Google Censorship China

The response to Google in China has been interesting to say the least. Internet censorship in mainland China - Wikipedia

A great Sturm and Drang in the U.S. over this, since Google is playing hard to get with the U.S. government and 'hey sailor' with the Chinese.

Dan Verton calls for a Boycott of Google over their Chinese Search Engine. My Left Libertarian pal Brad Spangler agrees and has dropped all google ads off his site. At least he also posts that he is looking for alternatives to Yahoo and MSN search engines which comply with all national legal standards and supply information to those governments upon court ordered request.Microsoft censors Chinese blogs

I hate to break into legalise but thats what this amounts to. In the U.S. Google can challenge the government because it has a constitutional right to and as a corporation it is seen as an 'individual' under the law. In China or Germany or heck Canada, the Criminal Codes and laws are different.

This Boycott will fizzle, because Google is the largest search engine in th world, and its worth billions, and because only a small circle of friends will join in, and.....because its silly. Google complied with China for one and one only reason, a reason all neo-cons, neo-lberals and libertarians should recognize. To get their business. It was a business decision. And business is amoral. Capitalism is amoral.

Brad quotes another Libertarian free marketer L. Neil Smith who is all in a tizzy over Google.

Google sees nothing wrong with this, nor, apparently, do many of the people I correspond with on a regular basis. It's their business, my friends reply, and they can do anything with it that strikes their fancy.

Besides, goes the cant, if they comply now, they may even be able to help the Chinese people to gradually become freer than they are today.

Google is helping the Chinese government keep the Chinese people oppressed.

Plain and simple.

No way out of it.

Google is helping the Chinese government keep the Chinese people oppressed.

Simon mistakes the Internet for Google. Google is just one way to access the internet. It's the WWW that keeps the world afloat in a new counter economy. One which sees the free flow of information circumvent such things as national laws, copyright, and intellectual property laws.

And contrary to his assertion that Google is limiting freedom for the Chinese people such is not the case as these two articles from 2004 show. China has been online for just over a decade and in that time it has seen the increase in free speech online.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Bypassing China's net firewall

PCWorld.com - China Finds Freedom Behind Great Firewall

So why has Google done this you ask. A billion dollar company could have waited to enter China or waited till it could set better conditions of doing business in China. Well that's the whole key to Google and all the other internet businesses wanting into China isn't it. Business. A billion comsumers.

And in Googles case it was facing the fact that the Chinese economy has been driven on the illegal, by Western standards, production of replicas and bootleg products. From watches to DVD's and computers. China's capitalism has been one long litany of criminal based enterprises. Only now that it is accepted into the international gang of Capitalists, the WTO has it agreed to reduce its favoured method of primitive accumulation of capital, counterfeit products and copyright violations.

In Googles case it was a business decision, it was facing a Chinese search engine modeled on Google that was launched last year with much fanfare. And it was already making money on the Hong Kong Stock exchange. Google is trying to limit its competition, if not wipe it out. Google Agrees to Censor Results in China

Baidu.com Inc., a Beijing-based company in which Google owns a 2.6 percent stake, currently runs China's most popular search engine. But a recent Keynote Systems survey of China's Internet preferences concluded that Baidu remains vulnerable to challenges from Google and Yahoo Inc.

To obtain the Chinese license, Google agreed to omit Web content that the country's government finds objectionable. Google will base its censorship decisons on guidance provided by Chinese government officials.

Freedom be damned, this is war of all against all. Capitalism has nothing to do with freedom or democracy, or human rights. It's all about private property, profit and who has the most surplus value, toys, wins. And in this case Google is competing for market dominance, monopoly, over Baidu and Yahoo.

