Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson caught the media’s attention today with a brief answer he gave at a scrum after a totally different newser (Olympic village gets certified as greenest neighbourhood in North America by U.S. agency).

Yes, he was concerned about the cauldron being inaccessible to visitors. And he made a call to John Furlong about it. And everyone jumped on it. Me too.

I

This statement, sent to the Georgia Straight, is rapidly making the rounds here and there.

In defense of the black bloc: A communique from Olympic resisters
February 14th, 2010 – Vancouver, Coast Salish Territories
 
On February 12th and 13th, 2010, thousands of courageous individuals came together to resist the 2010 Olympic police state and to attack the corporations plundering the land and deepening poverty. We write this communique as participants in and organizers of the black bloc presence at these demonstrations, known as “Take Back Our City” and “2010 Heart Attack.”
 
On February 12th, the Vancouver Police Department pacified us with a force of mounted police. The next day during 2010 Heart Attack, they deployed riot police armed with M4 carbine assault rifles. They claim this was necessary in order to stop the march from “jeopardizing public safety” – yet the only threats to public safety were in their own hands. Participants in the demonstration only undertook strategic attacks against corporations sponsoring the Olympics and did not harm or attack bystanders.
 
The media are now busy denouncing the political violence of property destruction, such as the smashing of a Hudson’s Bay Company window, as though it were the only act of violence happening in this city. They forget that economic violence goes on daily in Vancouver. People are suffering and dying from preventable causes because welfare doesn’t give enough to afford rent, food or medicine, and because authorities routinely ignore the medical emergencies of poor or houseless individuals. This economic violence has gotten worse as we lose housing and social services because of the Olympic Games. In response to this assault, thousands took to the streets, hundreds joining what is known as a black bloc.
 
The black bloc is not a formal organization; it has no leadership, membership, or headquarters. Instead, the black bloc is a tactic: it is something people *do* in order to accomplish a specific purpose. By wearing black clothing and masking our faces, the black bloc allows for greater protection to those who choose active self-defense. The majority of people involved in the black bloc do not participate in property destruction. However, in masking up they express their solidarity with those who choose to take autonomous direct action against the corporations, authorities and politicians who wage war on our communities.
 
Participation in the black bloc is an act of courage. With only the shirts on our backs and the masks on our faces, we took to the streets against Canada’s largest ever “peacetime” police force. Protected only by black fabric and the support of our comrades, we stood in front of antiriot cops armed with assault rifles, pistols and batons. We proved that $1 billion of “security” couldn’t prevent us from clogging the heart of downtown Vancouver and crashing a party of 100 000 people — and getting away with it.
 
You won’t ever know who was in the black bloc this weekend, but you *do* know us. We are the people who organize community potlucks, who dance during street festivals, who make art, defend the land, build co-ops, bicycles and community gardens. When we put on our black clothing, we are not a threat to you, but to the elites.
 
Whoever you are, one day you will join us. As long as government and corporations attack our communities, we’re going defend – and that means attack.
 
Signed,
 
Two organizers and participants in the anarchist presence of the “Take back our city” demonstration and “2010 Heart Attack” street march, February 2010, Coast Salish Territories

I know it’s hard to pay attention to this kind of thing when our whole city is in major uproar mode and 800 staff are currently enjoying the sunshine out at various Olympics sites, but …

Interesting to note that hiring seems to have picked up at the hall. There are currently 19 positions posted, including an assistant  planning director (a position that was posted before, then didn’t get filled when the candidate offered the position declined to move here after all, then was closed because of the hiring freeze), a landscape architect, another assistant planning director for community services, several business analysts, a property negotiator, a superintendent for golf services and … I could go on but you can read it for yourself here.

This is all while the city has given notices of potential layoffs to 42 union staff and two managers.

“It’s surprising how many positions have been posted,” is the comment I got from CUPE 15 president Paul Faoro, as he’s been working to try to mitigate the impacts of those 42 lost positions, including all the recreation programmers at community centres. “The floodgates opened just in the last week. And some of the positions they are filling for, you have to scratch your head.”

All job postings are open to March 3, btw, since no one has any time right at the moment to cope with them.

No black hoodies or newsbox-stand throwing today.

Instead, activists who organized the rally and march in the Downtown Eastside today did a lot of smart things.

