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From Olympic Ideals to Corporate Blitz: A Brief History

How business saved the Games by turning them into a tightly controlled, billion dollar advertisement.

By Geoff Dembicki, 8 Jan 2010, TheTyee.ca

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Pierre de Coubertin: founder was an aristocrat dreamer

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On June 16, 2006, 1,000 Dutch soccer fans were forced to strip to their underwear in Stuttgart, Germany. They'd waited in 25 minute lines, shuffling step by step towards the Gottlieb-Daimler-Stadion. At the door, stern FIFA World Cup officials ordered them to remove their bright orange lederhosen.

One Dutch man threw his over a fence. A stadium steward approached his waiting friends, likely tossing the confiscated pants into a rubbish-filled storage bin with all the others. Bare-legged Dutch fans ambled to their seats, leg hairs bristling from the draft.

Absurd? Not in the bloodied-nose arena of international sports marketing, where no punches are held and most are below the belt. FIFA was merely protecting the $1.1 billion investment of official World Cup sponsor Budweiser. Dutch brewery Bavaria had circulated thousands of branded orange trousers to beer-loving soccer fans.

Despite the best efforts of FIFA's pants-police, Budweiser's dollar signs couldn't match the simple ingenuity of its rival. Worldwide media exposure meant everyone was talking about Bavaria's crazy stunt. And FIFA and its sponsors looked profoundly uncool.

Now jump three years into the future. In October 2009, two well-known Olympics critics sued the city of Vancouver. New bylaws, passed partly to protect the rights of official 2010 Winter Games sponsors, would trample local civil liberties, the pair believed.

It sounds like a bad joke: What do bare Dutch legs and litigious activists have in common? A lot, as it turns out.

Both crown a story as old as the modern Olympics. A tale of financial need and corporate hunger, culminating in crisis in the late 1970s. With the very future of the Olympics movement at stake, a logo-covered phoenix took flight. Its journey is far from over.

This February, get ready for a 21st century Games, where the big spending battles of corporate titans could overshadow the rivalries of the ice rink and ski slope. And the supreme prize is the eyes, minds and ultimately, pocketbooks of the entire world.

Start of a movement

It wasn't always like this. The modern Olympics began as the idealistic vision of a romantic dreamer. His name was Pierre de Coubertin. The moustachioed French aristocrat grew up during his country's humiliating defeat in the 1870-1 Franco-Prussian war.

He spent most of his young adult years campaigning for better physical education. Sports could instill positive values, he believed. And possibly prepare a new generation of French youth for combat.

Coubertin adored ancient Greece. There had been modest Olympics revivals before him. None had the benefit of his superb political connections. He proposed an international celebration of youth, culture, tolerance and peace. It was a convincing sell in a tumultuous era.

Athens was the test run. Its 1896 Olympics were largely funded by the private donations of patriotic Greek businessman scattered across the planet. At least 60,000 spectators and dignitaries attended. By all accounts, the festival was a complete success. Yet Coubertin's fledgling International Olympic Committee (IOC) soon ran into a recurring problem: Who would pay for future Games?

The world of big business showed little interest. For instance, readers of the official race programme at London's 1908 Games would have perused full-page advertisements for Wawkphar's Antiseptic Military Foot Powder and Vaughton's Medal and Badge Makers.

Each new Olympics begat more athletes, dignitaries and spectators. Costs got higher and riskier. The 1920 Antwerp Games handed a 625,000 franc deficit to its Belgium hosts. Four years later, the first Winter Olympics in Chamonix, France, became the financial equivalent of a 30-skier pile-up, leaving organizers two million francs in debt.

Still, cities continued to host. "I don't think the expectation was there in terms of profit," said Stephen Wenn, co-author of Selling the Five Rings: The International Olympic Committee and the Rise of Olympic Commercialism. "But whether you're talking the 1900s or 21st century, you're always going to find civic leaders who see these as something beneficial for their city -- not to mention their own reputation."

Coubertin died in 1937. His heart was buried at the ancient ruins of Olympia, according to orders in his will. The movement he'd fathered was growing fast, but headed for an identity crisis. No one would exemplify it better than a millionaire businessman from Chicago named Avery Brundage.

