Without sounding sophomoric, we are living in an age of profound fear. Extreme weather events are happening daily: there's a heat wave in the Pacific Ocean, Iran reached a heat index of 158 degrees farenheit, there's flash flooding and wildfires in Europe; hurricane fuelled wildfires in Maui, and the worst fire season ever here at home. It's no wonder we drown ourselves in fads like Barbenheimer. And while progressives tend to diagnose the root causes of problems like rising inequality, climate chaos, a poisoned drug supply, and out of control housing prices- it seems the reactionary right just keeps digging their heels in the sand.
The conservative psyche is riddled with paranoia. Take for example, Jason Aldean's ridiculously problematic and yet deliciously memeable "Try that in a Small Town"- a deeply xenophobic anthem which parrots Birth of a Nation talking points. While fear has long been at the heart of the conservative allergy to change, they seem to have a bigger platform than ever to peddle their manufactured outrage and self-appointed oppression. Grifters like Aaron Gunn have moved on from demonizing safe supply to millions of views to unironically complaining that free speech in Canada is dead on the world's largest video hosting site (no, I'm not going to link to it). You've got professional snowflake Piers Morgan complaining about the PM wearing pink (nevermind that pink is a historically masculine colour). You've got closet-cased numpties all over the world losing their minds over drag queens reading books to children and not, as the hashtag #notadragqueen proves, all the people who actually harm children (and if you think womens clothing and makeup alone makes something sexual you may in fact be fetishizing women).
And yet, the mantra of personal responsibility is just as much rooted in liberalism as it is populism. The liberal obsession with virtue signalling idpol means that both groups can't see beyond their petty identitarian worldview to the structures that actually oppress them. This is why the liberal project has entirely backfired. And don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about intersectional politics, I'm talking about the shallow both sides centrism that manifests in a rainbow painted anti-homeless bench.
And it's essentially the entire ABC Vancouver brand. By trying to appease both liberals and conservatives they turned into a party bereft of any meaningful ideas. They govern like a giant clueless corporation on social media- a hollowed out virtue signalling husk that will bend at the slightest pressure of pearl clutching Karens and whining NIMBYs. A party that paints over overlapping complex problems with beige paint and incrementalism.
Case in point: Dan Fumano: How a Vancouver neighbourhood fought, and defeated, a daycare. We have a shortfall of 15,000 childcare spaces. We have the highest child poverty in Canada. We just closed down a slide because NIMBYs cried. We are not a real city.
You may be aware of the quaint little nickname "Lotusland", but there's a sinister meaning behind it. As far back as 2010 I've been ranting about its chilling accuracy. Based on Tennyson's poem where mariners abandon their children after literally getting drunk from the scenery, Lotusland is a place where we've surrendered to peaceful hedonism and the narcicistic luxury of the one percent; where we build investment boxes in the sky and complain about tents on the street; where we have the most well funded police force in North America and yet still bitch about "rampant crime". All to the detriment of future generations.
It's a place where we close overdose prevention sites in a public health emergency, where we shut down modular housing, and where SROs are converted to $2000 dollar microsuites: Video promoting $2,000 rent for 200-square-foot Vancouver apartment widely criticized. The fucked up thing about this is that we could have easily prevented this with vacancy control for SROs, but lo and behold look who came out against it: The owner of this SRO. Oh and so did our so-called progressive provincial government: "The B.C. government did not participate in the court case but excerpts from the ruling show it opposed council’s push for rent or vacancy control". Fuck. Right. Off.
This is a city where, when pressed about short term rentals in a city with an average $3,000 rent, in the eviction capital of Canada, ABC councillor Lenny Zhou responds by saying he's going to make it easier to evict tenants in order to own Airbnb:
Landlords already have it so fucking easy that they can literally operate fire traps with impunity: Three Apartment Fires, One Landlord. If there was any justice this guy would be marched naked through the streets. And yet, when Mo Amir of Vancolour suggests taxing landlords more, they erupt into a cacophony of sneering privilege.
Here's an idea, get a real job: Vancouver landlords face cost pressures too, industry says, amid record-high rents. And yet, they already have at their disposal a mechanism whereby they can demonstrate financial need to increase rents above the minimum allowable amount.
Meanwhile council is busy approving non-circulating water fountains in the middle of a fucking drought. We are such a vain and vacuous collective of self-entitled teacups that we set fire to a beach in the middle of the worst wildfire season ever. You've got the military grade hubris of Kelowna MP having the audacity to criticize the carbon tax while her riding is on fire. Or how about the two tone-deaf numpties who whine to the local media becaause they lost their second home in a fire that burned a whole fucking town down. Then there's the staggering pettiness of one of the wealthiest people on Earth blocking news for Canadians: Wildfire evacuees frustrated by Facebook news ban in Canada. Couple this with Air Canada seemingly jacking up prices on flights out of Yellowknife and you've got one of the best cases for nationalizing all corporations.
Nationalise JJ Bean? Downtown Vancouver coffee shop closing, ‘fed up’ with rising crime. Are you sure it's not because it's a terrible location that is literally surrounded on all sids by some of the best coffee in the city? Revolver, Nemesis, Timbretrain, Kafka's, Prado, Bean Around the World, Purebread.... Maybe you're just upset that you couldn't colonize this neighbourhood. Maybe it's more likely an extension of your evangelical war on the poor. Maybe it was the fact that it was never even supposed to be there in the first place. From a guy that fought tooth an nail against his emplpyees organizing while simultaneously harbouring an abuser for years, I just don't believe him.
It's much more likely he's exploiting the narrative around crime and drugs to absolve his poor business skills: B.C. officials respond to 'fear-based' rhetoric about safer supply programs. 1) Safe supply barely exists. 2) You've always been able to buy dillies in Vancouver. 3) You can't get treatment if you're dead. 4) This is a crisis of capitalism: low wages, insane housing costs, and never ending cycles of trauma.
Just going to leave this here: Crime severity index for Victoria ticks up, still below national average.
Meanwhile: Police fatally shoot 18-year-old at East Vancouver park after responding to 911 call. We may never know if this kid had a real gun or a bb gun, but let's remind ourselves: cops aren't supposed to kill people.
Zero accountability: Police Smashed into Him, Then Interfered with First Aid, Say Witnesses.
In Saskatchewan, Cops arrest someone who they found tied up and assaulted, put him in a cruiser instead of calling an ambulance for his injuries, and he dies. Cops don't prevent crime, they are crime: RCMP report finds officers neglected duties after man tied up, beaten on rural property near Melfort, Sask..
Meanwhile: The VPD Won’t Release a Review of Its Chelsea Poorman Investigation.
No brainer: Proposed bike highways could make biking easier, more accessible across Metro Vancouver.
Honour bound: Create a tiny home village in the parking lot at CRAB Park.
Thanks for writing this, Sean. I really appreciate all the links/sources you shared.