In the interview, Bieber also weighs in on the U.S. health care system.
"You guys are evil," he says. "Canada's the best country in the world. We go to the doctor and we don't need to worry about paying him, but here, your whole life, you're broke because of medical bills. My bodyguard's baby was premature, and now he has to pay for it. In Canada, if your baby's premature, he stays in the hospital as long as he needs to, and then you go home."
Thursday, February 17, 2011
America The Great Satan
Says Canadian Teen Idol Justin Bieber..... pop culture mullah....waiting for Fox News to comment.....
Yep socialized medicine works......single payer, government delivered, doctors on salary.
Old News
When I saw this on CBC news on Monday:
I had a moment of Deja vu....
and well it turns out that in their effort to go green, the CBC is recycling old news in new bottles.....
Mind you this is scary....
Dangerous bacteria found on mall food trays
I had a moment of Deja vu....and well it turns out that in their effort to go green, the CBC is recycling old news in new bottles.....
Wed Mar 10, 2010Call it germophobia news created by pandemic media outbreaks. But thanks to all that pandemic panic a simple solution to cleaning a tray, is to grab one of those ubiquitous ever present disinfectant wipes and give the tray a good wiping. And then do it again with a second cloth.Which Has More Germs - A Restaurant Tray or a Park Sandbox ...
September 15, 2009Back to School: Toilet Seats are Cleaner Than Cafeteria Trays!
Schools can be a hotbed of bacteria 10/03/06 | abc7chicago.com
October 5, 2005Where Germs Lurk in Grade School
September 16, 2005Millions of Germs and Bacteria Await Kids at School : Food Poison ...
* A cafeteria tray had more than ten times as many germs as a toilet seat (33,800 bacterial cells per square inch vs. 3,200 bacterial cells per square inch).
Mind you this is scary....
"We saw as many bacteria on some food trays as we saw on a toilet," said Hancock.
Swabs were taken from a gas station toilet for comparison and lab technicians did find similar types and amounts of pathogens.
Odaesque
Some speculate Mr. Harper’s protection of Ms. Oda, however characteristic of his government, may be compounded by another factor: The opposition alleges the decision to modify the memo originated in the Prime Minister’s Office.
Or maybe they sunglasses are a surrogate for her need for a smoke while refusing to answer questions from the opposition or reporters......
See
Status of Women
Bev Oda
Tory Cuts
Sunday, February 13, 2011
When will BP be Charged In Workers Deaths
I have been face book posting a number of stories about BP. Since the Supreme Court of the United States not only reconfirmed that Corporations were Persons, which was first recognized in the late 1890's, but extended their rights within the political arena, then as persons, they should face the consequences of their actions.
Which is to be charged with murder since they were criminally negligent when it came to safety.The result 26 deaths over five years. But because they were 'workplace incidents' the resulting deaths of real persons, because they are workers, is not considered equivalent to murder.
The facts as shown in this Fortune article say otherwise, this was no accident it was an accident waiting to happen.
Which is to be charged with murder since they were criminally negligent when it came to safety.The result 26 deaths over five years. But because they were 'workplace incidents' the resulting deaths of real persons, because they are workers, is not considered equivalent to murder.
“It’s an unfortunate fact that monetary penalties just aren’t enough. We believe that nothing focuses the mind like the threat of doing time in prison, which is why we need criminal penalties for employers who are determined to gamble with their workers’ lives and consider it merely a cost of doing business when a worker dies on the job.”
- Dr. David Michaels, Assistant Secretary of Labor (OSHA)
The facts as shown in this Fortune article say otherwise, this was no accident it was an accident waiting to happen.
In the decade before the Deepwater Horizon, BP (BP) had a history of serious accidents. Each time its CEO vowed to avoid a future disaster. In 2000, after a string of fires and equipment failures, CEO John Browne announced plans to "renew our commitment to safety." In 2005, after a horrific explosion killed 15 people at BP's Texas City refinery, he swore there'd be "no stone left unturned" to investigate what happened and correct any safety issues. In 2007, after being named Browne's successor in the aftermath of more problems, Tony Hayward promised to focus "like a laser" on safety -- only to oversee the worst oil spill in history.
Fortune's investigation shows how Hayward, a fast-rising geologist once known as "Teflon Tony," fell tragically short of his goal. Despite efforts to change, BP never corrected the underlying weakness in its safety approach, which allowed earlier calamities, such as the Texas City refinery explosion. Perhaps the most crucial culprit: an emphasis on personal safety (such as reducing slips and falls) rather than process safety (avoiding a deadly explosion). That might seem like a semantic distinction at first glance, but it had profound consequences.
Consider this: BP had strict guidelines barring employees from carrying a cup of coffee without a lid -- but no standard procedure for how to conduct a "negative-pressure test," a critical last step in avoiding a well blowout. If done properly, that test might have saved the Deepwater Horizon.
Indeed, BP executives warned of serious process-safety "gaps" in the Gulf of Mexico, Fortune has learned, in a never-before-reported strategy document dated December 2008. "It's become apparent," the BP document stated, "that process-safety major hazards and risks are not fully understood by engineering or line operating personnel. Insufficient awareness is leading to missed signals that precede incidents and response after incidents, both of which increases the potential for and severity of process-safety related incidents." The document called for stronger "major hazard awareness."
But BP failed. "They just did safety wrong," says Nancy Leveson, an industrial safety expert at MIT who served on a panel that investigated BP's safety practices after its refinery explosion; she has since taught safety classes to BP executives and also advised the presidential panel that investigated the Deepwater Horizon disaster. "They were producing a lot of standards," she says, "but many were not very good, and many were irrelevant." Leveson says that she was so troubled by BP's approach that in January 2010 she told colleagues, "They are an accident waiting to happen."
Sunday, February 06, 2011
Canada Funds Private Armies in Afghanistan
Well once again it takes an American study to tell Canadians what the Harpocrites don't want us to know about their War in Afghanistan.
Canada spent more than $41 million on hired guns in Afghanistan over four years, much of it going to security companies slammed by the U.S. Senate for having warlords on the payroll.Both the Defence and Foreign Affairs departments have employed 11 security contractors in Kabul and Kandahar since 2006, but have kept quiet about the details.
