Photo by Wilf Reimer. Carnegie members line up outside the theatre where the election was held. Just one person running in last night’s election for Board of Directors at the Carnegie Centre had taken a stand against totalitarian tactics being used against Centre members. Tactics like launching a witch hunt for bloggers. Or banning homeless man, William Simpson, from Carnegie Board meetings just two weeks after he was elected to the Board of Directors, accusing him of operating a website which linked to the Downtown Eastside Enquirer blog. These tactics weren’t acceptable to Rachel Davis. Last night they got rid of her.
By they I mean the Carnegie establishment, people like Jean Swanson who claims to advocate for the homeless in her paid work with the Carnegie Action Project. And Paul Taylor who edits the Carnegie newsletter and used it to libel the homeless man, claiming he had gotten himself elected through fraud.
One Carnegie member sitting in the meeting said, “Jean Swanson told me to show up; she said I’m going to be nominated. She has a plan but I don’t know what it is.”
She did have a plan. There is little doubt of that.
Unlike most Annual General meetings at Carnegie, this one was packed. Stacked would be a better word. One long term Carnegie member said, “Half the people there, I either didn’t recognize or I hadn’t seen for a long, long time.” A number of candidates nominated said they had a history of work with End Legislated Poverty, the almost defunct organization Jean Swanson founded and operated for years.
Presumably Swanson used the e-mail list she has access to as an employee at Carnegie to contact comrades to remind them not only to show up at the election but of who to vote for. She did that during the last by-election to get her protégé Rolph Auer, formerly a writer for the End Legislated Poverty newspaper, elected. Auer did not disappoint. Like Swanson, he did nothing to get the homeless Board member reinstated. Swanson nominated Auer again last night.
Did I mention that Paul Taylor elected his most loyal comrade, Lisa David? He didn’t mention to voters that she was his wife.
In a handout at the election, banned Board member Simpson was listed as “absent without notice.” That brought to mind the weekly dinners Stalin held where people who were present last week suddenly weren’t present this week, and were never present there or anywhere else again.
"Unity" was the theme pushed at last night’s Annual General meeting; the word was splashed across the cover of a handout. Their idea of unity is to disappear dissidents. They had done it with William Simpson and they would now do it with Rachel Davis. Davis had been on the radio talking about the importance of allowing a duly elected Carnegie Board member in the door. Last night they would push her out the door.
Davis would have been easily elected if it had been up to regular users of the Centre, rather than the swarm of unfamiliar faces. One member, Audrey L., (above photo) pinned handwritten signs, "A Vote for Rachel is a Vote for Transparency". Jim A. said he too had come out to vote for Rachel Davis. But while there, he said, he would also vote for Colleen Carroll because he likes the conspiracy theory documentaries she shows at Carnegie. (Carroll even concocted a conspiracy theory about Davis; asking her at a committee meeting, "Do you work for the Fraser Institute?")
Twenty-three people were nominated and 20 people ran for the Board. Fifteen were elected:
James Pau
Adrienne McCullum
Stephen Lytton
Lisa David
Greg Hathaway
Norma Jean Baptiste
Margaret Prevost
Gena Thompson
Harold Asham
Colleen Carroll
Mathew Mathew
Sandra Pronteau
Joe Leblanc
Paul Campbell
"It was a coup d'etat for Jean Swanson," one member said over coffee after the election.
On free speech, there is nobody left to speak up.
By they I mean the Carnegie establishment, people like Jean Swanson who claims to advocate for the homeless in her paid work with the Carnegie Action Project. And Paul Taylor who edits the Carnegie newsletter and used it to libel the homeless man, claiming he had gotten himself elected through fraud.
One Carnegie member sitting in the meeting said, “Jean Swanson told me to show up; she said I’m going to be nominated. She has a plan but I don’t know what it is.”
She did have a plan. There is little doubt of that.
Unlike most Annual General meetings at Carnegie, this one was packed. Stacked would be a better word. One long term Carnegie member said, “Half the people there, I either didn’t recognize or I hadn’t seen for a long, long time.” A number of candidates nominated said they had a history of work with End Legislated Poverty, the almost defunct organization Jean Swanson founded and operated for years.
Presumably Swanson used the e-mail list she has access to as an employee at Carnegie to contact comrades to remind them not only to show up at the election but of who to vote for. She did that during the last by-election to get her protégé Rolph Auer, formerly a writer for the End Legislated Poverty newspaper, elected. Auer did not disappoint. Like Swanson, he did nothing to get the homeless Board member reinstated. Swanson nominated Auer again last night.
Did I mention that Paul Taylor elected his most loyal comrade, Lisa David? He didn’t mention to voters that she was his wife.
In a handout at the election, banned Board member Simpson was listed as “absent without notice.” That brought to mind the weekly dinners Stalin held where people who were present last week suddenly weren’t present this week, and were never present there or anywhere else again.
"Unity" was the theme pushed at last night’s Annual General meeting; the word was splashed across the cover of a handout. Their idea of unity is to disappear dissidents. They had done it with William Simpson and they would now do it with Rachel Davis. Davis had been on the radio talking about the importance of allowing a duly elected Carnegie Board member in the door. Last night they would push her out the door.
Davis would have been easily elected if it had been up to regular users of the Centre, rather than the swarm of unfamiliar faces. One member, Audrey L., (above photo) pinned handwritten signs, "A Vote for Rachel is a Vote for Transparency". Jim A. said he too had come out to vote for Rachel Davis. But while there, he said, he would also vote for Colleen Carroll because he likes the conspiracy theory documentaries she shows at Carnegie. (Carroll even concocted a conspiracy theory about Davis; asking her at a committee meeting, "Do you work for the Fraser Institute?")
