Launch event for the Dominion's special issue on the 2010 Olympics
Thursday, November 19, 7:00pm
Rhizome Café, 317 E Broadway
Vancouver, Coast Salish Territory
Accessible space, childcare available.
THE LAUNCH:
The Vancouver Media Co-operative in collaboration with The Dominion will be hosting a launch event in Vancouver to celebrate the publication of the special issue on The Olympics. Join us in an informal setting where we will discuss strengthening grassroots media and distributing the new special issue! Speakers on the 2010 Olympics TBA.
For more information please email: olympics@mediacoop.ca or call: 604 630 6864
Please visit http://www.dominionpaper.ca/ for more details.
THE SPECIAL ISSUE
"In Canada, you will find a nation that works every day towards creating the conditions of the Olympic ideal." --Jean Chrétien
The "Olympic Ideal" is part of one of the world’s most successful marketing campaigns, built around concepts that almost everyone can agree upon: world-class amateur sport and peaceful competition.
But a rising chorus of critical voices say that the Olympics are deeply implicated in the expropriation of land, money and resources. From movements demanding "No Olympics on Stolen Native Land" to angry business owners, resistance to the Olympics economic and social agenda is growing. The Olympics budget includes a billion dollars for security. A billion dollars each will be spent on a new convention centre, a larger highway to Whistler, and SNC Lavalin's rail link from the Vancouver airport to downtown. In the political and economic manoeuvres leading up to the 2010 Olympics, a different "ideal" has been revealed – one of exclusive contracts, sponsorship deals, displacement, social cleansing, and corruption. At times, sport seems like an afterthought.
Many of the real stories behind the Olympics remain to be told. In the Dominion's special issue on the Olympics, dozens of activists and journalists from across the country tell some of these stories.
Thousands of copies of the Olympic special issue will be printed and distributed through grassroots networks across Turtle Island in November 2009.
The site for the Vancouver local of The Media Co-op has been archived and will no longer be updated. Please visit the main Media Co-op website to learn more about the organization.