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JzG Blocks Editor, Then AfD's His Article -
     
 
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> JzG Blocks Editor, Then AfD's His Article, ...and posts message inviting him to comment.
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Check out this section...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Sma...darity_unionism

And the corresponding thread at ANI...

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...e_system.21.211

I don't know about the block validity and really don't care to look it up, but JzG blocked him indefinitely, then AfD'd his article and posted the standard notice inviting him to make comments on the AfD. Nice guy.

The article is 6-2 keep at AfD right now.
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Everyone's favorite asshole, Guy Chapman (a.k.a. JzG) is up to his old tricks, this time putting an indef block on an occasional contributor named Smash the State and then putting the guy's two year old article on Solidarity Unionism up for AfD. Read all about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Adm...e_system.21.211

The only funny thing here is Guy admitting to being 45 years old. It is funny because he has less brains, tact and savvy than the teens and tweens who seem to be running Wikipedia
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[Duplicated threads merged to here]
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This guy's user page is up for deletion due to "a violation of Wikipedia:No personal attacks and Wikipedia:User page", so here's the text before it sinks into the swamp. I like the cut of his jib :

QUOTE(User:SmashTheState)
What is Wikipedia?

Wikipedia is the place where angry, white, male, overprivileged, socially-dysfunctional nerds with serious personality disorders come to take out their frustrations on others. Founded by a Randroid (one will almost inevitably find that Randroids are people who are slightly more intelligent than average, too smart to be easily caught by consumerist propaganda, but too stupid to recognize Rand's screechy, preachy, sociopathic bullshit for what it is), Wikipedia has from the beginning set itself up as an oligarchy of vengeful Trekkies.

So how, then, did I become involved with Wikipedia? Well, sadly, the corporate media have yet to understand the nature of Wikipedia, giving it an importance it doesn't deserve. My real name is Andrew Nellis and I am a well-known activist and when a deliberately libellous article was created about me here, Wikipedia entered my personal radar. I didn't give a sweet damn about Wikipedia, but my political enemies did, so I kept a wary eye on it. Later, I noticed that some people had taken the original Andrew Nellis article and begun to work on it to make it factual. At this point the people who had originally created the article nominated it for deletion, and it was here I became irate enough to get involved. Wikipedia hadn't cared that a blatantly defamatory biography about me had sat there for months, but once it became factual, suddenly there was self-righteous bleating about NPOV and notability and "vanity." The article got deleted, and re-deleted, and then permanently locked to keep it from ever being recreated.

That was my first taste of Wikipedia nerd rage.

With the deletion of the Andrew Nellis article, some people decided it would be a good idea to create a Wikipedia article about the organization to which I've devoted the last four years of my life, the Ottawa Panhandlers' Union. Note that at no time did I create or even participate in the editing of these articles, save for a couple of typo corrections. Interestingly, Wikiscanner revealed that someone using a computer at Ottawa City Hall twice vanadalized the article, around about the same time posters were going up around Ottawa, full colour and professionally produced, showing me with a gun in my mouth and the slogan "PANHANDLERS: FOLLOW YOUR LEADER." Someone then impersonated me to my ISP and got my password, then hijacked my email, vandalized my personal blog, wreaked havoc with my IRC account, and so on. And then, like icing on the cake, the campaign to have the Ottawa Panhandlers' Union article deleted began.

Honestly, neither I, nor the members of the OPU, care about what goes on in the Great Nerd Kingdom of Wikipedia, except inasmuch as it has an impact on our lives. I give a large number of interviews to the corporate media as part of my role of spokesperson for the OPU, and I noticed several times that members of the media showed up with copies of the Wikipedia article on the union. It was helpful, therefore, as a means of prepping reporters on the background and issues involved before interviews. Any person doing a Google search on "panhandlers' union" will see there is ample coverage of the union on a national and even international level. Our million-dollar lawsuit against the City of Ottawa to force them to take down a fence was an "assinine story of the day" on Fark, for example. Given that television and radio references -- of which there are many -- are not to be found on Google, it's easy to see that the OPU is certainly notable enough in comparison to the massive amounts of utterly trivial crap which infest Wikipedia.

