Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Sochi: bringing Olympic spirit back to the Games

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Sunday, February 9, 2014

Sochi: bringing Olympic spirit back to the Games

Click here to access article from Oriental Review.

I have never seen such obvious and outrageous anti-Russian bias of a sports event in my life as I've witnessed from viewing corporate TV media coverage of the Olympics in Sochi--not only NBC's--in the past few weeks. Because this bias is seen everywhere in corporate media, I've, once again, wondered how this actually happens. Does some centralized Directorate of Information issue statements to all media outlets to cover certain new items in a particular way? Or do prominent ruling class media such as the New York Times or the Washington Post set the framing of the coverage and all other major news outlets are expected to follow? Or might it be that all media executives have already been well indoctrinated by their various ruling class organizations of which they are members? Or some combination of the above?

It seems that all news items in the run-up to the Olympics have been wrapped in comments about gay oppression in Russia, the terrorist threat at the games, incomplete construction of Olympic facilities, and many other such negative items. I've been waiting for liberal commentators in this country to criticize such practice, but this morning I found little except for a handful: Bernhard's excellent piece entitled "NYT Selectively Quotes To Denigrate Russian Olympics", Lendman's piece, and a more oblique critique from The Greanville Post.

Updated at 1 PM: So, what has this to do with capitalism? I think that capitalism is a highly competitive and predatory system in which capitalists, the owners of economic property, combine to compete for resources and cheap labor in the pursuit of profits and power. Russia and China, although now ruled by their own capitalist classes, refuse to take orders from the US led Empire, much like Germany's capitalitsts refused to submit to the leadership of the English Empire which resulted in WWI and then competed with the Anglo-American Empire which resulted in WWII. Thus, Russian and Chinese capitalists are now our ruling class's enemies, and our ruling class makes sure that we, the people in the US, feel that they are our enemies also. Then there are the smaller countries that have defied the US and have suffered in recent times the "outrageous slings and arrows" of US propaganda, subversive actions, and worse: Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, North Korea, Libya, and Syria.