The Vancouver elite...............

................have made a mockery of compassion and justice. The media, ever the lapdog for the Vancouver elite class, cover up all sorts of scandals.

Compare former premier Glen Clark's treatment over a sundeck and a hunting knife, with no Premier Campbell's DUI conviction, sale of BC Rail and a host of other dubious actions. Oh yes the Vancouver elite, now Premier was the mayor of Vancouver at the time when Picton was well into his foul and evil deeds.

Vancouver's elites have a lot to atone for, as they prostrate themselves to wealth.

They never ask how wealth was made (too many make money from the same activities that makes the downtown eastside internationally famous) but they welcome all new wealthy people to the elite society to increase the ratio of old money/power to new money/power.

Vancouver has turned into an inbred society where actions of the wealthy elite are constantly given the 'Goebbels Gambit' with the mainstream media repeating myths so often that the public think they are true.

The wealthy elite allowed Picton to operate as the wealthy elite did not car as the dead were in their eyes 'cheap whores' whose lives did not mean a thing. Their daughter who are 'expensive whores' are overlooked and forgiven because for the elite class, drugs and sex in an expensive Whistler condo is acceptable, as long as the the males are rich and famous.

Picton, DETS, and the whole Vancouver establishment is an utter embarrassment to every decent and moral person left.

police state

People in uniform often develop attitudes that allows them to stretch the rules of their profession, by reasoinings such as: it is only:
1/ a Native
2/a foreigner,
3/a drunken bum
4/a radical fanatic!

In any event it is not "one of us" so who cares?

This is shades of Hitlers regime where you were ranked as a citizen by your uniform, and wearing a uniform had privileges.

an activist, feminist critique of this book

Hey Rafe - it can't be such a great book if all it gives the reader is 'nausea and shame.' The author seems to avoid any attempt at a full analysis of why it happened or how to take effective action to see that it doesn't happen again.

Please check this out for another point of view:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/notes/lee-lakeman/a-review-of-a-new-book-on-pickton-case-on-the-farm/158651734151239

Our Discarded and Forgotten

"Drug addicts and hookers, often the same person, were simply of no concern to the "comfortable pew" most of us occupy."

As a social worker, I have worked with many women trapped in cycles of addiction, the sex trade, exploitation and mental health issues. I have also worked with their children, many born addicted. If the first thing you have to do when you are born is kick cocaine, heroin, or methadone, life will always be an uphill climb. Many children simply do not start out on an even playing field. For a tragically high number, many, in spite of all of those who try to build plans to support their healthy development and safety and give them love, get sucked up into the world of drugs, the sex trade and the lifestyle associated with it. For most, it is often to cope with pain most of us would shrink from.

Over the course of my work, I've come to believe that we have people who are considered throw-aways in our materialistic, consumer-driven society. I refer to them as the underclass, they are often made available for the exploitation of others, usually starting as children, when adults began to abuse, control and violate them and their rights to safety. Few of us want to know the truth and their real stories and it is easy for most people to blame the poor, to point the finger or judgement at women, men and children in the sex trade and deride them for their "choices."

I recently told one of the most tragically marginalized and damaged young people that I have had the honour to work with that she has a purpose and that I remembered an old sign I saw that said "God doesn't make junk." I wasn't preaching at her. I wanted her to know that she has value and meaning and that she matters and is cared about. Because it is difficult for her to feel any of these things, due to being discarded by everyone - her family, her culture and society. She is a person with no place , family or community to belong to in this world. We have created a world like this for our weakest and most vulnerable and as a human rights activist and social worker, I fight against that because I belive that everyone matters and has value and given the supports and opportunities, can reach their potential and this benefits them and society.

Thanks for this review and for inviting a discourse about our forgotten people, Rafe.

...and disappeard/dead men?

Picton's victims were 50 women, and it was feeding a drug addiction that took the women to the streets, thence to become Pickton's victims. So, same drug addiction has resulted in huge gang warfare and ongoing drug battles and violence that has also claimed the lives of many, many BC residents - mostly male but some female too. What about those dead men?

indifference? no

Live with an addict in the family for a few years and you will understand that it is not indifference that is the evil. Addicts are extremely harmful to their own children. They are usually a bottomless pit where you can throw your money, your love, your whatever - for nothing. It is absolutely right that we eventually pull back to protect ourselves and our loved ones from the self-centred, destructive black hole that is a drug addict. Anyone who fails to consider this context in whatever they say about addicts is naive at best.

how to help then?

I condemn the trite commentary that we are all to blame. We are not going to solve this problem simply by caring more. Addicts will almost always take everything you have and still want more from you. How best to help them then? How best to help their families? Those are the good questions. That is where we should focus our thoughts and our caring. And to be even more clear - giving money to the poverty industry of the DTES is not the right answer.

If only this were true:

"Our elected politicians ran the show on our behalf..."

It is quite the piece of fantasy to sincerely believe the 'elected aristocracy' - as JJ Rousseau would call them - run anything on the behalf of the people. But this is a digression from the issue at hand.

Canadians, in the main, are self-centred. Our liberalist philosophy has taught us that this is for the greatest good, even natural. As we strive for individual accomplishment, we monitor our success by being able to stand a little higher on the socio-economic ladder than others.

This one-upmanship gets so absurd that every strata of society takes comfort in looking over another, regardless of how marginally. This is how, to our shame, the people who drop to the bottom of our liberal, economic sportsday go missing, for they are invariably overlooked.

