Libblogs Abandon Civilized Discourse

I wondered what had happened to the Liberal blog aggregator Libnews.ca which was covering the blog coverage of the Liberal Leadership race. Well now I know.

The death of discourse

Loyal Libnews readers will note that it has been nearly two weeks since our last post. Readers may have also noted that our posting was sporadic even before that. Some of you have even e-mailed to ask about our silence.

The explanation is simple. The Liberal blogs have turned into a partisan brawl. Before Super Weekend, people disagreed, criticized and postured, but the tone and content of posts and comments have rapidly deteriorated since delegates were chosen.

See:

Liberal Leadership Race

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Rochdale Deja Vu

Politicians demand compensation for tenants in grow-op high-rise

This reminds me of the infamous Rochdale housing complex in Toronto. Home to hippies and pot. The origin of the counter culture in TO in the seventies. It was a housing coop, home to self publishers, and an alternative educational centre.

Rochdale was part of Canada's unique counter culture history, which includes the fact that LSD was used here first before Leary and others used it in the United State.

And our counter culture was also influenced by the Vietnam War since Toronto and Vancouver were were major centres for draft dodgers.


I visited Rochdale in the seventies in its final days. It was home to grow ops as well as the Canadian Whole Earth Almanac, a back to the land, pro drug, alternative lifestyle publication. Rochdale was a unique libertarian experiment of its time in Canadian history.



MICHAEL L. WONG
I once was a first lieutenant in high school Army ROTC who believed fervently in the Army and our government leaders. Then came the real Army. My story, “Honor’s Death,” tells of my Army experience and why I turned against the Viet Nam war and deserted to Canada. The next story, “To Take a Street,” tells of one small protest.

What these stories don’t tell you is that in Toronto, Canada, I was a member of a hippie counterculture community known as Rochdale College. An Internet search will produce over 800 entries about this experiment that happened in an eighteen-story apartment building. I wrote in Maxine Hong Kingston’s Fifth Book of Peace: “We were a world unto ourselves, with our own government, a free medical clinic, a movie theater, a library, a health food restaurant, a store, a dance studio, and a host of other features of a community. We even had our own hippie ‘police force,’ Rochdale Security ... ”

A war of attrition by the Canadian government and police against Rochdale formed for me a counterpoint to the war in Viet Nam. The war hawks lost the war to control South Viet Nam. We hippies lost the war to save Rochdale College. I deserted the U.S. Army, only to serve on Rochdale Security. I never faced the guns of the Viet Cong, but I faced—unarmed—the guns of the Toronto Police Department. My closest comrade, Cindy Lei, was one of those who died for Rochdale. I was never the same.

Rochdale College Museum

TheStar.com - Rochdale: sex, drugs and tax breaks

ROCHDALE COLLEGE AND THE ‘60s COUNTER CULTURE

See:

Marijuana

drugs

Paul Goodman

New Age Libertarian Manifesto

Draft Dodgers in Dukhbour Country

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Americans Push For Clean Air Act

So the Tories Clean Air Act is actually is better than the current White House lack of action on clean air. A little bit of silver lining in an act that is more about what it is not doing about Green House Gas.

High Court to Weigh Climate Change Case

(AP) -- The Supreme Court hears arguments this week in a case that could determine whether the Bush administration must change course in how it deals with the threat of global warming.

A dozen states as well as environmental groups and large cities are trying to convince the court that the Environmental Protection Agency must regulate, as a matter of public health, the amount of carbon dioxide that comes from vehicles.

Carbon dioxide is produced when fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas are burned. It is the principal "greenhouse" gas that many scientists believe is flowing into the atmosphere at an unprecedented rate, leading to a warming of the earth and widespread ecological changes. One way to reduce those emissions is to have cleaner-burning cars.

The Bush administration intends to argue before the court on Wednesday that the EPA lacks the power under the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant. The agency contends that even if it did have such authority, it would have discretion under the law on how to address the problem without imposing emissions controls.

The states, led by Massachusetts, and more than a dozen environmental groups insist the 1970 law makes clear that carbon dioxide is a pollutant - much like lead and smog-causing chemicals - that is subject to regulation because its poses a threat to public health.

A sharply divided federal appeals court ruled in favor of the government in 2005. But last June, the Supreme Court decided to take up the case, plunging for the first time into the politically charged debate over global warming. The ruling next year is expected to be one of the court's most important ever involving the environment.

