Court told Alberta commissioner should continue foreign funding of oil critics probe

CALGARY — A court has been told that a man leading an inquiry into alleged foreign-funded anti-Alberta energy campaigns should be allowed to continue his work because accusations of bias are unfounded and his investigation is in the public interest.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Court of Queen's Bench Justice Karen Horner heard submissions from lawyers representing inquiry commissioner Steve Allan and a consortium of pro-industry interveners.

Allan, a Calgary forensic accountant, was tapped in July 2019 to lead an inquiry into what Premier Jason Kenney and his United Conservative government have long argued is a concerted effort bankrolled by deep-pocketed U.S. foundations to hamstring Alberta's oil and gas industry.

Environmental charity Ecojustice is asking Horner to shut down the inquiry, in part because it contends there is a reasonable apprehension of bias.

Ecojustice lawyer Barry Robinson argued Thursday that Allan's support for the election campaign of Alberta cabinet minister Doug Schweitzer shows he's not independent. Robinson pointed to, among other things, a reception the commissioner held in his home for Schweitzer in March 2019.

Schweitzer would four months later, as justice minister in the newly elected UCP government, decry a "foreign-funded misinformation campaign" during a news conference during which he announced the inquiry, court heard.

On Friday, David Wachowich, a lawyer for Allan, was critical of Robinson's "drive-by of Mr. Allan."

He said Ecojustice is "cherry-picking" from Allan's long and "laudable" engagement in various political and community causes.

He added that Allan's support for Schweitzer was not inherently partisan, but was due to his belief that the candidate was the best hope to advance a flood-mitigation project for Calgary.

"He's doing what he's always done: to improve Calgary's society and improve living conditions for Calgarians and Calgary businesses," Wachowich said.

He said Allan's decades of accounting experience make him well-suited to lead a review that's investigative and inquisitorial — not one with a predetermined outcome, as Ecojustice contends.

Video: Environmental law group Ecojustice challenges Alberta oil inquiry in court (Global News)

"If anything suggests on its face that the terms of reference and this assignment are investigative or inquisitorial in nature, it is Mr. Allan's name himself," said Wachowich.

He repeatedly likened Allan to a ship captain whose course was charted by government to survey a coastline deemed in the public interest.

"Mr. Allan urges that this court allow his ship to continue to sail," said Wachowich.

"He should be subject to the Queen's justice only when he returns to home port with an account of his travels to the people."

Robinson said in his rebuttal that everything in the metaphorical ship's wake is tainted.

"Those waves have already hit the shore and cannot be remedied," he said.

Also Friday, court heard from a lawyer representing 300 pro-industry Indigenous groups and oil and gas companies, as well as oilpatch entrepreneur and former "Dragon's Den" star Brett Wilson.

"They are deeply affected by the health of Alberta's oil and gas industry," said Maureen Killoran as she argued that the purpose of the inquiry is proper.

Robinson on Thursday called the inquiry a "political gunfight" meant to intimidate those who disagree with the UCP government's stand on energy development.

Killoran said the matters before the inquiry are clearly of public concern.

"The purpose of the inquiry, as stated by cabinet, is to understand the facts and advise government. Why is it so intimidating to the applicants?" she asked.

"If these allegations are incorrect, we need to know this, too."

Horner said she expects to make a decision before Allan's May 31 deadline to submit his report to the Alberta government. She is also reserving a decision on whether to grant Ecojustice's request to bar the report's release until she rules.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 12, 2021

Lauren Krugel, The Canadian Press

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

Barbara Howard's trailblazing running career was cut short by war. Then her story was all but forgotten

© Submitted by the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame Barbara Howard: left, in her Britannia High School track and field photo, late 1930s; centre, showing her devotion to the Vancouver Canucks, Howard was especially fond of the Sedin twins; right, in an undated photo.

Barbara Howard received her share of awards and accolades in her lifetime, but recognition of the trailblazing sprinter arrived late, decades after her running days were finished.

Born in 1920 into a family with deep Vancouver roots, Howard grew up at 10th Avenue and Nanaimo Street in the city's eastside Grandview neighbourhood.

Speed came naturally. As a student at Laura Secord Elementary, she could sprint the block and a half to school when she heard the bell ring, and still be at her desk on time.

The track and field team at Britannia Secondary School helped shape her talents. At 17, Howard was chosen for the 1938 British Empire Games in Sydney, Australia, after running the 100-yard dash in 11.2 seconds, one-tenth of a second faster than the Games record.

The accomplishment made her the first Black female to compete for Canada. It also made her a sensation in Australia, where she was featured on the front pages of newspapers.

On the track she helped Canada win silver and bronze relay medals. But individually she struggled, finishing sixth in the 100-yard dash in the 1938 competition.

"She was very disappointed in herself that she didn't do better and so she was looking forward to being in the Olympics a couple of years later," said niece Charline Robson.

Of course, the next two Olympic Games were lost to the Second World War, effectively ending Howard's promising track career before it really got started, said B.C. Sports Hall of Fame curator Jason Beck.

