Love and Fearlessness was such a pleasant surprise. What am I talking about, this flock blew my socks off! Using the act of sleeping to challenge the notion of private property is simply brilliant, and these folks have a chance to win. Don’t worry, just watch it and it will all make sense. Also for some reason this one cuts of at the end, but you get the picture. If I am able to find one with the last minute or so, I’ll re-post.
“Love and Fearlessness”- official write-up
This documentary film, by David Shebib and Andrew Ainsley, is a kind of primer to what is perhaps the most pressing issue in Canada (and best hidden by the mainstream media)–the quickly expanding number of homeless people and the direct threat they pose to the structure of private property upon which this country is based. Because homeless people pose such a threat to private property rights, they have become, unbeknownst to the average citizen, the targets of police brutality. Furthermore, homeless people (along with everyone else who challenges the status-quo) are subject to almost unspeakable degrees of injustice by the Canadian legal system. Love and Fearlessness chronicles the recent history of popular resistance to this injustice, focusing particularly on the strange and beautiful adventures of homeless man and visionary David Arthur Johnston.
Johnston has been a leading force in the drive to enable the people of Canada to create lasting Tent Cities as a solution to the “homeless problem.” (Tent Cities consist of communities of people living outside on public land, taking care of themselves, without government “help.”) Johnston is a self-proclaimed “average guy from Alberta” who has become a kind of present-day saint and hero to Victoria’s ever-growing numbers of homeless and disenfranchised people. The film shows how Johnston’s love of truth, and consequent belief that people have the right to sleep outside without being harassed by the police, led him to a series of direct confrontations with the authorities over a five-year period. These confrontations culminated in a case brought before the B.C. Supreme Court in June 2008, in which nine homeless people, including Johnston, challenged the constitutionality of the City of Victoria’s anti-camping by-laws.
The judge has reserved her ruling in the June 2008 case, and so the legal status of homeless people in Canada is in limbo. Should the judge decide in favour of the homeless people in this case, it will mark a major turning point in Canadian history, and indeed in the history of the British Crown as a whole. It will open the door to the creation of tent cities in every municipality across Canada, hence giving people a place to live for free; i.e. outside the construct of private property. Hence, such a decision would be profoundly disturbing to the social structure of Canada, dependent as it is on maintaining private property rights. This film gives a succinct yet poetic background to a case that every citizen should know about, but that not enough do because the powers-that-be are doing everything they can to keep the implications of this case hidden. Who knew that the seeds of the Crown’s end were sprouting in Victoria.
I Am NOT A ‘Homeless Activist’ (D. A. Johnston – Victoria, BC)
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Let me make myself perfectly clear. The giant ‘right to sleep’ campaign did not originate over some altruistic desire to help the ‘homeless’. The biggest inspiration came when, one night in late 2003, I put my bedroll down at one of my sleeping spots in Beacon Hill park, laid down then noticed an unusual smell. Upon inspection I found the ground covered in fertilizer (ground up fish) and subsequently my blanket was filthy. It was obviously placed there on purpose and from then on the fertilizer came to be known as ‘bum-away’. To hold those responsible accountable the ‘right to sleep’ campaign began in earnest January 16th, 2004.
Up until that point I had been on the job as a preacher of fate, primarily meditating down at the lower Causeway and conversing with the multitudes of people strolling by. Since the campaign began the role switched from meditating everyday to playing this political character that, almost perpetually, has to defend itself from malicious defamation.
I have learned much. The thing has evolved from fighting for the right to sleep with a blanket under a tree, to sleeping in a tent, to, now, sleeping during the day. The city (which I’ll now refer to as the Chamber of Commerce) has been fighting every step of the way attempting to protect its shallow little tourism industry from the visual effects of poverty. Part of my education has included becoming aware of the massively devilish take-over-the-world plan that, for instance, has the government giving out 30,000 needles (minimum) a month and a media that has blame placed on the ‘homeless’ for needles being found everywhere… a good plan in raising the ‘need’ to hire more cops. ‘They’ say permanent tent encampments are horribly dark magnets for crime, the truth is that there is a large population of people on the verge of nervous breakdowns (because they have to work 40 hours a week to pay for sleep) who might relieve themselves of some stress by ‘choosing’ to be homeless and taking advantage of their right to camp.
ON DECEMBER 31ST AT 9:30 AM IN COURTROOM #203, the Chamber of Commerce is hoping to convince a Provincial Court Judge, even after the Supreme Court of BC ruled that it is illegal to have an ‘across the board’ prohibition on sleeping, that an ‘across the board’ prohibition from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM is acceptable. I’ve seen how the Provincial Court works and will not be surprised if their judge finds that it is O.K. to force people not to sleep during the day. If that is going to be the case I will be immediately making an issue right in the courtroom, as the judge will be acting illegally, contravening the Constitution and the Supreme Court ruling.
So, even if I used money and had the biggest house in the world it would still morally behoove me to risk it all to find justice, as it would any and all. Not for some obscure notion of ‘homeless’ people, but for sanity, itself, lest it lack the peace justice provides. Patience be with us all.
David Arthur Johnston
Victoria, BC, Canada
Hatrackman@Gmail.com
Home page- http://www.angelfire.com/apes/hatrackman
Journal of the Occupation of St. Ann’s Academy (Victoria, BC, Canada)- http://www.angelfire.com/apes/hatrackman/welcome.htm
Crimes of Necessity- http://www.loveandfearlessness.com (from filmmaker Andrew Ainsley. Very comprehensive.)
Concise Coverage of Victoria Municipal Politics- http://electionsvictoria.ca