Goldbug

Now this is either a good reason (for investors) to invade Iran or a very bad reason to invade.....

United States Invasion of Iran Could Put Gold Over $1,000



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Heil Hillier, Maintiens le droit

Military chief called period of Liberal governments a 'decade of darkness'; Liberal says Gen. Rick Hillier a `prop' for Tories

Gee I said that: Joined At The Hip

The first two people Harper met with after the election were RCMP Commissioner Zaccardelli and General Hillier.

Scary that.

Consider the political role the RCMP had in the defeat of the Liberals. Releasing a press release during the campaign that said they were investigating the Liberals over alleged Income Trust leaks. Which was revealed this week, over a year later, with a inconsequential bust of a bureaucrat who profited from the Income Trust announcement but not a leak or any evidence of any kind of leak.RCMP income trust probe goes bust

Pure politics by Zaccardelli, which won him government support during the Arar affair, until he shot himself in the foot which he had already placed in his mouth.

Of course the RCMP has always been political.

They are Paramilitary Force created by the State to defend the State. That they would support a self declared Law and Order government is the essence of their slogan; Maintiens le droit.

Which my history Prof Jim Penton reminded his class meant Maintain the Right. As in the Kings Right, droit, or law, which the RCMP themselves translate as the harmless; Defending the Law. But as our Governor General Michelle Jean translated more accurately, and in the context of the Harpocrites a starkly insidious; “Upholding the Right,”

Another voice of men with guns and right wing political views was former General Lewis Mackenzie who is now an outspoken Conservative. But at least he waited till he retired to declare his allegiances to the right. Until Prime Minister Harper’s election and the brave new direction he set for Canada’s foreign and military policies, Gen. MacKenzie’s was almost a voice in the wilderness in this land.

General Hillier on the other hand is an outspoken supporter of War and of the Harper Government, because they do his bidding. Going to war in the South of Afghanistan was the first act of the New Harper Government, prior to that we had been doing peacekeeping in Kabul.

Hillier's Pro War ideology and Harpers correspond in wanting to recreate Canada's Armed Forces. By transforming them from their traditional Liberal role as Peace Keepers back into a traditional conservative Fighting Force. He began the change under the Liberals who appointed him but has mobilized his mouth in favour of Harper and War at any cost. Harpers War was originally posed to Canadians as an extension of Liberals Peace Keeping operations in Kabul. But all that changed when we joined the Americans in Kandahar.

Now we have a new Fighting Armed Forces. Complete with new recruitment ads. Gone was the tradesman/woman of the No Life Like It era, appealing to the Maritimers, the vast majority of our nations Armed Forces. Now it is a stark black and white world in the ads that show the viewer that we are fighting back.

Not only has Hillier been outspoken in public about the need to make war; the blunt-speaking Gen. Hillier has denigrated those fighting against Canadian troops in Afghanistan as "detestable murderers and scumbags." An over the top appeal to conservative law and order types. But our Armed Forces now find themselves in a situation where they face charges of attacking innocent villagers and abusing prisoners.

And Hillier has mobilized his troops to take to Canada's streets to support the war in Afghanistan.

The Red Friday Rallies began in Ottawa with Harper addressing the partisan crowd of spouses of our soldiers, Hillier was there, and the Conservatives allowed public servants time off to join the noon hour rally.

Since then Red Fridays across Canada have been small affairs notably made up of the RCMP and the Army and its conservative supporters. While ostensibly billed as supporting our troops it really is a rally to support Hillier and Harpers War.


And we remember the last time we had mass rallies of armed forces.

Men with guns being political. Scary.

SEE

Hillier

Afghanistan

RCMP

Autocrat


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Danger At Work

Not hundreds, not thousands but;
Hundreds of thousands of Canadians assaulted at work

Work not only kills it injures. And not a word about this crime wave in the workplace from the Law & Order government in Ottawa.

In a report released Friday, the agency said 17% of all self-reported incidents of violent victimization that year, including sexual assault, robbery and physical assault, occurred at the person’s place of work. That figure represents over 356,000 violent workplace incidents in Canada's 10 provinces. And those were only the incidents that were reported.

Don't expect the Law and Order Conservatives to do anything about violence in the workplace because that would interfere in the market place.

As Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day reminded us when he was Labour Minister in Alberta and unions called for Working Alone legislation after workers were assaulted on the job. He said there was nothing he would do about bringing in Working Alone legislation. Instead he cut jobs in his department.

It took the murder of a young woman working alone in Calgary to actually get the ruling PC's in Alberta to take the issue seriously. But by then Stock was leading the New Canadian Alliance Party.

Of course Public Safety in Canada means keeping us safe from foreign terrorists not terror on the job. Especially when most of these assaults were on public sector workers, that is government workers.

The majority -- about 70% -- of the violent workplace incidents were classified as physical assaults. That's more than the 57% of non-workplace incidents that were classified as physical assaults. The three offences were much more common in the social assistance and health care services sectors, the study found. One-third of all workplace violent incidents involved a victim who was working in those types of jobs. A high proportion also occurred in accommodation or food services, retail or wholesale trade and educational services sectors.