"For six years there were no competitions," he said. "The window of opportunity for an amateur athlete at that time — especially a female — was very narrow. And the war just took that away from her, unfortunately."

A walking encyclopedia of local sports knowledge, even Beck admits he was late learning about Howard.

"I actually asked her about it because I thought it was odd her story had been almost completely forgotten," he said.

"When she came back to Vancouver [in 1938] she felt she had let the city and the country down. So she actually downplayed her athletic career — she didn't talk about it."

Pioneering educator

With running in the rear-view, Howard began work on another legacy, turning her formidable energies to education — both her own and others'.

After graduating from UBC, she became the first visible minority teacher hired by the Vancouver School District, spending her 40-year career at schools on the city's east side.

And while she almost never spoke about her athletic past, there were hints.

At her memorial in 2017, two former students told the story about a boys versus girls baseball game Miss Howard organized with her class one day.
'They thought she was just a teacher'

With the game on the line, the teacher took a turn at the plate, hit the first pitch out of the park and ran the bases in high heels.

"Here she is in her beautiful suit — she loved nice clothes — and the ball came and she whacked the thing and ran," laughed Robson.

"And all the girls on the bases ran and they won and everyone was screaming. And the students had no clue she was an athlete, they thought she was just a teacher."

New research started bringing Howard's story back into the spotlight when she was in her late 80s, triggering a landslide of recognition.

In 2010 she received the Remarkable Woman Award from the Vancouver Park Board. That was followed in short order by induction into the Burnaby Sports Hall of Fame, the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame, and in 2015, Canada's Sports Hall of Fame.

Unlike earlier in her life, Robson said her aunt loved the new-found attention on her track career.

"She was getting calls from everywhere, to do TV and radio. And she was thrilled."

Howard remained active into her 90s, working with other seniors — who were often younger — and immigrants through her Burnaby church, and cheering for her beloved Vancouver Canucks.

She was 96 when she died in 2017.

In 2018, the City of Vancouver renamed a small park at the south end of the Cambie Street Bridge the Barbara Howard Plaza.

For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians — from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community — check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here.

No Speed Limit

Three Essays on Accelerationism

2015

 • 

Author: 

Steven Shaviro

Accelerationism is the bastard offspring of a furtive liaison between Marxism and science fiction. Its basic premise is that the only way out is the way through: to get beyond capitalism, we need to push its technologies to the point where they explode. This may be dubious as a political strategy, but it works as a powerful artistic program.

Other authors have debated the pros and cons of accelerationist politics; No Speed Limit makes the case for an accelerationist aesthetics. Our present moment is illuminated, both for good and for ill, in the cracked mirror of science-fictional futurity.

Forerunners is a thought-in-process series of breakthrough digital works. Written between fresh ideas and finished books, Forerunners draws on scholarly work initiated in notable blogs, social media, conference plenaries, journal articles, and the synergy of academic exchange. This is gray literature publishing: where intense thinking, change, and speculation take place in scholarship.

$10.00 paper ISBN 978-0-8166-9767-0
$4.95 ISBN 978-1-4529-4508-8
86 pages, 5 x 7, 2015

https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/no-speed-limit

Is Consuming Like Crazy the Best Way to End Capitalism?

A conversation with philosopher Steven Shaviro about "accelerationism," which is essentially the belief that the best way to shorten capitalism's lifespan is to push it to the extreme.

By Charlie Ambler VICE
19.3.15



Hang out on Tumblr or in a dorm lounge long enough and eventually the talk will turn to ending capitalism. These discussions are all theoretical, of course—there have been endless attempts at shifting from our market-based economy to something more egalitarian and enlightened, but nothing has stuck, and some of the larger scale efforts have turned into horrific disasters. Anti-capitalists of various stripes haven't stopped coming up with theories about how this system could finally fall, however. One of these theories is called accelerationism—the idea is that hyper-stimulation of the market on a mass scale will end with the collapse of capitalism. Consume like crazy, only drink from styrofoam, and throw handfuls of dead batteries into our oceans so the impending apocalypse can hurry up and get over with.

The spread of this idea is rooted in Marx's belief that capitalism can't sustain itself forever and will eventually fizzle out. The means by which people will bring about its end are unclear, but that's where the ideas about accelerationism come from. Accelerationism is essentially the belief that the best way to shorten capitalism's lifespan is to push it to the extreme. If normal capitalism is Mick Jagger, accelerationism is Jim Morrison.

A while back, Steven Shaviro, who teaches at Detroit's Wayne State and studies the impact of technological capitalism on culture and everyday life, wrote an essay about accelerationism, explaining what it is in language that wasn't clouded by the usual academic jargon. Accelerationism has been explored by philosophers like Nick Land and Reza Negarestani, but Shaviro has become known as an authority on the topic—probably because he can articulate these complex philosophical ideas in a simple way that we plebs can understand. Shaviro just finished up a book out on accelerationism called No Speed Limit, so I called him up to learn more about the theory and see whether my Amazon Prime addiction is actually helping society.

VICE: Accelerationism confuses me, but what I do understand is really interesting. Can you tell me a little more about it?

