Friday, June 30, 2006

Blogging the Middle East


Is an anarchist blog by a grad student in Lebanon. Take a look at his paper on;
Zionism’s Socialist Dilemma: Nationalism, Colonization, and Class Struggle



Also See:

Arab Anarchism

Anti-Zionism


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Linkfilter


Found this interesting community weblog because someone from it linked to Le Revue Gauche.

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Asleep At The Switch


No comment.

Rich folks get more sleep - blacks and men get less
"There was an expectation that people with very demanding jobs in terms of high status, high income, would be getting less sleep, and that was not true," Lauderdale told Reuters Health in an interview.
There are a number of potential explanations for the findings, Lauderdale noted. People who make less money may have more worries that prevent them from sleeping well. They could be living in noisier, less comfortable environments, and they may have more health problems.


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Thursday, June 29, 2006

Missed the Apology

She missed Harpers apology to Chinese Canadians.


Alberta's oldest person dies at 110

Raised children alone in wartime China, finally joined husband here in 1958
Mrs. Fong Ping Mah, who died Sunday, lived a long and varied life.

Amber Shortt, The Edmonton Journal
Published: Tuesday, June 27, 2006

EDMONTON - Fong Ping Mah lived in a bamboo hut at the end of the 1800s. She wore silk dresses in the '20s and hid her family in caves when the Japanese occupied China during the Second World War.

When she died Sunday after nearly five decades of living in Edmonton, she was 110 -- Alberta's oldest person.

Family members sat by her bedside at Capital Care Norwood on Sunday, recounting their favourite stories of grandma and holding her hands as she slipped away due to pneumonia.

Mrs. Mah was nine years old when Alberta became a province in 1905. Last September, she met then-prime minister Paul Martin during Alberta's centennial activities and fell asleep during the speeches.

Winnie said her grandmother's greatest advice was just to have faith.

Mrs. Mah was born on Sept. 28, 1895, in Kwangtung province of southern China. Around 1920, she married Lip Gar Mah in an arranged marriage.

He had emigrated to Edmonton in 1910, doing menial jobs to make a living that would have been a small fortune in China. He was forced to pay a $500 head tax under Canadian law and leave his new bride behind.


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Another Dick in Alberta


King Ralph is now advising the Republicans on their election strategy. Klein is inviting the ultimate Halliburton bad boy to visit Alberta.

Cheney could boost popularity by visiting Alberta: Klein

Hey if Dick does come to Alberta maybe Ralph can take him bear hunting.
But if they do go hunting, Ralph better stand behind Dick.

See:

Halliburton

Cheney

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Criminal Capitalism Blog


Here is a great blog , after my own heart as the saying goes.
White Collar Crime Prof Blog


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Fiscally Challenged

The Harpocrite government suffers from a literacy problem. Must be from having so many hayseeds in the Conservative party. So we are gonna trust these folks to pass a law on accountability when they admit they don't understand the existing election laws? Too rich.

Tories caught in donation dispute
- The Conservative party may have illegally accepted millions in unreported donations last year because it didn't understand political financing laws.

Indeed, registration forms for the convention show that the party even charged a $750 fee to professional groups and outside associations, generally lobbyists, who sent representatives to observe the convention.

For such fees, the registration form also noted that payment could be made using corporate credit cards and corporate cheques.



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City Council Gets Its Cumupance

Gee I could have told ya this would happen.

13% sounds fine!

City employees want their pay hikes to match those taken by councillors
Thousands of city employees are expecting a pay hike similar to the 13% boost councillors gave themselves, says a union official.

And the cops are not too pleased with the City's current offer either.




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Tory and NDP Agree: Education Minister Useless

Alberta's Minister of Education, the Liberal turn-coat and opportunist, Eugene Zwozdesky had a bad day yesterday.

First off Tiny Tory Leadership contender Dave Hancock kicked off his leadership bid announcing that his sole platform was the education crisis in Alberta. He denounced Zwozdesky and the government for failing to fully fund public education.
Alta Tory leadership hopeful blames education minister for short school funds Hancock can't take the high ground since he too was in cabinet, this is a case of the kettle calling the pot black.

Then a school roof collapsed in Calgary forcing Zwozdesky to rush to Calgary to hold an impromtue press conference saying all was right with the world. While CUPE held a press conference saying that schools in Calgary were unfit for human occupation.

Late yesterday afternoon public school unions in Edmonton held a rally at his office in the afternoon with opposition NDP MLA and former Edmonton Public School Board Trustee Ray Martin calling for his resignation.


