Monday, January 04, 2021

ALBERTA 9 UCP MLA'S & STAFF FLEW THE COOP* FOR XMAS

Seriously? Defiant Kenney Defends Holiday Travels by MLAs, Ministers, Staff

As criticism over politicos’ flouting of COVID-19 guidelines grows, Alberta premier refuses to penalize offenders.

David Climenhaga Today | TheTyee.

Some constituents welcomed Alberta Municipal Affairs Minister Tracy Allard back from her Hawaiian vacation with a banner at her Grande Prairie constituency office. Photo from MyGrandePrairieNow.com via Twitter.


Aloha, Alberta! Jason Kenney doesn’t give a hoot* what you think.

That’s the key takeaway from the premier’s defiant New Year’s Day news conference about the cabinet minister who jetted off for a Hawaiian vacation while she was supposedly responsible for the province’s emergency management and boss of the civil servant running Alberta’s leisurely COVID-19 vaccine rollout, not to mention other vacationing United Conservative Party MLAs and political staffers.

There will be no consequences.

Not for Municipal Affairs Minister Tracy Allard.

Not for any of the missing MLAs, if we could even find out which ones were missing. Not for the government press secretaries sunning themselves on the beaches of Hawaii or visiting relatives in the United Kingdom. (By Sunday, the list included two other UCP cabinet ministers, two other MLAs and four UCP political staffers.)
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Kenney’s reasoning can be summarized as follows:

I didn’t actually tell them they shouldn’t be travelling during a pandemic. My bad.

Air travel is safer than visiting your granny.

“There is no public health order or legal barrier,” so no rules were broken.

When I told my ministers, MLAs and flunkies to come home, they all did.

WestJet, which is based in Calgary, ya know, needs the money or they’ll go broke.

There will be apologies, and there’s a new no-travel rule, so we can all just move along, please?

Kenney’s justification, if you can call it that, was as follows: “I don’t think it’s reasonable for me as a leader to sanction people who very carefully followed the public health orders and the legal requirements.”

And how do we know they followed the rules? Well, I guess that’s for them to know and us to find out.

The premier claimed the province is encouraging travel. Meanwhile, the Alberta government’s COVID-19 travel restrictions page continues to state “Avoid non-essential travel outside Canada until further notice. The Canada/U.S. border remains closed to non-essential travel.”

You just can’t make this stuff up. Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who fired Finance Minister Rod Phillips for doing the same thing, looks like a statesman by comparison. And the NDP removed Manitoba MP Niki Ashton from her shadow cabinet posts for travelling to Greece to visit a sick relative without informing party Leader Jagmeet Singh.

Social media commentators called Kenney’s news conference the most outrageous event in Alberta political memory since Ralph Klein got drunk and threw pocket change at the residents of an Edmonton men’s shelter.


Arguably, though, this is worse. We’re talking about putting people’s lives in danger, and undermining the whole fight against COVID-19, not just acting like a drunken jackass. Remember, Klein had a driver, and he even made a stab at quitting drinking.

You have to give Kenney credit for his sheer brass. The man has no shame. There will be one set of rules for insiders, another for the rest of us, and if you don’t like it, I guess you can move. All done in the unshakable conviction the UCP will win the next election no matter what anyone says.

The premier claimed he was unaware until Tuesday that Allard was in Hawaii. As former NDP and Progressive Conservative cabinet ministers explained, that’s not the way it works.

“Any minister who is out of the province is covered by another minister,” tweeted former Alberta NDP leader and cabinet member Brian Mason. “The Premier’s office and the bureaucracy ensure it. Papers are signed, etc. It’s all very official. If @Jkenney says he didn’t know that @TracyAllardUCP was in Hawaii, then he’s lying.”



What If Jason Kenney Did Take Responsibility? READ MORE

Kenney did admit one thing everyone already knew: that Jamie Huckabay, his chief of staff, had been vacationing in England when Canada closed its borders to flights from the U.K. because of the new, more highly infectious variant of the coronavirus.

No problem, though. Huckabay just flew to the United States and came home from there. All right then! No rules were broken.

For her part, Allard is very, very sorry. And very, very relieved, as well, I’m sure.

At a late afternoon newser of her own, she explained that visits to Hawaii are a family tradition, but now that she’s thought about it she’s “truly and deeply sorry.” Luckily, family gatherings are only prohibited if you can’t afford to travel overseas. Like I said, you can’t make this stuff up.Alberta Municipal Affairs Minister Tracy Allard’s Christmas post on Twitter made it appear she was in the legislature. She was in Hawaii. Photo via Twitter.

