The other day Hive account@bozz was saying he is going to watch the opening ceremony of the winter Olympics and I was wondering how the Americans generally feel about what happened. The US team was applauded as they arrived, but the crowd had been warned not to boo the vice president, JD Vance - but the crowd did boo. However, the US audience didn't hear the boos for Vance, because they were filtered out entirely.

How do people feel about that?

Does it feel like a being lied to?

It feels a bit like what a military regime would do, editing out any criticism of their regime. But What I also find interesting is that they were able to get a "don't boo" message forced through to spectators in another country. I don't think there should be any message to the spectators on how they should react - especially to a politician.

No politics in sports?

While I think athletes should be athletes and represent their sport to the best of their ability, I am not so sure it is possible to keep politics out of sports, because politics itself has become a sport. It has been engineered as entertainment, and none have done it more so than the Trump administration. So it is hyper-hypocritical that they demand that the entertainment factor they themselves use to their benefit, shouldn't be leveraged by others. They have made politics gladiatorial, and polarised the crowd, so boos should be expected. The suppression of dissidents is what can be expected from authoritarian regimes.

The people of the US are being suppressed.

Do they feel it?

I don't know. Hive account@bozz, what do you think of having your view of the opening ceremony censored in the same way Russia, China, or Iran would do? This isn't a challenge to you of course, it is that we have discussed these things before and now it is happening in your backyard. It somehow seems different when it has been discussed as the brainwashing of citizens by Putin, or the restriction of access to the internet by Xi or Khamenei, doesn't it?

It always makes me question how regime supporters can rationalise what is going on now, as I don't think it is what they initially agreed to initially. They wanted suppression of the other side of course, but now it is is suppression of everyone. How far have the Trump supporters had to move away from their personal values in order to keep justifying support? I get the "even if he shot someone in Time Square" mentality, but when people are losing the freedoms that they so staunchly supported, like free speech, what happens?

I try to put myself in their shoes, but I don't have very political feet to begin with, nor do I have strong, polarising values that I feel I have to protect. It is hard for me to put myself in the place of someone who is a "staunch" supporter, because I am not really a fan of anything. I like stuff, but do not fanboy. I am not a fan of a lot of things though, like violence. But violence can't really be overcome through more violence, can it?

What is important to acknowledge is that while by past standards, the current global political scene is a mess, it should be awakening people to how ridiculous and fragile it all is. The system is broken and we are seeing how broken it is and if we want to do something to improve the world, we have to scrap this system, and build another. Unfortunately though, we are too often stuck in the frame of "this is the way it must be" when that is not the case at all.

Boooooo!

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]

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