Should the 2028 Olympics be removed from the nation of braindead cvnts?

[Roger87]

Srly i'm this close to sign petitions to drop rights of any sporting event to USA for the next 4 years as a form of punishment. It's only 2 weeks and the Orange demented with his Apartheid minion have become like herpes. 

[Rob2012]

15 hours ago, Sir Rols said:

I’m still hoping that the organisers and California can still present it as a counterpoint to Trunps’s version of America. I’m not optimistic any more that’s achievable, but I can hope.

I thought briefly that a troupe of dancing syringes at the OC might be a good in light of this...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/29/rfk-jr-senate-confirmation-hearing?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=bluesky&CMP=bsky_gu

But then realised that might have...errr...different connotations at an Olympics.

Back to the drawing board.

[Quaker2001]

17 hours ago, Sir Rols said:

Further to that. Personally, I’m very pessimistic about the state of the world at the moment. To the point where, at my age, I selfishly just hope it can hold itself together while I’m still around before it all falls to pieces. I’ve been in a prologed funk since the election - lots of dark political and geopolitical musings.

I don’t want to have to personally boycott the LA games. I guess I’m still hoping that the organisers and California can still present it as a counterpoint to Trunps’s version of America. I’m not optimistic any more that’s achievable, but I can hope. I don’t know how the fact it’ll play out in an election year (well, we HOPE it’s still an election year) will affect those fears and hopes.

But, yeah, if America’s current downward spiral just continues and deepens, like Beijing I feel I’d be a hypocrite not to ceremony boycott it. I set my own personal ethical Olympic benchmark in 2022.

In the lead up to 2022, I saw dozens of people on social media calling for a boycott of the Olympics.  Some saying they personally wouldn't watch.  Others urging the athletes not to attend.  The latter was never going happen.  Much of the former often led to posters directly accusing me of being responsible for China's transgressions as if watching a ski race on Chinese slopes makes me culpable for genocide (yes, there are people who actually believe that).  I reminded them that I was watching coverage on American TV with American advertisers who I can chose to support or not.  The Chinese government doesn't have a direct pathway to me.  As opposed to if I had TikTok on my phone, but that's a separate discussion.

The point of all that being that it's a different story if someone is planning on visiting the host country for the Olympics.  I have a friend who went to the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.  He had a lot of positive things to say about the experience.  Congrats to Qatar for successful sportswashing.  So I completely get the sentiment from someone who says they might not feel comfortable travelling to the United States with Trump as President and giving his country that support, even though as noted California is largely anti-Trump.

I might consider attending 2032 in Brisbane.  I know I don't have to tell you my affinity for Australia after my last trip there.  If something happened with the government where I was going to question spending money there, as has likely happened with the perception to many of the United States, that would be a different story.  I'll always support the Olympics from home because I'm in it for the athletes and especially in a country where our NOC relies largely on private funding.

[sebastien1214]

16 hours ago, Bear said:

Last night the Trump Admin sent out a memo stating that all federal grants and loans would be suspended, which caused a lot of stress for my friends and I, as well as literally every other low-income student in the country since we rely on federal student aid to pay for our tuition. They later clarified it wouldn't affect our aid, but the memo was so poorly written no one actually knew what was safe and what wasn't safe. Other programs that rely on funding were also affected such as Medicaid, research projects, etc etc.

Luckily a judge has blocked the suspension so everything looks to be intact for now, but man, if Trump is able to get his way, I guess it's goodbye to the life I wanted post-graduation 😭 (assuming Trump doesn't ruin it in other ways, which is probably going to be the case)

This is definitely one of the top reasons in my top 1000 reasons why I think the US is a country of degenerates in so many ways. I never understood how you normalized the fact in your country that students have to go into debt for 10 years or more by taking out a loan just to be allowed to attend university (and while you may have government aid, I doubt it's enough except in exceptional cases).

(same thought for the UK by the way)

[StefanMUC]

6 minutes ago, sebastien1214 said:

This is definitely one of the top reasons in my top 1000 reasons why I think the US is a country of degenerates in so many ways. I never understood how you normalized the fact in your country that students have to go into debt for 10 years or more by taking out a loan just to be allowed to attend university (and while you may have government aid, I doubt it's enough except in exceptional cases).

(same thought for the UK by the way)

Free education = socialism (I guess)

This, btw, made me laugh a bit today (CN: RFK Jr related):

https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lgv77c4tah2r

[sebastien1214]

22 minutes ago, StefanMUC said:

Free education = socialism (I guess)

Worse than that, Americans would call it "communism"

[Sir Rols]

5 hours ago, Quaker2001 said:

In the lead up to 2022, I saw dozens of people on social media calling for a boycott of the Olympics.  Some saying they personally wouldn't watch.  Others urging the athletes not to attend.  The latter was never going happen.  Much of the former often led to posters directly accusing me of being responsible for China's transgressions as if watching a ski race on Chinese slopes makes me culpable for genocide (yes, there are people who actually believe that).  I reminded them that I was watching coverage on American TV with American advertisers who I can chose to support or not.  The Chinese government doesn't have a direct pathway to me.  As opposed to if I had TikTok on my phone, but that's a separate discussion.

The point of all that being that it's a different story if someone is planning on visiting the host country for the Olympics.  I have a friend who went to the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.  He had a lot of positive things to say about the experience.  Congrats to Qatar for successful sportswashing.  So I completely get the sentiment from someone who says they might not feel comfortable travelling to the United States with Trump as President and giving his country that support, even though as noted California is largely anti-Trump.