But not content to leave the angry white nerds to shit all over the OPU out of raging Objectivist bias (I refuse to call them Libertarians -- Pierre-Joseph Proudhon for whom the term Libertarian was originally coined would have cheerfully beaten Ayn Rand to death with a clawhammer while singing the Marseillaise), the political enemies of the OPU decided to stage a false flag campaign to make absolutely sure of the outcome. Impersonating a member of the OPU (who was homeless at the time and in any case is functionally illiterate) using personal information which would have been available to no one except the police, some MYSTERIOUS person smelling strongly of pork "confessed" to sockpuppetry, thereby invalidating every keep vote, resulting in the deletion of the article.

None of my experiences with Wikipedia since then have done anything to change my judgement: Wikipedia is at best a useless collection of random trivia, and at worst an active exercise in State and corporate propaganda for the personal profit and aggrandizement of the King Nerd and his sycophantic cult of Randroid hangers-on.
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QUOTE(Kato @ Sat 7th February 2009, 12:57pm) *

This guy's user page is up for deletion due to "a violation of Wikipedia:No personal attacks and Wikipedia:User page", so here's the text before it sinks into the swamp. I like the cut of his jib..



I was heartened to read this comment:

QUOTE(User:SmashTheState)
What is Wikipedia?
Honestly, neither I, nor the members of the OPU, care about what goes on in the Great Nerd Kingdom of Wikipedia, except inasmuch as it has an impact on our lives.


I had a similar commentary on my own user page, and this outraged Guy Chapman no end.
(See thread on WR under JzG and 'Simon Wessely/claims of harassment)

This comment is interesting too:

QUOTE(User:SmashTheState)
What is Wikipedia?
...Well, sadly, the corporate media have yet to understand the nature of Wikipedia, giving it an importance it doesn't deserve...


Here are clear general key criticisms of WP and real world impact- and once again we have Chapman taking on a role of wiki-rottweiler?
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QUOTE(Kato @ Sat 7th February 2009, 7:57am) *

This guy's user page is up for deletion due to "a violation of Wikipedia:No personal attacks and Wikipedia:User page", so here's the text before it sinks into the swamp. I like the cut of his jib :

QUOTE(User:SmashTheState)
What is Wikipedia?

Wikipedia is the place where angry, white, male, overprivileged, socially-dysfunctional nerds with serious personality disorders come to take out their frustrations on others. Founded by a Randroid (one will almost inevitably find that Randroids are people who are slightly more intelligent than average, too smart to be easily caught by consumerist propaganda, but too stupid to recognize Rand's screechy, preachy, sociopathic bullshit for what it is), Wikipedia has from the beginning set itself up as an oligarchy of vengeful Trekkies.

So how, then, did I become involved with Wikipedia? Well, sadly, the corporate media have yet to understand the nature of Wikipedia, giving it an importance it doesn't deserve. My real name is Andrew Nellis and I am a well-known activist and when a deliberately libellous article was created about me here, Wikipedia entered my personal radar. I didn't give a sweet damn about Wikipedia, but my political enemies did, so I kept a wary eye on it. Later, I noticed that some people had taken the original Andrew Nellis article and begun to work on it to make it factual. At this point the people who had originally created the article nominated it for deletion, and it was here I became irate enough to get involved. Wikipedia hadn't cared that a blatantly defamatory biography about me had sat there for months, but once it became factual, suddenly there was self-righteous bleating about NPOV and notability and "vanity." The article got deleted, and re-deleted, and then permanently locked to keep it from ever being recreated.

That was my first taste of Wikipedia nerd rage.

