Dear EXILE Infoshop friends and lovers,

Some information regarding an upcoming EXILE-sponsored event:

Own Your Media!
Building a Grassroots News Cooperative

Thursday, MARCH 6th @ 7pm
Jack Purcell Community Centre, RM 201
Refreshments provided

“The media is the place where we have a discussion with each other. We can’t know everyone individually. We do it through the media. When the kitchen table that we all sit around is controlled by a very few, they are deciding who comes to the table, and that can determine the decisions that are made, when we go to war and when we don’t.”
- Amy Goodman, journalist

Do you know more about American Idol’s Top 24 than about the people in Fort Chipewyan dying of rare cancers? Are you aware that peep toe shoes are the hottest thing this spring, and oblivious of the fact that the minimum wage in oil-rich Alberta is actually the lowest in Canada? Did you hear plenty from American and Israeli politicians when the border between Gaza and Egypt was broken in January, and nothing from the Palestinian women who made it happen?

Corporate-owned media serves its own interests by reporting stories that benefit its owners, shareholders and advertisers. If media is to serve the people – to report stories that are important to our lives – it needs to be controlled by the people.

The Dominion (dominonpaper.ca) provides accurate, critical news coverage on events, policies and movements in Canada. It is also a multi-stakeholder coop, owned and operated by its readers and journalists.

The Dominion is now taking Canadian media to the next level. With a comprehensive five-year plan, The Dominion aims to build an independent news cooperative that will challenge the corporate press in Canada – and publish the stories you need to know about.

You are invited to attend a presentation, where you will be given the opportunity to Own Your Media!

Find out what Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky and John Pilger say about The Dominion! dominionpaper.ca/coop/endorsements

BROUGHT TO YOU BY:
Indymedia – Ottawa, EXILE INFOSHOP, OPIRG-Carleton, CKCU 93.1FM, CHUO 89.1FM

In solidarity,

The EXILE Infoshop collective

Thursday, MARCH 6th @ 7pm
Jack Purcell Community Centre, RM 201
Refreshments provided

“The media is the place where we have a discussion with each other. We can’t know everyone individually. We do it through the media. When the kitchen table that we all sit around is controlled by a very few, they are deciding who comes to the table, and that can determine the decisions that are made, when we go to war and when we don’t.”
- Amy Goodman, journalist

Do you know more about American Idol’s Top 24 than about the people in Fort Chipewyan dying of rare cancers? Are you aware that peep toe shoes are the hottest thing this spring, and oblivious of the fact that the minimum wage in oil-rich Alberta is actually the lowest in Canada? Did you hear plenty from American and Israeli politicians when the border between Gaza and Egypt was broken in January, and nothing from the Palestinian women who made it happen?

Corporate-owned media serves its own interests by reporting stories that benefit its owners, shareholders and advertisers. If media is to serve the people – to report stories that are important to our lives – it needs to be controlled by the people.

The Dominion (dominonpaper.ca) provides accurate, critical news coverage on events, policies and movements in Canada. It is also a multi-stakeholder coop, owned and operated by its readers and journalists.

The Dominion is now taking Canadian media to the next level. With a comprehensive five-year plan, The Dominion aims to build an independent news cooperative that will challenge the corporate press in Canada – and publish the stories you need to know about.

You are invited to attend a presentation, where you will be given the opportunity to Own Your Media!

Find out what Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky and John Pilger say about The Dominion! dominionpaper.ca/coop/endorsements

BROUGHT TO YOU BY:
Indymedia – Ottawa
EXILE Infoshop
OPIRG-Carleton
CKCU 93.1FM
CHUO 89.1FM

Wednesday, February 6th, 2008

Anti-Olympics protesters disrupted a VANOC event today in Ottawa. The event was meant to celebrate the unveiling of the Omega Countdown Clock, a clock counting down to the 2010 Olympic Games.

Roughly 25 protesters, many affiliated with the People’s Global Action group, stormed the event with banners saying “no Olympics on stolen native land” and “occupation anywhere resistance everywhere”. The group made their way to the front of the stage where they proceeded to disrupt the whole event, chanting “no Olympics on stolen native land” and “homes not games”.

No arrests were made. A larger anti-Olympics, anti-SPP and anti-G8 march is planned for February 12th.

For more info on the Olympics, visit http://no2010.com.