Thats why this happens:Within / Without: Internet, censorship, China and you

Microsoft takes down Chinese blogger

Microsoft’s MSN Spaces continues to censor its Chinese language blogs, and has become more aggressive and thorough at censorship since I first checked out MSN’s censorship system last summer. On New Years Eve, MSN Spaces took down the popular blog written by Zhao Jing, aka Michael Anti. Now all you get when you attempt to visit his blog at: http://spaces.msn.com/members/mranti/ is the error message pictured above. (You can see the Google cache of his blog up until Dec.22nd here.)

Note, his blog was TAKEN DOWN by MSN people. Not blocked by the Chinese government.

And instead of complaining about those horrible Chinese dictators and censors as L. Neil Smith does, with his rabid red baiting stereotyping, let us remember that China is not censoring the net, it is asking Capitalist American Companies to do it for them.

Virtual censorship is a series of defensive policies undertaken by the Chinese authorities to prevent China s “domestic cyberspace” from being merged with “foreign cyberspaces” and keep apart the apolitical and political domains of CMC. It is virtual because the control mechanisms, albeit implemented in both the tangible and intangible spaces, aim at constraining nonofficial OPC in the virtual sphere. It is censorship because the policies reduce the interactions between the cyberspaces and the scope of political discussion by means of prohibition, supervision and punishment. From the perspective of democratization, virtual censorship is an undesirable segment of the emerging virtual reality defined as “a simulation of existing realities” and “the
creations of a new reality” (Frissen, 1997:113), which attempts at rendering boundaries in the cyberspace and those in the real space congruent. Yet from the angle of globalization, it is natural and readily comprehensible since various forms of local resistance are constituents of the globalization process (Sreberny-Mohammadi, 1991; Appadurai, 1990)

And as usual in the real free spaces between corporations, governments, cops exists in cyberspace, where there is a problem thier is a hack, a freeware program to provide a solution to the problem. The internet remains a contradiction only to those who wish to dominate it, to the rest of us it remains liberated space, where real libertarian values are expressed. Don't boycott Google hacktivize cyberspace. Toronto 'hactivists' win grant

P EA CE F IRE

June 20, 2005
In response to the news that MSN Spaces China is filtering words from the titles of their users' blogs including "freedom", "democracy" and "Taiwan independence", the Committee to Protect Bloggers, of which Peacefire is a member, has released a set of instructions describing how the Chinese can bypass the word filtering on MSN Spaces and create blogs with banned keywords in the title. The instructions in English are here; they have also been translated into Chinese here.

October 24, 2004
We need your help!

Almost all Internet users in China and the Middle East are blocked from accessing political Web sites that criticize the government of their country. After the release of our Circumventor software in 2003, Internet users in "censored" countries had a way to get around Internet censorship, by asking someone in an "uncensored" country to install the Circumventor software for them. (If you install the Circumventor software on a machine in an uncensored country, it gives you a URL, which you can then give to people in censored countries such as China, so they can use the URL to get around Internet blocking.) However, few people in China or the Middle East actually had contacts in uncensored countries that they could ask for help.

If you download and install our Circumventor software, it will give you a URL that you can use -- and which you can also give to your friends -- to bypass all types of blocking software. And at the end of the installation process, the installer will ask you if you would like to share your Circumventor URL with users in censored countries such as China as well. By saying "Yes" to this option, you can help people in censored countries bypass Web blocking.

See Big Brother Bush

Tags libertarianism anarchism China Censorship Google hacktivism
internet

Opps.

Well call this a serious political miscaluculation after todays Cabinet surprise. Canadians wants clean gov't from Harper: study


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Coyne Nails It

This is scary I find myself actually agreeing with Andrew Coyne. WTF. metastasizes like this you mean Andrew, and this and this and this:and this

It may be that the big brains around Harper are right, and this is a "one-day issue," of interest to the media and no one else.

But suppose they're wrong, and this quickly metastasizes, casting doubt on everything the Tories do -- the filter through which every subsequent statement or action is viewed, the moment when they squandered their biggest asset: the expectation that this time, after so many governments came to power promising to "clean house in Ottawa", this time would be different.

