Pro Sports and Criminal Capitalism

Business as usual, the Skalbania Pocklington story

This is a tale of pro-sports and greed, not by the players but by the owners. This was business as usual for the NHL under the leadership of Campbell, and Norris . They were all powerful and the players were commodities, slaves under their Imperial rule. Even the early days of the NHLPA were not without their controversy, with the founder of the union being charged with racketering for ripping off the players union.

In response to the difficulties faced by the Chicago Black Hawks and Boston Bruins on the ice and at the gate in the early 1950s, Campbell started the Inter-League Draft. This allowed the weaker teams to access the young talent hoarded by the richer clubs, especially Toronto and Montreal. In 1955 he showed unflappable leadership by suspending Montreal icon Maurice Richard then refusing to shy away from attending a game at the Montreal Forum. The Richard Riot was well documented but Campbell's leadership on behalf of the league in the face of a hostile crowd was less appreciated.

Clarence Campbell oversaw the advent of the NHL's expansion era. Between 1967 and 1975 the league tripled in size and its popularity was more widespread in North America than in any previous period. He met the challenge of the World Hockey Association head on and refused to allow players not under contract to NHL teams to participate in the 1972 Summit Series between Canada and the USSR. The most notable exclusion under this corollary was former Chicago star Bobby Hull.

The simple fact is that before there was Enron, or Nortel, or any of the current boom economy criminal enterprizes there were businessmen who used their business ventures to gain wealth, fame and fortune by illegal as well as legal means. Who ripped off workers and businesses to finance their personal empires. The very essence of the criminal activity was the primitive accumulation of capital, business as usual. Nelson Skalbania and Peter Pocklington were two of these.

Sports especially pro sports (Hockey, Football , Baseball, Basketball) in Canada has been the funded by businessmen, not all of whom are clean as the driven snow. The very nature of professional sports is a combination of business and local or regional boosterism, and of course tax breaks and the ability to purchase public funded spaces (stadiums, sports arenas) at firesale prices. Its a way of businessmen to fund their private entertainments, in the fine old tradition of the British upper classes.

As I wrote in an earlier article on the political economy of sports, the business of pro-sports has been heavily reliant on tax breaks, bait and switch tactics, and finally the use of public funding for private gain and pleasure. All those high cost special executive suites in sports stadiums are a place where business wheels and deals, and then when the going gets tough, they bail out asking the taxpayers to carry the bag.

The business of pro sports is entertainment, which is why pro-wrestling is a spor much to the chagrin of sports page writers, it has nothing to do with real atheletics or promotion of healthy lifestyles, it is capitalism's version of that old Roman tradition; bread and circuses. Keep the working class reading the sports pages, so they don't worry about the business pages or the international and national news.

Here then are a couple of characters who represent the rapacious capitalism of the 1980's that time of Thatcher, Reagan and Mulroney, the push to privatize the state and it's services, to de-regulate the marketplace and reduce government oversight of the market.

In the Wild West of the boom economy of the late Seventies and early Eighties in Alberta, businessmen like Nelson Skalbania and his partner Peter Pocklington were implicated in wrong doing in both the Alberta and B.C. stock exchanges as well as shady business dealings with their flipping of businesses they bought to buy more. So if they owned something, say a car dealership, it was gutted of its capital to finance further purchases, like the Edmonton Oilers, or Gainers which was then gutted and flipped etc. This was business as usual in Canada's bastion of the free market, Alberta.

And while Pocklington lives a life of luxury in exile in California, Nelson Skalbania still hovers around the edges. He returned to the Canadian sports scene in the 1990's buying up the B.C. Lions of the CFL. The Lions who are now a real threat in the Western Division were not always so especially during Skalbanias ownership.

There are new owners and movers and shakers out there now, new businessmen who want to own a major league franchise, who wheel and deal with our city councils and other levels of government to use taxpayers money to pay for their investments. This is the business of pro sports, and it is still a dirty business.

Nelson Skalbania a less than savory biography

Edmonton Oilers Heritage

Former Edmonton Oilers owner Nelson Skalbania was a complete opposite to his predecessor, Dr. Charles Allard.

Dr. Allard enjoyed neither the public spotlight nor the losses that came with the World Hockey Association (WHA) team.

With pressures mounting, Dr. Allard sold the Oilers for $300,000 to Skalbania, a real estate magnate from British Columbia. Through the Allard family’s North West Trust Company, Dr. Allard knew Skalbania through their dealings in multimillion-dollar property deals.

After another disappointing season in 1975-76 that saw the Oilers finish fourth in the WHA’s five-team Canadian Division, Skalbania became concerned about his team’s debt, which was in the range of $1.6 million.

Buying what was then a second-rate sports franchise was not Skalbania’s style, and the Oilers were not as attractive an investment as he initially thought. So in the fall of 1976, he decided to recruit a partner with whom he had done millions of dollars worth of real estate deals.

The partner was Peter Pocklington, whose business background also included auto sales. Skalbania and Pocklington would balance each other with their different approaches.

"Pocklington would pride himself on gut-instinct deal-making decisions, on not getting lost in details, on not losing the long-term view through short-term greed," wrote Douglas Hunter in The Glory Barons. "While Nelson Skalbania, his newfound business associate out West, often looked for quick profits with rapid rollovers of properties, Pocklington began to build a diversified empire."

Clearly, Skalbania and Pocklington were two of the most colourful and controversial figures in the Oilers’ history. Their deals were daring and sometimes dangerous. One of their lighter schemes involved a form of bribery.

"The Oilers were battling for a playoff berth and rewards were promised for making it," wrote Terry Jones in Edmonton’s Hockey Knights. "When they did, Skalbania called the team to attention in the dressing room and actually passed around one-way tickets to Hawaii, telling the team they’d get the return tickets if they won a playoff series."

