Olympians Represent The Best of Our Team Efforts
By Tina Dupuy
It's hard to get excited about the Winter Olympics. Watching elite athletes do elite sports is not on the same level of human drama that plays out at the Summer Games. Face it - you have to be pretty well off to even discover an aptitude for skiing. The winter games are mostly watching privileged people be better at something you can't afford to try. Plus if you qualify for the Winter Olympics you are more than likely from an industrialized nation with a history of human rights (something about snow ensures basic government functioning).
In short: Curling isn't the only reason the Winter Olympics are lame.
While only 82 countries participated in the 2010 games in Vancouver, every nation save three (South Sudan, Kosovo and Vatican City) will be competing in the 2012 games in London. It's truly a global event. It's also the first time every nation will have sent a female athlete. Saudi Arabia, where women can barely vote (let alone drive), is sending two female athletes to the games for the first time. Qatar and Brunei (also with spotty women's suffrage) have women representing them as well this year.
The Summer Olympics are not just about seeing who throws farther than other people who can throw far. The Summer Olympics are a metaphor for what we idealize as the American Dream. Our impenetrable Puritan values: Hard work has a payoff. It's the pageantry of the best of the best and how they got there. Sure, it's sportsmanship, but for Americans the summer games is an opportunity for us to romanticize individualism.
Americans, after all, see ourselves as pioneers — as homesteaders — people who in our mythology can handle a hurdle race or two.
For us, Olympian rags-to-riches tales are what America is based on: Pulling on your bootstraps until you find yourself on the center rostrum.
Last week, President Obama botched paraphrasing an Elizabeth Warren line, "No one in this country got rich on his own," and ending up saying (if you scrub all context) no one built their own business. The right-wing has been quick to refute this gaffe with a collective "did too!" The theme (at least) was clear: Success is a group effort.
Every Olympian represents an army of people supporting, nurturing and encouraging ability. No one gets to the Olympics on their own. No matter how naturally gifted — they're on their way to London because people helped them get there. "People" meaning communities, parents and yes, governments.
I was raised in foster care. The alleged nanny state was my actual nanny. People will argue with me that I was raised by "people" and not the government. Which is like saying you don't need electricity to light your home because you have a lamp. I know there was a mass of people (many employed by the state) investing their time and energy into my wellbeing. I showed up and did the work but I could not have done it all by myself. I had help. Tons.
That's what the president was talking about: infrastructure. Our collective investment in our country.
When I watch the Olympics I see how the world treats its young people. I see their hope for the future on a balance beam. I see politics. I see progress. I see individuals representing the best of us — and all we can accomplish. I see the opposite of isolationism and selfishness. But mostly I see that truly American story of coming from behind and going for the gold.
Go team!
Copyright 2012 TinaDupuy.com, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. Tina Dupuy is an award-winning writer and the editor-in-chief of SoapBlox. Tina can be reached at tinadupuy@yahoo.com.
Cerulean posted at 8:14 am on Sat, Jul 21, 2012.
I truly enjoyed this story - thank you. And, GO TEAM!
Engaged Voter posted at 4:16 pm on Tue, Jul 24, 2012.
I am mystified on why everyone, including the author, takes the Warren quote out of context, as it would be easy to simply include the rest of the quote:
"There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there -- good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory... Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea -- God Bless! Keep a Big Hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."
And the actor that Romney hired for a TV ad claiming he DID do it on his own? The fraud has been exposed - he took millions in government aid.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/07/star-of-romney-my-hands-didnt-build-this-ad-received-millions-in-government-loans-and-contracts/
And what did Romney say to the Olympic atheletes just a couple years ago?
"You Olympians, however, know you didn't get here solely on your own power," Romney said after congratulating the athletes. "For most of you, loving parents, sisters or brothers, encouraged your hopes, coaches guided, communities built venues in order to organize competitions. All Olympians stand on the shoulders of those who lifted them."
Gosh, they didn't get there on their own? ;)
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