Now documents tabled in Parliament at the request of the New Democrats provide the first comprehensive picture of the use of private contractors, which have been accused of adding to the chaos in Afghanistan.
The records show Foreign Affairs paid nearly $8 million to ArmorGroup Securities Ltd., recently cited in a U.S. Senate investigation as relying on Afghan warlords who in 2007 were engaged in "murder, kidnapping, bribery and anti-Coalition activities."
Canadian Business Not Productive
Despite the tax cuts given to corporations by both the Liberals and Conservative governments, it has not translated into increased productivity, that is both technological innovation and job growth. So the Harpocrites latest national tour promoting Job Creation Through Corporate Tax Cuts, is all a dog and pony show, the facts don't meet the rhetoric. For five years tax cuts have not resulted in increased RD investment by corporations nor investment in technology upgrades, and of course few new jobs.
But hey if you don't believe me how about these guys:
In fact continued tax breaks federally and provincially to Big Oil has had a negative impact on jobs in Canada.
But hey if you don't believe me how about these guys:
Canada has made major public investments in research, primarily through universities, but private-sector innovation has remained relatively weak. The OECD ranks Canada as 16th in business spending on R&D as a share of the economy, despite having the second-highest level of government support for such investment. The overall policy and economic environment has become much more encouraging over the past decade. The marginal tax rate on new business investment has dropped sharply, making Canada more attractive internationally and opening a significant tax advantage over the United States.
Thomas d’Aquino and David Stewart-Patterson are the former chief executive and president and executive vice-president of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and co-authors of the book Northern Edge: How Canadians Can Triumph in the Global Economy. Read more: http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/01/25/unleashing-innovation/#ixzz1DCwwrEmV
In fact continued tax breaks federally and provincially to Big Oil has had a negative impact on jobs in Canada.
A 2009 Industry Canada report found that 54 per cent of Canada's loss of hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs since 2002 is due to the oil sands boom replacing good, stable employment with short-term construction work in the tar sands and low-wage service sector jobs elsewhere in the economy. Canada has lost one-third of its post-war gains in value-added (manufactured) exports since 1999/2000, Canadian Auto Workers senior economist Jim Stanford told the Institute for Competiveness and Productivity in 2008.
The problem is not worker productivity, since workers in Canada are highly productive, its investment in actual technology.
The Canadian manufacturing sector employed more than 2.3 million people in 2002. By last September, manufacturers had shed some 580,000 jobs - more than one in four – and most of these losses occurred before the recession. There are few signs that this trend will reverse itself soon.
the fall in manufacturing employment was largely due to attrition, not layoffs. And one of the surprises of the recession is that manufacturing unemployment is now lower than it was before the recession – although this result was largely achieved by workers leaving the sector altogether.But it’s a puzzle nonetheless: output per worker in the manufacturing sector has been increasing more than three times as fast as the economy as a whole. If productivity growth is the key to sustained prosperity, then shouldn’t manufacturing be increasing in importance?
Tax cuts have not created jobs, since corporations have used the break to accumulate capital which if invested at all is invested in the stock market and in mergers and acquisitions, not in workers wages, technology or pensions.
Corporations in this country are flush with cash and ready to grow.
"In some ways, corporate Canada has never been stronger than it is right now," Tal said.
"Better-than-expected profitability and a reluctance to spend in recent years has left Canadian businesses sitting on a record amount of cash and confident about the future.”
Swift and strategic downsizing during the recent recession paid off, Tal said. It allowed companies to withstand the downturn and ramp up hiring at a much faster clip than in the U.S.
In fact both private corporations and ironically our public pension fund the CPP have led the way in taking that capital and investing it abroad.
So rather than calling corporate tax cuts job creators, we should call a spade a spade; all that tax cuts do is reduce government revenue, social capital, while giving corporations more capital. Tax cuts are public funding of private profits, without having shareholder benefits. Tax cuts are corporate welfare.Foreign investment is a two-way street.
The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Onex took top honours for the biggest global private equity acquisition of the year with their $4.4-billion purchase of U.K. manufacturing giant Tomkins.
PricewaterhouseCoopers suspects Canadian companies will continue look past North America to emerging markets for better deals.
Last year, Canadians made major “buys” in nearly every continent with deals in the fourth quarter alone stretching to the Middle East, Asia and Africa.
“These transformational deals are beacons for what will become the norm for Canadian deal making going forward,” Knibutat said.
Joint ventures and minority purchases will also become more popular, it said. These deals allow companies to test drive sectors while minimizing financial and political risk, PricewaterhouseCoopers said.
“Organic growth prospects within North America remain limited, so for many well capitalized corporates and funds, M&A may be the best and only tool for growth,” Knibutat said.
A “perfect storm” of companies flush with cash, improved access to financing and lacklustre organic growth prospects means the M&A outlook is even brighter for Canada in 2011.
Global public companies have an estimated $3 trillion in cash reserves. Private equity firms hold another $500 billion.
Competitive tensions stemming from strong takeover demands are likely to entice sellers back in the market and that should create a more balanced number of buyers and sellers, PricewaterhouseCoopers said.
All this means Canada will likely continue to outpace the globe when it comes to M&A activity, buoyed by a well-capitalized financial system, strong dollar and leadership in hot deal sectors.
A broad look at how corporate tax rates have changed Canada in the past suggests the impact of the small cuts planned for this year and next is marginal for most companies.
The larger impact is on the government's bottom line, not the corporate bottom line — even though corporate taxes have now become key in determining whether there will be a spring election.
Indeed, federal Finance Department documents show that the reduction of corporate income tax — from 18 per cent in 2010 to 16.5 per cent in 2011 and then to 15 per cent in 2012 — will be expensive for any government battling a deficit. The cost is about $1.6 billion in foregone revenue in the 2011-2012 fiscal year, $3.9 billion the year after, and a total of more than $10 billion over three years.