June 1978
Indianapolis Racers owner Nelson Skalbania signs 17 year-old Wayne Gretzky to a contract for $1.75 million.

Bulls owner John Bassett said, "I can't comment on the matter because I don't know the details. But I know the type contract Skalbania signed Gretzky to is the same kind I signed Larry Csonka, Jim Kiick and Paul Warfield to in the World Football League. If Mr. Skalbania wants Gretzky to cut grass, drive his automobile, play football or play hockey, then Gretzky is supposed to do it. It will be interesting. If Gretzky is approved, then I have about 6 quality under-age juniors lined up. I wasn't interested in Gretzky. He has great talent, no doubt. But he's only 5' 8" and 150 pounds, something like that. I don't know if he can take the physical abuse he'll be subjected to."

Red, White & Blues

A personal history of Indianapolis Racers hockey (Part Six of Seven)

In hindsight, it's easy to see that Skalbania's habit of these past 30 years - buying and quickly folding or selling multiple sports teams - began with Edmonton and Indianapolis in the WHA. "Skalbania remains Canada's most prolific sports franchise owner," wrote Bob Mackin in the March 10, 2003 edition of the Vancouver Courier. "He flipped teams and players like kids used to flip hockey cards at recess."

In 1978, though, this new team owner's modus-operandi was just taking shape. The SuperFans guessed that Skalbania would end up selling Gretzky back to the team he formerly owned, Edmonton, and then fold the Racers while the cries of team debt still rang inside Market Square Arena. It's vital to understand that Gretzky wasn't signed to the Indianapolis Racers - he was owned by Skalbania through a personal services contract. We believed that the personal services contract helped guarantee that the profit from the Gretzky transaction would remain separate from the team debts.

"In truth, Gretzky, not the Racers, was the franchise Skalbania owned," Douglas Hunter wrote in "The Glory Barons" (as reported by the Edmonton Oilers Website.) "All Skalbania had to do now was to keep the Racers afloat long enough to become part of the renewed merger negotiations with the NHL."

There was also speculation that Skalbania still owned part of the Edmonton Oilers at the same time he owned the Racers - a conspiracy theory given credence by Jack Lautier and Frank Polnaszek in their history of the WHA titled "Same Game, Different Name." They write, "...(Oilers owner) Pocklington secured Skalbania's percentage of shares in the Alberta-based team for $400,000 when the deal (Gretzky sale to Edmonton) was officially made on November 1, 1978." The authors also quote former Racers player-coach Bill Goldsworthy saying, "Even with Gretzky, there was already talk that the Racers weren't going to last the season."

Racers fans who figured out this shell game were not amused in their roles as an audition audience - the games in Indianapolis were now a stage for other owners and the NHL to gauge the market value of Gretzky (and the rest of the players) for the impending franchise fire sale. At a public fan club meeting in downtown Indianapolis, shortly before the Gretzky paper-chase was concluded, anger at Skalbania was fervent.

Calgary Flames Franchise Biography

The Calgary Flames are a result of what can happen when a city does not support their hockey team. In an era where hockey has become a business rather than sport and loyalty is based on how long you can remain profitable, one city's problems became another city's success.

The Atlanta Flames entered the NHL in the 1972-73 season with all the hope that a new franchise could have. The team was owned by a local group of businessmen, The Omni Sports Group, led by Tom Cousins. At the outset all was well, but during that same season the upstart league, World Hockey Association began to operate and quickly threw salaries out of whack and put a financial strain on many teams as they scrambled to meet skyrocketing salaries being offered by the new league.

For eight years the Atlanta Flames were unable to get beyond the first round of the playoffs. According to Cliff Fletcher, Calgary's early general manager, "The Atlanta Flames always found a way to lose."

The process of transferring ownership to a new group came about through a weird set of circumstances. There were two groups interested in acquiring the Atlanta Flames. The first was a group of Calgary businessmen, Doc and B.J. Seaman, and Harley Hotchkiss. This group was interested in the team for two reasons. The first was that they loved the game, and the second was they cared about the community. With Calgary in the hunt to host the 1988 Olympics, it would make things more financially attractive if there was a long term tenant in the arena that would have to be build for the Olympics.

The second entity looking to purchase the club was Vancouver businessman, Nelson Skalbania. According to the first group, Nelson's involvement drove the price of the Flames to a level that otherwise would not have been paid, had the original group been left on their own. The Seaman Group was well along the way to completing the deal with the Atlanta Flames when Skalbania jumped into the bidding process. Behind the scenes he had negotiated a T.V. rights deal with Molsons for $6 Million for 10 years. Skalbania in turn used the $6 Million as a down payment on the club, which, according to the Seaman's group took them out of the running, or so they thought.

Skalbania was based in Vancouver which proved to make it somewhat difficult for him to negotiate with the parties concerned, so he hired Norm Green of Calgary to help him out. In May of 1980, Green was able to bring both parties together and work out a deal. The final deal was that the Calgary group would own 50% and Skalbania would own the other 50%. By August of 1981 the Calgary group had bought out Skalbania in two separate transactions.

Skalbania edges way back from sidelines

By PETER KENNEDY

Globe and Mail Monday, November 17, 2003, Page B3

VANCOUVER -- Nelson Skalbania, the jet-setting former sports magnate who suffered a humiliating fall from grace, is inching back into the spotlight after years of keeping a low profile.

Still a risk taker and fitness fanatic at 65, the bearded financier was sidelined in 1997 when he was convicted of stealing $100,000 from a prospective real estate partner and narrowly avoided time in jail.