As the ILO reported as far back as 1998 the reason for the increasing assaults in the work place is the decrease in workers on the job the privatization of public services and the consequences of the reduction in the size of government. Because the bureaucracy has not declined only front line services.

In situations of structural change and transition, when the main objective is to retain employment and income, safety and health issues are often relegated to second place. However, it is these very situations which generate anxieties, frustration and organizational difficulties, which in turn can lead to violence. In practice, violence at the workplace may include a wide range of behaviour, often of an ongoing and overlapping nature. While attention has traditionally been focused on physical violence, in more recent years evidence has been emerging of the impact and harm caused by non-physical violence which, although often referred to as psychological, can also have physical repercussions for the victim.

A survey by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) revealed that almost 70 per cent of respondents considered verbal aggression to be the leading form of violence, citing physical violence as the next most frequent form. Growing attention is also being paid to perpetuated violence involving repeated behaviour. In itself this type of violence may appear to be relatively minor, but cumulatively it can become very serious, taking the form of sexual harassment, bullying or mobbing. It is this type of behaviour which can have the most negative impact on human resource development at the workplace.

The impact of the 1995 Neo-Con revolution in Canada, the so called "Reinventing Government", when Stockwell Day was Labour Minister in Alberta and Paul Martin was Finance Minister, and both the provinces and Federal Government cut funding and outsourced public sector jobs, is still with us.

And thus the public sector and service workplace is just as unsafe as it was when miners needed canaries to go into the mines. Which is why we mourn the loss of life and the injuries of class on April 28 each year.




See

In Canada Work Kills

Work Sucks

Laundry Workers Fight Privatization

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workers, injuries, assault, crime, work, labour, labor, government, public sector workers, service workers, Canada, job, dangers on the job, assault, crime, Stockwell Day, unions, Alberta, working alone

Carnival of Anarchy February 07

Carnival of Anarchy

It's almost time for the next carnival, this one on the topic Anarchism in your area.

The carnival will be next weekend, from Friday 23rd through til Sunday 25th, so get cracking on your posts, and when the time comes throw them up here (and on your own blogs, if you wish).





A few questions to consider while posting:

• How common are anarchist ideas in your area?
• Are there many people who actively identify as some sort of anarchist?
• Is there one stream of anarchism that is dominant (eg anarcho-syndicalism, ultra-leftism, anarcho-primitivism, insurrectionary anarchism etc)? If so, why?
• What anarchist groups/organisations/institutions exist in your town, if any? Are they old or relatively new?
• What is the makeup of anarchists in your area as compared to the general population (ethnicity, gender, sexuality etc)
• Does your area have a history of lots of anarchist activity? If so, how does that affect modern anarchist activity and how it is percieved?
• What do anarchists do in your area?

Feel free to be as broad or narrow a s you want - discuss your street, suburb, city or country, whatever takes your fancy.

If you want to post on this carnival but aren't currently a member, post your email in the comments and hopefully someone will add you.

In the meantime, use the comments on this thread to suggest and hopefully decide on a topic for the next carnival. For previously suggested topics, check out here and here.



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Top 47

A diverse field of Canada’s most well known and respected personalities from journalists to politicians offering their comments on the issues of the day, everyday.

This is a misleading article; first because there are only 47 folks listed.

Second because many of these folks don't "comment on the issues of the day, every day".

Third; because there is not a single labour activist amongst them. Nor anybody from the left. Notably missing are Judy Rebick , James Laxer and Jim Stanford.

Fourth; no environmentalists; Elizabeth May isn't even on the list nor David Suzuki. And no NDP bloggers.

Which is why they probably couldn't find fifty to fill the list.

It's a who's who of Macleans favorite Conservatives and Liberals. After all Maude Barlow is a Liberal.

And they have one token Dipper; Jamey Heath.

At least Kinsella ain't on the list. Boy he's going to be pissed.

h/t to Scott Tribe



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Gnostic Anarchists

Light and Life

The Online Journal of Rev. Thomas Langley

Rise, Prophet!

"Musings, meditations and poems of a mystic anarchist (with some gnostic Christian, Zen Buddhist and Advaita Vedantic thought thrown in for good measure)"

See

Anarchism

Gnostic

liberation theology


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enMasse

Came across the alternative to Babble at Rabble.....still going strong with a blog and discussion forum.

Q:

How did enMasse come to be?

A:

