Flagging Dissent

On Monday night the Olympic flag returned to City Hall in a ceremony marking the three-year countdown to the Parlympic Games. The event was attended by dozens of police officers, hundreds of protesters, and a few representatives of the general public. Those not in uniform who attended were treated to random illegal searches and be corralled into holding pens to watch the proceedings, whether or not they were supporters or opponents of the upcoming Winter Games.

For those of you scoring at home, John Furlong and the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) are as street-smart as Kevin Falcon's Hummer, and probably as thick. Rather than showing some initiative and trying to meet with environmental, aboriginal, and anti-poverty groups, Furlong waves them off as an annoyance and lectures at them through a local media which is more than happy to comply. If Furlong had the stem cells to pick up the phone and ask these people what they want, at least VANOC could distance themselves a little from the corporate-controlled, right-wing elected dictatorship at every level of government. Here's a hint for Mr. Furlong: start thinking out loud about how Vancouver allocating its Olympic Legacy (read: Sullivan Slush) Fun for social housing wouldn't be such a bad idea.

VANOC also appears to have no idea that these kind of events are supposed to be fun, not pleasing one's political masters. If you're so upset about protesters drowning out a children's choir, maybe you should be booking louder musical acts: one can't throw a rock without hitting a decent up-and-coming band in this town. That might bring the kids out, and people might have some fun. Ever think about free hot dogs, face painting for the kids, that kind of thing? By the way, people hate Sam Sullivan, Gordon Campbell, and David Emerson, why can't you invite speakers that the crowd might like? How about someone like Trevor Linden, who competed at the 1998 Games in Nagano? If more 'regular' people turned out, the presence of police and protesters wouldn't seem so heavy..

VANOC wants the Games to be popular, but refuses to take any kind of a populist stance. Everything they do is poisoned by their Point Grey/West Vancouver elitist venom. The public knows this, which is why they're tuning out the Olympic countdown as it disintegrates into a screaming match between the disenfranchised and the sneering corporate oligarchy that runs this province.