Friday, March 23, 2007

Senate Security Report Attacks Workers


Since 1985 there has been no improvement in security at our airports or ports. Nor since 9/11 says the new security report from the Senate. However it's recommendations that all workers in airports and ports be screened has nothing to do with security and everything to do with concerns about organized crime. Hence the recommendations for increasing RCMP at airports and ports, and putting security under the Public Security Ministry.

Canada’s ports are “riddled with organized crime, and nobody seems to be doing much about it,” according to the all-party committee. It wants security clearances for all workers at Canada’s seaports.


In broad sweeping generalizations the report wants all workers searched coming to work. Though this will do little to stop organized thefts or smuggling, since that occurs on site and when workers leave. And part of the problem is also the increased use of privatized security companies

While all this sounds perfectly reasonable at first glance, it is much like the issue of drug testing in the workplace. And the result will be interesting when unions representing these workers challenge the government over this.

The other issue here is not just improved security, but a lack of staffing that is forcing workers in airports to work mandatory overtime, and a management that is authoritarian and abusive. Adding the RCMP to the mix will make the workplace even more volatile.

The Senate document containing 16 recommendations was released as CBC reported chaos during a labour dispute at Calgary airport caused a serious breach in security last December when a rushed airline manager let 30 pieces of luggage fly to Houston without the owners on board.

Internal documents CBC obtained under the Access to Information Act show that Transport Canada is investigating the incident, a direct violation of major international security rules Canada adopted after the 1985 Air India bombing, which killed 329 people.

Continental Airlines has since issued an apology for its mistake last December, but in a scathing letter to the government agency in charge of security, Garth Atkinson, president of Calgary's airport authority, called pre-flight screening out of Calgary “the absolute worst in Canada.”


See:

Anti-Terrorism Act

Spying

Statist Anti-Terrorism Act

Paranoia and the Security State

State Security Is A Secure State



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Thursday, March 22, 2007

Thick as a Brick.

This blog headline; 23% Of Canadians Are THICK reminded me of this;

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Which is one of the finest Concept Rock Opera's of the early seventies.

And considering it won platinum because of Canadian sales, I would say we are.


See:
Environment

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Libertarian Challenge of Canada's Prostitution Laws


All Libertarians both those of the Left and the Right should support this court challenge by Canadian Sex Workers. Of course the most outspoken support for these workers rights have come from the Left.

But even those on the right should recognize the fact that this is an impediment to self sufficiency and an attack on the right to run a business.

But our right wing Libertarians in Canada are simply Republicanadian conservatives. For a real individualist libertarian perspective check out Lady Aster

It is also an issue of public safety and crime prevention as the Picton case so horribly shows. These women would not have been forced to ply their trade on the streets and died at the hands of a serial killer if the Canadian laws had not forced them to.

Prostitutes launch constitutional challenge

A group of current and former prostitutes and an Osgoode Hall law professor joined forces yesterday to launch a constitutional challenge aimed at striking down three provisions of the Criminal Code dealing with the sex trade.

The challenge effectively amounts to a call for decriminalization.

"Some people may find this controversial," law professor Alan Young said at a news conference in Toronto yesterday, "I don't."

In the past, Prof. Young, well known in the Canadian legal community, has launched similar challenges to Canada's marijuana laws.

Currently, prostitution is not illegal. However, communicating for the purposes of prostitution is against the law. That's one of the three sections being challenged by Prof. Young and his supporters, who say the law keeps women from ensuring their clients aren't likely to harm them.

The team is also challenging the provisions on "bawdy houses" and living off the avails of prostitution, saying the two laws force prostitutes onto the street and keep them from hiring security and support staff in the same way other businesses do.

If for instance women and the men that work in this industry formed a business it would be subject to far more regulation, for their own safety, for their health, ending drug use, for age legality, and for eliminating pimps. And hey they would pay taxes. And of course the best form of business would be a worker owned and controlled cooperative and if the business was privately owned then the workers should have the right to unionize. As I wrote;

Sex Workers Union: Whether strippers, prostitutes, escorts, porn actors, etc. women workers in thus unregulated industry face the dual oppression of being exploited by owners and customers, and their banishment by society at large. The exploitation of children and young adults as well as immigrant women is allowed to exist due to this free market. Laws against prostitution need to be abolished and the regulation of this industry be under workers control through a sex workers union.


Sex workers have an alternative method of organizing as well. They could form a religious order, a tax free charity, the Order of Jezebel, and thus could provide religious rites by the members of the Order. After all this is the traditional meaning for 'get thee to a nunnery.' And they would not have to pay taxes!

