Daily Musings -- Feb 11th

An article in Truthout, this week, has an excerpt from Max Haiven's new book Crises of Imagination, Crises of Power: Capitalism, Creativity and the Commons (Zed Books, March 2014)

I want to quote many paragraphs but will just leave you with this one. 

"The crises of our age, like the crises of ages past, are the crises of capitalism. In this book, capitalism represents a cancerous disorder in the 'fabric' of social reproduction, one that works by perverting our sense of what and who is valuable and conscripting us to reproduce a system that works in the short-term interests of the few and against the interests of the vast majority of humanity. The failure to acknowledge that the many global crises we now face are, inherently, crises of capitalism represents a massive failure of the imagination. And without the radicalization of the imagination, we have no hope of overcoming these crises." 

With slightly more exciting news and a little sneak peak -- Looks like the book launch will be part of this year's Mayworks Festival!!
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On the environmental front more bad news. . . 

Even a single polar bear can devastate all the eggs on a single island where birds such as common eiders nest. This unfortunate colony was visited by three bears at once. (Courtesy Steve Marson)

Polar bears cannot get to seals -- In northern Hudson's Bay the ice is frozen 60 days less per year.  The freeze is thirty days later and breakup is thirty days earlier.   So, in bad news for both birds and polar bears -- they are raiding bird nesting islands and eating eggs in huge numbers in some cases more than decimating the population.   In this piece on CBC it says: 

Iverson, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Biology at Carleton University, recalled one rampage he witnessed in which a polar bear ate its way through an eider duck nesting colony with 300 nests, each containing about four or five eggs. The eggs were nearly "completely consumed within about a 48-hour period."

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And on the Harper Cons. . . the story of how our national resources including water are going to be essentially sold off -- as soon as you tie public funding to P3's for municipal water you have essentially transferred control over water - a public good and something we need to survive -- to for-profit companies.  This is not more efficient or cheaper,  it just transfers a public good into private profit and should not be contemplated by any municipality in Canada (some have private sector involvement already!   )  Read more about on Rabble.

and there there is the elections act - something yesterday - more tomorrow -- this is bad. .  very bad. . .   This piece on Rabble is terrifying -- when even the Chief Electoral Officer calls it "an affront to democracy"   something is terribly wrong and we need to be reacting.  Unfortunately I heard today (Feb 11th ) about an action by the Council of Canadians yesterday -- where everyone was supposed to contact their MP but since my partner and I are social media mavens and news hawks and we didn't know about it. . . I think it must have been kept too quiet!
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Then there is this NYTimes story about Snowden -- love you Eddie -- come by anytime.  You will go down in history as a hero --- hope they give you the Nobel (which he has been nominated for by two Norwegian Parliamentarians.)

Using “web crawler” software designed to search, index and back up a website, Mr. Snowden “scraped data out of our systems” while he went about his day job, according to a senior intelligence official. “We do not believe this was an individual sitting at a machine and downloading this much material in sequence,” the official said. The process, he added, was “quite automated.”

The findings are striking because the N.S.A.’s mission includes protecting the nation’s most sensitive military and intelligence computer systems from cyberattacks, especially the sophisticated attacks that emanate from Russia and China. Mr. Snowden’s “insider attack,” by contrast, was hardly sophisticated and should have been easily detected, investigators found.

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A coupe of nice ones from the Olympics -- and pushing gay rights -- no matter that Russia doth protest too much. . . 


One is a story about the Greek team in blue and white as usual but with rainbow gloves to give the Russian state the finger, with. . .


And the other is a CBC story about how there has been more prominent LGBTI press and support as a result of the anti-gay law in Russia. . . in fact, says CBC they may be the gayest games ever!  Which says in part: 

"You look around Canada today and there's municipalities flying rainbow flags all over in support of the LGBT population," said Helen Kennedy, executive director of Égale Canada, a charity promoting LGBT rights."