Quit Your Tweeting Over UBB Challenge the Teleco Monopolies
While thousands of Canadians blogged, tweeted and set up internet petitions about the CRTC's User Based Billing (UBB) decision this week, methinks they protest too much, or at least have missed the real issue. As Michael Geist points out; The widespread use of bandwidth caps in Canada is a function of a highly concentrated market where a handful of ISPs control so much of the market.
The fact is that the Canadian marketplace is dominated by oligopolies; the big Telco's and Cable operators. They already overcharge us for cell phone use as well as internet access. You are already getting gouged even before the CRTC ruling!
The fact is that the Canadian marketplace is dominated by oligopolies; the big Telco's and Cable operators. They already overcharge us for cell phone use as well as internet access. You are already getting gouged even before the CRTC ruling!
Canada’s largest telecoms don’t want to say how much it costs to deliver a gigabyte of bandwidth and have refused to disclose such data, arguing that information is both proprietary and competitively sensitive. They also argue that it’s difficult to calculate the specific cost of delivering bandwidth since the cost varies based on the technology being used, the user’s location and the time of day.
No Cops No Violence Egyptian Self Organization
When you line up rows and rows of riot cops, they have to have something to do. So when you have cops at demonstrations you inevitably have violence. Whether it was the recent G8 G20 meetings in Toronto or last Fridays rally in Liberation Square in Egypt, riot cops present attacked the protesters.
But once the Egyptian security forces were routed and forced off the streets of Cairo, and these are not merely riot cops, they are Gestapo like security forces, rather than violence and chaos, contrary to the media headlines, something new occurred. The demonstrations were peaceful, self organized.
A carnival atmosphere was reported until last Wednesday when these same cops, plus the criminals they let out of prison to intimidate the Egyptian masses, led pro government attacks on the demonstrators. By Friday the carnival atmosphere in Liberation square returned.
People are engaging in Potlach and Potluck, bringing food, drinks, blankets, medical supplies to share with their neighbours in Liberation square.In Liberation square the people have set up hospitals, latrines, and they clean up after themselves.
When the police left the neighbourhoods open to the criminals and thugs they released from prison, Egyptians organized neighbourhood self defense committees. The media call these vigilantes, but they are not, they are classic forms of anarchist self organization. Neighbours old, young, men, women, Christian, Muslim, have met each other and helped each other.
This is Anarchy in its truest form. The people organizing themselves, without the need of leaders. And there is no violence, the only violence comes from the State, trying desperately to hold on to power. The state needs chaos, it thrives on it, in order to justify the need for police.
But without the State or the police the people organize themselves for themselves.Just as the revolutionary proletariat in Spain did in the Thirties and the Russian people did in 1917.
If CNN and the internet had existed in 1917 the early days of the Russian Revolution or in Spain in 1936 the beginning of those revolutions would have looked like Cairo.
But once the Egyptian security forces were routed and forced off the streets of Cairo, and these are not merely riot cops, they are Gestapo like security forces, rather than violence and chaos, contrary to the media headlines, something new occurred. The demonstrations were peaceful, self organized.
A carnival atmosphere was reported until last Wednesday when these same cops, plus the criminals they let out of prison to intimidate the Egyptian masses, led pro government attacks on the demonstrators. By Friday the carnival atmosphere in Liberation square returned.
People are engaging in Potlach and Potluck, bringing food, drinks, blankets, medical supplies to share with their neighbours in Liberation square.In Liberation square the people have set up hospitals, latrines, and they clean up after themselves.
When the police left the neighbourhoods open to the criminals and thugs they released from prison, Egyptians organized neighbourhood self defense committees. The media call these vigilantes, but they are not, they are classic forms of anarchist self organization. Neighbours old, young, men, women, Christian, Muslim, have met each other and helped each other.
This is Anarchy in its truest form. The people organizing themselves, without the need of leaders. And there is no violence, the only violence comes from the State, trying desperately to hold on to power. The state needs chaos, it thrives on it, in order to justify the need for police.
But without the State or the police the people organize themselves for themselves.Just as the revolutionary proletariat in Spain did in the Thirties and the Russian people did in 1917.
If CNN and the internet had existed in 1917 the early days of the Russian Revolution or in Spain in 1936 the beginning of those revolutions would have looked like Cairo.
The New Proletariat and the Coming Revolution
While students protested government increases in tuition and cuts to Education in Britain, the youth revolt has spread to the Middle East. The proletariat is no longer just blue collar, white collar or pink collar workers, it includes the mass of unemployed and underemployed educated youth who have embraced the calls to freedom to lead the seismic shift that is occurring around the world and in Egypt and the Middle East in Particular.
I have been saying for years on this blog that two groups not often considered part of the classic definition of the proletariat, but in fact are, are women and youth.
Now we see with the revolt in Tunisia and now Egypt that unemployment and rising food prices have brought out both women and youth to demonstrate against the dictators who run their countries. In Europe and North America young people face democratic governments but the same crisis of capitalism, where the governments are now demanding austerity measures, cuts to public services, to pay for bailing out the capitalist corporations and banks.
In Canada the youth unemployment rate is double the national average, and it is increasing not decreasing. The annual unemployment rate for youth in Canada is 14%.
And while more women are in the workforce than ever before they are older, not younger women.
"In most Arab countries, a majority of the population is under 30, and unemployment rates are exceptionally high for young workers, who are the most likely to rebel," economist Chris Lafakis of Moody's Analytics said in a report today, as masses gathered in Cairo's Liberation Square and Jordan's King Abdullah sacked the government amid mounting street protests. "In Egypt and Saudi Arabia, almost 90 per cent of unemployed workers are under 30," Mr. Lafakis said. "As evidence of the risk of revolution contagion, Syria's president has already signaled that he will push for more political reforms. The events in Egypt could also spark unrest in Sudan, a politically unstable country where demonstrations are already occurring and citizens have voted to partition the country."
I have been saying for years on this blog that two groups not often considered part of the classic definition of the proletariat, but in fact are, are women and youth.
Now we see with the revolt in Tunisia and now Egypt that unemployment and rising food prices have brought out both women and youth to demonstrate against the dictators who run their countries. In Europe and North America young people face democratic governments but the same crisis of capitalism, where the governments are now demanding austerity measures, cuts to public services, to pay for bailing out the capitalist corporations and banks.