Prostitution and Religion are historically co-joined, the temple prostitutes in the ancient pagan cultures, and later with the Christian Bishops of Bath running brothels in that fine city in the middle ages.

With a charitable brothel system, the Order could earn enough to pay for education and other skills thus limiting the time spent as a Sister or Brother allowing the members to move on to other professions without the usual social stigma.

According to Nelson's Bible Dictionary Corinth was ancient Greece's most important trade city. At Corinth the apostle Paul established a flourishing church made up of a cross section of the worldly minded people who had flocked to Corinth to participate in gambling, legalized temple prostitution, business adventures, and amusements available in this first century navy town. The city soon became a melting pot for the approximately 500,000 people who lived there at the time of Paul's arrival.

Merchants and sailors, anxious to work the docks, migrated to Corinth. Professional gamblers and athletes, betting on the Isthmian games, lived there. Homeless slaves, free or runaway, roamed the streets day and night. Prostitutes (both male and female) were abundant. All of the Mediterranean world relished the lack of standards and the freedom of thought that prevailed in the city. These were the people who eventually made up the Corinthian church. They had to learn how to live together in harmony, although their national, social, economic, and religious backgrounds were very different.

Near the city's market place were the butcher stalls or meat markets that Paul mentioned in 1 Corinthians 10:25. The meat was often dedicated to pagan idols before being sold. This presented a culturo-religious problem for the Christians in Corinth. Rising 1,500 feet above the city and to the south of the acropolis was a fortified hill upon which loomed the infamous Temple of Aphrodite or Venus. This pagan temple and its 1,000 temple prostitutes greatly influenced the city's culture and morals.

Prostitution
Prostitution was an active and profitable enterprise in the Middle Ages. Historians examining town records have found that most towns and cities had some sort of brothel, often an official one that was actually publicly owned, though this was more common on the continent than in England. Prostitutes, while an inevitable part of urban and town life, existed in a rigorously restricted space, both in a physical sense and in less tangible but no less noticeable ways. In most places, common women were only allowed to sell their "wares" on certain streets or in certain neighborhoods, and sumptuary laws (i.e., laws mandating that prostitutes should dress in a manner different from other women) were passed in order to make whores immediately distinguishable from respectable women.

So why did medieval women go into prostitution? Ruth Karras notes that while most medieval prostitutes were probably not coerced into their trade, becoming a prostitute wasn't any woman's childhood fantasy, either. As for the actual reason, Karras makes this observation:

Whereas for men prostitution sometimes substituted for marriage as a sexual outlet, for women it substituted for marriage as a means of financial support. It was difficult for a woman to support herself outside the conjugal unit . . . [f]or those who did not marry -- whether by choice or by circumstance -- options might be limited even under favorable economic conditions (Karras, 49).
Prostitution may have been the only acceptable way for some women to support themselves in the absence of a husband who would provide for them economically. Unfortunately, most prostitutes' reasons can only be guessed at due to a lack of records in this area. Historians must generally rely on court records that mention women accused of whoredom; very rarely do records detailing the workings of actual brothels still exist. Since the records in question seldom define what they mean by "whoredom" it can be difficult to figure out if the women in question were truly prostitutes (women whose services were generally available to all and sundry in exchange for a fee) or just a bit licentious (akin to Chaucer's Wife of Bath).

Contributing further to the confusion in England, at least, is that for most women in the trade, prostitution was not their sole occupation. When a woman's normal occupation didn't bring in enough money, she might turn to prostitution in order to make up the difference. Therefore, prostitution may have even been, for many women, a cyclical income source undertaken during whatever was the "off" season for their regular occupations (Karras, 54).

See

Sex Workers

Legalize & Unionize the Sex Trade

Feminizing the Proletariat

Sex Workers Want A Union

Marx on Bigamy

Whose Family Values?


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Progressive Bloggers Offline


The blog aggregtaor Progressive Bloggers has been off line for an hour now.

It appears the problem is now fixed.



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Men Smarter Than Women


Men fare better on IQ test - of CBC viewers, anyway

Well what do expect when the majority of contestants are men, the show is developed by men, the research is based on work by men and the show is based on male knowledge paradigms. The results are about as valid as those used by the fascist ideologue Phillip Rushton.

Parker and his team of colleagues drew lessons from other shows when writing the test. Since 2001, when the Netherlands aired the first Test the Nation, the format has been repeated in 40 countries.

Though the tests are all different and the categories varied, one interesting constant reappears in every show, Parker said.

"To date, men have slightly higher IQs than women. That's the only common pattern," he said.

