On Thursday, the Vancouver Sun ran an article about Governor General Michaelle Jean's meeting with Bernie Williams and other women at the Downtown Eastside Women's Center to discuss homelessness. The lead in the article was: “In the bitter cold one night this week, Bernie Williams took photographs of 59 homeless people she found sleeping along three blocks of Hastings Street.”
Is Bernie Williams a mathemagician?
I’ve lived in the Downtown Eastside for 20 years and I’ve never spotted 59 people sleeping on the street at night in the entire neighbourhood, let alone on a mere three blocks of Hastings.
But don’t take my word for it. Walk along Hastings yourself some night; see if you come across 59 homeless people sleeping.
When I asked other Downtown Eastside residents about the 59 sleeping homeless people Williams claims to have photographed, two showed their skepticism with similar comments: “Where are the photographs?”, “Let’s see the photographs.”
One skeptic, a 35 year resident of the Downtown Eastside, said that if you walk along Hastings as far as First United church at Gore, you will see homeless people sleeping on the steps. Or if you go to the Main St. side of the old bank at Main & Hastings, there are three or four people who sit there drinking during the day, and sleep there at night. But he said that the maximum number of homeless people you would come across walking along Hastings – and he’s counting those mentioned above – would be ten.
But even the people who usually sleep on the steps of First United would possibly not have been there on the "bitter cold" night on which Williams was supposedly out photographing the homeless. On extremely cold nights, Downtown Eastside povertarians create extra spaces indoors for people to sleep. At Carnegie Center, I saw several "Extreme Weather Alert" notices last week, advertising a list of places people could go to get out of the cold. A man who occasionally goes to the Evelyn Saller Center -- a place where the poor can go to shower, get laundry done, or eat a subsidized meal --told me that they had turned their large recreation room into an over-night shelter during the cold weather, allowing people to sleep on the floor. And you can bet street workers roaming the neighborhood are directing homeless people on the street to these and other emergency shelters.
Another thing: if you think you can photograph 59 people on Hastings St. without getting people pissed off, maybe even getting your camera grabbed, good luck. Nancy Graves, a
street worker assigned the task of walking around and approaching homeless people to get them expedited welfare and housing, has told the media that she uses cigarettes to break the tension when she approaches homeless people. She holds out a cigarette as an offering, as she finds
they can be suspicious and hostile.
Before Williams claimed to have photographed 59 homeless people sleeping on Hastings St., she had earned a reputation for seeing more homeless people on the Downtown Eastside than Downtown Eastside residents are seeing. Last year, I picked up the Metro News and saw an article on the front page in which Bernie [Bernice] Williams claimed she had driven around the Downtown Eastside and in two hours counted 70 homeless women sleeping out. At the time, Williams was making a case for governments to give the DTES Women’s Center funding to allow women to sleep there over night.
How come I have never seen these 70 sleeping women? I do occasionally see a woman sleeping in a doorway. I recall on two or three occasions, over the past 12 months or so, seeing a woman sleeping with a man in a doorway. I have also on two occasions seen a woman sleeping alone in a doorway, although the one I saw on Main St. near Chinatown appeared to be passed out on drugs. At least some of the people I’ve noticed hidden under blankets in doorways could be women too. But if there were 70 women sleeping outside, I would notice. How could you not notice?
I told other Downtown Eastsiders, including a woman who frequents the Downtown Eastside Women’s Center (she can’t be named as there can be retaliation on the DTES against people who contradict the script used by povertarians for the media or government funders), about Williams’ numbers. Not one person I spoke to, felt these numbers were anywhere close to accurate.
One person I spoke to was Kevin, a homeless man who sleeps in the Terminal and Main area and often sits in front of the McDonald’s restaurant near that intersection. He also goes to Carnegie Center at Main & Hastings, just a few blocks from the DTES Women's Center. Kevin has been homeless on and off for years and, at the time I spoke to him last year, he had been homeless for 6 months. When I asked Kevin about Williams’ claim of seeing 70 homeless women sleeping on the streets, he smiled a little and said, “That’s a stretch.”
He said he does notice more homeless women now than he saw ten years ago, but it’s still "not common" for him to see one. He has not come across anywhere near 70 homeless women sleeping outside. He pointed out that when women are homeless, it is not easy to spot them by driving around. “They tend to sleep in out of the way places where they won’t be seen.” When I told Kevin that Williams was lobbying for money for the homeless, he no longer wanted to contradict her or comment on her statistics.
Kevin believes that if inflated statistics are a means to the end of attracting more government money for the homeless, “Then that’s a good lie.”
3 comments:
A good lie? Maybe the man has sat down and read through Plato's arguments on the nature of the the pursuit of Truth and the nature of politics and citizenship and the nature of societies of men before he came that conclusion. I have my doubts but I could be wrong.Maybe the man is well informed on this subject of living. If so, then I must conclude that he is a conscious fascist just like Plato. He would be more conscious of his fascist opinions than are those around him who actually run things, one would asssume, such as the Carnegie Centre, for example, Paul Taylor, a runner of things even if in only a small way.
Plato a fascist? How so, you might ask, given that fascism didn't arise till the late 19th century among Italian peasants and didn't become known generally till the 1920s at the earliest? How can one make such an anachronistic claim without blushing?
Fascists didn't originate anything intellectual or philosophical in the world of politics and social analysis, they merely renamed the traits of the programme so often the norm prior to the French Revolution, so current in our time in most of the world outside America, parts of which are now slowly dissolving into the historic norm as well. Fascism? Same shit, different day, new name. Plato is a fascist, and so is the idea of the Noble Lie.
