Invisible Women, Good Indians, Taxpayers Like You: An Olympic Triple Screw

Miss Victoria's bitty ditty
~ on the nitty-gritty of ~
the IOC's Triple Screw

www.miscellani.org/blog/2010/01/olympic-triple-screw/

playing soon on a screen near you a dirty game none of us ever wins: it's the IOC's Triple Screw of land stolen from NDNs, contracts to cheat taxpayers, missing and murdered wimmin too

Miscellani Blog-a-Zine ushered in 2010 with "Three Poles to Ski", my exposé of the International Olympic Committee's thinly-concealed bigotry and anti-democratic rules that hurt athletes, fans and taxpayers alike. By giving you straightforward comparisons of exact numbers and categories of Olympiad events, allotted spaces per team, and positions open to men and women within the IOC, the article lets you see their unsportsmanlike game of writing male privilege and female exploitation directly into their Olympic Charter, for ultimate benefit of a few money-grubbing and power-mad men.

A week earlier I called 2009 a wrap in "Obama Sells Out the Sioux", a throwback to racial genocide and broken treaties of a supposedly bygone era when white men, Christian in name only and unschooled in Constitutional Law, had a monopoly on speaking with a forked tongue. Though mainstream media never saw fit to publish it for the public record, this anachronistic news story has us Miscellani bloggers spitting tacks over innocent First American people being frozen, starved, and shoved out of their homes by an opportunistic president and his treasurer, using the Internal Revenue Service to auction off the stolen tribal land for quick profit by an energy cartel.

Barack Obama's corporatist land grab leaves behind the old-fashioned manly smell of a kickback plan that a guy like Jacques Rogge at the IOC could emulate, albeit from afar... except the two backstories are so close in intent and effect, they seem to span years and continents. Now meshed together as if by one design, their handiwork can be turned inside out to show you what it really is.

And guess what? By dint of your having a heart still beating inside you, perhaps a couple of important women in your life besides your mother, and probably a tax receipt burning a hole somewhere in your home, you, yourself, have a role in the story. I will do my best to show why you should understand and care about how it may end.

It's really one epic struggle of human rights. You and the people in your life are among those human beings. Your rights and well-being are at stake.

• money pot, or bottomless pit?

It begins, as Olympic™ Games always do, with a pack of pretty lies. Picture a would-be host city's politicians, speechifying about the Olympic™-sized money pot awaiting residents, commuters and businesses, as local media outlets hitch along for the ride. Who can resist the lures of tourist revenues, taxbase expansion, more federal funding for housing and transportation, putting the city on the world map…?

You already know these familiar promises are typically cheap to make and costly to deliver. But nothing else will kill a host city's economic future and hurl entire neighbourhoods into homelessness quite like an impossible pipe dream coldly and repeatedly hard-sold by the IOC to every mayor, council member and governor. Besides demanding advance payment to merely consider a city's bid to serve as host, the IOC's contract begs comparison to the proverbial deal with the devil: signing away local control and even national sovereignty, the host pledges obeisance to the IOC's final authority over activities and decisions extending well beyond athletic games. When citizens' own economic and cultural interests inevitably conflict with the IOC's domineering and profiteering ways, a city's small businesses and most vulnerable neighbourhoods are expected to yield.

What do they get in return from the IOC, besides more promises laced with threats?

The IOC will give no estimate of time and money needed by Athens, host of the 2004 Summer Games, to dig out of that city's Olympic™-sized financial hole, or to restore public trust and morale after needless deaths of workers and brutal squashing of protests, due not merely to the usual political corruption but to the IOC's bloody 60+ page contract.

IOC President Rogge cannot tell the people of Beijing how to bring their neighbours, family members and friends back from their prison cells or graves, after China's dictatorship ordered police to force thousands from their homes in order to clear space for the Summer Games in 2008. The nightmare in China continues, thanks but no thanks to the IOC's phony claims of carrying the flame of freedom.

Does the USA fare any better? Republican primary loser and Medicare fraudster, Willard Milton (a.k.a. "Mitt") Romney, dares not admit to the true consequences of Salt Lake City's Winter Games in 2002, when he promised a rose garden to then-mayor Deedee Corradini but delivered scandals galore, half-empty arenas, and a multi-million debt hurting even the relatively well-off city to its core.

Too late, a city's politicians and their constituents may wake up at the bottom of a money pit and discover the fabled pot of gold never left IOC headquarters in Switzerland. In a few cases, they're apparently still dreaming with their eyes staring wide-open, revenue streams half-closed, and their two- and four-legged animal shelters overflowing.

Americans in the midwestern city of Chicago should count themselves lucky over Obama's failure to screw two of their southside communities yet again in his personal bid to "win" the hosting prize, ostensibly for their sake but actually for himself and his corporate cronies. At least Chicagoans won't have to throw good money after bad to the IOC or to yet another Obama-Daley kickback scheme.

Too bad Brazilians were denied such a blessing. Life is precarious enough already in Rio de Janeiro without added "benefits" of more poor people struggling in less space with fewer resources, against higher chances of being killed by criminals and/or police and/or private security guards, while their mayor and president cater to IOC whims. If anybody deserves the dubious honour of making the struggle uglier, then surely the International Olympic Committee will grab it.

