Red Tories Are Progressives

Should Progressives embrace Red Tories, I would say yes and this is why;

The party adopted the "Progressive Conservative" party name in 1942 when Manitoba Premier John Bracken, a long-time leader of that province's Progressive Party, agreed to become leader of the Conservatives on condition that the party add Progressive to its name. Despite the name change, most former Progressive supporters continued to support the Liberal Party or the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, and Bracken's leadership of the Conservative Party came to an end in 1948.

And because of this,

Joe Clark going log fishing in Ghana lake

VANCOUVER - Former prime minister Joe Clark is leading a company that has secured the rights to log vast quantities of lucrative African hardwoods from beneath the world's largest manmade lake. In a project that could save lives and inject some cash into an impoverished region, Clark and several partners have leveraged high-level political connections to open Ghana's waters to a project they see as an exemplar of socially responsible development.

Through Clark Sustainable Resource Developments Ltd., he and B.C. businessman Wayne Dunn are hoping to harvest thousands of hectares of tropical lumber submerged by the Lake Volta hydro reservoir.

Moreover, the trees, some of which form part of anold-growth tropical forest, were valuable. The wood could be worth from $400million to $2-billion, depending on the value and quantity of lumber CSRD is able to harvest.

But rather than rushing to develop the technology to raise the timber, Mr. Dunn and Mr. Clark set out to gain the rights to log the reservoir, which, as the world’s biggest, stood to attract the interest of other companies.

Mr. Dunn’s wife, Gifty SerbehDunn, comes from a well-known Ghanaian business family, while Mr. Clark has attained a significant profile in Africa thanks to his work monitoring and establishing elections in countries like Cameroonan d the Democratic Republic of Congo.

They met several times with Ghanaian President John Kufuor and soon obtained exclusive access to the entire lake beginning this September. They also negotiated exclusive access to 350,000 hectares — or 40% of the lake — for the next 15 years, with a 10year renewal option.

A Hidden Harvest

A few years ago, Wayne Dunn approached Joe Clark about buried treasure in Ghana: hardwood trees, worth millions, submerged in Lake Volta. "I promised Joe my plan wouldn't involve he and I in snorkels and flippers, carrying chainsaws into the water," laughs Dunn, a B.C.-based businessman.

At the time, the former prime minister was still in the House of Commons. But after trying in vain to resuscitate the Progressive Conservative party and watching it merge with the Canadian Alliance over his objections, he was ready to leave politics for good in 2004. After stepping down, he became heavily involved in election observation work in Africa and then, in October 2005, at age 66, he founded Clark Sustainable Resource Developments, with Dunn as president and CEO.

By last spring, after five visits with local officials, Clark had hammered out a deal with Ghana's government and the Volta River Authority, which controls the man-made lake that spans 8,515 sq. km. And now, having secured some start-up cash from Goldman Sachs and several other large investors last week, Clark and Co. plan to start cutting and dragging trees to shore later this year. The Mill Bay, B.C.-based company is having equipment from the oil and gas industry adapted to harvest the 80 tree species in Lake Volta's underwater forest -- including mahogany, odum and ebony -- some as tall as 100 feet and 10 feet in circumference, rooted 170 feet below the surface. After 40 years underwater, all that hardwood has been preserved from the deteriorating effects of air and insects.

Aside from the potentially massive cash windfall, the African government also wants the trees removed for safety since Lake Volta is a high-traffic transport route and dozens die every year when their boats hit trees just below the surface. (If CSRD is successful in Ghana, similar opportunities await in South America, Asia and other parts of Africa.)

And because of this; which some Progressive Bloggers agree with:

Harper government comes under fire from former PM Joe Clark

“The Harper government has embraced a pre-Nixonian policy towards China, deliberately distancing Canada from the emerging mega-power, thereby limiting our ability to affect China’s performance on human rights or on other issues,” Clark said.

“With the Harper government, there is a new, more deliberate insularity [in foreign policy] with the singular exception of our military engagement in Afghanistan,” Clark said. “I believe that Mr Harper and his colleagues are moving deliberately away from central elements of the foreign policy that has been a key strength for Canada under both Progressive Conservative and Liberal administrations.

“Mr Harper’s party, [formerly] known as the Reform Party, began self-consciously as a protest movement and it has no inherited tradition in international affairs … moreover, their method is wedge politics, so there is scant domestic experience with brokering and embracing contesting points of view,” Clark added. “These significant departures from Canada’s traditional foreign policy should not be considered as rookie mistakes, but as deliberate policy.”

See

PC=Liberals

No Room for Red Tories

You Tell 'em Danny Boy

Happy Canada Day/Jour heureux du Canada

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Harper, Canada, Progressive Conservatives, Joe Clark, Red Tories, PM, politics

Marx For Beginners

An excellent short precise definition of the Labour Theory of Value; The Heritage Foundation and Karl Marx


Also see Paulitics Marxist Dictionary


And my articles:

Radical Capitalists Not So Radical

The End Of The Leisure Society

Variable Labour=Variable Captial

Suplus Value

Labour Produces All Wealth

Libertarian Labour

Peter Drucker RIP

It's the Labour Theory of Value, stupid

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workers, variable costs, labour, labor, Marx, variable capital, labour theory of value, social-factory, proletariat, capital, capitalism, profit, working conditions, service workers

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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Air, India,, John, Marshall,, RCMP,, CSIS,, Sikh,

Thick as a Brick.

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




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

Test-osterone makes the grade

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.

Right Hon. Stephen Harper (Prime Minister, CPC):

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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