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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Canadian Election
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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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Canada Censors Cartoons

While everyone is getting on their high horse about censorship and freedom of speech over the issue of the Danish Cartoons, and I plead guilty, lets look at the fact that in Canada in the Criminal Code cartoons are banned as well. Yep. In particular Crime Comics. By name.

Now these are particular comics that existed during the forties and fifties and were published without the censors seal of the Comics Code Authority on them. They were lurid graphic comics about crime.

Prior to the CCA most crime comics were just as lurid and usually depicted cops being killed by bad guys. The CCA then banned that kind of depiciton . But some comics like the EC series run by Mad Magazine of horror, science fiction and crime comics refused to be censored.

While the comic industry in the U.S. engaged in self censorship the Grundy's in Canada made the publication of crime comics illegal. And they still are. So are horror comics. And sex comics. And horror sex comics. Yet we see them in most comic stores.

So whatcha gonna do about it. This law is so out of date its like one of the mangled corpses that comes back to life in an EC comic.



Offences Tending to Corrupt Morals

Corrupting morals


163. (1) Every one commits an offence who

(b) makes, prints, publishes, distributes, sells or has in his possession for the purpose of publication, distribution or circulation a crime comic.

Definition of “crime comic”

(7) In this section, “crime comic” means a magazine, periodical or book that exclusively or substantially comprises matter depicting pictorially

(a) the commission of crimes, real or fictitious; or

(b) events connected with the commission of crimes, real or fictitious, whether occurring before or after the commission of the crime.

The Dark Age of the Justice Society of America

All-Star Comics #57 not only marked the end of the original run of the Justice Society of America, for many it marks the end of the Golden Age. Many would end the Golden Age with World War II, others at some point in the late Forties, but, regardless, it was quite clearly the end of an era. After all, the Justice Society of America had been one of the last remaining superhero titles from the Golden Age. In the early Fifties the comic book industry would be dominated by other genres. Science fiction, horror, western, and romance comic books could be found on newstands everywhere. Perhaps the two most popular genres at the time were crime and horror. Lev Gleason' Crime Does Not Pay had debuted in 1942 and proven to be a great success. In the late Forties several other companies followed Gleason's lead and produced their own crime comic books. Horror comics appeared on the scene in the late Forties. Among the most popular titles in the genre were those published by E. C. Comics, a relative latecomer to the field. Tales from the Crypt, The Haunt of Fear, and The Vault of Horror were among the best sellers in the industry. Indeed, they would become classics in the medium, inspiring not only a generation of young comic book artists and writers, but novelists and film makers as well.

It seemed that the day of the superhero was past. In 1954 Atlas Comics (formerly Timely Comics) tried to revive their superhero line. Unfortunately their revivals of Captain America, The Human Torch, and The Sub-Mariner failed--Sub-Mariner Comics lasted the longest, at nine issues. Charlton Comics' attempt to revive Fox Feature Syndicate's flagship superhero, the Blue Beetle, in the pages of Space Adventures also met with failure. Superheroes were passé or so it seemed.

Unfortunately for the comic book industry, it might have been better had they stood by the superheroes of old. Since 1947 comic books had been increasingly coming under attack in newspaper editorials and magazine articles. Many people believed that they had a deleterious effect on youth and some even believed that they led to juvenile delinquency. As hard as it is to believe today, some areas even held comic book burnings. Foremost among the industry's critics was Dr. Frederic Wertham, a noted author and at one time the senior psychiatrist at Belleview. Beginning in the Forties Wertham wrote several articles attacking comic books and in 1954 published a book on the subject, Seduction of the Innocent.

Contrary to popular belief, Wertham's primary target was not the horror comic books of the era. Dr. Wertham was much more concerned about crime comic books, although he included a large number of genres under the heading of "crime (including science fiction and horror)." Nor did he single out E. C. Comics in his attacks, though they were one of his favourite targets. In fact, the company whose comic books Wertham cited most often in his works was Fox Features Syndicate, the notorious publisher of sensationalistic and often graphic crime and jungle comic books (who, ironically, had gone out of business in 1950).

