Vancouver resident Justin Forsman believes the political establishment, propped up by a shrinking circle of loyalists, is working desperately to protect its crumbling hold on power
Across Vancouver and beyond, a battle is unfolding — not merely between candidates, but over the right to speak, to question, and to be heard.
The political establishment, propped up by a shrinking circle of loyalists, is working desperately to protect its crumbling hold on power.
They cannot afford honest competition.
They cannot withstand open debate.
And they cannot dare allow their chosen leaders to be discredited before the public.
What we are witnessing is not strength.
It is weakness hiding behind outrage.
It is desperation cloaked in self-righteousness.
It is a political regime in its final convulsions — and it knows it.
As part of my campaign critical of Mayor Anne McEnerny-Ogre’s failed leadership, dozens of signs have been posted across the city.
In the past several weeks alone, approximately 50 smaller signs have been stolen, and multiple larger signs have been vandalized.
This isn’t random mischief.
It’s part of a deliberate effort to erase dissent from the public eye.
And now, they’re bragging about it.
This past week, on public forums like Reddit, individuals openly admitted to stealing campaign signs from public spaces.
They weren’t ashamed — they boasted about it.
They cheered each other on, proud to silence others instead of debating them.
When vandalism becomes a public badge of honor, it shows exactly how far the defenders of the establishment have fallen.
This is not activism.
It is not civic engagement.
It is cowardice.
And whenever damage is done — when a sign is destroyed, a challenger is slandered, or a citizen is silenced — you can count on The Columbian to either look away or quietly run defense for those in power.
They don’t serve the public.
They serve the structure.
Those clinging to the corrupt status quo know they cannot win in the open light.
So they tear down the evidence that another path even exists.
They do not defend their own ideas — they seek only to erase yours.
And yet — the harder they work to silence, the louder the truth becomes.
Because this battle is no longer about left or right, liberal or conservative.
It is about freedom versus suppression.
It is about courage versus cowardice.
It is about whether our city belongs to the people — or to a few desperate hands clinging to fading power.
Make no mistake:
The desperate will not surrender easily.
They will sabotage, censor, and tear down anything they cannot control.
They are in their final throes — and they know it.
That’s why this moment demands action.
Not tomorrow. Not next year. Now.
Every citizen who believes in free speech must stand.
Every citizen who believes in honest debate must speak.
Every citizen who sees what is happening must get involved — at whatever capacity they can.
Post. Share. Volunteer. Organize. Speak truth boldly.
Because if we abandon the public square to vandals and censors now, we may never get it back.
This is bigger than any one candidate or campaign.
This is about defending the American principle that ideas must rise and fall by merit — not by force.
Vancouver belongs to its citizens — not to a political class that fears their voices.
It belongs to all who believe that truth should be heard — not hidden.
And it belongs to all who still know that freedom must be defended in every generation.
And so we will not be silenced.
We will not bow.
We will not surrender this fight for open dialogue, free elections, and honest leadership.
The harder they push, the harder we will stand.
The more they erase, the louder we will speak.
The more they censor, the clearer the truth will ring.
And to those working so desperately to strangle the truth — and to all those rising to defend it — know this:
We have not yet begun to fight.
Justin Forsman
Vancouver
Also read:
- Opinion: ‘Vancouver doesn’t have to end up like Portland or LA’
Clark County Matters urges Vancouver’s mayor and City Council to act now to restrict public homeless camps, warning that inaction could mirror outcomes seen in Portland and Los Angeles. - Opinion: ‘Governor Ferguson agrees parents have no rights’Let’s Go Washington founder Brian Heywood criticized Governor Ferguson for signing HB 1296, calling it a direct attack on parental rights in Washington.
- Opinion: What is liberty worth?Nancy Churchill explores how the lure of federal funding erodes local control, using real examples from Washington and rural America.
- Opinion: Prescription price controls and rationing would undermine the innovation that has saved so many
Todd Myers argues that U.S. adoption of prescription price controls would endanger future medical innovation and limit patient access to life-changing treatments. - Opinion: HB 1217 – Rent control is law … or is it?Vancouver resident Bill Black challenges the enforceability of Washington’s new rent control law, HB 1217, warning it may worsen the state’s housing shortage.
Let us hope this “we” that Justin speaks of turns out next week to file to run for Vancouver City Council and Mayoral races. To date, I have heard of exactly nobody who plans to run. With all of the extreme wokery going on at City Hall there is plenty to base a strong campaign upon. Even better would be a block of candidates united in cleaning out City Hall.