Crusade against commercialism

Brundage's own dream of Olympic gold died at the 1912 Stockholm Games, where he competed and finished well back in the pentathlon and decathlon. The failures haunted him as he went on to amass a fortune in the world of heavy construction. When he eventually did return to the world of athletics, it was in the role of administrator. By 1938, Brundage was head of the United States Olympic Association (USOA).

Brundage began a protracted crusade against Helms Bakeries that year. The Californian company sold lucrative "Olympic Bread" branded with the five-rings logo. It'd registered the word "Olympic" and all accompanying insignia in nearly every U.S. state. Essentially, a private company had scooped the USOA.

Brundage huffed and fumed. There was little else he could do. "You cannot imagine how many attempts there are to capitalize on the Olympic Games and the difficulty we have in preventing promoters to use the Olympic Movement for their own personal gain," he wrote to a colleague in 1938.

The most frustrating part was Helms Bakeries had every legal right on its side. None of the threatening letters Brundage wrote for 12 years could change that. Yet Helms Bakeries did let go of control of the Olympic brand in 1950. As a big supporter of American athletes, the company probably tired of so much ill will. Federal legislation soon granted the USOA wide jurisdiction over Olympics trademarks. It was official recognition of an obvious fact: the five rings had become a marketing goldmine.

That worried Brundage. He feared corporate dollars would destroy the ideals at the heart of the movement -- or at least, his version of them. He adhered to an unyielding belief in amateurism, the concept that athletes shouldn't be paid professionals.

Brundage assumed the IOC presidency in 1952. He was stubborn and dictatorial. International controversy followed his decision to ban Austrian skier Karl Schranz from the 1972 Winter Olympics for receiving sponsorship dollars. There were many like it.

"Let's be blunt," said David Wallechinsky, vice-president of the International Society of Olympic Historians. "He was quite a tyrant. He was a very wealthy man who had no tolerance for athletes trying to make money."

It wasn't just athletes. With the first major television rights deals and the advent of satellite technology in the early 1960s, a perpetually broke IOC was suddenly awestruck by wealth.

Brundage could see the huge benefits of TV coverage, as marketing tool and revenue stream. It still made him uneasy. "I'm not sure we should ever get into [the TV] business," he declared in 1955. "But on the other hand certainly we should not give millions of dollars away."

Financial disasters and terrorist attacks

The value of TV rights deals shot skyward. The 1960 Squaw Valley, U.S.A. Winter Games brought US$50,000. Four years later, Innsbruck, Austria Olympics organizers sold rights worth US$936,667. Televised broadcasts let millions identify with the universal ideals and ancient symbolism at the heart of the Olympic movement.

That kind of exposure helped create the perfect consumer, ready to buy anything linked to the Games. Indeed, organizers at Tokyo's 1964 Olympics licensed official cigarettes with a five-ring logo stamped on every package. 

Yet greater interest meant bigger spectacles. And new revenue streams couldn't necessarily pay the bills. In 1970, financial worries prompted Colorado voters to reject Denver's successful bid to host the 1976 Games. A flustered IOC pleaded with fourth-ranked bidder Whistler to take over. The resort didn't want them either. They were finally given to Innsbruck, three years later.

More crises followed. In 1972, Palestinian radicals in black track suits took 11 Israeli athletes hostage. Sniper bullets, machinegun rounds and grenade explosions left 17 dead, forever linking the Munich Games to politically-motivated violence. Brundage stepped down as IOC president that year.

Montreal's 1976 Games were no less calamitous. Mayor Jean Drapeau famously promised the spectacle "can no more have a deficit than a man can have a baby." He was only half right. Montreal finally settled its $1.5 billion tab in 2006.

Only months before the 1980 Moscow Games, Soviet tanks ploughed into Afghanistan. U.S. President Jimmy Carter retaliated with a full American boycott, the largest in Olympics history.

"A lot of people were questioning the Olympic movement," Wenn said. "There was a chill in municipal councils all around the world -- whether there was any viable reason for going ahead with the Games."

