Johnny B Good

I know I have been slagging John Bowman who does the CBC Election Blog, here and here and we have been having it out in the comments, with irreverance and at least a friendly sense of humour about my criticisms of his blog. And to give the guy credit, his latest blog on CBC covers all the bases about the party blogs and includes the BQ and the Greens. And while I have complained about him giving the Conservatives too much coverage this time around he says it like it is, their weblog sucks, warmed over press releases.The guy listens and responds. So this is a way of saying good on ya Johnny boy. And I am still waiting for your take on the babble dust up.

A Profitable Economics Debate

I want to thank Reg for his comments here . Where we had a short spat back and forth. We are actually having a great ongoing debate on real life economics, here. The wiff and woof of daily life as Canadian workers trying to make ends meet.

Now this is rather unique cause Reg is a Blogging Tory, and you all know what I think of them, and yet we are able to have a civil discussion, and an interesting one at that,over one of the hot button issues that supposedly divides us politically; economics. And we agree, stranger still.

Until you note that this is a Libertarian blog, and one of the principals of libertarianism is to debate between the left and right since we share several common values arising from classical liberalism;distrust of the state, belief in self government, respect for the individual, and a sense of social responsibility. Don't believe me, then check out Kevin Carsons libertarian blog.

Anyways I see Reg has been kind enough to link Le Revue Gauche as a daily read on his website links. I am honoured. Especially when right whingnuts attack the left with comments like 'we are evil' or don't get it when it comes to economics. Such as this comment which was left in response to my article Housing Bubble, Debt Boom

galbraith said...Could you possibly be more economically illiterate? Money not flowing to your beloved social bureaucracies in taxes immediately becomes part of capital markets, providing lower interest rates. But I wouldn't expect the Marxists in your public education schooling to have let you in on that fact. They're too busy trashing the very companies that their own retirement funds are invested in.

This comment is particularly ironic considering most of the data in the article is from such respected capitalist publications as the Financial Post and the Report on Business, as well as clippings from other MSM sources. Facts they call them. And I am accused of being economically illiterate. Because my analysis is based on an understanding of Marxist economics.

Thats the other irony of bveing called economically illiterate, my article Social Insecurity The Phony Pension Plan Crisis has been published online, by autonomist marxists, who also publish right wing economists as well as left wing ones. I think in general the Libertarian Left and the Autonomous Marxist movement has a higher level of tolerance for this kind of debate than the Neo-Cons do.

When Reg first commented here I was expecting another galbraith, since I checked his site and found he was a Blogging Tory. And while we initailly disagreed and still do on Labour Sponsored Investment Funds, he took up the challenge, made good points and we have been having a great dialouge ever since.

Now for those of you that believe that there are two solitudes between the Left and Right...these are the solitudes of dogma. Reg and I will continue our economic debates, or not, but we welcome your contributions. I think its interesting that both of us agree that the basic economic issue in Canada is NOT tax cuts, but capital invesgtment or the lack of it.

For background here are my articles on the economics of daily life and I look forward to your comments Reg.

Jobs Not Tax Cuts

More Income Trust Fallout

Air Canada Profits From Bankruptcy

State Capitalism By Any Other Name

What's good for GM is bad for Workers

Canada's Billion Dollar Rip Off

It's the Labour Theory of Value, stupid

Corporate Canada Plays Hide the Sausage

Corporate Canada is in the Money

We Need a Living Wage
NEO LIBERALISM A FAILURE IN CANADA

Social Insecurity Appendix

Smilin Jack for PM

If Canadians could vote for PM seperate from their MP, Jack would end up smilin as our new PM . Jack is the most popular party leader in English Canada, as all the polls for the past year say including this one today;
Jack Layton: 58 per cent favourable; 42 per cent unfavourable; for a net of +16 (two point drop in the past month).

Whats The Buzz?

