Campaign Stops Corporate Voting in BC Municipalities, Probably
As it turns out, corporations have been able to vote in BC municipal elections for most of our constituted history. That this appalled me is a testament to a new regime of rights and entitlements of humans over corporations that makes me smile. That I was disgusted that the BC neoLiberal government was fishing around [...]
Is a Car Free Vancouver Possible?
CarFreeYVR posted a nice video [below] discussing the motivations and inspirations for car-free days in Vancouver. With car-free days festivals coming again on June 20 on Main Street, Commercial Drive, Kits and the West End [happy Father's Day!], I’m excited to see hundreds take over the pavement. But how does Vancouver ever become the first [...]
Which Politicians Think We’re Imbeciles?
When I try to infer the mental state of some politicians from what they say publicly, I can only conclude that they must think we’re too profoundly stupid that we’d not be able to think for 3 seconds to realize that they are full of shit. Let’s look at Kevin Falcon and Gregor Robertson. Health [...]
I Am a Free Speech Zone: No Mayor Can Waive My Charter Rights During the Olympics
Granted, I’m not a lawyer. I consider myself at best a pretend-lawyer [I prefer "lay-lawyer"] so when I dispense legal advice I add a standard disclaimer that I’m not real. We’re all lucky, though, that David Eby is a real lawyer, even those around here who have drunk the Olympics Boosterism Kool-Aid[tm]. But when it [...]
Fixing Vancouver’s Homelessness: A Survey With Teeth
Welcome to our Community Consultation Survey on Homeless Solutions and the Howe Shelter via City of Vancouver Homelessness Solutions Survey. In a time where Vancouver city council may or may not have the will to oppose a provincial government they seem to be cozying up with, they issue a survey to see what the citizens [...]
“I Am A Free Speech Zone”: A T-Shirt for the Olympics
“I Am A Free Speech Zone” Let’s put it on t-shirts to let VANOC know that citizens are in charge in a democracy! What if we all wore them all around town during the Olympics as a kind of get-out-of-jail-free card? Would it be like when I used to hand out copies of the Charter [...]
A Sad “Vision” of Billboards
Vision Vancouver is going to suffer from billboards for quite some time to come. “The Olympics are prime time advertising and the city might be offering it to Vanoc at the regular market rate,” the Richmond mayor said. “But all of this has been discussed at closed meetings, so I really can’t go into the [...]
Olympics Bring CCTV, Not Solutions for the Homeless
David Eby, from BC Civil Liberties, told the COPE AGM on Sunday of his concerns about the Olympics not so much being a lever for solving homelessness, but an excuse for a reduction in civil rights. It seems he got it right. When the provincial government floats examples like the Bard on the Beach as [...]
Vista Video Arrives!
Politics, Re-Spun is intricately connected to the dgiVista.org nexus of expression. As much as my audio podcasts have been terribly fulfilling and well received [with hundreds of hits/month since mid-2006], it’s time to move into video. My audio podcasts have been audio versions of my editorials as well as interesting chats with people I know [...]
Why Vancouver’s NPA Lost Badly Today
Because I like to make electoral predictions, I guessed that the NPA would elect 5 people to various councils in Vancouver. It turns out I was generous. They got 4 in, unless more official results in the coming days alter that. This doesn’t really prove that the NPA is dead. Corporate donations will keep the [...]
Plumping the Municipal Election
There is no grand prevailing wisdom about how people should vote. It’s hard enough to get people to show up at the polls as it is–and for many good reasons. But once people show up, there are competing views about how we should cast our votes: in this case, to plump or not to plump. [...]
Challenging the Myth of Non-Partisanship and the NPA’s Stability
Two nights ago during dinner, one of the candidates for the Vancouver Park Board phoned me. He is running with the Non-Partisan Association, the NPA…a group that I have written before [see "The Lie of Non-Partisanship" from July 8, 2005 at http://PoliticsReSpun.org]. In fact, the NPA is anything but non-partisan, being all conservative and neoliberal. [...]
Pitying the Conservatives in Vancouver and Nationally, But Not Really
So now I’m thinking NDP-Bloc coalition federally. More on that below, but first… The Vancouver NPA, multi-generational vanguard of pretend non-partisanship has finished nominating its candidates. One significant note here: Kanman Wong is the final NPA council candidate. Remember Kanman? He ran a modestly respectable campaign for the January 2006 federal election as the Conservative [...]
COPE’s Ideas Conference and Re-Inspiring a Robust Democracy
In our society citizens are rapidly being re-framed as consumers. We need to seriously question just what democracy means to us. Politics is not an event that a bunch of us take part in every few years at an election. It is something that happens every day. If we choose to ignore politics except during [...]
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