Steven Shaviro: Broadly defined, "accelerationism" is the idea that the only way out is the way through. If we want to get beyond the current social and economic order and reach a post-capitalist future, then we need to push through all the messy complications of capitalism, rather than revert to something supposedly older and purer.

Accelerationism rejects certain ideas currently popular on the left, like "small is beautiful," and the Luddite enmity towards new technologies. Instead, it urges us to embrace and repurpose all the most advanced technologies.

If computational technologies are eliminating millions of jobs, then the best response is not to demand the jobs back, but to spread the wealth—to give back what the 1 Percent has stolen from everybody else—so that people can afford to lead comfortable lives without always worrying about the cost of housing or the size of their credit card bills.

Fascinating. I always thought accelerationism basically said that the most impactful anti-capitalist was the captain of industry. Like, pushing the system faster and increasing inequality even more will help destroy it. But maybe that's not the case? How can the redistribution of wealth be considered an accelerationist move?

There are different varieties of accelerationism. At one extreme, accelerationism might embrace the idea that the worse things get, the better the prospect for a revolution to overthrow everything. This seems obviously foolish to me, and I don't think that it is actually advocated by many accelerationists.

Much more subtly, Marx claimed that the contradictions that beset capitalism would eventually lead to a struggle between workers and capitalists. He hoped that this struggle would end in the establishment of communism, but he warned that it could also result in "the mutual destruction of the contending parties."

Are you saying that the end is near?

Marx was saying that, due to its inherent strains and stresses, capitalism will lead to catastrophe if it isn't somehow overcome. This is an accelerationist view, to the extent that it sees the possibilities for overcoming capitalism arising out of the very development of capitalism as a world system. But this doesn't happen in any mechanistic or predetermined way.

As for how redistribution of wealth might be related to accelerationism—when somebody like Thomas Piketty argues for global taxes in order to force a redistribution of wealth, he is trying to save the capitalist system from its own self-destructive excesses. But as Slavoj Zizek has observed, the rich will never pay such a tax voluntarily; so just getting such a tax enacted would involve other changes as well, indeed radical ones that would change capitalism substantially.

This is fascinating, for someone who was spoon-fed a lot of simplified Marxism in college. What further reading would you recommend on the topic?

Read #Accelerate—The Accelerationist Reader, edited by Robin Mackay and Armen Avanessian, for important essays about accelerationism, and Malign Velocities, by Benjamin Noys, for a critique of accelerationism. My short book on the topic, No Speed Limit: Three Essays on Accelerationism, has just come out from the University of Minnesota Press.

Cool. Can you explain what your other book, The Universe of Things, is about?

The book is about speculative realism—a recent philosophical movement that tries to consider what it would really mean to consider the universe as it exists in and for itself, apart from us. Psychologists have shown that our perception of the world is never objective; it is molded by our own needs and interests, both on the individual level, and in general, evolutionary terms. We notice what matters immediately to us, and often fail to notice what doesn't.

Speculative realism asks how it might be possible to approach things in the world, apart from the meanings and classifications that we impose upon them. If we were truly able to do this, what would we find?

Sounds like a good humanity-wide exercise in humility. How'd you get into it?

"Speculative realism" only became a term in 2007, when a philosophy conference was held with that title. The thinkers grouped under this title are very different from one another, and often have sharp disagreements. But they all question the notion that "man is the measure of all things."

They urge us to pay more attention to nonhuman entities, even nonliving entities, and to consider how all these entities are not just tools we use, or impediments to our actions, but "actants"—as the French sociologist Bruno Latour calls them—in their own right. They have their own tendencies, desires, and needs.

That's especially important at this point in history.

Right! At a time of impending ecological catastrophe, it is important for us to recognize as fully as possible the presence of the entities that share the world with us.

PLACE NAMES: Anarchist Mountain

Conventional wisdom about how the mountain between Rock Creek and Osoyoos was named is wrong

The Anarchist Summit between Rock Creek and Osoyoos was named not for Richard G. Sidley, as commonly believed, but for John Haywood. (Greg Nesteroff photo)


May. 3, 2019 

Two hundred seventy-ninth in a series on West Kootenay/Boundary place names

Anarchist Mountain, between Rock Creek and Osoyoos, boasts one of the most unique place names in BC. But the usual explanation for its origin is wrong.

Helen and G.P.V. Akrigg wrote in their classic book British Columbia Place Names (Third Edition, 1997) that the mountain was named “After Richard G. Sidley, a wild Irishman who arrived in the Osoyoos district around 1889. His extreme political views ultimately resulted in cancellation of his appointments as justice of the peace and customs officer at Sidley.”

Sidley did live on the mountain and chose its name, but he was not its namesake. While he was in fact Irish, he probably would have been bemused to hear himself described as wild and his political views labelled extreme.

The Akriggs’ source was a 1945 manuscript by Rupert W. Haggen, entitled Origin of Place Names in Boundary District. Haggen said Sidley “held, for his time, somewhat advanced political views; he was often called an anarchist, and this plateau became known locally as ‘the anarchist’s mountain.’ Local officialdom eventually relieved him of his posts.”

