threanteded by the new Enclosures) and exploited migrant workers (the neoliberal EU is still much more labour-friendly than your "communist" PRC, in fact even the USA is).
For what it's worth, here is a source on EU ( -6, -9, -12, -15, -25, -27) Gini index [pdf!], tough it is based on a 2004 study that possibly uses even older numbers: it has the USA only at 39.4%. EU-27 comes in very close, 39.9%. *Traitor*, n. A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.
According to that article,
In a little-noticed mid-summer announcement, the Asian Development Bank presented official survey results indicating China's economy is smaller and poorer than established estimates say. The announcement cited the first authoritative measure of China's size using purchasing power parity methods. The results tell us that when the World Bank announces its expected PPP data revisions later this year, China's economy will turn out to be 40 per cent smaller than previously stated. This more accurate picture of China clarifies why Beijing concentrates so heavily on domestic priorities such as growth, public investment, pollution control and poverty reduction. The number of people in China living below the World Bank's dollar-a-day poverty line is 300m - three times larger than currently estimated.
This more accurate picture of China clarifies why Beijing concentrates so heavily on domestic priorities such as growth, public investment, pollution control and poverty reduction. The number of people in China living below the World Bank's dollar-a-day poverty line is 300m - three times larger than currently estimated.
However, according to David Dollar, World Bank director of Development Policy, the conclusion in that last sentence is wrong:
The new PPPs reveal that prices are about 40 percent higher than had been assumed under the old PPP, which was an academic guestimate. Some researchers immediately applied the new PPP conversion factor for GDP to household data and came up with hugely higher estimates of the $1 per day poverty rate for China. However, the World Bank does not use the GDP conversion factor in measuring poverty. The research department of the bank will produce a conversion factor for poverty analysis that takes account of two important things: (1) the basket actually consumed by the poor is different from the GDP basket; and (2) the poor almost exclusively live in rural areas where prices are lower. This work is still underway but the research department has given us a range for their new estimates. Their old estimate of $1 per day poverty rate was 10% in 2004; the new estimate will be in the range of 13-17%. [Bold in the original, italics mine] New PPPs reveal China has had more poverty reduction than we thought
(1) the basket actually consumed by the poor is different from the GDP basket; and
(2) the poor almost exclusively live in rural areas where prices are lower.
This work is still underway but the research department has given us a range for their new estimates. Their old estimate of $1 per day poverty rate was 10% in 2004; the new estimate will be in the range of 13-17%.
[Bold in the original, italics mine]
New PPPs reveal China has had more poverty reduction than we thought
In other words, the dollar-a-day poverty line is not 300 million, as claimed in the FT article, but 170-220 million.
Moreover, according to Dollar, the new PPP figures mean that there has been more poverty reduction than previously thought:
The reason for this is that the better price data will also be applied to earlier estimates of poverty (all of which are based on constant Chinese yuan data). The World Bank estimate of $1 per day poverty in China at the beginning of reform will be raised to somewhere in the range of 71-77%. The old estimate was 64%. So, we used to think that 54% of China's huge population had been lifted out of poverty during economic reform. The improved estimate will be around 59%. [italics mine]
[italics mine]
Finally, some of David Dollar's comments from his travels in Gansu province, China's second poorest:
Traveling around rural areas, one can see that China is still a relatively poor country, with the second largest number of $1 per day poor after India. At the same time, there has been tremendous progress. At the beginning of reform, we now know that China was substantially poorer than Sub-Saharan Africa. It is natural to be struck by the glaring disparity between rural Gansu and coastal cities such as Shanghai, with their skyscrapers and neon. But when I travel I always like to ask people, in my mediocre Chinese, how their lives have changed in the past decade. It is hard to find anyone whose life is not far better than before. In a village close to Lanzhou airport we met Dongxiang people who had voluntarily resettled out of their poor county to irrigated land in the Hexi corridor. <...> I asked the old man if he ever regretted moving. Without two seconds hesitation, he said: "Not once. The old village had poor transportation, no school, poor crops. Now we have good transportation, school for the kids, more income." My casual impressions of Gansu accord with the improved poverty estimates - which show still significant poverty but huge progress since the beginning of reform. [italics mine]
Exactly !!!