With the deletion of the Andrew Nellis article, some people decided it would be a good idea to create a Wikipedia article about the organization to which I've devoted the last four years of my life, the Ottawa Panhandlers' Union. Note that at no time did I create or even participate in the editing of these articles, save for a couple of typo corrections. Interestingly, Wikiscanner revealed that someone using a computer at Ottawa City Hall twice vanadalized the article, around about the same time posters were going up around Ottawa, full colour and professionally produced, showing me with a gun in my mouth and the slogan "PANHANDLERS: FOLLOW YOUR LEADER." Someone then impersonated me to my ISP and got my password, then hijacked my email, vandalized my personal blog, wreaked havoc with my IRC account, and so on. And then, like icing on the cake, the campaign to have the Ottawa Panhandlers' Union article deleted began.

Honestly, neither I, nor the members of the OPU, care about what goes on in the Great Nerd Kingdom of Wikipedia, except inasmuch as it has an impact on our lives. I give a large number of interviews to the corporate media as part of my role of spokesperson for the OPU, and I noticed several times that members of the media showed up with copies of the Wikipedia article on the union. It was helpful, therefore, as a means of prepping reporters on the background and issues involved before interviews. Any person doing a Google search on "panhandlers' union" will see there is ample coverage of the union on a national and even international level. Our million-dollar lawsuit against the City of Ottawa to force them to take down a fence was an "assinine story of the day" on Fark, for example. Given that television and radio references -- of which there are many -- are not to be found on Google, it's easy to see that the OPU is certainly notable enough in comparison to the massive amounts of utterly trivial crap which infest Wikipedia.
But not content to leave the angry white nerds to shit all over the OPU out of raging Objectivist bias (I refuse to call them Libertarians -- Pierre-Joseph Proudhon for whom the term Libertarian was originally coined would have cheerfully beaten Ayn Rand to death with a clawhammer while singing the Marseillaise), the political enemies of the OPU decided to stage a false flag campaign to make absolutely sure of the outcome. Impersonating a member of the OPU (who was homeless at the time and in any case is functionally illiterate) using personal information which would have been available to no one except the police, some MYSTERIOUS person smelling strongly of pork "confessed" to sockpuppetry, thereby invalidating every keep vote, resulting in the deletion of the article.

None of my experiences with Wikipedia since then have done anything to change my judgement: Wikipedia is at best a useless collection of random trivia, and at worst an active exercise in State and corporate propaganda for the personal profit and aggrandizement of the King Nerd and his sycophantic cult of Randroid hangers-on.




I think I like this guy. He is a BLP victim who has begun the work of deconstructing Wikipedia from his own unique view point. He participated in Wikipedia, like Brandt, only after being forced to do so because of his BLP.

So far he hit on some good themes: community dysfunction; irresponsible psychological and ideological underpinnings motivating Wikipedians; broken and dishonest processes. A pretty good start. His activist background might also add something to the mix. I hope this guy finds his way to the pages of the Review. If nothing else it would be good to have someone other than the usual internet libertarians of the right to disagree with.

I also always have had a soft spot for the IWW. Any union bringing together hobos, lumberjacks, panhandlers and Star Bucks' baristas is OK in my book.
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OK, so JzG is a major numpty - but there's at least a hint of sanity still rattling around in his hoary ol' head. He's only doing this to get the few votes necessary to be WR's Dick of the Year again. Hours to go, people!

As for the case itself, he actually explains why he's doing it. It seems he doesn't like it when people call Ayn Rand a psychopath. In Guy's mind this is tantamount to calling Jimbo a wanker. Therefore the offender must be blocked.

I was amused by how the evil perp raised "major red flags for him", considering how SmashTheState (good man!) is an Anarchist (good people!). Smash the State and its JzG's!
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QUOTE(Kato @ Sat 7th February 2009, 7:57am) *

This guy's user page is up for deletion due to "a violation of Wikipedia:No personal attacks and Wikipedia:User page", so here's the text before it sinks into the swamp. I like the cut of his jib :

QUOTE(User:SmashTheState)
What is Wikipedia?