Allard was out of the country from Dec. 19 to Dec. 28, so that means she was in Hawaii when she posted a photo of herself by the Christmas tree in the legislature’s rotunda on Instagram. Obviously this was intended to give the impression she was here in Alberta.



Kenney Dithers as the Coronavirus Crushes Alberta  READ MORE

The premier spent lots of time at his media conference blaming the federal government for Alberta’s vaccination program, which is as slow as molasses in springtime. Of course there was no acknowledgment of the fact other provinces are doing better despite having the same federal government.

Now that the horses are gone, Kenney has ordered the barn door slammed shut. That is to say, now that the holiday season is almost over, he has issued a directive telling staffers and elected officials to stay home.

Even Postmedia’s Rick Bell, normally the most loyal of Kenney loyalists in media, said he was “gobsmacked” by what Premier Kenney had to say.

It’s hard to take issue with that.

But then, look at it from Kenney’s point of view. If he fired Allard for this, he might end up having to fire a lot more of his cabinet when it starts leaking out who else was enjoying a privileged winter holiday abroad.

Entitlement: It ought to be in the UCP’s name.

*No profanity was used in the composition of this column. That was a challenge.


David J. Climenhaga is an award-winning journalist, author, post-secondary teacher, poet and trade union communicator. He blogs at AlbertaPolitics.ca, where this column first appeared. Follow him on Twitter at @djclimenhaga.

*ANY DAY NOW IT MAY BECOME 10

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BC AND INDIA
India’s Farmer Movement, Indigenous Land Defenders and Hidden Histories

The protests may be half-a-world apart. But they’re both based on a spiritual connection to the land.


Bal Dhillon Today | TheTyee.ca


A mural in East Vancouver depicts Indigenous people paddling out 
to the Komagata Maru in 1914 to provide food for those onboard. Photo submitted.

When 250 million workers joined the largest strike in human history last month to support the Indian Kisan Andolan, or Farmer Movement, the connection to Indigenous land protests in British Columbia might not have been instantly evident

And But the two struggles have much in common in their resistance against neoliberal nation states and the corporations that influence them. They also share a hidden history that aligns the struggles in a unique field of solidarity.

Indian farmers are fighting the central government over three bills that effectively hand the agricultural market to large corporations, letting them set prices, and turn formerly independent farmers into contractors under corporate control.

Punjabi farmers have taken their protests to the border of Delhi and created blockades on highways, while farmers from other parts of India are doing the same.

The majority of Punjabis in India follow the Sikh faith. Agriculture is central not just to Punjab’s economy, but also to its culture. During the march to Delhi, police brutalized the farmers with water cannons and batons. Despite this, the farmers practiced a central tenet of the Sikh faith, langar (free kitchen) and made food available to both protestors, bystanders and police.

In B.C., a different but connected battle is being waged. Hereditary Chiefs from the Wet’suwet’en Nation have opposed TC Energy’s Coastal GasLink pipeline across northern B.C. since it was proposed. This resistance has led to demonstrations and railway blockades across Canada.

Members of the Secwepemc Nation have been participating in blockades as well, including a group of land defenders called the Tiny House Warriors. They are resisting a project to expand the Trans Mountain pipeline, which is now owned by the federal government. The resistance continues, with rail disruptions and other protests. At each of these blockades, a Sacred Fire burns, a reminder to all present that this is a spiritual struggle.

Underlying these struggles is a little-known shared history between Indigenous peoples and Punjabi immigrants on the west coast, a history that won’t be found in official records or high school textbooks.

In 1914, 376 Indians on the Komagata Maru were refused entry into Canada based on the racist laws of the Canadian state. The ship sat in the Burrard Inlet for months before being forced to return to India.

Many of the passengers on the Komagata Maru were connected to South Asians already on the west coast through the Ghadar Movement, which was committed to achieving Indian independence from Britain and ending colonization around the world.

A century later, protesting farmers have invoked the names of Ghadar activists, including Bibi Gulab Kaur and Shaheed Kartar Singh Sarabha.

Oral history accounts from both Musqueam and Punjabi traditions share that while the Komagata Maru was in the Burrard Inlet, Indigenous people paddled out to the ship in canoes to provide food for the would-be immigrants. This history can be found on a mural in East Vancouver co-created and painted by Indigenous and Punjabi artists.

