Failure of a Measured Response

The words "Measured Response" are never used......And the Israeli soldiers that this war was supposedly about are still prisoners of Hezbollah/Hizbullah and Hamas.

Perhaps this was also the conclusion of Wajid Khan's report to the PM, which is why it has never been made public.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert took a staggering blow to the political chin last night after an official commission of inquiry issued a scathing interim report on his government's handling of the country's war last summer in southern Lebanon."The word `failure' recurred over and over again," said Gil Hoffman, chief political correspondent for The Jerusalem Post.

Israel's failed war in Lebanon

Israel botched it from the start

ALTHOUGH it said nothing new of substance, the sharpness of the Winograd Commission’s words took Israeli politicians’ breath away. The commission—government appointed and led by a former Supreme Court judge—on Monday April 30th issued a report on the first five days of Israel’s war in south Lebanon last summer. It accuses the prime minister, Ehud Olmert, of a “severe failure in exercising judgment, responsibility and prudence” for deciding to go to war immediately after Hizbullah militants kidnapped two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid, and for continuing it after it became clear that an attack would not bring them back.

Israel balks at Hamas prisoner demand
Public pressure has been building on Israel's government to make a deal for Shalit — along with two soldiers captured three weeks later by Hezbollah guerrillas in a similar cross-border raid from Lebanon, setting off a destructive 34-day war last summer.

See:

Fraser Institute On Lebanon

Unemployment Breeds Terrorism

Israel Lies Cost Lebanese Lives

Economic War

The Economics of War In Lebanon

Six Week War for Nothing

Lets Get Our Facts Straight

Hezbollah Are Not Terrorists

Israel War Crimes

We Are Hezbolah

Thank The New Canadian Government

Canada Forces Palestinans Into Poverty

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Hizbollah,, Hezbollah,, Hizbullah

United We Win

Industrial unionism means when all the workers in a workplace walk out they win....Workers approve binding mediation to end Halifax hospital strike




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Tax Time and Walpurgisnacht

There is something sinister about the Canadian Tax system. It is declared that we must file taxes by Midnight April 30. This is Walpurgisnacht, or night of the witches, the ancient pagan festival of fire; Beltane, and consumption of the last of the salted meat from harvest in celebration of the new life of spring.

Death and Taxes as they say. Leads to rebirth new life.

Walpurgisnacht,night of the witches the celebration of the end of darkness and the fire rituals of spring. We pays our taxes and hopes we gets some back from the tax man. A sacrifice, even if it is in coin, as the season demands.

Goethe and Mendelssohn express this Euroean pagan tradition in verse and song.
Mendelssohn's Choral arrangement is a modernist paenan to paganism. But damn we still must give unto Caesar; the real meaning of the festival of fools........

Mendelssohn’s Walpurgisnacht
Conductor : Valérie Fayet
Walpurgis Night, based on a work by Goethe, celebrates the popular tradition which talks about pagan gatherings taking place on the “witches' mountain” during the night of May 1 st.
Mendelssohn's work is admirably clear, colourful and full of energy.

Die erste Walpurgisnacht Op. 60: So weit gebracht, dass wir bei Nacht

Listen

Die Erste Walpurgisnacht, cantata for chorus & orchestra, Op. 60 So weit gebracht, daß wir bei Nacht
Composed by Felix Mendelssohn
Performed by Chamber Orchestra Europe
Conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt

A period of travel and concert-giving introduced Mendelssohn to England, Scotland (1829) and Italy (1830-31); after return visits to Paris (1831) and London (1832, 1833) he took up a conducting post at Düsseldorf (1833-5), concentrating on Handel's oratorios. Among the chief products of this time were The Hebrides (first performed in London, 1832), the g Minor Piano Concerto, Die erste Walpurgisnacht, the Italian Symphony (1833, London)

5. Die Erste Walpurgisnacht, Op. 60: Ouverture: 1. Das schlechte 2. Der Ubergang zum Fruhling -
6. Die Erste Walpurgisnacht, Op. 60: I Es lacht der Mai! -
7. Die Erste Walpurgisnacht, Op. 60: II Konnt ihr so verwegen handeln? -
8. Die Erste Walpurgisnacht, Op. 60: III Wer Opfer heut' zu bringen scheut -
9. Die Erste Walpurgisnacht, Op. 60: IV Verteilt euch hier -
10. Die Erste Walpurgisnacht, Op. 60: V Diese dumpfen Pfaffenchristen - Kommt mit Zacken und mit Gabeln -
11. Die Erste Walpurgisnacht, Op. 60: VII So weit gebracht - VIII Hilf, ach hilf mir, Kriegsgeselle - IX Die Flamme reinigt sich vom Rauch -