Ironically Hancock is running against another former Education Minister; Lyle Oberg, who is also out for Ralph's job. And even the heir apparent in the Leadership Race Jim Dinning leaped unto the bash Zwozdesky bandwagon.

Our education funding crisis goes back over a decade leading to crumbling infrastructure, staff cuts and the need to close schools. Why should we trust any of these guys now.

If it walks like a lame duck, and quacks like a lame duck then it must be an Alberta Tory.


Also See:

Yes We Have No Bananas



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The End Of Workplace Drug Testing?

Here is a victory for privacy, and a condemnation of the unholy alliance between the Construction Industry in Alberta and its unions who collaborate on invading the personal privacy of workers with mandatory drug testing. And guess which company fired the worker involved, why none other than the notoriously corrupt Halliburton subsidurary; KBR.

Casual pot use a disability, Alberta judge finds Human rights legislation cited

EDMONTON - An Alberta judge has ruled that a construction company discriminated against a man when it fired him from an oilsands project after his pre-employment drug screening tested positive for marijuana.

Instead, Justice Sheilah Martin said the man -- a recreational user -- should have been treated the same way as someone with a drug addiction, which is considered a disability in a growing body of human rights case law across Canada.

It is the first time that Alberta's Court of Queen's Bench has addressed the issue of pre-employment drug testing under the province's human rights legislation.

And while the judgment is specific to one company's policy, some are calling it a significant decision.

The decision could place new legal limits on when workers can be tested for drugs.

"It is important for all workers," said Leanne Chahley, an Edmonton labour lawyer who regularly represents unions.

For one, she said, it means that a worker does not have to be disabled to challenge a policy as discriminatory. It also means that companies cannot use drug tests as a tool to automatically weed out potential employees who test positive, she said.

"No one wants to encourage impairment at work, but a drug test is an invasion of your privacy," Ms. Chahley said.

Judge Martin also said that the fact that KBR allowed Mr. Chiasson to work before receiving the results of the drug test called into question both the claim that such testing was essential and that he worked in a safety sensitive position.



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Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Nudity Upsets the Right


The Blogging Tories had their knickers in a knot this weekend, as usual, over the Gay Pride Parade in Toronto. Apparently they have this thing about being naked in public. Nude folks wandering around flaunting, well you know, what God gave em. In public, in their birthday suits. How dare they.

Wait a minute wasn't that the way Adam and Eve flaunted it until that pesky snake gave them the fruit of the Tree of Life. Funny those right wingers who love Adam and Eve ,and hate Adam and Steve, forget that bit about being naked in the eyes of God.

That same God that all those church paintings celebrate with naked saints, including gay, bi and lesbian ones.

Oh and speaking of heterosexist hypocrites these same cretins cheer young girls and women to show them their tits during Stanley Cup parties on Whyte Ave.

The hate they have for gays, lesbians, bi's and transexuals is only matched by their hatred of unions.

Also See:

Gay

Naked

Homosexuality

Same Sex Marriage

Queer


Sexuality

Gender

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Frank and Gordon Spy On You


Those cute Bell Canada CGI Beavers Frank and Gordon are now going to be spies for the Harper Government.

Bad enough these two artificial spokespersons replaced 10,000 Bell Workers.

Now that the Stanley Cup is over, and they have removed their face paint, the ugly truth is revealed.

Beware Bell internet and blackberry users, your surfing and email is about to be handed over to the State.

One of Canada's largest Internet service providers is warning its customers that Big Brother is lurking on-line, with the federal government expected to revive an Internet surveillance bill.If the legislation is reintroduced, it could allow police unfettered access to personal information without a warrant, experts warn. Big Brother watching you surf?

A tip o' the blog to Andrew Spicer at Bound By Gravity, which is back online, whew.

Andrew who helped found the Blogging Tories, but quit because of their partisan politicking, says this;
"If the Conservatives are looking to lose my vote, this would certainly push me close to the breaking point. While my personal online activities are pretty tame - blogging, readings news sites, reading and writing email, and chatting on MSN - I still value my privacy." Right On!

Also see:

Political Imbalance

Frank and Gordon

I Spy








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Fire Ants


A couple of stories have apperared in the press about the Fire Ant problem in the U.S. But it turns out that a pest is sometimes not such a pest.

Florida State researcher defends fire ants

A stinging defeat in war on fire ants
Brazilian insects are part of life in South — despite our protests, poisons


Despite the war on the fire ants farmers in the Southern U.S. are now regreting their absence as climate change has killed off many fire ants this year.

