I was going to write something quite venomous on Canada Day about the queen’s characterization of Canada, but decided to let it slide. But I can’t:

The Queen said she has witnessed more than half of Canada’s national history and praised what Canada stands for.

“This nation has dedicated itself to being a caring home for its own, a sanctuary for others and an example to the world,” she said.

via CBC News – Canada – Queen calls Canada ‘example to the world’.

It wouldn’t have been so annoying if Canada Day weren’t just days after our constitutions was suspended by the security on acid in Toronto last month.

I’m no monarchist, but this is just gratuitous. I won’t suggest the queen is deluded about the underbelly of Canada. Her job as the hands-off head of state means she has no place commenting on our controversial issues. She’s a cheerleader and a sanctioner of paradigms.

What’s hers?

Well, she’s the Queen of the British Empire, no friend to egalitarianism, social justice or political liberty. Not that she’s a shill for authoritarianism, she’s a symbol of it.

So when she says that we are a caring home for our own, our increasing socio-economic disparities disagree with that, as do the hundreds locked up in Toronto.

When she says we are a sanctuary for others, we need to see if the citizens who generally support providing refuge for American deserters from the Iraq invasion and occupation will insist the government actually permit them to stay.

When she says we are an example to the world, she is absolutely right. We are an example of G8 and G20 leadership. An example of the proper way of putting neoliberal corporate interests in the highest of places in a nation. An example of how the world ought to behave when the masters are in town.

In short, we are an example of a middle power bowing down to the new world order. Democracy, rights, freedom, social justice, economic policies that work for people not global corporate interests are the enemy of the great sucking sound of the rich getting richer and the rest of us seeing dissent and free speech criminalized.

So on our road to reclaiming Canada, let’s dump the monarchy. Because in the end, when the queen says she’s witnessed more than half our nation’s history, she knows what she’s talking about.

And I don’t want to hear from the likes of her anymore.

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Working from the reasonably solid premise that majority governments are inherently tyrannical, I prefer as merely a marginal improvement: minority governments. They’re no ProRep, but at the very least, they force more cooperation, though I use the term loosely. We’re seeing an evolution of expectations in and about Ottawa and now I think we’re going to see it in BC in 2013.

Let’s start with BC Conservative MP James Moore who tweeted this out last week: “All Conservative/Bloc/NDP MPs (& leaders) here for final budget votes. Only half of Lib MPs here, Ignatieff missing. Seems fitting.4:37 PM Jun 17th via UberTwitter”

I found this quite interesting for him to remark on this. His government exists because of the strategic absence of dozens of Liberals on key votes. The Liberals are in a de facto coalition with the Conservatives. Didn’t he get the memo/text/tweet/VM?

The Liberals show up to vote against the budget and other noxious legislation and they feel good about it. But they only send enough so that with the Bloc and NDP votes, they won’t have enough to defeat the government. And since some of those votes are confidence motions where failure means an election, the Liberals ensure enough MPs are at the spa to miss the vote because they’re afraid of an election now.

Now’s an odd time for the Liberals to be afraid of an election since the Conservatives are in a sucking place relative to other times since the last election. Except for the fact that the Liberal leader is not universally tolerated, loved, or followed in caucus. And the party on the ground still calls itself Canada’s natural governing party.

But federal MPs can be forgiven for this lame kind of strategy. All they are thinking about is jockeying for position until the polling shows they are in majority government territory. Not going to happen. Minority governments best reflect the split opinions in regions in the country.

I’m hoping that the crazy dynamics of minority parliaments will help citizens focus on what kind of cooperation it ought to take to get good things done. It will also show us some things we won’t see in majority governments: politicians who only jockey for power and how the Liberals and the Conservatives have the same anti-human, pro-corporate neoliberal economic agenda. Why? Liberal MP Scott Brison attacked opponents to the Colombia Free Trade Agreement even more than the government did and both parties voted for it.

Now everyone gets to see that the Liberals are just like Conservatives on fiscal issues. That’s important to know.

And now we have this United Party of Canada meme/thing/movement/Frankenstein forming, with lots of vague, feel-good, meaningless, substance-free, policy-void babble on the website: “We believe in you!”. Who knows now, but if they get any traction, dig an even deeper hole for majority parliaments.

And in BC we have new dynamics brewing for the 2013 election, just under 3 years away. Some context:

1. Last year, someone went rogue and floated the idea of Vision Vancouver going provincial, a mythical third party [try this and this]. That was killed immediately. Effective trial balloon, though.
2. Last week we heard more about a http://VisionBC.ca domain name. No smoking gun, just more talk, and one crazy reference to the party being centre-left. Isn’t the BC NDP supposed to be centre-left? Sure.
3. Two weeks ago a Liberal cabinet member quits not because believes the HST to be actually bad, but because he fears the recall campaign that will destroy him starting in November. Then the BC Conservative party first calls him a rat, then says that spokesperson went rogue also, then they suggest a place for him.
4. The Greens have and will continue to poll in the mid to high single digits, as will the BC Conservatives; more for them if they can get their messaging clear and pull some “real” federal Conservatives lurking in the BC Liberal party.
5. The right wing coalition in BC for the last thousand years made up of federal Liberals and Conservatives seems increasingly shaky. Some centrist/leftist federal Liberals may not be all that onside with the latest social contract-assassinating government policies.
6. There are federal Liberals in the BC NDP caucus and orbit.

If Vision BC formed, it could peel some NDP MLAs, operatives and wonks. It could pull Blair Lekstrom and Vicki Huntington in. It could pull George Abbott and Carole Taylor and a handful of current BC Liberal MLAs. It could make a run for government by playing to the centre [or centre-"left"] by featuring some kinder, gentler characters from the Campbell decade.

And if it shoots for government in 2013 it would have to start about now. If it misses government, not inconceivable for a new party [except for Vision Vancouver though], we could end up with a minority legislature: one step towards proportional representation.