RESISTANCE 2010
RIOT 2010

http://ottawa.indymedia.org/en/2008/02/6807.shtml

Capital Punishment 2010: Punishing Capitalism and Punishing the Capital

When: February 12, 6-7pm
Where: Meet at corner of Rideau and William and go from there
Bring: Your noisemakers! A fiery heart! Things to light up the night!

Canada is getting ready to play host to the 2010 winter Olympic games and the 2010 G8 summit, and is also preparing to ratify the SPP agreement.

But resistance to these events has already started!
From coast to coast anti-imperialists, anti-capitalists, anti-poverty activists and folks opposed to the military and economic occupations at home and abroad are mobilizing and organizing to confront these institutions!

On February 12th PGA Ottawa is launching its “Capital Punishment 2010″ campaign, aimed at disrupting business as usual for the corporations that will be profiting from the Olympics, the SPP and the G8 summit.

Join us on Feb 12th (two year countdown to the games). We will be marching through the market area to expose and oppose the NACC, CCCE and Olympics sponsors operating in our city.

NO OLYMPICS ON STOLEN LAND!

Background:

Join PGA Ottawa on Feb 12th as we kick-off the two year countdown to the 2010 Olympic Winter Games with a festive march through the market area to expose and oppose the local corporate profiteers behind the G8, the SPP and the Olympics. —- Canada is getting ready to play host to the 2010 Winter Olympic Games and the 2010 G8 summit, and is also preparing to ratify the Security and Prosperity Partnership.

These three events are intrinsically linked through the oppression and repression they will engender.

The G8 is a yearly coming together of the world’s eight most powerful nations, gathering to further develop their neoliberal, capitalist and imperialist agendas and implement disastrous policies, often with the help of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) builds on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Often referred to as “NAFTA with guns” the SPP is adding increasingly repressive border control to an already exploitative trade model.

The 2010 Winter Olympic Games, to be held in British Columbia, present threats to First Nations people as well as homeless people, sex workers, harm reduction advocates, the working poor of the province and many others. Through land theft, street sweeps, gentrification and ecologically destructive projects the 2010 Games have already begun their unavoidable process of ruining lives and destroying communities.

Resistance 2010!

From coast to coast anti-imperialists, anti-capitalists, anti-poverty activists and folks opposed to the military and economic occupations at home and abroad are mobilizing and organizing to confront these institutions!

For years people have been resisting the G8 and the Olympics, and last year saw a major convergence against the SPP.

On February 12th PGA Ottawa is launching its “Capital Punishment 2010″ campaign, aimed at disrupting business as usual for the corporations profiting from the Olympics, the SPP and the G8 summit.

Join us on Feb 12th (two year countdown to the games). We will be marching through the market area to expose and oppose the NACC, CCCE and Olympics sponsors operating in our city.

You are encouraged to bring noisemakers, a fiery heart and any other instruments to light up the night.

NO OLYMPICS ON STOLEN LAND!
SHUT DOWN THE G8!
ABOLISH THE SPP!

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FOR MORE INFORMATION:
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Locally, check out:

http://pga.roadnetwork.org

In British Columbia, check out:
harrietspirit.blogspot.com

http://no2010.com/

http://2010watch.com/

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ARTICLES ON RESISTANCE TO THE OLYMPIC GAMES
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Massacres and Profits: A brief history of the Olympics:

http://users.resist.ca/~eps2005/olympics.html

Olympics blamed for forcible removal of 2 million over 20 years:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,,2096323,00.html

CCPA Report: Managing the Cost of Olympic Gold:

http://www.policyalternatives.ca/index.cfm?act=news&do=Article&call=624&pA=BB736455

Real estate, sport tourism and Native sovereignty in B.C.:

http://www.sevenoaksmag.com/features/29_billie.html

Migrant workers coerced by RAV line employer:

http://noii-van.resist.ca/?p=573

The Olympics Land Grab by Naomi Klein:

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=3941

More Homeless than Athletes in 2010:

http://thetyee.ca/News/2007/05/28/Homeless1/

Stolen Games:

http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/1099

Everywhere they go, the Olympic Games become an excuse for eviction
and displacement:

http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/15054

Report Slams Run-up to Olympics:

http://thetyee.ca/News/2007/05/07/Olympics/

Date: Friday, February 1
Time: 6:30pm
Location: Carleton University, Unicentre Room 282

With the 2010 Winter Olympics scheduled to occur on unceded Coast Salish, St’at’imc and Squamish territory in two years, the spectacle surrounding them continues to wreak havoc on Indigenous people, poor people, and the Earth. In the spirit of resistance to colonialism, with the 2010 Olympics as a main target, Kanahus Pellkey of the Native Youth Movement and Native youth Dustin Johnson are touring throughout the Great Lakes and East Coast in January and February 2008.