O+1+2.nwc:	0: Overture
:	1: Now may again
:	2: Know ye not a deed so daring?
3+4.nwc :	3: The man who flies
:	4: Disperse, ye gallant men
5+6+7+8+9.nwc:	5: Should our Christian foes assail us
:	6: Come with torches brightly flashing
:	7: Restrain'd by might
:	8: Help, my comrades
:	9: Unclouded now, the flame is bright

"...don't you think this could become a new kind of cantata?" Rituality, Authenticity and Staging in Mendelssohn’s Walpurgisnacht

Assuming a potential analogy between art and ritual, or between art and the interpretation of ritual as a Gesamtkunstwerk, the question arises as to what degree boundaries or transitions between aesthetic presentation, staging and identification with ritual can be determined in art. This topic could be discussed in terms of reception-aesthetics, with the question of the participation of an implicit or exclusive audience in ritual or in art. On the other hand, the perspective of this question can also be developed, as in this article, in terms of production-aesthetics, using the model of a musical composition based on a preexisting literary text. In Goethe's and Mendelssohn's texts,' not only their cultic-religious rituality will be investigated, but also the problem of how far beyond the cultic subject the immanent formative principles of ritual in terms of music are effective. Although in his early ballad Die erste Walpurgisnacht (The First Walpurgis Night) of 1799 Goethe distinguished the pagan Walpurgis night from the classical and romantic in both stages of Faust, in his own way Mendelssohn related these three forms of ritual directly to one another within one work.

Cantata - LoveToKnow 1911

In modern times the term cantata is applied almost exclusively to choral, as distinguished from solo vocal music. There has, perhaps, been only one kind of cantata since Bach which can be recognized as an art form and not as a mere title for works otherwise impossible to classify. It is just possible to recognize as a distinct artistic type that kind of early r9th-century cantata in which the chorus is the vehicle for music more lyric and songlike than the oratorio style, though at the same time not exclude ing the possibility of a brilliant climax in the shape of a light order of fugue. Beethoven's Glorreiche Augenblick is a brilliant "pot-boiler" in this style; Weber's Jubel Cantata is a typical specimen, and Mendelssohn's Walpurgisnacht is the classic.

The Jews seem fated to wanDer forever among other nations and be faced perpetually with minority status and a legitimate pressure to acculturate and assimilate. If one compares the ending of The Eternal Road to Felix Mendelssohn's setting of Goethe's Die erste Walpurgisnacht, one is struck by a vital difference. Mendelssohn, although bearing the most celebrated name in early nineteenth-century German-Jewish history, had been converted and become a devout Protestant. Nevertheless through his music he celebrated with empathy and pride the courageous resistance of the Druids to the siege on their traditions and beliefs laid by violent Christian attackers. In contrast, The Eternal Road ends much more ambiguously with a vague hope for a return to Zion among a defeated and divided community, bowing to a fate of perpetual exclusion, persecution, and powerlessness.


Mendelssohn, Goethe, and the Walpurgis Night
The Heathen Muse in European Culture, 1700-1850
John Michael Cooper


Mendelssohn, Goethe, and the Walpurgis Night is a book about tolerance and acceptance in the face of cultural, political, and religious strife. Its point of departure is the Walpurgis Night. The Night, also known as Beltane or May Eve, was supposedly an annual witches' Sabbath that centered around the Brocken, the highest peak of the Harz Mountains.
After exploring how a notoriously pagan celebration came to be named after the Christian missionary St. Walpurgis (ca. 710-79), John Michael Cooper discusses the Night's treatments in several closely interwoven works by Goethe and Mendelssohn. His book situates those works in their immediate personal and professional contexts, as well as among treatments by a wide array of other artists, philosophers, and political thinkers, including Voltaire, Lessing, Shelley, Heine, Delacroix, and Berlioz.
In an age of decisive political and religious conflict, Walpurgis Night became a heathen muse: a source of spiritual inspiration that was neither specifically Christian, nor Jewish, nor Muslim. And Mendelssohn's and Goethe's engagements with it offer new insights into its role in European cultural history, as well as into issues of political, religious, and social identity -- and the relations between cultural groups -- in today's world.

