The Olympics are used to upgrade police states!

[Joanne98]

I lived in LA during the Olympics and that's how we got the battering ram! People are still mad about that. It was bad enough that we had one of the most evil police forces in the country we didn't need them to get new evil equipment! The Olympics left and we were stuck with violent corrupt cops knocking down people's houses for no reason other than shits and giggles. Which only made the public hate the cops even more. In fact I would say that the Olympics contributed to the LA riots in 92'. The cops were hated by everyone! (except Republicans)

The Chinese used the Olympics as an excuse to install the "All seeing eye".

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/20797485/chinas_allseeing_eye

One of the scariest articles Naomi Klein has ever wrote.

I don't know who's getting the Olympics today but they have my sympathies!

[Joanne98]

1. Looks like they missed the bullet. whew.

[Joanne98]

2. My sympathies to Rio. They're going to get stuck with them because the bloodsucking

global elites are going to want to party on the beach. Rio will spend the next few years building encampments and buying new torture equipment for the evil cops. They'll probably put the poor in cages so they won't ruin the ocean view.

Man. I really am sorry for those people. What a curse.

[SidneyCarton]

3. The only way to make Rio any worse would be to nuke it.

Believe me, the drug cartels in the favelas are better armed than some national armies.

[Joanne98]

4. The "war on drugs" created the drug cartels. Don't even get me started on that!

:hi:

[Gman2]

5. I've thought hordes of pellet gun wielding kids, should take out traffic cameras etc.

A few thousand of those things go blind and dumb, and they will think twice.

[Joanne98]

7. Shit. They're are so many cameras in LA people have no idea.

I watched them put up thousands in Long Beach. Starting in March of 91' through August they put cameras up in every single alley. The phone company did it. And no I'm not crazy. We sent people up the poles to check. Of course they've upgraded them now...
>>>>>>>>
In San Francisco, a city celebrated for its respect for privacy and civil liberties, the video surveillance project began last July when Mayor Gavin Newsom used drug forfeiture funds to install two video cameras in the Western Addition. By October, six more locations had been selected for cameras - two in the Mission District, two in Bayview-Hunter's Point, one in Bernal Heights and yet another in the Western Addition.

Perched atop utility poles 27-feet above the ground, these state-of-the-art video cameras have a 360-degree view and roll 24-hours a day. With their DVD-quality video and options for sound, they can zoom in close enough to read and record the book or legal brief you are carrying, the name of the doctor's office you are entering, or the face of the person you are talking to or kissing goodbye. Everything the camera sees can be stored on a hard drive or a central database in perpetuity.
>>>>>>>>>>
http://www.aclunc.org/news/opinions/in_safety's_name,_technology_breaches_privacy.shtml

BUT when they put them up in 91' they didn't ask anybody and they didn't tell anybody. Not even the homeowners. They just snuck them in.

People have no idea how bad it is. But someday they will.

[Echo In Light]

9. So many potential enemies, so little time!

[Joanne98]

12. Doubt it if you want but it's all true.

[Echo In Light]

15. How did you read"doubt" in that?

[Joanne98]

17. Sorry. I missed understood. When ever I tell this story people doubt it.

I can't really blame them. Phone companies sticking cameras up on telephone poles sounds crazy. but it happened. And it's probably still happening. It's amazing how people never noticed things that are right in front of their eyes. I'm not one of those people. I noticed everything that's out of place. I wish I didn't.

[Echo In Light]

18. Yes, I meant that from the perspective of those who benefit financially/ideologically

:toast:

[Joanne98]

20. I hear ya!

:hug:

[paparush]

6. Haven't recent Olympics left host cities with huge debt ?

http://www.forbes.com/2006/02/08/host-city-olympics_cx_tvr_0208olympiccity.html

<snip>
Beijing is set to smash the spending record for the 2008 games by budgeting $23 billion, nearly twice what Athens laid out two years ago.

For many host cities, the curse has overshadowed the blessing. At least four (Sydney, Montreal, Barcelona and Athens) are still paying off debt taken on to finance the games, due mainly to splurging on sports venues that don't have much after life. While Atlanta's Turner Field is now home to baseball's Braves, Sydney's SuperDome, has plunged into receivership.

Sydney taxpayers shell out $100 million annually for upkeep on a new rail system that hasn't been heavily used since the 2000 Olympics, while Barcelona is populated with a host of arenas left over from 1992 that now sit mostly empty. Athens, meanwhile, laid out $12 billion to bring the Games "back to their roots" in 2004, a whopping 5% of Greece's GDP. Upkeep on venues built for baseball, basketball and other sports carries a $100 million annual price tag, and a $144 million sailing facility now goes mostly unused.

The problem even goes 30 years back to Montreal, which despite turning an operating profit on the 1976 Summer Games is just now paying off the last of its debt on Olympic Stadium - two years after the stadium's baseball occupants, the Expos, split for Washington, D.C. A 17-cents-per-pack cigarette tax still pays off the stadium.
</snip>

I know LA made some $200 million because they had plenty of stadiums and other infrastructure. Maybe the same would have been true for Chicago?

[Joanne98]

8. Probably. I've haven't paid attention to that part of the curse.

[Junkdrawer]

11. DemocracyNow had it this morning....

Cost overruns bankrupt cities and leave useless infrastructures in their wake.

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/10/2/sportswriter_dave_zirin_on_obamas_olympic

[Joanne98]

14. I believe it. It's probably just another scam. Like "re-construction"

The thieves rule this world.

[Joanne98]

10. Rio got it. Those poor people.

[Libertas1776]

13. Well,

no need to worry. Chicago was eliminated in the first round.


Well, this ended up being one big fucking waste of time.

[Joanne98]

16. I don't think it was a waste of time. Obama would have gotten blamed for losing

it if he didn't go. But there needs to be an honest debate about the side-effects of having the Olympics. They're really nasty.

[Libertas1776]

19. Unfortunately,

he will also be blamed for losing it. He's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. Well, no matter, at least Chicago won't have to suffer the after effects of the Olympics.

[Joanne98]

21. Yeah. I bet a lot of people in Chicago are happy about that too.

The Olympic curse has been getting noticed by more and more people. China opened some eyes. Man the Chinese people will never get rid of all that surveillance equipment.

[newtothegame]

22. Get rid of the cops in LA. I'm sure citizens can fend for themselves, seems like a safe place. n/t

[Gman2]

23. Thats exactly what you are getting, the cops are all about property protection now.

[jenniferj]

24. London isn't a police state, most of our police still don't carry guns..

we have the next games. We already have heavy survillance with CCTV and we do have terrorist worries.

[truedelphi]

25. HAving lived in Chicago, and having friends who still report ot me on

Police Activities there, the Olympics sure couldn't have expanded on their bad attitude.

But equipment. Money for more police equipment. Hadn't thought about that. Thank you for posting this.