I flew over England yesterday. I have never seen it look greener. The rivers and reservoirs are bursting full and leaves hang in heavy abundance from the trees. As the plane climbed into the rain clouds above them was bright sunshine, a terse reminder of how the weather is simply a layer of temporary happening above a much larger area of permanence.
Down on the ground in London road workers are painting parts of roads with the Olympic rings. These signify special road lanes where ordinary Londoners will be prohibited from using durting the games, upon pain of fine. These special lanes are for the great and the good who are so important that they leave their Mayfair hotels to arrive at the Olympic site in a matter of minutes while those who have to work for a living spend five times longer travelling to their places of employment. Even the painting of the Olympic rings on the road delays the workers, as queues form behind the workman so engaged.
The ordinary Londoner, disconnected from the life of bankers and politicians, has become disconnected from the Olympic games being held in his own city. These are not the people’s games, but the games of the great and the good, the MacDonald Games, the games of big business and big greed, where the appearance of things, our national image, is giving priority over the actual condition of things. It is boastful without reason to be boastful, proud without humility and rich without generosity.
My plane did not fly over the games’ site, so I could not see the block of flats upon which rockets will be stationed to defend the beloved games and protect the great and the good. I could not hear the complaints of those delayed or inconvenienced by the games. Perhaps many voices have been stilled by the carrying of the Olympic torch around these islands, which seems to have been turned into an event and a money making enterprise.
And while all this happens the rain falls on the great and the good and the poor and the lost alike and I fly above it, snarling.
Filed under: climate change Tagged: | England, flying, London, olympic games, the great and the good, traffic lanes for Olympics
Such things are a pin for normal life where ever they are held damn them all I say
that should be Pain not pin Doh!
Unfortunately, the Olympic Games has never been without some controversy.
In the 1904 St Louis Games africans were made to compete in sports of which they had no comprehension. In 1936 Hitler also turned the Games into a white race supremacist Games.
This year history is not repeated. We will have “politically correct” Games.
This year Africans will dominate the “human” races.
But, they will compete and win in races for which they are genetically better suited.
However, the Olympics has moved on and “politically correct” is not good enough.
There is now yachting, rowing, tennis,volleyball, taekwando, wrestling, fencing, cycling etc etc. I am sure that there will be genetic advantages for a wide variety of races in these other sports. But some organisations will still be left out. Namely the Sponsors.
So, what if the Games included non-sport Games which could also provide urgently needed justification for the Games’ financial sponsors, I suggest:
(1) McDonalds burger eating?
(2) Heineken binge drinking?
(3) Visa interest rate rigging?
(4) Dow Chemicals’ “Dash from Bhopal”
I intend to boycot everything the games stands for, boycot their labels, boycot even radio talk of it even when its over.
I do intend of empowering myself by making something useful in the interim.
Head in my own clouds and a garden full of expensive vedge to be this year.
Goodness and savings and corporate stagnation on tap.