Well... you'd better take a seat... Where to begin? EnMasse came into being after Audra Williams, the moderator of the babble discussion forums at rabble.ca was fired by the Management Committee by e-mail during a series of life crises. Audra was an extremely well-liked moderator and was largely responsible for the creation of babble at the time of the Quebec City protests in 2001 and for its success until April of 2006, when she was summarily fired. After firing Audra, the Management Committee proceded to adopt an extremely hardnosed attitude towards her and towards outraged members of the community, of which there were many. The Management Committee refused to negotiate and some members of the community began actively spamming the discussion forum in an effort to secure Audra's re-instatement. At the same time as the spamming of the discussion forums, a movement for a "strike" against babble developed, largely led by the babbler with the handle Kevin Laddle. The strikers refused to post to babble until Audra was re-instated. The "Babble Strike" movement grew and on April 10, 2006, a new discussion forum was created on a server paid for by The JF. This forum was initially known as the Babble Strike Forum (BSF). In the first two days over 150 babblers left to join the BSF. At first the BSF was used as a forum to debate the response to the actions of the rabble.ca Management Committee and to debate the possible future of the BSF as an independent progressive discussion forum. As it became increasingly clear that the rabble.ca Management Committee would never agree to the re-instatement of Audra or any of the accountability and democracy reforms demanded by the babble strikers, a consensus developed to forge ahead with the creation of a new progressive space on the internet. At that time, the site was re-named "Temporary Left Wing Board" while a decision was made regarding the naming of the site. On April 28th of 2006, only eighteen days after the site's founding, the name "enMasse," often shortened to EM, was chosen by a significant margin in a vote of the membership. EM has suffered through growing pains and several unfortunate and painful divisions among the membership leading to the departure of a significant number of members. However, as of September 2006 seems to be on a steady footing and is a thriving and vital community.

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New Math

This has to be some form of new math, right.

Terrorism suspect Mohamed Mahjoub will soon be living again in Toronto with his wife and two young sons after spending almost seven years behind bars without charges.

Because if he has been in jail for seven years on terrorism charges, counting backward on my fingers that means;he was arrested in 2000 a year before 9/11 and two years before the Security Act was passed and several years before they built Gitmo North in Kingston.

And if he was not allowed to know the charges against him or see the evidence in denial of habeas corpus, then we already had a paranoid security state in place in Canada before 9/11!!!

My gawd that means we have been living in a police state for seven years and it had nothing to do with al-Qaeda or 9/11.

But thats nothing new; Canada's First Internment Camps




h/t to verbena-19

SEE

Why The Tories Want Tory Judges

CIA

Torture

RCMP

CSIS

Arar

Crime

Terrorism



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Who Said This?

But the democratic part of democratic conservatism reflects our insistence on democratic accountability and reform in government.

We believe that Parliament must be reformed so that individual MPs can have a meaningful voice; that an appointed, patronage-ridden Senate is a disgrace; and that citizens must be able to have a direct say over governing their country through such means as initiative and referenda.

This is the Reform part of our heritage, and this conviction that government must be more open, more free, and more democratic is a central part of our political creed.


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Free Book Online: Rosa Luxemburg and South Africa

Newly released online as a PDF



Capitalist accumulation as a whole, as an actual historical process,
has two different aspects. One concerns the commodity market
and the place where surplus value is produced – the factory,
the mine, the agricultural estate… The other aspect of the
accumulation of capital concerns the relations between capitalism
and the non-capitalist modes of production which start making
their appearance on the international stage. Its predominant
methods are colonial policy, an international loan system – a policy
of spheres of interest – and war. Force, fraud, oppression, looting
are openly displayed without any attempt at concealment…
Rosa Luxemburg, The Accumulation of Capital, p. 432.

Capital now devours human beings: it becomes a cannibal. Every
human activity must now become capital and bear interest, so
that investment-seeking capital can live: schools, kindergartens,
universities, health systems, energy utilities, roads, railways, the
post office, telecommunications and other means of communication,
etc. The anarcho-capitalist dreams go even further. Even the police
and legislation are to be transformed into capital investments. One
receives a licence to live and to participate in any of the spheres
of society only if one pays to capital the fees required in the form
of interest. Capital becomes a ‘superworld’ to which sacrificial
victims must be brought.
Ulrich Duchrow and Franz Hinkelammert,
Property for people, not for profit, p.148.

These two citations present in a nutshell the basic traits of capitalist
accumulation from its origins to its current forms – the dominance of the
capitalist forms in the arena of material production, the continuous use
of coercion, violence and theft in order to increase the rate of profit, as
well as the intrinsic tendency of capitalism to subjugate all aspects of
social life to the reign of profit.

The 3rd Rosa Luxemburg Political Education Seminar, jointly
organised by the Centre of Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu-
Natal in Durban and the Southern African Regional Office of the Rosa
Luxemburg Foundation in Johannesburg, was held on March 2nd – 4th
2006 in Durban. The Seminar examined these general characteristics of
capitalist accumulation within the global, regional and local context.
That context is shaped, on the one hand, by the growing impact of
a corporate driven globalisation, but also the expansion of South African
capital into neighbouring countries, the emergence of new forms of
‘primitive accumulation’ under the label of Black Economic Empowerment,
and the ongoing commodification and privatisation of public services.
On the other hand, there is a growing movement which not only
resists the commercialisation of all sphere of human life but strives to
build alternatives – to create ‘another world’ which is not only possible
but necessary.

The success of the Seminar is due to many contributors. Very
valuable inputs were made by overseas guests including Elmar Altvater,
Nicola Bullard, Massimo De Angelis, Ulrich Duchrow and Gill Hart.
Other crucial interventions came from scholar-activists from the region
including Jeff Guy, Ntwala Mwilima, Prishani Naidoo and Greg Ruiters.
But this alone would not have been enough to make the seminar the
thrilling event it was. The other factor was vibrant interaction from the
floor. Contributions by activists from townships and social movements
– and the often forgotten inconspicuous work of the staff members of the
organising institutions – created an atmosphere of rigorous debate and
mutual encouragement.

