The Salt Lake games cost taxpayers 1.5 times the amount spent on the previous seven Olympics held in the U.S. — combined. While some money went to security, much of it was spent on infrastructure and “questionable projects of marginal value to the Salt Lake games.” Mother Jones reports that the taxpayer money was something of a slush fund for wealthy donors:
Wealthy Utahns used the games as an excuse to receive exemptions for projects that would otherwise never meet environmental standards, or to receive generous subsidies for improvements of questionable value to the games—but with serious value to future real estate developments. In one example, a wealthy developer received $3 million to build a three-mile stretch of road through his resort. Where’d he get the money? Federal funds that had been deposited in the Utah Permanent Community Impact Fund.
Indeed, Mitt Romney was so eager to get “free stuff” and other things from the government that he even became a registered lobbyist. It appears that Romney may have been lobbying some of the same legislators to whom he was giving thousands in campaign cash.
On May 1, 2018, former national team member Sabrina Vega also accused Nassar of sexual abuse, claiming she was abused hundreds of times, beginning when she was 12. In August 2018, UCLA gymnasts and 2012 and 2016 Olympians Kyla Ross and Madison Kocian came forward as victims of Nassar. The following month, Alabama Crimson Tide gymnasts Bailie Key and Amanda Jetter also came forward with accusations against Nassar.[47] In October, Tasha Schwikert, a member of the 2000 US Olympics team, came forward as a victim and claimed that Steve Penny pressed her to publicly support USA Gymnastics at the height of the Nassar scandal. In November, Florida Gators gymnasts Kennedy Baker and Baumann made public allegations against Nassar; Baker said she was abused during the 2012 Olympic Trials.
Our relentless campaigns got the Tokyo 2020 organizers to disclose how much tropical wood they’ve been using to construct the Olympic venues, and we were shocked to find out that over 170,000 massive sheets of plywood made from tropical rainforests had been used as of the end of November 2018, mostly to construct their brand new Olympic Stadium. In fact, almost every new venue being built for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics — aside from the new archery field — was built with tropical plywood either from Malaysia or Indonesia.
Last fall, investigations with our partners— TuK INDONESIA and WALHI — exposed how one major Olympic wood supplier — Korindo — had a history of cutting down rainforest in some of the most diverse tropical ecosystems in the world and was illegally grabbing community land. We traced Korindo wood from the Olympic construction site in Tokyo all the way to the pristine rainforests of Indonesia that were being clear cut for palm oil. We even caught Korindo sourcing wood from the habitat of critically endangered Orangutans in Borneo. This was unsustainable sourcing at its worst. See our video below.
Lima is a lead prosecutor on a task force that discovered a cartel of engineering firms siphoning kickbacks from state oil firm Petrobras PETR4.SA to political parties, a scandal fuelling a crisis that could force President Dilma Rousseff from power.
His comments were the clearest indication yet that the Olympics has become a focus of the two-year-old investigation. The corruption allegations are not expected to hinder work on infrastructure for the Games, which is nearly finished, but they do further cloud an event set to start in the middle of Brazil’s worst political and economic crises in decades.
The lower house of Brazil’s Congress, many of whose members are themselves under investigation for corruption, voted on Sunday to impeach Rousseff on charges she manipulated budget accounts.
This is only the tip of the iceberg, too. The Olympics are so bad even my lib ass poli sci classes in uni would talk about them being terrible for literally everyone but their big brand supporters
Imagine cutting away from a field hockey tournament and listening to Bob Costa drone on for an hour about how brave some gymnast's mom is for turning her daughter over to a known pedophile, and calling that fun.
Abolish the Olympic Games.
They're a corporate money-grab, a hive of abuse and pedophilia, and part of the neoliberal spectacle papering over the nightmare of global capitalism.
Getting the US out of the Olympic Games would be nothing but good for everyone involved, even if we did it for the wrong reasons.
Nah the Olympics are cool
the idea of an international sporting competition is cool
but the Olympics are a fucking sham
https://www.americanprogressaction.org/progress-reports/a-gold-medal-in-outsourcing/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_Gymnastics_sex_abuse_scandal
https://www.ran.org/the-understory/olympic-timber-scandal/
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-olympics-rio-corruption-exclusive/exclusive-more-olympic-projects-under-investigation-for-corruption-prosecutor-idUSKCN0XG2GR
Good fucking comment, should be it's own post.
Good ass post.
This is only the tip of the iceberg, too. The Olympics are so bad even my lib ass poli sci classes in uni would talk about them being terrible for literally everyone but their big brand supporters
Abolish fun
Imagine cutting away from a field hockey tournament and listening to Bob Costa drone on for an hour about how brave some gymnast's mom is for turning her daughter over to a known pedophile, and calling that fun.
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All the fun you need is cleaning your SKS in a swamp