NYTimes: International Olympic Committee - "elitist, domineering, and crassly commercial at its core"

Fri Jul 6 11:16:12 CEST 2012

Which forced marriage do you have in mind, Alex?

j

On Fri, Jul 6, 2012 at 5:03 AM, Alex Gakuru <gakuru at gmail.com> wrote:

> Deep down here in Africa many NGOs champion against forced marriages.
> But when forced marriages happen up there at ICANN who speaks against
> the practice?
>
> On 7/6/12, Nuno Garcia <ngarcia at ngarcia.net> wrote:
> > I have said this once: The Olympic Committee has a budget that is bigger
> > than many nations' budgets. They can afford not  to be for-profit. The
> same
> > goes for other organizations.
> >
> > And some statements are pure intellectual arrogance.
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > Nuno Garcia
> >
> > On 5 July 2012 23:16, Joly MacFie <joly at punkcast.com> wrote:
> >
> >> But you are not disputing their facts, I take it.
> >>
> >> j
> >>
> >>
> >> On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 5:58 PM, Michael Carson
> >> <mcarson029 at comcast.net>wrote:
> >>
> >>> Alain,
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> I agree.  This op-ed is just that - the opinion of two individuals.
> >>>
> >>>   Michael Carson
> >>>
> >>> YMCA of the USA
> >>>
> >>> ------------------------------
> >>> *From: *"Alain Berranger" <alain.berranger at GMAIL.COM>
> >>> *To: *NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
> >>> *Sent: *Thursday, July 5, 2012 3:55:09 PM
> >>> *Subject: *Re: NYTimes: International Olympic Committee - "elitist,
> >>> domineering, and crassly commercial at its core"
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> NPOC  really welcomes national Olympic committees as Members because
> >>> they
> >>> are true notforprofit organizations...
> >>>
> >>> Alain
> >>>
> >>> On Thursday, July 5, 2012, Robin Gross wrote:
> >>>
> >>>>  As a commercial organization that tried to join NCSG, very relevant…
> >>>>
> >>>> No Medal for the International Olympic Committee says the New York
> >>>> Times…..
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/05/opinion/no-medal-for-the-international-olympic-committee.html?_r=3&ref=opinion&pagewanted=print
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> ------------------------------
> >>>> July 4, 2012
> >>>>  **Olympian Arrogance**** By JULES BOYKOFF and ALAN TOMLINSON****
> >>>> ****
> >>>>
> >>>> Brighton, England
> >>>>
> >>>> WHILE Europe roils in economic turmoil, London is preparing for a
> >>>> lavish
> >>>> jamboree of international good will: in a few weeks, the city will
> host
> >>>> the
> >>>> 2012 Summer Olympics.
> >>>>
> >>>> But behind the spectacle of athletic prowess and global harmony,
> >>>> brass-knuckle politics and brute economics reign. At this nexus sits
> >>>> theInternational
> >>>> Olympic Committee <http://www.olympic.org/>, which promotes the games
> >>>> and decides where they will be held. Though the I.O.C. has been
> >>>> periodically tarnished by scandal — usually involving the bribing and
> >>>> illegitimate wooing of delegates — those embarrassments divert us from
> >>>> a
> >>>> deeper problem: the organization is elitist, domineering and crassly
> >>>> commercial at its core.
> >>>>
> >>>> The I.O.C., which champions itself as a democratic “catalyst for
> >>>> collaboration between all parties of the Olympic family,” is
> >>>> nonetheless
> >>>> run by a privileged sliver of the global 1 percent. This has always
> >>>> been
> >>>> the case: when Baron Pierre de Coubertin revived the Olympics in the
> >>>> 1890s,
> >>>> he assembled a hodgepodge of princes, barons, counts and lords to
> >>>> coordinate the games. Eventually the I.O.C. opened its hallowed halls
> >>>> to
> >>>> wealthy business leaders and former Olympians. Not until 1981 were
> >>>> women
> >>>> allowed in.
> >>>>
> >>>> Even today, royalty make up a disproportionate share of the body;
> among
> >>>> the 105 I.O.C.
> >>>> members<
> http://www.olympic.org/content/the-ioc/the-ioc-institution1/ioc-members-list/
> >
> >>>> are
