Anarchist anti-olympic demo in Athens

What is it about the Olympic Games that has pissed peeps off so much that there is a call for them to be smashed? What does a sporting event done to cause this ferocity of attack?

(Not trolling, just wondering WTF all the beef is about.)

because I am working as a fucking dog everyday and I am paid shit while the same time they spent millions for fucking chairs for the athletes...because 18 people are dead in the constructions where workers work 12 hours for shit...because they destroyed every space of memory, every park, every ecological site...because they spent millions for cameras and security shit which control everything..because the commodify everything...because the built jails for the homeless, the poor and the marginalised...do you want more?

professional sport is a grotesque expression of capitalism.

But aren't the Olympic Games enjoyed by millions of people all over the world? I can't help feeling that these people are nit-picking, ok perhaps these sorts of events do celebrate capitalism but they are also an opportunity for everyone to come together and enjoy sport. Doesn't seem that harmful, surely? I remember when the Commonwealth Games was held in Manchester, it gave me a job for the summer and the atmosphere was excellent. Everyone chillin' in Piccadilly Gardens, watching the Games on a big screen whilst soaking up some sun or cooling off in the fountains. It was the best thing that ever happened to the city!

And to provide for the staduims to hold the games? They closed down two swimming pools arround manchester so they could fund the new aquatics centre in the middle of town. Great in your some yuppie who can afford a appartment in the centre of town, i suppose.
And as for people 'chillin'' in picadilly (and we chill there regardless of some jumped up sports day darling) don't count on that for much longer. A 1/3 of it was sold off to build picadilly one (you know that ugly office block that sacked construction worker for trying to form a union and still unoccupied 1 year after it opened.) in order to fund the redevlopment of picadilly gardens for the games (and may I say guys nice job cutting down all the trees and building a concrete wall, inspired). Well the rest of picadilly's going to be given to that company in 5 years time as part of the deal.

So people came together and enjoyed sports, awh bless (part of course from the undesirable people like the homeless). We even got those nasty looking tower blocks in manchester covered up with massive banners so the queen didn't have to look at such unsitely things (but the people who live next to them well they don't count). And we spent 1/4 billion on hosting a fucking corperate junkette for 'sports personalities' (there's a oxymoron if ever I'd heard one) and government digniaties. Don't you reckon spending that money on providing sports equipemnt for schools, free enterence to the liesure centres or protecting school playing fields would be a better idea?

What's wrong with Olympics - isn't it a nice thing if the nations of the world measure themselves in peaceful combat rather than wars? Well that's the ideology, and even that is flawed. What the Olympics do to a town can be seen in Barcelona amongst other places - for 1991, entire neighbourhoods were pulled down and/or gentrified, local networks and economies destroyed, a new yuppified area constructed, large parts of the town were streamlined for consumption and tourism. Is all this justified just to provide a few weeks of TV entertainment?

When the Olympics were meant to Amsterdam and later to Berlin, people set up large campaigns to prevent them, successfully. Let's hope they won't come to London either!

just got back from greece, no surprise olympics being pushed heavily at tourist but all but one greek person i met didn't want the olympics because there are loads of other things which need sorting... the security will be more horrendously expensive than even it was before, the athens police will be even more like heavily aggressive gerbils on speed than usual, homeless people are already being cleaned away...

in reality, it'll be businesses who profit from the games, not people in athens or greece. chilling in a park or cheering at a game might be fun but it'll be the greek people who really pay for it and lose out by it in numerous ways.
just like manc really.

and before anyone quotes numbers of jobs created by commonwealth games in manc, most of those jobs were short-term, low paid crap but we still lost two local pools as said prev (and the rest)

they also rounded up the strays in Athens and put them to sleep en masse - which is fairly disgusting and incomprehensibly cruel...