See:

Ambrose

Envrionment

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Morton's Harpocrisy

Mr. Morton, whose platform includes less influence from Ottawa, is confident he has enough untapped support to win.

This from the guy who is supported by the Federal Conservative Party, the current New Government of Canada,his old Reform Party pals Harper, Day, Kenney, etc.

While he criticizes Dinning for representing the Calgary cabal that runs the PC's he himself benefits from that other Calgary Cabal, the Reformers who run the Federal Conservative party. It's two different Calgary visions competing for leadership of the PC's. One is a liberal corporate capitalist vision for Alberta and its place in Canada, the other is the Republican Neo-Con agenda of the NCC, Fraser Institute, and the fundamentalist Christian social conservatives.

But for the PC party, it is the begining of the end of its overwhelming power of the One Party State. No matter who wins the party is in entropy. On the way out. And that is something all Albertans and Canadians can be thankful for.

Alberta has a long history as a one-party province, where governments last decades and oppositions parties pose little threat.

But the opposition Liberals are hoping this leadership vote heralds a political sea change.

"The divisions in the Tory Party have really come to the surface now," Liberal Leader Kevin Taft said yesterday. "I think there's lots of opportunity here for the Alberta Liberals."

Mr. Taft's party has 15 seats in the 83-seat legislature, compared with 62 held by the Tories.

Prof. Brownsey said the next premier could enjoy a short-lived victory.

"They can win the battle, but they can't win the war," he said, "Their supporters don't care about the next election. They're not thinking about who's electable."

Even some long-time conservatives are worried about the future of the party, particularly if Mr. Morton becomes the next premier.

"The majority of Albertans are a little right of centre, but we are not far right," said Steve West, a former Klein cabinet minister who supports Mr. Dinning, "We have to have a social conscience. Ted's campaign sells well in some parts of rural Alberta, but I don't think it sells with 80 per cent of the people."

Mount Royal College political scientist Keith Brownsey said Morton’s hard line is going to scare a lot of Tory moderates.

He said Morton’s ability to garner 26% on the vote, just behind Dinning’s 30%, is “absolutely shocking.”

Brownsey said the Tories have reinvigorated the party with a one member-one vote formula, but that’s opened the door to the far right.

“I would argue that it’s a change that’s unpalatable to most of Alberta,” he said. “Albertans will have to ask themselves: ‘Do we want to be governed by someone so far to the right, so opposed to a national vision in this country who doesn’t represent the mainstream of Alberta society?’”

He predicted that if Morton wins next Saturday’s vote, which he said is a definite possibility, moderate Tories will flee the party.

“This party is really in danger of fraying at the edges, of spinning out of control,” he said. “The business community is absolutely apoplectic. Morton is absolutely not the person to represent their interests.”

See:

Conservative Leadership Race

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Edmonton PC Votes

Ken Chapman has a breakdown of how the PC leadership vote turned out in Edmonton.

"The Edmonton vote was split up all over the place. Dinning had 5575 in Edmonton and Hancock had 4995. No doubt some Hancock votes will bleed to Dinning. Oberg was third in Edmonton with 3228 and they have no reason to go to Dinning but will bleed some to Morton who had a respectable 2739 total in Edmonton. Norris was fourth in Edmonton with 3125 and Stelmach was only 200 votes behind him at 2925."

And he speculates on how Stelmach could come up the middle. It still think it's a two way race as I have said before. However the anybody but Dinning camp now has Stelmach to back not just Morton, which is why he credits his chances at coming up the middle. Oberg becomes 2nd defeated candidate to back Stelmach in Alberta I remain doubtful.Even though the nubers add up right now if all of Hancock and Obergs votes go to Stelmach, however Oberg is as right wing as Morton, so his votes could split to Morton, they will certainly not go to Dinning. And sore loser Norris has yet to say whom he will support.

Chapman will be doing a breakdown of Calgary later. He also looks at how the candidates MLA backers pulled the vote in thier ridings. Interesting stuff. Chapmans blog is great for straight forward political analysis of the Tories, from a Tory (who claims to be interested in progressive politics, go figure) who supports Hancock.

As I said the biggest losers in this race were Oberg and Norris. Both suffered the delusion that they were contenders.

For Norris he came in fourth in his hometown even as the fairhaired boy of the Edmoton business community and the Edmonton Sun. Fourth.

Hancock whom many pundits wrote off came in a close second in Edmonton, after Dinning. Of course he is a social and fiscal liberal, a Red Tory. This is Redmonton after all where even the Conservatives have to run a Red.