Then I think the Prime Minister would be well advised to alter course, admit he made a mistake -- two, actually -- and get out in front of this. There's a simple way to do it, one that could even turn a retreat into an advance. Announce, no later than tomorrow, that both appointments will be put before the people: Emerson's, in a byelection, allowing his constituents to pass judgment on his change of party; Fortier's, in Quebec's first-ever Senate election.

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View from the South

Aaron Goldstein a former NDPer now a Republican writes an interesting column on the Canadian election I thought I would share with ya' all.

So I Guess Stephen Harper Won’t Be Resigning After All

Where he says this;

I do believe that observers of Canadian politics have not yet fully appreciated the gravity of this election. On the left hand you have Rosie O’Donnell lamenting, “It’s a very sad day for Canada when the Liberal government has been ousted by the Republican Right.” On the right hand you have Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation who states, “The people of Canada have become so liberal and hedonistic that the public ethic in the Country immediately could not be reversed. It will take time. But with leadership it well may be possible to change the public ethic.” Weyrich’s full article can be read at www.freecongress.org/commentaries/2006/060125.asp.

Well both O’Donnell and Weyrich are wrong. O’Donnell is wrong to claim that Canadians have embraced the “Republican Right” and Weyrich is wrong to brandish Canadians as “liberal and hedonistic”. If Canadians have yet to fully appreciate the gravity of the elections it certainly cannot be said for non Canadians such as O’Donnell and Weyrich.


So neither Rosie O’Donnell nor Paul Weyrich need fret about Canada. Rosie O’Donnell can rest assured that the Conservatives will be kept in check by a strong opposition. Paul Weyrich ought to know that Canadians support a public ethic of “peace, order and good government”. Remember! I said good government not big government. If Stephen Harper and the Conservatives can bring peace, order and good government they might earn a majority government next time around.

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Lifesite Breaks News and Wind

The anti-gay anti-abortion right wing fundamentalist christian, my gawd that's a mouthful, web site LifeSite breaks news about what government positions their Calgary buddies Jason Kenney and Diane Ablonczy, who didn't make cabinet, will get.

Many pro-life Canadians wondered at the absence of Jason Kenney, one of the most capable MPs and a stalwart defenders of life and family. LifeSiteNews.com has learned that Kenney has been appointed the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister. Another pro-life MP of prominence within the Conservative Party who was passed over for a cabinet post, Diane Ablonczy, will be the parliamentary secretary to the Finance Minister.

And then for good measure they offer this reason that David Emerson joined the Conservative government.Finally, Liberal MP David Emerson was rewarded for switching to the Conservative Party with the position of Minister of International Trade. Emerson is pro-abortion and voted against traditional marriage on Bill C-38.

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Rempel Has Been Blitzed

Yeah yeah I know I am a glutton for punishment but I wandered over to the corpse in the blogosphere, Peter Rempels blog , just to kick it around to see if it really is dead and what do I find its off line.

Instead its been replaced with this:

For More Information email, greg@mediablitz.ca or call (403)634-8888

Then I check my links again and find it's here kind of.

Also see:

He's Baaaaaack

Good Riddance Not Goodbye

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Defense Lobbyist Now Minister

So did Derek Burney who is well established as a lobbyist for the Defense establishment in Canada have any say in the appointment of this Defense Lobbyist as Minister of Defense? Of course O'Conner was a natural for the job, however he was only elected 18 months ago.

And what influence will Burney maintain in the Harper government over issues of BMD which he promotes. With Peter McKay as the lame duck in Foreign affairs, a politcal perk appointment, who will really be pulling the strings? Burney, O'Conner and Harper I would suggest.

Boy Harper's cabinet appointments look more and more American style all the time. And less and less accountable.

And whats good for the Military is good for the Military Suppliers whom O'Conner worked for.

NOW magazine said; Ottawa-area Tory MP Gordon O'Connor has on at least two occasions publicly pushed military equipment of former clients.

