The Canadian Olympic Mentality: There is an I in Team

Canada is turning into a place I don’t recognize.

The men’s hockey team just played a lame 1st period against the Americans. We’re losing 2-1 so far. Passing seems to no longer be a Canadian virtue. Players carry the puck past the blue line then try to score themselves. Where is the team mentality? Where did this notion of individualized super-stardom come from?

I thought “Own the Podium” meant doing well in medals. It turns out it means we will get more medals than anyone. Even against countries with 10-30 times more citizens and insanely large training budgets. And CTV seems to be invested in the mythology of patriotic excellence or die.

Kady O’Malley wrote in Twitter today about the horrible mobius loop of anticipation, disappointment, and recrimination. Today someone won a silver medal in skating. The CTV presenter announced that medal with bland boredom, then quickly moved to a programming announcement.

Earlier today, a Canadian athlete who earned 5th in an event, sat at a press conference basically apologizing to the country for letting us all down.

Who are we? What is our national self-identity? Do we really believe we are capable of getting gold in everything, and if our athletes let us down, we are less of a nation and they are less as people?

Fifth and Second in the world of almost 7 billion people is great.

Why are we, as a nation, unable to acknowledge that kind of excellence?

Perhaps something lame on the Own The Podium website is indicative of how clueless this emerging national sentiment is: they still have an 18 day countdown to the beginning of the Vancouver Olympics.

All I know is that if someone wants to turn Canada into a place where we shame people who “only” come in 2nd or 5th in the world, our nation will turn into a place to be ashamed of.

The Olympics: A Failure of Legitimacy

Samsung Olympic ad on TD building

There are many levels of debate about the value of Olympics: social, economic, cultural, political, etc. But one level seems to undergird them all: moral legitimacy, in which the Olympics is bankrupt.

For me it began crystallizing in late September, 1988. Ben Johnson won Olympic gold in the 100m, then lost it just days later because of the drug thing. After years of national angst over the cost overruns of the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, and enduring boycotts in 1980 and 1984, it seemed impossible to have pure sport.

Fast forward to this young year when Mark McGwire quite easily announced he was lying when he said he was drug-free when chasing the home run record years ago. Whatever. Cynicism seems too natural.

While I value competition and, more so, seeking personal bests, I honour athletes who compete. Sadly the context of the Olympics and its corporate and political masters have spoiled the entire concept. Similarly, I have great respect for Canadian troops wherever they are in the world, but supporting the troops does not mean I have to support the politics behind any given mission they are sent on.

What has happened to erode the legitimacy of the Olympics? Simply, neoliberal commodification.

• corporate endorsements for players to fund their training as government reduce funding
• the participation of professional athletes to enrich marketing potential
• exclusive corporate sponsors who have quite effectively lobbied the welcoming IOC for extensive protections
• exclusive media sponsors impeding information flows outside of their media
• the IOC as an untouchable international organization that can suborn nations to abandon elements of their constitution as we can’t/won’t stop the IOC from discriminating against female ski jumpers
• litigious domestic Olympic committees protecting brands of what are already some of the most powerful corporations in the world
• The Canada Line transit route promoted to encourage an Olympic bid at the expense of the Evergreen line for the northeast suburbs already in the queue, with significant climate implications
• Lies: the marketing of a tunnel under Cambie Street for the Canada Line that turned into the cheaper cut-and-cover; only $176m pitched for security when previous Olympics security budgets were over $1b

The games are now about corporate marketing.

A core goal of VANOC was to literally monopolize all outdoor advertising during the games to resell to exclusive corporate sponsors. The global recession softened sales. Now the BC government is spending more of our tax dollars to buy up leftover ad space to advertise that BC is a great place. No longer “The Best Place in the World”[tm], mind you.

Here are some other examples of decayed moral legitimacy.

During the last Olympic games, RBC ran ads bragging about how awesome they were in 1948 as they paid for the Canadian men’s hockey team to attend and win Olympic gold. How long before corporations start fielding their own teams instead of nations? A corporation is running for Congress in the USA and in BC, the premier announced last fall that the government is studying allowing non-human corporations to vote in municipal elections.

Last week, after criticism VANOC took down one of its website videos celebrating the torch run across the country. They chose to use Nazi footage from the 1936 games. They felt it might be controversial, so they blurred out the straight arm Nazi salute that is so visually repulsive. Both were horrible decisions. Both reflect a mindset that is so out of touch with standards of moral legitimacy. But I can’t be surprised by all this considering the overall mindset of the Olympics.

The Bay department store ripped off the Cowichan sweater design from the First Nations who “own” it, so it could contract out sweater production.