The mural includes the Musqueam and Punjabi words for “cousin.” The Punjabi word denotes a particular type of cousin — the children of an older brother of your father. In traditional Punjabi homes, brothers live together. Those born to the younger brother are born into a home with cousins already in it.

That’s the word Punjabis used for Indigenous people on the west coast. They recognized they had arrived in their cousins’ home. And that their new cousins’ parent was the land.

This history has been beautifully shared by the Nameless Collective Podcast hosted by three South Asian historians: Paneet Singh, Naveen Girn and Milan Singh. The Nameless Collective was also involved in curating the Komagata Maru mural.

Both resistance movements against corporate-backed neoliberal states have relied on the spirit of ancestral teachings, or “Soul Power.” While the material reality of colonialism has ended in India, but has not on Turtle Island, there are some commonalities in these struggles.

For farmers in India, resistance is about their livelihood. For many Indigenous peoples it is about decolonization. For both, it is about their spiritual beliefs and culture that are tied to land.

The founder of the Sikh faith, Guru Nanak, was enlightened after bathing in the Kali Bein, a river that serves as a lifeline to farmers today. The Sikh faith teaches us to honour Divinity within land, air and water, to treat them as we would our mother and father.

Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg writer, scholar and artist Leanne Betasamosake Simpson explored her spiritual traditions in her essay “Land is Pedagogy,” and found similar beliefs. She recounts the traditional story of Kwezens, who experiences “core Nishnaabeg values — love, compassion and understanding” at every turn.

“She learned to trust herself, her family and her community,” Simpson writes. “She learned how to interact with the spirit of the maple. She learned both from the land, and with the land.” Soul Power.

I invoke these spiritual beliefs and hidden histories in order to rediscover pathways of solidarity between global struggles against neoliberalism and corporate greed.

This is not an attempt to create a false equivalency between the two struggles, as settler colonialism continues to oppress Indigenous peoples on Turtle Island.

It is an attempt to discover and embrace what Indigenous communities and farmers in India may be able to teach us about our relationship to land.

Kanahus Manuel, one of the Tiny House Warriors protesting a pipeline on Secwepemc territory, spoke to me about the commonalities that these struggles share and the possibilities that solidarity can bring.

“We have to determine what solidarity looks like between our communities. Let’s start to build our solidarity how we wish to determine it. We don’t need to go by the old rules of the British crown. The spiritual connection between our fight is important — because the fight is never just physical. It’s a spiritual fight. It’s our spirit that drives us to fight. It takes a warrior spirit to stand up to the colonial state that is meant to kill us. It takes courage to stand up to an abuser — and that takes you to a higher state of enlightenment. We touch each other’s heart and soul by knowing each other’s movements and fighting against similar systems.”

“That’s one thing that’s in common — we have a history of resistance against the British crown. We both know struggle, because it’s in our blood,” Manuel said.

As the words of Indigenous Land Defenders resonate with me, I hear the words of the Punjabi poet Sant Ram Udasi, as his poems are being sung by protesters on the border of Delhi.

ਸਾਡੇ ਰਾਹਾਂ ਵਿੱਚ ਕੰਡੇ ਅਟਕਾਂਵਦਾ । Thorns stand in the way of our path
ਪੂੰਜੀਪਤੀ ਢਾਂਚਾ, ਨਾਗਾਂ ਤਾਈਂ ਪਾਲ, Capitalist structures grow giant snakes
ਇਹਨੇ ਕੀ ਕਦਰ ਸਾਡੀ ਜਾਨਣੀ । What value do we have?
ਕਾਹਦੀ ਏ ਆਜ਼ਾਦੀ ਅਸੀਂ ਮਾਨਣੀ । What kind of freedom is this to enjoy?
ਏਸ ਦੀ ਗ਼ਦਾਰੀ ਅਤੇ ਚਾਲ ਸਰਮਾਏਦਾਰੀ, Capitalists have betrayed us and tricked us
ਔਖੀ ਹੁਣ ਰਹੀ ਨਾ ਪਛਾਨਣੀ, It’s not hard to recognize now
ਕਾਹਦੀ ਏ ਆਜ਼ਾਦੀ ਅਸੀਂ ਮਾਨਣੀ । What kind of freedom is this to enjoy?


Bal Dhillon lives and works on the unceded traditional lands of the Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh and Coast Salish Peoples. He is a secondary school teacher and community school co-ordinator and enjoys coaching basketball.