Gordon O'Connor, defence minister
Carleton-Mississippi Mills, Ont.
O’Connor was first elected as an MP in 2004. He has since acted as the critic for national defence. O’Connor was also a member of the national defence and veterans affairs committee and the subcommittee on veterans affairs. A former member of the Canadian Forces, he retired with the rank of brigadier-general. His military appointments included responsibility for planning the future force structure of the Canadian Forces and co-ordinating resources related to about 300 Canadian Forces equipment and infrastructure projects. He has since worked as a consultant and in a variety of business operations.

And even the Blogging Tories are not comfortable with O'Conners close ties to the Military Industrial establishment in Canada

Forestalling the appearance of conflict at Defence

Firstly, how will Mr. O'Connor's history - as both a retired officer, and a lobbyist - with the current leadership at DND affect his ability to work with them as minister? Does he have a problem with the current CDS or others in positions of influence at DND? Refusing to attend a simple meeting on such an important procurement issue suggests he might.

If anyone at DND has personal knowledge of tensions between Mr. O'Connor and either the civilian or military leadership at the Department, or equally if anyone can put these concerns to rest, they're invited to drop me an e-mail in complete confidence (damian dot brooks NO SPAM at gmail dot com).

Secondly, how will Mr. O'Connor overcome the appearance of a conflict of interest when it comes to military procurement issues if he is appointed MND? Because while Airbus is the focus of this discussion, it was hardly his only client when he worked for Hill and Knowlton Canada.

Western Star, one former O'Connor client, was in the initial running for the Iltis replacement. That procurement was hardly without controversy: the G-Wagen won by default when every other competitor withdrew from the bidding process.

General Dynamics Canada, another former O'Connor client, is one of the big kids on the defence contractor block. They were part of the successful Sikorsky bid on the Maritime Helicopter Project to replace the CF's Sea Kings.

BAE Systems, another ex-client of O'Connor's, recently won one of the CF-18 modernization contracts.

I bring these up not to suggest any impropriety - far from it - but to point out to Mr. O'Connor and the CPC that they will have to deal with some significant challenges should he become the Defence Minister in a Conservative government.

Underneath his calls for quicker procurement strategies, less complex bidding, streamlining of the process, leaves one to wonder who benefits from this more the public and taxpayers getting bang for their buck, or the Military equipment suppliers?

CTV.ca | Gov't to purchase 16 military aircraft: CP

Earlier this month, the Conservative defence critic, retired general Gordon O'Connor, said he was concerned the government was rushing the process unnecessarily and made the requirements "so precise only one solution's possible."

But some say the acquisitions are inevitable, have been budgeted for and have such widespread support in Parliament they would be implemented by whichever party wins the election.

O'Connor - the former director of military requirements and an ex-industry lobbyist - said later there is nothing stopping the Liberals from going ahead with plans to replace aircraft.