With a minority legislature, we’d have up to 4 years for the minor parties to assert themselves, build their bases and impede any further majority governments. We’d also see a redefining of posture for the BC NDP and BC Liberals based on who’s left. That will bloody. There are already a number of MLAs who would not surprise me if they were right now sharpening knives.

And I reiterate this one thing about trust. Politicians who only seek power are easier to spot in an era of minority parliaments. How? They don’t do anything of substance while waiting for a chance to get more power. Demand that they act on principle and they go on vacation, hit the spa, tour the region on a kissing babies tour, anything to keep up the persona of manufactured leadership.

We cannot continue to tolerate that kind of nonsense. 308 MPs in Ottawa watching CBC Newsworld on their iPads to see if they’re tweeted about or more hopefully, trying to guide the Commons committee they sit on to do something of substance? 85 BC MLAs laying low in caucus wondering how they can maneuver themselves into something with a bigger office or hopefully something that makes a difference for people?

All I know is that in minority situations, there isn’t as much space under the radar anymore. And that’s good for all of us.

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Today I despin and respin aspects of the event.

1. I found out about the Libby Davies YouTube video the other night when someone called AnonymousProgressive emailed their link to me with a “wtf?”. The video was part of that person’s YouTube account. The video seems to be a re-edit of a video by katzd314, with a link to this blog piece. I emailed a second time to AnonymousProgressive [AnonymousProgressive@gmail.com] asking for their background in relation to the video and why they’re anonymous.
2. People often comment anonymously about Israel for many reasons including because they are afraid of vitriolic retribution and a myriad of other things, whether their fear is credible or not. This is the chill atmosphere that pervades dialogue about Israel, and many other highly controversial topics. Other times, people are anonymous because they’re up to no good. It’s hard to say for sure here, but so far it looks like entrapment/gotcha journalism, blogger style. There are lots of opinions about how legitimate/useful that is. Regarding the real intentions of the poster, I still haven’t received a reply to AnonymousProgressive’s anonymity. I’ll send them this piece to see if they wish to comment, anonymously or openly.
3. Let’s respin the video:
   1. The first question asked of Davies from the questioner is when did the “occupation in Israel” start, 1948 or 1967? Davies answers 1948. She stated that was an error here and apologized for any confusion that caused. Many actually wouldn’t see her 1948 answer as an error though.
   2. AnonymousProgressive then intersperses a defense that stating 1948 necessarily denies Israel’s right to exist. It might be a bit of a leap to say that stating that the occupation began in 1948 means a belief Israel should not exist. The UN Security Council is seen by many, like me, as far from a democratically legitimate body. The UN General Assembly’s votes are non-binding, while the 5 permanent members of the Security Council have vetoes on Security Council resolutions, which are binding. The creation of Israel has been under a cloud of illegitimacy since before 1948. Was there a forced expulsion of Palestinians, for instance? I think the same can be said for the settlement, creation and growth of Canada. At the same time, many people see no illegitimacy at all in the UN’s actions regarding Israel, or indeed Canada’s origins.
   3. Judy Rebick describes it far better here: “It is a matter of debate whether the occupation started in 1948 or 1967.  If you are of the view that the expulsion of the Palestinians from their homes when Israel was founded was unacceptable than [sic] the occupation began there.  If you agree with the foundation of state of Israel whatever the costs to the Palestinian people then you think the occupation started in 1967.  Believing that the foundation  of the state of Israel was unjust does not mean that you think the state of Israel should not continue to exist.   I believe that the foundation of Canada was unjust but I don’t call for the dissolution of Canada; although I am starting to consider it.” I happen to think that since about 96% of BC is on unceded First Nations land, we are in a similar place of occupation. Look up the Royal Proclamation of 1763 on that one.
   4. Davies then explained that in Gaza, people are suffering and that you can’t get basic necessities there. AnonymousProgressive inserted a statement from a Hamas official saying that because of bread, there is no starvation in Gaza. That may be true. But there are other necessities than bread and other ways to suffer. The International Red Cross released an unusually bold statement on Monday calling for an end to the illegal closure of Gaza. They explain suffering circumstances beyond just the presence/absence of bread.
   5. The next question in the video is whether she supports the Boycott, Divest, Sanction [BDS] campaign against Israel. The textual commentary explains she is wrong, which is logically absurd because the question was whether she supports the BDS campaign. Her opinion is her opinion. An example of an unhelpful merging of fact/opinion/vitriol that muddies clear discourse. The textual commentary explains that BDS targets all Israelis “to isolate and delegitimize the Jewish state.” That could be one goal of many who support BDS. I remember a Boycott Brand America campaign several years ago. Many who supported it wanted to delegitimize the USA, many simply wanted President Bush to get out of Iraq: a political policy choice. Do all who support BDS necessarily wish to delegitimize the Jewish state? No. To say they all do is unprovable and a bullying tactic because it puts a chill on discourse.

In the end, what comes from all this? Some discussion, some facts, some opinions, a mis-stated year, an apology, some analogies, and some unfounded logical leaps. This seems to be standard in my observation of dialogue about Israel over the last quarter century.

So then other Canadian federal politicians start condemning Libby Davies for her views. Again, Judy Rebick notes that the vast majority of Canadians do not have a positive view of Israel and just over half have a negative view. So who is offended by criticism of Israel?

I won’t put on my tin foil hat and try to list them all. But here’s the answer: those who have a stake in supporting the status quo. That includes Canada, Israel’s “best friend,” regardless of whether that’s a Conservative or Liberal government in Canada.

But we learn more when we see Murray Dobbins’ accounting of how Jack Layton reacted to Davies’ comments, apologizing to the Israeli ambassador and forcing her to make a public apology. This perpetuates the chill that there is something untouchable about talking about Israel…to the point of avoiding commentary on Israel’s killing of flotilla travelers in international waters; how is that not an international crime?

