Tag Archives: police

Occupy Vancouver Protesters “Demonstrate” They Need to Go!

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Photo courtesy of the Globe and Mail's John Lehmann

On Monday night St. Andrew’s-Wesley United Church hosted a debate between Mayor Gregor Robertson and Councillor Suzanne Anton. The topic of the night was homelessness and was organized by End Homelessness Now.

Located at 1012 Nelson Street (at Burrard Street), the site of the debate was a stones throw from the Occupy Vancouver encampment. Sure enough, a gaggle of Occupiers showed up in force and before the debate even got going, it turned into a circus.

I was unable to attend the debate. However, I was able to follow the streaming twitter feed courtesy of the rapid tweeting of the Globe and Mail’s @ianabailey and @robmickleburgh, the Vancouver Sun’s @Sunciviclee, the Courier’s @Naoibh and the Straight’s @stephenhui. From what I gathered of those tweets, it was bedlam, from beginning to end. Almost every second tweet mentioned some protester screaming, heckling or interrupting the debate. Multiple times, the charismatic and kindly pastor of the church Gary Patterson had to plead for calm and ask everyone involved to take a “deep breath” and relax.

By the end of the evening, one issue seemed crystal clear to me. The protesters behaviour showed no respect for their fellow citizens and demonstrated they had little to no interest in working within a pragmatic framework that would actually get any of their more relevant and realistic goals accomplished.

In short, the protest appears to have devolved from a movement of the 99% to one of the petty, angry and childish 1%. What’s left on the Art Gallery stairs seems more enraptured with their own selfishly deemed “rights” rather than the original purpose of actually reorienting the discussion of global issues around poverty and economic malfeasance.

This was hammered home for me later that night when upset Occupyites launched themselves at Vancouver firefighters and police officers who were trying to put out a fire the group had started.The video posted of the incident shows what a mess the protest has become.

The fact that the next day Chief Jim Chu announced that several of his officers had been “bitten” and hit by Occupy protesters only underscored how far this “movement” has departed from its original tenets of non-violence and peaceful demonstration.

As conditions continue to deteriorate in the camp and it becomes increasingly clear that the current tenants on the Art Gallery lawn are there to rabble rouse rather than work for positive change. I’m glad to see that the city is now pursuing the legal requirements to force an eviction and eject the protesters’ camp. Perhaps once this de-evolving community is deconstructed, the movement can get back to some of the positive and unifying ideas (and support) that made it so powerful when it first began.

Banner image courtesy of raincoaster

Who’s to blame for the Vancouver Riot?

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That’s the big question that Vancouver’s political leaders and wannabee leaders are jousting over these days.

For the past week, there’s been a wide variety of reports that have popped up in the papers over who’s the most to blame for the riot. Critics of Vancouver City Hall are pointing the finger at the Mayor and senior management of the City of Vancouver, declaring that they should have a) read more 15 year old reports surrounding the riot in 1994 and b) may have attempted to save money on policing by skimping on funding the cops for heightened security in the lead up to the big game.

CityCaucus.com, well known as a civic attack blog, has been burning the midnight oil to brand Mayor Robertson with the “Robertson’s Riot”. After years of banging away at the “Vision machine” on bike lanes, chicken coups, donor politics and Vision’s other environmental measures, they finally appear to believe they have a winning issue. However a new poll released yesterday by my firm (Peak Communicators) and NRG Research Group seems to show that despite consistent attempts to blame the city and VPD by opponents (and segments of the media), the public still placing the lion’s share of blame for the riot on certain agitators, onlookers, booze and people from outside of town.

In their survey, NRG Research Group completed 400 random telephone surveys in the City of Vancouver on June 20.

In the survey, respondents rated different organizations or groups on their level of responsibility for the riot. The top five responses all related to the crowd that gathered to view the game with respondents rating responsibility for the riot from 0 to 10, with 0 “Not at all Responsible” and 10 “Totally Responsible”. Full list is below.

 

Responsibility rating on a scale from 0  to 10 for

Mean out of 10

Committed agitators who intended to make trouble after the game?

8.7

Excess alcohol consumption?

7.6

Young people from other parts of the lower mainland?

6.6

Crowd members who just got caught up in the moment?

6.3

Curious onlookers who did not leave when trouble started?

6.1

The City of Vancouver?

4.9

The Vancouver Police Department?

4.4

The Government of BC?

3.7

The CBC is for showing the game outside on large screens?

3.2

The Vancouver Canucks?

1.8

The big question is how these sentiments will change in the coming month.

Digital Fill – The Vancouver Riot Cam

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This is something else. Want to get a sense of what it was like to be running around downtown while cars were burning and otherwise respectable citizens were turning bad like a wearwolves in the full moon? Take a look at this amazing 360 degree video project created by Northstudios360.com. The video allows you to move the camera to any perspective as you watch crowds ebb and flow. It feels so much like you’re in the middle of the whole situation that it is creepy. Click here or the photo below to experience it.

