Letting Your Inner Stasi Out

I agree with pretty much everything Alexandra Samuel has to say about crowdsourced surveillance.

A taste:

The fact that the police department itself is encouraging people to share their photos and videos privately should tell us a lot about the troubling territory social media users have wandered into. There is a reason that the state has been defined by its monopoly on the legitimate use of force: delegating law enforcement to professional police is a way of preventing vigilantism, ensuring due process and protecting civil rights.

Just as crucially, professional law enforcement protects a healthy civil society from the corrosive effects of citizen surveillance. When citizens take on the job of reporting on one another it can lead to some very dark places, very quickly. One of the most difficult revelations to emerge in the wake of German reunification was the sheer number of civilians who cooperated with the Stasi, East Germany’s notorious secret police. About 5% of East Germans were secret informants, a culture of crowdsourced surveillance that eroded social trust and perpetuated an authoritarian state.

Or even more briefly, what Jim Bobby has to say:

Virtual viglantism.

But, hey nice Vancouverites, losing is tough. So I guess getting your jollies by fingering some drunken yob celebrating a burning car is some solace.

Kinda pathetic -- not to mention dangerous -- but some solace.

The Latest Hockey Riot

Excellent analysis of the riot in Vancouver.

Booze-fueled, consumerist über-nationalism.

I did receive this incisive bit of analysis from Dru Oja Day, an editor at the Media Co-op. “If you ask people to pour all of their emotions and anger into a game, then a major event (Montrealers have rioted after first round game 7 wins!) is going to occasion some outbursts. Hockey commentators like Hockey Nights’ Don Cherry are constantly associating hockey with the troops overseas (he went to Afghanistan and fired a live shell, for chrissakes) and promote fighting and big open ice hits. We shouldn’t be surprised.”
. . .

As one of those real heroes, Harsha Walla said to me, "There is a sense that people rioted over a 'stupid apolitical hockey game'. While I too wish people were motivated by social justice issues, the hockey game is NOT apolitical by any means. The riots were a fundamentalist defense of a type of nationalism, most evident in the beatings and stabbings of Bruins fans in Vancouver last night. NHL hockey is not simply a game, it is representative of obedience to consumerism and is part of the state's attempt to forge a false identity - despite vast differences and inequalities across race, class, and gender, through the spectacle of sport."

The state does reap what the state sows. We should remember that as the hand-wringing by police and government officials commences in earnest.

The piece also points out that bystanders were safer at an idiotic hockey riot than at the G8/G20 protests last summer.

Do NOT help identify the idiots. Soon -- very soon -- it will be you and me the cops will ask for help in identifying.

First Nations and the VanOC

Co-habitation is always fraught with conflict, unresolved issues and, occasionally, opportunities to set aside disputes and differences.

The upcoming Olympic©™ Winter Games in BC are such an occasion. In spite of the sometimes violent, often acrimonious history between the people native to Canada and the various ethnic groups who immigrated here, there seems to exist a precarious agreement among some of their descendants to make the best of the situation. The BBC's take:

The Games, set to attract international attention, have a particular importance for Canada's aboriginal peoples, as many of the sporting events will take place on their ancestral land.

The peoples involved - the Lil'wat, Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations - who live on and share the land, have joined forces. Together with the Vancouver Olympic Committee (Vanoc), they will be hosting the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games in a partnership that is making Olympic history.

This is the first time that aboriginals have been official partners in the Olympics and have been involved in every aspect of the Games starting from the bidding process. [...] Tewanee Joseph, head of the umbrella group known as the Four Host First Nations, sees the Vancouver Winter Olympics as a great time for aboriginals to rebrand themselves in a positive way.

"What people will learn is that we're business people, we're entrepreneurs, we're visual artists and we're performing artists. You know our culture is really living and thriving today and it's been through challenges," says Mr Joseph. "We no longer want to be seen as just Dime Store Indians, just beads and feathers. I think for us those stereotypes are very important for us to break."

Despite all the potential positive attention on their culture, many of British Columbia's aboriginals still feel that the decision to hold the Olympics in Vancouver (and the resort town of Whistler) was wrong.

"A lot of First Nations considered the land to be stolen," says Josh Anderson from the Lil'wat Nation. [...] For aboriginals like Rose Henry, of Sliammon heritage, and Jayson Fleury, who is Saulteaux-Cree, the idea that Vanoc is spending [billions of dollars] on the Games is upsetting.

They both belong to the Olympic Resistance Network (ORN) whose motto is "No Olympics on Stolen Native Land." They believe that some of that money should be spent on issues like homelessness and addiction.

"If you go to Vancouver's downtown eastside, you will see that most of the homeless are First Nations people and they are from this area," says Mr Fleury. "So their rights, their livelihood are not being honoured in any fashion."

"It is costing us a lot more than just the dollars," adds Ms Henry. "Many of our community members are paying with their lives with the inadequate housing and healthcare and so the rippling effects go beyond the 17-day party that's going to be happening here that we can't afford."

From here. One wonders if the ReformaTory government will wait until after the Games to launch another legal appeal against Insite.

The Vancouver Olimpdicks, zombies and other shiny flaming objects.

Luna, who posts at Feminist Christian Socialist and who was the first Progressive Blogger to break the story about the alleged serial rapist Fernando Manuel Alves and the shameful plea bargain brokered at his criminal trial, writes about Jack'o'Lanterns and the Olimpdicks flame, in Pumpkin Pi and other FAIL.

