Just hours before Friday’s opening ceremony for the 2024 Summer Olympics, a series of apparently coordinated arson attacks were reported on France’s high-speed rail network. No one has claimed responsibility yet. Before the games, protests highlighted the displacement of thousands of migrants, unhoused people and other vulnerable communities as “social cleansing.” We go to Paris for an update with Jules Boykoff, former professional soccer player, author and scholar focusing on the Olympic Games, and Paul Alauzy, Paris-based activist with the collective Revers de la Médaille (Other Side of the Medal). “We are not anti-Olympics,” says Alauzy. “You can support the games, but you need to know that they have a big social impact and they come with a cost. And they come with a cost of the lives of hundreds, thousands of people being mistreated.” We also discuss how Palestinian athletes are taking part in this year’s Olympics amid the Israeli war on Gaza, the health risks of competing during rising heat and COVID, the environmental impact of major sporting events and more.
    • BearOfaTimeEnglish
      3·
      4 months ago

      Funny, I said the same thing elsewhere in fewer words and boy did it piss people off! Lol

      I’ve been around long enough to have seen the bullshit of the Olympics many times. It’s a money grab at this point, and has been my entire life. The athletes are amazing, it’s the rest that’s crap.

      This has been true for probably most of the 20th century.

      It pretty well exemplifies how the world runs - power brokers at every level “suffer for their own ambition”, which effectively equates to us plebes being used by them, while being told not to believe our own eyes.