Wikipedia is the place where angry, white, male, overprivileged, socially-dysfunctional nerds with serious personality disorders come to take out their frustrations on others. Founded by a Randroid (one will almost inevitably find that Randroids are people who are slightly more intelligent than average, too smart to be easily caught by consumerist propaganda, but too stupid to recognize Rand's screechy, preachy, sociopathic bullshit for what it is), Wikipedia has from the beginning set itself up as an oligarchy of vengeful Trekkies.

So how, then, did I become involved with Wikipedia? Well, sadly, the corporate media have yet to understand the nature of Wikipedia, giving it an importance it doesn't deserve. My real name is Andrew Nellis and I am a well-known activist and when a deliberately libellous article was created about me here, Wikipedia entered my personal radar. I didn't give a sweet damn about Wikipedia, but my political enemies did, so I kept a wary eye on it. Later, I noticed that some people had taken the original Andrew Nellis article and begun to work on it to make it factual. At this point the people who had originally created the article nominated it for deletion, and it was here I became irate enough to get involved. Wikipedia hadn't cared that a blatantly defamatory biography about me had sat there for months, but once it became factual, suddenly there was self-righteous bleating about NPOV and notability and "vanity." The article got deleted, and re-deleted, and then permanently locked to keep it from ever being recreated.

That was my first taste of Wikipedia nerd rage.

With the deletion of the Andrew Nellis article, some people decided it would be a good idea to create a Wikipedia article about the organization to which I've devoted the last four years of my life, the Ottawa Panhandlers' Union. Note that at no time did I create or even participate in the editing of these articles, save for a couple of typo corrections. Interestingly, Wikiscanner revealed that someone using a computer at Ottawa City Hall twice vanadalized the article, around about the same time posters were going up around Ottawa, full colour and professionally produced, showing me with a gun in my mouth and the slogan "PANHANDLERS: FOLLOW YOUR LEADER." Someone then impersonated me to my ISP and got my password, then hijacked my email, vandalized my personal blog, wreaked havoc with my IRC account, and so on. And then, like icing on the cake, the campaign to have the Ottawa Panhandlers' Union article deleted began.

Honestly, neither I, nor the members of the OPU, care about what goes on in the Great Nerd Kingdom of Wikipedia, except inasmuch as it has an impact on our lives. I give a large number of interviews to the corporate media as part of my role of spokesperson for the OPU, and I noticed several times that members of the media showed up with copies of the Wikipedia article on the union. It was helpful, therefore, as a means of prepping reporters on the background and issues involved before interviews. Any person doing a Google search on "panhandlers' union" will see there is ample coverage of the union on a national and even international level. Our million-dollar lawsuit against the City of Ottawa to force them to take down a fence was an "assinine story of the day" on Fark, for example. Given that television and radio references -- of which there are many -- are not to be found on Google, it's easy to see that the OPU is certainly notable enough in comparison to the massive amounts of utterly trivial crap which infest Wikipedia.

But not content to leave the angry white nerds to shit all over the OPU out of raging Objectivist bias (I refuse to call them Libertarians -- Pierre-Joseph Proudhon for whom the term Libertarian was originally coined would have cheerfully beaten Ayn Rand to death with a clawhammer while singing the Marseillaise), the political enemies of the OPU decided to stage a false flag campaign to make absolutely sure of the outcome. Impersonating a member of the OPU (who was homeless at the time and in any case is functionally illiterate) using personal information which would have been available to no one except the police, some MYSTERIOUS person smelling strongly of pork "confessed" to sockpuppetry, thereby invalidating every keep vote, resulting in the deletion of the article.

None of my experiences with Wikipedia since then have done anything to change my judgement: Wikipedia is at best a useless collection of random trivia, and at worst an active exercise in State and corporate propaganda for the personal profit and aggrandizement of the King Nerd and his sycophantic cult of Randroid hangers-on.



