Politics, Re-Spun

National Housing Strategy Rally in Vancouver: Bill C-304

Halfway through the Olympics on Saturday, February 20, hundreds gathered at the Vancouver Art Gallery to call for a national housing strategy. NDP MP Libby Davies’ private members bill C-304 lives on despite Stephen Harper’s cynical proroguement of parliament. Despite killing all his own pending legislation, the prime minister can’t kill private members bills by proroguing parliament. That gives us room for great action next week!

The rally was upbeat and inspiring, following days of the successful tent village.

Also, the enormous Canadian flag draping over the Hotel Georgia was the scene of some creative blowback: “FU2010″.

Some cutting in the top right corner

A closer look of FU2010

The tone of the day was concerned, passionate, upbeat and truly visionary as speakers and the crowd came together to explore a momentous step just days away when parliament re-opens to embark on a new era of social justice in Canada.

John Richardson, Executive Director of Pivot Legal Society spoke of overcoming fear and responsibly planning for the future:

MP Libby Davies spoke about housing being a human right, despite what I consider to be the gross excesses of the Olympics:

She also spoke about Harper’s lack of understanding of poverty and tendency to embrace budget crises as an excuse for inaction:

And she also spoke about what we need to do with her bill when parliament reopens next week:

In the end, when the 1,000 condos in the Olympic Village that cost $1 billion to build [or $1,000,000/unit on average] come on the market over the next few months, Metro Vancouver will experience a housing adjustment. Such a glut on the market will likely depress prices across the region. This can be good for people looking for affordable housing and for renters, despite the fact that few will be able to afford those 1,000 units. The ripple effect will be useful.

But there may be panic, dread, capital flight, or nothing but a different housing climate. In times of flux, there is great opportunity for change. It is within this context that Bill C-304 can make significant strides in addressing the crises of homelessness and affordable housing.

So pay attention to RedTents.org to see what you need to do to make our federal, provincial and municipal politicians do more than toss lip-service to housing issues.

BC NDP Convention Opening: Building Relationships

Convention starts in 8 hours.

During these next hours, I will be at the Bayshore speaking to people about how to mobilize their vision for the party.

I have some ideas I’ve been working through since 8:35 pm on May 12, 2009. Then the Think Forward BC NDP dialogue sprouted from Vancouver-Kensington’s planning to help frame suggestions for reinvigorating the party.

Today our convention starts. This is day one of delegates being able to talk.

Where are we?

How did we get here?

What is working?

What isn’t working?

How do we change to survive and flourish?

And through all this, our dialogue is the process by which we build, or rebuild, relationships with each other and with all the various elements of the party and caucus.

There are rifts that burden us and weaken our synergy. They keep us from having a cohesive, bold vision. They keep us from engaging with the broader progressive social movement in BC consisting of thousands of individuals and groups working to make the bad man stop.

But in the end, regardless of what resolutions we pass or what party processes we improve, we need to stand up at the end of convention, look back and say to each other that we’ve improved the social fabric of our party.

We need to re-engage with each other and include new voices…may of which come from long time members whose ideas haven’t been heard.

We need to talk to all our progressive friends who seem like they should belong to the party, but don’t. We need to actually talk about why that is and include what we learn in our conversations about party reform.

If we truly wish to represent the majority of British Columbians who share our values, we need to engage them. Doing that through the progressive social movement that already exists, though it always needs development, is the way to go.

We can be insular, or we can engage with the people we say to represent.

This process starts with us at convention and it needs to continue on Sunday afternoon until we win the next election.

I’m running for Vice-President of the party to ensure that we guide the party to that new place of meaningful engagement. If you want to come along with me, support my goals by talking to others about how you too can facilitate their vision for the party. Then give me your vote so we can get the party moving.

BC NDP Convention Minus 6 Days: Defining the Party as “The Electoral Wing of a Progressive Social Movement”

There was a profound summer lightning storm on Saturday, July 25, 2009, about 10 weeks after the election. Starting late in the afternoon Vancouver got soaked by a torrent of rain and a storm that circled the lower mainland counter-clockwise and competed with the fireworks that night. Here is my highlight reel.

