Union Busters To Speak in Victoria

The psuedo fascist security goons who dress in paramilitary drag and work for AFI are a common sight on picket lines across Canada. These goons assault picketers and act as provcatuers on the picket lines. The company boasts its anti-union security operations protecting scabs who cross picket lines.

AFI ensures employers are secure as secondary picketing becomes commonplace In keeping with its commitment to help employers mitigate extraordinary risks, two leading security experts from AFI International Group Inc. will deliver an address in Victoria April 20 on ways to ensure the security and protection of non-union employees and management during a labour dispute.

These goons assualted several of the Edmonton IWW branch members who were supporting the Telus Strikers here. We have seen them at other strikes as well. So folks out in B.C. should show them a bit of labour courtesy and set up a picket action at their speaking engagement.

  Two of AFI's senior executives - Warren Wilson, Vice President of
Corporate Relations and Michael Thompson, Executive Vice President of
Investigations - will be addressing human resource professionals April 20 at
the B.C. Human Resources Management Association (HRMA) annual conference,
Building Business Results in Victoria April 19-21.

Also see: Union Busting Alberta Style


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The enemy of my enemy

Is not my friend says Jack Layton about the Liberals move to the left in their Leadership race. Layton says Liberal hopefuls wasting their time seeking alliance with NDP
And no its not because he is pissed off with Bob Rae being a turncoat. Rather it is the pragmatic real politicks of Layton. He did it with the Liberal government and now he plans to do it with the Harpocrites. As the Salmon Arm Observer reports;

Of particular interest is the apparent co-operation between the Tories and the NDP - traditionally parties on opposite sides of the political spectrum. The message is clear: work together. So far, the NDP and the Conservatives appear to be doing that. Harper met several times with opposition leaders prior to the throne speech and NDP Leader Jack Layton said he felt issues he raised in their talks were reflected in the speech. While Harper and Layton as allies might be sickening to die-hard right wingers and ardent lefties, it also represents reality.
Harper's move to identify common ground with the NDP may be borne as much out of political expediency as anything else. But so what if it produces a long-lasting government that delivers a little something for those on both sides of the political divide?
If the Liberals have become Canada's natural governing party by straddling the political middle, then co-operation between the Conservatives and NDP might represent a logical evolution. In fact, this sort of left-right alliance might be a global trend.
Those who scoff at the prospect of an NDP-Tory coalition might want to look to Germany, which is currently being governed by former political enemies now working together.

Layton wants to be King Maker again. And lets not forget this is not about the Left or the NDP, its all about Jack.

A tip o the blog to Maple Leaf Politics

Also see: Edmontons Liberal Leadership Candidate


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Stephen Bush

Galloping Beaver writes;

Stephen Harper's appearance in front of an armed forces audience twice in as many months is somewhat illuminating. That isn't to say it's good. In fact, it shows a real desire on Harper's part to emulate his chicken-hawk hero in Washington. His speech and words are mere copies of the jingoistic rhetoric for which George W. Bush has become well-known.

And I would add that Georgie Porgie has been using the term; "Cut and Run" quite a bit lately ever since his pal Stephen used it in his pronouncement in Kandahar.

"There will be some who want to cut and run, but cutting and running is not my way and it's not the Canadian way," he said, to a round of applause.

Of course Bush used the term cut and run before the Harper did.

This is the new face of Canadian US relations, a mirror image of each others autarchic politics.

Muzzling the press, muzzling the cabinet, making Law and Order and Security the catchphrases for politics. Yep Stephen is a Bush now.






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A Message From the Management

rabble staff
recent-rabble-rouser
Babbler # 12458

posted 13 April 2006 08:48 PM

---

We on rabble staff have been watching the protest by many babblers on behalf of Audra, whose contract was terminated at the beginning of April. We are all sorry to see Audra go, and have enjoyed having her as a colleague at rabble. We are also sorry for the loss many babblers are feeling right now.

