Wasn't sure about posting this, but its been on my mind for days now and wont leave me alone, so I guess that's a 'yes'.
Main Olympics are over, and everybody is quite rightly heaping plaudits on those who made it happen, with special applause for those who volunteered, and people who went out of their way to be nice, polite, funny, helpful. I take my hat off to every last one of them and thank them for making the Olympics and, vicariously, Great Britain, shine in the eyes of the world.
And then I think of the unions who stood there with their hands out, driven by blind greed and political leverage, trying their damnedest to bully us into doing what they wanted by threatening to make the Olympics and, vicariously, Great Britain, an utter shambles and disgrace, and to humiliate us in the eyes of the world.
I hope they are ashamed by the examples of others. I hope their membership is ashamed. I doubt it. Greed and politics are powerful motivators, and these days it seems much more so than pride.
I found it hard to get past the SAM emplacements on civilian residences and the armed soldiers on the streets. Once you saw that, you realised just how much the IOC had control over people's lives, like a very invited invader, and suddenly the stars and medals and shiny shiny fireworks meant as much as the big displays they put on in North Korea for the Beloved Leader, or the parades in Rome that they'd lay out for their living God Caesar.
ReplyDeleteAnd indeed for the Leni Riefenstahl grandstanding and torchlight processions in the 30s.
Always good to get another viewpoint
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