The Olympics, the most expensive TV program ever in the UK, a corporate greed feast paid for by public funds. Or as our Millionaire cabal in The Westminster Houses of Greed and Corruption would say, "a chance to show case Britain". However the London that visitors will see will not be the London that most Londoners know. It will be a surreal London, a science fiction London, a military zone London, a London where military law will rule. Apart from the billions of pounds of public money thrown at this even, to encourage corporate leeches to come in and make a killing, there will be another container ship full of money spent on "security". Welcome to the Olympic spirit, UK style.
This from The Edge of Sport by Dave Zirin:
As
many as 48,000 security forces. 13,500 troops. Surface to air
missiles stationed on top of residential apartment buildings. A sonic
weapon that disperses crowds by creating "head splitting
pain."Unmanned drones peering down from the skies. A safe-zone,
cordoned off by an 11 mile, electrified fence, ringed with trained
agents and 55 teams of attack dogs.
One
would be forgiven for thinking that these were the counter-insurgency
tactics used by U.S. army bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, or perhaps
the military methods taught to third world despots at the School of
the Americas in Ft. Benning Georgia. But instead of being used in a
war zone or the theatre of occupation, they in fact make up the very
visible security apparatus in London for the 2012 Summer Olympics.
London,
which has the most street cameras per capita of any city on earth,
has for the last seven years since the terror attacks of 7/7/05, been
a city whose political leaders would spare no expense to monitor its
own citizens. But the Olympic operation goes above and beyond
anything we’ve ever seen when a Western democracy hosts the games.
Not even China in 2008 used drone planes or ringed the proceedings
with a massive, high-voltage fence. But here is London, preparing a
counter insurgency, and parking an aircraft carrier right in the
Thames. Here is London adding “scanners, biometric ID cards,
number-plate and facial-recognition CCTV systems, disease tracking
systems, new police control centres and checkpoints.”