'From sacking lollipop ladies and closing youth clubs to axing college grants and trebling tuition fees, this is a government at war with our young people and therefore at war with our future. It is betraying an entire generation,' said general secretary of the (British) University and College Union, Sally Hunt.
In Canada the youth unemployment rate is double the national average, and it is increasing not decreasing. The annual unemployment rate for youth in Canada is 14%.
And while more women are in the workforce than ever before they are older, not younger women.
Employment among women aged 25 and over increased in January (+55,000), with gains for both the 25 to 54 and 55 and over age groups.Over the past 12 months, however, employment growth for women was concentrated among those aged 55 and over.In the U.S. it is even higher and adds to further high unemployment stats amongst blacks and Hispanics.
Youth unemployment rates in all categories is an average of 18% in the United States, approaching Egyptian and Tunisian levels, but joblessness among young African-Americans and Hispanics are among the highest in the world. This poses a future political problem for the world’s richest nation.The US Department of Labor report in December 2010 broke out unemployment and participation rates into three categories: White unemployment is 8.5%, or below the national average of 9%; African-American is 15.8% and Hispanic at 13%.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Synonyms
One could be forgiven for thinking that Canada Post will now enter the New Age with Quantum Transformational Holistic Postal Delivery under its new CEO Deepak Chopra. But No it turns out the new CEO of Canada Post is not that Deepak Chopra....
Deepak Chopra heads Canada Post -- no, not that Chopra
In Israel the largest government sponsored P3 oil/gas company is called Delek, pardon me if that does not remind me of the Daleks in Dr. Who....
Israel’s gas market has soared to the top of the national agenda in recent weeks on the backs of the Sheshinski Committee recommendations and the dramatic findings related to the Leviathan natural gas field – the largest discovered in the last 10 years worldwide.Now Leviathan is another synonym with several meanings a whale or sea monster in the Old Testament and the overwhelming power of the State according to Hobbes... Which seems totally apt in this case.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Your New IPad
Today Canada and the rest of the world gets to buy Apples IPad...
Globalization of labour demands a global labour movement.....for those who say unions are out dated......China is a developing capitalist country in case anyone still thinks it is communist......
iPad launches in Canada, around the world
Just remember who made it and why it is so cheap.Globalization of labour demands a global labour movement.....for those who say unions are out dated......China is a developing capitalist country in case anyone still thinks it is communist......
They work up to 12 hours a day, six days a week, assembling products that most cannot afford to buy themselves: Apple iPhones, Dell computers and Nokia mobiles.
Experts said deep-rooted problems lie behind the deaths of so many young workers.
Guo Yuhua, a sociology professor at Beijing-based Tsinghua University, said Foxconn represents the status quo of China's profit-driven manufacturing industry, in which companies are trying to offer low salaries to workers to control production costs.
Workers are usually kept in closed industrial parks with no access to social activities and no way to develop social relations, she said.
"This problem is not limited to Foxconn, and it's not only a psychological problem but also a social one," she said.
Guo also said labor-intensive manufacturing companies like Foxconn should make more efforts to enable their employees to have normal social lives.
"There should be communities and the workers should have time to have contact with others," she said.
The monthly salary for a typical Foxconn employee is about 900 yuan ($131), so many workers volunteer to work extra hours to earn more money.
Lu Huilin, an associate professor of sociology at Peking University, said the string of jumps also reflects the poor situation of the second-generation migrant workers.
All the confirmed dead Foxconn workers are between 18 and 24 years old, and most come from the rural and less-developed regions.
Bre-X Redux
The Alberta Government is challenging the Federal government, their fellow Tories, over the proposed National Securities Commission. Like their failed gun registry challenge this is a waste of taxpayers money. The Alberta Sock Market along with its counter part in B.C. were a wild west show of rip offs during the eighties and nineties. While Alberta and Quebec protest a single national securities commission I would remind readers of the success of Alberta's Securities commission in protecting investors from rip offs, one little word; Bre-X.
Cold War Chickens Come Home To Roost
During the cold war the CIA engaged in black ops to destabilize the Caribbean and other areas of Central and Latin America that they determined were their domain under the Monroe Doctrine. Ironically it was exactly these operations that led to the increase in the drug trade, since they were black ops the money used to pay for them was drug money. As it was in their operations in Viet Nam/Laos and Cambodia and later in Afghanistan and Contra Iran affair. And during this same time the American government began its war on drugs, a war that was bound to fail since it was American policy to encourage drug lords to fight the left, a policy begun after WWII in the port of Marseilles.
Here the consequences of the CIA cold war black ops are still being felt in Jamaica and downtown Toronto......
Here the consequences of the CIA cold war black ops are still being felt in Jamaica and downtown Toronto......
In a move that mirrored similar operations in Panama and other Latin American countries, U.S. intelligence agencies lent support to emerging right-winger Edward Seaga, then-leader of the Jamaican Labour Party. In a 1977 investigative report, Penthouse magazine, citing U.S. intelligence sources, described how the State Department sought to capitalize on the spreading violence between Mr. Coke’s Shower Posse and the garrisoned neighbourhoods that supported Mr. Manley: “Shipments of guns and sophisticated communication equipment begun to be smuggled into the island. In one shipment alone, which was grabbed by Manley’s security forces, there were 500 submachine guns.”But after Mr. Seaga’s nine-year stint as prime minister in the 1980s, the U.S. justice system decided that their ally’s enforcer in Tivoli Gardens had become too powerful, as Mr. Coke’s violent network of drug dealers and gun runners boiled over onto U.S. soil. After the elder Mr. Coke’s capture and mysterious death in 1992, the funeral procession numbered in the tens of thousands. Marching next to his casket was Mr. Seaga, who told reporters that the dead man had been “a protector” of the people.
It was U.S. foreign policy that gave rise to the system that propped up the late Mr. Coke and his now fugitive son, said Mr. Crawford, the political analyst. “It is one of the supreme ironies of life, as far as Jamaica is concerned,” he said.
