Monday, July 04, 2005

A NEW AMERICAN REVOLUTION


HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY
WORKING PEOPLE OF AMERICA

"It has been my fate to be a worker all my life."--Jo Labadie

"government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one." Thomas Paine

Independence day,was a day forgotten by the early 19th Century American master craftsmen, landowners, rich farmers, and religious revivalists. It was revived and celebrated by the 'mechanics and artisans' of the American Republic. The origin of July 4th celebrations in the United States were the celebrations of apprentices and journeymen in revolt against the social conservatives of the the day, their masters. It was their day to demand the fruits of the revolution their right to the fruits of their labour. (Sean Wilentz, Chants Democratic; New York City & the Rise of the American Working Class 1788-1850, OUP 1984)

It was this struggle of labouring men and women in America that led to the Free Labour movment which eventually confronted the Democratic Tyrants of Tamminy Hall in New York with a new political party called the Republican Party. It was this party under Abraham Lincoln that called for the freedom of the labouring man, and freeing of the slaves so that they could enjoy the fruits of their labour as mechanics, artisans and farmers. (Montgomery, The Fall of the House of Labour)

Freedom was no slogan for a new toothpaste, or another coffee shop. Freedom was not something to be exported at the end of the bayonet. Freedom was for the individual to enjoy his or her right to the fruits of their labour. For it was well known that labour produced all value.

The radical American individualist was an anarchist. Influenced by Prodhoun, Stirner and the First International Working Mens organisation, anarchists like the Haymarket martyrs were joined by the individualist anarchists like Benjamin Tucker and Joseph Labadie, who understood the labour theory of value was essential for demanding individual freedom.

The anarchists are simply unterrified Jeffersonian Democrats. They believe that “the best government is that which governs least,” and that which governs least is no government at all. Benjamin Tucker

They shared no cant with the capitalist, the monopolist as they called them, for these robber barons stole the labour of others, leaving them in poverty while living in mansions fit for kings. They were athiests, abolitionists, feminists, and socialists. Their socialism was not that of Europe, not State Socialism, but that of the 'free association of producers'.

Not to abolish wages, but to make every man dependent upon wages and secure to every man his whole wages is the aim of Anarchistic Socialism. What Anarchistic Socialism aims to abolish is usury. It does not want to deprive labor of its reward; it wants to deprive capital of its reward. It does not hold that labor should not be sold; it holds that capital should not be hired at usury. Benjamin Tucker

They were individualist socialists. They were a 'unique', as Stirner refered to the egoist, socialist movement in a new nation. A nation that was built not on monarchies or old families, nor status or wealth but built by labour. Their individualist anarchism enthralled and influenced the emigre anarchist Emma Goldman, and horrorfied statist socialists and craft unions. They were the extreme left of the labour movement .

IF I WERE to give a summary of the tendency of our times, I would say, Quantity. The multitude, the mass spirit, dominates everywhere, destroying quality. Our entire life--production, politics, and education--rests on quantity, on numbers. The worker who once took pride in the thoroughness and quality of his work, has been replaced by brainless, incompetent automatons, who turn out enormous quantities of things, valueless to themselves, and generally injurious to the rest of mankind. Thus quantity, instead of adding to life's comforts and peace, has merely increased man's burden.

The oft repeated slogan of our time is, among all politicians, the Socialists included, that ours is an era of individualism, of the minority. Only those who do not probe beneath the surface might be led to entertain this view. Have not the few accumulated the wealth of the world? Are they not the masters, the absolute kings of the situation? Their success, however, is due not to individualism, but to the inertia, the cravenness, the utter submission of the mass. The latter wants but to be dominated, to be led, to be coerced. As to individualism, at no time in human history did it have less chance of expression, less opportunity to assert itself in a normal, healthy manner. Emma Goldman, Minorities Versus Majorities

American Anarchist Socialism was the result of the direct experiences of working men and women as they suffered abject poverty while wealth flowed around them. It was the poltical and economic trajectory of a nation of labourers and farmers an Artisnal nation. And it was the artisan that celebrated 'their ' independence as being one and the same as their 'nation'.

But all that changed through the Civil War and after as America became an industrial capitalist nation of robber barons. Great monopolies were created, the first military industrial complex, one that gave power to the two political parties, the Democrats and the Republicans. No longer were either the voice of the 'workingman', whom they gave sufferage to in order to win their votes. Thus was born the rebellion of workers to create a 'third party' as well as various socialist parties and social organizations like unions and the farmers Grange movement.

There were from the beginning two different strands within Socialism: one was the Right-wing, authoritarian strand, from Saint-Simon down, which glorified statism, hierarchy, and collectivism and which was thus a projection of Conservatism trying to accept and dominate the new industrial civilization. The other was the Left-wing, relatively libertarian strand, exemplified in their different ways by Marx and Bakunin, revolutionary and far more interested in achieving the libertarian goals of liberalism and socialism: but especially the smashing of the State apparatus to achieve the "withering away of the State" and the "end of the exploitation of man by man." Interestingly enough, the very Marxian phrase, the "replacement of the government of men by the administration of things," can be traced, by a circuitous route, from the great French radical laissez-faire liberals of the early nineteenth century, Charles Comte (no relation to Auguste Comte) and Charles Dunoyer. And so, too, may the concept of the "class struggle"; except that for Dunoyer and Comte the inherently antithetical classes were not businessmen vs. workers, but the producers in society (including free businessmen, workers, peasants, etc.) versus the exploiting classes constituting, and privileged by, the State apparatus. Having replaced radical liberalism as the party of the "Left," Socialism, by the turn of the twentieth century, fell prey to this inner contradiction. Most Socialists (Fabians, Lassalleans, even Marxists) turned sharply rightward, completely abandoned the old libertarian goals and ideals of revolution and the withering away of the State, and became cozy Conservatives permanently reconciled to the State, the status quo, and the whole apparatus of neo-mercantilism, State monopoly capitalism, imperialism and war that was rapidly being established and riveted on European society at the turn of the twentieth century. For Conservatism, too, had re-formed and regrouped to try to cope with a modern industrial system, and had become a refurbished mercantilism, a regime of statism marked by State monopoly privilege, in direct and indirect forms, to favored capitalists and to quasi-feudal landlords. The affinity between Right Socialism and the new Conservatism became very close, the former advocating similar policies but with a demagogic populist veneer: thus, the other side of the coin of imperialism was "social imperialism," which Joseph Schumpeter trenchantly defined as "an imperialism in which the entrepreneurs and other elements woo the workers by means of social welfare concessions which appear to depend on the success of export monopolism...” Murray Rothbard

While there was plenty there was plenty of want as well, as thousands of new immigrants flooded America seeking their economic freedom from serfdom in Europe. What they found was an America that would use and abuse them for their labour by allowing capital its unfettered freedom. Such freedom of capital is often mistakenly called, even today, individualism. But it is not. As homegrown Socialists like Jack London would discover.

Man being man and a great deal short of the angels, the quarrel over the division of the joint product is irreconcilable. For the last twenty years in the United States, there has been an average of over a thousand strikes per year; and year by year these strikes increase in magnitude, and the front of the labor army grows more imposing. And it is a class struggle, pure and simple. Labor as a class is fighting with capital as a class.

Workingmen will continue to demand more pay, and employers will continue to oppose them. This is the key-note to LAISSEZ FAIRE,-- everybody for himself and devil take the hindmost. It is upon this that the rampant individualist bases his individualism. It is the let-alone policy, the struggle for existence, which strengthens the strong, destroys the weak, and makes a finer and more capable breed of men. But the individual has passed away and the group has come, for better or worse, and the struggle has become, not a struggle between individuals, but a struggle between groups. So the query rises: Has the individualist never speculated upon the labor group becoming strong enough to destroy the capitalist group, and take to itself and run for itself the machinery of industry? And, further, has the individualist never speculated upon this being still a triumphant expression of individualism,--of group individualism,--if the confusion of terms may be permitted?

Jack London, The Class Struggle
Speech first given before a Ruskin Club banquet in the Hotel Metropole on Friday, October 9, 1903.

The artisan sensibility rejected the mass production that was becoming America it rebeled against the moderinization and dehumanization of the machinery of capitalism that denied individuality. And thus anarchism as expressed by American individualist socialists would find a comrade in William Morris and his Socialist Artisan Craft movement in England.

But the Great War came, amidst increasing working class strikes and rebellions, and thus Uncle Sam was born. The nativist patriotic representation of the new industrial military complex. And July 4th became a day not of celebration of freedom and labour but of the monopoly of power, economic and political, of the new American ruling class. A class that declared war on working people. And has continued that war at home and around the world for the last 100 years.

Anarchists were outlawed , arrested, deported, cleaned out by the State (regardless of the party in power) with the help of the American Federation of Labour, the churches, and of course all the other patriots. Laws were passed outlawing Anarchism and criminal syndicalism, the right of workers to form militant unions to overthrow capitalism. Those laws still exist on the books today.

Which is a great seque into this Independence Day in a nation that is both isolationist and imperialist, patriotic to a fault, where both the Democrats and Republicans and their right and left supporters, continue to battle to maintain their monopoly on power.

Where Free Trade is a euphimism like Freedom. Meaning exactly its opposite in practice. Where liberty is a brand of insurance. Where neo-conservatives are defined as libertarians, and liberals are Republican lite. Today the criminal syndicalism act and the anti-anarchist act are replaced with the equally vile Patriot act. Where War is Peace, and Freedom Wage Slavery.

The fearmongering, the palatable terror of shallow patriotism has once again come around full circle. The President says 'yer fer us or against us', and he means those who hold the monopoly on power. Be it Wall Street, the Pentagon, the churches or the government.

All that is old is new again. There is good reason to harken back to the Vietnam war. Unlike the Korean War which was the hot cover for a Cold War that had begun ten years earlier, Vietnam was a catalyst for social change in America. A new left and a new right, a libertarian movement emerged in America in the sixties in opposition to the War. And today that movement is once again active opposing the current war in Iraq.

The neo-con artists who claim the title libertarian, are nothing of the sort, their ilk is merely the Republican party of Nixon and Goldwater. And once again the old boys from the late sixties are in power, in the media, in the universities, in the corporations and in the government. Even Kerry who was a Seventies radical, disavowed his anti-war activism during his campaign for President. His saluting to the nation hoping to become Commander in Chief wa for naught. Why vote for Republican lite when you can have the real thing.

But the sixties didn't die when everyone started becoming hip capitalists. There was an essential movement towards a revival of anarchistic socialism as Tucker called it. A movement of the real Libertarian Left and Right.

And it has been revived, again. The timing could not be better. The new right is the old right, the new left is the old left. An anti-statist, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist libertarian movement was begun in the early sixties, and it is essential to see it continue today.