How Haggen came to believe these things is unknown.

Sidley reportedly began homesteading in the area in the 1880s, but the earliest actual sign of him is his appointment as a justice of the peace in July 1891, described by the Vancouver Daily World as a “very popular” move. He resigned in 1910.

He became postmaster of his namesake post office on Sept. 1, 1895 and held that job until its closure on Sept. 30, 1913 in favour of rural mail delivery.

The exact dates of his service as customs agent are not clear.

Nothing suggests he was fired from any of his posts, although he was critical of the work of Judge W.W. Spinks and laid a formal complaint against him.

In 1908, Sidley was a delegate to a federal Liberal convention at Vernon, where he protested the re-nomination of Greenwood’s Duncan Ross as candidate for Yale-Cariboo. Sidley was ejected from the meeting. He said Ross had no chance of winning the election and was proven right.

The mountain, meanwhile, was first mentioned in the Victoria Daily Times of June 25, 1892: “There are 16 new settlers on Anarchist mountain — between Osoyoos and Myers creek.”

The earliest explanation of its name appeared in the same newspaper on May 14, 1894: “Anarchist mountain acquired its unpleasing name from the fact that a rather tough character who once lived there, but now makes his home on the Colville reservation, carried a stick of dynamite around in his top boot. When asked why he did so he said he was an anarchist.”

The Vancouver Daily World of May 3, 1899 identified the man: “Anarchist Mountain was named by R.G. Sidley, a well-known rancher there, after an eccentric prospector named John Haywood, who used to carry dynamite for blasting in his boots.”

Haywood was more than eccentric. Trouble arose in June 1895, when his bull repeatedly found its way onto the field of neighbour Lucian Tedrow, who filed suit. Before the matter came to trial, Haywood was arrested for stealing cattle from Frank Edwards and taken before Sidley and C.A.R. Lambly, acting as justices of the peace.

“It is generally understood that the case is a strong one against him,” wrote the Midway Advance.

However, the matter was adjourned for a few days so further witnesses could be heard. Unable to raise $600 in bail, Haywood was remanded to the lockup in Osoyoos, where “he was given every latitude by Mr. Lambly.”

Haywood took advantage of his jailer’s generosity and skipped town early the next morning, heading across the border.

A farmhand soon discovered an animal hide hanging from Sidley’s gate, with an abusive note attached. The next day, one of Tedrow’s bulls was found dead with seven bullet holes in it. A note in Haywood’s writing was found, indicating that “certain men better keep out of sight.” It was signed “Jack Revenge.”

Sidley arrested Haywood’s son, P. Dennis, who was found nearby, but he doesn’t appear to have been charged.

“Feeling on the mountain is very strong,” the Advance reported. “The official negligence in permitting so notorious a character to escape is severely criticized.”

When Tedrow’s lawsuit against Haywood came before Judge Spinks in Osoyoos, Haywood did not appear and a default judgement of $305.50 plus costs was entered.

It’s not known what became of Haywood. Sidley died on his ranch in 1924, age 69, and was buried at Bridesville.

The notion that Anarchist Mountain might have been named for a cattle thief (or thieves) was put forth by Lyn Hancock as part of a series for Tourism British Columbia written in 1977. After recounting the usual bit about “Dick Sidley, a wild Irish radical of extreme political views,” she added: “Another story suggests it was not Sidley who was the anarchist but a gang of horse rustling outlaws that roamed the mountain. Sidley called the outlaws the anarchists.”

However, Hancock’s source is unclear.

https://www.castlegarnews.com/community/place-names-anarchist-mountain/

OR IT COULD HAVE BEEN NAMED AFTER THE ANARCHIST PRINCE, PETER KROPOTKIN  WHO FOUND THIS AREA TO BE GEOGRAPHICALLY LIKE SOUTHERN RUSSIA WHERE THE DUKHBOURS WHO LIVE HERE NOW ORIGINATED AND RECOMMENDED THEY MOVE THERE.

Anarchist Mountain couple gives back to Search and Rescue

Oliver Osoyoos Search and Rescue has received two major donations in two weeks

From left to right, Peter Ceravolo; Oliver Osoyoos Search and Rescue members Brenda and Mike Arychuk with search dog Kaya; and Debra Ceravolo. (OOSAR)

ANARCHIST MUTUAL AID BY ANY OTHER NAME

• BRENNAN PHILLIPS 
• Feb. 9, 2021 

The Oliver/Osoyoos Search and Rescue (OOSAR) has received their second major donation in two weeks.

Peter and Debra Ceravolo of Anarchist Mountain wanted to match the $2000 that was recently donated by Osoyoos residents, Ernie and Kathie Westphal.

“While we are happy to support the efforts of the dedicated volunteers of the Oliver Osoyoos Search and Rescue team, we hope we will never need them,” Peter said.

OOSAR spokesperson Brenda Arychuk said that the team was surprised but elated by another donation matching the first one.

READ MORE: Osoyoos couple gives back with donation to local Search and Rescue team

“It is so nice to focus on what is good in the world with the generosity and big hearts of people like the Ceravolo’s and Westphal’s,” Arychuk said.