Some Texas farmers long for fire ants' return

Entomology professor Bart Drees had just wrapped up his standard lecture to cattlemen on how to get rid of the much-despised fire ant when a rancher approached him with a question.

"What I really want to know is, 'How do we bring 'em back?'"

A decade-long series of droughts haven't just wreaked havoc on Texas agriculture, they have also suppressed populations of the moisture-loving fire ants that have become a scourge to homeowners, landscapers, farmers and ranchers across the South. That might sound like a good thing, and, on balance, it is. But there is something to be said for the bug-chomping fire ant. It can help control other pests, including cattle-plaguing ticks, and the drought is helping to drive that home.

Opps

And as usual as alien species are added to the environment problems occur. The fire ant being a major bug predator it turns out to have a silver lining to their invasion of the Southern U.S. despite being a threat to humans.

It's a bug-eat-bug world
Invertebrate invasion threatens uneasy truce between man and insects

Tick Patrol
New York Times, United States - 26 Jun 2006
... the fire ant, emerged as the unlikely friend of ranchers in Texas, virtually eliminating the tick problem in some areas until the fire ants themselves were ...

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No Smoking At Home

As I warned you before.

Coming soon to a home near you, a ban on smoking.

Parental smoking a threat to kids' lungs, new study confirms

The findings are a "stark reminder" that legal efforts to reduce exposure to cigarette smoke in workplaces aren't protecting the group of people at greatest risk from passive smoking, young children, Drs. Mark D. Eisner of the University of California, San Francisco and Francesco Forastiere of the Rome E Health Authority in Italy write in an editorial accompanying the study.

"Children are primarily exposed to tobacco smoke in the home, where legal restrictions do not apply," they note.

And even the so called libertarian republican administration in the U.S. in now officially on the second hand smoke band wagon. Second Hand Smoke Identified by Surgeon General as Health Hazard

Simplistic moralistic reformers of the 19th Century viewed the social and public health ills as being caused by alcohol.

Today's simplistic moral reformers say the toxic environment of capitalism is caused by smoking.

That's because they can't get enough support to ban cars.

See: Smoking


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The Monument Builders


Ancient civilizations that we are discovering/recovering give credence to the Atlantis Mythos, that ancient humans were more 'civilized' than we thought.

Thus condradicting the 'scientistic' bias that we are advanced and earlier cultures are 'primitive'.

Which also discredits idiots like Erich Von Daniken who belive that primitive man was incapable of advanced momument building so he attributes it to space aliens.

Who is only out done in stupidity by the
Creationist Cretins who believe the world was only created 4,400 years ago.

In fact the ancient celebrations of the Sun at solstice, continue with us today. It marks the passing of the year from Summer through Winter. All other markings of the calendar are then based on planting and harvesting times of agrianian cultures.

Monument builders reveal an agrarian based culture, one that meant peoples remained in the area rather than being nomadic hunter gatherers. The fact that across the world in distant locations but at the same time period, 2000-4000 years ago, pyramid and monument building was being done by diverse disconnected agrarian civilizations, shows that our social evolution is collective.

That it is historical materialist; that is the material basis of production affects our conciousness. Thus as peoples developed settled agrarian cultures they became monument and pyramid builders. In Asia, Asia Minor, Europe and the Americas.

The remnants of our past memories of this time period are reflected in the continuing celebration of our Fire Rituals of Summer and Winter.

A tip o' the blog to John Murney for this.

Stonehenge-Like Tomb Also Marks Solstice

June 22, 2006 — An ancient British tomb monument contemporary with the first phase of Stonehenge’s construction suggests one prehistoric culture built the two structures to mark the summer solstice, according to archaeologists.

The tomb is called Bryn Celli Ddu, which in Welsh translates to "the mound in a dark grove." It is located on the island of Anglesey off the northwest coast of Wales. New radiocarbon dating of postholes outside of the burial monument determined the mound is over 6,000 years old. Stonehenge dates to around 2800 B.C., but some historians think it could be much older.

According to research published in the current issue of British Archaeology and the National Museum Wales Book "The Tomb Builders in Wales: 4,000-3,000 B.C.," both Bryn Celli Ddu and Stonehenge are aligned with the summer solstice.

The heel stone at Stonehenge marks this event, while a passageway and quartz-rich stone located in the back of the burial monument lights up in a dramatic sun show.


