[van-announce] [Fwd: Thurs Nov 20th: Intl media needs to get our Anti Olympics message!]

[Harsha]

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: [orn-announce] Thurs Nov 20th: Intl media needs to get our Anti
Olympics message!
From:    "the Olympic Resistance Network (ORN)"

VANCOUVER, BC - More than 200 representatives from international news
wire services, photo agencies, newspapers, internet sites and non-rights
holding broadcast organizations are expected to attend the Vancouver 2010
World Press Briefing scheduled for November 18 to 21, at the Vancouver
Convention and Exhibition Centre, Suite 200, 999 Canada Place.

The Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) has planned this event to
further propell its propanganda towards a global audience: masking the
devestation and mass local resistance towards the 2010 Winter Olympics. The
Olympic Resistance Network (ORN) plans to counter this attempt by claiming
November 18th - 21st as 'Days of Anti-Olympic Action'!

The following are two public events we hope you will join in with:

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THURS NOV 20TH AT NOON
DRUMMING and SPEAK-OUT
at the Vancouver Convention Center (999 Canada Place)
from Waterfront station head northwest on Waterfront Rd W.
Bring your drums, songs and voices!

THURSDAY NOV 20TH AT 3 PM
PRESS CONFERENCE- @ 524 MAIN ST (corner Pender)
All welcome! Press Conference with various organizations and communities
opposed to the 2010 Olympic Games.

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"The 2010 Games have already wreaked havoc on our communities and
destroyed traditional unceded indigenous territories. The people feeling
the negative effects of these actions are opposing this injustice and are
calling for mass anti-olympic resistance against all Olympic venues and
sponsors!" -Mary Claremont, Vancouver resident

We invite all community members to help send the message to the world that
the people demand an end to the oppression and corporate greed that
are the 2010 winter games. We are calling for a wide range of actions by as
many groups and individuals as possible to fuel upcoming convergence. If
every group covers an Olympic issue in their own realm and or hits one out
of a vast number of Olympic sites around the city this should take VANOC's
glory away once again. We call for a wide range of actions by different
groups and individuals to demonstate to the world media that active
opposition the 2010 circus exists and grows more powerful with each
passing day.

So be creative! Let's turn this media circus away from the corporate circus!


**Background**

The Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games are scheduled to take place on
unceded indigenous land from February 12th to February 28th.  The
devastating effects of the upcoming Winter Games have already begun to
manifest themselves in the following ways:

* tourism developments and resource extraction on indigenous lands
* homelessness and the gentrification of poor neighbourhoods
* privatisation of public services
* the exploitative use of migrant labour
* fortification of the national security and military apparatus

All of this is occurring at the public's expensee and to the detriment
of our local communities and environment.

The Olympics Resistance Network is a group based in Vancouver, Coast
Salish Territories and that exists to coordinate Olympic resistance
efforts. In doing so, we act in solidarity with other communities across
'British Columbia' - particularly indigenous communities who have been
defending their land against the onslaught of the Olympics and similar
agents of colonialism long before Vancouver won the bid to host the games.

While our organising is being done under the slogan of "No Olympics on
Stolen Native Land", we are creating an opportunity for all
anti-capitalist, indigenous, anti-poverty, labour, migrant justice,
environmental justice, anti-war, and anti-colonial activists to come
together to confront this two week event and the oppression it represents.
 The goal of resistance is to eliminate the impacts of the Olympics and to
catalyse stronger social movements.

To get involved in the Network or for more information please contact:
olympicresistance at riseup.net