Anti - Olympic Protestors.

[lenneth]

See, it's actually a PR stunt for Dante's Inferno.

Wouldn't surprise me at this point.
I was gonna give that game a miss, but after seeing how awesome their marketing has been it feels wrong not to buy it...guess their campaign worked

OT; When i first heard about the protesters i didn't know what their problem is (still don't but now i have a rough idea) but still aren't there more important things to be protesting?

 

[XJ-0461]

People protest the Olympics? News to me.

In any case, why are they protesting? It doesn't harm anyone or anything, and it can be a good show of national pride for countries that do well.

 

[mezmerizer02]

I wouldn't call the one thing that so many nations agree on, and participate in peacfully, pointless.

I got ninja'd in a good way. I totally agree. A coming together of all the nations is something to be celebrated, why people are protesting it is beyond belief. Also the sales of tickets raises the funds needed to put on the show. Hosting the olympics in your country brings in much needed revenue to that locales hotels, restaurants, shops, etc etc. It actally can make a city richer. Why in the hell does everyone think some countries get upset if they don't get selected to host?

 

[someuserperson]

Don't know. If I had to guess, it would be because the host country usually ends up 6 billion USD in the red in terms of costs.

 

[Endocrom]

Don't know. If I had to guess, it would be because the host country usually ends up 6 billion USD in the red in terms of costs.

Ok one-post-wonder, wanna sight your sources on that figure?

 

[SonicKoala]

I'm amazed that not a single person is aware of why these people are protesting the Olympics - I suppose it really is a local issue.

Although I'm no expert on it, I do have a fairly good idea. As some of you may know, Vancouver has one of the WORST homeless problems in North America. The Downtown East side of the city is an extremely impoverished, drug-riddled area, and it's been like this for a long time. The idea that the government isn't doing enough to help this problem has long been a contested issue, but it's really been brought to the forefront in the years leading up to the Olympics. The city has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into projects being built PURELY FOR these two weeks in February, yet when it comes to helping people who actually LIVE in Vancouver, the government always seems strapped for cash.

There a number of other factors too - in a recent article, it was revealed that Vancouver has the most expensive housing market in the entire fucking world. With housing costs already at all-time highs, people are worried about the additional price increases the games may bring, not to mention the tax hikes which are likely to follow the games, considering the MONSTROUS debt the city has taken on. To give you an idea of how huge the debt is going to be, Montreal, who hosted the games in 1976, just finished paying off their Olympic debt two years ago. So yeah, as you can see, there are a shit load of reasons why people are against the games being here, and I personally feel the protestors are fully justified in their opposition.

 

[Hattman]

See, it's actually a PR stunt for Dante's Inferno.

This.

That...sorry.

OT: As OP,I don't watch sports. So I don't really care unless Sweden wins all gold medals or something.

 

[thealmightykain]

The amount of tax money going into the olympics is absurd. And as others have said "It's just a bunch of jocks playing games". So to recap: the government is pouring millions into sports, rather than, oh I don't know, paving the streets of Vancouver with fucking gold while feeding all of Africa for a year.

This,

Snip

Think of the amount of money that goes into what is essentially pointless.

this,

Maybe it's because the Olympics cost tax money.

this,

I'm amazed that not a single person is aware of why these people are protesting the Olympics - I suppose it really is a local issue.

Although I'm no expert on it, I do have a fairly good idea. As some of you may know, Vancouver has one of the WORST homeless problems in North America. The Downtown East side of the city is an extremely impoverished, drug-riddled area, and it's been like this for a long time. The idea that the government isn't doing enough to help this problem has long been a contested issue, but it's really been brought to the forefront in the years leading up to the Olympics. The city has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into projects being built PURELY FOR these two weeks in February, yet when it comes to helping people who actually LIVE in Vancouver, the government always seems strapped for cash.

There a number of other factors too - in a recent article, it was revealed that Vancouver has the most expensive housing market in the entire fucking world. With housing costs already at all-time highs, people are worried about the additional price increases the games may bring, not to mention the tax hikes which are likely to follow the games, considering the MONSTROUS debt the city has taken on. To give you an idea of how huge the debt is going to be, Montreal, who hosted the games in 1976, just finished paying off their Olympic debt two years ago. So yeah, as you can see, there are a shit load of reasons why people are against the games being here, and I personally feel the protestors are fully justified in their opposition.

and this.

Seriously, as a person who lives in BC (and grew up in northern BC for that matter) the amount of money shoveled into the Olympics utterly disgusts me. All those billions of dollars (the Vancouver Sun estimates that more than $6 billion, with $1 billion just for security and the new trade/convention centre EACH, will be the total cost) would have been better spent almost anywhere in the province (say, perhaps, in the north). Let's not forget that millions were paid to already-billion-dollar corporations for advertising. And the whole thing with Vancouver passing bylaws making it illegal to place any advertisements near the game venues that are anti-Olympic, then later altering that bylaw to simply make it illegal to "interfere with someone's enjoyment of Olympic entertainment".

Gross misspending of tax-payer money during economic recession.
More tax money given to billionaire private corporations.
Plans to recoup by cutting social programs, education, and jobs in the working class.
Infringing our freedom of speech.

Yep, nothing to protest at all.

tl;dr The four people quoted above know the score. Everyone else, apparently not.

[edit] And Akalabeth. Nice to see people that actually are at least semi-familiar with the situation are appearing in the topic now.

 

[Terramax]

Why are people protesting against the olympics?

Perhaps because it costs millions. I mean, millions that could be spent on people dying or animals suffering but is instead spent on a bunch of sports which are becoming increasingly about politics rather than being a celebration.

 

[Nickolai77]

The amount of tax money going into the olympics is absurd. And as others have said "It's just a bunch of jocks playing games". So to recap: the government is pouring millions into sports, rather than, oh I don't know, paving the streets of Vancouver with fucking gold while feeding all of Africa for a year.

I think that's probably why.

In London the olympic park was built over a poor area of the cities east end, and when the London 2012 olympics are over, the parks, stadiums and extensive sports facilities will provide jobs for local people (as does the building work itself, many of the construction workers were recurited from the local area, while also offering numerous apprentiship opitunities for local young people wanting to get into construction) as well as being a place where the locals themselves can use the sports facilities as a form of physical recreation.

Sounds like Vancouver should have done what London is doing now.

 

[ace_of_something]

Since the actual reason- Tax dollars for an area with an already thin budget - has been given. I'm going to throw out my own wackass reasoning.

Because they want someone to think of the children.

 

[Dawntheif]

Anti-Olympics? What's the justification?

It doesn't do any damage, it's harmless fun. I mean, I'm not interested much, and I don't know anyone who is, but I can't see why people are opposed to it.

Mind you, these days it seems people are opposed to anything, just for fun.

Fun killed their family, their like batman, but a lot more rubbish and people give you weird looks when you moan about fun killing your family.

 

[Woodsey]

"It's just a bunch of jocks playing games".

Its actually pretty political. They're supposed to represent world unity and what not by everyone competing fairly, etc. etc.

Which is why they're always worried about terrorist attacks on it (bar the vast amount of people and important officials present).

 

[internetzealot1]

I hate to be that guy, but someone did die at the Olympics this year.