Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Office Depot
Disgraced former Vancouver mayor, Senator Larry 'Slot Machine' Campbell was in the news again today demanding the immediate shut down of all Office Depot stores. 'This is ridiculous', said Campbell reading from a prepared statement, 'they are openly selling all types of weapons, from BOX CUTTERS to STAPLERS. This could lead to a widespread crackdown where the police will have orders to 'Kill On Site', anyone brandishing one of these deadly devices, and we have to stop it at the source. ' Lone NPA counselor Suzie Anthill, reading from a prepared statement said: Normally Larry and I don´t agree on anything-in fact if Larry tells me the sky is blue I look out my window (and this being Vancouver, the sky is usually grey), but this time I totally agree with Larry, and in fact it doesn´t go far enough, there are school kids these days strapped with rulers and protractors.`Deputy police chief Def LePpard reading from a prepared statement said: What the fuck? Our officers receive intensive sensitivity training and are instructed to shoot first and ask questions later. If the police have to kill all of these armed thugs, it will create an over-worked police force and require extra funding for overtime. This will place an unfair burden on the taxpayers of Vancouver who are busy with speculation in giant real estate projects like Olympic Village. And what about the Olympics? There will be literally DOZENS of visitors coming through the airport and some of them will have to be zapped with 100,000 volts of electricity. Reached for comment, Andy Chan the spokesperson for the powerful office supply lobby, reading from a prepared statement said: This is overreaching, Office Supplies Don't Kill People, Police Officers Kill People. Ray Louie, reading from a prepared statement, said: I'll make a motion at the next counsel meeting.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Review
characterized their music as "harsh, grating, unstructured, blasting, squeaky, speedy, slow, eerie and strangely compelling".[
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Olympic Protest
Gord Hill: Why protest Vancouver's 2010 Olympics?
By Gord Hill
There are many reasons to protest the Olympic Games. It is a multi-billion dollar industry run by an elite clique who sell the five rings to the highest bidder, using sports as a commodity and a platform for corporate advertising. Their main goal is profit, in collaboration with their partners: government, local organizing committees, and corporations (construction, real estate, tourism, TV, and media, as well as sponsors).
The Olympics have a long history of association with fascists, colonialists, and authoritarian regimes (i.e., the 1936 Hitler Olympics, the 1968 Mexico City Olympic massacre, and the 2008 Beijing Summer Games). Since the 1980s, they have displaced over three million people and contributed to massive increases in homelessness (as we’ve seen in Vancouver).
Due to massive construction projects associated with the Olympics, from venues to infrastructure, there is both widespread environmental destruction, as well as huge public debts. As part of security operations, police, military, and intelligence agencies receive millions of dollars for new personnel, equipment, weapons, et cetera—strengthening the creeping police states we see around the world (and south of the border) and further eroding our alleged “freedoms” and civil liberties.
Some naysayers ask: Why protest since protests don’t change anything, and the Games are gonna happen anyway? Their question is based on the apparent futility of protest.
To begin with, protests are but one tactic used by social movements. They help raise awareness and mobilize people. The U.S. black civil-rights movement started out as small protests and grew into a mass campaign of civil disobedience. This forced the government to enact reforms and to desegregate the South. Protests weren’t the only activities carried out by the civil-rights movement. They also organized forums, held workshops on legal rights, registered black voters, printed newsletters, et cetera.
Protests and civil disobedience were what made change both possible and necessary, because not only did they draw international attention to racism in the U.S., they also made it impossible for the apartheid system in the South to go on as it had before. By the 1970s and ’80s there were black mayors, chiefs of police, et cetera. Today, there is a black president.
People who say protests don’t change anything don’t know history. And those who say the Olympics can’t be fought don’t even know their own local history.
Over the last three years, the anti-Olympic movement has forced Vanoc off the streets, to the point where it no longer holds large, public ceremonies (as it did in 2007). Anytime the organizing committee does have events, it requires a large policing operation to secure it. This is because we have successfully used direct action to disrupt Olympic events.