Among some of his (Goethe’s) most engaging/compelling musical experiences of his late maturity were the visits of Felix Mendelssohn, who was 12 years old in 1821 and had been introduced to Goethe personally in Weimar by his (Mendelssohn’s) teacher, Zelter. Further visits took place in 1822, 1825, and 1830. Goethe had Mendelssohn play for him and explain to him technical matters concerning music and music history. This relationship became one of tender devotion on the part of Goethe towards Mendelssohn: in 1822 Goethe said to Mendelssohn: “I am Saul and you are my David,” and in his last letter to Mendelssohn, Goethe began with “My dear son.” Mendelssohn dedicated his Piano Quartet in B minor, opus 3 to Goethe and composed music for “Die erste Walpurgisnacht” (1^st version in 1832)…. Goethe was eager to hear instrumental music which was played by Reichardt, Kayser, Zelter, Eberwein, Hummel, Spohr, Beethoven, Baron Oliva, Szymanowska (female pianist), J. H. F. Schütz, and finally by Mendelssohn whom he repeatedly asked to play something for him.”]


Mendelssohn's Die erste Walpurgisnacht, one of his greatest cantatas, was based on Goethe's Faust, and on Goethe's personal interpretation of the scene (Grove Dictionary 146). Mendelssohn's friendship with the poet lasted for a great many years, up until Goethe's death in 1832.

The first Walpurgisnacht

The Ouverture represents the transition from the winter to spring. The beginning in A-Moll is overwritten with “the bad weather”, while with the idiom into the Dur variant approaching the Walpurgisnacht in spring is announced. It is described in the following, as the priests and Druiden of the Celts meet secretly in the inhospitable mountains of the resin, in order to address after old custom with fire their prayer to the all father of the sky and the earth. Since their rites are forbidden by the Christian gentlemen however, everything must happen in the secret one. With cheat and to linings the soldiers of the Christians were frightened in such a manner that the Celts in peace can celebrate their Walpurgisnacht.
There are two Walpurgisnächte in Goethe's work. Admits is above all that from that fist I, in which a typical Hexensabbat is sworn to in visionär grotesque way. On the other hand Goethe takes poem the first Walpurgisnacht a heidnisches victim celebration developed to 1799 in that during thunderstorm eight to the cause to confront two incompatible ways of thinking and being LV each other.
Whole 19. Through century the romantic composers let themselves fist be inspired again and again from the picture world of the I and fist II, while the first Walpurgisnacht remained almost unknown. Only Carl Friedrich Zelter, Goethe friend and musical advisor, have try, the poem tone. It kept full fifteen years it under its papers, before it took distance finally from a project, which exceeded its imagination.
That was introduced by Zelter at that time twelve-year-old boy Mendelssohn with around sixty years the older Olympier Goethe, whom time and fame had coined/shaped. By Beethoven and Schubert to judge, understood the old gentleman not much about music. In its youth he had heard some of the Mozarts' works, whose clarity and harmony it zollte still at the age attention and acknowledgment; and it found favours to feel with the citizen of Berlin miracle child from good family the aftereffect of those melodies in those the ideal of its own youth lived. It would be inaccurate to speak of a co-operation between Goethe and Mendelssohn. The first important piece, to which the poet energized the young musician, was the Ouvertüre sea silence and lucky travel, which arrived only in the year 1832, Goethe's death year, at the public performance. That Goethe would have known to appreciate a music, so clearly under Beethovens the influence is to be doubted. Just as little it the score of the first Walpurgisnacht would have probably behagt. The work, in which orchestras and voices verwoben closely into one another are, becomes not completely fair the central thought of the artist Philosphen. From its “Faible for witches” seduced, Mendelssohn stated little interest in the deeper meaning of the poem: the always-lasting conflict between the instinktiven natural forces on the one hand and the mental clarity of a thought world coined/shaped by the clearing-up on the other hand. With the primarily romantic treatment of the article it remains on the level of a descriptive poem and tears us in tumbles uncontrolled thunderstorm eight.
The 1831 completed first minute of the score experienced substantial changes, before she arrived to 1842 at the premiere. Goethe did not experience no more, which regulation to his verses assign became, whose Vertonung lends a fascinating juvenile fire to them. Mendelssohn proves here as genuine romantics. It uses a pallet of magnificent tone qualities, lets the horns from the supple fabric of the Streicher step out and gives to the Holzbläsern a most personal note. The choirs are from a Schlichtheit, which lends occasionally the serious character of a Volksliedes to them, while proper large airs are assigned to the soloist.
The whole wealth of the romantic opera is united in this musical illustration of a poem, which reminds at the Feenzauber of shakespearscher scenes. The choir of the Druiden (No. 6 of the score) is from an imaginativeness, which only the late Verdi in the last act of its Falstaff reaches again. The composer, at whom Goethe estimated the causing its own youth, somehow not completely up-to-date one, appears here surprisingly as one of the prophets of the music 19. Century. With deciveness it secures the transition from Beethoven to the large rhapsodies of Brahms.