The additional donation will help OOSAR get closer to updating their equipment to a newer vehicle that will be better suited to transport a search dog, gear, and members.

OOSAR members are professionally trained volunteers who are on-call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

More information about OOSAR can be found at their website at oosar.ca

Anarchist Mountain Lookout, Osoyoos, BC —

.

Oct. 17, 2020 — Anarchist Mountain Lookout is an incredibly scenic viewpoint located just outside of the town of Osoyoos in the spectacular Okanagan Valley, 

The future of work is flexible
How Covid-19 is breaking down barriers to flexible working.

BY DR SARAH FORBES AND DR HOLLY BIRKETT

SHUTTERSTOCK/LIGHTFIELD STUDIOS

The UK has seen a steep rise in the number of people working from home during the pandemic. A recent survey showed 86 per cent of employees had worked from home during the first Covid-19 lockdown, with 75.3 per cent of parents reporting they would like to work flexibly in the future. Further research shows that managers have also had positive experiences managing staff remotely during lockdown, seeing increases in productivity and commitment, even in sectors where working from home has previously been unpopular.

New data also suggests that the mass move towards flexible working during Covid-19 has broken the stigma around flexible working in the UK, and that where there have been performance management issues these have generally been ongoing issues, not a result of remote working.

So if organisations are keen to support flexible working in the future, and employees are keen on flexible working opportunities, where should we go from here?

Start a dialogue, now, between managers and employees who have worked flexibly during lockdown to identify what you can build on that is mutually beneficial, including ways of working and work location. There are opportunities to use flexible working to improve wellbeing and productivity, encourage more women into senior roles and access new pools of talent.

Think creatively; organisations can benefit from revised use of office space, while making the retained space a more flexible environment for teams to meet and ensuring that those who want to come into work more regularly still can, as findings show that working remotely over long periods of time can be isolating or impractical for some.

Organisations can also make flexible working more inclusive by covering overhead costs for homeworkers using the existing HMRC scheme and training line managers in managing remote teams. This is also an opportunity for organisations to review flexible working policies, how they measure performance and what tools and support they need to enable inclusive flexible working.

Change the culture; as Covid-19 helps to break down stigma around flexible working and care, with shared parenting practices on the rise and more people engaged in caring responsibilities, policymakers should consider how this can be leveraged to support the labour market attachment of professional women, promote gender equality in the workplace and help reduce the gender pay gap.

If men continue to work more flexibly, the ingrained gendered caring norms, which have negatively impacted the career progression of women, will begin to dissolve, levelling the playing field for men and women in the workplace.

Covid-19 has shown that moving from a mindset of presenteeism to a mindset of trust and flexibility improves results, employee wellbeing and loyalty. People respond best when they feel supported to work in harmony with their other commitments. They know they’ve got to produce results and meet targets, but it can be in a way that works for them. This can be achieved through measuring by results, rather than sticking to the old mode of working.

Dr Sarah Forbes and Dr Holly Birkett at based at the Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham.

This article originally appeared in a Spotlight report on the future of work and diversity. You can download the full edition here.

SPOTLIGHT
8 JANUARY 2021

Sponsored by University of Birmingham

Wageless Life

A Manifesto for a Future beyond Capitalism

2020

 • 

Authors: 

Ian G. R. Shaw and Marv Waterstone

https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/wageless-life

$10 PB  $4.95 E-BOOK

Drawing up alternate ways to “make a living” beyond capitalism

Wageless Life is a manifesto for building a future beyond the toxic failures of late-stage capitalism. Daring to imagine new social relations, new modes of economic existence, and new collective worlds, the authors provide skills and tools for perceiving—and living in—a post-capitalist future.

This lucid and penetrating study not only lays bare the critical features of our decaying social order and its historical roots, but also provides valuable guidelines for the task of ‘seizing our autonomy back’ in a world of justice, freedom, communal life, and human dignity. Perceptive and enlightening, and a ray of light in dark times.

—

 Noam Chomsky

Virtue Hoarders

The Case against the Professional Managerial Class

2021

 • 

Author: 

Catherine Liu

MANIFOLD EDITION

THE JACOBIN SHOW: WHAT IS THE PROFESSIONAL-MANAGERIAL CLASS AND HOW IS IT STANDING IN THE WAY OF ECONOMIC REDISTRIBUTION?

