David Arthur Johnston and the criminalisation of the Canadian Poor
A few days ago I recieved a couple of e-mails from a commrade named Tavis whom I hadn't heard from since the winter. Anyway he's friends with a guy named David Johnston who has been incarcerated for trying to live simply and without a home.
I was previously aware of David Johnston from my own random internet readings but it was meeting Tavis and then recieving these e-mails which has brought this guy's case to mind while I probably would have forgotten it was going on at all. I want to publish something about this guy in a coming issue of The Christian Radical but in the meantime I am going to try and post updates on his situation as often as I get them.
-Chris Rooney
Nearly everyone in Victoria's seems to have read the Monday Magazine article about David being sentenced to seven months for his peaceful protesting against the criminalization of the poor. Nine days since David's eaten. Not bad for a guy that usually eats what he can find in the garbage.
The public attention is there. But as the song goes, "everyone knows that the dice are loaded, everybody knows that the good guys lost." And Bob with "How long shall they kill our prophets while we stand aside and watch? We know it's just a part of it we got to fullfill Ja book." Okay, I'm not so sure about the last bit. One thing about the Monday Magazine article: I was arrested with David Johnston on March of 2001 at the Camp Campbell protest on the BC Legislature lawn, not a couple of years ago. . . it was five years. David's been campaigning for five years. He never gave up that fight. He just wanted a place where the protesters could go to be. The police just moved us off the Legislature grounds, Songese Nation Land, and threw away everyone's stuff. The same old story; move along, move along. The movement goes back just a bit further than the Campbell administration as far as the Right to Sleep protesters go. Some kids were camped out at the spiral island garden at the Christ Church Cathedral, and they got kicked off.
They went to City Hall, then moved into a jewelery warehouse that someone opened up. The police put preasure on the landlord to cancel the lease and the homeless moved back to City Hall. I think there was a demonstration for some nights behind the Court house too. This is all before my time and the newspapers didn't report all of it. Since 2001 there have been more tent cities, most of them around the area David has been forbidden from entering by court orders and conditions of David's release after he was silenced from peacefully voicing his valid social concerns.
The City is up in arms about needle drop boxes this week. Victoria is being eaten alive by drugs like no other City of her size. The idea so far has been to throw more cops at the problem. But this is not a crime, it is a social illness victimizing the poor. What these people need is community.
That's all David's ever wanted. If only someone would have invited David to the table, instead of just sending the troops in to move us off or lock us up. David is like Plato's philosopher king. He is the only man in Canada that I know of who has taken such an extreme vow of poverty. But the only people we hear from at these councils on the issue of Victoria's drug epidemic are people who have a tremendously limited understanding of drugs and poverty. Why couldn't we, as a society, have let David and the rest of the poor have a shot at taking care of themselves? I'll tell you why. $!
Hard drugs pump billions of dollars into Victoria's community.
Pharmaceuticals pump in billions more.
But everybody knows this stuff. Everybody gets the feeling that the cops and the feds and the drug industry are really all the same people. It's pretty much proven that the CIA dealt coke. So it's no wonder the poor wouldn't be allowed autonomy, and the chance to heal, when it might mean slipping out of the yoke. But this is not over.
Property values are skyrocketing. There will be many more homeless soon. Better educated homeless. Your children. Your parents. The more condos we see selling for millions of dollars, the more service sector workers will move in with us at St. Anne's, into the camps, the protests, the doorways.
The seniours will move in/out. The first nations people will be cast off their own land, once again, and join in our social demonstration. I don't know if this is an improvement or not, but I'm pretty sure it's going to happen and is happenig and has been happening while Lowe's been the Mayor,
Campbell's been the Premiere, and David Johnston's been the Philosopher King. These people are to blame for the failure to support our poor, our sick, our disenfranchised.
I guess in the end, though, we'll just have to realize that we never really had a constitution or any legal rights at all. David's not the first I've known in Victoria to have gone down in this movement. There have been thousands. Poor people shipped off, jailed, harassed, abused, and robbed, by our own police force. They took my little knife and lighter, and I've since met dozens who've had the same thing happen to them. The knives just disappear. A christian guy I know named Travis gave me that knife. It was not concealed. They just wanted to harass me for having gone into the police staion to inquire as to David's wherabouts. They kept me waiting hours then the next thing I know I'm in handcuffs. Every day I hear of homeless people getting their arms twisted by the police or receiving verbal assaults from cops. Too many of the cops see the poor as the enemy. They see the 13 year old girl meth addict and they see someone who should be punished.
Victoria is in a state of emergency. The drug epidemic is nearing critical mass; the point when you can buy crack at any hour on the street.