Saturday, March 06, 2010
A Monument to Capitalism
As I wrote on face book after the throne speech:"So the Conservative government is going to build a monument to "the victims of communism" gee just to be fair and balanced they should build one to the "victims of Capitalism" too."
And I note that Rick Salutin in yesterdays Globe and Mail said the same thing.
"One size fits all: My favourite moment in Wednesday's Throne Speech was the promise to erect a monument to the victims of communism. As a monument-liker, that would be fine with me – if it were twinned with a monument to the victims of capitalism, which makes as much sense. Or maybe they could both be united by the need to cut spending, resulting in a single National Victims Monument, come one, come all."
Now I could point out that what the Harpocrites are talking about is Stalinism and its children; Mao and Pol Pot, but for the conservative right wing they go back to the Bolshevik revolution. In fact Jason Kenney the Minister of Immigration has gone as far as defending fascism in Spain because the republicans were socialists, anarchists and communists.
But of course as my regular readers know, the state capitalist regimes in the USSR, China, Cuba etc are not communist nor are they even socialist, they are public ownership under a one party state.
Sort of like Alberta.
And in WWI Alberta was home to concentration camps, called interment camps, for Ukrainians who built Banff and Jasper as forced labourers. During the great Depression internment camps were used for unemployed single men, since there was no welfare or unemployment insurance.
The right wing loves to talk about Stalinism as if it is equivalent to Hitler and the Nazi's. And in fact if push comes to shove, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Fidel and Pol Pot are equated as one in the same, and worse than Hitler or Mussolini or even Franco.
Since fascism is a right wing movement that grows out of calls for law and order, along with appeals to a corporatist state, a form sometimes mistakenly called National Socialism, coined originally by Oswald Spengler, if you look in the conservative closet you will find a shiny pair of jack boots.
The conservative ruling classes during WWII in both England and the US found much admirable in Mussolini and Hitler, especially their self proclaimed war on Bolshevism. Conservative and right wing politicians lobbied for Hitler, promoted isolationism in the US and appeasement in England.
Our own former PM King favoured Hitler, when he wasn't talking to his deceased mother through his dog. He declared that the volunteers who fought in Spain against Franco were acting illegally. He refused entry into Canada to German Jews. And heck he was a Liberal.
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Kenney, MP, fascism, Canada, Parliament, SCW, InternationalBrigades, Franco, Nazi
And I note that Rick Salutin in yesterdays Globe and Mail said the same thing.
"One size fits all: My favourite moment in Wednesday's Throne Speech was the promise to erect a monument to the victims of communism. As a monument-liker, that would be fine with me – if it were twinned with a monument to the victims of capitalism, which makes as much sense. Or maybe they could both be united by the need to cut spending, resulting in a single National Victims Monument, come one, come all."
Now I could point out that what the Harpocrites are talking about is Stalinism and its children; Mao and Pol Pot, but for the conservative right wing they go back to the Bolshevik revolution. In fact Jason Kenney the Minister of Immigration has gone as far as defending fascism in Spain because the republicans were socialists, anarchists and communists.
But of course as my regular readers know, the state capitalist regimes in the USSR, China, Cuba etc are not communist nor are they even socialist, they are public ownership under a one party state.
Sort of like Alberta.
And in WWI Alberta was home to concentration camps, called interment camps, for Ukrainians who built Banff and Jasper as forced labourers. During the great Depression internment camps were used for unemployed single men, since there was no welfare or unemployment insurance.
The right wing loves to talk about Stalinism as if it is equivalent to Hitler and the Nazi's. And in fact if push comes to shove, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Fidel and Pol Pot are equated as one in the same, and worse than Hitler or Mussolini or even Franco.
Since fascism is a right wing movement that grows out of calls for law and order, along with appeals to a corporatist state, a form sometimes mistakenly called National Socialism, coined originally by Oswald Spengler, if you look in the conservative closet you will find a shiny pair of jack boots.
The conservative ruling classes during WWII in both England and the US found much admirable in Mussolini and Hitler, especially their self proclaimed war on Bolshevism. Conservative and right wing politicians lobbied for Hitler, promoted isolationism in the US and appeasement in England.
Our own former PM King favoured Hitler, when he wasn't talking to his deceased mother through his dog. He declared that the volunteers who fought in Spain against Franco were acting illegally. He refused entry into Canada to German Jews. And heck he was a Liberal.
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Kenney, MP, fascism, Canada, Parliament, SCW, InternationalBrigades, Franco, Nazi
Guergis Going Going Gone?
An interesting group of media pundits like Lorne Gunter, right wing bon vivant for Canwest, the Hill Times, the Globe and Mail and the editorial board of her home town paper are urging the PM to Fire Helena Guergis for her recent temper tantrum.
The Toronto Star also points out she was a failure at the UN meeting on Women despite being the Minister for the Status of Women. She was in fact an apologist for the anti-feminist REAL WOMAN agenda of the Harpocrite government.
Methinks that some folks are worried not only about her flipping out in public and ranting at airport workers, but that perhaps this also has something to do with hubby, the former Edmonton Strathcona MP Rahim Jaffer who was busted for drunk driving and possession of cocaine.
It's not just her recent actions that are an embarrassment to the government but also hubby who has yet to stand trial. When he does, she will be gone.....
The Toronto Star also points out she was a failure at the UN meeting on Women despite being the Minister for the Status of Women. She was in fact an apologist for the anti-feminist REAL WOMAN agenda of the Harpocrite government.
Methinks that some folks are worried not only about her flipping out in public and ranting at airport workers, but that perhaps this also has something to do with hubby, the former Edmonton Strathcona MP Rahim Jaffer who was busted for drunk driving and possession of cocaine.
It's not just her recent actions that are an embarrassment to the government but also hubby who has yet to stand trial. When he does, she will be gone.....
Rahim Jaffer case heads for plea bargain
Globe and Mail - Feb 23, 2010
A dejected Rahim Jaffer gives the thumbs up after falling behind in the Edmonton-Strathcona riding at Tory headquarters on Oct. 14, 2008. ...