This book contains some of the contributions to the 3rd Rosa
Luxemburg Political Education Seminar. The materials gathered here
will hopefully provide a valuable source of inspiration for activists and
will encourage them to extend their studies on other important writings
which form part of our huge theoretical heritage. However, these texts
can never fully reflect the lively spirit of interaction and solidarity that
prevailed throughout the event. To experience this unique feeling it was
essential to be there.

See:

Marxism

Imperialism

Africa

State Capitalism in the USSR

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South Africa, Rosa Luxemburg, Marxism, capitalism, Imperialism, PDF, free book online

Merck Tax Rip Off

Merck still has a $1.76 billion tax dispute with Canadian authorities, and has filed an appeal with the Canada Revenue Agency that is expected to be reviewed this year, spokesman Raymond Kerins said.

The pharmaceutical giant disclosed both tax cases in November in a routine Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Merck said the Canadian dispute "related to certain intercompany pricing matters."

Tax and accounting analyst Robert Willens of Lehman Brothers said in such cases drugmakers generally sell medicines at low cost to subsidiaries in countries with lower tax rates, which can then mark up the prices and keep more profit after taxes.

Merck is not the only Big Pharma company to get caught out engaging in this tax swindle known as transfer pricing. It's based on off shoring ones corporation or personal taxes in a tax haven thus avoiding paying taxes in the country of operation. Something the Irving's have done for years.

We have been participating in OECD for 20 years now on transfer pricing guidelines for instance. That work is critical to having a set of international rules that work for everybody.

We do try and understand the way that businesses operate and certainly there are many needs a company will have for offshore treasury functions. We start to get a bit upset about these when we find that they aren’t really carrying out real treasury functions, that there aren’t, possibly, real people there or very few people there and very few facilities for them to do this work. That is when we get into arguments as to whether or not it is a genuinely commercial function of the group or whether or not it is some sort of tax mitigation or tax planning.

See:

Big Pharma Rip Off

The Mulroney Legacy

AIDS


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Canada Who?

George Bush does it again. After 9/11 he forgot us. Now he does it again when calling for a new surge in Afghanistan. So maybe our being there is not as important as the Harpocrites think it is. And maybe their new relationship with Bush ain't much different than our old relationship with Bush.

President George W. Bush called for an all-out allied effort Thursday to defeat the Taliban but angered some in Canada by failing to mention its role in the deadly southern part of Afghanistan. Mr. Bush singled out for praise countries that have recently pledged extra forces or equipment as a spring offensive looms – countries like Norway, Britain, Poland, Turkey, Denmark, Greece and Iceland.

See:

Bush


Afghanistan





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Why The Tories Want Tory Judges

Harper admits he wants more law-and-order judges

So that they can stop liberal judges from doing this;

Yesterday in Toronto, a judge ruled it didn't make any sense to keep a sick, 46-year-old man who has not been charged with any crime locked up for almost seven years.

We haven't gained our equilibrium yet. Egyptian refugee claimant Mohamed Mahjoub may be able to rejoice now that Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley has allowed him to be detained under house arrest rather than in a special jail built just outside of Kingston. But there are still two other immigrants there who have been imprisoned for years without charge.

This won't solve all of the defects of the anti-terror laws. The legislation continues to give the government sweeping powers to outlaw any organization it wishes – and then treat anyone who has ever been a supporter of such an organization as a terrorist.

The word "terrorist" is defined so broadly that it can include not just those who commit or plan terrorist acts but those who use symbols associated with terrorism.

See

Statist Anti-Terrorism Act

Paranoia and the Security State

CIA

Torture

RCMP

CSIS

Arar

Crime

Terrorism



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Conservatives Soft On Porn

Since the Conservative Government denied Telus the chance to become an Income Trust they have turned to a new source of profit; cellphone porn.

And what do we hear from the Party in Power that once accused Paul Martin of being soft on kiddie porn?

Nada, nothing, silence.

After all for laissez faire Industry Minister Maxime Bernier it's just another choice in the telecom market place.

As for the Minister in Charge of the CRTC; Bev Oda, well like the Canadian Television Fund it's probably a matter best left up to the CRTC.

Are we shocked at the pervasive liberalism of a supposedly social conservative Law & Order party now governing us?

Not really after all its just a matter of realpolitik, just like their promotion of lung cancer with tax breaks for Big Tobacco.

See:

Telus

CRTC

Bernier

Phone

Income Trusts

Bev Oda

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Government, CRTC, Maxime Bernier, Industry Minister, Telus, Conservatives, deregulation, cellphones, telephones, communications, monopoly, telcom, wireless, internet, consumers, phone sex, porn, politics, Bev Oda, Income Trusts, Telus, telcos, telecoms, monopoly, consumers, prices, competition, Canada, regulations, politics, economics,

Radical Capitalists Not So Radical

Louis Rosetto, the "radical capitalist" who founded Wired magazine, is not a 'libertarian" despite what the Wall Street Journal says, he is an Ayn Rand capitalist apologist as is his magazine.