We understand that you have perceived our working conditions at rabble to be very poor. We have seen comparisons of rabble's labour practices to sweatshops, individual board members viciously maligned, and the discussion forum spammed almost into inoperability by participants who are understandably unhappy about losing Audra as one of their moderators. We have seen suggestions that rabble be turned into a worker's co-operative, and a demand that the rabble management committee answer to the participants on babble for their labour practices.

We feel that the protest you are engaging in is not a strike. It is a protest/boycott. We are the workers on this site, and we are not on strike.

We furthermore have no desire to be on strike. We do not feel that rabble is a poor employer. On the contrary, the management style of rabble is very staff-directed and oriented. We are currently going through a renewal process which we feel is a constructive way to address any work-related issues we might have. We enjoy the collaborative spirit of working together on it, and we are happy to have a Board that encourages us to do so.

It is with dismay and anger that we have read some of the attacks on individual members of the management committee (namely, Judy Rebick and Wayne MacPhail), as well as the committee as a whole. They are not just colleagues, but friends who share our progressive principles and values. While we appreciate that those who have
been protesting on Audra's behalf, and on the behalf of rabble workers in general mean well, we feel that you do not have an accurate impression of our working conditions.

Therefore, we do not support the current protest action on babble. We feel that babble is a very important part of the site, and that it cannot continue to be disrupted in the manner that it has been, and certainly not in the name of the workers at rabble. We would like the protest to end.

This is an excellent example of contract workers being coopted by liberal left
organizations that spout the progressive line but are neither worker run cooperatives nor unionized.

The Babble board at rabble.ca has now been shut down for the weekned, and who knows how long after that, due to the online picketing of it and protest commentaries over the firing of the Babble editor/administrator. Rabble Needs A Union

The folks at Rabble.ca have no union thus no grievance procedure, no recourse to outside arbitration, nor do they have a democratic worker run organization, there are owners and there are workers by their own admission.

This is not unlike situations that have arisen at other progressive organizations such as Greenpeace, which fired staff, when they unionized.

Rabble.ca staff are correct though in asking folks to quit spiking the babble board with attacks and trolling.

Better to BOYCOTT RABBLE.CA

Read Straight Goods instead, which started before Rabble. And oh yes if you have a complaint about how Rabble has treated its NON UNIONIZED staff, write to their advertisers who ARE UNIONS and ask them to boycott Rabble until this situation is resolved between the users/consumers of babble and its 'owners' and their staff.

This is an important lesson for the progressive Left community; Rabble and all so called progressive media online and in print that pay writers and editors should be unionized. Period. Even if the workers are on contract. If they aren't then they are hypocrites and despite their ideological bent still screw workers.

Also see: Unite the Left

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Only 9% Support for Harper

The Blogging Tories and other syncophants of the Harpocrite government will be doing cartwheels over the latest poll headlines: PM's agenda resonating with voters, new poll finds

But wait lets dig a little deeper and we find;

In all regions of the country, about 9 per cent of respondents said Mr. Harper's priorities were identical to their own,

So we have a government that represents the interests of less than 10% of Canadians. There should be no joy in Mudville over that number.

It has remained static. This is the real base of the right wing in Canada.

Meanwhile the great unwashed middle, 54-58% of those polled, is found to be 'supportive' of the governments priorities but, and it's a BIG BUT;

“When you poke further and say, ‘Do you have any other priorities?' a solid majority say yes,” Mr. Gregg said.

Those other priorities cover a broad range of issues, topped by education, the environment and other aspects of health beyond the reduction of waiting times.

“When you put those three together, you've got a good solid chunk of the population and that should be a little warning sign to him,” Mr. Gregg said. “There's stuff that he's doing right now in terms of cutting back on the greenhouse-gas emissions that just plays to his weakness.”

And this poll will bouy the Stalinist regime of the Harpocrite. He will use the poll to justify his autarchic authoritarian control over his party and the cabinet in Ottawa,Alberta. And let's remember it's only a honeymoon poll.

