I just want to give a quick rant about something has been on my minds lately.

Anyone half-paying attention to Japan would be aware that there is a big movement against the Tokyo Olympics. According to the Western coverage, this is because Japanese are worrying that the event would only worsen the pandemic. This coverage is true, but it's not enough.

The anti-Tokyo Olympics movement has been there for years, before the pandemic. Back then and now one of their strongest motivation is fighting the gentrification and mistreatment of poor families and homeless people. This is not something that happen just to Japan, but in California and Greece and London too. People all over the world should know that the Olympics is an excuse for rich people to push poor people out of their view and net themselves a neat profit through property development.

International media agencies are being too lazy and incompetence, blinded by their ideology, or both to give the full picture of the situation. Many Japanese activists are fighting days and nights to protect poor people in a countries increasingly turning their backs on them. They have tried to make their plights international, and even have some successes in connecting with the movements in the West. But there is still not enough people know this, and I suspect they won't if this kind of half-hearted coverage continues.

(If you guys want to read some more about the anti-Tokyo Olympics movement, I recommend checking this out first: https://throwoutyourbooks.wordpress.com/tag/2020-olympics-protests/)

  • 1267 [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I was doing my morning masochism and watching Morning Joe a while back and Willie Geist briefly mentioned the opposition there, and noted NBC's obvious conflict of interest in that story due to them covering the Olympics, and then just masterfully slid into "but that's not the only reason we want the games to go on!"

    :farquaad-point: he's manufacturing consent!

  • DasKarlBarx [he/him,comrade/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Thanks for sharing this it's a really good point.

    You see similar in the coverage (or lack thereof) of the NOlympics movement in LA. It sucks.

    • Sacred_Excrement [comrade/them]
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      Yes, I think this is what brought it into the forefront (for a time), even to reddit chodes. There was an overhead picture I recall of one of the gaudy stadiums being built, directly adjacent to a favela (part of which had been demolished, the rest of which was presumably to follow)

  • DirtbagVegan [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Resistance to the Olympics being ignored by the media is nothing new. This has been the story for every olympics site in recent memory and they're going to leave behind decaying stadiums that will see little use in the future.

    Some smart guy should write a book about what the media chooses to cover. :chomsky-yes-honey:

  • PM_ME_YOUR_FOUCAULTS [he/him, they/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    Struggle Session just did an interview with anti-Olympics organizers: https://m.soundcloud.com/strugglesesh/tokyo-olympics-202x-w-nolympics

    They're LA focused, but they've been working with activists in Tokyo