Was Coubertin's movement in jeopardy? Would the flaming ideals of the five-rings be snuffed out by warring political ideologies and financial fears?

First commercial Olympics

When Los Angeles won its bid to host the 1984 Summer Olympics, nobody was surprised. It was the only serious contender. Peter Ueberroth, head of the Los Angeles organizing committee, told a reluctant city council not to worry. He was going to raise all the operating money himself.

At Montreal's 1976 Olympics, organizers had sold sponsorship rights to anyone who asked. The result was 628 "official" partners clamouring for attention at the least exclusive party in town.

Ueberroth in effect kicked out the riffraff. He sold sponsorship rights to a small cadre of multinational corporations. Everybody won. Companies such as Converse projected their brands through the global Olympics lens. Organizers were left with a record US$225 million surplus. Even a Soviet boycott went largely unnoticed.

The IOC launched TOP, its worldwide sponsorship program, the next year. Nine corporations paid huge sums for global marketing rights. It was wild success. The first four years alone generated revenues of US$96 million. (The program brought US$866 million in 2005-08.)

It appeared the financial disaster of Montreal was largely forgotten. Six cities jostled to host the 1992 Summer Olympics. Five battled for the next. "Once Peter Ueberroth demonstrated a way to carry off the enterprise on the backs of the private sector, there was renewed interest," Wenn said.

But the model was vulnerable. Converse had paid millions to partner with the 1984 Olympics. Its rival Nike plastered huge murals of swoosh-wearing athletes all over Los Angeles. Forty-two per cent of Americans confused Nike as an official partner.

"If you sponsor a big [sporting event], people will ultimately buy more of your products," said Simon Chadwick, founder and director of the Centre for the International Business of Sport at Coventry University. "Ambush marketing is about creating a misperception in the minds of consumers."

Nike's brazen murals were only the beginning. Each Games saw bigger and more sophisticated branding battles. When Visa sponsored the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, American Express retaliated with a simple slogan: "You don't need a Visa to visit Spain." Host cities -- and countries -- were becoming corporate war zones.

For the Olympics movement, the stakes were high. Unregulated ambush campaigns threatened a now vital revenue base. Why would sponsors invest tens of millions of dollars when their rivals could win the same market exposure for way less?

'Draconian' measures

The IOC wasn't the only one worried. In 1996, Nike ambushed the UEFA European Football Championship, snatching all outdoor ad space in and around London's Wembley Park tube station. Official sponsor Umbro was incensed.

Yet maybe Nike was on to something. UEFA decided to rent every advertising property within a one to three kilometre radius of soccer venues at future competitions. With the IOC's urging, local Olympics committees began to go even further. Organizers of the 2004 Athens Games literally reserved every outdoor ad space in the city. The billboards they couldn't sell sat blank.

The Vancouver 2010 organizing committee (VANOC) spent $38 million to give official partners the same protection, snapping up every outdoor ad property in the Lower Mainland. (Selling the inventory has been tough. And organizers freely admit they probably won't unload it all).

Over the past decade, ad monopolies have been fortified with tougher trademark legislation. Legal guarantees are now a vital part of any successful Games bid.

"The Olympic Symbol and the terms 'Olympic' and 'Olympiad' and the Olympic motto" must be defended, the Manual for Candidate Cities for the XXI Olympic Winter Games 2010 stated. All bidders promised to "obtain from their government and/or their competent national authorities, adequate and continuing legal protection to the satisfaction of the IOC."

VANOC gained "considerable powers" from legislation passed by the Canadian government in 2007. Organizers could now seek lightning-fast court injunctions against unauthorized attempts to profit off the Olympic brand. For instance, a local jewellery store holding an "Olympics sale."

Did recent Vancouver bylaws go too far? Anti-Games activists Chris Shaw and Alissa Westergard-Thorpe sued the city in Oct. 2009. Temporary new rules imposed maximum $10,000 fines for unauthorized signs during the Games. The activists saw a blatant attack on their right to protest.