Virtually the same thing happened the week after BC NDP candidate Mable Elmore won her nomination in Vancouver-Kensington in March 2009. Using the word Zionist in an interview she gave years earlier came back into the public eye. BC NDP leader Carole James forced Elmore to apologize.

And if you’ve heard of the hitherto great journalist Helen Thomas, you can read two perspectives about the price she paid for carelessly weighing in on issues around Israel, along with a defense of her. Clearly, the stakes are high for engaging about Israel.

There is clearly a minefield around Israel discourse. There are inferences, presumed implications, assumed emotions, leaps to conclusions, fear of bad political spin, confusion around who exactly are politicians’ constituents, fear of perhaps offending a group regardless of how logical or reasonable it may be.

All these add up to a chill. A chill that I have felt victim to if you look at the very little I have written in 6 years about Israel, out of a reluctance to deal with the [at least chill-induced perceived] onslaught of opposition. That is, until recent weeks when the absence of political action in the world to address human rights violations motivated a flotilla of civilians with aid to attempt to break a blockade that violates “international humanitarian law“. Then the Rachel Corrie was kept from landing in Gaza.

Now there is a ship of German Jews readying to sail to Gaza. This should help cut the Gordian knot of simplistic manipulation and intellectual abuse that is the all-spin zone around Israeli issues and the machinery of the chill over so many who should feel free to speak their minds.

And here’s your test for today. Take a look at this classic editorial cartoon and see if you can engage with it on rational, emotional and political levels without sliding into a reactionary place. You are, of course, fee to like or dislike, respect or oppose it

And a final test, if you are still unsure of whether Zionism is a necessarily offensive word in North America, read its use and context here and try to separate the definition and use of “Zionism” and the writer’s opinions about Zionism. This should clear/muddle things up for various people. How about you?

Finally, I intentionally waited until I finished writing this before reading most of this piece by Paul Burrows to avoid restating everything that resonates with me.

So, I want to live in a community where we have open dialogue about controversial issues. When events are spun and a chill sets in, we all suffer fron this. I think our job is to not settle for simplistic answers and to be critical of the spin and “follow the money” to see who benefits from each position on the table.

The truth wants to be free. We all need to practice how to hear it and cut through the impediments.

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Where is the balance of power, messaging, spin?

So it turns out the BC Liberal party’s premier’s office spends about as much as three core government watchdog groups.

Not only did this government first get elected in 2001 then immediately cut the budgets of the Auditor General and Elections BC, but 9 years later, the party leader’s office will spend at least $9.711m before 3.31.2011 while the Conflict of Interest Commissioner, Information and Privacy Commissioner and Ombudsperson have collective budgets of $9.855m, only $144,000 more.

The 2001 optics still work here: there’s a new government and it will brook little effective criticism. The spoils of winning all but 2 seats in 2001, I guess. And all of the Liberals’ criticisms of the NDP’s weak transparency regime in the 1990s have come home to roost. Who loses? British Columbians.

And the electorate just takes it, sucking it up while now less than half of us vote. Sounds like a perfect storm to me.

See for yourself, below. At least the AG’s office has more funds to spend since they’re “supposed” to audit the whole of government, but with less than double the premier’s office budget, I think it’s still an unfair fight.

2010/2011 Schedule of Voted Expenses

Sums granted to Her Majesty for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2011 and the purposes for which they are granted

Ministry of Attorney General — Crown Proceeding Act

via Bill 22 — 2010: Supply Act, 2010-2011.

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By the way, while I’m not commenting on this news release, I would like to mention here that the International Committee of the Red Cross has just released a very important statement on ending the closure of Gaza. People will of course support or condemn this ICRC position for good, bad, non-rational or compelling reasons. But I’m not writing about that today.

Committed activists and ideologues on all sides of Israel issues contribute to this intense level of spin expertise. Within the discourse, there are, among other things: facts, disinformation, misinformation, irrational attacks, flagrantly hyperbolic analogies, opinions, rhetoric, invective, anger, racism, Polyannaism, political agendas, global conflict paradigms that in part revolve around middle eastern land, and the governments and lobby groups of dozens of countries. It’s a classic imbroglio flambe.

I will take but one example of a variety of things I have to say about Israel. Let’s start with an analogy, knowing full well that it can be creatively re-interpreted by anyone with an agenda to accuse me of pretty much anything. I can handle that.

[Note: just for fun, let me state clearly that I make no comments in this entire piece about whether "the state of Israel ought to exist or not"...just so that if anyone accuses me of being on either side of it, I'm just not talking about that issue in this piece. Later, though. Oh, and preemptive disclaimers are a feature of a society of discourse living under a chill.]

Here’s my question. Can anyone criticize policy decisions or actions of Israel’s government?

Can Canadians criticize the government of Canada for supporting tar sands development, or even spending tax money on child care subsidies? Typically, yes. And in doing so, few seem to be accused of being racist, anti-Canadian, or harbouring hatred for Canadians.

Can Canadians criticize the US government for its support of a free trade agenda with despotic regimes, or even spending tax money on food stamp programs? Typically, yes. And in doing so, few seem to be accused of being racist, or harbouring hatred for the American people, though to be honest, many are accused of being anti-American for criticizing or supporting something someone else either agrees with or disagrees with. That’s too bad. Chills suck.

If France begins above ground nuclear testing on a “French” island in the Pacific Ocean or embraces a Tobin Tax, do I necessarily hate/love the French people for decisions of the government, regardless of who voted for what and by how much? I wouldn’t think so. I think I’d still appreciate their cinema and fries.

