Are you kidding me? You guys are actively encouraging these idiots?  

I don't see how they're 'encouraging' - they're just getting the word out! That's what the media does. Duh.  

The Olympics are about togetherness and harmony and good will. Only idiots would disagree. Big stupid idiots who arouse in me nothing but loathing and contempt.

How's that, Mark?  

All those with no jobs who do nothing to support society and only complain will surely be there. All the working class will have to keep working to pay taxes for the welfare checks of all the protesters.  

This is why Vancouver is called the no fun city, it's a city full of idiots with no critical thinking skills and the belief that anyone who doesn't think the same as them is on welfare or unemployed. I guess all those idiots who protested the plans to build a freeway through downtown Vancouver in the 70's were a bunch of welfare recipients and wasting their time?

My guess is the people posting rants against protesters will be the ones crying loudest when taxes increase to pay for the Olympics.  

If it bleeds it leads.

Is this social / anti-social media calendar an idea whose time has come? Maybe, but we'll see how popular it is with advertisers when downtown businesses have their windows smashed during the Joe Biden anti war protests. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3606898.stm

I hope Olympic sponsors like Coca Cola, RBC, HBC, Rona, Visa, McDonalds, and all the rest are paying attention, because your brands are fuelling these protests.

Maybe protestors should name their marches after Olympic sponsors? i.e. The Coca Cola Protest or the Rona Riots.

I also wonder how long Google will allow their service to be used to promote civil disobedience?
 

The Olympics are about what RF? Greed corruption and
Government Freebies I quite agree and I intend to attend any actions I can If your part of the Olympics your part of the problem!

Sheep such as yourself simply arouse pity!  

To MGrant: It's "you're".......not "your". I'm just saying.....  

"street march to clog the arteries of capitalism"........you're so intelligent. socialism has worked so well for you..... was it the lack of quality in medical care, or the length of the waiting list that was the deal breaker? try to read more.  

MGrant:.......goes to credibility.  

That's right, *I* won't be a sheep! I should get together with a bunch of other like-minded people (of the complaining-sort, rather than the enjoying-sort) and I'm going to march up and down with a placard, stamping my feet until someone will listen, consarnit!

Have fun protesting; I'll be enjoying the presence of thousands of foreign-nationals in my city.  

The Women's Memorial March should not be lumped in with the other 'rent a riot' events.  

That's the Olympic spirit right there, Ajoe - stuffed with joy, with no time to complain or air your views!

Own the podium!  

How is VANOC going to protect us from Al Qaeda and from errant tourists who bring Mastercards to Olympic venue, if we distract them with all these protests?  

The War of Terror needs a boost.
The Christmas Underwear Bombing Patsy didn't fool anyone.
Many of us that live here in Vancouver are worried about a false flag terror attack perpetrated by mercenaries and blamed on muslims or blamed on home grown terrorists (poverty activists,natives etc..)
The drums of war are banging at Iran.
The CIA Chief is saying AL CIADA is going to hit within 3-6 months.
Harper has torture issues and has prorogued Parliament, the War of Terror could use the boost.
Do you think Canadian soldiers will ever pull out of Afghanistan if a catatonic underwear patsy blows up the brand new Canada line ?
A pipe bomb in the Granville Entertainment District would be quite effective for the war pigs or even a mini-nuke @ The Port smuggled in via containor blamed on Iran would be a dream for the Globalists.
Hopefully nothing happens but there are some troubling signs,
Here's some food for thought that CANWEST will never discuss.

http://dprogram.net/2010/01/25/could-vancouver-2010-could-be-the-next-91...
 

Those who are against the anti-olympic events are probably ignorant on all the corruption greed behind the scenes of the games.

What about the fact Vancouver the Beautiful is turning into Vancouver the Prison? With so many police and cameras everywhere, this city is turning into a police state.

Me and concerned friends have started the group Operation Press Record. Operation Press Record is a rally call for all Vancouver citizens, tourists and others who will be in Vancouver for the 2010 Olympics to carry a video camera with them at all times to ensure police stay within the LAW.

www.pressrecord.ca

I would love for the Georgia Straight to promote this concept. This is not about money, it's about spreading a peaceful method to protect our human rights that law enforcement is trampling on as we get closer to the games.
 

You "Olympics Do or Die" trolls are funny.
Miguel  

Thank you Georgia Straight for doing your bit for social justice as usual....just ignore all those sporty prima onnas that criticize you for it...they have dominion over almost all the world's media to promote their propaganda. So fuck em!
 