The MfD for Smash the State's user page was put forth by Ironholds, a British teenager who has racked up four failed RfAs under a couple of different names. I wouldn't be surprised if he was buttering up Guy for his support in a fifth RfA run.
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QUOTE(GlassBeadGame @ Sat 7th February 2009, 1:20pm) *

I think I like this guy. He is a BLP victim who has begun the work of deconstructing Wikipedia from his own unique view point. He participated in Wikipedia, like Brandt, only after being forced to do so because of his BLP.

A biography on "anarchopedia" (what is that? Good grief (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/ermm.gif) ) quotes the guy:

QUOTE(Andrew Nellis)
"Ayn Rand is the curdled remains of a black, bitter, shrivelled apple from the tree of hypocrisy growing under the outhouse in the deepest pit of Hell. She couldn't grope her way out of her own rectum with a flashlight and a copy of Gray's Anatomy. Her entire rancid philosophy could have been killed if anyone had been brave or desperate enough to stick their penis into that frigid arctic pucker of her twat."


Someone buzz this guy on his WP talk page, and ask him him to drop in over here!
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WP:SOP4JZG

Ja, Ja, Ja (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/sleep.gif)
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Guy is currently losing handily on every front of this particular battle... he should go back to the spam blacklist, where he and his clique are still firmly in charge.
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QUOTE(User:SmashTheState)
None of my experiences with Wikipedia since then have done anything to change my judgement: Wikipedia is at best a useless collection of random trivia, and at worst an active exercise in State and corporate propaganda for the personal profit and aggrandizement of the King Nerd and his sycophantic cult of Randroid hangers-on.


Eeeeexcellent.

Lessee....the OPU has a phone number: 613-748-0460.

Also, we have this, wherein people like Scarian accuse Nellis of socking.

I bet Guy really hates Mr. Nellis, because according to the articles I keep
reading about him, Nellis is a very effective activist.

In which case, he belongs here.

(I put a link to this thread on his talk page. Let's see how long it lasts.)

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SmashTheState's response to JzG's "apology":

QUOTE
You got caught with your hand in the cookie jar. You aren't sorry you did it, you're sorry you got caught, and that it bothered enough people for them to counter-act your work. I had a look through some of the material about you and your history on Wikipedia Review, and from what I can see, dirty pool is your game of choice. You have a reputation for being Jimbo's hatchet-man, particularly in cases involving Ayn Rand. I am a well-known and very experienced activist, and you may rest assured that neither you nor Jimbo has intimidated me. If, as you claim, this is all an innocent misunderstanding, then you should be pleased that I have not been frightened away from editing by "ban chill," and that I am pleased to continue contributing my expertise and viewpoint to the Ayn Rand article. -- [[User:SmashTheState|SmashTheState]] ([[User talk:SmashTheState#top|talk]]) 11:39, 8 February 2009 (UTC)


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QUOTE
If, as you claim, this is all an innocent misunderstanding, then you should be pleased that I have not been frightened away from editing by "ban chill," and that I am pleased to continue contributing my expertise and viewpoint to the Ayn Rand article.

Yeeee-HAW. Rock-n-roll. Etc. etc. etc. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/blink.gif)
Andrew, thank you for the lulz.
Please PLEASE come to Wikipedia Review and visit us.
We'd love to chat.

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A panhandler's union just seems like a really ridiculous idea... just who would they go on strike against? Unions are for workers; who does a panhandler work for?

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QUOTE(dtobias @ Sun 8th February 2009, 11:09pm) *

A panhandler's union just seems like a really ridiculous idea... just who would they go on strike against? Unions are for workers; who does a panhandler work for?

----------------
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I moved this from the Hattersley thread. I'm pretty sure you meant to post it here.

I think they mean union in the sense of "direct action." I'm not sure about PHU but many homeless/street persons/runaway-throwaway-kids activists groups address this issue. It usually takes the form of a free speech campaign and civil disobedience around asking for money which is often prohibited speech under various "vagrancy" laws. The activists assert no speech is more deserving of protection than people asking for assistance when in dire need. This also becomes political speech because it illustrates serious failures of the economic system and social safety net. One frequent tactic is to publish a newspaper in which street people can tell their stories or express opinions. They then ask for donations for the paper.

