HALLOWEEN Convergence October 30-31, Victoria BC

  1. Eastside Revolt
    Eastside Revolt
    HALLOWEEN Convergence October 30-31, Victoria BC

    NOlympic Torch Relay, Coast Salish Territory

    [email protected]
    http://no2010victoria.net

    Get ready for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to share the spotlight with the world's biggest circus of misspent public resources! Deliver a message to the world for justice and equality in Canada! Exercise our right to free speech and free association in the face of a police clampdown and come PARTY on Halloween! Ninjas, zombies, pirates, and superheroes welcome! Plan your own surprise party!

    The official 2010 Olympic Torch Relay begins Friday morning, October 30 in downtown Victoria. On October 31, the relay goes through Sooke, Metchosin, Langford and beyond. Stay tuned for event announcements. Media convergence organizing is underway. Everyone welcome! Canada is a Free Speech Zone! View the relay route on an interactive map here:

    http://www.vancouver2010.com/en/torc...ajb/index.html

    Next No 2010 meeting is tomorrow: 5 pm, Thursday, August 20 at Camas Books, 2590 Quadra Street in Victoria. RSVP to [email protected]
    Check our site for updates: http://no2010victoria.net
  2. Eastside Revolt
    Eastside Revolt
    Ignite A Flame of Resistance Against the 2010 Olympic Torch Relay

    The Olympic Torch Relay is often presented as a tradition from the ancient Greek Olympics. In reality, the Greeks never had a torch relay! Instead, it was introduced by the Nazis during the 1936 Berlin Olympics as a propaganda tool to promote fascism throughout Western Europe and within Germany.

    Today, it is a major part of the Olympic industry and serves to rally public support & nationalist fervor (just as the Nazis had intended). Along with the opening day ceremony, the torch relay is one of the most significant high profile Olympic events to occur. For these reasons it has been targetted by anti-Olympics movements.

    In Italy 2006, in the two months leading up to Turin Winter Olympics, the relay was disrupted several times, with protesters briefly stealing the flame, dousing it with fire extinguishers, and blockading its route. Olympic organizers were forced to bypass towns and regions due to this resistance, despite thousands of police being deployed. Anti-Olympics groups targeted Coca Cola, a main sponsor of torch relays, due to its human rights and environmental abuses. In Busselona, a radical mayor banned all Coke advertisements from the city, while other municipalities debated similiar motions.

    During the torch relay for the 2008 Beijing Summer Games, protesters denouncing China’s occupation of Tibet (and other human rights abuses) succesfully disrupted the relay in San Francisco, Paris, London, and other cities during the relay’s 21 country international tour. Thousands of police were deployed to protect the torch in country after country. In Paris, the torch was extinguished 34 times by organizers as it was hustled onto a bus to drive by protesting crowds. The protests succesfully tarnished the Beijing Games as the work of an authoritarian and repressive police state, and highlighted the cause of Tibetan independence. These mobilizations showed the vulnerability of the Olympic torch relay to disruption, and the high profile nature of such disruptions.

    For the 2010 Winter Games, Olympic organizers have planned an ambitious and extensive torch relay, beginning in Victoria on Oct. 30, 2009. It will spend five days on Vancouver Island before flying to the Yukon, crossing the northern region of the country to the Atlantic coast, then proceed westward across all provines, to arrive in Vancouver for the opening ceremonies on Feb. 12, 2010.

    The relay will last 106 days and cover 45,000 km. It will pass through 1,000 communities, with midday and evening celebrations each day in some 200. Through collaboration with the Assembly of First Nations, the torch relay will include some 115 Native communities. Altogether there will be 12,000 torch bearers. The cost of the entire spectacle is $30 million, with two thirds of this funded by the federal government. The main corporate sponsors are the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) and Coca Cola.

    Join the movement: organize protests and disruptions in your area! AntiOlympic organizers in Vancouver have called for protests and disruptions of the torch relay as it crosses the country, transforming it into an opportunity to ignite anticolonial and anticapitalist
    resistance.

    ● To learn the route of the torch relay and
    if it passes through or near your location go
    to: www.vancouver2010.com and find
    Torch Relays, which will take you to maps and lists of towns and cities.
    ● Get in touch with the Olympic Resistance Network at: [email protected].
    ● Check out No2010.com for info and updates.

    RESISTANCE 2010!

    victoriatorch.wordpress.com