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On Callous Protesting

The_Falcon

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Two articles from the National Post, re: one of our favourite topics around here...the Yuppie Protester.  Only in these articles, they have apparently be prostesting the Average Joe, trying to revitalize the downtown Eastside in Vancouver. 

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/01/11/rex-murphy-the-callousness-of-protest-on-display-in-vancouver-with-a-happy-ending/

Rex Murphy: The callousness of protest on display in Vancouver (with a happy ending)
Republish ReprintRepublish OnlineRepublish OfflineReprintRex Murphy | January 11, 2014 | Last Updated: Jan 10 2:51 PM ET
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Ben Nelms/National PostWhen angry activists with placards target a single citizen trying to do good in a bad area, using his own money, something is seriously wrong..
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.After this frigid and bleak December, with its ice-storms and power failures, perils in the Antarctic and gloom in Newfoundland, it was refreshing to receive a newspaper clipping from The Province in Vancouver about a story that, for me anyway, provided a second Christmas of warmth and uplift.

Over the past year, readers of the National Post may have caught fragments of a bizarre B.C. tale that centred on a young(ish) man’s dream of starting a restaurant, and his courage and social-mindedness in opening it not on any one of Cinderella City’s glittering strips, but rather in Vancouver’s most squalid and threatening area, the Downtown East Side (DTES).

Starting a restaurant is said to be the quickest way to financial ruin and personal breakdown known to humankind. It takes great courage and a sense of hope to imagine that your restaurant will be one of the few that survives its first year in business.

Related
Vancouver police plan to arrest at least one of the city’s serial anti-gentrification protesters
Brian Hutchinson: Pidgin patrons not put off by angry protests against Vancouver’s latest ‘gentrification atrocity’
.Brandon Grossutti, for such is the name of the heroic restauranteur in question, knew all that. He also knew that picking the Vancouver DTES as his location was unlikely to do much to propitiate Pomona, the goddess of fruitful abundance (as well as appetizers, five-star reviews and large tips). However, against all odds and the lesser gods, he charged ahead. His restaurant is called PiDGiN, and has been serving Asian fusion cuisine since 2012.

His decision can very correctly be seen as a real and daring vote of confidence in a neighbourhood that has long been infamously troubled by drug addicts, homelessness and violence. Whole crime-themed televisions series have been set in DTES. (“Top Chef”? Not so much.) He was acting primarily as a businessman (rent in the DTES is low), but he also was acting as a citizen.


What he was not aware of (and which no sane person could have anticipated) was that from the very beginning of his project, he’d became the chosen dartboard for a knot of social activists who saw his fancy restaurant as a cancer in their neighbourhood. They picketed, they bellowed, they intimidated.

I quote from a CBC Vancouver story of last February: “Co-owner Brandon Grossutti says protesters have vandalized the building and antagonized customers, videotaping and photographing patrons, sometimes yelling ‘shame’ or other insults.” This was major harassment. According to the “activists,” his restaurant was “destroying the neighbourhood.” He was — Gasp! — committing the sin of “gentrification.”

I guess most Vancouverites would agree that it would take more than a couple of cinnamon streusel mascarpones and vadouvan spiced lamb bellies to shake the down-and-out character of the DTES. They’d also agree that “gentrification” — a term that connotes throwing long-term residents out of bedroom communities to make room for Starbucks and Pottery Barn — is not really an applicable term to cover one man’s honest effort to place a new restaurant (and the jobs that go with it) in a bad area.

I truly believe that the act of protest has, in many contexts, become something of a moral disease
.One of the main protestors quoted in the clipping that was sent to me this week, Wendy Petersen, had this to say: “We could have picked any high-end restaurant … He [Mr. Grossutti] is just a symbol — it’s really not about him.”

There’s a streak of callousness on display here. Try to ruin a man’s business, have him lose his time, energy and money, hope for his restaurant to fail, the staff to be laid off … and then have the nerve or ignorance to say “It’s not about him.”

Who the hell is it about then?

I truly believe that the act of protest has, in many contexts, become something of a moral disease. Not all contexts, of course. But when angry activists with placards target a single citizen trying to do good in a bad area, using his own money, something is seriously wrong.

