Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - "U.S. athletes told to cool it at Olympics"

pocon1 · 05-17-2004, 07:23 AM

A couple more thoughts. The only time that a flag is draped on an American officially is when the person has died for the country. Anything less takes away from the impact and the importance of the ceremony. These people are not dying for their country, they competed in an athletic event and won.
Also, are these people really competing for America, or do they happen to be top-level athletes who are from America? They are not great athletes because they are American, they just happen to be on our team. Celebrate the athletes for the accomplishments, but understand that these are only games. There are only a few times that politics are really entangled in the olympics. Jesse Owens kicking racist and xenophobic ass at the Berlin games in 1936. U.S. winning the gold in Hockey vs the russians in 1980. but normally, that is not what the olympics is about. It's just a game.

05-17-2004, 07:23 AM	#18 (permalink)
pocon1 Banned	A couple more thoughts. The only time that a flag is draped on an American officially is when the person has died for the country. Anything less takes away from the impact and the importance of the ceremony. These people are not dying for their country, they competed in an athletic event and won. Also, are these people really competing for America, or do they happen to be top-level athletes who are from America? They are not great athletes because they are American, they just happen to be on our team. Celebrate the athletes for the accomplishments, but understand that these are only games. There are only a few times that politics are really entangled in the olympics. Jesse Owens kicking racist and xenophobic ass at the Berlin games in 1936. U.S. winning the gold in Hockey vs the russians in 1980. but normally, that is not what the olympics is about. It's just a game.