clippings

I am posting some clippings from The Republic of East Vancouver newspaper that reflect some of my feelings about the Olympics, the changes foisted upon this city by corporate kleptocrats, self-serving politicians, etc. There are some strong statements, but if one doesn't shout, who will hear?

These writings (albeit some of which are a bit out of context, and edited to my own purposes) reflect how we came to where we are. This insanity did start shortly after the announcement of Vancouver's 2010 bid being accepted. I foresaw where that would take us, but no one seemed to care. I am not entirely sure if the Olympics are 100% causative though, because there is a global RE boom, it's just that things have really gone off the rails here.

We live in a nation dominated by salesmanship (commercial, political, religious). The salesman's credo is: a facile mendacity trumps a stubborn truth, because an honest mode of being would cause the buyer to become wary of the giddy lie of the pitch.

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We've become ... a land of suckers and criminals with a cultural landscape peopled by corporate scam artists

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All human beings have a talent for denial, but we ... have turned denial into genius. There is no need to burn books if the public is ignorant of their existence. link

From another article in the same publication;

Like America’s commander in chief, BC’s elected premiere is a privileged, nepotistic, drunk-driving, beady-eyed corporate crony. But the similarities don’t end there. Though it is beyond Gordo’s purview to wage war on foreign nations (that’s Harper’s job), the Work Less Party’s brave new documentary, Five Ring Circus, exposes the myriad ways that our government is using the 2010 Olympics to wreak havoc on BC itself.

The movie centers around the well-publicized mandate to make this the greenest, most sustainable Olympics yet. With pinpoint precision, the film goes through the specific promises, one by one, and reveals our government’s vicious mendacity in filling the pockets of real estate, construction, and hospitality interests under the absurd guise of showcasing Vancouver to the world. But the movie makes it clear that the insidious logic of this operation is that we have to ruin North America’s most livable city in order for it to have its dubious day in the sun.

Who would have guessed that the construction firms that lit up their cranes with YES 2010 signs didn’t have our best interests in mind? The ugly truth is that the construction and real estate tycoons care about Vancouverites about as much as Boeing and Halliburton care about the troops and taxpayers.

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There’s another dimension to the hideous Yaletownification of Vancouver that the film astutely addresses. As Vancouver’s affordable housing is converted into condos and the cost of living in this already expensive city continues to rise, a gulf is opening up between the haves and the have-nots. And this is having all kinds of hitherto unthought of repercussions on Vancouver’s vitality. link

I have been wanting to rant about the Olympics for quite a while, but I become apoplectic when doings so, and I don't think you are interested in hysteria. Just slightly less than 50% of Vancouverites voted against the Olympics, and interestingly, the divide was between the West Side, and the East Side.

We have had a $2.5 billions boondoggle shoved up our arses in the RAV line, when an at-grade LRT on existing rights-of-way would have cost as little as 1/10 of the RAV. Whose pockets are getting fat on this huge disruption of hundreds of businesses, and traffic nightmares while we meekly bask in our "good fortune"?