That day was also the strategic planning session for the Vancouver-Kensington riding association. About 2 dozen members came together to plan the riding’s goals. As we were wrapping up our day into some really focussed goals, the lightning storm started.

I took that as a good sign.

One of the final ideas we considered was how to build a social movement within the party.

While I’m more of a political economist than a political sociologist, I still have a pretty good sense of social movements. Obama, for instance, didn’t get elected all on his own. It took more than the Democratic Party to do it too. A myriad of groups [social, political, labour, etc.] coordinated with a massive campaign on the ground to mobilize people.

The BC NDP is not doing that. On Monday, I’m going to write about a few of the reasons we failed to win the election, but for today I want to explain how social movement theory should show up in our party.

Let’s take Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandala. Both were leaders of organizations pursuing social change. Neither was the leader of a massive network or coalition of groups and individuals, but they were dominant figures. Pursuing civil rights and the end of apartheid are both social movements.

Social movements combine the efforts of individuals, activists, academics, political groups, non-governmental organizations, labour and faith groups and many more elements in society. Often they have a leading personality, but the movement itself is characterized by components acting individually, but in an intentionally or complementarily coordinated fashion.

There is usually a certain degree of drift within organizations in a social movement. While there was significant intersection in the goals of groups closely aligned to Martin Luther King, Jr. and the goals of Malcolm X, there were key difference that reflect those groups’ separation on the pendulum.

So how does this affect the BC NDP?

Right now there are thousands of groups in the province working towards social, economic, political, and environmental justice. They generally gravitate around stopping the BC Liberal party from continuing its anti-social policies.

But what is the electoral focus of such a social movement?

I know the movement against neoliberal globalization advocates against NAFTA, the WTO and similar destructive planning, but in the end, there needs to be an electoral group that could win government at some point and actually cancel NAFTA.

Similarly in BC, there needs to be an electoral wing of a progressive social movement. The BC NDP, right?

I don’t think so.

I’ve watched this party for decades now. I’ve seen little evidence that it really reaches out to the dozens or hundreds of groups in each sector of progressive action. We can easily blame that on a 20th century model of organization, when political parties were the place where people went to be politically active and there were few avenues outside parties to pursue political change.

But in the 21st century, people are doing politics all over the place.

Take the October 24, 2009 Bridge to a Cool Planet event on Cambie Bridge in Vancouver. It formed over several months from the dedication of a few core people, with a broad group contributing much more time leading up to the event. And in some ways it was like a flash mob in slow motion: a coalescence of activity culminating in a day, then dissipating. And while it’s not gone, it had an arc of existence. There may be more actions, but maybe not.

There were NDP MLAs, members, staff and volunteers at that event and a nice NDP presence. That’s nice. But has there been much evidence that the party is really embracing and engaging the thousands of groups working towards the same goals of all the NDP policies?

Not really.

There may be that kind of engagement, but why keep it secret? Why not come right out and hold wide open meetings for each progressive sector and issue an open invitation and let the groups flock to a central place for a Saturday to chat so everyone can get on the same page.

What will we find? That we’re already mostly on the same page. Comparing NDP policy passed at convention with mission statements of groups what show up to such meetings would lead to a pretty easy time building a consensus statement.

Then when it comes time for the election, the NDP is running with thousands of groups endorsing its actions and mobilizing its members to vote for the party that reflects the progressive goals.

This is what it means for the BC NDP to be the electoral wing of a progressive social movement.

And frankly, the 20th century mode of political organizing doesn’t really mix well with this focus. In the last century, there were not so many random groups with a political focus. Now, any party that ignores building networks cannot get elected.

Like the BC NDP.

And while there are lots of reasons we blew off the last election, not effectively networking with like-minded groups was a critical flaw.

And those party members who wish to keep the independence of the party by not engaging in networks and coalitions with progressive groups are dooming the party to irrelevance and mortal insularity.