Jean Francois Labie
(Translation: Ingrid trusting man)

G O E T H E ' S   P A G A N   P O E T R Y

Goethe, a genius with unmistakable Pagan sympathies,
excelled as a poet, dramatist, novelist, essayist,
philosopher and scientist (his works occupy 140
volumes!).  Here are several of his Pagan poems,
including his ballade "The First Walpurgis-Night," in
which the Pagans score a Discordian victory over their
oppressors.  (I'm sure Goethe now dwells happily among
the Pagan Gods.)  The ballade has been set to music by
Mendelssohn (Die Erste Walpurgisnacht), which is quite
good, but not suitable for small group performance.
Perhaps the Muses will help some modern Pagan to
compose a version for contemporary witches' sabbats.
Although only the God (Allvater) is mentioned, I've
left Goethe's text unchanged; it's easy to substitute
"Mother" for some or all of the "Father"s if you like.
           -- John Opsopaus


THE FIRST WALPURGIS-NIGHT
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A DRUID.

Sweet smiles the May!
The forest gay
From frost and ice is freed;
No snow is found,
Glad songs resound
Across the verdant mead.
Upon the height
The snow lies light,
Yet thither now we go,
There to extol our Father's name,
Whom we for ages know.
Amid the smoke shall gleam the flame;
Thus pure the heart will grow.

THE DRUIDS.

Amid the smoke shall gleam the flame;
Extol we now our Father's name,
Whom we for ages know!
Up, up, then, let us go!

ONE OF THE PEOPLE.

Would ye, then, so rashly act?
Would ye instant death attract?
Know ye not the cruel threats
Of the victors we obey?
Round about are placed their nets
In the sinful Heathen's way.
Ah! upon the lofty wall
Wife and children slaughter they;
And we all
Hasten to a certain fall.

CHORUS OF WOMEN.

Ay, upon the camp's high wall
All our children loved they slay.
Ah, what cruel victors they!
And we all
Hasten to a certain fall.

A DRUID.

Who fears to-day
His rites to pay,
Deserves his chains to wear.
The forest's free!
This wood take we,
And straight a pile prepare!
Yet in the wood
To stay 'tis good
By day till all is still,
With watchers all around us placed
Protecting you from ill.
With courage fresh, then, let us haste
Our duties to fulfil.

CHORUS OF WATCHERS.

Ye valiant watchers now divide
Your numbers through the forest wide,
And see that all is still,
While they their rites fulfil.

A WATCHER.

Let us in a cunning wise,
Yon dull Christian priests surprise!
With the devil of their talk
We'll those very priests confound.
Come with prong and come with fork,
Raise a wild and rattling sound
Through the livelong night, and prowl
All the rocky passes round.
Screech-owl, owl,
Join in chorus with our howl!

CHORUS OF WATCHERS.

Come with prong, and come with fork,
Like the devil of their talk,
And with wildly rattling sound,
Prowl the desert rocks around!
Screech owl, owl,
Join in chorus with our howl!

A DRUID.

This far 'tis right,
That we by night
Our Father's praises sing;
Yet when 'tis day,
To Thee we may
A heart unsullied bring.
'Tis true that now,
And often, Thou
Favorest the foe in fight.
As from the smoke is freed the blaze,
So let our faith burn bright!
And if they crush our olden ways,
Who e'er can crush Thy light?

A CHRISTIAN WATCHER.

