Friday, August 8, 2008

Not just a case of friendly competition

My awareness of what it took to make the Olympic spectacular in Beijing makes me infuriated. In order to build the 12 (yes 12) new stadiums and arenas in Olympic village downtown, 1.5 million people were forcibly evicted from their homes. Also, in order to keep the 40 million flowers alive for the games, the local rice farmers are unable to have a crop this year, as their water was completely re-routed to the millions of flowers in Beijing. Is this really worth it for two weeks of summer games??

8 comments:

Antigone said...

And that's just the tip of the iceberg

Duffy said...

I already had such a bad taste in my mouth about these games - the more I find out the more I just want to wretch.

Phoebe said...

That sucks because I really love the spirit of the Olympics.

Amy said...

I kept thinking those same things as I watched the opening ceremony. Everytime the announcer spoke of how proud and inspired the Chinese people must be, I wondered how they were really feeling.

Sushilover said...

That is absolutely ridiculous! The games will be long gone and society will still be paying for this! Not worth it all...it makes me mad that countries like this even agree to having the games.

Jamie said...

During the opening ceremony, I noticed how often they featured the Chinese symbol for 'harmony.' I couldn't help but think how ironic that was.

Denise said...

I have such mixed feelings about this olympics. There just seems to be so much irony surrounding everything.

nancy said...

I've completely boycotted the olympics this year because of all the injustice.