There are thousands of progressive activists in BC who refuse to join this party because it is not responsive to the broader progressive social movement. The party does not play well with others, or at all in many cases. And in recent months there are many members who are leaving the party because it has shown itself incapable of such engagement.

The membership drift will continue. The party’s debt will continue to expand. The alienation and dwindling policy integrity will continue until the party implodes.

Except we have Convention 2009 next week. This is the time for the party to signal to its members, its non-member supporters, progressive activists, citizens and the range of groups comprising the progressive social movement in BC that the party is open to representing the demands of everyone working for social change.

And I’ve seen indications from caucus that our MLA critics are interested in expanding connections with groups working in each of their sectors. This is great. I hope it continues.

But what about the party? If the party itself doesn’t engage with all the thousands of allied progressive groups in BC, it will spiral into irrelevance.

We cannot let this happen.

So, I’m running for a Vice-President position on the BC NDP Provincial Executive to start this process of turning the BC NDP into the electoral wing of a progressive social movement. The movement is already there. If it can’t use the NDP to get electoral and policy change, the province will continue to suffer.

And, frankly, it’s obvious to us all that we’ve suffered enough already.

Ambient Media Has Now Killed Off Broadcast Media

Time of death: 11:14pm, Saturday, August 15, 2009. And I’m qualified to call it because of how media works today. See below if you don’t get it yet.

This clip above is the most important 4 minutes and 23 seconds of the rest of your 21st century. Watch it.

If you’re like me, much of the data in this piece will be new to you and somewhat astonishing. I had to pause it a few times because I don’t read as fast as young people today, I suppose.

If it’s not all new, it’s because you likely already get how communication will exist for the rest of the 21st century.

Simply: linear consumption of communications, broadcasting, is gone.

We are in a 3D world of ambient information and simultaneity.

Get up to speed or be left in the 20th century.

One-way broadcasting via TV, radio and newspapers to passive recipient consumers is dying fast.

Newspaper circulation is declining rapidly. Soon we’ll see cable TV subscriptions declining fast as information is just everywhere.

I have virtually no need for subscriber TV anymore. The half dozen shows I watch are available for downloading in less than 20 minutes from torrent sites within hours of their broadcast on the east coast. And half the shows aren’t available in Canada without delays of months. I don’t like to wait.

News is online. Hockey? I’m still working on that one. When I figure it out, out goes my cable TV subscription for good.

The internet is a crucible now, it always has been. It is forming new means of communication. Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube have survived the burning. New forms will continue to emerge as the new printing presses. When they become ubiquitous, newspapers, TV and radio will finish their tailspin.

I spent many of the last 12 months working up a design to convert some of my editorials into op-eds for community newspapers. I have written recently how community papers are newly critical in sustaining democracy. I still believe this, but I’ve altered my sense of time about this.

Community papers are still generally owned in blocks by media oligarchs. We’re seeing daily newspapers and regional TV stations dying. We’ll see media oligarchs suffer at the core some more.

Community papers won’t have a chance to become critical for democracy until the current ownership mode burns out, leaving new forms of democratic communications to emerge as a phoenix rising out of putrid ashes.

But along side concrete [as opposed to electronic] media in the future, the wired world of ambient media will define a new relationship of information. Community papers of the future will not be so linear and broadcast as they are now. They will be more vibrant and interactive…as much as that can happen through periodical publishing on paper.

So, hold on to your crash bar for the wild ride ahead. And you can join me on the deathwatch of the CanWest media chain as today their stock price is at $0.14. Click on the 5y chart to see how they’ve fallen. All they are is biased, right wing TV, radio and newspapers and some lame web portals, all pretending to be objective because their model is pre-post-modern. They are a dinosaur stumbling over a cliff. I will not miss them and I will toast their demise as I welcomed the departure from this earth of Milton Friedman and Pinochet.

And what I’ve learned tonight is that I can’t convert a media activity in the 3D ambient media world into a 2D linear, broadcast media world by sending my editorials into community papers.

I can’t yet imagine how the future of media will look. I’ve never understood “the medium is the message” as fully as I do now, but I also know that in 5-10 years I’ll understand it far more profoundly as the internet crucible continues burning.