Comrades, quick!  your aid afford!
All the brood of hell's abroad:
See how their enchanted forms
Through and through with flames are glowing!
Dragon-women, men-wolf swarms,
On in quick succession going!
Let us, let us haste to fly!
Wilder yet the sounds are growing,
And the arch fiend roars on high;
From the ground
Hellish vapors rise around.

CHORUS OF CHRISTIAN WATCHERS.

Terrible enchanted forms,
Dragon-women, men-wolf swarms!
Wilder yet the sounds are growing!
See, the arch fiend comes, all-glowing!
From the ground
Hellish vapors rise around.

CHORUS OF DRUIDS

As from the smoke is freed the blaze,
So let our faith burn bright!
And if they crush our olden ways,
Whoe'er can crush Thy light?

[Bowring translation]


THE CONSECRATED SPOT

When in the dance of the Nymphs, in the
moonlight so holy assembled,
Mingle the Graces, down from Olympus in secret
descending,
Here doth the minstrel hide, and list to their
numbers enthralling,
Here doth he watch their silent dances'
mysterious measure.
[tr. Bowring]


[All selections from "The Poems of Goethe," New York:
John D. Williams, 1882.]

   finis

The Romantic Mendelssohn: The Composition of Die erste Walpurgisnacht

JSTOR: The Music of To-Day

THE FAUST LEGEND IN MUSIC

SEE

Paganism


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AUPE Calls General Strike Over Safety

The difference between business unionism and industrial unionism. Business unions are in the business of keeping business operating, industrial/social unionism says wobble the job for health and safety.

The head of Alberta Building Trades Council is calling for calm over the deaths of two foreign workers at a Fort McMurray-area oilpatch worksite.

Executive director Ron Harry called on workers and the public to wait until all investigations into the tragedy are complete before making any decisions.

"There are processes and policies on each site," said Harry.

"In the end a worker is a worker, no matter if he's union or non-union, an immigrant or non-immigrant. It's unfortunate but you must find out what caused the situation first."

He was responding to reports Doug Knight of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees called on workers to walk off the job immediately if they fear the jobsite is not safe.

If there is immediate danger at the workplace you must remove yourself and your co-workers from it," said Harry, "then work with the employers and owners on site about the problem, don't just walk off the job."

The ABTC represents 50,000 unionized workers, 16 affiliate trade unions and 23 locals in Alberta. The two workers killed were not union members.

Harry said that the last thing he wants to see are massive groups of workers walking off the job sites without first going through the workplace safety steps.

The two men died while working at the Canadian Natural Resources Ltd site in the Fort MacKay area, near Fort McMurray. Witnesses said that a massive tank collapsed and killed the two temporary Chinese workers and injured four more.

Fiona Wiseman, spokesman for Occupation Health and Safety, said that four investigators from Alberta Employment, Immigration and Industry are already at the site.

A government translator who speaks Mandarin, the same language the two dead men spoke, is also on the scene. Wiseman said that no details will be released until the investigation is completed. In 2006, 124 people died on the job in Alberta. The death toll reached 27 in the first two months of 2007.

See:

Day of Mourning

Labour Shortage = Union Busting

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CN Back To Work Unsafely

The Conservative Liberal alliance that forced UTU workers at CN back to work this month did not solve the real reason for the workers rejection of the CN contract, it's failure to address rail safety.

Derailment paralyses rail service for 2nd straight weekend Rail service in Eastern Ontario was paralysed for the second consecutive weekend after a CN freight train derailed near Cobourg yesterday, sending 23 cars off the track.

SEE:

UTU

CN


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, labour relations, Canada

Secularism Vs. Fundamentalism

The so called battle of ideas is not the West against the East it is secularism vs. religious fundamentalism. Secular Turks draw a political line You would never find this kind of political demonstration occurring in Islamic fundamentalist states, nor in Israel or America.

See:

Secular Democracy


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Harpers Fascism

Being an autocratic PM is not enough for Stephen Harper, he is now promoting narrow reactionary nationalism in Quebec, coming as he does from the reactionary rural based Reform Party of Alberta, which originated out of the Social Credit party,

This of course is the classic basis for fascism, the petit-bourgeoisie and farmers which coincidentally populate the racist populist 'third way' ADQ.

Instead, the prime minister chose to brandish his credentials as a Quebec nationalist, hoping to make further inroads in a province that is central to Tory efforts to turn their minority government into majority. "There is nothing more precious than the family farm, which represents so well all the values on which our country has been built,'' he said to rapturous applause.