Apostles;
What's the buzz
Tell me what's a-happening
Jesus Christ Superstar


Well Buzz Hargrove is at it again, with his own politics of Stratgic Voting. This morning he was interviewed on CBC and was supporting the NDP. This afternoon he introduced Paul Martin to CAW delegates and was supporting the NDP in a Liberal Minority Government. His whole fixation is anybody but Harper. Which means as Buzz puts it a Liberal Minority Government and a strong NDP opposition. Now this could be dismissed as RealPolitick, since Buzz is concerned about Southern Ontario and his Autoworkers.

Union head praises Martin

Liberal Leader Paul Martin tried to poach some union votes Friday -- and received a limited endorsement.

Buzz Hargrove, president of the Canadian Auto Workers Union, gave Mr. Martin a warm introduction to his union's leadership conference in Toronto and told reporters afterwards he wants the Liberal leader to remain prime minister after the Jan. 23 election.

The "extreme right-wing" Conservatives need to be kept from winning at all costs, Mr. Hargrove said.

Thus, union members might need to "vote strategically" in ridings where the NDP candidate is a distant third but the Liberals could win with union support, Mr. Hargrove said.

"We want a clear minority government, led by Paul Martin, with as many New Democrats holding the balance of power as possible."

The ideal political outcome, Mr. Hargrove continued, would be a minority Liberal government with the Liberals and NDP coming together to form a "stable coalition or sign an accord" to work together.

"That's in the best interest of Canada," Mr. Hargrove told reporters.

Mr. Hargrove, whose union has been a major financial supporter of the NDP over the years, has also been a bit of a loose cannon.

Asked if he had discussed the strategic voting idea with NDP Leader Jack Layton, Mr. Hargrove snapped: "No. I don't work for Jack."

But the CAW is more than just autoworkers now its a Canada wide union, one which also has ties with other unions like the Alberta Union of Public Employees, rogue unions that do not belong to the House of Labour the CLC and its Provincial Labour Federations. And Dan McLellan charismatic leader of AUPE is a died in the wool Liberal, as I blogged here he was being considered as a candidate in Edmonton for the Federal Liberals but turned them down. Instead he will be throwing his union weight behind Landslide Anne. Dan spoke at the CAW annual gathering and Buzz spoke in Edmonton at the AUPE convention. This little love affair has been going on since the CAW was suspended from the CLC for raiding the same time AUPE was. CAW raided SEIU, AUPE was raiding CUPE. AUPE supported the CAW. Buzz rejoined the House of Labour, and advocated for Dan. Dan saw more money coming into AUPE's coffers and not wanting to share it with the rest of the Labour movement stayed out of the CLC and its affiliates. AUPE is the largest Independent union in Alberta if not Western Canada.

What's the buzz
Tell me what's a-happening

Nor is the Strategic Voting concept new to Buzz he did it last election too. He started his political manouvers after the Provincial NDP government of Bob Ray attacked the unions with its social contract.

Internally it coincided with a rogue local in Oshawa, hmmm thats where all the job losses are now occuring, that revolted against the CAW/NDP alliance and supported the Reform Party. And went further demanding political freedom in the CAW to support the party of their choice. Note to those that are politically naive, Freedom of Choice is a Right Wing Slogan, as is We Are Not Political, We Are Non Paritisan. Wait a few minutes and the right wing will soon appear as being behind these slogans.

The debacle of the 1990-95 Ontario NDP government, opened up a serious rift between the NDP and the trade union bureaucracy, and in the 1995 election many unions chose to withhold aid, or at least downplay their support for the party. Currently the NDP hovers around 11% in the polls and few outside of some wildly optimistic party loyalists believe the party will improve on its 1995 showing. Hargrove then is caught in a bind. On the one hand he desperately wants to see Harris defeated, rightly describing his government as a disaster for working people; however, he has not forgiven the NDP (nor, for that matter, has the NDP asked for forgiveness!). No attempt is made to even conceal the contempt and loathing felt for the arrogant and intellectual Bob Rae in Labour of Love. Torn, Hargrove's alternative then has been to argue for strategic voting: In other words, while the paramount task is to defeat the Harris regime, this may mean in practice, the labour movement throwing their resources behind candidates other than the NDP if the NDP cannot win the riding. In effect they will be throwing their support behind the corporate Liberal party. Unfortunately the discussion around this policy was framed largely in terms of support for strategic voting or the traditional support of the NDP. Those who tried to argue a third policy were given little room for debate. After a long and heated debate at the CAW council in Port Elgin in December of 98, Hargrove's policy was adopted. Despite the fact that many CAW activists believe that most locals will pay only lip service this policy, the net effect will be to drag the CAW rightward and undermine any credibility the union has as a militant organization. Red & Black Notes #8, Spring 1999