In careful diplomatic language, Parker avoids drawing conclusions and explains the results this way: "Why is that? Maybe men are more competitive. Maybe it's more important to them and women don't take the test as seriously."

Canadian fellas scored about one point higher than women -- a minute difference, Parker pointed out. What's more, women underestimated their IQ while men overestimated themselves.


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Forward To the Past

The ADQ in Quebec admits that the state has a deficit and so in the tradition of Ralph Klein and Mike Harris their solution is....ADQ's Mario Dumont wants able-bodied welfare recipients to work




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Liberals Defeat Anti-Scab Law


Whether in government or as the Official Opposition the Liberals have once again shown their true colours. They defeated the Bill C-257 the Anti-Scab law.

Not the Conservative government, the Liberals. Who flip flopped, having promised to support the private members bill, Dion in the last two weeks changed his mind and said the party would not support the law.

Again the boys from Bay Street pull the strings of the Liberal party.

Progressives should remember this.

Since the Liberals have defeated Anti-Scab bills every time they have come before the house over the past 14 years.

For a breakdown on how they voted see Uncorrected Proofs.

Interesting side note that there is no press coverage of this at Google Canada Top Stories.

See;

Anti-Scab


Dion

Buzz

Gomperism

Liberals

Unions



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Taliban Dion

Well the pejorative "Taliban Jack", used by Blogging Tories against the NDP leader for the principled opposition he and the party has to the war in Afghanistan is now being used by Harper against Dion and the Liberals.


Mr. Speaker, the Minister of National Defence has provided a clear explanation to the House of Commons. As the member knows, this government was at the time operating under an agreement signed by the previous government. We have since entered into a new arrangement with the Independent Afghan Human Rights Commission.

I can understand the passion that the Leader of the Opposition and members of his party feel for Taliban prisoners. I just wish occasionally they would show the same passion for Canadian soldiers.



Of course truth is the first victim of war. In this case the principle of innocent until proven guilty is also abandoned. How does the government know these prisoners are Taliban, since they are Pashtun villagers arrested in the war zone?

Nor do they have any information about them since they handed them over to the Afghanistan government with no proper follow up procedures.

Top military officers off base on detainee file

Which was the whole point of the oppositions demand that the lying, incompetent Defense Minister resign.


And predictably the Blogging Tories are all cheering the PM's slander. The progressive blogosphere is all a buzz about the latest over the top comment from the PM. Why the surprise he is an autarch not a statesman.

See

O'Connor

Afghanistan



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Bye Joe, will Wappel Go?

Well Dion turfed Joe Commuzi out of caucus for simply announcing he is supporting the Conservative Budget. No great loss, he also stepped down as a Cabinet Minister when Paul Martin whipped the cabinet for the Same Sex Marriage vote. He is a member of the conservative rump of the Liberals.

Now what are the Liberals going to do about their other conservative backbencher Tom Wappel? He who voted with the government on Same Sex Marriage and more recently on the Anti-Terrorism Act;


In late February, Ontario MP Tom Wappel broke ranks and voted with the Conservative government on extending two clauses in the Anti-Terrorism Act. However, the Liberals never announced any punishment for Wappel. Dion called it an internal caucus matter.


Dion's weakness as a Leader is showing. Both these votes, the Budget and Anti-Terrorism Act were whipped votes. And he turfed Commuzi even before he actually voted whereas he did nothing after Wappel did vote with the government.

Wappel unrepentant for defying Dion on vote

Renegade Liberal will face unspecified “consequences” for defying Dion

But it seems that Dion only applies discipline to those who are not intending to run again, like Commuzi.

Of course consistency is the bugaboo of the Dion regime.


See

Dion

Liberals


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Barbara Amiel No Libertarian

Columnist and author Barbara Amiel calls herself an extreme libertarian. Other journalists call her a provocateur. Critics call her the "Iron Lady of Wapping." Whatever you call her, there's no denying that Amiel has cut a broad swathe through the newspaper business (and gossip columns) in two countries.

Unless one considers Marie Antoinette a libertarian. Amiel's politics are not libertarian but neo-aristocratic. Amiel believes she should have her cake and eat it too just like Marie. As for the peasants they can eat cake too. As she reminds us in defense of Polish House Frau Inc.; Martha Stewart;

If Stewart had been living in ordinary times, it is unlikely so marginal a case would have involved the FBI and the Department of Justice. But Revolution has been sweeping the boardrooms of corporate America and the Terror is well under way. Last Friday night, Stewart's head was being held up high by its golden locks on television screens across the nation.