Military wins no matter what after election

By STEPHEN THORNE

OTTAWA (CP) - The federal Conservatives say if elected they'll boost the national defence budget "in magnitude," assuring the military a win no matter who's in after the Jan. 23 vote. The Liberal government committed $12.8 billion to military expansion in last February's budget, which will bring the total defence budget to almost $20 billion within five years. Defence Minister Bill Graham has dangled tantalizing toys before Canada's military - new planes, ships and vehicles. He's expanding the forces by 5,000 personnel. But the Conservatives say they'll do even more for defence. "Certainly the Armed Forces aren't going to get less," said the Tory defence critic, retired general Gordon O'Connor. "There's going to be substantially more for the Armed Forces - in magnitude different." The Tories will boost military spending significantly - O'Connor wouldn't say how much - and expand personnel by 15,000, to 75,000, said O'Connor, who drafted the party's defence platform. All Liberal defence policies will be up for review, said O'Connor, including last spring's defence policy statement that was supposed to set the course for Canada's army, navy, air and special forces for 20 years. "We will review everything," O'Connor said. "We have our own policy. It may support what they are doing or it may modify what they are doing."
During the 2004 election campaign, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper promised an extra $5 billion in military spending over five years, 20,000 new soldiers, new tanks, new helicopter-carrying warships and muscular transport planes.
O'Connor, who retired as the director of military requirements and later became an industry lobbyist, said airlift now is his party's No. 1 defence priority.
But it's up in the air whether the Tories will go for 16 mid-range transport planes worth nearly $5 billion, as the Liberals announced Nov. 22, or opt for fewer of those supplemented by larger, heavy-lift aircraft capable of transporting troops and equipment over vast distances.
Under a Conservative government, the Liberal procurement project may go ahead or it may be modified, O'Connor said.
"We believe in airlift," he said. "I consider airlift as the No. 1 equipment requirement for the Armed Forces.
"But an airlift solution based on our policy may be different."
O'Connor said he expects Harper will announce his defence policy before Christmas.
He said the party won't be bound by preconceived ideas. They want to look at requirements before settling on what combination of aircraft would best serve defence.
A Conservative government would also buy more Arctic utility aircraft than the Liberals plan and base some of them further north, he added.
"I believe we should have a firm deployment of new aircraft in the Arctic," he said.
With the Liberals' blessing, navy planners are already in the early stages of acquiring new support ships and transport vessels, similar to those Harper promised in last year's election campaign.
O'Connor said he strongly supports streamlined military procurement practices, but he says the Liberal method will hurt competition and favour certain products - Lockheed Martin's C-130J transport plane, for example.
Prime Minister Paul Martin has said getting what the military needs takes precedence over regional and industrial benefits.
O'Connor said he also supports what he calls the "sensible" Liberal concept of setting out requirements based on performance needs. But he said regional and industrial benefits are a must in any military procurement.
"The biggest waste of time is in the Defence Department," O'Connor said. "They're spending four years now to arrive at a document that says this is what we want."
He said defence procurements have to be directed from the top down, not the bottom up.
"Things will be better for the military" under a Conservative government, O'Connor promised.
"In funding, you're going to see a substantial difference - quite a bit more than the Liberals. We've got to get this Armed Forces out of a hole."

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My Cabinet Predictions

Well here is what I predicted

Vic Toews Justice and Attorney General

Jim Prentice Indian Affairs

Monte Solberg Treasury Board

Rona Ambrose Foreign Affairs

Caroline Skelton Agriculture

Peter McKay Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness

Stockwell Day Water Sports

And here is what they got

Vic Toews, Justice

Jim Prentice Indian Affairs

Monte Solberg, Citizenship

Rona Ambrose, Environment

Carolyn Skelton National Revenue

Peter MacKay, Foreign Affairs

Stockwell Day, Public Safety

Public Safety? Wow I feel safer already. Yoiks. Watch for the return of secret trials and internment camps as Stockwell Day is rabidly Anti-Arab, Anti-Palestine and Israel and Zionism's 'best friend'. Here comes more racial profiling more secret arrests and trials.

Anyways got two right on, I may not have gotten the portfolios right but got the names right. And finally I was one of the few to predict Prentice in Cabinet and as Indian Affairs. And like most pundits I am shocked to see Diane Ablonczy not in Cabinet.

So what do I win?

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Harpers Accountable Government NOT

Stage Left makes this point about the appointment of MichaelFortier to Cabinet and the Senate, when he isn't elected, which further reinforces what I have said about the secretive government fetish Harper has.

Harper managed to reward a party campaign co-chair with a Ministerial appointment and ensure that his new Minister of Public Works and Government Services doesn’t have to answer questions in the House. Now that’s inventive.

So I guess they will have to question him in that 'other place',the Red House.

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Small C Liberal

That's what quizzling David Emerson told reporters in a media scrum after the swearing in of Harpers cabinet. " I have always been a small c liberal." Un huh, right. So what's that make Belinda Stronach a small l conservative?