> >>>> the likes of Princess Nora of Liechtenstein, Crown Prince Frederik of
> >>>> Denmark and Prince Nawaf Faisal Fahd Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia. The
> >>>> United
> >>>> States has only three representatives, two of them former Olympic
> >>>> athletes.
> >>>>
> >>>> Then there are the excessive demands that the I.O.C. makes on host
> >>>> cities. For instance, the host cities have had to change their laws to
> >>>> comply with the Olympic
> >>>> Charter<http://www.olympic.org/Documents/olympic_charter_en.pdf>,
> >>>> which states that “no kind of demonstration or political, religious or
> >>>> racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other
> >>>> areas.” When Vancouver, British Columbia, hosted the Winter Games in
> >>>> 2010,
> >>>> the city passed a bylaw that outlawed signs and banners that did not
> >>>> “celebrate” the Olympics. Placards that criticized the Olympics were
> >>>> forbidden, and the law even empowered Canadian authorities to remove
> >>>> such
> >>>> signs from private property.
> >>>>
> >>>> The I.O.C. also makes host cities police Olympics-related intellectual
> >>>> property rights. So Parliament adopted the London Olympic Games and
> >>>> Paralympic Games Act of
> >>>> 2006<http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/12/contents>,
> >>>> which defines as a trademark infringement the commercial use of words
> >>>> like
> >>>> “games,” “2012” and “London” in proximity.
> >>>>
> >>>> Such monomaniacal brand micromanagement points to another problem: the
> >>>> I.O.C. has turned the Olympics into a commercial bonanza. In London,
> >>>> more
> >>>> than 250 miles of V.I.P. traffic lanes are reserved not just for
> >>>> athletes
> >>>> and I.O.C. luminaries but also for corporate sponsors. Even the
> >>>> signature
> >>>> torch relay has been commercialized: the I.O.C. and its corporate
> >>>> partners
> >>>> snapped up 10 percent of the torchbearer slots for I.O.C. stakeholders
> >>>> and
> >>>> members of the commercial sponsors’ information technology and
> >>>> marketing
> >>>> staffs. Michael R. Payne, a former marketing director for the
> >>>> committee,
> >>>> has called the Olympics “the world’s longest commercial.”
> >>>>
> >>>> Most worrisome, perhaps, is that the I.O.C. creates perverse
> incentives
> >>>> for security officials in host cities to overspend and to militarize
> >>>> public
> >>>> space. The I.O.C. tends to look kindly on bids that assure security,
> >>>> and
> >>>> host cities too often use the games as a once-in-a-lifetime
> opportunity
> >>>> to
> >>>> stock police warehouses with the best weapons money can buy.
> >>>>
> >>>> Visitors to London, where the games are scheduled to run from July 27
> >>>> to
> >>>> Aug. 12, would be forgiven for thinking they had dropped in on a
> >>>> military
> >>>> hardware convention. Helicopters, fighter jets and bomb-disposal units
> >>>> will
> >>>> be at the ready. About 13,500 British military personnel will be on
> >>>> patrol
> >>>> — 4,000 more than are currently serving in Afghanistan. Security
> >>>> officials
> >>>> have acquired Starstreak and Rapier surface-to-air missiles. Even the
> >>>> Olympic mascots look like two-legged surveillance cameras.
> >>>>
> >>>> Let us be clear: the concern about ensuring a terror-free Olympics is
> >>>> tragically warranted. In 1972, members of the Palestinian militant
> >>>> group
> >>>> Black September killed 11 Israeli athletes and coaches at the Olympics
> >>>> in
> >>>> Munich — after which the I.O.C. president notoriously insisted that
> >>>> “the
> >>>> games must go on” — and in 1996, a bomb at the Atlanta Olympics killed
> >>>> a
> >>>> spectator and injured more than 100 other people. Yet there is such a
> >>>> thing
> >>>> as excess — and surveillance and weaponry are not a panacea.
> >>>>
> >>>> Security measures can also be counterproductive: London residents who
> >>>> learned that the Ministry of Defense was attaching missile launchers
> to
> >>>> the
> >>>> roofs of their apartment buildings can’t be blamed for wondering if