In Brazil, a tropical Stonehenge is found

SÃO PAULO, Brazil — A grouping of granite blocks along a grassy Amazon hilltop may be the vestiges of a centuries-old astronomical observatory — a find archaeologists say indicates early rainforest inhabitants were more sophisticated than previously believed.

The 127 blocks, some as high as 9 feet tall, are spaced at regular intervals around the hill, like a crown 100 feet in diameter.

On the shortest day of the year — Dec. 21 — the shadow of one of the blocks disappears when the sun is directly above it.

"It is this block's alignment with the winter solstice that leads us to believe the site was once an astronomical observatory," said Mariana Petry Cabral, an archaeologist at the Amapá State Scientific and Technical Research Institute. "We may be also looking at the remnants of a sophisticated culture."

Anthropologists have long known that local indigenous populations were acute observers of the stars and sun. But the discovery of a physical structure that appears to incorporate this knowledge suggests pre-Colombian Indians in the Amazon rainforest may have been more sophisticated than previously suspected.

"Transforming this kind of knowledge into a monument; the transformation of something ephemeral into something concrete, could indicate the existence of a larger population and of a more complex social organization," Cabral said.

Cabral has been studying the site, near the village of Calçoene, just north of the equator in Amapá state in far northern Brazil, since last year. She believes it was once inhabited by the ancestors of the Palikur Indians, and while the blocks have not been submitted to carbon dating, she says pottery shards near the site indicate they are pre-Columbian and maybe older — as much as 2,000 years old.

Last month, archaeologists working on a hillside north of Lima, Peru, announced the discovery of the oldest astronomical observatory in the Western Hemisphere — giant stone carvings, apparently 4,200 years old, that align with sunrise and sunset on Dec. 21


The Boyne Valley

The Boyne Valley contains the largest and most decorated megalithic sites in all of Ireland and has been described as "the largest and most important expression of prehistoric megalithic art in Europe."

The large megalithic sites were built over 5,000 years ago between 3800 and 3200 B.C., built before both Stonehenge in England and the great pyramids in Egypt. Within a three mile radius in the Boyne Valley are more than 30 prehistoric monuments, including the great passage tombs and their satellite structures, standing stones, barrows and other enclosures.

Neolithic communities built these sites over earlier sacred spots and it is suspected that they were used for a combination of purposes, including use as burial tombs, sacred temples and astronomical observatories.

Newgrange

NEWGRANGE: The most famous prehistoric monument in Ireland, Newgrange, a passage tomb, was built around 3200 B.C. The most interesting feature—a "light" box over the entrance to the chamber designed to capture sunlight to illuminate the chamber on the winter solstice. (Tourism Ireland)

The most famous of all Irish prehistoric monuments, Newgrange was built on a one-acre site around 3200 B.C. and draws more than 200,000 visitors each year. It is one of only three United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Sites in Ireland. It is known as a passage tomb, which is defined as a grave set in a mound of earth or stone with a passage leading to a central chamber. Passage tombs are usually found in groups and Newgrange is no exception, as it is surrounded by 40 other such sites.

The chamber inside the mound measures 21.5 feet by 17 feet and has three separate recesses (chambers) off the main chamber. The most amazing and well-known feature of Newgrange is the presence of a roof or light box over the entrance to the chamber. The roof box was specifically designed to capture the light from the sun and illuminate the chamber on the winter solstice (Dec. 21). When the sun rises over Newgrange on this day, its rays enter the roof box and penetrate 65.62 feet into the ground to illuminate the entire chamber for 17 minutes, from 8:58 a.m. to 9:15 a.m.

During the following three days, some sunlight enters the chamber, but not as much as on Dec. 21. The roof box is engraved with a series of eight lozenges that may represent the eight pagan festivals that were held each year. This box was designed so precisely with the rising of the winter solstice sun, that it has shown without doubt that these people had an extensive knowledge of astronomy.



Meanwhile: Midsummer magic, sun and fire

Sun worship is alive and well all over Europe, even in our century. I don't mean the summer invasion of beaches where bodies bake to a shade of toast. Or even the ancient Druidic rites this week in places like Stonehenge, as the midsummer sun astonishes by rising in perfect alignment with the huge stone circle.
I have in mind a custom widely celebrated from Scandinavia to southern Spain, from Russia to Ireland, and even in China. In this midsummer week, pagans, Christians and unbelievers alike will gather for fire ceremonies that have their origins in rites associated with the sun.
Communities and families will light bonfires and dance around them, young lovers leap over the flames together or toss flowers across the fire, flaming brands will be carried around the fields.