The government has had only one week in the house with a question period dominated by the Harpocrite anwsering for all his ministers. Wait till the budget and the bills come into the house. What we have here is Stephen Bush, remaking the PMO into the White House.

It's not obvious that Canadians will be comfortable with this new Canada. What is certain is that this much change can only happen if a prime minister applies his extraordinary powers in ways usually associated with presidents.And that's what Harper is doing. In commanding centre stage, he is accelerating a trend that reduces ministers to bit players whose principal role is filling policy blanks. At the same time, he's reading from the George W. Bush script by staying relentlessly on-message and playing to public perceptions of the media as negative, unruly children in desperate need of adult discipline. PM's control strategy is working — for now

For an excellent slice and dice commentary on this poll see:A BCer in Toronto


More on Harper

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Words of Wisdom From Captain Watson

Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, "I have no respect for Newfoundland or Newfoundlanders. They debased Canada when they joined the nation in 1949 and they continue to embarrass us in the eyes of the world as they inflict bloody carnage on innocent creatures, peddling seal penises and their silly seal flipper pie to the ecological perverts who actually pay for these obscenities."

Captain Paul Watson is a vegan who has no other mission in life than to stop all hunting. Period.

He is an idiot and an embarassment.

And while I support animal conservation endeavours around the industrial fishing of Whales, he goes too far there too when he attacks single whale hunts by West Coast and Northern aboriginal peoples. Which he would ban.



My Seal Hunt Articles


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A Word From Our Sealers

Jack Troake, a fisherman and sealer from Twillingate in central Newfoundland. Last Sunday, Mr. Troake left for the Labrador seal hunt, as he has nearly every spring for four decades. Sealing is a dangerous, gruelling pursuit, Mr. Troake said, conducted solely to put food on the tables of families in struggling, rural communities. "It's not pretty," said Mr. Troake, who is in his early 70s. "You kill any of God's creatures and it's not pretty."It's 'not pretty,' but seal business thrives

Amen to that.

My Seal Hunt Articles


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June Pointer RIP

Here is a short and sweet tribute to June Pointer who passed away this week from cancer. She was of course one of the Pointer Sisters.

JUNE POINTER

1953-2006

While the kind of cancer was not made public I find it interesting that finally we are seeing reports on the increasing amount of lung cancer among non-smokers. Especially women.

It is an under-reported fact. On the the moral majority that is imposing its non-smoking agenda on us overlook. And I say it is a moral issue because it blames the victims of this addiction, and it blames the victims of lung cancer who may never have smoked. The non-smokers lobby wants cancer to be caused by one thing and one thing only, smoking. But of course it is easy to blame smokers, the whole anti-smoking movement has been based upon this mythology that it is ONLY smoking that causes cancer When in fact cancer is the result of industrial capitalism, and its resulting toxic environment; chemicals, pollution, etc.

Even though it is the leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States, lung cancer attracts much less research money than other major cancers, Dr. Siegfried said, largely because it is so strongly linked to smoking that people often blame the victims for giving the disease to themselves. The Thinkers: Celebrity deaths shine light on lung cancer

Lung cancer continues to be the leading cause of cancer death
for both men and women in Canada according to annual
statistics released this week by the Canadian Cancer Society.
Despite alarming trends, including an increasing
incidence of lung cancer in women and life-long non-smokers, 
Lung cancer tops list as biggest cancer killer

"A significant body of scientific evidence links exposure to radiation and synthetic chemicals to an increased risk of breast cancer," said Susan Roll, Associate Executive Director of the Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition and one of the event's primary organizers. "We hope that legislators and their constituents will begin to think about reducing toxic chemicals as one way of preventing some diseases and disorders."Exploring chemical links to disease

Also See:

Smoking At Home Will Be Banned

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ASH

Edmontons Liberal Leadership Candidate

And the most Trudeau of the Liberal Leadership candidates is, according to Calgary Grit, former Edmontonian Gerard Kennedy. Kennedy started the Edmonton Food Bank one of the first in Canada.

The NDP need to be worried about Kennedy.

