Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Redmonton. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Redmonton. Sort by date Show all posts

Monday, January 21, 2008

Nothing New Here Move On

New party for Alberta's right It's not a new party it's the same old right wing rump of Social Credit.

A clone by any other name;
Wildrose Alliance Party born in Alberta

Another good reason for supporting abortion on demand.

SEE

0+0=0

Wild Rose Party In and Out Scheme

Rent A Crowd

More Shills For Big Oil

Link Byfield's New Party

Link Byfield Goes AA

Where's The NDP?


Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , ,, , , , , , , ,
, ,, , , , ,, , , ,
, ,
, , Canada, , , ,
, , , ,
, , , ,
, , , , , , , , , , , ,
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Friday, April 13, 2007

Liberals New Green Politics

A follow up on the Dion/May alliance announced today. Just how far are the Liberals willing to go with their new found principle of strategic voting?

Will the Liberals back down from running a candidate in Edmonton Strathcona, considering their poor showing last time, and the fact that the NDP candidate Linda Duncan is an environmentalist.

Will they also not run a candidate in Wild Rose where the Green Party ran second.

After all that would follow Cherniak's dictum;
"This is about the Liberal Party doing what is right for a truly progressive Canada. The symbolism of running a candidate in every riding is somewhat meaningless in comparison."

Dion is not running a Liberal against the Green Party Leader in exchange the Greens won't run against Dion. Oh be still my beating heart like they stood a chance in his riding. Being so principled will he offer the same deal to Layton and Duceppe?


And the cynical could see this whole affair as a hastily constructed way of distracting from yesterdays Liberal bad news story on Belinda Stronach.




Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , , ,

, , , ,
, , , , , ,
, ,






Thursday, October 11, 2007

Municipal Elections


Municipal Elections are occurring in Alberta next Monday, October 15. Ho hum so far. But for coverage of Mayoral, Aldermanic and School Board candidates from a progressive perspective check out;

Calgary- Enlightened Savage


(R)Edmonton-daveberta

Living in Ward 4 in (R)Edmonton I have to agree with davebera that the best team that has a chance to replace outgoing Michael Phair and incumbent Jane Batty are Henderson and Cardinal.

It's a race with 15 candidates, many of them are nowhere close to running a winning campaign let alone standing a chance to get elected.

One though that does is Hana Razga. Unfortunately her campaign is lost amongst the gaggle of candidates. I note daveberta does link to Dipper Hana Razga.

Unfortunately she has not had the media profile she deserves in this race. Nor did she get labour's endorsement, that went to Cardinal. Like Cardinal she is a candidate concerned about the ward's economic development disparities.

Henderson is a Liberal, Cardinal has the backing not only of labour but also some Dippers, in particular former City Councilor and Alberta NDP Chief of Staff; Sherry McKibben. This kind of political division of forces in municipal elections is problematic.

By the way, Cardinal has an interesting campaign manager, Sherry McKibben. McKibben had a brief one-year stint on council in the mid-1990s, winning a byelection and then getting defeated in the general election. Then for years she was the high-profile and hard-working manager of HIV Edmonton.


The reality is that despite the appearance of not being driven by political parties all municipal elections are extensions of party politics. Which is why I believe municipal politics should be party politics. That way you would not have two dippers running in Ward 4.
What would happen if . . . party politics came to municipalities? by David Siegel and Eugene Plawiuk
The Next City asked David Siegel, associate professor of politics, and Eugene Plawiuk, the NDP's co-chair of strategy and communications in Alberta's recent provincial election in 1997, to comment The Next City September 21/1997


For public school board trustee labour supports Dr. Marlene Spencer in Ward G which is also the ward I live in.


Tags
, , , ,
,


Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Thoughtful

Fellow blogger thoughtinterrupted was kind enough to redo my CBC/Ezra ad.


The image “http://www.redfez.net/thoughtinterrupted/wp-includes/images/linkgifs/ezra.png” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.



Thank you for the much better designed ad. I have replaced my crude one on the sidebar.

She comments on yet another dreadful appearance of this opportunist self promoting partisan of the right on Don Newman's Politics on CBC yesterday.

And Ken Chapman another thoughtful Alberta blogger concurs.

Expand your Alberta based Rolodex Mr. Newman and do the province - and the country a favour.


But is CBC listening?

Well Ezra is apparently, since as thoughtinteruppted points out, he finally mentioned the Alberta NDP, who have four seats in Redmonton.

Levant proclaimed that after Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach, by having commissioned a panel of mostly pro-business types including one former Fraser Institute associate to review Alberta’s energy royalties, has become so far left that “everyone” in Alberta is “wondering when we elected Brian Mason and the New Democrats”.
Business type's, Fraser Institute alumni are left wing? Give your head a shake, Mr. Newman. Is this the kind of politically challenged comment you would accept from someone talking about Ontario or Quebec or heck even Newfoundland politics? I think not. This would be like having Kate from Small Dead Animals comment on Saskatchewan politics.

Uh oh maybe I shouldn't have mentioned that, it might give the Politics producer ideas, since the CBC has already bowed to right wing pressure for political correctness by having Ezra on, to try and show they are not liberal lefties.

