2004 Summer Olympics

If I had 25 BILLION dollars, I'd buy the world's largest rice krispie square. Why not ask him?

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Whiles, like a doe, I go to find my fawn
And give it food. There is an old poor man,
Who after me hath many a weary step
Limp’d in pure love: till he be first suffic’d,
Oppress’d with two weak evils, age and hunger.
As You Like It (2.7.138)

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A most poor man, made tame to fortune’s blows;
Who, by the art of known and feeling sorrows,
Am pregnant to good pity.
King Lear (4.6.216)

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Poor naked wretches, wheresoe’er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your loop’d and window’d raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these? O! I have ta’en
Too little care of this. Take physic, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them,
And show the heavens more just.
King Lear (3.4.33)

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I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse:
borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable.
2 Henry IV (1.2.74)

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My favorite quote about the poor?

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A poor man shames us all

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You may be surprised to know that it is not a typical american saying. And if this thread has any merit, it doesn't seem to be a typical British saying either.Edited by dronester, : added comment

Not the least bit surprised, unfortunately. If the money didn't go to the Olympics it would likely go to something equally or more "frivolous". How much of it would you give to the poor?Edited by ringo, : New, improved subtitle.

Well, as Mod wrote, at least it isn't 24 BILLION pounds that went into the military. ('cept for the missiles that were placed on the rooftops. I am sooo depressed). As a gluten sufferer, I'd be obliged to give it all.

I was paying attention. I was mocking you for bringing up Dow at every opportunity you could, and that your bringing it up in that sub-discussion was really forced.You asked me about the suffering of human experience, I answered, you responded by questioning why I was making those points and complaining about Dow. I already got that point a long time ago. Remember, Message 52?

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If you had just said 'The Olympics was a big waste of money the UK government didn't have to waste.', I probably wouldn't have responded.

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Oh, I see.Since you were pretty thorough in your original post in this thread, yet failed to reply about this specific item, I thought it an INNOCENT mistake and I then went about repeating the item. But it seems that you just confirmed that my generous benefit-of-the-doubt was actually being met with on-going intentional disregard and finally, derision.Boy, do I look silly. And yet, you did respond. Many times. Including your posts, there were well over 50 messages made after my original post. In addition you wrote words that, in effect, were opposite to your stance above:Message 88 of 94 Message 88
Message 80 of 94 Message 80
Message 60 of 94 Message 60
Message 52 of 94 Message 52

hey Ringo,I've been doing some calculations. Using a 24 BILLION dollar budget, I've pictorially reconstructed the approximate size of a Rice Krispie Square . . . Similar to the defense-capabilities of the London Olympic's missiles, this one also includes a death ray.

I simply didn't have anything to do add regarding sponsorship or the Dow issue that I thought you didn't already know or think. But I think I'm still justified in laughing that you insist on crowbarring it as many sub-discussions as you can. That's right - which is because you didn't just say 'The Olympics was a big waste of money the UK government didn't have to waste.. My stance was that if you had presented that as your stance alone, I would not have bothered responding. My stance was not that the Olympics were a big waste. But let's imagine that it was:

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I think the voters of Britain, on the whole, were prepared to pay a considerable amount for the Olympics.

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I think voters can be prepared to waste money.

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I'd like to see the Olympics pay for itself, regardless of its overall costs

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The Olympics as they currently stand don't presently pay for itself, which is not the opposite of the position that the Olympics are a waste. It just means the Olympics presently cost money to host. Whether that cost is a waste or not is not addressed by this.

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That wasn't the only value in the Olympic games - there was all the buildings built, and infrastructure improvements, and the sport itself, of course.

