Olympics

from no2010, 8 October 2008: 373 per cent jump since 2002 count - Greater Vancouver's homeless crisis continues to grow at a "stunning" and "shocking" rate, with a 373-per-cent increase in street homelessness since 2002. more

from no2010, 22 August 2008: from The Edmonton Journal - Canadian officials surveying the Beijing Olympics must be paying special attention to the myriad protests and criticisms -- some overdrawn and overwrought -- that have dogged China before and during the Games. If they are wise, our observers should fight the temptation to feel smugly superior... And while Canada has considerable bragging rights compared with China in the areas of free speech, democracy, religious freedom and other fundamental liberties, we are not without our shiny spots. One of the most threadbare is the perceived -- and real -- environmental baggage associated with Alberta's oilsands, like it or not.  more

from email, 21 August 2008: In the year 2010, three major international events will be taking place in the Canadian state: the Winter Olympics in Vancouver/Whistler (between February 12-28); the G8 Leader's Summit in Huntsville, Ontario (most likely in June or July); and the meeting of the NAFTA leaders as part of the so-called "Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP)" (date and location not yet known). Already, groups and individuals on the West Coast have come together under the banner of "No Olympics on stolen native land." They have been organizing and raising awareness, from an anti-colonial and anti-capitalist perspective, against the 2010 Olympics, for several years.  more

from Games Monitor, 21 April 2008: There is no doubt that the Olympics will bring about a permanent change to the economy of East London, The question is what kind of change, and who will benefit. Here lies the challenge. The problem is that previous Olympics have failed to help the most economically disadvantaged groups living in the areas where the Games have taken place. In the UK, flagship regeneration projects in East London and elsewhere have also failed to improve the well-being of local residents. The Docklands development is the most glaring example. more

from roadnetwork, 19 March 2008: There are lots of reasons we’re opposing the Olympics. One of the main ones is that they’re happening on stolen (aboriginal) land... There’s also the gentrification aspect that’s going on in the city of Vancouver. Poor people are being pushed out of the city. Low-income housing is being torn down... People are dying in the streets to so it seems foolish to be wasting so much money on some games. We’re resisting the games for issues of environment; for issues of race; for issues of class; and all of those things interacting. more

from email, 22 November 2007: "This was presented by Ange Sterritt on November 15 '07, as part of a West Coast speaking tour to support the TYENDINAGA Mohawks ... The Olympics destroys Native lands, Indigenous women, Indigenous communities, and human dignity. The Olympics creates homelessness, abject poverty, further violence and racism..." more

various sources, 18 October 2007: Indigenous representatives attending an intercontinental Indigenous gathering in Vicam, Sonora Mexico have called for a boycott of the 2010 Olympics Games. The meeting was attended by over 1500 delegates representing nations from the US, Canada, Mexico, Central America and South America. more

from email, 3 October 2007: Mute Talk at Soho Theatre 7pm, 9 October, 2007
Generation Debt, Part 1: The True Cost of the Olympics. The enormous bill for two weeks of spectacularised sport is justified by promises of urban regeneration. However a growing number of people insist that in reality the games are nothing more than a corporate landgrab.  more

repost, 31 August 2007: "Labourers from poor rural areas of China, some in their teens and often lacking the most basic safety equipment, are working seven-day weeks for less than £20 to complete the facilities for next year's Beijing Olympics, an Independent on Sunday investigation has revealed..." more

from ASS web site, 14 June 2007: 2 articles about the PFI style robbers that are the Olympics. "The Olympic Games have displaced more than 2 million people in the last 20 years,mostly minorities such as the homeless and poor, a rights group said Tuesday..." more

from email, 19 June 2007: "Some unpleasant truths about the Olympics that the IOC would rather you didn’t know: according to the Geneva based Centre for Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) some 1.25 million people have already been displaced to make way for Beijing Olympics, and in Seoul, South Korea, the Olympics made around 720,000 homeless..." more

19 June 2007: Article from Play Fair 2008 about the difficult conditions in factories in China supplying the 2008 Beijing Olympic games.
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The PlayFair 2008 campaign group exposes gross violations of basic labour standards by several Chinese factories supplying goods under license for the Beijing Olympics, including adult wages at half the legal minimum, employment of workers as young as 12 years old, and employees made to work 12-hour shifts seven days a week in unsafe and unhealthy conditions.  more

This article is originally from 2004, at the time of the Athens Olympics, describing how sweat-shop labour around the world is used to mass produce the merchandising in appalling conditions.

What was true then is being repeated for the 2008 Games in Beijing, and there's no reason to assume it will be any different for London 2012's event. As usual, the rich will benefit, the poor will be exploited.  more

This is a repost of an article that was reposted to infoshop.org, about an anti-Olympics demonstration that got a bit lively. The 2010 Winter Olympics will be held in Canada, and opposition is flourishing.

The article itself comes from a corporate Canadian newspaper web site so it bigs up the cops and doubts the hygiene of the demonstrators.

The second article (see below) deals with the annual anti-police demos held in Canada.  more

A combination of leaked documents and public policy debate has recently revealed that the British government is preparing to use the 2012 Olympic games in London as a showcase for multiple big brother police state operations and technologies. more

February 2004: The Olympic Games are, today, an expression of neoliberal capitalist globalisation. The International Olympic Committee (IOC), as well as a number of organisations of financial globalisation (International Monetary Fund, World Bank, World Trade Organisation, the list goes on and on) are concerned with the management of an enterprise named “the Olympic Games” that favours multinational companies, the transnational media networks and the major imperialist countries, with the USA in first position. more