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 No comment on these two - but they interested me and may interest you too . .

http://feministcurrent.com/8585/woody-allen-and-the-persistent-myths-of-rape-culture/



http://consortiumnews.com/2014/01/14/israels-hand-in-guatemalas-genocide-2/

Daily Musings Feb. 9th

Best laid plans of blogging instead of sharing on FB. . .  but it is so much easier to just hit like and share -- to write this takes takes time and thought - I have been too busy at work to think of anything else -- though I, of course, do think about other things -- but no time to write -- so here is what I am musing about today. . . and for the last few days.
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Upworthy published the video, below, with the headline  - Canada makes a great point about the Olympics in thirty seconds, which sounds like it is something the government of Canada did (ie Harper Cons!) .   It is a nice little video but has nothing at all to do with the Canadian Gov't.

Upworthy got it a little wrong -- this is a private sector organization (with a good goal) but private nevertheless, and in the same business as HR and business management consultants, as near as I can determine. . .  still loved the ad. From their website:

The Canadian Institute of Diversity and Inclusion (CIDI) is a made-in-Canada solution designed to help employers, and diversity and inclusion (D&I), Human Rights and Equity (HR&E) and human resources (HR) practitioners effectively address the full picture of diversity, equity and inclusion within the workplace.

And here's the 30 sec clip: 



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I wish I could recap what is in the piece by Chantal Hebert about the new bill on elections. .  but it is all important, an easy read, and I couldn't do better -- so please just go and read this piece from The Star.   Harper Cons are striking one more blow against democracy.


And there is another great piece on Global, here, about the NDP trying to filibuster to stop them from ending debate.  Once again the Harper Cons are taking what should be a non-partisan issue that all parties and the people get some say in. . . turn it into a piece of legislation that is very partisan (the people that they are denying the vote to are disadvantaged and generally not likely to vote for them) plus they are taking away rights from Elections Canada. . . like the ability to promote voting. . . and then, there is this -- 

And then yesterday on "the House" with Evan Solomon on CBC radio the Chief electoral Officer called the act an "Affront to Democracy".   More in this CBC website piece which says in part: 

The government's proposed overhaul of the Elections Act includes elements that constitute an affront to democracy, according to Canada's Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand.

 In an interview airing Saturday on CBC Radio's The House, Mayrand said "my reading of the act is that I can no longer speak about democracy in this country."

 "I'm not aware of any electoral bodies around the world who can not talk about democracy," Mayrand told host Evan Solomon.

Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand says the government's proposed Fair Elections Act puts severe restrictions on the information he is able to communicate to the public. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)

Daily Musings Feb 3rd.

Is Edward Snowden a prisoner in Russia?   The Guardian newspaper asks.  In the second exclusive extract from his new book, The Snowden Files, Luke Harding looks at the role of Russia's shadowy intelligence agency, the FSB, in securing the whistleblower's exile – and whether they have cracked his secret files.   I feel so bad for Snowden -- instead of politics he often brings out the Mom and Grannie in me. . . I just want to bring him home and look after him.

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There was a presentation in Halifax on the possibility of postal banking. . . a good idea whose time has come though the Post office CEO doesn't think so. . .   It suggests in part:

Traditional banks are closing, true. But they're also exclusive places and increasingly centralized in high density, higher income, areas, like shopping malls.
To prove the point, he draws back the curtain of a boardroom at the Holiday Inn in Dartmouth. Outside is the neon rush of another Pay Day loan storefront, a high interest loan provider that preys largely upon those who have been excluded from traditional banks due to poverty.
“We know who uses the pay day loan system,” says Bickerton. “It's basically the people who have been excluded form our 'great' banking system. In many cases they are part of the 3-5% of the population who don't have banks accounts. These are the poorest people in the country and they are systematically excluded from the banks. We know that First Nations people are often the greatest users of the pay day loans. Why? Because they are the most excluded from our banking system.”
Another of the great bank-excluded classes are rural Canadians. And here, with its cross-country network of postal outlets, Canada Post would be at a distinct advantage. Bickerton notes that there are over 2,000 bank-less communities across the country that are served by a postal outlet. Add a financial service delivery capacity to these outlets - et voila - an instant underserved market, goes the logic.