So a while back I wrote [in a poem] about the difference between a people and a government’s policies [see below]. Are there any differences? What should be the significance of the differences? And if you are interested in testing your attitudes toward this issue, take this test: read this article and see if you can de/re-spin everyone’s perspective. It’s pretty complicated, but a worthwhile exercise. Maybe I’ll get around to doing that in here one day.

via 22 Impolite Questions: a Response to Rhetoric Crimes « Politics, Re-Spun.

are Noam Chomsky and Phyllis Bennis anti-American if they criticize their imperial government?

and what about Israel?

am i anti-Semitic if i disagree with the domestic or foreign policy decisions of the de facto fundamentalist Jewish theocracy in Israel?

do i wish all Jews in the world dead because i don’t agree with any given decision of the Israeli government?

are Noam Chomsky and Phyllis Bennis self-hating Jews if they oppose any given decision or set of decisions of the Israeli government or decisions of the US government that support Israeli policy they disagree with?

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Those of us whose passionate engagement helped elect Obama haven’t stepped up to help define our national debates.

via The Tyee – What Cynicism Costs Us.

It’s easy to be disappointed in people in whom you inject high expectations. But democracy is a muscle. It must be exercised widely or it atrophies. I’ve complained about people subcontracting their democracy to “professionals” and while “the people” helped elect this Obama construct, going back to passive business as usual is the fertilizer for cynicism.

Too many Americans, convinced that the greediest must always run our country, have responded by retreating into private life, whether the admittedly difficult challenges of economical survival, or the distractions and comforts we embrace as modest respite and recompense. Meanwhile, we bury whatever qualms they may have about our national direction, hoping against hope that someone will take care of things.

The lure of private life is strong. It is compelling because it is rich with no shortage of sound arguments. Looking for “someone” to fix things, however, is no tonic.

Yet, I expected more after Obama got elected. He had an email list of 3 million, or 1% of Americans who actively helped him win the White House. I fully expected a machinery to mobilize those people to compel Congress to step up and lead and not weasel healthcare into corporate welfare. That mobilization which was effective during the election didn’t materialize in the last year or so.

And while I didn’t expect the grassroots fire of Bolivarian Circles a decade ago to erupt in the rust belt of the USA, I did expect something more than a thank you for the electoral win, now come back at mid-terms to help hold Congress.

When we look at the larger issues, like global climate change, why so many people in America are hungry, or how to fix a greed-driven health care system or America’s strip-mined economy, we throw up our hands in frustration. Taking them on just seems too daunting, and our chances of success too elusive. It seems wiser and more practical to narrow our horizons.

I think about monarch butterflies, ants, bees and those awesome birds who fly inches from each other in tight formations that alter, twist and turn every second. They all work with hive minds and can accomplish great feats and beauties.

Human beings? If we had the potential to cooperate to even a fraction of the hive species, what could we accomplish?

But notice my assumption here, that we don’t have that potential. I/we can’t accept that assumption.

I’d like to propose a clear-eyed idealism, which recognizes that these are bad times but refuses to accept that the bad times are inevitable.

I welcome this. But it takes strength to grab hold of this. When the cynicism beats us down, we need to gather our people together, enrich our communities and our souls, go dancing and build each other up.

Sliding into private life closes our living rooms off from the salons that they ought to be.

So in dealing with my cynicism, a core pledge can be to embrace my people and find ways to encourage each other. We’re all in this together…unless we embrace some kind of despaired free agent status.

And when that happens, we have really lost.

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I know the stakes are high as at least one group [or agent provocateur] has asserted its tone with the RBC firebombing.

I’m reading of rebel clowns, watching a video on the G8 and the Group of Seven, and remembering the teddy bear catapult in Quebec City’s FTAA protest in 2001. And I’ve reviewed Judy Rebick’s commentary on the context of the catapult as well as and example of how to effectively extend the media life of creative resistance!

Then I recalled protesters throwing teddy bears onto the floor of the House of Commons, and found the connections here: New Form of Protest in Canada: Teddy Bears – ABC News.

Two anti-free trade protesters were arrested Wednesday at Ottawa’s House of Commons after they unfurled a banner reading “Decriminalize Democracy” in the public gallery. The pair began throwing teddy bears onto government benches occupied by parliamentarians.

Security guards quickly subdued and charged them with causing a disturbance.

…

Government House leader Don Boudria refused to see the humor in the situation. “This is Parliament, not a recreation center, not a demonstration hall, or not a barricade, and any use of the building for anything other than parliamentary purposes is wrong,” he said.

I’m finished with this perspective. The House is the people’s House. I find it galling when MPs behave like petulant children because of some absurd notion that the theatre of parliament is entertaining or valuable to society somehow, yet enforce strict silence for citizens in the galleries.

When they have lost a sense of public servanthood, they are asking to be mocked. Teddy bear protests seem to fit. Creative resistance is a valid tactic.

Regarding the teddy bear catapult at the FTAA from the ABC article:

The group also issued a statement saying: “The catapult was a prop which was used in an absolutely non-violent manner to mock the absurdity of holding the secretive and undemocratic summit within a walled fortress.”

I also remember a photo in a paper of a protester with a hockey stick shooting either a tear gas canister or teddy bear back toward the police line. That was my inspiration for taping my protest signs for rallies to a hockey stick.

But McTeague warned the protesters about Wednesday’s teddy bear attack, saying, “All kidding aside … this kind of tactic should never be used in the House of Commons. If you have a statement to make, make it by the ballot or make it verbally, write us a letter or do what you have to do, but throwing stuff at us doesn’t accomplish anything,” he said.

Like Boudria above, McTeague has no standing to demand public decorum when MPs refuse to abide by the same or even a higher standard: after all, they run our country!

The electoral system is not a level playing field. Letters are hardly compelling when corporate interests control both parties that have ever run our country. Throwing stuff at them does, I think, accomplish a great deal.

With action heating up already with arrests in Vancouver on Friday, I hope to see more creative resistance next month in Ontario.