And it has begun, with the Anti-War movement. One that seperates the real libertarians from the neo-con artists of the Republican party, the Libertarian Party and the Conservative Party in Canada. The Imperialist warmongers in the United States are facing opposition from Libertarians left and right. Which has not happened since the Viet Nam war, when the Libertarian Right broke from the Young Republicans for Freedom as the Libertarian Left was purged by the Maoists in the SDS.

The only voices of dissent are heard, today, on the Left – or, at least, are raised by those who in no sense consider themselves conservatives. While a great number of yesterday's left-wing anti-imperialists defected to the War Party during the Clinton years, a new campus movement aimed at Israel's depredations against the Palestinians in the West Bank has arisen, along with a growing antiwar movement. This is where all the vitality, the rebelliousness, the willingness to challenge the rules and strictures of an increasingly narrow and controlled national discourse resides.

Who is fighting against the all-out assault on our civil liberties, and resisting Bush's drive to war? It sure ain't the conservatives, who seem intent on overthrowing our old Republic and installing in its stead a global Empire. As the political elites unite behind a program of endless wars abroad and state repression at home, the old labels of Left and Right are increasingly meaningless: liberals and conservatives, increasingly, have come to stand for minor variations on the same theme. Now is the time for libertarians to, finally, break free of all that – just in time to take a leading role in the next upsurge of social and political change.

Justin Raimondo is Editorial Director of AntiWar.Com.



So if you think the Cato Institute or Tucker Carlson are Libertarians well lets take an issue like:

House Passes Constitutional Amendment to Ban Flag Burning
By Mike Allen Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, June 23, 2005; Page A05

And see what real Libertarians said about this same issue during the Viet Nam war.















LEFT AND RIGHT:
A Journal of Libertarian Thought
(published from 1965-1968)

EDITORIAL
Volume 3, Number 3; Spring-Autumn 1967

ON DESECRATING THE FLAG
The Congress of the United States, in its wisdom, has
now moved to make a federal offense out of "desecrating
the flag'. No doubt the great bulk of those who fought for,
and voted for, this law, believe themselves to be devoted
Christians and champions of the rights of private property.
We shall prove that they are nothing of the kind.
The first thing that should be clear about the flag is
that it is simply a piece of cloth with parallel stripes
of certain colors. So the first thing that we should ask
ourselves is: what is there ahout a piece of cloth that
suddenly renders it sacred, holy, and above defilement
when red and white stripes are woven into it? Contrary
to many of our hysterical politicians, the flag is not our
country; still less is the flag the freedom of the indivi-
dual. The flag is simply a piece of cloth. Period. There-
fore he who tampers with or .desecrates' that piece of
cloth is not posing any kind of a threat to our freedoms
or our way of life.
Consider the implications of taking the contrary posi-
tion: if the flag is nor just a piece of cloth, then this means
that some form of mystical transsubstantiation must take
place, and therefore that weaving a piece of cloth in a
certain manner suddenly invests it with great and awe-
some sanctity. Indeed Webster's defines 'desecrate': as
'to divest of a sacred character or office'. Most people
who revere and worship the flag in this way are religious;
but to apply to a secular object this kind of adoration
is nothing more nor less than idolatry. Religious people
should be always on their guard against the worship of
graven images; but their worship of State flags is nothing
less than that kind of idolatry.
If, indeed, the flag is a symbol of anything through-
out history, it has been the battle standard of the thugs
of the State apparatus, the banner that the State raises
when it goes into battle to kill, burn, and maim inno-
cent people of some other land. All flags are soaked in
innocent blood, and to revere these particular kinds of
cloth, then, becomes not only idolatry but grotesque
idolatry at that, for it is the worship of crime and mur-
der on a massive scale.
There is another critical point in this whole contro-
versy that nobody, least of all the defenders of anti-
desecration laws, seems to have mentioned. When some-
one buys flag cloth, this cloth is his private property,
to do with as he sees fit: to revere, to place in the closet ...
or to desecrate. How can anyone deny this who believes
in the rights of private property? Anti-desecration laws
and ordinances are clear-cut and outrageous invasions
of the rights of private property, and on this ground alone
they should be repealed forthwith.
Freedom must mean, among other things, the freedom
to desecrate.

That's the arguement from Rothbard's libertarian perspective, a critique of destructive stupidity of patriotism, the patriotism of the military industrial religious state. When the arguement is about the American fetish of property rights that is the arguement from the libertarian right or neo-liberal perspective.

Property Rights are a fiction even in the country that enshrined them in their Constitution as proven by the Supreme Court that just banned property rights in the United States. And in Canada the Conservatives and neo-cons want property rights enshrined in the Constitution just like the United States.

As Prodhoun said; Property is Theft. Property is Freedom. The right to your own property/ what you posses, to do with as you will is freedom, to deprive people of propety or possesions to profit from, to use as capital, is usury as Tucker called it.
And so the property arguement is consistant with Tuckers individualist socialism.

So what was Rothbards new libertarianism of Left & Right? Why is it relevant today? Because it is a consistent critique of the neo-cons even today, especially today.

 THE DEATH OF POLITICS
Karl Hess

The following text was originally published in PLAYBOY, March 1969. It is also available as part of Karl Hess' autobiography, as available from Laissez Faire Books. This web edition is now completed with the readers' letters concerning this article, published in the June 1969 issue of PLAYBOY.

Murray Rothbard, writing in Ramparts, has summed up this flawed conservatism in describing a "new younger generation of rightists, of `conservatives' ... who thought that the real problem of the modern world was nothing so ideological as the state vs. individual liberty or government intervention vs. the free market; the real problem, they declared, was the preservation of tradition, order, Christianity and good manners against the modern sins of reason, license, atheism, and boorishness." The reactionary tendencies of both liberals and conservatives today show clearly in their willingness to cede, to the state or the community, power far beyond the protection of liberty against violence. For differing purposes, both see the state as an instrument not protecting man's freedom but either instructing or restricting how that freedom is to be used.

Reading Left & Right should be an eyeopener to a new generation of anarchists and libertarians, who may not know the esoteric history of the libertarian movement of the New Left and New Right and how they came together in the sixties.


FROM FAR RIGHT TO FAR LEFT — AND FARTHER — WITH KARL HESS

James Boyd

This text was originally published in The New York Times Magazine, December 6, 1970.

On a June afternoon in 1960 Karl Hess 3rd, an assistant to the president of Ohio's vast Champion Paper and Fibre Company, was driving toward Cincinnati, lost in the manipulative thoughts common to rising young executives. Suddenly the sound of a police siren intruded and he pulled over, perplexed but not alarmed, for in his world the police menaced not.

"Mr. Hess?" The trooper spoke deferentially. "The White House is trying to reach you, sir. Please call this number."

He called. Would he write the platform for the upcoming Republican National Convention at Chicago, the platform Richard Nixon would run on for President? He would; shortly thereafter he moved into an office in the White House.

At 37, clean-cut, huskily handsome, mellow-voiced, he was the kind of fellow that big business loans out to politicians to advise them what to do and say, a fellow who conducted seminars for Congressmen, authored Republican white papers on military and diplomatic strategy, would one day help ghost a book on defense policy for Representative Mel Laird. He was good at it, was in demand. In 1964 he did his stint again, co-authoring the Republican platform and staying on as Barry Goldwater's speech man in the Presidential run. Better than anyone else, Karl Hess could tell you what conservative Republicanism stood for.

Nowadays when the sirens sound, Hess scrams for the nearest exit. From Goldwaterism, which sought to abolish half of government, he has progressed to anarchism, which would abolish all. Night after night he socks it home to receptive audiences that the old conservatives were wiser than they knew: that growing militarism and welfarism have brought the garrison state and stagnation to America, just as they had prophesied; that the Old Right must join forces with the New Left in a libertarian revolution to restore neighborhood government by boycotting all other kinds. The Hess platform for 1970 is a blueprint for resistance to authority: don't pay taxes; don't submit to the draft; don't move out when the government condemns your neighborhood in the name of eminent domain; pay no attention to permits, licenses or craft certificates; hide political prisoners; support all who resist — whether it be Vivien Kellems, Rhody McCoy or the Panthers.

"The revolution occurs," Hess says, "when the victims cease to cooperate."

Why did he defect from the palace to the barricades?

"The immediate cause was Vietnam," he says. "Conservatives like me had spent our lives arguing against Federal power — with one exception. We trusted Washington with enormous powers to fight global Communism. We were wrong — as Taft foresaw when he opposed NATO. We forgot our old axiom that power always corrupts the possessor. Now we have killed a million and a half helpless peasants in Vietnam, just as Stalin exterminated the kulaks, for reasons of state interest, erroneous reasons so expendable that the Government never mentioned them now and won't defend them. Vietnam should remind all conservatives that whenever you put your faith in big government for any reason, sooner or later you wind up as an apologist for mass murder."

If Vietnam persuaded Hess that government is evil, the new technology convinced him it is an unnecessary evil. "Power institutions developed because of scarcity. Historically, there was never enough of the necessities to go around, so people submitted to kings and armies, either to steal from others or to defend what little they had. But new developments in ways of growing and making things mean there is no longer any logical reason for scarcity, and so there is no longer any justification for the nation-state that outweighs its obvious threat to human survival."

Hess feels that the logic of decentralization and the impulse of people to take things onto their own hands is visible everywhere and will crumple Stalinist states at about the same rate it does capitalist ones.

"They are in the same boat and they know it; remember, it was the Communist party of France that bailed out the Gaullists from the student-worker revolution. You'll see that alliance more and more, because Stalinism is only the perfected model of state capitalism. Anarchism is the common enemy of both."

A little booklet has fallen out of his shirt pocket. It is a membership card in the International Workers of the World,(sic)* which I had wrongly thought was long ago defunct. "We used to have a labor movement in this country, until I.W.W. leaders were killed or imprisoned. You could tell labor unions had become captive when business and government began to praise them. They're destroying the militant black leaders the same way now. If the slaughter continues, before long liberals will be asking, 'What happened to the blacks? Why aren't they militant anymore?'"

Why, you ask, are the hardhats so hostile to radicals?

"The men in construction unions are the least representative of workingmen. They are at the mercy of government appropriations, the pawns of goons who tell them whether they can work or not. They know that their wages are inflated, conditioned on a monopoly given them by politicians and on excluding blacks who would like to work. No wonder they are insecure and turn violent at the thought of change. They are creatures of the worst elements in our society, perfect examples of what government and its collusions do to decent people."