And yet this story has a happy ending. At year’s end, my clipping informed me, Vancouver’s PiDGiN restaurant went from “pickets to top-5 pick.” It not only endured the ludicrous protests, it drew customers of good taste and some fortitude who defied the social activist bullies and got a good meal to boot.

It’s a Christmas tale for our time.

National Post

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http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/07/11/tired-of-vandalism-done-in-their-name-vancouverites-band-together-to-drive-out-anti-gentrification-yuppies/

Tired of ‘vandalism’ done in their name, Vancouverites band together to drive out anti-gentrification ‘yuppies’
Republish ReprintRepublish OnlineRepublish OfflineReprintTristin Hopper | July 11, 2013 6:35 PM ET
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Wayne Leidenfrost / Postmedia NewsScott Clark speaks at a supporters rally outside Pidgin restaurant  in Vancouver on July 11, 2013.    (Wayne Leidenfrost/ PNG) (For story by Jessica Barrett) [PNG Merlin Archive].
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.Tired of ‘vandalism’ done in their name, Vancouverites band together to drive out anti-gentrification ‘yuppies’
For months, mobs of “anti-gentrification” activists have been picketing restaurants, intimidating newcomers and vandalizing property in a bid, they say, to protect the city’s Downtown Eastside from “yuppie” encroachment.

On Thursday, tired of the “vandalism, intimidation and slander” done in their name, a coalition of residents, artists, business owners, Aboriginals and even illicit drinkers banded together to drive out the anti-gentrification “bullying.”

“We are here today to say unequivocally that using personal intimidation and bullying as tactics to raise issues and promote positions is unacceptable and has gained public attention for far too long,” says a joint statement read out at a press conference in Pigeon Park, a well-known hangout for Downtown Eastside (DTES) drinkers.

Since February, sign-wielding protesters have been gathering unsuccessfully to shut down Pidgin, a high-end restaurant established in a previously vacant building just across from the park.


BEN NELMS for National Post fileProtestors argue with patrons outside of the newly opened restaurant Pidgin in Vancouver, B.C. in April. .In the last week, picketers have also begun massing outside Cuchillo, a nearby Latin American restaurant.

“I got a sense it was a bunch of yuppies from out of the neighbourhood because I’ve never seen them around before,” said Rob Morgan of the Pidgin protesters.


Nick Procaylo/PNGRob Morgan in Vancouver, B.C., in 2011.  .One of the people who read out the Pigeon Park statement, he is a former DTES squatter who now lives in the Woodward’s Building, a nearby complex that mixes social and high-end housing.

Fern Jeffries, a representative of the Crosstown Residents Assocation, called the protesters “middle-class kids from North Van,” referring to a high-income municipality located just across the Burrard Inlet.

“It’s not like the protesters are actually poor residents,” said Ms. Jeffries, adding there are better ways to advocate for the poor than “destroying the personal business aspirations of a few entrepreneurs who have hired local people and contributed to the development of the community.”


InstagramThe owner of Save On Meats in Vancouver posted this picture of his iconic sign after it was stolen. The picture was sent to the owner by self-described anarchists..Many of the new businesses in Canada’s poorest postal code certainly do not seem to fit the bill as traditional gentrifiers.


Tristin Hopper/National PostAnti-gentrification groups have claimed responsibility for the fire that broke out at a Vancouver home under construction near East 1st Ave and Victoria Drive. .Some of them, such as Save on Meats, are downright idealistic. The combination butcher shop/diner hires local people, marshals local food donations and provides meeting space for community organizations.

Nevertheless, in March Save on Meat’s sidewalk sandwich board was stolen by a group calling itself the Anti-Gentrification Front, whose members said they were actors in a “ghetto revolt.”

In Vancouver neighbourhoods further east, the group also set fire to a house that was under construction and kicked in the windows of a mid-range pizzeria.


BEN NELMS for National PostWindows were smashed at Famoso Pizzeria in Vancouver, B.C..“Businesses should be an ally in this community, not villainized or demonized,” said Wes Regan of the Hastings Cross Business Improvement Association and an organizer of the Thursday gathering.

“What they have done is cast a negative shadow on this community by portraying a false image of a place that is combative and divisive.”

