Ain’t the Olympics great? All the glitz! All the glamour! The
prestige and the glory! Wow! I’m over the moon about the
Olympics and really, really wish I could be part of the family.
Don’t you? Then again the mafia is often referred to as “The
Family”.
These two multinational organisations have many similarities.
Lots of hopefuls are groomed for their future places. The
never-could-bes are forgotten or rubbed out of the corporate
memory. Lots of men in suits have incomes from indeterminate
sources and the women are all glamorous and blinged to the max.
Both families are self contained units and occasionally, if they
can’t come to a mutually beneficial resolution, will engage in
tactics that border on the illegal. The family, like all others,
has those that seem to want to go their own way and those that
remain loyal, even if it means they look a little ‘slow’. After
all, honour before death and all that.
The Family has international connections and meets in secret
when it conducts its strategic planning and certainly isn’t
above a little graft and corruption to get its way. The Olympic
family engages in similar tactics but is funded from the public
purse. The Dons of the family do deals and have the power, so it
seems, to dictate public policy when their show rolls into town.
However, like The Family, the Olympic family is in dire need of
a make over. As its Dons go about their business of making sure
business is going well, it seems the proletariat has other ideas
and aren’t they getting in the way?
Watching the news the other night I was thinking the English
rugby teams should be recruiting from the ranks of the bobbys.
Those boys know how to crash tackle! Wham! Another civilian
bites the dust. By the time the torch got to France those whoosy
froggies got cold feet and left the torch in the bus rather than
face the crowds.
These images certainly got me thinking about the games. Nearly
all the commentators are saying the games are all about peace
and harmony. About spreading the good news of getting on
together and demonstrating the triumph of spirit and flesh over
time, gravity and opponents.
It seems though, that the rhetoric about peace and love and
getting on only applies to those in the family. As for the rest
of us, particularly those with a global conscience, we can go
jump – preferably out of the way of the torch.
The news the other night also got me thinking about the Rudd
apology. While I fully agree that, as a symbolic act, it touched
the hearts and souls of thousands, as a guide to what motivates
Kevin and the current crop of erstwhile leaders, it was a real
as Ray Martins toupee. Looks good on the tele but hides the
reality underneath.
You see, I have a problem reconciling the Kevin’s (Rudd and
Gosper) utterances regarding harmony and peace and getting on
with their refusal to say the words – or something similar to –
“China must get out of and stay out of Tibet NOW”. Instead we
get mealy mouthed bureaucratise about the need for everyone to
have a Bex and a good lie down.
It seems to me, as a total outsider, that the family is
concerned more about its own image and protecting its brand than
upholding the ideals it espouses. While condemning those who put
their bodies on the line for a cause such as human rights, they
roll out platitudes such as ‘remember the athletes’ or ‘politics
should be left to the politicians’.
All this sounds good but is totally meaningless. Rudd and his
ministers are showing their true colours. Their refusal to
condemn the Chinese and support, publicly, the Tibetan cause,
demonstrates that their hearts lie with business interests and
not the “ordinary” people.
If our leader is going to win the hearts and minds of “ordinary”
people he needs to show that he is really ‘one of us’. The
unfortunate reality is that he is not ‘one of us,’nor does he
want to be. A career bureaucrat with a multi-millionaire wife,
Kevin, I believe, is now the Alexander Downer of the Labor
Party. I think he truly believes that he was born to rule. Born
to rule a family business and part of that ruling means doing
deals with families from the ‘other side of the river’ – to
quote another famous Don.
I encourage anyone and everyone who can to get out when the
Olympic flame comes to town and do what you can to show that our
family, the family of “ordinary” people is a global family and
that when one of us hurts the rest of us hurt with them.
The Olympics can be great again but it will take “ordinary”
people to make it so. The games are political and it is politics
that can make the lives of “ordinary” people better.
So, good on ya’ if you can make it to Canberra and disrupt the
tax payer funded, celebrations of the corrupt Olympic family. We
may not prevent the games from going ahead and don’t think that
should be the aim. Rather the aim is to discredit, disgrace and
shame all whose only interest is fattening their bank accounts
while ignoring human rights and the dignity of those who are not
part of their family.