anti vancouver olympics 2010
 

hi,

i live in vancouver these days, the city is hosting an olympics if you didnt know. ok so its pretty much extremely unpopular with just about all who live here as the massive amount of restrictions that have been put in place on where you can and cant go, what are not allowed to wear (anything remotely anti olympics puts you in the back of a police car) plus the travel chaos that is being caused. a one hour wait just to get onto a train or bus is about normal and all this in a city with a major homeless population that is being pushed (literally) out of site and a poverty gap that gets bigger by the day, poorly functioning transport system, translink that has 28 CEO's all earning well over the standard amount for people in their position, a budget of $2bn dollars for homeless projects of which less than 1% has been used and given that they have had many many years preparation there are virtually no shelters for anyone yet the olympic village (which is supposed to be turned into affordable social housing afterwards and now is going to be luxury condo's instead) is millions over budget paid for by tax payers, VANOC basically making political requests as they see fit and getting them and also creating policy including pissing off the ambulance workers on strike over poor pay, the fact that so many streets are going to be closed to the public and when i live less than six blocks from the olympic village it means a commute of 25 minutes is now going to be 2 hours, passing through many security screens and closed off to the public areas even though we live here, the corporate sponsorship involved and the general feeling that the city is no way near ready, the 200,000 extra people that are going to be crammed into a very small space. all this plus the fact that its very warm here, the average temperature is +12 which means that must of the snow has melted, what you will see on your tv has actually been shipped in from other areas as basically its warm and raining. on the ground it basically feels like a poorly planned money making shit storm. the budget for this whole thing is mind blowing and i just wish that they could have spent the money on something else but as is most common with these kind of deals, things only change when the eyes of the world are upon you.

as a sporting event i think its fine but they should have it somewhere with snow that is able to cope with the whole thing.

i know the usual posters will post the usual thing but there you go. rant over.

I imagine theres going to be a similar reaction when the games come to London in 2012. At least you aint got Boris...

The London Olympics will be a mess. It's the British way.

Its not the British way, i think its actually gonna be fine. But im from west london so im paying for it but getting to any of the events would take me 1 and a half hours because its all happening in Stratford (East London). Im kinda willing to pay anything to see Usain Bolt run here, but I expect tickets to something.

Jessica Ennis in particular

Well, maybe it will be fine. I am pretty excited as well!

By the way, I know where Stratford is, I live relatively near. I often see the Olympic village.

Now, is it me or is that big cycling velodrome going to be a total waste of time?

What, that weird angle-sided stadium they're building? Why a waste of time?

noones going to use it. I dont know any people who wanted to grow up to be cyclists. Sprinters, yeah, 400m runners, they kicked my arse growing up, but cyclists?

poorly planned money making shit storm.

the shit has started.

I've never been a fan of olympic games, but now I'm sure they really suck. Actually, this is a very good thread because I've never thought of all the shit a sporting event could cause.

people say that now its here we should just enjoy it but that's like being repeatedly raped and then saying oh well i may just as well just be raped.

hmmm. The olympic and com games here really were only annoying to me because there was nothing else on television or local media for around a month. There were a lot more people in the city for com games, but there were also a lot more events on to cater for them. It wasn't that bad. And its only a few weeks. Stop whining. :p

I've been taking the train to and from work every day as usual and not had a problem. I didnt really expect much to change until now onwards if at all though, so now that the games have officially started we'll see.

My hero Seb Coe will make it alright.

I live less than 100 miles from Vancouver.....I'm so glad that I'm here not there. I believe in Olympics, but, it's become too big.

yeah I hear the Olympic police are roaming around like the gestappo like in China.. jesus what is wrong?


Can people at least still smoke pot casually?

i fucking hate this crap and all sports should be fucking banned. there. i said it. i can maybe enjoy a small game of soccer in a park with some friends, but it should never go any further than that. and noone should ever be allowed to spectate. that should be the height of sport right there. no more. no premiership, no money involved. nothing else ever. noone should be allowed to watch or cheer.

we should all boycott the olympics, and do our best to ruin it for everyone else. it's one of those times when, as i am so fond of saying, we really need our brethren in al qaeda to come to our aid. seriously, who would miss all the sports fans and athletes? you know you want it. unfortunately the authorities are well aware of this, and their paranoia only increases the draconian gestapo esque ultra security. so we must all pray to allah that al qaeda can manage an attack of sufficient magnitude to destroy them all.

you can help by being an utter dick, you can still for example ruin the fun of anyone watching it at home by shouting loudly, protesting and being horrible to them.

i mean WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG with a human being who dedicates their life to trying to run a certain distance in less and less miliseconds. how much do you have to hate your body and the possibilites of existance to dedicate yourself to something like that? and all the fucking nationalism that goes along with it? yuk. disgusting.

what really irks most people about this particular games is that the city needs so much but the money is spent on fireworks for an opening ceremony.

yep. it's insane. billions spent on the war everyday while the infrastructure of the countries fighting it crumbles. it's the same everywhere. there is next to nothing spent on social housing. it's all just yuppie regeneration if anything at all, pricing crappy apartments out of the range of all but the richest.

there is a point zizek makes, and i've seen others make it too, that the most dilapidated, poor, run down areas are also the ones where there is the most life. the idea is that some new form of social collectivity may emerge out of these places because the people that live there will be forced to develop something to survive. unfortunately for most of us we are in an in between stage of poverty, were people still live alone in their little boxes, only going out to shop and having no interaction with their neighbours except maybe really extreme hedonism in the form of house parties.

in places like london and berlin were squatting is easier and there isn't a complete legal ban on it, the poor/homeless at least have that option, altho it can be risky and unsafe.

what you are saying about the homeless being moved out of the way is the same as what will happen in london. the homeless there are already aware of it, basically the plan is to use water cannons against them to force them out of the way. there is a whole operation planned to basically clear them out of the cameras view and make certain areas uninhabitable for them.