Buzz developed his poltical plan of Strategic Voting around these events. But it has been a massive failure politically. And his current bid to be a Kingmaker with his mistaken Anybody But Harper Campaign seems out of step with current election reality. That was yesterdays campaign. But Buzz is hardheaded if nothing else. Unfortunately in politics that can mean disaster as his Strategic Voting campaign against Mike Harris in 1999 proved.

Union leaders themselves are partly to blame for being taken for granted by McGuinty. Canadian Auto Workers president Buzz Hargrove, for example, refuses even now to say a bad word about McGuinty, who has promised to keep in place Mike Harris's pro-scab labour law.
"My campaign is to defeat the Mike Harris government and I don't care who gets elected, they can't be as bad," Hargrove says.

Earlier this month, the union's Canada Council voted by a majority of about two-thirds to endorse CAW president Buzz Hargrove's call for "strategic voting" to defeat the current Tory government--i.e. to support Liberal candidates wherever the nominees of the trade union-based New Democratic Party have little chance of defeating the Tory candidate. Although the "strategic voting" resolution did not specifically call for the election of a Liberal government, the province's parliamentary arithmetic and the NDP's current low-level of popular support make it all but inevitable that the CAW will be supporting the Liberals in a majority of Ontario's 103 parliamentary constituencies. The CAW resolution commits the union to "defeating as many Harris Tories as possible ... with the knowledge that this may bolster the Liberal campaign," and "not resourcing NDP campaigns without a chance." In speaking before the CAW's leading body, Hargrove was less circumspect. He sought to bolster Ontario Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty, proclaiming him as "at least ... not anti-labour."

Wow word for word what Buzz said today about Paul Martins Liberals versus Harpers Conservatives.

What's the buzz
Tell me what's a-happening

The NDP's own right wing rump further exasperated this situation over the years by demanding the party distance itself from the Labour movement, a movement that was the party's founding partner. The seperation which is slowly leading to a divorce has been messy. Its ended up with provincial parties passing legislation when they are government that ends union and corporate donations to Political Parties. While claiming its no loss to do this cause the NDP gets little if any corporate support, its object is to break the ties that bind between the NDP and Labour. The result is those ties are broken. As Buzz proves. No use crying about it, the NDP made their bed and now can lay in it.

What's the buzz
Tell me what's a-happening

Of course if Buzz was a politician he wouldn't get elected he thinks out loud too much, and his strategic voting strategy is too out front. Samuel Gompers founder of the American Federation of Labour, was to the right of Buzz but had more political acumen, his was a the politics of pragmatism; you work behind the scenes by rewarding your friends and punishing your enemies. In Buzz's case his poltical agenda is clear, save jobs in Southern Ontario. And to do that he needs both Martin and Layton in power. However its not a politics of pragmatism, nor of the possible, its out in your face Buzz-ego politics that sow dissension on the Left.Even his own Executive Assistant who is running against a Liberal for the NDP says so.

In Parkdale-High Park, Peggy Nash, assistant to Canadian Auto Workers president Buzz Hargrove, is taking another run at the Liberals' Sarmite Bulte. The NDP nomination takes place tomorrow night. Bulte won last year with 19,727 votes to 16,201 for Nash. Conservative Jurij Klufas, also running again, got 7,221. Nash said the NDP was hurt in 2004 by voters going to the Liberals in order to stop the Conservatives. With another minority government a solid possibility this time around, voters are less likely to be scared away from the NDP, she argues.