 

May 1st: A celebration of the best we could be

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The best thing to report, when it comes to political demonstrations involving radical parties, is when there’s nothing to report. As I informed you all in my last post, two neo-nazi parties, ProNRW and the NPD, singled out Solingen for public rallies on May 1st.

Downtown Solingen: Everyone was on their feet for the counter-demonstration. Photo: Lilian Muscutt

The good news is: Nothing happened, no clash between left-wing activists and the Nazis. The better news is: The Nazis had to abandon both rallies after short periods of time, because the sheer decibel-volume of all counter-protestors made it impossible in both locations for the Nazis to hold speeches without getting a hoarse throat instantly – while still speaking over a PA. Well, yours truly also suffered from a sore throat the next day, as did many counter-protestors. But it was absolutely worth it, shouting these idiots down.

Yet the best thing is: It wasn’t just the usual left-wing activists (some of them dubious) who came for their average nazi rally-tourism, and a friendly “bash” with the police as they do so often. No, my friends, the whole CITY was on its feet. All political parties, from green, liberal, socialist to conservative, all unions, all churches and congregations, the mayor and high ranking town-officials, local companies, citizens young and old, hipsters, gays, lesbians, blacks, whites, Asian people, Solingers from the East, the West, and what have you places on Earth – everyone was there. Including some people I hadn’t met in quite a while, it was a bit like a school-reunion. There were bands playing, probably around 1000 people alone downtown attending the counter-demonstration, it was a good day for democracy in our town. Remindful of “No way back” by the Foo Fighters: “No more left and right, Come on take my side, I’m fightin’ for you…” It was really a colourful celebration of the best that our city and German society can aspire to be: A meeting place for many cultures and beliefs, kept alive by a spirit of mutual respect under the roof of our constitution.

Well, but one bitter drop there is: Of course we also have to thank 800 police-men and -women for doing a great job

Thumbs up for the police: 800 officers did a good job in keeping the peace. Photo: LM

on this day. Since of course, had they abandoned the two protective cordons for the Nazis downtown and near the main station, the peaceful demonstration would surely have turned into a street battle. Right up front with the hardcore antifascists, the real radicals, the atmosphere had heated up quite quickly, insults were shouted, battle hymns sung (some of them funny, I really liked taunting the Nazis singing “You lost the war, you lost the war” to a famous soccer-stadium melody), eventually there were three arrests, in one case because someone had thrown a bottle at a departing van full of Nazis.

Interestingly, there were fewer Nazis then expected. ProNRW managed to mobilize some 70 people instead of the assumed 200, and the NPD – well it looked like a small school-class, no more (those guys I could see better, when I was at the barricades in Ohligs with my buddy Zeli, the ProNRW rally was sealed off way better).

Around one p.m., the spook was over. Both groups had given up by then and left the town. Victory for “Solingen is

Do the silly walk, kick the nazis out: Some of the messages delivered by protestors were poignant and funny. Photo: LM

colourful instead of brown”, the driving force behind getting everyone up and saying no to fascism. Full credit goes to them, their committee really did a great job in getting everyone together and in action. Especially the NPD-rally in Ohligs gave me the creeps. Because it was in a spot that I walk by almost daily (right in front of my union savings bank-branch), and for a couple of minutes, you could hear the leader addressing his boot-boys. It sounded like a Hitler-speech. Weird and creepy. And I admit: It made me angry. Which is probably a good thing in this case.

I’ll leave you with a few quotes from friends of mine, whom I met at the demonstrations:

Uli Preuss, journalist and fotographer: “Ever since when in a right wing-case of malicious arson, five Turkish people died in 1993, Solingen has been especially sensitive and on its guard against right wing-tendencies. It’s part of the culture of our town, to defend ourselves against brown propaganda. Greetings to Canada and the Gumboot-readers all over the globe!”

Lilian Muscutt, freelance-journalist and novelist: “It’s somehow tough, that these two groups had the cheek to come

A lot of people felt reminded of 1993, when right wing-perpetrators burnt down the house of a Turkish family, killing five occupants. One of the blackest in the recent history of the city of blades. This a picture from the day after the fire.

to Solingen. The past, i.e. the murders of 1993 make their appearance here unbearable.”

Dr. Markus Butz, neurologist at University of Duesseldorf: “I am here, because this city belongs to all the people living here. And I feel insulted as a Solinger, because nazi-extremists try to spread their hatred here. Especially the campaign against Islam appals me as a Christian.”

Some moving pictures from the day: Uli Preuss’s report for the web-TV of “Solingen Daily”:

http://www.solinger-tageblatt.de/tv/?id=659