A tip o' the blog to Daveberta

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Conservative Leadership Race

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Uh Oh Maybe The Tories Were Right

But for the wrong reasons. It is not just Canada that cannot meet its Kyoto targets, it's the whole world. It is the heat death of the planet so lets make lots of money while we can.

Maybe the Harpocrites were right it is impossible to meet the Kyoto targets. So why bother.As Prince said lets party like it's 1999.

Hello, earth to humans; Capitalism is NOT sustainable.

The rate of increase in carbon dioxide emissions has more than doubled since the 1990s, according to a new Australian study, raising fears that the rising levels of carbon dioxide may be unstoppable.

"From 2000 to 2005, the growth rate of carbon dioxide emissions was more than 2.5 per cent per year, whereas in the 1990s it was less than one per cent per year," said study co-author Mike Raupach of Australia's national science agency, the CSIRO.

Carbon dioxide has been implicated as a major cause of global warming, and the new findings suggest that recent global efforts to reduce emissions have had little impact.

According to Raupach 7.9 billion tonnes of carbon were emitted into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide in 2005 and the rate of increase is accelerating.

According to CSIRO's Paul Fraser, another of the study's authors, "The trend over recent years suggests the growth rate is accelerating, signifying that fossil fuels are having an impact on greenhouse gas concentrations in a way we haven't seen in the past."

"The jump in emissions is remarkable … it seems there has been a tremendous shift in the past five years," said independent expert Paul Crutzen of the Max Plank Institute for Chemistry in Germany, a Nobel Prize winner for his work on holes in the ozone layer. "Unfortunately, once emissions go up, it's very hard to bring them back down."

Also See

Ambrose

Kyoto

A Critique of Kyoto Capitalism Is NOT Sustainable

Socialism

industrial ecology

Social Ecology

Green Capitalism



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Left Wing Pragmatism

Leftist Candidate in Ecuador Is Ahead in Vote, Exit Polls Show

Rafael Correa, an urbane economist who has rattled nerves in Washington with plans to limit American military activities in Ecuador and renegotiate the country’s foreign debt, seemed headed to an easy victory on Sunday in the presidential election, according to several exit polls.A win by Mr. Correa, 43, could bring Ecuador into a group of Latin American nations with leftist presidents, including Bolivia, Cuba and Nicaragua, which are allied with President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela. Mr. Correa has close ties to Mr. Chávez, whose government is prepared to offer Ecuador assistance to strengthen its national oil company.

As I wrote here the new left wing regimes in Latin America are not the old Stalinist model that the red baiting American right likes to claim they are. They have learned the lessons of defeat, of compromise, and that the need to create social democracy is as important as the need for economic social justice.

Depite the rhetorical bluster of a Hugo Chavez, the reality is that the recent victories of the Left in Latin America and now Central America are tempered with realism that they need to develop social captialism, a mixed economy, if they are to get out from under the thumb of Imperialism. Even Chavez is a realist, and his oil compan CITIGO is one of the most successful in the United States, and you can't argue with success.

No shocking revelation that. State Capitalism of the Stalinist model which was based on militarism and rationing, was really the War Communism of the Bolsheviks which was modeled not on Marx but Bismark.

The Cuban revolution was the model for the anti-colonialist movements in the sixties and seventies. But with the electoral success of Allende in Chile that changed. Despite the Pinochet coup, that model is what has been put into practice now in Latin America.

Today's left in Latin America is about as revolutionary as the NDP and no more a threat than they are to the interests of capitalism.

Cold War Icon Ortega Trades Marx for God

But Ortega, who was president in 1985-90, the height of the Contra insurgency, says he has traded war for peace, love and consensus.

His victory speech late Wednesday was tinged with some of his old fire. Raising his arms in victory, he led thousands in a rendition of an old revolutionary song: "The people united will never be divided."

He promoted socialist ideals such as free education and medical care, lambasted U.S. Republicans for the war in Iraq and thanked other leftist Latin American leaders for their support. But most of his speech was dedicated to praising democracy and reaching out to opponents.

"Don't let one criticism slip from your lips against those who didn't vote for us," he warned his supporters. "We have to be humble."

Ortega, who turned 61 Saturday and takes office Jan. 10, has been careful not to sound triumphalist. Even though his strong lead over Harvard-educated banker Eduardo Montealegre was clear soon after Sunday's election, he waited two full days for Montealegre to concede defeat before declaring victory.

His speeches have focused on reassuring skeptics that he plans no radical changes and will embrace free trade, job creation and close U.S. ties.

