Political Notes – 1: OccupyVancouver, Lamarche in The Dependent, Anton’s deadline
AS PT readers have probably noticed, I don’t do much local ‘political’ stuff on this blog. Frances Bula covers that beat nicely. ( I do appear with her on the Early Edition on CBC Radio 1 at 7:40 am on Wednesdays to do civic-election commentary)
But I collect a few items and thoughts on my rounds, and this seems like a nice place to deposit them.
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OCCUPY VANCOUVER – What could be next?
It’s typically not helpful when the nature of a protest smothers the point of the protest – and the tent city in front of the art gallery seems to have jumped the shark on that front. I drop by occasionally, typically to find a discussion on process underway. Honestly, it sometimes seems like parody of itself.
So what would be a constructive move, if OV really wants to to turn the focus back on the issues? Brian Jackson has an idea.
The City should take a lesson from the plywood sheets that covered the broken windows smashed during the Stanley Cup riot, he says. They provided a blank slate for people to express in writing how they felt and to share those messages with others. It was catharthic. And a form of democracy that seems to be an essential yearning in the Occupy protests.
Since it’s unlikely that there will any collective agreement within OV on what should be done, not even a consensus on how to go about it, then why not provide an opporunity for people to express themselves individually in a shared space? Brian thought the OV camp could agree to disband if the City provided such an opportunity - say, plywood sheets mounted in the Art Gallery Plaza.
But why not take it a step further, and have an electronic billboard that allows people to submit their slogans, thoughts and Twitter feeds, with a linked website, mounted dramatically in front of the Gallery, big enough to be read from the corporate towers that surround it, and that achieves more effectively the most constructive thing that has so far come out of OccupyVancouver?
[Interesting development from the OccupyLondon encampment in front of St.Paul's - here - that shows how the subsequent collateral events are sometimes more significant than the protest which began it all .]
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A CANDIDATE IN QUESTION – Matt Chambers follows Jason Lamarche
Matt Chambers, the editor and publisher of The Dependent, thought of a clever angle for his campaign coverage:
… the aim is to provide a raw glimpse into the world of municipal politics
by tracking in painstaking detail the journey of a single candidate. I’ve demanded total access. The story will be useless, I’ve explained, unless I’m there when the critical decisions are made and the pivotal battles fought. To his benefit or peril, Jason Lamarche was the first one to say, “all right”.
Good choice, given how Lamarche got caught up in revelation of a matrix that rated his girlfriends that he posted on his blog in 2007. Just the sort of layered media-saturated story that lends itself to this kind of coverage.
You can find Part 1 of the series here - and the latest update here.
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WHAT HAPPENS ON THE SEVENTH DAY?
Suzanne Anton says that if elected, she will “give notice to the squatters that they must leave within a week. ”
I had heard she was proposing to make that announcement before it happened, and sceptically wondered why she would set a deadline. Nothing quite rejuvenates a tired protest movement than an ultimatum, particularly if it offers an opportunity to pull in a new set of supporters who will join you just because they’re pissed off with whoever is setting the ultimatum, not necessarily because they support you.
It strikes me that if Anton was elected – and thereby affirmed that attacking a green agenda in one of the greenest cities in the world was an effective strategy - the mood of many of those who opposed her would range from dejection to despair, and possibly, by the end of the week, to bitterness and anger. And the clock would have started.
Now the attention of the media would turn to the camp, if it was still there by November 20, and speculation on the consequences of any forceful attempt by the City to displace it.
I can see a range of scenarios, from passive acceptance to riot. And I’ve heard good arguments for everything in between.
The question I have, though, is why start a term in office by setting up a volatile situation which you aren’t likely going to control? Or is that a definition of risk-taking leadership?
Responses, of course, welcome.
Seems to me that it’s a ploy that goes along with the “Robertson’s Riot” refrain: she’s trying to force Robertson to match, and to trigger that riot right before the election. If he doesn’t bite and she still gets elected, well, she can always change her mind since her plan is well open to interpretation. OV, if pushed (and pushed by Robertson, importantly), gets to either fight against their theoretic allies or fold shop early.
Unfortunately the “occupy” movements here and elsewhere on the planet are just ‘aping” a misdirected movement in the US.
It is misdirected, because it is aimed at “Wall Street” by that presumably the New York Stock is meant. Of course a viable security market is essential for the functioning of any market system and therefore constructive, as witnessed by the presence of security exchange institutions everywhere from Moscow to Beijing to Bangkok.
The ire of the masses in the US should be more reasonably aimed at the incredible corruption in the Congress, which appears to firmly under the control of:
- Big Oil
- Big Pharma
- and the Military-Industrial Complex, which even General and President Eisenhower has warned against.
The sad part about all that is, that the people, who sit in the boards of directors of the above industries, also have controlling influence in all the major media conglomerates. That is, why the voters in the US do not get the true story and progressive legislation, such as universal healthcare and removal of tax reductions for the wealthy can be stymied by right wing Senators and Representatives without repercussions from the voters.
All Fox News has to proclaim is that universal health care is “socialist” and large proportions of the American electorate envisage the rebirth of Stalin.
Boards, electronic or otherwise are a great idea.
Another would be to set up a ‘Talk (Equity?) to Us’ FB and e-site similar to the Talk Transport/Food/Green ones that the City has already used that seemed to draw in many younger people.
Most of the demands (even though labelled ‘work in progress’ on the OV website) are outside the City’s purview, but not even my long time civically engaged, activist neighbours seem to know what is federal/provinicial/City responsibility. This would seem a great time to engage people (especially disengaged young ones) in an online forum where they could find out which of their ideas should be directed at what level of government.
Occupy Vancouver has no endgame. They know how to start, but have no clue how to finish.
By declaring the City of Tents “integral” to their protest, they are wed to winter and rain and mud. Soon enough, the good guys will lose heart and most will leave — only to be replaced by the Black Bloc and the other deranged in our city.
Public goodwill is essential to the success of any public protest, especially one that hopes to endure in public consciousness. Gregor’s special problem is that when, inevitably, he sends in the troops they will be up against his own electoral troops. Lose, lose.
No one in OV nor at City Hall thought this one through. They invited the relatives — or themselves — to stay, but never said for how long.
We need better chess players. Endgames count even more than opening gambits.