25539 NELSON M. SKALBANIA v. HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN (Crim.)(B.C.)

Criminal law - Statutes - Interpretation - Theft - Mens rea for theft pursuant to s. 332 of the Criminal Code -Whether the Court of Appeal erred in taking jurisdiction of the Crown Appeal from acquittal when the trial judge found that he had a reasonable doubt about the Appellant's intention - Whether the Court of Appeal erred in its interpretation of "fraudulently" - Whether Section 686 (4)(b)(ii) of the Criminal Code of Canada is inconsistent with Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in that Section 686(4)(b)(ii) permits the Court of Appeal to substitute a verdict of guilty for an acquittal at trial - Whether the Court of Appeal erred in permitting a judge other than the trial judge to pass sentence on the Appellant.

The complainant gave the Appellant, Nelson Skalbania, a cheque in the amount of $100,000 made out to the Appellant's company in trust for the down payment of shares. The cheque was deposited to the Appellant's trust account. After the Appellant's bookkeeper informed him that his company's account was overdrawn, he responded that the deposit of the complainant's cheque to the trust account was an error and it should have been deposited to the company's general account. The funds were transferred and used for other purposes. The Appellant gave the complainant the "runaround" while he put together the money he owed the complainant which he paid together with interest and a sum by way of compensation for delay and inconvenience.

The Appellant was charged with theft of $100,000. The trial judge found that the Appellant had applied the money for a purpose other than that directed, did so intentionally and deprived the complainant of his funds intentionally, but the trial judge acquitted him of the offence because the misappropriation of funds had not occurred "fraudulently". On the Crown's appeal, the Court of Appeal allowed the appeal and entered a conviction. Rowles J.A. concurred in the result, but disagreed concerning the mental element to be proved when theft is charged under s. 332(1) of the Code.

Origin of the case: British Columbia

File No.: 25539

Judgment of the Court of Appeal: September 5, 1996

Counsel: Peter Leask Q.C. for the Appellant

Teresa Mitchell-Banks for the Respondent

Local ownership woes a Vancouver tradition

By Bob Mackin

The Lions became Cup winners themselves under Bill Comrie's ownership in 1994. The Brick furniture chain owner from Edmonton thought he was doing the city a favour when he sold the Lions to Vancouver's Nelson Skalbania in 1996.

Skalbania remains Canada's most prolific sports franchise owner. He flipped teams and players like kids used to flip hockey cards at recess.

When he owned the Indianapolis Racers of the World Hockey Association, he sold Wayne Gretzky to the Edmonton Oilers. Skalbania bought the Atlanta Flames and moved them to Calgary; he did the same with the North American Soccer League's Memphis Rogues, who became the Boomers. He sent the Western Hockey League's Calgary Wranglers to New Westminster. He owned the Vancouver Canadians and flirted with the idea of buying the Seattle Mariners. Skalbania also started a campaign to bring a National Basketball Association franchise to Vancouver.

The CFL braintrust had an amnesia moment when Skalbania bought the Lions. They forgot how he effectively bankrupted the Montreal Alouettes in the early 1980s.

The Lions were 2-8 in the Skalbania era. Coach Joe Paopao did his part to keep the team alive, putting the team's travel expenses on his credit card. Advertisers and ticket buyers stayed away in droves, so Skalbania handed the franchise back to the league at the end of August 1996.

Sawmiller threatened to blow up B.C. bar
Wednesday, July 24, 1996
By Richard Mostyn
Yukon News reporter

The man who wants to build a $165-million sawmill in Watson Lake has a criminal record for threatening to blow up a bar full of people in British Columbia, The News has learned.

Leonard Bourgh, who at the time went by the name of Carl Lennart Bourgh, got into an argument with a fellow prospector in the Princeton Hotel Pub.

Around 11:30 p.m., on December 19, 1981, Bourgh threatened to blow the fellow up with a stick of dynamite.

"The guy (Bourgh) brought in a stick of dynamite, fused, capped and ready to go," pub owner Stephen Brodie said from Princeton.

"He casually stuck it on the counter right in front of me, all ready to go," added Brodie, who was tending bar that night and still vividly remembers the incident.

"He wasn't all that violent a character. He came in, had some sort of dispute with a guy, and then showed up with a stick of dynamite."

There were about 30 people in the bar at the time, added Brodie. Police were called and Bourgh was arrested.

Court documents obtained by The News show Bourgh was convicted under Section 80 of the Criminal Code --possession of dynamite for an unlawful purpose.

He was fined $1,000 or ordered to serve 60 days in jail. There is no receipt in his file to indicate he paid the fine, said Princeton court worker Marilyn Kinsey.

"He was in the can a few days over that one," said a Surrey-area mill manager who knew Bourgh at the time.

Bourgh had just sold a Penticton-area gold mining property to him, said the man, who asked that his name not be used.

These days, Bourgh has been presenting himself as a logger. He also accompanied Yukon Government leader John Ostashek on a recent trade mission to Asia.

His sawmill proposal has the backing of Ostashek, Economic Development minister Mickey Fisher and Watson Lake mayor Barrie Ravenhill, a Yukon Party candidate in the next territorial election.

The only details about Bourgh's logging experiences are contained in a single-paragraph biography found in his three-page sawmill proposal.

His younger brothers, Sven and Gus, run a small sawmill in Greenwood, B.C. But they have not talked to Bourgh in more than a decade.

However, the Bourgh family has a long history in the B.C. logging industry, said the mill manager.

"His whole family was in the logging business, going back to the old days. He and his brother had a mill up by Lillooet, B.C.

"His older brother (Erik) was the backbone and the brains behind it. A hell of a nice guy. He kept Leonard in line."

Erik and Leonard were in competition with Cattermole Timber, which owned the Watson Lake sawmill in 1969.

But Erik drowned, said the mill manager. And without his expertise, the Lillooet mill shut down.

Since then, people who know Bourgh say he's primarily been involved in the mining industry.