I must go spray some kerosene on the fire now. Join me?

Healthcare as a Human Right for Americans?

Americans have had it rough, what with their rabidly individualistic, anti-communitarian history and social policy.

From that, they have a hard time embracing things of the common good, like healthcare being a human right.

The current debate, with the wingnut lunacy of greedy hyper-individualists wanting to keep poor people without healthcare that others would have to pay for, is quite hard to follow. It’s rife with red herrings.

And the Canadian system is awesome, of course, except for how our own right wing, greedy, hyper-individualists are trying to destroy it through defunding it. Our healthcare crisis is a result of right wing governments privatizing, turning off the taps and trying to bankrupt and impair the public system so people will demand market solutions with health insurance companies poised to make billions off this new desire to pay for what we’ve gotten for free for four decades.

So, in looking for sound analysis of what is happening in the USA, I’ve read Greg Palast slamming Obama for giving backrubs to the healthcare oligarchs, but it looks like that’s the brokerage politics working because in reading Joshua Holland’s analysis, 10 Awesome Things That Would Happen If Health Reform Passes, seeking an achievable solution likely means not destroying the insurance companies and Big Pharma. Yet, anwyay.

Holland:

So let’s get past the fearmongering and look at some of the highlights of what’s really in the more progressive legislation working it’s way through Congress. The proposals aren’t perfect. As I’ve written before, in their current form, the bills fail the test of having a truly “robust” public insurance option, and as such has limited potential for cost savings.

But they are also substantial reforms that would go quite a way toward beefing up the health and economic security of a lot of American families if enacted.

via 10 Awesome Things That Would Happen If Health Reform Passes | Politics | AlterNet.

And in the mess is the new boycott of the otherwise progressive Whole Foods. Why? Their CEO is a rabidly individualistic hater of common social policy:

“We are all responsible for our own lives and our own health,” Mackey wrote yesterday in the Wall Street Journal. “We should take that responsibility very seriously and use our freedom to make wise lifestyle choices that will protect our health. Doing so will enrich our lives and will help create a vibrant and sustainable American society.”

Capitalism first [along with his profits], the health of the vulnerable and poor comes second.

So let’s cross our fingers and hope community, cooperation and the progressive ideals that the majority of Americans possess–despite how the corporate media tries to convince them otherwise–will allow them to see through the rhetoric and nonsense and embrace a real improvement in their human rights.

It’s time to get with the 20th century, America! And while we fight off our own greedy, for-profit healthcare ghouls, we’ll help you get into the 21st century soon!

Fixing Vancouver’s Homelessness: A Survey With Teeth

Welcome to our Community Consultation Survey on Homeless Solutions and the Howe Shelter

via City of Vancouver Homelessness Solutions Survey.

In a time where Vancouver city council may or  may not have the will to oppose a provincial government they seem to be cozying up with, they issue a survey to see what the citizens think of addressing homelessness and the Howe Shelter.

Even if they do the wrong thing with this, asking for our input is better than an NPA council will do.

Even if the province ignores it all, this is a survey to take part in, especially if you live downtown!

Why the Windsor CUPE Strike Will Inspire You

Read on and enrich your spirit for progressive social change, understand the need to build solidarity on the ground, and learn about the threat of cyber-scabbing!

The strike is an instance rare in the current climate of workers’ struggling for a political principle rather than immediate wage demands. As such, it has much to teach but also reveals complex challenges that both the labour movement and the Canadian left will have to meet in the near future.

The main issue at stake for both locals is the City’s demand that post-retirement medical benefits be eliminated for all future hires.

…

The future of the union movement as the first line of working class defence against ruling class attempts to make working people pay for the recurrent crises of capitalism depends upon its discovering new ways to mobilize its membership against this new mutation of an old divide and conquer strategy. It also depends on building solidarity, the next critical issue of general significance raised by the strike.

via Cyber-scabbing? Lessons for labour from the Windsor CUPE strike | rabble.ca.