Brian Bechtel, who was in charge of the Edmonton Social Planning Council, proves this point as a spoiler in Edmonton Norwood when he ran for the provincial Liberals.

Kennedy can claim, as he did last Sunday at the Forum in Edmonton, to be able to speak to the West as much as he can issues in Toronto and Ontario.

Kennedy can give Layton a run for his money as a liberal social democrat.

And where the NDP have only won once in Edmonton in a federal riding, Kennedy could give a centre left leadership that would see more Liberal seats at least in Redmonton.

In the progressive politics of the centre left, Kennedy would bring back Liberal voters who supported the NDP. It would be a rare riding where the NDP would not be hurt by his leadership. Unlike the hardcore of each party, the vast majority of supporters, volunteers, etc. still support the idea of electing the best candidate or leader. As do the mass of voters.

I have seen that enthusiasm undermine many a provincial NDP campaign, as the Liberals drop in a socially progressive politico who has community links,into a provincial campaign here in Redmonton.

Bechtel did it, and so can Kennedy.

And as Pacific Tribune says; "What's stopping the NDP from getting swallowed entirely by the Federal Liberals, I'm becoming less and less sure of daily."

Kennedy is Layton sans moustache.



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Not Your Usual Left Wing Rant

No Taxes for the working class. That should be the watchword of the Left.

Left blogger a Class Act bemoans the state of the Canadian left on his blog. He says; "When is the left going to quit trying to be like its opponents,and begin to define itself by it's own actions and ideology?Give the people a real choice,a choice that stands for something,but above all principaled."

Exactomundo. When the Reform party was created it based itself not on the neo-conservatism of the Reaganites but on Western Canadian populism, a populism based on the Left. Recall, referendum, the attack on taxation, were all antebellum left wing causes at the begining of the 20th Century.

Socialism as Class Act calls it. It included the ideology of the producer republic, Georgism in the United States, the Cooperative Commonweal in Canada and the UK. It included syndicalism for the working class, and producer cooperatives for farmers and small producers. It was anti-monopoly and anti-rentier, pro land ownership. See Rothbard’s Reds Redux


Socialism at the begining of last century was not yet tainted with Bolshevism. And I use that term deliberately to distinguish it from communism. For within the anarchist and statist socialist movements were movements of communism, which went farther and further in their critique of capitalism than the anti-state socialists did.

Unfortunately the socialist dream, or vision, was lost in the coming forth of the social democratic movement and its statist ideal of the welfare state. Far from dying at the end of WWI in Canada the CCF called for social revolution, as did many of the socialists of the day. They still had only had a small taste of government, in this case the Socialist Party of Canada had been crucial to maintaince of power for the provincial Liberals in B.C, in the last days of fin de sicle 19th century.

The Socialist movement in Canada coalesced around the CCF, the Communist party and the OBU. With the destruction of the later and the success of the former in gaining political power provincially and representation federally came the end of the extra parlimentary left in Canada.

By the 1960's the CCF and the labour movement had purged the radicals and were now liberal social democratics just like their German predecesors of the century before.

The extra-parliamentary left was centred around the anti-Nuclear Bomb movement, Our Generation magazine, and what could be loosely called an anarchist left. One that was sceptical that state power could change anything.

Today the NDP and its social democratic ilk are really liberals in a hurry. And thus the plight that Class Act finds us in. We go back to the orginal debate between State Socialists and Anti-State Socialists. Is socialism a set of principles and and ideal to strive towards or is it the pragmatic logic of gaining state power.
It is of course the former since the latter has been a historic failure.

Since I of course do not believe it is the latter, I hardly consider the NDP or even the Trade Unions on the left. That is they cannot concieve of a program of workers and community control that is a radical challenge to the corporate/financial and state monopoly. They in effect are , as the left communists call them, the left hand of capitalism. They merely wish to ameliorate the worst excesses of capitalism while maintaining the status quo.

Expect no real answers from them on how to change or challenge the system.