I might consider attending 2032 in Brisbane.  I know I don't have to tell you my affinity for Australia after my last trip there.  If something happened with the government where I was going to question spending money there, as has likely happened with the perception to many of the United States, that would be a different story.  I'll always support the Olympics from home because I'm in it for the athletes and especially in a country where our NOC relies largely on private funding.

You’re one of that rare breed of members here who is only focussed on the sports and athletes at the Olympics, and doesn’t care much for the fripperies. I respect that. Come what may, I’m going to be watching the sporting action from LA too. As I did with Beijing. The sport is the meat of a games.

I was pretty strident against the choice of Beijing from even before they were elected. As the games approached that choice became even more malevolent in my mind. And I was getting annoyed and dismayed by comments from some on the board that they were looking forward to the first decent ceremony in a long time. To me that was like getting excited that Goebbels and Riefenstahl had been appointed to direct ceremonies. I figured I couldn’t watch them, and stated that here. And that blew up into a spiteful flame war here.

LA’s opening is still more than three years away, and at this stage I anticipate watching them all from the opening to the close. But if there are indications that the Government and Trumpists are going to heavily influence the tone and messaging of the ceremonies, I will have to carefully consider if I watch those ceremonies or not.

To be honest, I don’t expect the ceremonies to be MAGA-fests. What I suspect, though, is the organisers and artistic directors might play it safe and shy away from anything that might cause a stir or be considered “woke”. Which would be a pity - I think Olympic ceremonies should be idealistic, aspirational and progressive.    

 

[Quaker2001]

53 minutes ago, sebastien1214 said:

This is definitely one of the top reasons in my top 1000 reasons why I think the US is a country of degenerates in so many ways. I never understood how you normalized the fact in your country that students have to go into debt for 10 years or more by taking out a loan just to be allowed to attend university (and while you may have government aid, I doubt it's enough except in exceptional cases).

(same thought for the UK by the way)

There are a lot of institutions in the United States that are for for profit that shouldn't be.  Medicine, education, prisons among others.  So much for the great American experiment.  And yes, the idea of socialized medicine here gets a bad reputation, heaven forbid we take care of the sick rather than exploit them.

[Roger87]

So the suspicion of the Opening Ceremony as a big Superbowl halftime is becoming reality? 

[Bear]

1 hour ago, Roger87 said:

So the suspicion of the Opening Ceremony as a big Superbowl halftime is becoming reality? 

...no?

[Bear]

The administration has rescinded the federal grant freeze, which means my life is back on track (until he finds out a new way to ruin it within the next 0.2 seconds)

https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-pause-federal-grants-aid-6d41961940585544fa43a3f66550e7be

[sebastien1214]

7 hours ago, Roger87 said:

So the suspicion of the Opening Ceremony as a big Superbowl halftime is becoming reality? 

I think it has nothing to do with it, the LA 2028 handover was already a mini-Superbowl before Trump arrived.

[Rob2012]

https://bsky.app/profile/coldwarsteve.bsky.social

[Rob2012]

Anyway, onto the next deplorable today...

 

[Quaker2001]

1 hour ago, sebastien1214 said:

I think it has nothing to do with it, the LA 2028 handover was already a mini-Superbowl before Trump arrived.

I think @Sir Rols had a good point.  I don't expect Trump or MAGA influence to be seen in the opening ceremony, but I don't think his presence may lead the organizers to avoid anything that might be considered controversial.  Of course, the flip side of that is maybe they absolutely don't care what Trump or any of his base thinks and they'll just parrot whatever Trump's opinions are on the Olympics, positive or negative

[Rob2012]

 

[Sir Rols]

3 hours ago, Rob2012 said:

 

How low can that piece of sh!t sink. So now some poor black, Hispanic or woman in the control tower is going to get death threats 

6 hours ago, Quaker2001 said:

I think @Sir Rols had a good point.  I don't expect Trump or MAGA influence to be seen in the opening ceremony, but I don't think his presence may lead the organizers to avoid anything that might be considered controversial.  Of course, the flip side of that is maybe they absolutely don't care what Trump or any of his base thinks and they'll just parrot whatever Trump's opinions are on the Olympics, positive or negative

Put it this way, I don’t think we’ll get drag queens, but we may get…

 

[Bear]

4 hours ago, Rob2012 said:

 

Yesss Bluesky links now properly embed, thank you mods 🙏

[Rob2012]

 

[Bear]

3 hours ago, Rob2012 said:

 

they should do this more often

[sebastien1214]

 

Ultimately, the US of the 2020s is exactly like Russia in the 90s; we just replaced the country, and the oil & gas oligarchs became the tech billionaires.

The problem is, we know how it ended in Russia.

[StefanMUC]

It’s basically a coup.

Unless organisers assure Elon that he’ll light the cauldron, win all the medals and keep all the ticket revenue, there won’t be a single $ for LA28 anymore…

Seriously, this is all insane and to be honest I really doubt there will be a peaceful way out of this in the end.

[Rob2012]

 

[Bear]

2 hours ago, Rob2012 said:

 

Watching the Canucks / Red Wings game and they booed the national anthem as well

[Roger87]

2026 FIFA World Cup will be a disaster in the making right?