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Canada and the U.S. will set common standards for regulating greenhouse gas emissions from heavy-duty vehicles, Environment Minister Jim Prentice announced today.

via Prentice: Canada, US will align regulations on truck emissions :: The Hook.

Some time ago Canada embraced worse pesticide standards so we could harmonize with our fellow deregulation addicts in the USA.

Neoliberals love to seek level playing fields, which usually means stripping away anything that fetters profit maximization. Environmental standards are pesky. They come from society enacting its will through government to limit the damage that profit-mad corporations can heap upon our world.

So when right wing governments get into power, they try to align their regulations with key trading partners, but not to enhance regulation by matching better standards, but by eroding the higher standards so we can remove barriers to competition with others.

This is a race. A race to the bottom.

So with these new truck emissions standards to come in, my default assumption is that they will dilute more effective standards. I’ll be looking for more expert analysis of this announcement.

My other concern is the principle that I don’t want my country aligning its policies with those of other countries, even if we trade so heavily with the USA, which may not be the wisest thing to do in the near future, but that’s another story.

Policy independence matters.

But a larger concern is the nonsense climate breakdown policy we have that this change pursues: “Reducing emissions in this sector will help us achieve our 2020 target of a 17 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels.”

That’s just a crappy target. Forget about 1991 emissions levels, forget Kyoto, forget what kind of drastic reduction in GHGs we need to pursue as the industrialized world. This is a pathetic target designed by Alberta tar sands interests, climate change deniers and neoliberal Christian Armageddonists.

In the end, whenever your read about policy harmonization, you should immediately watch how we’re all going to get screwed.

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CNN showed Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech from August 1963 on the day that the United States inaugurated a black man to be president.

I remember a chat they had with King’s son and a question along the lines of whether it would have taken until 2008 to elect a black man to be president if his father weren’t assassinated so long ago. The answer was something like, yes a black man probably would have been elected president sooner, in fact his father could have been president.

I remember my life at 34, King’s age at the March on Washington. I also remember 39, the age King was killed. I think about all that progressive forces accomplished in the United States and elsewhere during his life and after it. I often wonder how much more could have been accomplished if he lived, even until today.

I think about the “fierce urgency of now” and how many nows we have passed up on, we as a society.

Who is to define the nows? Who is to determine when it’s time to act on climate change, or reform of global capitalism, or free public clean water for all, a global basic annual income, a Tobin Tax, leaving tar sands oil in the ground, you name it. Who is around to stand up and say they have a dream, that it’s not alright to wait any more and that we need to start walking down a new road?

King did and they killed him. Bobby Kennedy never made it out of the 60s either. Decades of Jane Elliott exercises demonstrate the necessary controversy and resistance to complacency, but also our culture’s inability to embrace a sea change. She “even” came to Saskatchewan to demonstrate the extent of prejudice, so there are no moral high grounds in some kind of enlightened Canada to perch on.

In the end, it comes down to change. The status quo is poisonous. It favours the anointed and abuses the weak. We are either fine with that, or someone steps up.

Tommy Douglas. Terry Fox. Crystal Lee Sutton, whose insurance company had the last laugh on her last September.

And while Barack Obama has proven to have had more profound rhetoric than policy in his first 1.5 years, we have to look past all the things he got us to say “Yes, We Can” to and think about all the things that still need doing that he, and others, are simply or profoundly not doing.

And I have to say, I’m looking around…constantly…looking for people to step up and show they can do more than be petty. I can tell you what I see, but really, the question is what do you see, and are you asking the question?

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Her talk starts at 1pm today when the liveblogging will begin.

I’ll also be liveblogging the public forum tonight.

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Recent revelations that B.C.’s health authorities are secretly storing and testing children’s DNA without parental consent, combined with provisions of Bill 11 that allow B.C.’s Minister of Health to gather information like these DNA records without notice or consent, have resulted in a call from the BCCLA for the government to retract the bill and the health authority to destroy the records. The new law and the records combined may create the largest DNA database in Canada.

via BC Civil Liberties Association.

OK, let’s go on this:

1. I’m an organ donor. I happily filled out the form and sent it in. I’m glad to donate my organs when I die. I respect people’s right to choose not to as well. I also appreciate that I get to pick what my organs can be used for. I like living in a free society.

2. I am a teacher and have had criminal record checks done, which have included finger printing. I am not a fan of the black ink on my fingers, but I had no problem following the rules of the check for a greater good. I was impressed that I was informed that my fingerprints would be destroyed after the check was complete and not held in a fingerprint data bank by the RCMP. I like living in a free society.

3. The mean BC government has recently cut funding for poor kids so instead of getting two dental checkups per year, now they only deserve one checkup. After a decade of abuse from this government, kicking kids in the teeth like this shows just how little we can trust them to have the best interest of citizens at heart.

So now we find out that the government is holding DNA samples from my babies and doesn’t feel they need to inform the parents and that they have asserted their sick, twisted and misguided prerogative to do whatever they want with my children’s DNA including possibly sending them to law enforcement agencies without my consent.

I simply do not trust this government to respect my children’s privacy. Period. Even if I support useful scientific testing or whatever, I am the parent. I have the privilege and responsibility to protect my children, including protecting their DNA from Kevin Falcon.

I intend to print out this form to request my children’s DNA to be returned to me.

I think you should too. I also think you should tell anyone you know who has had a child in BC or the Yukon in the last 11 years to do the same.

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1.20.01, eight months before 9/11 helped destroy rational linearity in politics.

Java will save us. Not the bean, not [much] the computer thing, nor the shark, chicken or Russian cigarette, but the awesome instrumental song that appears on Hugo Winterhalter‘s The Best of ’64 lounge album, though it wasn’t a “lounge” album then.