As for Ezra's comment itself he is shilling pro-bono for Big Oil, repeating comments made by Ralph Klein. They are the only ones in Alberta upset over the royalty report. Albertans support our ownership of our own resources, a key plank of the right in fact, that socialist idea that the resources belong to the people, not big oil. And that they should pay us for the privilege of processing them.

Perhaps Ezra ever the opportunist hopes to get some cash injected into his fiscally challenged Western Standard from the oil boys. Watch for an WS email ad solicitation campaign to target oil companies.


SEE:

Conservative Broadcasting Corporation


Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , , , ,


Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Forty Years Ago

Happy New Year

2008 is the Fortieth Anniversary of the 1968 Revolution.

And once again the Amerikan Empire is in the throes of a foreign war and a Presidential Election. While a new activist movement has arisen in opposition to Imperialism, Globalization and Capitalism. What goes around comes around....Of course some folks dread that.

Tet Offensive

http://www.vietnamwar.com/tetoffensive.jpg

The Tet Offensive (Tet Mau Than) or Tong Cong Kich/Tong Khoi Nghia (General Offensive, General Uprising) was a three-phase military campaign launched between 30 January and 23 September 1968, by the combined forces of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF, or derogatively, Viet Cong) and the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) during the Vietnam War (1955-1975). The purpose of the operations, which were unprecedented in their magnitude and ferocity, was to strike military and civilian command and control centers throughout the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) and to spark a general uprising among the population that would then topple the Saigon government, thus ending the war in a single blow.

The image “http://www.dmko.info/image2.jpeg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.




http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/USPics5/71757a.jpg

http://www.history.army.mil/books/Vietnam/Comm-El/Photos/Map5.jpg



Paris

Constraints imposed on pleasure incite the pleasure of living without constraints.

The more I make love, the more I want to make revolution.
The more I make revolution, the more I want to make love.


Communiqué


Comrades,

Considering that the Sud-Aviation factory at Nantes has been occupied for two days by the workers and students of that city,

and that today the movement is spreading to several factories (Nouvelles Messageries de la Presse Parisienne in Paris, Renault in Cléon, etc.),

THE SORBONNE OCCUPATION COMMITTEE calls for

the immediate occupation of all the factories in France and the formation of Workers Councils.

Comrades, spread and reproduce this appeal as quickly as possible.


Sorbonne, 16 May 1968, 3:30 pm




The image “http://www.tu-cottbus.de/BTU/Fak2/TheoArch/wolke/eng/Subjects/991/McQuillan/11.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.
" The only safeguard against authority and rigidity setting-in is a playful attitude."
Raoul Vaneigem.

http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/graphics/pdf/paris68.gif




Chicago





Chicago: demonstrators gather at grant park (Aug. 1968).
photo: Fred W. McDarrah


Theatre of fear: one on the aisle
A view from the Chicago Democratic Convention riots by Richard Goldstein

"You afraid?" I asked a kid from California. He zipped his army jacket up to his neck, and filled his palm with a wad of Vaseline. "I dunno," he answered. "My toes feel cold, but my ears are burning."

We were standing together in Lincoln Park, not long after curfew on Tuesday night, watching an unbroken line of police. Around us were 1000 insurgents: hippies, Marxists, tourists, reporters, Panthers, Angels, and a phalanx of concerned ministers, gathered around a 12-foot cross. Occasionally a cluster of kids would break away from the rally to watch the formation in the distance. They spoke quietly, rubbing cream on their faces, and knotting dampened undershirts around their mouths. Not all their accoutrements were defensive. I saw saps and smoke bombs, steel-tipped boots and fistfuls of tacks. My friend pulled out a small canister from his pocket. "Liquid pepper," he explained.

Watching these kids gather sticks and stones, I realized how far we have come from that mythical summer when everyone dropped acid, sat under a tree, and communed. If there were any flower children left in America, they had heeded the underground press, and stayed home. Those who came fully anticipated confrontation. There were few virgins to violence in the crowd tonight. Most had seen—if not shed—blood, and that baptism had given them a determination of sorts. The spirit of Lincoln Park was to make revolution the way you make love—ambivalently, perhaps but for real.

The cops advanced at 12:40 a.m., behind two massive floodlight-trucks. They also had the fear; you could see it in their eyes (wide and wet) and their mouths. All week, you watched them cruise the city—never alone and never unarmed. At night, you heard their sirens in the streets, and all day, their helicopters in the sky. On duty, the average Chicago cop was a walking arsenal—with a shotgun in one hand, a riot baton (long and heavy with steel tips) in the other, and an assortment of pistols, nightsticks, and ominous canisters in his belt. At first, all that equipment seemed flattering. But then you saw under the helmets, and the phallic weaponry, and you felt the fear again. Immigrant to stranger, cop to civilian, old man to kid. The fear that brought the people of Chicago out into the streets during Martin Luther King's open housing march, now reflected in the fists of these cops. The fear that made the people of Gage Park spit at priests, and throw stones at nuns, now authorized to kill. And you realized that the cops weren't putting on that display for you; no—a cop's gun is his security blanket, just as Vaseline was yours.