Read more: Indigenous, Rights + Justice, Food
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ERICA LAGALISSE'S BLOG

The Conspiracy of Kings, Class War and the Coronavirus


By Dog Section Press

Erica Lagalisse interviews Spartacus Tonans, Supreme Magus of the Kitchen Garden 007˚, author of “Occult Features of Anarchism” (PM Press, 2019)

So, is the Coronavirus part of a great global conspiracy?

A conspiracy called capitalism. The virus doesn’t need to be manufactured by governments to serve elite interests. States intervene in pandemics not to mitigate human suffering but to consolidate their power, so it is no coincidence that governments are taking the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to amplify police power, outlaw protest, and remind you to fear your neighbor. Of course, we are encouraged to live in solitary isolation, scrolling through the apocalypse, breaking only to play digital war games or watch crap porn while making Jeff Bezos rich buying shit from Amazon; however, it is also true that physical distancing will slow down the rate of infection and allow more people to survive. In regard to the politics of this new “Crown Virus”, like so many other Conspiracies of Kings, both things are true. This is the line I walk in my book.

Occult Features of Anarchism is a feminist take on anarchism, a critique of posh lefties, and the “true history of the Illuminati” all in one. How would you sum it up?

It’s a historical essay that shows how what we call “the Left” developed in complement with occult philosophy and New Age spirituality. In the hands of power, “magic” is brought to support authoritarian projects – politicians and fascists know this well. Yet if it were not for early revolutionaries mixing what they understood to be “ancient magical wisdom” with new materialist science and social discontent in new ways, we may not have seen the rise of Left revolutionary movements: Occult knowledge is adaptable to a variety of projects – pyramid schemes, levelling schemes, and pyramid schemes for levelling – we’d best not ignore it.

Can you tell us a bit more about your approach to “conspiracy theory”?

The phrase “conspiracy theorist” is code for low-class. Otherwise, university lecturers that discuss the covert operations of the CIA would also be called “conspiracy theorists”. This is worth noticing, because we need coalition-building now more than ever, and just as lefties should not write off hippie New Agers, neither should they assume that the “conspiracy theorist” must be a fascist. Of course, precisely because things can veer in this direction, it’s even more important that lefties come up with an effective way of engaging “conspiracy theorists”. In the process, we might consider the extent to which “conspiracy theory” involves valid social commentary. Some “conspiracy theories” are bonkers or blame Jews for global poverty, in which case, arguing with a fan is an important anti-racist intervention; but sometimes calling someone a “conspiracy theorist” is just class prejudice disguised by another name. Academics make their knowledge inaccessible in a variety of ways, which means that the best way people have to investigate why the world seems stacked against them is to ask the internet, which means people are going to find a lot of seductive “conspiracy theories”. I don’t think we should make fun of anyone for that. Also, the ruling class really does seem to be trying to kill us – it should be considered a fair guess.

Can you elaborate on the idea of “conspiracy theory” as critical social commentary?

Many YouTube videos tell stories of the Knights Templar finding secret treasure under Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem during the Crusades, with Illuminati-controlled Freemasons later using it to collapse the great world religions into one big banking tradition in the name of Lucifer. Yes, this story sounds different than Polanyi’s in The Great Transformation (1944), which also explains how global elites forsake traditional allegiances in the project of modern capitalist banking – social scientists will always prefer to highlight “systemic forces” rather than the whimsy of a few knights. The pop culture version is too allegorical for academic tastes but, given that many “conspiracy” buffs think banks are so bad they must be Satanic, it should be easy to see how some could become interested in anti-capitalism instead of fascism. (For academic readers, my advice in a nutshell is: replace Foucault with Bourdieu.)

Ok, getting to the good stuff: who are the Illuminati?

Once upon a time, there was the French Revolution, and all the Kings and Queens of Europe were very upset, so they formed the Holy Alliance. Known as the “Conspiracy of Kings”, it was they who pledged to cooperate in international publication bans, transnational surveillance, and deportation of militants by any sovereign threatened by “revolutionary inroads”. The Illuminati, on the other hand, started before the French revolution, and considered state and church corrupt. They criticized landlords and private property. Started by a Bavarian professor in 1776, it grew from five students to 54 members 3 years later, including people like Mozart. Members shared provocative Enlightenment ideas that are now commonplace, such as the value of science, while contemplating how to make society more egalitarian. In 1783 a member tattled to his employer and a repressive campaign began. This is the first time we hear claims made that all Freemasons are “under control” of the Illuminati – but it was the government talking then.