Opps somebody should tell her about Buzz's plan. And pragmatically it could mean the defeat of some NDP candidates in close races as happened last election, leaving the hated Conservatives to get elected. Thanks Buzz.

What's the buzz
Tell me what's a-happening

Conservative Broadcasting Corporation?

John Bowman the CBC Election Blogger continues to ONLY blog about the Conservatives. His latest blog is about them fixing their security bug on their site, which meant folks couldn't give 'em money. This is news? This is worthy of blogging? I think not. And when he has quoted non Tory blogs, after his bosses noticed his bias, they are about wiat for it....the Conservatives. Hey Mothercorp time to replace JB.

Leaders Debate Deja View

The MSM have conspired to NOT include the Leader of the Green Party into their little club known as the Leaders TV Debate. Again just like last election. The difference is that this time the Green Party got enough votes that they get taxpayers money. So taxpayers should get to hear from them.
Shame! Shame! cry the members of the Progressive Blogging community pounding on their desks. We want to let them in on the debates.
The Green party is being given less attention this election than even last by the MSM and we ain't having it. The CBC places the Green Party under Other on their Web Site while the party earned enough votes to get taxpayer funding while the 'others' listed didn't come close.
If Buzz can get press for calling for Strategic voting, well its time fellow bloggers for us to demand fair play for the Green Party!
Whether ya vote for em or support em or NOT.
And so my fellow blogger, Murky View who is as offended as I over this deliberate censorship, err exclusion of the Greens from the Leaders TV Debate has launched a campaign to email complaints to the MSM.

Go Here and let the protest begin; CALL TO ACTION: Green Party not in Debate

And you can email the TV Debate gang and ask them to let the Greens In: question@electiondebate.ca

Orla has produced an online petition to lobby for the Greens Right to be in the debate. Regardless of whether you support them or vote for them its their right to be heard.

Dump the Conservative.ca blog

I have sent this little missive to the Conservatives about their election web-blog.

Dear Conservative.ca;
Your election blog is booooooring. Warmed over press releases do not a blog make. If you would like to see what a real blog looks like check out one of your own; Monte Solberg. Now while Mr. Solberg and I do not see eye to eye on practically anything, except perhaps our fondness for Timmys coffee when working, he is a shining example of what your blog should be. If you want a real election blog, dump yours and link to his.
Sincerely,
Eugene Plawiuk

Will Monte Buy Shares in Timmy's?

Conservative Finance Critic and caffine driven blogger; Monte Solbergs favorite coffee shop Tim Hortons is going on the market with a share offering that the National Post reports they expect Canadians to buy up. Big appetite seen for Tim Hortons offering Will Monte put his money where his mouth is? There had been speculation Wendy's would sell the initial stake in Tim Hortons as an income fund. The company chose to sell common shares instead because, should Wendy's want to spin off the rest of its stake to shareholders, the transaction would be tax-free. Ah shucks no income trust tax shelter for Monte he will actually have to take a risk. As a confirmed capitalist apologist will he or won't he? Will he put his money where his coffee cup hits? Inquirying minds want to know.

Where Are Your Clothes Made

The Maquila Solidarity Network has released its Transparency Report Card: COMING CLEAN ON THE CLOTHES WE WEAR Check it out and see how Canadian Retailers and Suppliers rank as suppliers of Sweat Shop labour.

Gildan Sweat Shop Success Story

Gildan profit soars

Profile

Gildan Activewear is a vertically-integrated marketer and manufacturer of premium quality branded basic apparel. The Company manufactures premium quality basic T-shirts, sport shirts and sweatshirts for sale in the wholesale imprinted sportswear market. The Company sells its products as blanks, which are ultimately decorated by screenprinters with designs and logos for sale to consumers. Gildan has announced plans to sell its products into the mass-market retail channel, in addition to the screenprint market. In conjunction with this strategy, Gildan is expanding its product-line to include underwear and athletic socks.