Then the lights shone brilliant orange and the tear gas guns exploded putt-putt-puttutt, and the ministers dipped their cross into a halo of smothering fog. The gas hit like a great wall of pepper and you ran coughing into the streets, where you knew there would be rocks to throw and windows to smash and something to feel besides fear.

The soldiers stood on all the bridges, sealing off Grant Park from the city streets. The kids couldn't be gassed anymore, because the wind was blowing fumes across the guarded bridges and into every open pore of the Conrad Hilton, and the hotel was filled with good people who had tears in their eyes. So the soldiers just stood with their empty guns poised against the tide. And they were frowning at the kids who shouted "put down your guns; join us." A few hid flowers in their uniforms, and some smiled, but mostly, they stood posing for their own death masks.

"Wouldn't you rather hold a girl than a gun?" asked one kid with his arm around two willing chicks.

"You don't understand," the soldier stammered, moving his tongue across his lips. "It's orders. We have to be here."

That was Wednesday—nomination day—and the city was braced for escalation. At the afternoon rally, an American flag was hauled down, and the police responded by wading into the center of the crowd, with clubs flying. The kids built barricades of vacated benches, pelted the police with branches, and tossed plastic bags of cow's blood over their heads. . . .

With every semblance of press identification I owned pinned to my shirt, I set out across the mall. But most of the crowd had the same idea. Across on Michigan Avenue, I could hear the shouts of demonstrators who were re-grouping at the Hilton. I stopped to wet my undershirt in a fountain and ran down the street. My hands were shaking with anticipation and I could no longer close my eyes without seeing helmets and hearing chants. So my body was committed, but my head remained aloof.
http://peacecorpsonline.org/messages/imagefolder/knifedchicago.jpg



Czechoslovakia


The Soviet Invasion
of Czechoslovakia: August 1968

Materials from
the Labadie Collection
of Social Protest Material

Soviet tank in front of the Czechoslovak Radio building, photo: CTKSoviet tank in front of the Czechoslovak Radio building, photo: CTK

In the morning hours of August 21, 1968, the Soviet army invaded Czechoslovakia along with troops from four other Warsaw Pact countries. The occupation was the beginning of the end for the Czechoslovak reform movement known as the Prague Spring.

This web site contains material from the days immediately following the invasion, and they reflect the atmosphere in Czechoslovakia at the time: tense, chaotic, uncertain, full of pathos, fear, and expectation...





SDS: Anarchist Libertarian Alliance




The image “http://www.antiauthoritarian.net/sds_wuo/thumbnail/sds_organizer_guide.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.
  • SDS Bulletin - July, 1964 (Vol 2, Nr 10)
  • New Left Notes - May 13, 1968 (Vol 3, Nr 17)
  • New Left Notes - March 8, 1969 (Vol 4, Nr 9)


  • First-phase SDSers hadn’t talked much about values. But as anti-war activity heated up during the second phase, SDSers were looking for new worldviews, indulging in new tastes and lifestyles. Pardun, for whom LSD was practically religion, took the hippie lifestyle as a facet of the movement.

    But neither critique nor lifestyle, without political gains, were enough by late 1967, when second-phase leaders began to worry about the realism of their project. Pardun puts its succinctly: "Protesting the war," he writes, "assumed that it was a mistake and that if we could convince the war makers of that then the war would end."

    Escalations in ground forces and bombing–his book recounts them, brigade by brigade, ton by ton–told SDS that the war wasn’t simply a "mistake" and that hawks would not be persuaded–until and unless doves could take power away from them.

    Several prairie leaders, notably Carl Oglesby, Greg Calvert, and Carl Davidson, began to concoct theories to deal with the task. Three elements were common to their formulations: the notion of a "New Working Class," of "resistance," and of youth as a powerful and independent force. The "New Working Class" was a highly technical, white-collar proletariat, whose members, proponents of the theory insisted, were going to replace the blue-collar industrial workforce. "Resistance" was a vaguer idea, which took practical form in a campaign to sabotage and derail the military draft. Youth were "revolutionary" because they weren’t sworn to doctrines about racial supremacy and My Country, Right or Wrong. They also smoked pot.


    Consciousness and Social Life - Google Books Result

    by David H. DeGrood - 1976 - Philosophy - 112 pages
    Now Karl Marx was being referred to, help! theory!45 By the Summer of 1967 ... the Spring of 1968 opportunists such as Carl Oglesby were urging SDS to drop ...

    Building a New Libertarian Movement

    [The following, which I co-authored with the late Samuel Edward Konkin III, originally appeared in slightly different form under the title “Smashing the State for Fun & Profit!” in Tactics of the Movement of the Libertarian Left (Vol. 5, No. 1), May Day 2001. I offer it here as a clarification of “Libertarian Leftism,” an illuminating piece of political revisionist history, and a contribution to Tom Knapp’s ongoing Symposium on Building a New Libertarian Movement. I apologize for its length.]
    What was the New Left in 1965 was conducive to an alliance with Libertarians. Indeed, the New Left and the nascent Libertarian Movement reached out for each other to battle the common enemy, Corporate Liberal Imperial Leviathan. Libertarian Movement founder Murray N. Rothbard traded votes with Maoists at New York Peace & Freedom Party conventions. Rothbard and historian Leonard Liggio started
    Left and Right: A Journal of Libertarian Thought to help forge a Libertarian alliance with the New Left. Carl Oglesby, 1965 president of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), wrote an analysis of the U.S. Empire, Containment and Change, in which his prescription for defeating the Empire called explicitly for a coalition with the Libertarian “Old Right” as led by Rothbard and Liggio. And Karl Hess, speechwriter for the Goldwater presidential campaign in 1964, determined by 1968 that he had more in common with the New Left than Buckley’s Right and penned his stirring “Death of Politics” Libertarian manifesto for Playboy magazine.