I like it. 

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Tell Shell's New CEO to stop drilling in the Arctic.  Sign the petition here.
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Our way or the highway. . .U.S. Cuts off aid to Bolivia,  Bolivia says: 

In any case, Morales said, 80 percent of the United States’ money returned to the U.S. in the form of Bolivian contracts for business enterprises and consulting services, “so what aid are we talking about?”

“If we review the data, the latest data, I believe it comes to 20 or 25 [million dollars], practically nothing,” he said at a press conference in the presidential palace.

Presidential chief of staff Juan Ramón Quintana told the press that USAID contributions amount at present to $23 million.

“We want to tell [the United States], with much pride, that we’re not a mendicant state, we are not beggars, we don’t need charity, we have pride and we’re going to finance the struggle against drug trafficking ourselves,” . . .       

See more here. 

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Lakoff!!!   George Lakoff has tried to teach the left about framing.  He says, in this interview in the Guardian,  we are still losing -- he is mostly talking about the democrats in the U.S. and many of them are not progressive at all. . . but I still buy the framing idea.  It is just hard to make confident, black and white statements when you have an analysis, and not just an opinion, or  direct revelation from the Lord.   Lakoff says in part:

'Conservatives don't follow the polls, they want to change them … Liberals do everything wrong'

Of course me and mine are not liberals in small or large L versions. . . but I still think we can learn from this. 

 "Framing is not primarily about politics or political messaging or communication. It is far more fundamental than that: frames are the mental structures that allow human beings to understand reality – and sometimes to create what we take to be reality. But frames do have an enormous bearing on politics … they structure our ideas and concepts, they shape the way we reason … For the most part, our use of frames is unconscious and automatic."

. . ."the left, he argues, is losing the political argument – every year, it cedes more ground to the right, under the mistaken impression that this will bring everything closer to the centre. In fact, there is no centre: the more progressives capitulate, the more boldly the conservatives express their vision, and the further to the right the mainstream moves. The reason is that conservatives speak from an authentic moral position, and appeal to voters' values. Liberals try to argue against them using evidence; they are embarrassed by emotionality. They think that if you can just demonstrate to voters how their self-interest is served by a socially egalitarian position, that will work, and everyone will vote for them and the debate will be over. In fact, Lakoff asserts, voters don't vote for bald self-interest; self-interest fails to ignite, it inspires nothing – progressives, of all people, ought to understand this.

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 This is just a funny piece, in MacLeans,  about how the government bureaucrats in Ottawa struggle with twitter.  Everything has to be approved and takes a lot of time and a medium that should be timely is left to languish and is always late.
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Does raising the minimum wage kill jobs?  asks Rabble blogger Tod Ferguson.   The right says: 

The Ontario PCs, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) and the usual suspects for the 1% have been wringing their hands and wailing about how terrible the notion of increasing the minimum wage by $0.75 is. The CFIB claims that increasing the minimum wage hurts minimum wage workers "by reducing the businesses' capacity to hire and retain them." In fact, the CFIB predicts that a 10 per cent increase in the minimum wage would trigger up to 321,000 job losses.

However the rest of the article provides actual,  statistical evidence from  5 provinces that it does not. 

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You'll have to watch this to get the joke but all I can say is that I would have considered this an effective ad for landmine removal.   I am not sure it is a great ad for staying in school.  watch it - what do you think?  Perhaps the OZ mindset is different from here but I don't think that this would be at all compelling. . .
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Good news/bad news . . .



http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/01/us-spain-abortion-idUSBREA100E020140201?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

1 of 4. Thousands of people march to protest a government plan to limit abortions in Madrid February 1, 2014.