In a fit of political cynicism, I hooked up my record player and went immediately to find my Winterhalter collection to accompany the neighbourhood’s invasion of cherry and apple blossoms driving an early spring.

Java will save us because I have such fond memories as a child of this tune. I don’t recall any of the context other than the fact that I have loved it for decades. The linear rational actor in my mind would be frustrated by not remembering, but the systems theorist in my mind revels in the mere presence of an element of meaning.

It is the collection of small things in life that pull us through doldrums. This week the House of Commons slimly passed a motion further delegitimizing selfish prorogation. Also, there are 3 motions in the Speaker’s office pursuing the government on contempt of parliament for not turning over to parliament documents describing how our government participated in torture in Afghanistan.

This is why I like minority parliaments.

But when I think about the paradigm shift in mindsets that is occurring around us while we’re distracted by the political cynicism, we need to look to Canadians Rallying to Unseat Stephen Harper [CRUSH] and Canadians Advocating Political Participation [which came from the massively successful anti-prorogation Facebook group].

These two groups are examples of how linear, modernist thinking–particularly in political parties–is so 20th century. The world is evolving quickly. Evolutions in technology and communication like the interwebs are changing how we exist in society and the nature of relationships we exist in.

Political parties are sooooo far behind, they basically just sent some politicians to CAPP rallies on January 23rd to put in face-time, but they are not on the cusp of the organizing wave.

And this brings me back to Java. Listen to the 2:20 of bliss here.

Stop what you’re doing and do a little jig.

Then if you want to know what is killing linearity of thought and politics and social organization, read about systems theory. My friend asked me for a primer on it last night. I referred him to Fritjof Capra’s Tao of Physics and his Center for Ecoliteracy.

If you dream of social, economic, political or any kind of change, you likely are looking to be a paradigm mechanic: twisting screws, rebuilding the carburetors of our world. You also likely are dabbling in some manifestation of systems theory. If so, read this great review of its paradigm below to see how much you can already check off as your m.o. and then see what other elements of the paradigm can augment your stance today into tomorrow.

Then listen to some more Java, then think about whether the software platform incarnation of Java adds as much to this idea as the mood of the 2:20 in the tune, because it might.

And revel in being a paradigm mechanic, because if not for us, we’re stuck in a 20th century model that seems to long to morph back to the good old days of the 19th century!

From A Systems Perspective | Center for Ecoliteracy.

Systems thinking presents a different lens through which to understand the complexity of the world.

Thinking systemically entails a number of shifts in perception, which lead to different ways to teach, and to different ways to organize institutions and society. These shifts offer opportunities for teachers to present material in more holistic ways, in context rather than as isolated facts, consistent with the way students encounter the natural and social worlds in their own experience.

Systems thinking is one of the consequences of our guiding principle, “Nature Is Our Teacher,” discussed in the Explore section of the website. We note there that a systems approach helps young people understand the complexity of the world around them and encourages them to think in terms of relationships, connectedness, and context. We also highlight the shifts in perception that accompany systems thinking, and discuss their implications for educators.

These shifts are not either/or alternatives, but rather movements along a continuum:

From parts to the whole
With any system, the whole is different from the sum of the individual parts. By shifting focus from the parts to the whole, we can better grasp the connections between the different elements. Instead of asking students to copy pictures of the parts of a honeybee, an art teacher takes her class to the school garden. There they draw bees within the context of their natural setting.

Similarly, the nature and quality of what students learn is strongly affected by the culture of the whole school, not just the individual classroom. This shift can also mean moving from single-subject curricula to integrated curricula.

From objects to relationships
In systems, the relationships between individual parts may be more important than the parts. An ecosystem is not just a collection of species, but includes living things interacting with each other and their nonliving environment.

In the systems view, the “objects” of study are networks of relationships. In the school or classroom, this perspective emphasizes relationship-based processes such as cooperation and consensus.

From objective knowledge to contextual knowledge
Shifting focus from the parts to the whole implies shifting from analytical thinking to contextual thinking. This shift may result in schools focusing on project-based learning instead of prescriptive curricula. It also encourages teachers to be facilitators and fellow learners alongside students, rather than experts dispensing knowledge.

From quantity to quality
Western science has often focused on things that can be measure and quantified. It has sometimes been implied that phenomena that can be measured and quantified are more important—and perhaps even that what cannot be measured and quantified doesn’t exist at all.

Some aspects of systems, however, like the relationships in a food web, cannot be measured. Rather, they must be mapped. In the classroom, this shift can lead to more comprehensive forms of assessment than standardized tests.

From structure to process
Living systems develop and evolve. Understanding these systems requires a shift in focus from structure to processes such as evolution, renewal, and change.

In the classroom, this shift can mean that how students solve a problem is more important than getting the right answer. It may mean that the ways decisions are made is as important as the decisions.

From contents to patterns
Within systems, certain configurations of relationship appear again and again in patterns such as cycles and feedback loops. Understanding how a pattern works in one natural or social system helps us to understand other systems that manifest the same pattern.

For instance, understanding how flows of energy affect a natural ecosystem may illuminate how flows of information affect a social system.

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What's with the smiling?

In doing some research into the emerging Olympic hangover, I found this piece about tourism in Vancouver. A good warning was about tourists with criminal records not necessarily being able to enter the country.

If that only applied to BC premiers, Gordon Campbell would have been stuck in Hawaii for the last 7 years and 7 weeks.

Be aware that if you don’t have a clean record, you may not be able to enter Canada. Certain criminal offenses, such as driving while intoxicated, are considered inadmissible in Canada, and customs agents can look at your records instantaneously and send you home.

via Vancouver beckons with Post-Olympics deals | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News | Travel: Best Fares.

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Upon first reading, the perspective is shocking. If the journalists are being sensational and loose with the truth, then that might explain it all. If not, here’s how it reads.

