Excess commercialism devalues 2012 games
Recent U.S. news has focused on this year's Summer Olympics, but surprisingly, it's not the achievements of our national team that has caught everyone's attention. It's what they're wearing.
Our nation's finest athletes are getting grief not for their fashion sense, but for the business sense of the company who made their uniforms. Ralph Lauren, an iconic name in American clothing, designed the team's clothes but had them manufactured in China. Now politicians are outraged that the U.S. will be represented at an international event wearing the products of one of its major economic competitors.
There's no question — this is clearly an oversight by the U.S. Olympic Committee. Outsourcing has taken a visible toll on our country's manufacturing sector. Sen. Harry Reid's call to have the uniforms rounded up and burned, while hyperbolic, isn't surprising when taking a moment to consider the very real economic fears of most Americans.
However, the extreme political reaction is really grand-standing by party leaders nearing the eve of a major national election. In other words, the senators doth protest too much.
Since when have the Olympics really been about national pride? There have certainly been major moments where they had cultural significance — World War II, the Cold War and others — but the games once meant to unite have become a representation of our own addiction to consumerism and vast conglomerates. The pride we feel in our athletes is very real, but let's face it, building one of the world's largest McDonald's for an event celebrating professional athleticism and physical prowess seems like a bigger slap in the face than the Chinese-made uniforms.
The sponsorships, financial costs for the hosting cities, political and economic missteps — the Olympic Games have devolved into a concentrated nightmare of what's wrong with our international community. We live in a world that rewards the greatest profit for the cheapest price, no matter the effects for countries or the working families. That is the system we as Americans have always celebrated, and now we are beginning to realize its price.
For now, Americans back home must use this uniform "problem" to try and answer a much older question. Six senators have introduced the "Team USA Made in American Act of 2012," which will require the Olympic Team's uniforms be made on American soil by an American company. As one French commentator pointed on: "free-market protectionist capitalism ... Wait, what?"
We can't have our cake and eat it, too (or, in London's case, our Big Mac). Either we commit ourselves to a capitalist system that allows for widespread outsourcing, or we begin to reimagine our economy in a way that steps back from the traditional dichotomies that have ruled our political discourse for so long.
For now, let's support the men and women who have worked their entire lives for this singular opportunity — no matter what they're wearing.