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Criminal Conservatives
They are tough on crime except when they are guilty of it, then they claim its either no big deal, or a dispute between bureaucrats, or they are redeeming and rehabilitating a former criminal. But if we look at the current crop of criminal Conservatives a pattern emerges; those in power are not just the law they are above the law when it suits them. In the Orwellian world of Stephen Harper up is down, down is up and three strikes does not apply to white collar crime.
Bruce Carson was convicted on five counts of fraud -- three more than previously known -- and received court-ordered psychiatric treatment before becoming one of Stephen Harper's closest advisers.
And his lawyer tells The Canadian Press that Carson disclosed his entire criminal record during a security check that was required to become a senior staffer in the Prime Minister's Office.
The latest revelations raise new questions about Harper's judgment in hiring Carson as his chief policy analyst and troubleshooter.
Bruce Carson was convicted on five counts of fraud -- three more than previously known -- and received court-ordered psychiatric treatment before becoming one of Stephen Harper's closest advisers.
And his lawyer tells The Canadian Press that Carson disclosed his entire criminal record during a security check that was required to become a senior staffer in the Prime Minister's Office.
The latest revelations raise new questions about Harper's judgment in hiring Carson as his chief policy analyst and troubleshooter.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Vampire Capitalism
With the crash and resuscitation of finance capitalism and its fordist counterpart (auto and other manufacturers) by the state and with the popularity of vampires in consumer culture I thought I would add some links on vampiric capitalism and the vampire state in light of my 2005 article; Gothic Capitalism, which I would like to point out has been published in Slovinian by anarchist comrades in Serbia.
Marx of course was writing in the era of the popular vampire novels while Dr. Polidori first published a vampire novel, and Sheridan Le Fanu published his vampire short story, it was Dracula, that had a larger popular impact with mass publication of the book and its follow up as a stage play.
Marx identifies capital as dead labour living off the life force of the working class a class it created for its own ends (thus the later zombie motif that has also increased in popularity in mass culture during this captialist crisis, see my Gothic Capitalism for more on this)
The notion of vampire as symbol of capitalist oppression is certainly not original
to Stoker, who was doubtlessly influenced by or at least aware of the works of Karl Marx and other socialists who considered the vampire something of a patron saint to capitalists.
Discussing Marx, critic Andrew Smith says his “rhetorical fulcrum in this respect relies on an imaginative juxtaposition with images drawn from the pre-capitalist world. Hence, it is no coincidence that he keeps coming back to these occult pictures”. Or as Ken Gilder writes in his book Reading the Vampire, “modern capitalism here is by its very nature excessive, driven by‘irresistible force’ to consume and accumulate. Marx draws on the metaphor of the vampire timeand again to describe its processes”.
Critic Steve Shaviro gives us an even more detailed view of Marx’s use of the vampire motif, More generally, vampires and zombies are vital (if that is the right word) to the functioning of capitalist society. Traditional Marxist theory, of course, focuses onvampires. Marx himself famously describes capital as ‘dead labor which, vampirelike,lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks’ .
In the nineteenth century the Gothic Revival also found itself central to
political and cultural debates. In Victorian England, the gothic suburban villa
empowered the middle classes and the building of Houses of Parliament made a
statement about ‘making a nation’ and creating a national identity. John Ruskin
attacked Marx and Engel’s ideology through his writings about the Gothic and
William Morris championed the Arts and crafts movements while attacking the great Gothic Revival perpetuated by practitioners such as George Gilbert Scott as bringing about capitalism.
Karl Marx
Capital Volume One
Chapter Ten: The Working-Day
Capital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks.
Constant capital, the means of production, considered from the standpoint of the creation of surplus-value, only exist to absorb labour, and with every drop of labour a proportional quantity of surplus-labour. While they fail to do this, their mere existence causes a relative loss to the capitalist, for they represent during the time they lie fallow, a useless advance of capital. And this loss becomes positive and absolute as soon as the intermission of their employment necessitates additional outlay at the recommencement of work. The prolongation of the working-day beyond the limits of the natural day, into the night, only acts as a palliative. It quenches only in a slight degree the vampire thirst for the living blood of labour. To appropriate labour during all the 24 hours of the day is, therefore, the inherent tendency of capitalist production.
It must be acknowledged that our labourer comes out of the process of production other than he entered. In the market he stood as owner of the commodity “labour-power” face to face with other owners of commodities, dealer against dealer. The contract by which he sold to the capitalist his labour-power proved, so to say, in black and white that he disposed of himself freely. The bargain concluded, it is discovered that he was no “free agent,” that the time for which he is free to sell his labour-power is the time for which he is forced to sell it, that in fact the vampire will not lose its hold on him “so long as there is a muscle, a nerve, a drop of blood to be exploited.”
Capital posits the permanence of value (to a certain degree) by incarnating itself in fleeting commodities and taking on their form, but at the same time changing them just as constantly; alternates between its eternal form in money and its passing form in commodities; permanence is posited as the only thing it can be, a passing passage — process — life. But capital obtains this ability only by constantly sucking in living labour as its soul, vampire-like.
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon Chapter 7But in the course of the nineteenth century the urban usurer replaced the feudal one, the mortgage replaced the feudal obligation, bourgeois capital replaced aristocratic landed property. The peasant's small holding is now only the pretext that allows the capitalist to draw profits, interest, and rent from the soil, while leaving it to the agriculturist himself to see to it how he can extract his wages.
The bourgeois order, which at the beginning of the century set the state to stand guard over the newly emerged small holdings and fertilized them with laurels, has become a vampire that sucks the blood from their hearts and brains and casts them into the alchemist's caldron of capital.
Capitalism originates in Gothic Culture and the fact that it now has reached its historic epoch, it's tendrils now encapsulate the entire globe, unlike any other time in history. Its commidification of our lives is now complete, hence the growth of the mass culture of consumption that is mirrored in the popularity of vampires and zombies as cultural motifs are the visions of ourselves alienated from our humanity, they are the ultimate consumers.
