America is not a fascist

country.

Say what you will about President Bush, but he has not (yet) successfully overthrown the Constitution and the other two branches of the federal government to take authoritarian control of the nation.

The Olympics, on the other hand, are totally fascist. There's no direct coercion involved, but remember the ridicule laid upon Kobe Bryant for missing out on the 2004 basketball team? You'd think he was being charged with sexual assault or something.

And it's all because of the Olympics.

I bet you had fun watching Michael Phelps demolish a world record Saturday, and watching thousands of Chinese proletariats pretend to be buildings in the opening ceremonies on Friday.

But when Phelps raised his arms in victory, I was horribly depressed.

Three dudes got medals, and the rest of them got nothing but a free trip to a country with bad air, no freedom of speech and a relatively low minimum wage.

For the first time since watching the Buffalo Bills lose four consecutive Super Bowls, I was reminded that no, sometimes your best is not good enough; sometimes you can't do everything you put your mind to. Sometimes you're not even a bronze medalist. Sometimes, you lose.

And that's why the Olympics suck.

The U.S. of A. will rack up its medal tally, but when the basketball team makes it to the medal round, I will root against it. LeBron James and Dwyane Wade already have their gold medals. They got them from Sprite and T-Mobile, and they're called endorsements.

But they'll win, or come close to it, and keep 12 hard-working Chinese men from making their country proud. Tyson Gay will win his track medal, and a bunch of eminently talented runners will go home losers. So this is diplomacy.

I can't really understand why the modern Olympics came to be, but it seems, at least nowadays, that they're for the athletes and the media conglomerates. The athletes gain the opportunity to show their abilities, and the media conglomerates gain the opportunity to make a ton of cash. But while a few men get to go home victorious, the rest get an in-your-face reality check: Try as you may, you cannot win.

And even the winners have little to hang on to. Summer Sanders was an Olympic swimmer. But she's best known for hosting Nickelodeon's Figure It Out and a handful of sports highlight shows. Kristi Yamaguchi is a figure skating champion, but now she's more famous for Dancing With the Stars.

Penn State gymnast Kevin Tan is kicking ass and taking names in Beijing, but what's he going to do when he comes home? He's going to come home and continue to coach other people's back-flips.

It's ironic that they'd hold the Olympics, such a competitive event, in a Communist country. But that's the paradoxical beauty of the Olympics: They want to have it both ways. You go and compete, but if you lose, you come home and you're not a hero. But for the month you're there, you have an entire country's eyes upon you, and you are their brightest hope for national pride.

But when that month's over, no one remembers you. You're like Bruce Springsteen's Vietnam veteran, born in the U.S.A. But you end up like a dog that's been beat too much 'til you spend half your life just covering up.

Savor those chants while they last, athletes.

U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

Kevin Doran is a former Daily Collegian editor and reporter and is the Monday columnist. His e-mail is kevin.a.doran@gmail.com.