I love the Olympics, and I really love the opening ceremonies. They give me hope that some day we will all progress past the "me first" attitude of "better us than them" which causes so much pain and suffering in the world.
I love seeing the athletes crossing over to talk to their counterparts of other nations, smiling and joined by a common love of athleticism and competition.
Friendly competition gives us a warm and fuzzy feeling, kind of like the cute panda mascot.
So, I was disgusted by NBC's commentators last night, politicizing, no, propagandizing this moment of world harmony.
I was not watching the t.v., following a spate of ads, when a roar of applause and cheers caused me to look up and see that the French had arrived in the stadium, acting tres, tres, tres...well, French.
This moment of fun, seeing the French athletes' ebullient joie de vivre, only to be rivaled later by the Italians' boisterous la dolce vita 'tude, was soured when I heard an NBC commentator voicing surprise at the cheers, which he quickly demoted as not being that pronounced after all (hey, we were watching it...we heard it...you didn't fool us) and questioning why the Chinese would applaud France after what happened to the poor soul, who was in a wheelchair, carrying the Olympic torch through their country.
Voici, a clip of the demonstrations in Paris, which the BBC announcers admitted happened in London the previous day. The anchorman explained that there were several thousand police present to handle hundreds of protesters, so I doubt anyone could rightfully claim that France was not trying to do its utmost to protect the Olympics torch carrier from a demonstrator trying to swipe it.
Et voila, a film clip of the Olympics torch protest in London. As you can see, the Brits didn't do any better, preventing the following scene from occuring in London, yet the anchor didn't diss them as they arrived for not better protecting their leg of the torch relay.
This injection of anti-France rhetoric amidst an amazing, upbeat ceremony really irked me. Bring on the freedom fries & pour champagne down the gutters! It was deja vu French bashing all over again.
You see, there were protesters following the Olympic torch carriers in pretty much all the countries through which they passed, including the good ol' US of A.
We had learned from what befell the torch carriers in preceding countries and altered their route to an undisclosed location.
The NBC announcer's bitter attempt to bash the French during the opening ceremonies, turned the Olympics theme of "One World, One Dream" into "Divided World, NBC Nightmare."
So, get over yourselves, you so-called "newsmen," who have colluded to propagandize the Iraq War with this administration, putting over 4000 of our young men and women and countless innocent Iraqi civilians to death & maiming tens of thousands more, thus reducing your profession, which no longer can be called journalism, to mass brainwashing ... we know that you are feeding us Neocon talking points, so STOP RUINING THE OLYMPICS!!!
Quit vilifying the French, who were right about Iraq not having WMDs and were spot on warning us about the terrible loss to our country this war would bring.
YES, THE FRENCH WERE RIGHT, AND YOU SO-CALLED "NEWSMEN" ( LACKEYS OF GEORGE, DICK, RUMMY, ET AL.) WERE WRONG. SO, FERMEZ LA BOUCHE, s'il vous plait.
We interrupt this rant with a word from NBC's sponsors: the Olympics were brought to you by EXXON/MOBIL, an oil conglomerate who has benefitted mightily by the Iraq War at our expense in blood and treasure at the gas pump & via the whopping national debt.
AND
brought to you by the Committee to elect John McCain, who had the crass idea to divide us during the middle of the beautiful opening ceremony of the Olympics by airing an anti-Obama ad.
Way to go negative, killjoys!
It's no wonder the NBC yapping heads were doing the Republicans'/oil company's/GE military industrial complex's bidding, promoting their wars of choice during the Olympic broadcast, when those who benefit most from the drummed up war(s) are signing their paychecks! I wasn't at all surprised when they dredged up fear of Iran having nukes while the Iranian team passed the cameras! They don't let a little thing like the NIE report get in the way of their incessant warmongering.
Look, newscasters, I don't watch your "news" anymore, because it makes me cringe to hear the garbage you all spew. Can't I watch the Olympics without getting that urge to pick up my teevee and hurl it out the window? Is nothing sacred to you paranoid pro-war propagandists? Could you just give it a rest during the games? Why not give the p.r. purveyors a little vacation? Just give us all a break and let us watch the Olympics in peace, albeit a dirty word to your advertisers and owners. Please?
Let's get back to the theme, "One World, One Dream," only let's all dream of peace to unite us through mutual respect, not the NBC/ABC/CBS/FOX/Neocon nightmare of a new world order, based on wars propagated by your baseless lies.