"Libertarianism is rejected by the modern left — which preaches individualism but practices collectivism. Capitalism is rejected by the modern right — which preaches enterprise but practices protectionism. The libertarian faith in the mind of men is rejected by religionists who have faith only in the sins of man. The libertarian insistence that men be free to spin cables of steel as well as dreams of smoke is rejected by hippies who adore nature but spurn creation. The libertarian insistence that each man is a sovereign land of liberty, with his primary allegiance to himself, is rejected by patriots who sing of freedom but also shout of banners and boundaries. There is no operating movement in the world today that is based upon a libertarian philosophy. If there were, it would be in the anomalous position of using political power to abolish political power." (* a common mistake that is still made today, it's the Industrial Workers of the World. ep)



We need a new libertarian revival that recognizes what Rothbard and Hess did, that Tucker and Goldman did, that accepts the labour theory of value is the begining of liberty. That private property is an economic fiction that does not gaurntee liberty but the exact opposite. And that capitalism is monopolistic usury.

Is there such a revival in the making? It certainly appears so, especially with the mobilization against war and imperialism at Anti-War.com. And even further there are counter economy Libertarians known as Mutualists who recognize an anarchist labour theory of value.

Samuel Edward Konkin III (SEK3 to his libertarian and sci fi cronies) inherited Rothbard and Hess's mantel of being on the Left of the Libertarian right. His Movement of the Libertarian Left still finds a place in my anarchist philosophy. Sam passed away last year, and the American Libertarian movement lost a consistant anarchist critic of psuedo-libertarianism of the neo-cons.

I discovered a kindered spirit in Sam, back in the early seventies, he was originally from Edmonton and we shared common interests in Anarchism and Sci-Fi.
He introduced me to right wing anarchism, and we debated off and on over the years. Prior to his passing we had revived short belated coorespondence, and he had actually asked me to represent him at the New Left reunion at the University of Alberta, the graduating class of 68, where Sam was the only right wing Anarchist on the Gateway amidst a horde of socialists.

There is a certain irony that the scion of American Libertarianism should be a Canadian. But it is not unusual when you look at where he came from, the Social Credit movement in Alberta. Another of the radical prairie populist federalist movements. But unlike the current ilk around Ralph Klein or Stephen Harper in this province, or the more extreme Seperatist right, Sam was a Libertarian. He, like Hess and Rothbard would have no cant with the likes of Kenney, Solberg, or Anders.

As Sam developed his particular economic philosophy of mutualism which he called Agora, he left his old militancy behind him. But a new challenge has seen his comrades seek to revive his project for a Libertarian Left, as the American State bares its Imperialist Authoritarian nature for the world to see.

This July 4th the American masses will cry "We're Number 1", as your Ruling Class wars are fought by a volunteer army of black, asian, latino and white working class men and women, as Fox news cheers them on.

The disparate and disfunctional Anarchist movement in North America needs of a new socialist indvidualism that a real Movement of the Libertarian Left could provide. A Proletarian Monism is needed for the Libertarian Movement in North America. A move beyond the labels of right and left, not as a third way, but in the dialectical understanding that as indivduals we are not merely the subjects of our property but that we are social beings who subject (individualize) collective property through the free association of producers.

The proletarian monism of Joseph Dietzigen and Foucault's critque of Governmentality/State Theory allow us to once again posit an anarchist alternative to the capitalist market place in this age of global bio-political crisis.

Anarchist comrades of the Movement of the Libertarian Left your country needs you. You live in the heart of the beast as Che said, and the world needs you to expose it to the light of reason in the name of Freedom and Liberty for all.

We need a federation of the left and the right in the Libertarian movement based on consistant principals of our historical struggle for the liberation of the working class. Karl Hess and SEK3 saw that years ago.

BUILDING A NEW LIBERTARIAN MOVEMENT - Wally Conger
[The following, which I co-authored with the late Samuel Edward Konkin III, originally appeared in slightly different form under the title “Smashing the State for Fun & Profit!” in Tactics of the Movement of the Libertarian Left (Vol. 5, No. 1), May Day 2001. I offer it here as a clarification of “Libertarian Leftism,” an illuminating piece of political revisionist history, and a contribution to Tom Knapp’s ongoing Symposium on Building a New Libertarian Movement.

The New Libertarian Manifesto
by Samuel Edward Konkin III.

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Friday, July 01, 2005

Ralph's World: Homophobic Hate Speech and Gay Bashing

But Klein says his position against same-sex marriage – and that of his caucus – is unchanged. "You aren't going to change the political philosophy and the political mind of this caucus," Klein said. "You might change the law, but you're not going to change the attitude." Klein has been vocal in his opposition to any change to the definition of marriage to include gays and lesbians. His government has said it will fight any federal legislation, but has admitted it has little legal recourse.
 CBC News Feb 2, 2005

Bill C-38 the Same Sex Marriage Act passed the house this week. It was the last act of parliament prior to the summer recess. The gnashing of teeth, whining and breast beating of the Alberta Conservatives; both provincial and Federal, both Klein and Harper, was predictable and expected. Alberta the bastion of Republican Lite Politics in Canada produced the usual red neck response from the usual suspects.

But it also led to something more shocking, gay bashing. Not just one incident but three, in the provinces capital city, Edmonton. What made it shocking was that Redmonton is a liberal left city opposed to the vast drift to the right of the rest of the province. The incidents didn't happen in Calgary home to the redneck polticians of the right but in Edmonton; which has an active gay community and a gay city councillor.

The attacks took place as the Premier's made his predictable statements bashing gay marriage. While his pal Harper insisted that his Conservatives (the vast majority from Alberta) will repeal the act, if they ever get elected to be the government (woe is us).

This fueled hate filled attacks on two gay men in Edmonton. Edmonton cops investigate attacks on gays, activists blame Klein. I was shocked further to discover it was two acquantinces of mine that had been attacked. Long time gay activists who worked for human rights and with AIDS programs in the city, one of whom is also active in the NDP.

Murray Billet, a leader in Edmonton's gay community, said politicians openly opposing same-sex rights filters down to the public."When we have a provincial government that behaves the way it does, in such a homophobic manner, the verbal kind of gay-bashing, it almost endorses and validates some of the narrow-minded activity of some of the young people in our community," he said.
Edmonton police investigate attacks on gay men CBC News Thu, 30 Jun 2005

Klein and Harper and their political minions have spent over two years attacking same sex marriage and gay/lesbians and their human rights. They and their caucuses have used their bully pulpits to denigrate gays and lesbians and their relationships. The result has been hateful stereotyping, hate speech against gays and lesbians, rampant homophobia that has resulted in gay bashing, figuratively and now literaly.

Welcome to Alberta home of hatespeech, homophobia and gay bashing.

But it doesn't stop with just with thugs in the street, in this hot house climate of homophobia even the godly stoop to gutter politics. Witness the comments made by Catholic Bishop Fred Henry of Calgary who stated; " Since homosexuality, adultery, prostitution and pornography undermine the foundations of the family, the basis of society, then the State must use its coercive power to proscribe or curtail them in the interests of the common good."

Verbal thuggery is no less gay bashing than a fist in the face. And gay bashing, which is what opposition to gay marriage is, makes strange bedfellows. When gay activists as well as the media challenged Bishop Fred's outrageous comments, he was defended not only by the Catholic Right Wing but by the Nazi 's as well.

This is Ralph's constiuency, as well as Harpers. The fundamentalist religious right, and the anti-semitic/anti-gay/conspiracy theorist/social credit right wing of Southern Alberta.

Always the political opportunists they use this constiuency to stay in power while knowing full well that their promises to over turn same sex marriage are hollow.

'There are no legal weapons. There's nothing left in the arsenal,'' Klein said. ''We're out on a lurch.''
Alberta may stop solemnizing marriages: Klein
CBC News Wed, 29 Jun 2005

Mr. Harper has previously vowed to repeal the same-sex marriage law if he becomes prime minister, although on Tuesday, he only went so far as to say a Tory government would "revisit" the issue.
Minority government 'got the job done' PM: Says he'd fight an election on gay marriage
CanWest News Service, June 30, 2005

The right wing in Canada used to be centred in Southern Ontario, but when Ralph came to power in Alberta they moved here. The National Citizens Coalition, the Fraser Institute, all moved to Alberta where right wing politics of Ralph and Preston Mannings Reform Party gave renewed vigour to the new right. And along with the right wing think tanks and business/corporate poltical lobby came the the hardcore fascist right wing like the Canadian League of Rights.

These right wing former Social Credit activists have always focused on hating Trudeau and the Liberals because they dropped the old Ensign flag, introduced bi-lingualism, and legalised homosexuality.

Their far right politics are reflected in the gay marriage debate by Alberta MP's in Harpers Reform/Alliance/Conservative Party as well as in Ralph's caucus.

Alberta MP David Chatters lamented what he described as the country's "moral decay." He blamed former prime minister Pierre Trudeau's promise of a just society as the start of that decay in the 1960s.
Harper to revisit law if he forms gov.
Conservative party leader says his party will revisit the same-sex marriage law
Canadian Press Tuesday, June 28, 2005


December 22, 1967:
 Justice Minister Pierre Trudeau proposes amendments to the Criminal Code which, among other things, would relax the laws against homosexuality. Discussing the amendments Trudeau says,"It's certainly the most extensive revision of the Criminal Code since the 1950s and, in terms of the subject matter it deals with, I feel that it has knocked down a lot of totems and over-ridden a lot of taboos and I feel that in that sense it is new. It's bringing the laws of the land up to contemporary society I think. Take this thing on homosexuality. I think the view we take here is that there's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation. I think that what's done in private between adults doesn't concern the Criminal Code. "

The extreme right in Alberta has an agenda to oppose human rights based on sexual orientation, which they call the gay agenda. They will go to any exterme to defend their manliness,and their rights as patriarchs. They opposed Jews, Catholics and interracial integration in the past. Today they oppose human rights for gays and lesbians.

Gay bashing in print leads to gay bashing in the streets of Edmonton. This extreme homophobia of the right has its origins in their Nazi predecessors. And like the brown shirts of the past these thugs can justify their actions because politicans like Klein and Harper encourage them.

Ted Morton, one of the former emince de gris behind both Perston Manning and Stephen Harper and the Reform/Alliance/Conservative party, is now an MLA and is one of those who has continued to push Klein to oppose same sex marriage. Morton like the rest of his political ilk don't give a fig about marriage being sacred, they are homophobic, they oppose gay rights period. Ted and the boys want some action (Edmonton Sun, July 1)

The Klein government also has a disproportional amount of MLA's that belong to the homophobic religious cult known as Mormonism. Ty Lund is one of those and he has aligned with Morton to push the anti-gay/lesbian agenda of challenging gay rights at every opportunity.

