Heather Conn Blogs

spoutin’ about by the sea

Occupy is not dead: “Sure, disregard us and go shopping”

Occupy Vancouver tents on their last day by the art gallery (Nov. 21)

I applaud how Vancouver, BC mayor Gregor Robertson handled the recent dismantling of Occupy Vancouver. Unlike some mayors in U.S. cities (e.g. Portland and Oakland), he deserves tremendous credit for avoiding riot squads, confrontation and violent clashes on the occupiers’ final day in front of the art gallery (Nov. 21). Thankfully, the occupiers, too, remained peaceful as they left.

On the morning of their last day in that location, I asked one young man, who was holding high a “Vive la Revolution” sign, if he expected the occupiers’ 2 p.m. departure to be violent. He told me: “Part of me hopes so.”

I watched a half-dozen occupiers take apart their tents at 11:30 a.m., two-and-a-half hours before the city had ordered them gone. The atmosphere was relaxed. A man with a throaty voice and lone guitar was singing “Democracy” at the main microphone. A handful of city officials and uniformed policed mingled with occupiers, standing on the outskirts of the mini tent city. One young man with a painted face walked up to three officers and told them “I’m glad you’re here.”

Song sparrows chittered in the trees at the corner of Georgia and Hornby. From a block away, my stomach felt the pounding, visceral beat of drums. A small group of first nations men and women had formed a circle of seats at Georgia and Granville and were drumming, with bold, rhythmic power, to protest the police handling of the murders of women who went missing on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. “I want to know what happened to my sister,” a native man said into a microphone, standing on the downtown intersection that the city had closed in preparation for protest.

The occupiers’ camp had helped spawn this display of free speech. Hurray for such an open lament. An expert in social movements, quoted recently in Canadian Press, has said that Occupy is the most important democratic social movement of the last two generations and that demonstrators who have taken over parks and other public spaces should be left alone. Occupy Wall Street has said: “You can’t evict an idea whose time has come.”

“We’re observing a process of commercializing and privatizing public space, and we should be outraged by it,” says Vincent Mosco, professor emeritus of sociology at Queen’s University. “But we don’t hear about limits on public space until a genuine public movement raising significant political issues decides to make use of public space.”

 

“I hope it [Vancouver’s Occupy movement] is not dead,” environmental leader David Suzuki told about 100 people at his foundation’s Elders’ Forum, held Nov. 24 at the downtown Vancouver Public Library. Democracy is tough, he added, and today’s young occupiers need the helping hand of elders to tell them what roots they’re coming from.

“They’re trying to be different in having no leaders but that’s doomed in the world we’re living,” he said. Suzuki visited the occupy camps in Vancouver and Montreal, but he must have missed the occupiers’ elders’ tent in his home city. At a morning breakout session in his own day-long forum, several female seniors spoke in favor of the occupy movement and its desire for grassroots change. They might not have had tents pitched with the occupiers, but their hearts were alongside them.

Both individually and as a society, as we face daily challenges of injustice and inequities, we all have a basic choice to make: What will we use to motivate our thoughts and actions – love or fear? Do we choose peace or conflict? This sounds ridiculously simple, yet look at how fear fuels much, if not most, of human behavior around the world.

I like what Charles Eisenstein, author of Sacred Economics, says in the five-minute documentary excerpt of Occupy Love, produced by Velcrow Ripper. We need a healing world of peace that works for everyone. People, whether they’re part of the 99 or one per cent, flourish in an atmosphere of joint creativity, intimacy, community, and open communication, where life has meaning. We can all create such a world. Let’s start now. Occupy Love.

    — photos by Heather Conn

 

 

 

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November 30, 2011 at 8:13 pm Comments (2)

Green vision still thrives in Vancouver while Gibsons faces greater Gospel Rock challenge

I am delighted that Gregor Robertson won the mayoralty race in Vancouver, BC and that the Vision Vancouver team can continue its mandate for progressive change. This means that the city’s sustainability plan with its bold goals and target dates will not be shelved or disrupted.

I found it truly offensive to receive an email from Suzanne Anton on Nov. 19 (voting day), which recapped her goals as a potential mayor and what she would pledge to do in that role. I thought that such politicking on voting day was illegal! If so, she and the NPA team need to be censured for their actions.

Hurray for the Green Party grabbing its first council seat. What a great opportunity for the Greens’ newly elected councillor Adriane Carr, who will add her knowledgeable earth-focused perspective. I think that the results of Vancouver’s municipal election show that going green is no temporary fad for residents. Enough people in the city truly recognize that we need fundamental lifestyle changes in how we relate to the environment.