“By them choosing to have the Olympics here, it’s opening up our land, our sacred sites, our medicine grounds,” says Kanahus Pellkey. “We want investors to know our land is not for sale.” Pre-Olympic fever occupies the province of BC, and the economic excitement has massively accelerated gentrification and the building of highways, resorts, and condos. The construction of infrastructure for the 2010 Olympics itself is adding to extensive destruction of traditional homelands of the local Indigenous peoples.

In October 2007, more than 1500 Indigenous people representing communities across this hemisphere held the Gathering of the Indigenous Peoples of America, on Yaqui territory in Vicam, Sonora, Mexico. They stated in their final declaration, “We reject the 2010 Winter Olympics on sacred and stolen territory of Turtle Island–Vancouver, Canada.” This speaking tour is strengthened by this momentum, and by the knowledge that hundreds, if not thousands of Indigenous people now plan to attend the Olympic Games, not in celebration, but in resistance to the danger the Olympics poses to Indigenous lands, identity, culture, health, livelihoods, and to future generations.

The Native Youth Movement is a Movement of Native youth that works to revive traditional knowledge and inspire Native youth to defend their Peoples and Territories.

Kanahus Pellkey is a Secwepemc and Ktnuxa Warrior and a spokesperson for the Secwepemc chapter of the NYM. She has been jailed before for fighting against the illegal occupation and theft of Secwepemc Lands for the Sun Peaks ski-resort, and is active in opposing the 2010 Olympics.

Dustin Johnson is a member of the Ts’mkiyen nation and is active in organizing anti-colonial resistance to the 2010 Olympics.

The Indigenous Peoples Solidarity Movement-Guelph did much of the core organizing of the tour. IPSM-Guelph works in solidarity with Indigenous struggles for self-determination and control of their traditional territories.

To get involved, help out, or ask questions, contact healingtheearth(at)resist.ca.

Tour Dates (a few are still in the works):

Windsor * Saturday January 19
Guelph * Sunday January 20
Six Nations * Monday January 21
Toronto * Tuesday January 22
Hamilton * Wednesday January 23
Six Nations * Thursday January 24
Peterborough * Friday January 25
Tyendinaga * Saturday January 26
Sharbot Lake * Sunday January 27
Kingston * Monday January 28
Akwesasne * Tuesday January 29
Kahnawake * Wednesday January 30
Kahnasatake * Thursday January 31
Ottawa * Friday February 1
Montreal * Saturday February 2
Penobscot * Sunday February 3
Portland * Monday February 4
Boston * Tuesday February 5
Binghamton * Wednesday February 6
Ithaca * Thursday February 7

More information:

The Olympic organizers operate with a budget of almost $2 billion, and other costs to government surpass $6 billion. Despite all the Olympic-related mega development, Vancouver is now home to North America’s fastest growing homelessness crisis. Indigenous people account for 30% of this homeless population, despite making up only 2% of the total population in the province.

Dozens of low-income hotels and apartment buildings are being converted to unaffordable condominiums. As thousands of people are forced from their homes, they are then criminalized for being homeless. Private security firms are hired by the city to further police the streets, long-running squats are shut down, and social services are more stressed and threatened than ever. The solution of the municipal and provincial governments and the police is to ignore the root cause, and instead pay people to leave Vancouver and repress those who stay.

The darker side of the 2010 Olympics is further apparent by examining how their sponsors and supporters are some of the most destructive companies on Turtle Island. These include:

• Petro-Canada, one of Canada’s largest producers of oil and gas,
• TransCanada, one of the continent’s largest transporters of oil and gas,
• Canadian Pacific Railway, long an integral tool of colonization,
• Hudson’s Bay Company, another company responsible for the colonization and theft of Indigenous land,
• General Electric, one of the world’s top three producers of military aircraft engines and major producer of nuclear power plants,
• General Motors, long a top contractor for the Canadian military and now the world’s largest automobile manufacturer,
• Dow Chemical, the world’s second largest chemical manufacturer and cause of the Bhopal, India disaster,
• Bell Canada, who’s CEO is one of the top corporate architects of the Security and Prosperity Partnership.

There is of course so much more that could be said. For further reading, see:

www.no2010.com
www.2010watch.com
www.harrietspirit.blogspot.com