Friday, February 11, 2022

We have always been at war with Oceania

 






As I have been extolling here the pleasures of the Olympics I have thus far managed to avoid discussing its enormous shadow: These games are a bit of a shitshow.

Covid restrictions, a superevil totalitarian government production, some sketchy officiating, lack of interest among an overstimulated audience that was never maybe that keen on Biathlons to begin with, mildly miserable Olympic Village conditions, and an IOC hopped up on the Capitalism of it all like meth addicts.

And so if you're not watching it, and I know vastly more people that are not watching it than are, I am not here to cast aspersions on your choices. You have a raft of reasons not to watch, a smorgasbord of sometimes excellent options to do absolutely anything else with your time.

But I do want to speak to the dourness and disaffection that has undercut this Olympics all along.

And so we come to the title of this piece: 


We have always been at war with Oceania.



China is hosting this Olympics. 


We have always been at war with China.


 

Wait, what happened to Russia? 

Well, yeah, them too. Plus, did you see Putin at the opening ceremony with Xi? Anyway the Russians bought off the Republican Party so we need a villain we can all agree on.

 

We need something all Americans can agree on!


We have always been at war with China.


Finally! Across America, from red state to blue state, crossing the terrible line between black and white, and encompassing the entire range of political thought all the way from the Center-left to the far right, everyone finally agrees; China is terrible. 


China is the enemy!


Well I mean, they always have been.



Iran? What are you talking about? 

Cuba? Iraq? Afghanistan? Venezuela?

Don't make me laugh.


France?

Hey, lay off of France already!


And the beauty of it is: China actually is terrible. Genocidal. Totalitarian. Opressive. And on top of all that their President doesn't like Winnie the Pooh. Piece of shit.

In short they are wicked. Evil.


Can anyone in the audience tell me the name of some other wicked countries in the World?


I'm sorry, your answers have been disqualified for a variety of reasons. A nice, long variety of reasons.


But at the very least maybe you shouldn't go around calling countries "wicked" even if they do some bad things. Just a word of advice for when you're discussing evil countries other than China. Let's keep it civil, eh?


And so the Olympic miasma has been cast: It is the evil China Winter Olympics. What do we do?


Well, we could refuse to buy all that crap that is made in China, so, like a quarter of all our stuff. We can start manufacturing our own garbage at fair wages, and we can just pay more to buy it and sell it and ship it. We can find it from somewhere else, and do a lot of research all the time for everything, and have principles, and be conscious, and tax the rich, and put our own house in order, and go without even if it's something we need desperately, and in all of that build our character and our independence.

Or,

Or! 

(Don't worry, I've got you)!

We can not watch the Snowboarding Halfpipe Event!


Which we weren't going to watch anyway. 

 

So that works then. Job done!


And that kid who has been snowboarding off cliffs for eleven hours a day since they were eight, and who can now flip so miraculously in the air that they might be a better and more exotic version of a human being, well, they'll be all right.

Their dream is bigger than us.






 






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