Twenty-three people were nominated and 20 people ran for the Board. Fifteen were elected:
James Pau
Adrienne McCullum
Stephen Lytton
Lisa David
Greg Hathaway
Norma Jean Baptiste
Margaret Prevost
Gena Thompson
Harold Asham
Colleen Carroll
Mathew Mathew
Sandra Pronteau
Joe Leblanc
Paul Campbell
"It was a coup d'etat for Jean Swanson," one member said over coffee after the election.
On free speech, there is nobody left to speak up.
14 comments:
There are blogs.
Now's the time to put effort into saving democracy from the Stalinists an let them bring themselves down for the last time.
anyone can scrutinize the ballots within thirty days, before they rip them up.
A stacked election victory is still a victory. If there's some suggestion that the povertarians cheated at the ballot box, it's a desperate gambit to cast scorn on the democrats who lost. They did lose, and that's the end of that for now. A dirty election win is still a win.
Now the people have to decide how to deal with a Stalinist-controlled board of director and a Stalinist controlled board management. It's a good thing in that there is now no restraint on the fascists who run the place, they having no barriers to their gnostic visions and hatred of the people.
Given that much rope, the fascists are certain to hang themselves; and it'll be the blogs that show how it's happening.
How do I get a comment to you without it being published.
Wait a few hours and I'll make arrangements to have a contact address. Sorry for the delay.
We'll have word this afternoon from the Provincial courthouse concerning the case brought to the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal against Mcleans magazine and Mark Steyn by Mohammed Elmasry and company.
Once we see that ruling, then it will become clearer the focus we have to take to defeat this whole gang of fascists. Bill Simpson, Rachel Davis, many others and the entire nation are under threat by these people. Jean Swanson and her friends and lackies are only the local gang. It is a matter of a corruption of the system. Swanson is not you friend, as one sees clearly in the Simpson/Davis case last evening at Carnegie Community Centre. These people are fascists, and far better organized than the people who suffer under their rule at this time. That is just the beginning of a long struggle to turn the tide. These religious fanatics can be beaten, and they will be beaten.
It takes some understanding of what they do, why they do so, and then organized resistance to them till they are truly exposed for what they are rather than for what they seem to have convinced the mass of the nation that they are. Swanson is not the saint she likes to portray herself as. She and her followers are fascists.
There is a clear and responsible definition of fascism, and I am happy to produce it for anyone who care to sit and join me while I go through the admittedly lengthy discourse. Knowing is not enough. It demands action against them. That won't end overnight. This is a long struggle, one taking years to win, though the stage for their downfall was set last evening.
I'll try to be available this evening for further discussion. Please wait for an update here.
I just went to a publications committee meeting to see what , if anything they intended to do about Paul Taylor's latest article about the board, and me in particular, as I see it as clearly against the Mission statement of the Carnegie, not to mention the publishing policy. They said they would discuss further at the next meeting the idea of him submitting his editorials for vetting before hand, but Gena Thompson, the chairman of the Committee also said this article of Paul's was "one of his more balanced pieces" and she found nothing wrong with it herself, so that gives you some idea of how his pieces would be judged. Another clue is that she said I had written defamatory material in the Carnegie Newsletter in the last few months. When asked about that she said she couldn't remember exactly anything at all about this alleged article. Newsletter. Like it's title, or what it was about. In fact I haven't been published in the newsletter for about a year or more. Ever since Paul Taylor invited me to respond to a negative piece about me, I bothered to write a response, and then he told the whole Board meeting that he only invited me to write in a "theraputic" way. If that's therapy, who needs trauma, as I said at the time.
Any way as I left the meeting for the third time, because they kept saying the meeting was over, I'd leave, and then notice they were carrying on, so I'd come back in. (they did this when I was a board member too, of course) I said to Gena that she needed to bring in this allegedly defamatory article I allegedly published in the Newsletter to the next meeting, or that was just more defamation against me wasn't it?
As for their response to my motion that Pual taylor be asked to apologize in print to me, they said they hadn't, and wouldn't, be looking it over carefully and trying to see if it deserved an apology. Except, or course for the Chairman, Gena, who had read it thoroughly and thought it was Just Fine by her, and in fact, "one of his more balanced pieces."
They held the Election of the Officers by the way, directly after the board meeting. Matthew Matthew is President, Gena Thompson is Vice-President, Rolf is secretary, Colleen Carrol is Treasurer, and Sandra P. is member at large
So, as you can see, that's three reasons I don't put up my email address here. Of course I'm always interested in discussing with intelligent and sane people issues of mutual interest, but not with all....
Contact Rachel, if you will, for my email address.
I knew Jean Swanson when I was a kid. Her boys (if I recall correctly) and I all attended what was then Cecil Rhodes Elementary near 14th & Oak.
I remember her as a committed social activist, supposedly fighting for the underdog.
It's both sad & troubling that power corrupts over time.
I don't know the lady personally but I do see the damage that comes about from her and her work. Obviously she and her lot cannot or will not see the same. When social gospel ideology turns to fascism, count me unsympathetic.
'God save us from those who would save us from ourselves.'
pelalusa,
Jean Swanson had one daughter and one son. Her daughter became a teacher and had a child. Her son became a drug addict in Los Angeles. I don't know whether he's clean now.
Three comments left which were spam have been deleted. They were on topics such as how to grow tomatoes.
The IP address of those comments leaves little doubt that they were left by the anti-free speech forces at Carnegie.
Maybe you can only fight these people honestly by being firmly on the outside of them: the marginal to the most marginal tyrants of the land!
Don't give up the fight Rachel. This Taylor creep must be exposed to Vancouver, one Simpson, one Davis, at a time. By his victims he shall be known, for what else has he but his own shoddy sense of grievance?
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