Modern fascism promotes itself as 'the third way" as does Harper and the ADQ when they speak of their third way as Quebec Nationalists.

Apparently, the CPC believe that there is a "third way" between what they call "Liberal" federalism and Bloc Quebecois separatism. This is Conservative Quebec nationalism.

The Harper regime is a classic case of modern fascism, embraced by the neo-cons in their promotion of Machiavellian politics in reaction to Stalinism and the left.

More broadly, fascism may be defined as any totalitarian regime which does not aim at the nationalization of industry but preserves at least nominal private property. The term can even be extended to any dictatorship that has become unfashionable among intellectuals.

Fascists were radical modernizers. By temperament they were neither conservative nor reactionary. Fascists despised the status quo and were not attracted by a return to bygone conditions. Even in power, despite all its adaptations to the requirements of the immediate situation, and despite its incorporation of more conservative social elements, Fascism remained a conscious force for modernization.

In Fascism's early days it encompassed an element of what was called "liberism," the view that capitalism and the free market ought to be left intact, that it was sheer folly for the state to involve itself in "production."


The fascist moral ideal, upheld by writers from Sorel to Gentile, is something like an inversion of the caricature of a Benthamite liberal. The fascist ideal man is not cautious but brave, not calculating but resolute, not sentimental but ruthless, not preoccupied with personal advantage but fighting for ideals, not seeking comfort but experiencing life intensely. The early Fascists did not know how they would install the social order which would create this "new man," but they were convinced that they had to destroy the bourgeois liberal order which had created his opposite.

JSTOR: Italian Fascism and the Aesthetics of the 'Third Way'

See:

Leo Strauss and the Calgary School

Post Modern Conservatives.

Why The Conservatives Are Not Libertarians

Heil Hillier, Maintiens le droit

White Multiculturalism

The New Conservative Racism

Shameless

Stephen Harper

Autarky

Autarch


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The Tories Two Solitudes

Harper touts his 'open federalism' approach

Prime Minister Stephen Harper championed his "open'' brand of federalism in Quebec's rural heartland Saturday night, finding an echo in the province's newly emboldened autonomists.

Harper -- speaking exclusively in French -- painted himself as a defender of the Quebec nation, and the federal leader best positioned to fight the province's separatist forces.

"When you are a nation, it is perfectly natural to be a nationalist,'' he told a crowd of more than 400 people gathered in the community centre of this farming town south of Quebec City.

MP decries hiring of unilingual anglophone as ombudsman for victims of crime

A New Democrat MP says the appointment of a unilingual anglophone to a federal ombudsman's office is illegal.

New Brunswick MP Yvon Godin said Friday the hiring of Steve Sullivan, the first federal ombudsman for victims of crime, violates public employment laws.

The Acadie-Bathurst MP also said Sullivan's hiring is "immoral" because he can't represent francophones adequately.

"The victims will finally have an ombudsman to file a complaint, but the entire Canadian francophone community can't speak to him," said Godin.

"It doesn't make any sense, absolutely no sense."

Harpers recent pronouncements are further evidence of the correctness of my analysis of the Tories two solitudes policy; recognizing the unilingual natures of Quebec and the Rest of Canada. An attack on Canada's bilingualism and multiculturalism, which the right wing has opposed since Trudeau was PM.

Leo Strauss and the Calgary School

Harper, unlike Preston Manning, was a student of the Calgary School. Harper's political practice is influenced more by this than Manning was. Hence Harpers surprise; the recognition of Quebec as a nation, giving it the separatism it wants within a decentralized federal state. That is more the nuanced politics of the Calgary School than the Reform Party demand that the West Wants In. The old anti-bilingualism of the Reformers is replaced with the subtle Two Distinct Languages policy of the Conservatives. Which again appeals to Quebecois nationalism, while also keeping the rest of Canada happy with one language; English.

The Language Of Racism

The Conservatives are promoting two Canadian languages, not bilingualism and bi-culturalism, since that is a Liberal bugaboo, a much hated left over of the Trudeau era. The Harper Conservatives roots are in the old Social Credit party of Alberta, both provincial and Federal, the Reform party and its links to the reactionary right wing I spoke of earlier. They are willing to accept two language groups in Canada, as long as they are unilingual. They have always opposed multiculturalism and bilingualism.

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May Week in Redmonton

What is the May Week Labour Arts Festival?