In Vancouver this week, venues and key sites are under military lock down with layers of concrete barricades and fencing. Military helicopters and jets buzz the skies. Military and private security forces live on cruise ships in East Vancouver. VANOC cars cruise the city, flagrantly violating civic anti-idling by-laws. And in a ecologically symbiotic nod to this illegitimate event, El Nino has produced spring-like temperatures making the Olympic mittens gimmick useless.

Polls in the last few months show around only 9% of Canadians are very excited about the games and recently only half of British Columbians think the Olympics will be good for BC, despite the common sense view that as we get closer people will be more excited.

Another common sense goes like this, the Olympics is a fish bowl of groupthink. Nazi footage in a promotional film? Stealing First Nations craft designs? Erecting ugly prison security around venues? A $10m Canada pavilion that looks like a strong wind could blow it over, when the log structure in Turin in 2006 cost only $6m [and has since become an albatross, itself a telling irony].

Then there is a story in the Globe and Mail the other day about how VANOC has banned athletes from being in advertisements during the games because it compromises the purity of competition. Oh, unless the ads are for the sanctioned corporate sponsors. Or, if in VANOC’s subjective judgement the ad campaign has been around long enough. Tim Horton’s has recently run some ads with Sidney Crosby, but in the article we read they are voluntarily pulling the ads during the Olympics in case VANOC decides to come after them. The chill factor extends to even Tim Hortons!

The best irony of that article, however, exemplifies this whole debacle. The writer characterizes Tim Hortons’ Sidney Crosby campaign as one about patriotism. Tim Hortons is now owned by an American company. Marketing is global now.

Later this morning we will see the beginning of actions leading to a massive convergence of dissent later this week to coincide with the opening of the games. This culture of critique is pervasive.

When the Canucks are in the playoffs, there is a palpable sense of energy around Vancouver. People buy flags to attach to their car windows. There is honking in the streets when Canucks score goals. Even people not too bothered with hockey get excited. This vibe is absent right now.

In the surreal world of neoliberalism, unaccountable international organizations like the IOC, corporate welfare programs and rational and moral contradictions, there is no irony left.

Oh, and a Chicago company got the contract to build the Canada pavilion in Vancouver.

So when we see the pablum, sanitized feel-good corporate media fluff pieces on Vancouver, think about how much packaging has already gone into the big show and how motivated the corporate media sponsors will be to paint this a smiles-only event.

Then we need to think about the athletes afraid to use Twitter, what lack of snow will do to some of them, and let’s think about the social costs of cleaning up the mess of this party.

As it is, no one has done the body count yet. As billions of dollars have been diverted from social programs, health, education, etc., how many people have suffered or died early because money that could have gone into hip replacement surgery or mental health treatment was diverted to a luge track. It’s a ghoulish research project, so it’s one that no one wants to talk about.

All I know is that the police state that is emerging this week will change Vancouver and Whistler and BC and Canada forever. The hands are pretty much dealt now. All that is left is in the playing.

And in a few weeks, we’ll know what kind of symbol the Olympic torch really is.

One Snapshot of #iPad Trending in Twitter

Catch the global groove:

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.

We’re Failing Our Grandchildren on Stopping Climate Breakdown

Our grandchildren will hate us for our informed inaction on climate change. I refuse to bear this.

I’m watching a National Geographic documentary on climate breakdown right now on the Knowledge Network. Saharan dust storms are madly increasing the rates of asthma and decreasing the health of sea fans on the reefs…in the Caribbean!

The increase in effects of GHGs in the last 30 years has increased the Saharan dust flying to kids’ lungs in the Caribbean. We KNOW this. Pleading ignorance is an offense to my children’s children.

US satellites are documenting more and more decline in ice. Are we acting yet? Only in a greenwashing way. Click on the photos to read about what is happening while we embrace mostly inaction.

New polling indicates real inconsistencies. Strong majorities of citizens in some countries are demanding more action, while similar sizes in other countries are dancing with complacency. Two of the latter countries are China and the USA. Together, those countries can eradicate efforts by the rest of the world.

We have to massively reduce our energy consumption in how we live, work and consume. We must force our leaders to lead in this.

I know I’m going to answer to my grandchildren. I already blame my parents’ generation for somewhat ignorantly contributing to many of our current problems, not the least of which are massive materialism and consumerism. How much more will we be judged by our descendants for ruining their world, knowing that we know better. The answer? To a degree I refuse to accept passively.

Alarmism and reactionary pleas seem to be increasing, policies seem to be improving somewhat, but we’re squandering our handful of years left to make the massive changes necessary to avoid breakdown. Now, shake your head and read this. And let’s get busy.

Think about how you will look your grandchildren in the eye. I’m not looking forward to that conversation.