Vancouver relented in late November. The city promised to clearly distinguish between political and commercial signs. Yet most temporary powers remain. If someone were to hang a Pepsi banner from their balcony, bylaw officers could legally enter the residence within 24 hours to remove it. (The same rules apply to signs of official sponsors.)

During the 2010 Games, a team of 60 city inspectors will patrol Olympics corridors, venue zones and local celebration sites. VANOC is deploying about nine personnel to keep venues commercial-free. Their mandate could include taping over "blatant" logos on the shoes of volunteers. 

The team will also monitor the city. "We'll hop on the Skytrain and ride out to Metrotown mall and go out around Vancouver to see how the brand is being used," said Bill Cooper, VANOC's director of commercial rights management.

It's worth mentioning domestic and international sponsorship revenue pays for about $1 billion of VANOC's $1.75 billion operating budget. Also notable are the billions of provincial and federal dollars necessary to widen the Sea-to-Sky highway, tunnel a new rapid transit line, construct the official media centre and secure the Games.

The United Kingdom just passed legislation protecting official sponsors during London's 2012 Olympics. And South Africa has done the same for the 2010 World Cup. Chadwick sees an escalating trend with some troubling implications.

"Some of the legal rights it gives the authorities are becoming increasingly draconian," he said. "So inevitably there has been a natural rise in concerns about people's civil liberties."

Are crackdowns effective?

Let's return to Germany's 2006 World Cup, home of the rubbish bins overflowing with bright orange lederhosen. Bavaria's ambush became one of the most famous of all time. Nike's innovative use of social media was no less effective.

In the months leading up to the World Cup, the apparel giant told people to video themselves juggling a soccer ball. The only rule was the ball had to enter from the left of the screen, and leave on the right.

Thousands of amateur directors uploaded content to Nike's official site. The company spliced the best clips. A soccer ball got bounced, kicked and head-butted across entire continents.

"This became a real phenomenon, particularly in Europe," Chadwick said. "In the end, more people were talking about Nike in 2006 than Adidas, even though Adidas was the official sponsor."

And there's the problem, according to Chadwick. New rules to control ambush marketing are getting stricter all the time. But cities, event organizers and the international committees that direct them may be in a perpetual game of catch-up.

Last December saw Lululemon and Pepsi launch inventive ambush-style campaigns.

The same month, Vancouver police seized a million dollars worth of illegal goods that brazenly displayed the Olympics logo without official permission. The product? More than 100,000 ecstasy pills.

Who knows what branding battles await Vancouver next month? [Tyee]

Geoff Dembicki reports for the Tyee.

30 Comments:

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  • Luke

    2 years ago

    Interesting Article!

    Interesting Article!

    Quote:
    At the door, stern FIFA World Cup officials ordered them to remove their bright orange lederhosen.

    Ach Du lieber!

    Quote:
    A tale of financial need and corporate hunger

    Hmmmmm... no wonder that New Democrat premier Glen Clark was the head chearleader for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic bid during the late 1990's.

    And where is Glen now? Of course, he is now exective director of the multi-billion dollar Jim Pattison Group empire rakin' in a huge salary.

    And that's what I call 'progressive' (as in progressing up the ladder) social democracy! ;)

  • Frank

    2 years ago

    Liberal values

    Highest child poverty in the country, increasing homelessness, closing operating rooms, all to pay for a 2 week party that is being organized by Liberal friends in order to benefit those businesses that donate to the Liberal party.

    But then what can one expect when even the national leader of the Liberals is an advocate of torture and the offspring of Russian aristocracy.

    Liberals may be a lot of things but friends of the average guy they're not.

  • make_up_another...

    2 years ago

    What a monumental waste of

    What a monumental waste of money.