How has the story gotten switched around?

Partly because propagandists in the early 20th century sought to vilify Jewish people by associating them with banking and Freemasonry. There are also people in power now who gain from us ignoring capitalism and the World Trade Organization by focusing on Jews or lizardmen. The classical Art of Memory, revamped as magical practice in the Renaissance, was further re-invented within psychoanalysis and modern psychology, and is now used in the media to (mis)guide us. In fact, both mainstream news outlets as well as bros pumping out “conspiracy theory” videos employ this long-developing art of using sensational images to inspire certain mental associations and manipulate memory. We really are being fucked over by magical mind control, just not in the way some “conspiracy theorists” suggest. This is where I would suggest those suspicious of COVID-19 place their attention, by the way – the virus is authentic, but so is the dark art of Public Relations.

You explain that you write about the cosmology of anarchism to challenge atheist anarchists who look down on religious or spiritual people despite claiming to be anticolonial at every turn. But there’s got to be another story: what’s the scoop?

Well, there’s the fact that I love math. Are mathematical forms the underlying structure of the universe? Or is mathematics a language applied to an ineffable reality that always exceeds representation? It’s no coincidence that I study the history of sacred geometry in this first book, and study how activists fuck up “intersectionality” with algebra in my upcoming one – mathematics is very seductive, and not just for me. Why does symmetry impress us? To what extent is statistical thinking cultural or cognitive? Why do people love YouTube videos about the “Golden Mean” so much? Why does the Art of Memory work? Is Aby Warburg’s theory of images a form of Lamarckian evolutionism? How many triangles can I find in Hegelian philosophy? This kinda stuff is my jam. I used to draw geometrical diagrams instead of writing outlines for my term papers – I lost marks for it and was told it’s because I have “synesthesia”, some kind of mental illness. Wizard sounds better, don’t you think? Just like splitting yourself into pen names for an interview sounds better than you talking to yourself.

Erica Lagalisse is a writer, anthropologist, and postdoctoral fellow at the London School of Economics. They are the author of Occult Features of Anarchism.

lagalisse.net

@ELagalisse

Illustration by Clifford Harper  
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 ERICA LAGALISSE'S BLOG

Occult Features of Anarchism— an Ignota Book of the Year

Ignota.org

Ignota friends and family choose their books of the year, Part 2! <3 Accompanying Part 1, we offer this list of books and pamphlets chosen by Ignota’s friends and family that have accompanied their journeys. MORE SELECTIONS TO COME! 

Intended also in support of the book trade, especially fellow indies, we’ve added links to Bookshop.org, which unites independent booksellers to provide an alternative to Am*zon, or directly to publishers’ websites.

I attended a lecture by Erica Lagalisse, organised by David Graeber—rest in power—at the LSE last year, and I was in awe at the rigour she applied to looking at some of the awkward questions of radical political organising. She started off with an interogation of the awkwardness of anarchists when encountering the spirituality of Indigenous groups whose struggles they had adopted, and how anarchist groups in Canada and Mexico invariably frame Indigenous struggles through a gendered distinction between the spiritual, which they would sideline as domestic, private and not politically relevant, and what could be read as secular aspects of their lives and organising, and therefore properly political. From there, she ventured into a deep investigation of the roots of anarchism in occult philosophies, which is what is covered in this fantastic but brief book. It traces the historical origins of anarchism through to the secret society of the Illuminati. It is a reminder of the true meaning of conspiracy—to conspire, breathing together—where secret societies become the brithplaces of organising and as practices of imagining new possible worlds. And this time, not described in the innocent yet arrogant terms of being the chosen ones (whether in religious or revolutionary terms), but with all the fraught and problematic historical detail of people trying to do things in relation to power.

Erica Lagalisse is an anthropologist and writer, a postdoctoral research fellow at the London School of Economics (LSE), editor of Solidarity and Care During the Covid-19 Pandemic at The Sociological Review, and author of Occult Features of Anarchism – With Attention to the Conspiracy of Kings and the Conspiracy of the Peoples (2019). She can be found on Twitter at @ELagalisse. 