1. They held the rally at Pigeon Park, where there are lots of local people easily available for news crews to interview, people who were happy to talk about everything they think is wrong in the neighbourhood.

2. They had almost exclusively older women, many of them native, giving the speeches at the opening rally, like Elaine Durocher and Stella August. Plus more older native women in button blankets leading the march through the streets afterwards.

3. They had a group of people singing We Shall Overcome, with some harmonizing thrown in, as part of the opening activities — something that evoked old-time civil liberties’ marches and I’m sure brought tears to a few eyes.

4. They emphasized they wanted a peaceful protest.

5. After marching around the block, they set up a tent city on the vacant site owned by Concord Pacific — a move that it’s hard for anyone to complain about without irony seeping in, since vacant Concord land near the waterfront is currently covered with temporary tents for various Olympics festivities.

6. They kept the message on housing and homelessness, with only a few references to the “criminalization of the homeless” — no yelling that police are pigs.

7. The rally ended up drawing a broad range of people, both from the DTES and elsewhere, though I would venture to say very few actual homeless people. I and many others noted that almost everyone we spoke to at the rally, when asked where they lived, either acknowledged that they live in one of the social housing buildings in the Downtown Eastside or they refused to say where in the DTES they live, which pretty much sent the same message. But that’s okay — those who have housing and even jobs are the ones who have the energy to protest about injustice. This isn’t so different from anywhere else.

Now it will be interesting to see what happens next: Will police and Concord just let the Tent City stay for the duration of the Games? Who among the activist community is going to police that tent city? Although not many homeless were at the march, undoubtedly some will show up just because of the communal spirit. But we’ve seen in the past how tent cities and squats can get pretty nasty — only but the blindest social activist recognizes that there are problems with the crime and disorder that can spring up around them.

It will also be interesting to see whether media outlets, drawn down by the tent city, will get educated about the issue. I dropped by the Downtown Eastside Connect centre at Woodward’s, the province-city-housing group media centre half a block from the new tent city, where NBC had just discovered homelessness issues and was scrambling to produce a story with the staff at the centre scrambling to give them something a different story line than “Vancouver has abandoned its homeless on the streets.”

It sure would be great if someone could get into some of the complexities of this story, which is so much deeper than it appears at first glance.

As I said above, the irony is that many of the people at the rally live in social housing. The banner that was unfurled for media to look at on Hastings Street (“Homes Now: Tent to End Homlessness, Gentrification, Criminalization of Poverty”) hangs from Tellier Tower, one of the oldest social-housing projects in the neighbourhood. The Downtown Eastside, I would guess, likely has the densest concentration of social housing of anywhere in Canada, now that Regent Park has been torn down, especially since the province bought up almost two dozen residential hotels in the last couple of years.

At the same time, there was a real failure of will — first by the federal government in 1984, then by the B.C. Liberal government in 2001 — when it came to housing the poorest and most marginal. The last two years has brought a sea change in the province, but where is the federal government? I don’t understand why the protesters aren’t marching on the Canada pavilion. Yes, I know some emphasize the need for a “national housing strategy” but they don’t apply anything like the same vitriol to the feds that they do to the province.

In the last two days, I’ve heard from two kinds of people: those who are over-the-top thrilled with the experience of the Games so far and those who are trying to be thrilled, but who have spent a lot of time roaming aimlessly in the streets, sometimes lining up for hours to get into venues and sometimes just giving up.

The first group are more likely to be those who have access to all kinds of events, who saw the opening ceremonies in rehearsal or on Friday or who have passes to various events or venues. It’s great to be a reporter. Want to go to an aboriginal feast? Take a free one-day trip to the Yukon? Right this way, my friend.

The second is people who want to participate in the experience of the city transformed, but who don’t have any special access.

As a result, they’re spending hours in line-ups at what seem like too few attractions to accommodate the tens of thousands of people who were flowing through the downtown Saturday and Sunday. You can tell there’s a shortage of activities when a crowd forms to watch the limos on the street waiting to whisk Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Vice-President Joe Biden away and when the line-up outside the Bay is hundreds long, which is what we saw last night.

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This news release just out from the VPD

Vancouver – As Vancouver Police faced protestors once again today they encountered a criminal element within the legitimate protestors.
 
The criminal element apparently willing to wield anything that might cause damage or injury marched among about 200 legitimate protestors this morning beginning at 8:30 a.m. They walked down Georgia Street breaking windows, turning over news boxes and clashing with police.
 
