Filip D's blog

The Olympic State of Exception
by Michael Truscello

The Olympic torch relay was invented by the Nazis, added to the 1936 Olympics by Hitler to demonstrate an ancient Aryan lineage with the Third Reich, proof of a past and present warrior culture, and foreshadow for a pan-European trail of domination. The contemporary "Olympic Movement," as it calls itself, trots out a similar set of symbols, but now backed by corporate logos and the promise of a portable "state of exception," to use the term articulated by Nazi political theorist Carl Schmitt.

Anarchists in Canada, especially those whose primary concern is class war, may not see much value in the protest of the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver. Why so much fanfare for the Olympics, a one-off event, while barely a whimper from radical groups over, for example, the installation of the HST in Ontario and BC, a tax grab that punishes the poor in perpetuity?