Emerson did admit that there is no difference between the Conservatives and Liberals, and tooted his own horn saying his crossing the floor to join the Conservatives, at Harpers request, was a way of bringing the party to the Centre. Yep right.

The secrecy and paranoia has not left the Harper regime. They have always played close to their chest and the cabinet selection along with Emerson crossing the floor were well kept secrets. So much so that Emerson failed to tell Bill Graham leader of the Liberals. Or his own constituency, or well anyone.

Which bodes ill for 'open and accountable' government. We will have a much more closed lip, media unfriendly, secretive government as today showed.

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What took so long

For the Conservatives to sell out their base and become a real governing poltical party just like the Liberals. Beyond the anticipated and highly secret cabinet picks here is the REAL news for this first day of a new Conservative Government.

Emerson crosses floor
The most stunning move of the morning was the news that former Liberal Industry Minister David Emerson, a one-time lumber industry executive, has crossed the floor to join the Conservative government. The British Columbian won’t serve in his old post but as Minister of International Trade and Minister for the Pacific Gateway and the Vancouver-Whistler OlympicsFor Paul Martin’s Liberals, who once considered Emerson one of their star candidates, his move across the floor of the House serves as very bad news.

Since he is corporate boss what would one expect. Capitalists love both the Liberals and Conservatives, either in power is fine with them. Oh yeah I guess his constitiuents could have expected that he would have run as a Conservative.

The NDP call for electoral reform, with an immediate by-election would have never allowed this to happen. It gives their policy more credence after this slick move.

The Star reports that it was Edmonton MP JamesRajotte, Harpers close pal and political Oberfuerher that swung Emerson, giving this more credence and saying alot about how the Conservatives in power will act. According to early reports, it appeared that James Rajotte (Edmonton-Leduc), the former Conservative industry critic, was key in convincing Emerson to cross the floor.

And what was the Tories were saying about Belinda after she crossed the floor and during this last election? Hmmm. Liberals, Tories same old story.

And then to add a cherry to the topping Harper decides to Americanize the cabinet in this surprize move.

Unelected aide named to cabinet
Michel Fortier, one of the co-chairs of the Conservative campaign will become the new Public Works minister. Fortier did not run in the election and is not a member of the Tory caucus. Fortier will be appointed to the Senate on the condition that he step down for the next election to run for a seat in the House of Commons.

Opps wait a minute wasn't that Senate seat supposed to go to Burt Brown from Alberta the only elected Senator in Canada? He has been waiting for years, since Harper was one of the young Turks in the new Reform party. So much for that Triple E Senate promise. That went out the window for the sake of Real Politicks.

Blogging Tories are in shock. Well they should be. They thought their party; the new Conservative Party was principled, and they believed their own propaganda. Tch tch. Really guys welcome to the world of Parlimentary Politics.

Angry in the Great White North Asks; Are the Conservatives up by one?

Not if they dump Pallister for running for leader of the Manitoba Conservative Party, and do it now. But will they? What have you not been reading what I have said, this is realpolitick, of course they won't.


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Frank and Gordon Have Bell Jobs

During the Super Bowl yesterday Bell Canada/ BCE, launched their new ad campaign which featured two talking beavers, Frank and Gordon applying for jobs as spokes-beavers for Bell just in time for the Olympics.

And they get hired cause the beaver is so Canadian. (though I will give them this they had a very funny line about being two Canadian males in an ambigous relationship)

They are using the latest in CGI bin technology and promoting all of their telecom and internet services, mobile phone etc. as one brand. With two talking beavers, which are not real. Meanwhile BCE has laid off 10, 000 real Canadians. And eliminated their real jobs.



The Frank and Gordon show
How Bell built its first national brand platform around a couple of talking beavers (sub needed)


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Dave and I

Ooh scary how close CTV reporter David Atkin and I get in our cabinet predicitions for today. Though he does not mention Rona Ambrose and I do. And he mentions Stephen Fletcher and I don't, but we agree he is not in. Nor is Stockewell Day. Yay.

