Why Oppose the 2010 Olympic Games? Speaking Tour of Indigenous Activists

Hosted by the Institute for Anarchist Studies

Suggested donation: $5-10 sliding scale, to support tour
(but no one will be turned away for lack of funds)

As part of a provincial and West Coast speaking tour, activists will talk about the impacts of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver. Learn more about why opposition to the games is growing, and how you can participate in and support the resistance: "No Olympics on Stolen Native Land."

The Olympics will take place on unceded indigenous land from February 12-28, 2010. Far from being simply about sport, the history of the Olympics is one rooted in displacement, corporate greed, and repression. As Olympic promoters and sponsors seek to present their sanitized corporate brand image to the world, the real impacts of the games are apparent to everyone:

* Expansion of sport tourism on indigenous lands

* Increasing homelessness across the province and especially in
Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside

* Misdirected public spending and debt totaling $6 billion while public
services are suffering cutbacks

* Threats to basic civil liberties and free speech

* Union busting and vulnerable working conditions for migrant labor

* Unprecedented destruction of the environment

* Unparalleled $1 billion police and security spending

The tour will also report on recent resistance to the 2010 Olympics, especially Olympic torch protests across the country, and plans for a global February 10-15 anticolonial and anticapitalist convergence against the games.

For more information on resistance to the Olympic Games, watch: Eight Reasons to Oppose the 2010 Winter Olympics, http://vimeo.com/4872922

For more information on the IAS, see: http://www.anarchist-studies.org