Gildan is North America's largest T-Shirt manufacturer, and it is Canadian.
After closing its yarn spining plant in Quebec and outsourcing the work offshore, Gildan exports its T-Shirt manufaturing to the Caribbean/Central American Free Trade Zones.

Moneysense.ca | Oct 1, 2004

Real Assets Investment Management Inc., an ethics-based investor, said Thursday it has sold its shares of Gildan Activewear over the T-shirt company's treatment of workers at a Honduras factory.

This year they agreed to re-hire fired union workers in their new factory operations in the Houndouras leading the Canadian Anti-Sweat Shop Activist group Maquila Solidarity Network to suspend their campaign against Gildan.

Gildan then launched a massive new advertising and promotional camapaign for its products helping it push up its sceond, third and fourth quarter profits. Coincidence I think NOT. No word on what happened to the workers in Quebec who lost their jobs at Gildan. No compensation just the unemployment centre for them.

And while the Anti-Sweat Shop campaigners have been satisfied with their sop from Gildan, the Anti-War movement has not. They have focused on Gildan's sweat shop operations taking advantage of the current Canadian/UN occupation of Haiti in the name of Empire.

Building an Antiwar Movement in Canada

The single biggest impediment to getting people mobilized around war and occupation issues is the widespread perception that Canada’s hands are clean in the world; that unseemly regime changes are things carried out by George W. Bush and that at worst we are benevolent bystanders or well-meaning peacekeepers coming in after the fact.

Perhaps one under-utilized way to get around this pervasive myth is to highlight the blatant war profiteering of massive Canadian corporations. While the sordid operations of the likes of Exxon and Halliburton are internationally known, equally rapacious war companies based north of the 49th parallel are getting away with scant attention. The two that stand out are Gildan Activewear and SNC-Lavalin.

Gildan Activewear is a massive garment manufacturer, controlling 40% of the North American t-shirt market. Following the coup against Aristide, and the de facto government’s decision to overturn minimum wage increases brought in by the Lavalas Party government, Gildan announced that it would be moving some operations from Honduras to Haiti. The company is currently engaged in a massive publicity campaign, with ads on hundreds of bus shelters in Vancouver proclaiming the sweatshop label ‘A part of your life’. It has been speculated that they are building their public profile with an eye to winning the Vancouver 2010 Olympics clothing contract. The cases of Gildan and SNC are not unique in terms of Canadian corporations, but only two of the most blatant examples that belie the quaint notion of a harmless, innocent big business community, and the related myth of a political policy pursuing lofty, disinterested ‘humanitarian’ objectives.

Again Liberal trade policies are a direct cause of the offshoring of Quebecs clothing industry and Gildans success. And with Gildan they are further compounded by the companies involvement with the Canadian Occupation of Haiti. Welcome to the world of global capitalism.

This is a report from Haiti about Gildan detailing the union busting anti worker situation currently occuring in the offshore garment industry in that country. I have to ask MSN why it has been sucked in by Gildan and halted its information and pressure campaign for the rights of Gildan workers? Simply because the company has ameliorated the conditions of some of its workers at the expense of others? This seems to be the case.

"Excerpts from Batay Ouvriye News Bulletin No. 2, originally published in Creole circa September/October 2005

At the GILDAN factory in Tabarre, five workers were fired without reason. But on closer scrutiny, we note that these are the workers who played a role in fighting for the factory to pay transportation to and from the factory (which is actually stipulated in the Labor Code!). At first, Richard Coles, a close Aristide ally, was the main production responsible for Gildan in the country. But Coles lost the contract and Apaid is the one who came to play this role. Presently, several bourgeois in the assembly industry are producing for Gildan. All use the module production to exploit the workers, as described above, with repressive control embedded in the production structure itself… Gildan, however, is the most sadistic exploiter of the module production systems. That’s why struggle at Gildan is a concentration amongst others that has great importance presently.