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Forget Dingwall Let's Talk Pallister

Blogging Tory BBS is fuming mad. Bonehead The new government has not even been sworn in yet and Brian Pallister has given Stephen Harper his first "entitlement" moment. Federal taxpayers are paying Pallister's salary to respresent the constituents of Portage-Lisgar, not tour the Province of Manitoba seeking a new constituency.

So is BT Lunch Pale; Memo to Brian Pallister

Newly elected Conservative MP Brian Pallister is embarassing the crap out of the Harper government which claims that it is doing things in a new way. Ha!

Barely was the election night euphoria disapated and Pallister announced he was looking for greener pastures; the leadership of the Provincial Tories in Manitoba.
Now he is touring the province with his federally funded aides lobbying for a Provincial political position. Outrageous.

And I give credit to these two Blogging Tories who see this for the political opportunism it is. But the from the rest of the BT universe, the silence is deafening. Shame! As they say in the house.

At Progressive Bloggers ,which also includes some Red Tories from BT, we have these postings about le affaire Pallister.

Pallister's Federally Funded Aide Helps Leadership Race

CONSERVATIVE CULTURE OF ENTITLEMENT

Brian Pallister: Conservative MP to Manitoba PC Leader?

A half-million dollar Conservative boondoggle in the making

The more things stay the same

They?re All The Same

Thats eight articles on Pallister at PB versus two at BT. Instead of worrying about le affaire Dingwall they should be worried about the scandal in their own backyard.


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Pissing Off Kinsella

Well I got a nice e-mail from Warren Kinsella in response to my blog article yesterday;All that is Whyte With The World

Once again he cannot accept that Anti-Zionism is not Anti-Semitism. So he wrote to tell me I am a 'Jew Hating, Anti-Semite", sigh.

Hey Warren read this: Jewish Anti-Zionism and this Conspiracy Theory or Ruling Class Studies and then tell me I am a Jew hating Anti-Semite.



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Unite the Left

Lots of talk about uniting the Left, as if it was severed, by media pundits and joyful Conservatives. Actually all that talk is about merging the centrist NDP with the left wing of the Liberals. Well the solution would be for the Liberals to join the NDP and leave their right wing to go Tory.

Slow down, turn left: Axworthy on Liberal leadership

Beginning of the end for Liberals, hopes NDP

But the real movement to Unite the Left is outside of the NDP. And the creation of a provincial Socialist Party in Quebec is step in that direction. New party's name is a call for solidarity

It even got the support of Judy Rebick who criticized the NDP for going right wing in this election.

New left-wing party hopes to change the face of Quebec politics ...

In fact, the party received the unlikely support of social activist Judy Rebick, former president of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women and an avowed federalist. "I agree with the people in this room on everything else," she said when asked about the separatist leanings of Quebec Solidaire.

If we are to reconstruct Canada as a real confederation then Quebec independenace has to be recognized. And yet it this is the same Rebick who said that the real indication of the NDP going right, not centrist but right, was Jack Laytons failure to disavow the Clarity act.

When Jack Layton announced out of the blue at the beginning of the campaign that he actually supported the Clarity Act, any chance of unity with the left in Quebec flew out the window. Most progressives in Quebec that I've talked to voted NDP in the last federal election because they believed that Jack was the first leader who really supported Quebec's right to self-determination. This time they voted Bloc Québécois.

So which is it Judy? Do you only support Self Determination in principle or in practice as well. And in fact I agree that Jack sold out over the Clarity Act. He also screwed up early on in the campaign saying that the NDP could do nothing about private clinics under Medicare. NDP's Duh'Oh

Yet the NDP as a federalist party made real gains in Quebec running in fact in second place in many Montreal ridings. Which will only bouy their Ontario Leadership to see themselves as born again Federalists.

So now there is a new left party in Quebec one focusing NOT on seperatism, that Quebecs right to self determination is a given, but on social issues of the left. This is good, despite the press coverage claiming them as a new independiste party.