Wired Magazine in the nineties predicted that high tech capitalism was booming and would do so for the next 25 years. And then the dot.com bubble burst.

And yet the article made it onto the market as a book. A self fulfilling prophecy for the pre-Enron generation in Silicon Valley.

For the most part, the book lacks historical perspective--unless you count the authors' use of ''future history.'' For much of the book, they write as if they were looking back from the 21st century, giving their arguments an undeserved aura of certainty. This conceit may confound serious readers, for it produces a bizarre blend of real and imaginary companies in the index. For example, New York Times is followed there by a listing for Nippon Nano, a fictitious Japanese nanotechnology giant supposedly operating in the middle of the next century.

And we should give credence to these dweebs who call themselves 'libertarians" when in reality they are merely apologists for the newest regime of robber baron capitalism.

Like most of the Utopian idealists of the right they believe in what Ayn Rand called; Capitalism The Unknown Ideal. And that is what it is, an unknown ideal because the historical reality of capitalism clashes with their Walt Disney notions of idealized capitalism.

There has never been a free market under capitalism, because capitalism dominates markets, it abhors freedom and demands monopoly. It was in fact capitalism that created the State, the very state these dweebs protest against. If they had their idealized free market, capitalism would again create a State to to regulate competition and allow for the powers that be to gain a monopoly, which is how real life capitalism operates.

Capitalism as a "mode of production," Marx argued, is a historically new and distinct form of human society. True, in both the ancient world and feudalism there were "capitalists." That is, there was trade and money, there were merchants profiting from buying and selling. But these, by themselves, were insufficient to establish capital as the ruling principle and regulator of society.

To understand a mode of production, Marx suggested, we must look to the very core of society, and specifically to the way that surplus is pumped out of the direct producers. In previous forms of class society, exploitation took a definite form. The characteristic dominant social relation was that between lord and peasant, with the peasant family laboring more or less under its own self-direction and compelled, by force, to hand over surplus products and surplus labor to its exploiters.

In capitalism, by contrast, the dominant class relationship is that between capitalist and worker. The worker unlike the peasant is radically "dispossessed." Where the peasant family could sustain itself on the products of its own labor, modern workers cannot, for they lack direct access to the very means to live. They cannot feed themselves from their labor on the land, nor sell the products of their own labor, for they have access to neither land nor the tools and materials required for modern production. Instead, they must hire out the one thing they own - their "labor power," their human creative capacities - to employers in return for money wages, which they can spend purchasing the means to satisfy their needs. The principles of the market, money, exchange, profit, and the like thus penetrate into the very inner fabric of capitalist society in a way that was simply not true for earlier forms of society. The key to the emergence of capitalism was something new: the creation of this radically dispossessed figure, the wage worker.

h/t to Diogenes Borealis


See:

Monopoly Capitalism in Cyberspace

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Wired, long boom, Marx, Marxism, libertarian, radical capitalists, Rothbard, Von Mises, free market, capitalism,

The End Of The Leisure Society

Many Canadians probably feel as if they are working longer hours. Now, a new study by Statistics Canada finds they are right: Workers are spending more time on the job and less time with their families.

On average, workers had 45 minutes less time with their families on workdays in 2005 than they did almost two decades earlier, says the study released Tuesday. Most of that lost time is taken up by work.

While 45 minutes every day might not seem like much, the time adds up. Based on a 260-day work year, that means 195 fewer hours spent with the family in 2005 than in 1986. That's almost five, 40-hour work weeks.

From 1998 to 2005, the average work week in the active population increased from
44.6 to 46.3 hours, while leisure time declined from 31.5 hours to 29.5 hours,
effectively erasing two decades of gains on that front.
¨ Over the same period, fathers’ average work week increased from 49.1 to 53.2 hours
and mothers’ from 39.4 to 44.1 hours.
¨ During the 1990s, fathers increased the time they devoted to household chores and
care of the children, while mothers increased both their working hours and their leisure
time. But this trend toward closing the gender gap in caring and working came to a halt
in 2005.
¨ Parents with children under the age of five are the most likely to report being time stressed
– two-thirds of mothers and just over half of fathers.

The crisis of leisure time was a fixation amongst sociologists and popular culture pundits, in the Sixties and Seventies we were promised a glorious future of the end of work, or at least a working week of twenty hours by 2000.

Instead the End of Work has become the End of Leisure and the extension of the exploitation of the masses by the extension of the working day and the work week.

Labor saving technologies were supposed to usher in the Leisure Society and in the 1960s the concern was what would we do with all the time on our hands? How delighfully naive. Labor saving technologies meant one person could do more! It was like the paperless office promise...about as practical as the paperless bathroom Yes, we will find work to do for all the idle hands.

Instead of the eight hour day and the forty hour week in Alberta we now have a 44 hour week, before overtime is considered. And we have many folks working more than one job, thus a longer work time. All this because capitalism is a failed dream for the vast majority of workers. And in a grand case of irony the Leisure Studies program at the University of Calgary was canceled due to budget cuts.