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That's right, I don't think the money spent is 100% wasted, there is something to show for the money spent. Is some money wasted? Probably, its almost an inevitability of projects that some money will be wasted.Now, if we're in the middle of a human extinction event, with sea levels rising and other major climate issues, then I'd agree we should probably call a pause on the Olympics unless they pay for themselves/can turn a profit or if private fund-raising can pay for the shortfall. And even then, I'd question the wisdom of funding such an event in many instances.What's your solution, by the way? Insist that host nations use existing venues? Insist on a spending limit? Insist on there being some kind of referendum to determine Olympic spending budget that the populace is prepared to pay? What (net) amount do you think the British people would consider acceptable for the Olympics to cost?

Do you still think we should cancel the Olympics?Do you think any other sporting/cultural events should also be cancelled because they don't "server the impoverished"....?

No, you had at least three options. The first two are used when showing respect on a debate forum:1. When you replied to my original list, you could have simply wrote: "5. agreed".
2. After you seen me "crowbarring" the DOW example for the second time, you could have wrote "No need to keep crowbaring, I acknowledge your item and agree"
3. You act like a discourteous jerk and refrain from ever acknowledging the item until you can also mock. Kudos Mod, Kudos. Still forcing this into a binary problem I see. If you were paying attention, something that Rrhain badgers you about (yes, another instance of "crowbarring"), you would know that I don't think this is an all or nothing problem. I haven't read such backhanded gibberish since the release of the Boy Scout addendum on knife usage: "Don't do as Donny Dont Does."Instead of me trying to make sense of your non-answers and your imaginary answers, here's my original list for a third time. Note our opinions and then maybe the solution(s) will be clearer. I specifically asked Brit participants to just reply about the last six items:1. It promotes nationalism/patriotism, a hateful discriminating tool which helps divide humanity.
All the while you mock me with disdain, you say no.
2. it promotes consumerism by linking corporations directly to the games.
You didn't reply.
3. it promotes hypocrisy of the performers who shroud themselves in their country's colours when they are really performing for future marketability
You didn't reply.
4. The vast costs for buildings, security and ceremony can be much better used for humanitarian causes.
You said that that excuse can be applied to all things. I replied that when Britain is in an economic recession where vast amounts of people may be laid off from work, there is less wiggle room for luxury items.
5. They direct the "liberal" media to dutifully hide injustices. China's abuse/repression of Tibet, Vancouver's poor/slums, etc
You didn't reply.
6. In China, many old Hutongs (neighborhoods/communities), occupied for many many generations were destroyed so new olympic buildings could be built.
You replied that MOST of the Brits who were displaced have found permanent housing.
7. Unused white elephants (in the shape of billion dollar stadiums and related buildings) sit unused after the games.
Straggler mentioned they are using the BILLIONS dollar stadium for the paralympics. Next week the Shriner's circus will rent the facilities. Wonderful, glad to see the BILLIONS dollar facility, built for a global audience, is not going to waste.
8. Security opportunities for elites/authorities to push though laws/regulations that will allow human right violations.
You said it is possible the law can be interpreted too broadly and cause civil liberty violations.1. Missiles placed on rooftops throughout the city. Really, are most of you OK with this? Really?
You said no. This is a deal-breaker for me. I don't want any uplifting human experience if the military has to construct a missile defense system on my roof. Period.
2. Exploited workers: bus drivers who had to strike because of unfair rider increases.
You corrected me, the drivers did not actually go on strike. But they were placated with more money.
3. "Dispersal Zones," police have power to tell any group of two or more people to move on. Really?
You said it is possible the law can be interpreted too broadly and cause civil liberty violations.
4. Misplaced economic aid as historic and popular Herne Hill stays closed and in disrepair.
You didn't know about, didn't reply. Again, I should think Britian could use SOME of the money for more pressing social problems.
5. Although Olympic organizers are bragging about environmentally friendly 'Green Games,' its sponsors include BP who inflicted massive oil spills, and Dow Chemicals, makers of such fine products as napalm and linked to the Bhopal disaster.
Using a crowbar, and all my strength, it was ultimately revealed that you apparently agree with me.
6. How well has the British media portrayed ANY of the above negative stories? Or has the British media been nearly all one-sided/pro-olympics/pro-corporate, like the american counterparts?
You replied, "haven't noticed." I should think some things are non-negotiable:
1. Missiles on civilian's roofs. What percentage of Brits agreed to that? Would YOU ever agree to that?
2. Creating civil right violations, upholding human right violations. During the Chinese Olympics, every news and sports media dutifully self-censored the violence and oppression in Tibet. How uplifting were the people of Tibet's human experience during the olympics? Scanners, car-number-plate and facial-recognition CCTV systems, biometric ID cards, disease tracking systems, new police control centers, and checkpoints. These items will surely be abused.
3. "evil" sponsors. BP? DOW? How about the makers of Zyklon B Gas, would you mind if they were a proud sponsor of your olympics too?The following IS a negotiable item:
1. Cost. Sure, if the majority of Brits, during harsh recessionary times, wants/votes to mortgage their future's economy, layoff health workers, by all means pay 100 TRILLION pounds to see which global participant can skip the quickest. That uplifting human experience must be truly worth it, eh? Seriously, I think it should be balanced (not cancelled) against other pressing needs. IMO, the London olympics were not.