New party in Quebec to focus on PQ's left

"We are giving birth to a party whose first objective is not sovereignty but rather a Quebec that is green, ecological and that promotes social justice. For us, sovereignty is one of the tools to achieve this. There are thousands of Quebeckers who are hungry for a party that reflects these values," Ms. David said yesterday.

It will face a challenge, that the PQ wants State Power, and will move to the right to get it. This has already occured. All parties that want State power by their inherent nature in a parlimentary system move to the centre. They can never be Left wing. Equally now this New Left can also challenge the Bouchard and ADQ agenda's.

But while this party is still provincial only it needs to look at also building opposition to the BQ which has declared itself an electoral only party and one that runs from the Centre as well while appealing to the Left.

Now in the ROC it is time to build a new broad based Socialist Organization seperate from parlimentaty politics, one that is broad based and part of the social movements that Judy is concerned have no place to go. One that could then unite on a basis of principles with the Quebec Left to give a common vision for a New Canadian/Quebec/Aboriginal Federation and a New Canadian Politics.

The Left in Canada needs to build a movement based mass political organization that is not focused soley on elections or parlimentarianism. But it needs to be done from the bottom up and not by self appointed spokespersons.

Rebick and Jim Stanford like to claim they started the New Politics Inititative NPI which looked building such a movement organization as an alternative to the NDP. But it ended up just being a pink rump in the party, less effective than the old Waffle.

They closed up that little campaign after Layton got elected, they in fact endorsed Laytons campaign unlike the Socialist Caucus in the NDP which ran their own leadership candidate. So anything Rebick or Stanford have to say about the NDP has to be seen in this light.

As for Stanford he was in effect Buzz's Brain as his article in Rabble shows. That's cause Buzz's original brain Sam Gidden retired and is teaching at York Universtiy. Well Buzz's brain sure screwed up with his campaign of strategic voting.

And while he tries to justify it by claiming the labour movement also screwed up by doing the same thing, it's disingenuous. While labour ran their own Third Party campaigns, which are always useless, they did endorse the NDP in the end. Unlike Buzz and his brain. Stanford can't admit his strategy divided the parlimentary left, and FAILED. it wasn't his fault it was the NDP's for calling the election too soon.

It's not the NDP or Liberals that are the Left in Canada. The Left in Canada is outside of electoral politics and parlimentarianism. Its time to build a unified Socialist organization broad based enough to include the Libertarian Left as well as the 57 varieties of Leninists and other Marxists, Left Social Democrats, Red/Greens, etc.

The Green Party this election has shown that it too has moved to the Centre if not to the right and as an electoral option has now failed in two elections to get anyone elected.

If we are to challenge the Poltical Parties in Canada which solely focus on Parliment then we need a Pan Canadian organziation that can do so. And part of its policy will have to be a debate on how we approach elections. Because the strategy of the Third Parties, the single isseue and social issue NGO's in this election also failed.

And issues get lost in elections like Haiti did. Or the issue of Nationalizing Big Oil. These are issues that a Socialist Organization brings to the fore during elections and campaigns around.

See:

WHITHER SOCIAL DEMOCRACY?
THE CRISIS OF CAPITALISM, LABOUR AND THE NDP
A SOCIALIST PERSPECTIVE



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Blogger Announces It's Down Again

Arghh!

Yep a little note in the upper right corner of my blog dashboard tool bar tells me so. At 7PM PST Today. Monday February 6th.

Their blogger notes to us are located at Blogger Status For your future reference.


Just a quick reminder that we will be going ahead with a planned network maintenance on Monday the 6th from 7–8PM PST. Blogger and Blog*Spot blogs will be unavailable during that time.

This maintenance won’t fix everything, but it will make things better. I promise. Posted by Pete at 21:18 PST


Well at least we are warned.But they still can't fix all their problems.What else is new.

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