  • sicntired

    2 years ago

    Olympic$ athletics a sideline

    we have watched as this show has been set up and promoted with nothing said about the athletes until about 6 months before the start of the games.never before has such a state of secrecy and unbridled greed been so prominent in this city.rents of 10 000 dollars for a month were widespread.Olympic pizza taken to court in an unseemly attempt to "preserve the brand".millions of dollars hundreds of millions hidden in costs that are 100% Olympic in their conception.environmental destruction labeled as the greenest games of all.one shudders at the thought of what has gone on before.we will not get any idea of just how much debt we have been saddled with as vanoc has been the most secretive organization this province has come up with since the government itself.with all the open rental space,the cancellations of the cruise ships and RV lots who knows if the TV attempts to promote the games,including Eddie the eagle ,a British flop jumper who has no business in a Canadian torch rally but then this whole games has been so mismanaged that the only people that care seem to be those Canadians that will never come within a thousand miles of the actual event.once this fiasco is over and the homeless are allowed to live their lives once again as well as can be we will see just how much we will be paying and for how long.you can bet it will make the Montreal Olympic debt pale in comparison.

  • mcdull

    2 years ago

    Freedom

    As I see it isn't it wonderful to live in a place where corporations come first.If the company doesn't like it just change things so it is the little one who is screwed. I try not to support Olympic sponsors and I think the HST is to help pay for this farce.

  • zalm

    2 years ago

    history redux

    Boy it's funny how history repeats itself... and those involved in making it don't even notice.

    I recall some noise about the "revolution" when I was just a young fart in the '60s and '70s, and when the revolution packaged and mounted and displayed and found on sale at Macy's and Nordstrom's, that was all right too. As long as it was profitable, it was eminently acceptable.

    I decline to have my consent manufactured with logos and brands. I haven't participated in that world for a couple of decades now. But I do despair of a large number of other people clueing in and joining me. They seem to be happy with their soma....

  • ME2

    2 years ago

    OOOOO

    The only reason the issue is worthy of comment is the huge amount of money involved. Sign of the times, eh?

  • Jeffrey J.

    2 years ago

    Slightly Different Take

    This article explores the Olympic history with a slightly different take than Prof. Chris Shaw's book Five Ring Circus. I certainly learned something and it is always good to read different historical accounts. What really comes through is that while the Olympics have steadily become more authoritarian and defensive, it is NOT because of citizen concerns and human rights. Au contraire.

    It is because of the huge, monopolized value of the marketing rights, sold to one corporation to exclude another, after which each fights with the other to exploit the event to make more money and sell more stuff. The official sponsor pays a bunch of cash to make even more profits, then complains bitterly when its rival outsmarts it. So the legislation is changed again, and again, to stop the 'bad' corporations from tricking the 'good' corporations, in an endless tussle involving millions of tax dollars, lawyers, accountants, PR staff, politicians and realtors.

    This a classic case of a good idea gone horribly, horribly wrong. Where the tail wags the dog, indeed, consumes the dog, while athletes, citizens, students and social services are pushed to the side, just so foreign owned running shoe companies can wage war against each other. Good grief!

    Great article.

  • DPL

    2 years ago

    It's a way to make a bunch

    It's a way to make a bunch of money,but none of it ends up in the lowly taxpayers pocket. Te clowns in Vanoc are so greedy they want the folks flying in, to pay a gree charge for showing up. Then they get the added little treat of paying an extra five bucks because they don't have prebought tickets to get on the trian. There is money to be made in BC and the "right sort of folks" are getting it. The folks doing the skiing skating, and other winter sports have become secondary. Soon it will be over except for the bills coming in.

  • freebear

    2 years ago

    Olympic Ideal like the Geneva Convention!

    Apparently no longer valid!

    Gets in the way of making money!

  • Fiat lux

    2 years ago

    Big business didn't save the

    Big business didn't save the "games" because there ain't no games no more.

    What we now have is an overcostly showbiz extravaganza with overpaid professional performers.

    Vancouver is not going to "welcome the world" because only a fraction of a fraction of one per cent will ever come or compete.

    The real world is starving and going deeper into the hole every day.

    We'll be paying for this nonsense through the nose for years to come, with the government hiding the real costs.

    Ed Deak

  • Big V

    2 years ago

    Just wondering...

    Will shoppers be arrested for walking around with non-Olympic sponsored shopping bags?