While our leisure time was supposed to liberate us in the recreation of ourselves from workers into the ultimate renaissance (hu)man it has simply created a literal cottage industry of consumers owning a second home and consuming capitalist recreation.

The leisure industry channels and organises our desires and enables optimum enjoyment, preferably in a second home. For while the first home excels in usefulness and efficiency, the second home symbolises all that is good in life. Here, on a carefully chosen sofa, we can finally take a breather from our busy lives, preferably in leisure wear and with a Bloody Mary. Here, we are far removed from bosses and technology, close to nature and our loved ones, and do only what we feel like doing.

When we think of leisure, we likely ponder pleasure in paradise, or we entertain the idea of being somewhat lackadaisical, perhaps in a sunny clime. We might not think of “leisure” as a topic of study per se and we probably give little thought to what researchers of leisure actually do outside of their leisure time.

“A lot of people cringe,” admits Don Dawson, acting chair of the Department of Leisure Studies at the University of Ottawa. “They wonder what I am talking about.”

In fact, what he is often talking about is a theoretical concept of leisure and utopia. And he talks about it formally in a presentation at the international Canadian Congress on Leisure Research in Edmonton in May. This topic represents the culmination of his 20 years of research into a diverse number of subjects — from his first major project in the early 1980s, which looked at the leisure activities of immigrants, to other interests such as sustainable tourist development in northern Québec, mentoring at-risk youth through recreation and family leisure activities.

Above all, Dawson suggests most outside observers have a very limited understanding of the field of leisure studies.

“What strikes people is the diversity,” he says. “The recreation field, for example, stretches from therapeutic recreation to eco-tourism, from sports to the arts, from the sociology of pleasure and leisure constraints to post-modernity and culture.”

He adds that the range of this field is huge, and has its own distinctive history and its trends. Over the past decade, for example, many investigators have concentrated on leisure constraints, the factors that have prevented people from enjoying their recreational activity. Similarly, others have examined the effects of leisure — not simply the personal benefits, but also social, community, economic and ecological impacts. More specifically, leisure studies has analysed tourism, which generates $50 billion worth of spending in Canada every year, leaving its mark on the country in many different ways.

We could have the leisure society if we wanted it. But Samuel Smiles won; our lives are ruled by a work ethic and a duty to consume ...

This is the contradiction of advanced or decadent capitalism as predicted by Marx in his Grundrisse; and by futurists today.

The black box economy is a strictly theoretical possibility, but may result where machines gradually take over more and more roles until the whole economy is run by machines, with everything automated. People could be gradually displaced by intelligent systems, robots and automated machinery. If this were to proceed to the ultimate conclusion, we could have a system with the same or even greater output as the original society, but with no people involved. The manufacturing process could thus become a ‘black box’. Such a system would be so machine controlled that humans would not easily be able to pick up the pieces if it crashed - they would simply not understand how it works, or could not control it. It would be a fly-by-wire economy.

Thorstein Veblen declared the existence of the leisure class at the end of WWI and the IWW declared that the four hour day could lead to full employment. Yet here we are almost a hundred years later and we are nowhere close to that liberatory experience instead we are going backwards to the future, forward to the past, working longer hours and ending up with the ten and twelve hour day. Something we fought to end in 1888.

Technology, automation, computerization, has not liberated us it has merely made us cogs in the cybernetic machine of modern capitalist society. And it is our bosses, our managers, and the professional class that continue to enslave us to their conceptions of life in their machine age.

And this is the Big Lesson: it takes workaholics to create, maintain and expand capitalism. As opposed to common beliefs (held by the uninitiated) – people, mostly, do not engage in business because they are looking for money (the classic profit motive). They do what they do because they like the Game of Business, its twists and turns, the brainstorming, the battle of brains, subjugating markets, the ups and downs, the excitement. All this has nothing to do with pure money. It has everything to do with psychology. True, the meter by which success is measured in the world of money is money – but very fast it is transformed into an abstract meter, akin to the monopoly money. It is a symbol of shrewdness, wit, foresight and insight.

Workaholics identify business with pleasure. They are the embodiment of the pleasure principle. They make up the class of the entrepreneurs, the managers, the businessmen. They are the movers, the shakers, the pushers, the energy.

Also see;

Black History Month; Paul Lafargue

Take Time From the Boss

Work Sucks

Time For The Four Hour Day

Tyrant Time-Tempus Fug'it

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Canada, work, leisure, working hours, leisure time, overtime, Veblen, crisis of leisure time,

Saudis Threaten Oil Production World Wide

The armed Islamicist faction of the Saudi State, bin-Laden Inc. issued a statement yesterday saying that competitor oil producing nations could be targeted for attacks.

An Arabian-peninsula-based terrorist website encouraging attacks on oil installations in Canada, Mexico and Venezuela to disrupt the U.S. economy. A statement on the al-Qaida Voice of Holy War e-magazine said “it is necessary to hit oil interests in all regions which serve the United States, not just in the Middle East.”

The Saudis are worried that the U.S. move to reduce its reliance on their oil, hence their involvement in the war in Iraq, they are Sunni's after all, a fact overlooked in all the finger pointing at Iran.