The fire ceremony itself probably goes back to the beginnings of human history. But the Catholic Church absorbed the old pagan celebration into its own calendar by setting the feast day of St. John the Baptist on June 24. The symbolism was deliberate: just as, in the pagan and Celtic religions, the summer king gives way at midsummer to the winter king, similarly John the Baptist gives way to Jesus Christ, who will be born around the winter solstice.
Ancient nature beliefs say that such turning points in the year open doors between worlds. The "standing still" of the sun was said to release much magic, and the barriers between nature spirits and humans to briefly fall. St. John's Eve, then, is meant to be a time of special power for gathering healing herbs, or drawing a protective ring of fire around crops and cattle.


Also See:

Here Comes The Sun

Dialectical Anthropology-A.P. Alexeev

Another Prehistoric Woman

Ecology=Equality

Holy Smoke

For a Ruthless Criticism of Everything Existing



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Canadian Blog Exchange Kaput?


Clicked on over to Andrews THE CANADIAN BLOG EXCHANGE and got this message...

Bandwidth Limit Exceeded

The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later.
Apache/1.3.36 Server at canconv.boundbygravity.com Port 80


Which means Andrews blog; Bound by Gravity is also offline.

Temporarily I hope.

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Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Killer Instinct

This is too stupid for words. Bruno the Bruin who wandered through out Germany, the first wild bear in the country since the 19th century, is hunted and killed. Dumb Bavarians. If they wanted to go Bear hunting they should have come to Alberta.

"That is the stupidest of all solutions," Hubert Weinzierl, president of the German Environmental Protection Association, told reporters. "In other countries, humans and bears coexist in relative harmony. Only in Germany would he be liquidated."

But of course this most wanted of criminals really irritated the Bavarian State officials, so he had to die.
Bruno Taunts his Pursuers: Wanted Bear Visits Bavarian Police Station

Of course now that he is dead the Bavarian State says it will welcome bears in the future. Nein danke.

German officials said they weren't opposed to bears in principle, only misbehaving ones. "If a normal bear finds its way into Bavaria, it is cordially welcome," Bernhard said.

Normal Bears? What the hell is a normal bear? Winnie the Pooh?

And poor Bruno will end up...
, stuffed and offered to Munich's "Mensch und Natur" ("Humans and the Natural Environment") museum where he will go on display alongside the last bear to be shot in Bavaria, 170 years ago.

Natural Justice would demand that when his killer dies he too is stuffed and mounted alongside Bruno, as the idiot who killed the bear.

See: Bears

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Shop Keepers Liberty


Blogging Tory Stephen Taylor interviews Dannielle Smith, the scion of the new right whose column in the Calgary Herald, like her counterpart at the Edmonton Journal; Lorne Gunter, was created when the evil Lord of darkness and all things anti-union, anti-left, heck anti-Canadian, Conrad the Black-hearted purchased the Southam Chain. He viewed the Southam Papers as too left wing so he introduced some balance. Like Gunter and Smith.

When the chain became part of Canwest/Global media group under the Aspers, the right wing ideology spread to their TV news, with Smith hosting their Sunday Politics Talk Show.

Today she has a new job, with the likes of Link Byfield and the Southern Alberta Ranchers lobby, the so called Alberta Property Rights Intitiative. Like Byfield's other front group;
Citizens Centre for Freedom and Democracy, which all grew out of the deliberate fiscal bankruptcy of the Alberta Report, this one is another attempt to change the Canadian Constitution.

The CCFD
wants a referndum on Same Sex Marriage, the APRI wants Private Property rights enshrined in the constitution. Neither is going to happen.

Taylor claims;
"Danielle Smith has returned to advocacy work for the cause of liberty with the Alberta Property Rights Initiative."

Liberty my ass. This is the liberty of the small shop keeper, who would exploit his workers, the rancher who would expolit his temporary farm workers, and that clique of farmers in the South who want to abolish the Wheat Board. They are in fact opposed to liberty. The liberty of workers to form unions and producers to form cooperatives.

This is the liberty of those who own property and their power over those who do not. As Proudhon said such liberty is based on theft.

And this front group is a lobby for big oil companies like Encana who continue to expolit and pollute Alberta's ground water with their toxic waste from their coal bed Methane experiments. Encana whose past president was Harpers good pal; Gwyn Morgan.