The clock is running….
The statement about the Columbian couldn’t be more true. They DO look away (no or minimal coverage of important local topics) and they usually DO defend the Vancouver establishment. And with the new editor, who writes like a 2nd year journalism major, things will only get worse. And they continue to whine about how difficult it is to stay in business?
This coming election, voters better ask themselves if they truly, truly feel the city is headed in the right direction?
For a refresher:
***Take a drive on Fourth Plain from Main St. (downtown) all the way east to Andresen. Where did the four-lanes go? How’d we end up with a main arterial now being only two-lanes?
***How do you like all the filthy, drug-infested, homeless encampments and trash generated by them? Had much “petty crime” in your neighborhood? Smash-n-grabs? Care to guess the reason?
***How do you like the downtown parking situation of fewer spaces at increased prices? And a new garage from which you can’t exit in a timely manner?
***How do you like the overall condition of city streets? Hit many pot holes lately? Are you successful in dodging the sunken manhole covers that seem to be at least two per block, and always in the tire-lane?
***How do you like your city taxes nowadays, since all the developers are given tax-exemptions for all the “affordable” housing they’ve built?
***How do you like that special homeless city tax you pay? Feel like you’re getting your money’s worth?
Every candidate better be able to specifically address each of the above topics before I’ll vote for him/her. But one thing for sure…
Mayor annie ogle must be shown the door!
Here we go. Kim Harless has announced she is running for reelection as a starring member of Vancouver City Clowncil. She is running fully Woke.
Per local print media this morning….“Harless’ campaign is focused on meeting the city’s climate goals, improving affordable housing and providing solutions for homelessness, as well as advancing equity and justice.”
Exactly what has she accomplished in the four years she’s been down there?? What solutions to homelessness has she come up with, other than playing whack-a-vagrant with the local “homeless” “community”??
Does she support Mayor Megalomaniac-Ogle’s outrageous bullying of the whole county over everything from C-Tran to Loot Rail to the “homeless”??
What does she think about the Mayor putting Vancouver in the national spotlight by attempting to defy ICE’s illegal criminal migrant removal efforts??
This election really is going to be the most locally important one I can recall. Much is on the line here. The time is now to step up and defeat this insane wokery that has infected local Gubment.
For ease in tracking:
mayor ogle – vote out
harless – vote out
Paulsen – ?
Perez – ?
Hansen – ?
Stober – ?
Fox – ?
Kim Hartless has been in office how long? If she was focused on these issues, they would have been taken care of by now. Harless contributed to voting for Vancouver’s over spending debt. Check her attendance records at council meetings. She was part of limiting public comment. It is quite obvious the council doesn’t want the publics’ input. At one meeting, Harless went on and on with her Trump derangement speech, after Trump won the election. The mayor allowed this hate speech.
Kim is not the solution to the city’s out of control spending, SHE PARTICIPATED IN IT! HARTLESS ALSO VOTED TO A LARGE PURCASE OF FLUORIDE LAST YEAR. Do you like drinking poison? Has she dumbed you down enough to want more of her bad politics?
Taking water from farmers for redevelopment. No water, no food!
Allowing 5G towers being constructed every wear.
Youtube; Veteran MD drops bomb shell at 5G hearings, Dr. Sharon Goldberg
I suggest you watch You Tube: Mind Blowing “Direct Energy Weapons” Seen… The Jimmy Dore show.
Those 5G cell towers, phones, HARRP can control people’s mind. Obama gave lots of money to DARPA to invent mind control weapons.
Please someone step up and run against her!!!
Excellent letter, Justin! Be a leader and run against Harless. Harless has a track record of missing many council meetings. We need someone like you who isn’t afraid to take on the challenge.
Vancouver council voted to buy $842,000 of sodium fluoride last June. Brad Hansen told me 3 years ago, “The people voted it in, it needs to be on the ballot to vote it out.” A bill was passed last year to either start or end fluoridation in WA state. It is a community decision. The city council played doctor and decided for you. The ethical thing to do would be to have a special election to vote to drink China’s poisonous industrial waste air pollution, with a skull and crossbones on the bag, calling it medicine to reduce cavities. China gets UN pollution credits to stop air pollution. (We drink it!) Many studies are done on Fluoride about causing cancer, lowering IQs, arthritis, atherosclerosis, Alzheimer’s and hyper activity attention deficit in children. The Fluoride Deception by Christiopher Brison, tell the history of the government paying Kettering Laboratories to cover it up. You tube: Dr. Dean Burk. It has dumbed people down so much; they are letting their corrupt council get away with murder by poisoning the water. Fluoride helps the turbo cancers in Covid 19 jab takers, three or more jabs and you have no immunity. Fluoridation fast track cancer.