Back to Erica Lagalisse’s Author Page




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 LEO PANITCH IN MEMORIUM

PM PRESS BLOG

The convivial, practical road to socialism: a tribute to Leo Panitch

By Hilary Wainwright
Red Pepper Magazine
December 29th, 2020

December 29, 2020 · 7 min read

It is striking that the widespread grief at the untimely death of Leo Panitch is not simply for the passing of a brilliant socialist intellectual but also for the shared personal loss of a warm, kind and truly comradely human being. Leo’s influence has come as much from his spirit of generosity and conviviality as through his arguments. For him the two were inseparable.

Without implying that he was a saint, Leo lived and advocated a socialism whose appeal is exactly the conviviality and kindness that flows from mutual respect for the dignity and equality of all people, and for the social and economic conditions that can make this a universal condition. He prefigured socialism in his everyday comradeship and collaborative ways of working. It is for this reason that his many comrades now feel as though part of the foundations of our very being have been pulled from beneath us.

Leo’s characteristic ability to live his socialism was linked with his integration of theory and political practice. His recent thinking about strategy stressed the need ‘to start anew at creating the kinds of working-class political institutions which can rekindle the socialist imagination’.

It was an emphasis he reiterated in response to the defeat of the Corbyn-led Labour Party, which for Leo revealed a fundamental absence of organised forces behind the leadership’s radical socialist policies. His argument came from both a theoretical understanding of the unequal balance of power and from practical experience of the difficulties and necessities of rebuilding a politically conscious working-class organisation – as distinct from merely obtaining the official support of individual trade union leaders.

The development of Leo’s theoretical work was always combined with a practical immersion in socialist organising. This ranged from involvement in student and worker strikes at the University of Manitoba, Canada, where he first went to university, to his later work with Greg Albo, Sam Gindin and others in the Socialist Project in Toronto. The development of Leo’s theoretical work was always combined with a practical immersion in socialist organising

From these and many other experiences, Leo took a detailed understanding and intuitive ‘feel’ for the material realities of organising sustained working-class power and of the institutional and mental blockages such organising faces. This animated his writings and his editorial leadership, with Colin Leys and then Greg Albo, of the Socialist Register, an annual collection of writing on international issues confronting socialists. You can read Leo’s own Socialist Register essays 1979-2020, here.

Key to Leo’s vision of sustained and strategic working-class organisation is the development of political capacity. Recently, after analysing the failure of the Greek left party SYRIZA to realise its radically transformative promise when elected to government in January 2015, Panitch and Gindin concluded their book The Socialist Challenge Today by arguing that: ‘If a socialist government is not to be stymied by the inherited state apparatuses, decisive focus on developing the agency and capacity for state transformation will be required.’

Leo’s multiple engagements in developing practical political capacity ranged from his inspirational teaching as professor at York University, where many of his PhD students became writers for Socialist Register, to his supportive involvement with The World Transformed (TWT) political education network. At TWT events, not only were Leo’s talks tours de force, he would also work with TWT organisers on TWT’s own approach to political education.

He supported and wrote for Red Pepper (see below) and other socialist publications in a spirit of posing questions and providing analytic and historical resources for us to answer them in our own way. He was never dogmatic or sectarian, regarding such stances as obstacles to the consciousness-raising that is at the heart of political education.

Leo’s understanding of the idea of ‘agency’, then, was not simply as a theoretical concept but as a material process to be built – often with difficulty and scarce human resources of time and funds – and against hostile actors who were often far better resourced. This recognition enabled him to understand two levels of politics that are in perpetual tension and yet somehow had to be combined to be effective: on the one hand, the level of day-to-day material struggle for immediate improvements in the lives of those facing poverty, wage slavery and every other oppression; on the other hand, pursuing strategies for an entirely different, socialist society.

It is a dilemma summarised in this crucial reflection by Tony Benn:

‘[T]he usual problem of the reformer [is] that we have to run the economic system to protect our people who are now locked into it while we change the system. And if you run it without seeking to change it then you are locked in the decay of the system, but if you simply pass resolutions to change it without consulting those who are locked in the decaying system, then you become irrelevant to the people you seek to represent … We cannot content ourselves with speaking only to ourselves; we must raise these issues publicly and involve the community groups because we champion what they stand for. We must win the argument, broaden the base of membership, not only to win the election but to generate the public support to carry the policies through.’

Leo drew attention to this far-sighted remark again and again. He now leaves the task of finding answers to this dilemma with us, among many other unresolved questions. But he set us an example as to how to address these questions and an implicit imperative to do so. ‘Leo thought on a bigger scale. His death doesn’t stop that kind of a dream,’ insists Gindin, his close collaborator and long-time friend. ‘He saw himself as part of a longer-term process that other people are going to have to continue.’