This group contained more than 100 masked people many of whom kicked and damage numerous parked cars. They used spray paint on cars and transit buses and tore down signs.
 
They also clashed with members of the public and pedestrians who didn’t support them. At one point they used a ladder as a moving barricade.
 
The demonstration involving a number of anarchists some of whom dress all in black and employ a tactic called Black Bloc. This included a loosely organized group of thugs from central Canada known to attach themselves to any cause, travel to any event that attracts media coverage and promote anarchy wherever they go.
 
Because the criminal element hid within the ranks of the legitimate protestors it posed challenges to police who had to identify who among the crowd were responsible for the property damage and violence.
 
Vancouver Police respect the rights of those who wish to express their criticism but that does not give them right to commit crimes and jeopardize the public’s safety.
 
As this group began to escalate their violence and vandalism Vancouver Police increased their presence along Georgia Street to preserve public safety. Members of the Integrated Security Unit also joined the effort to restore the peace. Members of the VPD Crowd Control Unit also participated.
 
Once the violence began, specifically as some in the group smashed windows at the Bay department store, the bulk of the crowd drifted away distancing themselves from the criminal element.
 
Part of the group’s confrontational strategy is to provoke police. Some of the masked criminals were carrying vinegar soaked rags and goggles fully anticipating that they could provoke police into using tear gas. To further bait police they spat on officers, kicked at them and taunted them.
 
The Vancouver Police Department has always employed a strategy of cooperation and non-confrontation with protests groups in the hope of facilitating peaceful and safe events. On average the VPD safely facilitates about 175 protests in the city every year.
 
Police are aware that they must always balance the rights of free speech and protest with the rights of the public to safely and freely enjoy the city.
 
By noon, police had been able to disperse the vandals into smaller pockets and greatly reduce the threat to the public safety.
 
Seven suspects were arrested and charges of mischief are pending. A bag with a hammer was recovered. One suspect had a bicycle chain wrapped around his fist when he was arrested.

It’s a great time for bloggers during these Games, as people looking for information on niche topics they’re interested in have widened their search to anything on the internet. I know that I went on an obsessive hunt yesterday for more information about the problems with the Whistler luge track after the tragic death there yesterday and came across more than a few interesting blog posts from various specialists. (Though the best story I read was still in that old MSM giant, Sports Illustrated.)

Local bloggers here are converting to Olympics-dominated info, with citycaucus.com having turned into practically an advertorial site for the Games. (Oh, how we miss those breathless exposes on city manager Penny Ballem’s emails — though I’m sure they’ll be back.) I’m forced to write about the Games myself because there are no planning and environmnet committee meetings to attend at city hall.

And new ones are popping up. A couple that have come my way that you might want to check out are below. And I’d love to hear from all of you if you’re discovering any new good ones.

– Vancouver Manifesto. Sample quote: You know what I love? Intelligent protest. The type that uses the opportunity of an inevitable event [the Olympics] to bring important issues to the forefront/ demonstrate that the Olympics is not immune to politics.

You know what I don’t like? Activitst who proclaim, “[We want to] fuck shit up” or “We are here to disturb- that’s the point.”

– Olympic City Girl. Sample quote: 

Later that day I witnessed the whole parade preceding the torch when it passed my office and us cynical journos deigned to crowd under an awning in the rain and make snide comments. (OK, not all of us are cynical, some were really into it).

But there was plenty of material for snide comments. For, like, 20 minutes we stood there and when the relay finally rounded the corner it was a woefully underwhelming display of corporate sponsorship — oops I mean spirit.

First came not one, but two, Coca Cola truck/floats with a handful of promotional people half-heartedly dancing around to a DJ. They weren’t even tossing out bottles of Coke, which, really, is all that kind of thing is good for. Nothing says ‘Canada’ like an American-based softdrink!

 Then came the RBC truck. Now, call me crazy, but I’m not really stirred to patriotic zeal by the idea of tax-free savings accounts and RRSPs, even if there’s a hyperactive MC trying to rally my spirit.

I understand sponsorship and all, but the corporatism is really a buzz kill and overshadows the actual community feel.

News reports are filtering in this morning of random vandalism by Olympics protesters downtown, which somehow doesn’t surprise me. There is clearly a small element that just wants some kind of trouble, even if it’s pointless.