Nawaf Obaid, a security advisor to the Saudi monarchy, said in an article from the Washington Post:

...therefore the Saudi leadership is preparing to substantially revise its Iraq policy. Options now include providing Sunni military leaders (primarily ex-Baathist members of the former Iraqi officer corps, who make up the backbone of the insurgency) with the same types of assistance -- funding, arms and logistical support -- that Iran has been giving to Shiite armed groups for years. Another possibility includes the establishment of new Sunni brigades to combat the Iranian-backed militias.

Another possibility includes the establishment of new Sunni brigades to combat the Iranian-backed militias. Finally, Abdullah may decide to strangle Iranian funding of the militias through oil policy. If Saudi Arabia boosted production and cut the price of oil in half, the kingdom could still finance its current spending. But it would be devastating to Iran, which is facing economic difficulties even with today's high prices. The result would be to limit Tehran's ability to continue funneling hundreds of millions each year to Shiite militias in Iraq and elsewhere.

The sub-text of this article is clear. If American troops walk out of the Iraqi Armageddon, Saudi Arabia will walk in, not with troops but with oil, funds and possibly proxies, chosen from among the various Iraqi Sunni forces, both old and new. This is a clear warning to disaffected American constituencies who are calling for the return of their troops. Once again, Saudi Arabia is serving the interests of the Bush administration by calling on Americans to stay in Iraq because the alternative is going to be worse. When asked if Saudi engagement in Iraq would precipitate a regional war, Obaid replied “so be it, the consequences of inaction are far worse.”

Now that Bush has said for a second time that the U.S. needs to reduce its reliance on Saudi oil, and the Democrats concur the Saudis have again unleashed their puppets in Binladen Inc.

Al-Qaida has called for terrorist strikes against Canadian oil and natural gas facilities to "choke the U.S. economy." An online message, posted Thursday by the al-Qaida Organization in the Arabian Peninsula, declares "we should strike petroleum interests in all areas which supply the United States ... like Canada," the No. 1 exporter of oil and gas to the United States. Three western countries are mentioned in the call-to-arms -- Canada first, followed by Mexico and Venezuela. Would-be attackers are instructed to specifically target oilfields, pipelines, loading platforms and carriers.

Al-Qaeda's beliefs are those of Salafism, which originates in the Saudi Arabia as the State religion.

While a number of CIA veterans have written about Islamic extremism, Sageman's treatise provides the most detailed account of how Al Qaeda emerged from the rubble of war-torn Afghanistan to become the vanguard of a Sunni Muslim revivalist movement known as Salafism (deriving from salaf the Arab word for "ancient one"), which calls for the restoration of "authentic Islam" through the violent overthrow of the established order. Social bonds have played a more formative role than ideology in the growth of "the global Salafi jihad," as Sageman calls it, which became leaner and meaner and increasingly radicalized. "Conceptually we failed," admits Robert Baer, a former officer in the CIA's Directorate of Operations, who was right in the thick of things in the Middle East and Central Asia during his twenty-one-year cloak-and-dagger career. "We didn't consider Sunni Islam to be a threat to the West. We didn't want to see it."

Al-Qaeda attacked one of the Saudi refineries last year, but that was a feint. The refinery was not destroyed and conveniently the 'terrorists' were executed on the spot. Had the Saudis wanted to they could have found out who was behind this. Just as Jordan had, when attacked by Zarqawi's forces. But when you fund terrorist organizations in the game of geopolitics, plausible deniability is the name of the game, not ending terrorism.

Saudi Arabia and Global Terrorism: From al-Qaeda to Hamas

The Saudis welcome the current U.S. focus on Iran, its major competitor in the region for oil and gas exports.

Earlier key Sunni Arab allies while endorsing the goals of Bush's plan, and expressing hopes of success , almost in the same breath suggested that the Shia -led government in Baghdad cannot or would not implement the plan.

Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal was perhaps the most positive , who agreed " with the full objectives set by the new plan, the strategy." After talks with Rice earlier , he commented , "This has objectives that ... if it were applied, it will solve the problems facing Iraq." But he emphasized that it was the responsibility of the Iraq government alone. "We cannot be Iraqis more than Iraqis," Saud emphasised. "Other countries can help, but the burden, the whole burden and taking a decision will be the Iraqis'."

It was well put by the Saudi newspaper Al Jazirah which noted, "The Americans are trying to get out of the Baghdad bottleneck and they are looking for agent players in managing their conflict with Tehran to make their new strategy in Iraq successful."

Of course the Sunni Arab world would not trust Prime Minister al-Maliki's government with close ties with Shia Iran The Shias have become empowered after many centuries , courtesy Washington and would not let go .Rice did admit that" There are concerns about whether the Maliki government is prepared to take an evenhanded, nonsectarian path here. There's no doubt about that."

Intimidated and nervous, Sunni Arab rulers in Cairo, Amman, Riyadh and the Gulf are egging US to stay put in the region , to stop and roll back Iranian influence . They had acted similarly when Saudis, Kuwaitis , Emirates , Egypt , West et al had encouraged and funded 'brother Saddam' and Iraq in its 1980-88 war against a rampant Iran after the Khomeini led Shia revolution of 1979 .Iraq's Shia Arabs had fought against Iran's Revolutionary Guards and young boys seeking martyrdom .