    But those “Old Left” commune-statists were not, to use that familiar Trotskyist phrase, “decisively defeated on the proletarian terrain.” By the time of its 1969 convention, SDS expelled its anarchists and split between Maoists and WeatherMaoists. After a brief exhibition of street violence, the “vanguard” collapsed underground with an occasional eruption over the years. Also in 1969, Libertarian Rightists, inspired by Rothbard and led by Hess, walked out of the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) convention to join the New Left. And unfortunately, even the first Libertarian Con that year in New York, which brought together disenfranchised SDS decentralists and YAF free-marketeers, also split — not on Left-Right lines but on revolutionary rage vs. quite academic movement-building lines.

    YIPPIE!

    The image “http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e4/Us-yip.gif” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

    The Youth International Party (whose adherents were known as Yippies, a variant on "Hippies") was a highly theatrical political party established in the United States in 1967. An offshoot of the free speech and anti-war movements of the 1960s, the Yippies presented a more radically youth-oriented and countercultural alternative to those movements. They employed theatrical gestures—such as advancing a pig ("Pigasus the Immortal") as a candidate for President in 1968—to mock the social status quo.They have been described as a highly theatrical youth movement of “symbolic politics.”


    It was during the conventions in 1968 that the Yippies really made a national splash.


    At the turbulent Democratic gathering in Chicago, Yippie founders Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin presented their candidate for president – "Pigasus the Immortal," a real pig.

    But the scene at the convention turned ugly as Chicago police, and then the National Guard, clashed with antiwar protesters. In the aftermath, Hoffman and Rubin were among seven protesters arrested and charged with conspiring to incite violence.

    During the trial of the so-called "Chicago Seven," Hoffman and Rubin continued to play to the media, one day showing up for court in judicial robes. Ultimately, the charges against the defendants were dismissed.

    Paul Krassner, who was among the founding members of the Yippies with Hoffman and Rubin, said the party came about because "the whole antiwar effort seemed dreary. .. We wanted to add some color and fun to the demonstrations."

    Abbie Hoffman.


    Yippie Workshop Speech by Abbie Hoffman (1968)

    Cops are like Yippies-you can never find the leaders... You just let 'em know that you're stronger psychically than they are. And you are, because you came here for nothin' and they're holdin' on to their fuckin' pig jobs 'cause of that little fuckin' paycheck and workin' themselves up, you know. Up to what? To a fuckin' ulcer. Sergeant. We got them by the balls. The whole thing about guerrilla theatre is gettin' them to believe it. Right.

    Theatre, guerrilla theatre, can be used as defense and as an offensive weapon. I mean, I think like people could survive naked, see. I think you could take all your fuckin' clothes off, a cop won't hit ya. You jump in Lake Michigan, he won't go after you, but people are too chickenshit to do that. It can be used as an offensive and defensive weapon, like blood. We had a demonstration in New York. We had seven gallons of blood in little plastic bags. You know, if you convince 'em you're crazy enough, they won't hurt ya. With the blood thing, cop goes to hit you, right, you have a bag of blood in your hand. He lifts h is stick up, you take your bag of blood and go whack over your own head. All this blood pours out, see. Fuckin' cop standin'. Now that says a whole lot more than a picket sign that says end the war in wherever the fuck it is you know. I mean in that demonstration, there was a fuckin' war there. People came down and looked and said holy shit I don't know what it is, blood all over the fuckin' place, smokebombs goin' off, flares, you know, tape recorders with the sounds of machine guns, cops on horses tramplin' Christmas shoppers. It was a fuckin' war. And they say, right, I know what the fuck you're talkin' about. You're talkin' about war. What the fuck has a picket line got to do with war? But people that are into a very literal bag, like that heavy word scene, you know, don't understand the use of communication in this country and the use of media. I mean, if they give a ten-page speech against imperialism, everybody listens and understands and says yeah. But you throw fuckin' money out on the Stock Exchange, and people get that right away. And they say, right, I understand what that's about. And if they don't know what you're doin', fuck 'em. Who cares? Take this, see, you use blank space as information. You carry a sign that says END THE. You don't need the next word, you just carry a sign that says END, you know. That's enough. I mean the Yippie symbol is Y. So you say, why, man, why, why? Join the Y, bring your sneakers, bring your helmet, right, bring your thing, whatever you got. Y, you say to the Democrats, baby, Y that's not a V it's a Y. You can do a whole lotta shit. Steal it, steal the V, it's a Y. It's up the revolution like that. Keeping your cool and having good wits is your strongest defense.