The effectiveness of direct action and protest can be seen in the struggle for social housing in Vancouver. This campaign increased in 2006 when the growing ranks of homeless began to become a major political issue, linked to Olympic-related construction, gentrification, and tourism.
By the fall of 2006, housing and anti-poverty groups were having large, noisy protests and began occupying empty hotels. Over two dozen people were arrested, many of them members of the Anti-Poverty Committee. These actions raised the profile of homelessness and dislocation.
Since 2007, various levels of government, along with Vanoc, have had to respond with measures to limit the loss of low-income housing units, and to appear as though they are addressing the issue. By 2008, the homelessness crisis, along with the Olympic Village fiasco, determined the outcome of the Vancouver civic election.
Homelessness became a public issue because people organized, educated, and agitated for change. Without the political pressure exerted by the protest groups, without community resistance, the situation for the poor and the homeless would be far worse than it is today.
Why protest 2010? Because as history shows us, the limits of tyrants are set by those whom they attempt to tyrannize.
Gord Hill is a member of the Olympic Resistance Network and maintains No2010.com. He is also an artist and carver. On February 12, 2007, he was arrested after storming the stage at the unveiling of the Olympic countdown cloc
By Gord Hill
There are many reasons to protest the Olympic Games. It is a multi-billion dollar industry run by an elite clique who sell the five rings to the highest bidder, using sports as a commodity and a platform for corporate advertising. Their main goal is profit, in collaboration with their partners: government, local organizing committees, and corporations (construction, real estate, tourism, TV, and media, as well as sponsors).
The Olympics have a long history of association with fascists, colonialists, and authoritarian regimes (i.e., the 1936 Hitler Olympics, the 1968 Mexico City Olympic massacre, and the 2008 Beijing Summer Games). Since the 1980s, they have displaced over three million people and contributed to massive increases in homelessness (as we’ve seen in Vancouver).
Due to massive construction projects associated with the Olympics, from venues to infrastructure, there is both widespread environmental destruction, as well as huge public debts. As part of security operations, police, military, and intelligence agencies receive millions of dollars for new personnel, equipment, weapons, et cetera—strengthening the creeping police states we see around the world (and south of the border) and further eroding our alleged “freedoms” and civil liberties.
Some naysayers ask: Why protest since protests don’t change anything, and the Games are gonna happen anyway? Their question is based on the apparent futility of protest.
To begin with, protests are but one tactic used by social movements. They help raise awareness and mobilize people. The U.S. black civil-rights movement started out as small protests and grew into a mass campaign of civil disobedience. This forced the government to enact reforms and to desegregate the South. Protests weren’t the only activities carried out by the civil-rights movement. They also organized forums, held workshops on legal rights, registered black voters, printed newsletters, et cetera.
Protests and civil disobedience were what made change both possible and necessary, because not only did they draw international attention to racism in the U.S., they also made it impossible for the apartheid system in the South to go on as it had before. By the 1970s and ’80s there were black mayors, chiefs of police, et cetera. Today, there is a black president.
People who say protests don’t change anything don’t know history. And those who say the Olympics can’t be fought don’t even know their own local history.
Over the last three years, the anti-Olympic movement has forced Vanoc off the streets, to the point where it no longer holds large, public ceremonies (as it did in 2007). Anytime the organizing committee does have events, it requires a large policing operation to secure it. This is because we have successfully used direct action to disrupt Olympic events.
The effectiveness of direct action and protest can be seen in the struggle for social housing in Vancouver. This campaign increased in 2006 when the growing ranks of homeless began to become a major political issue, linked to Olympic-related construction, gentrification, and tourism.
By the fall of 2006, housing and anti-poverty groups were having large, noisy protests and began occupying empty hotels. Over two dozen people were arrested, many of them members of the Anti-Poverty Committee. These actions raised the profile of homelessness and dislocation.
Since 2007, various levels of government, along with Vanoc, have had to respond with measures to limit the loss of low-income housing units, and to appear as though they are addressing the issue. By 2008, the homelessness crisis, along with the Olympic Village fiasco, determined the outcome of the Vancouver civic election.