Alberta may still challenge gay marriage in court
CanWest News Service
June 30, 2005

The Alberta government will consider going to court to clarify the rules on gay marriage, even though it is certain to lose the challenge.
The admission came Wednesday after Attorney General Ron Stevens met for two hours with caucus members to discuss their response to the federal same-sex marriage bill, which was passed Tuesday in the House of Commons.
Stevens said Alberta will soon have two seemingly contradictory pieces of legislation on the books. One is a provincial law, saying marriage is solely between a man and a woman. The second is the new federal law which allows same sex couples to marry.
"We can have a court rule on it so we can have absolute clarity as to the relationship of the two pieces of legislation," Stevens said.
But the Supreme Court has already said in this case, the federal law trumps the provincial one. Stevens admitted as much.
"There's no doubt, in my view, that the federal legislation is paramount -- it will rule the day," he said. The decision whether or not to go to court ultimately rests with Government Services Minister Ty Lund. Lund hasn't decided what to do, but a spokeswoman said he will consult with his caucus colleagues in the coming weeks.
Experts questioned the wisdom of challenging a decision that has already been made.
"It's a dangerous and very stupid thing to do," said Sanjeev Anand, a University of Alberta law professor. "When lawyers are called to the bar, they take an oath not to bring vexatious or frivolous claims or applications," Anand said. "This would be right in contravention of those concerns."

Province still looking at fighting same-sex marriage
CBC News Jun 30 2005


Klein knows full well he has lost this battle as he did with the Vriend case, which cost Alberta taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars, and resulted in the inevitable decision that yes gays and lesbians have human rights in Canada and provinces are obliged to protect them.

The right wing alliance of anti-abortion/anti-gay/anti-feminists/anti union activists like Real Women oppose homosexuality outright, and opposed gay and lesbian rights. Their influence in both the Klein and Harper Conservatives is significant. They opposed changing the law in Alberta to recognize sexual orientation as being a form of discrimination and they opposed same sex marriage. And they oppose 'forced unionization'. And like the NCC and the Canadian League of Rights, Real Women is based in Alberta with links to Southern Ontario.

It's this unholy coalition of the right that is using the Alberta Conservatives, provincial and federal, to push their right wing agenda disguised as family values. It would be easy to dismiss Klein and Harper as mere political demegauouges and opportunists (as many in the media do). Too easy. This campaign against human rights for gays, lesbians, transgendered and bi people are core to the right wing values of their respective Conservative parties. It goes beyond homophobia and is a polticial campaign of gay bashing. They are opposed the very existance of sexual minorities that are not patriarchical and heterosexual.

When you have Catholic Bishops calling for the state to limit gay rights or worse to have a Catholic Archbishop state that gays and lesbians are part of the "culture of death" (not so subtle reference to AIDS) and these are considered normal reasonable people, then you have a culture of homophobia, where hate speech is allowed and encouraged. The result is gay bashing, in the press and in the streets.

Are these the 'values' Albertan's and Canadians really cherish, I think not.

Alberta may still resist gay marriage
Canadian Press
June 30, 2005


EDMONTON -- Alberta's fight to stop gay marriages has been lost, but the justice minister suggested the province may not be ready to throw in the towel just yet.

Ron Stevens said Wednesday that the province is considering going to court to challenge the new federal law that allows gay marriages - even though it knows it will lose the case.

Stevens, who admits personally that he believes such resistance is futile, said the province's government services minister could ask the court to clarify whether the federal law takes precedence over provincial law.

"I know what the outcome will be because the federal legislation, when it becomes law, will determine what marriage is," he said. "It will take precedence to the definition that we have in our marriage act."

When he was asked why the province would bother going to court when it already knows the outcome, Stevens noted there is a political side to the issue which he declined to discuss.

But Keith Brownsey, a political scientist at Calgary's Mount Royal College, said there isn't much doubt that if the Alberta Tories choose the court option, it will be in the interest of maintaining the support it garners from its right-wing Christian supporters.
"They have to be doing it for political reasons to shore up the fundamental evangelical right-wing in the party to make sure it stays loyal to the Conservatives," he said.

"They represent a substantial constituency in this province, but at this point, it seems rather futile."

Even Ted Morton, one of the vocal right-wing Tory members of the legislature, conceded as much after he and six other members of Ralph Klein's caucus met with Stevens and Government Services Minister Ty Lund Wednesday.

Morton suggested that the province should get out of the business of issuing marriage licenses and instead issue "civil union" licenses, leaving marriage to churches.

Both options enraged the Alberta gay and lesbian community.

"In 2005 in Canada it's clearly unacceptable for them to suggest we're anything less than full Canadians," said Murray Billett, Edmonton representative for the advocacy group Canadians for Equal Marriage.

"They are asking us to accept crumbs from the table of equality."

Billett said that it would be "absolutely unacceptable behaviour" for the province to force gays and lesbians to go to court to fight for the right to marry when the Supreme Court of Canada and federal Parliament have already decided the matter.

"I think taxpayers should be absolutely horrified at the thought of this government taking us to court when they know full well they will lose," Billet said.

Human rights lawyer Julie Lloyd said the only reason the government would engage the court process at this time would be - as Premier Ralph Klein suggested Tuesday - for optics.

"It's utterly ridiculous and irresponsible and mean-spirited to use a minority in Alberta for a political end," she said.

The province released a discussion paper Wednesday that examined such things as seeking a constitutional change to enshrine the definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

The paper suggested this approach "is unlikely to work" because it would require resolutions in both the House of Commons and the Senate and the legislative assemblies of two-thirds of the provinces, representing more than 50 per cent of the population of Canada.

Thomas Collins, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Edmonton, urged Albertans Wednesday to pray for the strengthening of family life in society and to "resist the culture of death."

"We need to become engaged in the world of popular culture, presently in the grip of fuzzy thinking and unwholesome values," he said in a statement.
© The Canadian Press 2005


KLEIN BLASTED FOR STAND ON GAY MARRIAGE
By Katherine Harding
Friday, July 1, 2005 Page A7 Globe and Mail

EDMONTON -- Members of Edmonton's gay community want Premier Ralph Klein to apologize for his recent comments opposing same-sex marriage, which they say played a role in two gay bashings.

"Words have consequences," Murray Billett, a long-time gay rights activist and member of the police commission, said yesterday. "What Mr. Klein and his government is doing is nothing short of schoolyard bullying."

The provincial Conservative government has long opposed same-sex marriage, and politicians said this week that they would use every legal option to fight new federal legislation legalizing it.

The Edmonton police's hate and bias crimes unit is investigating the two attacks, one of which happened outside city hall, and have made an arrest in one of the cases.


In the most recent case, Robert Smith, 58, and his boyfriend, Guy Cohoon, 43, were holding hands and walking out of a downtown convenience store early Saturday morning when eight men attacked them.

Mr. Smith said they were called faggots and homos, and when he yelled back at them to stop, the group began to chase the men, both of whom are more than six feet tall and 200 pounds. Mr. Cohoon was knocked to the ground and kicked in the head.

Mr. Smith also blames the Klein government for inflaming homophobic sentiments Alberta with its resistance to allowing gay marriage.

"That kind of rhetoric fuels the kind of hatred that we experienced," he said. "When are they going to stop lambasting us with the attitude that, 'Well you may have rights in the rest of the country, but you don't have them here'?"

The other attack took place 11 days ago, during the city's annual gay pride festival. A small group was walking to an event at Edmonton city hall during the afternoon when four men jumped them.

"It was just because of what I was wearing, a fur coat, and how I was walking," Ryan Mackenzie, 21, told the CBC.

Mr. Klein wasn't available for comment yesterday, however, his spokesman denied allegations that Alberta's position against same-sex marriage had anything to do with the attacks.

Jerry Bellikka said the Premier has always made it "clear that there is no place in Alberta for gay-bashing. There is no place in this province for hate crimes."

Edmonton Mayor Stephen Mandel also expressed his anger about the two attacks on gays.

"Those people should be punished severely and they shouldn't be so homophobic, if that's the right word," he said. "It just shocks me, absolutely shocks me that people act like that."

In 2003, there were 21 reported attacks against gays and lesbians in Edmonton, according to police. In 2004, that number dropped to 13.

Kris Wells, who is a member of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans-Identified and Queer, Edmonton Police Service Liaison Committee, said such attacks -- most of which go unreported -- must stop.

He also accused Alberta's government of promoting intolerance against gays.

"Recently Ralph said in the media that he has run out of weapons in his arsenal to fight same-sex marriage. That language is incredibly violent," Mr. Wells said.


Ralph Klein's Year Long Campaign of Gay Bashing over Same Sex Marriage

Ontario to recognize same-sex marriages
Last updated Jun 11 2003 01:04 PM EDT
CBC News

TORONTO – Ontario will start registering the marriages of gay and lesbian couples, Ontario Attorney General Norm Sterling said Wednesday morning.
He said Ontario cannot use the not-withstanding clause in the constitution to nullify the court decision, because it ruled against a federal law, not a provincial one.
When Sterling was told Alberta Premier Ralph Klein had threatened to invoke the clause, Sterling said he didn't know what the Klein was talking about.

Elsie Wayne doesn't want gay marriages

Last updated Jun 18 2003 07:06 AM EDT
CBC News
Wayne says the government should have fought court rulings upholding gay marriages."They probably should have used the notwithstanding clause as Ralph KLein has said he will do, but they're not doing that at this time and definitely we had hoped, the majority of the people had hoped, that they would appeal the decision on Ontario, but they haven't done that either.

Ottawa won't have referendum on same-sex marriage
Last Updated Sun, 12 Dec 2004 17:56:29 EST
CBC News

Marriage bond between man and woman, Alberta minister says

The federal government has rejected the idea of holding a national referendum on same-sex marriage.
Alberta Premier Ralph Klein suggested the referendum after the Supreme Court said on Thursday that the federal government had the legal right to change the definition of marriage to include gays and lesbians
Klein said he and most Albertans oppose gay and lesbian marriages.

Last week, Alberta Justice Minister Ron Stevens said "The government of Alberta has continually defended the traditional definition of marriage, believing that marriage is deeply rooted in history, culture and religion and is a special bond between a man and a woman."

Alberta passed a law four years ago stating marriage is the union between a man and a woman.

Stevens said that despite the Supreme Court opinion, that law stands and marriage licences will not be granted to same-sex couples in the province.

MICHELLE MANN:
Same-sex marriage and jurisdiction
CBC News Viewpoint | December 10, 2004
As was expected by most in the legal community, the highest court affirmed that legal capacity for civil marriage is a matter solely within the jurisdiction of federal Parliament pursuant to the division of powers contained in The Constitution Act, 1867. And while changing the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples will necessarily impact upon provincial powers relating to the performance of marriage, this alone does not oust federal jurisdiction.