I Am a Free Speech Zone: No Mayor Can Waive My Charter Rights During the Olympics

Granted, I’m not a lawyer. I consider myself at best a pretend-lawyer [I prefer "lay-lawyer"] so when I dispense legal advice I add a standard disclaimer that I’m not real. We’re all lucky, though, that David Eby is a real lawyer, even those around here who have drunk the Olympics Boosterism Kool-Aid[tm].

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.

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.

A Sad “Vision” of Billboards

Vision Vancouver is going to suffer from billboards for quite some time to come.

“The Olympics are prime time advertising and the city might be offering it to Vanoc at the regular market rate,” the Richmond mayor said.

“But all of this has been discussed at closed meetings, so I really can’t go into the details.

“The details will be released soon, perhaps within the month.”

via Mayor questions Vanoc ad deal.

We now have some new insight into the visual ad pollution of billboards in Vancouver, courtesy of Richmond’s mayor Malcolm Brodie.

Not only has VANOC acquired access to all the billboard space in the Olympics universe for its official sponsors, the deals they’ve made for rates are part of closed municipal meetings.

This is no surprise since VANOC, much like a vampire, does nothing in broad daylight. Don’t hold your breath on anything related to VANOC being released ever.

A couple months ago, Vision Vancouver cynically killed municipal plans to take down the billboard pollution around the city that contravenes rules about how far away from homes they are supposed to be. With 2 billboards within 60m of my living room window, I’m eager to see them gone–and their repulsive car and horror movie ads that have caused more than a few neighbourhood children turn away in fear.

But as Charlie Smith featured weeks ago, Vision Vancouver voted to drift those plans into a bureaucratic purgatory.

Smith noted how Vision’s Geoff Meggs is connected to Glen Clark who is connected to Jim Pattison whose name is on many of the polluting billboards. Connecting the dots allows us to see a rather transparent motive and example of what Vision Vancouver’s vision actually is.

But Richmond’s Mayor Brodie has now also reminded us that these are not ordinary times. The Olympics gold rush means we CANNOT risk taking down even one billboard, despite how heinously it may contravene muncipal by-laws.

We see the VANOC vision again appearing as our masters.

This is very bad news for Vision Vancouver. As a new party, with little stable ideological roots and now only months of governing history, its identity is still in the fetal stage.

Its membership swelled with the Obama bump. It had dozens of prospective candidates vying for nominations, many of whom were very progressive, but some were temporarily out of the NPA.

They’ve had policy meetings, but those mean little until they get a chance to actually enact policy through governing. And now we’re seeing what they are like: Jimmy Pattison, billboards, VANOC.

And like many new political parties or movements, their membership will dip when renewal time comes. But for Vision, their membership will plunge as people realize that the amorphous hint of progressiveness they robed themselves in ends up lacking anything solid.

A political party walks its walk. If it talks a different line, people who pay attention to the walk will see the gap and act accordingly.

Real progressives currently in Vision will have to make a decision very soon about whether their vision of Vision is shared by the ones in charge. If not, they’ll have to move on.

I Love Zaineb Shamel!

Asked about British Columbians who don’t vote, she said “they have something great and they are not using it.”

“A safe place like Canada can remain safe forever if we vote for good people and good parties.”

Zaineb Shamel

via From Saddam Hussein to Campbell vs. James – Capital Diary.

How could you not love this woman?

How could you not love that there are 121,500 newcomers to BC in the last 4 years who can vote?

How could you not love 4 twelve hour days of advance voting next Wednesday?

We get what we pay/vote for. And we don’t get what we don’t vote for.

Vindicating Politics, Re-Spun

It was nice to read Allen Garr’s piece last Wednesday in the Courier. It sure helps that he’s one of the handful of good journalists in the province, and this piece shows why.

Essentially, he’s reporting on how national media skipped their fact-checking and trusted a highly biased civic blog that reported completely incorrect information about a new Vancouver manager’s pension. There are a few issues here.

