“Team USA is comprised
of an interweaving of distant cultures. If the symbolic Christmas song White
Christmas was written by the Jewish musician Izrail Moiseevic Bejlin,
better known by his nome de plume Irving Berlin, why on earth shouldn’t one
hear the Star Spangled Banner after being awarded an Olympic gold medal while
wearing a uniform tailored by a capable Chinese seamstress? What could be more ‘American’?
But don’t expect demagogues doped up in an election-year frenzy to understand
this.”
Made in China with inspiration from the French and designed by a Jewish man from the Bronx, Team USA's Olympic uniforms reflect in their own way America's cultural greatness.
Nothing is more patriotic then when an athlete wins Olympic
gold for his country, his flag is raised high on the mast, tears are shed on
the podium, and the solemn tones of the national anthem are sounded. In the
United States, which is headed to London to challenge the primacy it lost in
2008, when China won 51 gold medals to America’s 36, the cameras are already
on, and contracts for sponsoring breakfast cereals are being prepared.
But the idyllic moment seems ruined by a summer controversy
which, thanks to the Olympics, risks infecting the election race between Barack
Obama and his Republican contender, Mitt Romney. A report from the ABC TV
network revealed that the uniforms of the mighty American team, designed by fashion
designer Ralph Lauren,
are 100 percent made in China.
All hell may break loose: in Washington, if populist
propaganda was an Olympic sport, all records would have already been broken.
The Democratic Senate leader, Harry Reid declared: “If they have to wear
nothing but a singlet with ‘USA’ on it painted by hand, that’s what they should
wear.” Republican House Speaker Boehner rumbled: “You'd think they'd know
better.” His democratic rival, Mrs. Pelosi, added: “They represent the very
best and they're so excellent, it's all so beautiful ... And they should be
wearing uniforms made in America.” The festival of tall tales also enlisted Bernie
Sanders, the only American socialist senator, for whom the choice of uniforms
puts millions of jobs at risk, while Senator Scott Brown accuses China of
commercial trickery, and put forward a law under which in 2014, the athletes would
wear Made in USA uniforms.
Ralph Lauren’s poor uniforms, wide white trousers in Great
Gatsby style for men, pleated skirts like those worn at Wimbledon at the turn
of the last century for women, and Commodore style blue blazers and funny
French-style berets for both sexes, had already been trashed by fashion
reviews. Robert Verdi quipped
ironically, “Are they customs officers or athletes?” The
blog Fasionista is more severe: “When an athlete looks a little lumpy and
matronly in an outfit, that concerns me.” The naughty French of France 24
TV (twitter @france24) tease: America will wear the beret so dear to us
Parisians.” Finally, U.S.
military veterans from Milltown, New Jersey, are offended because the stars
and stripes logo on the blue blazer is smaller than the Ralph Lauren logo: “When
you say the Pledge of Allegiance, they’re covering the Ralph Lauren logo ... the
flag’s always supposed to go over your heart. The company logo shouldn’t be
larger than the American flag. It is the U.S. Olympic team, not the Ralph
Lauren team.”
Its kind of funny, like during the Iraq War, when the Congressional
commissary renamed “French fries” to “freedom fries” on its menu. But all the buffoonery
conceals a profound unease between the U.S. and China, stemming from the Washington’s
post-crisis economic difficulty and China’s slowing economic growth, now at 7.6
percent. The United States must create jobs (Obama’s re-election is at risk);
while China has to rush to eliminate rural poverty (this is the crux of the
Communist Party Congress next autumn).
Posted by Worldmeets.US
Mitt Romney vows that if elected, he will declare China a
“currency manipulator,” and force it to reevaluate the yuan, something Beijing
has already done. As a candidate, Obama used to say this too, as did G. W. Bush
and Clinton. None of whom undertook any such thing against a country that sells
products to Americans that result in a $273 billion U.S. deficit every year,
but which still remains a key partner, holding the biggest share of U.S. debt
in the world. The uniforms of Team USA are made in China because, if they were made
in America, they would cost a lot more than the current $1500 a piece - and the
Olympic Committee lives on private sponsorship.
If you don’t like baggy trousers, pleated skirts and
double-breasted blazers, then do the math with your iPad - a product dreamed up
in Silicon Valley. Made in China by workers earning less than $36 a day (€30),
an iPad 3 costs $299, and an iPad 4 $499. The magazine the
Atlantic has estimated how much iPads would cost if they were
produced entirely in the United States, by workers earning $35 an hour (it
takes about 9 hours to assemble an iPad), and adding the cost of labor, insurance
and mining - for instance, mineral extraction in a U.S. state - the elegant Made
in USA tablet would cost three times the price of those Made in China. The textile
industry has different parameters, but even the controversial Team USA uniforms
would cost about twice as much.
As we all know, politics and sport should never mix and
mingle, but they always do. For the 2012 London Olympic Games, the Ralph Lauren
“issue” is just the beginning, but it will end with a whimper after the closing
ceremonies and election night in November.
For good or ill, China and United States remain partners,
and the day of their showdown - which will happen - is not at hand. The moral
of the story, from which the U.S. lawmakers take pride, is that Ralph Lauren,
the designer who has turned all Americans into refined WASPS -
White Anglo Saxon Protestants dressed up as privileged students of noble Ivy
League universities - was born Ralph Lipschitz, to a poor Jewish family in the Bronx,
and reinvented himself as a master of the aristocratic style. This is the hidden
strength behind Team USA, which is comprised of an interweaving of distant
cultures. If the symbolic Christmas song White Christmas was
written by the Jewish musician Izrail Moiseevic Bejlin, better known by his nome
de plumeIrving Berlin,
why on earth shouldn’t one hear the Star Spangled Banner
after being awarded an Olympic gold medal while wearing a uniform tailored by a
capable Chinese seamstress? What could be more “American”? But don’t expect demagogues
doped up in an election-year frenzy to understand this.