As it turns out, the NO 2010 Victoria organization held quite a clever and effective protest that disrupted the Olympic flame event. This is a BabelFish translation of the news item, originally in French as it appears that only AFP reported the demonstration.

Canada: demonstrators make the Olympic flame deviate off its course

VICTORIA - Some 250 young people disguised in zombies, opposed to the exorbitant expense of the VOG disturbed the relay of the Olympic flame Friday evening in Victoria [...] A peaceful demonstration was held to a few hundred meters from the provincial Parliament of Colombia-British and where the flame had left for a tour 45.000 km and 106 days through Canada.

“We walked randomly in the streets, we did not have a pre-established route but we succeeded in disturbing the course of the flame, it was a victory”, declared Mélanie Sylvestre, one of the spokespersons of NoVictoria 2010, attached to the movement anti-capitalist Olympic network resistance, which is opposed to the Olympic Games of Vancouver 2010.

“We denounce through this walk of the zombies the budgetary cuts which were made by the governments federal and provincial in the fields of health, employment and the fight against poverty, whereas millions were spent for the organization of the relay of the flame with Victoria”, added the young woman, a local farmer.

Covan admitted in an official statement having had to modify the course of the flame because of the great group of demonstrators. During four hours, framed by the police force, the demonstrators ravelled in the streets of Victoria, strongly disturbing circulation by stressing “Not justice, not peace for people in the street” or “Not with the Olympic Games on the ground stolen to the autochtones”.

eh. Isn't that translation something?

This news item gives an overview of the range of protests that was organized in opposition to the VOG Torch Relay event. It's in English English, not BabelFish English.

The other side of the Olympic coin.

The BBC News site has an excellent, balanced and honest article about Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. It even includes a pithy explanation on how that area historically developed as a catchment neighbourhood for transient workers and now, homeless citizens.

Yes, citizens. It is often assumed that itinerant individuals have abandoned their rights, along with the roof over their heads somewhere along the series of 'hard knocks' that befell them. That gentle euphemism barely covers some of the life traumas many Downtown Eastside residents have experienced.

Jenny Kwan has represented the neighbourhood in British Columbia's provincial parliament since 1996. "We have a homelessness crisis in this community...people with mental health issues, people who are very, very poor. Some suffered tremendous childhood traumas," she says.

Many of the residents struggle with several of these problems all at once. The DTES is said to have the highest rate of HIV infection in North America (about 30%). Statistics show that the DTES has a disproportionately high number of homeless people, of drug addicts, people with mental health problems and the unemployed.

It is thought that about 2000 locals may not have a fixed address, out of an estimated population of about 18,000. The Downtown Eastside has historically been a place of cheap accommodation that suited transient seasonal workers, such as loggers or miners, in between stints in the woods or mines of British Columbia.

These loggers and miners returned to live in the DTES when they could no longer work, and were joined by permanent, low-income residents from elsewhere, who could not afford the more expensive rents of other areas. A pattern was set.

More recent trends also contributed, such as the closing of institutions for mentally ill people in the 1980s, the increase in illegal drugs and the loss of inexpensive housing in other neighbourhoods.

Professor Aprodicio Laquian from the University of British Columbia says the concentration of services in the DTES acts as a magnet to people faced with mental health and addiction problems. "It also conveniently 'saves' other sections of the metropolitan area from dealing with the problems," he says.

Residents of other neighbourhoods fight off proposals for projects for the homeless, addicts or mentally ill people in their areas, as they fear for the values of their properties.

Vancouver is a Canadian city where I have stayed for long periods of time with friends and family members. It feels like home whenever I am there, but I am very aware of the contradictions between its great wealth and its immense deprivations.

Shortly after the publication of In the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts, I heard Dr Gabor Maté speak in a Vancouver church. His vision of what we may learn about ourselves by helping the most vulnerable among us and connecting with their humanity was inspiring and a reality check.

Martyr-gasm!

Man, but those fetus fetishists lurve themselves some martyrdom. Two days after his inalienable right to screech at clinic workers and patients appeal was dismissed by the Supreme Court, Donald David Spratt got himself arrested for the same breach of law in the same place.

Charges have now been laid against two people accused of protesting Friday outside of a Vancouver abortion clinic — and police have confirmed one of those charged is the same man who lost an appeal late last week of his jail sentence for protesting outside the same clinic in 1998.

Vancouver police announced late Saturday charges of protesting in an abortion access zone have been laid against Cecilia von Dehn, 72, and Donald David Spratt, 58. The pair were arrested outside of the Every Woman’s Health Clinic on Friday.

Spratt was arrested outside the same East Vancouver clinic in 1998 while he was carrying a large wooden cross and a sign that said “You shall not murder.” He was convicted under the B.C. “bubble zone” legislation and sentenced to 30 days in jail. Spratt has been fighting the law in the courts ever since.

And to make sure everyone is aware of his supreme sacrifice to the cause of harassing women, he 'fired off' a press release:

“The Supreme Court of Canada today announced it has denied British Columbian Don Spratt’s application to appeal his conviction and 30-day sentence for breaking B.C.’s infamous ‘bubble zone’ law,” Spratt stated. “It’s now official . . . socially conservative human rights advocates, using only speech to defend innocent and defenceless pre-born babies, can be sent off to prison.”

Smug, sanctimonious prick. Throw his martyr's ass in the pokey.