Sunday, March 25, 2007

Cherniak Apologizes Sort Of

Jason Cherniak just cannot say; I am sorry, I was wrong, I won't do it again. Jason tries to use weasel words to justify what he did, even when he says he was wrong.

In a convoluted legalistic manner he does apologize sort of, after a whirlwind of protests from Progressive Bloggers of all political stripes. But first he whined about the protests;


For the record, I never expected this sort of reaction. The purpose of the post was to argue for a good compromise on the hijab issue. I only mentioned the Chow rumour because I thought it was the best example of why the hijab thing is about voter fraud and not about religion. In hindsight, I wish I had used a less controversial example because the real point was lost in all the yelling. Frankly, though, I didn't realize that so many bloggers were so clueless about the rumours out there.


Then he decided to publish a sort of retraction. And it took him till 11 pm EDT today to finally do it.

However he only links to his apology in a link in his original article and in his second article. Which is not identified as his apology, and is one link amongst many.

He has not removed the offending article perse, nor struck through, nor removed the offending statements about Olivia Chow. Nor has he attached a correction apology statement link at the beginning of the offending article. All these are the proper journalistic procedures to be done to avoid charges of libel and defamation in Canadian law. And as a lawyer and media consultant he should know that.

Instead he posted this;


UPDATE

I'm sorry if you read this and don't like me reporting the rumour about Trinity-Spadina, but it IS a real rumour. It is not the same as accusing her of having relations with sheep, because that is not a real rumour that is circulating in Toronto. Further, I am not demanding that she deny it.


And as you can see below he says in his post I Was Wrong that he made a mistake, but still no; I am sorry I was wrong. Because of course Jason can never be wrong.

Jason there is no such thing as good faith when you rumour monger.


I initially used the Chow rumour as an example because I have heard it a few times from reliable people and thought it was a fair example to give. As a partisan, I think I was too quick to just assume that the rumour was reasonable to believe. The people I have spoken too probably made the same mistake.

So, to be clear, I am sorry for using Trinity-Spadina as an example in my initial post. However, that does not change the fact that I made the mistake in good faith.

My error here was in failing to look more closely at the rumour before assuming that it was believable. The truth is that if the rumour were about a Liberal, I would have done more research and figured out that it was bogus before posting it.

Yes you would have and that shows your intolerance towards other progressive political competitors in the body politic . But the point is you posted it and still have not removed the offending post. So lets get with it and do the right thing, re- write your article and re-post it without the references to Olivia Chow.

See

Cherniak


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Tories Health Plan Kills Albertan

Yes you read that headline right. The hospital in Vegreville, under an appointed board, ruled over by another appointed board, and all those appointments are by the government, has an outbreak of super bug. And it resulted in one death at least.

Alberta hospital superbug scandal raises fears of Walkerton claim of 1 Death.

Because they failed to follow government health procedures and because they lack proper staffing, and have since the cutbacks under King Ralph.
But the Premier and government steps in and assigns the review to another government appointed board, rejecting any independent review. Stelmach rejects calls for public inquiry

Only in Alberta. Home of the right wingers who bitch about federal accountability while at home they give it the old boot up the bum while covering their asses.


See:

Medicare

Healthcare


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Farmer John Exploits Mexican Workers


Back in the early days of the IWW, Wobblies organized farm workers, since many workers in Canada and the U.S. found interim work on the farm before finding work in mills, mines, in lumber and on the railroads. Their term for a farmer who exploited farm workers was Farmer John.

Farmers in the West in Canada and the U.S. relied upon itinerant workers, hobos, to bring in the grain. Paying them 'bum' wages, treating them like slaves, charging them for room and board, led to the I.W.W. to organize farmworkers on a large scale industrial basis.

Today Farmer John relies upon temporary workers from Mexico a
nd in Alberta, over a century later nothing has changed. Farm workers brought in from Mexico and the Caribbean to work for Farmer John in Alberta remain indentured servants, slaves by any other name.

Farm workers cannot bargain collectively in Ontario and Alberta and there is no independent voice for the workers in the program. In 1999, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that farmworkers enjoy the same rights as other workers to associate without intimidation, coercion or discrimination by their employers.

And for that reason Farmworkers need a union.

***

A Mexican farm worker who had a bad experience working on a farm near Provost has gone back home.

Armando Garcia flew back to his wife and two children Wednesday after parishioners at the Catholic Church in Provost raised money for his plane ticket.

His friend in Edmonton, Miguel Herrero, said he's appalled Alberta's labour code provides no protection for farm workers. He's trying to raise additional money for Garcia to help him get back on his feet after his bad experience in Canada.

Alberta Employment is investigating claims that the temporary foreign worker didn't get the medical coverage he was promised, wasn't paid extra for overtime and had so many deductions from his paycheque that he was getting paid less than $1 an hour.