Get over yourselves, the majority of Vancouverites (when given a fee vote) voted to participate in the winter games. Comrades, that's how democracy works. If you don't like it you can protest all you want - but do it where you live. Chris Shaw the hyprocrite lives in North Van - please stay there. It's unbelievable that the no one in the media has ever asked him to explain how he can write books attacking the Olympics while he is a serving Captain in the Canadian Army and by default is getting paid to work security for the games? Or will he says he's on leave? Give me a break. His unit is in North Van. I know he's not spying on the protestors - he's not that smart. Comrades - the problem with your system is your all corrupt - at least with capitalism it's up front and honest.

Life in any city requires social skills - your anti social conduct isn't appreciated, take your bikes and ride off.  

@RF: forgive my state of being over-stuffed with joy. You may all have intelligent, well-thought out points behind your protests and activism; but I have yet to be convinced that anything being protested for or against during these Olympics is worthy of my time. Nothing is truly as dire as it is made out to be, nor as easily solved as many protests claim. In the real world, more is achieved by me DOING good, practical things rather than protesting about bad things.

The gentleman talking about the pressrecord idea is on to something; it's practical, and needn't take up your life, but can improve something (though I would point out that the hundreds of cameras that some people have been hating on will be recording for the public record; I'm sure the use of the footage after the fact will cut both ways in court).

But "clogging the arteries of capitalism"? How does that improve anything? It doesn't promote socialism, or a social well-being of any sort. It's pure obstructionism, and casts whatever the end-goals of the participants are into the most negative of lights.  

As a democratic society, people have the right and responsibility to represent the portion of a population that does not agree with the actions of the government. We all know BC is already in huge amounts of debt and there is no way to reverse that but I still think it's good to encourage awareness about the negative impact of the Olympics and how that comes to be. Especially for countries less fortunate than Canada who face violent/oppressive response from their leaders when they attempt to communicate why the Olympics is a bad idea.  

the squelcher action is cancelled.  

@squelcher Thanks for the update. I've revised the calendar.  

I'm going to try to keep a level head and civil tongue here as there is a lot in this thread that I disagree with. I get that the Olympics has become a corporate staging ground which is a shame. I know that it costs an often obscene amount of money which is a further shame (although with Campbell at the helm I don't hold much hope that it would be used much better). I understand that security becomes a huge imposition which is an unfortunate symptom of the age in which we live. However, for one small group of dedicated people from all corners of the world, these two weeks of the Olympics is about sport, competition and the fulfillment of a life of dedication spent toiling through poverty, pain and tears. They come together to represent their countries but more so their love for the sport that they play, that has driven them to sacrifice so much. They come together in reverence of an ideal which, whether you agree with or can relate to, is grounded in sportsmanship and respect for their fellow human being. Whether you disagree with me or anyone else out there all I ask is that for two weeks we all try to respect and support the athletes. After all, they are what this is all really about and they deserve to be cheered. I am sure they would not ask for anything more than that.  

to Ajoe1982 : i'm saying DON'T clog the arteries of capitalism. read it more slowly. it's an entry on the calendar with which i totally disagree.....did you read the calendar about which your blogging?
Sat Feb 13. 2010 Heart Attack: Street March to Clog the Arteries of Capitalism. Arrive at 8:30 am in Thornton Park (Main and Terminal). This demonstration will respect diversity of tactics and aims to disturb "business as unusual" on the first day of the Games! Details: http://olympicresistance.net/content/2010-heart-attack  

AJoe1982: I'm being 'sarcastical'......I'm saying DON'T clog the arteries of capitalism. Simmer down - I agree with you.....It's an entry on the calendar.....a calendar and series of events to which I am opposed....Sat Feb 13. 2010 Heart Attack: Street March to Clog the Arteries of Capitalism. Arrive at 8:30 am in Thornton Park (Main and Terminal).  

Andrew F: very nice. thank you!  

The hypocrisy of the Obviously Really Naive people at the ORN is so ridiculous that their whole organization is nothing but a joke. They want to yell about "No games on stolen land", but yet they eat, sleep, and breath on those very lands. They say they are nonviolent, yet their web site encourages vandalism and arson as "reasonable" actions against something they happen to believe in. If that is true, then everyone has the right to act violently against ideas they don't happen to agree with. This is a bunch of people who wouldn't be happy if God gave them everything they wanted. Thankfully they don't speak for most of the people of Vancouver. That was very clear when their "massive protest" on the 22nd resulted in 200 people or so showing up. Unfortunately, like most children, they only know how to cry and yell loudly because they aren't getting what they want. Funny how they have no room to compromise because they think only their opinion is important. Unfortunately, silly publications like the Georgia Straight give them way to much publicity because they are a noisy bunch of egotistical people who think they are always right. They want to cry about how they get no respect, yet they refuse to respect others. Hypocrites to the core!!!  