• who decides?

Vancouver, Canada's third-largest city and a major seaport vital to the economy of British Columbia and the country, is the IOC's chump of choice for this February's Winter Olympiad. Blogger "zig zag" will draw you a picture of damages and even deaths already wreaked upon the city by the IOC's dirty contract and games:

No Olympics on Stolen Land

by zig zag - 13 March 2007

The 2010 Winter Olympics, to be held in Vancouver-Whistler from February 12-27, 2010, is today a very real threat to Native peoples, the urban poor (many of whom are also Native), and the environment.
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Already, more land has been destroyed for the expansion or construction of highways, ski resorts, & Olympic venues. Billions of ‘public’ money is also being spent on new bridges, port facilities, railways... meant to assist in greater resource exploitation, including ski resorts, mines, logging, natural gas, oil, etc.
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Expansion of the ski resort industry was accomplished largely through Land & Water BC, Inc., a government agency that sells & leases ‘Crown’ land…. Despite their portrayal as being eco-friendly, ‘low-impact’ tourism, ski resorts cause large-scale ecological destruction to mountain habitat. If you think about it, building a resort town along with massive ski runs & chairlifts on top of a mountain obviously has a big impact on the environment.

There is extensive logging for roads, ski runs, parking lots, town centers, golf courses, and townhouses.

Then there's water, sewage, & electrical systems. On top of all this there is the operation of the ski resort itself.
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Most ski resorts also use fake snow that contaminates the land & nearby water (and many are beginning to use recycled ‘waste’ water to make fake snow).

Now we see a completely different perspective on my earlier discussion of IOC rules and Supreme Court rulings about women being prevented from ski jumping in the Winter Games. Yes, female athletes should have no more and no less opportunity to participate than males now enjoy. Nevertheless, men and women equally must deal with these serious questions: Who gets to decide where the games are held? To construct new facilities and maintain current venues, what are the smallest likely sacrifices in money as well as freedom, culture, and health, not by the athletes but by all other human beings who want to make a living there before and after visitors play some games? Who decides what will be too much to bear, by what generation and group of people?

We turn again to zigzag for nitty-gritty details on Olympic™ real estate wheeler-dealers who continue to sell and lease land not legally or ethically belonging to them in the first place:

from "Mountains Under Attack"

Most mountains are claimed by Canada as Crown land, and it is the provincial government that is both the regulator of the resort industry, as well as its main promoter. The government & resort corporations are also the main beneficiaries, gaining huge profits from real estate deals.
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For the provincial government, selling land below market value encourages investment by corporations, and is a form of subsidizing them (like tax-breaks & building infrastructure such as roads). In the end, what's it to government? The land is stolen & represents primitive accumulation; that is, capital acquired at little or no cost, so it's all profit anyway!

I wonder if this point of view on political sovereignty and land control would give pause for even a moment to the IOC, city of Vancouver, or current presidents of Brazil and America. What about you? Do you appreciate the irony of zigzag's brief history lesson on North American Land Grabs?

from "Stolen Native Land"

BC is unique in Canada in that most of the province is unceded, non-surrendered Indigenous territories. According to British & Canadian laws, sovereign Indigenous territories were to be legally surrendered to the Crown prior to any trade or settlement.
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Today, most of BC remains unceded sovereign Native lands, over which neither the Canadian or BC governments have the legal or moral authority to govern.

With current attempts to legalize the prior theft of Native land & extinguish Native title & rights (the BC Treaty Process), the ongoing dispossession of Indigenous peoples from their lands continues, and by itself constitutes an act of genocide.

Hokey smoke, I ought to set up a conference call with Barack and Jacques (rhymes if you pronounce it my way). I have a swearin’ duty to inform them of truly historical reasons why the 2010 Winter Olympics will be held in the province of British Columbia instead of anywhere else in Canada!

As if dispossession and destruction of Native lands were not enough to justify opposition to next month's Winter Games, we still have to deal with billions of taxpayers' dollars misdirected into corporate welfare schemes, Big Brother style "security" forces and technology to quash people's rights, plus denial of affordable housing and other basic resources to vulnerable neighbourhoods such as Vancouver's Downtown Eastside (DTES for short), with predictable reduction of services in schools, libraries, job training programs, health care clinics, small parks and playlots, not to mention legal aid offices.

Yet my work here is far from done. I haven't yet touched upon a subject closer to home— mine, yours, our neighbours' and families'.

• what about da wimmins?

Just last week, while the Olympic torch was being rushed down the Trans-Canada Highway toward Manitoba, the official procession was accompanied by unexpected escorts on horseback. Supported by tribal members, the seven riders were First Nation leaders from areas near and far, engaging in lawful and peaceful protest to bring much-needed attention to what Canada's government admits is a national disgrace affecting every woman in general and indigenous women in particular.