Robert Park, later sociology chair at the University of Chicago, took a more global
perspective on the phenomenon of “vampiric capitalism,” in his journalistic critiques of western exploitation within Africa, both of its peoples and resources (Lyman, 1992). American sociology, after the 1920s, would reject the use of both journalistic and philosophical analyses of evil for a more thoroughly scientific methodology (Greek, 1992). However, the discipline then was left with great difficulties in discussing evil (now referred to as deviance) without transvaluing it as sickness (Menninger, 1973) or as sign of social malaise or anomie (Orru,1987), leaving treatises on the nature of evil to more ethnographically inspired writings such as criminal biographies, novels, plays, and ultimately screenplays.
Popular culture now has labeled the latest capitalist crisis as a problem of both vampire banks and zombie banks. How fitting. America no longer manufactures goods for the world, that capitalist role is now being played out by China. Under Reagan America became a consumer of credit and goods, and thus has a zombie economy.
Zombies reproduce through consumption of the living, which serves as a nearly endless supply of brother and sister Zombies. Consider earth’s current human population explosion as a metaphoric never-ending supply of both brains and new Zombies. As one character in the original Dawn says when warning survivors of the process: "It gets up and kills. The people it kill get up and kill." It’s a never-ending supply of both consumables and consumers (a capitalist dream). But, of course, the perishable items (bread and bullets) in the mall run out. And when they do, survivors need to make very difficult choices. Where’s the next mall? What place do we pillage next? An island, perhaps?Simply put Capitalism, zombie or vampire, sucks!
As today and in the Zombie world, sustainability and survival are interchangeable. When the resources for survival run out and the malls have been picked clean, then we will reach for sustainability as a final solution. Or we will eat brains.
Check out this fun blog;Vampire Capitalism
Monday, October 19, 2009
Today Is Election Day
Bill C-16
Subject to an earlier dissolution of Parliament, a general election must be held on the third Monday in October in the fourth calendar year following a previous general election, with the first general election to be held on Monday, October 19, 2009.
Well okay it should have been today, except that Harper took us into an election early, violating his own law. Instead in a cynical ploy to grab power the Harpocrites ran an election saying there was no recession, they would not raise taxes nor would they have a budget deficit...my my how things changed after they were elected with another minority government and the economy crashed.Harper then prorogued the government within two months of that election in order to avoid being ousted by an opposition coalition, while still denying there was a recession.
Today with the threat of another election still in the air one has to ask why the rush last fall if not for the fact that actually the Harpocrites have been ready for an election since they won a minority in 2006. Every day is election day for them. They are not ruling as a government but as a party running a party campaign around the economic issues they denied were a reality last fall.
Harper says recession is no time for an election -
Harper says recession over only in technical sense
And despite all the political platitudes offered at the time it turns out that Canada's fixed election date did turn out to be an illusion........
| Bill C-16 on Fixed Date Elections November 06, 2006 Third Reading in the House of Commons House of Commons, Ottawa Monday, November 6, 2006 Check Against Delivery Introduction Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to begin debate in third reading on Bill C-16 – An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act – which would provide for fixed date elections. First of all, I would like to note that the Bill was carefully reviewed by the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. A range of expert witnesses has appeared before the Committee and much discussion has taken place. The Committee heard from the Chief Electoral Officer, representatives of political parties, academic experts, as well as me. While I have been informed that there were lively debates on key issues, I am pleased to note that Bill C-16 carried in Committee without amendment. Moreover, while there were some minor differences on some of the details of the Bill, I was struck by the fact that all parties represented in the House of Commons support the fundamental rationale of the Bill. I believe that all parties share the view that elections belong, fundamentally, to citizens. They belong, Mr. Speaker, to the people. All parties agreed with the principle that the timing of elections should not be left to the prime minister but should be set in advance so that all Canadians will know when the next election will occur. Mr. Speaker, today I will begin with a description of the current process for calling general elections and I will discuss some of the difficulties associated with it. This will be followed by a discussion of the many advantages associated with fixed date elections. Finally, Mr. Speaker, I will be very pleased to present the specifics of Bill C-16. Current Process Today, it is the prerogative of the Prime Minister, whose government has not lost the confidence of the House of Commons, to determine what he or she regards as a propitious time for an election to renew the government’s mandate. The Prime Minister then requests dissolution of the House from the Governor General and, if the Governor General agrees, he or she proclaims the date of the election. What we have, Mr. Speaker, is a situation where the Prime Minister is able to choose the date of the general election, not based on what is in the best interest of the country, but what is in the interest of his or her party. Bill C-16 will address this problem and will produce a number of other benefits. Advantages of Fixed Date Elections Mr. Speaker, before going into the details of the bill, allow me to discuss the key advantages of fixed date elections. Fixed date elections will provide for greater fairness in election campaigns, greater transparency and predictability, improved governance, higher voter turnout rates, and will help in attracting the best qualified candidates to public life. Fairness First of all, allow me to discuss the issue of fairness. Fixed date elections will help to level the playing field for those seeking election in a general election. With fixed date elections, the timing of general elections will be known to all. Since the date of the next election will be known to all political parties, each party will have an equal opportunity to make preparations for upcoming election campaigns. Instead of the governing party having the advantage of determining when the next election will take place – an advantage they may have over the other parties for several months – all parties will be on an equal footing. And it’s only fair that each party will have equal time to prepare for the next election and know when it will be. Transparency and Predictability Another key advantage of fixed date elections is transparency. Rather than decisions about election dates being made behind closed doors, general election dates will be set in advance as prescribed by this bill. Once this bill is passed, the date of each election will be known by all Canadians. Predictability is also a key advantage of fixed date elections. Canadians and political parties alike will be able to rely on our democratic election system working in an open and predictable fashion for all general elections. Plans can be made on a reliable basis to prepare for, and respond to, fixed date elections. Improved Governance Mr. Speaker, fixed date elections will allow for improved governance. For example, fixed date elections will provide for improved administration of the electoral machinery by Elections Canada. The Chief Electoral Officer, in majority situations, will know with certainty when the next election will occur and will be able to plan accordingly. This will almost certainly involve greater efficiency at Elections Canada and will, therefore, very likely save money for taxpayers. Political parties will also likely save money as they will not have to remain on an ‘election footing’ for