"I dabbled in the mining industry myself," the source said. "I bought a mining property (from Bourgh)

"He cost me, and anyone else involved with him, a bunch of money. I was smart enough to get out when I was only slightly burnt --about $25,000 or $30,000."

He wasn't the only one to lose money by associating with Bourgh, The News has learned from several sources.

Calgary-based geologist Ted Brownless, Bourgh and his sometimes partner Dave Anderson owned a small gold mining property near Greenwood, B.C.

"We were involved in KW Resources together," said Brownless, a major shareholder in the company.

Bourgh was paid to do some work, clearing and staking and other things, said Brownless.

The work was never done, and Brownless said he was forced to pick up the pieces. "Well, it cost me about --I never collected it Ѐabout $15,000."

Anderson calls Bourgh a friend, though the two haven't been in touch for about four years.

"The last I saw him he was up in Houston, (B.C.)," he said from Vancouver.

"When I knew him he was mostly in the mining business --prospecting and selling properties.

In the late `70s, Bourgh was involved in a deal with high-profile entrepreneur Nelson Skalbania to acquire timber near Whitecourt, Alberta, said the mill manager.

But the deal fell through, he said.

"Skalbania was the magic money source on the Whitecourt project," he said.

Brownless and Anderson both confirmed that Skalbania and Bourgh had worked together. "He knew Nelson Skalbania at one time," said Anderson.

Though he confirmed he had bid on the Whitecourt timber during a government auction, Skalbania denies knowing Bourgh.

After he was faxed a request for an interview about his dealings with Bourgh, Skalbania phoned The News on Tuesday.

"I had a bunch of consultants with me (on that deal)," he said. "I don't remember many of them.

"It was a long time ago. I had nothing to do with him and don't think I ever knew him."

Brownless remembers Bourgh as a man with a knack for raising money. He also remembers that Bourgh and Skalbania had been partners.

"Nelson's the one with most of the bucks," he said. "All of them (Skalbania, Anderson and Bourgh) are promoters and get involved with things."

Keeping the 'X' in X-MAS

Today is Solstice, the longest night of the year, when candles and sacred fires were lit by our ancestors to keep away the dark and to hope for the return of the sun. For those of the Jewish faith and tradition it is Chanukah, which they too celebrate with a festival of lights.

Today is the first day of Winter, and by now the feasting of Harvest and Samhain is forgotten. The foods preserved for the long winter season are now unpacked and a feast is held for the people will eat little but preserves until spring allows for new growth and the season of planting. It was also a time of sharing even with the lowest and poorest.

The annual renewal festival of the Babylonians was adopted by the Persians. One of the themes of these festivals was the temporary subversion of order. Masters and slaves exchanged places. A mock king was crowned. Masquerades spilled into the streets. As the old year died, rules of ordinary living were relaxed.

Amongst the ancient Romans this was the Season of Saturnalia when slaves were freed and the Emperor was mocked by a fool king. Twas a festivity that we now often celebrate at New Years, when drag and cross dressing occured much like that which occurs during Mardi Gras. The Carnival, the reversing of the social roles, where the poor were uplifted and the high and mighty buffoned. These were the pagan feast days before the advent of Christianty which appropriated them for their own mythology. For a very funny cartoon about the Pagan Origins of Christmas check this out.

The Saturnalia was the most popular holiday of the Roman year. Catullus (XIV) describes it as "the best of days," and Seneca complains that the entire city is in a bustle (Epistles, XVIII). Pliny the Younger writes that he retired to his room while the rest of the household celebrated (Epistles, II.17.24). It was an occasion for celebration, visits to friends, and the presentation of gifts, particularly wax candles (cerei), perhaps to signify the returning light after the solstice, and sigillaria. Martial wrote Xenia and Apophoreta for the Saturnalia. Both were published in December and intended to accompany the "guest gifts" which were given at that time of year. Aulus Gellius relates in his Attic Nights (XVIII.2) that he and his Roman compatriots would gather at the baths in Athens, where they were studying, and pose difficult questions to one another on the ancient poets, a crown of laurel being dedicated to Saturn if no-one could answer them.

During the holiday, restrictions were relaxed and the social order inverted. Gambling was allowed in public. Slaves were permitted to use dice and did not have to work. Instead of the toga, less formal dinner clothes (synthesis) were permitted, as was the pileus, a felt cap normally worn by the manumitted slave that symbolized the freedom of the season. Within the family, a Lord of Misrule was chosen. Slaves were treated as equals, allowed to wear their masters' clothing, and be waited on at meal time in remembrance of an earlier golden age thought to have been ushered in by the god.

Today some complain that the Christ is missing in Christmas, and complain about the loss of sacredness in this. But the Christmas tree has nothing to do with Christ but with ancient Gallic, Celtic and Germanic winter festivities around Solstice for through out the dark winter it stays green, the very source of eternal life and hope for the return of the Sun.

This belief was adapted by Christianity to equate the Sun, with the Son, of god. Hence Roman Emperor Constantine accepted Christianity and made it the State Religion of Rome, orginially worshiped Sol In Victus, it was not to much to change his Sun worship into the worship of INRI, the Son of God. And so Christianity went from the religion of slaves, and thus lost its connection with its Judiac origins, and became Romanized, the State Religion. Once it became a state religion it no longer spoke with the voice of the Rebel Jesus.

The fourth-century Roman emperor Constantine, who first moved the celebration of Christmas to December 25. The authors claim that Constantine followed the cult of Sol Invictus, a monotheistic form of sun worship that originated in Syria and was imposed by Roman emperors on their subjects a century earlier.

"His primary, indeed obsessive, objective was unity -- unity in politics, in religion, and in territory. A cult or state religion that included all other cults within it obviously helped to achieve this objective...In the interests of unity, Constantine deliberately chose to blur the distinctions among Christianity, Mithraism [another Sun cult of the time] and Sol Invictus..."

