The Boston Globe Being Upset We're Not About to Host the Olympics is the Stupidest Take in the History of Takes
As hard as it is to believe, this was once an actual thing. A video put together nine years ago by some of Boston's "community and business leaders" to secure the city as the site of the Olympics that are about to start in Paris.
The case they were making to the International Olympic Committee is obvious from the sleek, well-crafted production you see above. Boston is a big sports town. It combines the old and the new. Steeped in its history and tradition but modern and ready to take on the challenges of our futurishness tomorrowly, or whatever.
To the public, they promised this would be good for us all. It would bring the world to our great city. Showcase us as the shining beacon on a hill that whatever old dead guy with a buckle on his hat once called it as he was hanging witches and making sure you couldn't by liquor on the Sabbath. Increase tourism and put money in all our pockets by increasing the value of people's homes.
There were several problems with the attempt. First, it didn't take long for a cynical people, still reeling from the Big Dig taking six times longer and going 12 times over the budget we were promised to notice a few things. One, that the only people out banging the drum for this boondoggle stood to make international fucktons of money off it. There wasn't one person selflessly promoting out of the goodness of their hearts. They were either the heads of labor unions, ran construction companies, owned the land that would be purchased or were getting paid a fortune to sell this thing to an already jaded public. It was revealed that former Governor Deval Patrick was raking in $7,500 in billable hours a week to marketing and legal work Boston 2024. It would've been one thing if the loudest voices were doing this out of a sense of civic pride, out of altruism, it might have been a different story. But for 7,500 bucks a week, you can get your average retired politician to promote giving out free cigs to Kindergartners and claim it'll help them relax and focus in school.
And of course, they promised we'd all benefit from the "investments" in "infrastructure," that would improve the quality of life for all Massholes. Because of course we couldn't invite the world into our city without sprucing the place up a bit, amirite? Amazingly, that's an argument that is still being made today. Long after we dodged this particular financial bullet and sent the IOC kleptocrats packing, scrambling to give the 2024 bid to Paris and 2028 to Los Angeles, there are people at John Henry's Boston Globe calling our near-miss a missed opportunity for that very reason:
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At the risk of sounding like a scornful, mistrusting skeptic:
In what world do you need to give out medals for Archery and Shot Put to people from New Zealand and Croatia in order to make your city run right? As we speak, Paris is supposed to be cleaning the fecal matter out of the Seine so that Crew teams can row in it, instead of for the actual people who live, work, and pay the bills there. And we're still having this discussion about how if we said yes to the IOC - an agency so corrupt it makes FIFA look like Starfleet Command - we'd finally get around to making the trains run on time?
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You've got to be intentionally, aggressively ignorant to think this way. Especially when it comes to recent history. Because in the middle of the Boston 2024 bid, the Monday in February of 2015 to be exact, the morning after the Patriots beat Seattle in the Super Bowl, a majority of MBTA workers employees banged in sick. This was hours after a blizzard. Tracks weren't cleared because hacks at the T opted to sleep in and cure their hangovers with a Hair of the Dog toast to Malcolm Butler. As news footage showed actual working people commuting to their real jobs on foot, walking up the tracks in their business clothes. It was an outrage that probably killed the Boston 2024 bid more than any other single moment.
Call me crazy, but I think that you can get off your ass and clean the house even if you're not having company over. If not, you've got much bigger problems than pet hairs in your carpet and Legos all over the floor. Especially if the price of having those guests is that they're going to empty your liquor cabinet and take all your silverware as they Irish Exit their way out of your party. A process which has already begun, four years before the next Games begin:
LA Times - Morale at LA28 “is not horrible, but it’s not great,” says an employee who is not authorized to speak publicly about the organization. “The level of confidence is not what it once was.” …
[The] committee is facing a particularly crucial challenge during the next four years in terms of balancing its estimated $7-billion budget.
LA28 has vowed to follow in the footsteps of the 1984 Los Angeles Games by generating enough revenue — including an expected $2.5 billion in corporate sponsorships — to cover all costs. …
All of this matters because LA28 is still $1 billion short of its sponsorship goal. If that 35% gap cannot be bridged, if the bills cannot be paid, city and state legislators will settle any debts with potentially hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars.
The minute the political leadership in Massachusetts, in a rare responsible move, insisted no public money going into covering costs of Boston 2024, the IOC grabbed their coats and ran to their private jets. Somehow LA 2028 managed to be dumb and naive enough to think they wouldn't need any such assurances. And now a city that can't clean human shit off the street (at least Paris keeps it in the river), is already paying the price. Literally.
So thanks, Globe. But no thanks. The day they announce this big worldwide Company Picnic is coming to Boston, they'll find nobody left living here to pay the tab.