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It occured to me while watching the US Olympians taking medal after medal that their success is an example of what the US could and should be. These are individuals, who work damn hard, make sacrifices, and without any government program or politician to make them promises, they achieve personal greatness.
To add to the mix, you have US corporations supporting and sponsoring them, and their friends, family, and even total strangers rooting them on.
I think some folks might want to let that metaphor and example sink in a bit. It's a stark contrast to the way some think of the world.
It occurred to me that rather a lot of other people's money has gone into feeding, clothing, housing, training, and otherwise super-supporting a few people for four years, then flying them halfway around the world just so somebody could finish eighth in the 200 butterfly.
While there is no direct government support for USOC et al, every dollar contributed by individuals and corporations is subsidized as a tax write-off, and the substantial (and disproportionate) share of public college and university resources that athletes consume is also taxpayer-funded.
To set these people up as some sort of models of individual hard work and sacrifice seems a little far-fetched at best. Particularly if those models are then to be waved in the face of some single mother out there who would have the nerve to ask for a little help in the form of say subsidized childcare so that she could go off and get the training she needs in order to better support herself and her chidren.
It would seem to me that some people see what they want to see in these broadcasts, and not what's actually there...
As Sag implied, we all subsidize each other through direct payment or indirect tax relief. I always ask what the athletes do for a living while they are training 26 hours per day and what do they expect to do for a living after the show?
I see the Olympics as just another elaborate commercial advertizing orgy taking advantage of the nearly insane obsessive’s competing for the transient glory of an individual win. The Olympics started out as a trade show and has not changed all that much. What has changed is that economic competition and war is won by coordinated teams not glory crazed individuals. Achilles would survive about 5 seconds on a modern battlefield.
I see the Olympics as just another elaborate commercial advertizing orgy taking advantage of the nearly insane obsessive’s competing for the transient glory of an individual win.
Of course you do. Is there anyone left in America these days who values hard work and personal achievement and doesn't over analyze everything?
Note to GregW: Communism failed. Communism was the elimination of commercial enterprise, along with the downplaying of individual achievement and the glorification of the common purpose.
So what if the companies who helped support the athletes and the games advertise? So what if the athletes get endorsements? Capitalism is good. Making money is good. Individual achievement is good. Hard work is good. Winning is good.
neil -
This country is turning into a corporate autocracy where individual merit only rewards the corporation controlling the individual. All the good things you listed are pretty much irrelevant to success in this corporatized system. Success is dependant primarily on who were your parents, what schools you attended, what clubs you were in and most importantly who do you know. What you know and how hard you work are of less importance. There are way more brilliant graduates that, despite their vast knowledge and endless work, have never been as successful as a mediocre student with the right parents. Our current president is the poster child of my argument.
You believe the myth. Some of us see through it to the rigged game that actually exists.
Is there anyone left in America these days who values hard work and personal achievement and doesn't over analyze everything?
There are certainly many who place a high value on hard work and personal achievement. Look to low-income Americans as just one group among which nearly endless numbers of exemplars may be found.
There are certainly those as well who don't analyze at all. They are willing to take whatever is reported to them by annointed sources at face value. These are the people who were convinced that there were WMD in Iraq and that we would be in and out of there in 90 days. There are enough people out there trying to pull the wool over your eyes not to start engaging in the practice upon yourself.
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Originally Posted by neil0311
Note to GregW: Communism failed.
Depends how communism is defined. A great many people these days seem to define it as everything that is not laissez-faire free-market capitalism. At such a level, the claim is an absolute joke.
Quote:
Originally Posted by neil0311
So what if the companies who helped support the athletes and the games advertise? So what if the athletes get endorsements? Capitalism is good. Making money is good. Individual achievement is good. Hard work is good. Winning is good.
Fine, but as these athletes (like the rest of us) are able to succeed only by standing on the shoudlers of countless others, it doesn't make much sense to be holding them up as some sort of Norman Rockwell model for individual effort and sacrifice.
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Originally Posted by neil0311
What is this country turning into?
In many ways, a nation that is legally blind and believes that the little that it does see is all that's out there to be seen.
How about a nation of fearful people willing to blindly follow anyone that claims to be able to relieve their fear in this world or the next. Fear really is the mind killer.
How dare those evil corporations donate money to public citizens who would like to realize a dream while having talent to do so but not the financial means. Shame on them. They should just pay more taxes so even more fat, lazy, welfare queens can afford to buy a flat screen TV.
No- the corporations should continue to but Gulfstream Airplanes as a tax deductable corporate expense so their corporate offices are not embarrassed by flying first class on a common airline. We pay the taxes not collected to help pay for this indulgence. If an individual or a corporation wants to support an athlete they may give all they want but I do not want the money to be a tax deduction.
Last edited by GregW; 08-15-2008 at 08:40 AM..
Reason: added text
The individuals do work damn hard and make sacrifices, but as others have pointed out their achievements wouldn't be possible without the hard work and sacrifices made by those around them. Phelps needed parents that paid for his swimming lessons and found the time to get him to his lessons, and for paying the mortgage and putting copious amounts of food on the table for him, for example. Phelps went to public schools and a state university, both funded by the taxpayers. If you want to look closely, some one sits in a control room at 3:00 in the morning to make sure that the Phelp's home has power and water (along with all of the other residents of his community). Another guy collects the garbage from their house, and someone else regulates the bank where the Phelps family saves their money to use to fund his trips and training.
The Olympic athletes are remarkable at what they do, but to me the glory of the US is in the way many people come together to help others reach their full potential. It is the reason we pay our taxes to support the schools, community centers and public pools where at least some of the Olympians first discovered their talent.
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