That's why Constantine decreed that Sunday -- "the venerable day of the sun" would be the official day of rest. (Early Christians before then celebrated their holy day on the Jewish Sabbath -- Saturday.)

That's also why -- by his edict, the book claims -- the celebration of Jesus' birthday was moved from January 6th (Epiphany today) to December 25, celebrated by the cult of Sol Invictus as Natilis Invictus, the rebirth of the sun (confused yet? don't be!)

And are you wondering about the concept of the 12 Days of Christmas? The midwinter festival of the ancient Egyptians celebrated the birth of Horus (the prototype of the earthly king) son of Isis (the divine mother-goddess). It was 12 days long, reflecting their 12-month calendar. This concept took firm root in many other cultures. In 567 AD, Christians adopted it. Church leaders proclaimed the 12 days from December 25 to Epiphany as a sacred, festive season.

Later protestant sects such as the Calvinsts and some Lutherans see in the celebration of Christmas and the Christmas tree, heathen paganism, and will not have a tree in their houses. Some churches and sects such as the WorldWide Church of God, with their Back to the Bible hour, refuse to celebrate Christams as a heathen pagan rite as do the Jehova Witnesses and other Anabaptist sects.

Is Christmas a Sin?

Some Christians believe that Christians should not observe Christmas. Some object to the commercialism of the holiday; others object to its origins. Until 1995, we in the Worldwide Church of God did not approve of Christmas. Our approach now is much more favorable.

In order to understand our approach to this subject, it is helpful to trace some of the history of Christmas avoidance, particularly its roots in Puritanism.

The Puritans believed that the first-century church modeled a Christianity that modern Christians should copy. They attempted to base their faith and practice solely on the New Testament, and their position on Christmas reflected their commitment to practice a pure, scriptural form of Christianity. Puritans argued that God reserved to himself the determination of all proper forms of worship, and that he disapproved of any human innovations – even innovations that celebrated the great events of salvation. The name Christmas also alienated many Puritans. Christmas, after all, meant ``the mass of Christ.'' The mass was despised as a Roman Catholic institution that undermined the Protestant concept of Christ, who offered himself once for all. The Puritans' passionate avoidance of any practice that was associated with papal Rome caused them to overlook the fact that in many countries the name for the day had nothing to do with the Catholic mass, but focused instead on Jesus' birth. The mass did not evolve into the form abhorred by Protestants until long after Christmas was widely observed. The two customs had separate, though interconnected, histories.

As ardent Protestants, Puritans identified the embracing of Christianity by the Roman Emperor Constantine in the early 300s as the starting point of the degeneration and corruption of the church. They believed the corruption of the church was brought on by the interweaving of the church with the pagan Roman state. To Puritans, Christmas was impure because it entered the Roman Church sometime in this period. No one knows the exact year or under what circumstances Roman Christians began to celebrate the birth of their Lord, but by the mid-300s, the practice was well established.

No evidence exists that the Christian leaders who began this practice consciously wanted to compromise with paganism. They may simply have wanted to celebrate the birth of Jesus. However, modern scholars generally agree that the date they chose for Christmas was influenced by a pagan celebration on or about that same date honoring the "Invincible Sun." Consequently, many customs unrelated to the birth of Jesus that commonly characterize modern Christmas celebrations were also present in pre-Christian pagan celebrations. This syncretistic character of most forms of Christmas celebration was enough for Puritans to avoid the holiday as a compromise with the pure exercise of Christian faith.

Today, there are no churches that call themselves Puritans. Yet their theological descendants – Presbyterians, Congregationalists and many Baptists – remain. Gone, except among their most fundamentalist offspring, is any concern about Christmas. Yet their history of attitudes toward Christmas is important for understanding our own story.

So not all Christians celebrate the Solstice Season as the birth of their god. So when some American Protestants want to put the Christ back in Christmas they do not speak for all Christians, nor is it just the 'liberal' ACLU that opposes Christmas, so do their own religious sects.

What 'War on Christmas'?

By Ruth Marcus
Washinton Post
Saturday, December 10, 2005; Page A21

I've been hearing about this "War on Christmas," so I headed to the Heritage Foundation the other day for a briefing from one of the defending army's generals: Fox News anchor John Gibson, author of "The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought." Gibson -- and Bill O'Reilly, his comrade in the Fox-hole -- see this as a two-front war: Assaulting Christmas from the government end, they say, are pusillanimous school principals, politically corrected city managers and their ilk, bullied by the ACLU types into extirpating any trace of Christmas from the public square. Battering the holiday from the private sector are infidel retailers such as Target and Wal-Mart, which balk at using the C-word in their advertising in favor of such secularist slogans as "Happy Holidays." The assault, Gibson told the Heritage crowd, has reached a "shocking level this year."

Christian bloggers answer the question 'What War on Christmas?'

Their rantings against Happy Holidays or Seasons Greetings are equally falacious. Holidays is Holy Days, and certainly this is the season of Holy Days, Solstice, Chanukah (the festival of lights, Kwanzai (a new Afro American celebration of Solstice) and Christmas.

O'Reilly retreats in "war on Christmas," declaring: " 'Happy Holidays' is fine'

Summary: On The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly apparently reversed his previous position that the phrase "Happy Holidays" is offensive, stating, " 'Happy Holidays' is fine, just don't ban 'Merry Christmas.' " O'Reilly has previously claimed the term "Happy Holidays" is offensive to "millions of Christians" and 'insulting to Christian America."

And Happy Yule is just as fine to say, as it was the term for the season in Scandinavia and later used in Christian England and amongst the Christianized Saxons and Slavs, such as King Wenceslas. Listen to the carol.