However, I am sad to see that Ellen Woodsworth of the Committee of Progressive Electors did not get re-elected. She has been a grassroots activist for decades in many arenas, from women’s right to choose to affordable housing and poverty issues. I was impressed with the humility, dedication, and passion for helping others that she shared on the Nov. 9 Women in Politics panel in downtown Vancouver, co-hosted by the Minerva Foundation and several women’s business groups.

As for the Sunshine Coast elections, the Gibsons mayoralty results are indeed disheartening. Having lawyer Wayne Rowe at the helm will require an even stronger fight to try and save Gospel Rock. Early congrats to new electee Dan Bouman and re-elected Lee Ann Johnson. They’ll provide a much-needed pro-environment stance on council. Barry Janyk gave the Town of Gibsons a dozen years of fine leadership and eco-minded initiatives as mayor. His contributionss and humor in that role will be missed.

Lastly, I extend congratulations to Donna Shugar in her re-election as director in Roberts Creek. We Creekers and all of us in the SCRD will continue to enjoy the benefits of her extensive experience, open and consultative style, and even-handed way of dealing with so many community issues. Donna, I’m extremely pleased to see that you have received such resounding support: more than three times your closest opponent, Barb Hague (Shugar 599 votes; Hague 167; Hans Penner 142).

In a Nov. 20 thank-you email to supporters, Donna shared her view of her campaign: “I have a better sense of what is important to the community in terms of the person they want to represent them. I hope I can live up to your expectations, especially since there will be several key changes to the composition of the SCRD Board.” Go, Donna, go!

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November 20, 2011 at 1:25 pm Comments (2)

Occupy Vancouver: we need two-way respect

Imagine the Occupy Vancouver people in Armani suits, camped out in designer beige tents with cappuccino machines and the same outdoor heaters that restaurants use. If everything else was the same – the signs, the speeches, the behaviour – do you think that the city and its fire and police departments would respond differently to the Occupy encampment? Of course. They’d offer what’s been missing so far in the relationship between both sides: respect, and meaningful dialogue regarding long-term solutions.

Sure, I understand public safety and the need to protect people, and I don’t support the use of violence by police or the occupiers. But Vancouver’s city officials would not have chosen the same heavy-handed and confrontational response of an injunction if doctors, lawyers, and business people made up the Occupy group. Instead, they would have suggested a discreet meeting, among supposed peers, and likely found a settlement that satisfied both groups.

The recent drug-related death, overdose, and bylaw non-compliance at the Occupy camp appears to have cemented a paternalistic city view that all the Occupiers are irresponsible scum, losers, addicts, etc. and therefore, they need to be punished and removed. (Think: unsightly boil = lancing.) Since when has drawing rigid lines into overly simplistic us-versus-them camps ever resulted in a peaceful solution?

The loser label certainly doesn’t describe the gentle, sixtyish woman with her hair in a bun who said to me this week in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery: “I support these people. They’re peaceful. I’m part of the 99 per cent, but I can’t stay here.” She was briefly visiting the Occupy Vancouver site to give food to a young homeless man in dreadlocks, who was living in a tent with his dog.

Such dismissive attitudes don’t consider the Vancouver pediatrician who told me, over a client lunch at Shaughnessy Restaurant, that he had wanted to join the Occupy Vancouver movement and “felt like throwing something” on its first day. These labels ignore people like “Raven,” the young man in a wheelchair with long black hair and bright eyes, who provides on-site security at the Occupy location and approached me this week with warmth and kindness.

And what about all the members of the public who have donated books to the Occupy camp library, the ones now organized in a tent on multi-shelves with categories like “Hegel,” “Analytical Philosophy,” “Sociology/Anthropology,” “Ecology,” and more? Are they losers too?

That’s one of the huge things wrong with our local Occupy scene: too many decision-makers are not looking beyond labels and minor infractions. There’s no committed attempt to understand the movement and its motives and discover what benefits it could offer regarding new approaches to housing, street youth, and many other issues. The Occupiers’ genuine search for a new way to conduct business and relate to the earth and others has devolved into an age-old stance of name-calling and enemy-making. It’s far easier to demonize a supposed foe than bring empathic listening, on both sides, and try to understand each others’ wants and needs.