The APRI oppose the communities demand that the Alberta Government regulate groundwater use, claiming that it should be up to the indiviudal property owner and the oil/gas companies. Yeah forget the impact on your neighbours, just make your own private deal. So much for liberty for all.

Ironically they have spent more time lobbying in Ottawa than doing anything in Alberta, which is why Taylor has heard of them and most Albertans have not.

This clique of right winger back slappers always have work avialable to them despite the failure of the original publication they all began as writers for, the Alberta Report. That's because they are the brain trust of the right in Alberta. Not much brains and no one I would trust.







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Hands In Your Pocket


You've seen that ad on TV; the bankers with their hands in someones pocket.

Well in this case the bankers new pal is the Harpocrite government. And they plan to keep their hands in our pockets with his help.

Mr. Harper the bankers friend.


There is a growing optimism in some quarters of Bay Street, however cautious, that Stephen Harper is well-positioned to win a majority government if there is an election early next year. Some influential bank executives believe Mr. Harper is ideologically sympathetic to the industry's merger ambitions, despite the populist bent of his caucus, and that with a majority hold on Parliament he would be willing to deal with the merger file early in his tenure. OECD calls for action on bank mergers


And how do you spell Monopoly? B A N K.


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Monday, June 26, 2006

Poor Jim Dinning


With friends and endorsers like this who needs enemies.


See: Werner Patels

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Political Imbalance

"This isn't a meeting about how much more money the government of Canada is going to transfer to the provinces," Flaherty declared before he sat down for a working dinner in this picturesque tourist town. "It's not just about money."Provinces squabble with Ottawa, each other before fiscal imbalance meeting

"In practice, the Conservative approach would mean paring back Ottawa's role to concentrate mainly on defence, security and foreign affairs while leaving social programs and health care to provincial governments. The implications for Canadians are far-reaching, says University of Ottawa historian Michael Behiels. "Underlying Harper's moves here is a fundamental restructuring of the way the federation has operated for the last 50 years."Ottawa's fiscal finger of fate


The Fiscal Imbalance is just a clever cover for the Conservatives to launch their restructuring of Canada. So lets call a spade a shovel, for the Harpocrites its not a fiscal anything its a political imbalance. They oppose a centralized federalist state. Period. And using the fiscal imbalance is their excuse to bring forward their agenda of devolving power and responsibility to the provinces.

Now some folks might think that is a good idea. But they would be deluded.

As we have seen in practice for the past decade, when the State devolves power and responsibility to lesser forms of government it has always meant they are not doing any such thing. They are simply downloading the costs of maintaining the public sector down the line. Every right wing provincial government in Canada has done this, Klein, Harris, Campbell, Charest, etc.

The core of right-wing liberal 'reinventing government' schemes is decentralization. But before you say that is classic anarchism (that other varient of liberalism), understand this when the Capitalist State speaks of decentralization, it means no such thing. It simply means a way of getting taxpayers to foot the bill through another means of governance and tax collecting.

Whether the scheme is to download service delivery to provinces or municipalities or school and hospitals matters not. Nor does how that service delivery is done, privatization or inhouse unionized workers, it does not reduce the need for the public services, simply moves around who pays. In this case that still comes to you and me, however the differnce is that in the case of privatization the State can claim an arms length relationship with the inevitable cost over-runs.

To allow the provinces to fully fund healthcare, education, etc. will simply shift
the burden to a more localized tax base, while NOT reducing federal taxes one iota.

It will however allow the Conservatives to shift those taxes where they always do, law and order and more military spending.

A clear contradiction for those on the right who claim that they are both Conservative and libertarian.

The Haprocrite Conservatives are neither, nor are they Godwinians , so called minarchists, despite their claims to believe in smaller government.

They are statists whose State is not reduced in size, but militarized, a police state by any other name. This has been the agenda of the right since Reagan and Thatcher. Actually there is nothing new about this right wing agenda, and it ain't the New Right of Murray Rothbard either,it is the same as it has always been historically.






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Church Lady, Not


I found this very funny. Of course I have a twisted sense of humour. Or perhaps my humours are just twisted. Who says lesbians aren't funny. No wait I didn't mean it like that.

A tip o the blog to Vast Left Wing Conspiracy and Omissco



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Anarchist Bios


Here is a listing of anarchist bios I have posted over the past year or so.