Andrew F - "try to respect and support the athletes. After all, they are what this is all really about and they deserve to be cheered"

Yes. Like most Canadians I will be cheering (hopefully) at a tv set somewhere during the hockey finals. But don't trample free speech. It's not a case or one or the other. This isn't Berlin 1936.
____________________
www.2020vancouver.com  

On the protest calendar you should post for each and every day 1) GET OFF MY FAT ASS AND GET A JOB 2) COLLECT WELFARE CHECK ON WED THE 24th BECAUSE I'M A LOSER WHO DOES NOTHING BUT PROTEST AND HAS NO JOB!! 3) IF I'M NOT FROM VANCOUVER OR BC, MOVE HOME AND GET A JOB!!!!!  

I have just seen the posting here of our "Pause for Peace" ~ Vancouver Olympic Peace Walk Feb 13th 9:30 AM at Queen Elizabeth Park. This is NOT an anti Olympic event and I am very disappointed to see it listed here. This is a pro peace event - not an anti anything. On the contrary, it is events like this that help raise awareness for the real building blocks for sustainability i.e. without nurturing good relations with ourselves and each other .... we are not going to be able to create a sustainable world on this planet. Take a walk and a stand - literally. Join us on top of Little Mountain. www.olympicpeace.org You can also donate a dollar to streetohome.org or powerofhope.org. Drops make oceans. There are so many ways to take positive action. Let's do it! Everyone has a choice to show up with their own unique excellence. Together we can make a difference. Please pass this on. Thank you.  

@2020Vancouver Agreed- I'm not advocating peoples views be suppressed. Rather, I hope that people, regardless of which side of the argument they believe in, will support the 'sport' part of the games, respect the athletes who have trained most of their lives for this moment, and be friendly and helpful Canadians to those who are visiting and here to enjoy the Olympics. No, our right to speak freely should not be trampled on, but neither should the enjoyment of people coming to our city be hampered by people who choose to protest. Let's just all try to be nice about it no matter what we're doing and leave the angry finger pointing for after the Paralympics.  

The athletes are billboards, whether they do so unwittingly is their own issue. If they are doing what they love they haven't sacrificed anything. Let's be frank here, taxpayers are subsidizing their dreams, so they are suckling from the teat of society just like everyone else. They are absolutely welcome to their accomplishments and more power to them, but let's not ignore the flip side of the coin, and pretend their motivations are an altruistic attempt to make good for God and country. If you want to celebrate something, it should be all the people who strive in the background on unpleasant and boring tasks to make their communities better places 365/24/7, not so-called 'heroes' whose carbon-intensive obsessions are primarily an expression of their own ego-driven need for personal success.  

@BikerCK The majority of athletes live below the poverty line because they have to pay for their own training. Only the top 5% of athletes in their sport get government funding and in some sports that could be as few as 5 or 6 people. They can't compete for prize money because (with the exception of hockey players) they must maintain an amateur status in order to qualify for the Olympics. They are billboards for advertising because sponsorship is the only way that their team stands a chance at paying for equipment, coaching, travel, training, physiotherapy, food and a slew of other expenses. They go through pain and injury and keep on coming back for more because they love to compete in their sport as much as we all want to succeed in life (providing for a family, owning a home etc.). I don't think there is anything overly egotistical in that and, yes, they do sacrifice as much as anyone else. The difference is that their payoffs lie only in their performance on a given day when anyone in the field can be the best or the worst. So I will say it again, let's all please try to respect and support our Olympians and Paralympians.  

Last night in Whistler, over 10,000 people attended a pro-Olympic demonstration. No protesters in sight.

On February 12, over 150,000 people will peacefully assemble for a pro-Olympics demonstration in downtown Vancouver.

Police expect about 1500 anti-Olympic protesters, many of whom have said openly that they advocate acts of violence and vandalism.

For every person that plans to protest the games, there are tens of thousands of globally-minded citizens ready to embrace the best that humanity has to offer. There's no way these few whiners will ever be able to put a damper on the greatest event in history of Vancouver.

 

Actually, the Athletes are not billboards, because at the Olympics, they are not allowed to have advertisments on their jerseys, other than their identified country.
The Olympics cost 6 Billion every four years. that would be 1.5 Billion anually.
The Illicit drug trade is estimated at 400 Billion anually.
The war in iraq is estimated at costing 5 Trillion(that is not a typo) dollars to the economy.
Human trafficking: 47.5 Billion dollars.

Athletes give back more to the society than you think. My best friend is going to the olympics one day and she directed a 5k run and walk for the homeless last month in Victoria. She raised over 2000$ for the food bank and she is only a teenager.
The Olympics are an international sporting event which promotes world peace.
Tell the ORN to free themselves from their "Grinch Mentality".
Instead of protesting something you dont believe in, promote something that you do.  

I think you will find the jerseys will have sponsor logos (Nike for Cdn hockey jersey) as well as national emblems. They're advertising for both corporations and countries.

