Montreal, 4 June 2012 -- The Convergence of Anti-Capitalist Struggles (CLAC-Montreal), responding to a call by the student and popular protest movements, will participate in a week of economic disruption around the Grand Prix Formula 1 in Montreal. In particular, CLAC is inviting itself to the Grand Prix's opening cocktail party, at Arsenal on June 7th.
After weeks of nightly marches, pots and pans protests, and three enormous demonstrations bringing together more than 200,000 people each, it is clear that Charest is indifferent to the popular discontent expressed, loud and clear, in the streets of Montreal and elsewhere in Quebec. With utter contempt, his government, in the pay of the capitalist elite, has responded with bludgeon laws aimed at muzzling dissent and silencing the just expression of anger.
"We are not fooled. Bill 78 and the regulations against spontaneous assembly and masks (municipal regulation P6) are not about 'protecting the population' but about maintaining the status quo. They are about protecting business as usual for a rich minority who continue to get richer at the expense of a majority who suffer the consequences of austerity measures on a daily basis," said a CLAC activist.
In this context, it is more important than ever to send a clear message: we will not back down in the face of repression, intimidation and profiling. We will not shut up; the power of the streets is stronger than your sham democracy.
The Montreal Grand Prix is the perfect opportunity to make this message heard. This orgy of cash symbolizes turbo-capitalism, which is at the roots of the global concentration of wealth and social inequalities, and of the world economic, political, ecological and social crises. The F1 is a 10 billion dollar business that sucks up public funds everywhere it goes. For the Montreal Grand Prix alone, Bernie Ecclestone has received $15 million from Minister Bachand.
Ecclestone, who is himself worth $2.5 billion, openly declared his admiration for fascist regimes during a 2009 interview in which he called Adolf Hitler "efficient".
Trying to buy a good conscience for themselves, the profiteers are holding a benefit banquet for the foundations of the CHU Sainte-Justine and Sacré-Coeur Hospital of Montreal. A table shared with a driver costs $25,000.
"While they dilapidate public funds, calling for the privatization of health and education and cuts to all social programmes, they try to distract us by throwing us a few crumbs," said the CLACoon.
We also denounce the role the race-car industry plays in the perpetuation of white and racist male domination, presenting women's bodies as stereotypes and passive advertising objects to boost profits for a testosterone show. Recall that Ecclestone said in 2005, "women should be dressed in white, like all the other domestic appliances"!
We are opposing all of this but not the workers at the event, who will only take home what is necessary for their survival.
Wherever they are, we'll be there too! Fuck the Grand Prix!
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Source:
Convergence of Anti-Capitalist Struggles (CLAC-Montreal) – www.clac-montreal.net
No interview will be given.