Legal advisors to Alberta Premier Ralph Klein might want to pay special attention to this part of the reference, what with Alberta's Marriage Act defining marriage as between a man and a woman. There had previously been some pretty big talk in Alberta about utilizing the charter's notwithstanding clause should the courts find that province's legislative definition to be discriminatory and unconstitutional.

The problem with this little scenario is that any provincial legislation defining marriage is now clearly ultra vires, that is, outside provincial jurisdiction, and would be struck down on those grounds long before any charter analysis took place. And, unfortunately for Alberta, the notwithstanding clause doesn't help with the division of powers.

No Conservative rift on same-sex marriage: Klein

Last updated Dec 21 2004 08:14 AM MST
CBC News

Premier Ralph Klein says he and federal Conservative Leader Stephen Harper may differ on how to fight same-sex marriage, but that they agree on the fundamentals.

Klein has openly criticized Harper's stance – he is opposed to using the notwithstanding clause – as being too soft, but says there is no rift.

The premier is taking centre stage in the fight against any change in the definition of marriage to include gays and lesbians.

"On the fundamental question, we're on the same wave length," Klein said during a year-end interview. "So there's no rift.

"He believes that the traditional definition of marriage should be maintained. I believe that. The mechanics as to how you go about challenging the proposed legislation – understanding the federal government doesn't have to do that, but if it does – then we're dealing with proposed legislation.

"I would say that Stephen should strongly encourage members of his caucus to vote no. And at least to invoke the notwithstanding clause."

Klein's government has said it will fight any federal legislation, but has admitted it has little legal recourse.

On Dec. 9, the Supreme Court of Canada said that the federal government can change the definition of marriage to include gays and lesbians. Prime Minister Paul Martin said he will introduce legislation in January.
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Happy Canada Day! Make Poverty History




July 1 - International Day of Action to Help Make Poverty History
On July 1 (Canada Day), Canadians will be joining millions around the world for White Band Day, a global call for action against poverty. International White Band Day will see national landmarks wrapped in huge versions of the campaign's symbol - a white band."This international White Band Day is an opportunity to show the G8 leaders that the world is watching and wanting them to act to end poverty," says Gerry Barr, co-chair of the Make Poverty History campaign in Canada.


Being an Internationalist libertarian communist I can be proud of the revolutionary history and struggles of the aboriginal people and the working class immigrant men and women who built this modern nation.

But to wave the flag and say like Joe Molson " I AM CANADIAN" well please give me a break. Such patriotism led to the Whyte Riot of 2001 (on Whyte Ave) here in Redmonton thanks to an overabundance of Molson's Canadian.

I dedicate this space to the project above in the spirit of Internationalism on Canada Day. Party down folks but don't forget we have it good here because millions of people feed us through their exploitation and oppression abroad and at home.

What, then, is patriotism? "Patriotism, sir, is the last resort of scoundrels," said Dr. Johnson. Leo Tolstoy, the greatest anti-patriot of our times, defines patriotism as the principle that will justify the training of wholesale murderers; a trade that requires better equipment for the exercise of man-killing than the making of such necessities of life as shoes, clothing, and houses; a trade that guarantees better returns and greater glory than that of the average workingman. Emma Goldman, Anarchism and Other Essays: Patriotism: A Menace to Liberty
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Saturday, June 25, 2005

Child Labour Returns to Alberta



Province eases child labour laws

"Are there no workhouses, are there no poor houses, are there no orphanages?" Ebenezeer Scrooge.
Your server today is a 12-year-old
Children unable to stand up to abuse or recognize safety hazards, critics say


No longer are ten year old hitched to coal wagons to haul the black gold out of Alberta's mines as they once were. Nope we outlawed child labour back in 1927. Yep as late as that.

Not satisfied with being the richest province in Canada and the one with the lowest minimum wage, the worst labour laws, lowest welfare payments, lowest support payments for people with disabilities, the least amount of public daycare, the Alberta Reich of Ralph Klein has reintroduced Child Labour.

Sneaky Tories, snuck this under the radar, and suddenly as of the begining of June it was ok for 12 year olds to go to work. To work in an industry like fast food where the health and safety laws are lax and the enforcement nil.

Learning a lesson from B.C. which re-introduced Child Labour several years ago with much public fanfare and creating a labour union backlash and firestorm, our clever Tories passed this law in cabinet, in camera, with no notice, it's a done deal.

B.C. Federation of Labour President Jim Sinclair also noted that when the Liberals changed Employment Standards, prospects for BC's young job seekers went from bad to worse. "High school and college kids who had problems finding work in 2001 now have to compete with 12-year-old children for summer and part-time jobs," said Sinclair. "Employers can exploit kids as young as 12 for as little as $6.00 per hour, while older kids have to borrow huge amounts of money to finish school."

Yep thats the Tory cure for what ails our kids, make em wage slaves. Don't provide them day care, or early childhood education, nah make em work for a living. After all thats what capitalist education is all about isn't it. Getting kids ready for being the future wage slaves of capitalism.

And lets not forget we are talking about elementary and junior high school students. Elementary students going to work, that sounds scarier than just calling em 12 year olds. 12-year-olds join Alberta labour force says the headline, what if it said: Elementary Students join Alberta labour force, or perhaps Grade Six students forced to work for a living. Hmm more shocking that, eh wot. And more truthful.

And then we wonder why kids do poorly in school. High School and Post Secondary students already are working and going to school. And studies have shown working 2o hours per week (which is the average for most High School students in Alberta) impacts on their ability to study. Working and going to school leads to declining test scores. What will it do to the test scores of 12-16 years olds?

Of course the government will once again denounce the public education system for failing students, and propose more market options; charter schools, voucher funding, private school funding, for parents as they have done for the last decade.

The real crime against youth is the Ralph Reich that promotes the ideology that Government is in the business of serving business.

Whether its exploiting immigrant workers in non unionized packing plants, immigrant farm labour on Farmer Browns ranch in Southern Alberta, low waged child care workers in privatized daycares, supporting rat unions like CLAC and non-union merit shops in the construction industry, Ralph and his pals do it all to you for their pals in business.

And now they are allowing one of the most exploitative, non unionized industries to use and abuse Alberta's children.

Have they no shame, nah. Ralph is looking more and more like Scrooge and Alberta is looking more and more Dickensian than ever.


12-Year Olds Working in Restaurants? No Way!!

Tell Government kids belong in school, not serving sandwiches

Jun 24, 2005

As of June 3, 2005, the Alberta government now allows restaurant owners to employ children between the ages of 12 and 14 without applying for a permit. This change was implemented at the request of the restaurant industry and without public debate or notice.

The government is trying to say that the change is merely "procedural", but its real impact could affect thousands of children between the ages of 12 and 14. It could expose them to workplace dangers from grills, fryers and slicing machines. It also leaves them vulnerable to employer abuse and exploitation.

The AFL is opposed to 12-year olds working in restaurants, and is acting to get the government to reverse its decision.

What you can do

Albertans need to make their voice heard. The government needs to hear that it is not okay to put children to work. Tell them you want them to reverse the restaurant industry exemption. We don't want our kids serving sandwiches!

  • Call Human Resources Minister Mike Cardinal. 415-4800 (long distance dial toll-free: 310-0000)
  • Call or email your MLA today. Click here to get contact information for your local MLA.
  • Write a letter to the editor opposing 12-year olds working in restaurants.

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Friday, June 24, 2005

Mutual Aid Redux


The story came off the news wires. It revealed that three lions saved a young girl who had been abducted and raped. The wilderness officials claimed that the bloodied young girl may have been mistaken for a mewling cub. But what they can't explain is why the lions did not react to the human blood, which they would smell, and know she was not a cub. Nor could they explain why the lions waited until her family came, again knowing them by the scent, protecting her then leaving her when her family arrived.

As anarchists would say this is another example of Kropotkins Mutual Aid also known as interspecies solidarity.

It is another blow to the theory of 'dumb animals', which has justified human enslavement of animals as chattel property under christianity and other patriarchical religions that define human beings as owners of the earth.

Ethiopia is the homeland of Rasstafarianism, Ancient Orthodox Chrisitanity, Judaism and Islam. And these religioons still treats animals, women and children as chattel property.


LIONS SAVE ABDUCTED GIRL, OFFICIALS SAY

The Associated Press

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia - A 12-year-old girl who was abducted and beaten by men trying to force her into a marriage was found being guarded by three lions who apparently had chased off her captors, a policeman said Tuesday.

The girl, missing for a week, was taken by seven men who wanted to force her to marry one of them, said Sgt. Wondimu Wedajo, speaking by telephone from the provincial capital of Bita Genet, about 350 miles southwest of Addis Ababa.

She was beaten repeatedly before she was found June 9 by police and relatives on the outskirts of Bita Genet, Wondimu said. She had been guarded by the lions for about half a day, he said.

"They stood guard until we found her and then they just left her like a gift and went back into the forest," Wondimu said.

"If the lions had not come to her rescue, then it could have been much worse. Often these young girls are raped and severely beaten to force them to accept the marriage," he said.

Tilahun Kassa, a local government official who corroborated Wondimu's version of the events, said one of the men had wanted to marry the girl against her wishes.

"Everyone thinks this is some kind of miracle, because normally the lions would attack people," Wondimu said.

Stuart Williams, a wildlife expert with the rural development ministry, said the girl may have survived because she was crying from the trauma of her attack.

"A young girl whimpering could be mistaken for the mewing sound from a lion cub, which in turn could explain why they didn't eat her," Williams said.

Ethiopia's lions, famous for their large black manes, are the country's national symbol and adorn statues and the local currency. Despite a recent crackdown, Hunters also kill the animals for their skins, which can fetch $1,000. Williams estimates that only 1,000 Ethiopian lions remain in the wild.

The girl, the youngest of four siblings, was "shocked and terrified" after her abduction and had to be treated for the cuts from her beatings, Wondimu said.

He said police had caught four of the abductors and three were still at large.

Kidnapping young girls has long been part of the marriage custom in Ethiopia. The United Nations estimates that more than 70 percent of marriages in Ethiopia are by abduction, practiced in rural areas where most of the country's 71 million people live.
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Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Killer Klein

KLEIN VOWS TO IMPROVE SENIORS' CARE
Too little too Late Ralph.

Ralph's dad Phillip Klein used to be a pro-wrestler known in the ring as Killer Klein, now his son gets to use the monicker............The Klein Government not only squashes and ignores criticism, now it kills those who oppose it.

Alberta senior who staged protest dies
Canadian Press
May 17, 2005

CAMROSE, Alta. - An 86-year-old diabetic woman who staged a hunger strike to protest staff shortages in long-term care homes around Alberta died Monday morning, CBC-TV reported.

