The greatest part of the Olympics is that it brings the world together, which was a goal of the modern day Olympics brain trust. Of course, it’s hard to keep politics from coming to the party and infusing it with all that it is not supposed to be about. This year with China hosting the event everybody had to know that politics was going to jump right in and take center stage. And now with Olympic Torch is being toted around the world and everyone and their brother siding with the Tibetans and their cause and both Athens and London feeling the heat of carrying the torch so far, the question is raised, isn’t it time for the Olympics to have a home instead of this traveling road show that does nothing more than envelope the “bring the world together” message with let’s protest against anything the host country is guilty of for the sake of our outsiders views? It’s interesting that the Winter Olympics don’t have the level of worldly judgments that the summer Olympics do, maybe it’s too cold to have divergent thoughts. It’s pretty obvious that a permanent home would be the perfect solution for this worldwide malady of Olympic Politics and what is stopping that from happening? Politics!

The politics of a lot of people making a lot of money on the backside of every Olympic Committees decision of where the next Games will be playing to the Political Quagmire Actions of the host country that can be exposed, protested against, boycotted or just bitch-slapped.

The Olympics should only be held in perfect states with no religious, political, gender or pollution problems. I think that exists on Pluto now that it is not a planet anymore. Reasonably, the summer Olympics should be held in Athens, the birthplace of the Olympics, and the Winter Olympics should be held in Switzerland the most neutral country in the world and home of the greatest wintertime arena, the Alps. But it’s not going to happen because too much money won’t be made by the wrong type of people. So living with the politics of the Olympics is our bane. Of course, if the Olympics were set in Politics-Free-Zone then we would all become nostalgic for all the politics and protests that were in the past. The wonderful backfiring of the Berlin Games in 1936 where Hitler trying to trumpet his Aryan perfection was embarrassed by Jesse Owens, the far from Aryan and the opposite of all that is Nazi perfection, who won four gold medals. Then again back in Germany the tragedy and the eye-opening world of Middle East terrorism at the Munich games that was a horrible tragedy of mind-boggling proportions. Then there was the tit for tat Olympics held in Moscow and Los Angeles with the USSR and the USA proving how grown up they were. There was the bomb in Atlanta and of course the Iraq soccer team in the Athens’s Olympics that President Bush said was his favorite Olympic moment. He had invaded that country and felt vilified that they could still make a soccer team and make it to the semi-finals.

This year Nancy Pelosi wants Bush not to attend the opening ceremonies as a protest against the Tibetan violence. In reality I think she wants to spare America from the embarrassment of the world seeing him there. I mean if we are going to protest China’s human rights abuses in Tibet how should the rest of the world protest our invasion and occupation of Iraq for the last five years. But beyond all these things my favorite protest of all the Olympics came from two African-American athletes in Mexico City that raised their black gloves in protest of racism in their own country. Maybe, just maybe, there are a couple of Chinese athletes who can express themselves in a similar way because athletes hold a lot more sway and have a lot more power when seen standing up and protesting real atrocities in their own lands on the world stage than politicians ever will…