Homelessness became a public issue because people organized, educated, and agitated for change. Without the political pressure exerted by the protest groups, without community resistance, the situation for the poor and the homeless would be far worse than it is today.
Why protest 2010? Because as history shows us, the limits of tyrants are set by those whom they attempt to tyrannize.
Gord Hill is a member of the Olympic Resistance Network and maintains No2010.com. He is also an artist and carver. On February 12, 2007, he was arrested after storming the stage at the unveiling of the Olympic countdown cloc
Monday, March 16, 2009
March 16, 2009 - 8:38 AM
Flag this as Inappropriate
Canada has completely lost the plot. A pitiful country and you have only yourselves to blame. Vancouver; the best place on earth ! Dont make me laugh. You only say that to cover your pathetic lack of self confidence. A dirty drug-ridden hole more like. I have just left for good and would not go back to the place if you paid me.
Flag this as Inappropriate
Canada has completely lost the plot. A pitiful country and you have only yourselves to blame. Vancouver; the best place on earth ! Dont make me laugh. You only say that to cover your pathetic lack of self confidence. A dirty drug-ridden hole more like. I have just left for good and would not go back to the place if you paid me.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
How to become a Canadian Senator
...recommended that Governor General Jeanne Sauvé appoint over 200 Liberals to well-paying patronage positions, including Senators, judges, and executives on various governmental and crown corporation boards, widely seen as a way to offer "plum jobs" to loyal party members
Monday, March 2, 2009
Cultural Olympiad
Fuck the Cultural Olympiad!
The Olympics that has scorched the earth and razed our communities, now seeks to destroy our culture. By co-opting hundreds of artists, the Cultural Olympiad seeks to whitewash the crimes of the Olympics and manufacture an appearance of acceptability. The Cultural Olympiad is using art to disguise capitalist plunder.
Art & Anarchy is positioned in direct conflict with the Cultural Olympiad. Anarchy and Art will bring together a fistful of anti-authoritarian artist who refuse to collaborate with the state. Artists who use art, not just as a tool for social change, but as a weapon to destroy this genocidal system.
Art & Anarchy, is not an art show, but the opening of a cultural front, that will join with the current of resistance against the 2010 Olympics.
Art & Anarchy, seeks to give any and all anti-authoritarian artists the space to show their work, without having to participate in the Institution of Art; The institution which commodifies ‘community art’ and transforms it into the aesthetic of social control.
Art & Anarchy is revolution and solidarity.
March, Friday the 13th - 19th.
16 E. Hastings (basement of historic Tellier Towers)
Unleashing, Fri. 8pm-ish. Open rest of week 3-8pm.
The Olympics that has scorched the earth and razed our communities, now seeks to destroy our culture. By co-opting hundreds of artists, the Cultural Olympiad seeks to whitewash the crimes of the Olympics and manufacture an appearance of acceptability. The Cultural Olympiad is using art to disguise capitalist plunder.
Art & Anarchy is positioned in direct conflict with the Cultural Olympiad. Anarchy and Art will bring together a fistful of anti-authoritarian artist who refuse to collaborate with the state. Artists who use art, not just as a tool for social change, but as a weapon to destroy this genocidal system.
Art & Anarchy, is not an art show, but the opening of a cultural front, that will join with the current of resistance against the 2010 Olympics.
Art & Anarchy, seeks to give any and all anti-authoritarian artists the space to show their work, without having to participate in the Institution of Art; The institution which commodifies ‘community art’ and transforms it into the aesthetic of social control.
Art & Anarchy is revolution and solidarity.
March, Friday the 13th - 19th.
16 E. Hastings (basement of historic Tellier Towers)
Unleashing, Fri. 8pm-ish. Open rest of week 3-8pm.
Jazzorca
Played a killer gig at Jazzorca in Mexico City on Saturday night, I got to sit in with the best band in North America- Zero Point, we totally rocked and the Fiero brothers Marco and Carlos said I sounded like Mats Gustaffson-and then played a great set with Jamal Jefferson and German Bringas, wicked
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