Each of us has to recreate the foundations that Leo’s shocking death took from under us. In his writing and remembered conversations he has provided sturdy rocks with which to do so. We have to mix the cement to put them together with the solidarity, love and political passion that he exemplified.

Leo Panitch’s writing in Red Pepper

Leo Panitch, 1945-2020

Hilary Wainwright is a Red Pepper editor

Leo Panitch’s PM works include In and Out of Crisis: The Global Financial Meltdown and Left Alternatives, coauthored with Sam Gindin and Greg Albo, and an excellent interview with Sasha Lilley in Capital and Its Discontents: Conversations with Radical Thinkers in a Time of Tumult.

Back to Leo Panitch’s Author Page.

https://www.pmpress.org/blog/2021/01/01/the-convivial-practical-road-to-socialism-a-tribute-to-leo-panitch/ 

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Canada surges from 500,000 to 600,000 COVID-19 cases in two weeks

JANUARY 4, 2021

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Canada surpassed the grim milestone of 600,000 coronavirus cases Sunday, two weeks after passing half a million, underscoring the pandemic's persistence in the country during the end-of-year holiday period.

On Sunday afternoon, Canada recorded 601,314 COVID-19 infections since the start of the pandemic and 15,860 deaths, according to data from provinces and territories reported by the public television station CBC.

Ontario, Canada's most populous province, recorded 2,964 new cases in 24 hours on Sunday, and Quebec registered 2,869, a new daily record for the French-speaking province, which also has the country's highest death toll.

There have been 4,650 COVID-19 deaths to date in Ontario and 8,347 in Quebec.

Canada, a country of about 38 million, did not reach its first 100,000 cases until mid-June, three months after it recorded its first COVID-19 diagnoses.

Certain provinces, including Ontario and Quebec, imposed lockdown measures in multiple regions during the end-of-year holidays.

Responding to widespread concerns about people traveling to sunny destinations in defiance of official guidance, the government announced last week that anyone arriving in Canada is required to test negative for the virus.

Canadian authorities are strongly advising against non-essential travel abroad in order to stem the spread of the disease—a recommendation that some elected officials have ignored.

Ontario finance minister Rod Phillips was forced to resign due to backlash over a vacation he took to the Caribbean.

Over the past few days, more than half a dozen members of Parliament and politicians have admitted to holiday trips abroad.

Some have apologized.  NOT ENOUGH 
HAVE RESIGNED ESPECIALLY IN ALBERTA 
WHERE 9 UCP GOVT MEMBERS HAVE TRAVELE
THAT EQUALS THE FEDS AND ONTARIO MP/MPP'S
#FIREKENNEY

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COVID LIVES ON SURFACES
Inflatable costume linked to Covid-19 outbreak at California hospital that infected 44

Jose Martinez Jan 04 2021

GETTY/MICHELE LAPINI
Air-powered costumes have been banned from the Kaiser Permanente San Jose emergency room after an incident that may have infected 44 people with Covid-19.

A hospital in California suspects that an inflatable costume may be behind a massive Covid-19 outbreak that has infected at least 44 employees, The San Francisco Chronicle reports.

A Kaiser Permanente San Jose Medical Center employee briefly wore the air-powered costume in the emergency room on Christmas Day to "lift the spirits" of fellow co-workers, but may have unknowingly spread the virus throughout the facility.

"Any exposure, if it occurred, would have been completely innocent, and quite accidental, as the individual had no COVID symptoms and only sought to lift the spirits of those around them during what is a very stressful time," the hospital said in a statement.

"If anything, this should serve as a very real reminder that the virus is widespread, and often without symptoms, and we must all be vigilant," the statement continued.

The emergency room has since undergone a deep cleaning, and all employees who have tested positive between December 27 and New Year's Day are being required to isolate. Kaiser Permanente San Jose is still conducting contact tracing to determine who else may have been exposed.

While the hospital had administered the Covid-19 vaccine to some emergency room workers prior to Christmas Day, the first dose doesn't reach its full potential until the second shot is given. Even then, none of the approved vaccines are 100 per cent effective against preventing someone from catching the virus.

It may go without saying, but air-powered costumes have been banned from the Kaiser Permanente San Jose emergency room.