Regardless, neither Wertham's articles nor his book, Seduction of the Innocent, were hardly based on sound scientific principles. His conclusions were based primarily on his work with juvenile delinquents and contained no empirical evidence of comic books' effects on normal children. Seduction of the Innocent, in particular, is filled with a priori assumptions, conclusions based on guilt by association, and interpreting material out of context. Despite the fact that Seduction of the Innocent offered no real evidence for the harmful effects comic books supposedly had on children, the book severely damaged the industry. What had once been mere public outcry against violence in comic books soon became all out war against the comic book industry. The United States Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, headed by Estes Kefauver, would even investigate comic books to see if there was a link between them and juvenile delinquency.

The Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency regarding comic books ended inconclusively and, contrary to what many believe now, there appears to have been no real threat of government intervention in the comic book industry. Even in the absence of government intervention, however, the comic book industry perceived its existence as being threatened. In October 1954 several major publishers joined together to create the Comics Code Authority. The publishers referred to the Comics Code as "the most stringent code in existence for any communications media (sic)." With the Comics Code in effect, most comic books became very squeaky clean affairs, with an absolute minimum of violence and absolutely no sex (not that there ever had been any to begin with). Perhaps as a result, comic book sales plummeted to all time lows.

Another EC classic from artist Johnny Craig. This controversial cover holds a special place in the history of the formation of the Comics Code. I've borrowed the following commentary from Richard Wolfe's excellent crime comic cover website- Crimeboss

[This cover] wins the contest for "most notorious cover illustration" hands down. When the Senate Committe of the Judiciary to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency began hearings in New York City in 1954, this particular cover caught the eye of Senator Estes Kefauver. William Gaines, the publisher of E.C. Comics, was put in the awkward position of having to defend the cover:

"Here is your May issue. This seems to be a man with a bloody axe holding a woman's head up, which has been severed from her body. Do you think that's in good taste?" asked Kefauver.
"Yes, sir, I do...for the cover of a horror comic. A cover in bad taste, for example, might be defined as holding the head a little higher so that blood could be seen dripping from it, and moving the body over a little further so that the neck of the body could be seen to be bloody," replied Gaines.
"You've got blood coming out of her mouth."
"A little."

By the end of the day, William Gaines had achieved nationwide notoriety and crime comics had been pronounced guilty of corrupting the youth of America.

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Seal Hunt Protest Cancelled

This years annual Anti-Canada protest has been called off.

Storm kills hundreds of baby seals in NS
Toronto Star - 2 Feb 2006
PICTOU - Hundreds of baby seals were washed out to sea and drowned by surging waves propelled by a major blizzard yesterday. Fisheries officials believe that 75 per cent of the estimated 3,000 grey seal ...
Storm waves drown hundreds of seal pups Globe and Mail
Baby seals killed in storm surge Calgary Sun
ABC News - Los Angeles Times - Globe and Mail - all 24 related »

The annual orgy of Anti-Canada, Anti-Newfoundland,Anti-Seal Hunt protest has ended before it could start. The Green NGO's behind the protests have no choice but to halt their annual fundraiser. Green Opportunism: The Anti-Sealing Lobby
Several have complained that they will have to cut staff, and reduce operational costs and campaigns since their lucrative Anti-Seal Hunt fundraising campaign has been cut shot by Mother Nature. Which means Bridgette Bardot won't be visiting either.Beauty and the Beast



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The Asian Tribune on Harper

The progressive left news service Asian Tribune ran this interesting article on Harper in todays online edition, by John Chuckman. Not an article one will likely find in the MSM in Canada. And who is John Chuckman?

John Chuckman is a retired Chief Economist for Texaco Canada. He is a prolific writer and his articles can be found on websites such as, YellowTimes, CounterPunch, SmirkingChimp, Asian Tribune, and Democrats with Spine. He submitted this article for "Asian Tribune"

What did Stephen Harper actually win?
By John Chuckman
There has been a lot of noise about the victory of Stephen Harper, leader of Canada’s new Conservative party, but just what did he win?

Harper simply will not be in a position to change any of the major social policies most hated in heavily American-influenced Alberta. Even if Harper were in a better position to try, Canada’s enlightened courts stand ready to strike down any poorly-conceived legislation. In some cases, notably that of gay marriage, it was the courts themselves that brought important human-rights issues to the point where legislation was required.