Not really the kind of thing "internet libertarians" are likely to get behind, despite the obvious free speech issue. Now setting a homeless person on fire and posting a video on Youtube is more the kind of free speech Wikipedians can support.
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QUOTE(dtobias @ Sun 8th February 2009, 11:09pm) *

A panhandler's union just seems like a really ridiculous idea... just who would they go on strike against? Unions are for workers; who does a panhandler work for?


QUOTE(GlassBeadGame @ Mon 9th February 2009, 8:08am) *

I think they mean union in the sense of "direct action." I'm not sure about PHU but many homeless/street persons/runaway-throwaway-kids activists groups address this issue. It usually takes the form of a free speech campaign and civil disobedience around asking for money which is often prohibited speech under various "vagrancy" laws. The activists assert no speech is more deserving of protection than people asking for assistance when in dire need. This also becomes political speech because it illustrates serious failures of the economic system and social safety net. One frequent tactic is to publish a newspaper in which street people can tell their stories or express opinions. They then ask for donations for the paper.

Not really the kind of thing "internet libertarians" are likely to get behind, despite the obvious free speech issue. Now setting a homeless person on fire and posting a video on Youtube is more the kind of free speech Wikipedians can support.


Howdy, folks. Sorry it took so long to reply to you, but I had some difficulty getting an ack from the site here so I could register.

In answer to your statements about the union, the Ottawa Panhandlers' Union is a real union. We are a shop of the Industrial Workers of the world (IU 630), we pay union dues, and we carry a union card just like any other union workers. Your confusion is understandable, since the modern concept of a union is very different from the ideals on which the original unions were formed.

A union is a group of workers who stand together for mutual aid and defence. It has nothing to do with collective bargaining with an employer, although a union can certainly do that, and often does. The IWW has a long tradition of organizing the unorganized; during the Great Depression, for example, the IWW unionized the men in work camps, bringing them together in solidarity to fight for dignity and better conditions. Here in Ottawa, as in many other places, the homeless population has exploded as a result of a perfect storm of neo-liberal doctrines such as the elimination of rent controls, slashing of welfare rates, closing of hospitals and mental institutions, failure to provide drug treatment, and the empowerment of a belligerent and ever-growing police force which openly states that its mandate is to protect business from the poor. These conditions have resulted in a massive increase in panhandling with a concommitant rise in friction between panhandlers and the business lobby which views them solely as a problem which must be eradicated.

The IWW does not work like other unions with which you may be familiar. There is a single paid member for the entire union. All the rest of the work is split up and done by the workers themselves. This is called the "solidarity unionism" model, which is opposed to (and by) the craft unions (which we often refer to as bureaucratic unions). If you belong to a Wobbly shop and you walk off the job, no men in suits from the IWW national are going to show up and seclude themselves in a smoky back room with the bosses where they may or may not be fighting for your rights. The workers themselves negotiate, building solidarity among themselves, but are also able to call on the broader support of the union as a whole. The motto of the IWW is, "An injury to one is an injury to all."

For the Ottawa Panhandlers' Union, this model of organizing fits perfectly with our needs. People on the street are made to feel worthless both by those who want to exterminate them but also by their supposed allies on the soft liberal left, who make people weak and reliant through their myth of the "deserving poor." Most of the members of the Panhandlers' Union are panhandlers only because they are prevented from doing what they really want to do, such as busk, sell arts and crafts, vend newspapers and trinkets, or do artwork on the street. The OPU started a newspaper program, where anyone on the street could by copies of The Dominion, a grassroots Canadian newspaper, at cost and distribute them on the street in exchange for a donation. Under pressure from the business lobby (called BIAs, Business Improvement Areas here), Ottawa City Hall made this practice illegal, forcing people to go back to panhandling.