    If you don't want it on TV, write the work "FUCK" on your head, see, and that won't get on TV, right? But that's where theatre is at, it's TV. I mean our thing's for TV. We don't want to get on Meet the Press. What's that shit? We want Ed Sullivan, Johnny Carson show, we want the shit where people are lookin' at it and diggin' it. They're talking about reachin' the troops in Viet Nam so they write in The Guardian! [An independent radical newsweekly published in New York.] That's groovy. I've met a lot of soldiers who read The Guardian, you know. But we've had articles in Jaguar magazine, Cavalier, you know, National Enquirer interviews the Queen of the Yippies, someone nobody ever heard of and she runs a whole riff about the Yippies and Viet Nam or whatever her thing is and the soldiers get it and dig it and smoke a little grass and say yeah I can see where she's at. That's why the long hair. I mean shit, you know, long hair is just another prop. You go on TV and you can say anything you want but the people are lookin' at you and they're lookin' at the cat next to you like David Susskind or some guy like that and they're sayin' hey man there's a choice, I can see it loud and clear. But when they look at a guy from the Mobilization [against the War in Vietnam] and they look at David Susskind, they say well I don't know, they seem to be doing the same thing, can't understand what they're doin'. See, Madison Avenue people think like that. That's why a lot SDS's don't like what we're doin'. 'Cause they say we're like exploiting; we're usin' the tools of Madison Ave. But that's because Madison Ave. is effective in what it does. They know what the fuck they're doin'. Meet the Press, Face the Nation, Issues and Answers-all those bullshit shows, you know, where you get a Democrat and a Republican arguin' right back and forth, this and that, this and that, yeah yeah. But at the end of the show nobody changes their fuckin' mind, you see. But they're tryin' to push Brillo, you see, that's good, you ought to use Brillo, see, and 'bout every ten minutes on will come a three-minute thing of Brillo. Brillo is a revolution, man, Brillo is sex, Brillo is fun, Brillo is bl bl bl bl bl bl bl bl. At the end of the show people ain't fuckin' switchin' from Democrat to Republicans or Commies, you know, the right-wingers or any of that shit. They're buying Brillo! And the reason they have those boring shows is because they don't want to get out any information that'll interfere with Brillo. I mean, can you imagine if they had the Beatles goin' zing zing zing zing zing zing zing, all that jump and shout, you know, and all of a sudden they put on an ad where the guy comes on very straight: "You ought to buy Brillo because it's rationally the correct decision and it's part of the American political process and it's the right way to do things." You know, fuck, they'll buy the Beatles, they won't buy the Brillo.

    We taped a thing for the David Susskind Show. As he said the word hippie, a live duck came out with "HIPPIE" painted on it. The duck flew up in the air and shat on the floor and ran all around the room. The only hippie in the room, there he is. And David went crazy. 'Cause David, see, he's New York Times head, he's not Daily News freak. And he said the duck is out and blew it. We said, we'll see you David, goodnight. He say, oh no no. We'll leave the duck in. And we watched the show later when it came on, and the fuckin' duck was all gone. He done never existed. And I called up Susskind and went quack quack quack, you motherfucker, that was the best piece of information: that was a hippie. And everything we did, see, non-verbally, he cut out. Like he said, "How do you eat?" and we fed all the people, you know. But he cut that out. He wants to deal with the words. You know, let's play word games, let's analyze it. Soon as you analyze it, it's dead, it's over. You read a book and say well now I understand it, and go back to sleep.

    The media distorts. But it always works to our advantage. They say there's low numbers, right? 4000, 5000 people here. That's groovy. Think of it, 4000 people causin' all this trouble. If you asked me, red say there are four Yippies. I'd say we're bringin' another four on Wednesday. That's good, that freaks 'em out. They're lookin' around. Only four. I mean I saw that trip with the right wing and the Communist conspiracy. You know, you'd have 5000 people out there at the HUAC demonstrations eight years ago in San Francisco and they'd say there are five Communists in the crowd, you know. And they did it all. You say, man that's pretty cool. So you just play on their paranoia like that. Yeah, there're four guys out around there doin' a thing. So distortion's gonna backfire on them, 'cause all of a sudden Wednesday by magic there are gonna be 200,000 fuckin' people marchin' on that amphitheater. That's how many we're gonna have. And they'll say, "Wow. From 4000 up to 200,000. Those extra four Yippies did a hell of a good job." I dig that, see. I'm not interested in explainin' my way of life to straight people or people that aren't interested. They never gonna understand it anyway and I couldn't explain it anyway. All I know is, in terms of images and how words are used as images to shape your environment, the New York Times is death to us. That's the worst fuckin' paper as far as the Yippies are concerned. They say, "Members of the so-called Youth International Party held a demonstration today." That ain't nothin'. What fuckin' people read that? They fall asleep. 'Cause the New York Times has all the news that's fit to print, you know, so once they have all the news, what do the people have to do? They just read the New York Times and drink their coffee and go back to work, you know. But the Daily News, that's a TV set. Look at it, I mean look at the picture right up front and the way they blast those headlines. You know, "Yippies, sex-loving, dope-loving, commie, beatnik, hippie, freako, weirdos." That's groovy, man, that's a whole life style, that's a whole thing to be, man. I mean you want to get in on that.


