Bill Resnick talks with Jules Boykoff, a former Olympic athlete, current Associate Professor of Political Science at Pacific University, and author of the forthcoming book Activism and the Olympics: Dissent at the Games in Vancouver and London (Rutgers University Press). They discuss the Olympic Games as an occasion for militarizing police in the name of security and as a corporate schmoozathon at taxpayer expense. Boykoff explains that unlike the disaster capitalism Naomi Klein outlined in The Shock Doctrine, what Boykoff calls "celebration capitalism" focuses on uneven public private partnerships, in which the public pays while private interests benefit. They also discuss the tightly controlled Olympic branding and the gap between noble rhetoric and seamy reality of the International Olympic Committee. Boykoff also discusses the activism of the Space Hijackers.
- KBOO