Obscenity of corporate sponsored London 2012 Olympics

London 2012 Olympics

London 2012 bagel rings verboten

Clown Town painted by Mau

Bansky Olympic art

Bansky Olympic art

It is already taking twice the time to get anywhere in London. I hate the Olympics. What a wasteful vanity project it is. — Giles Fraser

Been sat at Canonbury station for 40 minutes after being advised by the Olympics transport people that the overground is working. — Tamsin Omond

I have zero interest in sport, but if folks want a sporting event, that is fine by me. What I object to is the obscenity of corporate sponsorship, which is destroying sport, destroying the arts.

With the London 2012 Olympics, we are seeing the obscenity of corporate sponsorship writ large.

• The London Olympics is a corporate lockdown – why not a Games for all?

What message does it broadcast to the world when we see sponsorship by companies like McDonald’s and Coca-Cola?

• The Men Who Made Us Fat

Independent caterers to the Games are being dictated to what they may and may not serve. They have to look like fast food outlets, they must promote Coco-Cola. The sponsors dictate what they can and cannot have on their menu. Efforts to serve healthy food are being undermined.

• Olympic Food Branding

The independent caterers are not allowed to state they were caterers to London 2012. No great loss as why would they wish to be associated with a tainted brand?

Police who have had to step in to provide security after the appalling failure by G4S have been told to hide the crisps they may be eating in a plain paper bag!

• London 2012: Police told to empty crisps into plastic bags to avoid advertising rival brands in Olympics

The corporate sponsors were able to dodge their taxes. Several have backed down, Adidas intends to dodge tax. Adidas is using sweatshop labour for its Olympic tat.

• Obscene tax breaks for Olympic sponsors
• Adidas worker exploitation for London 2012 Olympics
• Adidas hit by price tag protest over third world workers

Please sign the petition on the corporate tax dodgers.

https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/page/s/olympic-tax-dodging-petition

The major sponsor of the London 2012 Olympics is the public, not the corporate sponsors, though one could be forgiven for thinking it was the other way on, the way the public is getting screwed and the corporate sponsors dictating the agenda.

Last week we saw Zil Lanes come into force in London, priority traffic lanes for exclusive use of Olympic traffic, including their corporate sponsors. The athletes live on-site in the Olympics Village, therefore who are the Zil Lanes for other than the sponsors?

Well done those London taxis who last week held a bumper to bumper protest.

Brand protection has become a criminal matter. The sponsors have been allowed to dicate what people can wear, what they can eat. It also determines what people can or cannot show.

• The Olympics banned list
• London 2012: Coe sparks Olympics sponsorship row
• Getting shirty: Olympics fans warned they face ban if they wear clothing made by sponsors’ rivals

Woe betide anyone who uses the Olympic rings, the name Olympic or London 2012.

Shops are being told take down Olympics rings else face prosecution.

• Dough! Olympic ring bagels banned from cafe window… despite the Government saying bakers should NOT be prosecuted

Two hundred and fifty Trading Standards Officers have been sent to London to protect the corporate brands of the Olympic sponsors. Meanwhile the areas they have been drawn from will give crooked traders free reign to rip off the public.

• Trading Standards at the Olympics

To display in the front window of your own home a poster critical of the London 2012 Olympic Game is a criminal offence.

We all love the street art by Banksky. Not it seems if it exposes the corrosive, corrupting influence of corporate sponsorship of the London 2012 Olympics. His latest artworks showing a missile being thrown instead of a javelin and pole vaulting over the Olympic Park security fence may be destroyed under yet another diktat from the sponsors that all street art must be destroyed.

• London Officials To Erase Banksy’s Latest ‘Olympic’ Street Art
• London 2012: the graffiti clampdown is like Versailles versus the sans-culottes

One street artist has been banned from Olympic venues and public transport and banned from owning paint!

• Graffiti artist who worked for Adidas is banned from Olympic Games venues
• Graffiti raids across London as police sanitise City ready for Olympics

The London 2012 Olympics was to be promotion of culture, but only mass produced plastic culture endorsed by Coca-Cola and McDonald’s.

The area around London 2012 Olympics has become a militarised zone. Any visitors to London can be forgiven for thinking martial law has been declared or the military has mounted a coup.

The Olympic Park is surrounded by an 11-mile electrified fence. 55 teams of attack dogs are paroling, drones are overhead, surface-to-air missiles on blocks of residential flats, warships in the Thames, warplanes patrolling the skies.

A no fly zone came into effect over London a few weeks ago.

Legacy?

The Games will not lead to more sport being played. Does anyone seriously imagine fat slobs stuffing themselves with junk whilst watching the London 2012 Olympics on TV are suddenly going to lead an active life let alone take up sport?

The stadium white elephants.

Qatar has bought the Olympic Village at a loss to the taxpayer.

Businesses and local residents have been evicted to make way for the Olympics.

The Olympic torch relay has proved popular, though not in Aldershot where it took place in secret. The Games are not proving popular. 49% of Londoners and 53% of those outside London have said they are not interested in London 2012.

The Olympic Games have deterred visitors from coming to London.

The Olympic Games is a vanity mega-project for the corporate sponsors.

But it does not have to be.

The Games can be smaller, they can be decentralised, spread over several countries over a period of several weeks, they could use existing sporting facilities. For example track and athletics in one country, swimming another, sailing another. There is already a precedence for this, the Winter Olympics did not take place in London.

Do we even need stadiums?

The Tour de France takes place on the streets.

Kick out the corporate sponsors. We do not want dirty money from Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Dow Chemicals.

Tags: London, London 2012