Handcuffing a Community’s Resilience: Bata in the 21st Century

I first knew Bata shoes as a kid taken shopping to try on new shoes. As a teen I learned about the nexus of globalization and apartheid with Bata as a model, since they were operating in South Africa. Thomas Bata said, “We expanded into Africa in order to sell shoes, not to spread sweetness and light.”

Not only was it neoliberal globalization’s low-wages that lured Bata to they shift production overseas decades ago to take advantage of cheap labour, foreign competitors also helped force the closure of Bata’s domestic shoe production in Batawa in 1999.

But now Sonja Bata is trying to redevelop Batawa, Ontario into a post-industrial community, it is clear that she hasn’t read Jeff Rubin’s book, Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller, on how peak oil will end globalization and force us to spend far more time developing bioregional social, economic and political communities.

She has partnered with design students from Carlton University, encouraging them to get all radical in creating a new vision of a community with artists, urban farms, research incubators and even a microbrewery. While these ideas reflect a healthy respect for a mixed community, since her model is post-industrial she may be in for a surprise when oil goes back up to beyond where it went last year and the global human supply chain constricts.

What will likely be needed in Batawa is for her to open her factory to make shoes again, not convert it into condos.

So, it is more than a little ironic that she is planning to miss out on developing some appropriate infrastructure for the community upon globalization’s decline.

While Bata is now in the gentrification business, the Globe’s Gordon Pitts correctly writes, “the region needs jobs, not fanciful ideas,” as a local Quaker Oats plant recently closed.

Ultimately, Bata’s vision and paradigm are hopelessly obsolete. In discussing the process of Batawa’s gentrification, she says redeveloping the factory is a symbol: “we have to get that done.” Destroying the factory’s capacity to manufacture products local certainly is a symbol, but it’s a symbol of a business model which will become more irrelevant every month the price of oil creeps back up.

But that’s not the only problem with paradigms involving Bata. Carlton characterizes its partnership with Bata as a university-community collaboration. Bata is a corporation with a real estate gentrification agenda. They are not a community. They don’t speak for a community. They are, in fact, hampering the Batawa community’s resilience to transform its local economy to a more sustainable one.

The relationship is really a public-private partnership with public university design students subsidizing the creative function of a corporation. It would be far more appropriate for the design students to be remaking Batawa in a way that will allow it to function in the transition we’ll be encountering when oil prices rise.

Instead, they are creating a community that will have no place in our near future.

They should be recognizing that bioregional social, economic and political units will be the sustainable size of communities since getting products from outside local zones will require expensive transportation. Bioregional communities will have to be as self-sufficient as possible to ensure that what they do trade will provide real value to justify the costs.

At 82, Sonja Bata may not be able to properly envision what our communities will require in a future with peak oil, climate change/breakdown, discredited deregulated and privatized neoliberal capitalism and declining globalization.

The key to managing such a profound paradigm shift is for all the rest of us to have more foresight than her. What the world needs now is the sweetness and light of sound community planning.

Peak Oil Will Kill Neoliberal Globalization: More Support

A year ago today, I wrote about how a few years earlier at lunch with friends I was thinking that peak oil will kill neoliberal globalization. Last year, there was a piece in Report on Business about just that, making me feel mighty vindicated. It’s nice to see corporate media affirming your views.

A few minutes ago, I finished watching a Tuesday rerun of the now former chief economist at CIBC, Jeff Rubin, plugging his new book, Why Your World Is About To Get A Lot Smaller, on Stroumboulopoulos’ The Hour. Watch the clip. He’s all over this thing now, which is part of the reason why he left the CIBC two months ago. This helps his credibility.

So at first, I thought that he’s more vindication for my ideas from a few years ago, but not so much.

When I went back to look at last year’s piece, wouldn’t you know it, but Jeff Rubin is one of the fellows quoted in the article. And since his book is out now, it was in the can last year when he was mentioned in the article. So the fellow was already planning his exit strategy.

So despite all the greenwashing miniscule attempts at mitigating climate change without altering our consumerist and corporate worship, it’s nice to hear the CIBC’s former chief economist talking about bioregional survival, the necessary rise of domestic manufacturing, eating local food and skipping winter avocados unless we move to avocado-land, which I won’t do. I’ll be reading his book!