Thursday’s statement praised the “inclusion” and “mixed community” of the Downtown Eastside and backed better social housing, better supports for the mentally ill and more protections for sex trade workers.


Downtown Eastside anti-gentrification and poverty activists and their supporters rallied Friday, March 22, 2013 in the 100-block East Hastings Street to decry the gentrification of the DTES and to protest against the impending construction of condominiums and high-end restaurants in the neighbourhood.  .“I’ve never heard one Aboriginal parent say, ‘When my kids grow up I want them to live in the Downtown Eastside,’ yet that’s what these demonstrators are saying … they want to keep the people down here,” said Scott Clark, executive director of the Aboriginal Life in Vancouver Enhancement Society.

Mr. Clark said that one of the barriers to undoing the concentrated misery of the Downtown Eastside is the unwillingness of the surrounding neighbourhoods to allow social housing to be built in their areas — which makes it extra strange some within the Downtown Eastside would be working so hard to resist the opposite.

“We’ve got NIMBYism of another stripe here — we’ve got a small group of vocal, well-organized ‘activists’ with their own NIMBYism where they don’t want to see businesses or condos,” he said.

“I said it all the time, if the Downtown Eastside was an Indian Act First Nations reserve, it would have been under third party management decades ago.”
 
But, but, but, if we let people use free will and their own money and effort, they might "build that"!
 
I doubt very much that these idiots are "Yuppies", at least not in the sense that I understand the term of 'Young Urban Professionals". The yuppies I have in mind are typically the ones lining up to get into places like PiDgin, and would likely never have anything to do with arson or vandalism.

The people we are talking about here IMHO are the same ones who think that smashing the storefronts of franchises or other businesses they don't like, thereby causing the franchise owner (not the corporation...) financial hardship and lost business, as well as often terrorizing the sales staff inside, is somehow heroically fighting for social justice. We saw them at the G20, in Quebec City, etc. They think they are hurting "The Man" but of course they are doing nothing of the kind.

The answer to uncontrolled gentrification (yes-I do believe there is such a thing...) is responsible and intelligent urban design and proper application of zoning laws, not Blac Bloc nonsense.
 
pbi said:
I doubt very much that these idiots are "Yuppies", at least not in the sense that I understand the term of 'Young Urban Professionals". The yuppies I have in mind are typically the ones lining up to get into places like PiDgin, and would likely never have anything to do with arson or vandalism.

Just using the term used in the article.  Although in my mind it fits because I make it "Young Urban Professional S**t Disturber", the SD part is silent  ;D
 
pbi said:
.... The people we are talking about here IMHO are the same ones who think that smashing the storefronts of franchises or other businesses they don't like, thereby causing the franchise owner (not the corporation...) financial hardship and lost business, as well as often terrorizing the sales staff inside, is somehow heroically fighting for social justice. We saw them at the G20, in Quebec City, etc. They think they are hurting "The Man" but of course they are doing nothing of the kind ....
I like another term used in one of the pieces fits based on this description....
.... self-described anarchists ....
 
I suspect many of these folks are activists in search of a cause jumping on the number 4 line from UBC campus.
 
I was thinking the same thing -- protest as hobby.  It's a university art form, but quite a few others seem to have developed the sense of being scandalized and oppressed.....on others' behalf.
 
Journeyman said:
I was thinking the same thing -- protest as hobby.  It's a university art form, but quite a few others seem to have developed the sense of being scandalized and oppressed.....on others' behalf.

They seem to make a good living out of it. Who's paying the bills while they cause anarchy?
 
Jim Seggie said:
They seem to make a good living out of it. Who's paying the bills while they cause anarchy?


Mommy and Daddy, sometimes, but, mostly, YOU ~ through the student loans on which many of them will default, leaving the government to square it with the banks, using your tax dollars.
 
E.R. Campbell said:
Mommy and Daddy, sometimes, but, mostly, YOU ~ through the student loans on which many of them will default, leaving the government to square it with the banks, using your tax dollars.
And maybe even, if some observers are to be believed, a touch of union/NGO/left money here & there?
 
E.R. Campbell said:
Mommy and Daddy, sometimes, but, mostly, YOU ~ through the student loans on which many of them will default, leaving the government to square it with the banks, using your tax dollars.