    ABBIE HOFFMAN

    1936-1989

    This site is dedicated to the memory and spirit of Abbie Hoffman.

    "Revolution is not something fixed in ideology, nor is it something fashioned to a particular decade. It is a perpetual process embedded in the human spirit."

    Abbie Hoffman

    Soon to be a Major Motion Picture

    abbie hoffman
    by Alex Burns (alex@disinfo.com) - May 29, 2001

    Abbie Hoffman (1936-1989) was a complex and deeply paradoxical social activist and media celebrity, whose legendary culture-jamming exploits have come to characterise the period's para-political turmoil and counter-culture.

    His early 1950s experiences as a Brandeis student and sexual experienced aesthete marked Hoffman as a future American Rebel (Outsider). Under the tutelage of famous humanist psychologist Abraham Maslow, Hoffman conceived of political protest as a positive and life-affirming self-actualising process.

    During the early 1960s, Hoffman was involved with civil rights activism as an organiser in Mississipi for the Student Non-violent Co-ordinating Committee. In San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, Hoffman became involved with the Diggers (actors turned social activists), distributing free food and organising accomodation.

    He first came to national exposure with Jerry Rubin during the infamous 1967 New York Stock Exchange "money-burning" incident. Through his involvement with anti-Vietnam War protests and the Chicago Eight trial which resulted from 1968 Chicago Democratic convention riots, Hoffman became a counter-culture icon and the face of American radical dissidence.

    Hoffman mixed with many of the leading protesters, including John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Tom Hayden, Timothy Leary and G. Gordon Liddy, and was notable for fusing creativity with righteous fury and savage humour. He pioneered many tactics of guerilla survival and personal autonomy.

    Drifting into an outlaw life-style, Hoffman was implicated in a 1973 cocaine deal gone wrong, and busted by undercover agents. Fleeing, Hoffman lived underground for six years, working on environmental campaigns.

    Re-surfacing in 1980, Hoffman served a brief prison sentence, before returning to social activism. Hoffman battled many fronts, but his demons were largely personal, in an environment that had dramatically changed since the demise of the Counter-culture. Psychosis, substance abuse and relationship breakdowns created a messy personal life.

    The rise of the Moral Majority as a political force, increased on-campus student conservatism and a critical re-appraisal of New Left radicalism countered his many attempts to re-mobilise university campus and environmental progressive forces into raising hell.

    Hoffman also encountered a media backlash against his clown persona and culture-jamming legacy, as many critics claimed that he had betrayed his earlier ideals.

    But despite his deep flaws, Hoffman remained committed to progressive campaigning, and criticised the Reagan administration's War on Some Drugs.

    Hoffman's social revolution ideals were finally realised through the 1989 collapse of Eastern European 'puppet' Communist states, but plagued by manic depression, Hoffman had died by suicide.

    Sadly, he did not live to see the resurgence of his ideas and radicial dissidence in the 1990s by a variety of individuals and progressive foundations.

    Hoffman's legacy has been chronicled in several excellent biographies: Marty Jezer's American Rebel (1992); Damien Simon and Jack Hoffman's Run Run Run (1994); Jonah Raskin's For the Hell of It and Larry 'Ratso' Sloman's Steal This Dream (1998).



    Who is Jerry Rubin?

    the co-founder of the Yippies

    IPB Image

    Jerry C. Rubin was perhaps the most outlandish figure to ever defended American civil liberties. A revolutionary and anti-war activist, his voice and zany stunts were heard and seen throughout the world. Rubin was a master of media sensationalism, exposing American injustice through outrageous spectacles and whimsical press conferences. His outrageousness and free style made him a household name, and soon every politician's worst nightmare.

    During the 70's Rubin reflected about his past deeds and thoughts. In essays he would admit his wrongs, explaining how sexism, homophobia, racism, and drug abuse shaped his beliefs. Once believing homosexuality was a sick behavior, he now understood it as a valid sexual expression. He also thanked women for the role they played in creating his public image: women were the ones who typed his manuscripts, handled his clerical work, and labored behind the scenes. He abandoned his "Kill You Parents" mantra and encouraged people to accept the "Love Your Parents" wisdom.

    In the 80's Rubin slowly removed himself from the media spotlight, complaining, "To live inside a media image is like a prison. Living for your image means sacrificing your true self." He made a few guest appearances with Abbie Hoffman and appeared in the movies "Growing Up in America" (1987), "Rude Awakening" (1989), and "Panther" (released 1995).

    Rubin died on November 28, 1994 when he was struck by a car while jay walking in Los Angeles. He was buried at Hillside Memorial Park in Culver City, California.

    Anita Hoffman: 16 March, 1942 - December 27, 1998


    The Yippies didn't just want to sit around and smoke pot. They sought to pull Uncle Sam's pants down in public, to show that revolution could be conducted in a spirit of festive nonviolence.

    Dubbing her the "Queen of the Yippies," the U.K.'s Economist (not exactly a radical publication) had this to say of Anita Hoffman and her husband Abbie: "Perhaps the most famous song of the 1960s was Bob Dylan's 'The Times They Are A'Changin'', in which 'senators, congressmen' and others stuck in the past were warned of the 'battle outside raging.' No one fought the battle with more enthusiasm than the Hoffmans, Abbie and Anita."

