Obama's Olympic Error

President Barack Obama is now en route to Copenhagen in an effort to sell Chicago as the site of the 2016 Summer Olympics. In the process, he may be selling Chicago down the river. Obama is joined arm-in-arm with his wife Michelle on one side and Mayor Richard Daley's Chicago political machine on the other. Michelle Obama says, "My father was disabled, and I think what it would have meant for him to see someone in his shoes compete. Kids need to see that and that needs to be celebrated just as much, if not more." This seems more like an argument to support the Paralympics (a tremendous event) but that's beside the point. Michelle Obama should perhaps realize that if the Olympics had come to Chicago when she was a young girl on Chicago's working class south side, her home may have been torn down to make way for an Olympic facility. No word on how being out of house and home would have helped her disabled father.

Mayor Daley, rocking a 35 percent approval rating, says that the Games would be "a huge boost to our economy, raising it to a new level. The Games will help us recover sooner from the recession that still grips our nation and enable us to better compete in the global economy."

There is only one problem with this argument: the history of the Olympic Games almost without exception brands it as a lie. As Sports Illustrated's Michael Fish - an Olympic supporter - has written, "You stage a two-week athletic carnival and, if things go well, pray the local municipality isn't sent into financial ruin."

In fact, the very idea that Chicago could be an appropriate setting for the Olympics might have been hatched by Jon Stewart for a four-year supply of comedic fodder. To greater or lesser degrees, the Olympics bring gentrification, graft and police violence wherever they nest. Even without the Olympic Games, Chicago has been ground zero in the past decade for the destruction of public housing, political corruption raised to an art form, and police violence. Bringing the Olympics to this town would be like sending a gift basket filled with bottles of Jim Beam to the Betty Ford Clinic: over-consumption followed by disaster.

It's also difficult for Chicago residents to see how this will help their pocketbooks, given that Daley pledged to the International Olympic Committee that any cost overruns would be covered by taxpayers.

This is why a staggering 84 percent of the city opposes bringing the Games to Chicago if it costs residents a solitary dime. Even if the games were to go off without a hitch - which would happen only if the setting was lovely Shangri-La - not even half the residents would support hosting the Games.

The Obamas, former Chicago residents, should be standing with their city. Instead, we have the sight of Barack, Michelle, and Oprah trying to outmuscle Pele and Brazil for a place at the Olympic trough. The question is why. Maybe Obama wants the Olympic fairy dust enjoyed by Ronald Reagan at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles or Bill Clinton at the 1996 games in Atlanta. Or perhaps he is returning favor to the developers and other sundry connected people in the Windy City who will make out like bandits once the smoke has cleared. But his intentions are clear: he wants the glitz, glamour, and prestige of the games and he wants it for the Daley machine. What the people of Chicago want doesn't seem to compute.

But we shouldn't be surprised at this point that Obama is tin-eared to the concerns of Chicago residents. As Paul Krugman wrote Sept. 20 on the banker bonuses, "the administration has suffered more than it seems to realize from the perception that it's giving taxpayers' hard-earned money away to Wall Street." Shoveling taxpayers' money into the Olympic maw is no better, especially in these tough times.

No Games Chicago organizer Alison McKenna said to me, "I oppose the Olympics coming to Chicago because instead of putting money toward what people really need, money will be funneled to real estate developers who will be tearing down Washington Park and other important community resources. I oppose the Olympics coming to Chicago because the nonprofit child-welfare agency that I work for had to sustain budget cuts and layoffs, while Chicago has spent $48.2 million on the 2016 Olympic bid, as of July 2009."

There is an urgency to building resistance to these kinds of priorities. Right now, the right wing is shamelessly adopting populist rhetoric and the power of protest to sell an agenda of racism and fear wrapped in taxpayer protection. The big public voice against Obama's trip to Copenhagen has been the repellent RNC chief Michael Steele who believes, and this is hilarious, that "At a time of war and recession" Obama needs to stay home. It shouldn't be a scoundrel like Steele who represents a party of privatization and occupation who delivers that message. Now is the time to build a pole of attraction on the left for people furious at corporate greed amidst a recession. This needs to happen, and not just for the Windy City. It's about building a vibrant protest movement that believes in social justice not the rank divisiveness of the right. Obama likes to say that change comes from "outside Washington." It's time to take him at his word.

 

 

Follow Dave Zirin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/edgeofsports

Comments

[laborgrunt]

The positive economic effects of ephemeral events such as the Super Bowl, Olympics, national political party conventions are grossly over estimated.
For example San Diego hosted the 1996 Republican Party convention (Dole was nominated, remember that?) and in order to fund it the city policy makers decided to not fully fund its pension plan. Then again the city temporarily underfunded its pension plan to fund the 2002 Super Bowl (Bucs vs. Raiders).
The effect has been these short periods of underfunded got so compounded that the city had to lay off workers last year, city unions accepted a 6% pay cut (less money in the local economy) and major deficits in the years to come. No obviously all of this is exasperated by the dismal economic straits we are in, but the funding of these one time events have had a negative impact on this city.
Now for Chi Town its spending on the Olympics would dwarf what SD spent, and im afraid its headaches after wards would dwarf those facing SD.
That is why im glad Chicago didnt get the games, im just sorry the President had to expend so much energy on this issue.

