CANADIAN POLITICS-VANCOUVER:
TENT VILLAGE NEEDS YOUR HELP:
The Winter Olympics continue. The clown show of the 'Black Block' is over and done with as the participants slink back to their holes, congratulating themselves about how "brave" they were and how much they accomplished by smashing a few windows and running like hell from the cops. The real protests against the Winter Games, however, continue, and one of these is the "tent village" set up to protest homelessness while billions are thrown at the spectacle of the Olympics. The Village is looking for your support. Here, from the Olympic Resistance Network, is the story and appeal.
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Olympic Tent Village Enters Week 2,
Needs Your Ongoing Support:
OLYMPIC TENT VILLAGE ENTERS WEEK 2,
OLYMPIC TENT VILLAGE ENTERS WEEK 2,
NEEDS YOUR ONGOING SUPPORT!
Since Feb 15, 2010 the Olympic Tent Village has been set up at 58 West Hastings, an empty lot owned by notorious condo developer Concord Pacific, currently being leased by VANOC as a parking lot for the Olympics. The first few days at the Olympic Tent Village have gone strongly and smoothly, thanks to the community effort to support and defend it. Hundreds have gathered during the evening and through the night, especially DTES residents, homeless people, and youth.
* Read Issue 1 of Tent Village Voice:
* Watch videos of DTES residents and homeless people residing at Tent Village: http://olympictentvillage.wordpress.com/2010/02/17/media/
Over the next week, we are calling on all supporters to continue to defend the Olympic Tent Village and to support the residents. We need:
- Volunteers to help cook at the Tent Village anytime drop-in starting at 8 am till 8 pm.
- Supporters to be present during the day 8 am to 4 pm and overnight 6 pm to 6 am.
- Independent media, legal observers and others with cameras in case of emergencies (please note, due to privacy concerns, there is no recording in the Tent Village otherwise)
- On site medic support especially overnight from 6 pm to 6 am.
- Donations of non perishable food items, tarps, tents, blankets, sleeping bags.
The 2010 Winter Olympics has escalated the homelessness crisis in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside - Canada's poorest postal code - and the Greater Vancouver area. Since the Olympic bid, homelessness has nearly tripled in the GVRD, while real estate and condominium development in the Downtown Eastside is outpacing social housing by a rate of 3:1.
Meanwhile, a heightened police presence has further criminalized those living in extreme material poverty in the poorest postal code in Canada. With the eyes of the world on Vancouver, residents of the Downtown Eastside and our supporters of the Olympic Tent Village want:
1. Real action to end homelessness now
2. End condo development and displacement in the Downtown Eastside
3. End discriminatory ticketing, police harassment, and all forms of criminalization of poverty.
The Olympic Tent Village has been an inspiring action to take over public space and empty lots, a powerful testament to the building of community, and a reclamation of dignity and freedom amidst daily systemic poverty and injustice.
For updates, articles, video, photos, and further information on how to support: http://olympictentvillage.wordpress.com/
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Molly Note:
Don't worry. I'll eventually get to my usual denunciation of those who hide their personal psychology under the guise of "anarchism" and "politics". Until then, however, i merely have to mention the obvious, obvious to anyone who isn't bound by the ideology of a subculture. If you represent the political views of a minority, and a very small minority at that, you just might want to represent yourself (and actually be whatever you have been taught by post-modernist professors) as having the "moral high ground". The action of the "tent village", in my mind, serves this purpose very well in that it is exemplary in its non-violence, and any violence towards it by the state will rebound to the odium of the state. This is in stark contrast to those who want to pretend to the anarchist idea of "direct action" by doing the 'symbolic action" of , as I said, minor vandalism and running as fast as they can. The people at the "tent village", whether they carry it out or not, have made their intention to stand their ground in a non-violent way and accept the consequences very plain. Let's take bets. Which way is more useful when you want to speak to the "unconvinced" ? Oh, I forgot, the "heroes" of the overturned mailbox think that the "unconvinced" are irretrievably deluded, and their joy is merely to insult them while doing the "real politics" of running away from the cops as fast as they can.
Ooops, I've started on what I promised to leave until later. so be it. Definitely more later.
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