    > The Hoffmans became the symbols of an era of resistance against racism, capitalism and war.


    Steal this millennium!

    Yippie Stew Albert sits down with R.U. Sirius to plan the revolution and remember Abbie Hoffman.

    - - - - - - - - - - - -
    By R.U. Sirius



    Stew Lives!

    Activist Stew Albert's quest for social and economic justice found its path in the Yippie movement of the late 1960s

    By Michael Simmons

    Photo by Judy Gumbo Albert

    HUNGRY FOR JUSTICE: Yippie Stew Albert, 1939-2006.

    "My politics have not changed."

    So read the simple blog entry by Stew Albert on Jan. 28. Two days later, he died in his sleep at his home in Portland, Ore., surrounded by his wife Judy Albert, daughter Jessica and friends. Suffering from cancer and unable to write at length, he was clearly determined to make a statement - a last stand - that blended the legendary Yippie's defiance and wit. As if his politics would ever change!

    For the Yippies - the Youth International Party - the word "party" meant both political group and outrageously good times. The Yippies merged leftwing activism and freak culture in the late 1960s. One of the "non-leaders" along with Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin and Paul Krassner was another party animal - equally irresponsible for the chaos and comedy: Stew Albert, a fierce soldier for justice as well as a subversive prankster.



    Yippies on Wall Street (1)

    The image “http://sniggle.net/Images/yippie1.gif” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.


    http://static.flickr.com/36/75282044_4dc36a22e1.jpg


    http://www.cafes.net/ditch/shards.jpg



    This guy was not a YIPPIE!

    http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/pacificaviet/kerry.jpg

    SEE

    Gay Old Communists

    The Summer of Love

    40 Years Later; The Society of the Spectacle

    Year of the Pig

    Black and Redmonton

    Paul Goodman

    Military Industrial Complex

    SOME REMARKS ON WAR SPIRIT



    Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
    , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
    , , ,, , , , , , ,
    , , , , , , , , , , , , ,, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,, , Trotsky, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

    Wednesday, June 12, 2019

    I AM REPOSTING THIS DUE TO THE FACT THE OLD SHIBBOLETH OF ALBERTA SEPARATISM HAS RAISED ITS UGLY HEAD AGAIN WITH THE ELECTION OF UCP
    UCP IS THE RESULT OF THESE PAST PARTIES MERGING INTO ONE AFTER THE ELECTION OF THE NDP GOVERNMENT IN 2015

    Friday, December 30, 2005


    Alberta Seperatism Not Quite Stamped Out

    Well that didn't take long. Starting with Bouquets of Grey documenting Edmonton East Conservative Campaign Manager Gordon Stamp, a perennial right wing figure here in Redmonton, being an Alberta Seperatiste and saying stupid things in online forums and now he is gone.

    And Bouquets got some help from the rest of us in the blogosphere passing on our two bits worth, including 
    yours truly, it got picked up by Paul Wells at Macleans and he forwarded it to Conservative Candidate Peter Goldring and voila Resignation tendered and accepted. Wow faster than you can say Liberal Blog, gotta hand it to Goldring he didn't give Gord his stamp of approval for his off the wall comments. Not like the Liberal spokesman did for Klander.

    But true to form some folks think this is censorship and unfair to the Alberta Seperatiste faction of the Blogging Tory's. Such as 
    Candace another Redmontonian whose blog WakingUpOnPlanetX supports Alberta Seperatism is very very upset about this. She equates Alberta Sepratism with the PQ and BQ in Quebec.

    So here is a history lesson for Candace, of course its a left wing history lesson, so no apologies for that.

    Alberta Seperatism is at its core an anti-semitic, racist, white power movement.
    It is not the equivalent of the PQ or Quebec. It is not founded in the radical tradition of prairie populism of the Reil Rebellion contrary to the disingenous statements of Link Byfield. It is based in the right wing of the old Social Credit party and its links to the fascist movement in Canada.

    It originates in Alberta not in the dirty thirties but the early 1980's in the last days of the Lougheed government, with the Western Canada Concept (WCC) of rightwhingnut lawyer and defender of fascists Doug Christie. The WCC won a seat in a red neck rural riding, and had an MLA in the Alberta Legislature giving them some political credibility, some, enough for Lougheed to use them as a whipping boy against Ottawa. Which Ralph Klein continues to do today. Any time things got a little outta hand between the Liberals in Ottawa and the Alberta Government the bugaboo of Alberta Seperatism would be raised. Clever ploy that.

    The reality is that during the 1980's two major right wing populist parties began in Alberta, both anti-semitic, white power, anti-biligualism, pro religious fundamentalist, pro Celtic Saxon peoples (code for White Power) anti immigrant anti multiculturalism, today add anti-gay. These were the WCC and Elmer Knutsens Confederation of Regions Party. The CRP did not win seats in Alberta but in New Brunswick, as a right wing backlash to that provinces French majority.
    Ironic eh.