Paul Goodman


Kenneth Patchen


Mack Reynolds Lagrange 5

Red Baiting Chomsky



Proudhon



Paul Avirch Anarchist Historian RIP



Black Herstory Month: Lucy Parsons



Chinese Anarchist Author Ba Jin RIP



Ibn Khaldun 14th Century Arab Libertarian


The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress



Anarchist Mayor of Milan



My Favorite Muslim



A NEW AMERICAN REVOLUTION



New Age Libertarian Manifesto



Tags








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Paul Goodman


Before Theodore Rozak defined the counter culture as the social movement of the Sixties and identified it with the libertarian philosophy of self regulation, self development, there was Paul Goodman.

It really was his book Growing Up Absurd that inspired many of us to look at creating a counter culture.

He was seen as one of the fathers of the New Left, giving it a libertarian flavour that the Old Left had rejected.

He was also an accomplished beat poet, thus coming in contact with the likes of Kenneth Patchen and Allen Ginzberg.

An article in Gestalt Review from 1999 has an excellent biography and appreciation of Goodman, his anarchism , and his importance as founder of Gestalt Therapy. The first anti-psychiatry movement in North America.

Here is an exerpt for those unfamilar with Goodman and his work. I have previously published his SOME REMARKS ON WAR SPIRIT





The Contributions of Paul Goodman to the Clinical, Social and Political Implications of Boundary Disturbances
Jack Aylward, Ed.D.

As we approach the millennium, we continue to grapple with
increasingly toxic threats such as environmental pollution, political
tyranny, and corporate domination of the human spirit. Currently, we
are witnessing the development of a health-care delivery system that not
only threatens our professional identities, but ultimately could create a
repressive definition of mental health that replicates the one against
which Perls, Hefferline, and Goodman originally rebelled. Gestalt therapy
theory places importance on creativity, novelty, spontaneity, and
risk in a society that is moving ever closer to repetition, obedience, and
the illusion of security. To meet the challenges, we need not say or do
anything new but simply restate (perhaps more loudly) what is already
present in our literature. To do so, it is imperative that we once again
apply our theoretical model to sociopolitical issues and realities that
contribute to the individual boundary disturbances we deal with in our
psychotherapeutic practices. In this spirit we will sequentially review: (1)
the theoretical and clinical definitions of contact boundary phenomena,
(2) the social nature of self-functioning, and (3) the political implications
in the writings of Paul Goodman.

Given a psychological model that views the individual as innately
healthy and capable, with pathology as a secondary disruption of an
otherwise natural homeostatic equilibrium, Goodman's anarchistic
philosophy is especially resonant with Gestalt therapy theory. This
connection between philosophy and therapy is not unlike Erich Frornrn's
belief in Marxist socialism. For him this philosophy "meant a society
which provides the material basis for the full development of the
individual, for the unfolding of all his human powers, for his full
independence" (Fromm, 1956, p. xiv). In both Fromm and Goodman we
see the belief that society should provide the support for an individual
who is and can be much, rather than one who has much. Optimally,
Goodman envisioned a dynamic unity of human need and social
support, implying as McLeod (1993) does that "the natural hierarchy of
needs arising to seek their fulfillment in the contact that is our very self
means Gestalt is a profoundly social therapy, envisioning and declaring
the naturalness of social and environmental harmony" (p. 28).

In subsequent essays and articles, Goodman focused on political realities
and how such phenomena affected contact boundary functioning.
Far from a utopian view Goodman's view of formal governmental
bureaucracy was that less was more with respect to social and political
structure and its impact on the quality of individual life. Susan Sontag
(1988) described Goodman's social outlook as "a form of conservative
humanistic thinking-doggedly sensitive to everything repressive and
mean while remaining loyal to the limits that protect human growth and
pleasure" (p. xvii). In this sense, Goodman saw that contact boundary
disturbances emanating from repressive and overly developed social
organizations have the potential to sap the spontaneity from human
functioning. Goodman (1994) stated that "society with a big S can do
very little for people except to be tolerable, so they can go on about the
more important business of life" (p. 53). Given that human selfhood was
primarily a social process supported by communication within a community,
political structures were realities needing to be reckoned with.

Mead's conceptualization of self-functioning parallels Goodman's
thinking in this area:

the "I" requires that we protect the rights and freedoms of individuals
as extolled by liberalism, while the "ME" imposes those moral
duties, commitments, and obligations advocated by cornrnunitarianism
[Odin, 1996, p. 371.

