The Vancouver Scrum

On the move!

Agh! You’re still here? My new site and weblog, ianking.ca is now up and running; new posts are building up over there, never to be mirrored here. Go! What are you waiting for? All the stuff worth keeping has been migrated over to the new server, and I don’t anticipate making any more posts here.

Bloggers and webmasters: Update your links! Simply replace vancouverscrum.blogspot.com with www.ianking.ca in your blogrolls or bookmarks to point to the new site. Old posts will remain on this server for as long as the people at Blogger/Google allow them to remain; unfortunately, I’m not going to bother to come up with any way of converting permalinks on this blog to their corresponding posts on the new site. Yes, I plead laziness. I also realize the irony of switching away from Blogger just it starts to add features that the demanding blog nerds insist upon.

Thanks for reading and linking, and see you over at ianking.ca!

—Ian King, December 13, 2004

Sunday, March 30, 2003

 
Dozens Mass at Pro-war Rally!

I thought that that would be a facetious headline describing this weekend's pro-war rally in Vancouver. It wasn't that far off the mark. A small crowd gathered at the south end of the Burrard Bridge, ostensibly to show support for the United States and the other members of the coalition in the war against Iraq. The crowd grew from about 50 at the start of the rally to a padded 200 at its peak. Speakers included local tax preparer David Ingram -- drumming up business -- and Chris Delaney, leader of a right-wing fringe political party.

Not all that impressive when you consider that there are 2.2 million people in the greater Vancouver area. Granted, most of the pro-war people aren't habitual public demonstrators like the anti-war camp, but that's still a really weak showing.The nearest pro-war rally was over in Calgary, so it's not as if there was a lot of competing demonstrations to distract the hawks of the Lower Mainland. Maybe they should have picked a different location than Kitsilano -- it's not exactly a hotbed of conservatism. Somewhere out in the Fraser Valley, the Vancouver analogue of Orange County, would've fit the bill if they wanted a better crowd.

I seem to recall that some political soulmates of the pro-war set were crowing about all the people that didn't show up to the world-wide anti-war protests some six weeks back. They were happily pointing out that 30 million or whatever the total crowd was around the world is but a mere fraction of the global population; that 750,000 in London is around one-twentieth of the area's population. Well, time to turn that "logic" around: 0.0091% of the people in and around Vancouver could be bothered to show up to support the war, or, if you like, here's the headline:

2,199,800 STAYED HOME!

Good God, this is fun!

It irks me that organizers of rallies in support for the war effort are reluctant to call themselves 'pro-war'. Why be shy, aside from the connotation that they might get off on armed conflict? It's exactly what they are -- people who favour this war; and, at least in Canada, those who wanted to see Canada support the war and want to cange the government's position. Instead, they cover up in terms like "pro-US", "pro-Coalition", and my favourite, "pro-freedom." Some have even taken to calling the anti-war protestors "anti-freedom," as if this particular war was in the name of 'freedom' at home. Please. Just come out and say it, awright?
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