It is easy to conclude, if one cares to even think about such things, that so long as we continue as social beings, individual fulfillment cannot remain our ethical keystone.

How to help them?

I've only known a couple of addicts closely, but my experience with both of them was identical. The need for the money to buy the drugs did far more damage to them then the drugs did. Prescribe, legalize, whatever. Take the money out of the equation. Treat the illness.

jnewcomb

"So, same drug addiction has resulted in huge gang warfare and ongoing drug battles and violence that has also claimed the lives of many, many BC residents - mostly male but some female too. What about those dead men?"

I'm no eidetic mind, but the only man I can recall whose crime remains unsolved was the poor bastard who was walking his dog in South Van when he was mistaken for a gangster and was shot to death. All the rest were either solved within a couple of years, or were executed in retaliation, indicating that "someone" knew whodunit.

But that's all by the way. The real point is that Pickton was in the 'snuff' trade, and we can be reasonably assured that none of those fifty women signed up for that. More's can be said for the men and women you speak of, and I'm surprised you didn't notice the difference yourself before you put your foot in your own mouth..

Like BC Rail ...

I've avoided the Pig Farm Trial like the plague, the details too gruesome to allow into my mind. But I did watch the voir dire after it was released to the public -- long after the trial was over.

It's the biggest, most obvious cruelty of all ... that Pickton had actually confessed to an under-cover RCMP person posing as Pickton's cell-mate. Pickton confessed his disappointment that he slaughtered "only 49" because he had meant to kill an even 50 women ... all the while scoffing down a plate of food, not missing a beat. Pickton could have been convicted right then and there ... but that information was withheld under appeal. Nice touch. Delay, delay, delay ...

Something else seemed to echo the BC Rail Trial procedures: Pickton's casual, chummy remark to the undercover cop that there were "about 15 other people who should've been charged" as well as himself.

I hope Stevie Cameron (who I admire greatly for her skill) can explain to us, how we the public can improve the judicial process in British Columbia. God knows, we've tried. A few more citizens in the public gallery of the BC Rail Trial -- keeping their eyes and ears open -- would be a great beginning. Bloggers are doing their best. But Big Media -- I gotta say this -- seem much happier grovelling in the pig farm muck than in collecting evidence as to how Canada's 3rd largest railway slid from public ownership into private pockets ...

Special thanks to Rafe Mair for writing on such a difficult topic, with grace and balance. Much appreciated.

The similarities to procedures with the BC Rail Political Corruption Trial were astonishing.

Twice-lost souls

I work with these unfortunate women.

It's true that addiction is a black hole in which everything disappears: money, love, kindness, dignity, empathy, their children, lovers, parents. It's true that many hookers rob,lie and even laugh at those they victimize. Raped and beaten, they take their revenge by conning others, which gives them a momentary sense of power they otherwise lack. 90% of police officers don't seem to care how they suffer; indeed, most think they deserve whatever they get.

Most of these women were brutalized at a very young age: no one protected them then, no one protects them now. The rage they feel at being shoved under the social carpet is significant.

Does our society help create addicts and hookers?

Of course it does. Pop culture's glorification of ganstra rap, of women objectified as meat for consumption, is but one example. I've met 13-year-old girls from Grey Point who think the scene on the DTES is "the coolest."

Are we partly responsible for allowing Picton to slaughter these women?

Of course we are. How many times have we turned a blind eye to some poor woman selling herself on a street corner? How many times have we gone shopping for our hundredth pair of shoes instead of giving something that would help young girls get out of the street life before it becomes a full-fledged, entrenched lifestyle?

The solution? 1. legalize the sex trade. 2. foster the women's individual gifts (most of them are quite talented, though they themselves can't see it). 3. Give them a voice, i.e., a format from which they can speak their truth, not our middle-class version of their experience. 4. Show them we do care so they can learn to love themselves. In other words, don't despise them. 5. Create rehabs that involve caring for animals and gardens, in other words, show them the benefits of caring for others. Caring for others automatically teaches us to care for and value ourselves.

All hard-core addicts have lost the art of caring for themselves and others. Trapped in the black hole of addiction, they feel they can never get enough of anything, whether it's food, drugs, clothes, etc. Addicts are extreme hoarders because they are empty inside, alone and alienated, despised by everyone except their likewise tortured sisters. They need to learn how to trust, how to love, how to give.

Most people don't realize that some of the women on the DTES actually come from very wealthy families. Families that have somehow failed their children, families that abandon them as soon as they exhibit 'troubling behavior.' From what I've seen, the number of rich parents who abandon their troubled kids is growing. Why is that? Could it be that we as a society have become so utterly focused on self-gratification that we can justify anything, including abandoning our own kids?

Picton/History

B.C. since it started as Civilized State, has been a consumer of woman by slavery, kidnap and murdered if uncooperative. About 150 years back a family from Britain set up the 108 mile house of slavery and murder it was an operating business for many years perhaps as many as twenty. They supplied the bars and houses of illrepute and even mining camps with woman, kidnapped and enslaved By the kind folks at 108 mile. All of this was known by the users, the constabulary, the transportation folk (only road to gold fields. When it blewup in their faces the Man of the house was shot I believe the son was also killed?? and the auther of all this murder (58 remains were found in and about the 108 lodge an d more were known) This woman died of a poison while in cells in Kamploops died poor thing so everything was quickly covered up. Even though everybody was aware of this and turned a blindeye to it all. It was all covered up, the Magistrate, (the last person known to see the woman alive) Was never named. typical when police and judiciary are implicated in criminal acts. Ken Gourley