extended periods of time. Moreover, fixed date elections will allow for better parliamentary planning. For example, members of parliamentary committees will be able to set out their agendas well in advance, which will make the work of committees, and Parliament as a whole, more efficient. Higher Voter Turnout Rates Yet another reason for adopting fixed date elections is that this measure will likely improve voter turnout because elections will be held in October, except when a government loses the confidence of the House. The weather is generally favourable in most parts of the country. Fewer people are transient. So, for example, most students will not be in transition between home and school at that time and will be able to vote. Moreover, seniors will not be deterred from voting as they might be in colder months. And, of course, citizens will be able to plan in advance to participate in the electoral process, arranging for advanced voting if they plan to be away. An additional benefit is that pre-election campaigns to ‘get out the vote’ will be able to be well prepared, as the organizers will be aware of exactly when the next general election will take place. Candidates Finally, I want to mention an advantage that will have resonance to many of those in this chamber. It is a difficulty with the current system that I have witnessed personally (and something I have mentioned in interviews when Bill C-16 was first introduced). Fixed date elections will help to attract many of the best qualified Canadians into public life because it will be easier to plan their own schedules to enable them to stand for election. For many of our most talented Canadians, unfixed election dates make it difficult to plan to enter public life because they simply don’t know when the next election is going to be held. I think fixed date elections can only help in attracting the most qualified individuals to public life. Details of the Bill Mr. Speaker, I would like to turn to the details of the bill. 1. Responsible Government Legislation providing for fixed date elections must be structured to meet certain constitutional realities of responsible government. They include: • the requirement that the government have the confidence of the House of Commons; • respecting the Governor General’s constitutional power to dissolve Parliament. The bill before us was drafted carefully to ensure that these constitutional requirements continue to be respected. So, the bill does not in any way change the requirement that the government must maintain the confidence of the House. Moreover, all of the conventions regarding loss of confidence remain intact. In particular, the Prime Minister’s prerogative to advise the Governor General on the dissolution of Parliament is retained, to allow him or her to advise dissolution in the event of a loss of confidence. Moreover, the bill states explicitly that the powers of the Governor General remain unchanged, including the power to dissolve Parliament at the Governor General’s discretion. 2. Modeled After Provincial Legislation As set out in the government’s platform, this bill is modeled after existing provincial fixed date elections legislation. The legislation is very similar to the approach used by British Columbia, Ontario and Newfoundland and Labrador. Mr. Speaker, it should be noted that the legislation in all of these provinces is working – and working well. British Columbia recently had its first fixed date election (May 17, 2005) and Ontario and Newfoundland and Labrador will soon have their first fixed date elections (October 4, 2007 and October 9, 2007 respectively). In British Columbia, there was certainly no evidence of what some critics have called a “lame duck government”. 3. Mechanics The government’s bill provides that the date for the next general election is Monday, October 19, 2009. Of course, this will be the date only if the government is able to retain the confidence of the House until that time. So, for example, if the government were to be defeated tomorrow, a general election would be held according to normal practice. However, the subsequent election would be scheduled for the third Monday in October, in the fourth calendar year after that election. And that is the normal model that would be established by this bill. General elections will occur on the third Monday of October in the fourth calendar year following the previous general election. We chose the date very carefully and one of my parliamentary colleagues will provide a full explanation of our choice during the course of this debate. However, in brief, we chose the third Monday in October because it was the date that was likely to maximize voter turnout and to be least likely to conflict with cultural or religious holidays – or with elections in other jurisdictions. 4. Conflicts This raises an additional feature of the bill that I want to bring to your attention – a feature that provides for an alternate election date in the event of a conflict with a date of religious or cultural significance or an election in another jurisdiction. In the current system, the date of the general election is chosen by the government, so it is rare that a polling day is chosen that comes into conflict with a date of cultural or religious significance or with elections in other jurisdictions. However, with the introduction of legislation providing for fixed date elections, there is some possibility that, in the future, the stipulated election date will occasionally be the same as a day of cultural or religious significance or an election in another jurisdiction. The Ontario fixed date elections legislation provides that, if there is a conflict with a day of cultural or religious significance, the Chief Elections Officer may recommend an alternate polling day to the Lieutenant Governor in Council, up to seven days following the day that would otherwise be polling day. Using a variation of the Ontario legislation providing for fixed date elections, our bill empowers the Chief Electoral Officer to recommend an alternate polling day to the Governor in Council should he or she find that the polling day is not suitable for that purpose. The alternate day would be either the Tuesday or the Monday following the Monday that would otherwise be polling day. Allowing alternate polling days to be held on the following Tuesday or Monday is consistent with the current practice of holding elections on a Monday or a Tuesday. Illusory in Nature? Mr. Speaker, some Opposition members had concerns that this bill is illusory in that the Prime Minister can call an election at any point up until the fixed date for the election. However, Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has to retain his prerogative to advise dissolution to allow for situations when the government loses the confidence of the House. This is a fundamental principle of our system of responsible government. Moreover, if the bill were to indicate that the Prime Minister could only advise dissolution in the event of a loss of confidence, it would have to define ‘confidence’ and the dissolution of the House of Commons would be justiciable in the courts – something that we certainly do not want. Conclusion Mr. Speaker, this bill providing for fixed date elections is long overdue in Canada. In June, Ipsos-Reid released the results of a poll which showed that 78% of Canadians support the government’s plans to provide for fixed date elections. You may know that the third week in October is already Citizenship Week in this country where we celebrate what it means to be Canadian citizens. Of course, fundamental to being a Canadian citizen is our civic responsibilities, including our duty to vote. It is fitting, then, that general election dates will be set for the third Monday in October. This legislation will provide greater fairness, increased transparency and predictability, improved policy planning, increased voter turnout, and will help to attract the best qualified Canadians to public life. I hope my colleagues on both sides of the House will join with me in supporting it and I look forward to the Bill’s speedy passage in the Senate. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. |
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Canada, Flaherty, politics, Conservatives,consumer spending, tax-credit, , economy, government, Conservatives, Harper, recession, Conference Board of Canada, consumer confidence, Economy, Finance Minister,
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