Very droll Straggler, very droll.If only you had asked me why I want the american embassy in Iraq removed.

Well I could ask you that. And I suspect you and I would aree on much of your answer. But that has little, if anything, to do with whether we should cancel the Olympics or not. Without any intention of "drollness" (well any more than I ever intend) I ask again:Do you still think we should cancel the Olympics?Do you think any other sporting/cultural events should also be cancelled because they don't "serve the impoverished"....?

Well that's some interesting framing. I'm sorry you see it that way. From my perspective you raised a point. It was a point that I have a complicated series of reactions to, but very little in the way of being particularly informed about the issues I feel I would need to be. So I decided not to comment. Saying that 'I agree' would be dishonest.But I noticed you raise the Dow point previously when the discussion was of things unrelated to the Dow point, so I called you on it. I wasn't being mean-spirited, nasty or I thought, particularly discourteous.All I said was the rather simple

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I see you managed to somehow work Dow into the argument from out the left field there.

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Which I think you rather mean-spiretedly responded

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If you were paying attention, something Rrhain seems to badger you about

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Nope. And I'm being a jerk?I never said that you thought this was an all or nothing problem. What I was saying was, that I agree we should not waste money on the Olympics, under certain circumstances. I listed one extreme one that I thought we could be both agree with without controversy.That was one of your points, right? That we shouldn't be paying that kind of expense when we're not in great financial shape or even perhaps when some other pressing spending need is in play. Yep - you are the polite one, around here. I'm the big jerk.I don't see the need for you to post the list again. I have no idea what the numbers were. From public reaction in the media, not many it seems. I wouldn't agree to that unless we were under threat of invasion or something.But I asked for your solution. How do you propose to make this work? Do you propose the IOC mandate no missiles on roofs? We can't really do much if another host nation wants to put missiles on the roof can we? Well of course, but I think there are things in place about that already. I don't see what can be done to make it work better in the case of an Olympic host nation. I suppose we could bar nations with questionable human rights records or something. Is that your solution? Of course we could get into an interesting discussion about the positive effects the Chinese had on the Tibetan's human experience - but that would be way off topic How would this work? Are you suggesting an ethics committee that decides if a potential sponsor is 'evil', and denies them the capacity to sponsor the Olympics? But how do you solve the problem of cost? Do you suggest the IOC only awards to the host nation that can show a majority of its people are signed up to the cost ?I'm pretty sure the British public were largely for the Olympics, but I don't think I've seen any particularly good surveys, just dodgy newspaper polls and things. I'm pretty sure we'd not be happy with 100 trillion, but I think the initial estimate was 2.5billion. Whether the British public will change their opinion when they learn the final costs remains to be seen.