No one, not even the panhandlers themselves, want a panhandler on every corner. Nearly everyone who is currently panhandling is capable of doing *something*. They are on the street for reasons which almost inevitably include mental illness, drug addiction, or both. These conditions make conventional 9-5 employment impossible, but they are more than capable of engaging in small itinerant self-employment if only they were not constantly thwarted from doing so. I can tell you from personal experience that most of our members are extremely intelligent and highly creative. Stupid, bland, uncreative people don't end up on the street, they end up behind a desk (or in Parliament). If all those who could vend or busk were permitted to do so, there would be few enough people left panhandling that their numbers would not elicit the kind of class rage we see now by the middle class.

Anyway, sorry to be so long-winded, but I wanted to explain that we are not just another activist group, out waving placards and marching in the street -- although we do that too, sometimes. We do a lot of small direct actions with specific goals in mind. For example:

* We shut down the local police station -- twice -- to force them to get rid of a cop who was beating up street people. We occupied the street outside their doors for an hour the first time, and warned them if the cop was not fired we would be back. He wasn't and we were, this time marching right inside and occupying the lobby, flags waving and megaphone blaring, while 200 angry cops surrounded us. This time they acted, and the cop was taken off the street. (They promoted him to detective, presumably because it's easier to promote a cop than to fire him. That's fine with us, as long as he's off the street and not beating up homeless teens in empty parking lots.)

* We helped one of our members sue the Rideau Centre, a large shopping mall in downtown Ottawa, for $70,000 after he got beaten badly by three members of their security staff for the crime of looking poor. The Rideau Centre settled out of court, and the member used the money to buy a car, get an apartment, acquire his A-Z license, and is now earning $25 an hour driving a truck. He also now assists us in organizing the union.

* One of our members is schizophrenic and spends time occasionally in hospitals for that reason. In Russia, before he emigrated here, he was a lawyer, and he is trying to update his skills at university. The hospital would not let him go to classes because they said they did not want to be responsible if he went nuts or something. Another member volunteered to go with him, and we told the hospital they'd face a picket line if they didn't let him go. They complied.

* While one of our members was being held in a detention centre, they denied him the use of his wheelchair because they said it could be used as a weapon. He was forced to literally crawl on his hands and knees to use the bathroom or move anywhere but his bed. They said if he was willing to go into isolation -- alone in a tiny room with no one to talk to, no television, no radio, and nothing to read -- they'd give him his wheelchair back. We paid them a visit and told the detention centre they'd have a picket line outside their gates if he didn't get his wheelchair back. Their response was to pressure the court and release him before our date for the picket.

Those are just a few examples of the kind of stuff we do. Our activities are determined and planned by our members. Not only does it mean they obtain the solidarity necessary to protect themselves and their comrades against the State and the power of capital, but they learn useful skills which will make them valuable activists in their own right, capable of standing up for themselves and others. The JzGs of the world don't stand a chance against us. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/biggrin.gif)

(PS: Yes, that's me in the avatar at the 2007 Mayday protest.)

This post has been edited by SmashTheState:
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Jon Awbrey
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τὰ δέ μοι παθήματα μαθήματα γέγονε
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Welcome, STS

Not entirely unrelated to your main cause, you will find a lot of wiki-panhandlers here who could use a few well-seasoned ideas about what to do with their fires besides sautéing fryers in Jimbo's pot.

Jon Awbrey
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QUOTE(SmashTheState @ Tue 10th February 2009, 3:48pm) *

The OPU started a newspaper program, where anyone on the street could by copies of The Dominion, a grassroots Canadian newspaper, at cost and distribute them on the street in exchange for a donation. Under pressure from the business lobby (called BIAs, Business Improvement Areas here), Ottawa City Hall made this practice illegal, forcing people to go back to panhandling.

Welcome STS.

Do you not have the magazine Big Issue in your region?
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Another question STS. What do you think about the lack of attention given to "Liberalism in [[country]]" articles on WP? For years they have existed under a timeline/history format until I changed that to background/history, because most of the history sections were themselves only a poorly sourced timeline.

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