Documenting the Olympic Resistance in Vancouver:
click here for photos documenting the construction of the tent village
including the newest one, documenting the construction of Greenwich Tent Village!
I’m home again, and happy to be here. The energy in Vancouver was incredible …. I love that city, and am really grateful I was able to participate with so many colourful and creative and peaceful anarchists and socialists over the weekend, but it’s sure great being home. I’m lucky to have one.
On the final bus to my destination last night I talked with my old buddy Peter. Many people know Peter, who used to spend a lot of time at UVic. He’s a philosophical sort, analytical, contemplative. When the new president arrived at UVic several years ago, I guess they decided Peter didn’t fit their new corporate image and they banned him from the premises. Sure, Peter’s a collector, a recycler, and his accumulations were somewhat problematic but, as Peter explained it to me many years ago, he’s just collecting valuable recyclables that others toss away. Maybe if we had more recycling depots folks wouldn’t have to accumulate so much stuff, they could just recycle it.
Anyways, Peter asked me what was the highlight of my time in Vancouver, and I said definitely the creation of the new Tent Village on Hastings St. in the DTES. All weekend we’d been trying to help the sleep-walking folk understand the history of this place, that living breathing thriving nations of people lived here for hundreds of thousands of years until the arrival of the “settlers” who poisoned them, killed them, threw them off their land, and moved in. On Monday we took a tiny piece of that stolen land and occupied it.
The people pretending to “own” that particular vacant lot, about half a block in length, is a humungous “developer” called Concord. They were given (in another round of land theft) the lands at the end of False Creek after Expo in ’86. Surely they can spare this little chunk so that otherwise homeless people can create community and live safely together while we wait for the end of this current phase of human greed and consumption and return to a Canada that actually cares about each other.
As a friend said, it’s not that we’re opposed to condos – they’re a much lighter environmental footprint than suburbs - we’re just opposed to the exclusive nature of them.
I ask you ultra wealthy types --- how much is enough? Didn't your mama teach you to share?