The first comment about protesters not being that organized because they were easy to infiltrate implies that despite the organization required to rent a bus, VANOC expected them to be more organized to avoid being tracked so easily, as if they had something to hide. The protesters are either really bad evil-doers or they are not interested in being under the radar. We are all free speech zones, after all, so why hide.

The idea that protesters were probably going to be violent definitely makes them look poorly organized if they rode a bus. The alternative explanation is that the presumption of violence is wrong. But that alternative makes it hard to justify a $1b security budget. Assume the Raging Grannies have biological weapons so we can send the HazMat folks in to confront them with the riot police. Reality, be damned!

The observation of a peaceful demonstration suggests that the presumption of violence was incorrect. Rational thinkers should then question the presumption of violent protests. But no, this security model was then exported across the country for others to follow. The mistaken presumption spreads like a cancer.

Claiming that the infiltrating security personnel are to be credited for defusing violence is also explained by…take a breath here…there being no plans for violence in the first place. Or, it was the police doing it, just like how my existence happened to keep the sun from exploding last Wednesday.

How is it worth it for the price tag to be beyond the community’s ability to pay? Peace of mind? Perhaps, but only if we disregard the possibility that protests are not by definition carrying risks of violence. Then we should be resenting the heinous waste of money

Carrying that possibility makes the entire $1b security budget overblown, without even a legacy venue to show for it…beyond the temporary CCTV cameras that may end up being permanent if promises to remove them evaporate.

Undercover cop infiltrated torch protesters’ ranks

By Bob Mackin, 24 hours December 1, 2009 05:20 pm

An undercover cop watched Lower Mainland anti-Olympic torch relay protesters in the rear-view mirror on Oct. 30, according to Victoria Police chief Jamie Graham.

“You knew that the protesters weren’t that organized when on the ferry on the way over they all rented a bus, they all came over on a bus, and there was a cop driving the bus!” Graham told the 12th Vancouver International Security Conference on Monday.

Graham said protesters were “probably going to be violent,” so uniformed police infiltrated the crowd. A group of 300 people, many in Hallowe’en costumes, peacefully blocked traffic, diverted the torch relay and delayed its arrival at the Parliament Buildings.

“The relationships individual field officers have with protesters and so on just kills these kinds of disturbances and it worked extremely well,” he said.

Graham described the $220,000 policing bill as “well beyond our ability to pay,” but worth it.

“Police departments from all over the country have taken our game plan, our operational plan and adopted it as their own,” he said.

The day was not without incident. Graham said two ferry passengers were arrested for dumping water on an undercover security person, while two motorcycle cops wiped out on slippery pavement. “One of them was hurt quite badly, but has since recovered,” he said.

Meanwhile, a secondary security vehicle “got T-boned by an old guy who ran a red light.”

Bob Mackin reports for Vancouver 24 hours.

via Undercover cop infiltrated torch protesters’ ranks :: The Hook .

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The huge contingent of police officers watched as the group blocked traffic in several major intersections and even threw marbles at the feet of horses used by the Vancouver police mounted squad.

Victoria police spokesman Sgt. Grant Hamilton said “restraint was the order of the day” Friday night, explaining that officers did what they could to keep the peace. There were no torch-related arrests in Victoria Friday, Hamilton said.

via Protesters crossed ‘moral line,’ angry torchbearer says.

Let’s start with initial media reports of protesters throwing marbles on the ground in front of or at the feet of police horses.

Then we hear of reports from the protesters and observers that no protesters threw marbles.

Then as of 4pm yesterday, CanWest stories of protesters accusing police of throwing the marbles, on at least the Ottawa Citizen and Victoria Times-Colonist websites, are “not available.” Maybe they’ll return again.

At this stage, it’s unclear who threw marbles, or if they were thrown at all. Civil liberties observers saw no marbles at all.

At this stage, we have ambiguity.

Those who like to believe the police and the $1b VANOC security force are good people who would never lie or entrap or discredit protest can shake their heads at the mean protesters who want to kill horses.

But anyone who paid attention to the FTAA meetings in Montebello, Quebec in August 2007 knows that protesters caught on film 3 police officers dressed as protesters, with faces covered and rocks in hand prepared to incite violence.

If you weren’t one of the almost half a million people to watch the footage, you can see it here.

Within days the Quebec government admitted the masked men were police officers.

And from VANOC’s perspective, that was probably a critical error in their game plan. Don’t admit anything, then the ambiguity allows people who lean your way anyway to believe the dastardly deed was actually committed by the protesters.

So we start with marbles and as the quote above indicates, stoking public sympathy by talking about police retaining order and restraint, keeping the peace and making no arrests.

You can be sure that if the marbles came from the Olympic security forces, the next action from agents provocateurs will take advantage of this goodwill they’re building in the public to step up their interventions.

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Health Minister Kevin Falcon: “when we are making changes in health care delivery, it doesn’t mean it’s just a cut.” The provincial government decided to “change” the funding to the 6 health authorities in BC by negative $360 million. It’s certainly a change. To stress that it isn’t a cut means Falcon thinks the air coming out of his lungs is worth forming into these words because there is some value to it all, that enough people will believe he has achieved plausible deniability of cuts occurring.

Vision Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson: “The core traditions of the Olympics are very powerful, and we lose sight of that with all the corporate sponsorship, Olympic bylaws and the gigantic scale of the event.” What a nuisance, hey, so let’s get over our criticism of the following and just get that lovin’ feeling!