Much of Goodman's thinking was influenced by his association with
communitarian philosophers such as Randolph Bourne, Van Wyk
Brooks, and Lewis Murnford. Along with these dissenters within the
progressive intelligentsia of the time who were disappointed in contemporary
liberalism, Goodman was wary of the alienation resulting from
the bureaucracies of advanced industrialism. He, along with Dwight
Macdonald, Dorothy Dey, and C. Wright Mills, supported Brooks's ideal
of "the crafted or interactive self, which found its autonomy by participating
in a public world of culture and experience" (Blake, 1990, p. 141).

Consistent with the process functioning of self-formation in Gestalt therapy
theory, Brooks saw the "crafted self" as a kind of conversation with
the social and natural environments. Social and political realities
provided an ongoing ground for the alienation/identification processes
of contact functioning. In Confusion and Disorder" (197%) Goodman
outlined the potential impact that social structure can have on human
distress.

But if advanced peoples have indeed been colonized by their own
advances, they are confused and have lost their ability to pick and
choose what they can assimilate. We certainly manifest a remarkable
rigidity in our social institutions, an inability to make inventive
pragmatic adjustment. And perhaps worse, the sociology and politics
that we do think up have the same technological, centralizing,
and urban style that is causing our derangement [p. 2351.

The importance Goodman placed on organismic self-regulation and
social functioning also reflected the political thinking of such anarchists
as Mikhail Bakunin and Prince Peter Kropotkin. To Goodman, anarchy
epitomized the absence of authority, not the absence of order. In his
introduction to Kropotkin's Memoirs of a Revolutionist Goodman (1968)
points out the potential for disruptive contact functioning that can result
from an overly organized and impersonal political structure:
The real enemies have proved to be the State (whose health is war),
over-centralized organization, the authoritarian personality of
people. The call is for grass-roots social structures, spontaneity and
mutual aid, direct action and doing it yourself, education for selfreliance
and agitation for freedom [p. xxi].

Goodman was sensitive to the dehumanization of the industrial
revolution, to the accompanying division of labor and, to anything that
smacked of tyranny over someone else's body. Like other anarchist
thinkers, Goodman was fanatic in his defense of the untrammeled person
whom he felt to be best nurtured by an innovative way of life and a
nonrepressive political doctrine.

In Anarchism and Revolution (1977) he wrote:
In anarchist theory, the word revolution means the process by which
the grip of authority is loosed, so that the functions of life can
regulate themselves without top-down direction or external
hindrance. The idea is that except for emergencies and a few special
cases, free functioning will find its own right structures and coordination
[p. 2151.



As a bisexual and free love advocate in the closeted fifties his conservative individualism, as Alyward calls it, is reflective of the need to defend individual liberty in light of a society that was intolerant of homosexuality/bisexuality. Hence his critique of Society with a Large 'S" as being as repressive as the State with a big "S".

Like
Wilhelm Reich who influenced him, he can be considered a father of the sexual revolution. And he offers a good counterbalance to Reichs cultural heterosexism.

Through a Columbia professor he was invited to teach at the University of Chicago while he earned his Ph.D in Literature, but he was fired from his job (as he was fired from every teaching job in his life) because he insisted on his right to fall in love with his students. He was never in the closet about his bisexuality and saw no reason to hide it even in the face of the trouble it caused him in that less permissive time.Paul Goodman's Biography

Along with education, Goodman expounded on themes of alienation, community, and sexuality. He opposed censorship of pornography, believed monogamy was oppressive, and advocated sexual freedom for children and adolescents. Goodman also challenged the boundaries between public and private, consistently linking his political and psychological theories with his personal experiences. In "The Politics of Being Queer," an essay written near the end of his life, he addressed both societal homophobia and his own bisexuality. PAST Out: Who was Paul Goodman?

Like the anarchist educators, starting with Francisco Ferrer, and Summerhill founder A.S. Neil, Goodman opposed formalist, institutional education. He saw it for what it was programing the individual for the needs of the State.

"In all societies, both primitive and highly civilized, until quite recently most education of most children has occurred incidentally. Adults do their work and other social tasks; children are not excluded, are paid attention to, and learn to be included. The children are not "taught." In many adult institutions, incidental education is taken for granted as part of the function …" (Essay: "The Present Moment in Education," April 10, 1969.)


For listing of his writings available on the web see Paul Goodman

Further Bios:

The Radical Individualism of Paul Goodman by Richard Wall

Nature Heals: The Psychological Essays of Paul Goodman ...

Anarchist Encyclopedia: Paul Goodman (1911-1972)

Paul Goodman (writer) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Workshop to decipher Paul Goodman





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