And things have been just as bad, if not worse, in Sydney. Even as Cathy Freeman's face beamed down from a hundred billboards, the government was busily evicting residents of the poor Aboriginal suburb of Redfern to make the Olympic environs more attractive to tourists. But, of course, it's so absolutely integral to the way that a lot of corporations are making big bucks. It's essentially a TV show. It's a good one.
People get really excited by it.
But there's this growing movement to ask what goes on behind the camera. That movement began in 1968 with the Mexico City student protests against Olympic treasury-looting, protests in which hundreds were massacred by police. The movement was reinvigorated in the 1980s by Borowy's Bread Not Circuses, a grassroots group formed to critique Toronto's bid for the 1996 Games, and now a key opponent of the city's 2008 bid. As far as Atlanta's Beaty is concerned, twelve years in advance is none too early to be organizing against the Olympic juggernaut. And it causes even decent, good-hearted people to want to sweep those problems under the rug.