So what’s our job? Start planning to voluntarily simplify our lives. Read Thomas Homer-Dixon’s The Upside of Down to learn what real resilience-building means. Crippled markets with unaffordable gasoline, ecological crises and a deepening recession/depression will force us to simplify anyway, so we’d best get on it! And even if that 3-part perfect storm doesn’t happen, simplifying is better for you, your family, your friends, the planet and the abused workers who make all the shit that you won’t have to buy anymore since when global markets decline they’ll be out of work making the Wal-Mart junk and they’ll do what we’ll be doing: eating bioregionally.

Force your political party to start developing truly ecologically progressive policies that recognize 1) the crippling effects of climate change that the UN scientists say are accelerating faster than predicted, 2) the end of a local, national and global trade regime built on cheep energy, and 3) a global economic crisis that manifests the paradigm shift we will endure–either pro-actively or reactively, we get to take our pick.

So we have to become assertive paradigm mechanics to start re-tooling for a future that will start soon after the Olympics debacle cripples BC’s resilience next year with some kind of $74b debt. Lucky us. We also have to re-imagine community interdependence, bioregional agriculture and markets, and an end to greed-based individualistic consumerism. And the sooner we begin, the better.

Neighbours Organic Weekly Buyers Club [NOWBC] has figured this out, going one step past organic food delivery companies with local sourcing. Last week they held a community potluck at Heritage Hall on Main Street in Vancouver, which was delightful, child-friendly, entertaining, educational and full of healthy, yummy food. They talked about doing that event annually. They need to do it monthly, judging from the eager crowd!

Oh, by the way, while we’re on it all, let’s let the auto companies go under, or better yet, nationalize them to build transit and post-carbon autos. GM and Chrysler are on the brink and for a change, how about we insist that governments–who are elected by actual human beings–bail out the pension commitments to workers instead of tossing more of my future grandchildren’s income taxes into more corporate money pits!

So, what are you waiting for? If you have read this far, contact me and let’s get talking! And if you belong to the BC NDP, you absolutely HAVE to contact me because you need to get in on the ground floor of making that party the leader in wise planning for a tumultuous future!

Now. Let’s get busy!

Coining Phrases for Fun and Profit: “Paradigm Mechanic” and “Peak Clutter” Are the New Ones

First there was “The Four Horsemen of Structural Adjustment,” which showed up in my MA thesis on Canada’s squandering of an authentic human security agenda as our neoliberalism has made an economic colony of Haiti. I googled it and it was nowhere to be found in the context I determined. It’s all about how the IMF and World Bank cripple developing countries with conditions on their currency and development loans that lead to four of the worst of the ten elements of the Washington Consensus: rampant privatization, free trade, free capital flows, and government deregulation. Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine details the carnage of implementing neoliberalism.

But it took two years to come up with another google-free phrase: “Paradigm Mechanic” which erupted in a thoroughly inspiring conversation with a friend a few weeks ago about the paradigm shift we are on the cusp of. With the triple nexus, perfect storm of a collapsing neoliberal global economy, peak oil/water/food and climate change, we are going to be dragged into a new paradigm of economic, political and social existence…dragged because we are not pro-actively adjusting to mitigate the consequences of our rapacious global economy. And there are people who are already paradigm mechanics, inspiring me to build resilience in my local worlds: Thomas Homer-Dixon, Vandana Shiva, Maude Barlow, George Monbiot, Arundhati Roy, James Howard Kunstler. So while these and other folks are clear paradigm mechanics, our calling–for all of us–is to be paradigm mechanics. We need to tweak and [at times] smash elements of our current paradigm and fix it so our economy serves human beings and is respectful of our ecology and scarce resources.

And the last phrase coined came today. I was discussing an internal wiki page with a work colleague. It had been a work in progress over the last many months as a sort of to do list of meeting agenda items. My colleague found it was necessary to build a new wiki page to reflect a smoother arrangement of ideas because the current page was far too cluttered, in fact it had reached “Peak Clutter” where the rising curve of debris passed the falling curve of conceptual utility.