Independent - Aryan ideals, not ancient Greece, were the inspiration behind flame tradition
There is a two-word answer to those who think the Olympic torch is a symbol of harmony between nations that should be kept apart from politics - Adolf Hitler. The ceremony played out on the streets of Paris yesterday did not originate in ancient Greece, nor even in the 19th century, when the Olympic movement was revived. The entire ritual, with its pagan overtones, was devised by a German named Dr Carl Diem, who ran the 1936 Olympics in Berlin........... It was his idea that the flame should be lit under the supervision of a High Priestess, using mirrors to concentrate the sun's rays, and passed from torch to torch along the way, so that when it arrived in the Berlin stadium it would have a quasi-sacred purity. The concept could hardly fail to appeal to the Nazis, who loved pagan mythology, and saw ancient Greece as an Aryan forerunner of the Third Reich.
The ceremony played out on the streets of Paris yesterday did not originate in ancient Greece, nor even in the 19th century, when the Olympic movement was revived. The entire ritual, with its pagan overtones, was devised by a German named Dr Carl Diem, who ran the 1936 Olympics in Berlin...........
It was his idea that the flame should be lit under the supervision of a High Priestess, using mirrors to concentrate the sun's rays, and passed from torch to torch along the way, so that when it arrived in the Berlin stadium it would have a quasi-sacred purity.
The concept could hardly fail to appeal to the Nazis, who loved pagan mythology, and saw ancient Greece as an Aryan forerunner of the Third Reich.
Olympic Flame - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
...fire was also present at many of the sanctuaries in Olympia, Greece. A fire permanently burned on the altar of Hestia in Olympia, Greece. During the Olympic Games, which honored Zeus, additional fires were lit at his temple and that of his wife, Hera. The modern Olympic flame is ignited at the site where the temple of Hera used to stand. ...The Olympic Flame from the ancient games was reintroduced during the 1928 Olympic Games when an employee of the Electric Utility of Amsterdam called Gerhard Herlitz lit for the first time the flame of the Olympic Games in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In 1928, the flame burnt in the Marathon Tower of the Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam. The modern convention of moving the Olympic Flame via a relay system from Olympia to the Olympic venue began with the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany. The relay, captured in Leni Riefenstahl's film, "Olympia", was part of the Nazi propaganda machine's attempt to add myth and mystique to Adolf Hitler's regime. Hitler saw the link with the ancient Games as the perfect way to illustrate his belief that classical Greece was an Aryan forerunner of the modern German Reich.[2]
...The Olympic Flame from the ancient games was reintroduced during the 1928 Olympic Games when an employee of the Electric Utility of Amsterdam called Gerhard Herlitz lit for the first time the flame of the Olympic Games in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In 1928, the flame burnt in the Marathon Tower of the Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam.
The modern convention of moving the Olympic Flame via a relay system from Olympia to the Olympic venue began with the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany.
The relay, captured in Leni Riefenstahl's film, "Olympia", was part of the Nazi propaganda machine's attempt to add myth and mystique to Adolf Hitler's regime. Hitler saw the link with the ancient Games as the perfect way to illustrate his belief that classical Greece was an Aryan forerunner of the modern German Reich.[2]
Plus, this has nothing to do with the site's editorial line. I remind you of the frontpager duties:
So frontpagers rarely step in as moderators in their function as frontpagers (frontpagers are also normal community members, with the same rights to comment and rate and have opinions). Generally, when a frontpager intervenes with the authority of a frontpager, s/he will indicate so by posting a comment in which s/he will use the moderation tag, which looks like this: [ET Moderation Technology™] .
That is also a subtext of my disgust with these Tibet puff pieces as well. "C'est un scandale !"
Activists are looking for a symbolic, but highly visible, way to protest for Tibet and press freedom in China, and they found a perfect one.
What struck me most in all the images was the close protection to the flame, visibly imposed by the Chinese authorities, who have themselves decided that touching the flame would be an attack on them, and are overreacting. And what it shows is an authoritarian regime looking cornered, which is a good thing.
The Games have not been disrupted.
If anything, this also shows that the Chinese have soemthing to learn from our own leaders: they still seem able to be shamed, which makes them less effective at wielding power against the masses... In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
The obligation to be an amateur has been dumped so that professional atheltes can participate, sell ads (and make yet more money if they win).
And your point about events for the masses and for the elites is spot on. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
The problem with this approach is that it takes away from the grassroots. At a time when we need to get people to engage more in being physically active on a recreational level and by building activity and sport into their day to day life, channelling off resources and funding to concentrate only on the elite then cuts off opportunities for community sports teams and access to recreational sport for people who are just never going to become elite athletes.
It is important to encourage everyone to engage in sport and physical activity no matter what level of ability. The issue I have with the drive to compete and win is that from school level and above the focus is on those who are the best, leaving the average or uninterested to one side, so they don't develop any skills or confidence in sport and turn into couch potatoes. Ad astra per aspera
In complete agreement with you. And your programme? That's the PCF's programme, always has been. Not the PS. "C'est un scandale !"