A denunciation of the credentialed elite class that serves capitalism while insisting on its own progressive heroism

Author Catherine Liu shows how Professional Managerial Class (PMC) elite workers who labor in a world of performative identity and virtue signaling stand in the way of social justice and economic redistribution. Virtue Hoarders is an unapologetically polemical call to reject making a virtue out of taste and consumption habits.

https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/virtue-hoarders

$10 PB  $4.95 E-BOOK

What is the professional-managerial class and how is it standing in the way of economic redistribution? Catherine Liu explains how this group of elite workers has come to serve capitalism while insisting on their own virtue.
Catherine Liu is professor of film and media studies at the University of California, Irvine and the author of Virtue Hoarders: The Case against the Professional Managerial Class:

ROFLMAO

Perhaps We Should Regulate Deranged Billionaires Like Elon Musk

BYLUKE SAVAGE

02.05.2021

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
RICH PEOPLE

By one estimate, Elon Musk owns more than a quarter of all active satellites orbiting Earth. Though his fantasy of becoming emperor of Mars probably won't materialize, we have to scale back the unchecked power of deranged Bond villain types like Musk before it extends from Earth to the skies.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk unveils the company's manned spacecraft, The Dragon V2, on May 29, 2014, in Hawthorne, CA. (Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images)

Last month, Elon Musk officially became the world’s richest man. Though it sounds like the plot of a decidedly down-market Bond flick, he’s now also the world’s most powerful space baron.

That’s according to a new analysis, which finds that the SpaceX CEO now controls more than 27 percent of all active satellites currently orbiting Earth — roughly one thousand out of 3,500. Musk’s stake is almost certain to get even bigger in the coming years, with physicist Alastair Isaacs estimating the share could grow to 50 percent as early as 2022 based on the number of launches currently associated with SpaceX. The greatest proportion of those launches are related to Starlink — an initiative the company says will bring “near global” high-speed internet coverage this year.

Given Musk’s well-established penchant for absurd and often cringeworthy self-promotion, this claim can probably be taken with a grain of salt. Just a few short years ago, after all, the billionaire was confidently telling a technology conference that he would begin sending rockets to Mars in 2018 and would be able to start colonization efforts within a decade. Pure hokum, as it usually turns out to be, Musk’s techno-utopian hype has nevertheless given him an image more like that of a Promethean creator than a garden-variety capitalist — more vanguard of humanity’s interstellar future than telecom monopolist in its present.


Whether SpaceX is ultimately capable of sending people to Mars or not, even a cursory glance at Musk’s vision for space travel is a warning about the dangers of allowing billionaires to extend their grip beyond the atmosphere. Last year, the company published updated terms of service for its Starlink project, announcing that it would not recognize international law on the Red Planet. Instead, Musk envisions a kind of off-world Randianism in which “self-governing principles” (i.e., those determined by his company) form the rules of the road. Though his stated blueprint for Martian colonization looks like a textbook case of obvious nonsense (involving, among other things, some truly absurd math) we should, at any rate, read this as a genuine statement of intent. If a new life ever actually does await in the off-world colonies, prospective space monopolists are determined to shape it themselves, free of constraint. Given how companies like Tesla already treat their workers, it takes little imagination to picture what that might look like.

In fact, what Musk himself envisioned during a Twitter Q&A last summer was more or less explicitly a kind of space feudalism. As Gizmodo’s Tom McKay observed at the time, even the idealized Martian future of the billionaire’s social media PR imagined putting hypothetical interstellar pilgrims to work for SpaceX upon their arrival:


Oh, and anyone who wishes to go along for the ride will have to pay for it, despite the fact that Mars would arguably be SpaceX’s job site.

Can’t afford it? Take out a loan and pay it off by working for SpaceX when you’re there, which is definitely not indentured servitude because . . . Mars? Because it happens on Mars. That appears to be the logic.

For the time being, at least, Musk remains just a regular, exorbitantly rich corporate oligarch with a uniquely cringeworthy social media presence. But even if his vision of becoming Martian god-emperor never comes to fruition, the billionaire is already on course to control a vital piece of global infrastructure in the decades ahead. Just as the robber barons of the Gilded Age monopolized railways, steel, oil, and other commodities, those of the twentyi-first century now largely own the internet, the digital public square, and other crucial architecture of modern social, cultural, and economic life.

The world’s richest man now controls nearly 30 percent of earth’s satellites: What could possibly go wrong? In the future, it may be necessary to prevent the planet’s richest people from extending their power into the solar system. For now, it’s long past time we broke their grip on the infrastructure of everyday life. The space beyond Earth’s atmosphere must be protected from Elon Musk.

The Left Can Take Back Power in Ecuador
AN INTERVIEW WITHANDRÉS ARAUZ

From 2007 to 2017, Ecuador was a beacon of hope on the Latin American left, but the last four years have seen a neoliberal regime imposing IMF-driven austerity. The front-runner in polls for today’s presidential election, left-winger Andrés Arauz, told Jacobin how he’ll continue the Citizen Revolution — and build on his ally Rafael Correa’s legacy

.

02.07.2021
Andrés Arauz, an economist and a former minister in the government of Rafael Correa, is seen as the favorite to win today's Ecuadorian election. (Andrés Arauz / Facebook)

HE WON


INTERVIEW BY  Denis Rogatyuk

As the race for the presidency of Ecuador entered its final stages, the desperation on the part of both the neoliberal government of Lenín Moreno and the country’s right-wing political parties to avoid the victory of the Left reached fever pitch.

Since the beginning of the right-wing turn by Moreno’s government and the political persecution of the key leaders of the Citizen Revolution Movement — most notably Rafael Correa and Jorge Glas — countless attempts have been made to prevent the participation in the elections of either Correa himself or any other political leader affiliated with his movement.

