Bruce Allen: Next Mayor of Vancouver?

[duener]

Originally Posted by Rusty Gull

There is a very shocking and disturbing article at CityCaucus.com today outlining the sophisticated and sometimes subversive lobbying tactics that are being utilized by the cycling lobby in Vancouver. Some of the information is very troubling, in the sense that a small group has a significant amount of influence in the city.

http://www.citycaucus.com/2010/08/cy...kelanes-debate

What's also worth noting is that their lobbyists are a fixture online - and it's fair to say that their foot soldiers have infiltrated this very forum.

Very troubling indeed. Actually I'd go one further.... this subversive group is clearly international in their influence. Just witness London's mayor tooling around on his bike, or all the separated bike lines getting built in New York.

Could there be a connection with the Freemasons? Stonecutters? The guys having the orgy in Eyes Wide Shut?

[Yume-sama]

My post outing the lobbyist was deleted. They're in deeper than I thought~

[racc]

Originally Posted by Rusty Gull

There is a very shocking and disturbing article at CityCaucus.com today outlining the sophisticated and sometimes subversive lobbying tactics that are being utilized by the cycling lobby in Vancouver. Some of the information is very troubling, in the sense that a small group has a significant amount of influence in the city.

http://www.citycaucus.com/2010/08/cy...kelanes-debate

What's also worth noting is that their lobbyists are a fixture online - and it's fair to say that their foot soldiers have infiltrated this very forum.

Except they never bothered to do any of that pesky fact checking in fear that reality might actually be inconsistent with their story. They never even bothered talking to anyone from the VACC before posting the story. Turns out that the government money the VACC receives is for cycling education and promotion programs such as Bike to Work Week and their cycling skills courses. The advocacy is done by volunteers.

If you look at what CityCaucus does, it is obvious that they have a partisan political agenda and are much more interested in pushing whatever fits their narrative than finding the truth. Compare cycling groups which get a few thousands of dollars from governments to the auto industry which received $10 billion from the government to stay alive after they total mismanaged their business for years or the billions of dollars being spent on highways in this province and you will see where the real power lies.

[flight_from_kamakura]

i'd guess that this about sums it up:

"I think that maybe it offends them at a gut level," he said. "They feel, I think, intuitively that they're being criticized and then they associate it with the left politically and the culture wars."

"Their response is very, very emotional," he added, "and it gets conflated into something very much bigger than it really is."

as for the general topic, it's delusional to believe that gregor and council will be voted out over bike lanes. if this is the major critique of their administration, vision is laughing.

sorry, non-vancouverites, you don't get to vote.

[mezzanine]

Originally Posted by Yume-sama

My post outing the lobbyist was deleted. They're in deeper than I thought~

This bike path stuff is all a plot for U.N. control of Vancouver!

Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes is warning voters that Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper's policies, particularly his efforts to boost bike riding, are "converting Denver into a United Nations community."

"This is all very well-disguised, but it will be exposed," Maes told about 50 supporters who showed up at a campaign rally last week in Centennial.

Maes said in a later interview that he once thought the mayor's efforts to promote cycling and other environmental initiatives were harmless and well-meaning. Now he realizes "that's exactly the attitude they want you to have."

"This is bigger than it looks like on the surface, and it could threaten our personal freedoms," Maes said.

He added: "These aren't just warm, fuzzy ideas from the mayor. These are very specific strategies that are dictated to us by this United Nations program that mayors have signed on to."

http://www.denverpost.com/election2010/ci_15673894

;-)

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Rusty Gull

There is a very shocking and disturbing article at CityCaucus.com today outlining the sophisticated and sometimes subversive lobbying tactics that are being utilized by the cycling lobby in Vancouver. Some of the information is very troubling, in the sense that a small group has a significant amount of influence in the city.

http://www.citycaucus.com/2010/08/cy...kelanes-debate

What's also worth noting is that their lobbyists are a fixture online - and it's fair to say that their foot soldiers have infiltrated this very forum.

Not surprising. I'm sure many regular posters have noticed a tendency for some who post in virtually nothing but the Bike thread.

What's disturbing about the City Caucus article is the revelation of disproportionate influence they are wielding with the current Vancouver gov't, given how minisicule their numbers really are.

[s211]

Originally Posted by Yume-sama

My post outing the lobbyist was deleted. They're in deeper than I thought~

I think we all know is four-letter lower case name:

consonant
vowel
consonant
consonant

Let's see whether THAT gets censured.

[Yume-sama]

I put more in depth investigative thought in to it, than that~! But I get your sneakily coded message.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Yume-sama

I put more in depth investigative thought in to it, than that~! But I get your sneakily coded message.