Free David.
Victoria needs his help with this.
-Tavis Dodds
I was previously aware of David Johnston from my own random internet readings but it was meeting Tavis and then recieving these e-mails which has brought this guy's case to mind while I probably would have forgotten it was going on at all. I want to publish something about this guy in a coming issue of The Christian Radical but in the meantime I am going to try and post updates on his situation as often as I get them.
-Chris Rooney
* * * * *
July 14th 2006Nearly everyone in Victoria's seems to have read the Monday Magazine article about David being sentenced to seven months for his peaceful protesting against the criminalization of the poor. Nine days since David's eaten. Not bad for a guy that usually eats what he can find in the garbage.
The public attention is there. But as the song goes, "everyone knows that the dice are loaded, everybody knows that the good guys lost." And Bob with "How long shall they kill our prophets while we stand aside and watch? We know it's just a part of it we got to fullfill Ja book." Okay, I'm not so sure about the last bit. One thing about the Monday Magazine article: I was arrested with David Johnston on March of 2001 at the Camp Campbell protest on the BC Legislature lawn, not a couple of years ago. . . it was five years. David's been campaigning for five years. He never gave up that fight. He just wanted a place where the protesters could go to be. The police just moved us off the Legislature grounds, Songese Nation Land, and threw away everyone's stuff. The same old story; move along, move along. The movement goes back just a bit further than the Campbell administration as far as the Right to Sleep protesters go. Some kids were camped out at the spiral island garden at the Christ Church Cathedral, and they got kicked off.
They went to City Hall, then moved into a jewelery warehouse that someone opened up. The police put preasure on the landlord to cancel the lease and the homeless moved back to City Hall. I think there was a demonstration for some nights behind the Court house too. This is all before my time and the newspapers didn't report all of it. Since 2001 there have been more tent cities, most of them around the area David has been forbidden from entering by court orders and conditions of David's release after he was silenced from peacefully voicing his valid social concerns.
The City is up in arms about needle drop boxes this week. Victoria is being eaten alive by drugs like no other City of her size. The idea so far has been to throw more cops at the problem. But this is not a crime, it is a social illness victimizing the poor. What these people need is community.
That's all David's ever wanted. If only someone would have invited David to the table, instead of just sending the troops in to move us off or lock us up. David is like Plato's philosopher king. He is the only man in Canada that I know of who has taken such an extreme vow of poverty. But the only people we hear from at these councils on the issue of Victoria's drug epidemic are people who have a tremendously limited understanding of drugs and poverty. Why couldn't we, as a society, have let David and the rest of the poor have a shot at taking care of themselves? I'll tell you why. $!
Hard drugs pump billions of dollars into Victoria's community.
Pharmaceuticals pump in billions more.
But everybody knows this stuff. Everybody gets the feeling that the cops and the feds and the drug industry are really all the same people. It's pretty much proven that the CIA dealt coke. So it's no wonder the poor wouldn't be allowed autonomy, and the chance to heal, when it might mean slipping out of the yoke. But this is not over.
Property values are skyrocketing. There will be many more homeless soon. Better educated homeless. Your children. Your parents. The more condos we see selling for millions of dollars, the more service sector workers will move in with us at St. Anne's, into the camps, the protests, the doorways.
The seniours will move in/out. The first nations people will be cast off their own land, once again, and join in our social demonstration. I don't know if this is an improvement or not, but I'm pretty sure it's going to happen and is happenig and has been happening while Lowe's been the Mayor,
Campbell's been the Premiere, and David Johnston's been the Philosopher King. These people are to blame for the failure to support our poor, our sick, our disenfranchised.
I guess in the end, though, we'll just have to realize that we never really had a constitution or any legal rights at all. David's not the first I've known in Victoria to have gone down in this movement. There have been thousands. Poor people shipped off, jailed, harassed, abused, and robbed, by our own police force. They took my little knife and lighter, and I've since met dozens who've had the same thing happen to them. The knives just disappear. A christian guy I know named Travis gave me that knife. It was not concealed. They just wanted to harass me for having gone into the police staion to inquire as to David's wherabouts. They kept me waiting hours then the next thing I know I'm in handcuffs. Every day I hear of homeless people getting their arms twisted by the police or receiving verbal assaults from cops. Too many of the cops see the poor as the enemy. They see the 13 year old girl meth addict and they see someone who should be punished.
Victoria is in a state of emergency. The drug epidemic is nearing critical mass; the point when you can buy crack at any hour on the street.
Free David.
Victoria needs his help with this.
-Tavis Dodds
posted by Chris Rooney | 10:07 PM
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