1. My editorials are highly biased, a bias I state and celebrate. CityCaucus.com is run by part of Sam Sullivan’s junta, so it’s radically anti-populist and far right wing. I don’t have a problem with biased commentary, though I work hard against their bias constantly.
2. Bloggers are not held to the same standards as “real” journalists: things like getting fired for making things up, plagiarizing, not checking facts. Blogs can claim, in the end, to be just rants. And while it’s not wrong to report on blog content, anyone who is a professional journalist shouldn’t assume anything on a blog is valid beyond the opinion it is wrapped in. I pay very careful attention to the validity of new facts I introduce in my editorials. Generally I just comment on and analyze other facts, reporting and press releases. “Real” media and public media will need to negotiate some ground rules for interaction and validity in society. The free commuter daily headline papers showthat people don’t want to pay for news anymore, so the business model may be dead regardless of whatever magic media owners try to wield. Public media is here to stay. Democracy can, not will but can, be served by this.
3. Garr called local television “sloppy and lazy”. He’s absolutely right. Six-second sound bites and everything Neil Postman ever wrote about why the whole medium is anti-intellectual back up his claim.
4. There needs to be a long, nuanced dance in media circles about the relationship between new and old media. Old media has lost competence and relevance as a check against political power. Its role as a free press in a democracy is shattered from the hyper-corporatization of media models. The CanWest/Global Frankenstein is a spectacular example.
5. New media, even social networking sites, NowPublic.com, my site, Alternet.org, Rabble.ca, The Tyee, and many others demonstrate the illegitimacy of the Metro chain of Twitter-sized journalism and what’s become of the dailies lately. Extra sad and pathetic is that while dailies are bleeding out or closing because of owner’s poor financial health, CanWest has recently begun a chain-wide navel-gazing, self-justification exercise about why newspapers still matter. They’re not wrong, but they’re not the ones to lead the charge to save the model; they are the poster-child of the death of the current model of newspapers. More likely, they’re just encouraging investors and the 19 subscribers left not to bail out on their 26 cent share price, down from $12 two years ago. Nevertheless, the navel-gazing is framed like this “In the first of a series we look at the siege mentality that is gripping the newspaper industry as once-mighty publications stop their presses for good.” I predict CanWest/Global will close the Province newspaper in Vancouver after the provincial election. I just have a feeling. Since it’s their redundant daily in Vancouver, it can be euthanized. But the scary thing is if it turns out the not-so-tabloid Vancouver Sun is the expendable brand.
6. Read more Allen Garr. And Frances Bula, and Charlie Smith, Gary Mason, and Andrew MacLeod and basically everyone at The Tyee. It will make you think that journalism still actually means something. While they operate as intelligent, respectable public journalists, they also address themes and do solid analysis. They aren’t afraid to take a side and show a bias, but they back it up with sound rationale. Most of the lame journalists in the country can’t even do that, or their editors spike their intelligence. Either way, most fail to accomplish meaningful injections of thoughtfulness.

So, do your job as readers and citizens and engage. And when [usually] corporate media cuts corners and sleezes or lazes out, reject them, call them on it and turn to progressive new media. It will refresh your optimism!

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.

WE WON!!! Democracy 1, Gordon Campbell 0

Gag law ruled unconstitutional

March 27, 2009

The B.C. Liberal government’s controversial election “gag” law has been ruled unconstitutional by the B.C. Supreme Court.

Justice Frank Cole found that Bill 42’s restriction on third-party election advertising before the official 28-day election period is unconstitutional. He’s expected to issue written reasons for his judgement early next week.

via Hospital Employees’ Union – Home.

Destroying the CBC: Another Step Today

I’ve already written about the slow destruction of the CBC. And I’m at it again today.

The short list of what I wrote before:

• constrain funding to lose Hockey Night in Canada
• lose the rights to the HNIC theme song
• kill the CBC orchestra

And now: “the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. plans to cut up to 800 jobs as part of its strategy to make up for a $171 million shortfall in 2009-10.”

Defunding through manufactured crises is a core element of the neoliberal toolkit. Today’s 800 layoffs are not the first assault–it’s been going on for years under Conservative and Liberal governments. Corporate media and Canada’s neoliberal parties are cozy. A state-run media portal is unfair competition in a “free” market. It has to go, but quietly.

So the weak, unbelievable argument from Igg holds little credibility: “Even the private broadcasters understand the importance of a public broadcaster, so the question is what is the government prepared to do now to ensure that this national institution survives this recession?” Clearly, nothing. The recession is another bludgeoning tool for socialized media.

Another great neoliberal toolkit is selling assets to rent back, thereby providing an eternal revenue stream for anyone wealthy enough to buy a government asset…a revenue stream funded by tax dollars in a pretty straightforward corporate welfare scheme: “The public broadcaster will consider selling and leasing back some of its real estate assets to raise extra cash.”

If the government really believed this was a good idea, they’d be advising all Canadians to sell their homes and rent them back for a quick influx of cash and the privilege of renting for the rest of our lives.

So what to do?

In a world where megacorporations are floundering, they are even more desperate for public broadcasters to get out of the way and slide their assets over to the private sector.

It’s basically theft.

Taxes are how we buy things together. Our ancestors paid for the CBC. In a nation of concentrated corporate ownership of private media, public broadcasting offers some of the last best examples of a vibrant free press keeping leaders accountable in a democracy. It’s no wonder our right wing governments are dismantling it.

Neither the Conservatives nor the Liberals are interested in keeping it. A coalition government with the NDP in significant power or a better representative government mix in a new electoral system is pretty much a minimum for saving the last pounds of flesh from being scraped from MotherCorp’s tortured body.

Leaving the knife-wielders in power leads to the obvious conclusion.

via CBC to cut up to 800 jobs, sell assets.