I see the head of the Vancouver Area Cycling Coalition is Richard Campbell. Wonder what his two middle initials are? Just wondrin'...

[racc]

Originally Posted by whatnext

I see the head of the Vancouver Area Cycling Coalition is Richard Campbell. Wonder what his two middle initials are? Just wondrin'...

CityCaucus does not have a clue.
From http://www.vacc.bc.ca/about/about.php?pageID=130
Arno Schortinghuis is President of the VACC

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by racc

CityCaucus does not have a clue.
From http://www.vacc.bc.ca/about/about.php?pageID=130
Arno Schortinghuis is President of the VACC

Oops, my mistake. Richard Campbell is not head of the VACC. According to CityCaucus he is:

Richard is currently a Director of the British Columbia Cycling Coalition, a member of the City of Vancouver's Bicycle Advisory Committee and project manager of the Regional Cycling Network Data Collection initiative for the VACC.
http://www.citycaucus.com/2010/08/cy...kelanes-debate

[whatnext]

Citycaucus has a great audio clip of Bruce Allen going Don Cherry all over the Happy Planet crowd :
http://www.citycaucus.com/2010/12/a-...om-bruce-allen

[Nutterbug]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Maybe another Mayor with some backbone wouldn't be bad idea:
http://archives.cbc.ca/emissions/emi...=14&s=emission

What happened to Doug Collins (before he died, of course)?

We all know him as the bitter old lout known for his racist, anti-semitic, anti-immigration and holocaust denying spewage on the North Shore News in his later years, but here, he is confronting the then mayor of Vancouver for his heavy handed crackdown on hippies and protesters.

Apparently, he was a renowned and respected award winning journalist back in the 50's, and even at late as the 70's. Where did he go wrong and what got into him since?

[whatnext]

Can you imagine a CBC news program today closing with editorializing like that fade out to Jesus (you have to watch to the last second).

That's such a great clip, watching Tom Terrific wind up and just lay into lawbreakers. Can you imagine what he'd think of the "scum community" who've now taken up residence on the old courthouse steps?

[Nutterbug]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Can you imagine a CBC news program today closing with editorializing like that fade out to Jesus (you have to watch to the last second).

That's such a great clip, watching Tom Terrific wind up and just lay into lawbreakers. Can you imagine what he'd think of the "scum community" who've now taken up residence on the old courthouse steps?

Doesn't look like he had much moral high ground over the so-called "lawbreakers" after all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Campbell_%28mayor%29

As Greater Vancouver's population topped one million, Campbell took an assertively pro-development stance, advocating a freeway that would cut through a large part of the downtown east side, the demolition of the historic Carnegie Centre, and the construction of a luxury hotel at the entrance of Stanley Park (the Bayshore Inn) and another at the north foot of Burrard in which it turned out the mayor had invested (it is now an apartment building and never became a hotel).

[Stingray2004]

the construction of a luxury hotel at the entrance of Stanley Park

That was the "Four Seasons Site" west of Denman (north of W. Georgia) that was later purchased by the city as part of Stanley Park. Circa 1970 demonstrators -actually hundreds of hippies - turned the area into a muddy tent city. Imagine Mayor Tom Terrific's reaction thereto!

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Nutterbug

Doesn't look like he had much moral high ground over the so-called "lawbreakers" after all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Campbell_%28mayor%29

As per the Wikipedia article, it doesn't appear there was anything illegal there. Also of note, despite Vancouver's reputation as lefty-heaven, Tom Terrific was elected twice, by large margins.

[Nutterbug]

Originally Posted by whatnext

As per the Wikipedia article, it doesn't appear there was anything illegal there. Also of note, despite Vancouver's reputation as lefty-heaven, Tom Terrific was elected twice, by large margins.

But still unethical and a conflict of interest for somebody in his position of influence, don't you think?

Further down the article...

It is, however, Campbell's confrontations with the city's burgeoning youth counterculture for which he is best remembered. This included attempts to suppress and shut-down the alternative newspaper, The Georgia Straight, whose editor Dan McLeod was repeatedly beaten by city police, and the blocking of the final concert of the 1970 Festival Express rock'n'roll tour, which was held in Calgary instead of risking a confrontation with the Vancouver mayor's stated intention to use police to stop the festival. An incident in August, 1971, when Vancouver police charged on horseback into a group of about a thousand hippies having a "smoke-in" on the streets of Gastown. This came to be known as the Gastown Riots, which led to the arrest of 79 people, of whom 38 were charged with various offences. A later judicial inquiry criticized the action, characterizing it as a police riot.

Sounds like he'd be a good fit in China.