The Opening Ceremony of the Winter Olympics on Feb. 6 in Milan’s San Siro stadium, although more moderate in depravity than the opening of the Olympic Games in Paris, showed that hoping for a self-improvement of “popular culture” is a losing proposition. Besides the abysmal quality of the musical and dancing performances, including the desecration of the national anthem, it is noteworthy to observe how the public was manipulated.
As the Israeli team entered the stadium, the 50,000-plus audience started to boo it. As the Ukrainian delegation marched in, there was a standing ovation. Mind that the audience had paid the following prices for a ticket: Category A (premium/top seats): approx. €2,026; Category B: approx. €1,400; Category C: approx. €700; Category D (cheapest regular category): approx. €260.
Since it is difficult to fill a stadium with such prices, the Milan administration probably gives out tickets for free to a clientele, which usually involves instructions on how to behave.
Outside of the stadium, a few hundred “Black Block” anarchists engaged in violence and clashes with the police, in an attempt to storm the stadium, to protest against “ICE deployment at the Olympic Games.”
Apparently nobody protested because of Russia’s being excluded again from the Games.