  • barney

    2 years ago

    Oly = corporate branding bonanza

    Another interesting development in this corporate branding bonanza was when they started letting professional athletes compete at the Games. We were all suckered into believing that having NBA and NHL and pro tennis players at the Olympics was all about excellence. We Canadaians, starved for that illusive Olympic gold medal in hockey to prove we truly are the best, allowed our souls to be sold to the Olympic branding devil by cheering on with enthusiasm as they opened the floodgates to multi-million dollar NHL stars. What a bunch of suckers we are. Million dollar athletes competing at an "amateur" sporting event to feed the corporate machine. Lovely.

    Having just watched some of the most exciting hockey in Saskatchewan (World Juniors) I've ever seen, the Olympics could attempt to regain some of its integrity by dumping all pros, no exceptions, and allowing our best young amateurs return to taking their rightful place in this sporting event.

    What a charade this event has become.

  • barney

    2 years ago

    And have you noticed...

    how the inclusion of new sporting events and exclusion of stale ones at the Olympic Games in the last couple decades seems to have absolutely nothing to do with the sport's merits and athleticism, and everything about it's marketability and branding potential. I guarantee that if the IOC felt it could get away with allowing Wii champions into the games, they would! Video game athletes are certainly a lot more profitable and sellable than women ski jumpers!

  • SharingIsGood

    2 years ago

    Luke's slant

    Luke has steadfastly attempted to cast all blame for the our current Olympic Games on Glen Clark and the NDP.

    Luke's words as found in the first comment (above):

    "Hmmmmm... no wonder that New Democrat premier Glen Clark was the head chearleader for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic bid during the late 1990's.

    And where is Glen now? Of course, he is now exective director of the multi-billion dollar Jim Pattison Group empire rakin' in a huge salary.

    And that's what I call 'progressive' (as in progressing up the ladder) social democracy! ;)"

    But his words compare apples to oranges:
    We had a truly business-savvy leader, Glen Clark, running the province for the NDP and the people of BC. What did the business-friendly main stream media do but crucify him. He was not able to be bought out by special interests - unions included. He was a fair, but hard bargainer on behalf of the people of BC. I would have trusted him to do a great job with the Olympics.

    Campbell, on the other hand, has proven (time and again) that he is absolutely terrible at taking care of the province on be half of the people of BC. I wouldn't trust him to run a pop stand.

  • RickW

    2 years ago

    S.I.G.

    Business in BC doesn't want competent political leaders, because the latter can't easily be manipulated......

  • Jerry Munro

    2 years ago

    The Shagger and the Shagee...

    "Hmmmmm... no wonder that New Democrat premier Glen Clark was the head chearleader for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic bid during the late 1990's.:

    Actually, it's "no wonder" at all Klein Fuhrer, Luke. The NDP is, save for the "going through the motions" stuff , as much into such pro-business/ ruling class machinations as, ohhh let's say the Liberals. (Whom they are more alike than differ from-, even the provincial Liberals, depending on the audience they are talking to, of course.)

    They play the bullshit "democracy/power game" no less... to which the ruling class always firmly controls the purse strings vetoe and the purpose when you are actually "in power" (Snicker, snicker.What a joke!). And if you want to play, in the more formal than real "parliamentary" power position of "governance", you move your limbs and lips accoeding to the strings they pull, and whose hand is up your backside.

    Nothing wrong with sounding progressive, even mildly radical. Just don't try to act it out when you are the figurehead regime in the real ruling class controlled power system. No party must ever forget its real place in the democratic/party system charade. And the NDP never does. It knows very well who's on top and who's on the bottom.

  • Burnabyite

    2 years ago

    Benefits for the Taxpayers...NONE

    What are the honest benefits to the average taxpayer who will foot the bils for the Campbell games ?

    I imagine Gordo will step down once the hefty bills start to arrive in Victoria and Vancouver. VANOC will of course be long gone as will the others who made the big profits. So, it will be just the ordinary guys,like you and me left to pay.

  • Jerry Munro

    2 years ago

    For the amusement of the Plebs?

    "What are the honest benefits to the average taxpayer who will foot the bils for the Campbell games ?"

    Which is the basic reality question, of course. To which the answer is nada, diddly, squat.

    But then the games are really not intended for the primary benefit or amusement of "the masses", other than through the intervening propaganda message screen of the "Boob tube".