***



Harvest War Song

(Tune: "Tipperary")
We are coming home, John Farmer, we are coming back
to stay.
For nigh on fifty years or more, we've gathered up your
hay.
We have slept out in your hayfields, we have heard your
morning shout;
We've heard you wondering where in hell's them pesky
go-abouts?
CHORUS
It's a long way, now understand me; it's a long way to
town;
It's a long way across the prairie, and to hell with Farmer
John.
Up goes machine or wages, and the hours must come
down;
For we're out for a winter's stake this summer, and we
want no scabs around.
You've paid the going wages, that's what kept us on the
bum,
You say you've done your duty, you chin-whiskered son
of a gun.
We have sent your kids to college, but still you must rave
and shout,
And call us tramps and hoboes, and pesky go-abouts.
But now the wintry breezes are a-shaking our poor frames,
And the long drawn days of hunger try to drive us boes
insane.
It is driving us to action--we are organized today;
Us pesky tramps and hoboes are coming back to stay.


The early Wobblies were above all famous for their Westerners:
the part-Indians and the Yankees, sons and daughters of pony express drivers and gold prospectors whose families had kept going west but never escaped poverty. But even in these early years, many of the militants were fresh from Europe or the children of immigrants, radicalized on the other side of the ocean or in their first years of American life. They remained in the IWW when native-born “Americans” mostly came and left, published magazines and newspapers that lasted decades, and kept the Wobbly spirit alive for later generations.

The Agricultural Workers Organization (AWO) planted itself in the work-life culture of the mostly white, male, mobile harvest workers of the plains states. Like the Wobs in the mines and sawmills, they epitomized the Western (and “American”) spirit of the organization. Notoriously rebellious and restless, their effective control of box car-riding (“show your red card”) was legendary. The capability of Wobbly organizers to create miniature egalitarian communities among the transient workers testified to their adeptness but also their belief in the lowest ranks of workers.

The larger AWO could also grow strong in the face of repression, peaking in 1918, for a seemingly unlikely reason. The First World War created a labor shortage: it was easier to quit or get fired and move on, because more jobs were available everywhere. Not that AWO organizing drives necessarily succeeded. The racial diversity of many California farms was difficult to overcome (although they tried). The repression of labor during wartime meant suppression of Wob newspapers, arrests of organizers, and threats of vigilante violence. In the longer run, the mechanization of farming would dramatically reduce the numbers of agricultural workers and their bargaining power.

Wobblies also learned that organizing in fields was more complicated than in factories. They could not rely on family or ethnic ties, and so had to rely on sudden job actions, slowdowns, and similar tactics to attract and hold members. Thus in April 1915, Frank Little called a conference to organize casual workers (hoboes), creating a job delegate system within the IWW, with Wobs setting wage and hour demands before the harvest, selecting an individual or committee to negotiate with a farmer, and then having all the Wobs ratify the agreement. This way, the AWO built quickly and successfully. Dues were a two dollar initiation, then fifty cents per month. By 1915, many had won immediate Wob goals: the ten hour day, three dollar minimum, overtime, good board, clean beds; all realizable because war raised the price of wheat.

Thus, Wobs would arrive outside town, establish a “jungle” near a stream, then call a meeting and elect committees to keep the camp clean. A “spud and gump brigade” foraged or begged for food and did the cooking, while some got jobs in town to build up a common fund. This was the IWW world in miniature, a workers’ society run by itself—although organizing it and keeping it going sometimes distracted from actual organizing in the fields.

IWW strike leadership would naturally be blamed for causing deaths and injuries handed out by police and private thugs. Huge defense fights exposed terrible conditions while leaders were handed long sentences. Yet, the IWW’s reputation spread most amazingly. Japanese and Chinese workers had their own labor organizations that worked with the IWW, although not usually affiliating directly. The Fresno branch chartered the Japanese Labor League in 1908 with a thousand members. Mexicans formed their own Wobbly locals (especially in San Diego and Los Angeles) and published Wobbly pamphlets, leaflets, and papers in Spanish. All this activity was unknown and indeed unwanted by the mainstream AFL.

» Zane Grey » The Desert of Wheat

Hard? It sure is hard. But it'll be the makin' of a great country. It'll weed out the riffraff.... See here, Kurt, I'm goin' to give you a hunch. Have you had any dealin's with the I.W.W.?"

"Yes, last harvest we had trouble, but nothing serious. When I was in Spokane last month I heard a good deal. Strangers have approached us here, too--mostly aliens. I have no use for them, but they always get father's ear. And now!... To tell the truth, I'm worried."

"Boy, you need to be," replied Anderson, earnestly. "We're all worried. I'm goin' to let you read over the laws of that I.W.W. organization. You're to keep mum now, mind you. I belong to the Chamber of Commerce in Spokane. Somebody got hold of these by-laws of this so-called labor union. We've had copies made, an' every honest farmer in the Northwest is goin' to read them. But carryin' one around is dangerous, I reckon, these days. Here."

Anderson hesitated a moment, peered cautiously around, and then, slipping folded sheets of paper from his inside coat pocket, he evidently made ready to hand them to Kurt.

"Lenore, where's the driver?" he asked.

"He's under the car," replied the girl

Kurt thrilled at the soft sound of her voice. It was something to have been haunted by a girl's face for a year and then suddenly hear her voice.