But thank goodness the long march to Ottawa by the neo-conservative right in Canada has finally ended in a minority government. Because they too called for a revolution in politics as usual. And they too have ended up being no such thing, just business as usual.

Where the left failed during the past two decades was to see that what Reform had harnassed was a real grass roots disgruntlement of the working class towards politics as usual. Not always reactionary, it was based on feeling powerless and wanting to feel in power over our own lives.

The Left never got it. Whenever the NDP called for taxing the rich, the guys in the Alberta Gas Plants, unionized, and paid overtime saw it as an attack on their wages. It didn't matter that the NDP meant the Rich, as in the 1% of Canadians that own all the wealth, or the corporations, their message was lost on the working class. And for good reason.

We hate taxes. We love services. And we will pay for services, but we hate taxes. And why shouldn't we, over the past fifty years the federal and provincial tax base has moved from the corporations to picking the pockets of you and me.

The NDP finally realised this simple fact during the 2004 election and during the last sitting of the house. They called for more tax breaks for the working class. But because this runs counter to their state socialism, they were faint hearted in their calls, faint hearted in their attack on the Liberals and Conservatives as parties of the rich and entrenched power. The so called special interests.

The fact is that the Conservative government in Ottawa is about to launch a massive assault on the working class through taxation.

They will fund their 1% GST cut by eliminating tax breaks the Liberals brought in. They will give out a baby bonus that will be taxed. They will fail to transfer funds to day care programs clawing them back.

The Left should be calling for no taxation for anyone who earns $100,000 a year or less. Period. That is the mass of the working class in this country.

No party currently will call for this and for the elimination of user fees and the GST. For these are the little taxes that hurt, the death by a thousand cuts that so irritate each and every wage slave in Canada.

Tax the Corporations NOT the People, should be the watchword of the Left. Want Daycare and Medicare, the corporations should pay, out of pre tax profits. It is social capital that they directly benefit from in their bottom line, its what makes them competitive against the American capitalist model.

Eliminate all corporate tax loopholes. Eliminate offshore investment havens for the Rich. And in the process this will eliminate the Tax Department.

The Left should attack the failure of the Reformers, who are still out there as the recent Fireweed Forum on Democracy showed, and the parliamentary reformers,
to address the real issue of political reform in Canada.

The need for real democracy, directly elected revocable delgates to constiuent assemblies. To the right to referndum, to a renewal of Canada as constitutional confederation of the people not a con job. See my Abolish The Senate

On economic renewal we should be calling for the creation of peoples banks, the deregulation of banking from the hands of the State into the hands of the people as pools of capital for usage with institutional pension funds and workers investments to build small and medium sized worker/producer cooperatives.
See Michael Alberts Economic Participatory Democracy project; Parecon.

This deregulation would also eliminate large banks as holders of capital in the national interest. That role should be continued by the Bank of Canada, which delegated it to the national banks twenty years ago under the Mulroney Conservatives.

We don't need a state in Canada we need a confederation of peoples and communities in a federal system not of Trudeau's making or Harpers but in the Proudhonist model of self government.


And this cannot be done through electoral means, it takes a social revolution. The Reform party tried to do this from the Right and the NPI and other attempts to reform the NDP did it on the left and the result is Jack Layton and Stephen Harper. Nothing changed.

So Class Act I agree with you that the Left needs renewal. And the Left needs first to divorce itself from the existing liberal social democratic parliamentary mileu.
Then and only then will it become an authentic voice for Canadians who are frustrated and pissed off with the system as it is. We have been told to embrace change for twenty years by the neo-cons as they privatized public services. That change for change sake ideology is deeply embedded in all of capitalism corporate and managerial structures now. It gives us a window to challenge the very system of capitalism with a real Left agenda of People Power.




Also see:

Unite the Left

A Peoples Program for Alberta

Left, Right and Liberty

State-less Socialism

A NEW AMERICAN REVOLUTION

Social Credit And Western Canadian Radicalism

Rebel Yell

Plutocrats Rule


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