Back in April, Marie Geddes went 96 hours without food - just water and ginger ale - in support of staff at the Bethany Long Term Care Centre. Fatigue forced her to abandon her action.

She was admitted to hospital three times after her hunger strike. Officials said Monday they didn't believe the hunger strike was responsible for her death, but it may have contributed to her failing health.

"We have a beautiful facility, but there's nobody to work," Geddes said at the time of her protest. "It's terrible. And (Premier Ralph) Klein says this is good care?"

CARE HOMES FAILING RESIDENTS: AUDITOR
Last updated May 10 2005 07:56 AM MDT

CBC News
The Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents practical care attendants and some licensed practical nurses, says none of the findings in the report are a surprise, but that Dunn left some concerns out.

D'Arcy Lanovaz says there are cases where one staff person is left to care for 25 patients overnight, and calls the situation unacceptable.

"What hasn't been highlighted is working alone. A number of the staff in these long-term care facilities work alone on the night shift and that wasn't highlighted in here and I was a little disappointed not to see something on that issue," Lanovaz said.

LETTER TO THE EDITORS OF ALBERTA NEWSPAPERS
May 12, 2005
AUDITOR GENERAL’S CRITICAL REPORT WELCOME
The Report of the Auditor General on Senior’s Care and Programs is a
compelling and frightening read and should help push a neglectful Alberta
government into meaningful action.
Although the report focuses on four caregiver groups providing nursing and
personal care in long-term care facilities, allied health professions which are
represented by the Health Sciences Association of Alberta are also involved in the
care of seniors.
We have known for some time that understaffing of physical therapists,
occupational therapists, recreational therapists, nutritionists, pharmacists,
pharmacy technicians, respiratory therapists and other allied health professions
has had an effect on the quality of life of Alberta seniors who are in long-term
care settings.
Thanks to opposition parties who have kept the heat on the government and
thanks to public health care and seniors advocacy organizations and passionate
individuals, the Ministers of Health and Wellness and Seniors and Community
Supports have promptly moved to accept every one of Auditor General Fred
Dunn’s recommendations.
Basically, the recommendations are about accountability. Without proper
standards and means to evaluate compliance and make it happen, things go off the
rails. It’s not a train wreck yet, but senior’s care in Alberta has come perilously
close.
Sincerely,
Elisabeth Ballermann
HSAA President
HSAA represents more than 13,000 professional, technical, and support workers in Alberta’s health care system.

And if the failure to provide for seniors in long term care isn't callous enough Alberta also has the most regressive policies for residental requirements for out of province seniors who move here. Ironically you only have to reside in Alberta for six months to be considered an "Albertan", but if you are a senior moving here for long term care you have to wait a year. Talk about ageism. But of course you can pay for privatized care....if you can afford it. Perhaps the PC policy is one of those immigration schemes to only bring millionares into the province, you know the folks that the Alberta Government really serves.

Seniors care system under fire for resident policy
Alberta's residency requirement for out-of-province seniors trying to get into long-term care facilities here is causing undue hardships to families, critics of the system charge.Seniors have to be living in the province for a year to be eligible for placement in a publicly funded long-term care centre in Alberta. There are private facilities which accept seniors in the interim but they can cost up to $5,000 a month.

And true to form the PC's attack the messanger, not the problem.

OBERG QUESTIONS LONG-TERM CARE REPORT, KLEIN DEFENDS IT
Last updated May 12 2005
CBC News

EDMONTON – Premier Ralph Klein backed the auditor general's critical report on the province's long-term care facilities Wednesday, distancing himself from comments made by one of his cabinet ministers.

Infrastructure Minister Lyle Oberg, who is also a doctor, called auditor Fred Dunn an accountant who wasn't qualified to evaluate the care provided by the facilities.

"It's very difficult for an accountant to go in and make a comment on patient care anecdotally," Oberg said.

Dunn's report, released earlier this week, found that one-third of facilities in the province fail to meet the basic standards of care, and that problems included providing medication to residents and applying and recording physical and chemical restraints.

His team used medical professionals to help them evaluate the facilities.

Oberg said Dunn was right to comment on documentation and procedures, but that he shouldn't have ventured into medical territory.

"The only point that I'm making, as a medical professional, is that the level of documentation does not always equate to the level of patient care," Oberg said.

Klein, who has said his government will act on Dunn's report, said the work is beyond reproach.

"I have no problem with him examining the so-called hot spots or areas of concerns, because that's what makes government whole and that's what makes us better, is to abide by his recommendations," Klein said. "So I discount what the minister said."

Klein said he will discuss with Oberg the critical comments made about Dunn.

Liberal Leader Kevin Taft says Dunn had a qualified team reviewing the long-term care facilities.

"They did a good and credible job and Fred Dunn deserves marks for that," Taft, who in the past has implied Dunn is too tied to the Conservative government, said. "I think Oberg is looking pretty defensive when he puts up those kinds of comments."

Lyle Oberg the PC's right wing cannus deus, shows that social conservatives in the Party of Calgary, don't care about the impact of their policies as long as the neo-liberal agenda is allowed to roll on.........and over the rest of us.

Oberg of course may be speaking out in order to position himself for his run for Ralph's job.

And he defends this governments lack of planning or responsibility for social services because as a right wing social conservative and Mormon he believes that the Church not the State should provide social services.

You know like they used to with workhouses, poorhouses and orphanages/residential schools. Those authoritarian institutions that abuse their victims.

Of course like daycare, which the right wing opposes on principle; the principle that says a womans place is in the home, elder care is seen as being the responsibility of the family.

The Klein government has abandoned the children and seniors in this province, those who built this province, and those who will inherit it.

This is the real face of social conservatism. A government whose purpose is not to regulate business, not to provide for its citizens, not to do anything except make the province open for business. And let the community and the churches take care of the rest.

Talk about Dickensian logic. But its alive and well here in Alberta.

Even Social Credit, in its right wing hey day realised that the role of the State was to protect and serve it's citizens. Such is not the case of the neo-liberal state of the social conservatives who make up the Party of Calgary.

But Oberg and the right wing social conservatives have little support even from the usual Right Wing Ralph boosters:

WEALTHY ALBERTA NEGLECTS THE ELDERLY
By PAUL STANWAY -- For the Edmonton Sun

Old folks' homes were not on the agenda at last week's glitzy medicare meeting in Calgary, which is a pity considering the dismal review of long-term care released by Alberta's auditor general.

Almost one-third of the homes reviewed by Fred Dunn and his troops either failed to meet basic standards of care or had serious shortcomings. In North America's wealthiest jurisdiction, apparently we don't look after our elderly very well at all.

"We found numerous examples of facilities not meeting the basic standards," reported the AG, "which could result in reduced levels of care and increased risk to residents."

What he's talking about are seniors being hauled out of bed at 3 a.m., the use of physical or chemical restraints without documentation or proper medical authorization, improper administration of drugs, staff shortages, and a widespread failure to give seniors regular medical checkups.

In a province that spends $9 billion a year on public health care, and which just announced new, high-end medical facilities in Edmonton and Calgary costing hundreds of millions, only seven of the 25 facilities reviewed actually passed muster.

"On the basis of what he has written, there isn't much that's good in some of these places," admitted a very glum Iris Evans, Alberta's health minister. Like many baby boomers, Evans is facing the prospect of her own mother entering long-term care, and according to one staffer she was "steaming mad" when she read Dunn's report.

Good. Somebody needs to get steaming mad.

In this centennial year we're already knee-deep in homilies about how much the present generation owes those who turned Alberta from a remote outpost of an empire into a thriving and prosperous society. But what are those sentiments worth if, as Dunn's report indicates, we conspire to send the old-timers off to bed by 7 p.m., suitably medicated and ignored? Where's the respect and thanks in that?

Dunn, who is polite to a fault, placed the responsibility for the dismal state of long-term care where it belongs: with the government. "I hope you won't take this as too blunt, but it is the ministries that are supposed to ensure that (regional health authorities) execute their responsibilities."

Don't apologize, Fred. Perhaps the most shocking thing about the AG's report is that few in government seem particularly surprised or upset by that stinging rebuke. Seniors' groups, opposition politicians and even government MLAs have been complaining for years about the shortcomings of long-term care, and MLAs discovered during the 2004 provincial vote that it was an issue on the doorstep.

A pair of concerned Albertans recently did their own review of 100 long-term care facilities and found similar problems. An 86-year-old Camrose woman went on hunger strike to protest conditions at her nursing home. And we had the sad case of an elderly Edmontonian who died because no one checked the scalding temperature of her bath water.

Dunn discovered that some nursing homes spend as much as $10,000 per resident more than others, which seems decidedly fishy. Although it would not be surprising to find that, as in all walks of life, some people involved in long-term care are more concerned and efficient than others.

But it would be too easy to bash the operators and staff as the lone culprits here. In fact, the Alberta Long-Term Care Association, the nursing home lobby group, has been campaigning for more funding and improved regulation.

Last year being an election year, the association optimistically argued that the Klein government ought to boost long-term-care spending by $85 million, to bring staffing up to par and meet basic standards. They got $15 million - for Canada's wealthiest government, that's the equivalent of the finger.

Alberta's seniors deserve better, from nursing home operators and from their government. Yet in the Legislature yesterday, Ralph offered only a lacklustre defence of the system. "We're working on it," he said of the shortcomings identified by the AG. That seems to be the motto of this government as it dithers into a fourth mandate.

Liberal Leader Kevin Taft served on the old Hospital Visitors Committee for almost a decade and sees a good public monitoring system gone bad through politics and incompetence. "It's shameful." And that's putting it mildly.
Next Column: What happened to us?





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Sunday, May 15, 2005

Stephen Harper "The Right Man"

Is Tory Leader justifiably hot at Liberals, or just too angry?
Harper's recent outbursts threaten to alienate him from Canadian voters
For the past few weeks, ever since Prime Minister Paul Martin appeared on television begging for a delayed election, and Mr. Harper immediately denounced it as a "sad spectacle," the Conservative Leader seems to have been simmering. Experts say it is important for politicians to be able to show indignation at the appropriate times, but Mr. Harper risks alienating the public with his anger. "If somebody only operates in one gear, which is the angry mode, it can be wearying," said Paul Nesbitt-Larking, who chairs the political science department at the University of Western Ontario in London. Canadians, he said, have shown their distaste for anger in their repeated rejection of political attack ads. Mr. Harper's ill humour got worse this week when he learned about a Liberal move to delay a confidence vote until Thursday. That would push the decision to a day when a Conservative MP with cancer was recuperating from a trip to the operating table, thus reducing the opposition's numbers. Mr. Harper is angry that the government has the audacity to carry on even as the stain of the sponsorship scandal widens. He is angry that the Liberals refuse to give up power after losing what he believes was a confidence motion. Mr. Harper -- a man who began his political life as an unassuming policy wonk -- has seemed miffed many times since becoming Conservative Leader last year. He stopped talking to reporters when a plan to paint Mr. Martin as being soft on child pornography soured during last year's election campaign. There was a backstage chair-kicking incident at a Conservative convention in Montreal. And there was a reported outburst at a Liberal photographer who tried to take his picture on the plane back from V-E Day celebrations in Europe.