Murdered and missing women a `national disgrace`

by Susan Krashinsky - The Globe and Mail - 5th Jan 2010

The Olympic torch trucks whizzed along the Trans-Canada Highway into Manitoba yesterday, but as they crossed over the Whitemouth River and flew past a remote junction, a slower and more sombre procession took place. Horses. Seven of them, carrying leaders from native communities as nearby as Roseau River and as far away as the Canupawakpa Dakota Nation near the Saskatchewan border.<---> They came to this stretch almost 100 kilometres southeast of Winnipeg, in cars and vans and buses, to draw attention to the plight of missing and murdered aboriginal women in Canada. The demonstration was peaceful, and did not disrupt the torch's progress.

For nearly twenty years, the city of Vancouver has borne witness to a Women's Memorial March on St. Valentine's Day, in solemn and loving remembrance of women who have "gone missing" or been murdered, usually without any police arrests, much less court convictions:

from publicly posted notice for
the event of 14th February 2010
19th Annual Women's Memorial March

In January 1991 a woman was murdered on Powell Street in Vancouver. Her name is not spoken today out of respect for the wishes of her family. This woman's murder in particular was the catalyst that moved women into action. Out of this sense of hopelessness and anger came an annual march on Valentine's Day to express compassion, community, and caring for all women in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, Coast Salish Territories.

Nineteen years later, the march continues to honour the lives of missing and murdered women. Increasing deaths of many vulnerable women from the DTES still leave family, friends, loved ones, and community members with an overwhelming sense of grief and loss. Over 3000 women are known to have gone missing or been murdered in Canada since the 1970s. Last year, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women issued this statement: "Hundreds of cases involving aboriginal women who have gone missing or been murdered in the past two decades have neither been fully investigated nor attracted priority attention."

This event is organized and led by women in the DTES because women, especially Indigenous women, face physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual violence on a daily basis. This is a memorial not a protest; it is a deeply emotional time for family members and women affected especially in Vancouver's DTES.

Disgraceful inaction by public officials toward cases of missing and/or murdered women is hardly unique to Canada. Raise your hand if you think your countryfolk should join in the Vancover march, or launch a similar memorial project to remember and honour women close to home.

• what can any of us do about it?

At the heart of this story are Human Rights— the right to NOT be murdered, beaten, harassed, left hungry, homeless, jobless or underpaid, overtaxed, cheated out of your pension, over your head in debt, and bothered when you're in no mood to read about, much less watch, another Olympics™. In that spirit, I share with you some easy steps you can take now.

Keep your wallet closed to the Olympic™ Games. Express your right to spend your precious time and money on your favourite normal activities without interference from greedy control freaks at the IOC.

Do not let yourself be duped by, snooped on, or cooped up by the IOC through their political cronies. In Vancouver, it's a pack led by John Furlong, Walter Sieber, and Jack Poole et al. For London in 2012, the list tentatively begins with James Macleod, Sir Ian Johnston, and Lord Seb Coe. No matter what the location, the results are a man-made disaster for taxpayers, renters, entrepreneurs, commuters, schoolkids… and yes, athletes too.

Even though you may choose to follow certain events, you still have the right and might to refuse to play along in the IOC's dirty games. For every hour you enjoy as a fan of some athletes and sports, spend a few moments on vocal criticism of the IOC by talking with friends and family, blogging, e-mailing, maybe using your skills and training to help us all stop the IOC. No, you don't have to be a silent 3rd party to the IOC's media partners, from NBC and Google to Canwest and the NYT. No, you don't have any obligation to patronize the IOC's corporate sponsors, from Coca-Cola and General Mills to Acer (owner of Gateway, eMachines, Packard Bell etc. brands) and General Electric.

Go share this information with the people you care about. Remind them that in one way or another, they all pay taxes and will be paying for the games.

Do they care about human rights as much as you do? Great, throw a surprise question at these lovely people! First ask them if they think women are human beings. Discuss why women deserve a fair chance to participate in Olympic™-level sports with male-level equality in terms of event types, sub-categories, team allotments, access to facilities, training options, and committee membership and leadership. Today every woman in sports, and all women as well as men who directly or indirectly pay for and support sports, are unfairly suffering from rampant bigotry in all those areas. The discriminatory status quo is utterly unacceptable.

Be sure to ask the people you care about to stop for a moment and consider how the Olympic™ Games in fact are hurting First Nation/First American peoples, the indigenous tribes a.k.a. Indians in the USA and Canada. Do you and your own family and friends think native people are indeed human beings who deserve rights and respect?

Then brace yourselves for the next instance of Olympic™-scale genocide, inflicted without firing nary a shot.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with a link to Blackbird's photo-essay from the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, BC. Maybe it will help to fill in whatever might be missing between the lines and beyond the shadows of doubt.

Blackbird's words & pictures on the DTES :

"Social legacy promises made in the 2001 bid book that won Vancouver the Host City competition have not been kept. Little new social housing has been built for those evicted in the lead up to the Games and the Provincial Government refuses to close a loophole in the residential tenancy legislation that permits landlords to evict tenants to renovate and then raise the rent by whatever amount they deem fair. Such policies have led to a tripling of the homeless count over the past half-decade. The Downtown Eastside's vacancy rate for people who receive income assistance is 0%. The greatest concentration of homeless Vancouverites is in the DTES."