This has included preventing the registration of the Citizen Revolution Movement as a political party, a ban on the Fuerza Compromiso Social (FCS) electoral movement used by them to run in the 2019 local elections, a ban on Correa running as a vice presidential candidate, and several attempts to prevent the registration of the Andrés Arauz-Carlos Rabascall presidential ticket. Although these attempts at blocking the reemergence of the Left on the political landscape ultimately failed, the electoral process itself has come under threat.

The desperation on the part of elites can be contrasted with the desperation of ordinary Ecuadorians. The COVID-19 pandemic has claimed nearly fifteen thousand lives, the unemployment level has hit double digits for the first time in almost two decades, and IMF-sanctioned austerity continues to be implemented. In this environment, the workers of Ecuador are once again embracing revolutionary change.

Andrés Arauz, an economist and a former minister in the government of Rafael Correa, is seen as the favorite to win the Ecuadorian election, with the majority of polls from the period of December 2020 to January 2021 giving him between 35 and 42 percent of the valid votes. That places him ahead of the Right’s preferred candidate, Guillermo Lasso — also the country’s most notorious corporate banker — who has 18 to 36 percent.

Andrés Arauz sat down with Denis Rogatyuk of Jacobin América Latina to discuss his candidacy — and what Ecuador and the world could expect from his future presidency.
DR


What measures are you planning to implement to resolve the issue of unemployment and begin the economic recovery in Ecuador?
AA


Our main priority, in the short term, is economic recovery. This also depends on the recovery of the health care system.

We can do many things, but economic activity needs to resume. That is why we consider acquiring vaccines a priority. We know that until vaccination is implemented in Ecuador, until work is generated, until the state recovers its strength to resume public works, we need to give immediate help. We have proposed a program to give $1000 to a million Ecuadorian families in our first week of government.

In this way, we boost the families’ economy (la economía familiar). The money can cover debt repayments, buy medicines, food, and clothing, and if there is a little left over, it can even be used to start a small business venture. With this, we reactivate the entire national economy: the mother or father of the family goes out to the market, to the store, to the commercial premises, and the money circulation increases.

DR


How do you plan on renegotiating both sovereign debt and its terms with the IMF?

AA


We are first going to use the resources that already exist in Ecuador, but that [the current] government has allowed to be taken out of the country and stored abroad, in Miami, in Panama, in Switzerland. That money has to return to Ecuador to finance our development — not the war adventures of other countries but our interests.If the IMF wants to help us with that Ecuadorian plan, they are welcome — but as the agreement with the IMF is now, we are not going to comply with it.

After that, we will establish dignified conditions with our sovereign economic plan that seeks economic growth, and that seeks to solve the problem of unemployment by generating work and restarting public works and services. If the IMF wants to help us with that Ecuadorian plan, they are welcome — but as the agreement with the IMF is now, we are not going to comply with it.

DR
What will be the great project in Ecuador that goes down in history bearing the stamp of Andrés Arauz?

AA

The great challenge we have is to successfully emerge from the pandemic. Right now, we cannot plan for great milestones, because we have to get out of our crisis first. To be honest with you, the great achievement that we are going to have in our government is to show that there can be a government that respects the dignity of the people, that does not take advantage of the crisis to give more power to the rich, and that does not take advantage of the crisis to be able to kick the people. On the contrary — we are going to show that there can be a government of the people.

When we get out of the pandemic, the first years, maybe the first two years, will be centered on recovering the future and putting education at the forefront of society’s transformation. My dream is that we can have the best education system in Latin America. We will use science, technology, innovation, knowledge, universal connectivity, and the internet to show that young Ecuadorians are the protagonists of their society and can bring about the change that our country requires.

DR

Do you feel part of the original peoples of Ecuador? How do you feel about the Sumak Kawsay ideology and how do you hope to apply its principles in your future government?

AA

I feel part of the plurinational and intercultural state that is constitutionally established in Ecuador. All of our Latin America is plurinational and intercultural, and it’s important that we learn to recognize what the constitution says. It’s important that we recognize the diverse actors that are part of our culture. We have to get out of the colonial or neocolonial logic and begin to recognize our diversity as our main source of wealth.We are going to show that there can be a government of the people.

I have been close to the indigenous peoples, but also with the Afro communities — the Montubio people of Ecuador — because we need to make a call for unity now. This country can no longer bear fights between politicians, and it can no longer bear to live with the repressive policies that caused so much pain and damage to our society, as in October 2019.

We need to reconcile as a country on the basis of a future project, such as the Constitution of Good Living. That utopia should mark the field for all of Ecuador, regardless of the ethnicity or nationality to which we belong. We need to build that unity.

DR

How do you see the future of the relationship with the Confederation of the Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) and other indigenous movements?

AA

I see excellent opportunities to build and implement the plurinational and intercultural state with the CONAIE, but also with each of the indigenous peoples and nationalities of our country, with the bases of indigenous organizations, and with the communities that are in each of Ecuador’s territories. We have to advance in terms of irrigation, productive projects, credit, and support in savings and credit for the indigenous cooperatives of our country, in terms of being able to have an education system of the highest quality that preserves our ancestral languages.