Under attack from the politically correct, Christmas finds an ally in Trevor Philips, Chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, I am baffled after reading about the recent "bans on Christmas" by companies and local authorities across the country. A ban on Christmas isn't just silly and offensive to those who profess to be Christians. Most people of other faiths are bemused that we should even question it.

So Merry Christmas from a Heathen Pagan. Tis the season of solidarity and communalism, of fraternity and sharing, and that is what makes it holy, not the diety that it may be named for. It is a celebration of community. And even the Rebel Jesus would have approved.

The Rebel Jesus Jackson Browne

Original recording from the chieftain’s album the bells of dublin All the streets are filled with laughter and light And the music of the season And the merchants’ windows are all bright With the faces of the children And the families hurrying to their homes As the sky darkens and freezes They’ll be gathering around the hearths and tales Giving thanks for all god’s graces And the birth of the rebel jesus Well they call him by the prince of peace And they call him by the savior And they pray to him upon the seas And in every bold endeavor As they fill his churches with their pride and gold And their faith in him increases But they’ve turned the nature that I worshipped in From a temple to a robber’s den In the words of the rebel jesus We guard our world with locks and guns And we guard our fine possessions And once a year when christmas comes We give to our relations And perhaps we give a little to the poor If the generosity should seize us But if any one of us should interfere In the business of why they are poor They get the same as the rebel jesus But please forgive me if I seem To take the tone of judgement For I’ve no wish to come between This day and your enjoyment In this life of hardship and of earthly toil We have need for anything that frees us So I bid you pleasure And I bid you cheer From a heathen and a pagan On the side of the rebel jesus.

A Culture of Entitlement

The panel Mike Duffy's Countdown tonight was Rona Ambrose for the Conservatives, Belinda Stronach for the Liberals and former party leader Alexa McDonough for the NDP. Mike interupted them to say he got a reply from the Liberal War Room saying yes Liberal staffers who had volunteered for the campaign would be going back to their government jobs this week since the Liberals are not campaigning. And since they were on a leave of absence they could do this. The catch is that being on a leave of abscence meant the Liberals paid them, going back to work, which actually is paid holiday time, you and I pay them.

Political Staples has the whole sorid story. With links to All things Canadian who has the video evidence.

I think all three of us, Staples, Canadian and I, must have looked like Rona and Alexa. Disgusted. Belinda proved to be a quick learner as a party flack, saying it was all quite proper and done within government procedures.

Alexa actually fumed, and Rona let her, cause she went on a veritable tirade about how unprincipaled this was, unethical, culture of entitlement, and well plain stupid. And did I mention unethical.

It's not about doing the right thing its about being seen to do the right thing. And this is defintely the wrong thing to do right now. No wonder the Liberals want tougher gun laws they keep shooting themselves in the foot.

In Solidarity With S'amuna' Peoples

I have made this graphic link in Solidarity with Somena's campaign on behalf of the S'amuna' Peoples and against Wal-Mart. Feel free to cut and paste it to your blog.


Wal-Mart Is Desecrating
The S'amuna' Peoples
Sacred Burial Site
And Despoiling Our Lands!

You are on the bus or off the bus

Ken Kesey in the sixties,who with his Merry Pranksters who traveled across Amerika in their hippie painted bus, used to say; "you are either on the bus or off the bus" . The same could be said about Jack Layton's visit to Edmonton. Well actually he didn't visit Edmonton, his bus did.

You see Jack ,like the Harper visited Alberta on the weekend. Guess the press coverage and blogging about how the party leaders were overlooking little ol' Alberta lit a fire under them.

Anyways Jack flapped into Calgary by airplane for a quickie photo op and airport rally on Sunday. Wait, Calgary?! What the heck is with that? Last election the NDP vote was neck and neck with the vote for the Green Party in Calgary.

In Calgary it was a pit stop, he shook hands and waved and got back on the plane. He didn't even make a speech worth a press release. In fact in another pit stop in little ol Castlegar B.C., home of the last of Canada's hippies hmm maybe thats the Kesey connection, he did give a speech.

While in Edmonton we have a two way race in Edmonton Strathcona between Linda Duncan of the NDP and the Conservative incumbent Rahim Jaffer. In fact Jaffer is not touring Canada because he knows its the fight of his life. But does Jack come here? Nope all we got was his empty campaign bus.


A tip o' the blog to Waking Up On Planet X for this

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China Boom

It's not just the Federal Liberals or the Alberta government that have a hard time telling the truth about their surpluses. Now it appears China has the same problem. It must come from the embarassment of riches they all are awash in. By underestimating capital growth, and income, governments can claim to be 'surprized' when they have surpluses, this is the hold over from the deficit conciousness that was beat into them in the ninties by the neo-con's. Now the neo-con's are singing another tune in the U.S. Deficits are ok by them, thats cause while China, Alberta and Canada boom the US economy is a fiscal basket case of trillions of dollars in debt. China this morning announced a surplus that puts it ahead of the UK in the world economy. Thanks to it rapid adaptation to Fordist production, and it's being the global sweatshop to the world.

China's economy took another Great Leap Forward -- this one overnight.

The economy is 17 percent larger and growing faster than previous estimates, according to a year-long census released in Beijing today that revealed millions of previously unaccounted- for businesses. The findings may vault China three places on the list of the world's largest economies, to No. 4, ahead of the U.K.

Service companies in areas such as retailing, real estate and insurance accounted for 93 percent of the additional output uncovered by the census.

The services industry accounted for 40.7 percent of gross domestic product last year, up from 31.9 percent previously, the government said. That still leaves China trailing countries such as Russia and South Africa, where services make up more than 60 percent of output.

