Have you noticed the tsunami of bad press around all things Brazilian recently? From government corruption to gang rapes to the Zika virus, things are just going from bad to worse. Just in time for the Olympics.
Olympic Games have become a complete boondoggle. They're vanity projects for the political types who champion them. They're a windfall for the contractors who build the facilities. They're a showcase that allow a few international brands to bask in a vastly subsidized spotlight for a couple of weeks.
While it's true that the Games will permit a few genetically engineered freaks to convert their gold medals into membership in the realm of the beautiful people, it seems to me that they are otherwise devoid of meaningful impact on humanity at large. In fact the opposite is true. The host city typically displaces tens of thousands of ordinary people to build their "world class" facilities. Those are the people who for the most part couldn't afford to attend any events even if they were so inclined, but they'll be expected pay off the deficit for decades after the party is over.
I remember sitting in the (unfinished) Olympic stadium in Montreal in '76 for the gold medal soccer game. All I could think about was what a fantasmagorical waste of money the stadium was. It eventually blew through its original cost estimates ten times over and took thirty years to pay off. For that kind of money you could build a multi-use sports complex in every city, town, village, hamlet, and Indian reservation in the land.
Now THAT might have had some benefits!
Hopefully the bad press will build to a crescendo this summer, and the entire Olympic Games scam will be so thoroughly discredited that we'll never have to endure this fraudulent spectacle again.
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