The multi-national corporate agenda has gotten so blatant, so shameless, and so desperate to assert itself in one last dying gasp (now that its anti-human machinations are so apparent to we the people of these supposed democracies), that it has moved firmly onto the caricature stage.
Canada’s prime example of this is the tar sands/Enbridge pipeline fiasco, which our oil-owned “majority” governing Conservative party has openly decided to push through, despite all inconvenient scientific or democratic arguments against it.
But the world’s prime example these days has got to be the London Olympics. Turning the whole city into a giant military/security/surveillance zone is one thing — Londoners have been the most surveilled city for many years now. But the ludicrous deals struck among the IOC, the organizers and the corporate “sponsors” — essentially selling a whole city out to corporate overlords — is way, way over the top.
One tiny example, is this clause (courtesy of the excellent boingboing.net) is their post, London Olympic committee says you’re only allowed to link to their site if you have nice things to say. It cites this “Linking Policy” in the Terms of Use for the London 2012 website (bolding mine):
“a. Links to the Site. You may create your own link to the Site, provided that your link is in a text-only format. You may not use any link to the Site as a method of creating an unauthorised association between an organisation, business, goods or services and London 2012, and agree that no such link shall portray us or any other official London 2012 organisations (or our or their activities, products or services) in a false, misleading, derogatory or otherwise objectionable manner.”
So, LOCOG : you and your corporate masters have taken a once noble pursuit and perverted it into a security and sponsorship debacle the likes of which the world hasn’t seen since the days of the Coliseum. It’s repugnant what you’re doing to democracy and to public space, and British citizens (and the world’s) are right to both protest and ignore your tasteless, obscene spectacle. And i’m linking to your site in the hopes that others will shower you with the disdain you so richly deserve.
There’s a huge Olympic protest movement taking place, under (it goes without saying) the radar of mainstream media. The upside is that lots and lots and lots of people are waking up to what’s being done to our civilization these days, and are starting to get mad. There are a zillion site out there, like the Official Protesters of the London 2012 Olympic Games (with official T-shirts). Google might bubble you safely away from seeing much, but a duckduckgo.com search on “london olympic protest” brings up lotsa results — and you won’t even be tracked.
Boingboing.net is also covering a lot of Olympic paradoxes, absurdities, insults to democracy, protests and parodies like this one:
Greg Blee 