If humour, ridicule, and satire are the weapons of joyful disobedience to authority in our culture, as George Orwell says, than anger is the reaction of the authoritarian to a sense of powerlessness. Anger occurs when things don't "go as planned". Anger and hate are the emotions of authoritarianism when dominance is challenged.

The Canadian born Sci-Fi Author A.E.van Vogt writes about the angry man type of fascist Authoritarian personality in his 1962 prescient book; The Violent Man. He predicts the white American male authoritatian personality will develop into the white middle class rage that became so well publicized in the 1980's and 1990's. In his book vanVogt refrered to this kind of dominant male as "The Violent or Right Man", as in he is always right.

"He returned to full-scale writing in 1962, with the publication of The Violent Man, a book that is not science fiction but was of crucial importance in the development of his career. It was meant to expose the psychogenesis of violence, a subject he felt to be of such importance that the book would necessarily become a best-seller. But, though the book was carefully constructed and undoubtedly his most serious piece of writing, his hopes for it were not realized."The Voyage of the Space Beagle by A. E. van Vogt

Long out of print the book has been re-released with a new introduction by Colin Wilson; A Report on the Violent Male by AE van Vogt. Wilson used van Vogt's ideas extensively in his book A Criminal History of Mankind.

One such angry Right Man in the House of Commons this week was Stephen Harper. And for that reason he has failed his party and failed Canadians, he has failed to be a Prime Minister in waiting. Harpers anger reflects the "Violent Man or Right Man" personality that van Vogt wrote of.

"Looking around for examples, it struck Van Vogt that male authoritarian behaviour is far too commonplace to be regarded as insanity. .. 'the violent man' or the 'Right Man' [...] is a man driven by a manic need for self-esteem -- to feel he is a 'somebody'. He is obsessed by the question of 'losing face', so will never, under any circumstances, admit that he might be in the wrong. The Right Man hates losing face; if he suspects that his threats are not being taken seriously, he is capable of carrying them out, purely for the sake of appearances. He feels he [is] justified in exploding, like an angry god. [...] he feels he is inflicting just punishment. What causes 'right mannishness'? Van Vogt suggest that it is because the world has always been dominated by males." The Right Man And The Fear Of Losing Face.


Harpers outbursts and secretive personality which was shown during last election when he all but hid from the media for the last week of the election because they peeved him off, well it fits the Right Man personality.

And this past month Harper has been angry and only angry when it has come to the Liberals and their continuing to rule inspite of all his efforts. Harper is a Right Man, and believes he is the Right Man for the PM's job.

Certainly for leader of Canada's most right wing party ever, the Reform/Alliance/Conservatives, being the Right Man is perfect for the job of being Leader of the Right. However it is clear that this type of psychopathic personality is NOT fit to be Prime Minister.

In his Alberta doppleganger; Ralph Klein, Canada already has a Right Man ruling in at least one province. And Ralph is another one quick to anger when challenged. To have this personality type ruling the whole country, woe is us.

PM should call election now, Klein says
Premier is first provincial leader to back opposition demands for Martin to quit

And Canadians sense this about Harper. It is not the Conservatives who have failed to increase in the polls at the Liberals expense it is Harper. His personality dominates HIS party, and thus Canadians are rightly suspicious of this authoritarian Right Man. Even in what will be the election battleground; Ontario, they show no confidence in a government led by Harper. But Harper will play out his game to bring down the government and be our Leader cause he is the Right Man for the job, he thinks.

In his tirade against the Liberals on Friday the 13 (sic), he refered to them as "Monsters". Misquoting Nietzsche, "Conservative Leader Stephen Harper decried what he called seedy Liberal tactics, saying his father once told him: "Be careful when you fight a monster, lest you yourself become a monster." Canadian Press

The real quote from Nietzche, the original Right Man, is:
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you."
- - -Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche "Beyond Good and Evil

Harper would do well to ponder the whole quote, for if he takes us into the abyss of another election he may not come out the winner. Then he will have to face the Monster which is Stephen Harper the Right Man. The Leader who would be PM but failed.
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Thursday, May 12, 2005

The End of the Oil Age

Not with a bang but a whimper.

What those that deny there is a Peak Oil crisis mistakenly believe is that those who proclaim the end of the Oil Age are catastrophic hysterics. The facts which oil geolgists continue to point out is that Peak Oil is here, and its impact will change the world, not with a bang but with increasingly repetitive crisises.

The Age of Oil, which has lasted for 150 years has seen the greatest environmental change caused by humans.

J.R. McNeil in his book on the Environmental History of the 2oth Centruy; Something New Under the Sun, Norton, 2000, calculates that "humans in the 20th Century used TEN TIMES as much energy then our forebearers have over the last one thousand years."

Something New under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth Century
by J.R. McNeill, Penguin Books Ltd., London 2000.
How will the twentieth century be remembered? For world wars and politics? The spread of literacy and sexual equality? This ground-breaking work shows us that its most enduring legacy will in fact be the physical changes we have wrought on the planet. Humanity has undertaken a gigantic experiment on the earth, refashioning it with an intensity unprecedented in history—now there really is something new under the sun. In this landmark and award-winning book John McNeil uses a refreshing mixture of history, anecdote and science, avoiding blame or sermon, to explain how and why humans have altered their world. He takes us from London smog to dust bowls of Oklahoma, introducing fascinating characters such as conservationist Rachel Carson, pirate whaler Aristotle Onassis and the little-known scientist who invented CFCs and put lead in petrol. Above all this compelling account shows that the damage can be reversed. It is up to us to decide how long our gamble can continue. WWF review


The impact of the Age of Oil can be seen in the Climate Change Crisis we face,as the two coincide. So is it any wonder that those who benefit from the current capitalist system that created the Oil Age deny that there is any crisis? They deny there is a Climate Change Crisis and they deny there is a Peak Oil crisis, and this denial is a very real threat to our continued existance.

Peak Oil is coming for most producing countries, and so is global Climate Change which coincides with the oil crisis. These two crisises will create an even greater synergetic phenomena, that industrialized capitalism and finance capitalism will NOT be able to deal with.

The old adage; Socialism of Barbarism, will be as relevant tommorow as it was yesterday.

Today we need to take seriously the crisis the capitalist system is in globally, while it may not appear to the average consumer in the Industrialized world it is in a crisis of global and historic proportions. It is in a period of economic, geological, and environmental decadence. Capitalism cannot deal with these two major crisis because of the anarchy of the market. No matter what proponents of sustainable or "Natural Capitalism" say. Capitalism is antiethical to human and other species survival.

A planned economy under the direct control of the individuals and their communities is the historical and ONLY solution to this crisis and even then it may not be enough. Where technocracy and socialism agree is that a planned economy based on labour and energy credits not on money is the only way out of this coming calamity. And while technocracy offers a North American planning model it lacks the community council/workers councils inputs required to make this work.

Only a Libertarian socialist society based on planned economy models where communities are based on self sufficieny, free associations and mutual aid, and throught the confederated sharing of excess energy, can provide the basis for really dealing with both of these pending world shaking events.

These were and are the revolutionary ideas of the 20th century and the model espoused by Kropotkin, Thorstien Vebelen, the IWW, Howard Scott, Jane Jacobs, E.F. Schumaker and Buckminister Fuller, - OPERATING MANUAL FOR SPACESHIP EARTH

"You must choose between making money and making sense. The two are mutually exclusive."
R. Buckminster Fuller

Nope no catasrophic hysteria here, just the facts mam.

And the facts are Capitalism has hit its decline, its decadent period, where it may make technological breakthroughs, but these cannot be used because they are restricted to creating a profit for the sole reproduction of capital itself. This is antiethical to the creation of a human society and a sustainable environment.

This is the barbarism of capital; not merely a melt down in profits, nor a Great Depression, but an ecological disaster based on the reliance on oil which will lead to a renewed authoritarian state; fascism, as people sacrifice freedom for security.


The 20th century will stand out as a peculiar century because of the breath-taking acceleration of so many processes that bring ecological change. That idea permeates environmental historian J. R. McNeil's recent book Something New Under the Sun. McNeil points first to the change in scale in the practice of our traditional technologies in industry, transportation, and agriculture. At the end of the 20th century human activities had contributed to an increase of around 30% in the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Our level of nitrogen fixation now matches what nature herself provides. The direct transformation of land for human use now affects 39-50% of the earth's dry surface. What this will ultimately mean ecologically, we don't fully know. McNeil further argues that the 20th century has also seen a growing and radically different range of technologies of largely unknown consequence.

For example:

In 1930 the American Nobel Prize winner for physics said that there was no risk that humanity could do real harm to anything so gigantic as the earth. In the same year the American chemical engineer Thomas Midgley invented chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs -- which we now know can destroy the earth's protective ozone layer).

The 20th century has thus seen the modern landscape become an uncontrolled experiment of grand scale.

McNeil concludes: What Machiavelli said of affairs of state is doubly true of affairs of global ecology and society. It is nearly impossible to see what is happening until it is inconveniently late to do much about it. Introductory Remarks: Natural Resource Stewardship Mike Soukup, Associate Director, Natural Resource Stewardship and Science

When will we reach Peak Oil?
2008? 2010? 2020?

Coming oil crisis feared

John Vidal
Guardian Weekly
April 29 2005

One of the world's leading energy analysts called this week for an independent assessment of global oil reserves because he believes that Middle Eastern countries may have far less than officially stated and that oil prices could double to more than $100 a barrel within three years, triggering economic collapse. Matthew Simmons, an adviser to President George Bush and chairman of the Wall Street energy investment company Simmons, said that "peak oil" -- when global oil production rises to its highest point before declining irreversibly -- was rapidly approaching even as demand was increasing. "This is a new era," Mr Simmons told a conference of oil industry analysts, government officials and academics in Edinburgh. "There is a big chance that Saudi Arabia actually peaked production in 1981. We have no reliable data. Our data collection system for oil is rubbish. I suspect that if we had, we would find that we are over-producing in most of our major fields and that we should be throttling back. We may have passed that point." Mr Simmons told the meeting that it was inevitable that the price of oil would soar above $100 as supplies failed to meet demand. "Demand is pulling away from supply . . . and we have to ask whether we have the resources that we think we do. It could be catastrophic if we do not anticipate when peak oil comes." The precise arrival of peak oil is hotly debated by academics and geologists, but analysts increasingly say that official US Geological Survey estimates that it will not happen for 35 years are over-optimistic. According to the International Energy Agency, which collates data from all oil-producing countries, peak oil will arrive "sometime between 2013 and 2037", with production thereafter expected to decline by about 3% a year.