    It is the "monied classes", including the "true middle" and upper middle class and, of course, primarily the benefit of the ruling elites for whom "The Games" are an attention gathering, advertisement and amusement event. Have you checked out the price of admission? It's the first strand of barbed wire between them and "the washed" lower classes. What's good for the business class is good for Canada and its grey, faceless masses, baby. Suck it up. It's about us... not you freaking "not enough cash" plebs.

    You plebs are just there to underwrite the over-runs with your taxes, face it... as it should be in the prevailing system of class and privilege. Where all the economic benefit roads lead to greater riches and glory for the "bourgeoisie"

    What? Did you really think it was about "sport" or anything else? Some other abstract altruism?

    Time for you plebs to grow up and get real. :-)

    Watch us on TV and eat your envious hearts out.

  • SharingIsGood

    2 years ago

    Lillehammer

    I believe if Glen Clark's NDP had won the bid, and put on the games, it would have been done much more like Lillehammer which was much more affordable by average people and was more about the atheletes. They would have demanded far less plebian sweat to have made the games a reality.

    As things have turned out, we will never know what it would have been like under Clark, but he has proven to be able to run much of Jimmy Pattison's business quite well - to the detriment of some average workers (at Sunripe for instance). What could unions expect, they had no backbone to stand up for Clark when the media (particularly Conrad Black publishing - but CTV joined in as well) was doing its hatchet job.

    In the whole scheme of things, Coyoteman is correct, under tha current system, the NDP, the Conservatives, the BC Liberals and the Greens cater to the whims of the elite. It's just that Campbell Inc. are particularly good at being bootlicks for the monied class. They have hurried along rather quickly the process of giving continually higher returns to the bourgeoisie in BC. For this, they receive their twenty pieces of silver.

  • mary jane

    2 years ago

    No One

    No one who could make a difference cares about BC or its citizens. It is so evident greed is the oder of the day. Glen Clark or Carole James are no better than the rest or the NDP would have been making loud noises about the gross waste of tax dollars. why should many suffer for a small group of idiots?

  • lynn

    2 years ago

    mary jane

    "why should many suffer for a small group of idiots?"

    From time immemorial onwards, that's probably been a really good question.

    Well, more than really good question you ask, mary jane.... much more.

  • alive

    2 years ago

    restrain the leaders!

    Seems "we' automatically assume that any other politician would screw up, so why not keep the idiots we already have"

    Perhaps "we" should insist that political parties maintain the principles they agree on at their AGM's?

    My hope is that so called leaders are placed on constraints as to what they can do, by the platform they got elected on!

    The very idea of promoting any single individual to represent a large group is faulty. Noone should be allowed to sprout his own version of the party policy, watching Harpo and Gordo proves that they get carried away with their own self-importance ----much like tyrants of the past have.

  • Revenise

    2 years ago

    RED ALERT: False Flag Attack at Olympics?

    This is not a test...

    Is all of this security necessary? When you see some of the credentials of some of the security firms working at the Olympics, you should be very concerned. Verint (functioning at YVR) is the same security front that provided their high tech, 'infallible' cameras to the London tunnel system that mysteriously went offline shortly before and during the London bombing on 7/7.

    A warning to all Canadians:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sa6_wBgxtw

    One can only imagine harper calling a national emergency, declare himself a dictator, enforce martial law, and then utilize his new found powers as a leverage to force all of his draconian legislation, like bill C-60, which elevates the rights of American Police on Canadian soil in the course of an integrated cross-border operation, to the degree that "every designated officer is a peace officer in every part of Canada and has the same power to enforce an Act of Parliament as a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

    Considering the dire scope and scale of possibilities of a false flag attack facts and leads included herein and elsewhere must be followed and shared for the greatest interest of the public good! We are posting the following story based on highly suspicious circumstances, and although an attack is possible, we don't know if anything will happen, as only time will tell. But the fact remains that there are very suspicious things going on here in Canada and abroad that lead us to question whether there may be an intention to carry out a false flag attack sometime around the Vancouver Olympics coming up in February 2010.