So. Feel free to use and propagate these new coined phrases. When I can figure out a royalty regime more effective than PayPal, I’ll let you all know.

Canada Line P3: More Lies

It was surreal hearing about the block party on Cambie Street on the weekend when “thousands of pedestrians took to the street to celebrate the completion of the Canada Line.” Was it designed by TransLink to keep the Cambie merchants from starting any more lawsuits?

Celebrating the completion of the Canada Line? Right.

As many have remarked all over the net, I agree that it is still like driving on the moon. This morning the workers were professional and smiling as always, butI waited 15 minutes to get through Cambie and 12th because–surprise–there was a massive crevasse in the middle of the intersection with lanes shifted all over the place. I guess they aren’t really done, hey?

But it sure sounds good during an election campaign to have a big sidewalk sale after “declaring” the construction complete. I remember when George W. Bush got a ride in a fighter plane onto an aircraft carrier to declare Mission Accomplished in Iraq after about 9 minutes of the whole thing. When politicians say something is finished, check to see if an election is on or imminent. Then check for your wallet.

But to add to the miserable lies you only need to drive to Cambie and 49th to see the huge “Complete” sign up on the sign describing the construction of the station there. The huge yellow fence, 9 workers and busy activity make me think “complete” is yet another lie.

Remember the tunnel they were supposed to bore under Cambie Street  instead of doing cut and cover? Remember that the new TransLink board is not accountable to anyone, they were appointed by a pro-business search committee created by Gordon Campbell, and they are spending billions of dollars of our municipal taxes, but our municipal politicians have no authority over them because taxation without representation is Gordon Campbell’s way!

Critical thinking should translate to the ballot boxes on May 12.

Oh, and if you are busy that day or don’t like lines, simply vote in advance like I’m going to do. Every riding has a place open from 8am-8pm from Wednesday, May 6 to Saturday, May 9 for advance voting. And the best part is that you don’t have to have a “reason” why you can’t vote on May 12th to vote early.

So enjoy and let’s ge t rid of Gordon Campbell for good.

Time to Close Your North Shore Credit Union Account

A credit union whose board of directors includes a provincial Liberal candidate donated $7,500 to the party on December 29, 2008. But the credit union’s president said earlier this month that contribution had nothing to do with Naomi Yamamoto’s bid to keep North Vancouver-Lonsdale in the party’s hands.

via Public Eye Online – Credit union check.

I always–I suppose naively–thought credit unions were more progressive than banks because they were co-ops. But exclusive Manhatten co-ops for the hyper-rich and famous are co-ops too.

And while clearly some credit unions are very progressive, North Shore Credit Union donated to the Liberals just in the nick of time at the end of 2008, well after one of its board members expressed interest in the North Vancouver-Lonsdale riding nomination. I’m sure with the Liberals’ top-down candidate anointing process, securing a donation from a credit union would help someone land a nomination.

Visit and read the link above to see the truly lame explanation for why there’s no funny business going on.

At any rate, if you do business with North Shore Credit Union and dislike the Liberals, why allow your money to be indirectly donated to the Campbell junta? Close your accounts and make your money work for a progressive cause at another credit union.

As it is, the credit union claimed that global economic carnage inspired their donation. Too bad they’re blind to the domestic carnage the Liberals have been responsible for.

Politics, Re-Spun Meets Coop Radio, a Vista Video Podcast

On Monday, April 20, 2009, Politics, Re-Spun met Coop Radio on “The Rational”, a Monday evening issues program.

We talked about the myth of journalistic objectivity, the provincial election, the crappy media coverage, how the polls show likely increased voter turnout is bad, bad news for the neoLiberal party, as well as our 5-year anniversary party last Friday night. But we never got around to Billy Bob Thorton. Too bad.

The video podcast of the conversation lives at Vista Video. 

