So, what's the deal with this?
I understand that the Olympics themselves are a monumental event, with a multi-billion dollar budget, which essentially interrupts/disrupts an entire metropolis for a month. I get it. I understand the hassles, the potential for excess and waste of money. I have friends that live in Vancouver, and believe me, they've voices their opinions about the situation and how it will adversly affect their own lives. Hell, my friend working as a game programmer will be working on a "show up if you can" basis just simply due to the influx of people into the area. I understand why people may want to protest this event, especially since there's better ways to spend that massive sum of cash in this day and age of recession and governmental budget shortcomings.
But, lets look at some facts in this situation:
1. The Olympics were bid on YEARS ago. Vancouver was awarded the Olympics in.. I want to say 2003, probably 2004 or 2005. Regardless of my somewhat incomplete memory (lol, I remember where I was when I watched the webcast, but not when it was.. ) my point here is that the economic climate was 100% different. The economy was booming, things were stable (well, more or less... definitely a better economic situation than now). From then till now, things have gone fairly badly. Its not really fair to start making the arguement that the money should be spent elsewhere, or that things should be scaled back. When VANOC bid, they had to submit detailed paperwork about how money will be spent, the scale of projects, venues to be constructed, etc. From writing and helping to write grants for research, I can understand how detailed this will get. On top of that, those agreements are BINDING, so protesting about something that cannot be changed.. period.. is kind of silly. (That didn't stop Mike Hudema.. go back to Bejing, you moron.). Do you think that VANOC is prepared to be branded "those people" for changing/cancelling the Olympics? Wow. Do you understand the personal, legal, societal, national and international implications of what you're suggesting? Apparently not. Given recent events (Iran announcing to the world "WE GOT NUKES!" and Israel's track record with "diplomacy") we're almost assured some sort of Middle East conflict, perhaps a world war. Awesome. I'm not saying an Olympics where these countries are not even going to be involved will even scratch the surface in solving these problems, but a little "world-unity" isn't a bad thing.
Oh, and VANOC announcing that they're already running a balanced budget before the games is icing on the cake for me and this point. They haven't opened the doors, and they've paid for all the venues and costs up to this point. Holy hell. They haven't seen one cent of actual concession, souvenir and random non-variable money flow in yet. I heard a news story that predicted millions of PROFIT if the economic downturn didn't occur. If any government was run as well as VANOC financially, we'd all be much happier.
2. There has been a fairly large outcry about the environmental impact of the new venues, roads, facilities and what have you. Fine. I can understand if the projects were done in a non-sustainable way. From what I've heard, the majority of the new venues are ULTRA-sustainable, and go as far as collecting rainwater for use in toilets. In addition, consider the quality of life legacy that this will leave in the long run. New recreational facilities, new mass transit, better roads, etc. Yes, maybe money better spent feeding Haiti for a week.. So, a two week event planned for probably close to a decade leaving a legacy of infrastructure for Vancouver is a bad thing? If I had the time, I could probably dig for sustainable building methods that were DEVELOPED for producing these venues. I'm sure we'll hear more than enough about this with the filler material between events.
So, I guess my real problem with people protesting the Olympics is more or less the complete and utter lack of focus and priorities. I don't get it. Lets protest an event that ends up having more positive outcomes than negative ones. Could it be that the professional activists suddenly felt that the Olympics were as big of a target as the WTO for protests? Wow. That's kinda sad. I know you're arts degrees were painful with all the free time you had to waste between "classes" but yeah, issues with priorities?
I don't know, if I had the time to protest something, it would be Iran VS Israel, not the Olympics. Something that actually would have a signifigant negative worldwide effect, not something that brings people from around the world together for a month. There's got to be something more important to protest about. But hey, I'm not the one with a degree in Philosophy, so I guess this isn't my field.
The one thing I do know, however, is that Mukmuk will destroy the protesters.
BEHOLD MUKMUK AND HIS GLORY!
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