Occupy Vancouver is an unsafe place (Dare you walk down her path?)

I had a chance meeting with someone on the ferry a couple of days ago. He was friends with Ashlee, the girl who tragically died at Occupy Vancouver. He confirmed his belief that the incident was not connected to Occupy- but part of her personal experience. I could see how he was touched by her memory, and how avoidable it could have been…

The previous day I tried to warn the VFD, Mayor Gregor Robertson, and INSITE– they all ignored my pleas for help. I just ran across the blog entry of someone who watched my messages on Twitter. Even from afar, she could see something was significantly wrong…

Death isn’t the only type of casualty one could experience at Occupy Vancouver. There is also the viciousness of slander that get’s lobbed across real-life and the cybersphere. Personally, I’ve had my named dragged through the mud, lies of all shapes & sizes, and ‘precautionary’ emails were mailed to several people on Cortes Island before I arrived- warning I was ‘dangerous’ and ‘mentally ill’.

Luckily, my housemates have confirmed that none of this is true. I’m a rather gentle soul really- and I am perhaps the greatest proponent for peacefulness at Occupy Vancouver.  The only people who think these things about me are people who are trying to stop me from asking questions, or people who have signed-on blindly without having done any analysis.

One person I’m uncertain about his position is Stephen Collis, a tenured professor at SFU. Stephen, like you’d expect of a university professor, decided one day to take a vicious personal attack on my character on Twitter. The problem is he doesn’t even know me. Then, yesterday, Sarah Behuler tweets an article by stephen saying that everything at Occupy Vancouver is hunky-dory. ‘No violence here’. Well, except towards those who have been rejected.

They did the same to Rob Gordon today. Sarah told him that his experiences working at the DTES are ‘insignificant’. (diligently, he’s one of the few truly ‘good guys’ I’ve met- outside of his having signed a letter stating lies about me) There is an insane amount of rage coming out of OV’s core group these days- who knows who will get hurt next.

But, there is one thing I can say for certain at this point in history. Occupy Vancouver is a dangerous place to be right now. One step in the wrong direction and a person could be at risk of becoming the next case of #OVROADKILL. Put simply, Occupy Vancouver is an unsafe place to be at the moment.

There are three employees of the Council of Canadians who have taken prominent roles within Occupy Vancouver. They were similarly involved with the fiasco at the Olympics that resulted in the Heart Attack debacle that Harsha Walia used sexist & racist comments to stop negative feedback from Derrick O’keefe.

I spoke to Garry Neil at the CoC today- he said that they do not take responsibility for what their staff do in their spare time. He also said that he told Bob Ages he must make it clear that his participation with Occupy Vancouver is not at all related to his work at the CoC. This, despite the fact that the CoC endorsed what happened at the Olympics…

I was recommended to speak with a couple of other organizations by Mr. Neil- and I will be calling them during this week. They have had experiences at places like Montebello, and at the G20 in Toronto- and have been working on issues related to black bloc tactics. So, time will tell…

Until then, I’m totally open to taking suggestions from other people in the community. I’d welcome input from people experienced with OV, and equally from outsiders. Feel free to write a comment here, or write me personally- [email protected]