Many of them also abuse the systems that they claim to despise.  Social Assistance, EI, Welfare, Low Income Housing, Union funding, Special Interest Group funding and any other program that the various levels of government have created to help lower income families to get back on their feet.  Many of them are "Professional" Protestors.

Although I despise Jean Chretien as a PM, I do think he was right in punching that Professional Protestor in the face that day in Gatineau.  One Brownie Point for Jean.
 
Took a while to think of the historical analogy. These people are not Brownshirts, but "Sparticists" (who also used force to try and impose a loosly defined socialist new order). Of course the real Brownshirts were successful because they were going to impose a well defined New Order on Germany.

We see some of that now; the Sparticists running around at the G20 summits, Occupy movements and similar events cannot say what they represent or how they will make changes to your and my lives, so will inevitably fail to create a mass movement. The campus Brownshirts at Canadian Universities seek to impose a well defined PC conformity on everyone, suppress specific topics of speech and promote a limited array of ideas, while small in numbers they have real influence (and the implicit backing of the University administration), so are much more successful.

At the end of Wiemar Germany, the question devolved into "order" as represented by the Brownshirts and Nazi party, or "chaos" as represented by the Sparticists. In virtually any society, the mass of politically unengaged people will move to support the side of "order" vs "chaos". Napoleon, the first "Man on the White Horse" in modern times, understood this. The irony is these protestors are planting the seeds for their own destruction, but *we* are not going to like the harvest if they ever succeed.
 
Journeyman said:
I was thinking the same thing -- protest as hobby.  It's a university art form, but quite a few others seem to have developed the sense of being scandalized and oppressed.....on others' behalf.

Look at little Bobby, finally socializing with a group after all those years of home schooling to protect him from the big bad world.

(Not you Bob, Protester Bobby.)
 
Based on their words and actions, I doubt that many of these people have been home schooled, or attended charter or private schools either.
 
Thucydides said:
Based on their words and actions, I doubt that many of these people have been home schooled, or attended charter or private schools either.

Agreed. Most of the home schoolers I have encountered in Canada or the US seem to be more socially conservative, sometimes with a religious motivation as well. Perhaps this type of stupid anarchist behaviour might be a reaction to such an upbringing.

At the end of Wiemar Germany, the question devolved into "order" as represented by the Brownshirts and Nazi party, or "chaos" as represented by the Sparticists.

The Spartacists never really met the Nazis. The Spartakusbund led by Karl Liebnecht were pretty well defeated in their 1919 revolt by the Ebert Government (an odd alliance of Social Democrats with the Freikorps and other Rightist armed groups). I think you mean the Communists, who punched it out with the SA in the early 1930's. Nobody hates Social Democrats more than Communists do: Lenin called them the "...traitors to Socialism".

The campus Brownshirts at Canadian Universities seek to impose a well defined PC conformity on everyone, suppress specific topics of speech and promote a limited array of ideas, while small in numbers they have real influence (and the implicit backing of the University administration), so are much more successful.

These people probably wouldn't really identify much with the Brownshirts (nor, I bet, would most self proclaimed Right wing groups like the Brownshirts, Fascists, Falangists, or any of their latter day descendents really care much to identify with these people, either. Those groups are typically more concerned with marginalizing or eradicating ethnic, political and religious minorities, not giving them special rights). I would bet that their pantheon of heroes probably includes the usual suspects of the historic Left.

In the end labels don't mean as much as deeds: both ends of the spectrum are quite fond of intimidating and roughing up anybody who gets in their way, whether they use brass knuckles or legislation.


 
Jim Seggie said:
Brownshirts would beat these punks half to death.

That too.

To be fair (?) I have seen a few of these types who really looked like they wanted to fight. This was during the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) riot at the Provincial Legislature in Queen's Park, Toronto, in June 2000. We were in the Ops Centre in LFCA HQ watching it unfold on the screen. These types showed up wth football helmets, respirators, baseball bats and lengths of pipe, and other nastier things such as "anti-cavalry" 2x4 with nails in them.  They ended up fighting it out wth the police, which is of course what they wanted in the first place; not a "peaceful demonstration".
 
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