    If you want more information, check out my blog here:

    http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=60328347&blogId=327112941

    Let us pray that everything will be okay, and that we are wrong about it. Don't let your fear rule your minds... the power within you is stronger than any power outside of you, and no matter what happens, no matter what mainstream media spins, call it what it is... bullshit. We will not believe them if they use it as a pretext for more genocide and war abroad, and for more fascist policy at home. God speed!

  • North of Hope

    2 years ago

    mary jane said

    "Glen Clark or Carole James are no better than the rest or the NDP would have been making loud noises about the gross waste of tax dollars."
    The NDP have been making noises about the waste of the BC Liberals. The problem is the press has not been reporting it. You will not know about it unless you are personally hear the speech. The MSM is in bed with the BC Liberals and will not report issues that damage the BC Liberals.

  • RickW

    2 years ago

    BC Libs "Stimulating" Job Exports?

    http://www2.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=23d27e4d-fe6f-4318-909a-b64dad5fe8f1
    Companies speed up logging on Island
    forest firms credit better markets

    http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/2608194/
    Eurocan paper mill in Kitimat, B.C., the Company announced today that it will permanently close the unprofitable operation. The closure is expected to take place on January 31, 2010

  • freebear

    2 years ago

    Don`t forget Taxpayers who prop up the 5 ring circus!

    Watch as fewer countries will bid for hosting a taxpayer propped up, corporate orgy!

  • Maurice Cardinal

    2 years ago

    Follow the Money

    When Olympic sponsors get the message from Host region taxpayers that associating their brand with the Olympics creates consumer animosity, sponsors like Coca Cola, RBC, McDonalds, HBC, Rona, and all the rest will reconsider the responsibility they have towards our community.

    In the past, before the proliferation of social media, taxpayers in Host regions had no way to easily get the word out that they were being pillaged by Olympic sponsors. Today you have a voice. Use it and talk to people around the world and tell them about the mess Olympic sponsors have helped create.

    Make sure you mention sponsors by name, and cc the sponsors through their websites.

    Hold Olympic sponsors accountable.

  • RickW

    2 years ago

    "Hold Olympic sponsors accountable"

    Hmmmm.....I wonder how much different things would be if the official sponsors were told that a condition of sponsorship was, they had to fund the entirety of the Olympics....?

  • Jerry Munro

    2 years ago

    And like losers everywhere...

    "Hold Olympic sponsors accountable" writes Maurice Cardinal.

    It is all just a continuation of "policy" (Neconazi policy) since the "Restraint Budgets" of the late 70's, and that policy being picked up and adapted by primarily successive Liberal, Conservative, and yes, though perhaps to a lesser degree, even NDP governments. They all bought into the need, to one degree or another, for "cutbacks" and working class "restraint", driving down their wages and standard of living,while with the other hand extending welfare dollars in "business friendly policies". (And fundamentally supported by the Greens, though they never formed a government.)

    The purpose?

    To force our own working population to compete with impoverished Third World labour, in the name of a hypothetical Globalized Capitalism Juggernaut that was and is characterized as "unstoppable".

    Rob from the social safety net that was put in place, as a consequence of the victorious class struggle of the Depression and Wartime eras working class, for the benefit of the whole citizenry, to enhance instead, "socialist" welfare provision for the "private" sector, i.e. "capitalism". And to underwrite the over-run costs of ruling class adventurism in these same global markets, and such as will be the end product of these games, which are a to be a monument to their New Order.

    Which costs, by the by, will be borne by the working masses from whom it was all stolen in the first place, and blamed on their unrealistic expectations.

    Like has been said here by different folks, on many threads over the last few years, we are in a period where The System has been stood on its head: It is to be Capitalism for the working masses, and Socialism for the Big Corporate ruling class. They have used their loyal Neoconazi minions, such as we see babbling here much, to push through a revolution of their own. They won, and we have lost.

    And like losers everywhere, we now have to pay the price for that failure of vigilance, and preparedness to defend ourselves and our socio-political and economic interests, or to carry them through to the completion, of a revolution of our own.

    It's suck it up time or fight. Thus far, we're still sucking it up.

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