Free Market Reforms

Services ``have been growing much faster than the rest of the economy,'' said Ha Jiming, chief economist at China International Capital Corp., China's largest investment bank. ``This all argues for higher growth this year and for the next few years.''

The share of primary industry, which is mostly agriculture, fell to 13.1 percent of GDP from 15.2 percent, today's release said. Secondary industry, mostly manufacturing and construction, declined to 46.2 percent from 52.9 percent.

Internationalist Perspectives

One of the more interesting groups of Left Communists I correspond with in our little milieu is Internationalist Perspectives. The latest issue of their journal is an exciting debate on the nature of capitalist decadence and the contraditicions between capital for profit and technology that allows for production of abundance for all. I am simplifying the debate. However it's a 'real good read' as they say and my hard copy is well thumbed. Portions of the journal IP #42 are now available here. I have refered to their ideas in some of my articles here.

Intelligent Design is just another word for......

Creationism; the religious belief that the world is flat, that men lived with dinosaurs and the world was created 4,400 years ago.

In a landmark case that will be the Scopes trial for ID, a U.S. judge has ruled that ID is not science nor a scientific theory equivalent to evolution, and cannot be taught in public school science classes.

"Intelligent design" cannot be mentioned in biology classes in a Pennsylvania public school district, a federal judge said Tuesday, ruling in one of the biggest courtroom clashes on evolution since the 1925 Scopes trial.

The Dover Area School Board violated the Constitution when it ordered that its biology curriculum must include "intelligent design," the notion that life on Earth was produced by an unidentified intelligent cause, U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III ruled Tuesday.

The school board policy, adopted in October 2004, was believed to have been the first of its kind in the nation.

"The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy," Jones wrote. "It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy."

And there I thought lying was a sin.I guess its just a little sin, not really a cardinal sin.

Wal-Mart A Toxic Success

NEWZ FLASH!

This just in the products you buy from Wal-Mart may be contaminated with toxic waste.

Wal-Mart is target of criminal probe over waste
According to the Wal-Mart, the government is looking into whether the company improperly used its own trucks to transport material deemed hazardous to centralized facilities, rather than using certified hazardous waste carriers to ship that material directly to designated disposal sites.

Yep that means all those low cost deals you got, well they may be low cause you spent your bucks on contaminated goods. But it gets better, you see Americas #1 Corporation is also Americas #1 Corporate Criminal.

The investigation is the latest in a series of legal troubles for Wal-Mart, which is also defending the largest-ever class-action lawsuit, which charges it with discriminating against women in pay and promotions.

Wal-Mart faces dozens of lawsuits accusing it of violating wage-and-hour laws, and earlier this year settled a federal investigation into the use of illegal immigrants to clean its stores.

Wal-Mart spokeswoman Sarah Clark said a number of goods, including hair spray, paint, aerosol cans and charcoal, are classified as hazardous.

All corporations repeat the history of capitalism itself., They replicate that through the primitive accumulation of capital, capitalisms origin in piracy and theft of property from the commons, as they grow into monopolies they become more 'legitimate', because in the process they create the State; pro business regulations and laws that they need for expansion locally, nationalionaly and internationally like the WTO. Contrary to the Right Wing view that somehow the State is seperate from the market, the State is the creature and creation of capitalism.

Wal-Mart Hopes WTO Will Help It Open a Door

Big retailers will seek to alter a services pact. Local officials fear a loss of power to limit firms.

Retailers will head to Hong Kong to try to persuade negotiators to fashion a trade pact that would make it more difficult for governments to restrict foreign-owned stores, banks and telecommunications companies. But critics, who include state Sen. Liz Figueroa (D-Fremont) and Los Angeles City Councilman Eric Garcetti, call the move a stealth attack on grass-roots democracy. They fear that the proposals to change the WTO's 1994 General Agreement on Trade in Services would make it easier to attack dozens of U.S. laws designed to restrict the growth of big-box retailers. That agreement was designed to open up trade in services such as retailing, accounting, medicine and entertainment that weren't covered under previous trade pacts. Under the WTO, only governments can challenge other countries' laws. So firms that believe they are being treated unfairly must persuade their governments to take up their case. Dismantling trade and investment barriers is a key concern of Wal-Mart, which has become a leading target of globalization critics around the world. The fiercest battles have been in the U.S., where dozens of municipalities have passed laws aimed at limiting the retailer's expansion. But the company has also seen its growth slowed by government restrictions in Canada, China, Britain, Germany and Japan.

Is There a Silver Lining to the WTO Talks? No

Well frankly no. The agreement on services that passed this weekend opens up the global market place for more privatization of public services including Water. And the limited restriction on agricultural subsidies passed today is a pyrhic victory for the poorest nations of the world, they have been sacrificed once again but not by the US or EU but by their allies like China, India and Brazil!

This time, the developing countries came determined to make their voices heard and make a strong case for their interests. They made it. (China Daily)

Considering that both the EU and US are more interested in their global agribusiness giants than small farmers, the real outcome of these talks are on the folks who till the land they have been sacrificed for the long term interests of corporate Europe and America and the interests of the newly industrialized economies.

Mainland farmers `neglected' in reforms

Chinese academics said Friday that the mainland government has neglected farmers' interests in the country's rush for World Trade Organization membership, although they have no detailed proposals to improve the farmers' lot.

Guang Xia, a schoolteacher from Guangxi province doing research on agriculture, said China's heritage of tiny farm plots has made it hard for products such as grain and cotton to compete with imported goods produced by foreign agribusiness concerns.

Farmers, he said, were used to obeying government orders on what to plant. "They are slow to respond to international market changes. Plus, the government provides little support to farmers, compared with the European Union and the US."

The government, headed by President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, has sought to solve rural problems by reducing taxes and introducing other measures, Tang said, "But that's not enough. They could provide more subsidies and give more support to farmers, or it will bring turbulence to the society."