I was at the 1,500-strong rally by Olympics opponents outside BC Place last night and found myself wedged right up against the police line that was holding back the protesters. It was relatively low-key, at least compared to the riots I was in when I went to Seattle to cover the WTO in 1999.

I was pleasantly impressed with police, who made a point of NOT coming out in Darth Vader-like riot gear, the way Seattle police did. Instead, they worse baseballs hats and yellow reflector vests over their regular police uniforms. And though they did the tough-guy thing they had to do — a big show of force with horses and double lines of locked-arms officers, grabbing at any of the bamboo sign poles that came their way, and pushing back yard when then the crowd surged forward — they made a point of not escalating the confrontation.

Some might argue that it’s because they were being so heavily recorded. Besides the media, it seemed like every second protester on the front lines was video- or cellphone-recording the front-line scuffles, and there were also designated legal observers hovering everywhere. But it also looked like good discipline, even while protesters were calling them pigs, yelling out “Get the animals off the horses” and yelling about the details of Frank Paul’s death. (For those who don’t remember, he was the native man who was dropped in an alley by Vancouver police ago after after they decided not to hold him in jail.)

Having had a few unpleasant encounters with police in Seattle myself, where you’d get pepper-sprayed just for disagreeing with them about where reporters should stand, I felt as though Vancouver police last night were showing reasonable restraint. Yes, it was scary to be pushed back by the police and feel like I was getting crushed or in danger of falling into the crowd at one point.   But I also got that, if protesters were attempting a surge, police had to push back.

It was also clear to everyone there that the protesters were longing for confrontation, with big “oohs” erupting from the crowd every time they thought police might be advancing on them. Most seemed to be anxious to avoid being arrested by doing anything too confrontational, but they seemed to be hoping police would lose it and start beating on them so they could demonstrate that police brutality is alive and well. In the end, it was minor skirmishing with even the most confrontational of the protesters unwilling to provoke anything serious, at least not with that many police around.

But mostly what struck me about the protesters was how disorganized they seemed to be. This was not a group of seasoned campaigners who knew what they were doing or even how to organize a protest. None of the signs, which ranged from opposition to the province’s Gateway road- and bridge-building project to the “No Games on stolen native land slogan,” made it clear what the central point was.  After about an hour of stand-off with the police lines, someone tried to organize a march back to the Vancouver Art Gallery but that didn’t seem to attract the crowd so the march tailed off.

The point here is that these are mostly young kids with some theoretical ideas about corporate exploitation, mixed in with a few diehard radical oldtimers, and a sprinkling of really marginalized people who are looking for something to vent against because of the truly crappy deal that life has handed them.

And in amongst them, yes, a few kids — you can spot the core group by their black hoodies, black bandanas, or black balaclavas — who just want to do some damage if that’s what it takes to get media attention. (As long as there aren’t too many police around.) And now they’ve got it.

P.S. Here is a message from the Olympics Resistance Network that went out prior to the protest march this morning that outlines their message, just so you have it straight from them, rather than me:

The olympic resistance mascot, Squatchi, will be speaking
to the press before a street march being organized titled “2010 Heart
Attack” on February 13th starting at 8:30 am.  The march is organized in
the spirit of challenging the social and economic system that the Olympic
Games support and represent.  They are making people homeless, leaving the
environment destroyed and continue the industrial expansion on indigenous
lands while corporations gain millions in profits.  Organizations from
across Canada and around the world have converged in Vancouver to march
together against capitalism and colonization.

While Premier Gordon Campbell, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson and Vanoc CEO John Furlong are basking in the media sunshine these days, they were specks on the horizon when the idea of bidding for the 2010 Olympics first arose.  A line of others cleared the way for them, players whose roles have been in many cases forgotten. Among them: former premier Glen Clark, former Vancouver mayors Philip Owen, Larry Campbell and Sam Sullivan, former Whistler mayor Hugh O’Reilly, and the original corporate leader of the bid effort, Arthur Griffiths. Here’s a look at where some of the key earlier torch-bearers are now, what part they’re getting to play in the Games if any, and what they think of the event they brought to the province. You’d be surprised at who’s feeling uncertain about the event, who’s not going to any part of the Games except the opening, and who ended up getting a Games-related job.

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Okay, amid the chaos, a light note

http://georgecarlin.tv/comedy/obama-cuts-deal-winter-olympics-moved-to-chicago/