http://www.FluuorideActionNetwork.org http://www.FluorideAlert.org
The woke movement and mostly rainbow people at rally, at Ester Shore Park, on President’s Day. They spoke on fascism, unions, and Tesla. I was telling them about fascism of their council fluoridating their water and the EPA Union lawsuit. I mention Health Official Rachel Levin stopping the EPA Union lawsuit findings, (They could not prove fluoride was safe to drink), in February 2024, which would have stopped fluoridation nationwide. They pulled the mic from my hand. I guess they didn’t appreciate hearing the truth about fluoride poisoning and would rather support a trans-health official to do them harm!
A week later Teslas were burned. That causes the worst air pollution one could imagine, burning lithium batteries. That caused a big environmental hazard. The toxic batteries can reignite. Gov. Ferguson wants to increase electric cars in the coming years. Whoever would buy a Tesla would to take a chance on the woke rainbows to burn them down.
Good news: Judicial Watch Lawsuit Caused San Francisco to Shut Down Woke Racist Program. They violated The Equal Protection clause in CA constitution. WA has an Equal Protection Act, too.
Trump’s 100 day speech said ,” There is only 2 sexes. Male and female.” He is stopping DEI under his executive orders, now Federal Law!
I’ll see who’s all filed later this week and make a decision
It is clear to me this statement was generated by AI. Look at how many em dashes are used! No human naturally uses em dashes.Editors might add them to professionally written pieces but only AI adds that many em dashes to a letter like this. I believe Clark County has spoken. This man has run for office multiple times and has never won!
It’s pretty obvious to me Forsman used AI to generate this letter so I asked AI to write a valid argument against it and to use excessive em dashes and this is what it created:
What’s happening across Vancouver is not — despite the theatrics — some grand moral struggle between tyranny and truth. It is — in truth — the messy, imperfect, often frustrating reality of democracy — where ideas are not just shouted into the void, but tested — challenged — scrutinized — and yes, sometimes rejected.
To paint every stolen sign — every mocking Reddit post — as a coordinated campaign of authoritarian censorship is not just hyperbole — it’s a deliberate distortion — a melodrama dressed up as martyrdom. Campaign signs — whether Forsman’s or anyone else’s — go missing every election — not because shadowy elites quake in fear at cardboard slogans — but because people are flawed — impulsive — petty — and sometimes, simply bored teenagers.
And let’s be honest — to equate the removal of a few signs with a regime in “its final convulsions” is not insight — it’s fantasy — a political hallucination indulging in the aesthetics of persecution without the substance. No one is stopping Forsman from speaking — his message is not banned — his platform is not shuttered — he is, in fact, posting freely, publicly, defiantly — with no shortage of exclamation points or righteous fury.
This is not censorship — it’s criticism — it’s resistance — it’s citizens exercising their speech rights in opposition to his. And when that opposition is loud — visible — maybe even mocking — it isn’t proof of conspiracy — it’s democracy doing what it does best: arguing — sometimes clumsily — sometimes harshly — but always with a thousand voices, not one.
The truth is this: when a candidate casts every act of criticism — every rebuttal — every failure to be applauded — as evidence of a collapsing regime, they are not defending democracy — they are distorting it — undermining it — replacing pluralism with paranoia. Free speech does not mean freedom from disagreement — or immunity from pushback — or the right to post without consequence.
If every critic is a coward — if every vandal is a state actor — if every dissenting media outlet is a tool of “the structure” — then what’s left? Only one voice — Forsman’s — wrapped in the flag — shouting into silence — imagining himself surrounded by enemies, yet somehow the only one brave enough to speak.
That is not freedom — it is ego wrapped in revolutionary cosplay.
We do not need more slogans painted as battles — more outrage dressed as prophecy — more signs equated with salvation. We need honesty — nuance — humility — and the courage to face the fact that disagreement is not suppression — and that democracy, in all its chaos, includes everyone — even those who dare to disagree — loudly — persistently — and without permission.
When are these infantile guys going to realize they’re bawling about their speech being suppressed while their screeds are published for all to read? Maybe they feel ignored because the more astute local citizens find their opinions to be nonsensical and childish—they self-censor merely because their ideas/opinions just aren’t very coherent or enlightening.