This week, while I stood on the sidewalk by the Occupy tents in downtown Vancouver, making notes in my tiny pad, a middle-aged, well-dressed man stopped to tell me that he had moved from New York City to the Vancouver region after 9/11 and now worked in the local financial world. Without prompting, he gave his view of how our local Occupy scene compared to its Wall Street counterpart. He saw these main differences:

  • ·“In New York, the NYPD is trying to find solutions,” he said. “Here, the police aren’t interested in solutions.”
  • ·“In New York, the best minds in business are trying to find solutions. Here, where business is second-string, they’re not interested in solutions.”
  • ·“In New York, they’re [Occupy Wall Street] getting help from Madison Avenue guys. Here, the market is too segmented. They need to make it clear what they want.”

Whether you agree with his perspective or not, the Occupy Vancouver issue is no longer about democracy, free speech, and creating new ways to address social ills, but about a sudden fixation with law and security. (Think: fear = riot.) With the upcoming municipal elections, winning votes and appeasing public fears and perceptions, however skewed, take precedence over truly listening to people’s needs and visions and seeking win-win solutions.

Let’s stop the double-standard treatments. All of us who have participated, at any level, in Occupy Vancouver, deserve respect, whichever side we’re on – and there are a lot more than two.

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November 12, 2011 at 8:34 pm Comments (0)

Nov. 19 on the Sunshine Coast: Vote for those who care for the community

Are you on the side of the 1% or the 99%?

“We need intelligent leaders with a sense of their own limits, experienced people whose lives have taught them caution. We still need the best and brightest, but we need them to have somehow learned humility along the way.”  — Ross Douthat, The New York Times   

 

As we approach upcoming municipal elections across B.C., within the larger context of the global Occupy movement, I urge all voters on the Sunshine Coast to consider:

 

  • Who will best honour public (community) interests, input, and involvement in local decision-making, rather than the private interests of developers and logging companies?

 

  • Who is willing to create or support new, sustainable business models that will protect our environment and reflect the long-term interests of the Sunshine Coast as a whole, rather than make localized choices for short-term gain?

 

The group Sunshine Coast Citizens for Responsible Development recently stated:

 

We support responsible smart development, which includes involving the greater community in decisions affecting us all. Your vote may decide whether your town becomes a free-for-all for developers or whether you will be allowed to participate in what happens in your town and your ability to freely speak about it.

 

“It is important that we have elected officials who are working for the people and not looking at ways to silence them. Please get out and vote this time around and encourage others to do so as well. There is a lot at stake and once it’s gone, it’s gone.”

 

I support this position. At the world level, it is clear that “the people” (99%) are tired of having their voices, interests, and needs ignored or minimized. Any election is a powerful time to change this dynamic. In our local scene, we can vote for someone who will support collaborative, transparent government and not choose profits over people.

 

In journalism, we’re taught: “Follow the money.” What private organizations or individuals are funding a certain election campaign and why? Whose interests are some candidates truly representing? Follow alliances, public and private, and see where they lead.

 

As a Roberts Creek resident, I support incumbent Donna Shugar as our representative from Area D. Donna is great at bringing together community members with conflicting interests, creating an open and respectful public forum to air views, and responding with a decision that truly reflects the majority viewpoint. (As Occupy movement members like to say: “This is what democracy looks like.”) She has an excellent track record and I like what she stands for:

 

  • An inclusive community where all our citizens enjoy a healthy environment and economic dignity
  • Ensuring the opportunities of future generations are not compromised by our actions today
  • Balancing the priorities of environmental responsibility, economic resilience, health and social well-being, cultural vitality
  • Dialogue, negotiation, and consensus-building
  • An economy built on small local enterprise.

 

I think it’s appalling – and telling — that at this week’s Green Issues Forum in Gibsons, hosted by the Sunshine Coast Conservation Association, candidates such as Wayne Rowe (running for Gibsons mayor) and Barb Hague (Area D) did not appear. If these people can’t be bothered to show up to participate in public dialogue about important local environmental issues, from logging on Mount Elphinstone and independent power projects to the Chapman Creek watershed, why on earth would they care what people think if they were elected?

 

I urge everyone on the Sunshine Coast to vote on November 19 for those who represent our version of the 99%, not the 1%. My anarchic heart recognizes the huge limitations that our regional district faces when dealing with the Ministry of Forests and other larger government bodies, but I still fundamentally believe in an individual’s democratic power, and right, to vote. People in other countries are dying to gain this right. Let’s not squander ours.

 

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November 6, 2011 at 7:32 pm Comments (0)