The Edmonton May Week Labour Arts Festival brings together the labour movement, workers and artists to celebrate the achievements of people’s struggles for social and economic justice through visual arts, music, film, poetry and theatre. Through the many artistic disciplines of the festival, May Week provides people with the information, education and inspiration to make positive change in our local and global communities.

The May Week festival is built around May Day (May 1st), which is recognized as the International Workers’ Holiday, chosen over 100 years ago to commemorate the struggles and gains of workers and the Labour Movement. May 1st is also a significant date in the fight for the eight-hour workday, and is tied to the infamous Haymarket Tragedy. May Day is important not only for its historical significance, but also as a time to organize and speak out around issues that are impacting working-class people today.

Monday, April 30, 2007

Global Visions Film Festival

Time: 7:00 pm
May Week teams up with the Global Visions Film Festival to bring you an evening of short labour films, featuring the Canadian release of “Mother Jones: Americas Most Dangerous Woman”. Directed by Laura Vasquez and Rosemary Feurer, this short documentary celebrates the life and times of this revolutionary labour organizer and activist.

Also showing by the same directors is Lockout 484, which profiles the 2005 struggle of workers in Meredosia, Illinois, against a global conglomerate, the Celanese Corporation. Workers were locked out when they refused to take 33% wage cuts and eliminate whole divisions. The film illustrates their belief in and commitment to the union, and the effect of the lockout on their community.

Sponsored by Chivers Carpenter Lawyers.

Event Location: Metro Theater, Zeidler Hall - main floor of the Citadel Theatre Complex (9828-101A Avenue)

Event Admission: $10

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

May Day March

Time: 5:30 pm
May 1st is a day chosen by workers to acknowledge the struggles and celebrate the gains workers have made throughout history. Each year, workers around the world take to the streets to let the bosses, corporations and governments know that workers will continue to fight for fairness, justice and respect in the workplace as well as celebrate our well-fought gains. Join us!

Gather at 5:30pm at Tipton Park (108 St. and 81 Ave), march via Whyte Avenue to End of Steel park (look for caboose near Saskatchewan Drive and 87 Avenue).

Rally at End of Steel Park to follow the march, featuring the performances of Guy Smith, Notre Dame des Bananes, Lex and the People's Poets!

Event Location: Gather at 5:30pm at Tipton Park (108 St. and 81 Ave). Rally at End of Steel Park at 6:30pm.

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

IWW Panel and Pub Night

Time: 6:30 pm

Solidarity Unionism: Theory and Practice. A Tale from a New York Barista.

Join the Industrial Workers of the World for an evening of drinks and dialogue. This discussion will feature a short film on the IWW Starbucks Barista Union, highlighting the history of their New York drive, as well as a Starbucks Organizer from the Big Apple. Along with this presentation there will be a question and answer session, discussing solidarity unionism and other non-traditional organizing methods. Anyone interested in the current state of labour organizing is encouraged to attend.

Event Location: The Underdog (The basement of the Black Dog), 10425 - 82 Ave.
More Information: Edmonton IWW

Thursday, May 03, 2007

Accessing Justice Panel

Time: 6:30 pm
Do you know your rights?

Panelists from various organizations will speak on the resources and services they provide:

Edmonton Centre for Equal Justice - Offers free legal information, advice and representation for people living with low income in the Edmonton area.
Alberta Union of Provincial Employees - You can take an important step toward protecting your job security and enhancing your dignity on the job through workplace organizing.
Action for Healthy Communities - Fostering citizenship participation to improve community health and well being in central Edmonton.

Event Location: Edmonton Mennonite Centre for Newcomers, #101, 10010 - 107 A Avenue

Friday, May 04, 2007

Anarchist Bookfair Collective Panel and Discussion - the Radical History of May Day

Time: 6:30 pm
From the anarchist-organized events surrounding May 1st, 1886, such as the Haymarket Massacre, to the Worker's Revolt of 1919, to the May Day celebrations and marches of today, anarchists and the radical working class have played a vital role in May Day.

Join the Edmonton Anarchist Bookfair Collective for a discussion of the radical history of May Day.

You can also visit their blog.

Event Location: Remedy Cafe, 8631-109 Street, upstairs

SEE:

MayDay

Day of Mourning

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Violence And Anarchism

Is the topic of this weekends discussions at the Carnival of Anarchy.
Join us there.

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