Also, they are not amateurs unless there isn't a pro tour for them to compete. Basketball, hockey, tennis, skiing, mountain biking, curling, to name just a few sports all have professionals competing in the Olympics. This has been the case since 1992, to say nothing of ostensibly amateur athletes who trained full-time in the Soviet Union and other Communist bloc countries before then, or the convoluted sponsorship deals that characterized athlete compensation before the rule change.

Celebrate the athletes all you want, but to idolize them as under-paid amateurs or suggest they get a free pass in facing up to the issues regarding the Olympics is to let them adhere to a lower standard of behaviour than we expect of everyone else in society.

Sorry guys, they may be talented and hard-working, but at the end of the day, they're actors in a gigantic reality show.  

its good to hear both sides of the story.olys are ripping cdns off and its time to voice our opinions.let the world know what as ham these games are.lets show who profits from them.it certainly is me or you.  

Hey Vanc Guy. You're right, you got to vote on the Olympics and it was approved. Oh, but hey, the rest of the province didn't get to vote and that is not very democratic. So, if we want to protest we should be allowed to voice our opinion now because we weren't able to before.  

I'm a middle-aged guy who has indulged in a variety of outdoor activities since childhood, payed for out of my pocket, though I've always been working poor, without thinking my fellow citizens should pay for my pastimes. Where is my support and public respect?
Miguel  

Expect more interest groups hijacking the Olympics to publicize their case. You saw it before the Beiijing Olympics, you'll see it in Vancouver, then London, then ...  

Has VANOC and the IOC paid a licensing fee to use the Canadian flag?  

Hope there is a protest the protesters group out there! My experience certainly will not be ruined by a bunch of kids rebelling against their bad childhoods! SHould the poor showing up be out looking for work than getting involved in protests!  

Gerry;
you don't have a clue what a licensing fee is or you wouldn't have asked.  

miguel;
olympic caliber is not 'pastime'.....don't compare your rec league to these athletes.......besides, with a little bit of help from the tax payers, the olympics brings a helluvalot of revenue to your city.  

I don't think people who are protesting the Olympics are in any way against sport. But to think the government or those corporate ceo's give a damn about amateur athletes is a joke. First and foremost athletes are people who need schools, coaches, arenas, etc.. to be able to get to this level. How much money does the government put into funding schools, teachers, community centers etc.

Building these venues weren't done for the people of BC, but for everyone else... BCians came second. These venues could've been built for the sake of community, organized sports, recreation, growth and development etc., - the true spirit of what Olympic sport is all about.

I'll support Canadian athletes and athletes in general by playing sports.
 

@Biker I'm sorry, but I am assuming by that last comment that you have never played competitive curling. Coming from someone who has, believe me it is not a sport that you can make a living in. The little bit of prize money that the teams might win goes towards travel to other bonspiels for which there are entry fees. I wouldn't call them professionals unless that distinction is to denote their skill level. As for the skiers, the vast majority of their prize money for winning a race goes against the far larger total costs of competing in that sport. I'll give you basketball, hockey and tennis but try to consider how you are defining professional here.  

I generally agree with Andrew F's first posting. The Olympics is and ought to be about the athletes having a chance to compete against their counterparts on a world stage. The awful thing which has happened to that practical and noble undertaking is that corporations have realized it as an opportunity to turn more children into brand-addicts. Well, that is what corporate western culture does: it feeds on it's young. That is not acceptable but that is a fight to be taken up in other venues. The next layer of the onion however, is that our civil society has decided that it is in the best interests of the budgetary managers of all three tiers of government to sequester critical voices (because corporations don't want to pay to compete with criticism, they want a monopoly on the mind share they are purchasing). Furthermore, the agents of governmental policy have decided it is acceptabel to suspend citizens' rights of freedom of movement, freedom of expression and the right to public assembly. These are Canadian Charter Rights, and the suspension of them is not a lawful undertaking. Nor is it justified simply to placate the monetary ambitions of businesses. End of story.  

@ AF
"I am assuming by that last comment that you have never played competitive curling."

I've played sports all my life, never professionally. The point isn't whether they make money or not. They are professionals. They play for money. End of story. Whether it's profitable for them is not the taxpayers' issue. By your logic we should be subsidizing every athlete toiling away in the minor leagues of sport, be they hockey players, or curlers, or whatever. If you really want to promote sport, provide better funding for kids sports, not professionals.  

deezy19 RE: How much money does the government put into funding schools, teachers, community centers etc.?

A bunch, actually...... I'm a teacher in the US and the state and fed give my building alone $6.4 million/yr. for 1800 kids.....buildings are paid $ per student so that poor districts aren't penalized for being poor. Taxes paid by corporations and small business generate the revenue to pay for schools. Don't knock it. Taxes are revenue....