Credit: Reuters/Andrea Comas

 And in Alabama,  pregnant women who miscarry can be refused care -- all the staff in an emerg don't want to end that pregnancy where you might bleed to death?  They are being protected from liability and have no obligation to help you find treatment -- just a way of saying -- women can go die. Appalling. Details on the ACLU site, here.
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Given that my son (30 years old),  lives here full time, and his two children 12 and 7, live here part time, and we are not chomping to have them gone; this article was a little breath of fresh air for me.  

It seems to me, it was/is capitalism,  in the rush for "expansion of the economy" and selling more more more. . .  that broke down the extended family and moved us all to nuclear families, and now to atomized individuals. . . (so that everyone needs their own fridge, TV, car, stove, washer and dryer, lawn mower etc.)  Living in extended family (however defined - we have spent many years living with family members that we met and made into family ourselves) is an act of resistance!!

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ALjazeera reports on the effect on children in Gaza and the lack of international response to get Justice for the families in Gaza even though so many of Israel's actions are illegal.  

                                                            Photo by AljAZEERA

They say in part: 

. . . It has been five years since Operation Cast Lead, a 22-day Israeli military offensive in Gaza which took place between December 27 and January 18, 2008 and claimed the lives of at least 1,400 Palestinians, including more than 350 Palestinian children.

Despite damning evidence of war crimes, the US government played a role in blocking international efforts to hold Israel accountable for serious breaches of international law. The resulting impunity has enabled Israel to continue its oppressive policies in Gaza where children undoubtedly remain targets.

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 Human rights groups, including Defence for Children International Palestine, Al-Mezan Centre for Human Rights and Human Rights Watch, have documented cases of children killed and maimed in unlawful attacks; the destruction of civilian infrastructure such as schools and water and sanitation networks; the use of children as human shields; the unlawful use of white phosphorous in populated areas; and the arbitrary detention of children.

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Following the attacks, the UN Human Rights Council established a fact-finding mission headed by Justice Richard Goldstone. Their mandate was "to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law" that may have been committed at any time in the context of the military operations conducted in Gaza between December 27, 2008 and January 18, 2009. Although international law requires states to investigate war crime allegations, Israeli authorities refused to cooperate with the investigation.
The mission's report, published in September 2009, found evidence of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity committed by both the Israeli military and Palestinian armed groups. Known as the "Goldstone Report", it was overwhelmingly endorsed by the UN General Assembly on November 5, 2009, with 114 states voting in favour of a resolution demanding that Israel and the Palestinians undertake "independent, credible investigations" into alleged war crimes. The resolution also urged the Security Council to take action on the report's recommendations, primarily by referring cases to the International Criminal Court.
Unsurprisingly, the US was one of 18 countries to vote against the resolution. The Obama administration then employed its diplomatic power to mitigate the impact of the Goldstone Report, and also blocked any further potential progress through the Security Council. 

Daily Musings Jan 31st.

So the word is out -- even RollingStone thought Marx had some good ideas. . .
It lays out 5 ways Marx was right -- I will not repeat them here but I will repeat the final paragraph:

Marx's moral critique of capitalism and his keen insights into its inner workings and historical context are still worth paying attention to. As Robert L. Heilbroner writes, "We turn to Marx, therefore, not because he is infallible, but because he is inescapable." Today, in a world of both unheard-of wealth and abject poverty, where the richest 85 people have more wealth than the poorest 3 billion, the famous cry, "Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains," has yet to lose its potency.

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It is a frightening expose of our modern world and a story about how far we have fallen and what kind of things make it to the realm of #firstworldproblems. . .   Babies ill from never eating anything except take out food and fast food,  According to this BBC documentary.    It comes from not having time to cook, to sit down and have family meals together.   I mean who has time?   With poverty wages becoming the norm, and people having to have two and three jobs to get by -- they also have to get poorer by not making food at home cause there is no time -- I only watched the intro to a bunch of families in this video and I suspect that they just blame the families,  but "the problem" I think  is a sign of what we have created.  Individuals are not solely (or maybe at all) responsible for the breakdown of families -- capitalism, as well as driving globalization, monopoly, low wages and unemployment, also atomized families ('cause individuals buy more) made us alienated and we are nuclear families or individuals and help is hard to come by. . .