1. VANOC has bought ALL the outdoor advertising for Olympic corporate sponsors.
2. Corporations are going to wrap ads as mammoth building condoms around the tall buildings all over the place, with video ads broadcast on buildings–think Blade Runner.
3. BC neoLiberal MLAs and cabinet ministers get to use swanky private boxes in stadiums to watch events…paid for with our tax dollars.
4. VANOC has set aside $30 million for bonuses to ostensibly keep their employees WHO ARE ACTUALLY PLANNING THE OLYMPICS from quitting before the big show–hard to imagine; $30 million works out to around $23,000 for each of the 1,300 employees, though I doubt it will all be distributed equally.
5. The IOC business model requires communities to sanitize society of the ugly: homelessness, poverty, dissent; so, we have broad, sweeping legislation that threatens our civil libertiies.
6. The IOC will not allow women’s ski jumping regardless of domestic courts ruling the action unconstitutional.
7. Provincial legislation will allow law enforcement to come into my home to seize anti-Olympics signs, under penalty of up to 6 months in jail and $10,000/day fines, while neoLiberal cabinet minister Bill Bennett says that’s a reasonable thing to do when the Olympics are in town.
8. Officials can now round up the homeless and forcibly house/confine them during the games; this, in the context of massively neglecting effective social housing for the whole decade.
9. $1 billion to be spent on security with 5,000 imported rent-a-cops and military, not to mention the black helicopters that were buzzing the downtown east side this morning, with much more of that to come.

So what core traditions is Gregor Robertson waxing on about as he gets on a plane to go to Greece for the flame lighting? Nobility, competition, purity of athletic competition? Is that what the Olympics mean now? Or is it special rights for global corporations using the Olympics for a marketing bonanza at the expense of democracy, domestic constitutions and court rulings, and civil liberties?

People are coming around to the reality that the Olympics stink, that they aren’t worth the social, political and economic costs and that with the overwhelming majority of Canadians unable to acquire or afford tickets to the actual events…people are starting to feel duped. A recent survey shows only 9% are very excited about the show, while 71% or not very excited or not excited at all.

This is showing up in not enough people volunteering, signing up to rent out extra bedrooms to rich Olympic tourists, or applying for the scut jobs needed to make the whole thing function.

Well. I told you so.

As did the entire No Olympics campaign years ago. And now we all get to eat it…with the black helicopters flying overhead as I test out my remaining civil liberties as I wear my “I am a free speech zone” t-shirt wherever I can. I also have a “Democracy is Nice” sign I carry on the end of my hockey stick. I wonder which of those will be a security threat.

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But when it comes to my Charter rights, I don’t believe I need to be a lawyer to understand that former Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell doesn’t have the right to suspend my Charter rights, even if I gave him permission, which I would never do.

While the Charter includes right at the top a limiting statement making my rights “subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society,” I don’t believe the intellectual and political sanitation of communication to appease the International Olympic Committee is a reasonable limit or a part of a free and democratic society.

So as I’m following the dance of lawyers and cops around what kind of free speech zones I’ll be able to express myself in, I found David Eby’s piece today interesting, particularly in that it informed me of the [sadly not isolated] grand act of hubris of Larry Campbell in pledging to the IOC that I don’t need all my Charter rights at all times in all places during the Olympics:

the 2003 contract signed by Larry Campbell waiving Charter rights in Vancouver for the Games, and the bylaws passed recently by Vancouver city council giving that contract effect.

via A tale of two papers: Olympic bylaw coverage | David Eby.

Check out Section 47 at the bottom of page 23 of the Vancouver-IOC Host City Agreement to review such limitations. And read Eby’s piece on Section 47 here.

I simply don’t accept this.

Free speech violations as part of a sanitization campaign for global PR is not an acceptable limitation of my Charter rights.

This is why I am asserting that I am a free speech zone. And I’m proud that as I read David Eby’s piece today, I also received today my order form for the “I am a Free Speech Zone” t-shirt and underwear from COPE.

So it’s time now to order your shirt and undergear to remind yourself and others that you won’t tolerate the Olympics Sanitation Machine to come to my country and tell me I can’t express myself when the world is watching.

And our test over the next 6 months is to wear these t-shirts to events where the thought police would have some interest in controlling expression: places where the premier or prime minister may skulk around, Olympic venue opening parties, you get the picture. It’s time to see if our Charter still means anything now that the IOC ghoul is haunting our communities.

So buy your t-shirts and underwear. And wear them proudly because the phrase is part of the creative commons, something the IOC would never understand.

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So much for the Olympics being a mere 16-day inconvenience and distraction. But the stink of this horrible decision will land squarely on Vision Vancouver.

Huge Olympic-themed building wraps will pop up in Vancouver three months earlier than expected under a new deal involving the City of Vancouver, Vanoc and 3M Canada.

The city originally planned to restrict the installation of 2010 building murals and graphic designs until Jan. 1, 2010, but has relaxed the rules to allow them any time after Oct. 1 this year.

3M was concerned the Jan. 1 restriction didn’t give it enough time to properly transform buildings into Games-themed displays, especially if bad weather delayed the application of clings, wraps and films to building exteriors.

via Olympic signs of the times – three months earlier than planned .

The rising and now falling tide of excitement tracking Vision Vancouver is astonishing. A party with no firm policy or governing experience signed up thousands of new members a year ago. Bandwagon city.

Now that they are in charge, we get to watch how their visionary talk doesn’t match their governing walk.

We’ve already seen how Vision Vancouver believes in the sanctity of billboards, but we now see that a weak and flimsy excuse of possible bad weather 5 weeks before the Olympics debacle starts is good enough to extend for 3 months the length of time the corporate sponsors of the Olympics can pollute our eyes with ubiquitous ads and projected commercials on our skyline.

Add these new ad condoms and building commercials to the CCTV arriving “for the event only” and we’ll have an Olympic legacy that will set new standards of intrusion and erosion of all things public.

Thanks, Vision Vancouver, for polluting our vision with advertising ubiquity! All we need now is to hear loudspeakers throughout Olympic zones blaring, “A new life awaits you in the off-world colonies! A chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure!”

We’ll remember all that when we cast our ballots on November 19, 2011.

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