"He's new to me--that driver--an' I ain't trustin' any new men these days," went on Anderson. "Here now, Dorn. Read that. An' if you don't get red-headed--"

Without finishing his last muttered remark, he opened the sheets of manuscript and spread them out to the young man.

Curiously, and with a little rush of excitement, Kurt began to read. The very first rule of the I.W.W. aimed to abolish capital. Kurt read on with slowly growing amaze, consternation, and anger. When he had finished, his look, without speech, was a question Anderson hastened to answer.

"It's straight goods," he declared. "Them's the sure-enough rules of that gang. We made certain before we acted. Now how do they strike you?"

"Why, that's no labor union!" replied Kurt, hotly. "They're outlaws, thieves, blackmailers, pirates. I--I don't know what!"

"Dorn, we're up against a bad outfit an' the Northwest will see hell this summer. There's trouble in Montana and Idaho. Strangers are driftin' into Washington from all over. We must organize to meet them--to prevent them gettin' a hold out here. It's a labor union, mostly aliens, with dishonest an' unscrupulous leaders, some of them Americans. They aim to take advantage of the war situation. In the newspapers they rave about shorter hours, more pay, acknowledgment of the union. But any fool would see, if he read them laws I showed you, that this I.W.W. is not straight."

"Mr. Anderson, what steps have you taken down in your country?" queried Kurt.

"So far all I've done was to hire my hands for a year, give them high wages, an' caution them when strangers come round to feed them an' be civil an' send them on."

"But we can't do that up here in the Bend," said Dorn, seriously. "We need, say, a hundred thousand men in harvest-time, and not ten thousand all the rest of the year."

"Sure you can't. But you'll have to organize somethin'. Up here in this desert you could have a heap of trouble if that outfit got here strong enough. You'd better tell every farmer you can trust about this I.W.W."

"I've only one American neighbor, and he lives six miles from here," replied Dorn. "Olsen over there is a Swede, and not a naturalized citizen, but I believe he's for the U.S. And there's--"

"Dad," interrupted the girl, "I believe our driver is listening to your very uninteresting conversation."

She spoke demurely, with laughter in her low voice. It made Dorn dare to look at her, and he met a blue blaze that was instantly averted.

Anderson growled, evidently some very hard names, under his breath; his look just then was full of characteristic Western spirit. Then he got up.



See:

Slavery in Canada

Monte Solberg

temporary workers


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Rumour Monger


Once again Jason Cherniak engages in drive by smearing of the NDP. In this case contrary to all rules of law and of accepted legal process, to say nothing of standard journalistic rules, he uses hearsay. Not even attributed hearsay. In fact the lowest kind of hearsay; rumour. Nor can he attribute the rumours. In fact he may have made it up himself.

And Jason as a lawyer and a blogging journalist knows these rules. He uses a rumour to justify by implication his blog accusation that federal NDP MP Olivia Chow cheated to get elected!

Worse he attempts to weasel out of any responsibility for promoting this rumour and thus this smear, by saying he does not suggest the rumour is true. What B.S. The minute he publishes it he gives it validity. Thus the rumour becomes true. It is there in black and white, to be quoted, to be used out of context, to be referenced back to.

"Let's face it. People cheat in politics. It's not a good thing. It shouldn't happen. But it does.The rumour around TO (Let me be very clear; I am not suggesting that the rumour is true. I am only stating that it is out there.) is that Olivia Chow won because NDP supporters from across the city voted early and often at different polling stations in Trinity-Spadina. I don't know if it's true, but just the rumour led the federal Liberals to fight for a new rule that voters must show ID before receiving their ballot."
Jason Cherniak

The damage is done, he has once again smeared the NDP and this is the second time he has done this. His first smear campaign was against Ontario NDP candidate and now MPP, Christi DiNovo. Notice how Jason aims at NDP Women for his smears. Now he smears Olivia Chow.

The man is sexist. He deliberately attacks women dippers. Worse yet, this is just the introduction to his comment on why veil wearing Muslim women should disrobe to be identified to vote in the up coming Quebec election. Heck Charset who demanded this, is not even a liberal, he is a neo-con and former federal leader of the Progressive Conservatives. And in Jason defending this, he is in effect defending the current racist assault on Muslims occurring in Quebec.
And for that matter he is abetting the anti-Asian racism that has cropped up in the election.

There should be no room in Progressive Bloggers for this kind of sexism or racism, let alone personal slanders that are deliberate and aimed at discrediting political opponents through the use of rumour, innuendo, and slander.

That being said this particular blog post invective with no factual basis deserves an immediate apology and retraction. Failing that I ask the moderators at Progressive Bloggers to review the serious legal implications of this post, which spreads a malicious rumour as fact; "the rumour led the federal Liberals to fight for a new rule", that such slander and defamation should be grounds for banishment from Progressive Bloggers.

Fair is fair. This is his second offense. For that he should be banned from Progressive Bloggers as has been done with other offenders.

For more reactions to Jason's slanderous article see:

Rumour has it that some people on the internet make shit up

dick head award , and the award goes to Jason ...

But he's just the messenger

Bending The Pretzel

For my articles on Jason see: Cherniak


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