> >>>> they’ve
> >>>> unwillingly become a prime target for terrorists. And, symbolically,
> at
> >>>> a
> >>>> certain point it gets hard to square the image of the militarized
> state
> >>>> with the Olympic ideals of peace and understanding.
> >>>>
> >>>> What can be done? The I.O.C. has acknowledged that the escalating
> scale
> >>>> of the games — “gigantism” — is a real issue. Competitions drenched in
> >>>> privilege, like the equestrian events, should be ditched (with
> apologies
> >>>> to
> >>>> Ann Romney’s horse Rafalca, who will be competing in dressage in
> >>>> London).
> >>>> Pseudo-historical events like Greco-Roman wrestling, concocted in the
> >>>> 19th
> >>>> century, could also go. Events with high start-up costs could be
> >>>> swapped
> >>>> for those requiring fewer resources. Why not bring back tug-of-war (a
> >>>> hotly
> >>>> contested event in the early 20th century) and add more running
> events,
> >>>> like trail running and cross-country?
> >>>>
> >>>> Governance is another challenge. After the bribery scandal surrounding
> >>>> the selection of Salt Lake City to host the 2002 Winter Olympics, and
> >>>> under
> >>>> pressure from Congress, the I.O.C. created an ethics commission to
> >>>> monitor
> >>>> the bid process — but it reports to the I.O.C.’s executive board,
> which
> >>>> still has the final say.
> >>>>
> >>>> Other measures worth considering are to streamline committee
> membership
> >>>> and to provide greater representation for the international sports
> >>>> federations that administer athletic competitions — though either
> >>>> approach
> >>>> would continue to pose accountability problems.
> >>>>
> >>>> In these bleak economic times, the world could use a little athletic
> >>>> transcendence. Sadly, the arrogance and aloofness of the organization
> >>>> behind the spectacle are all too ordinary.
> >>>> **
> >>>> Jules
> >>>> Boykoff<
> http://www.pacificu.edu/as/politics/faculty/jules-boykoff.cfm/>,
> >>>> an associate professor of political science at Pacific University, is
> >>>> writing a book on dissent and the Olympics. Alan
> >>>> Tomlinson<http://alantomlinson.typepad.com/> is
> >>>> a professor of leisure studies at the University of Brighton.
> >>>> ****
> >>>> ******
> >>>> **
> >>>>    MORE IN OPINION (2 OF 19 ARTICLES) Op-Ed Columnist: Doughnuts
> >>>> Defeating
> >>>> Poverty<
> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/05/opinion/doughnuts-defeating-poverty.html?src=un&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Fjson8.nytimes.com%2Fpages%2Fopinion%2Findex.jsonp
> >
> >>>>
> >>>> Read More
> >>>> »<
> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/05/opinion/doughnuts-defeating-poverty.html?src=un&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Fjson8.nytimes.com%2Fpages%2Fopinion%2Findex.jsonp
> >
> >>>> Close
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> Alain Berranger, B.Eng, MBA
> >>> Member, Board of Directors, CECI,
> >>> http://www.ceci.ca<
> http://www.ceci.ca/en/about-ceci/team/board-of-directors/>
> >>> Executive-in-residence, Schulich School of Business,
> >>> www.schulich.yorku.ca
> >>> Treasurer, Global Knowledge Partnership Foundation,
> >>> www.gkpfoundation.org
> >>> NA representative, Chasquinet Foundation, www.chasquinet.org
> >>> Chair, NPOC, NCSG, ICANN, http://npoc.org/
> >>> O:+1 514 484 7824; M:+1 514 704 7824
> >>> Skype: alain.berranger
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> >> Joly MacFie  218 565 9365 Skype:punkcast
> >> WWWhatsup NYC - http://wwwhatsup.com
> >>  http://pinstand.com - http://punkcast.com
> >>  VP (Admin) - ISOC-NY - http://isoc-ny.org
> >> --------------------------------------------------------------
> >> -
> >>
> >
>

-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------
Joly MacFie  218 565 9365 Skype:punkcast
WWWhatsup NYC - http://wwwhatsup.com
 http://pinstand.com - http://punkcast.com
 VP (Admin) - ISOC-NY - http://isoc-ny.org
--------------------------------------------------------------
-
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