And while the trade agreement on agriculture was a partial success more liberalization of trade has been left for yet another round of bargaining. One that will determine how much of the newly industrialized world and developing nations must open up to Transnational Corporations from the U.S. and E.U.

Agreement leaves toughest trade issues unsolved

The most tangible outcome was a promise by the WTO’s wealthiest members to end tariffs on imports from 32 of the world’s poorest nations, such as Bangladesh and Rwanda. While symbolically important, the pledge contains room for exemptions for the most sensitive products, such as clothing and sugar. US lawmakers and corporate lobbyists complained that a problematic trend is emerging where the US is being forced to make concession after concession, while large developing nations such as India and Brazil offer nothing. Montana’s Max Baucus, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement. ‘‘ And to be frank, the deal in Hong Kong does very little to advance key US interests.”

Ah cry me a river, you know something has come out of this that advantages Americas real competitors, the G20 newly Industrialized countries, when the US whines. However we should be cautious, for the competing capitals in the world of global capitali, are interested in profit and exchange value not the survival of human beings and authentic human sustainable development. They are interested in the creation of the Market State. As an editorial in the Arab News from Saui Arabia suggests;

For all the political posturing in Hong Kong, the nature of the problem is clear and neither the Americans nor the Europeans denied it. Their promise to end export subsidies by 2013 is hedged with conditions and is not satisfactory. However, by conceding that date, they have also conceded the principle. Now it is up to them to sell the deal to their constituencies who will, in fact, benefit from cheaper food. The real champions of subsidies are of course the producers, be it of steel or soya beans. It is time that lobbyists were shown the door because there is a greater worldwide benefit at stake. Subsidies not only cost local taxpayers, they cost the people in the countries that could compete more cheaply, if only the market were not distorted and protected by politically motivated government handouts.

Media coverage of the negotiations in Hong Kong was remarkable for the fact that it missed one crucial point. What everyone was actually talking about was business. Any businessman worth his salt knows that everything is negotiable. Commerce is in the end all about price. Politicians and bureaucrats tend to make the worst of businessmen. They are long on economic theories and short on the sort of practical knowledge you would expect to find in the humblest souq. Therefore they are perhaps not the best people to be talking about trade. But if the WTO did not exist, we would have to invent it, because the world’s businessmen have to operate within rules and regulations to ensure that deals are honest and fair.

If producing goods for export are not matched with a local sustainable agricultural base, a local market for use rather than export, then we will simply face the same conditions we currently do in the poorest nations of the world, famine, death and disease. And the WTO trade agreements do not focus on this problem, rather they focus on the trade in goods. The preconditions for such trade of course is the further privatization and expansion of capital investment opportunities for the Transnational corporations such as ADM.

Where a local village grows and processs maize for export through a cooperative, they are being supplanted by investor run corporations competing for the same export contract. In African countries where this has occured the corporation model has failed, but the impact on the village has led to disaster and can lead to famine, and ruination of crop cycles, especially if the corporate model introduced fertilizers for faster growth production for export.

Gains at HK trade talks "limited": UN chief

"He recalls that trade is no less important than aid for successful development, and that without open markets and fair competition few countries will have a real chance of meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015," the spokesman said. The MDGs are a series of targets for reducing extreme poverty and other ills set at the 2000 UN summit.

This round of talks has been a matter of the interests of competing capitals within the global capitalist market place. Their interests are not international solidarity with the less advantaged nations that they leave behind, they are seeking their own advantage within the global capitalist marketplace. If that means sacrificing the least able to negotiate so be it. Welcome to the world of bargaining in the era of Imperialism.

SMOKE AND MIRRORS

The text included a deadlock-breaking pledge from the EU to end farm export subsidies -- the top demand of developing countries -- by 2011. But development campaigners dismissed this as "smoke and mirrors".

The deal was cooked up by an "unholy alliance" of the United States, the European Union and WTO head Pascal Lamy, a former EU trade chief, said the Asia-based Focus on the Global South.

But the grouping, head by Philippine economist Walden Bello, also attacked India and Brazil, leaders of the G20 developing country group that emerged at a failed WTO conference in 2003, for their role in Hong Kong.

"India and Brazil have led the developing countries down the garden path in exchange for some market access in agriculture for Brazil, and services outsourcing for India," said the grouping's spokesperson Aileen Kwa.

"This text is a recipe for disaster, and many developing countries will not be able to convince people back home that they have come back with a good deal," Bello said.

Brazil's Foreign Minister Celso Amorim and India's Trade Minister Kamal Nath -- who represented the G20 in talks with the EU and the United States before and during the conference -- were swapping compliments about what they had achieved "to cover up the fact that they have agreed to a disaster," he said.

This was another clear barb at India and Brazil, accused by some in the EU -- and echoed by the Global South's Bello -- of primarily pursuing their own interests as large, middle-income trading powers at the expense of really poor nations.

In fact India wanted to see the services agreement passed, an agreement that will impact harshly on the devloping world because it will result in further privatization of Water ,because they want to see further expansion of outsourcing of IT services to their country. In order to pass that agreement at this round of the WTO they also had to pass a begining agreement on reducing agricultural subsidies.

China, Brazil and India, the newest of the developing industrialized countries are now pushing their weight as capitalist states against the US and EU. And like all competing capitals, they are no more interested in sustainable development than their larger Imperialist competititors. As China has shown with its whipsawing of the African Textile industry.

China used the WTO restrictions on its marketing of textiles to expand its factories offshore in Africa. When the WTO regulations ended last January, their factory owners shut up shop in various African countries and went back home. China wants to replace all other developing countries as the cheap source of manufactured goods in the world. China set to become world's sweatshop, report warns - Andrew Taylor

Also see: WTO Who Cares?


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