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I have been carefully following and trying to support Canada Post and dis the Harper Gov't changes.   In this blog on Rabble,  David Bush writes about the way that we can support the postal workers and how we can help maintain Canada Post as a viable PUBLIC SERVICE -- 60% OF Canadians currently have home mail delivery and they want to keep it! 

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I am quoting here -   Kris McGrath - my FB friend from Saint John, NB who,  on posting the news release  about the fact that the the faculty at UNB had a tentative agreement,  posted the following,  and I thought it was worth repeating. 

Congratulations on a successful round of negotiations, restoration of balance and positive steps forward for all concerned. While we await a ratification vote, there will be well-deserved celebrations in many quarters, and activities in many classrooms!

Yet as happy as I am for AUNBT and all the folks at UNB, I'm reminded of an old Labour saying: *There are no victories, just new battles*. While AUNBT will be back to work, MAFA (Mount Allison Faculty Association) continues to walk the line, the Saint John 7 (CMG- Radio Free Saint John) remain embattled in an interminable action, and Workers at Labatts in St John's (NAPE- Support NL Labatts Workers on strike) continue their fight. Today CUPW workers across the country face an uncertain future, veterans and workers from veteran's affairs continue to struggle with government decisions to close office, and workers rights across this country remain under siege by government bills aimed at torpedoing collective bargaining. AUNBT has a tentative agreement and I couldn't be happier for them, but brothers and sisters- there is still so much for us to do!!!

“Never underestimate the power of a small group of committed people to change the world. In fact, it is the only thing that ever has.”

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And Ken Georgetti - head of the Canadian Labour Congress -  wrote this article about the effect of corporate tax cuts in Canada.   In it, he details what those cuts were supposed to achieve and what has happened in the last twenty years.  Are we better off?  More employment?  More research and development?  More innovation?  increasing full time or living wage jobs?  The answer is no. The article gives you the numbers, I am just repeating the conclusions.

A Canadian Labour Congress research report shows that, due to lavish tax breaks, the largest of Canada's non-financial corporations had paid their entire share of taxes to all levels of government in 2012 by the end of January. We call that Corporate Tax Freedom Day. 

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 Good, family-supporting jobs are the key to Canada's economic success and corporate tax cuts aren't delivering. In fact, corporate tax cuts have delivered nothing, except windfall profits that haven't benefited the ordinary Canadians who paid for them.

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Corporate tax giveaways mean that the federal government has foregone billions of dollars in revenues. To pay for the tax breaks, Ottawa has borrowed billions of dollars and driven up the national debt. Now, the government has chosen to make big cuts to public services essential to Canadians in order to pay the bill for its tax giveaways.

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The Nova Scotia Barristers Society is holding a public consultation on the application from Trinity Western University to open a law school.  I think (though still investigating) that all provinces would have to agree to register their graduates or at least let them write the bar exams.  IN an effort to ensure fairness to all we need to ensure that law is not taught in an environment which by their own missions, values, and procedures isists athat all courses be taught keeping the bible as their highest authority and that Christian Values would over rule all others.  They call themselves fundamentalist Christians at that school and part of the statement of faith and Christian Covenant that they have to sign in order to enter the school says that they believe (and will act as if) marriage is only between a man and a woman and that they will not have sex outside of marriage -- therefore banning all gay marriage and in fact I understand that they are quite intolerant of "gays and lesbians" believing them to be outside of god's will and intent for humans.

The same thing happened when they opened a teacher's college and the supreme court said that they had to be allowed to do so.   So this may be all for naught - but they perhaps can stopped by having the NS bar refuse to register them if we put pressure on them.