We are going to declare the ancestral languages to be in a state of emergency on the first day of our government, which will help to preserve an indigenous justice system — not only for political acts, but also to help administrative procedures in our communities, so that individuals don’t have to travel to the capital to solve their problems.

The implementation of the plurinational and intercultural state will be administered by a plurinational and intercultural team.

DR

Do you think that the electoral sabotage against your candidacy has weakened your campaign? If so, in what way?

AA

They have tried to weaken the strength of our campaign among the Ecuadorian people, but it has not worked. The Ecuadorian people have immense solidarity and sympathy with our proposals, which represent them in the majority. Our identity is first patriotic, then democratic, and then progressive — so those who tried to set the traps did nothing but project us further into the hearts of Ecuadorians.

DR
But the Ecuadorian people have a rebellious heart, too.

AA
There’s much more critical awareness of the role of politics in our society, and that will allow us to recover the future with dignity.

Of course, and it’s a justified rebellion after centuries of oppression, and years of a nefarious government that has mistreated us. I do want to thank the Moreno government for one thing, though — he reawakened that energy, that youthful outrage that was hidden for several years and that reemerged in October of last year. Now there’s much more critical awareness of the role of politics in our society, and that will allow us, together with the youth, together with the people, together with the women of our country, and together with the workers, to recover the future with dignity.

DR
The current minister of health got the vaccine even before the medics on the front lines of the pandemic. What do you think about that?

AA

It’s outrageous — not only that they have bought only eight thousand doses, which are four thousand vaccines, but that they did not dedicate it to frontline personnel. Instead, the government passed it to their friends and their relatives, scamming the Ecuadorian people. That’s unforgivable. I believe that they will face harsh consequences for cheating the Ecuadorian people, and the Minister of Health, for having violated his own oath as a doctor.

Andrés Arauz campaigning recently in Manabí, Ecuador. 

(Andrés Arauz / Facebook)

But I think we need to advance considerably in the matter of vaccinations. Our priority is that the Ecuadorian people have the vaccine first — our health personnel, our soldiers, our policemen, and our teachers — so that the youth, the children, can return to school. In societies like ours, we also need to rebalance the roles of men and women. Women, and mothers particularly, have been hit the hardest by the effects of the pandemic, because they have had to become teachers, nurses, caregivers, rectors, janitors, and administrators, in addition to their professional and household work.

So the vaccine is essential. We need to diversify the supply of the vaccine, and we have made initial efforts with the Oxford vaccine, produced in Argentina, so that it can reach the entire Ecuadorian territory.

DR
How do you see the future of Ecuador in Latin America and the multipolar world? What kind of a relationship do you hope to build with China and the new administration in the United States?

AA

We want to continue building diversified relationships with all countries of the world. We want to build exchanges in terms of educational experiences, in terms of science and technology, in terms of inventions and innovation, in order to contribute to Ecuadorian development. Our principles will be peace, democracy, and development. These are the same principles on which the United Nations were built.We need to move away from the hegemony of the single country, especially in the western hemisphere.

We believe in multilateralism. We are against the unipolar world. We need to move away from the hegemony of the single country, especially in the western hemisphere. We will continue to build relationships with our friends in China, and in Asia in general. We want to have good relations with all countries of the world — with the United States, Europe, Canada, Eurasian countries, and Russia as well.

Our priority, though, is Latin American integration. We need our own bloc [of countries] — the Latin American bloc. I will personally be in charge of reconstituting regional integration in our country.

DR
During Rafael Correa’s administration, Ecuador was considered the capital of South America, because you have the main office of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR).

AA

Lenín Moreno decided to resign Ecuador’s status as the capital of South America — something unforgivable. We hope to return to UNASUR. We hope to improve it, too, so it is not only a project of integration among governments or politicians, but also of integration among people. That means making an effort to include a program of educational exchange, like the European Erasmus program, where students across Latin American countries can study one semester abroad in any other country of the region. That will help to build relationships among Latin Americans that will last for decades.

DR
One of the main criticisms we have heard from the opposition is that you are a clone of Rafael Correa. What do you think about these comparisons?

AA

Rafael is a friend, a colleague, a coleader. He and I agree politically on the needs of our country, but we are the improved version. I am of a new generation. We have that principle of generational renewal: we are going to inject energy, youth, innovation, creativity, and contemporaneity into the political proposal of the Citizen Revolution.

DR
If elected, who will govern — you or Correa?

AA
On May 24, when I swear to respect and enforce the Constitution of Ecuador, I will adhere to what the constitution says, which is that the one who makes the decisions is the President of the Republic. The President of the Republic will be me; Rafael will be one of my main advisers.

For Spanish language coverage of Latin America from the Left, visit Jacobin América Latina.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Andrés Arauz is the Ecuadorian presidential candidate for the Citizen Revolution Movement.

ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER

Denis Rogatyuk is a writer, journalist, and researcher based in London. He's written for Tribune, Green Left Weekly, TeleSUR, LINKS, International Viewpoint, and other publications.