Those who run such places as the Carnegie Center are fascists, plain and simple, and they are not known as so only because most have a wrong understanding of the term. Plato, as Neil Postman refers to him, is the world's first systematic fascist. It's the "systematic" that is interesting here. The Left dhimmi fascist povertarians are not systematic at all, probably not even aware of their innate fascism, too conceited to consider themselves carefully, too self-important to think they might be wrong in any way, too devoted to their missionary zeal, too comfortable with their sinecures, and simply too lazy to think about themselves at all as anything other than as Philosopher Kings who truly deserve their greatness taken upon themselves for the sake of the rest of us.
Why the long welfare line-ups? It is due in large part to the Philosopher Kings of the Left infantalizing those too incapable of resisting the malignant persuasion of the fascistic. Can't have one without the other. The Philosopher Kings, petty fascists in reality, must assume the mantle of suffering on behalf of the "poor" to separate themselves from the masses. If you want a good look at the phony missionaries of the Left, look to Plato's "Myth of the Metals." Some people are made of Gold, ans some are made of silver, some of bronze, some of lead. Guess who the lined up ones are and who the povertarians are. The golden ones are those who sit in sinecures and bar the likes of Simpson, for the good of the lesser people, of course. The golden ones are philosopher kings who know so much more than the rest of us, more than those made of mere silver or bronze or lead. Yes, everyone is equal, but the Golden Ones are more equal than the rest because they are in a state of higher awareness of the Truth than we, and thus they are in a position to rule us rightly, which we, the unaware, cannot do for ourselves; and so the Philosopher Kings must suffer for us, on our behalves, knowing the bitter Truths of the real that we, silly and stupid and unaware, should not know, we being too dull to grasp it anyway. It is the Philosopher Kings who will do the hard worlk of thinking for us, telling us what to think, what to say, how to be alive. They know the Truth. They have a special insight, a better nature, a goldenness to them that makes it important to them to rule us for our own good and for the good of all society. The "special knowledge" the Philosopher Kings have is a gnosis,hence they are Gnostics. They just know more and deeper truths than the rest of us. They protect us from those truths. They are special and the rest are not.
Special Knowledge"? It doesn't come from thinking, not from Reason, it comes from Feeling. This special gnostic knowledge is hidden from the masses, they being the wrong kind of metal, and is only known to the most special of the special, those trained to feel so deeply and to understand so much on our behalves. They, our leaders, our Philosopher Kings, are true Artists. They're knowledge comes from the depths of their deep souls. They simply "feel" more than the rest and from it understand more and better than the rest. When man like Simpson challenges the Gnostic, Simpson is not merely challenging a few special people, he is corrupting the nature of the Cosmos. How dare he? He must be evil. Who else would interfere with the most special people in the universe in their benign running of the lives of The People? The Gnostic minders know the Truth, and there is Simpson interfering with the right order of things known only to the special. They have the Knowledge. Simpson does not. He cannot have it. Only those who can "feel" can have it, and those who are not Golden can receive it.
The Great Leader, the avatar of the Awareness, gives all from the source of power, he who knows through feeling, he gives us more and does for us everything we need. The Great leader, Ethanol, Paul Taylor, The State, only the State, all from the State. We who are left over, we are the community. Simpson, who doesn't belong among us, is not worthy, and he must be banned from the state, from the Carnegie Center. The Philosopher Kings feel this Truth and they, in our interests, must act to save us from the horrors of the Higher Truths so we do not run amok and cause disruptions in the order of things as the Philosopher Kings make them in the pursuit of Perfection in the world. The Leader knows because the Leader feels, and the feeling is all. Good bye, Billy.
A good lie, a noble lie, the Philosopher Kings of Plato's day are the Philosopher Kings of our own benighted.
Listen to and obey the Great Leader and the council of feeling Gnostics who understand far better than you, who will tend to you, save you from yourselves, who will protect you from the harsh realities of the universe too strange for you to understand without them. Let them lie to you for your own good. It's a good lie.
It is fascism.
It is Left fascism.
There is no difference between Right and Left fascism. all fascism is fascism. Plato's fascism is fascism as surely as is the fascism of Mussolini and of the minders of the Carnegie Center. Call it what you will, but look at what it is and how it works. Look at the Philosopher Kings who lie to you.
Fascists!
Re: “...Governor General Michael Jean's ...”
The Governor General of Canada is a “corporation sole”, according to Elizabeth II in this document. A “corporation sole” is defined and recognized as being a corporation.
“A corporation is a fiction, by definition, ...”, according to Patrick Healy in a statement found in evidence provided to Parliament's Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights in 2002.
“A corporation is a ‘fiction’ as it has no separate existence, no physical body and no ‘mind’”, according to Joanne Klineberg in a presentation to the Canadian Aviation Safety Seminar in 2004.
Do you know of anyone whose faith is such that she or he believes a corporation is real? Who would be a defender of faith like that?
I will defend the legitimate reification of the corporation, as it turns out. And I'll do so on the basis of Faith. What I won't do is argue in favor of the fascistic corporativism of the Left, which is based on a lack of Faith.
I won't do that just now but I will return when time allows. I do want to put this comment up as is to give readers the idea that things might not be as simple as they seem; that the way of things is sometimes truly complicated and obscure; and that sometimes when we speak and think we understand we are in fact not so clear and shouldn't be so certain.
I hope to return to this within a day or two.
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