You can watch it in Miro, the best new open source multimedia viewing software: http://www.miroguide.com/feeds/8832

or…

You can watch it in iTunes: itpc://dgivista.org/pod/Vista_Podcasts.xml

or…

The podcast file is at http://dgivista.org/pod/COOP.Radio.4.20.09.mov

Enjoy!

Is Controlling for Race Inherently Racist?

I think so.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/Page/document/v5/content/poll/pollResultHub?id=131895&pollid=131895&answerid=&poll=GAMFront&save=&show_vote_always=no&hub=Front&subhub=VoteResult&vote=145079&button.x=16&button.y=9&button=Vote

Here’s why.

The advantages to having demographic information out in the open far outweigh the disadvantages, said Prof. Fullan, who is also professor emeritus of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto.

“We said we should use the information to make all schools better, but I understand the fear,” he said in an interview yesterday.

Prof. Fullan believes in setting targets for test scores, and in the idea of statistical neighbours, whereby schools with similar demographics can be compared with each other.

via globeandmail.com: Data on schools website divides parents, educators.

Let’s start with this poll. The last time I saw such a close race was the Quebec separation referendum over 10 years ago. This is the vote tally as of 11:30pm tonight. Apparently it was also evenly split earlier this afternoon.

The poll shows that over 4,000 people agree with Michael Fullan that the demographic make-up of a school in the form of parents’ immigration background is a significant enough variable in determining which school’s product they purchase.

The Ontario government removed income and education levels from the presentation of information. That is a rather damning self-indictment. They initially included it because it fit the profile of what they wanted educational consumers to consider when making their purchases, then they removed it. Perhaps people couldn’t stomach the blatant reality that some would choose a school based on the wealth of parents, but clearly, that does go on.

Essentially, what we’re dealing with here is the Ontario government’s tacit support for a class based public service. Pick some variables that determine the class you want your children to associate with, then publicize the data for informed choice. Society should not be condoning or supporting such class-based decision-making. Period.

In BC, we’re well aware of the criminally narrow range of high-stakes testing that our students suffer to generate Foundational Skills Assessment scores for the hyper-libertarian, unregulated market-worshiping Fraser Institute to use in ranking schools. The whole process is obscene and celebrates active ignorance of the breadth of what it takes to evaluate our multi-faceted human beings in the K-12 education system and the system as a whole.

And now in Ontario, the government is essentially controlling for race in the statistical analysis that parents unjustifiably wish to make. When we talk about immigration background, we’re talking about the polite way of describing parents’ race. I have a hard time thinking that if Michael Fullan tried to float this concept as an academic project past OISE’s research ethics board, he would have been roundly rebuked–at least I’d hope so.

The government is inciting a firestorm of bigotry by enabling people to be able to move their students from schools with too many of the wrong kind of classmates, with people defining wrong in whatever mildly to severely racist tone they wish.

This is the height of social and political irresponsibility. In an era of economic crisis when local communities will increase in importance for enhancing individual and regional socio-economic resilience, inserting this wedge that will split communities is simply reprehensible.

And since I’ve only taught high school and have never been a professor emeritus at OISE, I’m totally open to hearing all these great arguments in libertarian social engineering that Michael Fullan feels far outweigh the provincial government condoning race-based divisive education policy.

Olympics Bring CCTV, Not Solutions for the Homeless

David Eby, from BC Civil Liberties, told the COPE AGM on Sunday of his concerns about the Olympics not so much being a lever for solving homelessness, but an excuse for a reduction in civil rights.

It seems he got it right.

When the provincial government floats examples like the Bard on the Beach as being a place for CCTV, to the surprise of the Bard organizers’ reflection that theirs has never been an event worthy of surveillance, we know this is just spin.

Despite written assurance, several councillors including COPE Coun. Ellen Woodsworth–the lone dissenting vote on council–raised concerns about the “temporary” nature of the CCTV plan and the potential erosion of civil liberties.

…

But last Friday’s provincial government press release told a starkly different tale.

Vancouver, it read, will receive $400,000 for a “re-deployable CCTV unit for special events and emergencies.”

via City admits surveillance cameras here to stay.