[ailbhe]

I have only visited Chicago once, had a fantastic time. Great place.

I agree with you that Chicago would be better served investing in it's poor, especially in recession time.

The Olympics often seems to be a curse to the people unfortunate enough to live in the host areas.

[Summer313]

Dont blame Pres. Obam.....blame Mayor Daley


http://chicagoist.com/2009/09/30/were_daleys_comments_a_breach_of_et.php

[jcadams]

I also saw you on "Democracy Now" this morning --- and totally agree with you. Chicago needs the 2016 games like another hole in the head. For many reasons --- the high cost, the disruption, the expected graft, police oversights, etc. I too love Chicago. It was the city where my grandfather and all his brothers and sisters settled as immigrants 100 years ago to escape the poverty and wars they faced in Europe. And many of my relatives still live there.

[kevwells]

Chicago is not in the class of a Tokyo or a Rio. It is a big, midwestern city with some good art museums. It lacks flair--other than architectu­rally--and in short there is NOTHING compelling about it from the IOC's point of view. This is not a sbub, but more a frank assesment of what it has and what it aint....

SF, LA, Boston--all significantly better choices than Chicago

[Dbos]

Your kidding right. Ever been to Chicago?

[Atcha]

It was unrealistic to propose the candidacy of an American city to start with, the Olympics cannot be held in a country continually at war, no one can guarantee that the US could hold a truce for the duration of the game in 2016

[pointus]

Well written article, I agree.
Look what's happening now in S. Africa as they prepare for the 2010 World Cup: "thousands of the city’s poor who live in sprawling informal settlements are threatened with eviction. On Saturday, an armed gang of some forty men attacked an informal settlement on Durban’s Kennedy Road, killing at least two people and destroying thirty shacks."
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/10/1/south_africas_poor_targeted_by_evictions

[Hysterian68]

Anyone who seriously thinks Chicago is going to be lifted out of the Bush/Obama depression by hosting the olympics is having a pipe dream, and may be an excellent poster boy or girl for NOT selecting Chicago for the 2016 games. Illinois is in the top 5 states for high levels of unemployment, but Chicago is one of the best managed cities in the world and still operating in the black.

Chicago doesn't have the middle class flight of New York City or Philadephia. It doesn't ship it's poorest people out of the city to relatives who really don't want them like Mayor Bloomberg does, and Chicago doesn't tax people to the hilt on the scale of Taxachusetts, New York, California, or New Jersey.

Why ruin a good thing by having the olympics bankrupt Richey Daley's city with such a sterling record.? The Olympic Committee would be doing the city a favor by giving the honor to to place that really needs the tourism which Sao Paulo does receive, and to a country which may in time eclipse the USA--along with China and India--as THE place to invest in the future.

The place to invest surely won't be New York City. Which is in the process of abdicating it's supremacy to Washington as the financial center of the country.

[StephenBarry]

When the POTUS, the most powerful man in the world, personally lowers himself to make a sales pitch, is that not like a cop walking his beat and asking for freebies from all the store owners ? They will feel coerced to say yes.

[GardenerNorCal]

I personally think this is a dumb idea. We need renewed infrastructure and a national health care system more than we do a temporary entertainment site which will undoubtly displace more poor. And the additional security problems aren't worth the effort. And what happens with the facilities afterward?

[averygard]

Maybe I'm having an odd optimistic day here, but am I the only person it has occurred to that there might be another reason for him to be going to Europe? Could he possibly be meeting with somebody in an off-the-radar kinda way? This is not a man much known for poorly thought out moves.

[MominAmerica]

;~)

[MyVesta]

Easy, now: you will be labelled a racist, country-hatin' republican if you disagree with Obama flying to Copenhagen ...

Cause, you know, obviously the Olympics are FAR more important than little things like unemployment, homelessness, tsunamis, etc.

[tonewheel]

Yep. The horror of a 24 hour trip...6 hours on the ground in Denmark (that's where Copenhagen is, FYI), the rest in the air.

Will we survive? My Gosh!

[JakeChicago]

Interesting that you think the President is not able to do more than one thing at a time, or does not have the capability to use the phone or videoconferecing from anywhere in the world. Are you familiar with these modern technologies that make that possible?

[johnsonc20]

We need to tell Obama to get his priorities straight. I hate to say that the Republican ad from last summer seems to be bearing out. He is acting more like a celebrity than a President.

We need more Harry Truman and less Oprah, Mr. President - thank you very much.

[JakeChicago]

No matter that other world leaders have done the same thing in support of their countries bid for the Olympics. Instead of seeing it as the President supporting his country, you try to frame it as him wanting to be a celebrity. His popularity must really get to you.

[mariah793]

It is ridiculous and offensive to people like me who can't get affordable health care to cover pre-existing conditions.

[Winning09]

Damn right!

The Olympics should be in San Francisco!

That'll give poor Gavin Newsom something to do...

[47th]

Take our Olympics....PLEASE!