Background for folks who aren’t up on British Columbia politics, and especially U.S. folks who may be confused by an unfamiliar and counter-intuitive use of the word “liberal.”
Gordon Campell’s Liberal government has made it much, much tougher to survive at the lower end of the economic spectrum in B.C. On the list of gifts from the Campbell government, we have increased cost of basic services, an effective reduction in the minimum wage, higher tuitions, elimination of universal childcare, removal of optical coverage from our medical services plan, along with general cuts to MSP and the evisceration of Pharmacare, cuts to school lunch programs, massive layoffs in the civil sector, cuts to women’s centre funding, general cuts to social programs of a variety of descriptions, and… on and on, and on…
Particularly contentious is a decision to limit welfare recipients to two years of assistance out of any five-year period. This means that, come April, in a city that is already without adequate affordable housing, in which homelessness has become strikingly more prominent since the Liberals came into office, 30,000 additional people will find themselves with no income at all.
Apart from massive public protests, this ignominious record has predictably drawn criticism from opposition parties. Happily, this goes beyond the formalized nay-saying that you expect in the political sphere. Opposition leader Joy McPhail has a long and impressive record of looking out for poor, and there is little doubt that her criticisms go beyond mere opportunism. She is one of the few politicians for whom I would gladly place myself in the path of a bullet, without a moment of hesitation or a word of exaggeration.
City Councillor Jim Green is another that can consistently be counted on to bring conscience to government. He has done more to develop badly-needed affordable housing for Vancouver than any other single individual that I know of, and has been doing so for much longer than the housing crisis has been deemed worthy of media coverage. Recently, he’s helped bring forward a by-law aimed at creating disincentives for owners to convert existing Single Room Occupancy hotels (read: cheap flophouses in the Downtown Eastside) into something more gentrified. He’s also been active in trying to avert the fucking disaster that’s coming in April when tens of thousands more people will suddenly have no way to put a roof over their heads or food in their stomachs.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, on to the source of my wrath:
Liberal MLA Lorne Mayencourt characterizes Jim Green this way:
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Awful? Disgusting? Lorne, you despicable sack of shit, you wouldn’t recognize Awful and Disgusting if it had its head a foot-and-a-half up your flabby white ass. I’m certain of this, because it’s a matter of public record that Awful and Disgusting does have its head up your ass. For future reference, closely examine any Highly-Polished Surface. You see that mealy-mouthed, manicured fuckwit peering back at you? That guy is Awful and Disgusting. What fucking wide-eyed cult are you a member of, that has indoctrinated you with an incomprehensible ideology in which increasing poverty is laudable behavior, while working against it is “outrageous”? Oh, right. The B.C. Liberal party. Slipped my mind.
Take a look at this 2X6 Clue Stick, Lorne. Can you read what’s embossed on its splintery surface? “People who are merely concerned with advancing their political careers do so by their association with the rich and powerful. People who are doing the fucking job they were elected for tend to pay attention to the poor and vulnerable. The poor and vulnerable, by-and-large, are of little use in fast-tracking a political career.” The embossed lettering is purpose-made so that you will be reminded of this simple axiom each morning, as you shave in front of the Highly-Polished Surface of your choice.
“Poverty Pimp,” huh? You’ve coined an interesting phrase there. It’s really quite evocative: the image is quite clear – the Faceless Poor being turned out on the street with the promise of being fucked harder and more frequently than they ever imagined possible, while being beaten and robbed by assholes who like to say that they’re “protecting” them. I think you’ve misapplied it, though. Still got that Highly-Polished Surface handy?
The hat suits you.
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Of course, in hindsight I realize that a message containing all that profanity will most likely be automatically filtered and binned as hate-mail before actual human beings (or even the sinister Crab People that I imagine must be lurking within the B.C. Liberals’ unconvincing anthropoid husks) ever have the opportunity to set eyes on it. If I get no response maybe I’ll try resending it as a nice link.