So in the UK, the focus on elite sport removes funding from the ground and rather than improving access to physical activity, it is reducing it as we plough lots of our lottery and other money into gearing up for the Olympics. It could be used far better as an opportunity to encourage all to do whatever exercise they can and that they can enjoy rather than pushing the message that we must become Olympic hopefuls and nothing else is good enough. Ad astra per aspera
When I see them protesting at Hyeres for the national track cycling championship the lack of adequate press freedom in France relative to various accusations about Sarkozy, and his cozy relationship with the media owners in France, then maybe this could be taken a bit more seriously. "C'est un scandale !"
Especially after their stunts in Greece.
Please go back to our discussion of this on the day.
According to your first judgement, this was all about the Western media using the Olympics to get themselves into the news. Your second was that it was all about Tibet.
It was neither. There were Tibetan protests elsewhere, but the three RSF guys made no reference to Tibet. They unfurled a banner reading "Boycott the country that tramples on human rights", and two RSF flags that can be seen here. Their declaration on human rights and particularly, freedom of the press and Internet in China can be read here. It contains only passing references to Tibet. Unsurprisingly, because there is far more to be said on these subjects than just Tibet.
Comparing Sarko's influence on the French press (though everyone here knows what I think of it) to the Party's lockdown in China lacks, to put it mildly. a sense of scale and perspective. When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind
Soppy librul art:
(Note the walking up each others arses aspect of this librul sac-de-cul)
Wild agitprop we don't need your stinkin' scale and perspective art:
(Actually, the perspective here is spot on but only if you have THE EYES TO SEE, brother!)
Scale and perspective are the buck-toothed friends of the milque-toasty liberal handwringers who care about all the wrong things.
Real people don't care about those things--the wrong ones, I mean; and if they do it's because the libruls are wasting their time with scale and perspective. No, I mean that scale and perspective--are only of interest to limp-wristed nancies (no good in a proper fight, right?) and those science-y types who are also crap at fighting, are also often skinny, wear thick glasses and have bad breath.
HE is the enemy: no, hold on, I mean the Greens are the enemy. No, hold on, they sort of ARE they enemy but not because everything they say is wrong, but it's so inefficicent and they're attacking the wrong targets so...if we attack THEM (the Greens) we can clear the field for our attack on the REAL enemy who is, er, The West (I think--I'm a bit confused; certainly the enemy is not "the powerful"--it must be some sub-set of "The powerful"): and we won't be using the rules of scale and perspective against them, oh no!
[Note to readers: this comment was written without any consideration for scale or perspective--not sure I've got the hang of it; I'm worried I haven't insulted the right people somehow. Just in case: bloody hippies! Kill the rich! We will fight them on the beaches! Don't believe a word they say. Swear a lot! Fucking hell!] Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
rightfully muted yet very firm criticism of Beijing with respect to liberty of expression and rights of man.
But she's also 100% correct that the proper avenue for this protext is in front of the Elysee palace and in Brussels. And not in the path of apolitical athletes. "C'est un scandale !"
Just as you seem intent on building a strawman out of "this entire site", "all the people here", "the editorial staff", all of whom you claim (or insinuate) are either pro-US, pro-Sarkozy, anti-Olympic ideals, suffused with religious fervour, Richard Gere groupies, and, in any case, out to hate you.
I wish you'd stop it. When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind
- Jake Ceterum censeo Chicago esse delendam
If all you see is some noble ideal and individuals striving for excellence, your eyesight is curiously selective. When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind
Whatever the opinions how political or commercial or blatantly ritualistic the Olympics have become, whatever the political alignment people want to affiliate themselves to voice their protest, whatever one feels about China's lacking progressiveness or equality or environmental policies - stay the fuck away from involving the athletes, in whatever shape, form, motivation, or action. It should not be their concern that China was chosen by the IOC. That's not what sport should be about. Full stop.
Imagine, if the PS politicking of these Olympics prompted the withdrawal of France from the games. (And their rhetoric goes in this direction...)
Now, put yourself in the shoes of athletes.
I know two members of the 1980 US Olympic team for cycling, one a very good friend. He's still not over it. "C'est un scandale !"
Also, this is often what sports is all about, but is this what the olympics are about ? In France, in many sports (and due to the reduction in national quotas in many sports) the decision as to who gets to participate is often subject to in-federation political fighting rather than actual performance... Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