California has the most coronavirus cases in the United States with 2.4 million reported. Over 26,000 people in the state have died from the virus.
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VACCINATION DOES NOT ELIMINATE MASK WEARING

Hundreds of people in Israel contracted Covid-19 days after receiving their first vaccination dose, highlighting the risks of shunning safety measures when not fully inoculated.

The country has been held as the benchmark for how to deliver a vaccine quickly and effectively, with more than 10 per cent of its nine million population immunised at widespread vaccine delivery hubs.

More than a million people in Israel have received the Pfizer-BioNTech jab, one of the vaccines available in Dubai, since December 19.

UAE residents should continue to be cautious even if they have had the vaccine
Dr Amaka Uzu

Despite that, a small percentage to have received the first dose went on to contract the virus as antibodies can take weeks to develop.

With a similar population number to the UAE, lessons learned from Israel could be applied here to ensure similar coverage is achieved while precautionary measures are maintained.

“Even if someone has taken the vaccination, they should remember it is not a guarantee they are immune,” said Dr Amaka Uzu, a family medicine consultant at Bareen International Hospital, Abu Dhabi.

“My advice for UAE residents is to continue to be cautious.”

She was quick to stress that the immunisation process is not complete until both doses of the vaccination have been taken.

“After the first dose, a second is required to complete the immunisation process,” said Dr Uzu, who is awaiting a second shot of the Chinese-made Sinopharm vaccine offered in Abu Dhabi.

“However, people must continue to wear masks, keep socially distant and maintain good hand hygiene, even if they have had the vaccination.”

Dubai Health Authority said residents who have received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine must still take PCR tests when required, such as for travel purposes; practise social distancing and continue to wear face masks if mandated.

Officials warned members of the public not to delay or miss their second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech jab. The injections are intended to be taken 21 days apart.
Israel leads the way in global inoculation drive

Israel has the world’s highest vaccination rate. Health authorities there report 12.59 vaccination doses per 100 people, compared to 3.53 in Bahrain and 1.39 in the UK.

By comparison, France has vaccinated only 352 people by the end of 2020, according to the University of Oxford’s Our World in Data website.

In the US, a target of immunising 20 million people by December 31 fell well short, with only4.23 million being vaccinated by January 2.

Most receiving the jab in Israel are aged 60 or above, a demographic at risk of more severe symptoms that has been given priority.

Since the vaccination programme launched, clinics there have administered about 150,000 jabs a day.

By law, all Israelis must register with a recognised healthcare provider, which then contacts people according to priority.

Research showed protection against Covid-19 can take up to 10 days to develop after the first dose is administered, but even then it reaches only about 50 per cent effectiveness.

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While the vast majority of Israelis to receive a jab reported no problems, about one in 1,000 experienced mild side effects such as weakness, dizziness or fever.

Only 51 people required any form of medical attention.

Health authorities in the country said 319 people reported feeling slightly unwell, with 293 more reporting localised symptoms at the injection site, such as pain, restricted movement, redness or swelling.

State broadcaster Kan reported four people died shortly after receiving the vaccine, but three of those were of unrelated causes.

The fourth case, an 88-year-old man with serious health complications, is currently under investigation by Israel’s Health Ministry.

So far, the UAE has identified 213,231 coronavirus infections, including with 189,709 recoveries and 679 deaths.


The vaccine is expected to be rolled out to all age groups once people in the essential categories have been vaccinated. EPA








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Bushmeat Now Legally On Sale in Tanzania


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The Tanzanian government has approved the sale, under strict guidelines. This follows an order by President John Magufuli that game meat-selling points be opened across the country to curb illegal hunting. Besides maintaining the overall cleanliness of the selling facilities, operators will be required to issue electronic receipts to buyers showing the source of the meat. Operators will need to slaughter animals at a licensed meat abattoir and surrender any "trophies", including skull and skin unless they have a trophy ownership certificate. Butchers will be subjected to constant scrutiny by a ministerial committee that will include veterinarians and meat inspectors. During the Ebola outbreak that ravaged many West African countries in 2012, the World Health Organization warned communities against eating bushmeat, which was thought to have been the main carrier of the virus at the time.

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This Is Not A Game is a social marketing campaign from WCP | Wildlife Crime Prevention working in partnership with the Zambian Department of National Parks and Wildlife. It is the culmination of years of scientific work to better understand the illegal bushmeat trade in Zambia and its impacts on both people and wildlife.

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