[antiwar-van] (Mon Feb 11) Shutdown the Corporate Olympic Countdown!

[Harsha]

- pls forward -

SHUTDOWN the CORPORATE OLYMPIC COUNTDOWN!
2 years before the Corporate Circus Begins!

Gordon Campbell and VANOC are hosting a Countdown to 2010 Luncheon at the
Hyatt Regency Hotel. Let us show them what we think of all their corporate
plunder!

<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Monday February 11, 2008
Gather at the Vancouver Art Gallery @ noon.
March arrives at Hyatt regency hotel at 12:30.
(655 Burrard street, corner West Georgia)
<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Bring your Drums and Regalia!
Free food! Speakers! Performers! Drumming! Action!

For more information contact: 604-682-3269 x8009
Email indigenous.free.school at gmail.com or convergence at no2010.com

Endorsed By: Native 2010 Resistance, Anti-Olympic Network, The Torch 2010
Watch, No One is Illegal, The Indigenous Free School, Warrior
publications, Workless Party, Anti Poverty Committee, La Surda Latin
American Collective, DTES Elders Council, Vancouver Status of Women,
Building Bridges to Chiapas, DTES Women Centre Power of Women Group, Latin
American Connexions, Downtown Eastside Residents Association.

The 2010 Winter Olympics will take place on unceded indigenous land in two
years. The effects of the Olympics are far greater than the games itself-
with the expansion of sport tourism on unceded indigenous lands and
increased land tenure to corporations; increasing homelessness and
gentrification of poor neighbourhoods; increasing privatization of public
services; union busting through decisions such as the seven-year imposed
contract handed down to the BC Ferry and Marine Workers Union and the
recent Canadian Union of Public Employees contracts; exploitative
conditions for workers especially temporary migrant labour; the
fortification of a security apparatus estimated at $175 million; and
unprecedented desctruction of mountains, old growth forests, streams,
hunting and fishing grounds, and delicate ecosystems.

Indigenous communities in the interior and on the coast of so called
British Columbia including the Secwepemc people of Skelkwek'welt, the
St'at'imc of Sutikalh, and the Pilalt of Cheam have been critiquing and
resisting the objectives and activities of the 2010 Olympics since 2000.
In October 2007, more than 1500 Indigenous people representing communities
across this hemisphere held the Gathering of the Indigenous Peoples of
America, on Yaqui territory in Vicam, Sonora, Mexico. They stated in their
final declaration, “We reject the 2010 Winter Olympics on sacred and
stolen territory of Turtle Island–Vancouver, Canada.”

While the Olympic organizers operate with a budget of almost $2
billion(costs for the Vancouver's Trade and Convention Centre alone has
reached almost $900 million) and other costs to government surpassing an
estimated $6 billion, Vancouver is now home to North America’s fastest
growing homelessness crisis. Dozens of low-income hotels and apartment
buildings are being converted to unaffordable condominiums. Over 126,000
people in 56,000 households in Greater Vancouver are at risk of
homelessness according to the 2001 Canada census. As thousands of people
are forced from their homes, they are then criminalized for being
homeless.
Indigenous people account for 30% of this homeless population, despite
making up only 2% of the total population in the province.

The 2010 corporate Olympics circus is apparent by examining the
destructive global record of some of its sponsors. These include:

• Petro-Canada, one of Canada’s largest producers of oil and gas,
• TransCanada, one of the continent’s largest transporters of oil and gas.
• Canadian Pacific Railway, long an integral tool of colonization, •
Hudson’s Bay Company, another company responsible for the colonization and
theft of Indigenous land,
• General Electric, one of the world’s top three producers of military
aircraft engines and major producer of nuclear power plants,
• General Motors, long a top contractor for the Canadian military and now
the world’s largest automobile manufacturer,
• Dow Chemical, the world’s second largest chemical manufacturer and cause
of the Bhopal, India disaster,
• Bell Canada, who’s CEO is one of the top corporate architects of the
Security and Prosperity Partnership.


==> WHAT CAN YOU DO?

REFUSE TO BE IGNORANT about the Games. Gather more information and learn
more about what the Olympics plan to do in your community, and take
action.

Check out
http://no2010.com/
http://2010watch.com/
harrietspirit at blogspot.com

To get more involved in the Native anti-2010 movement or to access a more
thorough information package about Indigenous people and the Games: email:
indigenous.free.school at gmail.com

==> ARTICLES <==

* No Olympics on Stolen Land
http://warriorpublications.com/?q=node/36

* Massacres and Profits: A brief history of the Olympics
http://users.resist.ca/~eps2005/olympics.html

*Olympics blamed for forcible removal of 2 million over 20 years
http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,,2096323,00.html

* CCPA Report: Managing the Cost of Olympic Gold
http://www.policyalternatives.ca/index.cfm?act=news&do=Article&call=624&pA=BB736455

* Real estate, sport tourism and Native sovereignty in B.C.
http://www.sevenoaksmag.com/features/29_billie.html

* Migrant workers coerced by RAV line employer
http://noii-van.resist.ca/?p=573

* The Olympics Land Grab by Naomi Klein
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=3941

* More Homeless than Athletes in 2010
http://thetyee.ca/News/2007/05/28/Homeless1/

* Stolen Games
http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/1099

* Everywhere they go, the Olympic Games become an excuse for eviction and
displacement.
http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/15054

* Report Slams Run-up to Olympics
http://thetyee.ca/News/2007/05/07/Olympics/