The new Conservatives did pick up their first seats in Quebec, but despite Quebec's reputation as a progressive society, we should not forget that it was not all that long ago a base for social credit, that strange amalgam of conservatism, rural values, and financial mysticism. The Bloc Quebecois stretched hard to sweep the province over Liberal scandal but only succeeded in sounding tired as well as highlighting its disingenuousness over the connection between it and separatism. Who else was there to turn to? The NDP is viewed as a boring troop of Anglo Boy Scouts in Quebec.

Canada already is a more de-centralized society, dangerously so in some aspects. The informal coalition of a Quebec separatist party and the implicitly separatist sentiments of Harper’s Alberta crowd is a risky combination for the nation's future health and stability. This is exactly the path by which Quebec separatism is truly dangerous: federal politicians making gradual cozy arrangements which weaken the bonds of national identity. Any referendum on separation with a clear question, under prevailing arrangements in Canada, cannot produce a majority in Quebec, much less a convincing majority. The Bloc's behavior and results in this election, even at a time of heightened resentment over past federal Liberal behavior, demonstrates this forcefully, as do endless polls over many years, and as does the last referendum with its impossibly-ambiguous and complex question. Even were it possible to imagine a referendum producing a yes, the years of detailed negotiation over assets and liabilities required to sort out a fair divorce would soon exhaust the momentum for change.

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Kinsella's Silence

Le Afffaire Dingwall and Warren Kinsella has nothing to say. Nada. Zip. nothing. My how unusual unless we remember this: Kinsella worked for Dingwall at Public Works, and together they seem to have selected Chuck Guite, the man for AdScam. Thanks for the reminder CIVITATENSIS.

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Dingwalls Constructive Dismissal

Question Period on CTV today was wall to wall le affaire Dingwall. And at only one point as everyone argued if he was fired or if he quit, and who lied, and why the Liberals did not release the arbitrators report on January 20 (did they supress it because of the election?) did anyone of all the MP's and pundits get it. Jay Hill the Conservative MP and past Conservative House leader said these two little words; "constructive dismissal''. Bingo!

Neither Dingwall nor the PM nor his cabinet ministers lied. Dingwall did indeed resign. He was not fired by the government. However under common law juridsprudence in Canada the arbitrator, as a judge would have probably ruled had Dingwall sued, more than likely made their ruling that indeed the forced retirement of Dingwall was in fact constructive dismissal and thus a firing by any other name.

And as I said before if the Conservatives overturn his severance he will have good grounds to expect a judicial ruling in his favour due to the arbitration finding, which will carry significant weight with a Judge as it is a common law matter.

In Canada unions and employers are bound not by common law but by labour law, a beast of a different nature. Rulings that are made in courts of law based on common law are available to non-union workers.

One of the most powerful is constructive dismissal, which allows a person to quit or leave their job on the premise that they are going to be fired, in effect the work place has been made so uncomfortable for them, a poisioned workplace, that though they leave voluntarily they are in effect being fired.

Constructive dismissal

Under the employment law of some states, judges will consider a situation where there has been a fundamental violation of the rights of an employee, by the employer, so severe that the employee would have the right to consider himself as dismissed, even though, in fact, there has been no act of dismissal on the part of the employer. For example, if an employer tries to force an employee to accept a drastic demotion, the employee might have a case for constructive dismissal and would be able to assume that the employment contract has been ended and seek compensation from a court.

As Barry Chivers a noted Edmonton labour lawyer in a presentation on constructive dismissal I attended a number of years ago pointed out, this is a more powerful arguement in common law than most arbitration rulings avialable under labour law in Canada.

In fact the whole point of his presentation was that non-unionized workers and managers are able to avail themselves of a much more powerful weapon in the courts against employers, than unionized workers are, with the judgements around constructive dismissal. Which is why you will find your local government whether muncipal, provincial or federal settling out of court when they dismiss non-union or contract management staff. And just as in those case the gnashing of theeth and howling of the press will do nothing to reduce the severance payments made regardless of how high they are.

I hope this clears up the misconceptions and misrepresentations of my original post Dingwall Wins Entitlement made by The Third Edge of the Sword

Dingwall handed a mint
$417,780 severance awarded to ex-MP, Crown Corp. boss
By STEPHEN MAHER Ottawa Bureau

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