The end of oil is closer than you think

Oil production could peak next year, reports John Vidal. Just kiss your lifestyle goodbye

John Vidal
Thursday April 21, 2005
The Guardian

The one thing that international bankers don't want to hear is that the second Great Depression may be round the corner. But last week, a group of ultra-conservative Swiss financiers asked a retired English petroleum geologist living in Ireland to tell them about the beginning of the end of the oil age.

They called Colin Campbell, who helped to found the London-based Oil Depletion Analysis Centre because he is an industry man through and through, has no financial agenda and has spent most of a lifetime on the front line of oil exploration on three continents. He was chief geologist for Amoco, a vice-president of Fina, and has worked for BP, Texaco, Shell, ChevronTexaco and Exxon in a dozen different countries.

"Don't worry about oil running out; it won't for very many years," the Oxford PhD told the bankers in a message that he will repeat to businessmen, academics and investment analysts at a conference in Edinburgh next week. "The issue is the long downward slope that opens on the other side of peak production. Oil and gas dominate our lives, and their decline will change the world in radical and unpredictable ways," he says.

Campbell reckons global peak production of conventional oil - the kind associated with gushing oil wells - is approaching fast, perhaps even next year. His calculations are based on historical and present production data, published reserves and discoveries of companies and governments, estimates of reserves lodged with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, speeches by oil chiefs and a deep knowledge of how the industry works.

"About 944bn barrels of oil has so far been extracted, some 764bn remains extractable in known fields, or reserves, and a further 142bn of reserves are classed as 'yet-to-find', meaning what oil is expected to be discovered. If this is so, then the overall oil peak arrives next year," he says.

If he is correct, then global oil production can be expected to decline steadily at about 2-3% a year, the cost of everything from travel, heating, agriculture, trade, and anything made of plastic rises. And the scramble to control oil resources intensifies. As one US analyst said this week: "Just kiss your lifestyle goodbye."

"The first half of the oil age now closes," says Campbell. "It lasted 150 years and saw the rapid expansion of industry, transport, trade, agriculture and financial capital, allowing the population to expand six-fold. The second half now dawns, and will be marked by the decline of oil and all that depends on it, including financial capital."

So did the Swiss bankers comprehend the seriousness of the situation when he talked to them? "There is no company on the stock exchange that doesn't make a tacit assumption about the availability of energy," says Campbell. "It is almost impossible for bankers to accept it. It is so out of their mindset."


The Long Emergency
What's going to happen as we start running out of cheap gas to guzzle?

By JAMES HOWARD KUNSTLER
Rolling Stone Magazine Feature

The term "global oil-production peak" means that a turning point will come when the world produces the most oil it will ever produce in a given year and, after that, yearly production will inexorably decline. It is usually represented graphically in a bell curve. The peak is the top of the curve, the halfway point of the world's all-time total endowment, meaning half the world's oil will be left. That seems like a lot of oil, and it is, but there's a big catch: It's the half that is much more difficult to extract, far more costly to get, of much poorer quality and located mostly in places where the people hate us. A substantial amount of it will never be extracted.

The United States passed its own oil peak -- about 11 million barrels a day -- in 1970, and since then production has dropped steadily. In 2004 it ran just above 5 million barrels a day (we get a tad more from natural-gas condensates). Yet we consume roughly 20 million barrels a day now. That means we have to import about two-thirds of our oil, and the ratio will continue to worsen.

The U.S. peak in 1970 brought on a portentous change in geoeconomic power. Within a few years, foreign producers, chiefly OPEC, were setting the price of oil, and this in turn led to the oil crises of the 1970s. In response, frantic development of non-OPEC oil, especially the North Sea fields of England and Norway, essentially saved the West's ass for about two decades. Since 1999, these fields have entered depletion. Meanwhile, worldwide discovery of new oil has steadily declined to insignificant levels in 2003 and 2004.

Some "cornucopians" claim that the Earth has something like a creamy nougat center of "abiotic" oil that will naturally replenish the great oil fields of the world. The facts speak differently. There has been no replacement whatsoever of oil already extracted from the fields of America or any other place.

Now we are faced with the global oil-production peak. The best estimates of when this will actually happen have been somewhere between now and 2010. In 2004, however, after demand from burgeoning China and India shot up, and revelations that Shell Oil wildly misstated its reserves, and Saudi Arabia proved incapable of goosing up its production despite promises to do so, the most knowledgeable experts revised their predictions and now concur that 2005 is apt to be the year of all-time global peak production.

It will change everything about how we live.

The End of Cheap Oil
Implications of Global Peak Oil

by Mark Anielski


In a technical paper to the US Association of Petroleum Geologists in 1956, a senior scientist at Shell Oil Company, Dr. M. King Hubbert, made a controversial prediction that US oil production would peak in the early 1970s. Shell encouraged him to quietly bury this paper, but Hubbert refused.

According to Hubbert, the US would eventually face a critical tipping point in energy security: Peak Oil — the point in time when extraction of oil from the earth reaches its highest point and then begins to decline. ‘Hubbert’s peak theory’ predicted that, with Peak Oil, prices would fluctuate wildly, resulting in economic seismic shocks, even as demand for oil and gas continued to rise. He did not say that the US was going to run out of oil, per se, but that a peak in domestic production would result in economic tremors felt around the world.

The consequences of global Peak Oil would indeed be catastrophic. It would herald the end of cheap oil at a time when global demand for oil is growing, driven by the voracious energy appetite of China and other developing countries. Unfortunately, most people, especially our politicians, seem oblivious to this looming crisis or are extremely reluctant to talk about it.

All signs seem to suggest that this issue will soon demand a greater degree of public attention. A group of oil analysts led by petroleum geologist Colin Campbell — the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO) — has predicted that global oil production will peak in 2005. Important oil producers like UK and Norway have already experienced Peak Oil - in 1999 and 2001 respectively. Saudi Arabia’s production is expected to peak in 2008 followed by Kuwait in 2015 and Iraq in 2017. Canada’s own Peak Oil event occurred in 1973, and our natural gas production peaked in 2001,without much notice.

Of course, because there will always be disagreement among geologists on petroleum statistics, no one knows precisely when global oil and gas production will peak. Even if you are a technological optimist, there is no getting around the basic problem of rising demand and lagging production capacity. Based on the figures I have researched, global oil production in 2001, at 76 million barrels per day (bbd), outstripped global production of 74 million bbd in 2004. And in 2004, global oil consumption reached 80 million bbd, growing by 2.2 million bbd over 2003 levels, the highest growth in demand since 1978. Of this amount, the US alone consumed 25% of the world’s total oil production

Oil industry executives are also worried. Harry L. Longwell, executive Vice-President of Exxon-Mobil warned: “The catch is that while [global] demand increases, existing production declines… we expect that by 2010 about half the daily volume needed to meet projected demand is not on production today.” In a speech in the autumn of 1999, Vice-President Dick Cheney warned that, "By 2010, we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day. Exxon-Mobil will have to secure over a billion and a half barrels of new oil equivalent reserves every year just to replace existing production.” Putting this in the context of Alberta, oilsands production is predicted to reach a maximum of 1.56 million bbd by 2012, which is only 3% of the additional global daily demand predicted by Cheney.

According to Colin Campbell, the world is running at full production capacity. With global Peak Oil looming, he predicts that global oil and gas prices will fluctuate wildly, fall back once or twice and then reach sustained price highs.

What about Alberta? Why should we care, living in debt-free and oil-rich province? First, few people noticed that Alberta’s peak in conventional crude oil occurred in 1973 and natural gas production peaked in 2001. Fortunately, in the oilsands, Alberta has arguably the world’s largest reserves of non-conventional oil, with an estimated 300 billion barrels of proven reserves (although official international statistics report 174 billion barrels). This means that Alberta’s official reserves exceed Saudi Arabia’s.

While Alberta’s impressive reserves would last 500 years at a predicted maximum production of 2.0 million bbd (a volume quadruple today’s production), they would only supply the entire projected world 2012 oil consumption demands (95 million bbd) for less than 9 years or supply 10% of current US consumption of 20 million bbd.

The problem for Alberta is not only the limited reserves of oilsands, but the growing scarcity of natural gas needed to power its extraction. Most importantly, Alberta’s natural gas production peaked in 2001, without anyone noticing. Oilsands production is highly energy intensive and relies mostly on natural gas. It takes the energy of about one barrel of oil (from natural gas) to produce 4 barrels of synthetic crude oil. At current production volumes and remaining gas reserves, Canada has less than 10 years of natural production remaining.

Another serious problem for Alberta is water. Oilsands production requires huge amounts of water: each barrel of oil produced from oilsands requires about six barrels of water. For each barrel of oil produced, about one barrel of water is permanently lost from the hydrological cycle. Alberta’s oilsands producers are currently licensed to use 26% of the province’s groundwater, in addition to surface water from rivers and lakes.

Combining the impacts of dwindling natural gas supplies in the face of growing domestic and US demand and growing demand for surface and groundwater supplies, Alberta’s oil paradise may not be as rosy as it first appears.

  1. But what about the consequences of global peak oil in 2005 for Alberta? I predict the following:
  2. Dramatic oil and natural price shocks resulting in budgeting challenges for Alberta;
  3. Greater pressure by US (in competitive conflict with China) to secure even more oil from the oilsands and natural gas;
  4. Growing demand from China for Alberta’s oil and gas, including Canadian resource companies;
  5. US and industry pressure to maintain an already favorable royalty regime for oilsands; and
  6. Greater global conflict for each remaining barrel of oil, especially in areas such as the Middle East.

In spite of this gloomy global peak oil scenario there is an opportunity for Alberta to take a leadership role by investing today in greater energy efficiency and conservation, and by promoting the transition to a renewable energy future in our homes, businesses and communities. At stake is nothing less than the economic well-being of the world.

In a post-debt, we have a responsibility to the children of Alberta and the world to show leadership by investing prudently in the frugal use of our resources and gushing resource revenues.

Author: Mark Anielski is a well-being economist and Adjunct Professor of Corporate Social Responsibility and Social Entrepreneurship at the School of Business, University of Alberta and Adjunct Professor of Sustainability Economics at the Bainbridge Graduate Institute in Washington. Part of this paper is from his presentation to the Council of Canadians on Energy and Canada-US Relations on November 30, 2004 at the University of Calgary.


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