So now at this very late stage of discussion, I find I was not even correct about your ongoing deliberately omitted stance. Can you NOW see how not answering a repeated point can lead to confusion, frustration and misunderstanding? A simple reply: "5. Not sure" would have saved a lot of time and aggravation. Or how difficult was it to type your dubious words above in your original reply? That you needed to further escalate my frustration with mocking me instead of just simply stating, "not sure" is beyond me. However, since your actions were deliberate omittance but not "lack of paying attention," I'll fully apologize for my Rrhain comments. They were wrong and jerk-like. You believe REPEATEDLY avoiding an opponents direct point while declaring their actions mockable isn't being discourteous? Well, this seems a rather obvious point. But it does seem that Straggler is having some difficulty with this. Yes, I think that may have been ONE of my points I have written several times. Perhaps there was SOME jerkiness to my reply which I'll apologize for, but it was MOSTLY meant as a joke. "Don't do as Donny Dont Does" is a humorous reference to your using nearly double negatives in statements which, collectively with your omitted stances, haven't been helping to clarify your position. Wonderful. Do you seen how communicating that with me helps forward our discussion? It will also decrease sass up to 98% in future communications. Thanks, but you've already gave me your answer, "no" in your original reply, no need to expand your thoughts on this item. The olympics need not be cancelled. However, if ANY (including the British) government is unresponsive to the people's best interests, then the games and particularly the sponsors should be boycotted. I would love to see a brand new BILLIONS pound stadium with unfilled seats. Nothing gets the attention of the government or corporations like massive embarrassment or lost profits. I really don't know why anyone would deliberately patronize unlimited resources for militarization. IMO, the uplifting human experience in awarding the globe's fastest tumbler is secondary to opposing missiles on the roofs. The olympics need not be cancelled. I've already stated, the human rights violator is in a perfect position to be exposed by the media. Instead, China had the media dutifully avoiding the on-going violence in Tibet. Perhaps, this year, the British should have been thrashed for its recent arrest plan of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange by invading the Ecuadorean embassy. IMO, the uplifting human experience in awarding the globe's quickest skipper is secondary to appeasing a human rights or international law violator. Is this your dark humor again? I am slow, but I do eventually catch on. (But just in case, you are aware of monks currently committing fire self-immolation, ongoing human rights violations, and violence in Tibet, right?) The olympics need not be cancelled. However, if the government is unresponsive to the people's best interests, then the games and particularly the sponsors should be boycotted. I would love to see a brand new BILLIONS pound stadium with unfilled seats. Can you imagine the global embarrassment? Anyways, I really don't know why anyone would deliberately patronize the maker of Zyklon B gas. IMO, the uplifting human experience in awarding the globe's highest tumbler should have been secondary to opposing DOW's or BP's catastrophic environmental policies. I think I already answered this: The olympics need not be cancelled. First, ALL the olympic costs listed in my original post (not just the monetary costs or the few you highlighted in your last post) should be accurately presented to the public by a public funded media, such as the good ol' BBC. Then, if the majority of Brits, during harsh recessionary times, wants/votes to mortgage their future's economy, layoff health workers, wants to pay 100 TRILLION pounds to see which global participant can skip the quickest, then who am I to put a limit on the British's uplifting human experience in this very valuable global competition.