The neo-aristocratic airs of Amiel belie just another Conservative housefrau. In defending fascist revisionist David Irving she said;

" I would not hire Hitler to paint my house if there were other housepainters around, but if Hitler had simply written Mein Kampf and was an anti-semite, I would not ban him as a housepainter."


And her opinion of corporate malfeasance is clearly aristocratic; how dare the lowly peasants, the investors have any say. Let them eat their cake too. After all they are just ammunition in the revolt of the new bourgeois class against old money.

The revolution that Eisner and American business face comes from the once-silent partner of American public companies - the minority and institutional shareholder. After the huge bankruptcies and frauds of Enron and WorldCom, US business cried out for improved corporate governance but also became vulnerable to attack. A "Newly Emboldened Investor Class", as the New York Times calls it, rose up from their spreadsheets. The money managers for mutual funds, pension funds and insurance companies led by a handful of shareholder activists were in revolt: they were no longer content to remain confined to the dreary routine of analysts' reports and computations. The business world's atmosphere of shame and suspicion gave them a justification and an entry point into the companies in which they had invested. Now they had a chance to act like owners and have a say in operational decisions. Heady stuff.


Is it any wonder that the Queen Bitch of Cross Harbour, she of the Almeda Marcos school of self indulgence is so upset that hubby is facing racketeering and fraud charges in the U.S. Her gold digger demands on hubby are the reason for his criminal misuse of public company funds. And it is clear her outburst the other day was because like Marie Antoinette she is experiencing the revenge of the investors and the dreaded new bourgeois, the little people are clamoring for justice not cake.

CHICAGO -- From the moment Jeffrey Cramer, the 41-year-old prosecutor, stood up and began his opening argument in the trial by saying "Ladies and gentlemen, you see in the courtroom before you four men who stole $60-million," you knew he was going to make the whole thing simple.

And clear. There was no mistaking that. The four sleek, young U.S. prosecutors on the right side of courtroom 1241 in the federal courthouse in downtown Chicago, where Conrad Black and three co-defendants are on trial for fraud and related boo-boos, are the representatives not just of justice, but of a new moral order. They are the new gods of governance. The light of right seemed to shine off them.



She of aristocratic pretensions is no libertarian, she is a throw back like her husband to the neo-aristocratic conservatism of Edwardian Canada.

Chrétien in particular was contemptible in Black's eyes. Black saw in Chrétien only an ignorant peasant with no class at all who stood in the way of Black's lordship. Like Citizen Kane, Black used his newspapers to blacken his opponent's reputation at every twist and turn. It was Black's National Post that created the Shawinigate scandal. The Black press ridiculed Chrétien's defence that he was acting as an MP in aid of a constituent.


When exposed in public for the political harridan she is, Lord Black, true to form, sues.


The embattled former owner of the Telegraph, Conrad Black, is suing for almost £5m in libel damages over a critical biography that depicts the fallen press baron as an overweight teenager from a loveless home who grows up to be a "criminal sociopath".

Lord Black has taken particular exception to the book's treatment of his wife. His lawsuit says it portrays her as "grasping, hectoring, slatternly, extravagant, shrill and a harridan", and a "Nazi apologist".

An Ottawa-based legal analyst, Stanley Kershman of Perley-Roberts, Hill & McDougall, said the lawsuit was typical of Lord Black: "He has done this throughout his career - suing people to keep them from saying things he doesn't like."

And like many of the new right liberals of the Post War era she dabbled in Trotskyism before turning to the right. And like all anti-Stalinist liberals, she mistook State Capitalism for Socialism.
When Black met Barbara Amiel it was like the sky opened up for both of them. Now Black had added true love to his repertoire. It was a real meeting of minds and bodies. The beautiful Amiel was as conservative as Black, as Ayn Randish, as Zionist, as rugged an individualist. And even better, she was a convert to Black's conservatism before she ever knew him.

When I first met Barbara Amiel she was a funny, quirky Jewish lady of the Trotskyite persuasion hanging around University College at the University of Toronto. At the time, she had a well-off boyfriend reputed to have connections to organized crime. He bought her cashmere sweaters and skirts by the dozen.

Then, ever so slowly, right before our very eyes, Amiel began her Road to Damascus. Freidrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom replaced Trotsky's Permanent Revolution. Soon Barbara was University College's number 1 conservative. Her conversion was accompanied by a nose bob and chest lift, which really made her look special.

But the marriage has been extremely successful. Lord and Lady Black are among the world's leading couples. Lord Black and his retinue of neo-cons, Kissinger and Richard Perle, have the ears of Tony Blair and George Bush any time they want.



See

Conrad Black

Criminal Capitalism


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