On Saturday, Ortega said his Cabinet ministers will be named by the people _ not himself _ and he had asked local representatives to send him proposals for candidates. He vowed that half of his top officials would be women and he would include people who didn't vote for him.

He also promised more than 1,000 Sandinista peasant leaders that the government would buy land for people who need it, which they could pay for "little by little even if it is with a sack of corn."

Bolivia
A hard bargain
Evo Morales deals and wins on gas

WHEN Evo Morales, Bolivia's socialist president, announced the “nationalisation” of his country's oil and gas on May 1st, he gave the foreign companies that had invested $3.5 billion in the industry six months to accept new contracts. These would turn them into heavily taxed providers of services to Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB), the revived state energy company. Just minutes before the deadline, late on October 28th, ten energy companies signed up to new terms that Mr Morales said will raise the government's energy revenues to $1 billion this year and four times as much by 2010.

See:

State Capitalism

Globalization

Latin America

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Liberal No Show

Supppose they held a convention and nobody showed? It's time for the Liberals to adopt one person one vote.

"There is some concern about the attendance and I think that's across the board, by the way," said one Liberal strategist, who estimated that about 2,000 and 3,000 delegates will attend the convention. "If there's a low turnout, the camps that get their vote out, just like in an election or in a nomination, will do better than the average. We'll be glad to get by this and past this, because it's been hard on everybody."

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Liberal Leadership Race

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Green Capitalism

Is Canada missing out on an business opportunity with Kyoto. Apparently.

Canada could be hurt by Kyoto retreat, says head of UN Environment Program

Steiner, a German who took over as UNEP executive director earlier this year, said there was disappointment with Ottawa's stance at the UN Climate Conference that has just ended in Nairobi.

He predicted Canadian investors will press for greater certainty about the government's intentions. "I think the best answers will come from the corporations."

Steiner added in an interview that there's nothing wrong with making profits if the result is lower emissions; that is precisely to purpose of the Kyoto Clean Development Mechanism, which allows companies to generate and trade carbon-emissions credits. "Frankly, some people will make money."

For example, a Canadian company could design and build a solar power project in Africa, creating credits which then could be sold on the international market. In this way, emissions cuts would be obtained wherever they can be done at lowest cost.

According to the Stern Review, recently published by the UK government, markets for low-carbon energy products will likely be worth at least $500 billion per year by 2050.

Mark Holland: 'If you can't make money saving the world, you won't save the world.'

RAND Corp. says big gains can be achieved at little cost

Renewable sources of energy could meet 25% of U.S. demand for electricity and motor fuels by 2025 with little additional costs, says a study by RAND Corp. released last week. Currently, renewable energy sources provide about 6% of U.S. energy.To generate renewable energy without new costs, however, fossil fuels must remain relatively expensive—at least $54 per barrel—and renewable energy production costs must fall about 20% between now and 2025, the report determined. Both assumptions match government predictions and historical trends, the report says.

As I have said Kyoto is about creating a green capitalism. It is based on carbon sinks and carbon emissions trading. A new market approach to the environment.

But the Conservatives ideologically oppose this market approach, for which they can give no good reason.That is because the believe the handful of Fox newsbroadcasters who claim that global warming is a myth.

But here is a business opportunity they are denying themselves, and Canadian corporations and NGO's.

In reality carbon trading was embraced by the Liberals because they saw they could tie it into CIDA development projects killing two birds with one stone. They didn't have to increase government expenditures on Kyoto committments they just had to earmark existing CIDA development funding as part of their Kyoto comittment.

It is this CIDA funding with its Kyoto monicker that Rona Ambrose claims is the billions spent on carbon trading outside of Canada, as if all we were doing was buying someone elses carbon credits. It was a convient lie for the moment. But now the inconvient truth is going to come back and bite the Conservatives on the ass.

See:

Ambrose

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Success Iraq Style

The New York Times is reporting that there is some success in Iraq. But not the kind the Americans were expecting. Of course its not what the neo-cons predicted but in one of those twists of fate it is a neo con strategy. Remember Wolfowitz saying that Iraq would be self-sustaining after the American Invasion. Well it is.

The insurgency in Iraq is now self-sustaining financially, raising tens of millions of dollars a year from oil smuggling, kidnapping, counterfeiting, connivance by corrupt Islamic charities and other crimes that the Iraqi government and its American patrons have been largely unable to prevent, a classified United States government report has concluded.

See:

Iraq

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