Yes, I see how you became frustrated -I hope you also see that I'm not obligated to respond to every point or question you raise. And that the assumption that I'm not paying attention as a result of my non-response is hasty and, in this case caused you much more frustration than it needed to. If you were frustrated that I wasn't paying attention to your Dow argument, you should have just said so. Trying to insert Dow into various un-related sub-discussions just looks silly, so I mocked it. It wasn't extreme mockery, it wasn't heavy ridicule. It was rather mild, right? No, but that wasn't your 'direct point' it was one of several points you were making to your direct point that there are ethical issues regarding the Olympics. I didn't REPEATEDLY avoid the Dow issue. Look, I've only made 10 posts to this thread (11 including this one).I didn't address it in Message 38. That was 'avoiding' that point.In Message 48, I'm responding to your post which didn't include reference to Dow.I 'avoided' it in Message 52The post I was responding to in Message 60 does not reference Dow.The same applies to Message 76And it applies to Message 80And in Message 88 I point out your attempts to get Dow into multiple sub-discussions.I only 'repeated' my 'avoidance' once. In my culture, mild piss taking is part of male bonding - its a sign of friendship. Maybe its different for you, but I did not intend for it to be discourteous. Yes it was a rather obvious point, which is why I was surprised that I got berated over it. I'm not Straggler, so I'm not sure what you want me to say about your discussion problems with him. Indeed - when I say that you raised a point in somewhat out of context fashion, I'm being a discourteous jerk - when you call my writing 'backhanded gibberish' and that you were having some difficulty 'trying to make sense of {my} non-answers'. that's clearly mostly a joke with some admitted elements of jerkiness.But yes, apology accepted. No, I don't see how communicating that helps forward our discussion. But if you feel it does, I suppose that's something. I wish you the best of luck if you want to organise something like that, but I suspect it won't work. There are more people that want to go to the Olympics than who actually go - so you'll need to convince many many people to not get tickets. I seem to remember human rights issues of China being brought up by the British media, don't know about yours. My memory of the events puts that arrest plan as occurring a few days after the Olympics, after Ecuador announced they would be granting Asylum. You listed some of the negative effects the Chinese have had on the Tibetan human experience. I didn't deny such effects existed. I affirmed that positive effects exist. As a more or less random example, schools, for some other examples here is a random news article that discusses some others. Zyklon B is still made today, it has perfectly legitimate uses (ie., pest control).The company that made Zyklon B for the Final Solution still exists, though it was bought by a larger company, it is now operating under the name Detia Degesch. Was it an Olympic sponsor? I don't see any compelling reason to prevent them bidding for sponsorship, if that's what they want to do. How should this be mandated, though? Should the IOC insist that this occurs before they award the Olympics to a nation? As far as I can tell the Olympic bid for process for London started in 1997, and we were awarded with it in 2005. The economy was pretty good then. And I think support for the idea with the British public was about 70% Source

I understand that you are not under any obligation except the rules of the forum in which you as a moderator should uphold more than others. Treating others with respect by mocking them seems to be in opposition to the rules, no matter how "lightly" you insist on laughing. OTOH, if this was really an attempt at "male bonding - a sign of friendship," then I wish I would have considered that originally. Since I still don't know your stance about my Dow corporation point, I don't know why you think you've finally addressed it with this: Huh?_____________________________________________________________________________________________ Alas, I concede it would be an exercise in futility. Alas, I remain doubtful that enough others share my disgust in matters of social inequality. Just one article wouldn't change or educate too many minds. And I doubt sponsors, whom many have factories in China, would have been keen on that type of negative reporting during the China olympics. Correct. Then how about pressuring the public to put war-criminal Tony Blair in jail? If not, as a resident I am sure you could use the awesome advertising potential of the olympics to improve some inequity of England, take your pick, I don't think you've achieved Xanadu quite yet. You may have not fully read your example of positive effects:

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Many Tibetans chafe under Chinese rule and believe that a sharp influx in central Chinese investment primarily benefits Han Chinese migrants. Tensions bubbled over into torrid violence in 2008 across Tibetan parts of China.

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Reuters | Breaking International News & ViewsThis type of funding was also largely condemned in western China, Xinjiang, by the Uyghur culture when I visited there during 2010 which also erupted in violence. The things I learn on this forum! But my point still stands about Dow and BP. Why should it be mandated? The publicly funded BBC is the supposed guardian of the people. I should think they would welcome the opportunity to educate the masses. Then perhaps it is an exceptionally bad gamble to make for the future when such a large sum of money is required.Ok, can I have a simple Yes or No conclusion? As a British citizen, were the costs, as identified in my original post (I understand you didn't accept them all), of hosting the 2012 olympics worth it? I am curious, this question is not just for Mod.