In a recent Asia Times report, Amandeep Sandhu revealed that Saudi Arabia has boosted oil production with the express intent of lowering world oil prices and hurting Iran’s economy.

Moreover, Sandhu reports, Israel and Saudi Arabia have been engaged in secret talks that might be aimed at securing Saudi approval for Israeli overflight rights, should Israel opt to attack Iran’s nuclear installations. And, according to Sandhu, “a financial war on Iran has already begun”--noting that the Iranian parliament concedes that the country’s internal stability would be at stake if full economic sanctions were imposed.

Which explain's why this happened last summer after Israel invaded Southern Lebanon.

Leading Saudi Sheik Pronounces Fatwa Against Hezbollah

Wahhabism in the Service of American Imperialism: 
The Politics of a Fatwa

CIA funds Hizbullah rivals

The Telegraph said the American move is supported by the region heavyweight Sunni countries of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt as well as Israel.

It added that former Saudi ambassador in Washington Prince Bandar bin-Sultan is believed to have been closely involved in the decision to take on Hizbullah.

Prince Bandar, now King Abdullah's national security adviser, made several trips to Washington and held meetings with Elliot Abrams, the senior Middle East official on the NSC.

Prince Turki al-Faisal, Bandar's successor, has resigned abruptly as ambassador to Washington last month.

Intelligence sources said that a principal reason for this was his belief he had been undermined by Prince Bandar, who had not told him of the Lebanon plan or even that he was visiting Washington.

The Israeli government, which sees Iran as its chief enemy, has also been involved.

"There's a feeling both in Jerusalem and in Riyadh that the anti-Sunni tilt in the region has gone too far," said an intelligence source.

He said the aim is to stopping Iranian hegemony in the Middle East emerging from the US invasion of Iraq.

After all the Saudi family business of Bin-Laden Inc. the parent operation is the largest engineering firm in the region which has cooperated with Bechtel and competes with Halliburton. It also owns Arbusto Energy in cooperation with the Bush regime.

With America's declaration that it wants to reduce its reliance on Saudi oil, the Saudis had to hit back. The fact they would also target Venezuela, no fan of the U.S. but a major supplier to America shows that this is aimed at allies of Iran as well as allies of America like Canada and Mexico.

Also tar sands production is the next stage in long term oil production, which will replace the need for Saudi oil. And both Alberta and Venezuela have vast reserves of oilsands coming on line.

The Saudis were worried when the U.S. invaded Iraq, Saudis helped fund the Sunni insurrection, a fact under-reported by the MSM. Partially because of the links between the Saudi Royal Family and the Bush Royal Family.

The Sunni attacks on Iraqs oil pipelines and refineries sabotaged the U.S. ability to rely on Iraq as a replacement for Saudi oil. Now the Saudis threaten their natural competition with Jihad. After all in the Saudis view it's their religious right to do so and it's in their economic and political interests.

Thanks to the Bush regime and its complicated personal business relations with the Saudis they can point the finger at al-Qaeda giving them both plausible deniability. And once again create the fictional need for more State Security in both the West and in the Middle East. We know who funds the Terrorism that the U.S. has declared war on, but of course its all one big geopolitical game of power politics between Bush Inc. and Bin-Laden Inc. A dance of the dialectic between the funders of terrorism and the funders of the war on terror.

In southern Adelaide, construction of Park Holme mosque halted this month, because the foreign minister, Alexander Downer ordered that the Saudi government should not be funding the building. The mosque had been a haunt of immigrant Warya Kanie, who was captured in Iraq last year, fighting against the coalition.

A report by terror analyst Jean-Charles Brisard, compiled for the UN Security Council in December 2002, stated that between 1992 and 2002, al-Qaeda received between $300 million and $500 million from Saudi businessmen and banks. This represented 20% of Saudi GNP.

According to Brisard, Abdullah Bin Abul Moshin al Turki, the secretary general of the Muslim World League (founded in Mecca in 1962), entered into business negotiations in Spain with Muhammad Zouaydi in 1999. Zouaydi was al-Qaida's main fundraiser in Europe. Abdullah al Turki was an adviser to the late King Fahd. In November 2003, Turki was awarded a prize by King Abdullah for his missionary work.

According to the Jamestown Foundation, the MWL spreads "radical and vehemently anti-American" propaganda, and also has an agenda specifically targeting Europe. The Saudis began a policy of globally disseminating their brand of Sunni Islam during the 1980s, as a reaction to the Iranian (Shia) revolution. According to former CIA director R. James Woolsey, the Saudis have spent nearly $90 billion spreading their ideology around the globe since the 1970s.

Al-Haramain received large donations from the Saudi royal family. Its international branches were involved in funding Al Qaeda. Omar al Faruq was al-Qaeda's senior representative in Southeast Asia. He was arrested by Indonesian authorities on June 5, 2002. According to Jean-Charles Brisard, al Faruq confessed: "Al Haramain was the funding mechanism of all operations in Indonesia. Money was laundered through the foundation by donors from the Middle East."

See:

Bin Laden Inc.


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