[van-announce] Fri., Feb. 12, 3pm TAKE BACK OUR CITY at the VAG

[alissa w]

****  PLEASE POST FAR and WIDE  ****


TAKE BACK OUR CITY:
‘Welcome’ the 2010 Olympic Torch with Free Games, Free Food and Free Speech!

*  Friday, February 12, 2010, 3pm  *
Vancouver Art Gallery (Georgia Street, between Howe and Hornby)
 
Join us in a public festival at the Vancouver Art Gallery at 3pm followed by a parade to protest the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Olympics at BC Place Stadium.  As the Winter Games begin, we will show the world the negative impacts of the Olympic industry and celebrate our communities with our own games and entertainment.
 
* The 2010 Welcoming Committee supports the participation of parents and caregivers. Childcare arrangements and registration at: 2010welcoming.wordpress.com/details
 
While City and Olympic officials try to turn our city into a sanitized corporate image, we experience:
*  Increasing homelessness, poverty, illegal evictions and rent increases,
*  Union-busting and public services cutbacks with a $6 billion Olympic budget,
*  Threats to civil liberties and crackdowns on visible poverty,
*  At least 15,000 police, soldiers, spies and security forces and public video monitoring,
*  Corporate sponsors engaged in arms manufacturing, human rights abuses, and the environmentally destructive Alberta Tar Sands,
*  Exploitation of unceded Indigenous land and resources,
*  Major environmental damage to build the ‘Green Games,’ and more ...


Public space has been turned over to the Games but the community has fought back and preserved our rights to protest.  Now is your chance to Stand Up, Be Counted and Take Back Our City!

Organized by the 2010 Welcoming Committee: community groups, service providers, activists and educators united by a social justice critique of the Games.
 
Contact: 2010welcoming at resist.ca  Visit:  2010welcoming.wordpress.com