    Members, followers and fellow travelers of these parties, also belonged to farther right groups as well as the Reform Party of Canada when it was formed. By then their rump right wing parties disappeared. Some went on in Alberta to form splinter right wing parties like the revived Social Credit, the Alberta Alliance, the Alberta Seperatist party. But most saw Preston Mannings Reform Party as a big tent right wing party, and joined or promoted it.

    The infamous voice of the right in Alberta, and Canada, the Alberta Report promoted Alberta Seperatism and the Reform party in its pages. It also supported right wing religious fundamentalism (either protestant or Catholic or Orthordox), anti abortion, anti-gay rights, anti-feminism, anti-daycare. The Byfield clan who ran the magazine as their personal empire, were also directly politically involved in these campaigns.

    Today Alberta Report is no more, run into the ground by the Byfields, not once, not twice but thrice. The final death agony of the magazine is a story to behold, but suffice it to say the monies squirreled away that survived the bankruptcy went to creating a new Alberta Seperatist Foundation, run by Link Byfield and with Stalinist aplomb is called;Citizens Centre for Freedom and Democracy.

    It is of course nothing of the sort. It is a front group for right wing lobbying and Alberta Seperatism. Lets us hoist Link by his own petard, by letting him speak for himself as the CCFD. Oh by the way when someone says that they are neither left wing nor right wing, or somehow they want to be politically neutral, they ain't. They are right wing. Thats another clever ruse they use to appear non partisan.
    The CITIZENS CENTRE IS NEITHER "RIGHT-WING" NOR "LEFT-WING"

    Our mission is to promote responsible government in Canada by advocating honest government, a clear division of power between the federal and provincial governments, and a democratic counterbalance to the increasing power of the courts.

    GOALS of the Citizens Centre

    To persuade provincial governments to exert their full constitutional leverage in such areas as the Canada Pension Plan, medicare, provincial police, tax collection, gun registration, carbon emissions, urban affairs, environment and grain marketing.

    To create demand in Canada for privately-paid medical treatments and regulated private alternatives to the national pension plan, as is found increasingly in all developed countries.

    To create pressure for a meaningful reduction in federal fiscal transfers (both direct and indirect), and a permanent reduction in government share of GDP.
    * *Ottawa forced its way into the provincial sphere of social and economic development, mainly by abusing its unlimited power to tax and spend, even in areas that are beyond its jurisdiction. Some provinces, notably Alberta and Quebec, resisted. However, Quebec was bought off and Alberta was looted. Alberta's net contribution to federal programs since 1961 is now over $200 billion.

    The consequences of allowing Ottawa to negate the original scheme of Confederation have been bad for the whole country, not just Alberta.

    It has created costly jurisdictional overlap, political confusion, high taxes, needless eastern dependency and western alienation, and a political culture that no longer understands the principle, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."

    Instead we are constantly told that social entitlements like "free" medicare and unemployment insurance represent the core values of Canadians.


    And what is the main political issue that they believe will enhance democracy in Canada? Proportional Representation? Electoral Reform? Parlimentary Reform? Nah......They want Refederation!
    To understand what refederation entails, one has to appreciate the fact that Canada is now not only badly governed but also over-governed. Governments at all levels are too big, and they get in each other's way.

    For more than a century now, various reform movements have arisen in Canada, particularly in the West, aimed at fixing the problem. They called for more accountability, less interference by Ottawa in local affairs and more equitable economic policies. In short, better government.

    But from the time of Louis Riel, through the great Prairie farmers' movements, and up to the Reform and Canadian Alliance parties, the demand for fundamental change has gone largely unanswered. Canada is still dominated by institutions that are out of date, out of step and out of touch.

    Marriage Referendum

    A fundamental change to the legal meaning of marriage amounts to a constitutional change of great magnitude and importance. Nobody can honestly deny this.

    As the Supreme Court acknowledged in December 2003, it affects both levels of government, private and public organizations across Canada, and individual Canadians.

    So who should decide the answer?

    There are three possible authorities: the courts, Parliament, or the people.

    The Citizens Centre believes that the constitution belongs to the people and therefore the people should have the ultimate authority on this issue.


    So they want a national referendum on Marriage. And they want to privatize medicare, EI, pension plans, etc. They want a seperate pension fund for Alberta, and its own police. They are following through on Harpers original Firewall Alberta idea. Which once again in their Orwellian speak Link declares is NOT a Firewall nor are they promoting Alberta Seperatism. Talk about convoluted logic.

    And the reason? Cause Canada is too liberal for them . No not Liberal, small 'l' liberal, as in libertarian, freedom of choice, freedom of the individual , freedom for gays, immigrants etc.

    Now they will talk freedom and freedom of choice but in their Orwellian logic it is exactly the opposite. They want the freedom to be the Christian majority, with their country (seperate Alberta) being a fundamentalist Christian Theocracy at worst, or scratch the surface of Alberta Seperatism, and you find something worse, White Power bigots.

    Yep so Candace there you have it. Why Alberta Seperatism is nothing like the Quebec Nationalist movement. It is a modern fascist movement. And if you want to participate in it fine, but lets call a spade a shovel, and you are shoveling B.S. when you promote Alberta Seperatism.